January 16, 2012

Taylor on traveling

Finally Cardinal fans, it's my turn to blog! I've been looking forward to this blog for quite some time, which is why it's a little delayed (because I had to make it perfect!) As I've seen, my teammates have written some extremely creative blogs, so I'm going to do my best to COMPETE - Coach Kate should be very proud of me.

The theme I have chosen for this special blog is traveling. Let me just tell you, I've never been a huge fan of flying; motion sickness loves to torture me.

There are two sides to traveling: 1) More quality times with my teammies off the court and 2) Packing up my whole locker, carrying on stinky shoes and ankle braces, and scrunching our legs behind the airplane seats. Everyone complains about their legs cramping, but I've actually always thought the leg room should be reduced; I tend to get too comfortable the way it is right now.

OK, there's something I should probably mention: sarcasm is my first language. It can get me in a little bit of trouble, but I promise I mean well.

On a serious note, traveling with my teammates is the best part of road trips, and it makes up for the not-so-fun parts of travel. When we are on the road, everyone is paired up with a teammate-roommate, which is my favorite part since none of us live together during the school year. I look forward to rooming with a new teammate each trip because it gives me a chance to get to know them even better because, yes, I'm a freshman.

The freshman experience of traveling isn't the biggest hooray moment, though. We receive the honor of lugging around the two "extras", which consist of the components necessary to set up our projector to watch film. It's soooo much fun!!

My next favorite would be sitting next to a coach on the flight, especially if it's at least two hours, so we can watch film together! It gets even better if the flight is at 8am, I'm about ten seconds away from falling into my deep sleep, and Amy would like to watch "the things I could have done better" from the previous game. This would be why I prefer to fly Southwest.

Kidding. We all appreciate the time our coaches, LG (Lauren Greif), and Liz put into scouting and film. When it comes to the game, we may know the other team's plays better than they do.

As you know we just got back from our Utah & Colorado trip, and it was a complete success! We came out against Utah, and they wanted to be physical, but we proved to them that whatever they brought to the table, we had more. Colorado was another story; we came out tough from the beginning, and we were able to keep a nice lead to finish off the Buffs!

It was a long trip since it was the first week back to classes, but who doesn't like falling behind on lecture notes and not having a clue what's going on during the next section? Once again, kidding.

The responsibility and self-discipline our team has is insurmountable, especially when it comes to academics. Even though we are traveling, we all do the required work and more in order to stay caught up in school.

Well, it seems as if it's time for practice. Or is it weights? Film? No, it's that thing called sleep. Yep, that's it.

Thank you so much for the support you show Stanford Women's Basketball! We definitely appreciate it, and hopefully we repay the favor to you all and ourselves with that National Title!

Go Card!

January 8, 2012

Living the hotel life

Hello All!!

As some of you might know, during the holiday break from school all students are required to move out of their dorms or campus living situations. As all of you should know (because you are at our games!) we clearly do not have this break off from basketball.

Therefore as a team, we move into the Sheraton for the three weeks we have off from academics! Living the hotel life has its pros and cons but for the most part it’s pretty fun. After all, who can complain about big comfy beds, TVs and room service?!

Being in the hotel is also nice because of the time we spend together as a team off the court. Most of the time roommates are paired off so that people who do have cars are with people that do not, so transportation for food and to practice is never an issue. That being said, because we have such a young team, that isn’t the case for every roommate pair.

While we have a couple fun dinners as a whole team, for the most part individuals seem to be enjoying different types of activities. For instance, the freshman tend to move in packs together and can be seen “borrowing” Sara James’ car, affectionately named “Zenon” (don’t ask me why), to drive off to Yogurt Land.

Toni and Mikaela can be spotted walking from the Sheraton to the Starbucks in Palo Alto to simply read.

Jos and I can sometimes be found on California Ave getting our nails done.

And we all seem to frequent Trader Joes (“TJs”) for some healthy snack and lunch options ... well except for Nneka! She still prefers going to the classic Safeway for her dining pleasure!

All in all, as a team we have a great time together doing a number of activities and we need to make sure that our chemistry off the court continues to show on the court!!

As always, Go Card!

Grace

Nicknames

Hey Cardinal Fans!

I hope everyone had a great time celebrating this holiday season, I know I did. I had an amazing time with my family and friends for Christmas. My El Dorado Hills home was busy with kids of all ages baking cookies, opening presents, and everything in between.

Even though my time with my real family was short, I was happy to return to Stanford with my basketball family. Over the past two years I have developed friendships with these girls that I'm sure will last a lifetime.

Even though this team is much different than last year's team, it is perfect in its own way. I have grown so close to each of the other fourteen girls, which is one of the main reasons why I enjoy coming to practice for hours each day.

The main subject of this blog, however, is going to be names. With traveling for weeks at a time, rooming together in countless hotels, and spending each and every day with each other, we (well, mainly me) have created names and nicknames for each of my fourteen sisters.

Lindy: Looooopy (Not sure where this one came from but from Lu to Loo, to Loopy)

Grace: Gem, Gracie (I like to call Grace "Gem" because I think that she secretly wishes people would call her Gem. If you didn't know GEM are her initials and because people call me SEJ, I thought I might spread the trend. Not to mention GEM is also a gem)

Nneka: Gorgeous, Beautiful (Nneka and I call each other Gorgeous and Beautiful because first off, who doesn't like to be called beautiful? Even if they don't really mean it, its nice to be heard sometimes! But besides that I'm not really sure why we call each other that.)

Sarah: Boothie (I call Sarah Boothie because I find it weird to call someone my own name. Also she just seems more like a Boothie to me than a Sarah. We also argue over which Sara(h) is better and I claim that her name should be pronounced sarAH- emphasis on the AH)

Mikaela: Ruef, Ruefie, Michelle, Mik (Ruef has always been Ruef to me, not sure why. A few times I tried to call her Michelle just because it's similar to Mikaela, but she did not like that at all and even threatened me).

Joslyn: Jos, Jossy, shjaughlyn, J Tink, J Stink, Cankle, Tink (Joslyn has a lot of names for me, but I usually call her Shlaughlyn, and she calls be Shlejj. You kind of have to hear us say it to really understand. Again, I'm not really sure where this came from)

Chiney: C, Ch(IE)ney (Devan, our old strength coach started with C, probably because he didn't know how to pronounce her name at first, but it has stuck. C is easier and faster to say on the court, anyway.)

Toni: Tone, Tonitha, Antoinette, Marie, Toni the Tiger, El Tigre (Toni has been Ton, Tonitha, El Tigre, really anything to me. Once I called her Antoinette which then lead to Marie (Marie Antoinette). I'm not sure if she likes that one. But for Toni it's usually Tonitha)

Erica: E, Amber, E Payne, Urrica, Ianna, PG (I like to call her E and Ianna. Most of the team calls her E, but I think I'm the only one that calls her Ianna. Once again I'm not really sure where this came from. I also like to call her PG sometimes, short for point guard, because she is the point guard in my heart.....?.. Amber is in her list of names because for some reason Tara always calls her Amber by accident. Nobody really understands why, or where the connection between Erica and Amber came from.)

Taylor: Tay, Tay the May......or, Purple Valley, Taylor the Sailor (Taylor is Tay to everyone, but I like to call her Tay the May......or(with a pause between May and or) because at one point I was trying to find something that rhymed with her name and that was all I could come up with at the moment. Purple Valley also comes from Green Field, if you can put two and two together.)

Bonnie: Bon, Bonaldhino, Bonitha, BonBon, Dean, Bonathon (Bonnie is Bon to everyone. I call her Bon, Bonaldhino, and BonBon usually. No reason behind any of them.)

Amber: "AMBAAA", Am Bam, Bam (Amber is "AMBAAAAA"– you have to really hear us say it to understand. Not sure why this started)

Jasmine: Jas, Jazzy (I haven't yet created a super creative name for Jas, but I'm sure I will soon.)

Alex: Lex, "alexxxxxx" (Alex is "alexxxx" said with no enthusiasm whatsoever. I use this one because she is actually the most enthusiastic person I have ever met.......?)

Thanks for reading, Cardinal fans!
See you out on the court!

Sara, Sej, Sara James, Sejjie, Sedgwick, Bear......but mostly just Sej.