the new and the old

it's been a week since us open. my life is slowly unraveling as i saw it - once the pressure of tournament is gone, there is very little for me to hang on to. my attentions have changed from the draconian health conscientiousness of an anorexic athlete to the listness ennui of a middle income noveau socialite. that means, instead of having a goal to achieve (but sacrificing every other aspect of my life) now i have a life to live and lots of free time, but no good way to live it.

instead i have gone back to drinking lots of beer and eating food, and looking for entertainment rather than scheduling training. to the layman that sounds just fine. but really to me it's a directionless life, especially when entertainment means either playing stupid games on the computer or sleeping and letting the weekend drift by. of course you need that once in a while but not all the time.

i even went out job hunting. this was my original plan - to take up some time i'd get a second job bartending, and thus combine my need for social drinking and interactions with a need for a second income stream. it was like last summer - you don't notice all the restaurants until you actually have a reason for finding them, then you realize how many large individual building restaurants exist in every shopping center, and how many of them have bars.

i felt like a student again - out job searching, giving my resumes to hostesses that stop you at the door and really don't let you in any further than the podium. i felt that i had better reception after i'd gotten a haircut - but maybe it was also that i had become used to asking if they had any job openings after going to the first two restaurants completely unprepared. i can flash a smile and banter with any middle level manager for the two minutes it takes for them to give me an application. i wonder if, when it got past that, i'd have what it takes to schmooze my way past the host/busboy positions straight to the bar. and also, whether i'd have the balls to do the same, if one day someday the economy crashes, i no longer have my cushy superior main job, and i'd actually have to use my street smarts to get by.

but it takes a splash of the old nostalgia to get you going again. news of mit's victory at the recent NYU tournament came to me about an hour ago, and even through the phone i could feel the excitement and the team building happening on that bus. once again the mit spirit of old has consumed our team, and we clinched a victory not through the work of superstars but through the grit of every men's and women's team fighting for a spot on the podium at every level. it took defeat to wake us up, so that we could finally start fighting as if we were the underdogs again, and treat each tournament like a trophy to be earned rather than a right.

i wonder if there will be a day when the ucsd team can adopt this spirit, because i sincerely miss being part of a group that fights together, and win or lose, does it as a team. but it does give me the energy to start training again, after my week of vacation, so that even away from my real team (mit/tbos) i can strive to represent them and uphold their legacy.