With the year rapidly drawing to a close, there are many events planned to celebrate achievements, both serious and not so serious. This year, just like last year, I've been awarded both, though I'm not sure I entirely deserve one of the awards this year. But first, some other news.
I have found a new venue for trivia. Every Tuesday at University House on campus, there is a trivia night. I was told by a friend of mine, James Schofield, that I should attend as he is part of a team. I figured that as I'm not doing anything on Tuesdays anyway, I might as well join. So far, I've been having lots of fun and learning interesting things like the record for most consecutive one-handed chin-ups is 22 and Belgium has 3 official languages, French, Flemish and German, event though German is spoken by about 1% of the population. The team has done well taking 2nd place on a tie-break question 2 weeks ago and 1st place last week. The prizes are drink money at the bar of the café where the trivia is held. I think I might as well keep going.
Irritatingly, my new crown on my tooth has chipped. A rather sizable chunk disintegrated as I was eating some french fries. I looked in the mirror and it doesn't seem as bad as I first thought but I will have to go to get the crown rounded out. In your mouth, everything feels magnified 100-fold so even small chips feel very large. I can't believe something so new would break so quickly and I haven't eaten anything really hard at all, the hardest being some spare ribs. I have a feeling there may have been a structural weakness in the crown that only became manifest after it caused the small front portion to come apart.
In more bad news, my watch band came apart which necessitated me buying a new watch. I'm happy with my new watch, though.
The awards night I'm speaking of was the annual ACTAFL Umpires' Association Dinner where achievements, both remarkable and notorious are celebrated. This year it was held at the Canberra Southern Cross Club in Woden at a very nice function room. There aren't that many of us, maybe 50, but a few partners were brought along so we ended up with about 70 guests. The presentation was expertly put together by Glen Swan, nicknamed G-Bus. The night was free, actually we pay for it at the beginning of the year with an Umpires' Association fee, but it did consist of a very good buffet dinner and desert. For technical reasons, the dinner was held about a month later than last year.
The dinner and desert were interspersed between the awards portions. The awards included number of games officiated, officiating Grand Finals, a few joke awards, the Bachelor of the Year and the Least Outstanding Performance Awards (also a gag). I'm sorry to say that this year I didn't win the Bachelor of the Year, so I guess I'll just have to wait until next year. However, for the second year in a row, I took a Least Outstanding Performance award. I'm not sure I deserved it this year, though, since the incident, which involved me hugging an umpire, was reported as taking place at a ground I didn't even officiate at this year! I accepted the award anyway with the gentle good humour with which it is intended. I did, however, win a serious award, in this case, the Dedication to Training Award for Goal Umpires. This is because I bike most Tuesdays and Thursdays from my place to Manuka Oval, which takes about 30 minutes, whereas most people drive. I go to training to get fit and because I like the people there and it's absolutely no chore. The award itself is a trophy out of which I took a few sips of Coke. After the awards, the party broke up and we all went home anxious for another year which begins in February.
Before I leave you with some photos from the night, I'd like to plant an idea. Recently I found a trivia question in a magazine that asked, "Which country is officially called Myanmar?" The answer given was Burma (which is correct) but I though to myself, "Couldn't the answer also be Myanmar? If a country is officially called something can't that also be a correct answer?" What do you think?
2 comments:
You look so prestigious with your medal and trophy. Congratulations! And, sipping Coke from the trophy must be something like the winning driver drinking milk at the Indy 500.
I think "Myanmar" is actually the correct answer. It struck me as odd that Western nations insisted on continuing to call it Burma, even when the ruling military government had official renamed the nation Myanmar.
In answer to your query, if Burma is considered the correct answer, then Myanmar should be a correct answer, also.
I was just wondering: at the buffet, would it be dinner and "dessert?"
Strawberry Shortcake = dessert
vs.
Sahara = desert
:-)
Post a Comment