Chesapeake Open

Hatch is going to Maryland this weekend to play in Chesapeake Open! We're the last team in the "elite division." There are 10 teams in the elite division and 5 teams in the regular division. Dunno how that works but, COOL! :)

AND we're getting new jerseys!!

AND we're staying at Jin's parents' house.

YAY!! EXCITING!! :D

My goals this weekend:
1) every decision is a good decision: throw to people who are 100% open in or away, dump swing at stall 4, stay out of the way for cutter ho-stack, good communication among handlers
2) defense: backpedal, stay low, stay to the open side, don't get broken on the mark
3) be a good teammate: active sideline, keep morale up, be better about talking to individuals

My what big calves you have...

Bryan was looking through the pictures that Sluts took this past weekend and saw this one:


B: "OMG! Kaaaareeeeen... Are my calves really that big??"

K: "Yeah..."

B: "They look so big! I had no idea how ridiculous I look..."

K: "They look fine. They make you fast."

B: "They're so big! I'm sad."

K: "The camera adds 10 lbs? To each calf?"

Tell Bryan not to be self-conscious about his calves. :P

Wedding stuff

The most fun parts of wedding planning (so far):

• Taking pictures for save-the-dates
  
• Making invitations
• Writing addresses on the invitations
  
• Wedding discs
  

The most stressful parts of wedding planning:

• Guest list
• Collecting/waiting for RSVPs
  
• Seating chart for the reception
• Feeling comfortable in my wedding dress
• Getting the wedding day schedule together
• Anything in Chinese
  

People/vendors that make wedding planning easier/fun:

• The people at Pyara (Dru who coordinates appointments, Johnnie and Nora who do make-up)
• Shang our photographer: fast, reliable, full of helpful information/suggestions
  
• Liver who drives me everywhere and never fails to provide opinions/suggestions
  
• Nicole at MIT-CAC who takes care of MIT chapel reservations, parking, rehearsal BBQ reservations
• Beckybear who seems to be the number one fan of our wedding :)
• Esther the bestest gchat buddy maid of honor ever, who remembers the details but also helps me remember the big picture of the wedding.
  

BUDA Tournament

This weekend Wuwu played in the BUDA summer club league tournament in Devens, MA. On Saturday we won our pool, beating out Demons (15-13), Live Poultry (15-6), and Flowchart (15-10) in the first three rounds. Then we played on our first crossover game against Grassburner and won 15-12.

On Sunday, we played on a second crossover game against BBN and won on universe point (15-14)! We even presented them with a spirit pickle, garlic, and tums (we didn't have any spirit award slushie tickets to hand out today).

In the quarters of the elimination bracket we beat out GoThrilla (15-6) to advance to the semis. There we lost 10-15 to Capture the Dream. Today's conditions were pretty crappy: a light drizzle to an all-out rain on and off throughout the day. Some wind in the Capture the Dream game plus their zone defense forced a lot of turns from us in the first half of the game (4-8). The second half was a lot closer but our first half deficit was too great and we couldn't pull it through at the end.

And some pictures courtesy of Sluts:

Bandit, the adorable 2.5-month old puppy that Footsteps and his gf brought on Sunday!!

Wuwu 2010!

I got kneed in the back on Sunday when I unsuccessfully tried to D a huck so I feel like I have a bruise on my lower spinal area, but I can't see it. And for some reason my chest also hurts, and I have no idea why. My groin and hamstrings are sore but that's normal after tournaments.

Chesapeake Open this weekend! :P

Package!

Today I got a GIANT box (500-ml Nalgene for size reference):


I knew what was inside, so I was really surprised at the size of the box Amazon decided to use. I opened the top:


Stuffing! I guess that's not a surprise. And then several layers of stuffing later:


A drying rack! Because Bryan and I own like 30 dry-fit articles of clothing between the two of us =P I guess it's mostly my stuff with my underwear and sports bras, but his jerseys take up a lot of room!

Tournaments!

Between now and 9/25, I have four tournaments and a double practice:

1. 8/21-22: BUDA tournament in Devens (I know it's not a "real" tournament, but since I'm captaining the team I figured I should show up, even if I'm going to walk up and down the sidelines in a bathing suit to work on my tan ;) )
   
2. 8/28-29: Chesapeake Open in Poolsville, MD - flying out Fri evening, returning Sun evening.
3. 9/4: double practice, then bachelorette party! There is definitely going to be a nap between the double practice and the b-party =P
4. 9/11-12: Sectionals (Lancaster, MA)
5. 9/18-19: Philly Fusion (Manheim, PA) - Since the fields are two hours from the airport, we're planning on driving (7 hours one way). Road trip!
6. 9/25: Wedding while everyone else has a double practice =P

I was talking to a friend about this a few weeks ago and he said, "I can't believe you're still playing with the wedding so close!" In my mind, I was thinking, "How could I not? I would get fat and go insane if I didn't." And then he said, "Most people would be like, 'can't get injured.'" Oh crap, he went there. I've played ultimate for 5 years now and have never had anything where some ice, stretching, strengthening exercises, and down-time couldn't take care of (knock on wood) and it just never occurred to me that this could be a possibility. I mean, there are lots of times when I definitely feel tired and old, but nothing that requires an ambulance. Eh, just thinking about it gives me the creeps.

Practice today

I feel like I played particularly horribly today. I don't know what it was, maybe I was distracted by wedding stuff, maybe I just feel like I am kinda burnt out. Maybe it was because I played like I was better than I actually am. I don't even know if that makes sense.

• I threw an I/O flick break to Kquan who was actually curving her cut to the open side in ho-stack, so I overthrew her on the break side. I should've known that that's the more realistic cut, but for a split second, I thought she was so much more open on the break side so I threw it anyway.
• I cut for a swing of a swing. It was thrower to Jackie as the dump, to Claudia as the swing, and for some reason I decided it was a good idea to make another swing cut from the front of the stack. Except it just turned out to be a really horizontal cut. The throw was really far from me and I really had to reach to grab it, but I caught it for the score. And I heard Doris say that that was a really horizontal cut, which I knew, and I knew I shouldn't have cut for that, it should've come from the back of the stack, but I made a split decision that turned out to be dumb.
• I threw a huck to Doris who was going deep but I should've seen the deep defender because they were bracketing. Sometimes I have trouble seeing the field. I need to scan more.
• I was on the sideline but the D wasn't trapping, but for some reason, I just saw Doris open for the flick towards the center of the field. And I didn't fake, which was largely the trouble because I threw straight to JJ, her defender, because I couldn't see beyond my mark (Deanna). If I had faked backhand to move my mark, I would've seen that Doris wasn't even cutting there. For some dumb reason, I just assumed Doris would cut there because in my mind, that was the logical cut to make.
  

I think those were most of my big mistakes during scrimmage today.

Performance-Enhancing Poo

Just Doo It

Sometimes intentional and other times triggered by nerves, the Performance-Enhancing Poo is standard both for competitive athletes and for people with high-pressure presentations looming on the horizon. With empty bowels, you can run faster and jump higher. Similarly, the absence of stool in your colon will make your presentation crisper and diminish fears of an unscheduled pit stop or a loud gaseous emission. Although these poos may not have the grandeur of some, their timing is critically important.

(Aug-17 entry of "What's Your Poo Telling You?" 2010 Daily Calendar)

An alkie's heaven

Bryan and I took advantage of tax-free weekend yesterday and went to Kappy's to buy our wedding alcohol. We filled 3 shopping carts (that didn't include the wine yet).

Giant bottles of champagne. One for me, one for Bryan =P

We bought:

• 18 bottles of red wine
• 18 bottles of white wine
• 2 handles of vodka
• 1 handle of captain morgan
• 1 handle of bacardi
• 1 handle of gin
• 1 handle of whiskey
• 1 case of mike's hard lemonade (regular and lime flavored)
  
• 1 case of smirnoff ice (party pack!)
  
• 2 cases of woodchuck's hard cider (so excited about this one :) )
  
• 3 cases of Sam Adam's
• 2 cases of Corona
• 11 magnums of champagne
  

Which comes to a grand total of:

$774.25

Now all the alcohol is sitting in a corner of our room:


And as I said earlier, this party is going to be off the chain! :) Thanks Liver and Charles for all your help :)

Main Street Massage

Daphne and I went to Main Street Massage in Watertown yesterday (we had gotten the livingsocial deal a few months ago). The massage felt so amazing after a tournament. And my masseuse told me at the end, "I'm not gonna lie, you're really tight everywhere, especially your glutes." =P Then she told me to do a bunch of things that I know I should do but don't do enough of: foam roll, stretch, and drink more water. =P

Winston Cup (Charlotte, NC)

Even though I have a lot of stuff to do today, I don't feel closure about a tournament unless I process it through writing about it =P So here's the short version of Winston Cup this weekend:

Game 1 (vs. Alloy) Final Score: 15-1

• Started off with man D to get our legs going
• Made it a goal to come out hard, which we did!
• Our offense looked good most of the time, but when there was a turn, there were MANY turns. Conclusion: don't turn it in the first place!
• Zone worked well during the second half, cup stayed together and were pretty effective.
  
• I tried getting a dish from Jenny but collided with two defenders and hit my head pretty hard on the ground. I wish I weighed more so I can stand my ground better. Took a few points off, but played the rest of the day with a minor headache.
• The scored their one point when it was 14-0. Almost a bagel.
  

Game 2: (vs. Sweet T) Final Score: 10-14

• First half was sucky for us, we won the first point, but went down 1-4 quickly.
• Other team was pretty entertaining to watch. After my girl went deep for a laser-y huck, the handler yelled, "Why don't you cut faster!!!" and my girl yelled back at her, "Why don't you throw better, bitch!" I just started laughing.
  
• I also got shoved over from behind by my mark as I was trying to throw a break throw. I think this was more common this weekend than in other tournaments I've played in.
• They played mostly poachy D on our ho-stack, which resulted in many turnovers and we went down 4-8 at the half.
• We played some clam which was a lot of fun. I played "4" which I've never done before so it was fun learning how to play a new position, and working with "2" to cover the third handler effectively.
  
• Second half we traded points and lost 10-14 overall. Why can't we start our games well?!?!
  

Game 3: (vs. Ozone) Final Score: 7-15

• One of the more fun games of the weekend. I thought I played hard and had a few good looks, fun to play defense on a challenging team.
  
• Don't remember much from this game except it was really hot.
• Oh ya, Doris made a lot of weird noises this game. I hucked to her and she threw it to Suzanne, then I got the dump back from Suzanne. Doris was wide open for the flick I/O so I threw it to her but right before I threw it she started making weird noises, like she was confused or something. Weirdo, just ignore her.
  

Game 4: (vs. Blue Route) Final Score: 7-15

• We played against Nurit and Ali's team from Philly!
• Same story, we went down hard 1-4 in the beginning and never really got into the game. We had a lot of great offense flow but always got stuck near the endzone line and couldn't punch it in. I have a feeling we'll be working on endzone a lot next weekend. Score at half: 2-8.
  
• I played third handler in ho-stack this game mostly and seemed to get caught behind the disc a lot. Nurit covered me for one of the points and poached off of me, faceguarding me and staying close to the handler at the same time, even though I was 15-20 yards away behind the thrower. I never really had that happen to me before but in retrospect, I should've just moved towards the sideline and tried cutting as a sideline cutter, more on that later.

Saturday evening festivities:

• Went to sonic for cherry limeade and cheese fries mmmmm
• Went back to hotel and jumped in the pool
• Tried playing ninja in the pool. BAD IDEA. My calf cramped horribly as I lunged at Jin's hand. And then I couldn't stand in the water and felt myself drowning, so I hobbled to the edge where Michelle tried to stretch my calf but she was sitting next to the pool and I was in the pool and my groin almost cramped too as I tried lifting my cramping calf out of the water. I think that was the most painful calf cramp I've ever had in my life. I might have almost started crying. No more pool ninja, at least not after 4 games.
• Tried going to Olive Garden but there was an hour wait, so went to Ruby Tuesday's instead. Salad bar!

Game 5: (vs. CPF) Final Score: 15-3

• Went up 6-0 pretty quickly. Then traded for a while until 9-3, then pulled away to make it 15-3.

Game 6: (vs. Scandal) Final Score: 2-15

• Damn this team is tall and fast.
• I got broken a lot this game, it was really sad. It wasn't even like, "oops, they threw an around throw to a swing cut" it was "CRAP she just stepped around me and hucked a 50-yard pass for the score."
• Daphne got a run-through D which looked clean from my angle (they were cutting straight at me) but her girl called a foul and went back to the thrower.
• We tried straight-up to one side but our downfield D wasn't fast enough or talking enough for it to be effective. They also had a lot of cross-field hucks that we couldn't do anything about.
  
• I had a few chances to put up hucks but they fell short. Warming up my hucks at the beginning of the day makes a huge difference in my hucks throughout the day.

Game 7: (vs. Sweet T) Final score: 11-12 (gah!)

• We rolled over and let them walk all over us for the first 6 points: 0-6 (Why do we always do this?!?!) Again they played mostly poachy defense on our ho-stack and we just had problems with throwing and catching.
  
• Michelle stopped calling lines and just had people who wanted to play get on the line, and we started to turn the game around. We scored the last point but our deficient in the beginning was too large so we still lost 11-12. At least we ended on a high note. But like Marie said earlier that weekend, I hate losing more than I like winning. =P
• Second to last point EP was covering a dump who was going up the line and as the disc was thrown EP jumped and flailed her arms and squealed, which 1) probably startled the thrower and the disc was wobbly to begin with and 2) maybe blocked the vision of the dump going up the line so she couldn't see the disc. Most interesting (and cute) defensive tactic ever...
  

Thoughts on personal improvement:

• Warm up long throws, makes a big difference in my hucks throughout the day
• Be better about recognizing poaches, scan the field better
• In a ho-stack, if I'm the third handler and there are already two handlers back for a cutter with the disc, I should go cut for a few passes until I'm needed as a handler. (maybe?)
  
• I still need work on D, getting low and backpedaling.
  
• Still need to work on marking and sealing the around
• I want to get a layout D! I'm trying to get Bryan to teach me but he says he's not good at it. Lies!
  

Thoughts on team improvement:

• Work on starting better. I think the scores would've been a lot closer or we would've won a few of them if we just started better. Simulate game situations at the beginning of practice, before we've had time to do lots of drills, maybe assign teams in advance, have a real warmup, and then play a game to 9 or 11 or something against each other, focus on valuing the disc especially in the first few points of the game. Then switch up the teams and do it again, its like playing a new team.
• Endzone needs to get a lot better. We had our chances in the Scandal, Ozone, and BlueRoute games, but we couldn't score. And everytime we turned the disc, the other team would score.
  
• Our bracketing against ho-stack got a lot better this weekend, but we can still use some work on it. Work on positioning to begin with, communicating about passing people off. It's a man-defense with occasional switching, not a poachy defense where no one is really on anyone.
• Our marks got broken a lot in zone D. Practicing marking, staying together as a cup, having the tail end of the cup practice talking to the mark, shifting as a unit.
• We can still play clam when the offense is set up in a ho-stack. Maybe simulate that a few times so we can practice it. Or practice transitioning from clam to zone.
  

I'm re-reading my post and it sounds a lot more negative than it actually was. I think we did well overall, it was our first tournament as a team :) I feel like I connected with some of the newer players and learned how to play with them better; I'm just nitpicky about things we can improve on.

Oh! Exciting news! I wore my Heatgear all weekend and now I'm paler than Doris! (We used to be the same darkness). Not that I'm having a competition with Doris or anything, she was just kind of a good benchmark for me. :P

Hunting

Me: "If I died, would you still wear your wedding ring?"

Bryan: "Yeah why not."

Me: "What if you wanted to go hunting?"

Bryan: "I can still hunt with a wedding ring..."

Me: **stares**

Bryan: "What! It shows that I'm not afraid of commitment!"

Engagement photos!

Yesterday Bryan and I had our engagement photoshoot with our awesome photographer Shang Chen! We started out in the South End, then moved to a park in Brookline close to Shang's house. Earlier in the year I assembled a picasa album with fave engagement and wedding shots from various photographers. Apparently a lot of the pics I chose had similar architectural elements as that of the South End (iron railing, cobblestone streets, colorful doorways, etc). So we started



And then we went to Shang's house in Brookline to change and to get a few pictures nearby (her neighborhood is so pretty!). This picture was in response to Shang saying "do something that embodies an arch" (or something to that effect). I, the uncreative one, just simulated the arch. And then I looked on Shang's screen later and was like, "What are YOU doing, Bryan?!" And he says, "I was trying to fill the arch!!"


Then I had told her that we wanted to play in a field, so we went to a park near her house to run around and play on the playground.



It was a LOT of fun and I can't believe she sent us some sneak peak pictures already! It's been less than 24 hours since the photoshoot!!! I can't wait to see the rest of them :D

It's pretty interesting to note the differences between girls' and guys' reaction to the pics.

Girls' reaction: "awwwwwwwww sooo cuuuuuuute/adorable"

Guys' reaction: "coolcool" - Keith, and "nice" - Weiyang. haha i love it.

Well since you asked...

B Wu: "Would you eat Bryan if you were stranded on a desert island and you were starving and he were dead already?"

Me: "Uhhh... will I have fire and some salt?"

B Wu: "... sure"

Me: "Yeah, sure!"

Bryan: "WHAAAATTT?!?! I wouldn't eat you!!"

Me: "Aww... that's so sweet! I'd start with your calves."

Oops

Last night I was up late writing a couple e-mails including one to Wuwu reminding them about our summer league game today, and one to Hatch about our playbook. I had a few windows open but I normally do that because I like to multi-task (or rather, I can't stay focused on one task at a time). Anyway, about 30 seconds after I sent the Hatch playbook, Bryan who is sitting across from me looks up and says, "Was Wuwu supposed to get a Hatch playbook?" ARGH. =P