How I've Changed

Well, it’s been a year. Y’all have listened to me speak total gibberish about volleyball, track, red contacts, and Dillon’s Starbucks membership. Now I’m supposed to look back and reflect on how I’ve changed. Yikes.

I guess firstly I could name the more obvious and less interesting points… 

• I broke up with the guy I had been dating about a month before our one year anniversary
• I got about 3/4 inch taller
• I was classified as ‘too short’ to be an outside hitter
• I tried to juggle two sports in the same season

Not super impressive, but I also...

• Made a region qualifying time for track as freshman
• Qualified with my volleyball team for a major tourney in Vegas
• Switch positions to libero and, as my coaches say, ‘found a new home’

A photo of my brother and I roughly a year ago
Super cute, right?

Taken earlier this year

Now I could bullshit some bogus ass story about how I matured and grew as a person over this past year, but why would I? Anyone who’s ever been a freshmen in high school can tell you it’s gonna be challenging, it’s gonna test you, and it’s gonna force you to grow up a bit, but these are the best days of our lives right now. Why on earth would I risk tainting it trying to reflect the past year and evaluate myself as a person? I’ll pass thanks. Like everyone, sometimes I’m awesome and sometimes I suck, that’s the gist. So no, I won’t bore you with a far overused speech on self discovery, Let’s just skip that.

Honestly, I think I can say that this blog probably stated out a bit stronger than it ended. However, it wasn’t as heart wrenching an activity as I had first thought, this little project turned out to be something that I may continue to add to. That is the biggest change I could name in myself from the beginning of this year: I give everything a fair chance, also I do it whole heartedly instead of half assing. Thanks to everything I’ve faced this year, I find myself standing at the start line of a whole new kind of race, and I couldn’t be more excited to run it.

All For The Love Of The Game

Most. Intense. Ever.

That’s it, three words to explain what happened this week.

Let’s start from the beginning: on Monday I get the text from my track coach saying that I am entered to run in the regional meet, which of course I can’t go to because of my two-day volleyball tournament. Then we start into SAGE testing, thank god at least a portion of that is over, however that probably had a contribution to my pent-up rage for this weekend. And on Thursday I slammed my wrist into a large metal handle on the gym door, only to keep banging it on the floor at practice that evening.

On Friday, my dad picked me up early from school so we could get to Timpview high school for our very last tournament of the season. For probably the first time ever, I showed up first, this was no big deal except for the fact that no one else from my team got there until about an hour afterwards, but whatever I got to scout the competition, which was a combination of club and premiere for both fifteens and sixteens. Aka, giants in comparison. Soon enough we were all geared up and just itching to get on the court, well, I was anyway. 

The blisters on the backs of my heels

Unfortunately, it seemed everyone on my team was half dead so we didn’t even really show up to the first set. It was sickening how badly we lost that game. I mean, yikes! And believe me, I contributed my fair share of shitty passes, but we were all shanking. Thankfully by the end of the second set, we had woken up from whatever daze we had fallen under and were playing like usual. It wasn’t enough to win that match but we carried our momentum through the rest of that day and into the next. (Minus the first match on Saturday, but that was against Wasatch and we don’t wanna talk about it). That momentum carried us to be the only fifteen year old team in the silver bracket on Saturday, making us the farthest advanced fifteens team in the tournament.

Right now, I am going to bed so covered in bruises that that i doubt I’ll be able to sleep much because we fought, and we fought hard. But the bangs, the bruises and the blood are what set us apart. It’s all for the love of the game.

And my banged up knees, even with the use of pads

Only For Sports

I have NEVER enjoyed getting up at six in the morning. Never. In fact, if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t do it. By the time I finally, and very reluctantly, roll out of bed, it’s around fifteen to twenty minutes after my alarm started playing music. That’s on a normal day, however, today, I chose to get up around five minutes after six, I’m not sure why, but my body just decided it was a good day and I was getting up early.

As always around this time of year, it was light outside already, but what I saw through the spaces in my blinds this morning was far better than the pale beige land obstructions behind my house. Oh no, this was a beautiful dark silhouette of mountains against a hand painted pink and orange sky. It was beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous, and I couldn’t help but stare in awe. Now I’m not one to go on and on about how ‘the first little yellow flower in my mother’s garden made my week worth enduring purely for the tiny details and blessings in my life.’ No. I honestly couldn’t care much less about that flower, it’s just another plant in the front yard, so what? A deer is probably going to have eaten it by the end of the week. 

Breathtaking view from my bedroom window

So you see my point. I’m not super sentimental or anything, but I did love seeing this sunrise. I mean, it was magical. Almost enough to make me want to wake up early every morning just to see it. But then I remember that sleep is awesome, and as a freshman I don't get nearly enough. The only reason I ever voluntarily get up, let alone, get up, will be only for sports.

But Next Year...

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned my freshman year of high school, it;s that you do not know frustration until you become a double athlete. Period. You just don’t. From last week through the next two, I will have had to miss a minimum of four track meets due to volleyball tournaments. Four. That’s the Saturday meet last weekend, the two day this this weekend, and regions, which yes, I am qualified for as a freshman.

So as I’m minding my own business in first period today, I feel my phone buzz against my hip. Being as my geography teacher was still hanging out in the hall and the bell hadn’t rung yet I checked it, only to see a text from my track coach. I open it thinking, ‘Okay, no big deal, he’s probably just asking why I wasn’t at practice yesterday even though my season is technically over. I’m not going state as a freshman, I barely made time for regionals, and I’m not even on the team for tha-‘

The text that made this my best and worst day of the week so far
and here you can see my PR for the jr varsity 400meter dash (heat 4, lane 2)

I was cut short when I read the words, “Have you entered in the region meet.” I just about died! I was going to the region track meet! As a FRESHMAN! That like doesn’t happen. I was ecstatic… Until I read the next line, “Do you have volleyball?” … Yes. Dammit! Of course my very last tournament of the season falls on the exact same two days as the important meet I wanted to go to… Again! This is freaking Pineview all over again.

After that I was on an emotional roller coaster as I went back and forth texting my coach and my mom trying to figure out if I could go to the meet and then the tournament. Unfortunately, both start at 3:00 on Friday and as I currently don’t have the power to be in two places at once, I won’t be able to make it to the meet this year. But next year…

Get It Started

So today is the first day of the two day tournament of this weekend, and even more excitedly (if that’s possible) it was the last day of finals! Hells yeah! I made it through the quarter and I am happy to say that I did so while juggling two different sports and still got honor roll. Yeah, I’m pretty cool, I know.

But aside from that, I have a tournament today! And I am SO EXCITED! This may be the last tourney of the regular season but I was also invited, aka recruited, to play in the extended season again this year. So that’s bad ass, and to make it better, I’m really having a breakthrough with my attacking so I’ll really be able to whoop ass in extended. I’m really looking forward to it. To add to this excitement, I was just awarded another new position, making me a more valuable player because I can be placed wherever I am needed. During this extended season, along with playing as an outside hitter, I can be put in as a setter, opposite hitter, and now libero. Libero is the best passer on the team, and a great position to learn. 

My new libero jersey

The only catch is that this position comes with a good amount of rules attached. Firstly, when I’m marked as libero by wearing a differently colored jersey, I can ONLY play back row. I also will not be able to jump for my attack unless I take off from behind the ten foot line on the court. But I am still super excited about playing Premiere in the extended season, (we won’t be this weekend because my coach forgot to sign us up, but oh well, we’ll bring home GOLD baby!), and I can’t wait for it to start. Let’s get it started!

But I Did It

As I mentioned in my last post, I have my last tournament of the regular season this weekend, and it’s a two day. YES!! I’m pretty excited in case that was already obvious. Because of this, my team and I have been working on all the little things: footwork, passing, calling, etc. all week. Which also means we’ve increased use of Ballzilla, our ball machine. I have no problem with Ballzilla, in fact, I like using her, except when it’s a bad day and my coach decides to crank up the power on it. Now I’m a reasonably tan person and this is the end of my third year playing, so when my forearms are turning bright red, that means the ball is hitting HARD! And it hurts. My entire teams arms were burning hot to the touch and stinging. Not fun.

Sort of what Ballzilla looks like, courtesy of SportsAttack

Thankfully though, we moved on from that to a drill called Rotational Four. In this you have a team made up of four people, a setter and three hitters, on either side of the net, and after each time the ball crosses over from your side, your entire team rotates one position to the left. This seems incredibly simple, however, when in the heat of the moment, you tend to forget and only focus on the game, causing teams to forget their switches.

After doing this for a while, my coach decided just to let us play Queens for the last forty-five minutes of practice. And he decided to play me as one of the permanent setters. No big deal, I was a setter for two club seasons, I know what I’m doing, I’m just a little out of practice. Anyway, for one point I had to run clear across the court and back set to the opposite or five position. Seems easy enough, until you factor in my distance from the area I’m aiming for, the fact that I jump set while I was mid sprint, and the tiny little detail that I couldn’t see where in the Hell I was actually aiming for. But I did it.

Kinda Disapointing

Heads up now… This is a RANT.

So after attending my track practice this Monday, I found that I WAS invited to the last meet! I just didn’t know because I never got the email with my invitation. I also found out that I have qualified to throw javelin and nearly made times to run the 200 and girls 4x400 relay for the Pineview meet. I am SO CLOSE!

The event Schedule for the Pineview meet I qualified for, courtesy of the coaches email on Monday.

But here’s the catch, even with those new achievements under my belt, I can’t go. Why, you may ask, because I have my last freaking two day tournament (of the regular season) on the SAME DAYS as the meet! Talk about misfortunate, I wanna run AND play, don’t make me choose, that just ain’t cool dude.

My track coaches know that I had a prior commitment to volleyball but I still really want to compete in track so you can bet your boots I’m gonna haul ass in this Wednesday’s meet. I need to prove that I can set a new personal record and make up for not making it to last Saturday’s meet. I’m taking this as the chance to truly KICK ASS in the 400, which is my best race.

That is, until today… I ran my worst time for my best race. I got a seventy-two second 400 and in the process strained my leg and made the last 200 absolute Hell to run. I walked off the track today with a limp, but hey, I finished. On the downside, however, I had to drop my Open 200 and go home before the girls 4x400 due to the fact that I could no longer put enough pressure on my right leg even to walk, which meant running was out of the question. So I finished the day with my best accomplishment being that I got checked out by multiple guys from both Park City and others schools at the meet. And to be honest, even that was kinda disappointing.

NOT Getting Benched

So I have my last tournament of the regular club season this weekend, it’s going to be a two day tourney and we’re playing in premiere. Which would be awesome, except there’s just one little problem… the tourney is on the same days as the Pineview invitational track meet that I’ve been trying to get to.

Now, of course I have to choose the tournament over the meet, mainly because the odds of me being invited to this meet aren’t exactly in my favor. But here’s the thing, I’ve been working my ass off trying to get invited, and thought I might have had a chance, until I found out about this tournament. I’ll keep running and just know that volleyball wins over this weekend, no biggie.

It’s not that big of a deal, I mean right? I only worked harder to try to make my times better than I have for anything in a while.

courtesy of the Club Elevate calendar

The problem with me working so hard to improve my times, is that I stressed my leg pretty bad. I mean, I couldn’t walk around my own house on thursday night bad. It’s been brutal, I’ve been in excruciating pain for the past three weeks. Not that my coaches know about it though, and I plan to keep it that way. I live very whole heartedly by the say ‘Never Let Them See You Bleed.’ So between that and my high threshold of pain tolerance, I will rarely admit to anything hurting me, and NEVER let an injury keep me from competing. Under any circumstance. Ever. I work too damn hard to give up on the best part of the sport. There’s something I guess I say pretty often lately, “I don’t care if I’m bleeding out of my eyes, I am NOT getting benched!”

Sports in P.E.

Alright, I’m convinced. School P.E. is only designed to make you strongly dislike the sport with a fiery passion. That’s the only thing you can take away from these units is that this SUCKS! We had a volleyball unit in my school last week, and I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when it was first proposed, but as soon as we started I regret that decision.

I don’t care if you aren’t good at the sport but at least pretend to try. Half-ass it, I really don’t care, but don’t just stand there the whole time and then step out of the way when the ball is coming directly to you. If you’re moving and the ball drops at your feet, because you backed up, I’m no longer worried about winning or losing the game, I’m gonna kill ya! I’m sorry but that honestly pisses me off more than just about anything in that class. And anyone high schooler can tell you that your gym class is the most likely to contain every person you can’t stand, but to make it worse is when no one TRIES!!

Taken from the study guide given to us by my gym teacher

I had to ref a “game”, if you can even call it that, and I watched a guy take, I kid you not five minutes to serve the ball. Which, okay, whatever, they don’t play, I won’t be too harsh. But he served it straight to a girl who was TURNED AROUND! She wasn’t even facing the court! She was looking away, messing with her hair and she let the ball drop right at her feet and said, “Oh. Haha, I wasn’t paying attention, that point shouldn’t count.” I wanted to wring her neck!

But I tried not to let it show just how much that bothered me, until the exact same thing happened AGAIN… I swear I was so close to leaving the sideline and stringing this girl up by her toes! (That’s a Texan threat, I’m sorry if it doesn’t make sense). Ugh! I seriously can’t stand sports in P.E.

Playing Premiere

So here’s the deal, since my team has KICKED ASS at the past couple of tournaments, we moved up into a different type of game called Premiere for a tournament at Aces Athletics this weekend. This in case you weren’t aware, means that the teams are more challenging and the games are harder to win. Unfortunately, this means that we have to really push in order to make it to the Medal Rounds, let alone to win them… We didn’t do that last time. After a long, eight hour day, we get to the Medal Round game, won the first game and I’ll be honest, we had an awesome start…. But that wasn’t the case for the next games.

After this, we proceeded to lose a few sets, however, winning the matches and making it to the Medal Round! Where we had a great time getting a ten to two lead on the other team in the first game. To add to that victory, this lead was made purely off of ace serves. Which while, it means I had a lot of quick switches and three-second plays. Eventually though, my team and I were able to finish with an eight point lead with an end score of twenty-five to seventeen for the first game.

A time out during the game, I'm still not sure what Anna was doing on the ground

Unfortunately, this team of giants, (I’m not even kidding, these girls were several inches taller than us), came back in the second set of the match, pushing us into a tie breaker game. This is where the real fun happened, we had to receive very difficult serves and attempt to set up plays from floats, and balls with weird spins, (hella hard to do). The goal would be to just get the ball up, and hopefully in a way that could be set so we could attack it, doing our best to hit the ball as hard as we could DIRECTLY BACK INTO THEIR FACES!! I don’t know if you’ve ever had the chance to do that, but it is incredibly satisfying. I’m looking forward to playing Premiere for the rest of this season.

I'm Pretty Excited

Okay here’s the thing kiddos, I had the best practice of my life a few days ago and I can only pray that I’ll play as well this Saturday, yes Valentine’s Day, I’m sorry Dills. So I’m making up for it by hosting him and his family this Friday. Which should be fun because both of our families are a total riot!

Anyway, I have to attempt to keep it together under the pressure of both our parents (yikes!). Not that either are difficult to please or anything like that, it’s just that with my personality, the presence of adults that will be potentially judging me, (his parents aren’t judgey) kinda terrifies me. I tend to get awkward and just unnecessarily nervous. Which is utterly ridiculous at this point. I mean Dillon and I have been together for just under ten months now. TEN! His parents are already like family, and I feel like I fit in just fine, but something about this dinner being the night before Valentine’s Day has sort of shaken me up a little bit. There’s absolutely no good reason for this, I realize, but none the less I am just a tad bit anxious about it.

Maybe it’s because this is the first time I’ll be putting together a gift for someone of my own, instead of helping one of my older brothers. Well, there was that one in seventh grade, but I really only bought him a bag of M&M’s and some little stuffed bear on a keychain or something. I don’t really remember, not that it matters though, (we didn’t work out, in case that wasn’t obvious). 

Here's a screenshot of a folder on Dillon's phone

So this year, I got my little White Girl, (he has an addiction to Starbucks coffee, and I swear every "hipster" app available) something that should appeal to many aspects of his personality. I can’t say exactly what I have for him because I know he’ll read this to try and spoil the surprise, but I can say that it involves puns, and a certain perk of his growing addiction. 

But in the end, it’s safe to say I’m pretty excited.

That Didn't Happen

So you may have noticed that I never posted about the results of my last tournament… Yeah, that’s because we didn’t win. Whoops. But there is always next time right? Of course I’m right. Here’s the thing though, we lost to the one person we vowed not to: none other than a former coach, Bob. We hated this coach, and hated losing to him even worse. You see, the reason for such a deeply rooted dislike for this particular coach is, well his nickname among the players was Boner Bob if that helps to make it clear. Now I had played up with his team my first and second years on Elevate, due to that I had actually become comfortable around him as a coach. Mainly because I liked his tactics: first off, you’re here to play, so show up ready for the game. Second, this is a sport not a beauty show, so stop constantly worrying about how you look. And third, if you want a playing spot you have to earn it. However this was before he started coaching my age group as much.

As Bobby became more involved with girls on my team and the B team, the rumors started. Given that I had never experienced him doing this I didn’t believe it, but then there came the tournament when it happened. After that season however, no one had seen or heard from him, until the invites for the new club he was starting. Unfortunately, we lost a couple of players to him, those traitors!

Aaanyway, enough about the creepy coach. This time, we were gonna get GOLD!! 

My team after taking second in the gold bracket

We did get to the gold bracket, we just didn’t win it. We lost to Apex by less than ten points between both of the games in the match. You don’t understand how pissed I was for every point I gave up. I’m really competitive and I had a deeply rooted need to beat this team as a recovery from last time… That didn’t happen. 

But I did walk away with my medal first medal of 2015, and I can’t wait to sontinue my collection on the fourteenth! (I know, it’s Valentine’s Day. I apologize now to my boyfriend, Dillon)

Going Completely Insane

So I’ve been giving it my all this week to go the extra mile to practice, which is rather difficult given that we had one organized practice, there is snow and ice everywhere outside my house, I have several finals next week, and my parents aren’t exactly all for the whole play in the house thing. They think I’m gonna break something or whatever. So I’ve taken to watching all of the training videos on the club website and getting some one-arm touches while sitting on the floor in my room. Not really the greatest conditions but it’s my third year, I know enough to make it work. Now not that I’m complaining, but my mom and brother aren’t going to be around for my first tournament of the season. My mom gets to go to my brothers house in Texas for a little while because she’s going to help look after my fifteen month old niece while his wife is doing a bridal shoot (she’s a photographer). As for my brother, Wes, he’s going on a road trip with his friends.

Normally this would be totally fine, my dad and I will just spend the time watching 1,000 Ways To Die, horror and action movies and eating. No biggie, we’ve done it before. Here’s the thing though, my mom let me know she couldn’t come by saying, “Since I’m going to Jake’s next week I won’t be able to make it to your first tournament. I’m sorry, 

I really wish I could go.” At which I smiled and said, “Nah, it’s fine. Isn’t my game this week anyway?” Nope. It’s next week. Gah!

Image courtesy of the Club Elevate site

So not only have I been struggling to find time to study for all my finals and to get some touches in, but now I also have to wait another week! What?! No! I do not remember signing up for that. Next week is going to be a brutal battle to get through. So just in case I come crying and complaining to my blog and poor unfortunate readers, I apologize now. I am truly and deeply, sorry. I’m also totally lying, expect ranting and whining about wanting to play. Starting now, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. There ya go.

The only way that you will be able to escape this outcome is to comment and refer shows, movies, and YouTube videos. Yes, I have an addiction, please don’t judge me, I know people who are worse. So here’s where you must come in my young padawons, direct me toward the the multimedia to distract me for the remainder of the week. Enlighten me! I wish to view the things! All of the things! Send me all the funny, scary, dorky and utterly unnecessary links you can to keep me from going completely insane.

Just Wanted To Play

So today we had our only practice of the week, (yeah, I’m not thrilled about that) and we were working on transitions. Pretty basic stuff if you understand what you’re doing. It’s kind of hard to explain with words and not some type of visual aid, but I’ll give it a try. The position I’ve played the longest is setter, so I’m the one who always (well, mostly, always doesn’t always happen) gets the second touch so that I can set up the shot for my hitters, hence the name setter. Now the particular part of the transitions we were working on is when we are in serve-receive, with a back row setter on the right side, (generally known as rotation one for serve-receive using 6-2). This pretty much means that the other team will be serving at us and I am standing in the back on the right. 

Transitions for 6-2 in serve-receive
Image courtesy of Nitro 12 Regional website

What happens now is that I (S) will push up and hide on my right front hitter (RF), while the left front (LF) will pull back to help pass with the center back (CB) and left back (LB). This prevents most servers from being able to serve at me, which would put the play out of sync and basically increase the chance of us losing the point. So by standing on my hitter I can escape a vast majority of screwy plays. From there everyone can transition into their quick spots easily.

We worked on this for at least twenty minutes just tossing and catching the balls before we actually got to play it out.The only players getting any legitimate play time were those who got the first touches, so they could work on passing it to me. So when our coach finally said, “Okay, this one’s live. Make a play.” there was a sigh of relief across the court. I don’t know if you play volleyball, but I’m sure that it can be translated to all sports that if you’re walking through drills, it SUCKS! Seriously, there is nothing worse because all you want to do is play. It’s like having a scratch that you can’t itch, it’ll drive you insane! I think I speak for my entire team when I say, I just wanted to play!

A Medal To Start

So we’ve started playing in practice now, versus just running and doing drills. Now we have to work on teaching the new girls the rotations, which is much easier said than done. It’s complicated. Very complicated. Not to mention we have one more practice before our first tourney of the season next week. Picture this: we have serve. My true position is back left (known as A for hitting) but after the server has made contact with the ball, I have to haul ass across the court and get ready to cover my blocker if necessary and the run to my place in the front of the court, called my POH (point of hesitation). After setting the ball for one of my primary hitters, either outside (on far left of court), middle, or opposite (behind me on far right) I tradition back into what is known as my quick spot. Then I get ready to pick up tips (soft hits that will fall just behind the blocker) and move up to set again as long as the ball is still live.

Seems pretty complicated huh? That’s just one rotation for one play for one specific player. And it’s counting on everything to be perfect. Yeah, it’s hard. Now add in all the other “perfect” plays and the scrappy ones where every player is doing everything she can just to keep the ball alive. Plus reaction to the other team, the never-ending roar from other courts in the gym, and yelling from your coach. Now let me remind you, that’s a practice. During a game everything will be multiplied with the additions of relentlessly screaming parents, tension between teammates, and having to push yourself to the breaking point for the sake of the game.

This is our idea of a good time. Physical and mental torture all for the chance at winning enough games to move on to the next stage in a strong place (really convincing some of you to play I bet, haha). But the feeling at the end of a tournament day when your team has really come together, and hung in enough to get where you wanted to be is indescribable. When the ref from your last game of the day calls your number to step up and place a medal around your neck, a sigh of relief will leave your lips. the moment you’ve worked at all day, sometimes all weekend, is finally here. Another to add to the collection, and for the newbies, a medal to start.

My medals in order of when I received them (left to right)