The next day I got a text from Brian at handball asking to play at 3:45. I agreed, and this time we played on the show courts. They have a side wall made of glass, which adds yet another element to take into account. I lost the first game narrowly, won the second, and then rolled my ankle in the third. It was excruciating. I sat on the floor for a while just thinking about how this was ruining everything. I got up eventually and walked around gingerly, and eventually we finished the game out, though I lost handily. A couple of times I was just running normally and I felt my ankle click and sort of seize up, so I stopped and just didn't take my shot. I tried stretching it out at night, and it wasn't feeling much worse than other times I rolled it, so when Brian said he had to leave early Thursday and asked if I would mind showing up at 3:30 for some handball, I agreed yet again. And yet again we played on the show court. This time I won both games!
Brian is very good at handball. His kills off the back wall are way more consistent than mine and roll out a lot lower a lot more often. But he isn't as fit as I am, and when he starts to get tired his footwork suffers a bit and he starts skipping shots short off the floor. So my strategy became: hit a good serve, hope for the best, and get back absolutely everything. Basically, if I can make him hit one more shot than he expects to hit, I will win the point, because when you think the point is over you stop thinking about footwork, moving forward, setting up, etc. So I was diving for like every third shot and getting to a lot of them. Highlights included a between the legs get off the back wall into a diving kill shot on the front, a backhand/fist kill on a shot he had basically rolled out, and multiple left-handed flails in the back corner that turned out okay. It also helped that I rolled out at least five serves off the right glass wall, a shot that's hard to return when you can see it, much less when the wall is semi-transparent.
So then Brian left and I was alone against a bunch of people who are not good at handball. There were three guys, three girls, and me. And it was one of the girls' first time. She was, of course, accompanying her boyfriend. I played a game of cutthroat with the two guys who weren't her boyfriend while he showed her some stuff, and after that exciting endeavor (21-2-3), he challenged me to a game. I agreed, of course, and when we got in the court he said "Man, that was probably an interesting game. I think you guys are all on very different levels." I said that was probably accurate, wondering which level he was putting himself on. We started, and I could not bring myself to try. He went up like 6-0, I served for a while to go up 8-6, and then I missed like five behind the back shots in a row. He was up to like 14 at one point before I served it out. During an intermission (he needed to take some time to catch his breath, blaming the sub he ate immediately before (though I myself might have blamed the hundreds he's obviously not mentioning...) he mentioned he played tennis in high school. It was pretty obvious from the way he emphasized his overhead-style windups and his footwork. We chatted a bit about tennis, and I said I only played two years and then ran track.
We played some cutthroat with one of the girls, and I kept just playing to have fun. We got into a few rallies at the front wall, and I did my usual dive to one side, pick up the shot, recover back to the middle of the court in time to make a play on another shot that would have been a kill on almost anyone else. After one of these little episodes, the guy (whose name I can't remember) said "You're not even human!" We exited the court, me victorious again, and sat around for a little while. I grabbed a couple extra balls and started juggling, and Kristina said she could do that, and sure enough, she could. So, being the fun-loving, least-showboating, least-competitive person I've ever heard of, I grabbed another ball and juggled four. I dropped a few throws into trying Mill's Mess with four (haven't tried it in a few years, and couldn't really do it when I was practicing), and, having impressed everyone thoroughly, I grabbed a fifth just for good measure. After somehow detouring our conversation on athletics through the sports I've done (soccer (briefly), tennis, cross-country, track in high school, basketball (briefly), wrestling, cross-country in middle school, handball and frisbee in college, racquetball, golf, and disc golf casually, cycling on and off throughout), the guy just gave up. I didn't mention all of those things of course. And I suppose technically I even have Iowa Games medals for canoe/kayak, and a few little things from when I did archery. Huh.
I jogged into a court and threw for a while to stay loose, and Kristina poked her head in to say I was a keeper. I came out of the court and asked if they were starting a soccer team. But it actually was really nice to hear them say that. I've never felt like I could fit in somewhere easily, and I definitely didn't expect showing off to ingratiate myself. But when I don't know what to do, I just show off. I'm "that guy." I even promised Kara I'd go to the bars with the group when she got back from her trip to North Carolina in a month. I figure these people are pretty fun, and a few of them have already said they don't all drink, so I think I'll give it a shot.
A notable thing occurred as I was walking into the rec on Wednesday. The first week I was here they just had card scanners like every other place I've been, but recently they put in these biometric reader things that take your palm print or something. All I know is you're supposed to walk up to the machine, stick your hand into the pneumonia-transmission device, and type in your student ID number. Well, Wednesday was the first day I didn't have to look mine up! I guess I'm becoming a Minnesotan right quick. Also on Wednesday (so it doesn't need its own paragraph, even though it's totally a new topic), Brian asked if I were doing the tournament on Saturday (now tomorrow). I said I hadn't really heard about it or looked into it, but I emailed the guy, and now I'm in! So I have that to look forward to. I hope my ankle holds up, because I'm ready to play! I haven't played real matches in a long time, and I think there will be some genuinely good people there. Then I have another IM frisbee game on Sunday. (It turns out I'm staying busy after all, mom!) Between these things and blogging for four hours a day, I'm really not hard up for ways to avoid studying.
Thursday morning I woke up at 8:30 for my 8:45 class. It was a classic grab-a-banana, pack-a-bag-as-fast-as-possible, shin-banging, stop-light-running sort of morning. (There are a bunch of one-way streets around here. It feels safer running the light because I only have to look one direction. That's how that works, right?) Luckily, the cop I only noticed after I was across the intersection was either not looking my way or didn't care! I even made it to class on time! My first class was fine, and my second was going fine until the very end. We were talking about "standing" yesterday too, and at the end, the professor was giving us some background about a case brought against a government agency due to its failure to enforce the Endangered Species Act overseas. Again, it hinged on whether the injury was truly imminent rather than hypothetical. The claim for the plaintiffs was basically that they had gone to the animals' habitats overseas and hadn't seen them. Then, the US government was thinking about starting construction projects, but the ESA had recently been revised to not necessarily include overseas activity. The judge (Scalia again) said that in order for the injury to the plaintiff to actually be imminent or actual, the plaintiff would have to show impending harm. For instance, if they were researchers who specialized in the animals in question, there would be harm because those animals dying would be costly to their livelihood. My teacher asked if the plaintiffs purchasing plane tickets would be enough to satisfy true imminence. Unwilling to commit, the student he was asking hemmed and hawed. Then the teacher said, "And do you know why they didn't have concrete plans to go back? A civil war had broken out since their last visit. So what did Scalia want her to do? Grab a bushplane into the area and drop in with her camera and her Kalashnikov?" And with that, class was dismissed to a good deal of laughter.
And now, in closing, two random observations:
1. We listened to Thurgood Marshall argue for the NAACP in a desegregation case. He sounded exactly like Bill Cosby. I really hope that doesn't make me racist.
2. At one point I must have given pandora permission to access my GPS on my phone. I have since revoked that privilege for all but a limited number of apps. The result is that I still get commercials for Ames stuff all the time. I'm sorry Pandora, but I just won't be shopping at Wheatsfield co-op. But thanks for making me miss home! (I also won't be attending the house-flipping speech in Des Moines. Or buying a car there while I'm at it.)
I jogged into a court and threw for a while to stay loose, and Kristina poked her head in to say I was a keeper. I came out of the court and asked if they were starting a soccer team. But it actually was really nice to hear them say that. I've never felt like I could fit in somewhere easily, and I definitely didn't expect showing off to ingratiate myself. But when I don't know what to do, I just show off. I'm "that guy." I even promised Kara I'd go to the bars with the group when she got back from her trip to North Carolina in a month. I figure these people are pretty fun, and a few of them have already said they don't all drink, so I think I'll give it a shot.
A notable thing occurred as I was walking into the rec on Wednesday. The first week I was here they just had card scanners like every other place I've been, but recently they put in these biometric reader things that take your palm print or something. All I know is you're supposed to walk up to the machine, stick your hand into the pneumonia-transmission device, and type in your student ID number. Well, Wednesday was the first day I didn't have to look mine up! I guess I'm becoming a Minnesotan right quick. Also on Wednesday (so it doesn't need its own paragraph, even though it's totally a new topic), Brian asked if I were doing the tournament on Saturday (now tomorrow). I said I hadn't really heard about it or looked into it, but I emailed the guy, and now I'm in! So I have that to look forward to. I hope my ankle holds up, because I'm ready to play! I haven't played real matches in a long time, and I think there will be some genuinely good people there. Then I have another IM frisbee game on Sunday. (It turns out I'm staying busy after all, mom!) Between these things and blogging for four hours a day, I'm really not hard up for ways to avoid studying.
Thursday morning I woke up at 8:30 for my 8:45 class. It was a classic grab-a-banana, pack-a-bag-as-fast-as-possible, shin-banging, stop-light-running sort of morning. (There are a bunch of one-way streets around here. It feels safer running the light because I only have to look one direction. That's how that works, right?) Luckily, the cop I only noticed after I was across the intersection was either not looking my way or didn't care! I even made it to class on time! My first class was fine, and my second was going fine until the very end. We were talking about "standing" yesterday too, and at the end, the professor was giving us some background about a case brought against a government agency due to its failure to enforce the Endangered Species Act overseas. Again, it hinged on whether the injury was truly imminent rather than hypothetical. The claim for the plaintiffs was basically that they had gone to the animals' habitats overseas and hadn't seen them. Then, the US government was thinking about starting construction projects, but the ESA had recently been revised to not necessarily include overseas activity. The judge (Scalia again) said that in order for the injury to the plaintiff to actually be imminent or actual, the plaintiff would have to show impending harm. For instance, if they were researchers who specialized in the animals in question, there would be harm because those animals dying would be costly to their livelihood. My teacher asked if the plaintiffs purchasing plane tickets would be enough to satisfy true imminence. Unwilling to commit, the student he was asking hemmed and hawed. Then the teacher said, "And do you know why they didn't have concrete plans to go back? A civil war had broken out since their last visit. So what did Scalia want her to do? Grab a bushplane into the area and drop in with her camera and her Kalashnikov?" And with that, class was dismissed to a good deal of laughter.
And now, in closing, two random observations:
1. We listened to Thurgood Marshall argue for the NAACP in a desegregation case. He sounded exactly like Bill Cosby. I really hope that doesn't make me racist.
2. At one point I must have given pandora permission to access my GPS on my phone. I have since revoked that privilege for all but a limited number of apps. The result is that I still get commercials for Ames stuff all the time. I'm sorry Pandora, but I just won't be shopping at Wheatsfield co-op. But thanks for making me miss home! (I also won't be attending the house-flipping speech in Des Moines. Or buying a car there while I'm at it.)
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