Tough, tough week!

My computer broke again... but it's back now so I'm happy.

Annnnnd I lost another teammate. He wasn't even here for two weeks! It's been rough constantly changing teammates; I feel like as soon as I start really getting close to them they leave.

We are 0-4 now, by a total of 12 points!!! We've been so close every game, hopefully this week we break through.

On Friday I had my first double double this season and we lost by one point! But let's back up to before the game. My name. You remember last week I put tape over my away jersey. I came to the gym fully prepared to do the same to my home jersey. I pick up my jersey, and to my surprise they fixed it!...or at least tried...

Close... but no cigar

Mucho mejor!

I mean I would give them an 'A' for effort, but that's the letter they messed up on!


After I corrected my name - again - we went out there and lost a tough game. After the game, I was named the player of the game and they gave me a bottle of white wine! My goal is to open a winery by the end of the season :)


Sunday we had a game against our rivals! It would be like UVA playing Hokies (it took a lot for me not to insert a degrading comment here). As you would expect, the game was tough and fierce. But before the game I had a little surprise...

I left this picture large on purpose :)

 Third time is a charm! The game came down to the last possession. We were down 3 with 9 seconds left. We missed the 3 to tie the game but I got the offensive rebound. I ran as fast as I could to the 3-point line and got off a decent shot...missed just short. Man that would have been a great first career three pointer!

Understandably, I was upset about the game. I was eating with a couple teammates after the game thinking about how close we were. I got the urge to use the restroom so I stood up, looked around, saw an 'M' on the bathroom and headed straight for it... In my preoccupied state, I forgot that I was in Argentina, and not the US... and the 'M' stands for Mujeres not Male...

Luckily no one was in there, however, a waiter came and told me that I was in the wrong bathroom! Quite embarrassing. My teammates and I got a good laugh out of that one; it was just what we needed too.

On to the next game!!!

Walmart!

We drove to Paraná, the city of our Friday game, on Thursday so we had a little extra time before the game. On the way to the game I saw my favorite store in the whole wide world...WALMART. 

Me gusta!

It's just as beautiful here as it is in The States; there are a few differences though. There is a little bit more security...

Honestly it might be more for the dogs haha.

I did some shopping and what not. I bought some clippers! As we were leaving, I found some more evidence that dogs run this country. 

The dog decided it was hot outside, came inside, and went to sleep. (Oh yeah it's warming up out here. Low 80s, High 70s :)



Sidenote. When I was checking out, I saw someone buying this... 

????

Now what you buy is your business, especially at WalMart. But, if you look closely, you will see that person in front of me was buying 12 Liter size bottles of dish washing liquid and 6 bottles of Raid roach spray. Hmmmm. I'm still trying to come up with a good reason anyone would need that much soap and bug spray, if you have any ideas please leave me a comment. Honestly, I probably wont use that much dish soap or bug spray in my entire lifetime!




Back to the story. A few days later I decided I should probably cut my hair while it still had the shape from when my teammate cut it. I won't get super dramatic this time, but I actually did what I said I did last time. I watched a couple videos and asked some questions. 

Here goes nothing!

I was as cool as the other side of the pillow as I went to the mirror and cut my hair. And you know what, it didn't turn out that badly. 

Success!

I think after my bball career is over I will be a writer/barber; what do you guys think of that? Haha I'm kidding...maybe.

That's for now, I have a game to play tonight (Friday). I'll try to write a blog or two next week to make up for lost time.






Most importantly, I have added a link to a photo album with my bball pictures. The link is right under the tittle "Overseas Adventures". I should update this album weekly so check it out.

Here today, gone tomorrow/The day the Earth stood still

I am interrupting the regularly scheduled blog for this special announcement.

Monday was probably the worst day of the year for me. "What happened?", you ask? The unthinkable. The unimaginable. The impossible. My computer cut off and would not reboot. Yes, I tried everything. I even called Dell! (I think it might be easier to talk to people in Spanish than to those people they have working those phone lines...) In my rush to come to Argentina, I forgot my installation disk. I called my dad and asked him to send it, but that would take at least two weeks, and there was no guarantee that it would work. I promise you, if I did not have an iPhone I would be back in the US right now. There is no way I could survive here without contact with the outside world. Luckily, a guy told me about someone who could fix it, and he did. Funny thing, I had no problem giving him a Kissy greeting. Boy oh boy that was a rough five days. But I AM BACK!!!

Now back to the originally scheduled blog. (Pretend it's Monday)



This has been quite an eventful week. My teammate left to move on to other endeavors; I wish him the best of luck with that and I'll definitely miss him. That's two lost teammates in two months. He left on Wednesday (and took the clippers with him, NOOOOOOOOO). We had our first regular season game on Friday and our second on Sunday, so I just thought that I'd be by myself for those two games and maybe the next week I'd have a new teammate...Nope. They found someone to replace him in less than 24 hours!!!! I thought less than a week was fast, but man! When I talked to my new teammate he said he got a 12 hour notice that he would be leaving the country for 3 months. Can you imagine?!?!

But anyway, I have gotten quite good at introducing people to the town and the lifestyle, so I gave him a crash course and we got ready for Friday's game. 


Friday finally came. I had been waiting on that day for two months! I had also been waiting to get my name spelled correctly on my jersey. Mind you, I have been asking the owner to fix it for two months and everytime he says don't worry it'll get fixed. I have seen three new teammates come and get their names on their jersey before mine was fixed. I asked everyday on the week leading up to the game and I was promised it would get fixed.

Gametime. I look at my jersey and guess what, you guessed it, jersey looked exactly the same. I was beyond furious. At this point I knew I had to take matters into my own hands so I changed this...

Not going to cut it

That's better

                                      TO THIS... 


and I didn't have a bit of shame.

So we play the game and unfortunately I didn't receive favorable officiating, to put it mildly. I was in foul trouble the whole game and I did not have a good game. We still battled as a team but we lost by four on the road to a good team.

I was quite frustrated after the game, but I knew I had to stay focused and get ready for the next one. Needless to say I had a much better game on Sunday (you can look at stats HERE but unfortunately you can't watch them live) but we still came up on the short end by 4 against a good team on the road.

This week we have to home games so hopefully we will fare better. Thank you guys for tuning in, and I hope to see you next time on OVERSEAS ADVENTURES!


P.S. I want to give a special thanks to my iPhone for allowing my to jot down my blog even though I didn't have my computer. You have served me well.

Bad hair day pt 2...

I know you all remember my last debacle; if not please read Bad hair day. Five weeks later, my hair grew back. My plan was to forgo any more travesties and just grow an afro. I mean, why not? My other teammate was gone so I didn't have clippers, and it didn't really make sense for me to buy clippers so I could make myself bald.

However, my new teammate told me that he had some clippers, so if I wanted to try again, I could. I took a long, hard look in the mirror and said to myself, "If you're going to do this again, you're going to get it right!" So, I studied. And studied. I watched YouTube videos, I read articles online, and I asked him questions. I made sure I knew all the ins and outs of cutting my own hair and I learned from the mistakes I made the last time. I was ready.

It was time. I had the clippers in hand. I gave them a look of determination that would make even the biggest dog whimper. 

You Will Not Beat Me!

I turned on the song The Final Countdown to set the mood, then I got down to business. Every stroke of the clippers was done with the confidence and precision of a heart surgeon. Every strand of hair that fell to the ground elevated my self-confidence and sense of manliness! 

After I finished, I took a step back and examined myself in the mirror... I was quite satisfied with the results. I was sooooo relieved that I even caressed the clippers...

Such a good boy.

            I couldn't stop smiling... 

Like a kid in a candy store!

I was very proud of myself for succeeding at a task that I once failed at...miserably. What a great feeling! 

Ok... I haven't been entirely truthful...you see...what had happened was...my teammate was like...he knew how to cut hair...he cut his own hair...and other people's hair...and he offered to do mine...so I was like...I could either attempt this again,...and fail...or...I could have him do it...and have my hair look nice...so I chose the later option :) Eh, I'll learn another time. Our season starts next week, I will be on video, people will be taking pictures, and I just didn't want to have a bald head, ok! Don't judge me, you would've done the same thing. 

In other news, my Spanish is getting better by the day. I have to give a shout out to the website I have been using http://www.spanishdict.com. Simply amazing. And it's free! I'm at the point now where I can understand most conversations, as long as they're not speaking a million words per second - which they tend to do - and my speech is improving slowly. 

As far as basketball, we had our last friendly game before our season starts next Friday. We lost by two because of one of the most ridiculous calls I've ever seen in all my years of basketball. We were up one with 4 seconds left, and someone on their team drove the length of the court and threw up a one-handed fade away three pointer as time expired and the referee called a foul! It was so bad it was comical. We were joking about how bad the call was with the other team as the guy was shooting his free throws.

Anyway, I would like to give a shout out to all my teammates and coaches; they are all great, especially my coach. (Yeah I did it; it's my blog and I'll write what I want!) It's going to be a good year. Uno, Dos, Tres, NUEVE.