Dining on the Budget of a College Student

To the class of 2013, I would like to share with you a few ways to eat on a dime while enjoying your four amazing years here at ODU. Most likely you will head to college with money saved up from a summer job. As of now you have been living the good life. No bills to pay, home cooked meals, a refrigerator and pantry filled with delicious snacks and of course you cannot forget that very under appreciated weekly allowance. Well, say goodbye to your comfortable life, and welcome to the life of a college student where flex points will become your best friend. These come with your meal plan, and for most students will be gone after the first month of school, so enjoy them! A good place to spend those points, which act as money, would be Quiznos which is located in the heart of campus, the Webb Center. Of course, most students will eat their meals in the dining hall, but when you've tried everything there was on your plate and nothing satisfied you, relax! Make a trip to the village, where you can eat all the free chips you want while enjoying some delicious Mexican food at La Herradura. For those students who learned to take advantage of their new found freedom, and find themselves out into the wee hours of the morning and famished, walk on over to Del Vecchios located near Rogers Hall. Here you can enjoy some delicious pizza at only $1.25 per slice! For those daredevils who are still out past two in the morning once Del Vecchios has closed, wipe that depressed look off your face and head across the parking lot to 7 Eleven. Before college you probably only visited 7 Eleven for the Slurpees, but that life is gone. As the year passes and your bank account dwindles, always know you can get in some quality late night snacking at your local 7 Eleven. After all those late nights and your eight in the morning classes, you might find yourself exhausted. Don't worry because on ODU's campus, you will find not one but two Starbucks where you can not only get your daily caffeine fix, but enjoy some delicious salads, wraps and morning pastries as well. The best news about Starbucks is... they accept flex points as well, so go crazy! Good luck class of 2013 and I hope my map to dining on the budget of a college students helps you along in your college years! Please click to follow to my map of these excellent locations here on campus!

Reflection

It's the end of the year and looking back I thought I did a pretty good job at covering not only Club Tennis but Varsity Tennis as well at ODU. The only problem is, when I looked back to my introduction post, I realized I followed a different route than what I had originally planned. My original goal was to make sure the university did a better job at advertising club sports. I was also very biased, my intention was to cover many club sports, instead I mainly covered tennis since it was my own sport and area of interest. I wish that I would followed my original plan a little more closely and posted more about other sports other than just tennis. Overall though, I think my coverage of tennis was fairly good and I am happy with my end results. I really did learn a lot this semester. On my first day of class, I was completely overwhelmed since I had never done anything like this before. I learned so much about blogger, flickr, and Google maps this semester. I am thrilled that I took this class and am I excited to continue using this technology later on.

The End of the Season For Club Tennis

Last Thursday, in Webb Center, was the banquet for all Club Sports at ODU. Each team was given the opportunity to vote for their male and female athlete of the year. This year we selected Sean Ryefield as male athlete of the year. He was the behind the scene guy! He organized not only the entire team, but all matches and practice times. He really gave us a great year! Our female athlete of the year was our number one girls player, Nathalia Esteves, who has given every guy on the team a run for their money! Overall, it was a great season for all of the Club Tennis members!

CAA Tournament Results

The ODU Men's Tennis Team battled hard in their semifinal match after defeating Delaware earlier that weekend. Their semifinal match was verse the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The match began with ODU winning the doubles point. Then the singles began and ODU quickly won their number one single's match putting the score at ODU 2 and UNCW 0. However, as the players battled on, the score came to ODU 3 and UNCW 3. The only player remaining on the court was number three singles player, Matt Fawcett. Fawcett barely fell in the close third set to the number three, UNCW player, giving UNCW the overall win of 4-3. It was a devasting lost that echoed through the crowd after such a close match, but overall we were very proud of the excellent season the Monarchs had. The number one doubles team from ODU will still continue their season, and we wish them the best of luck at Texas AM when they compete in their final tournament together as a doubles team.

Men and Women's CAA Tournament

This is the first time Old Dominion University has been privileged enough to host the CAA tournament. This is a huge opportunity for both the Men and Women's Teams. The first Men's match will be at 9:00 AM at the Folkes Stevens Indoor Facility here on campus. The following day they will play again at 1:00 PM. Donuts and coffee will be offered to anyone who comes to cheer on the Monarchs on Friday morning. The Lady Monarchs are still awaiting their match times. I will be posting additional pictures to the ones already posted to my flickr account after the conclusion of this weekends matches and you can check out my google maps to find the directs to the tennis facility. Please be sure to put on your ODU attire and come support the Monarchs as they host their first ever CAA tournament!



Men's #1 Singles Player

To your right, I have posted links to my flikr account as well as my google map. This may interest you because on my maps, you can find the directions to the various locations I have posted about. Also, on my flickr account, you will be given the opportunity to look at all of the pictures I have taken throughout the semester relating to my topic that may not be on my blog.

ODU vs. VT vs. WFU

On April 25th, the boys and girls club tennis team will travel to Blacksburg, VA for a double header match versus Virginia Tech as well as Wake Forest University. It will follow the Davis Cup rules since there is so much tennis to be played in just one day. We will play in a world team tennis format which is, one girls singles, one boys singles, one girls doubles, one boys doubles, and then one mixed doubles. This format puts a lot of stress on the player, we all know that each game now matters as opposed to in a traditional match where we focus on winning the set. Within this format, at the end of the match, all the game scores are tallied and the team with the most games at the end of the day wins the match. Throughout this season, the monarchs have stirred up quite the rivalry between themselves and the Hokies. As a member of the team, I can speak for us all when I say we are really looking forward at a chance for revenge after we lost to them in sectionals in a match tie breaker. That match could not have been closer and we are really looking to redeem ourselves next time. As for Wake Forest University, we have never had to face them in a tournament so we are left very unsure of their abilities on the tennis court. Overall, our main focus is beating VT, if we win against WFU, great, if not we will not be left to upset about it!


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March Madness

For most guys, "It's Christmastime!" according to John Parker. This is what he looks forward to all year. The NCAA tournament gives many young college students a good excuse to take a break from the class work and glue themselves to the television impatiently watching each game to see how successful or unsuccessful their brackets are. However, Parker reminded me, " There's all this talk about bad brackets, but that's why its March Madness. It is actually hard to make a bad bracket because that would entail making picks that never or rarely win, such as the the sixteen, fifteen, or fourteenth seeds. Other than that there are any number of upsets that are difficult to pick. There are so many unknowns in a basketball game that it's ignorant to call someones bracket bad if they've gone out on a limb and picked some upsets that are bound to happen somewhere." I must admit, hearing Parker discuss this talk of bad brackets put my mind at ease after viewing the results of my own tournament bracket. At the conclusion of this upcoming weekend, the tournament will only have their final four remaining after the sweet sixteen and elite eight have battled out their games. Which then leads into the games Parker waits for all year, which is the following weekend. On April 4, the final four teams will be given one last chance to prove themselves before only two of those teams advance to the championship game on April 6. Below is the location where the final four teams will compete in Detroit, Michigan.


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Sectionals for Club Tennis

This weekend, we attended Sectionals, a tournament hosted by the USTA (United States Tennis Association), where eighteen other club tennis teams were competing as well. Our first match began Saturday at 10 AM. We walked in a little early like most teams to register, but this being our first year as a club team, we quickly learned that we did not have the best reputation. We over heard many teams saying, ODU was expected to be the worst team at the tournament. We were however, convinced to prove them wrong. After a long day of competition we found ourselves in the top eight, which put us in the Gold Bracket going into day two. The remainder of the teams who had not been as successful were placed in the silver and bronze brackets. Our second match was against the number two seed, Virginia Tech, who we had beaten in the past. We found ourselves quite worn out and not playing our best as the match began. However, at the end of the match the overall score was tied dead even. A rare occurance at these tournaments. The officials decided to play a tiebreaker for the match. We lost 7-4 in the tiebreaker, a heartbreaking loss. Overall we finished seventh at sectionals, but as a team coming in with little to no expectations we were very pleased. We know that we could have done better, but there is always next year as well as the remainder of this season to prove ourselves!

This is Nathalia serving it up against UVA. Her doubles partner, me, as well as herself play number one for our club team. Unfortunately our luck had run out in this match as we fell to UVA with a loss of 8-3. Ironically both of us faced our high school rivals during this match. No matter how far away from home you go, it seems you can never escape your rivals.

These girls hold spots one through four for the girls on the Old Dominion Club Team. Our number one player starting on the right is Nathalia, following her at number two is myself, the number three position is help by Candance, and lastly our number four player is Felicia. We are the quiter half of the team compared to our boys but we get the job done!

slideshow

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34346692@N03/sets/72157613934934276/

Club Tennis

This weekend, the ODU Club Tennis team started off their season with a double-header vs the University of Virginia and William and Mary. UVA is well known for their infamous club team and left us feeling a little worried especially after our loss to them last fall. However, this time was different! Maybe it was our delicious pancake breakfast, our teammates cheering us on, or simply our practice paying off, but we managed to defeat one of the top teams in the state! It felt great to defeat a team that walked onto our home courts so confident that they played in pajama pants. This win was a big one for us definitely building our confidence for our upcoming sectionals tournament next weekend! Immediately following our match UVA went onto defeat W&M in a close match with an overall score of 24-17. Unfortunately when it was our turn to play against against W&M, perhaps it was the fact that will were still celebrating our victory over UVA, but we did lose to them! However, nothing could ruin our excitement for that day! Defeating UVA was a big task for us, and as our first match of the season we were very pleased and left very optimistic for the remainder of the season!

Carrie's Opinion on WCS

When speaking with Carrie Hopkins, a past member of the ODU Women's Club Soccer Team (WCS), she was able to tell me both the positive and negatives to soccer and club sports in general. She agreed that club sports are an excellent oppurtunity for students to participate in physical activities on campus, especially if they are unable or unwilling to play at the varsity level. She believed a major downside to WCS was that they did have to make cuts to the team, which she believed to only be a negative aspect to the team. Disregarding the negatives, she still had many wonderful things to add about club soccer at ODU. She thought they had wonderful practice schedules and a great ability to teach old and new comers the game. Overall, she seemed pleased that ODU offered so many club sports at ODU (around twenty) because it provides so many students with the oppurtunity to get out and become involved with other members of the student body.

Club Tennis

Two weeks ago the club tennis team began their season again with practices. After some time conflicts during the first week, we finally have our practice schedules down. Our next two weekend are going to be busy ones. On February 15th, we not only take on our toughest competition UVa, but immediately following the match we will play William and Mary as well. That following weekend, we will be traveling to compete against sixteen other university's club tennis teams in Maryland for the sectionals tournament. We can expect the competition to be tough, but we are very optimistic and going into it with a positive attitude!

Men's Varsity ODU Tennis Updates

This past weekend, the ODU men’s tennis team was busy with their three matches in a course of two days. Their weekend opened with a match on Friday afternoon against James Madison University. JMU traveled to play the Monarchs, but were left wondering if the drive was worth it after they lost to ODU in a score of 7-0. Following that match, Saturday morning, they took the court again to play a tough match against Elon University. The match lasted a little over four hours and came down to a tie match with the overall score of 3-3. The only match still on court was the number one player from both Universities. Aleksandr Seleznez, a senior at ODU, battled hard, going into a third set. He eventually lost, leaving the monarchs with a loss to Elon University with a final score of 3-4. However, after a short break, they once again took the court later that day in a competition against Howard University at five. Howard did not pose as a challenge to the Monarchs after they defeated them with a score of 7-0. Congratulations to their head coach Darryl Cummings, Assistant Coach Dominic Manilla, and the Volunteer Assistant Coach, John Brinkman on a great weekend for their team.

Responding to a related blog

Tessa Darrow, a junior at ODU, also plays a club sport which she blogs about. She is on the club team, and I found this information on her site:

"Last night was the first practice of the season for the ODU Lady’s Soccer Club Team. For all those who do not know, ODU has around 20 different sport clubs on campus. (This doesn’t include our 16 varsity sport teams.) I have been playing on this team since the fall season of my freshman year. Though, I have been playing soccer since I was able to walk. I am a middle fielder, but also enjoy playing stopper and full-back. Our club team is very similar to a high school team. We practice just about everyday and our team plays other college women’s club teams, including VT, W&M, UNCW, UR, etc. Either we travel to the various colleges for games, or they travel to ODU to play us on our home field. It is a lot of fun both ways. When we are not playing soccer, our team likes to have bonding time. We will have pasta dinners, sleepovers, and etc. Our girls make up a pretty close team, which helps us to play as a team."

I really liked this blog because I could relate it to our club tennis team. Our team is Co-Ed and fortunate enough to have both indoor and outdoor facilities to practice at to avoid the cold or soak up the sun rays! We often travel or have the same teams travel to us as the girls soccer team, all providing us with the exciting chance to show off our abilities and compete against other schools! We too have bonding time outside of practice, and sometimes we find ourselves having so much fun together, our practice time turns into us circling up in the center of the court just to chat for that ten minute break that sometimes turns into a rather extended break! Club teams at ODU really do offer all students a great oppurtunity to get involved and make some great friends while playing a sport they really enjoy!

To read more about Tessa Darrow's Club soccer experience, you can follow this link to her blog:

http://blogs.targetx.com/odu/TessaDarrow/2008/01/

La Herradura

This location is a very popular spot for the college youth to enjoy delicious Mexican food. However, as soon as the sunsets, the margaritas come out! It is also a late night bar frequented by many college students. On Halloween in may be know for its more than popular costume contest. It is located in the village and has very fitting decor. If you are craving some Mexican cuisine follow this link for a map and enjoy!

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=117291360318439116375.00046101785eaf15662d4&ll=36.883766,-76.30198&spn=0.001004,0.001625&z=19

Club Sports in College

Hey everyone! I am a junior at Old Dominion University and for those of us who wish to continue to play sports in college, not at the varsity level, the only option is a club team. I am on the club tennis team where we fund ourselves with the exception of our court time, which the tennis director is very willing to help in any way possible. I believe that the university should take a greater interest in sponsoring and getting a greater number of the student body involved in club sports. Perhaps if the university had a faculty member in charge of organizing all club sports and promoting them, we would have more of a turn out from the students at Old Dominion University. I was doing some research one day on the amazing new tennis facility when I stumbled upon some information about the club tennis team. After two years at ODU, I never knew it existed and found it by chance. I really think this information should be more accessible to the students!
Along with reporting on club sports, since I am often at the tennis center, I will be keeping you up to date on the varsity men's tennis team!