Ah... It's that time of year again. Time for soccer and job searching. The soccer season started last week, meaning the ever so stressful try-outs. Not only super stressful, but also very encouraging. A few years ago I remember there being a huge split between the talent that showed up to try-outs. There were many who clearly stood out as top tier varsity players, and also people who just wanted to play a high school sport, and very few right in the middle. This year, there were not so many stand outs on either end and about 15 players who could easily be interchanged without consequence. And that is where the biggest problem was. After picking the initial 16 players and deciding that the varsity would only hang onto 19 total, we now had 3 open spots, and 5 girls who equally deserved and earned the spots. After much deliberation and lots and lots of running through all the different options, it was decided to keep all 5 girls. Great choice!
This past weekend, was the annual soccer trip to Idaho. Our head coach has lots of family members in Idaho falls who happen to be out of town every year on this specific weekend. How convenient. So we stay in their house. All he girls sleep in the basement in sleeping bags. Well maybe not sleep, but that's where they stay. We spend 4 days practicing, doing service, attending church and a fireside, and over-all just bonding. It does wonders for the cohesion of the team. The new members of the team often get their protective shell's broken and surprise everyone by how vocal and social they actually are. We came straight home to the very first game of the pre-season. And what a game it was. 1-1 in the first 15 minutes. Followed by 87 minutes of nothing. One of our returning sophomore's scored the winning goal with less than 3 minutes left to play. Not a bad start to the season, and now we know that driving for 5 hours and then playing a soccer game is probably not the very best idea.
Who doesn't love doing cartwheels? I don't. And I especially don't enjoy it on the soccer field. But let's see you try and convince a 9 year old girl to stop doing cartwheels. Yeah I have a hard time with that too. I recently was assigned to help coach a group of 9 year old girls. I'm still not quite sure what I've gotten myself into. Don't get me wrong, these girls are adorable, and already attached. At my second practice they were already running up to me and giving me a welcome to practice hug. That's something my high school girls have never done. But it's really hard to coach soccer to girls who want to do cartwheels and pick flowers. How in the world do you get these kids to pay attention long enough to teach them anything? I certainly have no idea, but I certainly try. I didn't want to come in and be the automatically mean coach. So I am easing into it. I am running practice Friday morning and I think I will be instigating a few new rules not limited to but including, 5 push-ups and 5 sit-ups for each cartwheel, for every minute myself or the other coach has to wait because they are talking while we are explaining something, they will owe us one lap (they have really small fields, one lap is probably not even 300 yrds). I think they can handle this. Plus they might actually learn something about soccer.... Crazy right?
Along with it being soccer season, it is also almost time for my job to be evaluated again. Every year at the end of September my job and performance are evaluated. If they like me and the work I do, I get hired on for another year. If not, it's adios and good luck. Well it's officially that time of year. So I am trying to make sure I'm well liked, while at the same time applying and interviewing for as many jobs as I can find. Not so easy. Especially in this market where it seems like no one has a job and you can't even apply for a job without a bachelor's degree AND three years experience, of which I have neither. So I am relying on friends and the Army. I had an interview yesterday for a Recruiting position with the Army, and another tomorrow for a Supply position. I was supposed to get a call from a friend's company for a receptionists position, but I didn't. Looks like I'll be calling her. Either way, I'm starting to feel that push to find something new. I'm getting the feeling that with budget cuts my job might not exist this coming year. I mean really, how important is Facebook?
