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| The little line under my right eye is my new scar. |
SIX MONTHS!?
It blows me away to think I've been in New Zealand for over 6 months already.
Seven, actually.
I've recently spent some time thinking about some of the seemingly minuscule, yet incredibly formative events that led to me living across the entire world, playing rugby and having a great time. But, more on that later. For now, have some updates and a video.
Things that have happened:
- Friends threw a Memorial Day reunion party without me.
- Attended multiple Memorial Day reunion parties via Snapchat.
- Decided to grow my hair out real long.
- Playing the Star Wars version of DnD.
- Went on another bike ride.
- Fell off another bike.
- Watched Shawshank Redemption - quite good.
- Clutch cable on my motorcycle broke.
- Went on one of the coolest hikes of my life.
- Decided long hair was stupid and got a haircut.
- Sang some songs.
- Dropped a spoon into a fermentation tank - that's not code for sex, I actually dropped a spoon.
- Addicted to Final Fantasy X again. It's a video game, not porn.
- Washing machine broke.
- Freeze my ass off riding to work every morning.
- Had a roommate barbecue/picnic at the beach.
- Rugby club bought me new cleats.
- Cleaned my room again.
- Our frying pan disappeared after a night of drinking.
- Played some rugby
Video Update
Here we go again..
Once again, I have cut my face open. We can't really call it a rugby season unless I've been to the ER, right?
Except that one year where I finished off my college career with a really awesome season. No ER trips that year...
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| My beard is EXTRA red from the blood |
Once again, I've hurt myself in a non-contact drill, and this time it was at practice. I just hated the drill we were doing so much, that I decided to headbutt my teammate's face and get a free pass.
You should see the other guy...
No, seriously, you should see him.
He's fine, it's total bullshit.
My cheek is wide open and he's just got a little bump.
When I got back to the team club room, he laughed and told me, "Something to remember me by!"
When we collided faces, I put my hand up to my cheek where we hit, and saw a bit of blood on my hand.
Not to be a dick, but I was really hoping it was his blood somehow. I've bled enough, let it be someone else this time.
Nope.
As soon as I realized my face was bleeding, I had two thoughts:
1. Shit, probably won't get to play this weekend. (Wrong, I totally did)
2. SHIT, I'm gonna miss team dinner tonight. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
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| Me trying to look tough |
If you're worried I am making America look soft, what with my weak ankles and paper-thin skin, know that I too share your concern.
But, know this, America: I played in our next game less than 48 hours later. Throw some tape and vaseline on that beezy, and let's rock.
Can't stop those Hogs.
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| Glue, butterfly stitches, gauze, tape, and vaseline. Game ready. |
When I got called back to get treated in the ER, I took at look at the clock and said, "Doctor, if there is any way to make this go as quickly as possible, I'd sure appreciate it. I'm missing the team feed, but I may still be able to make it if we hurry."
The doctor replied, "Well, we'll see if we can glue it back. It's better for the scar anyway, and is way faster than stitching it up. How's that?"
I whispered,"I only pray there's still time."
She didn't numb me up or anything. No cleaning solution, no dabbing it dry - which always hurts - and no digging around in it for fun. Why do they always dig?
I can only hope that she did plan to numb me up if I was going to get stitches. I might have looked tough up until that point, but if they were going to stitch me up without any pain meds, that's probably where I would have broken the facade.
She just slapped on some butterfly stitches and then poured glue over it.
Coulda done it at home!
In the end, I did make it back to the club room in time for team dinner, AND dessert. I only spent 45 minutes in the ER (amazing) and didn't have to pay a cent. Susie, the same wonderful woman who bought me the baking pans, drove me to the hospital instead of attending her Thursday night pub quiz. Her one condition was that I not show my mother any pictures of the wound.... well, I never agreed to that condition, so I can't say I really broke it. If I had agreed, then I definitely would have broken it. In fact, the opening of my video - where I am showing Mom the blood on my face - was shot in the car while Susie drove me home.
The Complication
Medical super glue is great - faster healing, better scar, more durable, no needles, and it takes 2 minutes.
HOWEVER
It does deprive the patient of one very desirable perk, if not the only perk:
Answering the question, "How many stitches?"
When we get hurt, it doesn't feel good. We have to go to the ER, sit around, get cleaned out, get sewn back together, and then go back home. And since rugby practice is always during the week, we usually have to go to work the next day looking like Frankenstein's monster.
The ONE cool part about disfiguring your face, the part that almost makes it worth it, is when people say, "Oooh, how many stitches is that??"
It's a beautiful moment. For one whole second you have them and their undivided attention, eating out of your hand, begging to know how many stitches went into your face - their incessant, vampiric need to experience tragedy vicariously must be sated.
This is the best part.
You get to answer all nonchalant and say something cool like, "Eh, just 14".
They say, "Damn, that's a lot!" and then launch into some story about a friend of a friend who had 54 stitches and blah blah blah, nobody cares....
It's all part of the ritual, and it is a very important part of the recovery story.
Not with glue.
People see the bandage over my face, ask what happened, and then the inevitable question:
"How many stitches?"
"Uhh...well, they glued it back together, so no stitches.."
How LAME is that answer!?
GLUE!?
It makes it sound like something a 6-year-old could do with a bottle of non-toxic Elmers.
After explaining that there aren't any stitches, people give this sort of confused, disappointed look, and then say, "Oh, okay..."
It totally sucks. I get one small perk - to be asked how many stitches got sewn into my face -from destroying my face and further reducing my chance to meet women and now I don't even get that.
It's outrageous.
If glue is going to become the new standard for most cuts, then we need to develop a measurement system so patients can brag to their friends and coworkers about how much glue it took to close up their wounds.
"Ouch. How many Elmers-units did it take?"
"Like, three, bro. It was huge."
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| This is 2 weeks after the cut....I seem to only tackle with my right eye. |
I've managed to take a shot to the eye in every game since my trip to the ER. The cut has held up fine, that glue is super strong. Having a black eye 5 weeks in a row gets old after a while though..
How Did I Wind Up Here?
Earlier I mentioned I had done some thinking about some of the events that landed me here in New Zealand, right now.
This isn't some Butterfly Effect thing, where we look at every single action I've ever done and how it changes all my future timelines. That only leads to headaches.
I'm not going to go back incredibly far and try to link up the trillions of different avenues my life could have taken. Instead I've come up with just a few that have happened in the last few years, and have directly impacted my decision to travel.
Any one of these little events could have gone just SLIGHTLY different, and would likely have resulted in me being somewhere else completely different in my life.
I've arranged them in semi-chronological order, which seemed to make the most sense for this.
Recruited to play rugby
First and foremost, if I were not playing rugby, none of this would have happened. As you'll soon see, a number of the events that happened to bring me here are through rugby - and rightly so, it's a huge part of my life.
If I had not been recruited to play rugby in high school, not one bit of this would be the same. For that, I owe Jason Crothers and Manasa Kikau Sr.
Crothers was the coach of the rugby team at my high school, and Mr. Kikau is the Fijian father of one of my best friends, and also helped with the rugby team.
One night, Crothers decided to go to one of our football games to watch some of his ruggers play another sport. During the game, he noticed #11 on the field (me), and said, "I want that guy on my rugby team" - I know this because he's since told me this story multiple times. He spoke to Mr. Kikau, whose sons were on the football team with me, and asked him to have a chat with me. Mr. Kikau was a man that I respected, and still do, and when he asked me to consider playing this game I'd never heard of, I took his words very seriously.
Two months later I stepped onto the rugby pitch and my heart was stolen almost instantly - the rest is history.
To this day, Crothers claims he's never recruited another player to come and play rugby. Whether or not that's completely true, it speaks to the incredible change that resulted from one man's seemingly inconsequential decision to come watch a high school football game on a Friday night. He wasn't there with the intention to recruit someone, he just decided to go.
Now, what if he had decided to stay at home and watch TV that night? What if I was sick and couldn't play that night?
It could be argued that my friends who played rugby might have convinced me to play anyway, but who knows if that would have really stuck. The fact that some coach from a sport I'd never even seen, wanted me to come play rugby just because he liked the way I played football...that's pretty crazy.
Nine years later, here I am playing rugby in New Zealand for a team that is gunning for the championship for the second year in a row.
Next, we have my meeting with Adam Macrae.
Adam was an assistant coach for the Sac State rugby team in my freshman year, primarily working with the A-side backs. At the time, I didn't have a whole lot of connection with Adam, due to the fact that I was a freshman on the B-side, playing in the forwards.
After that first year, a new head coach took over and Adam was no longer coaching us.
Three years later, our head coach left the team. As team captain, the responsibility fell on me to find a new coach for our club. My first move was to ask some of the assistant coaches and former assistants if they would like to come back or at least help us find someone. During my calls, when I brought up Adam's name, I was told he was not interested.
Not knowing Adam very well at the time, I took this as a definitive answer, and did not bother to call the man myself to see if he wanted the job.
I continued phoning alumni and reaching out to the greater rugby community looking for a coach, but with no luck. Or perhaps, fantastic luck.
Two weeks later, I heard through the grapevine that Adam was upset he hadn't been approached for the job. He had coached the team before, he was a Sac State Rugby alumni, so why didn't he get a phone call?
When I called Adam, he told me he might be interested in taking on the position, but he was offended we had not already reached out to him. I explained that I had been told he wasn't interested, and apologized for my lack of follow up.
At the time, Adam was coaching an At-Risk youth rugby team in Elk Grove, and when we realized I would be the referee at their next game, we decided to chat afterward.
After the game was done, Adam took me to lunch at a nearby restaurant and we discussed the proposition of him becoming our new coach.
Two weeks later, Macrae stepped on the Sac State field and kicked off the best 3 years of rugby in my life. He's been a fantastic coach and a great friend ever since.
Part of the significance of meeting Adam comes from his influence on my rugby career, as well as the connections he has helped me make.
Part 1: He turned me into a more dynamic player and gave me the confidence to go test my skills in the best rugby country in the world.
He had played a season in New Zealand back in his day, and kept saying how great of a place it was. "Travis, you should go there." He said it quite a few times.
He also said, "The women are a bit English-looking, but don't worry, the rugby is amazing."
Part 2: He introduced me to Will Beck, who was a crucial link in a chain of connections that got me out to New Zealand. More on that below.
The Failed Fiji Trip
During a roadtrip to celebrate our friends' graduations, myself, Manasa and Matt decided to take a trip to Fiji for an indefinite amount of time. We were inspired by Dan the Man, Ela's dad, and his stories of traveling the world in the 70s, and we decided we couldn't miss out. At the time, we were all single, some of us were finishing college - except those of us on the 6 year plan - and we wanted adventure.
The idea of the trip kept growing over the next few months, and we started laying the groundwork plans.
Manasa is from Fiji and has family out there who would take us in for our stay, as long as we helped out around the farm a few days a week.
We'd wait until we all - Trav - finished college, and then we'd go. We still had roughly two years to wait before the trip, so patience was the key.
The planning had its speedbumps along the way - we got jobs, girlfriends, responsibilities, and so forth. As the first year passed, it started to seem that our trip was fading away.
At some point, the trip died entirely.
Then, in October of 2014, the trip was back on: I'd just broken up with my girlfriend, and my newfound freedom needed to be exercised.
I was going to Fiji, damn it, and those assholes were coming with me.
I rallied the troops, brought in Zatchy and Sean, and damn near forced everyone to commit. No bullshit excuses, no girlfriend nonsense, no more pussy-footing around.
Fiji was back on.
We created a Facebook group and everything, to post links and travel ideas for the group to look over. We were doing it. Fiji was happening.
Our rallying battlecry was, "FIJI!"
I know, very imaginitive.
Months later, in early 2015, as we conversed via Skype-call which plane ticket we were going to book right then, right at that very moment, the Fiji trip died in its tracks.
Manasa couldn't go.
I'm done guilt tripping Manasa about this, as we have certainly let him have it. Poor guy.
The reason this is all so important isn't because we hate Manasa forever now. For some reason, we still like you, Sauce.
This Fiji trip was important because it had me so keyed up to go and live in another country for a while.
I was at the point of no return, I wasn't going to take no for an answer.
So when it turned out that Fiji wasn't going to happen, I just decided I'd go somewhere else.
Matt and I chatted about possible options, and in an offhand comment he mentioned working in New Zealand during the vineyard season.
For some reason that comment resonated with me, and when I combined it with the thought of playing rugby, the idea grew.
A couple months later, I booked a ticket to New Zealand.
If we had gone through with our Fiji plan, I would have gotten my travel fix and likely wouldn't have thought to go anywhere else. Especially not New Zealand. I would have seriously missed out.
And no offense to the fellas, but now I realize it's better that I've come out here on my own. Personally I needed it, and selfishly it's much simpler traveling alone.
The point is, if there hadn't been that one little hitch in our plans, we would have gone to Fiji and never looked back. Now, I'm here in New Zealand and quite satisfied that we never made it to Fiji.
For the record, I still think we should do the Fiji trip, guys. Maybe when we're all in our 40s and divorced we'll finally have the balls to get up and go. Mid-life crisis Fiji trip sounds pretty good.
Will Beck
Above I mentioned that I met Will through Adam. I won't waste time trying to describe Will Beck, because you just have to meet the guy, there's no way I'd capture him here.
Will is one of those guys who knows EVERYONE, and everyone likes him.
I met Beck 3 years ago on a trip to the Aspen Ruggerfest, when he boarded our plane at the last minute, with an introduction from the stewardess over the loudspeaker, dressed as Where's Waldo.
Along with such characters as Adam, Erik Hernandez, Mike Dopson, and Ryan Carr...this was going to be a weekend for the books.
Probably the best single weekend of my life.
Why is this trip important in the story of me coming to New Zealand? Because amidst all the partying, wild costumes, shenanigans, and ridiculous rugby play, I forged a good connection with Will (and the others).
Two years later at the end of my college rugby career, before passing out in my own puke at a bar in Denver, Colorado, I told Will that I wanted to play rugby abroad.
Being the guy that knows everyone, Will very kindly sent out a ton of emails to all his contacts about this kid - me - who wanted to go play rugby elsewhere.
Within two weeks, Will sent me a list of at least twenty conversations he'd had regarding me playing rugby somewhere overseas. I'd told him I wanted to focus on New Zealand, but Australia would be cool too. (For the record, New Zealand is way cooler than Aus. Ever seen Flight of the Conchords?)
In the end, it was Will who put me in touch with Ants Holder, through a friend of a friend, and Ant is the man who placed me here in Nelson with the Wanderers, where I am currently having the time of my life.
But really, think about that. Through a friend of a friend? That kind of connection is tenuous at best, but it WORKED! Any one of those guys in that chain of communication could have decided to disregard their email inbox and never would have heard a word about me. Think about how easily that could have happened. Who reads their emails, AND responds to them!?
Good Timing
In the wake of the Fiji failure, I had steeled myself to go out on an adventure no matter what, and I told myself I was going to leave for New Zealand right after graduation, in June or July 2015.
Well, as usual, plans changed.
A little over a year ago, I met a pretty fantastic girl, and while it never grew into anything too serious, I'd decided I wanted to see where it was going before I ran off across the world.
I hadn't booked any flights or committed to any apartment leases yet, so I could still be flexible with my plans.
I figured I had the best of both worlds, really:
I'd take the time to see how things panned out with this beauty of a woman; and if our relationship decided to progress, then fantastic, I'd be a fool to not continue pursuing it.
If not, I'd run off to New Zealand like I originally planned.
Not a bad Plan B, really.
For better or worse, things did not work out in the end with myself and this girl. It's a shame, but life isn't always perfect.
So, here I am living "Plan B", and I gotta say: It's pretty good.
If I had left when I originally wanted to, in June, two things would have been drastically different:
- I wouldn't have stayed to work at Kaiser for the 2015 summer, missing out on a great opportunity, and I would have never heard about a little diving program called Coral Cay in the Philippines.
- I would have arrived here at the tail end of the rugby season, and would have had to sit around for 4 months waiting for things to start back up.
Instead, because I delayed my trip, I found out about a great diving program in the Philippines and spent 3 months in paradise diving with turtles, swimming with whale sharks, and writing blogs on a beach.
Those are three months I'll never forget, and will likely go on to influence the rest of my life.
Moral of the Story
Things always work out for the best. There are two ways to subscribe to that statement.
Whether there is some invisible hand guiding us, or we as a species are just that good at adapting to and accepting our circumstances - either way, it all works out.
Still, it's crazy to think:
What if I had played badly on that night the rugby coach came to watch our football game? Would he have have noticed me? Would I even be playing rugby? I shudder at the thought....
So many things could have happened differently with bringing Adam Macrae on board as the Sac State coach. What if he never took an interest in me as a player? I wouldn't have tried playing rugby abroad, that's for sure.
What if we had gone to Fiji after all? I never even would have thought about going to play rugby in New Zealand, let alone anywhere. The failure of that trip forced me to stand up and make something for myself.
I almost decided going to Aspen for a weekend would be too expensive. What if I had decided that? I wouldn't know Will Beck, and I wouldn't be here in Nelson, New Zealand. Simple as that.
What if that girl hadn't given me reason to delay my plans for a while? I would never have gone to the Philippines, I never would have met Zoe the Turtle, I would not be a certified Divemaster, and I wouldn't have met all those crazy rascals I lived with on base for 3 months (hey guys!)
If any one of those situations had even gone slightly different, I wouldn't be learning to say "mate" instead of "dude" and getting to use the C-word because it's not offensive here...
Third Hog Update
Third Hog never fails to add surprises and excitement to my life. Last week her clutch cable broke, so I couldn't use the clutch - this is very annoying. Not having a clutch means every time I have to stop, I have to bump the bike into neutral or else it dies. Annoying. Then, to get moving again, I have to walk walk walk the bike forward like an idiot, get it rolling, then pop it into first gear and go on my way. It's very embarrassing in the middle of a crowded intersection.
The first day this happened, I was still learning the routine to get the bike started back up - took me a while to figure out the walk walk walk part - and I forgot to turn my headlight on once I got going.
OF COURSE, within ten seconds I drove past a police car with my headlight off. Like any good cop should, he flipped around and raced to catch up with me, and pulled me over.
Knowing immediately why the cop was pulling me over, I left my headlight on while he stopped me, so he could see it was on and functional. This scored big points, as he mentioned it immediately upon approaching me. "Oh good, you got your headlight on now."
I explained what had just happened with my clutch cable - the walk walk walk part - and that I forgot to flip on my headlight in all the commotion. While he listened, I watched his eyes land on both of my left blinkers which were hanging by the wires. I immediately flipped on my blinker to show him they still worked, and gave him my best/most pathetic smile.
During the stop, I noticed my Learner's Plate was missing, and must have fallen off, AGAIN. A Learner's Plate is just a little yellow placard with a big "L" on it that identifies the driver of the vehicle as a learner. It's mandatory for anyone with a learner's license to display the plate at all times, and since I'm too lazy to go get my full motorcycle license, I just stick with my learner's license.
So before the officer had a chance to look up my details on his computer, I came right out and told him my Learner's Plate must have fallen off recently, as it was no longer attached to my license plate.
"So your headlight was off, both your blinkers are hanging by a wire, and your learner's plate is missing?"
"Yes sir. I fully appreciate how pathetic it looks."
He simply laughed, reminisced with me about his first motorbike, and gave me a warning for not having my Learner's plate displayed.
"Keep your headlight on next time. I don't wanna have to clean you up off the pavement someday."
"Yes sir."
Rugby Update
As of my writing this, our team is 12-1-1 on the season. Not bad, eh?
The season here is split into three rounds:
Round One - play the other teams here in Nelson.
Round Two - play the teams in Blenheim, an area about an hour away. For Sacramento, this would be like playing Bay Area teams.
Our rugby union is made up of two major areas, Nelson and Blenheim. Thirteen teams total
Round Three - play the teams in Nelson again.
Rounds Two and Three each have their own playoffs and championship.
We made it to the championship game for Round Two, and lost in a very close game by 3 points due to a last-minute score. It was one of those games that could have gone either way, and the team that scored last was going to win.
Unfortunately I did not get on the field for this game, which only added to the disappointment of the loss.
With our regular league games, playoffs, and the championship, we had to play 4 rugby games in the space of 14 days. It was...exhausting. But still really cool.
However, even with our loss in the Round Two championship, we are still ranked #1 in our union of 13 teams, so we're still doing pretty well.
We are in our second week of the Third Round, in which we play all the local Nelson teams again.
Last week I played my best game of rugby so far in New Zealand.
After our loss in the Round 2 Championship, a lot of our boys were banged up, including the guys that start ahead of me in my position. That meant I got the start at #7 last week, and I was determined to finally prove to myself that I could play with these boys.
Mission accomplished.
By no means did I play a perfect game, -nowhere near it - but holy shit did I make a lot of tackles. I only touched the ball twice, but that's not what matters. I played my heart out, had to be picked up off the ground by a teammate more than once, and loved every damn second of it. Being the smallest forward on the field, the other team's big fellas very deliberately chose to run the ball at me and I did my best to bring them down. It wasn't always pretty, but I got the job done.
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| Postgame locker room shenanigans |
After the match our captain nominates three boys that did well for the team, on a 3-2-1 basis. My tackling performance earned me the 3rd place spot, which I'm quite proud of. It may not seem like much, but it's the first time my performance here has been strong enough to stand out, and that means a lot for me.
We've got another game this weekend against a tough opponent, and I'll be starting at #6. This will be my 7th start out of 15 games, which is pretty exciting.
Wish me luck!
Final Fantasy X
This game is why this blog took forever to come out.
I went 8 months without a video game. I deserve a treat.
Wrap Up
It's fun to look back at some of the events that have influenced my trip so far.
Granted, I am only looking at things that caused me to come to New Zealand, and how I ended up here.
What's even crazier to think about now: WHO KNOWS what repercussions this trip will have on the rest of my life. The people I've met here and the connections I've made could send me anywhere.
What if I move to Dallas after this season and have a crack at making the new Pro rugby league?
What if I go back home and decide I want to keep making cider?
What if I go diving and find a lost treasure chest that makes me crazy rich?
What if....
I could keep doing this forever, but I'll spare you all that.
All I can say is that I'm as happy as I've ever been. If it were possible for me to be even happier than I am right now at this moment in time, then that will be for other realities and dimensions and timelines to work out, and not for me to bother with. (Sorry, I just read a book about side dimensions and alternate realities)
Whatever's next, I bet it's nothing but good.
Thanks for reading. As always.
Hogs Wild
