Scene: Argonauts Thursday Night Practice
MANAGER Barcelos, chatting with CHASER COACH Oelze, mentions the Year in Review that ROOKIE Ardin Lo wrote about his college squad, Cal Quidditch.
ROOKIE: Hey Liz, can you share it on Barcelos Knows?
MANAGER: Are you kidding? You wrote about me as a player. That’s never happened before. Of course I will.
ROOKIE: Yes! We finally made it.
Memorial Day weekend in Downtown San Jose is full of costumes and characters. Black robed and regalia decked grads and their families share the streets and local business with cosplaying anime fans. The convergence of Fanime and SJSU’s graduation is a yearly reminder that San Jose isn’t an overgrown suburb; it’s a city of over a million characters.
Here are some highlights from my SJSU graduation and Fanime photoshoots.
I started to draft this on Tuesday morning, my body still aching from the weekend. I went from fourth string to second string and played seven games in two days. I finally played against my alma mater but I didn’t come away with the championship that I obviously, desperatly wanted because NorCal crowned a new champion.
There’s a lot to unpack. Let’s get into this.
Kissimmee Cooldown Pt 2 will be up later this week, but today I wanted to focus on something near and dear to my heart—and my geography: Best Coast Classic.
Okay, this might be a bit of a lukewarm take. This was supposed to go up last night, but between Portuguese school, trying to cook dinner, and deciding that watching The Great British Baking Show was a better way to spend my night, this got put off to today.
I have a problem. It’s a problem that took staying up until 1:30 am last night for me to begin to grasp it. No, it’s not procrastination (though I struggle with that too). It’s a dangerous blend of perfectionism and competitiveness.
A little over two weeks ago, I was sitting at the airport, putting together the fundraiser for the Skrewts postseason tournament. I found myself pausing when asked to give it a title. I’m a planner by nature and that means planning for the worst case scenario. I’d quietly mentioned Consolation Cup to our team president at our last practice before regionals and he looked fit to kill me. I evaded a swift death but reminding him that I believed in our team and telling him to pretend that the whole conversation had never happened.
But I couldn’t pretend. After several minutes of staring at my laptop, I typed “Help the Skrewts Go East” into the box because both Texas and Florida are east of Silicon Valley and I didn’t want to jinx things. I might be a hockey atheist, but the Spirit of St. Quidditch is still real to me.
I’m also a big believer in stories. I have a degree in them, after all. Taking events and piecing them together into a narrative helps me bring meaning to life. As I sat in that airport terminal, I was apprehensive. Would the coming weekend be the beginning of the twilight of the Skrewts? It felt like the narrative I deserved after playing Achilles in his tent earlier this season.
