Ain’t no party till WE walk in!!!

We took a girls team down to Nagano for the All Japan ALT soccer tournament. We had 5 games in 2 days. Since I have been going to the gym, I figured that I would be in pretty good shape and would be alright. I was seriously mistaken. After doing a couple sprints up and down the field, I thought my lungs were going to burst. I hate that after years and years of training to get into shape, it only takes a matter of weeks in order to lose all the progress you’ve painstakingly made through YEARS of sweating/puking/passing out/crying/soreness/pulled muscles. It was actually embarrassing to be sucking wind after literally 5 minutes of playing when just a few years ago, I could play 90 minute games no problem and just a few months ago I was running Div1 track and field…seriously a SHAME. OH! Another thing, my legs and arms are COVERED in bruises. I look like a battered woman suffering from the last run in with her husband’s fists! I never remembered being bruised like this when I used to play but I guess old age fragility is starting to catch up with me at 22.

I also took part in character building this weekend. I worked on patience, taking my competitive level down a couple notches annnnd playing games for fun rather than to win at all costs! I even tried to talk to some of the other girl teams at first….but I quickly found I had no endurance what-so-ever and figured that was where I drew the line when it came to “character building” for the weekend and I had better take it in baby steps in order to avoid shock to my system. I have enough friends so even though I tired to go out of my way to talk to some random girl about something I had absolutely no interest in, it didn’t really work and I gave myself an A for effort and called-it-a-day. While the rest of my team -- minus Kat and Jenelle who were in the same boat as me – was learning names, exchanging emails, chatting about personal lives and making “friends” we were content to lay out and soak up some sun…and I got a pretty good tan too :)

Even though we were tied for absolute last place and by far the worst team talent-wise…according to popular consensus we undeniably shut out every other team as HOTTEST looking team there! Good to know huh? We can’t play soccer worth a damn but we sure do clean up well… egh! Apparently even the Saitama girls team was checking us out at the party that night when the ratio was 1 girl to 20 guys! Our boys were highly sought after too. Hyogo’s girl team came up to where the entire Niigata team was sitting and asked one our boys to stand up so they could all take turns licking his face and taking pictures with him! Ewe…Speaking of the party, Niigata teams also took the 1^st prize for being the ONLY ONES who knew how to party. During the wee-hours of the morning I looked up at the party and sure enough, all my fellow Niigata-ites were still going strong when all the other teams were being weak sauce and had turned in for the night! We WERE the party and after seeing what ALL the other kens had to offer, I’m so thankful that I live in Niigata with these people instead of the other thumb-suckers! We are all soooo different but every one CRACKS me up! When given the opportunity to hang out with 100s of different people, I still found myself wanting to be around the people that I see EVERY FREAKIN WEEK!

Anyways, it was a really fun but exhausting weekend filled with some pretty hilarious moments and even though I can barely move today it was definitely worth the drive and acquiring this weird stalker guy who I have never seen in my life, who decided to email me to “speak his mind” about the way I mistreated and ignored him. Yep, the weekend’s fun-stivities were even worth being flashed on by a complete stranger!