Feb. 5, 2008
In the fifth edition of the Illini 2008 Blog, freshman Annie McCarthy highlights the team's trip to Florida where they faced Florida State this past weekend. Illinois continues its schedule this weekend when it hosts No. 59 DePaul at home on Friday, Feb. 8 at 6 p.m., before traveling to Lawrence, Kan., to take on the Kansas Jayhawks on Sunday, Feb. 10.
Tans fading and temperatures dropping, our team was thrilled to be returning to sunny Florida. Excited about competing the coming Sunday against Florida State, we were as hyper as ever in the Corky's bus on the way to beautiful Bloomington, Ill. The night before we received an email saying that 8-10 inches of snow was expected so we thought a snow day might be in order. With hopes high, we were gravely disappointed to find that the snow came; yet school was still on. After what seemed to be the earliest practice in the history of the world at 6:45 a.m. and a full day of classes, we were ready to just have some fun. Following an embarrassing wipe out on the ice, and the feeling of frostbite echoing throughout my body, I was stoked to be going to Florida.
On the road in the vans was an adventure with the roads engulfed by snow, and needless to say, Shivani was uneasy. Marisa and I have this little inside joke where we give Shivani and Momei a hard time for always having serious conversations. Once their serious conversation commenced, we took to our favorite pastime: trying to make Shiv as angry as possible for comic relief. As soon as we arrived at the airport, we were surprised to find that our flight was delayed a mere half an hour, and that we would make it out with no problem - despite the heavy downfall of snow.
Friday night we found ourselves very miserable without the company of our hilarious teammates Alejandra and Christine. I had a very humorous text conversation with Christine about our sadness of being apart that I think I should share with you... now keep in mind that our nickname for our little Marisa is Mish.
Me: I "Mish" you.
Christine: I feel like I never see you "Annie" more.
Me: Serious"Leigh". It's not a "Minor " problem.
Christine: It is hotter than India here.
Me: Its cold in Florida, I'm "Shiv"erring.
Christine: But Florida is warm! I am visiting a friend and I have to go through the "Ale" to get to her apartment.
Me: No, you're quite wrong. Florida isn't warm any "Mo".
Saturday night, after two sets of practice, a trip to our favorite restaurant, Macaroni Grill, and a bunch of episodes of Lost - much to Megan and Shivani's chagrin - the team was ready to go to sleep and dream of victory. With new sets of doubles partners and a new setting, our match against FSU was not the way we wanted it to go, but I think we are continuing to grow and learn with every match we play. We then talked to the coaches too, and quickly realized many things that we have to work on, and the many challenges we must push ourselves to achieve.
While writing this, I was at Tallahassee's gorgeous airport (sarcasm). We know that the next couple of weeks might be the hardest of our year, but we are all very excited to get working on our game, and ourselves. We are ready to work as hard as we can at practice, to fix what we are struggling with so we can start showing people exactly who we are and what we can do.
Until Next Time,
Annie McCarthy, GO ILLINI
