Broomballin' and Decision Makin'

There have been quite a few exciting things happening in my life recently! First of all, I went to Homer this past weekend for the Alaska State Broomball tournament. It was an awesome experience. We ended up taking third out of six teams in the tournament. That doesn’t sound very impressive, but considering it was the first time we had played inside on an ice rink with boards and smooth ice and against people other than Bethel folks, I am happy with how we did. The actual experience of being in Homer was pretty great too. I flew into Anchorage on Friday morning and met up with my dad who happened to be in Anchorage for a council meeting. We walked around downtown Anchorage, got Starbucks (!) and then ate some delicious chicken teriyaki.

After that, I got into a cab and headed back to the airport and flew to Homer. The flight was only 45 minutes but it would have been a 5 hour drive from Anchorage so almost everyone on our team decided to fly. I ended up getting into Homer at 4:45 but the rest of the people flying in didn’t get in until 7:15, so I walked from the airport to the downtown area with a hiking backpack full of all of my stuff. But, once I had walked the 2 miles, my shoulders were sore. So, I stopped at the Safeway, bought some batteries for my camera (yes, there will be broomball pictures available soon!) and some snacks for the team (that were meant for the tournament but turned into drunk munchies later that night), then sat down at the Starbucks inside the Safeway and read a book for an hour. I probably looked like a total dirty hippie, but Homer seems like a pretty hippie friendly place.

Anyway, after a while in the Safeway, I decided to take a cab out to the end of the Homer Spit, a 4.5 mile long piece of land that sticks out into the Kachemak Bay, where our team would be staying. We rented a house at the end of the spit that is run by the Land’s End hotel. But, since my team wasn’t there yet, I decided to have my first drink at a bar since Christmastime while I waited. Alaskan Amber. Yum. After I finished with that and a delicious chicken breast sandwich, my team had arrived. So, we dropped off our stuff at this beautiful house and headed straight to the Salty Dawg, a famous Homer bar. We walk in and are immediately serenaded by the lovely folks from the Homer Wooden Boats Society who sing sea shanties at the bar every Friday night. We only stayed there for one drink because my teammates were hungry.

So, next we headed out to Alice’s Champagne Palace, one of the sponsors of the Homer broomball league. When we got there, a hopping Space-themed party in honor of the tournament. Since we didn’t know about the costume section of our broomball entertainment, we decided to all show up in our jerseys (retro Bruin’s hockey jerseys). We got a wonderful warm welcome when we walked in. Everyone there seem to be really excited to have people all the way from Bethel for the tournament. So, we had a few beers (the Homer Brewery’s Red is AMAZING) and some shots of Jager and did a ton of dancing then called it a night.

The next day was broomball day! It was set up so that every team played everyone else and then everyone went into tournament play. We ended up doing awesome in the round robin section, we only lost one game (to the team that ended up winning the tournament) and we scored the most goals out of all the teams. So, we went into tournament play in 2^nd place and then lost to the first team we played. That was a total bummer, but like I said before I am still happy with how we did. Some highlights: Two women from Homer volunteered to play on our team since we only had two women (and you have to have 2 women on the ice at all times) and about 3 minutes into our second game, one of them fell chin first onto the ice, bruising her chin and knocking out one of her front teeth. (She is ok and had dental insurance and a great attitude so it wasn’t the horrible situation it could have been) Anyway, I went back in for her and we continued playing. About two minutes after that, I collide with this guy and his hockey helmet with face cage slams right into my (borrowed) bike helmet (white with silver flowers) … and my ear. That felt nice. So, I subbed out for a couple of minutes until I felt a little more in control. I didn’t cry but man, it really hurt! But, I was back in just a few minutes later, thankful that I was not hurt like our wonderful Homer substitute. Anyway, it was a wonderful day full of laughter, sweat and pushing people around.

After the games, we all took turns taking nice hot showers and laying down. We were all exhausted, but managed to rally and head out to the Broomball Banquet and After Party. The Homer teams gave out awards and everyone just sort of mingled and ate dinner, then we headed to the Down East, my first ever smoking bar. Yes, I am so young that all the bars had already gone smoke-free before I was 21. My fellow players did not enjoy learning that fact. I was the youngest person on our team by at least 5 years and at most almost 20 years. I was also the only one not married/with a live-in lifetime commitment partner. It was actually hilarious to watch these older guys with wives and children and respectable lives just get ridiculous because they could. Watching them go crazy was like being back in college. So entertaining.

On Sunday, we all woke up sore and exhausted (after staying out until 3:30 after playing broomball all day, no one was surprised) but we still tried to challenge Homer players to a final scrimmage. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your level of pain/hangover), not enough people showed up. So, we went back to the house and hung out until we went to dinner at one of our player’s parent’s house for lunch. Then, I headed back to the airport and flew to Anchorage. In Anchorage, I met up with my JV roommate Joe who lives and works in there now. We went out to dinner and ate some amazing pizza (with beer, of course) then watched the Country Music Awards and went to bed. When I woke up on Monday morning, it was time to head back to Bethel. What an awesome weekend.

Since I’ve been back in Bethel, I have been trying to make some decisions about grad school. I got into the University of Washington, University of Montana and the University of Denver. After lots of thought and stressing, I have decided that I want to attend the University of Denver’s MSW in the Fall. Now, I just need to find an apartment, a job and a way to pay for it! Since this week is testing week at the high school, I have had lots of free time to look up information about all of those things, but it is hard for me to make housing/life decisions when I’m not there. I’ve never actually been to Denver. This will be quite a change from Bethel but I am very excited about it. I am also excited about this summer. I plan to visit my family in Seattle and in Maine and then head down to Denver to try to get settled before I start school. If any of you have any Denver connections, I’d be thrilled to hear about them.

Well, I think that is all I’ve got for now. Testing is about to be over so I guess I will go collect some tests! I hope you are all doing well and if you are in Seattle or Maine, I hope to see you in just a few weeks!

Lots of love,

Jill

Meet the Old Lady Me, Broomball Tournament and Theology!

I know it has been a long time since my last blog but I think it is time for an update. I have been pretty busy recently. In February, I was in a play. It was ridiculous. I’ve never really been in community theatre before, so that was an interesting experience. The show was Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced and I was Mrs. Blacklock, the woman of the house where a murder takes place. It was lots of fun to be a classy older woman. I dyed my hair grey every night, wore sweet dresses straight out of history. There was a photographer, so if you are so inclined, check them out: http://thebagonline.org/Bethel_Actors_Guild/The_2011_Season/Pages/A_Murder_is_Announced.html There are a ton of pictures, but don’t be deterred, definitely make sure to look at the pictures at the end. Yes, that is me, the classy English woman, trying to stab someone with scissors and then getting stopped by the police.

Anyway, the play was basically my life from when I got back in January until the end of February. Then, once I survived that ridiculous experience of people quitting, people on script during the dress rehearsal and just general craziness, I found something new to get excited about. Broomball! I know that I have written about broomball in the past, I’ve been playing since last winter, but its for real now. See, everyone has gotten really into it, we have special broomball shoes, we have new broomball sticks and in two weeks, I will be heading to Homer to represent Bethel in the Alaskan Broomball tournament. It will be another interesting experience, I’m sure. I’m not that good but I’m definitely getting better. I scored my first goal ever a few weeks ago and then I scored another one yesterday. I think my goal for the tournament should be to try and score a goal. We shall see how that goes. I’m not incredibly optimistic but it will be fun to get out of Bethel and have one last fun Alaskan experience before I leave.

Yes, I am leaving Bethel. It has been a wonderful experience but it is time for me to move on. I don’t yet know where I am going to be moving to, that is too much decision making for me, but I know I won’t be in Bethel come next fall. I don’t know when I am going to leave, I might spend part of the summer here, I might move to wherever I am planning on attending grad school, who knows. Oh yea, I think I am going to grad school. Yay! I got into the University of Denver’s school of Social Work, I am also waiting to hear back from the University of Montana. Those are my two top choices. Denver or Missoula? I don’t know which I prefer quite yet. Meh, I have some time. Haha. Nothing like putting off decisions!

Anyway, other exciting things happening in the life of Jill: I am still obsessed with food. My current love = sweet potato gnocchi. Try this recipe out and fall in love. Its easy, its delicious and it is actually relatively nutritious. I like it with a little bit of pesto. http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/sweet-potato-gnocchi/Detail.aspx I have made it twice in the past 2 months (and since I like to try new things all the time, that actually means something, I only repeat awesome recipes)

I have also been reading some of my roommate’s theology books. I often get bored and start reading whatever is around me and recently that has meant reading Ariel’s books. They have definitely raised some questions for me. The first book was Proverbs of Ashes. Basically, this book is part theology and part memoir and the premise is that the belief that Jesus was crucified in order to forgive our sins perpetuates a cycle of violence. The authors use stories from their own lives and stories from others to illustrate this. One of the most striking examples for me was the story of a woman who was beaten by her husband but counseled by her priest to stay with the batterer. His explanation: your struggles bring you closer to God, you understand Jesus’ agony on the cross. WHOA. That just sounds ridiculous to me. The authors of this book had actually touched on one of my biggest issues with Christianity, the idea that this great, loving God, would send his own son to be tortured and killed. What kind of person does that? What kind of God does that? All my life, I have struggled when people have said, “God sends us these troubles to test us or to make us stronger.” In my head, I’ve always said, “What the heck? Why? Why does God have to bring us pain?” The authors of Proverbs of Ashes don’t believe that God wants us to be punished. He doesn’t send us pain and problems, he sends us love and the ability to withstand our pain and problems. Yes. This is what I have been looking for! Someone to tell me that our great all-powerful God is not some punk who gets off on people’s suffering (yes, that sounds sacrilegious, but tell me you haven’t heard stuff like that before). Anyway, that was a really interesting book. It definitely got me thinking. If you are interested, you should totally read it too!

Ok, whew. That was deep. Deeper than my blogs usually get. Let’s end on a lighter note. I got my work evaluation on Friday. It was a 2 minute meeting with the Assistant Principal. He said that I was great and I got top marks on everything. My favorite category: cleanliness. Apparently, I am very well groomed and presentable. Sweet. So take that, everyone who judged my every 2 to 3 day showering schedule. According to Bethel Regional High School, I exceed cleanliness standards.

Anyway, time to head home! I hope everyone is doing well!

Lots of love,

Jill