What a difference 18 lbs. makes

I know it sounds silly--of COURSE 18 lbs. makes a big difference!--but I just came to that realization yesterday.

We had our first softball game, and we were awful...up 5-2 after 3, gave up 14 freakin' runs in the next half-inning, lost by the mercy rule when we weren't able to scrape together 9 runs to stay alive...

What really drove home my tubbiness was my play in left field. We were short a man, so we had to cover lots of ground anyway (they were able to hit their spots in the outfield, which was one of the reasons we gave up 14 runs), but when I would leave what I thought was JUST a little space between myself and the foul line-you know, enough to tempt them to go there, but not so much that I couldn't BLAZE over there and snag the ball-I got schooled a couple times. I guess I forgot that I currently weigh 184, which is more or less what I weighed all through college, and last season of softball I weight 165-167ish. Good LORD, I'm slow!

The funny thing is that I FELT like I was in shape because my tennis is fine, my climbing is fine, and my pants are all fitting properly. I guess that's what happens when your period of peak fitness has never coincided with the sports you play competitively--you don't know how good you can be when you're in shape, so you don't realize how OUT of shape you are.

Well, screw that. I'm going to be back in the 170-175 range by the time we go see Mitch and Laurie over Memorial Day, so help me God. Then when I come back from Utah and start up the fall tennis season, I'm going to be back at 165...and destroy the competition.

(I know y'all don't care, but by writing it down maybe I'll hold myself to it.)

In other news, I'm psyched to have just received notice from my Arabic prof. that the Dept. is going to give me an award for my work in the language. Yaay! Dunno what it'll be, or whether the ceremony is going to be a pompous thing instead of low-key, but it's cool that there's something out there. Maybe this'll help me nab an internship with the Arab League or something. (That's the goal for next summer, revised from the general development NGO plan I laid out in the Boren app. I don't know what the odds are, since I'm not of MENA descent, but maybe they'll have pity on me...)