badger_14

She was nice! :) I'd not played with any of these folks before. One woman had played for northeastern in the first women's beanpot!

One of the teammate's beans (a bit older than yours) play for Jr Eagles and Assabet. He seems to like Assabet, although they live in the Camberville area so I understand the logistics are an unholy nightmare. Also, given the way he talks to his kids at practice, I don't per se trust his judgement. The other teammate, who I find a more sensible person, has his kids in the Boston Stars/MaxPro Jets/whatever it is these days. The younger one is 12 and the older one is 18 now, but they play well, they play intelligently - the only time I noticed anything off was the bigger one's junior year in high school hockey. Intelligently I mean - they don't panic with the puck, they make decisions, sometimes the decisions end well, sometimes poorly, but they don't seem overly bothered. Again, this could just be that their dad is a sensible hockey player who makes decisions without panicking and seems unbothered by the occasional misfire. My basic advice is just that it's all going to be based on the coaches. At 8 and 9 they're really still doing mainly individual basic skills - only about 9 and 10+ do they reach the Lawyer/Priest phase of development where everything is about The Rules and strategy becomes a thing they're able to create and utilize. See if you can watch a practice before tryouts - watch how the coaches interact with their kids. Are they authoritarian, demanding obedience? Are they too laissez-faire and no one has any direction at all? Are they somewhere in the middle, where there's good clear direction, but they'll take the time to show and explain and re-explain if necessary? Do they only get down on mistakes, or do they praise things done well? Like Chippa says a lot of the elite programs take a significant toll in terms of $$$ and logistics (of course, we live in a place where town hockey does that, too, Valley League I am looking at you), but if you can afford it, and the program fits your kid, well, he's 9. Roll with it. It's not like you've signed a lifetime contract in blood.

This is the part of the evening where my teammate would be telling me to get my stick on the ice.

(Not me, but I have permission to share) My classmate (right) met her girlfriend playing hockey, so what better way to propose than host a hockey game?

Well, that's rotten of them :( Any chance to recoup any losses, or would the legal fight cost more than it's worth?

We were not that close that I could have gone to the funeral- I only worked with her one day a week. I did express sympathy, sure. The ultimate solution- because she would literally not acknowledge even a "good morning"- was to change my shift.

Counterpoint to ambulance misery in the Venting Spot: I absolutely love clinicals. The staff (nurses, doctors, medic techs) are incredibly welcoming and more than happy to grab me for everything from simple triage to significantly more complex cases in the ER. (we get everything from your basic common cold to full on cardiac arrest and sepsis). I don't even mind at this point that the commute is long and occasionally snow/ice ridden. I can feel my brain expanding.

The EMT I'm regularly partnered with has gone from 'slightly difficult to work with but that's life' to 'outright hostile' and I'm stymied on how to deal with it. She was gone for a few weeks (death in the family, I sympathise, I do), then returned and now won't talk to me (except to accuse me of wrongdoing or find fault), or even acknowledge me. (she does cheerfully greet and converse with other employees btw) I'm not asking for deep meaningful conversations, but could I at least feel like we could safely communicate on a call? Last time I worked with her, she hid the work laptop (we have one to record calls/patient info on) and accused me of losing it. This doesn't seem to be improving and the overlords have only suggested I just talk it out with her, which I'm not sure how to do when she won't even acknowledge a simple "good morning". I'm all about ready to just tell them to change my shift entirely, because it's absolutely untenable. (and I don't think it's me - considering everyone else I've worked with, as well as folks at the hospital during clinicals - seem to be perfectly fine with me.) Ugh.

Aha, I should clarify that. It's not a league but it's approximately the same people each week, and having skated with this guy for nearly 3 years I should say he knows better than to hack at my glove (or anyone's). I would honestly be less angry at a random idiot because they're just a random idiot, but this guy (although he is not very good) has certainly played long enough to behave better.

Not exactly - it's an organized pick up, same folks every week. The guy should, however, know better.

I've been playing with this group for nearly 3 years, and he's been playing since well before then. He knows better.

I wouldn't say hot head, per se. He's not a very good player (novice/D), which is fine, but he sort of tends to "make up for" the lack of skill/speed by playing, uh, intensely. Elbow-y. As a goalie I'll roll with a few pokes at the glove but there's a limit. I just wanted him to go away, and he had two other guys trying to stop him. Four days on and my neck and head still hurt. Still kinda salty. Pretty sure my classmate (also a goalie) is going to come drop the gloves on him.

Things have actually been going pretty well with hockey. I have a nice routine down at the gym (and elsewhere) practicing hand-eye with a tennis ball and it's been very helpful. My whole body is still pretty slow, but I track the play much better, so until I shed another (x) pounds and get literally lighter, one does what one can. Yesterday was a good game for the most part - it's pickup, we played for like an hour and a half, I let in a tolerable number of goals for pickup (like 7 or 8?) - excepting near the end. So I've just covered a shot. Blocked it with my pad and smothered it under my glove. The puck is covered, it is going nowhere, I am in partial tetris position at the post. This one player, though, keeps jamming at my hand. My teammates are trying to get him to stop (bless them) but it's going on forever with no end in sight. Since I really like my hand, I go to poke this guy with my stick, and accidentally prod him in the crotch. Not very hard, but accidentally pegging anybody in the crotch (male or female really) isn't good, and I take full ownership of that. However, his immediate response was to cross-check me in the head. Hard. Then skate off to the bench and bitch to everyone about what I did. I am dizzy at this point, but it's near the end of the game so whatever. I apologized to him after the game, of course. He did not really apologize to me (there was a "sorry if I hit you", which is bull, because he absolutely hit me), so I'm a little salty about that. But my play was good, so I feel okay about that at least.

Hey, man, mismatched or not, you're covered a goodly chunk of the net there! :)

See? I don't even have enough to afford the "make".

Round 3 of trying to convince the state that I don't make nearly as much money as they think I do.

While we're still in didactic (lecture/lab) for a few more weeks, my classmates and I now have our clinical placements (in-hospital time)! My grouplet started on Tuesday. It's a pretty awesome feeling to actually do the things we've been practicing for ten months - I gave some meds, I acquired some EKGs, and I'm 3-for-3 thus far on IV starts.

Aside from nearly being smudged out of existence a couple of weeks ago, I did get to go to Montreal for the first time over Columbus Day weekend, on top of that for one of the major GLBT hockey tournaments in North America. Nearly 200 players from the US and Canada, all invading the Gay Village for a weekend. While I'm disappointed in losing all four games, I had a great time and met some great new people, and hopefully I'll get to skate with them again sometime. The tournament hosts were incredibly welcoming as well.

Thursday night I left class on time (a bit early, even!), thinking about how excited I was to get up at o-dark-thirty to go to Montreal and play hockey. Not even a mile from school, making a left (I had green), and another driver drove right on through the red light. Hit me up on the driver's side wheel, destroyed my car. By a matter of inches, I was largely unhurt- burns from the airbag, a bruised chest (airbag), general bruising, etc. I was also very fortunate that my medic classmate was right behind me and, aside from witnessing the incident, kept me calm (as possible) and called 911. Two more of my classmates showed up as well. I cannot express how grateful I am for their support when I was scared out of my wits. The paramedics who took me to the ER were also great. I was discharged within a couple of hours. My car is a loss, and I keep having minor flashbacks to the incident, but physically pretty much alright. I still played in the tournament (rented a car. Don't like to break promises.) But very happy to be coming home to friends.

Pro tip: if your opponent is wearing a high school practice jersey, he probably does not belong in D-level. If he is wearing socks with stirrups on them - run, do not walk, to the nearest exit. This man has not been a novice since before you were born, and will not be merciful. I finally played after a goddamn month long absence, and actually played pretty decently. It was probably mostly low C with a scattering of very novice and very not novice players. It's not as bad as some of the ones I've been to. It's hard to judge really, because it seems like there's a bigger gap between C and B than D and C. At any rate, I played respectably, they didn't swap us (the goalies) and I'm getting antsy about getting in ice time before I go to Montreal for the tournament.

We're into trauma (injuries and interventions) in medic school, and last night my instructor set up a sim lab where we had to intubate a mannikin that was covered in fake blood and full of fake vomit, in the dark, surrounded by balloons and furniture, with a strobe light and loud techno music going. It was awesome.

The boss at my "fun" job (not EMS) has been being a bit of a bastard lately - he takes a stripe off us for making any kind of mistake or belittles us for asking for questions/clarification, in front of the customers no less, and I'm pretty sure he's made at least one of my co-workers cry. On top of that, it's not consistent - you never know that day if you'll get Good Boss or Bad Boss, and while he occasionally apologizes, he follows up the apology with a justification of his behavior ("I'm sorry I was frustrated and snapped at you, BUT you're being frustrating" etc). Rumor has it the management is under new pressure from their bosses, which happens, but belittling us or yelling at us doesn't give us the opportunity to help. Some days, I just want to stop him mid-sentence and say, look, is the customer actively on fire right now? No? Do we lack the resources to handle this situation? No? Great, this is not a crisis, and it can be handled without a fuss. He's in the process of having meetings with all the desk staff (by 2's and 3's) and I am not looking forward to it at all.

I'm balancing what I can between school and work; NH is out. :( But we'll find something.

With my friend visiting from the desert (New Mexico), we've had a fine time doing things that aren't available where he is. We've played hockey together, learned that his gear fits in my bag at the same time as mine (no lie; but he's a small guy), made excellent soup with another friend of mine, gone horseback riding (ok, so this is available in NM, but he got to see trees with leaves this time, and blackberries, and rosehips), went swimming in a lake (he never gets tired of all the water we have here - last time, we tried to get him to swim in the ocean, but it was a little too cold for him), and yesterday we went to HockeyMonkey, which has more gear than he's ever seen in one place at one time. Upcoming plans for the week include candlepin bowling and proper seafood.

Got to play with my friend from the desert on Saturday. I felt like I've had better games, but also worse games, and I didn't really face a whole lot of shots. (come on, guys, step it up. this is pickup.) My friend almost had a shot on me, and I probably should've warned him that some of the guys I skate with are quite good. Probably. But they're friendly people. Since getting the flex-toes, I've been playing with the looseness of my straps, testing them out at looser configurations. Finding a new comfort zone. My goalie-friend from medic school has offered to let me try out her spare Brian's pads, since we're about the same height. We'll see if they fit in general, then I'll hopefully be able to give them a go at a pickup or something. Not that I'll ever be able to afford such pads (not til graduating medic school, anyhow)... but it'll be fun to try. She and I are planning to head up to a tournament in Montreal over Columbus Day weekend (not on the same team, of course) with some other folks we know, so I'm trying to get in more time at the gym and pool, and work on my hand-eye with the tennis ball so as not to make a fool of myself. Still have 4 lessons left as well.