There is one thing I am familiar with, and that is travel. As a team we probably are on the road - driving or flying - at least once a week during the season. It has gotten to the point where I have a painfully specific list of things I need to pack - travel pillow, hooded sweatshirt and sewing kit, because you never really know when you'll need a needle. I can be ready for an away game in less than four minutes, and that's a difficult talent to hone. I've considered offering classes. Please, send me an e-mail if you're interested.
Bus trips are perhaps my favorite and least favorite travel experience. Strange, I know. But the bus can mean several things: hours of productivity as we rumble down the highway, or aching knees and necks from attempting to sleep in a bus seat when you're 6 feet 3 inches tall. Usually it ends in a sick combination of the two for me, some homework lovingly decorated with crusty drool during my nap and a pain in my neck from leaning too far forward in the seat. Sometimes we watch a movie. I cross my fingers that it is not the latest rom-com of the week, and I rejoice if it isn't. What's more fun than communal viewing? Everyone can make sassy comments about the outfits together. Or, if we watch "Inception" like we did on the way to the ACC Tournament, we can make pseudo-intelligent comments about the wonderful writing and breathtaking cinematography. A prize to who can use the most four syllable words without checking a dictionary.
I find plane rides to be too short. Our longest flight is about two hours to Miami, and the other awkward times - like the 30 minute flight we once took to North Carolina - leave me feeling unsatisfied and disorganized. The plane, akin to a library for me, is thus treated to my usual library routine. Waste 10 or 15 minutes looking around and obnoxiously hitting whoever got stuck next to me, followed by another five or so minutes organizing my backpack into a manner that suits me. As we are on a plane, I omit the 10 minutes spent getting a coffee I probably don't have the money for. But an additional 10 can be figured in for watching the people below us turn into ants. Finally, I take out my planner and write down in oddly specific detail all of my assignments. This can take another three to four minutes. At this point I will debate for a few seconds which assignment to begin, and then the plane hits the runway. You see my problem.
I also love away games because they generally feel like a vacation. A few blissful hours in a Marriott bed and I forget that I am a University student with enough reading to start a very large fire in a trash can or to crush a scary spider if dropped from high enough. Although we do have very little free time on these trips, I find myself napping instead of being productive with the two hours we may have to sit in our rooms. I have a sleep problem, what can I say. Schoolwork: out of sight, out of mind.
This usually results in a panicked ride back from the game, with me squealing to anyone who will listen how much homework I have to do - no one ever listens - and staying up until 2 a.m. upon arrival trying to do my reading. Around this time, I start making Facebook statuses about teachers who think their classes are the only important ones and how very angry they make me, down to my poor, exhausted student core. Yes, sometimes I do treat my Facebook statuses like poetry, and perhaps this is why I never get any work done. I've got to keep the status-reading masses happy. The point is, away games, although I treat them like mini vacations, are not ones. I should be learning my lesson by now. But there is something about hearing we're taking a bus that makes me smile every time.
Simone's column runs biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at s.egwu@cavalierdaily.com.
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