Monday, September 11, 2006

One Week Quite Unlike.

So we're discussing football. Walking, walking to the end of the gate that leads out of the park. Before we parted I abruptly said, "keep me noted." A week later we meet again, he says "your name is down." 'Okay', I thought. 'This is going to be busy.'
And so it was. As the week-long sports festival for the questionable purpose of Unity opened I realized I didn't quite know anything about volleyball. Me, being me, told me, 'you'll pull through. How hard can it be?'

So I was there. Journalist for this week-long sports festival held for the questionable purpose of Unity, but hey, I wasn't going to question. There were different countries. For the sake of simplicity there were white people, brown people and black people. I'm a bit of everything. You can call me multi-national. Yeah right. No, really.
Anyways, I needed a camera. On cue come the American cousin who doesn't like her new one because it's too big. "Perfect", I thought. This hasn't ever happened before, but I know what to do. Craftily seducing her to lend it to me, I use it. At the end of the week, it's mine. I had to part with a fair bit, but it's mine. Finally, I had a camera. Then I just went insane.

And I loved every single moment of it.

Oh man, photography was the bomb. It just was.

An approximate? 1000 pictures. I took nearly 1000 pictures in that one week. A one week filled with glass and grass, atmospheric pressure muzzling from every corner. The thuds, something being hit, kicked, out of happiness or anger, both being held in utter concentration, captured in my photo. A picture is worth any number of words.

I even had those yellow-cover things, the ones professional press photographers wear in FIFA matches. They said "PRESS", though admittedly that went a bit wrongly at first =)

Two days after it kicked off, me now perfectly synced with the game, I was told I had to start covering the games....in words. "Writing?! I don't know how to write, man!"
Coveting the day I could have my revenge on this despot, I started covertly hatching plans alongside sentences that - (to my surprise, came naturally) - could be a potential winner in my perfect article.


It was a hectic schedule, but I had the whole week of school off, and heck, I wasn't going to start complaining (so early : )). Being there from 2 PM, I had language issues when the Canucks came over, they kept saying "this year the cup is ours!" Wonder what that meant...?

THEN it really got hectic, in the nights, having to exercise my throughly-exercised leg mucles running from one end to the other, I made my way from one end of the club to the other not quite singing the most graceful ballad you might've (not) heard, a click here, click there, run to the other side to upload the photos and come back exactly five minutes before all the ridiculous languid fine sportsmen got tired at 20 out of 21 game points, and devise yet another press-winning story.

At the end of it all the service was flanked by a massive barbeque, the losers got a bigger share. : )

laters,

husain