Basketball and Jerks

So a couple weeks ago my suite and I, plus a couple other people down the hall decided to form an intramural basketball team. Since we aren't that good at all, we wanted to sign up for either intermediate or rec. league right? Wrong. The lady who was supposed to keep track of our sign up sheets decided that we didn't put intermediate, but competitive instead, putting us with the top dogs. How top do you ask? The first game we played had a member of the JV basketball team, and each guy was at least 6 feet tall (i'm about 5'5'', so you can say that sucked for me). Plus the rest of the team, minus one guy, were tons smaller and didn't do squat against them. Needless to say, we got beat around like a bunch of kids. We were beat 91-41. Yes, it was that bad. We were surprised we actually scored 41 points. Our guard was actually shooting the lights out of 3's, while i went 50% from behind the arch (haha 1 of 2 to be exact! what a joke that was!). I knew that basketball wasn't my thing, but dang, 50 points sure does put a damper on your day, no matter how bad you suck. To top it all off, the guys we played against were total jerks and didn't have any bit of class. I was bowled over by one of the larger guys while shooting the ball and all he could he was laugh about falling down against the sucky team. I was thrown around like a toy. After the game, there was no handshake offered by them at all. What jerks. Note to self: we better be in a suckier league in the next few weeks.

Guitars and Guns

So I am sitting in my world music class, trying to fight off trying to go to sleep because I am trying to take notes on the second row (our professor only allows lap-tops to be used on the first 3 rows); falling asleep on that row would have put me out of business in that class for a while. But while I was sitting there like a good student, it dawned on me: what the heck was going on in that class? I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to be learning. Sure I'm looking at some African music with the mbira and some drums, but really, will I be tested on the mbira or the texture, structure or whatnot of African music. I realized today that while I had thought a couple weeks ago that world music would be my easy class, relieving the pains of chemistry and spanish, it turns out that it's only worsening my life with crap I have no idea what to look for. Ever have that feeling that even though the stuff being taught isn't really that hard, but you just can't seem to grasp any of it (and it makes you feel plain stupid)? Welp that's how I feel in that class. On a lighter side, my TA for the recitation reminds me of Jack Black when he played in School of Rock, so that was definitely a plus.

Now completey aside from class, I came back to my dorm room today to find out that I hadn't watched a single minute of the Band of Brothers DVD collection I bought last week at FYE, so I decided to pop that in to see if it was any good (it better have been if I spent $63 dollars on it for the whole thing).

I was completely blown away. Background: Easy Company's 506th battalion of the 101st Airborne Division and what they went through during WWII. Although I just saw the first episode (a whopping 1 1/2 hours long), I was instantly hooked. If you are into that sort of thing, it's superb and I highly recommend it.

For me folk remedy I'm doing tendonitis

Inauguration Day

I have to say, as a critic of politics most of the time, I was certainly excited about what was going to be said by Obama this afternoon. Not because I don't like him, but because over the past century politics has evolved into a group that won't tell the people what is real; they tell them what they want to hear. Although I liked the guy, I was still pretty skeptical about what he might say to the millions of citizens who were watching the inauguration and how honest it would be. Let me tell you, I was surprised.

After the first couple of sentences he immediately began to state that, whether or not you like it (I probably interjected that part), our country is in a crisis and believe or not, it's not because of the government (mostly!), but it's the people's fault. Those with great wealth are only concerned about personal profit and interest, not the country's. Plus, our intolerance to work with others with differences, not only political differences but religious and social, to make a better country. That is what Obama pointed out, and it was an unbelievable statement coming from him. He stated that we will not prosper if we are divided; unity will bring the US back to economic growth and good terms with other countries. I've never been good at remembering points after watching a speech, but Obama's words seem to be pretty strong.

Even if you didn't vote for the guy, you have to give him credit, he at least sounds like he wants to better the country. I wish him luck.

Part 2: The Rest of the Story (For Those Still Interested, I Promise the Ending Is Good!)

My sophomore year of high school my football coach told me I wouldn't be playing varsity football because I wasn't tall enough. I was the only returning player at the position, knew all the plays, was pretty fast, but yet I was only 5'4'' give or take and that's the reason I never played.

Football ended that year unfortunately and it was heartbreaking. I practiced in vain while I knew I wouldn't play just because I was small.

Tennis turned out to be a great sport for me. I was consistent, I loved the sport, and I thought I was able to pick up a few wins for the team to help them achieve their tops #4 2A state rankings in high school tennis. I was proud of what I had done, humbly (although this story does not sound humble, but when telling a story, how can you be?), although I did like the attention when I was the last on the court and all eyes were on me. My senior year my team went to the semifinals of the state playoffs and lost to Newton Conover. They were great, we were too, but they were better. I loved tennis, but I wanted to move on.

While I was on UNC Men's Novice Crew for a while, occasionally we would play ultimate frisbee after a long week's practice. The first day we played UF, I sprinted down the sideline to snatch a TD over a guy's back. The next few plays I spent defending our endzone, and I swatted down a couple of potential TDs. A couple of guys were amazed that a small, 5'4'' guy could run, cover, catch and spy. Heck, I didn't know I could either; living in a world where I was called small made me doubt my abilites.

After a while, I started catching over backs ( I actually caught a frisbee for a TD while running into a random soccer goal), they guys started calling me the white knight. I have no idea why, but I think it was just because I was wearing a plain, white T-Shirt and no one else was. The couple months that followed of UF were composed of me being able to feel like I was worth something.

Therefore, the White Knight isn't just a nickname. It is a victory over a long period of struggling to feel accepted in a sporting world where being taller is usually always an advantage. It's a symbol of perserverance, willpower, determination and love for the game. Anybody up for a game of UF?

Part 1: So that you won't have to read the whole story in one sitting

Let me start by saying that the new movie "Gran Torino" made my top five best movies I've ever seen.

That said, some history about the white knight.

I have grown up most of my life as a small kid. Small as in not very tall.... at all. However, since I was in 2nd grade, I was athletic to the max; I played football and soccer year-round and loved it. But then, I was a chubby, fat kid and height and fat didn't matter back then, so those were good times. Playing time never depended on stature, just whether you were there or not.

As time went on, I stayed the same height and most people passed me. Nevertheless, I still played sports constantly; soccer ended (which now I know was a mistake because I have just discovered while playing with my Hispanic friends that I might be a little talented white boy), but I kept playing football and started playing tennis. Middle school football still didn't depend on how tall you were, just how smart you were and whether you were afraid or not to get dirty and take a hit. Sports were good, no worries.

High school sports, now everyone started developing major muscles, growing taller and physically getting so much "better" than I was. Granted, I was keeping myself in shape and lifting weights for football, but never really could measure up to my homies' ability to gain muscle, or to look good doing it. But I tried and I loved football with everything.