Update.... can i get an update!

Wow, I thought I hadn't updated this thing in a month, but it has only been one week. Well we will start with, our team has decided to start practicing more. 2 more times a month. I love the idea, but I may be the only person on the team who likes it haha. I need to get better and this would certainly help. My playing hasn't been bad, but something has been lacking. It almost has nothing to do with my physical level, but my mental state. I think my confidence level hasn't quite been what it was like at Fresno State. And that is for obvious reasons: new environment, new team and new skills to learn. So the goal for me is to trust God and always do my best and know that is enough.
Our team has been interesting. We keep trying to find our identity on an individual and team level. Who is going to be our star, who is going to be the leader, who will make the difference.... so on and so forth. The only thing that has been consistent up to this point is our inconsistency. I am hoping that can all change with some more practices. We are coming to that make or break point in the season and I hope we will prevail.

Wow, what a week

So this last week was a great week. I think everyday was filled with something, and I was quite busy. The only bad part is that I am having a hard time remembering everything that happened. But I will try my best...
First, I am now coaching a 11-12s girls team for my club Zoersel. Hermin, our club president, convinced me that they all speak English and it will be super easy(said it was something like coaching once a week). So I get to the gym to watch the first practice. Not one girl there speaks English. I guess they don't start the English classes till next year. By the end of everything, I am coaching both practices a week, games on weekends and cup games. Yeah, I don't speak dutch and they don't speak English. Oh it makes for interesting days. But I love it. It has been so much fun and the group of girls are a blast. They are always smiling and laughing, it tends to lighten my mood also. But yeah..... Surprise!
Over the weekend I got to go see a game between Lennik and Rosselaar. Lennik is currently the 3rd best team in Belgium and Rosselaar is currently 1st. Man these teams were good. Lennik's setter is the Netherlands national team setter and Rosselaar's setter is the Belgium national team setter. Every player jumped outta the gym and smashed on volleyballs! Lennik ended up winning in a thriller 5 game set. There is a good chance that one of those teams will continue on to play in the European Cup (the best pro teams in the world). To say the least I got the idea.

Our game the next day was a good one, besides the fact we lost in five, again. We dropped the first two sets somehow, because we weren't really playing bad, but we just didn't take the set in our own hands. Sets 3 and 4 people stepped up and made a difference. But set five we went back to our usual self. Errors and more errors. So in the end we beat ourselves. We are hoping that practice will begin to change all this, but sometimes.... its just a mentality. You have to want to win and be willing to do anything to get it. We don't have that fire. And we need it.

So that is the big stories, I forgot to mention that we got VIP tickets for the Lennik game. Kim dog hooked us up. So we got a meal which was fish soup (salmon, halibut, and shrimp), Feasent, and a chocolate desert. Yeah, I tried some new things....
P.S. the Bickey Burgers are bomb here, and my wife makes the best meatloaf sandwiches.

Have a good Thanksgiving cause they don't have that here. Ta ta for now!

Ice Cream

We won this last weekend. It was a good win. We are hoping to win this weekend and string together some wins in the next couple weeks. I didn't play well. My passing was off and that directly affected my hitting. But I am planning on training hard and coming back and playing good this weekend. A couple good wins and we should move up the rankings a couple places.

So one noticeably different surprise I have had here is the Belgium ice cream! It is so good, and it is sooo cheap. I got a liter and a half of ice cream for a euro fifty. And it was really good ice cream. Yeah, nice pleasant surprise.

Long week this week. I think everyday will have something in it, so it is very exciting.

P.S. I started coaching a 11-12s team here. It is amazing how well their ball control is. The girls are practically setting perfect balls. And they all can pass, set and even hit the ball. It is purely amazing. The coaching here is so different. I am having to change the way I am used to coaching because the styles are so different. For example, they play for fun, not to win. So all the drills are games that just allow them to get used to playing with the ball. Usually in the states we put them in lines and have them do repeated passing, setting, hitting, or serving. It seems here that they do that, but always mixed into a game environment. Very interesting.

Another

Another tough weekend. We lost this weekend 3-2. It was a close tough match. We started the match going down 2 sets fast, and then got momentum and had a strong 2 sets after that. So we go into the 5th set and lose pretty close. The score didn't say it all. If we have of gotten even one point where they did instead we could have easily come out on top. But, kinda the same problem as before, I'm not sure how much we want it. I mean you gotta want to win! Do everything you can to get that win. But, it seems we continue to have to learn.....
On the brighter note I played probably the best I have yet here. I was starting to feel comfortable and starting to play with the emotions that I put on the back burner for Fresno state the last couple years. Fresno State needed me to be consistent, not make a lot of errors and keep the emotions under control. Zoersel needs me to unleash. So I am having to recalibrate the way I play. Fresno State I was a role player more than a star. I hoping for Zoersel I can step up my game a be more of a go-to-guy for them. But, we shall see. I don't want to step on peoples toes. We have good players who are also looking for roles and I don't want to inhibit them from being able to completely come out of their shell. It will be an interesting next couple weeks.....

Life here seems to get slower and slower. Today I almost pulled out my hair. Even the video games weren't interesting. That was surprising. So we have had some progress though on doing more things than play volleyball 4 times a week. I dropped in on a guy off the teams work and learned a little bit of physical therapy. I am hoping I can do that throughout the next 7 months and hopefully learn some good stuff. Me and Jessica are also looking into coaching a team for Zoersel. It would be 10-12 year olds and should be about 12-20 of them. Exciting! Hopefully more stuff will continue to come our way.....

So we have this crazy guy that lives down the street from us. We can totally see his house, and he is always outside doing these crazy mannerisms with his hands and is going crazy! We have tried to figure out what is wrong with him but our only conclusion is drugs. We have narrowed it down to Meth or Cocaine. The other day he was trying to make snow angels in the middle of the street. P.S. Snow isn't supposed to arrive until a month from now. We were going to let him know, but he probably only speaks Dutch. Oh well, we will just continue to be window watchers.....

I love my wife!

Bye Week!

This week was a fun week! We didn't have a game this weekend so it felt like the week was more open. So starting with practices, they were pretty light and fun. Tuesday ran a little bit, practiced some defense, and played some games. Wednesday we played 2 on 2 the whole practice, it was amazing. The only down side was I lost every game. I totally thought me and my partner could have done well and for some reason we just didn't. Oh well, I think we will have many more opportunities to win next time. And Friday we practiced some defense and then played a 5 v 5 game where my team just got crushed. Fun week of practices....

Thursday was a team party day. Everyone from the first men's and woman's teams does to a city called Leuven. The city is a purely a college city. In the place where we were was old market in Leuven. It was a lot of fun. We went to 3 different bars throughout the night. We didn't get back into bed until 530 am. A couple guys on our team were struggling by morning. One guy threw up everywhere and didn't stop throwing up until 6:00 pm the next day. Another player on our team called in "sick", yeah he was hungover. But all in all it was a really fun night. Me and Jessica didn't drink very much. We had this really good beer that has Cherry in it. It completely masks the terrible task of beer. I can actually finish a glass of one of those..... But don't ask for two.

Friday I hung out all day with Manu and it was a perfect day in my book. We went to the Bakery in the morning, played Gears of War 2: The Hoard all afternoon, ate pizza, played ping pong, and played a really fun card game called Sabatour. I got killed in Ping Pong, but I look forward to rematches. Manu is a good player. Sabatour was a super fun game. I can't even explain how fun it is. So in the United States we basically have three popular board games: Monopoloy, Risk and Settlers of Catan. Over here they have a whole company devoted to board games. Supposedly Catan is an old game here and they have way better ones. I am really excited to learn them and bring them back home. The company is called 999 Games. And it is purely a dutch company.

So this leads to this weekend and it has been super relaxed. It has been really nice just to be able to relax with Jessica. We finished 24 season 3 yesterday and we are hoping to rent seasons 1 and 2 later this week. And today went to the bakery, got some amazing sugar bread. Sugar bread is white bread and they infuse into the middle of it a perfect amount of sugar. It tastes so good you don't have to put anything on it... And the rest of the plans are to relax today and get ready cause it is going to pour some rain tonight!

Have a good week!