The Sporting Life.

The Decemberists.

I started playing volleyball in eighth grade, after not making the team in seventh grade. This continued through high school. I was usually a starter, one of the best players in my grade. However, something weird happened (discrimination is a highly suspected reason, I'm not going to get into the stories about connections/politics and all that) and I didn't even make varsity my senior year. This was bad since colleges couldn't come watch me play (and many had expressed an interest in recruiting me). I still managed to play club. Club teams were teams that serious volleyball players were a part of during the high school off-season. I played all four years of high school for teams including Sports Performance and Adversity, a couple well known clubs in the Chicago/Great Lakes area (Sports Performance teams have gone to Junior Olympic championships many times and many girls have 'graduated' and become Division I volleyball players).

Fortunately, I was recruited and played at Denison my freshman year (I've had coaches from competing colleges still come up to me during matches and tell me I should've gone to their school instead, haha). Sophomore year, however, I decided volleyball wasn't really what I wanted to do, and I wanted to spend my time focusing on film and school in general (little did I know I'd barely get any chance to take the film classes I wanted... but that's another story, haha). I still missed playing often though, I just didn't like the huge time commitment -- tournaments every weekend, practice every day, etc. Last semester, a group of girls decided to form their own team. I started playing with them, practices were only twice a week and we only had a couple tournaments. Some intramural games were played too. It was a lot of fun... and today was our first practice of this semester. I decided to bring my camera and take some photos. I don't know if I will get a chance to play again when I graduate... Well, kudos if you read all that...!

Would've used this if the focus was shifted.
Another better action shot.
It's also very warm out compared to lately.
The snow and ice are melting fast and water is everywhere.

Spending my afternoon listening to Johnny Cash.
I still haven't completely taken off my make up from last night.

[A year ago today... "This... Is Grand."]