Sunset over West University Boulevard

Tennis:

Since the end of September until the end of October, we entered the competition time f the fall season. Basically, most of our competition was played individually rather than in a team. The goal of this season was to test the team to estimate where we are at and what could be practice to improve the overall level of the team. We traveled about four weekends. One first in Plano, TX where I played 5 matches, three wins, and two losses. Then the week after we were heading to Fort Smith, AK to play a team match against a relatively weak team. I did not play any match this meeting and the team won 9-0. The girl's team lost 2-7 against the opponent. Then, we traveled to Tulsa, OK to play a tournament with four other different opponents. Among that one was one of the richest and biggest Universities in Oklahoma, a Division 1 university. I lost in a tight match against an Italian player. I played by far the best match ever since I came in the USA. The weekend after, we traveled to Arkansas again to play the conference tournament. I played three matches, one win for two losses. The last competition of the fall season took place in Springfield, MR, but because of the very expensive price of the competition, only six people were traveling and I was not among those ones. Overall, I am still not happy with my tennis level, but I am really happy to have been able to play several matches and to have brought my first win in the United States.

Classes:

My exceptionally high load of classes (7) made me worry about the coming semester. My advisor told me that only a few students were able to handle such an overload and, in addition of that, I am international and I am an athlete. She was even more worried about some of my classes that are considered some of the most difficult of my major. Finally, I managed really good my time and succeed in my goal of keeping my GPA perfect with a 4.0. That high GPA allows me to apply for a couple of scholarship for the two next semester. Hopefully, that will helps me reduce the cost of the studies.

Life in the house:

A lot of stuff happened in the house during this semester. Some drama was also among the event that occurred. One of our roommate, the Israelian one, was arrested by the cops and convicted of dealing marijuana. He went to jail, was fired from the University, his visa canceled and was finally deported back home. Because of that, all the roommate had to take a drug test to make sure we were not involved in that kind of business. In addition, we had to meet with our coach to make sure that we were safe. In fact, it appears that the drugs stories here in Oklahoma often ended up with wounded people, because of the way use of firearms. We were even advice to move to another house to make sure we were not involved in it. Finally, it was alright and none of us was taken to court or anything of that kind.

A couple of weeks after, during one party at the house, one of the underaged players of the tennis team fell against a wall and was bleeding from his head. Because of the quantity of blood and of his high level of alcohol in his blood, we called the Emergency services that came and took him to hospital. Fortunately, that player had a health insurance and he did not have to pay for any of the medical cost induce by that incident.

The last major event that happened during this semester was, after the last party of the semester some underaged girl that drink at our place went back to the dorms on the campus, but she was so drunk that she was unable to make it through the stairs to go back to her room. Consequently, the police came to see why somebody was sleeping outside of the dorms. Se was then interviewed and she admitted that she came to our place to drink before. Because of that the police officer wrote a note for the director of student conduct and we were required to go to meet him and talk to him. Finally, we received a warning about that incident. The funniest part of that incident is that I was no more in town, or in my house when that happened. I already left for New-York, but I am still held responsible for it.

Also during this semester, I was lucky enough to travel twice to two major cities of the United States, those travels and the pictures are going to be shown in another post on this blog.

To conclude. I would say that this semester was tenniswise and schoolwise much better than the previous one. The overall price of my classes were much cheaper as well. But, the tail side is everything that happen in the house and all the issues we had with the police, the Director of Student affairs and the neighbour.

tennis-fall 2017