Dramatis persona*

helenhead Helen Chick

I've always wanted a bumper sticker that said "I'm a female, LDS/Mormon, Scout leading, geocaching, piano-playing, bicycling, mathematics educator with a PhD in maths ... and I VOTE"!

I think this makes me a minority group of cardinality 1!

* Since there's only one of me and "personae" is plural (I think), I've gone with dramatis persona.
March 2024
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State of contusion

As mentioned in August’s 12 of 12, I have taken up Futsal, a 6-a-side version of soccer that we play on an outdoor field (some versions are indoors). I played soccer many many moons ago (when I was in Grade 5 and 6) and it remains one of my favourite sports. Some folk in one of the Education areas decided to organise a team in the university’s mixed lunchtime competition … which, in my case at least, means playing against students who are less than half my age.

We aren’t the strongest team in the competition. Actually that exaggerates our competence: we are on the bottom of the ladder, having managed only one draw in all of our games. I actually managed to score a goal in our second game — our first goal of the season — but shortly afterwards found my niche as the goalkeeper. This involves much less running around, which is a boon to someone as unfit as I am, and having spent time as a hockey goalkeeper I have a reasonable sense of position and tactics for the job. However, we are usually outclassed in most of the positions, so we almost invariably get thrashed despite my best efforts in defence.

Now I had promised that I might get some photos of this latest “slightly mad activity”, but since I am on the field for the whole game I haven’t really had the opportunity (there are unlimited substitutions but we choose to make only on-field changes, such is my apparent reputation as a reasonable keeper). Instead what I can provide is rather ample evidence for why this will be my only season of futsal (even ignoring the fact that I am moving).

In every game so far I have ended up with at least one bruise, usually more than one, including a good collection on my knees. Last week was my most spectacular effort, though, as I managed to dislocate my left thumb (bracing my fall after a save with my legs). I noticed that it felt a bit funny, but it wasn’t until I took off the gloves (gardening gloves … we really aren’t a very professional team!) that the dramatic displacement was revealed. There was no pain, and so I cheerfully waved it at everyone to indicate why the goalie needed to be substituted, and left the field to find someone to fix it. In fact, the physiotherapist told me how to pull it back into place myself, which it did easily … but before I had time to think of taking a photo! During the course of the week that followed it was quite sore, swollen and bruised, but it was mostly recovered by the time of this week’s game.

Now I had decided that I would only show the first photo (where I have indicated approximately what the dislocation looked like and where you can just about see the extent of the bruising around the thumb and fleshy part of the thumb in the palm) if there weren’t disastrous consequences of my decision to play this week’s game after such an injury.

The thumb was fine.

Unfortunately two of the fingers on my right hand were overextended backwards in an unsuccessful attempted save, and so I have another couple of bruises to add to the collection.

And we lost again!

It’s just as well we only have two games left.

4 comments to State of contusion

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