USWNT Game and Disappointing Loss to Mechlen - Blog #9 (Dec. 2 - 8)

Basketball Update:

Another kind of disappointing loss for us to a good Mechlen squad that hails from Belgium. We have been struggling in a big way with the starts of games. We could not make a shot to start and were running bad offense overall. To compound it, our defensive intensity was very poor as well. Per usual, we showed good spurts of energy and effort. However, Mechlen was in control for pretty much the whole game. The most disappointing part about the game is the fact that it feels like we are letting our fan base down. We have the best fans in the league, and our home performances have not been inspiring. I played an okay game offensively but pretty bad defensively. We lost 69-81. Coming up, we have a Dutch Cup game on Wednesday, and then we play Oostende on Saturday. Oostende is the highest-budget team in the league, so it will be a fun game. No highlights this week. However, comment below if you think this was correctly called a travel or not... Nikki and I are having a debate.

Leadership Lesson:

Knowing yourself is a very important thing in today's world. Knowing who you are, what you like, what you value, what gives you fulfillment, and what you believe in are essential things to know for several important reasons. It can give you a clear understanding of what you want out of your life and what you want to prioritize. It can also give you a level of self-confidence and security in accepting who you are. This is something that we talked a lot about at CSU. We brought in a former Navy Seal, Rod Olson, who did different team-building exercises with us, and this was the first step in the process of knowing each other. We had to understand who each of us was ourselves before trying to understand our teammates. To do so, we took personality assessments accompanied by a values assessment and shared the results with the team. This helped us understand one another and bonded us as a team.

The second step in this process after you know yourself is lead yourself. People often think of leadership and its relation to others which is true. However, you have to first be a leader toward yourself. Once you do these things, then you can begin to lead others. Knowing myself has given me great levels of confidence in who I am and what I want to do. This feeling of security is freeing and helps me live a better life!

Top 5 of the Week:

Christmas Movies

1. Elf - Easily the best Christmas movie ever. So quotable and a timeless classic. Nikki and I just watched the other day, and it was great. Will Ferrell's best performance too.

2. Home Alone - A great movie with a really fun story. The two villains in Home Alone are hilarious. I think every kid growing up wanted to be as cool as Kevin McCallister.

3. Santa Claus - Nikki and I also just watched this the other day, and it was my first time seeing it in a while. Tim Allen is awesome, and this is worthy of a top 3 spot for me.

4. A Christmas Story - I did not sit down and watch this movie in its entirety until a couple of years ago. It was one of those movies that I had seen parts of a million times. It is a classic. I love the scene where Ralphie beats up that bully. All-time stuff there.

5. It's a Wonderful Life - This is a big-time nostalgia pick for me. My family loves this movie as do I. The ending is amazing when he runs around the town screaming Merry Christmas to everyone.

HM: Grinch, White Christmas, The Year Without Santa Claus

What Else Did I Do This Week?

The week started off with an off day on Monday. Nikki and I went to Amsterdam Monday night to see some of the lights via canal cruise with her coworkers (Bobby, Jenny, Hagen, and Hagen's mom). There were definitely some cool figures and things, but it was not quite as cool as I was expecting if I am being completely honest. Tuesday, after practice, Nikki and I got tickets with the same group of people to go watch a friendly match between the USA women's national soccer team and the Nederlanders. The game was in Den Haag (The Hague). It was an awesome atmosphere with a good amount of people too. We had a blast. The US got outplayed in my opinion, but they still ended up winning 2-1. It was fun chanting "U-S-A!" and watching the beautiful game.

Friday night, Nikki & I got and decorated our tree. It is small, but it is real! We made bone broth hot chocolate afterward and had a chill night watching Elf. I recommend just making regular hot chocolate if you want it. The bone broth added an "interesting" taste. After our game on Saturday, Nikki and I went out with my teammate, Duko, and his girlfriend, Ida, for a couple of drinks. It was a good time. Sunday, we slept in a bit and went to Nikki's work party at night. It was in Amsterdam for the US pool. I haven't spent time with a large group of Americans in a while, and everyone was great. We had a great Thanksgiving meal that I will talk about later.

Meal of the Week:

The meal we had at Nikki's work party was outstanding. I am a big fan of the traditional Thanksgiving meal, and we did not really get that this year. We had turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, pie, mac & cheese, and some great salad (shoutout Nikki). It was pretty unbelievable, and I ate a ridiculous amount. Definitely the top meal of the week. Another meal worth mentioning that we had was this Turkish pasta dish that has been gaining popularity on social media that we had to try out. Highly recommend looking that up and giving it a shot. Both pictured below.

One Thing I Miss About the US:

I miss having a regular-sized oven. Cooking is just slightly more difficult here because our oven doubles as a microwave and is the same size as one. It is difficult to cook and bake at times because we have to use our stove for most everything. This is not specific to our apartment as well. It is very common in the Netherlands for apartments to have a convection oven. The States do it better in this regard. Thanks for reading everyone!