the debate is tonight. i am very excited. I love Mr. abrams, and i am very happy in school. I am looking into taking a trip to oberlin soon. trigger comes home in a week. I am not nasueas anymore. Im feeling better. Im feeling good. this will become more regular again. sorry i took a break due to some other priorities. DAMN i hate that i have those! :-)
I am terribly sorry to say that i had a better day you.
I spent four hours babysitting for a baby lehmann.
Simply but i had a better day than you.
(not a better night seeing as how i have hours of spanish and AP calc ahead of me)
but ahhh... jakob!
For people who understand, respect, and love ultimate frisbee the most common four words that everyone has said are most likely ' I just wanna play.' Lately most of my thoughts have been about ultimate, how to grow my girls team to be the best, and how to make sure the guys stay fired up until they burn out. I have been around the ultimate culture for small fractions of the time everyone who I respect in the sport has; and those influences and my passion have caused me to come at it with a more critical eye. This is not another, how much I love ultimate blog so if you're sick of them no worries.
Tina Booth is amazing. Whether you like her or not, know her whole history, or just her name she is someone to respect and admire. She has created an ultimate program that literally 'breed ultimate players.' Starting them as soon as they can fit their hand on the rim of a disc, she feeds the same skills, strategies, and spirit into Amherst Ultimate players every year like clockwork. She established a program, I see starting at Beacon, and in New York City, and I hope will continue to grow. Until then, until we have a rival program with Amherst, we have to settle for a rival team. For the past three years beacon has consistently moved up in the rankings, making people really talk around the water or Gatorade coolers. We have proven our dedication, our heart, our desire, our drive, and our flat out skill. In three years I hope to lead a girls team with those same values, and I hope to get farther than beacon boys last year.
I cannot help but feel we are somewhat held back. Not the girls, because we are going to get as fair as we possibly can, but Beacon Ultimate. I don’t know, and certainly don’t want to believe it is because we are not a boarding, or rich suburban school. I also don’t want to believe that ARHS and Tina Booth think that we are at all not of the same level of deserving opportunities. Thomas Edison said:" Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Realistically, though, if any teams work hard throughout the country, they are Beacon teams. Work for us is not snoozing the alarm clock at 5:00am because in the back of our mind we know we are waking up, to run sprints, to then kick ass at a tournament. We are the team that works for our opportunities, we do not wait for them to fall in our lap. There is only so much work we can do. We will only raise money to get to a tournament, and run the extra sprint when we cant breathe and need to fall over so we are prepared to beat another team. Competition is what drives us for our opportunities, but none of it helps when the tournament, our most anticipated tournament : A tournament which last year fell on mothers day, and this year falls during the end of our spring break (Not Convenient), a tournament which is made barely available to us. NMH, ARHS, Paideia, Andover/Hotchkiss all have school, so this is not a conflict with them. It seems, that, with Amherst Invitational this year, and Nationals last year, beacon has not gotten any acknowledgment, we have not gotten any help. Scratch that; we never needed help, but it seems unfair that we also started at a different begining. When you have people working for opportunities it is reasonable, when they are working for something that people keep moving out of their reach it is dissapointing. I realize how hard it is for someone to plan a tournament and find a time before nationals, and after spring break etc.. That everyone can come to, I just have to say it is disappointing that it works out this way; I would like to have a solid understanding of why it does.
hop scotch, patty cake (various hand clapping stupid games), jump rope, sidewalk chalk, smiles, hugs, stories, everything that comes to mind when i remember the huge yard and my elementary school years.
the first day at beacon, i felt like i had gone back to third grade. i felt happy, and nervous, and excited, and fresh. i felt at home, comfortable, relaxed, but giddy, and anxious to see all of my friends and my teachers. Today i felt like a little kid getting ready to go off on my own, wearing my new polka dot dress, and sandals, with my big backpack over filled (with clothes i was returning to lehmann and lublin and stuff for my ultimate table). I was almost skipping to school listening to such a mix of music from outkast, to cat stevens, to faith hill, to blink 182, i was so ready to be excited.
after being told from bayard the first face i saw that i looked like a bubble gum machine, i felt expenentially more confident, being one of the few peole to pull off an outfit... decided it made me happy, and made other people smile, and i love that.
after setting up flowers and posters, trophies and jerseys... and nicely displaying our oreos on various discs, the table looked ready. ready to get the 40+ girls names that we did. standing on chairs, screaming... recruting girls. sooooo exciting. This was how i got all my girls last year, how the team formed, and i got to do it again, with them all sharing my excitment. It really was an amazing feeling.
though i may have no voice left for the opcoming tournament which i am also thrilled about. today would only have been toped if some fellas who graduated were there to share it with me. however, i feel confident, my breakdown of missing them will be postponed if not eliminated, because i am truly excited about this year.
I switched into AP calculus... OY! am i stupid??? (well obviously not if im taking AP, but hopefully im not tooooo overwhelmed.) Im excited about that. Im excited to have abrahms, who my brother had, and mary, yay!, and galy again! I have heard great things about chemistry so im just happy to be in it. and well, phew... the first days over, and the rest are about to begin. i feel good.
Jeremy Spry is one of my closest friends this year. While we didnt really get along last year ( our conversations were him - "you're a stupid freshman" me - "yea well you're short"). I have to say I love him this year, and i am not quite sure where i would be without him.
Jeremy is cool because:
* He helped make those those < links work.
* He appriciates my over excitedness at silly things.
* He, with the help of lehmann, got me to start blogging
* He always makes sure to make others happy, even if he has to put himself down.
* He allows me to always have the last word ... cause "you like...."
* He makes trigger mad
* He ... the list goes on and on and on
Jeremy is the greatest! - Thank you for everything!
I originally wrote this entry on december 1st, 2003.
Nine months and eight days later every word of it still holds true.
Jeremy is sitting in a small room at The Beacon School right now, working on a computer to fix pages of students who were put into the wrong spanish, or had the wrong elective, or just arent happy with their schedule...etc, etc.
Jeremy changed my scedule for me, and sat with me as i still did not understand why it wasnt 'perfect'. I am kicking myself for something ive done to him, or used him for and i cant quite put my finger of it. I would like to say, thank you again. and reach out, cause i cant think of that really special thing to do for him or give him as a thank you.
but to add to the list
* He will go see a movie multiple times to continue hanging out with people
* He will wait for me to change my mind, because he knows i will, even though i've already made a decision
* He can search and find anything on amazon or ebay
* He has the guts to do and say, the few things, i can't
* He is beyond everything else, the most important person in my life right now, who has been there, and cared, and done everything right when ive needed him.
so. Drexel is going to be a lucky ass school for getting you. but its one of those situations where we dont say good-bye, its just a 'see you later' (because it has to be)
just sent out the first email -
"wednesday september 8th
12:00 NOON
72nd Riverside
bring discs
wear practice clothes"
feels good.
count down 21 months to winning amherst
yeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Okay!
phew. I've had about enough.
enough of summer
enough of saying goodbye
enough of waiting for school to start
enough of letting people drive me crazy
enough of not playing ultimate
enough of missing my team and my coaches
enough of the RNC
enough of Bush lying, and using september 11th
enough of the News - Hurricanes, the school in Russia
I was scared to sail, but was handed the wheel. Figured it out and caught the wind - worked oh! so well for a long time. then I hit a rock. cant decide if im stuck on it or if i can bounce over. either way its going have left a big dent.
I love my life, and im ready to get back to it.