Yolo of the Month: September #2

Inspired by our boating adventure this summer and aided by the wonders of Groupon, Maura and set out a few weekends back on our very first sailing lesson. We were rewarded with stunningly beautiful day with sun so warm and wind so mild that we didn't need the fleece jackets and long-sleeve layers we'd so diligently prepared.

Seeing the Bay from a boat is by far my favorite way. I love the San Francisco skyline and all the bridges set against sparkling blue water.

 

There was, theoretically, a little bit of a sailing lesson in all of this. Here's Maura tacking and generally aiding the movement of our boat. I think that this was the tack that our captain called the best tack he'd ever seen. I'm sure he meant that. In general, I can't say I learned much actual sailing. In a rookie teacher mistake, our captain threw out a lot of words without explaining what they meant or how they related to sailing, which naturally made it difficult to understand what he was talking about. It's hard to watch out for the jib when you don't know what you're looking for.

We also both took turns at the wheel. I'm pleased to say that neither of us crashed into anything. Not that there's anything to crash into in the middle of a large body of water, but I'll take whatever victories I can get. There was one guy in our group who got yelled at when he was at the wheel because he was steering nowhere near close to where we were supposed to be going, so at least Maura and I did better than that.

The most exciting part of our day, at least according to our captain, was getting to watch this sailboat race. I fully admit that I don't know that much about sailing or racing, but I was not super-excited about this. However, the boats did look really cool.

Here's the play-by play:

First, we saw a large mass of boats. They weren't moving very fast. Our captain said that this probably means it's a race.

A speedboat takes the lead.

The boats start to turn. Our captain says that this is the most exciting part. Nothing really happens.

The boats have turned and now that they're going in the other direction they're all tilt-y. I really want one of the boats to tip over. Our captain says that this rarely happens. He is correct.

Maura and I go back to hanging out and enjoying the weather. This is a hobby I could get used to pretty quickly.

London, you've got to do better

All signs pointed to disappointment. First, the nanaimo bars I so desperately tried to make turned out too lumpy and too gooey at the same time. Even my sugar-loving roommate pronounced them "cloyingly sweet." Then, in search of Canadian beer, the guy at BevMo had never heard of Labatt's or Molson and led me to the European section. I know I'm no longer living in a state where Canadian pennies mix with American and no one takes second notice, but come on. Then, of course, there was the death of the luge-er (luge-ist?) that Brian Williams just couldn't help but show on a seemingly endless loop.

But despite such omens, I had high hopes for that favorite event of mine that comes only once every two years: the Olympic opening ceremonies. I love the opening ceremonies more than I love the actual Olympic events. The parade of nations makes my heart melt. I get that nervously excited knot in my stomach when the torch enters the stadium. I like the imagination of the IOC that French is somehow the most sensible language to conduct business in.

But this opening ceremonies... blah. I get that Canada is not the most exciting nation ever. And I get that it's pretty much impossible to live up to an army of synchronized drummers recruited from a pool of 1.3 billion. I even get the hope that three hours of dancing First Nations people could be the beginning of an apology for a history of attempted genocide. But fiddlers? A poetry slam? A weird child running over digital wheat fields? I just think there could have been something else. The whales were cool. As pointed out by a savvy Slate blog-reader, kd lang's all white ensemble was reminiscent enough of a cake-topper that the world was indeed reminded of Canada's progressiveness around gay marriage (take that, USA). But I think I would've preferred floating state-sponsored health care or something to really showcase what Canada has to offer. Nelly Furtado's heels just didn't do it for me.

To be honest, my continued disappointment in the Olympics thus far really stems from NBC. Just because you were projected to lose $200 million on all of this is not a legitimate reason to only post half-hearted clips of nothing on your website. Thanks for spoiling the excitement of competition--do I want to watch Jacobellis' unforgettable silver (and her creepy pale hair) or Kearney winning the first US gold? What I actually would've liked to watch is something where I didn't know the outcome, but I guess that's out. Not to mention that the closest thing I can get to watching live is reading the live blogging comments. Looks like this year will be just like the Olympics of my childhood where I turned to CBC for any real coverage of Olympic events.

Somehow, Canada pulls it out in the end.

Sixth Man

Sometimes I feel like my life is consumed by STEP, teaching, kids, and grad school. And by "sometimes" I mean "all the time." I was warned by previous STEPpies that in order to survive, you have have to make time for things outside of STEP. For me, there have been two lifesavers: Project Runway and Stanford basketball. Both give me an opportunity to get away from STEP, hang out with the people I love in a non-STEP related context, and just relax. Since I don't have pictures of Project Runway (and pictures of people watching TV wouldn't really be that great), here are a few of my favorites from last weekend's basketball game against Washington State. It was the last home game of the season, so we went a little more all out than usual.

Since it was a 1pm game, it was only natural to begin the day with homemade brunch. Along with being good teachers, STEPpies know how to cook.

Mountain of pancakes


Almond puff pastry (this was my contribution--I'm kind of proud)


The full spread


As I said, we went all out for the game. I was a little disappointed in the other fans when I saw that we were some of the only people with face paint, but, as I tell my students, you can't control what other people do so you have to think about your own actions first.

Is there a correlation between the fact that Kevin, the only elementary school teacher, was also the best face painter?


Sarah and I doing out best Brook Lopez poses. How do we compare to the real thing?




And a couple shots of the actual court:

The boys warming up


The boys in action


The ridiculous trees and "dollies" who "perform" during the time outs.






The old people's section is like looking into a crystal ball. These are the alumni we'll be in 20-30 years.


Finally, love from the Sixth-Man STEP crew. Definitely a source of sanity (or insanity?) from November through March.


With the Pac-10 Tournament this weekend and the NCAA tournament just around the corner, my only hope is that Stanford basketball doesn't turn out to be so disastrously disappointing as Project Runway was.

Private School

My Stanford experience has been, to say the least, quite different from my time at the University of Michigan. Obviously the new experiences are highly diverse and cross a range of contexts, but here's a little sampler that would never have occurred on U of M grounds: On Saturday, some friends and I made dinner before the basketball game, but were running a little behind schedule. We needed to get over to Maples Pavilion in time to get seats, but what to do with those beers that weren't finished? As I guarantee also happens at Michigan (and pretty much every other college campus), we maximized time and efficiency by finishing them on the walk over to the game. The difference, however, is that open containers are completely legal here. I guess it allows for some good tailgating, but it's still very odd to me.

As further evidence that I'm living in an alternate universe, as we walked across the parking lot by the basketball arena, we cut in front of a police car, open beer bottles still in hand. Instinct told me that something was amiss. The cop told me from the window of his car, "At least you're drinking good beer!"

Big Game

Finally, a football Saturday that felt like a proper football Saturday. Stanford may not rally around football during most of the season, but it's only because they're spending that time preparing for the game against UC-Berkeley. The campus is seized by Big Game Fever in the week leading up to it. I wish that I didn't spend half of my days in San Francisco so I could have actually participated in some of the festivities.

Here, one of the fountains running cardinal red.





Unlike the rest of the season, people actually go to Big Game. This was the first game we had to arrive early for in order to get seats.





The game itself was pretty boring during the first half, to be honest. Once the sun went down, it got a little cold and I almost left.



But I'm glad I didn't leave. In the last quarter, things finally got exciting. It was touch and go for a little bit, wondering if Stanford might actually win. And then they did! This was highly unexpected. As great as the USC game was, it was pretty much a fluke. But what better year to spend my one and only year as a Stanford student?



So of course we had to join in the field rushing. We're such teachers, though, and everyone agreed that we should wait until most of the crowd was already on the field so that nobody would get hurt. It's all fun and games until someone gets trampled.







Down on the field, it was pretty much a lot of screaming and jumping around to the Stanford fight song, which I really love because it has a part where everyone screams "5, 6, 7, 8 Woo!" and jumps in the air.



Look how happy I am.



I will say I think it's pretty stupid that the whole event is just called "Big Game," not even "The Big Game." People say things like, "What time are you going to Big Game?" or "Big Game was so fun!" Really, all the minds at Stanford and Berkeley can't come up with a more creative name? Below, the leaning goal post is proof that Stanford students aren't really as smart as they think they are.

Biggest Upset Ever

Having grown up mere blocks from the largest college football stadium in the country, it was impossible for the sport not to have an impact on my life. Fall Saturdays to me mean tailgating, actually watching SportsCenter, and planning my schedule around the traffic patterns.

Imagine my surprise when I got to Stanford and games were pretty much empty. But then I saw how the team plays and... On the upside, in an effort to boost attendance, Stanford gave football tickets free to students this year, so I didn't feel bad leaving a game after, oh, 15 minutes.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from the first few games.

This shot makes the stadium (capacity 50,000) look way more full than it actually was.



Nikki and I love the foam fingers.



The best part of the season was when we ran into one of our professors. (BTW, this picture better represents how "full" the games are).



No, actually the best part of the season was the USC game. I was studying late that night when I got a text message from one of my Umich friends that said "You won!" I had no idea what it meant--I didn't even know Stanford was playing that day. Then another Umich friend called and explained the excitement. Somehow Stanford had managed to beat one of the top ranked teams in the country. Biggest. Upset. Ever.

It almost made up for Michigan's Appalachian State loss earlier this year...

Leaving Home or Going Home?

After almost three weeks back in the US, tomorrow I'm heading back to New Zealand. It has been a very productive trip home. Most of my major accomplishments (taking the GRE, getting wierdly sunburned, catching up on the entire fall TV lineup plus some back seasons of The Office and Gilmore Girls, etc.) were not photographed, but here are a few that were captured on film:

Halloween was pretty awesome. In addition to continuing our tradition of watching Teen Witch while handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, I carved the greatest pumpkin I have ever carved. Jenny made the Detroit D. Sadly the Tigers did not win the World Series, but my pumpkin is still awesome.

I also got to take a fabulous tour of the Wayne State Law School, complete with a trip to the lecture room that had been locked up because a squirrel got into the vents. Seriously, why did I go to New Zealand when I can visit Wayne State?

It was definitely a good trip home. I'd list all the other great things I did and people I was so glad to see, but since there are no more accompanying pictures, it's not really that fun to read a list of names.

More later on some of my observations from being back in the States. I wouldn't call it culture shock, but it definitely took some adjusting. There are some things I am sad to have to leave again (DVR), but I also can't wait to get away from others (the feeling that I am constantly being marketed to).

Also, "happy" election day. Although I now feel strong attachment to New Zealand, I will maintain my civic duty as an American and vote today. And depending on what the election returns tell us tonight, tomorrow might be a really, really good day to leave.

TVNZ

I don't think it's news to anyone that I love TV. I mean really love TV. TV shows are kind of like sports to me--not only do I watch intensely, I analzye what happens, I discuss nuances with friends, I have my favorite and not-so-favorite teams and platers, and I read articles by "experts" and people who just think they're experts. Sweeps month is like playoff season. So needless to say, I've had gone through some withdrawl during the past seven months of travel. Not that I don't get to watch TV here, but it's different TV, and it's definitely not the most recent episodes.

There are some upsides, however. Although it's a huge pain being months behind in what's being shown, it means we actually get a better selection of show. There are only about five main channels over here (TV1-TV3, C4 the music channel, and Prime), but they pack in shows from the five/six main US networks, plus HBO, Showtime, and other cable channels, and the best from the UK, Canada, and Australia. So I get to watch things like The Office and Trailer Park Boys without illegally downloading anything. It seems like the networks here just figure out what shows have been good in other English-speaking countries, and then only bring those here. There are some mishaps, of course (for some reason we get "The War at Home"), but we don't have to sit through any of those shows that get canned after three episodes. Furthermore, because they are so far behind, there is no off season like the summer is in the States. We just finished a bunch of finales here (like Grey's Anatomy, House, and Boston Legal), but there's still a whole crop of new-to-NZ shows to replace them (like Scrubs, Family Guy, and SVU). The biggest downfall is having to keep myself away from the headlines and articles on the US websites I read. Please, please, please don't tell me what's happened on Season 3 of Project Runway because I want to be surprised.

Also pretty cool is that not only do I get to see my favorite shows from home (except for the US-focused ones like the Daily Show or Best Week Ever of course), I also have discovered some New Zealand shows that I'm a big fan of. And no, I'm not talking about Shortland Street, the national soap opera.

My first new favorite is "Bro'Town," which my flatmates introduced me to almost immediately after I moved in (they have it on DVD). It's a primetime cartoon, somewhat in the satirical vein of The Simpsons or South Park. But it's set in South Auckland and is more or less a half-hour block of New Zealand inside jokes. It's a pretty prime example of how Kiwis like to "take the piss out of" (read: mock) anything and everything, including themselves. And everyone is in on the joke--they get heaps of famous New Zealanders (Lucy Lawless, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Prime Minster Helen Clark, All Blacks captain Tana Umanga, to name a few) to guest star. I've already bought one of the DVDs, and am very excited that new episodes are starting soon.

Then there is my newest discovery, "Pulp Sport." Think Jackass, Punk'd or the Tom Green Show, but funnier, and very specific to New Zealand. Most of the pranks and spoofs are on New Zealand celebrities or institutions. I am especially a fan of the "McKay-Ver" (the correct pronunciation rhymes with "MacGuyver") segments, where they play pranks on sportscaster Hamish McKay.



Part of what I especially love about Pulp Sport is their awesome product placement, which there is a LOT of. It's almost all local products, which makes it a little more fun for me, but really it's just a fine example of how Kiwis don't take themselves too seriously.


I've decided that I'll really be able to call myself a Kiwi when I can watch an episode of one of these NZ shows and actually get all the jokes. I'm not sure whether my flatmates get annoyed or think it's fun that every few minutes they have to be like "He's one of the greatest All Blacks ever" or "That's referring to the 1987 World Cup when we played South Africa". As you can tell, about 90% of the jokes are rugby or other sports references. So considering that I know barely anything about American sports, I think it might be a lofty goal to learn the sport history of another country just to get their jokes on TV. But I'm working on it.

Wolverweekend

Since being overseas, I have been quite disappointed with the lack of Michigan paraphernalia I’ve seen. If the lines that the school and the alumni association feed us are true—“Michigan has the largest body of living alumni in the world,” “The Michigan logo/colors/name are the most printed logo/colors/name of any sports team, college or pro,” etc.—then you would think I’d see be seeing Wolverines everywhere I go. Even in rural Kenya I saw a good amount of Michigan apparel, but I hear that’s more because thrift shop cast-offs get sent to Africa than because rural Kenyans are Michigan fans (I also saw a fair amount of Kenyans wearing fraternity and sorority apparel, and I think we can assume that 99% of them were not in the Greek system). Painfully, I have seen more Notre Dame gear than Michigan gear in the last six months.

But this weekend was practically like being home again (not really). On Friday I was at a Ministry of Health party (who knew that Public Health is the party directorate?) and spotted those familiar colors from across the room. My friend who I was talking to was really confused because I interrupted him mid-sentence with “Is that a Michigan shirt?!” and walked away. It was indeed a Michigan shirt, and the woman wearing it was from England, but her parents had both gone to U of M. She told me all about how much she loves wearing the shirt, and how her parents always talked about how great Ann Arbor is. She and her brother finally got to visit a few years ago, and made a point to go stand in the middle of the stadium and soak it all in. Glad to see the pro-Michigan brainwashing works just as effectively on people raised in other countries.

Then on Saturday I was out with my flatmates and ended up talking to some guy who asked where I from. When I told him Michigan, he replied, “No way, I’m moving there in a few months! Do you know Ann Arbor?” Pretty random, no? So I gave him a quick rundown on everything from Arbor Brewing Company to Zingerman’s, and only got mildly homesick in the process.

I’m not exactly sure what the universe was trying to tell me with all of this, but I assume it had something to do with the fact that football season is starting soon. Despite the fact that I usually spend football Saturdays cursing traffic and napping while everyone is at the game, I’m actually getting really excited this year. I’ve already researched a sports bar where I’m told they’ll show the games, and have shown my flatmates pictures of the Big House to prepare them (they were in awe—as they should be—that Michigan Stadium is something like four times bigger than the Westpac Stadium here in Wellington where the rugby is held). I guess being away from the madness actually makes me miss it and has unexpectedly brought out my school spirit.

There’s really no other way to end this post: GO BLUE!

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Fall is here, practically overnight it seems. John and I are now in Melbourne, where the leaves have started to fall and the temperature is in the high teens (in farenheit terms, that's approximately the temperature when engineers are still wearing shorts and the rest of the world has put on jackets). It feels a lot like September/October at home, and I can't help but feel like I've gone back in time.

At home, the turn to autumn is inevitably coupled with football season. You know it's fall when Saturdays are spent tailgating and then trying to avoid the traffic. Fortunately, fall in Australia has brought the football with it, making me feel right at home. This, of course, is not American football (which they call "gridiron" here), nor is it the world's football (aka soccer). Here in Melbourne, the fall football season means a very strange sport known as Aussie Rules Football.

I don't really know how to describe it, so I'll just put the link to the official website and you can read the rules yourself. Also, it's hard to describe because I don't really understand it. It's basically organized chaos. Imagine 36 players running around a cricket ground (a giant circle, maybe the size of a soccer field?), kicking a rugby ball for two straight hours with breaks only every 30 minutes. They can tackle just as hard as in American football, but there are no pads. And what really amazes me is that there is no stopping. Someone gets hit and the ball just keeps going. The ball goes out of bounds and the ref just throws it back in. The other team gets posession and they just start running in the other direction. These are hardcore athletes.

Last night we went to the season opener between the Melbourne Demons and the Carlton Blues. Despite the fact that I not much of a sports person, and I had little idea what was actually going on, I fully enjoyed myself. Melbourne got smashed (even I, with no understanding of the game, figured out that their strategy was weak), but the crowd was very into it. The crisp fall air brought out blankets and mugs of hot chocolate, just like football season at home. And to complete the autumn atmosphere, the standard uniform for a good AFL fan is a striped scarf with your team's name and colors. Adorable.

Like I said, I am very much not a sports person, but this is defintiely a game I can understand getting into. Nonstop action coupled with highly athletic players (their stamina and accuracy are pretty impressive) makes for good entertainment. I'll always love Michigan football (because there is no other option), but if Michigan had an Aussie Rules team, I would actually go to those games.