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seldearSo, at the suggestion of a friend, I tried spending Tuesday without complaining or negativity. I think I was doing sort of okay until I went to hockey training. I'm pretty sure that I made up for 12 hours of not complaining with 90 minutes of steady disgruntlement.
Oops?
I suspect that it's also easier when you have someone around to call you on it. I didn't. And I especially didn't at hockey.
--
I was thinking about hockey last night as I went to sleep, and realised that while the playing is fun, the politics surrounding playing have become somewhat stressful lately - mostly because I keep feeling like I'm going to be dumped from the team.
Last year we registered 15 players to our team, and then 2 people got injured and on any given week another 3 couldn't make it. We struggled and struggled and struggled...
This year? This year, we have 19 people registered for a team that only needs to field 11, and can only put 16 people on the game card. And we have a coach who supervises our substitutions on and off the field.
I've mentioned the issue with substitution and playing full games before. Namely, the better you are or the more crucial you are to a position, the more time you get on the field.
I'm probably at the low end of the team. This is not a pity party, it's a simple fact. I have two things going for me: enthusiasm, and the ability to pick up the ball while running and pass it off to someone waiting for it with a good hard push. That's my skill. Dribbling? I suck. Tackling? Bye bye ball! Defending? Wait, I'm back here and she's halfway down the field...
There are eleven positions in hockey: Goalie, 2x Backs, 3x Half-Backs (Halves - Left, Right, and Centre), 5 Forwards (Right and Left Inners, Right and Left Wings, and Centre Forward).
I'm customarily out in the Left Wing field position, which is pretty much as the position name says - out on the wing, to the left. It's pretty much the weakest position on the field - you don't need particular skills to play Left Wing - its the position for a newbie who Doesn't Know How To Play. I mean, ideally, they do know how to play, but if you have to cut anyone or anything, it's the Left Wing.
I share the Left Wing position with another player - L. Wife, and mother of two kids who was looking to play hockey for some 'me' time. She's not as fit as I am, but I'm not quite fit enough to keep up with the players in the Inner positions and I don't have the defensive skills to be a Half.
So we share a position. And usually only get about half a game. I get three-quarters usually, because I can play Centre Forward, but our Centre Forward is pretty good - she can play a Back, Half, or Forward pretty much and do it well. But L is pretty much just Left Wing. Notably, the woman usually playing on the Right Wing usually gets a full game, because she's good - she can run the ball all the way down the field.
L has complained about this - as did another girl who was also being left off the field for half the game, while other players got a full one. And things got better...for a week or so.
*sigh*
Anyway, with 19 people registered, and only 16 players allowed on the game card, it looks like some people are going to get seconded to the other team in our division who are struggling after they've had a few people drop out because of family matters while others got injured. At least one player (a woman who was registered to our team, was our captain last year, but has spent a chunk of the season off for Motherhood) has been seconded, and I don't think she minds too much.
I'm wondering myself if it wouldn't be better to get a full game rather than just half of one. I even suggested this to L when she complained at the last game we played. She didn't seem particularly enthused.
Still, I do know how she feels. It's stressful wondering if, one day, I'm going to get told, "You're being moved to the other team now, kthxbai." Because I may attend the training and I may attend the games, and I've played with the core of this team for the last two years before this season, but I also spend a good chunk of the game off the field because, let's be frank, I'm not good enough to play the whole game compared with the other players.
Which might be okay if you're in the pro-leagues, but this is an amateur comp in a club that prides itself on being social rather than competitive.
Okay, so maybe it is a pity party, after all.
I can't do anything about it ("Who, by worrying, can add one moment to her life?") but it still preys on my mind.
--
With the 4th July coming up, here's a different perspective on America from off my DWircle: Because it's not always great to be an American.
Plus the vilification of boganism. To me, the soul of boganism is less about postcode and more about outlook: believe you me, there are bogans on the elite North Shore of Sydney, too! They just don't look like your typical Aussie 'Paul Hogan' bogan.
Interesting side trip: Hogans vs. bogans?
--
In other news, I have to work this Sunday. And I don't think I'm going to get time-in-lieu for it. There isn't really space for it in a go-live project: something needs to be done by Monday, you do it on the weekend.
"10 weeks to go!" pronounces the sign on the wall beside the main door into our building.
Oops?
I suspect that it's also easier when you have someone around to call you on it. I didn't. And I especially didn't at hockey.
--
I was thinking about hockey last night as I went to sleep, and realised that while the playing is fun, the politics surrounding playing have become somewhat stressful lately - mostly because I keep feeling like I'm going to be dumped from the team.
Last year we registered 15 players to our team, and then 2 people got injured and on any given week another 3 couldn't make it. We struggled and struggled and struggled...
This year? This year, we have 19 people registered for a team that only needs to field 11, and can only put 16 people on the game card. And we have a coach who supervises our substitutions on and off the field.
I've mentioned the issue with substitution and playing full games before. Namely, the better you are or the more crucial you are to a position, the more time you get on the field.
I'm probably at the low end of the team. This is not a pity party, it's a simple fact. I have two things going for me: enthusiasm, and the ability to pick up the ball while running and pass it off to someone waiting for it with a good hard push. That's my skill. Dribbling? I suck. Tackling? Bye bye ball! Defending? Wait, I'm back here and she's halfway down the field...
There are eleven positions in hockey: Goalie, 2x Backs, 3x Half-Backs (Halves - Left, Right, and Centre), 5 Forwards (Right and Left Inners, Right and Left Wings, and Centre Forward).
I'm customarily out in the Left Wing field position, which is pretty much as the position name says - out on the wing, to the left. It's pretty much the weakest position on the field - you don't need particular skills to play Left Wing - its the position for a newbie who Doesn't Know How To Play. I mean, ideally, they do know how to play, but if you have to cut anyone or anything, it's the Left Wing.
I share the Left Wing position with another player - L. Wife, and mother of two kids who was looking to play hockey for some 'me' time. She's not as fit as I am, but I'm not quite fit enough to keep up with the players in the Inner positions and I don't have the defensive skills to be a Half.
So we share a position. And usually only get about half a game. I get three-quarters usually, because I can play Centre Forward, but our Centre Forward is pretty good - she can play a Back, Half, or Forward pretty much and do it well. But L is pretty much just Left Wing. Notably, the woman usually playing on the Right Wing usually gets a full game, because she's good - she can run the ball all the way down the field.
L has complained about this - as did another girl who was also being left off the field for half the game, while other players got a full one. And things got better...for a week or so.
*sigh*
Anyway, with 19 people registered, and only 16 players allowed on the game card, it looks like some people are going to get seconded to the other team in our division who are struggling after they've had a few people drop out because of family matters while others got injured. At least one player (a woman who was registered to our team, was our captain last year, but has spent a chunk of the season off for Motherhood) has been seconded, and I don't think she minds too much.
I'm wondering myself if it wouldn't be better to get a full game rather than just half of one. I even suggested this to L when she complained at the last game we played. She didn't seem particularly enthused.
Still, I do know how she feels. It's stressful wondering if, one day, I'm going to get told, "You're being moved to the other team now, kthxbai." Because I may attend the training and I may attend the games, and I've played with the core of this team for the last two years before this season, but I also spend a good chunk of the game off the field because, let's be frank, I'm not good enough to play the whole game compared with the other players.
Which might be okay if you're in the pro-leagues, but this is an amateur comp in a club that prides itself on being social rather than competitive.
Okay, so maybe it is a pity party, after all.
I can't do anything about it ("Who, by worrying, can add one moment to her life?") but it still preys on my mind.
--
With the 4th July coming up, here's a different perspective on America from off my DWircle: Because it's not always great to be an American.
Plus the vilification of boganism. To me, the soul of boganism is less about postcode and more about outlook: believe you me, there are bogans on the elite North Shore of Sydney, too! They just don't look like your typical Aussie 'Paul Hogan' bogan.
Interesting side trip: Hogans vs. bogans?
--
In other news, I have to work this Sunday. And I don't think I'm going to get time-in-lieu for it. There isn't really space for it in a go-live project: something needs to be done by Monday, you do it on the weekend.
"10 weeks to go!" pronounces the sign on the wall beside the main door into our building.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 11:49 am (UTC)But *blusters* that's what keeps me going!!
no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 11:55 am (UTC)It probably helped that my rather sardonic work colleague was away and so I had my space and my thoughts to myself without his commentary every fifteen minutes.
They say hell is other people...
no subject
Date: 2010-07-02 10:05 am (UTC)But.. there are some work colleagues that, when I find out that they will not be in, I inwardly CHEER VERY LOUDLY, by golly.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-02 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 06:20 pm (UTC)Hunh. I think it's kind of sad that she's let a handful of ignorant morons blight her appreciation of the entire country for her.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-01 08:35 am (UTC)I suspect that, for her and the others who've spoken out about the American nationalism at this time, the 'forest and trees' proposition is that America has as much shame and cruelty and unkindness to its history as it does life, liberty, and the pursuit of, and yet people seem intent on refusing to acknowledge even the existence of the bad in favour of celebrating the good.
Plus, the fervour of 'national days' gives rise to a rather nasty undercurrent of ethno-nationalism that finds its most vicious outlet in people like her and like me: people who look like we don't come from "here". It can be hard for those who've suffered that bigotry to get past it. Especially when "Rah, America!" looks much the same from the lips of someone who thinks a foreign accent means 'not!American' as it does from someone who believes in 'equal but different'.
So, I do understand and empathise with her bitterness. That might have been my experience, too, but for fate.
Of course, I won't be waving any flags come Sunday. *wry smile*