Soccer Starts

One of the things I was excited to get involved in when I got here was coaching a sport. Because they don't offer golf or baseball, it was supposed to be my turn to play in the afternoon and send Eric home to hang out with the kids. After hearing about all that is going on every day after school, on weekends, and simply trying to adjust to life on a new continent, it seemed that this was going to be out of my reach. But, a couple of weeks ago, our athletic director sent out another email asking for volunteers to help out with sports. The plan was that the volunteers really only need to be there for weekend jamborees because high school athletes help out with the actual skills in practice. So Eric and I decided we would each sign up to volunteer with a sport (he with middle school cross country and me with middle school girls soccer). Eric assured me that the seasons do not overlap and there wouldn't be any conflicts, so we sent our emails. Within a day, we'd discovered that "volunteer" does not mean that you only show up for jamborees on the weekend and that the cross country and soccer season most certainly do overlap! So, Eric is running with the cross country team on Mondays and while we are still in search of high schoolers to help with the soccer team, I am practicing on Thursday and Friday afternoons (which is really nice because those are my days off, so by 3:30 I'm ready to get the kids out of the house and go play!). 

This weekend was our middle school soccer clinic at World Cup Stadium in Suwon. I was really excited not only to see the stadium and get out of Seoul for the first time in 4 weeks, but also to be able to say I'd played in a World Cup stadium! Awesome, right? It turned out to not be quite as awesome as we'd hoped. While they had charged our school a lot with the impression we would be in the stadium, we were actually on the training fields which were not in the best condition and so far away from the stadium itself that we only drove by it as we were leaving. A major disappointment. The clinic wasn't run very well, but it was still fun running some drills and interacting with the girls. It was hot and dry and we were glad that it was only a half day clinic! We'll know for next year!