I've been practicing with the women's rugby team, and they are super nice, fun people (on a side note, Stirling is a very friendly city; everyone I've met here has made me feel comfortable talking to them). So far, the practices have been really fun and a lot more mini-game oriented than the ones at Denison, with mostly fun little conditioners and a few regular drills. Although I think that's just because we are trying to get the new people into it before we make them do anything too hard. We had a try it out session today, and I hope all the new rookies come back because they did a good job and put real effort into their first day. Except nobody seems to call them rookies here, and there don't appear to be any rookie challenges or making the rookies carry the pads or anything like that. No fair to those of us who had to be rookies, man.
Anyway, I'm excited for the game prep practice next Tuesday because I get to lift and scrum again. Although the scrum sled here has a ton of big concrete chunks on it, whereas Denison's changes weight with the number of people standing on it, so I'm not sure how much I am going to like pushing a super-heavy sled all the time. They also have these big cylindrical punching bag things they call "sausages," and I'm still not totally sure how I am supposed to tackle them. But it looks fun because it seems like you basically end up bouncing off of it when it hits the ground.
I feel like I wasn't really doing my best in practice today, which is embarrassing because I've been playing for a while. For example, I was doing a rucking drill we do all the time at home, and it took me forever to remember, "oh yeah, I need to power step into the pad." Pathetic. I always forget to do the most obvious stuff. Although I am making a serious effort to be more aggressive and to remember to launch up quickly on defense.
That said, I really want to play well in the game on Wednesday. Hopefully St. Andrews isn't a super hard team to beat so I can sort of ease back into things, seeing as how I haven't actually played a game since October. At least finally visiting St. Andrews will be fun in itself, and maybe we'll hang out there a bit and social.
There's also a local Stirling County women's club that practices on Fridays, and a few of the university players are on it and invited me to check it out this week. Right now, I'm thinking that I probably won't join the team because I believe their games are on Saturdays, and I want to be free to go places on the weekends. But I'm going to try training with them at least once.
In other news, I signed up for a show on Air3, the university's radio station. I didn't give them a lot of options on my schedule (partly because my Mondays are packed and I want weekends off) so I'm a little worried I won't get a slot. But if they put me in a last resort 3-5am show, that would actually be great because then people at home can listen, since that's like 10pm-12am for them. Originally, I actually wasn't even planning to do a show here, but I might as well if there's an opportunity. I don't even have to try out!
Also relating to radio, I'm thinking of going to the National Student Radio Conference over spring break, which is great for people like me who are seriously interested in a career in radio. I've never heard of anything like it at home (although they probably exist in some state far away from where I live), but it sounds like the perfect opportunity, especially because the school subsidizes part of the cost. And it will be really interesting to go to a conference in a different country. Although part of me is thinking maybe I should use my week off to travel Europe, since a lot of people I know are going to Spain or Italy or wherever during their breaks. But I didn't really have any concrete plans, besides possibly going to London, which I can still do in late May when my classes are over. Oh yeah, I don't think I mentioned that I get the vast majority of May off for finals, which are mostly going to be done in the second week. Hooray for travel time!
But overall, the conference seems like too good of a chance to pass up, and I'm really excited to meet other students who are interested in radio and to hopefully make some connections with stations and broadcasting corporations overseas.
On another note, I'm not sure I still want to join the mountaineering club because it's more expensive than I anticipated, and I think there's more serious mountain climbing than just hiking involved. I really want to go to the places they're going though (Isle of Skye, Shetland, Glencoe, etc.), so I'm still considering it.
With all this other stuff going on, I'm actually a little concerned that I'm not worrying about school enough. But there are no pop quizzes or weekly papers or anything like that, so I don't really have anything to focus on right now besides my reading assignments. I hope that nothing creeps up on me.
Oh, and fun fact: Apparently people don't say "the mall" here? I called the Thistles shopping center "the mall," and some girls on the team were like, "that's so American: the mall." I'm pretty sure I've heard some people here call it that, but maybe I'm wrong.
Song of the Day (just hangin' out right now, gettin' used to a schedule):
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