Playing dodgeball in the rain: photographed by Bryan Jung

This past week was pretty normal except for dodge ball on Saturday. Before the day came everyone was getting pumped up with the idea that it would be Americans versus Taiwanese, and some in our group even thought of it as a time for vengeance, daydreaming about aiming balls straight for peoples faces. One of the guys even said "women, pregnant or not, will get hurt." Of course they didn't mean this intentionally, but then again who knows. When the actual day came to play rain had begun to pour and unfortunately the ambassadors that were holding the event couldn't move us into the gym. So we all started to play outdoors in the pouring rain.

The rules of the "dodge ball" we were playing were a bit different from how I remembered playing them in the states. We only had one ball and we actually sent two of our team members to the other side, so you would have to worry about getting hit from the front and the sides. Those that get out walk around the edges and continue to play, and should they hit someone they can go back in versus if someone catches the ball. This I believe was to allow everyone to play at all times, but it made for never-ending games.

During the event I had a friend photograph the fury, anger and happiness in our teams eyes. Once we started playing we realized we were playing against mostly girls, but that soon changed as more guys went in. Still with all the hype from the week prior, it became serious. We were going to get them, female or not. And so even now I can look at the photos of the girls, mouths open with such fearful expressions as if we were throwing grenades their way. The guys on the Taiwanese team also held faces of resent against us as they aggressively hurled their weapons at us. But still we held strong and we won that tournament.

What a great weekend that was... Now time to prepare for the last two weeks.