Busy, busy day

So we got to the site last night at about 7:30. We waited around until we could warm up, and then we found out we couldn't. So we did line ups, introduced the teams (we were playing Truman State), and the doubles teams hit the court. I sat around and watched, ate a ham and cheese sandwich I bought from a gas station, and generally fought off the fogginess that had been plaguing me throughout the day.

I got onto the court at about 10:30 or so, maybe a little bit later, and holy hell. Lack of focus, lack of concentration, all around malaize, shittiness, whatever you want to call it...I played horrible. It was abysmal. I don't even want to think about it anymore so you'll just have to wonder. To make matters worse, Josh tore his ACL last night. He originally hurt it when he went snowboarding this weekend, but he finished the job last night. It was a really upsetting moment for everyone. Having the #3 player on the team go down indefinitely is just not what we needed to happen.

We got back to the hotel after 12:30 AM. I went straight into my room and flopped onto my bed and stayed there, unshowered, wet, cold, shoes on and everything until the morning. I slept off and on throughout the night and then slept some more on the van this morning on the way down to Emporia -- yeah, not much time to decompress. By the way, Days Inn, your continental breakfast can suck it. Get some real food.

We got to Emporia about 10 and it was frigid. The bank thermometer said 41 degrees, but the wind was blowing at a steady 30 mph and gusting up to 40. You do the math and figure out a windchill and leave it for me in the comments section. Actually, don't do that. It will just make me retroactively hypothermic.

So we warm up (lol), do lineups, and then get out for dubs. My partner had a meltdown during the match and started throwing things, complaining about everything, talking shit to the opponents...it was a bad moment. Singles was better, but in those conditions, everything is so difficult anyhow, it doesn't matter that much. It becomes an endurance contest of shittiness instead of a tennis skill competition. I lost 6-3 6-2 or something; it wasn't THAT bad...definitely better than what happened the night before.

We grubbed on some Planet Sub after that, and then went back to the hotel for an hour. It was just enough time to tease us with leisure and then we had to go play Washburn.

I am not linking to any of these schools simply for the reason that you can look them up if you want to. I am too tired and have a lot of stuff to get out tonight.

So anyhow, we go to play Washburn. We actually got to warm up this time, and I felt like I was hitting the ball pretty clean. It was a nice change from the sick conditions earlier. Dubs was...interesting. The guys we played just hit the PISS out of the ball. One of them was a short guy with a huge game and the other guy was a huge lefty with a huge lefty game. It was troubling. We lost like 8-1. Then after a while, I guess about 7:15 I got on court for my singles match. I was playing a short kid named Paulo. He was pretty solid, nice groundstrokes, some power from both sides, nice little spin serve, fast, just solid all around. I hit the ball really well in that match though, which was a REALLY nice change from my depressing adventure last night.

I finally started serving a little bit better too, but I couldn't quite pull anything off at the end. I was drained (I haven't played four matches in a day in a WHILE...since last spring I think). We went to Golden Corral for some dinner, and then I watched a little bit of the Nuggets' game with Greg (their struggles are a WHOLE different subject). We braved the cold and snow flurries to get him some Taco Bell, watched more of the game, then I took a shower and hung out in the room for a while.

Now I am sitting here on the shitty roll-away bed writing about all of this. We flipped coins the first night here to determine the order for getting banished to the roll-away. I hope it doesn't fold up on me tonight.

But anyhow, I am tired, just popped some NyQuil, and have to get up in 8 hours so we can go play again. I'm not sure what the plan will be after the match, but I am just glad that I finally have some momentum. I am still learning how to play this game, and it sucks when the learning curve is sometimes steeper than I can see. I have trouble wrapping my head around this game sometimes. This time lastnight I was absolutely miserable, and this time tonight I'm kicking it around on the Internet and relatively content. I hope I can play with some confidence tomorrow and end this trip on a high note. That's the plan, I guess. End confessional.