New Seasons

It is officially softball season in the college world. Pacific had it's first outdoor softball game at home on Feb. 11. Yep, never would have happened in Iowa!

I am the softball contact, which is kind of exciting. It's the first sport that I know well and can use correct lingo the entire season! Also last season Pacific was one of the best offensive teams in the nation hitting 44 home runs as a team and being ranked in the top 5 in the nation for home runs and top 15 in several other offensive categories. I am excited to see how their season goes, especially after they hit 5 home runs in the first doubleheader which was just two 5-inning games! For the spring, I will also be covering tennis and golf.

Last weekend, the softball team had another game scheduled for home. It snowed in the morning and proceeded to rain the rest of the afternoon. It was lousy weather for a game, but the coaches held out on cancelling it and they got one of the two games in after a 1.5 rain delay. I didn't fully enjoy having to be in the press box during the delay because it was cold! (Side note, cold to me when I am in Oregon means in the 30s. Also this coldness happened when Iowa was in the 50s!!) However, we played softball and got another win. After writing the release after the game I headed to Seattle for the President's Day tournament. Just a nice little 3 hour jaunt up I-5 at 9 p.m., luckily one of the Pacific volleyball players and also an Athena coach decided to ride with me so I didn't have to go alone. We got to the hotel around midnight and then I had to write a tennis release before heading to bed.

The tournament was a three day affair, with my 14s team playing in the AM session, which was 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. everyday. We didn't win a lot, but they were started to show more competitiveness by the end of the weekend and were actually diving on the court for the ball and communicating 75.26% better than our last tournament. I was proud of the effort they put out, especially after one of the middles sprained her ankle and we had to put an outside hitter in to finish the match. It was definitely an interesting weekend to see how a team of 13 and 14-year olds react to staying in a hotel and playing three days in a row. I also had a very interesting question asked to me by one of my players. We are getting ready to scorekeep a game and she turns to me and says, 'hey sara, do guys get periods?' After evaluating her quickly to see if she was serious (she was), I responded with a nope.

The weekend in Seattle could have been a weekend in Vegas with the 18s, but I chose early in January to head north. My co-coach for the 14s has not been around much in the past month, so I wanted to make sure the 14s had a consistent coach and saw it important that I go to Seattle rather than tag-a-long to Vegas as an assistant coach. While in Seattle, I decided being in Washington during President's Day was more fitting than Neveda! :)

Book Review: Handle With Care

Jodi Picoult has reappeared on my book list. And I can finally say I have completed it, after reading it here and there while studying for the GMAT. As soon as I finished the test, I blazed through the final 1/3 of the book. As a Jodi Picoult book usually does, there was an interesting twist towards the end of the book and the book also had a time in court.

In this story, parents Charlotte and Sean have a daughter who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which means she has fragile bones that break often and cause large medical expenses. After a vacation incident, the parents hear the term 'wrongful birth' for the first time. They decide to file a wrongful birth lawsuit against their doctor, who is actually Charlotte's best friend, for not letting them know about the disease earlier to allow them to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

As the lawsuit pursues, the family is ripped apart with different problems and values of the suit. With many twists and additions to financial expenses the book keeps you turning the pages (and maybe shedding some tears).

GMAT Is Over

After a month a studying, the test is over and I have met my goal. Thank goodness, because paying to retake it was not an option and that would have cause too much stress!

Anyway, I headed into Beaverton on Wednesday morning for the exam. Once at the test center you have to wait in line to have your palms scanned, picture taken and sign electronically. Then prove your pockets and hood are empty, you can't wear a watch or anything on your wrists and you have to show that nothing is written on your arms. Then to enter the computer/test area you must scan your palm and show you ID. Then you can finally sit down for the test.

I was assigned to 12B, a.k.a 13, but evidently they avoid the 'unlucky' number at the test centers because the locker was also labeled 12B. I don't know what idiot wouldn't realize they are actually at 13, but if it makes them feel better to think of it as 12B, then so be it.

The test involves two essays in the beginning and then a quantitative section and a verbal section. Between the each of the three sections you get a five minute break. I made it through the essays and quantitative section before taking my break. Which to leave I had to scan my palm and then to get back in I had to do it again! I then sat for the verbal section and finished in about 3 hours, for what could be a 4 hour test.

As I left, I had to scan my palm yet again (the process, kind of annoyed me), and I was given an unofficial test score of 600. Exactly my goal for the test and either at average or above average for the schools I am looking at. I was very happy with the results, but surprised my verbal section was higher than my quantitative. Being a math teachers daughter has always helped my math, but I guess studying the verbal section more actually helped a lot.

To celebrate I hit up Panera for lunch, then headed back home to relax before a celebration dinner with my roommates and a few friends and of course a dessert of a new flavor of Tillamook ice cream.

I am now moving on to filling out graduate school applications, which may take a bit because I am not too excited to write the personal statements. Oh well. The position that I was hoping for at ISU has hit a wall, I was utterly disappointed when I was called last week to be told it was going to be opened this year. But I focused on the test and I am searching for a new options. I know it will work out.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Last week was the start of the Chinese New Year and the year of the rabbit. And with my first Saturday off since getting back, I took my uncle's invitation to come into the city and visit the Chinese Gardens for their New Year's celebration.

The Chinese New Year goes on for a 2 week period, so the garden was decked out in red Chinese lanterns and had different stations for typical Chinese events, including calligraphy writing, story telling, and making of simple Chinese lanterns. On Saturday, they also had lion dances every hour.

So after a long train ride into the city, I made it to the Chinese Garden in time to walk around and see everything before the lion dance. The lion dance was pretty neat, they are constantly moving and the back people never stand upright. That takes a lot of endurance!

After exploring the garden and Chinatown a bit, Doug and I had lunch at a Chinese restaurant of course! It was nice to have time to spend with my uncle and to have a day off to visit something new!

Life as a Club Coach

After graduating I thought I had one career choice eliminated, coaching. Well it seems to me, that once I decide to eliminate an option it circles back around and I jump on the train again.

I honestly didn't think I had the knowledge to coach, but to stay involved (if I were in Iowa) I was planning of getting my officiating license. Well, I moved to Oregon and let that part go as well to focus on sports information. Well approximately 2 weeks after getting here, I started going to Pacific practices to play or help. I fully enjoyed being in the gym and after the season missed it. After thinking a bit I realized I could coach, I understand the game and with some guidance would easily be able to teach it. So I brought it up to Lena, the coach at Pacific. Little did I know she ran a large club program out here, Athena and asked if I would be willing to coach. I jumped on and am now co-coaching a 14s team and assisting with an 18s team, which means practice for 4 hours on Tuesday and Thursdays and 2 hours on Wednesdays in Beaverton.

I am not going to lie I was nervous about the 14s, they would take more patience and more energy to teach. But as time goes I love working with them because you can see the change in their playing more vividly and the lightbulb moments of understanding are awesome! Last weekend, I was flying solo as the coach for the 14s are our power league qualifier. The idea of the power league is you are ranked at a certain number and you want to work your way up the entire season by taking the ranking of the team you beat if they are higher. We started the day at 122.

Our first match we lost in three sets, with the final set going into extra points and ending 19-21. It was a heartbreaker, but my girls fought until the very last point. We bounced back winning the next two matches to finish 2nd in our pool. Leaving pool play we were up to 106 in the rankings. However, in the first match of crossover play we didn't serve receive well and lost momentum and dropped to 110. The last match of the day was by far the best, girls, who I was sure haven't been listening in practices, broke out of their shells and played awesome! We finished the day at 110, with a 3-2 record. I was proud of the effort they put in all day, because 5 matches over a 10 hour day takes a lot of stamina.

Along with their improvement on the court, they were complimented by CEVA (our volleyball region) officials on how well they ran the court when scorekeeping and officiating. In club volleyball, one of the teams that isn't playing has to do the scorebook, libero tracker, officiate and line judge. As the coach, I have to be the upper official, so the girls have to do everything else without my guidance. One of our matches was run very poorly and there were many delays that ruin the flow of the game. We followed by running the next match very smoothly, and an official and parent from another team thanked us!

I was proud of the girls all around, for everything they did that day! The represented Athena well and improved as individuals and a team!

I'd Rather Make a Snow Angel

Well my first experience skiing wasn't as grand as I had hoped. In fact the first attempt was rather traumatic. Half way down I wanted to call the emergency people to haul me down or walk because I really had no desire to stand back on my skis and finish the route.

To start the day Chantel and another optometry student, Teri, had decided to help me learn to ski. We chose a green route and headed up Mt. Bachelor. Chantel had me go without poles this first time to prevent me from doing something stupid and hurt myself and also to make sure I learn how to properly balance on skis. As we started down I fell about every 10 feet when I was trying turn.

After what seemed like forever, we joined a trail that would take us back to the lodge area, however this trail would require me not to fall because I would either fall off an edge or in front of another skier. Let's just say I bit of a panic attack and crashed, coming down on my chin on the lightly ice cover snow. It didn't feel great, but I was relieved to realize I hadn't bitten through my lip. The next bit I held onto Teri's pole in order to control the direction I was going and at this point my stopping was still failing and I got going faster than Teri, which caused her to crash and me to go off the edge and at a tree, which I avoided...barely and flipped over my head. That was the point where I wanted a rescue team! Well anyway we finally made it back down, I was traumatized and had not intention of going on any run the rest of the day.

I sat in the lodge with Natalie for a couple hours, before chatting with an 8-year old who had been skiing since she was 3 and was telling me the route I went on was the hardest green and that I needed to try 'Homerun' the easiest green run. Well as much as I didn't want to touch the skis again a couple people in our group convinced me along with the 8-year old to try again. So out I went, the run was a little bit better. It was more open space without a lot of trees. It still wasn't pretty, but it got better. Ending the day with 4 fall-less runs was a bit of an accomplishment.

While it ended better than the first run, I really don't think downhill skiing will come again anytime in the near future for me. I can check it off my list, be grateful I didn't get hurt severely and move on to the next challenge. Until then I will stick to making snow angels, once all the bruises disappear.

Weekly Accomplishments

Well this week has yet again been packed full, but this time it wasn't basketball. It was the number of things accomplished. At the end of last week I launched a new website for Landscape Concepts, they are starting a new business entity, which is buying foreclosed homes and fixing them to re-sell. So I started designing the website before Christmas, and let me tell you it was a challenge. I have literally only taken beginning web programming classes with the very basic steps and programs. This was a new ballgame. I told them straight out that it wasn't going to be as fancy as their landscape page (which all I have to do is update), but it would have the information they wanted on it. After many attempts to get a template, I finally nailed one down. It's not perfect by any means, but it serves the needed purpose. Here is the introduction of The Home Redevelopers website: http://www.thehomeredevelopers.com/

The second big accomplishment of the week was booking a GMAT test date. I had been telling myself that I was going to take it before President's Day, but hadn't actually booked it. Well the other night I logged on to the test center website and saw the month of January was nearly booked and February was pretty full as well. I moderately panicked, because the date in my head was full. So I adjusted and started through the process of booking it, when I got to the end my card wouldn't go through for some unknown reason....panic did set in at this point because it had just taken my 25 minutes to fill out the information before the payment and the month of January had completely filled up in that time frame. So I called my mom, mind you it was 1:00 am Central Time, whoops! But she gave me her card info and it is officially booked! February 16th at 8:00 am, please send care packages or notes of encouragement, thanks! :) Or I guess I can just go with Libby's advice and go buy all the Valentine's Day candy that will be on sale, which sounds like an awesome plan. Thanks Libs!

Lastly, the struggle of the week was finding almond bark. The special addition to any holiday treat during the Christmas season or so I thought. Not the case in Oregon. We are going on a ski trip this weekend and I wanted to whip up a treat I learned in first grade over break, almond bark covered puff corn. So I went to a grocery store on the way to volleyball after pacing the chips aisle at least 6 times I finally found the puff corn and grabbed a couple bags. Then I headed to the baking aisle to find....every kind of addition to cookies, but no almond bark. So I asked, they called their manager and told me it was seasonal they don't have it anymore. For gosh sakes, it is only 2 weeks after Christmas, how'd you run out already. So I paid for my puff corn, in fear that I may not find it at other stores and left. As I got closer to practice I knew there was a Target, so I decided to stop and give almond bark another shot. I didn't see it on the shelf, so I asked. Only to be asked my the Target worker, "What is that?" Well needless to say, they didn't have it either. At practice I said something to one of my coaches about almond bark, she asked what that was, and it is not the easiest thing to explain and I started to fear that maybe it doesn't exist in this area. The next day I went to Safeway in Forest Grove, failed again to find almond bark again. After calling my mom, I decided to make caramel puff corn instead, and according to her it is on the back of the puff corn bag. Well not in Oregon, because they don't have the brand we have in Iowa. So she told me what I needed. Later I brought up the lack of almond bark supply with my boss, he also did not know what I was really talking about. I was utterly disappointed in this missing ingredient, but maybe it's a regional thing. The midwest must have better holiday treats!

Anyway, I thought I would share the caramel puff corn recipe, because it was the third accomplishment of the week:

Ingredients:8 oz of puff corn (approx. 2 bags)
1 cup butter (real butter, do not substitute)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:1. Place puff corn in a large roaster pan. (I used 2 large kettles, because we don't have a roaster pan.)
2. In a 2 quart sauce pan bring the butter, sugar & corn syrup to boil, then cook for 2 minutes.
3. Add the baking soda. (This will cause the caramel mixture to foam up.)
4. Stir well and remove from heat.
5. Pour over puff corn and bake in 250 degree oven for 45 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes.
6. Remove from oven, spread out onto wax paper to cool.