back to work!

Nothing much to report. We feel as though we are back to doing pre-season exercises at times, which consist of more running and agilities with little thought of how heavy our legs feel or how tired we are. With reason, however, because this will be our only chance to get back into shape before we start playing every three or four days, but two-a-days will just wear you out!

On another note, I've underestimated the mental transition that takes place every time we go from one "home" to the other. I almost felt like an actress, where I wasn't sure which one was the reality (as if one of them isn't...). It just takes a completely different mindset for each place. Ignoring how much jet lag is getting to us, and how sleep deprived the Americans were today at both practices, for one thing, on one side of the ocean we are all staying at our parents homes. I for one take full advantage of how spoiled I get when I'm home (love you mom!) and I love getting to see both sides of the family for Christmas, and then words can't describe how great it is having Morgan and Jodi around everyday to do stuff with (even though Jodi sleeps too late in the day and Morgan wakes up too early...). Then on the other side of the ocean, we are all living in apartments by ourselves, foreign country with a language barrier to deal with everywhere, we are in the same locker room and on the same court almost every day, twice a day with the same people. When you go hang out, it's with people you are in forced contact with. Not that we don't like each other or anything, but when you see each other so much, we don't always choose to go do other things with those same people. There are local friends you meet, which I have been very fortunate to find a few good ones (that speak great english too!), but we don't have the background that friends back home have. However, it is a fantastic cultural experience to go through, and I do cherish it.

But you know what? For most of us, even if you look at all these differences and see only negatives, which I thankfully DO NOT, and that same person is making a decent living, if they are just PLAYING well, it pretty much erases all of those supposed down points. It's just amazing how heavily our morale self-esteems are affected by that. On the other hand, even though life is great, and you are just in a slump, you have blinders on and the only thing you see in front of you instead is that life stinks. I think this pushes us to be our best on a daily basis, so I appreciate this characteristic in my teammates.