15s Look to Spring

Winter Greens

It’s hard to believe that Winter term is coming to an end and that it is almost time for spring volleyball again! Last week was our last week of lifting and individual training sessions, and I can honestly say I was sad to see it end. When we first got back on campus in January I expected the winter to drag on as New England winter’s can be extremely cold and dark. Luckily, having both lifting and volleyball definitely made the term fly by. I didn’t know what to expect from individuals, but I was really excited to get one-on-one time with the coaches. Individuals were really fun and helpful because I got to focus on improving specific skills. I passed and dug countless balls, and each session in the gym was both enjoyable and challenging. Being able to only spend two hours of your week playing volleyball definitely made me appreciate the sport even more and realize how much I miss playing every day. I can definitely see improvement from my first session at the beginning of January, and I am excited to see how it will translate into our spring practices.
            
Unfortunately at the beginning of the term we had to say goodbye to our trainer, Coach Butler, as he went off to Utah State. Our new trainer, James, took his place, and we have all made tremendous gains in the weight room. We have each individually gotten stronger, faster, and can jump higher. Going to lift each day became a part of my day that I really enjoy. James makes our time spent very worthwhile as we work extremely hard every time we step into the weight room. As James says, the volleyball girls can clean better than any other women’s team on campus and this is certainly one of our proudest accomplishments. I can’t wait to continue improving in the spring and to see how all my work in the weight room will translate onto the court. 

- Holly Harper '15

Set for Spring

Although the weather has been cold (and sometimes below freezing!) here in Hanover this winter, the Dartmouth volleyball team has been training and sweating it out in the Floren weight room and on the court in Leede Arena. Coming from Massachusetts, the winter weather didn’t shock me as much as it stunned the new girls, especially since 3 of them are from the steamy state of Texas. However, we have not let the chilly temperatures and inches of snow keep us from giving it our all at our lifting and conditioning sessions, and individual practices.

Despite our latest strength and conditioning coach leaving in the beginning of our winter season, we now have an amazing new coach, James, who joined the Dartmouth athletic staff in the fall. Not only does James have the coolest accent (he is from New Zealand), more importantly, he pushes us to perform our best and who encourages and motivates us in the weight room. While Alex, Lucia, and Elisa, all of whom took an off-term this winter, do not have the Dartmouth athletic facilities and staff at their disposal, the team has made a commitment to stay driven and to focus on becoming stronger and faster despite not all being together. We have managed to keep in touch throughout the winter to share our amusing stories and ultimately to keep each other and ourselves accountable for our training. 

The spring is just around the corner, and we are more than ecstatic to have the team together again (as well as the warmer spring temperatures!). The spring is an amazing time to reinforce what we have worked all winter on and to improve on those aspects as well as the pieces of our team play. We have demonstrated that we have the capability to cultivate and maintain a positive mindset of progress and growth. We are determined to develop as a team next term. This spring we will continue to work on both our physical and mental growth, both of which will be extremely important for our next season! We are set for spring!

- Maura Manley ‘15

Winter Carnival 2013

 

After a long, eventful weekend, the 16s have officially experienced their first Winter Carnival. The festivities kicked off on Wednesday country style with the Florida Georgia Line concert at the Hop. Most of us are country music fanatics and the Southern music gave us a little taste of home (well not exactly home for Katie). We had an awesome time dancing and singing to covers of country and pop favorites as well as Florida Georgia Line's own hits. Paige and Alli even got to meet the leader guitarist of the band later on that night. We're now their biggest fans!


 When Carnival started, there was barely any snow around. Even the annual snow sculpture contest was cancelled because of the lack of snow! Much to our south westerners' delight, blizzard Nemo hit just in time for the weekend. The snowstorm on Friday and Saturday wasn't quite as bad as expected (or as Katie expected since she's used to blizzards in Cleveland), but there was just enough powder to still play in the snow and cover campus entirely.

On Friday, Paige, the only brave soul in the bunch, successfully completed the Polar Bear Plunge! Holly and Katie cheered her on while she swam acrossOccom Pond in freezing temperature. Holly and Katie were freezing just waiting in line and watching Paige jump in the water…can't even imagine how cold it was! Major props Paige!! (Especially given the fact that you're a Texan and not used to the cold.)

The rest of the week was spent avoiding homework, watching movies, and ice skating! The ice skating was a true test of who was from the cold climate, except for Kaira who was shockingly an amazing ice skater. We’re not really sure where Kaira’s abilities stem from but years of skating back home in Ohio were evident with Katie. Maybe Irish dancing helps? (That is until she wiped out trying to skate backwards.) All we know is that Kayden and Alli “rode the struggle bus” as we call it, but got better with time. The trouble they had was masked by Kaira’s epic fall.


Even with the blizzard, the Carnival fun continued with various themed parties and special guest DJs at the frats all weekend. The annual beach party offered us a glimpse of summer during the storm on Friday night, and we got to rock our 90s style again on Saturday night (even if we may have looked a little too 80s, well Kayden anyway). Excessive amounts of hot cocoa also kept us feeling warm throughout the weekend. Another highlight of Carnival was getting to see Scud and Rose since they came to visit for the weekend!

Exhausted from all the activities, Sunday we were back in the library all day since we of course decided not to do work all weekend. It was great for us to get to take part in the old traditions of Carnival, especially since we were traveling the weekend of Homecoming in the fall. This Winter Carnival was definitely one for the books!

-Katie and Alli

Check out more Winter Carnival photos here

Hello From NYC Y’all!

Elisa Scudder '14 at a Knicks game

The Dartmouth D-Plan, which lets us do everything from study abroads in France to volunteering in Africa, has one sneakly little term that will shock your system. It’s called the Junior Winter Off-Term Internship. Or as I like to call it, OMG It’s The Real World. Many of the things I’ve taken for granted at Dartmouth - like hot water that always works and fully cooked meals prepared for me with no clean-up necessary - suddenly don’t exist. It’s quite a different living experience being alone in NYC, but I’m loving it so far.
 

I’m currently working as a marketing intern with Animoto - a Dartmouth founded online video-creation company. Three out of the four founders were Dartmouth grads, and I recently found out that one is married to a Dartmouth Volleyball Alum! Working with some amazing grads and the four other Dartmouth interns I’m with has been an amazing experience. Working a 9-5 is so much different than the constant hustle of class-gym-class-gym that I’m used it, and man is it exhausting. But the experience of working at an office (a pretty cool one in fact) is teaching me so much about what I want for my future - which is the whole point of the off term, to learn.

While I’m enjoying working in the city, the real fun part is living here. I’m living near the NYU campus, so I’m always seeing college aged kids and live in a really cool area. There are also about 25 other Dartmouth ‘14s up here as well, so its fun to get dinners in the city and explore around. Last weekend I was able to go see the new 9-11 Memorial which was beautiful, and I’ve also been exploring around Central Park.

It’s crazy to think it’s already week 5 and I’ve only got a short time left to live it up in NYC. I’m looking forward to really experiencing everything I can in these last few weeks, and then reuniting with everyone in Hanover. And believe me, after living in the real world, I’m ready to go back to being a college student, even if its just for a little longer.

-Scudder ‘14

Texans in the snow

Being a Texan, I have never experienced a true winter, yet alone lived in one. The times I’ve been around snow in the past were from the occasional family ski trips I have been on. I was nervous to head back to Hanover after our long winter break because I have been told how brutal the winter is here, but it really hasn’t been bad. Despite the one dreadful week with a high of 3 degrees, the winter has been quite nice to me. I have been making it a goal of mine to do outdoorsy activities despite the cold weather to help persuade myself that winter is not evil and can actually be fun. So far, Kayden, Holly and I have gone skiing a few times at Mount Killington in Vermont. It was a blast! I also went ice-skating at Occom pond, which is just a few minutes walk from my freshman dorm cluster. The night of the first major snowfall in Hanover, a large student population met up on the green at midnight and had a giant snowball fight. The whole freshman volleyball clan went and ran around like crazy. Because it was dark, I didn’t know who it was that I was pegging with snowballs, but that was the best part. Pretty much all the freshman teamed up against Kaira and ended up tackling her every time we saw her. 

Both Holly and I have celebrated our birthdays this winter, which has been a great excuse to go out to eat and get away from Foco. Both of our birthday festivities were really fun!

On a side note, the freshman volleyball players all performed in the Athlete Talent Show at the end of January. Personally, I think we were robbed because we totally deserved to win it. We sang and danced to the song “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls and changed up the lyrics some. Alli stole the show with her mad singing skills and I rapped a small portion of it. I was so nervous before we got on stage but now it seems silly because the whole show was meant to be laidback and fun. 

Check out our performance video on the DP2 Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4507943536864

Winter volleyball training has been going really well. I can already see improvement in my strength and feel as though the individual training sessions are really improving my hitting technique and overall performance. I can’t wait for spring practices!

Winter Carnival is this weekend and I am determined to do the “polar bear plunge.” Hopefully I won’t chicken out.

Paige Caridi ‘16

Orgo . . .O Yes!

Whenever people ask me what classes I’m taking this summer, the reaction is always the same. “Oh my goodness, why would you do that to yourself?” “Wow, that sounds brutal. I can’t believe you’re taking such hard classes.” “How do you have time to sunbathe at the river/hang out with your friends/keep up with Suits aka the Best Show Of All Time?!” Rose Dicovitsky and I are both taking Organic Chemistry II and Physiology this term. The two terms of “orgo” are notorious for being two of the hardest courses at Dartmouth, and Rose and I are SO close to being done with it! Both Physiology and Orgo have 6 and 4 hour labs, respectively, that we go to twice a week in the evenings. So, classes combined with morning workouts for volleyball definitely keeps us busy!

This might sound like a lot, but at Dartmouth, everything is about finding your passion. Rose loves animals. Like a lot. It’s shocking. She’s passionate about becoming a vet. I’ve wanted to be a physician like my dad for as long as I can remember. Since we’re both passionate about going into medicine, we don’t really notice the long hours in the library or, at least, we learn not to complain about the things that will be beneficial to us in the near future. We’re also passionate about volleyball, so when the alarm clock goes off at 6:30 AM every Tuesday and Friday morning, we head over to Leverone Field House for some morning plyometrics with all the other athletes on campus. I can’t lie, there are certainly days where my head doesn’t pop right up off the pillow, but the knowledge that the rest of my team is putting in the same amount of effort to prepare ourselves for our 2012 season gives me that extra burst of energy to heave myself out of bed.

I’m so grateful to Dartmouth for providing me with not only great friends and wonderful memories, but also the opportunity of a lifetime to pursue two of my greatest passions.

Vivian Snider '14

Viva Italia!

Once upon a time, a girl travels to Italy. She sees ancient Rome, walks romantic streets at night, eats delicious and breath taking food, meets a lovely Italian boy, meets amazing friends from around the world.

I don’t know how I got so lucky, to be that girl, but somehow it happened. This summer I am in Italy, wwoofing (a program that connects volunteers with organic farms), sightseeing, traveling, and otherwise gallivanting around. I went straight from freshman spring finals to Milan, where I traveled to Venice (Venezia in Italian), and Umbria with my mother. I then worked on my first organic farm, which was a fruit jam and juice farm. I spent my days weeding lampone (raspberry) plants, pitting apricots, and attempting to substitute our gigantic summer workout by sprints up the hill. After meeting some amazing fellow wwoofers and the host family, I went to Rome for a week for some quality sight seeing. I was lucky enough to be able to stay somewhere for free in exchange for teaching English for two hours a day. The mother of the family that I stayed with was a communications director for swanky clubs in Rome, and she was incredibly generous and took me out with her every night. I must admit, amongst the ancient ruins and late night disco’s I slacked on my work out routine. Now, however, I am at my second farm and am starting to pick it up again. I have no choice, preseason starts in just 1 month! The second farm’s name is Podere Amarti. Amarti means ‘to love you’. It is a perfect place. They host vision quests, meditation and yoga retreats. I think that it was fate that I showed up here, it is made for me. I’ve been starting my day with homemade yogurt and the lemon-apricot jam we made the day after we arrived. I’m going to be here till the end of July. After that, I have 10 free days, the first week and a half of August completely free. Hopefully I find something spectacular to do, I’m sure something will pop up out of the blue and become another integral part of this adventure. And after that, preseason starts on the 15th! If I didn’t miss the team and volleyball so much, I don’t know if anyone could get me to leave.

Viva Italia!

Lucia

Class of '14 Sophomore Summer

Sophomore Summer! What every Dartmouth student looks forward to. I was somewhat hesitant going into this term- simply because I love summers at my house in California. However my reservations have already been put to rest. Though we have only been here for about a week, I can already tell that this summer is going to be a blast. Tanning by the river… Reading some casual novels and essays on the Green… Getting destroyed in workouts… Watching White Collar with Rose in our room… All wonderful activities. However, my favorite aspect of the term so far has been seeing almost exclusively my classmates on campus. Most of the people on campus right now are sophomores (obviously) and knowing people wherever I go has been really fun and comforting. Whenever I go to a dining hall or to the library, there is some friend or acquaintance around that I can talk to. Always someone to hug, share fun story with, complain to about all the reading I have, etc. Though this exclusivity may not lead to the most diverse social interactions, it has already lent itself to incredible bonding within my class. I have already started to get closer to classmates I did not really know before. Think a forced closeness that you actually enjoy. It feels as if everyone has decided that since we are the only ones here, we might as well all become friends! Everyone seems to be more outgoing, friendlier, more willing to put themselves out there and form new bonds. It’s the infamous Dartmouth community at its best- everyone being easygoing, having fun outside, and making new friendships every day.

- Meghan Cooney '14

While the rest of the campus may be relaxing in the summer sun, the four of us (Cooney, Viv, Rose, and me) have a different focus in mind – preseason. With preseason just seven short weeks away, it’s time for us to get into serious shape. Luckily that’s not too hard when you are on for the summer and have the Dartmouth athletic facilities and staff at your disposal. Our preseason training began this Monday at 9 am. In addition to this being our first workout of the summer, it was also our first workout with Jeff, who joined the Dartmouth Athletic staff at the end of the spring. Needless to say, none of us knew exactly what we were in for. Getting used to a different style of lifting definitely has its negative sides, mainly the whole ‘can barely walk down stairs I’m so sore’ side. After surviving the first week, it’s clear what the positive side is – preseason will be a breeze after training up here all summer. While Cooney Viv and Rose are participating in the athlete runs – a sophomore summer tradition where all the athletes on campus do competition based sprint workouts, I’m off on my own doing my rehab training. Luckily for me, being on this summer has more plus sides than just getting to work out in nice gyms, it also means being able to use the Alter-G, Dartmouth’s new anti-gravity treadmill. The Alter-G lifts the runner up using air (after you get zipped into the tent-like covering on the treadmill) so that you are only running on a certain percentage of your body weight. It’s a great machine for people like me with chronic stress injuries, as it allows me to be able to get a sprint work out in while still keeping my rehab on track. After our cardio, we all join back together for lifting. We are currently focusing on developing technique and building muscle mass so that we can start training even harder as preseason gets closer. While it won’t be easy, with the long awaited season coming closer every week, we’ve got all the motivation we need.

- Elisa Scudder '14