This is my nightmare.

As you know, we had a game in Freiburg before we went on break. I was both dreading this game and looking forward to it. I mentioned previously why I was excited about it, so now I’ll tell you why I wasn’t. Overseas travel, in my league at least, is not like college. We don’t fly everywhere, we don’t stay in hotels and we don’t eat catered meals. We bus everywhere and we eat the nearest fast food we can find. Additionally, we don’t stay in hotels because we leave the morning of our game and drive back directly after in order to save money. I’ll remind you that most of our opponents are around 6 hours away by bus. We stop to eat, we stop to pee, and we stop when the bus driver needs a break. These rides are painfully exhausting. We leave at 9am and get back at 6am the following morning most times. Well, Freiburg is one of our longer road games, so it was about a 7-hour trip there, all stops included. That isn’t even the real challenge, though. It’s not like we are driving 7 hours then jumping off the bus to site see—no no. We have to now play a game, which after being in a seated or balled up position for 7 hours, is not as easy as you might think. Anyways, the game started well for us and we were in control most the first half until the final couple of minutes. We went into half down 4 after leading by 10. The second half was inexplicably opposite. We turned the ball over a ridiculous amount of times and when we didn’t, we missed our shots. Defensively we were just as bad. They blew us out in the second half and we lost by 24. I had 3 turnovers compared to my 8 last time against this team, but we still lost. Our next game is our Cup game on Sunday. We play Wasserburg who is actually in our league and we play there. 

If losing wasn’t bad enough, directly after the game I was informed that I had been chosen for the random drug testing that they’d be administering in 5 minutes. How fortunate. Nothing cheers me up like peeing in a cup. I made it 4 years of college without once being drug tested, and my first year overseas I get picked. Of course in college, drug testing wasn’t as random as they'd like you to think. Still, I am the worst candidate for any testing that requires urinating in a cup, particularly after physical activity. First of all, I sweat an inordinate amount. Seriously, I sweat just thinking about working out. Furthermore, I drink next to nothing during games cause I hate when I can feel the water 

swooshing around in my belly. Very distracting. 

So right after a game, I am in no condition to be producing urine. Somehow, I didn't think they'd empathize. And so, I was introduced to my chaperone, the woman that would monitor me until I was finished giving them the sample they needed. Wherever I went, she followed; those are the rules. Remember that, there will be a quiz later.  I wasn’t familiar with this protocol, so it had me a little flustered at first—I find being followed and stared at can be disconcerting. After filling out some paper work, my lady handed me a cup and led me to the bathroom... and followed me inside. There really is no way to slyly pull down your pants and pee in front of someone watching you. After handing her the cup and washing up I hear my lady sort of sneer behind me. Evidently there is a minimum requirement—90ml—and I didn’t meet it. I bet you can’t guess how much I…made. 19ml. Yup. So now I have to sit, in my gross jersey, in this waiting room chugging sparkling water and sodas until I think I might explode. This is my nightmare. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. It soooooo did. 

It had been 2 hours now (that's right, 2 HOURS) when my coach, irritated by my inability to pee, was trying to expedite the process, suggested I shower while waiting. Normally they don’t like to allow this, but since I was taking so long they made an exception. Quiz time. Anyone remember that fun little rule I told you about earlier. Turns out, it applies to showers, too. I don’t even know how to properly describe to you this impossibly awkward “situation”, as I am referring to it. It’s this lady and me in a very empty, very open locker-room shower. There is zero room to hide. The only thing worse than her eyes glued to me is the silence. Surely nothing could be worse than this—and then I opened my mouth. “One of the perks of the job, huh?” Yeah, I really shoulda just enjoyed the silence. Fortunately, right after I showered I had to pee like 3 of those cups so we were able to leave quickly. Never. Again. 

Our new PG is here, finally. Not the girl it was originally supposed to be, though. Instead, an American that played for Ohio State (and when I say played, I don’t mean much). Still, Ohio State is very good, so I am thinking she can’t be bad. We begin practice again tomorrow night. It has really sucked coming up with workouts to do alone these past 10 days, so practice will be nice-- ya know, the way throwing up when you are sick can be nice. Sure, it's awful, but you can't deny you feel better after. 

Remember awhile back when the club took action shots of us, but the one they chose for me was very unactiony. Well, it seems they decided to amend that error in judgment and they selected a new picture. Ya know I was slightly embarrassed before with the original one they picked, but now… now I got nothing to worry about. I think as a gift, to thank them for this, I’ll get them a dictionary, maybe with some illustrations.

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe new years celebration. 2011 was pretty incredible, but I hope everyone’s 2012 is even better.