Unigames in pictures

At the fringes of where I live, TTDI, lies an old bumi project, abandoned and left to rot. It had a huge banner saying "Project Reviving Soon" since 2004.

Unlike that contractor, this blog delivers*.

As promised in the previous post, I now have a semi-decent internet connection to upload photos from unigames. Photos belong to Lyndsey and Wealy, photographers extraordinaire, and Rob, you know, that guy.

Our accomodation - The Chevron Renaissance

A selection of the team's mohawks

Moho 2007

I didn't put photos of the parties up, so just imagine lots of dancing, faux-grinding, drinking and sweaty, half-naked boys. There's no party like a frisbee party!

*That's right, Kang. :)

Australian Uni Games

Hello hello! I am back from the Gold Coast just this evening, off a 30 hour coach/train journey from Surfers' Paradise to Sydney Central to Melbourne. The trip was made very bearable by good company, card games, lots of knitting and lots of sleep. In case you're curious, I have painstakingly produced about 30 x 15 cm of scarf, with the only minor mishap being that I accidentally added 4 stitches progressively starting from the 5th row. No matter, once the scarf gets long enough, no one will ever know. Shh.

So, the Gold Coast was divine. Once again, Melbourne Uni shacked us up at the kind of lodging befitting athletes from the 10th best university in the world (in Arts) - the Chevron Renaissance Towers. Needless to say, it was luxury. We were right in the heart of the main shopping/clubbing district, a short walk from the gorgeous beach and a short bus ride from our manicured playing fields. One night, as we drank beer and played cards on the balcony of the 27th floor and looked out on the lights of Surfers' Paradise spread out beneath us, I felt like I was in Vegas.

But I digress. We didn't come for a relaxing holiday after all, we came to play 12 games over 5 days in a pool with 7 of the top 11 UF teams, while staying hydrated and un-sunburnt and coming out and partying hard every night. And we came to claim a medal. We fought hard - as a team, our performance fluctuated a bit throughout the week and often, we gave away a few early points before remembering to score. Some games we should have trod over, we grinded out over universe point; some games we should have won, we lost.

Long story short, we missed out on the quarterfinals by 1 point and found ourselves relegated to the 9/10 playoff. Despite our misleading end ranking, we played with some amazing intensity and spirit and skill. I think it's fair then to allow ourselves a little hapless shrug and sum our result up in Freise's words - would've, could've, should've.

Individually, I played a shite tournament. My physical endurance was...not there and I struggled from day 1 to keep my legs moving. One could argue I've been struggling on and off since SUG. It was disappointing and frustrating for me, and perhaps even more frustrating for our coach and the team. I knew I had so much more to contribute, but physically I just couldn't deliver. I could come up with all the excuses in the world to explain my poor showing, but it won't change the fact that I couldn't, didn't step up to what I expected from myself. A teammate said, regardless of whether we won or lost, the most important thing is to take something out of every game. I'm taking something out of this tournament, I'm telling myself to make it a positive, constructive learning experience and come back next year ready to kill - or take myself off the team.

Long story short, I gotta fire up.

Off the field, I had a fantastic time. Each apartment took turns hosting a home-cooked team dinner for the first 4 days of the tournament, which was not only a great idea financially, but also an excellent showcase of some pretty amazing culinary skills we had on the team. I don't think I've ever been so well-fed at a tournament until now. Dinners then dissolved into rowdy games of caps, kangaroo court sittings (a particularly memorable case involved a charge of teamcest, which was accompanied by a hilarious dramatic reenactment of how it all began by the prosecutors), card games, general banter and serious team meetings. When it got sufficiently late, we hit the clubs and partied like it's hot. I piked all but one of the parties, including the infamous Friday party of drunkeness and debauchery where, apparently, everyone hooked up with everyone. Yes, so I'm a dirty piker, but when one is dating the king of dirty pikers, what can you say hey? :)

So that was my week and the end of my holidays. Reality insists on reminding me I have assignments due very soon and final exams in a month. My exam timetable is out - good news is, I will be done in 2 weeks; bad news is, holy shit I need to start studying. I'll put up AUG photos once I can get my grubby hands on them. Also, Alex returns this Wednesday after 6 weeks in Bangalore. I'm excited!

Updates and even photos to spice things up!

Here I am again, clinging desperately to the last two weeks of my holidays. Holidays are never quite as unfettered as I would like them to be - always this or that worry lurking in the background. This time, it's summer internship applications. Though I've barely begun with the process, I'm already going about it with an air of reluctance and defeat. Truly, if I'm to get anywhere in life, I really should change my outlook. But gawd, it's so bothersome. I much prefer a show, don't tell approach to job applications. I'll show you I can do the job and do it well, just don't make me persuade you beforehand to give me a chance.

Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way. :( But surely failing at the tell does not mean I'll fail at the show. I suppose one could argue that if my communication skills are at the level required by the job, I wouldn't have a problem; and if I did have a problem, I'm not good enough for the job. But is that so? Is that so?

Sigh.

Moving along, exams are over and results are out. I'm fairly happy with how I went, naturally, it can always be better, and I would have liked that 90+ I was hoping for in Accounting, so that I can finally say what I've been itching to say to Accounting - "WTFPWNED! Fuck yeah!". I can still say it with the result I got, but not with as much satisfaction. :P Business Finance was a minor disappointment, as expected, following a shoddy performance at the exam. Happily, I've just managed to maintain an overall H1 average. I'm getting complacent. To hell with all this scraping through business - I want to wtfpwn everything!

Except regionals. We didn't quite wtfpwn regionals like we should've. For the first time in 3, 4 years Melbourne Uni lost its gold streak at regionals, to Monash no less. It was a fair game, and there is not much more to say than in the end, they proved to be the better team. Nevertheless, with more training and some valuable female imports in Sem 2, I'm confident that we will fire out stronger in Gold Coast come September.


Melbourne Uni Regionals team

In other news, I attended a farewell dinner at Pugg Mahones for a friend who was going away for a month. It was a very good night, good food, live music and montage-worthy chatter round the table. When the performer dude played and sang Heart of Gold with a guitar and mounted harmonica, I thought my heart would weep with joy. He went on to play many good folksy/acousticky/country songs, which made me exceedingly happy.


Jimmy, who should be by now safely in Europe, and Bec, token American. (Despite the fact that the Americans almost outnumbered everyone else at the dinner :)

I would also like to take this opportunity to express my new-found love for Blizzard's sense of humour in WoW. I don't play the game and probably never will, but I've been introduced to many interesting and entertaining aspects of the game, including but not limited to raid group photos, video-recordings of raids, customised dance moves and the Southpark episode featuring WoW.



[EDIT: Upon recommendation, video link changed to something even more exciting. Such choreography and camera work...]

Finally, everyone say "Yay Alex!" for being so awesome.

April, begone.

Frisbee has taken over my life. Can you tell?

Sunday: Training
Monday: Nothing thankfully, since MUCUS lost the semis last week
Tuesday: Melbourne Uni Ultimate Frisbee Club AGM
Wednesday: Training
Thursday: Dinner with frisbee people
Friday: Honey pre-nationals party
Saturday: Chilly (Alex's team) pre-nationals dinner
Sunday: Nationals
Monday: Nationals
Tuesday: Nationals
Wednesday: Nationals

I think a lot of us have a similar schedule as well. Except I have two tests on Wed and Thurs, two assignments due in the far too near future and an unholy amount of FMAA work.

*drowns*

Another update? No wai.

I'm on a roll, I am. If I keep this up enough, I'm well on my way to missing all my assignment deadlines, flunking out of uni and living my life as a penniless drifter, preaching frisbee love to those who'd care to listen. Now wouldn't that be nice.

So, Ong and I met up in the city to see Miss Saigon over the weekend. Along the way, I [edit] bumped into a certain dashing, blue-eyed American on his way to the footy, which left me with a silly grin for the next 15 minutes. Then, Alex showed up with such a kiss in greeting that aforementioned American was promptly forgotten and all around us, the world dissolved away. How cliched. :) Nonetheless, it's a wonder indeed that I haven't overdosed on so intoxicating a drug.

("Shameless! Shameless!" I hear you cry. Ah well, I couldn't care less. :)

But I digress. We were on the subject of Miss Saigon. (I rarely ever have my head about me these days, you understand.) It was enjoyable enough, but I think we both agreed that it wasn't a particularly memorable musical. There were, however, some rather impressive stage effects and scene transitions, like a flashback and perspective and 'camera angle' changes. Very interesting to see.

Sunday training with Honey was one of the best training sessions I've had with the team. It was a step up, definitely, in terms of physical exertion, and pushed me a lot more, didn't allow me to be lazy and get away with it. Towards the end I started getting a strain up my left thigh, probably related to my knee inflammation late last year (which has since subsided but not wholly so). But, nothing like a good, hot shower to rejuvenate the limbs, just in time for Monday league tomorrow night.

I don't think I've talked about it much, strangely enough, but I play for MUCUS in the Monday league. Apparently it's a backcronym which stands for Melbourne University Co-educational Ultimate Society. Most creative. It comprises mostly MU alumni and is a fantastic team. Our cheers in the Circle of Love have a lot of snotty hackcoughing incorporated. Sets us apart, really. I have so much fun playing MUCUS, and we share so much laughter and camaraderie on and off the field, that my only regret is having to miss half the season while I was back in Malaysia.

Speaking of which, we've had a very good season, staying mostly, if not always, at the top of the ladder. For the first time in league history, we're tied with Tepid Romantic Explosion on all counts, even the multitude of tiebreakers, which means we'll have to resolve this problem with a simple discflip tomorrow night. Or maybe a drink-off, in the spirit of ultimate. Too bad Ong can't hold his drink. *runs away* Either way, I am looking forward to the semis tomorrow and the finals the week after Easter. More frisbee action!

Also, I am so gullible. (Re: xkcd's April Fool's prank) xkcd, sell itself out to a syndicate? Foolish, foolish me!

what's been happening

What a long two weeks it has been. Exams have gone fairly well - 3 papers down, 1 more to go. For the most part, I've been holed up in my apartment, emerging only to walk to the exam venue and get food supplies.

Between textbooks and tute questions, I've been religiously checking the World Ultimate Club Championships (WUCC) score site, though updates were disappointingly shoddy and sporadic. Still, they did little to hamper that crazy adrenalin rush I get just thinking about the frisbee action going on at worlds, and the close tabs I've been keeping on the teams and players I know battling it out in Perth. Most of the Aus teams didn't fare too well, but I suspect the opportunity to play at WUCC is an end in itself. Chilly, Aus' No. 1 men's team, on the other hand, blazed their way through the competition to snag the bronze. What an experience it must've been! It's absolutely inspiring. I swear, I will not rest until I'm playing at WUCC 2010, wherever in the world that may be.

The gold medal went to Buzz Bullets of Japan. Heartening to know Asians aren't forever handicapped by our smaller built and physique next to our foreign counterparts. Or at least, we've found one more sport in which we aren't. =) I'm hoping one day Malaysia will make it to worlds. Though judging by the general scene in most other sports back home, I may be a tad optimistic. I'm not sure what it is we lack. Passion, perhaps.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to league after its hiatus for worlds. I can feel my limbs atrophying already from sitting/lying around all day. Weather in Melbourne is ridiculous as usual. With summer but 2 weeks away, naturally we had to have some *snow* and hail, followed by one of the hottest days just 2 days later. *dies*

When I'm not out on the streets trying to survive the elements, I'm watching TV, reading, thinking about frisbee and leading the most routine life possible. Snore.

Australian Uni Games

IT IS TIME. I present to you the long overdue post on all the memorable ulty action, parties and associated capers that took place in Adelaide from 24-29 September.

I've mentioned many times before, not to y'all perhaps, about how fortunate I am to have joined the Melb Uni team at this stage in its life cycle. But 6 months in competitive play and I've been to two top-level tournaments already and received a gold and a bronze medal respectively. By the looks of it, I'm well on my way to becoming the most decorated rookie in rookiedom. More significantly though, this year's team (with its fair number of American imports) has been unbelievable. I've had the opportunity to learn from and train with some of Victoria's (and Australia's) top players, be a part of a close-knit, fun and enthusiastic community and basically soak up everything there is to playing ultimate here and with these people.

Enough with the soppy stuff. You're probably more interested in knowing...

How we got there:

Some flew, some road-tripped. As you might remember, I fell in the latter group. I spent 8 hours in severely cramped conditions, because the car was smaller than we bargained for, there was a Southern-drawling, sleep-deprived oaf (i.e. Chuck) in the backseat with me and many, many log-sized sports bags/rucksacks filling in whatever available space there was left. The ride back after the finals on Friday was a lot more pleasant. We went in a different car, everyone was more awake and thrilled about the bronze medal and we played car games. Mostly a bastardised version of 6 Degrees (on crack). Chuck and Steve were really the ones who were any good at it; Suse and I were hopeless, but had fun setting seemingly insurmountable puzzles for the guys. Chuck, with his formidable store of movie trivia, managed to get from Maggie Gyllenhaal to Meryl Streep via Stand By Me, albeit after half an hour. Before we knew it we were back in Melbourne.

Where we stayed:

The Hilton. That's right, the Hilton. While Monash was piled away in some shady backpackers motel, we were livin' it up at the Hilton. I love Melb Uni Sport - it is so well funded. We made the most of it all right, ordering from the Pillow Menu and recuperating in the pool, spa and sauna.

How we played:

We played a total of 10 matches over the week, and remained undefeated up till the 2nd last pool match against University of Queensland, losing 9-10 on universal point. We came back in the quarterfinal to defeat Adelaide Uni 10-7 (which, incidentally, was the team we beat at SUG for the gold). Macquarie Uni fought hard to take the semis from us 14-8, but we whooped Newcastle 15-5 in the bronze medal playoff. In a way, I suppose it felt good winning to take the bronze than losing to receive the silver. It was the best ever finish for Melb Uni and a Southern region team; our previous best was 8th place.


Adelaide Uni - time out


Hard to tell, but that's my grab for a score while huge solid mass of Ballarat guy dives for it. Scary.

Unfortunately, that was probably the highlight of my watery performance at AUG. I felt I played a lot better at SUG, in a sense that I felt more useful and had more of a presence on the field. Admittedly, considering that we had half a different team and obviously different circumstances, the dynamic would have been, and was, indeed, different. But I still think I could have played better. It's a little frustrating; I put a lot expectation on my performance on the field, but for lack of skill and experience, am frequently disappointed in myself. How I'd love to skip the growing pains and go straight to the part where I play brilliantly. =)

Why half the team was drunk/hungover on Thursday:

The ultimate frisbee party.


Johnny expending excess energy


Pat: Chuck heard that we might need women for AUG and was willing to step up.


Alica and Barrie - the token couple


Me and Pat. There was a bit of the 'Asian glow' there, as I was probably on my 4th drink then. Pat narrowly missed out winning Best Hair, but did win Most Doable Guy. The (drunk) Ballarat girls were all over him, literally and metaphorically, and were chanting "Paaat Crosbyyy Paaaat Crosbyyy" all night.

The rest of the team:


Back: Freise, Chris, Frankie, Chuck
Middle: Barrie, Johnny, Rich, Pat, Steve
Front: Nicole, me, Michelle, Alica, Suse, KP




Freise & Johnny - Green and Gold medallists (the ultimate ulty squad - 20 or so of the best players from any team)

What else we did:

(i) Kissed everyone





(ii) Moho Man



Moho is the name of the Melb Uni team. It's been the butt of many jokes, like, if you say it long enough, eventually it becomes: mo-ho, mo-ho, mo ho mo ho-mo, ho-mo, ho-mo...

(iii) Um...



(iv) Ummmm...



(v) Bask



(vi) Play frisket (frisbee-cricket)



(vii) Watch the final



What happened at the post-tournament party:

Lots and lots of fun, starting with a barbecue at Johnny's. In the midst of food, alcohol and general banter and silliness, I was named Rookie of the Year while Freise was named Import of the Year. Suse was so pleased at having won the bronze medal (it was her last tournament - she's submitting her thesis soon) she bought us all a huge box of bananas. For those of you who don't know the significance of this - cyclone struck Queensland, wiped out 90% banana crop, prices skyrocketed, banana gains cult status. We had a very good laugh about it and pigged on bananas, but wow, it must have cost her a bomb.

From thereon, we progressed to a nearby pub on Sydney Rd. I stayed out till 2am, and some of them carried it on till 6.30am. At the pub, Pat went on a mission to get me drunk and get everyone in on it as well. As a result, I ended up drinking...a fair bit. It failed, much to his chagrin. I felt a bit sick at the end, but was nowhere near the definition of drunk. The upside was, I didn't have to fork out a cent for drinks. People took turns buying me them. If I remember right, I had, in the approximate order - vodka punch, vodka punch, beer, beer, alcoholic smoothie, cowboy, cowboy, gin and tonic, tequila, jager, sambuca, raspberry vodka and vodka orange.

The first 5 were at Johnny's place. So believe it or not, all in all, I had 5 shots and 3 mixes at the pub, each bought by and taken with a different team member in the span of a coupla hours. I was amazed I was still standing. I somewhat expected a deadly hangover the next morning, but surprisingly, I woke up early, feeling more refreshed than I've felt in awhile. Admittedly, I spewed out most of the alcohol when I reached home, which was probably why I felt all right the next day.

When I'm going to end this post:

Very, very soon. Work a-calling. It's been back to the grind for 2+ weeks now, but not before going through the usual PTD (Post Tournament Depression). I think most of us did. The last leg of the car ride home was the most depressing of all. Having spent one glorious week in an ultimate frisbee bubble with the best kinds of people, the prospect of having to return to reality and uni and exams seemed too bleak to bear.

But, as Barrie said to me once, we get by in the end - we just live from one frisbee tournament to the next. He also said, it's not called Cultimate for nothing.

Cheers!

malaysia makes the news again!

It's been a little over a week now since I came back from Adelaide, and it's been full steam ahead with assignments and deadlines, hence the lack of a post-tournament update. I would like to reflect on the tournament eventually, preferably when I've got more pictures and time. In short though, AUG was fantastic. I'm still recovering from a bruised finger and developing shin splints, but people, for the BRONZE MEDAL at the national level, it was every bit worth it!

I've been a little out of touch with news back home since the Mahathir hoo-ha, but it seems every time I do check, there is never a dearth of similarly amusing stories to entertain me. Ah Malaysia! How I love thee.

Malaysia cracks down on "salad language"

All the other links in the article are worth clicking on too. Unsurprisingly, such a development opens up floodgates for the usual lost-in-translation digs. It's funny how so many well-worn English phrases become suspicious sexual innuendoes once translated into BM, as pointed out by the M'sian blogger linked in the article and the comments on his comments page.

Joystick - Kayu Gembira
Touch N' Go - Raba dan Pergi
Plug and Play Device - Peralatan Cucuk dan Main

*giggles*

But oh goodness, MyKad to Kadaku... And Rais' suggestion that 'Boulevard' be changed to 'Lebuh Perdana' is laughable. As if our road names weren't long enough already. As a commenter implied, they (well, the government) were the ones who came up with Cyberjaya (name of a suburb) in the first place.

Seeing 'bahasa rojak' translated as 'salad language' was interesting. I've never seen that version before. In fact, I've never seen any version before, so maybe that's why. My sister's speech is a prime example of bahasa rojak. Everytime I go back, I never fail to gawp at the progress she's made in fusing 3 different languages together in one sentence. This would then be followed by much teasing and laughing from her 2 other helpful and supportive siblings, and an admonition from my mom, "Don't speak like rojak!"...the irony of which, I've just realised.

While we're on the topic of languages, I stumbled across a blog written entirely in Hokkien some time ago. It's hilarious if you know Hokkien, so, sorry for those who miss out. He recently posted lyrics to a Hokkien song I've been half-heartedly searching for, which made me happy. Hokkien songs bring up such vivid memories of my dad, Chinese New Year and grandiose Chinese hotel wedding dinners.

Happy mid-autumn festival! I want mooooncake...mmm double yolk...

away for a week

I'm leaving for Adelaide in 4 hours! As a teammate of mine said this morning at training, "I can't believe I'm going to play a WEEK of ultimate!!!" I couldn't agree more. An obsessive lot, we are.

Well, let's hope the weather will be kind to us, and that I will come back in one piece (half-dead from exhaustion no doubt) with a medal and great stories to tell!

sleep schleep schmeep

Ngh. I can't sleep again. This time it's most likely my fault; I succumbed to a cup of coffee at 9pm. But the sleepless nights have been a trend of late. What's curious is the reason why I can't sleep. The moment my head hits the pillow, I start thinking about ultimate frisbee. Or more precisely, thinking about playing, and *wanting* to play oh-so-badly. It's like the adrenalin rush that keeps me up the night before a track and field event, except now, it's UF. After about 10 minutes of heart-pounding restlessness, I start to go delirious and fantasise about a world populated with clones of myself or wildly complicated frisbee-throwing mechanisms. Then, I think about throwing practice (because now there's someone or something to throw to) - 20 backhands, 20 forehands, 20 inside-outs, 20 outside-ins, and there I am, throwing to my heart's content.

Only, it comes nowhere close to the real thing and I'm left feeling unsatisfied, uneasy and more awake than ever. So yes, it's not pretty. The problem is simple: I'm not getting enough ultimate.

(Someone's inevitably going to do a Freudian analysis on this and insist that everytime I say 'ultimate frisbee', I actually mean to say 'sex'. I just know it.)

The remedy however, is much less simple. I don't wish to inflict potentially mind-numbing throwing practice with an incompetent player (i.e. me) on anyone, but I can't throw alone. Why must life be so hard?? This is why we all need siblings, nay, access to siblings. Because I have siblings and they sure aren't helping much being 4000 miles away.

Moving on, I'm now into week 2 of Sem 2. It is all going swimmingly, I daresay. I'm developing a very healthy interest in macroeconomics and geopolitical events, which surprises me mildly, but is really good to see. While I do a lot of reading, I worry about the effectiveness of my ability to retain even 30% of what I read. Imagine soaking a sponge to saturation, then lifting it up and having the water all drain out again. That's my brain. I fear my mind has gotten lazy; give it the barest inkling of having to retain and process a thought and it zones out immediately.

Ah, there we go. 3am. Blogging has always been a great time-killer. Thanks for listening, says she to the void. =) Goodnight.

Southern Uni Games

WHOOOOOOO! What an AWESOME week!!

I am back from cold, wet and windy Ballarat, which can be succinctly described as a basin with a perpetual overhanging rain cloud. Everything is also unsurprisingly named with either 'miner' or 'eureka' as part of its name (it was an ex-gold-mining town, see) - Miners Retreat Motel, Minerdome, Eureka Lodge, Miner Eureka Park Bench...

However, we were lucky enough to receive rare sunny weather for all three days of SUG. There were 12 teams competing, but 6 real competitors/threats, according to the senior players. The experience was gold. It was three days of excellent company, great spirit, great matches and some of the most beautiful playing I'd ever seen in my 4 months of ultimate. Not long, I know, but even the old players who've been in and out of tournaments admit so.

On my part, it's been precious learning from the very best of players and being able to watch them in action. I caught a few goals, held up pretty well on defence (made a coupla great Ds and handblocks!!), found my calling as a deep (a position responsible for making cuts far downfield near/at endzone) threat, and basically, playing some of the best ultimate I've ever played.

Admittedly the draw was somewhat lopsided, with most of the threats in the other pool, but we fought hard nonetheless and aimed for 120/120 points from the total 8 matches we played across 3 days.

The week at a glance:

Monday

Gathered at Barrie's (president) place in the morning for some team bonding and strategising. Ate muffins and Teevee snacks, bagged the other teams, went through VFDA rules, laughed and did stupid things with the whiteboard and magnets. Went in two cars for the hour plus drive to the 'rat.

Checked in, went out for dinner and - here's the fun part - went back to the motel and played drinking games. Half of us chose not to drink, but it was good fun anyways. Made individual goals for the tournament, some serious, some not. My serious one was to maintain my focus throughout the game, cause usually by the 3rd point I forget to concentrate and...what am I playing again? My not serious one was fun to make but with my limited skills impossible to pull off. I wanted to catch a goal from behind and through my legs. I've seen Johnny (he is brilliant, just brilliant) do it a coupla times. He had just made his goal, which was to break a defender by faking to the side and passing the disc up right through the defender's legs. At this point, Chuck (our coach) chipped in and said if Johnny made that pass to me and I caught it behind and through, he'd buy everyone drinks. Chris Freise said he'd retire from ultimate cause he'd have seen it all. John and I high-fived and said we'd get up early tomorrow morning and practice that pass. (We didn't really =)

Tuesday

A highly successful day, with everyone going into the games with full batteries and no major pre-existing injuries. Defeated University of Tasmania 15-2, La Trobe Bundoora 15-1 and La Trobe Wodonga 15-6. Wodonga comprised a team of ultimate newbies wanting to party at unigames before they graduated from uni, but had a genuine enthusiasm for the game. We played all sorts of whack plays with them, like cup-o-saurus, stop-drop-roll, Raid, Braveheart and American football offence. My favourite was Raid, where at the call of "Raid!" everyone on the team save one drops to the ground on their backs with floundering limbs, like roaches sprayed with Raid, and the one person standing is supposed to receive a huck (long throw) at the endzone to score.

Whack plays are extremely fun, but only if played in the right context and in good spirit, where both teams would get a laugh out of it. Cup-o-saurus is a trademark Melbourne Uni defence which never works, where everyone on the team circles the offense player holding the disc, and one person, usually the shortest (i.e. me) goes deep-deep. The thrower managed to break the cup and I D-ed the disc, beating the remaining 6 offense players around me, which was absolutely unbelievable and inspired Freise's atrocious "There is a hway!! There is a hway!!" pun which everyone will groan at forever. (Hway as in Hui, but usually pronounced 'whey' by the Aussies)

Wednesday

Sore limbs, free physios and more great playing! Defeated arch-rivals Monash 15-5 and Deakin 15-1. At this point, we were determined to let Wodonga, the most inexperienced team score the most against us, and so far, we've held up with Wondonga leading the score count with 6 against. Blazed our way through the quarter-final against Swinburne a.k.a. Swinnie, beating them 15-2 followed by a warm-down game of Survivor Ultimate, where everyone gets on the pitch and gets eliminated one by one.

Had a team dinner at Johnny's huge house (his family lives in Ballarat) in the middle of nowhere Ballarat. He had a pool table, a spacious kitchen and one of those long dinner tables, which fit all 14 of us nicely. Discovered Jagermeister, and had two shots, one in the form of a Jager-bomb (a glass of Red Bull with a shot glass of Jager dropped into it and drunk up as quickly as possible) and the other straight. Chuck was the undisputed champion of the Jager-bomb; before the starter's mouth had completed the 'o' of "Go!" he had dropped the shot, gulped it and thumped down an empty glass.


Chuck, 2 years ago. Most pix are still on other people's cameras.

Thursday

The tension was tangible as we prepared to battle Flinders in the semis, who beat us in the finals at SUG 2005 to win the gold medal. The more points we scored, the more frustrated they got, and the worse they played. We fed vicariously on the cracks and in-fighting that were beginning to surface in their team, and fuelled our own team morale to an all-time high. Flinders did not handle the pressure well, and finally crumbled to give us a 15-4 win.

The finals was against Adelaide Uni, which was a fantastic, focused, good-spirited team deserving of all kinds of respect. The game was close, as exhaustion began to take its toll and blunt our edge. We took the lead but Adelaide pulled back impressively, scoring the last point at time cap to end the game 14-8 to us. They were the only team to have prevented us from scoring a maximum of 15 before the time cap and the only team to have scored more than La Trobe Wodonga, ruining that record as well.

Cheers, hugs and camaraderie all round as Melbourne celebrated our gold medal and regained our title as SUG champs. The tournament virgins (i.e. me, Jess, Chris and Dave) had Vegemite 'Vs' painted on our cheeks and a pixfest ensued. Every girl on the team received at least one MVP point during the tournament, and 4 members made the inaugural SUG Merit Squad for excellence in playing. We packed up, prepared to head off to the medal ceremony and then back to Melbourne, while I tried to convince Johnny that I'd left my pool table at his house. Until I get better photos from the rest of the team, here's a snapshot of the people that made this week what it was:


Frank Simmons, 6'8".


Left to right: Frank, Liz, Johnny, Jo, Alica, Chuck and Dave.

Friday

The Three Rs - Rest, Recovery and Results. Did much better than expected, however, the results were not indicative of effort invested. I got H1s in Intro Micro and Managing People and Organisations, a H2A in Quantitative Methods 1 and a H2B in Accounting Reports and Analysis. When I logged on and saw my results, I giggled for about 5 minutes. It was the kind of giggle that happens when you've successfully hoodwinked everyone and got away scot-free.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to another great semester, armed with a better understanding of what to expect and a better feel for the system. With effort and resolve, hopefully I'll get that string of H1s, although it doesn't matter so much anymore as long as I've got ultimate, FMAA, badminton and a host of other activities to complete the uni experience. Also, I've decided to treat myself next sem by dropping a commerce subject and taking up a philosophy subject instead. I'm really excited about it since we don't get that much flexibility in Commerce (compared to Arts anyway) and Chuck, who is doing a PhD in the Phil Dept was able to tell me where the good stuff was.

That's it for now; this post is starting to buckle under the sheer weight of words and I'm sure you are too. I have 11 weeks to get more in shape for the Australian Uni Games in Sept, 2 weeks left to spend in languorous relaxation and one heck of a week to remember for a long time.

Superman Returns opens tomorrow with Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor! All that evilly goodness...I can't wait!

4 more days to unigames, and I'm a little excited, a little frustrated. It's been 4 months since I started playing ultimate seriously, but I feel as though I'm improving much too slowly. My self-esteem took a number of blows again during the Monday night league game as I got yelled at a lot. I know it's a very heat-of-the-moment thing, and everybody yells at everybody; I just get a higher proportion of it cause I happen to be the most inexperienced player on the team.

There is just so much to work on and I have no idea how to work it any bloody faster other than playing more games and giving it time. At the moment, my brain turns to molasses when we talk strategy, I have zero field sense and a terrible awareness of the disc. We played a defence that I seemed to screw up all through the game, and just this evening during fitness training I found out why.

Apparently the defence we played was a variation of zone defence invented by an old UF coach of ours a few years ago. It was a huge relief finally sorting out the jargon, the concept and method behind the strategy. While I still lack experience playing it, at least I now have some basic theoretical grounding. The seniors have been extremely patient and reassuring as well, and for that I could not be more grateful.

Anyway, that's the news on ultimate so far. I hope I won't be too much of a liability on the team come unigames and that I remember to keep my head about me during the matches. I'm currently revisiting The Fountainhead, which has been very start-stoppish thanks to the World Cup, season 2 of The Office (US) and general wasting of time. =) My fingers are too cold most times to play the guitar properly and the strings have been rather stiff and twangy in a bad way also thanks to the cold. *blameblameblame*

Either I've been particularly unperceptive, or there really has been a dearth of interesting things to blog about lately. Fortunately, I haven't got to the point of blogging about absolutely banal things just to satisfy the blog itch. Yet. (Although what constitutes as banal may well be a matter of opinion.) By the way I found out recently that it is pronounced ba'nal, not 'banel. I'm a stickler for pronunciation, and have been cured from saying cha'racter instead of 'character by my very *ahem* insistent friends.

Last but not least, the makeshift speaker comprising a very expensive cable, a tube amp and an adapter has worked like a charm and I can now pretend I have surround sound when watching shows or listening to music on my laptop. Did I mention I'm going through a 70s music phase at the moment? Summer breeeeeze, makes me feel fine...