Hi all, I have a lot of different things to talk about in this blog post. Hope you all enjoy!
First, after waiting patiently all year for the infamous rainy Irish weather to come, I got the foreboding sense that it has indeed arrived. We've definitely been spoiled with a real mild fall and winter, with hardly any rain, but the past two weeks it has rained nearly every day. They always say in Ireland you can experience all four seasons in one day. That has definitely been the case lately! I go from being thrilled living out here because the sun is shining and the weather is way nicer than back home to then, a half hour later being frustrated that it is pouring rain, cold and dreary. I think I am just starting to not let it bother me anymore haha. To make matters worse, it's a good ten-minute walk to school/ gym and getting stuck in the torrential rain every day last week was not fun at all. You'd think I'd learn to bring an umbrella with me…nope! It can really put a damper on your day…
Also, over the past two weeks and for the next upcoming weeks Jack and I have a ton of coaching booked. It's good to see that teams or clubs throughout the area want us to come and run a training or practice session. It means the word is out that we are doing something beneficial. With that said, coaching and teaching kids out here is definitely making a positive impact. While that is great, I've learned that a more impactful way is for us to teach their coaches more about the game. Many of the coaches we run into out here have a very limited understanding of the game; a large majority only coach because their kid is on the team. So to teach them the proper way to do things will, in turn, hopefully, spread that knowledge to kids, all ages, throughout the area. We are limited in how big of a footprint we can leave, there are a ton of teams and clubs in the area so to spend a substantial amount of time with each would be impossible. Therefore, by giving coaches new drills and techniques, we can have a much larger range of influence. I think we have certainly passed on a lot of knowledge onto these kids and coaches, and hopefully, they take it and continue to build on it. What we give them is really the tip of the iceberg, so hopefully, Letterkenny has Victory Scholars next year to help further develop it.
Next, it's early February now. A bittersweet time, football season comes to an end, but we are one step closer to Spring. Therefore, this past weekend was Super Bowl Sunday, back home it's nearly a holiday. However, out here in rural Letterkenny only a few people will watch it. It wouldn't be showed on TVs anywhere in town so Jack and I decided we had to come up with our own setup. Well that we did! We absolutely crushed it, to say the least. We went out and bought a ton of football food: burgers, hotdogs, fries, chicken, etc. Then, we borrowed our neighbor's big HD TV for the night and hooked it up to our laptop NFL Live stream. We stayed up for the whole game which ended around 4 am. It was a little weird not having a ton of people around watching the biggest game of the year but we definitely made the best of it. It was a great time. The only bad part was my first day of my internship was the next morning…
I'll talk more about that in my next blog so stay tuned!
