Shelly Swendig Diary: 10/23/07
10/24/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 24, 2007
After rave reviews SFAJacks.com is bringing back the 2007 volleyball player's diary, this year with junior outside hitter Shelly Swendig.
Memoirs of a Ladyjack - the one where we went to Louisiana.
Since this past week was so long and adventurous, I will break things up a bit just to make the reading a little easier. Brace yourselves, my dear friends, this is a long one.
Tuesday
We set off for a four-day excursion in Louisiana on Tuesday night right after practice, and did not arrive in New Orleans at the Crescent Hotel until around 1:30am. Many of us were convinced that the hotel was haunted, as Cheryl had a hauntingly vivid dream, TV channels changed alone, and Schotty and I had a possessed lamp.
Wednesday
At around 9:30 in the morning we arose to a wonderful breakfast, with a wide array of pastry selections. A little later on we headed to Mother's, which apparently holds the title of "Best Baked Ham in the World." Well, my dear friends, I did not get that baked ham so I cannot say anything about it; however, the service left something to be desired. I'd rather not have a homely and somewhat portly woman throw food at me. I'd rather not be told to "see if it (eggs) works." And quite frankly, I'd rather not be given a snide remark when she tosses my plate down on another table and then leaves; however, I must admit, the debris Po-Boy was quite delicious. After that delightful experience, we had a little bit of time for some shopping/wandering around New Orleans. Almost as soon as we stepped out of Mother's, the rain commenced. Of course none of us had umbrellas, so we proceeded along the streets just getting rained on, and eventually some of us bought ponchos. The tour was nice, and we even got to stroll down the ever-so classy Bourbon Street. Finally, it was time to head to the gym for our first match of the expedition against yet another Conference USA team, Tulane. The Green Wave was a solid team playing on their home court and we could have played better, and we lost in three.
Thursday
With nothing to do until 3:30pm, we lazily rolled out of bed, did a little homework, then proceeded on to meander the streets of New Orleans yet again. It rained again, and it was obscenely humid. Nonetheless, a few of us voyaged across the Mississippi on a nice ferry boat, and then went to lunch at the Hard Rock Café, where we had an overly perky waitress in a scandalous jumpsuit. Lastly, we headed to the world renowned Café du Monde, where there was some great live music and delicious beignets.
When it was time to go, we reluctantly crawled back on the bus and set off for Thibodaux. We were forced to practice in an auxiliary gym, which, naturally, had no air conditioning. I sweat more in that one short practice than I had in a long time. Once we arrived at our hotel, we were determined to go swimming, counteracting our near brush with a heat stroke. So, we jumped on in the pool. Much to our chagrin, we completely missed the giant sign indicating the pool hours and were subsequently told by a security guard to get out of the pool. Oops.
Friday
On Friday we enjoyed another relaxing morning, followed by a little study hall. After checking out of the hotel, we drove to a shopping center in Houma. We all split up to shop, and Ash and I were determined to go to Goodwill, which, unfortunately, was on the wrong side of an extremely busy four-lane highway. Defeated, we hung our heads and made our way back to the parking lot where, lo and behold, a traffic officer sat in his car, as if begging us to ask him for a ride. I prefer not to talk to strangers, but Ash had no problem conversing with the nice man. Long story short, Aaron, the officer, let us ride in the back of his patrol car across the street, waited for us to shop, and then took us back and dropped us off at Olive Garden, where we were eating lunch.
Needless to say, everyone was jealous of our special excursion in the back of a police car, but not near as jealous as they were of the super sweet wet suit I got. We ate a delectable meal at the Garden, and it was finally time for another match, this time against Nicholls. They tried some intimidation tactics in the training room, which they failed miserably at, as we beat them in three.
This win marked the 59th consecutive regular season conference win, thereby breaking the previous record set by UTA eons ago. We ate our victory meal at Taco Bell and McDonald's, then drove to Hammond for our final night in Louisiana.
Saturday
We went to eat at Ryan's for an early breakfast, which was surprisingly good, and somehow we got onto the topic of dreams. JJ and I both had "silly" dreams the night before; however, upon arrival at Southeastern's gym, my dream was the only one special enough to be drawn on the chalkboard by our team artist, LA. By this time, it was time for our final match of the longest volleyball week ever, as we won in three. We piled onto the bus one last time, played a short game of Name Burst, and arrived back in town around 9:30pm, ending a great trip with two more wins against conference foes.
Miscellaneous points/quotes of interest:
-quote of the week: "Hair braiding, get your hair braided" (Traci would be glad to say it for you)
-"Elephant Love Medley" from Moulin Rouge is always OK to sing
-"Lee Harvey Oswald - you know, the chocolate guy!" - JJ
-"Kind of a mix between white and black" KO, describing brown
-Jami and Ray almost got killed by a scary man
-It is not smart to wear Old Navy flip flops in New Orleans when it has been raining
-Ashley Edwards was voted Senior Duchess, missing the title of Homecoming Queen by a mere 15 votes - how many people were on this trip that could have voted?
In the spirit of New Orleans, I leave you with this brief French lesson:
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Au revoir, mes amis. (Let the good times roll! Goodbye, my friends.)
