Roller Hockey

Roller Hockey

I played roller hockey for the first time the other night.  Really, I've wanted to play hockey ever since The Mighty Ducks came out but never really got the chance.  A friend of a friend's parents own Classic Skating, so he had his (30th) birthday party there.  I was the only one on the rink who had never played before and there were only two girls.  I definitely wasn't GOOD, but a lot of the people I played with were surprised that it was my first time.  

I guess normally people play with pads and stuff, but this wasn't a serious game.  Turns out, though, even when it's not a serious game, blocking a slap-shot with your shin still hurts.  :)  

Happy Kwanzaa!

(I really am not going to be adding a new blog everyday, but I don't know how long I'll be keeping this up, so I figure I will add stuff when I can)

So it turns out that today is the 3rd day of Kwanzaa.  

In order to enhance my skills at interpreting, I volunteer when I can.  Most of the situations which require interpreters also (by law) require the company to hire certified interpreters, which doesn't leave me a ton of opportunities to practice.  One situation where it's not required to hire a certified interpreter is in a church setting, so I have two different churches that I usually alternate interpreting for.

Today the church I went to interpret for (my client didn't show up, but I stayed for most of the service anyway) talked about Kwanzaa.  

I don't remember what the native words for each principle and piece are, but I learned that at the Kwanzaa table there are certain items and each item represents a principle of Kwanzaa. 

Let's see how I do.

First, there's a 7-candle candle holder (don't even remember what that's called...).  There are 7 candles.  Three red, three green, and a black one in the middle.  Those represent the 7 principles of Kwanzaa. 

Each child in the family also gets an ear of corn.  The significance of the corn is that each ear of corn grows individually but is attached to the stalk, representing unity, which are two principles of Kwanzaa (individuality and unity).  The reason only the children get one is that it represents their future and what they will become.

Around the candle holder is fruit to represent working together, as in a harvest.

Then there are place mats made out of dried corn husks to represent the family ancestors.  Each member of the family, plus the candle holder, gets a place mat to tie the generations together, calling to mind the fifth principle of purpose.

Another item on the table is a wooden cup, from which every member of the family drinks to further signify unity and the sixth principle of faith.

The last principle is that of creativity in giving.  They give gifts, often home-made to signify creativity and thoughtfulness.  

I may have messed some of it up, but I thought it was interesting since I'd never known  anything about Kwanzaa.  I really wish I could have been there for their other "Celebration of Light" sermons throughout December.  They talked about Hanukkah and Christmas as well as Denali and some others I'd never heard of before.  I was interpreting at the other church the other weeks though.  I've been thinking of somehow incorporating the December holidays into my ASL class so my students can learn about all the different celebrations... Not sure how to do that yet though.  

Well, now I'm off to my own church.  Hope you enjoyed this little schpeal (however you spell that...).  

Building Badmitton

I have sort of a reputation for my crazy dreams, so I thought I'd start out my blog with the one from last night.

I was standing on top of a tall building over-looking a strange city.  On either side of this building there were two huge trampoline-type nets.  I was standing on this roof with my friend, Micah.  He came up with this idea of Building Badmitton.  He got a long, thick stick and put one of those plastic cage things from the end of a badmitton birdie on the end of it.  He threw it down to the net, it hit right in the middle and then perfectly floated over to the other one and bounced back and forth for a while.  

Then Micah left and I decided to try it.  Only then did I realize just how dangerous this little game was as we were playing high above cars, glass buildings, and pedestrians.  Well, I wasn't as good at it as Micah was and didn't hit the net in the right place and sent it sailing off into a park or something.  

Now that my "birdie" was gone, I decided to try jumping down and seeing if I could bounce back and forth with my body instead.  Obviously that was a bad idea, but I had to try!  

So, try I did.  I jumped down to the net, landed all wrong again, and was thrown the 20 or so feet to the ground.  

Two or three girls came to my rescue, one of them being a nurse from the hospital across the street.  I was too embarrassed to tell them what I had actually been doing so I made something up.  I don't remember the story I gave them, but they put me between them, with my arms around their shoulders and they walked me into the hospital. 

We were on our way to an X-ray room to see what kind of damage I'd done when the nurse was called away to a different room because they had a birthday in there and they needed her to sing.  (TGI Friday's style)  Once she was done in there, we started heading towards the X-ray room again, but she kept getting called away to sing.  

Finally annoyed enough with her lack of attentiveness, I convinced myself that my injuries were probably going to just heal on their own whether or not I knew what they were.  So I left the hospital still all broken and in pain and then I woke up.

What does it all mean?  Personally, I think it means my body wanted a break from snowboarding.  I've gone twice in the last 3 days and was contemplating going this morning.  I think my body was telling me not to.