Left early for campus to see Jamal and Ardian's presentations. Unfortunately for Ardian, his was cancelled at the very last moment - when he called the presentation examiner on the night before to remind him of the presentation, it turned out the examiner had forgotten all about it and had already made other plans. Ouch. Another reason I should be grateful, seeing as my presentation was virtually free of postponing glitches.
Was supposed to meet up with Riefky so he could hand over
The Office Season 2 DVD he got me, but he couldn't make it. So I ended up hanging out at Jamal's place with Dipo, Posma, Kurnigar, Pakko and Ario for a spot of
Winning Eleven. Actually, it wasn't so much a spot as it was a big, bloody splat, as I ended up being hell-bent on improving my skills to above Whipping Boy status. What this entailed was going up against Dipo countless times, and gradually evolving from a 4-2 loss until I could finally beat him at it. Between that initial loss and the eventual victory were numerous matches in which - apart from swearing a lot - I slowly became a more assured player, but just couldn't keep myself falling apart in the dying moments - which was pretty apt, considering England is my team of choice when playing. Though I must say that it was a relief that Wayne Rooney was just as good here as he is in real life, and David Beckham and Paul Scholes weren't as crap.
And after finally defeating Dipo, I went for one last match against Ario before heading home. The thing was: 1. we opted to play using club sides instead of national teams, so I had to adjust to using Liverpool instead of England; 2. prior to playing me, Ario (using Inter Milan) whupped Jamal (with AS Roma) 6-1, with Christian Vieri scoring four goals. And when I went 1-0 down in the opening seconds...well I was worried that the winning sensation I had worked so hard to earn against Dipo would be wiped out instantaneously. The fact that my left thumb was killing me and severely hampering my ability to move players across the field didn't help. But I managed to hold on and quickly turn things around, with Michael Owen and Milan Baros doing the goods which I hope they'll replicate in reality this season. 3-2 was the final scoreline, and I went home feeling chuffed and looking forward to whenever Romi challenges me again. At his house the other night, I didn't even score in regulation time throughout two matches, and only managed to win the last match through penalties - which, as any self-respecting football fan will tell you, doesn't count as a proper victory. But now that I've figured out how, I have a feeling the outcome of the next encounter will be significantly different.
In the meantime, I'm going to nurse my left thumb, which feels like it's about to go dead from exhaustion. An attempt to cut my right hand nails almost turned ghastly as my left thumb had enormous difficulty pressing down on the nail clipper. So if you notice my fingernails and see that the ones on my right hand are longer, then you know why.
