So... did we win or what?

We've been attending this largely Korean church in Dallas and when I found out there was an interchurch volleyball tournament, I signed up figuring sports is as good a forum as any to get to meet folks. The tournament was this past weekend, involving a total of 11 Korean churches, but with only 4 teams in the A division. It was entertaining, although I didn't really understand any of the official proceedings since they were conducted in Korean.

I'm not sure that a sports tournament is necessarily the best way to develop friendships between different communities. Scrimmaging, open gyms, or intermixing squads helps people get to know each other in more laidback situations, but putting on a team jersey and playing for a trophy just brings out competitive fire, at least for me. There was at least a few times where I was screaming at the ref (provided by one of the teams not playing) about a missed call during a point and had to apologize afterwards :)

The tournament was 9-man volleyball, which I hadn't played before, but didn't really follow the standard rules I had found online. It seems like an Asian invention for lazy volleyball players, which suited me pretty well. For us, it mostly meant we just played a single position without rotating and had nine players on the court. It was perfect for me since I just played defense in the middle (no tiresome blocking responsibilities) and hit mostly medium sets out of the middle (no tiresome quick sets in the middle).

We ended up sweeping through round robin with the other 3 teams and pulling out victories in both playoff games to bring home the trophy! It was good that I had almost no other responsibilities than hitting; I was plenty exhausted from hitting non-stop as the primary recipient of our sets. My favorite moment was actually on a play that I got stuffed by a 6'5" Korean giant, but while the opponents went into instant celebration, the ball popped up off my head and a teammate poked it back over near gigantor for the point. Volleyball can also be an aggravating game since teams celebrate so much between points, so of course I immediately pointed at him and laughed ;) While my teammates called me MVP, Ruth should probably then be co-MVP; I spent the morning matches getting into a decent rhythm but then just tried to crush the ball after she came to watch in the afternoon :)

It's unfortunate that it's hard to get any sort of pick-up volleyball game going since it's not a widely played sport. It's so satisfying since it's the only sport where I can just swing as hard as possible without worrying about an unforced error. With golf and even softball (!), swinging hard often results in whiffing, which is more than a little embarrassing. There's actually a softball tourney coming up in a couple weeks and I agreed to join if they could recruit enough players for a no pressure B team :)

Azuki

Azuki is officially 17.0 lbs and pretty much finished growing (at least that's what we think since her paws are so small). We're really happy about that since she's the perfect size for a lap dog (Hubert likes to keep his feet warm by putting them on her like a foot rest; if she tries to get up and move he can maneuver his feet to keep her down), and she is easy to carry around and play with.

This is an example of a typical conversation we have with people when we take Azuki out:
"Wow, what a nice looking dog. What is that?"
"Shiba Inu"
"She looks like a fox"
"Yeah, haha"
"wow, she really looks like a fox! Dang. Or a wolf."
"yeah......"

i guess it doesnt really sound that annoying but when you get it every day multiple times a day i just want to put a sign around her head that says, "i'm not a fox. Or a wolf. Wolves are gray for goodness sake."

I even told one couple that she really was a fox when they asked what she was and they believed me. When their eyes stayed like saucers I just walked away and laughed.

Here's some new pictures of our non-fox, all dressed up and looking super cute.









Edit: Azuki graduated from dog school today!!

Post-MCAT Update

Now that I'm done with the MCAT and my semester at UTD is winding down, I have a lot more time on my hands to focus on important things like monetizing my infrequently updated blog. The test itself went alright, but I still have to wait two more weeks until I find out my score online. With that out of the way, I've been working on my personal statement, tracking down some reference letters, and making sure I can satisfy most of the requirements at the schools that I'm applying to. It's pretty amazing that I'm actually going to start applying this summer, but the whole process seems somewhat daunting. After interviewing several hundred candidates while at Google, I'm not sure sitting on the other side of the table will be all that fun.

With the NBA regular season concluding, the only fantasy sport that I'm still playing is baseball, which gets kind of boring after the first month and still over a hundred games to go. Gerlad amazingly won our fantasy basketball head-to-head league (beating me in the finals) despite not having any activity since October 30 of last year. In fact, reading about it here might be the first time he knows of his victory. I would attribute it to his genius drafting abilities but his final posted comment from last year was: "how did yahoo picks screw my draft up sooo bad?????" Maybe he just wanted us to think we had a chance.

I'm planning to read some books and work out while I have extra free time. I've lost weight since moving out to Texas, which is a bit scary. It must be the lack of the goodness that is the Google cafeteria. Unfortunately, I think I tweaked my quad while working out last week and aggravated it playing volleyball yesterday. Hopefully it won't be too gimpy for next weekend's tournament. In the meantime, my workouts might have to be restricted to Wii Sports while I recover...