SYG

In a lot of ways, my life has been pretty busy lately (planning a wedding in Australia and parties to celebrate beforehand in America, work, coaching little kids basketball, playing church basketball, Bible study, and hanging out with my fiancée and other friends), but I also manage to have a good deal more free time since I left the rugby pitch; thus I have returned to my writing ways.

Last weekend was three days because in Western Australia it was ‘Foundation Day,’ or in other words, the day to commemorate when Europeans first settled Western Australia. While I was not celebrating such a momentus occasion, I did reap the benefit of a day off work by attending SYG (State Youth Games). SYG is a pretty big event on the Western Australian Christian calendar as it is a three day festival that draws its competitors from churches all around the state. I went with a friend’s church and signed up for Badminton, Dodgeball, Indoor Beach Volleyball, and of course Scrabble.

Badminton was an interesting selection for me since my experience with the game is limited at best, however, I had a great deal of success against all comers from the Taylor family a couple of years ago so I thought I would be decent. What I did not realize was that there were actually people my age who apparently play this oddly named sport as more than a backyard leisure activity. I managed to run into a church that featured three teams of two such players, needless to say, they thrashed us and in the process forced me to explain on multiple occasions that just because we played some very good badminton athletes who happened to be of Asian background, that in fact, all Asians did not possess some badminton/table tennis superiority gene. Ugh.

Dodgeball is a game in which I possess many talents at a very high level thanks to my years of working with annoying children who loved to play the game (leaving me with no choice but to hone my ability to the highest possible levels so as to maintain an air of invincibility… it’s true). Unfortunately, I am not quite sure that all of my teammates took quite the same approach to the tournament. We took a loss in the first game which I will chalk up to rustiness on the part of my brethren and sistren, but then we reeled off four victories in a row until we played our final match of the preliminary round. Now, for those of you who know me at all, you know that I play to win, no matter what the game/ sport, I always give it 110%, but with that said I never play dirty or trash talk. Being the fantastic dodgeballer that I am, I must have rubbed some of the people on the opposing team the wrong way because they jeered me! They actually shouted taunts at me at a Christian sports festival! I tried to play on pure adrenaline alone, but alas, it was not enough, my team fell in the contest, and narrowly missed out on a spot in the quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, Cate had just led her team to the final of the basketball competition, but had come down with a terrible migraine. That night, we contemplated heading home so Cate could sleep in her own bed, but she decided to stick it out for the second day which began with Indoor Beach Volleyball. She made a full recovery for our last day :)

The premise of Indoor Beach Volleyball is an interesting one for me, but I guess there are people who must play beach volleyball year round even if the weather would not usually permit it. This event was primarily a mess around one for our team since none of us actually play volleyball, let alone beach volleyball. Yet somehow, we managed to compile a 3-2 record, which again, left us just short of advancing past the prelim round.

In my final event, I planned to make up for the rest of the weekend’s disappointments by shutting up all of the critics and winning Scrabble. Yes, I actually had critics; for some reason, I suppose I do not strike people as the Scrabble loving type of individual, but whatever the reason, I felt like I had something to prove. The preliminary rounds consisted of six 20 minute games, which is really quite taxing on the brain and nerves, but I pushed through the first four games with an unblemished record. My fifth game was against a formidable foe who was one of the few others who had yet to lose a game, I thought I could handle her because she challenged the word, “spurn,” which led me to believe that she could not possibly beat me with such a limited vocabulary, and yet I lost. My final preliminary match was against a chap who seemed particularly nervous and fidgety, but he played the game with a great deal of strategy and skill, so I knew it would be close; and it was, but he won. 4-2. Not a very impressive record, but I managed to squeak into the quarterfinals only to face, the anxious fellow again. He knew he was in for a big match and I was more than ready for the challenge, but as with scrabble and life, sometimes things just don’t go your way, and I lost again.

Oh well.