Moving on Over

If you want to read about Adventures in Refereeland, I'm here now:

Baby Ref Queenie

If a skater posts an update and no one reads it, is it still and update?

I suppose at this point this is more for my benefit than anything.

Inching ever closer to being back on skates (36 days, not like I'm COUNTING OR ANYTHING).  

I am one of three coaches for Fresh Meat now, which so far has been a lot of fun.  (We've only had one session so far.)  Twenty people came, hopefully they will stick around!

NSOing is going well; I'm actually going to be scorekeeping a real official bout on Saturday!  Eep!

so, yeah

the doctor appointment went very well; they did say I should wait the six months before going back on skates, but I was expecting that. 

the season starts up again this week; hip hip hooray!

making the switch

so so far in NSO land during scrimmages I have been a scorekeeper twice and penalty timer once.  (and I literally mean once.  I had ONE skater come into the box.)

The travel team I was on just won the All 8 On the Floor Tournament.  I really wish I could've been there skating, as I spent the vast majority of my playing career thinking "Why can't B teams go to tournaments, why do the charter teams get all the glory".

Today (in less than an hour) I have a followup appointment with Shoulder Doc and Nurse Practitioner.  I really hope they say "you can start skating again", though I am not very optimistic.  A few weeks ago NP was like "if you go to the amusement park, you can go on the merry-go-round and that's about it, unless you want to risk re-injuring your shoulder."  Which I do not want to do.

Our fresh meat training coach is retiring and the league is looking for a replacement.  I sent out feelers for anyone else who might be interested in a co-coaching thing.  I am a horrible teacher, but (I think, anyway) that I'm good at strategy and rules and can help out there.

So, yeah.

I was asked to submit my resignation in LEGO form

I started to lose it about three skaters before I was supposed to be introduced.

Then the announcer skipped me in the listing so that I would be introduced last.

Then I completely lost it.

The other team also awarded me Most Valuable Blocker even though I didn't play.

I love my league so much.

So yeah. Hi.

Tomorrow is the last bout of the season; I asked to be honorarily rostered (since it's not an official game, just a mixup of skaters into two teams, we don't have to limit ourselves to 14) so I can skate intros and whatnot. 

Then, after that, I officially retire as a skater.

I didn't want to end my skating career this way; I wanted to end on a blaze of glory after an amazing win or whatever, not "year of mishaps and surgeries and injuries that led me to not skate at all."  If you don't count the scrimmage we played in February? March? (the one with the screwed up track dimensions) it's been almost exactly one year since I have bouted.

Siiiiiiiiiiigh. 

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But, in happier news - I never talked about the WFTDA conference in Vegas!  OMFG THAT WAS AMAZEBALLS.  I learned so much and had so much fun.  I was the only person from my league who went, so I was kinda worried that I'd be by myself the whole time and all that.  Nope!  I'd go up to a group of skaters and say "hey, can I glom onto you?" and they'd say "SURE!"   One night I was trying to figure out what to do, and I decided I'd walk the Strip (by myself) and I ended up behind a group, and one of them turned around, realized she'd met me earlier in the day and said "Hey, Queenie, wanna come with us to get tacos?" and I was like "YES PLEASE".

So, so much fun.

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I've been studying the rules so I can be a good ref - mostly taking the Roller Derby Test O'Matic and writing down the ones I get wrong.  I have this notebook thing that I've set up for my derby stuff that I carry around with me all the time.  I'm dorkily excited.

it's been a while

but there's really not much to say.  I miss skating and playing.  I go to scrimmage on Thursdays and help bench manage, but it's not the same.

Our team had a bout this past Saturday but I had a bout of food poisoning so I wasn't able to go.  

A week from tomorrow I leave for Vegas for the WFTDA Annual Conference; I'm looking forward to that.

Other than that, I've been brushing up on the rules in anticipation of hopefully becoming a ref.  When I go to practices, I kinda pretend to be a pack ref and do "out of play" and whatnot.  I feel like I've got the rules pretty much under my cap, but it's a matter of accessing them quickly and applying them when necessary that will be the tricky part.  We'll see how it goes.