(S)Kate

This post is to celebrate being a new roller derby recruit. Huzzah! It's been a goal of mine for awhile to try it out, so it's excited that it's happening at last. :)

I'm pictured above, about four years old, tightly holding onto my cousin Casey's hand, at the same skating rink where I'll be training this winter and spring. (I would kill for those Barbie themed elbow and knee pads! Haha.) A product of the 80s, roller rink trips were occasional but consistent. I often was the person with a death grip on the carpeted wall all the way around the rink. Apparently my mom and I went on a few skating lessons when I was about five, but then she learned she was pregnant with my sister so we stopped going.

Even though I've only been skating for a few weeks now, I can say I'm much more confident on skates. I can stop without running into a wall and everything! We'll see how things go moving forward. Wish me luck!

Time Capsule: Back to School, 90's style

Sometimes, I'm kind of amazed how much my mom has saved over the years. And as much as I have loathed my parents for being total pack rats, it's treasures like these that make it OK.

* I edited some personal information out of these documents.

I honestly don't remember much about my first grade teacher, Mrs. Gill. However, there is one thing I tell friends and family about what I remember to this day. She's the one who started calling me Katelyn. Prior to that, I went by Katie. Because there was another Katie M. in my class, I would be referred to as Katelyn until the middle of my college years, when I asked people to instead call me by a name I didn't hate.

I'm sure Mrs. Gill didn't mean any harm by inadvertently changing my name for 15 years; she was just trying to lessen confusion in her class. But I remember being 6 years old, sitting in the backseat of my mom's car as she was driving, being told my name wasn't actually Katie. I couldn't stop crying.

But that's what I went by for years and years, mostly out of habit, familiarity.

Anyway, that's what struck out to me in these photos and papers most. "Katelyn" was everywhere. But even on my coloring book page, I signed it off "Katie".

Then in college, I told an internship supervisor about how much I loathed my name, and about my first grade teacher changing it.

"Then why not go by something else?" she told me.

I've been going by Kate ever since.

I think that I learned an important life lesson there. If there's something in your life you don't like, change it. Complaining is OK sometimes, but how far will that really get you? Of course, not everything is as easy as changing a name. But life is too short to tolerate things you don't like, especially if it's something you deal with on a daily basis. Seriously. I think I need to remind myself of that sometimes.

The name Kate just feels more like me, as weird as that sounds. It feels more informal, more personable somehow.

Anyway, it's hard to believe that all of these mementos are from 20 years ago. I was struck by the pristine condition my mom kept all of these old papers in, without wrinkles or fading. And that she shot photos of me drawing a coloring book page that she ended up keeping of of these years.

Now that education and K-12 schools are kind of tangent to what I do at my job, it was really cool to come across these photos from yesteryear, even with the silly memories. What are some of your favorite back to school memories?

Time Travel Tuesday: Soccer It To Me

Between the World Cup series in full swing and my recent bang trip mishap, this throwback to 1994 seemed most appropriate.

I played recreational soccer for eight years as a kid. Orange slices and novelty water bottles were our lifeblood. There were countless practices, games, tournaments. I played indoor and outdoor leagues at one point. I can't say I was particularly good, since I never even played for my middle school or high school teams, but I loved playing.

I usually stayed at defense, since I was aggressive and couldn't run very quickly.

I still remember one tournament game, when I was in third or fourth grade, and I managed to kick the ball from defense and make a goal on the other end of the field. From then on, my coach said I had "the golden toe". Hah! That same coach had trophies made for us every year after tournaments, even though we lost almost every time.

At another tournament, probably in middle school, when I was goalie, I stopped the best player on the other team from making a penalty goal. I had the etch marks of a soccer ball on my thigh that day and a bruise that lasted for weeks to prove it.

It's kind of unbelievable to think for as popular as youth soccer teams are around here, that watching professional soccer hasn't taken off quite as much. For instance, Pittsburgh is considered a three-sport town, with football, hockey and baseball. There is a Pittsburgh soccer team. It just doesn't "count" to most people. It also hasn't been around very long.

Mark and I met up with a friend at a local pub who came to watch the a World Cup match a few weekends ago. I can't say I was terribly interested, but I'm not much of a sports person in general, either. It has nothing to do with the sport being "un-American", as Ann Coulter claimed in a column last week. At some points, it's insane to think I wasn't reading The Onion. But I think this response from The Atlantic makes a good point.

How do you feel about professional soccer? (Or for non-American readers, football?)