Sporting

This post is meant to inform you of 3 completely unrelated points, tenuously united by the word sport.

1. I am sporting a new haircut. I had been experimenting with long hair with mixed results. This is perhaps the nature of more extreme styles (fashion or otherwise.) People were quite polarized about my hair. Some people loved it, others hated it. I don’t think the lovers were necessarily in the majority, but they were the ones I cared more about.

It had been about 4 months since I had my hair cut, and that cut was more of a trim, so I was working on about 6 months of growth. I’d had the top fairly long before, but the sides and back were now knuckle-deep (3-4 inches?) It was a more interesting length since I could actually do different things on different days instead of really having just one look.

I ended up cutting it for a variety of reasons. Primarily I started working with real patients this week, so thought it would be good to have a more traditional haircut. A couple weeks ago a girl had complimented me on my hair, but did include the caveat that she wasn’t sure she’d like her doctor to have such a coif. I also had a friend tell me, and I quote “Chris, don’t take this wrong, but from this angle you have girl hair.” Plus I found a barber across the street from my favorite spot for Philly cheese steaks, so the deal was done.

2. I attended the National Championship of Table Tennis on Friday. I’m not terribly enthusiastic about Ping Pong (they refused to call it this at the event) but I was quite tired of studying. And really, how often do you have a chance to go to the national championship of anything?

Turns out that we were the only ones that thought that way. Admittedly, it was only the first round of the tourney, but I’m pretty sure we were the only spectators that weren’t either on one of the teams or related to someone that was. But we cheered loudly for our teams (most everyone but Michigan and Florida) to make up for the lack of student support.

Watching the games was fun, but the best part was having one of the players trying to recruit us. We told him that we were only good enough to play in our garage (a lie because I’m awesome and don’t play in a garage, but it was easier than explaining that he’s part of a silly sport and that we play in an Institute and med student lounge) and he told us that’s where all great players start. He said that some members of their team had only been playing for 4 or 5 years, so we could easily get involved. His naïve enthusiasm was amusing to us cynical folk.

3. We watched OSU reach the championships last night. I don’t really care about sports at all (though basketball is infinitely more interesting to me than football. But it still ranks a far distance behind most any other thing I can find on the television) but I’ve become addicted to throwing get-togethers. I seriously throw one, if not more a week. It’s no wonder that I haven’t been dating much when I either throw a church-sponsored activity or a private one most every weekend. So in order to satisfy my addiction I invited a bunch of people over and we watched the game thanks to the glory of Tivo.

Though I’m not passionate about the game it is nice to have my team as one of the top two in the nation. Everyone in Columbus is quite concerned that Florida may beat us again (they beat us in football this year to become the national champs, a spot we had expected to hold all season) which is a neat bit of drama. Though I have to say that being the 2nd place team in both basketball and football wouldn’t be too shabby. But saying such a thing to a true Buckeye would be blasphemy. I certainly wish our team well for their big game on Monday, but more importantly hope the results either way don’t interfere with my studying for the upcoming exam.