As a method of procrastination, I'm going to take this time to write about the ridiculously awesome weekend I had.

Seven people from my club team went to this 24-hour charity ultimate game in Columbus. I had originally asked "hey guys, who wants to be crazy and play the whole thing with me?" and everyone was like "oh yeah, I'm in!" Now, I wasn't expecting to be able to do actually do the whole thing- I had planned to take naps and everything- but I was definitely going to try...

So it started at 7 pm Friday (yes, I know I got there an hour late- stop bugging me about it) I get out there and I'm playing for a while, and it's really awesome. I love when I can just go to someone and be like "ok, I haven't really done anything in a while... can you throw me a layout?" And then, of course, you get the really low backhand wayyyy out into the endzone. Guess what? Yeah, I ran it down and laid out for a goal : )

Of course, then there was the challenge: Are you Muff enuff?

So anyway, it's really awesome to play ultimate all night and see the sun starting to come up in the morning (especially after the night was filled with unexpectedly cold temperatures and getting rained on by sprinklers). That sunrise was awesome, by the way. Between the hours of 4 and 7 am, I had been getting pretty tired and miserable, and 2 of our players had decided to nap already. But I figured I'd feel a lot better once the sun came up. Around 8ish when we moved fields, another two decided it was time to sleep. Josh, Brandon, and I were the only ones left. At that point the three of us decided that if we'd made it that far, there was no way we could lose. Plus, right around 9 am I started feeling REALLY good again, so I played even harder, despite the fact that I was the only girl playing for most of the night and some of the morning, so I'd been covering these really fast guys the whole time.

So, once our teammates finally woke up, they played a little more and then decided to leave way early. Lame. Josh, Brandon, and I finished it out. And it's not like we were conserving energy or anything like that. We were playing often and hard. I will admit that the last 5 hours were really difficult (but it is pretty funny when I can say "only 7 more hours, guys, we're almost done!"). At the end of the tournament, I was given a not quite ironman type award. And then the three of us went back to this guy's house (he and his parents are amazing, by the way, for letting us stay there even though they didn't know us), ate dinner, and passed out for about 12 hours. All in all, an AWESOME time.

Now, yesterday, on the way to practice, I realized that the whole weekend's experience made me love ultimate about 10 times more than I already had. I actually learned a lot from it. I never would have guessed that my body could be working that hard for an entire day. And it's not like I was only up for 24 hours- I was awake for the day before the tournament, too. It made me realize that next time I'm feeling like I'm tired, I should really just say "No, you're not tired yet. Ask again in 20 hours." It also gave me a lot of respect for the other 4 people (out of 200 total) who did the whole thing. Brandon and Josh are awesome. End of story. Everyone there had so much respect for me by the end, too, especially since I was the only girl who played the whole thing.

All in all, a really fantastic time. I'll definitely be back next year. This tournament was great. I'll even say it's right up there with Paganello.

I love ultimate. This weekend was great. RECAP TIME:

Saturday:
I'd like to point out that my summer league team played our women against the other teams' guys for a decent portion of the afternoon because not enough guys were there. That's how awesome we are. I also point blocked Darren, which might have made my day :D Also, you gotta love when people cheer the wrong thing on purpose. It's funny.
I've been getting to chase in the zone a lot lately, so I've been experimenting with my style of marking. I have to tell you that I'm becoming a fan of throwing a foot out in an attempt to stop the throw. It definitely helped at least 5 times that I noticed over the weekend.

So then Jenn and I went to Allentown to meet up with our club team. There was good food and lots of fun. I got to play cups again. I am now 6-1 in my total games of cups.

The hours of sitting in the tree house playing Mafia were also really awesome. Things I learned:
-I'm a bad detective.
-Red really is crafty, no matter how "dumb" he claims to be.
-If a bunch of angry townspeople are accusing you of being in the mafia and are about to execute you, "How dare you?!" can sometimes make a good defense, but only if you use it consistently everytime.
-When Michael messes up the light, the only reasonable punishment is death. Even if he IS the medic.
-It's not nice to use "your face" as a comeback when someone's face is actually messed up as a result of a bear-attack.
-Mafia gets more and more ridiculous as it gets later.

Then sleeping happened. Well, after some pillowfights occured and people threw stuff at each other. Good times.

Mmmmmm, Sunday.
3 good games of ultimate. I skied my 17th person, and had some cool layout-ish things. Played pretty well all around, and saw my Paganello girls.
Of course, as part of a team tradition, we had to stop at Friendly's after games...Where we decided to play Mafia again. I'd like to point out that Josh and I are the best team of mafia you can find. Too bad we were both executed in the first two rounds of the game. Pshhh... everyone just got lucky.

All in all, fun times were had, and now I'm home. Too bad I'm stuck having to read what is quite possibly the worst book ever written- a 1000 page biography of Truman. PURE EVIL!!!!!

I guess I just feel like I should post since I haven't in a while and I'm kinda bored. I don't really feel that great right now, and I hope that gets better soon.

Still haven't quite recovered from Mars, which was pretty awesome (somehow not as good as last year, though). Running at practice was a lot of work yesterday (and the game on Tuesday was pretty interesting, too). My leg is still kinda bruised in the "layout spot" (see picture of hideous turf burn). Maybe I shouldn't always layout on that part of my leg? Yeah, it just happens.

Highlights of Mars (not all of them, just the ones I can think of right now):
-Corpse finger stew
-Xenglac Glibobulor
-"CUPOSAURUS!"
-Remembering the moustache moment
-Played cups, got addicted. I like games where I get to throw a disc at a tiny target. I tend to be good at them. : D
-Frownie pity party
-Oh, and awesome CDs and music, YAY!
-Don't run in sandals on wet grass. It could cause you to slip and tackle some other guy and crash into a wall and a propane tank.
-Never, EVER turn the music off. It will just cause people to drive a minivan into the pavillion and turn up the radio. Of course, that just leads to people climbing ON the minivan : )
-Trash cans are for jousting. Everybody knows that.

I'll post more some other time. Not motivated to do anything at the moment.

I have 6 songs that I'm trying to choose between for my Mars 2007 pump up song. Bleh. I'm not good at decisions like this : )

This week has been going well- full of lots of time to rest and heal before Friday. mmmmmmmm Friday. Too bad my shoulder, knees, and ankles are screwed up. And verious other parts.

3 Days 'till mars

Humans over. Little Green Men=very yes.

Today I realized how awesome Mars 2007 is gonna be. I <3 Little Green Men. We're awesome. Just try and tell me otherwise.

Too tired to write much more for now, though. 8-)

The following (close to it, anyway) happened a few hours ago. It's one of the side effects of me not leaving the house all day. Enjoy. Oh, and this is the toned-down version. It was hard to capture how much uncontrollable laughing I was doing : )

me: I'm bored. I want to make cookies.
Steve: I like the fact that your boredom leads to baking. I need to get you bored more often.
me: I can't make cookies. We don't have butter.
Steve: Do I need to go to the store and get butter?
me: Do you want cookies?
Steve: Not that badly. Besides, we HAVE to have butter around here somewhere.
me: not like sticks of butter. We only have this nasty margerine stuff that I don't even know WHY we would buy.
*Steve goes to the fridge, pulls out the tub of olive oil butter stuff*

Steve: What about this?
me: I don't really want to scoop it out of a tub like that. Besides, is that enough?
Steve: That's more than a cup.
*I try to figure out how to scoop the butter out of the tub without completely screwing it up so mom and dad don't yell at me*

me: how should I do this?
Steve: Gimme that.
*He takes the spoon and scoops some butter out of the tub and puts it into the measuring cup*

me: no! Make it EVEN so mom and dad don't notice.
*He continues scooping from the same side over and over*
me: I said EVEN. That's the most uneven job you could do. Scoop from the other side.
*Finally we got the cup of butter and put it into the bowl, and we added the sugar*
me: ok, now we have to beat these. *I get out a fork*
Steve: don't we have a mixer?
me: nope.
*we struggle with the fork for a while, but the lumps of brown sugar are too solid*
me: would a potato-masher be any better?
Steve: yes.
me: are you serious?
Steve: yes.
*We used the potato masher to combine the sugar and butter, then I tasted it*
me: oh, these are totally going to taste like olive oil.
Steve: I think you should add eggs.
*I crack open the first egg and put it in*
Steve: Who taught you to open eggs??
me: What was wrong with that?
Steve: gimme that! *he puts in the other egg*
me: that was exactly the same as what I did! Oops, we were supposed to add them one at a time. You're stupid.
Steve: I'm stupider than you... I'm stupider than you in every wayyyy! Oh yeah, like that's totally going to ruin the whole thing.
me: Look! See?? It's all watery now. You ruined it.
*We mix it up, and it's fine. Now time to add the flour*
me: ok, pour some of it in.
Steve: I think I should add all of it at once!
me: noooooo!
*crisis avoided, we stir the mixture again*
Steve: um. It doesn't look like cookie dough.
me: yeah, it's still kinda... watery. Oh well.
*I put a few lumps on the cookie sheet*
me: this one's too small.
Steve: they'll spread out. Will they?
me: oops, that one's weird shaped.
Steve: You suck at that. Give that to me. *he fills up the rest of the cookie sheet*
me: *I* suck at it? Those are too big! They're going to be all raw while mine are burning. Plus they're too close together and they're all going to melt together.
*I put them in the oven, and we wait 8 minutes. The moment of truth... I open the oven, and immediately turn around and burst out laughing. The cookies have all melted into giant squares and they're all touching. AND, just as I predicted, Steve's were still raw and mine were already turning dark*
Steve: What?
me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Steve: oh, they're done.
me: yeah, MINE are done. YOURS are still raw.
*We finished baking all the cookies, the second cookie sheet turned out exactly the same. After some time (not enough) we removed them from the sheets and inefficiently moved them onto plates.*
Steve: I'm going to eat one....I'm dying of sugar
me: oh, so you're going to wash it down with more sugar??

Both of us: Now what are we going to do with all these cookies? I can't eat them... There's no milk!

mmmmmm

I even slept in and took a nap later in the day, and I'm still tired. Bleh. Imma need to sleep all day tomorrow if I'm going to have energy for my game in the evening. I want cake.

Ultimate was a lot of fun today. Highlights:

-I skied person #15. P.S. it was an AWESOME sky : D
-Some GREAT points of handling for me, in both man and zone offense. Yay!
-got hit in the face
-scraped my shoulder on the ground : )
-Scored a BUNCH of goals.
-Didn't get blistering sunburn.
-I <3 my team.

I think that's the most important stuff for now. I need to go to sleep now. If I end up remembering any other important things, maybe I'll post them tomorrow.

Bleh. I've had free time lately (yeah, summer will do that), so I've been kinda bored. I guess I've had time to think about stuff though. At least I'm not all depressed like I was a few weeks ago.

I'm tired. I went to bed too late and woke up too early. It could possibly be naptime fairly soon. mmm nap. Then maybe dinner at some point since I didn't really have a real lunch. This blog has basically become just something for me to post useless info in when I'm bored. Don't know how I feel about that. Guess I can't complain.

More importantly, it better not rain while I'm on my way to practice.

That's all I'm going to say for now.

Summer League didn't happen last night because of lightning. Stupid lightning. GRRR.

At least we eventually found our way to a restaurant and had some good dinner. And I got to eat sushi :) MMMMMMM sushi. So, despite the lack of ultimate, fun times were had anyway.

Some people are just so obnoxious all the time, and they don't get it. Nobody likes them, nobody listens to them, nobody agrees with them. So why do they even bother?


hmmmmm. :\


But anyway, there's summer league tomorrow. Yay ultimate:)

P.S. I'M BORED

So does running around in the blazing sun for hours. But practice is fun. I like drills. We do this sweet handling drill which is essentially like running suicides AND throwing and catching at the same time. Fun times : )

But now I'm really tired, even after a nap. Oh well. At least I'm not melting anymore.

Today was a good day. All fun stuff with about 20 minutes of work at the end. I should do that everyday : )

I also ran for like 30 minutes without my shins hurting. BRING IT, SHINS!

Practice tomorrow. Yay for practice! I like ultimate.

No, i'm not a hypocrite, I'm just INFURIATED. Ok, and I wrote that word 5 minutes ago, and now I just became about 100 times angrier.

Ok, so I love the Mars tournament because I get to play ultimate with my friends all day and hang out with them all night, not because of beer. I DO NOT DRINK AT MARS. *I* should not be punished just because teenagers are stupid in general. If I end up having to go home immediately after game time just because other underage people want to drink, SOMEONE's gonna get some extreme anger from me.


GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Why can people just not suck?

I mean, I don't, but I figured maybe I could be the outlier. When I got this sunburn, immediately I was like "yep, I bet this is gonna blister." Woohoo. I got baked. Not cool

:-\

I'm sure you really wanted to know that, too. I have apparently run out of useful things to say here. Guess that's what comes from posting everyday.

I guess the only real piece of news I feel like posting here is the fact that my spring league team lost in semis last night. I wouldn't have cared that much if it hadn't been such an unspirited game. Anyone who was there knows what I'm talking about. Anyone who wasn't doesn't really want to know. Anyway, it was a great season. I love my group of ultimate friends, the group I usually play with and try to play with at every possible opportunity. Fun times : )

And I also guess that the 700 pics from Paga that I got in the mail yesterday will also cheer me up. Maybe they'll also encourage me to post about it sometime : P

Wow i must be bored. or tired. or just zoned out. Because I just turned the TV on and some infomercial was on, and I just realized now (5 minutes later) that it's really boring and I don't care at all.

Won Spring League quarterfinals last night (not by enough, but oh well), so semis are tonight.

Wow ok I guess I am really bored since I can't even really write anything in this. Wow.

Past few days have been good. Fun times : )

Yeah, I give up. Too bored.

HAHA. I was so happy when I found this. What? 5 minutes 'till game time? Sweetness! Bring it!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2312941173447863684

I've posted in this thing like 5 days in a row. What's up with that? Oh, right, summer's what's up with that. Hmm I just work up from a nap a little while ago, so I don't really have a lot to say, other than that my eyes feel kinda weird. Yeah, I know you wanted to know that.

Spring league playoffs this week. Luckily we won't have to play on the bad-neighborhood-field-of-doom until Thursday if we win on Wednesday. Woohoo for us! Let's see how far we can get.

The highlight of my day was practice. I like practice : ) And I also like walking to and from practice on nice days. A.K.A. today was a good day.

However, practice today was more like "Maria n' men" practice instead of what it normally is. Yeah, there weren't any other women there. Which is fine with me, it just means I had to work a bit harder, which I can't exactly say I had the energy for.

Well, it's nice outside. So I think I might go there. Or do pushups. Whichever comes first.

I love that time of year when I can just get up, go play 4 hours of ultimate, and then lay on the sideline and WATCH 4 hours of ultimate. Seriously- what could possibly be better on a bright sunny day like today? (See last post for comments on the weather at Turner Valley- Ok, so the only down side is the fact that the ground was really hard. Grr. If I wasn't so stupid as to horribly misread that disc, I wouldn't have had to layout at all. Oh well).

In other news, my team is awesome. Yes, we lost our game, but we kept it close WITHOUT 3 top guys. Go us. It's a good team. Almost everyone can put it deep; almost everyone can run deep. Look out.

My highlights- yep, another double happiness. Here's how it went down:
First, my team was playing some decent zone defense. Then this kid (who the other team had decided was good enough to be a handler) got the disc. Well maybe they'll rethink that after I totally point blocked him- ON HIS OWN ENDZONE. Hah! Then I immediately made a sweet cut and caught the goal.

There was one point when the other team's guys kept beating our guys deep for some reason. Well I wasn't having any of that. I D'd two hucks (to guys) in the endzone. Take those hucks and get outta here, other team.

I also took some sweet pictures and got some sweet sunburn. If you're planning on making fun of said sunburn, get out. You're not welcome here.

P.S. I have electricity again. Warning: If it's nighttime and you think your power might go out in the near future, DO NOT leave your TV on with the volume up and your lights on. You will be severly disappointed when they suddenly come back on at 3 A.M. to wake you up and scare the crap out of you.

And It hopefully will be tomorrow. None of this rain and lightning crap. It's just not cool.

Tomorrow will be the beginning of Summer League 2007. The draft was pretty interesting. Certain friends almost became non-friends because of their attempts to deprive me of other friends. It's not cool to deprive me of my friends just to make me cry. But it's ok. I wasn't having any of that. All worked out pretty well in the end, and I think I'm pretty happy with the team I have now.

Interested to see how it turns out. Wish us luck :D

Yup. Finally summer's here, and I just had a pretty amazing weekend to start it off. (yeah, I'm still going to put off writing about the past few months until a bit later...)

I just went to Easterns in Boston with our new club team, The MuffnMen, and I had a great time. My stomach STILL hurts from all the laughing I did. We didn't win too many games (we've only had like 5 practices, give us a break), but we're going to be an awesome team when we've had some more practices and we have our full roster. We went 2-5 for the weekend (technically we had 3 wins, but the last one was a forefeit- we're just that intimidating). I had some decent layouts, and some good defensive plays. I caught some goals (but not as many as I should have). Overall, I definitely did not play as well as I usually do, but I didn't suck or anything. Gotta love the "get the point block and then score the goal" though : )

But even more important than the outcome of the tournament was the ridiculously fun time I had with the team. On the way up there, we managed not to be so annoying that we would get kicked off the plane. Good stuff.

On the first day of the tournament, we managed not to starve (mostly) before dinner, although a few packets of artificial sweetener were consumed during the wait.

Sunday brought much cooler weather (I didn't need to drink a gallon of water that time!), plus a well-played first game. Our women played sweet defense. I love when handlers are stupid enough to try to throw around me. I mean, come on. I saw your eyes looking about 4 feet to the right of me, dude. Trust me, you don't want to put it there.

While we weren't about to let the other team know this, I don't think any of us were complaining when we got the forefeit. It was a long tourney without a ton of subs. Fortunately, the happiness and fatigue at the end of the day led to some intense Teddy-Gram-in-mouth catching action. Can you guess? I won. I mean, come on. I even laid out for a few, and I probably caught about 10. Bring it.

Of course, the highlight of the trip is definitely team dinner at Friendlies. Lots of craziness going on there- I love us. Tom wins the award for creating the funniest thing ever. Moustache. That's all I'm going to say.

Sunday night=2.5 hours of not quite sleep in a tent outside in the rain. I wouldn't have it any other way (and I certainly wouldn't prefer sleeping in a small house with 12 people). The alarm goes off at 3 A.M. to the sound of "Oh you have GOT to be kidding me." No, unfortunately. The plane ride home was much quieter than the one up to Boston. By "quieter," I mean "passed out." Good times. I love ultimate, and I love The MuffnMen, and I am VERY upset that I will not be going to practice tonight. Sadness.

So that was my weekend. Bring it, summer!

Moustache forever.

Yeah, summer starts for me this Friday, and then I can actually write about the past few months (which were pretty awesome, for the most part).

I should stop procrastinating and study for finals. I hate school.

So, now the weather has given me 2.5 days off (and I already have off on Friday) for my birthday. And today's pretty much useful since I'm going to get my picture taken for my new passport and submit the passport application. Oh, what am I going to do- the post office only starts with the passport picture stuff at 10? Oh well, guess I'll be a little bit LATER to school : )

Passport is definitely more important than school. One of the two allows me to go to Italy to play ultimate... the other one doesn't...

So it's day two of the "arctic temperature" school closings : )

...best...birthday week...ever!

I'll count these snow days as my birthday present from the world. Thank you, world.

I've been really happy lately, and it's cool. I've also been listening to music constantly. Yay : )

I don't have school today because of "dangerously cold" temperatures. Yeah, it's 2 degrees out there. I can't complain, though : )

Plus, my Winter League team redeemed ourselves Saturday night. We're awesome : )

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maria. She tried really hard, but she sucked, and therefore did not deserve to play the game of ultimate.

And they all lived happily ever... wait a minute.... no. not really.

The end.

... If I didn't have to do all this work or, ya know, go there ever.

But anyway, I don't hate school...

... all the time.

Ok so yeah, I'm not a big fan of school. That was pretty much the only purpose of this post.

Now ultimate... ultimate and I get along just fine : )

A new season of Winter League starts for me on Saturday. I'm very excited because it *looks* like we have put together a monster team. Let's see if that turns out to be true...