beyond the green

Well yesterday and today (Monday) have been very busy and fun-filled! Yesterday was our beach day. We had an early morning practice at the tennis center and then headed to the beach where we spent several hours laying out, playing in the water, looking for shells and we even saw some dolphins! We then ate dinner at a restaurant right off the beach called “The Hangout.” They have delicious seafood (for those who are into that sort of thing) and also delicious hamburgers! (my king of thing). After returning to our hotel, we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and resting.

Today started off with an early morning as well. We headed to the tennis center at 7:30am to play a couple practice matches with other teams who are in the National Tournament as well. This helped us prepare for our first official match of the tournament which is tomorrow at 1:00pm. Immediately after our matches we grabbed some lunch at a place called “Firehouse Subs” where we met an NFL football player! His name was Brandon Maye who played at Clemson, Mississippi State and then went on to Tampa Bay. After becoming injured, he has currently left the football business, wrote an autobiography and is doing some motivational speaking!

Then it was time for one of my most favorite parts of the day. The tennis teams who come to the National Tournament have opportunity to go into elementary schools all over Mobile Alabama to teach the young kids how to play tennis. This was a blast! Our team along with three others were sent to one of the schools in Mobile, which happened to be the largest. There were three rounds of kids which lasted 20 minutes leach. We played with Kindergarteners, First graders and second graders. They were adorable! I had so much fun teaching and playing with them and they were having just as much fun learning! One of my favorite moments from this experience was with a young kindergarten aged boy. He had his racket in his hand, a ball in the other and looked up at me and said: “If I hit the ball straight up into the air, how high would it go?” I replied with “Oh, it could go pretty high!” His response: “Could it go all the way up to God?” My heart just melted. My experience with this young boy will never be forgotten, him fully expressing his faith as a young child, so open and innocent, not worrying what others will think or say, something that I sometimes fail to do.

After this fun experience the day was not over! We came back, had a few hours of free time before it was time for our 2013 NAIA Banquet of Champions. This is a fancy dinner hosted inside of our hotel for all of the tennis teams men’s and women’s who made it to Nationals. Everyone dresses up and sits with their team at designated tables for the program. One of the things they do at the banquet is  announce awards and recognitions for the NAIA. Miranda Weaver, a senior on the tennis team (and my lovely sister) received the award of “Champions of Character” in which one person from each team is awarded. Miranda, Steph Shogren and Shayne Runnion recieved the Scholar-Athlete award which entails either being a junior or senior with a GPA of 3.5 or above. Last but definitely not least was that Same Gaeddert, one-of-a-kind assistant coach was the regional winner for Assistant Coach of the year and therefore was nominated for the NAIA National Assistant Coach of the year. Our team is so proud of him! That is definitely well-deserved.

That’s it for now, I will update again on how our first official match against Oklahoma Baptist University goes tomorrow. Until then!

The women’s tennis team is now here in Alabama safe and sound! We left Friday after lunch and after two long days of driving we finally arrived at our hotel in Mobile. For dinner to this chicken place called “Raisin’ Canes.” We went to the restaurant last year as well which was DELICIOUS! We also tried out the hot tub and swimming pool at our hotel. Now, we are getting ready to head out to this coffee shop with amazing smoothies and gelatos which is a block away from our hotel.

Tomorrow we are going to have a morning practice at the tennis center and then we are heading to the beach for the rest of the day! We don’t play our official match until Tuesday, but coming this early helps us get acclimated to the hotter and more humid weather that Alabama has.

Fortunately I along with several others finished all my finals before leaving for Alabama so on this trip I am really able to relax and enjoy it! (besides a few small journals/reflection papers). Traveling with the tennis team has been so much fun (as always) and I am looking forward for the rest of the trip!

Results from the conference tournament for men’s and women’s tennis:

The men played McPherson in their semi-finals match who is ranked nationally as a team. They lost 5-2 but they played hard, had some great matches and played them even better than they did in regular season conference play!

After a 5-0 win over Kansas Wesleyan the women’s tennis team is going to Nationals in Alabama!

We leave for Alabama this Friday. That means that we will be missing finals week. Missing finals week means that we need to make sure that we get our finals taken before Friday! Yikes! This makes the ending of the school year twice as stressful for us as we are trying to figure out how we are going to get everything done. However, the up side to this is that we will get the school work out of the way so we can just relax and enjoy Alabama, the beach, and the nationals tournament!

Stress Busters:

- Learn how to say no: Yes we all do need study breaks or social contact once in awhile, but if your friends want to go out but you really need to finish that big project or study for that big test, don’t be afraid to say no. Same with studying in a group. That can be a fun way to study and in some people’s cases very helpful. However, if you are one of those people who do better and learn more by studying by yourself, don’t be afraid to say no to that either.

-Deep breathing: This sounds almost two simple but if you are getting to a state of being really stressed, then stepping back and taking a few deep breaths from your abdomen can really help calm you back down and help you to refocus.

Well, today is the day of the women’s tennis conference tournament. The winner of this tournament gets to proceed to nationals in Alabama! The Bethel women’s team has won this tournament and gone onto nationals the past four years and we hope to make it a fifth!

The semi final against Southwestern College was this morning at 9:00am in Wichita at Genesis. The Bethel ladies swept the match 5-0. In this tournament, the first to five matches wins. This means that the rest of the matches being played are stopped and are not finished. The girls won the three doubles matches and the two singles matches that finished, getting the last two points, were Bree Honer and Stephanie Shogren.

Because of the poor weather continuing on into May, today we have been playing indoors, however due to a mix-up in communication about courts we will not be able to play our final’s match against Kansas Wesleyan until 7:00pm this evening.

The men will play their semi finals match tomorrow, Friday the 3rd at Wichita Country Club at 9:00am for those who would be interested in coming out and supporting!

 

Now for a few more stress busters like I have promised:

- If you have some bubble wrap, pop it! If not, here is some virtual bubble wrap just for you http://www.virtual-bubblewrap.com/

- Stop and take a few deep breaths

- Practice Mindfulness - focus intently on an object such as eating and slowly savoring a piece of chocolate, or noticing the weight or color of your pencil, etc.

While the weather may not have agreed with the name, last week was our Spring Fling.  Campus was busy with many activities including: Minute to Win It, Ultimate Spoons, Iron Chef,  and the ever popular Bubbert Awards.

Other activities scheduled were PowderPuff football and Limeades that had to be postponed because of the weather, which refused to cooperate cancelling the water fight that was scheduled for that Friday as well.

However, Bubbert Awards and the dessert bar was still able to be held! Bubbert Awards is an annual film festival at Bethel that showcases student-made videos. The event was created in spirit of Bethel’s ficticious student, Herman Bubbert, who was known for playing pranks all over campus.

Bubbert Awards takes the form of a Red Carpet event, allowing students to dress up and take part in watching the wide variety of films.

This year there were 11 entries, some inspiring, others hilarious, but all creative. If you would like to watch the video, you can visit this link http://vimeo.com/64145221 which shows the entire show with the hosts and audience members.

Following the Bubbert Awards is a dance that typically lasts a few hours and this year was in the Drama Lab, with student DJ’s.

Spring Fling is always a good time on Bethel’s campus, even if the weather is not “spring” like.