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Post by wilderbeest on Dec 5, 2005 22:30:43 GMT
I went in goal for part of warm up and Line made a shot which bounced off the post so hit my fingers end-on. And no, I'm not going to take a picture of my bruises, firstly because that's just weird (yes I know you do it) and secondly because you can't really see anything. Just started swelling and going a funny colour soon afterwards, but soon went down when I ran it under cold water.
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Post by Captain Annie on Dec 5, 2005 22:35:11 GMT
Wierd me?!!!!
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Post by wilderbeest on Dec 5, 2005 22:38:26 GMT
Of course!
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Post by Captain Annie on Dec 5, 2005 22:42:57 GMT
ladidadida!
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Post by wilderbeest on Dec 5, 2005 22:48:21 GMT
Ooh singing! On the last night of Joseph we sang Christmas Carols to warm up, and it was really fun to sing carols with a group of people who really can sing! Sally was harmonising everything and putting in descants (which I joined in with... fairly badly... on the bits I knew) but then she's a flipping choral scholar so what can you expect...
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Post by wilderbeest on Jan 15, 2006 18:50:55 GMT
Just back from water polo tour - was great More to follow in a while when I've done important stuff like check e-mail, won't tell you everything about it quite yet as I have plans for the next hour....
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Post by wilderbeest on Jan 15, 2006 21:23:25 GMT
Right, here we go. Important tasks now accomplished. Apart from revision. Ah. Oh well... Well first funny thing was when we were pumping up the balls. Me and Mhairi (pronounced Varrie - it's Gaelic) had the responsibility of this as TJs (team junior - youngest person on team). As I was pumping them up, she wrote Cambridge on them so we could tell which were our balls after matches. Except after one of them, she looked at what she had written, started laughing, and said "I've missed a letter out...!" And from then on, we were the University of Cabridge Swimming and Water Polo Club, and Cabbage (as it became known) became everyone's favourite ball! We went out that evening and played various drinking games, discovering in the process that Mhairi is absolutely useless at playing 21s. I don't know if you've played it, but it's really good, I'll have to teach you some time if not. The following morning Steve, a member of the mens' team, turned up to breakfast waith a black eye. He can't remember how he got it. Nor can anyone else... Each day we had two training sessions of two hours each, or one and a match. The first match was on Sunday morning, before any training, and we lost. The opposition were 12 and 13 year olds. However losing to much younger players was to become a strong feature of the entire tour; in fact we never won a single match... The Spanish take water polo much more seriously, everyone plays it at school and there are loads of clubs arouind. That first match I played in goal for a quarter, and did reasonably, although not great. That evening we had our first training session and I was in goal for practically the whole practice as Sophie's knee was being dodgey and she didn't want to injure it before matches. Two hours of training in goal is not good. Well it is good, but is completely, utterly, totally and absolutely nackering. When we got out my legs were just shaking, I couldn't stand still! Then pub happened again, and yet more 21s, along with 'I have never...', discovering in the process various strange facts about our team members - who variously turned out to have had sex in a public toilet, with more than one person in a night, with someone whose name they didn't know 24 hours before hand... oh dear... Anyway, no match Monday, just two training sessions and the inevitable pub. On that evening's training though I managed to get my finger bashed end-on by a ball. It went all blue and swelled up and I couldn't move in properly - in fact I still can't completely straighten it or bend it as much as the others. On Tuesday we had the day off and went into Barcelona for sight seeing; we went to the Segrada Familia (Gaudi's cathedral) and walked up the towers. Mhairi is scared of heights (with good reason; she fell off a cliff when she was twelve on got a compound fracture in her arm, broke her back, and smashed her leg up so much doctors initially thought they would have to amputate it.) By the time we got down she was shaking so much she couldn't even aim her water bottle towards her mouth! Although she did say she loved it. Many many times. That evening we had a match in Barcelona, which I didn't play in due to finger. Lost again. Missed the train back and nearly missed dinner. On Wednesday we again had training in the morning, match in the evening in Barcelona. This match was in the pool they used for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, we saw the Olympic torch on the way too. I didn't get to play in goal but played outfield, which I don't really like as it's very confusing. I understand goalie-ness. You have to stop the yellow thing going in the net. Outfield stuff is just too confusing. Line and Sophie both said I did well though, and Sophie told me she didn't like playing outfield either. We got a minibus back that time, and Jo produced apple schnapps which quickly got everyone drunk as we had just had a match and hadn't eaten. On Thursday we had training in the morning, then an intra-squad match in the evening, for which we borrowed four of the nicer, less experienced, less violent men to make up our numbers. My team lost, which was a bit of a foregone conclusion considering the difference in goalkeeping experience between me and Sophie! What was very silly though was that Mark, who was on my team, scored a home goal. I just saw him rise up to shoot, thought 'what the?!' and failed to save in due to confusion. Debate followed about how long Mark had thought he was in the other team for... maybe the entire game? On Friday we had normal training in the morning, then in the evening went to train with a team in Barcelona, which we (where 'we' means the less experienced team members) were very scared about, considering we were training with the senior team of a club who's junior team had convincingly beaten us on Tuesday. We kept thinking of the world's least convincing excuses, starting with Andrea asking the medics 'I need an injury that'll last from about seven till nine this evening'! And working all the way up to 'Oh no, there's a full moon tonight and I'm a werewolf', being mortally afraid of the colour yellow (water polo balls are yellow) and saying 'What? I don't understand! Why has the pool got water in it?! Pools in England don't contain water!' But in the end we settled for explaining why we weren't very good with simply 'we've only been playing for three months!' It turned out to be not as horrific as expected, but Caroline, who speaks Spanish, heard one of the girls say to another "I don't think they've all done this before" on a practice. We had. We just weren't very good at it... Anyway, more drinking apple schnapps in the minibus back ensued, and then, since it was our last night, we went out and stayed very late, various people got very drunk, various people went skinny dipping in the sea (both not including me, I hasten to add) and we generally had a very good night. Me and Mhairi had a hilarious conversation with James (our coach), who was incredibly drunk, involving among other things the fact that he was so proud of how much we'd both improved, how he was willing to bet five pints of bear that Mhairi would be captain in her forth year (she's a medic so she'll be around for a while), how next year they were relying on me completely for goalkeeping, how Cabbage was our legacy for years to come... you get the idea. On Saturday we went to Barcelona to watch a national league match, which was quite impressive. The general consensus of opinion was that the guys were far too muscley, it was rather disgusting. The team we were supporting lost, but it was a good match. However at half time Claire shouted to us all "Will anyone come and sit next to Henry for me before I kill him?" Apparently he had spent the entire half saying how he was a far better player than all the men out there, particularly the goalies (he isn't a goalie), how yesterday he had scored a completely perfect goal, how once when he was twelve he saved the day in his school's (BGS coincidentally) rugby match by scoring three tries in the last thirty seconds (technically impossible) and generally being a complete *****. Then we went to the airport, played tenpin bowling using a mini water polo ball and ten water bottles while waiting to check in, then returned to Cambridge. Or Cabridge. So tour is over, but Varsity is on 18th Feb, so the preparation has only just begun... Wow that was incredibly long. Apologies. Yes, I do beleive that in terms of obsession, water polo may have become the new synchro...
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Post by Captain Annie on Jan 15, 2006 21:49:55 GMT
i am in shock!!!!!!! syncro REPLACED!!!!!!!! Is janet feeling alright?? i am rather concerned! hehe! awwwww! i miss these obsessions and your stories first thing in the morning, all depressed now!! sound like u had fun anyway! thats good!
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Post by wilderbeest on Jan 16, 2006 10:28:20 GMT
Well, synchro not quite replaced - me and Meles are putting renewed efforts in to the setting-up-a-synchro-club task this term, and I'm determined to make it happen. Water polo incidentally could help with that, since Sophie has said I ought to take a water polo session after Varsity and teach them all synchro for me to see who's interested and them to see if they like it. Lots of them have said they'd be interested but think they'd be no good, I hope that would change their minds about the no-good ness. I suppose the reason water polo has become the new synchro is because it's a real team thing. We train together so often, and go on socials with each other so often, that really I think I know the team better than I know my staircase friends, especially after tour. It's a kind of working-together-as-a-team-towards-a-particular-aim thing, and everyone's in the same situation of too much polo... too too much polo... and not being able to go out on Friday evenings and stuff like that. Which sucks, but makes us into a team! Varsity alcohol ban comes soonish too. Ha ha, easier for me than some...
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Post by Flick on May 9, 2007 19:46:30 GMT
Not again?!?!?!
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