Showing posts with label ultimate frisbee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ultimate frisbee. Show all posts

Friday, August 28, 2009

Face...Meet Frisbee.

Remember when I was posting so enthusiastically about playing ultimate frisbee? I still had a blast, it was great fun and good exercise...but for some reason I can't go out there and play a sport with the college students without getting injured!

This past Sunday the afternoon volleyball started up again, and it is really hard to pass up volleyball. There is always a lot of laughter and yes, some trash-talking. It's all in good fun. I noticed near the end of one of the games that I had a lump forming on my left wrist. I wasn't too worried about it, and of course kept hitting the ball on that same spot over and over. By the time we got home, I couldn't move it very well without wincing. Turns out it was just a tendon thing, and by the next day it barely hurt anymore. But almost a week later, I have the most hideous green and purple bruise covering my wrist, and those who have spotted it look very concerned. I'm mostly just marveling at the different colors that show up each day!

Now -- ultimate frisbee. First I have to say that I wish so much that more girls got out there to play (volleyball too!). It can be a bit intimidating to be one of two or three girls on a field full of guys, trying to play this game without getting injured. That's where my story comes in. I still don't know exactly how it happened...you'll have to ask the other people who saw it and altogether exclaimed "ooh!" as I hit the ground. I was in the end zone trying to catch the frisbee. The next thing I remember is my feet flying out from under me, my knees hitting the ground, and my face...this is the part I wish I had on video. Seriously. I was so close to catching the frisbee that my face landed on it. Not only that, but I remember my head flying back after bouncing off the frisbee. Ouch.

Luckily it was the side of my face that hit, not straight on, otherwise I might have smashed my nose. Somehow I came out of that with no bigger injuries, so I kept playing. Not long after, though, Miles and I left for home and I could feel the right side of my face throbbing with pain. It continued on that way for the rest of the night. I only wished that the face-plant incident had happened before my fumbling catch in the end zone near the beginning of the game.

Last night was supposed to be a game of 'capture the flag,' but what I heard was that there weren't enough people who stayed after dinner to play. Everyone began gathering chairs to sit in a circle, and it turns out that one of the freshman girls, Stephanie, was going to teach us a game. Now, I'm not going to attempt to explain it all here, but it involved each of us coming up with a sign for ourselves that everyone else had to learn. When most of us felt like we knew how to play, and once we really got into it, I'm telling you that was some of the best Welcome Week fun we've had. There was so much laughter and great fellowship, and afterward I took photos of each person doing their 'sign.' I'm hoping to get them all in Sunday's slide show.

Tonight is guys' night/girls' night: the guys will play basketball on campus while the girls play games at Laura's place. Then tomorrow morning we'll meet for breakfast at Honest Abe's Doughnuts (sounds like that was Casey's idea, it's one of his favorites).

Thankfully I don't think I can get injured playing board games or eating doughnuts.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Welcome Back, Kotter...I Mean, Students!

I was doing so well blogging (almost) every day there for a short time...then we had the possible-surgery scare happen...now we're deeply entrenched in 'Welcome Week' activities. Welcome Week is basically the first week of school, but our campus ministry plans a different activity for every day. It is tiring, but so much fun. Like the time we had our version of The Amazing Race -- that was awesome and hilarious.

Yesterday's activity was simple but always popular: handing out free pizza on campus. This year was really mild compared to last year's feeding frenzy. Still, every slice was gone by the end. Who doesn't want free pizza? And then to top it off, the student life folks starting handing out free ice cream just yards away from us right as we were packing up to go! Can you say serendipitous?

Tonight will be one of my favorite times, only because we are playing ultimate frisbee after our free cookout. Somehow that game has become what we do at almost every gathering and retreat. Thank goodness I took those frisbee-throwing lessons from my husband when we first moved here! I still remember two years ago, playing ultimate on campus during Welcome Week, one of our then-freshman guys remarking that I played the game 'like a boy,' and what a big compliment that was for me. And I had only been one month out from a major abdominal surgery at that point! So...not bad.

Tomorrow night will be our first Bible study of the school year at the Alpha Omega CSC (Christian Student Center), followed by free ice cream. One of the nice things about The Well (our coffeehouse) is that we also have one of those big ice cream...things at the end of the counter. What are those things called? Anyway, you see them at ice cream places all the time and you look through the glass to pick your flavor. You know what I'm talking about.

Thursday is free barbecue (are you catching on to our 'free food' idea yet?) and 'capture the flag' -- I don't think I've played that game since church camp many, many years ago. Not sure if I'll join in or just take pictures from the sidelines. Probably that last one. It depends on how much I'm hurting from ultimate after tonight.

Speaking of taking pictures, this will be the first year that I make a slide show of our Welcome Week activities. I've always (when I was able, anyway) taken pictures at these events, but Casey suggested a slide show viewing this year at our Sunday night BIG dinner welcoming back the students. Even though putting together a slide show in just a day or so is not the easiest or least stressful thing to do, I always enjoy it by the time it's done.

Welcome back, students!
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