Skating drama is not fun in real life

(I mean, it's also only fun on the internet when it's actually 'drama' and not something serious, and this is not 'drama' drama.)

Today, I went to the rink, got out my skates, got them on to my feet, and had just started lacing up when my coach burst into the lobby very upset about something. One of the adults helped calm him down while he was talking with the rink guys, and then he got on the phone with the rink manager; he started threatening to call the police, and then he actually did so. I pieced together that he was saying that Other Coach had body-checked him into the boards.

Soooo obviously I did not get a lesson today. I did end up skating a bit since I'd already gone there and forked over the money for the session, but I didn't have a ton of things I wanted to practice and my heart wasn't in it, so I got maybe 45 minutes in. (My blades are also in need of sharpening, I think.)

My coach said that there was CCTV backing up his claims (we don't have Livebarn or anything). When I was checking some dance steps on my phone, a group of coaches and teenage girls seemed to be saying that there was no physical contact and that Other Coach had just cut him off the same way he'd cut off one of Other Coach's students. Even if all of that was the case - and fallibility of memory on all sides around, someone who was part of the event probably has a better idea of what was happening than someone who was likely focusing on their own skating/lesson until shouting began - that is the most elementary-school excuse. I could not believe that I was hearing adult coaches affirming that this was an acceptable response to another skater getting in their way, and it made me feel very uncomfortable to be around them. If Other Coach thought that someone was cutting off his students, he had options to resolve that conflict that were not 'well, I'll do the same back to you!!' because he is capable of talking to people, communicating, and escalating to management if needed like an adult.

My own bias towards my coach aside, I do not like Other Coach because I have seen him behaving badly before, so while I didn't see what happened myself and don't know what the truth is, I don't find the allegation totally unbelievable. This is apparently the same coach who walked out on the ice in sneakers to scream at R in Russian as a first reaction to thinking R was getting in the way of one of his students. While he does often act normally, there have also been incidents where I didn't think he was treating his students well (nothing over the line of reportable).

The police did show up and talk to a bunch of people, and presumably ask for the CCTV footage, so I guess we'll see what comes of it and if we'll have to change our lesson times. (Unfortunately, it's hard to completely avoid people when there's only a few rinks in the area; everybody coaches everywhere.)

4 + 1 games I've played recently

Trying to get my mind on something happier... four short games I've played recently + 1 slightly less short one.

1. Unpacking - a game about unpacking. Great art and a stunning example of storytelling through the environment. Bonus: queer character. I loved the ending. The gameplay was fun, but occasionally it did get a bit tedious (how many socks do I need to put away?!) or confusing when I didn't understand why the game would mark something as out of place. There is a bonus mode where you put everything in the wrong place, but I got bored before I finished it. The price is pretty steep for a game that lasts about two hours, so I recommend waiting for a sale like the one it's on right now.


2. Field Hospital: Dr. Taylor's Story - a game where you play a medic in a fictional war who has to decide who to triage, with many characters having interlocking stories with sometimes multiple other characters that affect their ultimate fate that you see in the framing story. There was a bit of background screaming in one segment that I found disturbing, but it sticks to text descriptions of injuries and assaults, with no visual gore. I got a pretty good ending my first go-around, although it's a bit slow to replay, I unlocked most of the other character endings before I grew bored after a couple of hours.


3. Koi Farm - a genetic fish-breeding game! Sounds perfect for me. The one thing I find frustrating is that there are various breeding goals, but getting to them requires repeatedly breeding your fish and manually dragging dozens of offspring to go away because the mutation rate is low. So it's not quite as zen as it looks, and I haven't yet finished it. But you can breed spotty koi and they're lovely. There's also some pretty soothing rain effects at times.


4. Overboard! - a reverse murder mystery. You play a woman on a 1930s cruise ship who tosses her husband over the railing in the opening cutscene, then has to try to get away with the murder - and hopefully keep the life insurance, too. Very fun, and as you restart each run, it gives you some hints of what to investigate or try to do in this one. I got the best ending and a bonus weird ending in about two hours (though I did look up the bonus one).


5. The Forgotten City - this was the longer one; I finished playing it after around six hours. You time-travel to an ancient Roman city trapped underground where if anyone does something 'sinful', the entire populace will be turned to gold - and you're stuck in a time loop until you can stop it. I predicted a couple of the twists - one from the start, one a little later on - but they were still satisfying. The final twist was a bit less so, but not enough to ruin the game. The art is very Skyrim-like, down to the slight sense of uncanny valley in the facial animations, which isn't a surprise given it was developed out of a mod for the game. Like with Field Hospital, I liked how several characters' stories ran together; at first, I needed a notebook to help keep track of things. The time loop aspect is also fun. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but the developers apparently did consult with a couple of historians; in any case, it at least felt like I was encountering people who really lived in that time period, with a few breaks in the veneer for video game mechanics reasons. The true ending was pretty satisfying.