It's the IchthyRef again. I apologise for the awful timings of my blogs, but there's simply quite a lot going on. I thought I'd share that with yours truly.
March was a busy month for me. I went to work, I did a few talks with my family regarding The Girl Behind The Face, and of course, it was Hong Kong Sevens! And yet I still found time to sleep...fandabbydozey!
Now I don't know about you, but when it comes to good old fashioned sweet shops, I go weak at the knees and all ape-shit and I cannot resist a bag of jazzies, custard creams and some refresher bars. I'm talking about Mr Simms' Sweet Shoppe. They've now got two stores in Hong Jong, one of which is dangerously close to my office in Wan Chai...I'm in trouble now...
March also saw my family's debut into the newspapers and I was so excited to see myself in the paper, though I was shocked to find that our piece took the WHOLES front page of the Life section of South China Morning Post. People have recognized me around Hong Kong and its a great feeling, strange, but damn, it's great! On the downside, being in the media more has forced me to reconsider where I stand within Social Media. Basically, it's time to behave a bit more. As George Takei has said many a time, "Oh Myyyyyyy!"
I also managed to squeeze in Sevens Week! Now everyone in Hong Kong knows that for a weekend in March, the Sevens take priority over everything else. For me, I got the opportunity to be involved with the Hong Kong Women's Sevens Tournament as well as the Hong Kong Sevens. I decided to forgo the Beach 5s this year, last year I got too sunburnt and my skin was not happy with me!
The Women's 7s is a two day event and this year, it was held at Kings Park and the Hong Kong Football Club. I've been at both of these locations so much with rugby that I swear I need an honorary membership to the Hong Kong Football Club. I mean, they really are quite amazing, though the non-members food could be improved...a BIG bit!
Day one, I discovered Papua New Guinea are vicious rugby players as I had to coordinate all the match paperwork. This meant I had to sort out the match cards as well as deal with all the Yellow and Red Card forms and hand them to the tournament directors for judiciary. Sounds a bit dull, but actually was quite fun as I started tallying up just how many card sanctions one referee managed to give out. It was fairly warm and I also spent the day making fun of the junior referees. As referees, they become great friends and co-workers, both socially an don field. This helps with morale!
Day two was spent at the Hong Kong Football club where after a bit of persuasion, I got the joy and honour to run as an in-goal touch judge for some of the matches. Yes, 2015 was my international match debut, and my parents saw it on live stream! I may have owned in the past of my slow progress up the referees ranks, but being part of the Women's 7s really helped to boost my confidence. I know that with some bloody hard work, it'll happen. I also went up to the HK stadium on Friday to get started on my job for the weekend. I won't go into details but things didn't quite work out as planned and hence I had to turn up on Saturday and pray that something good was going to happen.
Turns out Saturday was probably one I will remember for a long time. I arrived feeling deflated from the previous day. I got given a new access pass and got to do pitch marshaling for the weekend. Basically I had to run and coordinate the teams tunnel entrance. Sounds easy as pie. But probably not! I was usually sent on a hunting expedition to look for the next game's teams. Then I had to follow them back to the changing rooms where I provided a minute by minute countdown before yelling at them to get to the tunnel for a prompt pitch entry. The sun was beautiful, the mobile phone service was as usual, crap but hey, I got to meet the real Village People backstage as well as Eric Rush and David Campese. What a way to spend a Saturday! Also took part in the usual March-Past where effectively, you have to show your face to over 40,000 people and wonder why on earth the referees were given white sticks. And I mean only the referees! I wonder if it's an implication that people think that all refs are blind...though the sexy black Ray bans really did nobody any favors!
Sunday was spent working with the teams again and I managed to get up and close with the Cymraeg lot. They were lovely and I got a few candid selfies...sssshhhhh! Now I was supposed to also do a mini rugby showcase game, but that didn't happen sadly. In retrospect, the worst part was being up at 3.45am to get ready, on.y to be told that I wasn't needed. However, me not doing the game probably was for the best because by that time, I'd been working flat for three days with not much sleep. So it worked in retrospect.
I turned up to work on Monday armed with big cans of Red Bull. I was still found out to be completely exhausted from those 4 days and it took about a week to feel okay again. But despite the exhaustion and sleeplessness, I'd do sevens again in a heartbeat.
I'm also back on certain medications for my skin. I'm back on Vitamin D capsules after being mercilessly told off by my doctor that my D levels were pathetically low. I'm also back on retinoids for my skin. It's not shown too much yet, but it's supposed to reduce the rapid growth of skin cells. While that's awesome, it means I'll have to face needles again more regularly as the retinoids can occasionally screw with the liver. Grrrrrrr
Apologies for not actually getting a post out in March, but I promise you, you'll hopefully have an April post...in April!
I'm still looking for guest bloggers to write about ichthyosis, daily rants or anything that I may find amusing
Peace out guys!
TheIchthyRef
That Pass that's so highly sought after!
We do all sorts during March Past!
