Two Sami's are better than one

So there is something I would like to clear up. One of you asked me if I would write about my teammates in this blog. Did I mislead you guys? Was I not clear—this blog is about ME.  Likewise, this isn’t MTV; you don’t get to call in requests.  BUT, since I happen to reallllly like the person making the request, and I am only half pretending to be this narcissistic, I will make an exception.

Our roster is full and final now. We picked up a new girl this past week. An American. Oh, you wanna know her name? I’ll give you one guess. Yup. Sami. For fun, wanna guess how she spells it? Uh-huh. The. Exact. Same. Way. This is my life now. Before I never knew what was being said, but I at least knew when I was being talked at. Who the hell knows now. She’s a real gem though. Seriously. She’s the PB to my J. There are 2 other Americans (one that also has German citizenship so she doesn't count), 5 Germans, 1 Serbian and 1 girl from Holland. Since our style is up-tempo (run, run, run) and our offense is primarily our fast break, we don’t really have your typical center, rather lots of tall, versatile 3-4’s who shoot well and a couple girls who don’t really shoot so we throw them inside. Wanna know more about them? Go read their blogs :)

Earlier this week, my eye was really bothering me, so I self-diagnosed myself with Conjunctivitis. What is that saying, ah yes: an apple a day keeps the doctor away. False. Who comes up with this crap? It’s bogus. Anyways, so I went to a doctor out here. Not gonna lie, I was freaking out. Here is the long version of what happened: I walked into her office, she was definitely playing the part--stethoscope around her neck, frightening human skeleton model lurching in the corner reminding us of our impending future. However, a stethoscope does not a doctor make, I learned. I sit, inform her of my eye problems and offer my astute diagnosis; meanwhile she pokes the eyeball in question, once. I’ll mention here she did this without a glove. I haven’t been a doctor long, but I think that wearing gloves is rule numero uno. Then, just like that, without any real examination or questions, she hands me a prescription for Conjunctivitis. Wondering what you missed? Me too. I’ve babysat kids who could’ve pretended to be a doctor better. This certainly gave credence to the adage “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I don’t think that is one of the ways to be a doctor. The whole “customer’s always right” doesn’t really apply here, doc. I guess next time I should go bigger, maybe try for Progeria. Might be a little tougher, though maybe not. I would like to address the question I know most of you have been asking yourself since this story started—isn’t Conjunctivitis more commonly referred to by a more popular colloquial moniker? Nooooope. Not so long as I have it. I’ll ask that you only call it this less descriptive, less degrading name.  

As mentioned previously, we had a tournament in the Czech this weekend (two games Saturday, one game today.) We went 2-1. I learned more in that one loss than in all our wins combined, specifically relating to being a good PG. Like, for instance, did you know you are only supposed to pass to the people on your team? Pistol Pete should’ve prepared me for that. Incidentally, I had some DIMES to the refs. Just sayin. The other PG was solid. She controlled the tempo and her team, while seemingly making every right decision. I wonder if she’s been doing this for more than a month. I’ll be watching that film for a while. Least until this weekend when we host our own tournament.

To add insult to injury, in our loss, I got 2 intentional fouls. I don't think I've ever got an intentional foul even when I was intentionally fouling. Leave it to refs to miss the point. I literally can’t tell you what I did to deserve them. I fouled a girl when she went up for a break away lay-up, but we were even and I was trying to block her. Wasn’t hard or super aggressive, pretty standard, got the ball but also some of her nose. If you'd seen her nose, you'd know it was unavoidable. Whistle. Intentional foul. Then, a girl crossed over in front of me and I tried to pick her pocket but got a little more than I bargained for, intentional foul. Again, not a hard foul, she didn’t fall or anything. It was the strangest thing. And of course I couldn't ask the ref to take his whistle out of his butt to explain the call to me. I was the epitome of dumbfounded. 

College football started this week. Suddenly I am paralyzed with homesickness. I don’t know what I am gonna do when college basketball starts. Huskies are 1-0, woop woop. Even better than that, Oregon lost. You know what that is, dontcha? That's right, a win-win.