Inter-Hall Soccer and Dodgeball

The title says it all. Andrew Melville, my hall, competes in a number of sporting events throughout the year which test the mettle and intestinal fortitude of all St. Andrewans. Two of these are soccer and dodgeball. I joined the hall soccer team at the last minute right as they were leaving for there match on Monday and had a great time playing for the team. We supposedly signed up for the "poor league", which was supposed to be the league comprised of the worst teams. But we got jipped, and by some sort of cruel trick, were placed in the "premier league", comprised of the best teams. For instance, the team we played on Monday came to play in matching uniforms, modeled after FC Barcelona, had their names on their jerseys, had a coach, and were the best players from the nearby town of Cupar, population 1000. We don't have a coach, nor do we even have practices, and our uniform, as our captain told me, is a "blue shirt of some kind". Needless to say, we were slaughtered. The other team had possession most of the time, but we managed to restrict them to only 4 goals. We scored one and it was scored by none other than yours truly. It was scored in the last two minutes on the counterattack by some miracle. Afterwards, we all went to the pub to celebrate with a pint and it was great to kind of see the recreational culture of the British.

Then on Tuesday it was time for dodgeball. Again, our hall came relatively unprepared to the meet (because our captain forgot to attend the campus-wide meeting) and so came dressed in ridiculous outfits while everybody else had uniforms with the names of their halls on them. One of our guys came dressed in nothing but his boxers and a low-cut shirt which didn't cover his midriff. We came in pretty confident and our confidence was justified because we absolutely smoked the other halls. We had an 'A' and 'B' squad. I was originally put on the 'B' team and bumped up after I put in a pretty good performance in a couple matches. In our final match, we went up against the biggest hall on campus, New Hall. New Hall's team was made up of six huge rugby-player-looking dudes, who looked pretty confident that they could put away our team of scrawny, scrappy and scandalously dressed players. Our strategy was to use our speed to our advantage, grab the balls in the middle first and then pummel the meatheads. And it worked. We won by a convincing margin, only losing one player in the carnage--me!

All around, hall activities are a really great study break. I wish we did them more at Whitman.

Signing out from the home of awesome agents of procrastination,

Staten