Adventures, Musings, Commentary, and Associated Fun

bananas, and (more) ultimate...

I bought my first banana in over 8 months last week.  If anyone had any doubt about the "theory" of the supply and demand, banana prices since Cyclone Larry blew through Queensland in March and destroyed almost the entire crop of banana trees should go a long way to proving it.  Since then, prices have hovered around $13/kg (roughly $6/lb).  At one point, I think they maxed out at $15/kg - and they were pretty sickly looking at that.  For a while, I was basing my choice of smoothies on which ones had banana flavoring - just so I could continue to get my fix.  They're not at normal prices just yet, but at $6/kg I figured I could splurge.  They're yummy.

On a completely unrelated note, if you follow the link below you can see an amazing catch by Steve Wealands (teammate on Chilly) in the semifinals of Worlds.  We lost the game, of course, but this was one of the best catches in the entire tournament.  If you pause it about halfway through (just after the catch), you can see me running down the sideline - I'm wearing the red visor with long black socks.  Did I mention it was a crazy grab?

http://www.ultivillage.com/Ultimate-Frisbee-Videos/Clip-of-the-Day/WUCC-Open-Semi-Chilly-score.html

Ultivillage does a bunch of filming at big ultimate tournaments, and you should check out the rest of their "Clip of the Day" section.  There are some pretty awesome shots.  That's all for now...

Bronze...

I've got a mountain of marking ahead of me right now, but for those that are interested, we won Bronze in Perth.  I guess that makes us third in the world.  To take part in a tournament like that was easily one of the most amazing experiences I've had, and then to actually do well also...yeah, it felt pretty money.  Lots more to come, but for the time being this will have to suffice!  I'm wincing in the back row...probably due to smile fatigue.  Nonetheless, it felt pretty damn good to come back with a bit of bling-bling.

WUCC Scores

For those of you that have asked or are interested, you'll be able to follow the progress of Chilly at next week's World Championships at http://www.scoreomatic.com/WUCC.  Watch us take over the world (or at least the world of Ultimate).  Did I mention that I'm excited about Perth, and that I can barely contain my excitement?  In about 72 hours, I'll be in Perth, gathering with the couple of thousand other athletes that are coming out for it.

As for what I'm going to do once all this Ultimate is over...yes, the thought has crossed my mind.  Adventure racing seems to be quite a big thing over here, and as the old saying goes, when in Rome...do adventure racing.  The basic idea is to run, bike, swim, kayak, etc. your way through some long, tortuous course.  It has some appeal, and I think I'll be able to talk some of the other Chilly boys into joining me.  And once you've made the decision to do it, why not aim for the top...right?  Check out the XPD race - a "Reef, Rainforest, and Outback" expedition over 10 days and 650km in coastal Queensland.  Looks like the next edition is already full-up, but one worth setting goals for and keeping an eye on... :)

One week until Perth

Believe it or not, I'm going to try and *NOT* talk entirely about ultimate - despite the fact that the World Championships are one week away, I am postively giddy with excitement, I can concentrate on very few non-Ultimate related things at the moment, and I'm starting to get a reputation amongst people (I think) as the guy with the permanently goofy smile on his face.  It's all been a bit intense.

The past three weeks have been insanely busy...but then again, when was the end of the semester EVER calm and relaxed?  To be finished with teaching - my first semester at the University level - is both a relief (timing wise) and a bit sad, as I've enjoyed it tremendously and have really connected with a number of my students.  I was a bit nervous coming into it this semester, but my experience in the UK proved extremely useful.  At the end of the day, teaching is teaching - it's just the material and the audience that changes.  I can say that it's been one of the highlights of my time here so far - both intrinsically in the enjoyment I've received from it, as well as extrinsically in the feedback I've received and the relationships that I've developed so far.  Being asked to be Head Tutor for a 600+ student class was both nice recognition/vote of confidence as well as Boot Camp for organizational skills.  When you don't have an option to slack off or fall behind on organizational things, you tend not to. :)

Additionally, on Monday I presented a 30 minute talk on my thesis research up to this point.  It's a standard part of the "Confirmation" process, which all research students (read: me) go through during their first year.  This was the first real checkpoint; from here, I still have to submit a 10,000 writing sample (really, where you're planning on going with your project) and a 45 minute committee meeting in which they grill you on the details.  By comparison, my presentation was straightforward - talk about my stuff, get some feedback, and generally try to appear like you're on the ball.  (This can be tough when you lose your ENTIRE Powerpoint slide show 10 hours before your presentation, as I did - but it all came together in the end. Ah, coffee.)

I'm off to see the Melbourne Victory play tonight (our A-League soccer team), but whatever the results it's unlikely to be too big of a night for me: we have training at 9 AM tomorrow (Saturday) morning, and besides I'm feeling a bit poor at the moment anyway.  Guess that makes me as much as PhD student as anything else, huh?  Oh, and I helped put together a press release for Chilly about Worlds.  Check it out, and feel free to forward to relevant major news and media outlets! :)

Download chilly_press_release_worlds_final.pdf

About time somebody made the connection!

Finally, somebody has made the conclusion that so many of us have known for ages...

The Ultimate Mystery: Popular Sport Beats SATs at Ranking Universities Academically

Speaks for itself, doesn't it? :)  It's even more impressive when looking at Australian Universities.  Using this ranking, the medal winning teams at the recent University Games (Macquarie Univ, Univ of Queensland, and Melbourne Univ) ranked  11th, 4th, and tied 1st respectively.  More impressively, of the top 15 universities (out of 38 total), 13 competed at Uni Games - out of 16 total teams.  Apparently ultimate players are smarter than we look!

In other news - by which I mean more of the same, of course - Chilly (my team) is officially the #1 Australian team going into the World Championships in Perth.  We had a few hiccups this weekend in Sydney - a loss against our main rival in pool play and a lackluster win against another - but we pulled it out in the final, 17-10 to take the top overall seed.  We should be hearing about the seeding/schedule for the tournament soon, but we are pretty excited about both our performance up to this point and our chances in the tournament.  As mentioned earlier, there is at least a reasonable chance we will involved in the "showcase" game to start the tournament, played in front of several thousand spectators.  Yowsers.

Oh, and this is the final week of the semester - thankfully - and on Monday I will be giving a 30 minute presentation on my research up to this point at the Political Science Postgraduate Symposium.  I'm a bit underprepared due to my frisbee adventures, teaching commitments, and other things that seem to have been conspiring against making headway on my thesis, but it should be a good experience to get some feedback (he says, laughing nervously, taking another gulp of coffee...)