They Never Said It Would Be Easy

Fall 2014

I expected my transition from community college to UCLA, short distance to long distance relationships with my friends and boyfriend, and moving to a new city to be hard, but it was a bit more difficult than I imagined. I was making new friends, especially with the other transfer students on my floor, but I really missed my swim friends, especially Casey, and I wished she was here to help me deal with my first long distance relationship.

Other than missing my friends, my boyfriend, and being a little homesick, things were going pretty well. I made new friends on my floor and my roommate was actually pretty cool. I always heard horror stories about roommates at college, but she wasn't bad at all. I don't think that we would ever be great friends or anything like that, but she was nice and she was a good roommate. She was clean and always asked me if it was okay if her boyfriend stayed the night. Her boyfriend came around pretty often, usually about once a week. It was really sweet of him and they were pretty cute together, but seeing them together all the time made me miss Colin that much more.

In order to keep my mind off of how much I missed Colin, I decided to join a club, specifically the girls water polo club team. I played in middle school, high school, and community college and thought that it would be nice to get back into something that I loved so much. During the first week of school there was an event called club rush. During club rush, all of the clubs set up a booth and have a sign up sheet to gather more members. I went directly to the girls water polo table to sign up and talk to a few of the girls on the team. They told me the play by play of how it worked. We would practice three times a week and have a tournament every other week during the fall quarter. Club water polo wasn't in season during the winter and spring quarters, but there was still practice once a week and the girls and boys liked to hang out at night and have parties on the weekends. I could not be more excited. It sounded exactly like water polo and swim at community college, so I was definitely in. Plus the girls that I talked to seemed really nice and laid back, just like me. I was sure that this would be the perfect fit for me. It would help me make some new friends and keep my mind off of Colin for a bit.

After a few weeks, I finally got settled in. I had classes Monday through Thursday, which gave me a three day weekend for water polo tournaments and to visit Colin or the girls whenever our schedules matched up. During the first month I didn't have time to visit anyone and no one had the time to visit me, but it was understandable. Everyone had to get used to their new school and new routine. Natalie and Casey also joined the club water polo team, so I knew I would run into them at tournaments. Aria decided to go for a sorority, which was pretty time consuming from what she told me, so I would probably have to wait to see her until a break. Colin also joined his school's club water polo team, so I was hoping that he would have a tournament at UCLA so I could watch and we would have an excuse to see each other.

During the fall quarter I really wanted to focus on water polo. This was something that I loved and I couldn't wait to get back into. Although I would say that I have a laid back personality, I am extremely competitive when it comes to sports and I play to win. I made it a point to never miss a practice and to be ready for all tournaments, so even though I was in college and there were parties every night, I decided that I would not drink the night before a game and try to get to sleep early.

Throughout September and October, I was focused on getting ready for our first tournament that was going to be at UCSB the weekend before Halloween. There were a solid number of teams, and I just so happened to be playing against UCSB and UCSD, which were the teams Casey and Natalie were on. They were still my best friends, but once I get in the water I will play full force against anyone, friend or not.

That morning my team got a van and started to head over to Santa Barbara. Once we got there, I quickly spotted both Natalie and Casey and ran over to meet with them. We were so excited to see each other considering we haven't been together since summer.