Snesgamer wrote:I don't really have any antagonism towards athleticism, per se. In fact, a personal philosophy of mine is constant self-perfection - which includes trying to keep my body as physically fit as possible. I involve myself in karate, kickboxing, and weight lifting to keep myself in shape.
However, when sports become such an integral part of society that one is completely exempted from the social atmosphere merely because he did not watch the football game the previous night, or when athletes are not held to the same social standards and expectations merely because he plays a GAME - there are serious problems.
Hi, Snesgamer. I haven't seen you round here in a while. Welcome back. I agree with you on the point of not having disdain towards physical activity itself. I go to the gym on a Monday evening every week, not really to build immense amounts of muscle but to improve my fitness and motivation. I have found that working out in a gym can really help with relaxation and stress later on when I'm back at home. I feel I've actually used that evening for a good purpose and it really puts my mind at ease. So I'm glad to go there. It's the intolerant morons who harass and insult people about not sharing the same manic passions for "their" team that ruin it for us and as a result I feel inclined to tar everything to do with sports with a broad brush at times. However, I guess I'm the one who can feel the most smug now towards these fans who have excluded and mocked me many a time, as "their" team has just been battered 4-1 by Germany! I shall sure look forward to using some of my German skills to the people in my office tomorrow morning; I'm sure they'll love it!
Best regards, i_like_1981
German is a cool language. I myself took 2 semesters of it in college, and have been trying to teach it to myself ever since. I can read it fairly well now, but am still a little nervous when speaking or otherwise actually using it.
I have to admit - if there was a sport I did like, soccer would go a lot further than basketball or football. Rooting for a different country I can understand - but different cities in the same country? I just don't get it.
I never took German but I took 2 years of french and then took 2 years of japanese in high-school, I'll leave it to others to figure out which I found more challenging. Ihmo rooting for different teams from different countries isn't really much of a difference rooting for different teams in the same country. One can think of each country as giant cities in one giant confederation of cities in a global nation. The big difference is the scale. That's probably a bad example, but to me the essentials are the same. Rooting for complete strangers, choosing an deciding which team is "yours" and which is the team you also "belong" to-despite absolutely no association what-so-ever, and then getting all smug when your "team" wins and getting depress when it loses. And when its over, nothing really changed...as usual except maybe new grudges and new rivalries and oh yes the occasional......dead fan.
And 1981, how did it go with your co-workers.
"We believe in Vader, the Darth almighty, destroyer of Alderaan and the Sith. We believe in Luke, his only son, our Jedi. He was concieved by the power of the Force, and born of the senator Padme. Suffered under Darth Sidius, electrocuted, survived and partied with Ewoks. He descended to the Death Star, on the third hour he flew out in an Imperial ship and landed on Endor. He is seated on the right hand of Obi-Wan's ghost. He will come again to train Leia to be a Jedi. We believe? in Yoda.........
My colleagues weren't incredibly distraught over England losing the "big game", but there was some level of contempt directed towards me for a) not ever having anything good to say about "our" team and b) being keen on Germany and German culture. Someone even suspected I was actually over there waving a German flag about! Yeah, only a joke, but the day after England went out the World Suck I was not exactly the most loved guy in the office. But there were some who seemed to understand why I hadn't just bleated after England like everyone else did. Several people seemed to know, like me, that it was always going the way I thought it would but just wanted to support the team anyway out of loyalty to their country. Anyways, it's a while ago now. I still do hear the odd talk on upcoming games but now England are out, you can sense the disconnection from the tournament in people's voices. Someone recently said to me "I think your lot are in line to win this one, 1981!" Obviously he was referring to Germany. Alas, I do like my German stuff, me, but their bigheaded, overconfident attitude never exactly complimented my interests. Sadly I know no Germans in real life so I can't say their football team and national papers' attitudes correspond with those of their people. And thankfully, I'm not hearing any talk on the next World Suck either. It's not hard to guess why.
