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Columbia/Monmouth

Honestly did not have that much of an update after Columbia outside of the game, so I figured I would just wait until after Monmouth as well as the past two weeks were relatively similar otherwise. (These fatheads were ordered by my lovely family and will likely be a staple at all of our remaining games)

Personal Updates

Spoiler alert, we won both games and both were surprisingly tough wins. They were definitely much better opponents holistically than Lehigh and Stetson were, so we were expecting it to be a fight, but it took longer than we would have hoped to get things rolling. I personally had a way better game for Columbia, my best of the year in my opinion. For Monmouth, I came out very slow and think I was in my head a little bit too much as it took until the second half for me to really get rolling. I am glad to see that I am showing improvement week to week, and am hopeful that I can really put it all together in one of these games because I still feel like I am playing at a level that is below my full potential. As we improve to 4-0 and now have exclusively league opponents on the schedule, the dynamics of the game change as the stakes are exclusively for rights to the ivy league championship. I think that there is a decent amount of parity within the league this year which should make for interesting matchups and I am excited to see just how good of a team we have. I am glad that we have faced some adversity with a stalemate game for much of Columbia and a come-from-behind victory for Monmouth because on winning teams it can be hard to gain that perspective without adversity. 

As far as socially, it was definitely a bit of a turbulent two weeks with some highs and lows. We had some issues within our club regarding a variety of things, but I think similar to the adversity that we faced in our games, we have come out the other side better off. It is definitely a bit of a learning process to be open for business again as so much of the membership and student body as a whole has never really experienced club life. It is certainly interesting to see how things have changed now that the "institutional" memory of the club is so greatly reduced. There is definitely some room for new and updated traditions which I think is important and healthy for the longevity of the club. 

More personally I think that I have done a little better job with making friends outside of my existing social circles which is tough because I definitely feel a lot older than some of my classmates. Even though it is only a couple of years, I think that my experiences on campus and as a leader, and especially what I have done over the last two years has caused me to mature at a much faster rate, so it is noticeably different talking to someone who maybe just did virtual classes during the last school year and did not sway too much from their normal path. I definitely underwent several major changes in my outlook towards life and my life experiences over the past two years and I think that the history of this blog is evidence of that. I am sort of settling into a routine with my classes and football now, so hopefully after midterms this coming week I will be able to better stick to some of the plans and goals that I had going into this year.

Books/Other

I have continued to listen to the same couple of podcasts and the past two weeks have thrown in some educational youtube videos as a way to supplement what I have been learning from class. Part of it has definitely been to refresh some concepts that maybe did not come across in class, but an interesting thing is that the recommended videos are usually tangentially related and can get me down a rabbit hole of useful knowledge. I think that actually going through all of the readings that are assigned for my various classes this semester has helped me to expand my circle of competence and made me more well-rounded. I have pretty much made it to midterms while keeping up with my readings so I am hoping to be able to do the same for the back half of the semester, at least until I finish with football because then I should have a ton of extra free time. 

Gratitude

For this week, I want to say that I am thankful for my physical health. I am not sure how many times I have put this down as my weekly gratitude post, but it will probably remain a staple for at least the remainder of the season because it is particularly salient. As I have mentioned, football is a particularly violent sport and there are a lot of injuries in any given game. By playing the sport as frequently as I do and being involved in so much full-speed action, it is inevitable that I get a little banged up. So far I have just had some bruising and swelling in various parts of my body. I have sprained or strained a few things, but nothing that I am not able to push through and nothing that has been constantly lingering. I am seeing my teammates around me go down with various things, or deal with nagging injuries week to week, and so far this year I have been fortunate enough to avoid them. I know how hard and annoying it is to play through injury as last year I basically had two hurt elbows and a partially torn MCL by this point in the season. I will continue to express my gratitude for my health and take advantage of this time where I am capable of playing to my full potential unencumbered by extreme amounts of pain. 
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