Chilling with ZooB

Kickball

Ah well today was the Annual Southwest North Kickball Tournament. My first semester our cluster barely lost to eventual champions James-Emerson like 4 runs to 3. Then I missed last year’s tournament due to Western New England Sectionals, but from what I heard we lost big, like 15 – 0 and the mercy rule had to be implemented. This year’s tournament we wanted to do better, and I wasn’t the only one. We had several soccer players, my teammate Max and I, but the rest of our staff aren’t really sports material. We are a mix of undergraduate and graduate staff; therefore we are not a cluster filled with athletic undergraduates. Two of our graduate RA’s are like sub-5 feet tall Asian girls who are no more than 100-120 pounds, and others were grossly overweight. We actually were missing like 2 or 3 RAs who had work/lab.

So this year the tournament was held at the Intramural fields, but not the grassy side, unfortunately the ground was hard and literally no grass. It reminding me of the Vegas fields, it looked like a desert. Our first matchup was Melville-Thoreau, and they got off to a hot start. I was surprised because majority of our staff didn’t even know how to play kickball. I guess being international students might have caused this. MT got like 4 runs in the first inning, but we settled down a little bit more.

During one defensive inning, I was playing shallow 2^nd base, and their kicker popped it over our pitcher to this open gap. I ran backwards and laid out over my shoulder. I caught the ball but somehow when I landed my left elbow jammed into my ribs and it hurt, bad. I don’t remember much, but I think I was rolling on the ground for a while before being lifted off the field. At first I thought I had broken a rib or something, but turns out it was bruised. I returned to play couple outs later, though the half inning I was out MT scored 3 more runs, and we ended up losing 7 – 0. Only after the game ended did I realize, I didn’t kick once!

After the game the adrenaline kind of wore off and everything started hurting. My ribcage area hurt like hell whatever I did, whether it was walking, talking, eating, or simply just breathing. After the loss we thought it was over so we just chilled and ate burgers, hot dogs, and chips from the barbeque. Turns out we weren’t done and were scheduled to play Coolidge. However they forfeited and left and we were instead given a bye and was to play for the 3^rd place game.

Max finally showed up (he had concert band). The team we played (I think it was Kennedy) were a bunch of punks; I guess you could say they had bad spirit. They were taunting our senior staff, and I ended up charging at one of them trying to pick a fight and had to be restrained by Pierre. We played and I had several catches, several tag outs, and one hit and a beautiful slide. Other than that we lost again like 2 – 0 or something. Kind of sad seeing that we didn’t win a single game, nor score a single run. We stayed, ate some more, and just relaxed and watched the final between Melville-Thoreau and defending championships James-Emerson. Melville-Thoreau managed to pull out a close one, and we just packed up and headed back.

Other than that I checked up on some Regionals results. It was mostly the expected results, but I was kind of hoping in the Metro East Penn and Maryland would have gotten to Nationals, but it ended up being Pitt and Delaware again. Next weekend is New England Regionals, so hopefully Zoo will be able to do well and make it to Nationals.

GO PINK!

Sectionals Pics

Champs of WNE!

Finally! Since coming to UMass ZooA has lost to Amherst on Sunday both years, but not this year! They faced last year’s national rep from the section Williams and lost 9-11 in the first game, but after that Saturday was pretty much a breeze as they faced nothing but B teams (Middlebury-B, Hampshire, Amherst-B, and Vermont-B). Sunday morning finished up pool play with a trouncing of Westfield-A. They took on the weird guys from Middlebury, who run around with huge mustaches and skirts, seriously those guys are weird. Anyways ZooA managed to pull out a 15-12 victory and finally broke into the championship game. They faced Williams of course, who took out Amherst (though I heard their best handler broke his leg, ouch), and was a tight one, with ZooA finally pulling out a 16-14 victory. This is good because they’ll probably get a decently high seed at Regionals and won’t have to face the likes of Harvard or Brown in the 2^nd round.

For ZooB, I guess you would call this the most successful season in the last couple years. Granted they were playing with 2 former A-teamers (Sliski and McComb), ZooB showed dedication and actually left Sectionals with a winning record, 3-2. They started the weekend 3-0 actually, taking down Westfield State-B, Williams-B and C. ZooB ran into Amherst and Vermont though and just didn’t have any steam left. The freshmen are getting better, but what I get from Captain James is that they have trouble with flicks. Now that the season is over for them, they’ll probably just scrimmage local high schools. Northampton actually contacted me last week about a scrimmage, and I relayed the request to James. I might drop by and toss the disc around with them.

As for this summer, it’s going to be a big one. I am taking a couple summer classes over at Holyoke Community College (1/3 the cost of UMass!), and working at the Business Office again. I’ll be headed into town sometime this week to put in my registration for SULA (Summer Ultimate League of Amherst). I think there are no longer any club teams in the valley, with B.U.R.N being disbanded last summer, so I’ll need something to keep my throws from being rusty. Also need to get back into shape, so guess that’ll mean waking up at 6 in the morning every day to hit the track and then the gym before it gets too hot. My Gold’s Gym membership is just sitting there, wasting away on my bank account, so I probably should use it. Just over a month of school left, and that includes exams week for me, so it’s getting down to the wire. This long weekend I’ve done nothing but sleep (this kind of weather does that to you), might go out drinking with couple of the Zoo guys after I get off work (on duty right now).

Oh yeah, allergies really strong this spring, I didn’t have any last spring. This is really affecting me doing anything, I need stronger medicine.

Practice

Went to Zoo practice for the first time this semester (wasn’t playing for other reasons), and man it was a thrill to be back. Well I had a good time, but it was hot and I was out of shape from playing ultimate, so it was tough too. Most of the old faces are still there with the addition of one or two new kids, it looked like they had played in high school so not too worried. Obviously my stamina had gone down, and thus so was my agility, but throws were still all good. They were still crisp, on target, and stuff. I feel like the time I spent watching like the Mamabird and Churchill/Rhino videos really influenced me a lot, especially in the way that I fake and step out to throw.

Both Zoo teams have Western New England Sectionals this weekend at Williams. LadyZoo is much better than last year and they finished 2^nd to Williams two weekends ago at Women's WNE Sectionals. For ZooA, they are in Pool B, seeded 2^nd under Middlebury. Honestly I wonder, what would happen if Middlebury makes it to nationals, because those guys are like the superhippies, furthering the stereotype of the pot-smoking, long hair, tie-dye shirt wearing Frisbee player. ZooA took down Middlebury 8-7 at Yale Cup couple weeks ago, but Middlebury made it to the finals of Yale. In the UPA rankings, ZooA is actually ranked 2^nd in the section. Honestly this time in the series is when ZooA usually messes it up. Both my freshman and sophomore year ZooA has lost to Amherst in the semis and has had to fight to win the 3^rd place in the section. Williams always brings it during the series time, and I am pretty sure Vermont has ARHS alumni Kellen and Matt, so they’ll be a threat in the region too.

ZooB is seeded 2^nd to last in Pool A, and at most they’ll probably win a game or two in their pool, and if lucky, play like 2 games on Sunday.

There are a couple new teams at sectionals that are new. I think this is the first time in quite a while that Hampshire College has participated in Sectionals. Also new is Westfield State, who is sending an A and B team. Wasn’t even aware they had a team at all. Anyways this is going to be tight and there is a chance that ZooA might not even make it to Regionals. Even if they do, they’ll probably run into like Harvard or Tufts in the 2^nd round. Hope for the best of them though, cause most of the team has been playing together for a couple years and next year we’ll probably lose a couple key seniors.

Also yesterday one of my former teammates (who is sitting the season out due to injury) asked me to go throw with him and this “hot chick”. Turned out I actually knew this chick, and had actually gone to high school with her. We both had played for ARHS, but she was a year under me. She said she was done with sports and was transferring to some Boston school next year, oh well. It was fun throwing with her though, she was very fundamental and her throws were on the mark, as should be expected players from the Amherst factory.

Also Travis Ford left UMass all of a sudden to coach Oklahoma State basketball, damn traitor.

One last thing, my best friend Ken turns 21 today, going to be an insane night.

Sensualseduction

So for about a week straight, my friend Steph bugs me non-stopped about this mixer thing in Boston. It costs 20 dollars, and is about an hour and half car drive away, why should I go? Don’t know how but I finally gave in and gave her a yes. This mixer was going to be held at the Foundation Lounge in the Hotel Commonwealth on Commonwealth Ave. It was hosted by the Tufts HKSA, and the colleges in attendance were to be Boston University, Brandeis, Harvard, Northeastern, Tufts, Wellesley, UMass, and BASA/BASIC. Turns out since I was going to drive there I didn’t need to pay for the admission fee into the club, lucky considering how much money we spent. I was trying to get some of my friends to go, but apparently nobody wanted to go clubbing on a school night, in Boston no less; I was cool with it considering I had no class the following day.

So got freshened up and whatnot, then drove over with half a tank of gas (this becomes important) to Johnson to meet with everyone. When I got there, turns out Steph and her group already left, and I was driving down with Lin and her group. I did find one person though, Tony, who was supposed to be in my car. Now this is interesting because despite never meeting the guy before, I had known him indirectly, because he was the boyfriend of my childhood friend for a month or so. We chatted it up and soon Lin came back from picking people up, turns out my good friend Nick, aka Mohican, of Pi Delta Psi was coming along for the trip too, which was great since finally there was someone I knew well. We also picked up Joey, his girlfriend, and John. In Lin’s car was Nick, Lin, Nick’s roommate Kevin (?) and his girl. We left UMass around like 8:20-ish, stopped by a liquor store so Lin could get some stuff to pre-game, and then we finally left.

There was this one point on Route 9 when we were behind Nick (he was driving Lin’s car), and there were 2 cars in front of them. He decides to pass them despite the double lines, and I decided to follow. The instant I get into the other lane, I see oncoming traffic, so we both floor it. He makes it around fine, but I barely manage to squeeze by oncoming traffic… now I see why I don’t do it more often. It was good though because Lin paid for all the tolls on the Pike, which if you add it up in total turned out to be about 10 bucks back and forth. While on the Pike, we decide to check up on the score of the UMass-Ohio State NIT finals, and the lost! 92-85 or something! It was so close, but we always seem to end up losing in the finals of some sort of championship (see Lacrosse, Football, Soccer).

Anyways so we finally make it to Boston with about like 20 minutes left before the club opens for us (we reserved it exclusively). Instead we head over to MIT’s frat row to drop off some tickets so their people could come too. Their frat houses were all big dormitory styled buildings linked together, it looked truly amazing compared to the crap we have at UMass. Being in the MIT campus, Asians left and right, really made me feel kind of inferior. Anyways we left to go eat a bit before the club, can’t remember the name of the Chinese place we went to, but it was some of the best Chinese food I’ve had in America for as long as I can remember. Finally we left and headed over to the club, about an hour and half late… fashionably late.

I wasn’t expecting the place to be in a Hotel first of all, but the bouncers outside looked like they’d beat into a pulp anyone who looked them in the eye. We got in and I was really impressed. The Foundation Lounge was more than I expected, it was fancy, Asian-themed, and pack with lots of hot Asian girls (and loads of Korean guys O_O;;). It was awkward though because we didn’t know anyone, so we mostly hung around our own guys. We finally found Steph and the UMass girls that came ahead of us, and they were happy to finally see some familiar faces as well. I made Nick buy me a Heineken, it was good but I was shocked at the price, $7.50!!! We mostly danced and chilled with our own group, though we found Fu and Calvin, friends from Bentley. I had a Sam Adams afterwards, but damn it was a totally different taste, and honestly I don’t think I see myself drinking it ever again. We then took shots of Sky and it was beautiful, I was so warm and happy afterwards. The rest of the club was a blur really, we danced some more, drank some more, and then for the duration of it we just chilled outside the club and smoked and talked, it was a great feeling and I felt like all my worries float away.

After the club we split up again, I had been drinking and Joey hadn’t, so he offered to drive, so my car and Nick’s car went over to another restaurant in Chinatown to eat (Lin’s boyfriend joined us later), and we all ended up getting tickets from this meter maid for obstruction of road for the street cleaner… such bullshit. I was actually chasing after the car that the meter maid was in, cursing at her and stuff, but Nick, Joey, and Lin grabbed my arms and whatnot and held me back. So $120 of the profit that we made for our University’s TSA goes out the window to pay for parking fines… NICE.

Anyways we finally leave Boston, and Joey insists on driving because he doesn’t want to drive, though both Tony and I were sober. We had about a quarter of a tank of gas when we left Boston and I suggested filling up at a rest stop or something, but Joey said we would be fine, and I went to sleep after that. I get woken up like a hour or so later by Joey, sounding frantic. Rain was pouring so hard that we could barely see, I had no clue where the hell we were, and Joey was telling me that we had been running on empty for about 15 minutes an the car was starting to shake. I was just thinking: please let us make it to a exit or something. Amazingly we were really close to our exit, and 10 minutes later we were at a gas station filling up; we got really lucky this time. So we finally get back around like 4 something and everyone gets dropped off, and I sleepily drive back to my dorm.

So that was Thursday night/Friday morning. I had work at 1 the next day, but I ended up sleeping through my alarm and everything, waking up at 3. Luckily my boss was kind enough to accept my apologies, understanding what I had done previous night, and allowed me to come to the remainder of work without scolding me. I need to buy an alarm clock so I can set multiple alarms and not solely depend on my cell phone. Anyways here are some pictures from the club, hopefully during the summer I’ll visit my friends in Boston and NYC and we’ll go clubbing some more.