Boo-Yah!

Exactly one month from today I will be 25 years old. Just writing that sentence makes me have a panic attack. I remember turning 16 and I can't wrap my head around the fact that it has been 9 years since then!

In other news, I play in a Sunday soccer league called District Sports. It's co-ed so of course on every team that we seem to play there is always some guy who never got to play Division 1 soccer in college and is still living in his high school glory days and he takes this out on everyone by being a jerk.  This of course happened on Sunday.

First I need to preface this story by saying yes, I am still unemployed. I've somewhat managed to not walk around all day with a panic look on my face but instead I just think about it all the time for example:

At the grocery store in the self check out line:
Me: Oh, it's not crowded at all today! Wait that is because it is 1030am and everyone is at work. Which is where I would be but I am unemployed.

On the metro:
Me: Oh that guy looks nice in his suit I bet he is coming back from his job. J-O-B which I don't have.

At the bar:
Me: Mm this drink is good, wow that guy is not a bad dancer, that girl is not wearing pants, leggings aren't pants. Wait I bet they both have jobs, I am unemployed.

Waking up in the middle of the night to get water:
Me: hmm wow it's late I need to get back to bed. WAIT I guess it doesn't matter because I am unemployed.

So you get the idea, it's been on my mind a lot. It doesn't matter where I am or what I am doing it's always there. So fast forward to this Sunday.

This team was pretty good and were actually undefeated (until yesterday). The Tool as I shall call him was playing forward and I was playing defense. Within 5 minutes I could tell he was a tool. First of all he had a Chinese Character tattoo wrapped around his arm. Secondhe literally ran over a girl on our team hurt her and then got mad when the ref called a foul and he kicked the ball out of bounds. Then I was going up for a head  ball and he jumped on top of me. When we got up I looked at him and he went "Oh, I'm not sorry you got in my way."

It was this point that I threw down the gauntlet Hoffman style and thought to myself :YOU SHALL NOT PASS.

Because here is the thing soccer is a contact sport I get it but there is no need to try to hurt people at Sunday low key game.

After his non apology I turned around and saw my goalie and sweeper laughing. I looked at them and the goalie went: Oh man, you are going to get that guy. It is going to be great.

And I did. Oh I got him good.

I played club soccer for a long time and one of my most colorful coaches was a German man. When he would get really mad at us he would just start screaming in German. We quickly learned that the less English he was speaking the more trouble we were in.

My German coach was really into teaching us how to defeat our opponents mentally. For example before every game he would give us a riddle like: "A man wakes up naked in a field with one shoe. How did he get there?" We would stare blankly at him, and then he would say: "Now girls that is what you must do to the other team."


What I really remember is him saying that no matter how much better another player or team maybe you can always beat them if you can get into their heads and get them frustrated. This meant smiling, staring at them in the eyes, and basically jogging in place in circles around them until they went crazy and began making mistakes.

Besides teaching 13 year old girls how to rage mental war-fare on each other, I think he had a good point. Once someone begins getting frustrated the game is over.

So yesterday at the game I employed those tactics on the Tool. I never stopped moving. I ran in circles around this guy. At one point he looked at me and went: "whatever you are doing it isn't going to work, I can always beat a girl." Clearly he didn't realize he was dealing with a Hoffman.

And then I knocked him down when he got the ball.
And when we sprinted to a ball I beat him every single time.
When he would get the ball and try to go all Pele on me forgetting he was white and had a frat boy beer belly, I'd just calmly reach in there and pick the ball.

Just wash, rinse, and repeat these steps over and over.

My team loved it the entire time. Especially when at one point I began to do jump n jacks next to me and said: It is such a pretty day out isn't it!

And as the game went on he got more and more frustrated. He began to scream whenever I would get the ball from him and stamp his feet like a child. He got more tired and started wheezing. I started to feel a little bad for belittling him when out of nowhere he got mad and stepped on our goalie when the goalie clearly had the ball.

So the next time someone passed him the ball I gave him quite the hip check. Because you know what us ladies were given birthing hips for a reason and lord knows I'm not using them to dance or  give birth, but I can use them to push over angry men on a soccer field. So I hip checked him, he went flying face down and started rolling around and punching the ground. I looked at him and said "well whatever you are doing isn't working because I am a girl and I am beating you."

What goes around comes around! Justin Timberlake said it. Therefore it is true.

The best part was at the end when he and I were sprinting down for a loose ball, at this point we were up 4-0 so even if he had scored it wouldn't have been a big deal, but like what my old German soccer coach used to say "the game isn't over until you've mentally exhausted the other team and they want to go home and cry."

At the last second I realized that we were running very close to the fence and if we weren't careful we were going to slam into it. Luckily I managed to out run him (sniff, Hoffman running genes, my Dad was a track champ in high school, NBD). and got the ball. He however lacked the ability to stop and slammed into the fence.

Then the ref blew the whistle. And my team celebrated our victory.

And I did what I like to call my Boo-Yah Dance. It's amazing that is all I am going to say. If you ever do see it consider yourself lucky. It's like me lip-singing to Celine Dion's "It's all coming back to me now" It doesn't happen often but when it does it's entertaining.

Alright you got me. It basically looks like this:

Besides making this guy rethink all of his life choices the best part of the game I didn't realize until I was walking home. All of a sudden it hit me that for the first time since I have been laid off I wasn't thinking about the fact that I was unemployed. For exactly one hour I was focused on something else and it felt great.

I think my coach was on to something. Because the "opponent' doesn't even have to be another team. It can be yourself. And if you get frustrated or flustered you are going to start making mistakes and doubting yourself.

So what I learned from all of this is: Guys with Chinese character tattoos shouldn't be trusted, All 13 year old girls should be taught to carefully harness the power of mental warfare, Yes I am almost 25 years old and I have a Boo-Yah dance.

Job Search Update! After my week of interviews last week I have one new one this week and a second round for a job I would love to get this Friday. Fingers crossed!

Also I never did figure out what the answer to the "Naked man wakes up in a field" riddle.