Your guess is as good as mine! No. But we're close!

Like I started to say in the last post, rugby in South Africa is SACRED, so I suspected that writing about it would be a monumental responsibility.

But really, I had no idea...

You see, out of a nation filled with rugby worshippers, I must've been the only non-believer. I know there must've been others like me out there, but I certainly felt like the only one who - brace yerselves - COULDN'T CARE LESS about rugby.

(Sorry, Dee!)

Sometimes, on a Saturday afternoon in autumn and winter (the height of rugby season in South Africa), while everyone was inside glued to the television to watch the game or even attending the game at the big stadium, I wandered through the near deserted streets of Pretoria and Johannesburg. During those afternoons, I often felt like the last human being on earth; the sole survivor of the Apocalypse.

Thing is, my ignorance and apathy didn't end with rugby.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, and if you've been paying attention (hey, a girl can fantasize!), you'll know that I'm not the sportiest of people.

Yeah, major understatement.

I have my reasons. Some of them might even be very good and valid. Like the medical reason of having in my possession two freakishly flat, freakishly large feet.

And both of them just so happen to be left. Which makes me about as graceful as a bull in a china shop.

When all the china and decor are red.

I've always been athletically challenged, but nobody could simply take my word for it. Oh, no, we all had to find out the hard, painful way.

So after repeated failed attempts in elementary school to get me to at least TRY and stick my hands out and not just stand there, frozen, arms hanging limply, uselessly by my side while the different balls of various sports activities flew at me from all directions only to end up bouncing against my enormous moon-round head (can you imagine how a medicine ball feels when it hits you in the forehead?), my parents and Phys. Ed. teachers concurred that it would be best for all involved (but especially for what little was left of my brain at that point) if I try other activities, especially those activities that didn't require ANY hand-eye coordination or even just basic motorskills.

Phew! That was a mother of a sentence.

And that's more or less how I ended up at a high school for the performing arts, where the only students who had to worry about balance and coordination were the dancers and the mimes.

Okay, the musicians too, probably, but still. At the age of fourteen I had finally been freed of the burden of athletics, because in my school, there was simply no time left for it after academics and rehearsals.

And thus I lived happily and sports-free throughout high school and even college.

Until that day when I found myself unemployed with only one available journalism job option: Sports reporter at a community newspaper.

I was overcome with the sudden urge to join the army instead of taking that job. Or to slowly gnaw off my own wrists rather than attending that job interview.

But I also knew that I had no choice. Times were tough, jobs were scarce, and I needed a job in journalism and I needed one right then if I still wanted any chance of graduating with the rest of my class.

So I agreed to interview for the position.

That phone call from my friend happened on a Friday afternoon, which meant that I only had until Monday morning to learn all I could possibly learn about sports.

ALL the different sports.

Even rugby.

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