RHIAN SOCCER JOURNALS           

STUDYING, RECOVERING AND MOURNING    14th August 2011

I know. I know. It has been a while since I last wrote a journal for the webpage.

People may or may not have heard, ahem, that the CSA has had a few issues of late in the Women's national Team coaching department. I don't really feel like talking much about this, other than to say that Carolina Morace is an amazing coach and that she and her staff are going to be sorely missed. Please let me give them all a huge thank you for the time, commitment, and energy that they put into the Canadian Women's National team every single day.

Since the end of the World Cup, I have been studying in overdrive. I have only one month left before my final exam .... correction. I HAD a month left. Now I have just 16 days. This is my final push to the finish line at Athabaska University. And, I have to admit that I am feeling bruised and battered by the whole experience. This time the bruising and battering is mental. My final accumulative exam will be at the end of the month, and after that ..... after that ... what am I going to write about when I am done studying?
 

After the World Cup, I flew straight from Germany to Vancouver where I spent three weeks with my sister. She has been my task master and she put me to work, studying for hours on end. It was a great way to "get over" our poor showing at the FIFA World Cup. I had to ignore soccer completely and had to dive straight back into something completely different: My anatomical studies.

However, I did watch the World Cup finals with my sister and we were both jumping up and down. Congratulations to Japan and to the US on a fantastic game. I know the US will be disappointed to have missed so many chances, but it was Japan's day. The game was probably the best possible advertisement we could have had for the women's game. Both teams gave it everything they had. There was drama, great passing, clean tackles, and a back story worthy of a Hollywood movie. The Japanese players donated all their winnings to the earthquake relief effort - very classy!

From Vancouver I flew to Toronto for a week with my father and step mother Jill. Mississauga was a little more relaxing than in Vancouver as I no longer had my slave driver of a sister to force me to study every hour of the day. I had a really good time and left feeling really recovered and relaxed.

Now it was on to Montreal, where I landed on August 3rd. It has been good being back in Quebec, although I am once again right back into the books. The time in Montreal has been difficult though. Two days ago we had to put down my amazing Labrador dog Dilys. For anyone who has not owned a dog, I realize that mourning the death of a pet may sound a little odd. However, those of you who are animal owners will understand how important they become. Dilys was almost 15 years old, an amazing age for a black Labrador. To be fair though she wasn't all that black after having gone grey at about the age of four.

The night before, I had taken her fro a walk and had run into a skunk. I only noticed it after my 15 year dog had taken off to chase it. Somehow the dog and I managed to escape un-skunked, but this turned out to be the last run she ever made. A friend told me that chasing that skunk must have been the last thing she had on her bucket list: One last flirt with danger, and not a bad way to go out really. I am going to miss this farting, bad breathed, wuss of a dog,. But, I am grateful that she has been there for more than half my life, and for hanging on until I returned home to be with her.