Only three days left until California! When members of AWT haven't longingly been checking the online 10-day forecast for Claremont, California or frantically studying for midterm exams, we've been continuing to prepare ourselves for the season's intense start. Our excitement for the upcoming spring break trip hit a new high this weekend when the unseasonably warm weather (combined with the ice-scraping and snow-shoveling efforts of Jackie and the Amherst Men's Tennis team) afforded us the rare opportunity of playing outside before April. I have never before witnessed AWT greet an early Sunday afternoon practice - on daylight savings time no less - with such eagerness as the smiling, enthusiastic, and almost glowingly-pale (thanks New England winter) group of us did this past week. As if the desire for spring break's respite from papers, test, and ever-changing cage practice times wasn't enough, the reminder of the sheer joy of playing tennis outdoors made our shared longing for the trip to sun-drenched California stronger. And, if 55 degrees and partly cloudy could elicit the type of reaction I witnessed last Sunday, I can only imagine how excited and motivated the team will be when its 75 degrees and sunny (as weather.com predicts) during our season opening match against Cornell this Sunday.

             In this unseasonably warm weather, on the indoor tennis courts at neighboring Mount Holyoke College and within the infamous cage our challenge matches were at last completed this weekend. These intense and spirited matches have re-honed our competitive mindsets which will inevitable prove invaluable in the ensuing months. Additionally, the countless hours spent on doubles are making themselves evident as each team continues to make great strides in their cooperation with, trust in, and enjoyment of one another. As Jackie wrote us in an email earlier this week in regards to our recent improvements, she has seen that the player at the baseline has been setting up her partner, the terminator (the net-player in the position to end, terminate, the point) has been putting the ball away, but we must still "remember in doubles it is always important not to get cute, stupid or bored".  Don't worry, Jackie. Point taken.

             Off the court, final preparations have been made before our 4:30 am departure from Amherst on Friday: our uniforms have (finally!) arrived, our deeply-bronzed assistant coach, Jon, has returned from his winter hiatus in Florida, and we've each been assigned a 'secret psyche' for whom to make or purchase a small gift that will psyche her up for the break. Though the gift-exchange tomorrow night will be a nice fulfillment of AWT tradition, I think it's pretty clear we hardly need any psyching.

That said, if whoever has me as her psyche happens to be reading this, I'm a big fan of dark chocolate.