I have to clear off the cobwebs and unclog the drains and let this blog flow once more. Its been long. Way too long.
But the general gist of life is that by the time I have settled down enough to write this account, summer has officially ended and Autumn - no, Fall - has set in. "Officially" is just a term - the weather was the best indicator that Fall had indeed fallen; its been about 2 weeks since the last 'summer temperature' (i.e. above 100 Fahrenheit) hit.
Its good, because I,for one, was complaining about the weather back then.
I can't say much more about the weather right now apart from the fact that it is well and truly beautiful - like walking in an air-conditioned yet sunny place - during the day. I don't really know how night is because I happily sit quietly in my room where (I think) there is central heating. Just for the numbers, the temperature drops to around 5 degrees Celcius at night, but in the day time it sits prettily at a comfortable 18 degrees.
Scorecard for weather right now? - it trumps the hell out of Singapore weather. But I know for a fact that this score won't last - it has already gone below ice-point once in the past two weeks, and once that begins to become a habit, weather won't be too nice anyway. Especially for playing Soccer.
Sport - and Farm-aggedon
And yes, Soccer.
If you've noticed, I've actually tried to Capitalize when I use American terms and/or spelling. Probably won't be happening too often because it STILL gives me the shivers. Every single time I see the word "Honors, Colors, Capitalize, Recognize, Behavior, Modeling etc etc." Don't ask me why I have these shivers, maybe its just an itch that I need to correct the spelling. But hey, its America, and - as I have recently discovered - they've been misspelling words for around 300 years already. I mean, the Declaration of Independence is actually misspelt. From an English perspective, of course.
Okay I meant to talk about sport, rather than language.
Americans love sport - Football, Basketball, Hockey, Soccer, Baseball. The five main sports here. For my British/Singaporean audience, allow me to translate: American Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey,
I don't get Football, and I have the tiniest bit of comprehension of baseball. I shan't embarrass myself by attempting to describe these sports to my non-American readers. But its good to know that Football is parallel to real football as it is played and supported in Europe.
A quick sojourn to my travels in Europe last year will bring you around bars and pubs and beer gardens where the atmosphere was more than insane. No difference here - for something as simple as the Iowa State derby.
Basically, Iowa State University vs University of Iowa. The Corn-frontation. Farm-aggedon. And for this simple match - college Football, mind you - the town of Ames (and Iowa City) goes just about as crazy as England.
I apologise that these photos aren't my own; and I have borrowed them off Facebook, simply because I didn't go to the game.
One needs to point out that college Football is not even the pro's or even the semi-pro's, but the support is insane. All around, people walk around wearing cardinal and gold. They wear T-shirts, put up signs, have car decals and bumper stickers; all reading "Beat Iowa". The mascot of Iowa State University - a cardinal named Cy - angrily stares down its opponents on all sorts of Iowa State Apparel.
Game Day and the streets are like Singapore during Chinese New Year - empty. Pubs, not so. This year's derby, apparently was one of the best in history, going to extra time. The game itself started at some ridiculous time (11am) and ended at another ridiculous time (2.30pm). All the while I was trying to follow the score. Not very easy considering I had no inkling of the rules of the game. But at 2.30pm somehow or another the news was spreading like wild-fire - Iowa State had won. Ames erupted, and the party went on for another day.
In a way, the game is an excuse to drink. They actually would start the previous night, drink through the game, and drink after the game. Beer's great for all occasions, apparently - it'll cheer you up when your team loses, yet at the same time its great to celebrate a victory over your arch-rivals with. This year, it was the latter.
The cool part about the game - from a non-spectator point of view - was that afterwards it was easy to tell who had gone to the stadium to watch the game. They were red.
[img roseanna sunburnt (x)]
In the extreme cases, the game-day tattoo would be the white spot remaining on otherwise sunburnt skin.
Football, however, is not the most common sport that people actually play. Probably not the easiest sport to play leisurely, considering that you go in wearing enough armour to get you halfway across Baghdad. More common are sports like basketball, kickball (the mutant baby of baseball and soccer), racquetball (mutilated squash), and yes, SOCCER!
Apart from basketball, I can say that I've tried all the rest of the above-mentioned sports. And the great part is that I've managed to find a regular group that plays soccer - the guys (and a girl) from MSE. Sadly, however, my days playing with them probably are numbered as we wait patiently for the first snowflake to fall. Hopefully there'll still be people playing even then. I even have long-sleeved sports attire for winter-exercise. All ready for winter soccer.
The other sport that is quite interesting is racquetball. I said mutilated squash just now. Kinda true. Its just squash using a much bouncier ball and much more lenient rules. I can't really give an adequate comparison with squash considering that I don't actually know the rules of squash. But its fun.
[img racquetball (x)]
to be continued...
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