Kris and I are flying from Perth to Brisbane this afternoon, and I have to say, I'm remarkably relieved at how pleasant boarding the plane was.

There were no absurdly stupid "security" checks done. Our IDs, which can be faked, weren't checked. Our shoes, which were sandals and soft soled, didn't need to be removed. Our liquids, which could be any clear liquid, weren't confiscated. Our toothpaste was left alone. We had accents, yet weren't pulled aside for extra security measures. Incoming passengers were met at the gate. Departing passengers were able to say goodbye to their friends and loved ones at the gate. All of the retarded, onerous tasks that need to be done in the United States in order to board a plane, none of which make the flying of the plane actually safer, were avoided, and the reasonable ones (check for explosives and sharp objects) were done.

The flight out was such a sharp contrast to the rest of this trip, that it was actually pleasant. Even the large number of overhead bins that popped open during takeoff were funny instead of worrisome, as they would have been elsewhere.

When I made the hotel arrangements for this so-called "four star resort" for Worlds, I agreed that, should the need arise, the two 2-bedroom rooms we have would move into two 1-bedroom rooms, with the additional persons sleeping on the sofabed or a hotel-provided-at-no-fee rollaway bed. From the pictures on the website, the place looked roomy and cushy enough that, well, even if we did, we'd be moving for the night before the finals only, so, hey, no problem.

Several days ago, Lynelle stopped by the room and said, as per our agreement, you need to reduce rooms. To me, that meant reduce from a two bedroom to a 1-bedroom as agreed.

To her, that meant move from two 2-bedrooms into 1 2-bedroom, since weren't most of our people leaving on Saturday anyway, and, oh, could those two 1-bedrooms that I also reserved, could they move into one 2-bedroom.

Except only one person was leaving on Saturday. And the two 1-bedroom families each had infant children. My original reservation for four rooms was dropping to two rooms, and this "four star resort" was asking us, pushing us, to having seven people in one room with two bedrooms and one toliet.

I'm glad Brynne was around.

After the disaster of confusion, negotiation, and foot-dragging (oh, and a shoulder breaking by Mark), Brynne put on her hard-ass persona and gave Lynelle a one-two about moving all the rooms around. She, Megan and Katie managed to keep all of our rooms, the latter by refusing to move in the first place.

My favorite part of the whole disaster (if disasters can have favorite parts) is Mark's, statement, "I know you think what you're offering is a good deal, but it's not," directly to Lynelle, words for some reason I couldn't say.

I should probably find my notes on this issue, instead of summarizing from memory. The event was so disastrous it makes my blood pressure rise thinking about it, so maybe just spewing will be sufficient. Regardless, I think I can mark this down as another reason why it's very unlikely Kris and I will ever bother to come to Australia again.

Well, this ultimate season is finally over.

The season is over, and I find myself struggling with how I feel about it. It's been a great season for the team, losing only six games the entire season, and winning Nationals: a season doesn't get much better than that.

But, it's been a not-so-great season for me. I'm struggling with injuries, my ankle at Labor Day, my back at Grub. I'm struggling with teammates, some I don't like, others whose style of play is the antithesis of our proposed team personality. I'm struggling with a marked lack of confidence caused by the injuries preventing me from maintaining the fitness and skill levels needed to participate fully in our games.

That one is the worst: the lack of confidence. It adversely affects every aspect of my game, from cutting to throwing to defense.

Part of me wants to be done with the sport, find another sport and move on. That part of me is tired of certain personalities on the team, and wonders if my thoughts of quitting ultimate entirely come from not having fun playing with ththose personalities.

Part of me wants to go out on top. I didn't fully participate at Nationals, but I'm on the team that did, and I contributed to that team's success at practice, and early tournaments before the injuries, and organizationally after the injuries.

The bigger part, however, wants to keep playing. That's the part that wants to see if I can double my current vertical jump, if I can learn to throw a baseball sidearm to help my forehand throw, if I can run consistently during the off-season, if I can throw enough to be confident, if I can learn to pivot with Kris-like effectiveness on my fakes.

That's the part that doesn't want to give up on the easy fitness that comes with ultimate, the part that screams, I'm not done yet!

I've talked to Kris about finding a mid-level team where I can be a big fish in a small pond, where I do need to be the go-to person, see if that will help my confidence, as the increased fitness and consistent throwing will.

Yet, I'm not sure. I do know this: I don't want another half-assed year. And there are personalities on the team that I don't want to play with next season. Negatives shouldn't necessarily be a guiding force in decision making, but they can give nudges, I guess.

We'll see. This season just ended. I have lots of time to figure this out.

Fifth day at Worlds, and, well, we're out of the running.

Part of me is disappointed, but another part of me is relieved. We as a team originally said we came here to have fun, but, in reality, we were playing to win: subbing in our top roster, getting snippy when we didn't play well, the usual.

We lost in the round of 16 to the Bombing Mad Fatties who, as a team, has pretty bad spirit (independently confirmed by teams that play the team on a regular basis). We didn't figure out how to defend against their big players until late in the game (the top receiver is one of their worst throwers, and their women were universally non-stellar), so forcing to the women and their top guy under (instead of allowing him to score in the endzone) worked effectively. Tragically, we didn't figure this out until the gusty game was too close to overcome, losing 16-17.

The worst moment of the game was 14-14, when Mark went out of the game with a level 3 separated shoulder, requiring x-rays, an MRI and most certainly surgery.

Then losing to another team nearly immediately after that, a team that was clearly inferior, but we lacked heart.

We're on our way to 13th at the rate we're going. We'll meet Joyride again tomorrow morning at 8:30, and play our final game at 12:30. I'm uncertain to play, having rolled my ankle (the "healthy" one) in the second game of the day.

Can't say this has been one of my best tournaments.

Or vacations.

Fourth day at Worlds and I'm remarkably stressed, but not from playing. We won our first game, against the Chad Larson Experience fairly handily, though I don't recall the score at the moment.

Our second game was against Whorshack, from Portland, and was interestingly less closer than the final score of 17-16 would suggest. We were up 15-11, when Foss and Adam adamantly suggested we throw the game to end up on the opposite side of the 16 teams bracket from Brass Monkey. I think it was less the Brass Monkey and more the playing three US teams that we've played before on the way to the finals.

Assuming we make the finals.

Part of me is hoping we don't make it, as that would mean the disasterous room situation would be more dire. But that part is the hestiant, fearful part. The other part of me is gearin' to go.

I'm playing okay at this tournament, but not great. I'm not playing much, trying to get back into playing in the first place. This season has been pretty awful in terms of fitness, skills and confidence. I think I'm ready for the season to be over, actually.

Two, maybe three days left.

Can't wait to be home again.