Friday, September 28, 2012

Matchday 28 and Terrible Boredom

I’m finally back.  I would post more like I did when I was in Sweden, but there is truly nothing to talk about most of the time.  People wouldn’t think that a professional athlete’s life would be boring, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored in my entire life.  I can’t even do extra workouts because I’ve been specifically instructed by Juha to stop that so that I’m fully ready to play when called upon.  Speaking of Juha…

 

As soon as my post went up last week, I looked at the tv and Juha was on the screen analyzing a Champions League game between Manchester City and Real Madrid.  It was ironic because I spent most of that post talking about how nothing interesting ever happened.  I’d tell you what he said, but I have no idea because I don’t speak a word of Finnish and because the tv was muted.  That’s just how I watch tv here.

 

Fast forward to now, and things are better than before for me personally.  Not good per se, but better.  I played in the last game, albeit only for a few minutes at the very end.  I only touched the ball once, and that was to win a 50/50 ball that we didn’t keep.  I didn’t even have enough time to break a sweat.  It’s for sure better than not playing though.  Unfortunately, we lost the game 1-0 and now sit at the bottom of the table since the team previously behind us won.  Once again we played well, but we just didn’t get the results.  I have my ideas on how to improve things, but they’re not really important because no one listens to me anyway.  Maybe one day I’ll reveal my secret formula for success!

Me slightly happier than before.
 

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That was the ‘Line of Relevance’

 

Everything above it has at least some relevance, everything else I’m about to write isn’t relevant to anything.

 

Today I did absolutely nothing.  It was a day off for the team and those are the worst days for me.  They drag on forever and I spend most of them just at home.  Today was no different.  In fact, I didn’t even leave my place today.  Normally on off days I go for a run, but the instruction from Juha means that I’m not doing any extra running of any kind.  I barely even ate today.  I’ve just been sitting in my living room playing PS3 and surfing the internet all day.  I downloaded and watched Prometheus, and I wasn’t impressed.

 

Times like these make me really miss living in America.  While of course I had times where I was really bored in America, I always had something to do.  Baltimore (and more specifically Towson, MD) was fun and exciting and Harrisburg had a few things to do as well.  I also had a lot more in common with my US teammates than I do with the guys here or in Sweden.  I miss watching college football on Saturday afternoons on TV.  Now I can still watch games, but only on a crappy internet stream and at 8 o’clock at night.  It’s just not as fun.

 

Another thing that sucks about being abroad is that all my friends from back home are going forward with their lives.  One of my good friends is getting married this weekend and I literally didn’t even know.  I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people back home and finding out about this wedding just kind of hammered that point home to me.  I knew he was engaged at least.  But it just sucks that I’m not going to be able to be there and show my support.  If I lived in say, Philadelphia, I’d be on a plane right now to go to the wedding.  Instead, I’m sitting in total boredom in small town Finland.  I knew what I was getting into when I left America though.  Most of the stresses I’ve gone through were fully known before I ever set foot in Europe.

 

Oh yeah before I go I have a quick question.  My house has been really cold on some of the colder days we’ve had here in Valkeakoski.  Does anyone know how to work the radiators?  It seems like it should be really simple since it’s just one knob, but I’ve turned them all to different points and none of them have any heat at all.  I just assume that there is some sort of central radiator and it’s not turned on yet or something?  I’m only living here for a month more, but I don’t want to spend that month freezing my ass off.  Hopefully someone has the answers!
 
 
The meme:

2 comments:

  1. Mate, condolences for possibly the worst refereeing I have ever seen in a professional football game; and congrats on your good performance and that one point...

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    1. haha thanks man. I'm still kind of stunned that was allowed to stand, but you know when you play the big teams it can affect the referees' judgement. If we continue to play like we did today then it won't matter who the ref is we'll still get 3 points!

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