Deja vu

This morning I found myself leaving for class in blue & gold adidas warm-ups pulled over a pair of STX mesh shorts and a golden bears gray hoodie pulled over a t-shirt. If you knew me during my first two years of college, you would have seen me in this exact outfit every single day. (I am not exaggerating here - I think I only wore jeans and 'normal clothes' maybe 2 times that 2 year span. I remember when I actually went home to change and shower before going to meeting for all c groups on campus, and a 'pretty' girl - you know, the ones who somehow look stylish and all made up even if they show up to class in sweats? - in one of my classes saw me and her jaw about fell to the ground just before she managed to squeak out a 'wow, you look nice')

The only thing I was missing this morning was a stick bag slung over my shoulder. I had a friend in college who, before I actually met him, knew me as the girl he saw walking down telegraph or through sproul plaza wearing warm-ups and a hoodie with a stick bag slung over her shoulder everytime he looked out his dorm window. Apparently even if you didn't know me in college, you still would've seen me in that outfit.

Those first two years at Berkeley I was somehow what I guess you could call a college athlete. By college athlete I mean that I had a coach, teammates, and went to practice everyday - but I've never considered myself to be 'athletic' or even 'coordinated' by any means. Ask Bryan. He laughs at me often. When I try to park the scooter. When I'm walking down the street and (routinely) trip for absolutely no reason at all. Throw something at me and watch me not catch it. Or even better, watch me try to throw a baseball - straight into the ground.

To this day, I'm still not sure how I ended up getting to 'play' lacrosse for a D-I program (I say 'play' because I didn't actually ever see any playing time). It might have had something to do with the fact that the program was brand new and that all the other girls on the team didn't even know how to play before they got to college. And so when a girl from Long Island (one of the two well-known breeding grounds for lacrosse players in the US) came stumbling into the coach's office one day, she decided to recruit her without ever even seeing her play. But alas, I digress.

Back to why I was wearing that outfit everyday. My dorm was a mile away from the closest corner of campus (good ole clark kerr...), and so whether I had practice in the morning or in the afternoon, I didn't really have time to make the walk back and forth to change, so I just wore my practice stuff and carried my sticks with me to class and everywhere else I went before going back to the dorm at night...(yes, back in those days I was, believe it or not, even more insane about schedule...not only did I think I didn't have time to go back to change or even shower, I would also not eat meals or sleep because I deemed those as 'time wasters' so that I could be more productive with my time...but that is another story for another time).

And so when I found myself wearing that outfit again this morning, I couldn't shake the feeling of what I've been realizing for the past couple of weeks now: that somehow I am a college athlete...again. And once again, I am not quite sure how this happened. Two and a half weeks ago, I signed up for a 1.5 hour volleyball class 3x/week so that I could get a cheap visa, get some exercise, and meet some new friends. Or so I thought.

When I was enrolling, the head of the international students department told me, and I quote, "you will be practicing with the team." Practicing? Team? Huh? That should have been the first clue. The second was upon arriving at my first class two weeks ago, when I was promptly introduced to the 'teacher', who introduced me to the two team captains. I was told to give them my phone number so that they could let me know when practice was. Ahem. What? Team captains? Practice? The third clue was when I got a text message from one of the captains before my second class - I mean practice - and she said that all team members had to be at practice 20 minutes early every time, by coach's order. Somehow a 1.5 hour class 3x/week just turned into a 2 hour practice with team members and captains and a coach. Hmmm. Well if it looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, and walks like a duck, by golly I think it IS a duck. And this morning I felt like that duck, all decked out in my staple 'college athlete' outfit - minus the stick bag.