aches and pains

it's nice to have some full-blooded competition to have your mind focus on something else. although i was rueing the prospect of waking up at 4 in the morning and taking a 4 hour bus ride to nottingham to play football.

honestly, it was a morale-sapping day. gray day, with temperatures hovering on both sides of zero, and having to wait long periods in the cold for our turns to play. when we did play, our inexperience did get shown up, and nobody can honestly claim to be happy when you lose (especially through a penalty when you've been throwing your bodies around all day). our 1st team ended up winning the competition, but for the rest of us, we were left with damp bodies and sand and bad tempers. like when one of us slid into an opponent (beautiful tackle, though not very legal in street, but in any other football match it would have been brilliant), and he fell flat on the floor, their entire team rushed over and started yelling at us, and we started yelling back... and we were ready to... and especially when it rains as you are playing... more yelling when we realized organisers could have misplaced our lunch and although some said that with their hunger it was the best chicken rice they've ever tasted, honestly, it was close to freezing and the chilli was like frozen bits without the fluid. miserable, but i felt better than i did in days watching other people's suffering. also ran into alex who was with the imperial contingent, as well meeting plenty of old friends at other uk unis, and seeing the relative character of their teams.

lse did quite well in the other sports too but i think they still lost to a greater-sized nottingham contingent with home-court advantage. especially gripping was the basketball finals, as basketball always is. now it's back to work and worrying about trivial things in life=).