An end to Volleyball

Finally, we're done. After a game that started three hours after it's scheduled time (yikes! that's a lot of time sitting in a gym before playing) our volleyball season came to a fairly quick and somewhat sad end. Yep, we lost. In fact we lost in only three sets, to a team we had beaten two weeks ago in five sets. However several good things came out of the evening. (1) We, or perhaps I should say Mollie our bench cheerleader extraordinaire, made the really serious ref crack a smile at the start of the second set when she was on her knees yelling her heart out. (2) After the game the "smiley ref" (as we affectionately refer to the only female ref) was overheard complementing our coach on how we have a good solid team (I take this as a real compliment since she didn't have to say anything). (3) We still managed to be in high spirits after the game, giving our coach a proper thank you via chants, gifts and pictures. With cookies passed around to everyone in the vicinity including fans and refs (what can I say I had three hours in my apartment before getting picked up for the game and had to do something to curb the nervousness). I will say this - we may not be a spectacular team, but we definitely have a good team spirit. It's the kind of team I prefer most to be on - hard working and fun. (4) While this might not exactly be a good thing, I have to say I'm happy our season is finally over. It's been a great chance for me to interact with some of the Turkish teachers at my school, but I'm glad we're done with practice and games. It ends up eating up a lot of time once you include travel time.