Tuesday, April 8, 2014

DVB . . . .Assemble!




       
         A slightly tanner (or in my case, more sunburned) Dartmouth Volleyball returned for spring term from various adventures around the world. We heralded from Orlando, Buenos Aries, Barcelona, Texas, and San Francisco; eager to delve into new classes and prepare for spring tournaments.

          Our first night back together on campus, the 16s celebrated Kaira’s 20th birthday and then met up with the 17s to tell us all about their LSAs. Language Study Abroad terms, or LSAs allow students to totally immerse themselves in a foreign language through homestays and classes in a foreign country. Our 16s spent time in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Barcelona, Spain improving their Spanish and gleaning an invaluable, first-hand look into South American and Spanish culture. They gushed about their host families, great food, and funny run-ins with the language barrier.
           

             Dartmouth Volleyball is unique because we are allowed to take off-campus terms. Most D-1 programs deprive their athletes of that opportunity in exchange for more reps in the gym. While visiting a foreign country may not improve our hitting percentage, it has the potential to make us better people. Allowing athletes to go abroad speaks volumes to the value placed by the Dartmouth Volleyball program on our well roundedness as people and athletes. The 17s are applying to abroad programs in Barcelona, Argentina, France, and India. Personally, I am extremely excited to go abroad (assuming I get into the program), but I’m really going to miss the team next winter.


              We could have listened to the 16s talk about their LSA adventures for hours, but eventually we returned to our dorms to prepare for the first day of classes. Many 17s are taking their first language courses at Dartmouth in preparation for their LSAs next winter. Kaira and Emily Astarita geared up for Physics 14, a course about electromagnetism that frankly, gives me a headache just to think about. Holly and Maura are taking a class about Russian theater and both have roles in a Russian play at the end of the term. As a whole, DVB girls are spread throughout a variety of academic disciplines. When we do homework together, the tables are covered in readings with topics ranging from psychology to econ and chemistry to Latin.

            This term, I am taking Intro to Judaism, Intro to Archeology and my freshman seminar about letters written by Beethoven and Mozart. Having never taken a music class at Dartmouth, I was apprehensive about my seminar selection. With the professor’s help I’ve been able to keep up despite my musical illiteracy. Archaeology so far is my favorite class because I’m a huge nerd about old stuff. We are learning about dating methods, mapping the dig site, and different archaeological discoveries around the world… I’m in heaven! To make the academic part of the term even better, my classes only fall on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which has been lovely.
           

           After the first few days of class, we started spring season practices. The spring practice load falls somewhere between that of fall and winter. We have conditioning, lift, individual/small group practice and 10 whole-team practices. Later in the term, we will have two tournaments-- one in Albany and one at home. Spring season emphasizes a return to game speed after a slower, more tactically focused winter season. With help from the specialists at Dartmouth Peak Performance, we are continuing to work on goal setting and mental toughness.

            Looking forward, we are excited to use this term to improve on the court, kill it in the classroom and make more great memories with each other… some warmer weather will be nice too…!

Lottie MacAulay ‘17

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