Oct. 15, 2004

Dear Diary -

Another week comes and goes. The out of state trip to Nicholls and Southeastern was long and RAINY. I have never seen that much rain in my life - no joke and I think anyone on the team would attest to that. Disaster struck immediately when leaving the airport, a wrong turn was made. I won't name names...but let me just say vans 2 and 3 were pretty much left in the dust. Well, not thinking too much of it both drivers simply decided to get off the highway at the next exit. A mile went by and no exit...then another mile...then another...then another....Turns out there is this bridge in Louisiana that stretches longer than God could have ever imagined. Looking out all we could see was marsh and a never ending road with no way out. We were trapped on a highway with no escape and the rain...oh the rain...never stopping. There weren't even any alligators visible to keep us entertained. After oh I don't know, probably THIRTY minutes driving at fairly high speed, we saw -- could it be???? A stop in the rain?????? NO, but there was an exit. So we get off the highway and up ahead the road is covered and there is a small car stopped in water I don't want to know how deep. Our van pulls up to Erin's and she has a frantic look on her face saying there is no way we are going through there. I have to say it was quite comical. So, there is only one option -- reversing (literally) and getting back on the highway. Back we are on the road with no end. Well, to make a long story short we eventually found another exit and made our way back to find van 1. So we did make it ok but there was a huge detour of about an hour. We arrived in New Orleans on Friday and we left Sunday. It NEVER stopped raining. Yes, there was an occasional change in precipitation sometimes pouring sometimes misting...but there was never an absence of water in the air. You are probably wondering if there was ever any volleyball in any of this almost biblical torrential rainfall and indeed there was. Nicholls was a rough game, but we pulled it out in the end. The Southeastern match went a lot more smoothly and ended in just three games.

This weekend coming up is HUGE. We finally get to play our big rival Texas State at home. The icing on the cake is that we are currently tied with them for first in the Southland so it should be an intense, emotional game. Saturday we face UT-San Antonio who we have not seen yet this year. I'm excited to be at home again in Texas Hall and I hope a lot of students and fans make it out to the match.

In conclusion I just want to say thanks to everyone who is keeping up with the diary. I enjoy hearing your comments and talking with you about it. I also want to make a plea to the student council of UTA and ask them to not change the hand symbol for the school. It has a long tradition and I know of other schools in our conference who have the proposed "new sign." Most of all, a change in symbols would totally undermine the volleyball team's whole "love to buck `em" thing. So I guess that's my political plug for this week. Check in next week for an update.

- #6 Ellen Murray

GO MAVS!!!!