TeamDurham: Women's Lacrosse team 1 (2010-11)

The number one reason why I am at Durham University in England is to play lacrosse. At least that is what captured my attention. Back in 2007, I thought that I would never again play a competitive game of lacrosse. Here I am in 2011, and I am on one of the best teams in England. It is hard, draining, demanding, and just as wonderful as I remember.

A connection between a team cannot be recreated. This is officially the best team I have ever been a part of, and I don't mean skill level. I mean there is no petty jealousies or drama. We love to play, so we play. I think it has something to do with the far less competitive nature of the British culture, but I have no gossip or bitchy stories about my teammates; that is first for me.

Here are a few pictures of TeamDurham! (purple and white)

Taking it easy after a long day of practicing, lifting, and conditioning

Preparing for a long day of lacrosse

Partying after a week of lacrosse

DIckens?

I have been getting some requests for images of where I live. My camera does not work because I have lost the battery charger like a dumb ass, so these pics were stolen from roommates and classmates. Durham City, Durham County, England, British Isles, Europe.

Game Days: 6-1-1

We had a good two month break from lacrosse due to the lack of an Ice Cowboy and Christmas break (they are all Christians in this country for the most part so we don't say winter break), so we were excited to jump back into games this week. We had two games in two days- both about 4 hours South of Durham, so we got a hotel room and made an adventure of it.

Wednesday, we tied. I know it sucks, but it's tue. Birmingham is a really good team, and they pressured us hard. My defense played well and my offense played well. Why did we tie? I sucked. For some reason I was just not my best. Well at least we did not lose I suppose.

Thursday, we kicked ass! Warwick was no match for TeamDurham! We played our best, and we were ready for more. We play Warwick once more as well as our 'rivals' Newcastle, and that is the end of the regular season. This leaves us as number 1 in the North. Pictured above is all the Premier teams and their standings. There are not many, but it is the highest level of lacrosse in England. I know we will make it to the national tournament, and I know we will do well. I just hope we win it all because I don't want it to end.

Rowlands in England

My dear family came to visit me from Christmas Eve to New Years Eve. No way was I doing more air travel this year, so they came to England. Even my sister who currently resides in Malaysia came. One would think a family spening Christmas Holiday in a forgiegn country would travel a bit, and we did... a little. We went to the city of old York, which is always worth the trip, and we spent Boxing Day in Newcastle (North East England to Newcastle is like Phili to South Jersey).

Mostly though, we drank. We went to every single pub in the small town of Durham, which happens to be the most densly PUBulated city I know. One thing to know about my familiy is that they are loud. I am the quiet one, and that is saying a lot. The Brits, unless absolutly shit faced and about to beat your face in, are a quiet bunch. In a bar with no music, you can not easily ease drop on any converstaiont. An Irish family from New Jersey, however, can be heard over the loudest of sound systems two blocks away. Needless to say, in every bar, people cleared out once we arrived. We even tended to 'own' entire back rooms of places after a good 15 min. The best though was when we played Cardnal Puff Puff, a drinking game popular in a small Rhode Island college invented in the 70s that involves memorization and chugging. We screamed, laughed, sang, and spilled beer. Every parton of the estabilishment moved to the tiny front bar while we spread out in back, which is the largest part of the bar.

It was a grand time, and we visited the following bars in the six days we spent drinking in Durham:

Osbournes (empty as usual)

Zen (not really a bar, but the Rowlands did drink pleanty)

The Boathouse (We did not drink, but it is worth mentioning)

The Big Jug (just chris- to catch a football match)

Slug and Lettuce (locely way to spend Christmas eve- the only place with out drunk and dissorderly locals)

Ask (don't ask for too much because the service is terrible)

Swan & Three (Victoria was begging to go here all trip because she wanted to know what the three stood for- I can never remember)

Varsity (3 times)

The New Inn (the only other patron was my conditioning coach)

Llyods (The Bishop Mill I.e. where my team goes clubbing after games)
The Court House (there was an Irish band rocking out to fiddles and accordians- my dad was happy)

The Shakespeare Pub (Cardnial Puff Puff lives on!)

The Half Moon (classic Durham drining hole)

Market Tavern (my family's first experience with muchy peas... i still don't know the difference)

(also about three bars in Newcastle)

The Ice Cowboy: A Preverbial Tale That I Just Made Up

When Jack Frost sticks his ethnically offensive nose around the corner of Fall and Winter, America meets it head on. The plows are a plowing; the salt is vigarously distributed; shovels are moving at a steady pace; snow blowers are obnoxiously blowing. America's fear of the law suit and cowboy heritege allows the country to be funtional in the snowy months of winter. Now I am only speaking for the parts of America that is USED to occational snow accumilation. It is as if these snowy states (VT, ND, NY, even NJ) have a mythical hero who preotects them from complete month long shut downs and danger. I call him the Ice Cowboy.

As you can see the Ice Cowboy carries not a pistol in his holster- but an ice scraper. In his arms in not a shotgun- but a snow shovle. He herds not cows- but snow plows. Those are not mini plows; he is just that big. As is his horse. The Ice Cowboy is the giant man who protects the colder snowy regions of America from a lack of production. We must always work and be active, valued members of society. Sometimes it is a bit much for him, but he is only slowed down a bit. He is never stopped. The Ice Cowboy will only allow stop to hinder him for a day or two. HOORAY!

Why do I bring this up? Because England has no such perverbial tale. England has not great protector to face blizzards head on bravely. So when the British Isles get a good inch of snow, everything stops. There are no plows, salt, or even shovels. Shops close. Roads are completely undrivable. Walkways are terribly dangerous. Life comes to a scetching hault for DAYS. The whole country shuts down. It only takes a flurry to provent any planes from leaving or entering Heathrow.

I live in North East England, and it is a far colder snowier place than London, and we were shut down for over a month. Classes continued, but obtaining any means of getting there was impossible. When you fall flat on your ass because of ice, no one laughs because they have fallen twice already. The snow started Wednesday of November 24th. It was light and fun, but it was continual. The snow did not stop for two weeks. The roads were finally safe to drive on New Years Day. I kid you not. There was ice to be found everywhere. If only they had a cowboy of their own...

When in doubt, why not be Awesome?

I am once again studying pedagogy, which means a whole lot of bull shit. Actually the study of learning at an MA student is far more practically than my undergraduate degree because it involves the study of linguistics; however, I do wade through a fair amount of poopie in my academic week. This means we have to pretend to be students and do 'activities'. Robin usually gets a strange kick out of pretending she is a ten year old English language learner, but I usually zone out. Today we were given a list of words that all seemed to be related to education. Our vague instruction was to make three columns and put each word in one of those columns. We can label the columns as we saw fit. Knowing full well that the instructions were intentionally unclear due to my previous 3 years of teaching and 4 years of educational college, I knew that it did not matter what the categories were, so I decided to be completely American, which is my go-to response for these situations. I thought that column one would be "Awesome", column two was "Not Awesome", and "Could Be Awesome".

I then went with a gut reaction to each word. We then had to convince the person next to us that we were right; since my partner was my buddy Erica, it was not hard to convince her I was right. Then we got into groups of four to do the same. I had to argue diligently with the Chinese girl Lynn. She was convince, as most of the Asian students were, that the classifications had to do with language form. I bullied her into believe that "Awesome" was a legitimate analysis. I mostly asked her to quickly decide if something was awesome or not with out thinking, and she always picked the same as what was on the list. Then the four of us had to convince four others that our argument was correct. Even though the other four consisted of two Germans that appeared to be invulnerable to the overage of the word "awesome", they completely jumped on the 'Awesome Train' as Erica and I were calling it.

Of course we then had to share with our whole class the compromised three columns. Needless to say everyone loved the justification that levels of awesomeness organized these words. Other people had classroom styles, grammatical structure, and other non-awesome ideas. Of course it did not matter what the answers were. What mattered was how we used out English language skills to communicate and negotiate successfully. For the rest of the class, our very British professor was overusing awesome, which is of course AWESOME!

Awesome: Fluency,

Not Awesome: Accuracy,

Could Be Awesome:

GAME Day: 5-1

That's right internet; we lost. Le sigh. It was a close match against Loughbough. Las time we played them it was our first official game, and we pretty much crushed them. They certainly picked up their level of play, and we made way to many stupid mistakes. They derserved to win. I did not have the game of my life or anything, but I am proud with how I played. I live by one philosophy when it comes to lacrosse: each game is my last. Three years ago I thought I would never play at a competitive level, and now here I am on the best team in England. As long as I love what I am doing, I do not care about the score. I do not even care how my teammates play. I do not care about our record. I am loving life as long as I am playing- granted I haven't even touched my stick since that game last Wednesday, but I will be ready once this snow is gone, and I get back on that field.

SNOW!

It has been snowing since Wednesday, and it is not Sunday. Here is the forecast for the rest of the week. It is straight up beautiful!It is also amazing to see how so many different people who never saw snow before react to this weather.

Thanksgiving in Durham

It is so weird being in a place that does not get what Thanksgiving is. I do enjoy partaking in the tale of how some dumb ass white people were entirely dependent on a native tribe, and now we are thankful that the Native Americans assisted these dummies who would eventually kill them off with war, small pox, and good 'ol Western bureaucracy.

Robin and her roommates thought it would be nice to host a traditional Thanksgiving meal. It was the three of them, me and my roommates, and a few more soccer players who are actually Brits. I made candy yams, and all the classic dishes were there.

mmmmmm. We ate and ate and ate. We also laughed and laughed and laughed. Every bit of food was amazing, and every story was worth hearing. We made fun of each other, gave thanks for one another, and told the same jokes about 20 times.

I do miss my family like crazy, but it was a great way to spend an American holiday abroad.

It also snowed the night before, so the scenery was beautiful. The sleepy little city of Durham is gorgeous. The snow hasn't stopped either. Here are some of my roommate Nicole's pictures from Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Toast Anyone?

The other day I was a little early to class, so I went to Peter`s Bakery and ordered a scone. I never went to this super popular chain before, and I assumed it was similar to the little cafe that would sell me one scone at a time and toast it for me. No, Peter`s is the Dunkin Donuts of England. They forced me to buy a whole bag of scones, and they refused to toast or butter any of them.

As I often do when I want something, I called Robin. I asked her to bring some Nutella to liven up my breakfast. Actually what I said was, '' Yo lady, I'll give you a scone if you bring me some Nutella!'' (Side note: I used to not be a fan of the chocolately nutty treat until I moved to England. Everyone, no matter the country of origin, eats Nutella here.) Robin informed me that she was unsure if she had any left, but she promised to make something happen.

And make something happen she did!

She called me moments after checking for any Nutella, and informed me that the mission was a failure. I told her that she would not get one of my scones because she was a failure. She then asked me to come to her place to toast the scones, but I was already in the classroom and, although she lives close to the class, had no time to leave and come back before the professor started professing. I jokingly, because I am soooo funny, said ''Just bring the toaster here when you come to class.''

I laughed at my own cleverness, but Robin responded ''What if I really did being a toaster to class?''

''Do it. You won't do it. Do it!'' I challeneged Robin to the foolish suggestion.

''Alright maybe I will'' Were we serious, or was it a really funny joke?

Apparently it was serious. Robin walked into the classroom carrying a toaster. The time for jokes was over. We immediately set up our breakfast in the back of the room concealed well enough so no one would tell us not to toast scones durring a lecture. We had a knife, butter, and all sorts of official breakfast goodness. Once class started, all went smoothly. We quietly toasted one scone at a time and ate our victory slowly over the next ten min. Then the professor decided that the he wanted to use the white board in the back of the room instead of the front. He did not notice or little breakfast nook until he had three example sentences on the board and actually kicked the toaster. From our insesent giggles, he knew Robin and I had something to do with this. His last example sentence was, ''She should not have brought a toaster to class.'' We offered him a scone, and all was well. The German girl in our class said she might actually buy a toaster for class. I can't wait for freshly toasted scones and a fine from the fire marshal!

A Rainy Day... Again

I was apart of the art society's day out for photography. My camera is dead because I lost the charger, so I just helped my friend with her super awesome fancy camera. Of course it rained the whole time. It was still pretty cool to walk the trail through Durham during a drizzle. I thought I would share some of the beautiful shots taken on a dreary Sunday afternoon.