LEARN from yesterday, LIVE for today, HOPE for tomorrow!

Priviet Everyone! Russian for Hello :^)

2011 is here and by God's grace it's going to be another amazing year for me! I am so thankful that I have made it to see 23 and soon 24 :) my birthday is right around the corner. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about New Years resolutions and setting goals for this year, but I still haven't written anything down, I don't know why but I haven't been able to pin point a list of things that I want to change about myself or my life so instead I've just been mulling over what really matters to me.This is what I came up with...

Health for one, and my spirit for the other. This year I would really like to read the bible from beginning to end! Yet for a good week everytime I thought about reading my bible I'd google how to read the bible but never actually picked it up lol so I bookmarked a great website on the best way to read it and I finally began! I am starting with Mathew and working my way through the new testament and then back to genesis and a hop and skip through proverbs then back again towards the beginning. I have a teenage bible that my dad gave to me once and I really like the way it is set up with side notes on what is going on in the passages and it's easier to read than a bible you'd find in church. So wish me luck and I will keep you posted later on how my readings are going and the progress I'm making on this!

And what I'm reading for fun...

As for Health, I am already relatively healthy, I'd say being a professional Athlete this is a must (and that in Azerbaijan there isn't Taco Bell) but there are things that I would like to change for the better. The biggest thing is I would love to be more flexible! I've heard that it helps with decreasing injuries, keeping your body in better shape and that you can jump higher, but for anyone that knows me I'd rather pull off my own finger nail than stretch!!! I hate stretching with a passion, because thanks to my parents impeccable genes I am ridiculously inflexible like a steel pole! So if this is something I legitimately want to change about myself I'm gonna need some serious help from someone, haha and it's not only gonna be a workout for me to stretch but for the person stretching me! In order to accomplish this I'm going to look up some videos on youtube for stretching and also make sure that I take time after practice to use my trainer so that she can stretch me because the worst part is my hamstrings so if I can loosen those bad boys up I'll be fabulous!

Me in 2012

I've got a lot of amazing plans for 2011 and I'm really really excited about them. Once this season is over which should be the end of April I am going to meet my family in Greece !! :) I officially bought my ticket just last week and  I am super excited! While I'm in Greece my best friend Judy aka Stephanie Neville is going to fly over from Canada and meet me there! We are then going to proceed on our very first backpacking track through EUROPE! EUROTRIP 2011 JORDS AND JUDES! I'm so happy that we are actually going to do this! After we leave Greece we will to take a Ferry over to Italy and work our way up and around Europe Italy-Switzerland-France-Germany-Netherlands and then I will fly home from Amsterdam and visit my dad in Portland and see some of my friends around the United States. I may work volleyball camps around the Northwest or go to California and stay with my bestie CC aka Caitlin Zimbrick and work as a personal trainer for a couple months and train myself while I am there. I would love to play some beach volleyball and get some sun before I head back overseas.

Backpack that I'm going to buy for EUROTRIP 2011

Monkey I held in the Park :)

Speaking of CC she is going to bless me with her presence her in Azerbaijan!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am very very happy that she is coming to visit me it's going to be so amazing having her here I miss her and I haven't gotten to spend that much time with her since I left Corvallis Oregon which was in 2005! She is going to stay for about three weeks in this time her and I are going to workout and hangout :) It will be so great to have my friend here! I miss home and this is just what I needed. She'll bring starbucks coffee and some workout videos...that's truly all you need in life lol! So CC will be here towards the end of February and as soon as she books her flight I will start a Facebook countdown!

                                                       Caitlin and I Soon to Be REUNITED!

I would like to plan a vacation every year for when my volleyball season is finished, next year I want to see the great wall of China and the Pyramids of Egypt. Hopefully every season I will be able to see one of the seven wonders of the world! I am young and free now, so it's the perfect time to travel and experience different places and cultures. Being over here has already taught me so many things. I appreciate the little stuff more. Such as milk that is actually kept in the fridge at the market not in a box in the middle of the aisles, the non smoking laws in the US, being able to buy everything at once place like Walmart they don't really have stores like that here. I miss drive throughs like taco bell lol but also I've learned that you can be any where in the world and travel as many places as you'd like but what really matters is that you find happiness within, because if I wasn't happy I wouldn't be able to do this. Live so far away from my family and friends here in a city that looks/feels like it was hit by an atomic bomb two years ago and living in a place where I can't understand anything when it comes to talking or even reading the labels on shampoo. I am internally happy though and I have the best support system ever my friends are amazing and my family is even better!

Nights out with Teammates :)

Flaming SHOTS!

Now for the part about volleyball...

There have been a lot of ups and downs since I've gotten to Baku. Lately volleyball has held a lot of questions for me. There are rumors that our team is going to merge with another club here in Baku called Baki and that we don't have the finances to keep Shirvan my club running. I never know what is the truth and what is gossip so I asked my agent what he knew about these things and also the director of the club. My agent Nejat told me that he heard that this is true that the clubs may be joining together. That's when I fired at him like three thousand questions, "Should I start to look for another club, could I go to Puerto Rico, when will this happen, what should I do??!?" And his short and sweet response to all of this was "Darling don't worry all will be ok, people are not stupid to not see you can play volleyball." Lol that was it! So being he is Turkish and English is not his first language I just told him ok. He did make a valid point though and said that my contract is legit that my transfer has been paid for (they have to pay USA volleyball to allow me to play here) and that I am playing well and performing good so if there is a merger I will most definitely be on the new team. That made me feel better and also I know that my agent and my coach are really good friends and that this would work in my favor in this situation.

We had our first match of the second round on the 18th and we lost. Even though we lost I played great this game I had a lot of kills and blocks and I started jump serving which coach is really happy about! I've been feeling really good about my choice in a career lately, I know that if I keep working my ass off I am only going to continue getting better and hopefully...God willing without injuries, make a name for myself in the professional world of volleyball and perhaps even one day tryout for the USA national team!

I recently started hanging out with two girls from another club here, Jana and JJ. We went to the Ballet called Swan Lake and I had an amazing time the orchestra sealed my idea of wanting to learn how to play the violin! That will be my goal for another year as for right now I am still working on the guitar. Ok, back to my new friends...JJ is a middle blocker like me and she is our national team captain and is 28 years old and in great shape and going strong so it gives me hope that I too can play for USA one day. Maybe next year I will go to the tryouts :) We will see.

I have some good news in my first blogs I told you that my coach wasn't the kindest and that he shared with me my weaknesses as a volleyball player freely and daily. Well yesterday at lunch he definitely ate those words and I'm sure they tasted so sweet lol :). I was speaking to Adnan, my coach, about Mira one of my friends and her possible transfer here, when he told me that he would love for me to come back to play for him next year if I would like to? But to please keep this a secret as he doesn't want the other girls to know that he asked me this...So The first thing that popped into my head was "Is he FREAKING kidding me?!?! Why would I ever play for you again?!" But then my little smart sensor in my brain went off and I realized that burning bridges isn't a good idea and I actually said "Ok, yes maybe I will come here next year I would like to play here again, but we will just have to see." So I have been feeling very happy today you might even call it a slight gloat, about him asking me to play for him next year. Because it just goes to show that he realizes he was oh so wrong when he told me I was too short and not good enough to play professionally!!! This isn't the first time I've been told I couldn't make it and I know it won't be the last...but I'll never say die. :)

TONS OF LOVE MISS YOU ALL!

JORDANA PRICE #12

New Years' round the Corner!

Feliz Navidad!

Merry Christmas Everyone! I am hoping that your Christmas' were all that you wished them to be...
Mine was great, I could say it wasn't what I had hoped it to be but when I think back now it really was a fabulous day...to start it off I woke up at 1 p.m. :) and that was by alarm mind you haha. I needed at least two hours to whip up some famous Idaho(sub Azer) Mashed Potaoes, by the time I finished these my wrist felt like it was going to fall off cause first of all I did NOT have a potato peeler which wasn't too bad I used a knife and got the job done but second of all I didn't have a whisk or a stirring spoon. Lol

Maua and her family had come to raid my place the night before taking all the cups spoons, forks, plates, pots, and cooking utensils I had in preparation for cooking Christmas dinner at her place. So at the time I wasn't thinking about stirring my mashed potatoes and I ended up having to use a spatula that had holes in it and I would push it down onto the taters so they could squeeze through the little holes and hopefully become a tid bit less chunky. All in all it ended up working...a few hours of stirring, sweat and sore wrists later and from what I was told that they turned out great! :) They are pictured below on the left along with the deviled eggs I made for them and everyone really liked those cause they ate them all therefore, they must have been ok...

As for Christmas dinner and the food they served, It was completely different than most dishes I've had during the holidays, but delicious none the less...first we had salad with soup(zoop they say) and both were great the soup tasted like a mix of cream of mushroom with bacon and basil. And the salad was normal except there were pickles added. For second course they brought out baked chicken, mashed potatoes,  these crepes that are folded and stuffed with mushrooms and a type of cream sauce and some bash which is a drink that is served to go along with the dinner. It tastes like sweet and sour sauce and wine! I like this and then for our third course I finished mixing up the deviled eggs so those were served along with a tray full of polish meats and tomatoes with onions and seasonings.

Throughout the entire meal Marchin, Maua's boyfriend that lives with her, did the honors of pouring vodka shots for all of us, we probably took around 6 but I never felt a thing lol I'm pretty sure it's due to the mass amounts of food I was consuming...but keep in mind I woke up at 1 pm so I hadn't had breakfast! (little self justification "for me") I had a great time talking to her family, her parents don't speak any English so Maua would translate for us, but Zaur the director of our club and Shine came to dinner too. I had a lot of fun sitting next to Zaur he is really funny once he starts talking or drinking maybe that was it lol, but he told me a lot of stories from his previous years working for the volleyball federation. Also Zaur kept joking with me because as a team we all pulled secret santas out of a hat and I happened to be the insanely lucky one that chose my coach Adnan, and Zaur thinks it's so hilarious and keeps sarcastically asking me if I've bought him anything yet!?! Ha I was horrified when I pulled Adnan's name out I have NO IDEA WHAT TO BUY THAT MAN! So if anyone has any good ideas please please please feel free to facebook me and let me know the only thing I know is that he likes vodka and cigarettes and both don't seem too appropriate...I was thinking about a gift card to Traveler's cafe because it is right across the street from the federation and I know he drinks coffee, so most likely that's where I'll end up buying my favorite coach his Christmas gift. ;)

Oh and the picture below is of Polish Cake that Maua's mom brings with her for every holiday no matter if she is coming to Baku or the USA she lugs it along to celebrate it's her tradition and it is very good! Maua said it's made with something like 40 eggs and the cake is spinning on a machine like a pottery wheel and they are pouring the batter so that's how it looks like that! The next picture is my present from Maua she brought me Polish coffee and chocolate! :)

 Once Christmas dinner was over I thanked her family dearly and excused myself to my home upstairs so that I could skype with my family. For a couple days before we have been planning on me being there with them on Christmas morning to open presents via skype so I was really excited to do that. I called my mom and she answered along with the rest of the household and after a while they all nestled down to open presents I couldn't see everything they got but the presents I did see were great and all of the family was happy! I took the time while they were distracted by christmas going ons to ELF my family which if you don't know how it works you go to this website and cut and crop the faces of your family or friends and it will generate a dance of elves with photo shopped faces of whom you chose. It was hilarious I shared the link with my mom, brother sis, step dad, step sis and step brother and watching their reactions via webcam was so priceless I even cropped my dog Curly's head onto one of the elf's bodies LOL!!! I was laughing so hard when I watched it myself...if you're my facebook friend the link is on my wall for Christmas day please go watch it if you're looking for a good laugh!

Once Christmas was over Idaho time, I said bye to everyone and by this point it was 130am for me. I decided to watch some Grey's anatomy until I felt sleepy, since I purchased the entire season six a couple days ago for ONLY drum roll........dun dun dun 20 monet!!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSS :) just a little excited bout that one if you didn't notice lol, and so I popped the dvd into my computer which mind you was connected to my flat screen LG tv via a fancy little cord I purchased so I can watch my dvd's on the big screen now!!! Another very exciting deal for 10 monets...I always am proud of myself whenever I am techno savey and it actually ends up being a success...soooo now I don't have to buy a dvd player that I won't be able to take home since my bags have to weigh so little. Back to Greys...I ended up accidentally watching a whole disc worth which is about 3 hours whoopsies...and then by that time it was about 4am and  Grey's concluded my Christmas 2010!!!!

Today the 26th of December, I woke up at 2pm :) since I went to bed so late you know...right after I woke up Maua called me and asked if I would like to go to the city center with her and the fam. I said "Yep, I'd love to!" Then showered and got ready in the alotted 25 minutes...wellllll 32, to be truthful. I went downstairs to meet everyone and we walked to the bus stop which is about 3 minutes from our apartment, I am really trying to comprehend the bus routes/numbers since it's ridiculously cheap to ride the bus it costs 20 of their cents, which is called something like khopak, as compared to a 5 monet cab ride which is about 6.20 USD. But I get nervous bout the bus because they don't wait for you! It's like a moving jump on if you can make it system and I'm not sure when it stops or where it stops all the time or if it's gonna end up taking me across the city and being my Russian stinks, aka is non existent, I don't thing that's an adventure I'm willing partake on, alone, quite yet....

We had a little misjudgement about the bus today to add to my weariness and ended up walking half the way there which wasn't bad becaue I love seeing the city and by foot it's easy to take pics, we stopped at one of my favorite parks where there is a beautiful fountain and I took some pics. There was a dog there with a Santa's hat on lol it was so cute. I asked why they celebrate Santa here and Christmas trees with lights if they dont' believe in Christmas the actual date, and the response was, the people here in Azerbaijan associate Santa Clause and Christmas lights/trees with New Years it doesn't mean Christmas to them it means New Year's is coming. I guess that makes sense to me, either way I am just grateful they have Santas around here cause it made the holidays feel a little more homey for me. :)

Inside the City Center I took a lot of great pictures of the lights and we took Maua's parents to eat at our favorite place La Baguette! The food is amazing and so cheap, the first month I lived here I spent almost every night at La Baguette because they have free wifi and I could talk to my family and friends, when I didn't have internet in my terrible first apartment! So it's kinda like a second home to Maua and I because we know all the workers there and we used to stay past closing EVER night the owner even knows me by name and was kind enough to give me a key chain from Dubai and is a great guy, oh p.s. (sidenote) I used to carry around my hot sauce, before it ran out lol, and some nights I'd forget it on the table at the restaurant and a couple of times I'd come back and the owner would be mid shake with my hot sauce in his hands pouring it all over his food. Outside, once he realized he was caught I smiled and just said "OOhhh I see you found it!!! Do you like it?" He laughed and told me it was great..but INSIDE, I was thinking "AHHHHHHHHHHH You found my hot sauce from USA and you're USING IT!!?!?! NOOOO It's almost gone!!!!" Lol and for anyone that knows me you're prolly laughing now cause you realize how much hot sauce means to me! And this kind was so good too...alas hum bug it's gone NOW lol and I guess I'm happy the owner got to taste it but wish I'd only forgot it one time not three! ;)

I do have sad news though, for this month, so I saved it for last. Carla my roommate from Canada was having health issues while she was here and therefore left two days prior to Christmas for Canada to get some medical testing done and hopefully a solution. She explained to me before she left that most likely she wouldn't be coming back to live with me, so now I am roommateless again. I don't mind living by myself but it's not nearly as fun coming home to an empty house or hanging out in the living room by myself when I am used to having her here! She was so much fun and I am praying for her every night that things get resolved quickly and her health doesn't affect volleyball. Below are some pictures of the airport, since I went with her to say goodbye and of our last photo together!

That's the update for Christmas time!!!I am hoping to go with Maua to a great restaruant for New Year's to have some good food and then lots of dancing we are going to try to find this anyhow. I want to finish by saying thanks again for reading about my life, and I am so blessed! Living alone will give me some time to learn about myself, and I'm only four months away from end of my first professional season. So far it's been a pretty smooth ride and I love that I'm getting the opportunity to play here in Baku. Let's hope the next round of matches turns out better than the first will a few more 'W's than 'L's lol and let's hope everyone has an incredible NEW YEARS 2011 HERE WE COME :)

Lots and Lots and Lots of love from Azerbaininja
Jordana Price

Christmas is HERE!

Happy Holidays!!!! I hope everyone is having good luck with Christmas shopping and holiday plans! :)

Ok so for the week update...our last match we lost in four to Igasadtchi this is the club with Tayyiba Haneef another USA national team player competing in this league, there are at least 5 national team players former or current playing in Baku this season. I personally feel like we didn't come to play, and competed very poorly against them, even though we won one set, the other three were embarassing! At one point we were up 16-13 and ended up losing 25-17. That is just an example of how we performed. I don't have a lot of positive things to say about this match and I am upset that we lost, because we didn't try. It's so frustrating to walk onto the court and know that the person next to me isn't as passionate about the game as I am and this is getting harder to deal with week by week. I KNOW in my heart that we are good enough to beat some of these teams or at least go to five sets with them but for some reason we aren't perfoming up to par.

After our loss, Adnan wasn't happy and he gave each of us a piece of his mind, I had a good hitting percentage this match but he told me that I need to stop returning overpasses if I'm not going to get a kill. In other words, if I want to put the first ball back onto their side it needs to score a point, and I was tipping this ball and it wasn't scoring. I know I need to fix this so I listened to everything coach had to say and told him "ok, I understand and I'll work on it." His other problem with my play was that I didn't serve tough enough and he'd prefer I missed the serve going at it tough, than give them an easy free ball serve. He feels either way it's going to be a point for their side wether I serve it easy or miss.

I have always disliked serving, and lately I'm thinking perhaps I need to start jump serving again, because at least this has more velocity than standing and my jump serve is definitely tougher. I was going to work on jump serving in practice today, but my right foot has really been hurting and I saw a doctor prior to practice about it...whom suggested I take it easy on the jumping, soooo I couldn't work on that serve today but once my foot starts to feel better I am going definitely going to do it! :)

All in all...after our third loss in a row, the moral of the story is that coach wants us to concentrate a lot more, take our games seriously and focus on bettering ourselves in practice! Which I 100% agree with...I asked the girls in our team meeting the day after the match, what I could do to help motivate them? What kind of encouragement do they need during the match?  Because lately I've been feeling helpless when we are losing and being I can't talk to them cause of our language barrier, I just have to try and smile, use body language to jump around and cheer loud so that they can feed off of my energy and get excited too! Whenever we do something grea, or even just to forget about the last point and keep fighting. We would go into a time out last match and some of their faces are so somber like the world is ending even though we are barely losing!!! I'm telling them "COME ON!!!  We're right there!" But it's not getting a reaction back from some of my teammates. So I was curious to find out how they feel about motivation and what works best for them. When I asked this though, and it was translated three ways lol I never really got an answer back! Because my coach cut in and said that he thinks it's a good idea to find this stuff out about each other and that we should spend more time together outside of practice, as a team and bond more. That this is where we can figure out what works for us on the court. I hope we will spend more time together because it will help us to care more about playing for one another on the court and not as six individuals. Don't get me wrong though there are girls that care just as much as I do but it feels like it is far and few between.

Ok enough about the last match! Our next game is tomorrow against Rabita the number one team in the league this team has Kim Glass and Mamadova a famous player here in Azerbaijan, so it's going to be a tough match for sure and we are NOT the favored team. I like playing these kinds of matches though because being the underdog relieves all pressure and being we are quote unquote "expected to lose" we can play our hearts out (I hope) and maybe come out with an upset! :) I have faith in us and my teammates we will see how everyone shows up tomorrow!!

We did get a chance to do some team bonding today! We went out for tea and cake to celebrate Shine's birthday who is the interpretter for Carla and I cause of course he speaks English. I had a lot of fun tonight, the walk to the restaurant was so lovely it was on the Caspian Sea and I took lots of pics from the water works to the flowers which mind you are still in bloom, cause the weather is wonderful here! Especially for the winter months :) I saw a really great building and also got some good team photos in the cafe!

The Birthday Boy next to coach Adnan, and him outside smoking of course...today I asked my coach for a cigarette as a joke, he was so shocked at first until I smiled and told him I was kidding I really don't smoke! Lol everyone got a really good laugh out of it! :)

Christmas tree in the restaurant and some of the girls...

That's all for tonight, I'm going to go and skype with my friends and call my family! Lot's of love, Wish me luck tomorrow! :) Blog soon...

Jordana Price