Dario Marianelli - Two Figures By a Fountain

It's quite interesting playing sports with Americans... I mean, not saying that they play it differently than we do; but it's just the entire general atmosphere of the court.

At the moment, we're learning volleyball. We're being taught by two mums who've played in high school, and one of them went on to play for her university. (I think it's University of Illinois; she was wearing a t-shirt with "alumni" and a Native American's chief head on it.)

I've never played volleyball before, but back home in Singapore, I was actively involved in my school's netball team. Netball, mostly played by Commonwealth nations, is a bit like basketball, except that there's no board behind the net, the ball looks like a volleyball and mostly girls play it - in skirts. (Ha.)

When we didn't do something right, or if we threw the netball kind of weird and to a pointless corner of the court, the coach would stop the game and go something like, "No! Don't do that!" It wasn't verbal abuse, but it didn't encourage you in the common sense of the word.

However, with these two volleyball coaches - especially the College Volleyball Mum....

Okay - I suck at serving in volleyball. When we were having practice, it was my turn to serve, and I said, "I suck at serving." She came over and said, "Okay, babe - here's what you have to do..."

I don't know about you, but whenever someone says "babe", I think of Latino men in singlets and leather jackets, or the cute little pig in the James Cromwell movie.

So I served, and the ball went in the opposite direction that I intended. I looked over sheepishly, expecting her to shake her head and say something like, "No, you should've used the heel of your hand like I told you to." Instead, College Volleyball Mum said, "That's alright! That's alright. Use this" - she indicated - "part of your hand next time, though. But it's okay. It was a pretty good start."

Heh.

And the terminology they use is different, too. I tend to watch more British television shows, so words like "shag" to me means "to have sex with someone". The first volleyball practice I went to, CVM (College Volleyball Mum) was shouting, "Shag the ball! Shag the ball!"

Needless to say, I started having dirty - verging on kinky - thoughts playing through my mind for almost all of practice.

But it's fun playing with them, I guess... It's fun doing a team "land sport" again. I've mostly been doing swimming, which is definitely not a team land sport. It's fun to play with my friends, despite the differences in coaching styles in that I'm used to...

I mean, "Go team!" right?