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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