Avast ye, tharr be exams, yarr.
I spoke to mum today and she's doing much better. She was worried at first because she bled a lot both during and post operation (schleroderma and renauds syndrome, so she's been on blood thinning medication, and is anemic to boot). The bandages were really, really bloodied when they went to change them. Led to mum wondering if there was something wrong or (beause of her paranoid nature and overactive imagination) if her feet were rotting or getting infected. I basically told her not to worry, you'd smell 'em if they were infected long before you felt it or needed to be told, and the bleeding was something that had been predicted.
They had a check up with the surgeon, and he said it was all on track, healing pretty nicely, nothing close to infection, just a good clean bleed that you expect when someone has to be cut that deeply.
They'll need to get a wheelchair for whenever they want to go out (since you can't really use a hard cast on someone's feet, just bandages with some stiffness, even a stray pebble might break a bone while it's setting). Dad, despite being an intelligent man, can act like a total 'tard sometimes. He wondered why mum didn't want to walk after having her feet cut to the bone, and didn't quite realise a wheelchair would be necessary. Me, I was surprised they didn't get one before the damn operation took place. God they can be lost sometimes.
Luckily I'll be home within two weeks, so I'll be able to help dad wheel mum about, and to do domestic stuff. Dad's pretty useless at washing and a few of other things, but he is excellent at ironing, vacuuming and cooking...so long as he has a recipe. I, on the other hand, believe that recipes are for those without a sense of adventure and flair. Sure, recipes work, but it's way more fun to just have at it and do what you like in the kitchen, even when you mess up sometimes. It's all a learning experience, though others don't tend to appreciate my philosophy when they're forced to eat the shit I concoct :) *shrugs*
Other than that, not much to say. Exams are on (eep), did alright for the first couple methinks, never know how it will turn out, but I'm quietly confident. Psych and Contracts comin' up...*smacks head*. Yay. I'm feeling fitter...I've been running with more confidence whenever we get 440s at training (well, 340s due to the field size, but getting laps still sucks), and feeling more energetic at the end, putting on some good bursts of speed. No game this weekend, and the last one went well - everyone started playing like they were meant to. We lost, but that's not disappointing to me - everyone put everything on the line and we made some silly mistakes. Shit happens, but that's football...hell, that's life. I'm certainly proud of how we played.
So...yeah. Not much else to say. Doing some work in collaboration with a couple of other guys in putting together my homebrew RP System ideas and Campaign Setting (actually, I'm working on a different setting altogether than the one I mentioned before that is mostly the product of one of the guys imaginations), and that's going well. All online, a total exchange of thoughts, but it's the most productive creative session I've been a part of, and it's good to be able to work with a world and a system from the ground up.
Much as I dislike them, vanilla DnD and FR both have some huge strong points, accessibility and freedom in character conception being one of the main ones. What they lose in realism you gain in the ability for almost anyone to hop in and get playing. Not my preference at all, and it can be frustrating to use the setting, but I can certainly understand the appeal.
That's about it. I've you've gotten this far, please, find something better to do :P
Update
Mum's operation went well. Was scheduled for two hours, but went on for four due to the insides of her feet being more mangled than the surgeon had predicted, one toe in particular. She's pretty down about being confined to crutches and an A-frame for a while, and about the screws holding the bones in place being evident to the nerves, but everything was a success. Not a big shock, though, since she's known for over a year now that she's have to get an operation to correct her feet, but kept on delaying it due to moving house, moving again, and other busy times.
Still, it's a positive move and will lead to a LOT of long term benefit for her, so everyone else is trying to help her be a bit upbeat about it. So we'll see how that goes.
Not much else to say here. Cramming away, trying to evade distractions and er...uh...yeah. That's about it. Unless you count browsing t3h int0rn3tz, washing and cooking. God I'm Good.
Wooo.
I'm not dead, just lazy.
I'll find out how my mum's surgery went in about twenty hours - due to having a degenerative disease, the bones and tendons in her foot have just been completely messed up. It's only a two hour procedure, but still, shit happens. I said it was Sunday on Sue's blog, only to realise it's on Monday. Genius.
What else to speak of?
Exams approach. How best to elucidate my thoughts....
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!
That's pretty close. Combine it with an interesting anecdote about me getting anally violated by a giant dildo covered in glass shards, razor blades, salt, vinegar and tobasco sauce, and THEN we're about right.
Nah, actually I'm pretty well sorted for them. I've just been worried about them a lot more this year - don't ask me why. I'm actually better prepared and have put in more effort (despite having a lighter workload after dropping anthropology for a business elective), so I should be more confident. Ah well, Psych and Contracts should go well if nothing else.
What else. Yeah, social life's a bit quiet. I've been too dead after rugby to go out on Saturdays, and too worried about my game performance to go out on Thursdays or Fridays. Which has left me with the option of Sunday sessions...tempting, but I never go for 'em. Not that I really should care about rugby at this point, since it seems like no one else in the damn side does.
Long rant coming.... and I'm entitled to this one.
We got flogged 48-5 on Saturday. This isn't a normal thing for me - during my schooldays, I used to be on the other end of these scorelines, regularly. It's not that we don't have a good team, it's that half the guys who get their arses on the field just don't seem to want to play...which is pretty fucked. I had a good game, made metres on every run, made some influential tackles and stole the ball for us on three occasions. Our scrum destroyed theirs and we looked threatening when we actually had the ball in hand...until the silly mistakes and stupid cock ups occured. And that was fucking often.
I don't know, I've got the shits with pretty much the whole club right now - I've been playing two games a week for the past month (until yesterday, first time in a while I've only played one), put in a consistent set of matches that I thought was worthy of getting me to run on for the A-Grade squad, and managed to inject something special into B-Grade. It didn't upset me that of the guys who got the spot ahead of me in the A's squad, one guy only shows up to one training session in four, despite living on Campus, a whole five minute walk away from the field, while the other can only run for 50 minutes...when the game goes for 80.
Week, in, week out, I've shown up a minimum of 30 minutes early to most sessions, as early as an hour. The latest I've been is fifteen minutes early all year. I've been playing no less than a hundred minutes (spread over two games) every week for over a month. There isn't a significant difference to any aspect of my play and theirs - as the coach himself has said, when I go on, scrums are entirely unchanged, solid and dominant. In general play, I've been doing at least as well as the others, possibly better. I'm not saying this to give myself a big ego stroke, I'm merely relating things as I see them. To begin with, none of the people reading this give a shit or even care if it's true, and regardless, that's just not my style.
In some ways, I expected this thing to happen - the guy I mentioned who shows up every now and then made the representative squad last year (Best players of the teams in the current competition). What's frustrating about that is the trial to get into the rep side occurs during the summer holidays, when I'm back in Sydney. Terry Shiels, the director of Rugby in the area and coach of that squad, said he was keen to have me in the side on the form I was in when he saw me. This was while I was playing on a left knee that had a torn medial meniscus and torn tendons.
So...yeah. Being delegated the role of second banana under all of those circumstances is frustrating as hell. I'm in some of the best fucking shape of my life right now, and it doesn't seem to mean shit to the coaches or on the scoreboard. I've only been able to get back into the run on squad because of an injury to someone else. And I may well lose that spot once his ankle heals. Joy.
I'm not one to piss and moan about being underrated or whatnot. Shit happens, and my situation isn't particularly bad in the grand scheme of things, nor is it unheard of in this game, at any level.
What does annoy me is that I've been putting my balls on the line every week and all I've really gotten in return is getting yelled at or being given laps to run. I'd do the damn laps anyway, it's the yelled at part that shits me.
On Saturday I was punching the padding on the goal posts and screaming at the others to fire up. This is VERY unusual for me - I'm almost always the calm voice of reason on the field. I don't lose my cool often...I can count two occasions in ten years where I've had negative words or admonishments for team mates, and I look on them with a lot of shame. I always say something positive, whether it's simply "Good effort".
It's just getting damn hard to keep on doing that when all that seems to happen is me copping more and more shit in spite of my own actions, and having to take the flak for other people's fuck ups.
Have I been perfect on field? Fuck no. But I haven't held anything back.
Anyway, enough of this shit. I'm off to get some dinner.
Facial hair: requires no minimum in IQ or good taste
Yarr, I do be growing a moustache and ugly sideburns now. The 'tache in particular is ugly since I can't grow a particularly thick one...people actually didn't realise I had one in bad light.
Why would I do such a thing to make my battered noggin' even ruder and uglier, you ask? Conformity to non-conformity, baby, or something like it. Basically, everyone on our rugby team has decided to grow dirty moustaches, to the effect of us rocking up and looking like a bunch of porn star rejects...well, everyone bar a few pikers whose girlfriends "won't let them". Translation: shave the 'tache or I'll stop putting out.
I suppose it's rather ironic that their desire to continue to have sex with women has lead to them being labelled fags and pussies. Meh, I say.
It's even cooler/worse for me since my current nickname is "Mexican", which has been ammended to "Dirty Sanchez" by one of my mates. Anyone who knows what the position/practice of the same name entails will find the 'tache to be particularly funny/disgusting. If you don't know what the Sanchez is, too bad - I ain't sayin'. Suffice to say, seeing as the majority of commenters on here are female, you're probably better off never finding out, and definitely better off not experiencing it. It's BAD.
I realise that this explains very little of what's goin' on in my world right now, but felt inclined to post it anyway. Not much else would be entralling...Uni is uni, and most of my rugby references would be hit and miss. I didn't hit the town this weekend since I played two games, one where I was on the paddock most of the time as a half back...something that should surprise Bex at least, if she's still reading. For anyone with a working knowledge of American Football, basically I went from being a lineman to a quarterback this week to fill in. And it was damn tough. Hopefully I'll get something less specialised to have a crack at this weekend.
So...what else is there to report? Exams are looming, assignments went well. Boring shit.
Ah, the "friend with benefits" situation I reported a while back has finished up. She hooked up with her ex, a total arsehole who's basically going to end up hurting her...again. So I'm expecting "the phone call" in a few weeks, along with having to keep my shoulder on call. Bitter and cynical I am, oh yes. But meh.
Oh yeah, and I had the cartilage on my nose knocked off the bone in rugby yesterday...again. Happened for the first time a few years back when a guy kneed me in the nose...that time it was gushing like a faucet, this time I got a few drops of claret and the ability to wiggle my nose at the break. It doesn't hurt, but it's bloody annoying wondering if the bastard is going to end up looking more crooked than it currently does.
So, yeah, once the 'tache fad is over (I give it another two weeks, max) I'll go back to trying to pick up, and actually clean my room in case I do. Can't have girls tripping over the piles of crap and breaking something.
Drugs are bad, mmmkay
Ended up getting a drink spiked last night, which put a big fucking dampener on my otherwise excellent day. The same shit's happened to a couple of other guys I know, and they think the stuff may have been LSD, since I was just fucking tripping, doing and saying shit that made no sense. Some of my thoughts were just weird...like it was a hallucination without the visual or sensory aspects. Whatever it was ended up wearing off after a while, and I was lucid, but couldn't remember half of what I'd been doing...like trying to climb out of a pub, via the walls and roof Spiderman style. Mostly it's this morning's experiences that convinced me I wasn't just really smashed.
I woke up shivering at midday....teeth chattering and the works. Managed to crawl out of bed, since I was so damn weak my legs had trouble supporting me. Once the aftertaste of rum wore off, there was another one that was kind of bitter and sour...not bile, but fucking horrible. I waited in the sun for about twenty minutes...didn't warm me a bit. In 28 Celsius heat. Had a shower with the water only as smidge below burning, and eventually got warm, but shit....that was horrid. Ended up heading back to sleep to wake up at 4pm, and before I nodded off the room began spinning. I was coordinated enough when walking, didn't feel nauseous, wasn't the least bit seedy and had no headache...basically, I wasn't hung over, I was just fucked up.
Once I woke up, I was pretty much ok... I've had a couple of dizzy spells since, but otherwise everything's been in order.
I'll update later, once I chat with a few more people and piece the night together. Right now I'm too pissed off to think up anything interesting.
What's in a name?
I thought that up because I lack a witty title name, and also as a reference to the fact that my new nickname seems to be catching on. All hail "The Mexican".
Had a Sunday Rugby game this week, which everyone agrees is shit. You're more sore at training, you're sore as hell at work and you don't get to hit the piss on Saturday. If I meet any of the soccer players who managed to nab rights to the field on Satruday, I'll beat them to a fucking pulp on principle alone. Maiming will be conducted out of spite.
It was our third and last Sunday Game of the year, which I'm thankful for - every time we've played a Sunday game, we've lost. A switch back to Saturday ought to get the proverbial monkey off our backs. We ended up losing the game by one point...I didn't keep track of the exact scoreline, but basically during the last minute, they got a penalty thirty metres out and fifteen in from the sideline. Their goal kicker hit it, they won...knowing that our own kicker missed two relatively easy shots makes it a bitter thing to live down.
Anyway, highlights of the day, since I got to the ground at 1 pm to help out:
~ Helped serving food and drinks - it's how our club and most others turn a profit, since insurance is about $ 5, 000 a year, and fees only cover so much once you take jerseys, equipment and the rest into account.
~ Watched the reserve grade game - one of the opposing side's members was a one armed man (a winger)...well, he had half a right arm, anyway. Our reserve fullback, Bulb (mentioned him last post) attempted a tackle and was committed when one-arm (sorry, don't know his name) made a kick. Bulb tripped up one arm as he ran after the ball, which couldn't be avoided. One arm took offense, and smacked Bulb with his stump.
You fucking heard that right, his right arm's stump/elbow. Clocked Bulb in the forehead and fucking dropped him. One-arm proceeded to go after him on the ground, and Bulb wrestled himself upright, not doing much more than jostling for position (it's fucking harsh to beat on a one handed man, even if he does start the fight). One of their other players takes offense (easy to imagine) and runs in and smashes bulb in the face...clean splits his lip and puts a hole straight through just beneath it that had to be stitched (since he could poke his tongue through). It was a fuckin' beauty.
He's not gonna live this down either...I'm calling him the fugitive when I see him next.
~ Got a full game this week for A-Grade (80 mins). I got a lot of good comments out of it...our stopgap coach, Tractor (who cooly enough christened me "The Mexican") said I'd managed to deliver "something special". Seeing as he's been a professional coach for Dog knows how long (including the French U23 national squad some time back), I'm pretty stoked about that. I felt like I had my best game - I was running hard the full time and had the best support game of my life. Defensively and with ball in hand, I was solid.
My knees and back have paid the price for it...just walking around at home, the tendons in the left knee went by turns stiff, then jelly like (anyone who's had a hard weights session will know that feel of a blown out, useless muscle). Upper back's sore due to a dirty trick played in one of the last scrums of the game - an early hit that connected with my neck and folded me up. Shit like that has broken inexperienced front row forward's necks in the past, subsequently paralysing or killing them. Thankfully I've been doing this since I was twelve, so experience isn't a problem. The only result was that in the next scrum I made my opposite number squeal. I'll be sore tomorrow, but meh.
Anyway, I have to put down a lot of my energy to Bee Pollen rather than working hard on my fitness...since i haven't. Bee Pollen is quite simply the shit - you can get it in granule or tablet form from most health food stores.
Anyway, some non-rugby blogging soonish.
Right now, I'm off for breakfast at McFatboys and then to watch Hero at Amy's place. Saw it Saturday and rehired it for her, along with Resevoir Dogs (she ain't seen that either). Which will be cool.
Entry no.15
RAAAAAAGGHHH!!! I am free of assignments!!! Take that, Edum00cat0rz!!!!
...and, yeah. I don't bother writing about uni too much on this because it's BORING. More so than the rest of my life by far.
So...yeah. What else. Last weekend was cool, got most of the work for my assignment done on Friday, played Rugby saturday (we lost 29-10), then went over to a mate's place afterwards - got some time in the spa (it was awesome) before watching a Super 12 match. The Waratahs (team from my home state) got up over the Brumbies (lasy year's champions).
For non-rugby fans: the Super 12 is a competition involving provincial/state sides from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. It's not too far below international standards, and thus has a very substantial following. It's called the Super 12 because there are 12 sides, 3 from Australia, 4 from South Africa and 5 from New Zealand.
Anyway, I got nicely drunk at Russian and Bulb's place (You've gotta love the nicknames we end up getting), working through a fair bit of bourbon, and played the Punisher game that night and the next day on his XBox...my god. That was just...*drool*...what I've wanted from the spin offs of the book for ever.
I'm not sure who did the voice for Frank Castle, but it sounds a lot like Henry Rollins. The Music and Graphics were top notch, (one could say Goretastic), but the gameplay was the real standout. You don't just shoot people up with your dual shotguns and M16s (that's right, DUAL), you get to use both your fist and the environment to intimidate them into giving you information - put a guy into a cremation machine and turn up the heat, threaten to stick another's head into a tank full of pirhanas or electric eels, smack someone's head into the concrete floor or a piano, thrust someone else's head into a propellor or electric band saw...this is the greatest.
Caught up with Amy on Sunday afternoon, had a pretty relaxing week since - no assessments, easy training, and a chance at some more game time, which I'm stoked about.
