Volleyball

Something huge that i am so happy to tell you guys about. I am playing volleyball now. I'm not sure if i mentioned it before but during the first week i joined the vball club here. At first i hated it. Not the vball part but the joining of clubs part. Not to sound like a snobby college athlete...but i'm a snobby college athlete. I knew that long ago but was surrounded my fellow snobby college athlete friends and we were perfectly fine being that way. You know...making fun of sororities and fraternities. I believe the joke always went that they were paying for friends while we were getting paid to have friends. That still makes me laugh...i'm sorry. And you would probably never catch any of us joining clubs or societies unless it was intramurals and we would put together a team of athletes just to dominate and get free t-shirts. And you most certainly would never find us at an organized school function unless there were going to many atheltes present and free food. Hahaha. I'm sorry this is really making me laugh thinking about the ways of an FMU highschool student-athlete. But moving on. I am now a normal student. The only thing that sets me apart is that i am an international but people only know that by either my accent or the fact that i'm a girl and occasionally wear sweat pants to class...thats a dead give-a-way and i could care less. I still choose comfort over freezing and am not afraid to admit it!

And now that i have completely gone astray from the point of this blog i will return to topic. Volleyball. We practice on tuesdays and thursdays. Tuesdays is practice for the traveling team and for those with "skills". Considering i have been playing all my life i have been fortunate enough to make this team. The only bad news is i am on the girls team...and they think i am a hitter. I only recently told them that i havent properly hit in 7 years and if my FMU girls and Haus could see me now they would be having the laugh of a lifetime. Luckily simple placement for these people seems to be scoring so i will continue to "amaze them with my skills". But the way they see it because i am taller than most of the girls in this country i am a hitter. Oh well. I will be able to travel with both the girls and the guys team to a couple different places in Ireland and for free! I consider myself sooooooo lucky for this opportunity. The first trip we are making is to Galway at the end of the month and we are getting there really early to have a proper meal together and sight-see in the city center. We'll then play our match and come home. When the time comes i will let you know how it all goes.

Thursday practices are quite different. These are the recreational practices where we set up two nets and everyone that has is part of the club may come and play. About 70% of these people think catching the ball and throwing it over the net is funny...you can only imagine the agony of these two hours for those of us with more experience. But we go to appease and help with Matthew (the club coach) and to get our hands on the ball for a while. And in fairness even in the last week most of the players have improved.

Now for the good stuff. Matthew invited me to come play with a couple of them on fridays. On these nights just the "best of the best" show up. I was a little nervous cause he said the numbers are usually pretty small but this past friday it was amazing. There were six of us total and we had (well at least I did) so much fun. We were actually playing and i got to set!!! It was here that i informed them that back home it would be a joke if i were hitting. They found this comical as well after seeing me on a mens net and appreciated my wilingness to set most of the time. We ended up playing about 6 legit games to 25, 3v3. Again, i know for those of you who dont play vball this blog might seem boring. But for those of you who do and love it like i do can only imagine the pure bliss of friday night for me. Legit play for two hours of moving and diving and blocking and on and on. As lame as it sounds considering that i am in a different counrty this was one of my best nights here so far. I know i'm supposed to be experiencing new and exciting things and i will and have been. But nothing beats the comfort of doing something that you've been doing for 12 years, something that truly makes you happy. Especially at a competitive level like that.

Oh and a side note...anyone that feels gracious enough to send me a pair of knee pads be my guest. I'm still trying to look cute on a night out and black, gray, and blue bruises covering both of knees is somewhat of a turn off if you catch my drift. :)