Hairy Tale

Lately, I've been showering before bed, which is normally something I don't do. I tend to like to shower in the morning to get up and ensure my hair doesn't look like a mop. But since I work out in the early evenings, it's really better to shower after my workout before bed. I don't like the two-shower day, particularly when I'm not going anywhere interesting.

So I went into work today for a few hours and didn't shower before work since I showered last night. Since my hair is curly, I can usually get away with this by throwing on a headband and pulling my hair into some sort of pony tail at the base of my head. The messy yet not too messy look, which takes me a whopping 24 seconds to pull off. It's delightful really.

This afternoon, I had to ask my supervisor a question, and she complimented my hair, saying how nice it looked in this style. Ha. Seriously? I actually laughed out loud for a second. If she only knew how much effort didn't go into my preparation for work. Ha. Still amused.

Hoop It Up

I played basketball growing up for ten years. It was my favorite sport to play. I really loved it until my senior year of high school, which was a total let-down as a player. Since high school, I haven't played much. Sure, in college, my friends and I occasionally played in intramural leagues, but they often only lasted a month or so because there wasn't enough interest from other females to play. Co-ed intramurals is perhaps the most unenjoyable basketball I've ever played because all guys want to do is dunk and there isn't much actual playing involved.

The basketball I liked to play growing up was the basketball that required running set offenses and defensive schemes. Offensively was usually a battle because my team always had at least one ball hog and we never actually ran offenses they way they were intended to be run. I loved playing defense, though, because I usually was able to defend the other team's best player and I enjoyed this challenge.

This summer, a few friends convinced me to join them in a women's league held at a local high school. There are six teams in the league, two teams of high school students and four teams of older alums like myself. Some of these women are just plain crazy - they are obsessed with this league and it's basically the biggest thing they look forward to once a week. On the other hand, I'm really not that overly interested in it. I agreed to play because it's good exercise and mostly to see my friends. I didn't sign up to play because I thought it would be fun because basketball stopped being fun for me a long time ago.

I was on my road trip and missed the first game. The second game, my first appearance, confirmed my initial expectation - that this experience wouldn't be much fun and that I don't actually like basketball. Needless to say, I wasn't excited to show up for our third game this past Sunday.

My team has a lot of busy people with outside commitments so we haven't had a week where everyone could play. On Sunday, we played with only 5 total players, so we had no one to sub for us to give us a breather. Back in the day, I didn't need a sub, but since it's clearly not 1999, forty minutes of basketball is pretty rigorous, despite the fact that I did get myself into pretty decent shape the past few months.

We battled on Sunday. The best part about the game was that we actually played well offensively and actually did make great passes which lead to open shots. Defensively was much tougher because we played a team of 16-year-old high school girls who are in their athletic prime. They strategized to play us full court in the second half, which really winded us and took some energy away. Sadly, we lost our third game in a row. But surprisingly for me, I actually really enjoyed this game. I honestly had fun. I really didn't think that was possible.

Unofficial Minors

I've always said that when you get a master's degree to work in higher education, you earn "unofficial minors" in icebreakers, teambuilders, and bulletin boards - basically, all those "little" things you learn to do as staff members to work with students/student groups and plan/advertise events.

While I posted earlier that my part time job is pretty boring lately because no students are around, this week I have actually enjoyed work. I've had the opportunity to really use my minor in bulletin boards, which in a larger extent means I've been making a lot of flyers, signs, spreadsheets, nametags and the like in order to help out with some events that are happening next week sponsored by my office. In essence, this isn't challenging work in a critical thinking sort of way, but it does keep the creative juices flowing which does usually pass the time pretty quickly. I've actually enjoyed working the past two days because I've been able to be involved in these sorts of things and it's somewhat therapeutic. Today, I even dominated the copy machine and found some ways to fancy-up some of my work.

It's the little things, really, and in these times, I'll take whatever I can get to enjoy work.