No one hates me more than roadtrips

While I was tending to my Pacific baseball official scoring duties, I escaped some pretty gnarly travel as the women's basketball team headed home from their double overtime win at Long Beach State. The ride in itself is over six hours, so I was pretty excited about only having to make the hour and a half drive out to Stanford instead. But on the way back, the Long Beach road gods struck again.... flat tire for the Pacific travel bus.

Despite the team's recent success - having won two out of their past four games, despite only winning six the entire season - it seems their luck on the road would go to hell for the rest of the season.

While they were to play UC Santa Barbara on Wednesday afternoon, the Pacific women's basketball team headed for Anaheim, Calif., two days earlier, this Monday. The thinking was a few extra days' rest would help the team, but I can't help but think that in the back of everyone's mind was the thought that if we lose Wednesday and would have left Tuesday, that would be a hell of a lot of travel for not even one full 24-hour period spent down there.

I digress. After I got to stand in as part of the practice squad on Tuesday afternoon, we showed up ready to roll for Wednesday's game just blocks from Disneyland. Although we had our hotel booked until Thursday morning, our loss yesterday afternoon sent us back on the road for Stockton, Calif., a lovely six-to-seven-hour trek. Passing through the usual Los Angeles traffic at 4 p.m. on a weeknight, I figured the ride would take a bit longer than usual, but nothing too strenuous. Anyways, half the girls' families were down in SoCal watching the tourney, so they ended up staying with the parents for the remainder of spring break. Meaning there were only 10 of us on the bus, including staff.

Before we even reached the sign for the Grapevine - about an hour north of Los Angeles - we hit a massive amount of wall-to-wall traffic. No one was budging, save for the assholes trying to drive through the median and merge into stopped traffic. As we pulled up to a big rig, our associate head coach begged the bus driver to open the passenger side door, so she could ask the semi's drive (who must have had a CB radio) if he knew what was going on. Apparently he had no clue, but heard on the news a few trucks had flipped due to windy conditions and ignited a fire on the freeway. Awesome.

I don't believe we were stuck in two miles of traffic for any more than two hours. You know, no big deal. Instead of reading my latest French book - which gets me carsick - or sleeping awkwardly on the bus - which hurts my TMJ-laiden neck - I decided to head to the back of the bus and mingle with the players for the first time all season really. And, now it's the last time since their season came to an abrupt end. Long story short, we exchanged musical tastes, played a ridiculous game of truth or dare on one of our student trainer's phones and all-in-all had a fun time joking and teasing. At one point, Kyle broke out his training tape and started taping McKenzie's feet together. His student trainer, Mark, let CT tape his ankle because she assumed she was a pro now that hers had been taped so many times. Anyways the tap fiasco ended when I couldn't wait any longer and did something I promised I'd never do in my life - I used the bus's restroom. Everyone knew that was my worst nightmare and I was deathly afraid of it, but still, the trainers decided to tape the door shut and I about cried/vomited. But it was a good laugh, looking back on it. Welcome to road trips.

When we finally made it back to campus it was nearly midnight on a trip that should have had us back no later than 9:30 p.m. I booked it over to my friend Zach's house, as he was watching little Woodstock and picked up my puppy. Instead of waiting until I woke up the next morning - probably would have been close to noon - I decided to just go straight home since I was already in a driving mood. Plus, the drive from Stockton to Alamo usually takes me around 45-50 minutes.

But disaster struck on the way home once more. As I hit Livermore, a semi decided to swerve out into my lane, around 12:30 a.m. I had no choice but to veer in the opposite direction, which was directly in front of a CHP - little to my knowledge. As soon as I made the switch, the blaring lights went off and I nearly went blind. This fucker was fast and in a Charger, so he had to be an ass. See the type of cop car below:

Anyways, I pulled off the off-ramp and into a safe stopping place and this younger guy came out, with his flashlight all up in my face. He asked me if everything was alright, and if I had been drinking, but I calmly explained that my swerve was self-protection instead of intoxication. Before ever asking for my ID or any proof of anything, the officer looked down into my lap, saw Woodstock and began asking me a billion questions about my puppy. He was smiling, saying how cool it was that he was so tiny. After he had been satisfied with answers, the officer told me to be careful and have a good night.

No ticket. No DUI despite my full-fledged sobriety. And no nervousness. The first and last time I was pulled over, I cried my eyes out for the officer and the world to see. This time, I remained calm even though my heart was thrashing inside my chest.

But no harm done. And now I'm only down to one season - baseball. I was reminded a few days ago how much I miss baseball and baseball writing. So I'm going to try to make it my goal to pay a bit more attention and get back into that a bit.

I'm also not let down in the least that my next road trip isn't until the weekend of my birthday - Easter weekend - when we travel to Long Beach State for baseball. The few weeks home and away from a bus will be nice.

"You must be so excited"

Nervously sitting in the waiting room at Kaiser, I desperately tried not to make eye contact with anyone else sitting in the small, stuffy room with me. The problem about living in the Central Valley is the hospitals are so overrun with poor, sick immigrant families. I feel so terrible about that entire situation, because I have always had accessible medical coverage to me, and the money to take care of whatever arises. Twice, I've been stuck in line behind a woman or young mother who doesn't have coverage and is extremely sick and needs to be seen ASAP. The red tape surrounding that entire process is thicker than anything I've ever dealt with in my entire life.

But this time, it was a young expecting mother in front of me who needed an H1N1 vaccination. I believe they're free to Kaiser members, but clearly, she wasn't one. When she sat down coughing up a storm, I was finally called up to the front window.

After handing the receptionist my card, we did the usual back-and-forth. Do you still live at this address? How old are you?....

But her last question threw me off guard.

"And the reason for your visit today is a prenatal appointment? Oh wow, congratulations! You must be so excited!" she proclaimed, excitedly looking at my stomach (which, by the way, would not mislead one to think I am pregnant!)

Embarrassed, I could feel the stares of all the other, older women, and the younger pregnant girl with two rings on a certain finger on her left hand. As my cheeks continued to flush, I heard a woman make a disapproving clicking sound with her tongue.

It only was a couple of seconds, but it felt like eternity before the receptionist said, "Ma'am...?"

Snapping out of it, I shook my head in disbelief, "No, I'm just here for my annual check up. I'm, I'm not pregnant," I stammered.

"Oh, well it doesn't say the reason for your appointment online, so we checked prenatal," she said looking back at her computer screen, unfriendly as she was before she thought I was expecting.

Knowing that I clearly checked the correct button when I made my appointment online, I still felt a little nervous at all the women in the room staring at me. I guess they're just used to pregnant women under 25 in this area...... I can't tell you how many pregnant girls I've seen walking the streets without rings on their hands.

When the nurse finally admitted me into my examination room, I once again sat on the bench, uncomfortable in my thin paper robe. Browsing the travel magazine that sat underneath the heaps of health magazines for new mothers and pregnant women, my doctor finally entered.

"Well, we have something to look forward to in a few months, don't we!" she said all bubbly and excited for me. "I didn't even know you were trying to have a baby?"

"I wasn't," I said, short of temper. They must not have notified her that this was not a prenatal exam.

"Oh," her voice trailed off. "Then do we need to discuss your options?"

"No, no," I replied in disgust. "I'm not pregnant. I'm just here for my annual check up."

And with that, she put back on her professional face and continued her job. And I no longer had people tormenting me with how excited they are/were for my new little bundle of joy.

God, I'm not ready for that. Not for a long time.

Why does this always happen to me?

As I said earlier, we had our road trip to kick off Big West Conference play this week. Our Pacific Tigers took on Long Beach State for the conference-opener, and we actually won! (Yes, I wrote that story... that's what they pay me for) We haven't beaten the 49ers since 2003, but they finally did it. And that part pretty much makes the rest of what I'm about to say almost irrelevant. So here's my 36-hour trip to Long Beach:

Wednesday afternoon: We're set to leave for noon. Or so I though. The timeline said noon, and it also said "get lunch at 12:30," so I assumed that meant leave as a team and get lunch.

Oops, I was wrong. As soon as I packed my stuff on the bus, I realized that everyone else was scrambling to get food at 12. So no worries, I'll just go to my car, drive to Subway and grab a sandwich. It wasn't until I went back past my office that I forgot I didn't drive that morning. J.D. drove me to work so my car didn't have to sit in the lot for two days. With only 15 minutes left until departure, I told my boss about the mistake and luckily he had peanut butter and bread, so I made myself a nice little sandwich.

Which was not long enough to hold me over until dinner. We were set to check-in the hotel at 8 p.m., so I was thinking we wouldn't eat until after that. But luckily we stopped at the Macaroni Grill after passing through the Grapevine and I was able to eat at 5:30 p.m. But I was feeling very uneasy from 12:30-5:30, since I only had a banana for breakfast.

Wednesday night: Upon arrival to the Holiday Inn in Long Beach, the night staff has no idea where our room keys are. We had about 15 rooms and 25 people waiting in the lobby at 9 p.m. for their room assignments. So they swipe and re-key 25 new keys and hand them out to us. Once we checked in at 9:30 p.m., I realized I had a room all to myself! This was going to be awesome, since I didn't think I'd ever get a room to myself with a soccer trip. I always did with baseball since I'm the only female they travel with, but there are several roommate options on the soccer team. But I got lucky!

Or I thought I did....

When I opened my door, I put all my stuff on the floor and went to go wash my face in the powder room area. Then I realized I heard water running in the bathroom, so I went to check it out. And my toilet was overflowing from the top part where the flusher mechanism is. The water was seeping out quickly, flooding the entire bathroom floor and into the powder room area/hallway. So I try to call the front desk desperately hoping for someone to pick up. They never did, so I frantically grabbed all my belongings and went downstairs to the first floor. They gave me a new room without any problems. I went to get ready to meet a friend from the area for my "second dinner" since I only had pasta, chicken, a small PB sandwich and banana to eat all day. As I make my way down into the lobby about 30 minutes after switching rooms, I noticed that there was a large flooded area down on the first floor, with caution cones.

The problem wasn't actually a leak, but that FLOODED TOILET dripping down from the third floor and into the lobby. I looked up and noticed that the lobby ceiling tiles had crumbled onto the floor and water was leaking from them. So that means that room had leaked down into the second floor - someone else's room - and into the lobby. Only in Long Beach....

Thursday afternoon: Our women's soccer team beat Long Beach 1-0. In high 80º weather, despite reports claiming it was going to be mid- to low-70s. I had originally packed pants, but realized after we grabbed lunch it was going to be too hot for pants. So I took out my khaki shorts that I thought I had washed a few days before. But I was wrong, they were still dirty from my last home soccer game, when I somehow got rust all over the bottom of them by rigging up the electricity lines to our extension cable for internet and power. So I hand washed the shorts in the bathroom sink. And had to sit in damp shorts during the bus ride, since the hairdryer wasn't powerful enough to dry them completely. But luckily it was hot enough that they dried out in the first 10 minutes I got to the field. And then with 30 minutes left on the pre-game countdown, I was sweating profusely. And continued to do so throughout the remainder of the game.

Thursday night: After the huge victory, the team decided to celebrate by dining in Long Beach near the campus so all the girls' parents could stay and catch up. We also got a little bit of extra spending money for dessert too! About halfway through our dessert (and the three-hour dinner) my friend Lisa called me to say that she heard there was a massive oil spill on the Grapevine that closed most of I-5 down. Once they had started cleaning up the mess, the closure had blocked traffic from two hours south down the road. One of our players' parents drove back up immediately after the game and said he'd been sitting in traffic for nearly three hours - the same amount of time we'd been eating dinner.

So it actually turned out to be even better that we won and took our time with dinner, otherwise we'd be stuck! When dinner finally finished around 8 p.m., we took an alternate route... 405N to figure out which would be the best way - go three hours out of the way and take 101 N through Santa Barbara/San Luis Obispo and then try to reconnect with 5, or just take 405N to 5N and pray that it'll be open?

Our bus driver kept radioing people and heard that the Grapevine was back up and running, so we decided to take 405N to 5N. It was fine on the 405, but once we got to the Grapevine we encountered a bit of traffic. And at that point I think I realized I had drank too much water.

Early Friday Morning: So I tried to fall asleep on the bus, but couldn't beacuase it was too uncomfortable and I didn't have a pillow. I kept tossing and turning and by 2:30 a.m., woke up to realize we were getting off at the school's exit. So I called J.D., waited for him to come pick me up, went home, brushed my teeth and passed out after 3 a.m.

My boss told me not to worry, get some sleep, and come in at noon on Friday for work in the office.

Friday afternoon: Instead, I slept through my alarm and woke up at 11:45 a.m. on Friday. I showered faster than I ever have before, got ready and make it to work by 12:15 p.m. And now I'm exhausted. Can't wait to go home and pass out.

Anticipated Friday Night Plans: Make pizza with J.D. and then maybe go out! Because....

THIS IS MY FIRST FREE WEEKEND!!!!! Hopefully we'll go wine-tasting tomorrow and do some house-cleaning on Sunday.

Have a good weekend everyone.

All good things must come to an end

Long story very, very short.

Now that my friends are here, my roommate troubles have exploded beyond all possible belief. I can't really get into too much detail about it right now because I'm not at home and have limited Internet time, but I believe I will be terminating my contract to teach here after Trimester 2.

Brief run-down: I have friends over for the rest of the week. My mom comes early next week. Then it's my spring break/end of the second trimester.

When spring break's over, I will be staying at my dad's house, hopefully with a flight to get back to California before the end of April in order to start my career search back up.

Either way, I have to be out of my house by the first week in April. And that's a personal choice, seeing as how I can no longer tolerate what's been going on and building up over the past two weeks.

I feel better about it already.

Why a French woman is never wrong...

There is no justification. She is always right. No arguing, that's that.

So I believe that living here is really continuing to be more of a character-building experience than I had ever bargained for. The roommate situation still continues to deteriorate since we had a little spat on Thursday -- and by little I mean she yelled at me for 15 minutes, I took it and wasn't allowed a word in otherwise because she closed the door on me when she was done talking.

Today was a bit more of that long, drawn out problem. But at least I got in three words of self-defense. So what I'm learning from this is not tolerance or anything heart-warming and important like that. Nope, I'm learning that I'm never again going to live with someone I don't know prior to moving. Even if I have to live in some dumpy little place all by myself, I think it will be that much better.

The funny thing is that I keep thinking, "I wish I lived with someone normal." And I apologize for every French woman that reads this, but you guys are a little stubborn when you hold to an opinion ;-) I won't continue to generalize, but just say that I think we're going to butt heads more often in the future. So living at my house is again becoming a hostile environment.

But luckily I have family nearby and friends are coming soon, so I'll find lots of ways to distract myself or find excuses to be out of the house. And once this dang rain stops, I fully intend on going to the beach as much as possible!

Let's hope things get a little better. If not, then let's hope that my time continues to keep flying and not drag on! But one thing to look forward to: VACATION SOON!

OVER IT!!!

Before yesterday, it had been a little over a month since I last had lunch at my school's cantine.

Since it was such a nice day yesterday, I figured, screw the bus, I'll walk to school. And since I'm getting all this exercise -- it takes me 50 minutes both ways to get there -- why shouldn't I "splurge" on a 3 Euro meal at school, even though it's probably LOADED with calories??

It was nice. We had some light white fish, with an aïoli mayonnaise sauce, sautéed vegetables (why does this word end in -ed? the accented e already implies past-tense), cheese and bread, and fruit with chocolate for dessert.

At least I thought it was a nice lunch. Until a few coworkers started complaining about being sick shortly before school got out. And until I spent THREE HOURS LAST NIGHT throwing up in the toilet.

That's right, I was up until 2:30 - 3 a.m. vomiting, and the culprit most likely was that lunch. It was this terribly unsettling feeling, as my stomach kept doing violent flip flops back and forth, kind of like a fish just out of water. And I don't have any stomach medicine, nor do I have a car, NOR does France have 24-hour convenience stores to go buy such a product.

But I finally fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning, not remembering feeling this bad since my 21st birthday, ha figures. So today I have NOTHING TO DO. I slept until 12 p.m., I plan on taking a bath -- my first in YEARS -- and then we're having our Mexican dinner tonight.

...Not sure what I'm going to eat at that one, but I'm definitely making some PLAIN oatmeal soon.

Stupid Foreign Girl

...is what the two guys who robbed me must still be thinking right now.

As well as all the teachers whose classes I come into. And my roommate. And the people who work at SFR and sold me a second phone in two weeks.

Either way, yesterday was quite possibly my worst day here. While using the wireless Internet at McDonald's and talking to my mom on Skype, two men kept trying to sell me newspapers and shoved them in my face and kept saying things to me in an accent I couldn't understand. I tried to ignore them because if I grabbed the paper, they'd start asking for money. So I put my arm over my backpack -- luckily, I just put my wallet AND PASSPORT in it two seconds earlier -- and tried to make it really obvious I was having a conversation in English with someone else. The first continued to throw the paper in my face and reached for me, so I took it and violently shoved it back at him. That was probably my mistake right there. If I hadn't been so rude, perhaps I'd still have a phone.

After he left, another man came and did the same thing with the other guy standing near the door. It wasn't until I went to look for my phone to see what time Sarah was coming that I realized they'd swiped it and were no longer in the building. And then I realized my phone was at the end of the table and not in my bag before they approached me, so it very quickly and discreetly could have been stolen. Of course they used the exterior stairwell, so no one ever saw them. Except for two boys, who described them as speaking like this, "ba ba la ba ba," and wearing a turban. That they were not, but you get the idea.

Then my stomach started churning and I was freaking out. When Sarah finally arrived I was totally frazzled and couldn't pay attention to anything. And I feel so bad, because as we were leaving, another man of North African descent was standing near our table and I was worried he'd do something to us. Actually he was just waiting for the outlet, but of course now I'm going to be a little wary of everyone. Later when I went home, I couldn't eat, had the worst stomach ache I've had in a long time, and tossed and turned for a few minutes in bed. Then I took some Tylenol PM and passed the F out.

It was a good thing and a bad thing at once. Yeah I probably lost about 90 Euros during the theft, but I've learned a VERY important lesson. No more keeping anything out of my bag or in reachable distance to anyone else. I'm always going to have all my belongings very close to me.

Second lesson, never use public wi-fi ports again! Luckily I finally got my computer to work on our internet network here, so that should NEVER again be a problem.

It's not the end of the world. I have a cooler new phone. I wasn't hurt at all. I'm so lucky that I just put my wallet away and my credit cards, money, PASSPORT, etc. are still intact and with me.

Worse things could have befallen me that day. And I'm still alive to tell the story. Tomorrow I'll talk about my first and second days of teaching, because this is about all I have the energy to share for now.