whee! (and by whee, I mean ZOMFG)

So I've been head refereeing a lot at scrimmages lately.  It's getting easier - pack definition is coming more easily to me, and I'm able to throw the pack to the front IPR when I need to follow someone back, I feel more confident during Official Reviews, stuff like that.

Getting excited for River Valley Riot - we've gotten our crew assignments and mine is top-notch.  Staffing is being done a little bit differently - the static crews of 8 are divided in half, and for one game, half will be HR/IPR/JR/JR, the other half will be OPR/OPR/OPR/ALT, and then for the next game, they switch.  I really like that idea, because it means you're not tied down to one particular spot for a whole weekend (and the ALT responsibility is spread out more equally amongst the crew).

Then things quiet down.  Our league goes on break mid-December, and I'm not aware of any other games that are going on in December. 

Then 2018 shows up and the cycle begins anew.  I've already started filling in potential games and tournaments in my planner, and the first six months are already crammed with events. 

many of these weekends have multiple events

We had an officials' meeting earlier this week, and we were encouraged to share our goals for the next year, so here're mine:

• HR a game (I've been told this will happen at least once)
• Go to one of the "bigger" tournaments
• Apply for certification, if it's open
• do more NSOing
• learn how to run the scoreboard

so yeah, that's the plan.

on tournamenting and 2018 and the future

a few of my official friends* have been talking on Facebook about tournaments and applying and not applying and taking breaks and otherelse** and whatnot.  Here's my 2¢†:

My personality type is that when I find something I love, I want to immerse myself in it 24/7.  I want to live, breathe, eat, sleep, BE that thing I love.  It happened on July 9, 2008 when I went to my first roller derby practice, it happened on October 16, 2014 when I put on stripes and went to my first scrimmage as a referee.

So I'm still in ZOMFG I LOVE OFFICIATING I WANT TO DO ALL THE TOURNAMENTS mode (for the most part, anyway).

Unfortunately, there are only so many tournaments I can do in a year.  While I only work until 2:30pm (which means I don't necessarily have to take a Friday afternoon off to go somewhere), I am the only support for my boss, which means that the work sits until I get back, and which also means he'll call me during the tournament with some emergency.

Plus all the tournaments are on the same weekend, it seems like.

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*friends who are officials, not, like, THERE IS PAPERWORK TO SHOW THAT WE ARE OFFICIALLY FRIENDS

**I think I'm going to try and make this an actual word

† the code for "¢" is ALT + 155.  the code for "†" is ALT + 0134

   

oh! so! TACOver!

It went pretty well.  I got into my head a whole buncha times, but that's something I know I need to work on.

getting excited!

Hostile TACOver!  Yay!

I realized I never posted a picture of my helmet decoration, so here it is:

Gloss black on matte black = classy AF

I was tempted to go full out blinged crown with rhinestones and stuff, but didn't.

I also realized over the weekend that I didn't have any nameplates with my derby number on them, so I rectified that:

my derby number comes from my son's birthday - 06/09/01