Lots of exciting stuff

First off, my league team had a game and I scored TWICE. I've never scored twice in a Dolphman game before, so that was obviously very exciting. Against a good team too, they were a bunch of assholes who played very aggressively. I bet it frosted them that a GIRL scored both goals (final score was 2-2). By and large most of the players in this league are cool, but there are a few jerks. A few weeks ago we played against a team and smoked them, 4-0. There was a guy on the team who I guess was pretty frustrated and at one point was really getting very physical with me (as in full-on slamming me from behind). He was trying to take away the ball from me, and I got off the pass to a teammate and said to him sarcastically "nice try." Dude then immediately started saying "you have a penis, right? You're really a guy" and calling me tranny! I couldn't quite make it out at first and then when I realized what he was saying I was kind of shocked. Like dude, I'm sorry you're losing so badly--and I'm really sorry your ego can't handle being scored on by a girl (I'd scored one of the 4)--but that is part of the game. I ended up going after him and pretty much landing on him (no worries, he was much bigger than me, I certainly couldn't have hurt him) and getting called by the ref and threw up my hands in the air in a gesture of obviously mock-innocence and saying sweetly "just going after the ball." Two of my male teammates were asking me about it afterward, including Alec (who is huge) saying nicely "you know I'M the enforcer, right? Do I need to go after someone?" Chris was asking me what had happened and when I repeated what the guy had said he was horrified. "He said THAT?!" Ugh, so many jerks on the field sometimes--which makes it oh-so-satisfying when I score on them ;) But it was also sweet to have my male teammates looking out for me.

Anyway so during the game on Wednesday I was nervously doing vocal warmups which one of my teammates asked me about--this then led to our discussing voice lessons. My teammate Adam wants to take voice lessons from me! So we worked out a fair price, $30 per lesson--I think most voice teachers are outrageously overpriced, it's ridiculous you can take a dance class for a third of what you'd pay for a voice lesson. But that'll be fun! And extra dinero :)

Also my Mom is visiting starting on Monday!

And the best news of all--I'm being promoted! Yay! When I was first hired they'd told me that the first promotion comes pretty quickly, within 4-6 weeks but they actually were a bit slack on this. Some of the other coaches told me to push for it, that the office needed to be reminded that I hadn't made taken the next step yet, so I emailed them and got bumped up (with an accompanying ride in pay grade) to Junior Coach. This was back in August and I honestly thought that the next promotion would take much more time. But yesterday I got a notification that I'd been staffed to additional classes--and I noticed that I was listed as the Head and only coach on the classes. I emailed for clarification and was told that they'd received "great feedback" and they thought I was ready to lead my own classes now. And of course I'm paid more for these classes! *And* I get to invoice additional money for picking up and dropping off the equipment! So it's all pretty exciting stuff. I spoke to the guy on the phone today and we went over stuff and he reiterated he'd been hearing really good feedback about me. I will say, I get along great with kids and am very good with them. One of my classes on Saturday is just jam-packed with cuties who want to sit in my lap, including this one little boy who is--I don't want to say challenging because he's not, he's just a little bit less-behaved than the others, Just a bit. So I figured the best way to tame him was to sit down and pat next to me, like "come sit with the coach." And he decided he wanted to cuddle and then the others wanted in, and I ended up with three kids on me! One in my lap and one on each knee. And two more on each side. TOO CUTE. I was saying "Am I a wedding cake? I thought I was a person when I woke up this morning, but I guess I'm a wedding cake...it's kind of hard to kick the ball when you're a wedding cake but I'll do my best."

In addition to the fact that I genuinely enjoy working with kids and of course I love soccer, there's kind of a--shall we say, a corporate element to the job that I think is working out for me. For one thing, I'm not just good with kids, I'm a female who is also good at soccer. You'd be surprised at how many of the coaches here don't really play the game. This is why they staffed me for so many of the Premier clinics this summer, because I can work with the select players and actually improve them. And my being a woman is a rare commodity--the vast majority of the Premier coaches were guys, and they have to have at least one female there to escort the girls to the bathroom. The Premier clinics are for the summer and those same coaches then go on to coach the travel teams for the fall. They wanted to staff me for one of the travel teams but the practice slots interfere with my evening work at L***** so I had to turn them down. HOWEVER--the games are on the weekends and the head of the Premier division encourages us to attend the games (even if we're not staffed for them). I interpreted this as "make an appearance at the company holiday party" kind of thing, so I walked over to Randall's Island on Sunday to watch a game or two--and of course to have it noticed I was there. And I was noticed :) And now I'm wondering if that impressed them enough that they decided to fast-forward my promotion to Head Coach? There is a corporate/political element in nearly every workplace environment, nothing wrong with playing the game. (Oh, I can be so Slytherin sometimes!)