One of Those Moments

I went to see the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" with Kiki, Simona, and her boyfriend, Salvo, last week.  We had to go to Agrigento because the movie hadn't opened anywhere closer to us yet.  I had seen the movie in America over the break, so I knew it was great and had little problems following the words (thank goodness I'm learning!).  We had had a bit of a rough week, and Kiki and I wanted to get out of our little town and break the monotony of everything.  I was so glad we did, but not at first.

This brand new theatre (big at only 2 screens!) let out, and there was only one exit.  People were slowly, slowly letting out, and Italians are terrible when it comes to lines.  As I hit the door, I realized the line was this slow because all the people in front of me had neglected or not seen the adjacent other door!  I was in the middle of cursing this world over here that seems thirty years behind everything else, reluctantly holding half the doors open for my party to exit, when one of those moments hit me.  

It was a cold night in Sicily, on the other side of the street you could see the Valley of the Temples, little bitty cars were scooting by as well as little mopeds.  We went through the European ritual of kissing each cheek, saying "bye" to Simo and Salvo, and I just remembered where I was.  I'm in a foreign country!  I live here!  I had once again gotten so caught up in the frustrations, which I've done and will continue to do time and time again.  But these are the moments to enjoy.  People who say they are jealous of my experience, should actually only be so (if at all) of about 10% of my time.  This was part of that small percentage, and when those moments hit me, I can't wipe the big smirk that's all over my face.

Mardi Gras! Carnevale!

Carnevale, Sicilian style!  We were pretty tired after another home loss, but some of us still wanted to go to Sciacca, a city 20 minutes away, to see the festivities.  It had similar ideas in comparison to the floats, but people were dressed up in costumes more like Halloween.  It's much more of a family-oriented holiday with schools holding their own costume parties for the little kids.  There were all types of vendors down the streets, and when the floats went slowly down the streets the spectators were walking in front of or behind the float.  We weren't tapered off from walking in the street like American parades for the obvious reason that they weren't throwing anything to fight about!  

We ate some Italian sausage sandwiches, took a bunch of pictures, and just walked all the way around the center of the city where everyone was.  I wore a mask and "Jester" hat in Mardi Gras colors to more represent the home-town holiday.  Obviously, the best place to go in Italy for these days is Venice.  Elena asked me how New Orleans was for Mardi Gras, and I told her it was the best in the world!  Kiki argued that the best was Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  I held off my argument until I looked more into the situation.  The Latino Mardi Gras does look seriously amazing, so maybe she's right, not sure.  I've yet to see New Orleans Mardi Gras completely!!!  Oh well, the second best in the world ain't shabby...  

1 Game, 2 more losses, proud teammate

It turned out that we did lose that game against Viterbo last week.  Bummer.  And the game we just played last night against the first place team was one of our best team games.  We put ourselves in a position to win at the end, but they made a late run and won by 5 points.  

We beat Viterbo by the amount of points needed a finally broke our winning streak, so how can I be mad at our team for that.  It's just frustrating that what turned out being the true reason why we lost was that our G.M. or president either forgot or didn't know part of the process on filing the argument for the game.  I'm not 100% sure we would have won anyways, but at least we had a shot.

And then last night.  We played just like we needed to: like we had nothing to lose.  We were aggressive, no fear; we also caught them snoozing a little bit.  I'm sure they thought it would be a free ride playing against the last place team.  Our point guard, our American center, and I all had good games, but we needed one more person to step up and score I guess.  Anyways, there is still much to be desired, but I'm proud of our team for now.  At this point in time, I suppose moral victories count for a lot.

In Question

So... that last win we had... totally in question.  Basically, our new lil' point guard (shown in the pic making that other stud point guard fall) wasn't yet legally released from her other team for some reason, so we had to forfeit the game.  We are trying to argue, but after a week, we still don't have a clear answer.  We are assuming it a loss.  She couldn't play in our game Wed. either, so we lost horribly, and let's just say that the Law of Averages caught up with me...

We have a TV game Monday against the first team in the league (yep, the last against the first, on national live television).  I like to think we can play with just about anybody at home, so we will see what happens.  

It's so tough sometimes to keep on playing through even though it feels like you have nothing to play for.  I know basketball is just a microcosm for life and that people's true character and personalities are even evident with how the react and play the game.  We have a few really good people on our team.

Do YOU want a Victory!?!

OMG, we finally won!  We HAD to win this game to get out of last place, and if we lost against this other last place team, the season was basically over for us, and Ribera would be headed straight for the second division next year.  Instead, it looks like we will have a chance to save ourselves in the Play-OUTS at the end of the season.

It would have been nice to end the season promptly on April 5th and getting to travel instead of playing possibly the rest of the month, but we needed to win this game.  If there were any doubts about how I felt about the game, they were all wiped away when I scored a career-high 31 points!  I think I had like 5 three pointers tonight, and I just wasn't thinking about it.  It felt good!

Yeah, but...It's not too bad...

Problems this season "at a glance":

the team has been months late on paying us, then the club got mad at us for striking for two days, we put up with the tardiness due to the global economic crisis, within one particular week we had a broken nose, broken finger, then a car accident and 3 broken ribs with a slightly perforated lung, we have not won a game since october, and our head coach has been sick for about two months now.  Talk of me getting traded even made it into the national sports newspaper, so my future with the team wasn't always certain.  Other things may come to me later, but basically it's been a rough season.  We may have been the only team...no, the only workers who were so behind in payments and then practiced on Christmas Day.  Our Coach is separated from his family, so he has nothing to do...ever... For this reason, we have to put up with it and understand the situation.  From every single one of my teammates comments, this will be their worst season of their careers, "hands down".

But you know what?  With all these problems and frustrations, it's still not too bad.  For the last three weeks, on Wednesdays I've had a group of Italian teammates over for dinner to watch "Amici" which is basically like American Idol.  My Australian buddy was cut from the team, but we still have an awesome group.  I now speak and understand Italian enough to hang out with both groups, and it was such a cool experience for me to have such a simple dinner with Kiki the other night.  We ate a huge piece of "buffalo" mozzarella cheese (THE BEST mozzarella cheese in Italia!) with just some bread, prosciutto, and cherry tomatoes.  Such a simple, healthy, and different meal that I probably would have never experienced otherwise.  Delicious!

We haven't been able to travel too much, but I did get to do a little when my mom and aunt came over (which is when we took the pictures shown in Alia, from where the Montagninos originated).  I'm here because of basketball, but I'm glad I'm building relationships and having some fun as well.  That's what I hope to remember later on in life in addition to the competition.

at Pozzuoli

I don't want to talk about every game too much because, well, they haven't been going well... actually they've been going quite horribly, but here's the recap from our last game (the two pics were taken by a photographer at the game, who then put them on facebook!):

I had a good first quarter and second quarter, even though I rested for a whole 5 minutes in the first quarter.  I had 10 or 12 points when the other team went to a box-and-one, which is where four players play a zone, and one plays man-to-man against me and follows me around everywhere.  It's really a compliment because the other coach knows that our team struggles if I can't score, but it's so annoying!  We didn't have an offense, and I was ineffective for the rest of the game.  I have to learn from this experience though.  

The game was on TV, and our new young point guard, Marjorie (from Belgium), played awesome.  At one point in the game, I was going to steal a ball, and I took it from the post player.  The referee (from a group that I don't speak very highly of here) called an unsportsmanlike foul on me, and I couldn't believe it.  I was laughing as I was trying to talk to him to understand what he was thinking (he said I took her hand with the ball... unbelievable...).  The TV commentator said that call was the worst he's seen in his entire life, and he was impressed with the way I and our coach handled it because he would have torn the guy's head off.  Gotta keep a good reputation =)