Junior Nationals in Detroit

Girls Junior Nationals were in Detroit this year. I'd never been there, and I wasn't even sure where the city was exactly. It ends up that it's right across the river from Canada. This was the view from the convention center where the tournament was being held. Whenever I had a few minutes, I'd walk along the water and enjoy the scenery.

For the first three days I had classes and on court mentoring. I didn't know anyone when I got there. I had to make all new friends, and I did. We had some breaks between our classes one day, so a few of us decided to go explore the city. Wes's friend had told me about the iron fist in downtown Detroit. It turned out to be just a block from the convention center, so we ventured out and found it. It's just a fist hanging right there in the middle of a median in the road. It was a little strange, but cool.

This was another cool sculpture near by that we found. And of course I had to take a picture of the GM buildings.

Here are my friends I made from my camp. The first picture is everyone that attended the camp and the instructors, and the second one is just some of us girls that stuck together through the whole thing. My roommate is the short one next to me. Her name is Rachel and she was really fun.

The last day that I was there, I had a huge break between my matches, so I jumped on the elevated train that went around the city and did some exploring. I ended up getting off by the baseball and football stadiums. It was cool to walk around and see how big they are. It was also cool to see some of the building walls painted as I rode the train. You can tell they are trying to rebuild downtown Detroit.

I also found this really cool allyway during my exploring. It had some awesome art painted on the walls and some pretty cool sculptures.

Most nights we would end up going out to eat and enjoying not being in the gym. There were about 20 of us that kind of hung around each other and got to know each other pretty well.

This whole process has been one of the most difficult things that I have done in my life. First I had confidence in my skills as an official, and then during the camp they break you down and tell you all the things you are doing wrong. Then you have to be rated for three matches and at the end they debrief you and tell you more things that you need to fix. My stress level was out the roof, but in the end, I passed and got my Junior National badge. Most of my friends ended up passing too. The first picture is me getting my certificate. Then all of the candidates that passed. I think there were 59 that passed. Out of those there were only 10 women and these are them. They are some of the most extraordinary women I have met. I was so proud to be in this group with them.

All of these people were special to me.

Rachel, my roommate who I couldn't have lived without. We would talk and talk at the end of each day and she helped me so much.

Diane, who was my tall friend and would always be by my side.

Bev, my first partner during the rating session. She is an amazing official and we killed it during our match.

My second partner for ratings, can't remember his name.

And lastly, Suzie. She was so fun and we ended up being best buds by the end of our time there. 

I love all of them and I couldn't have done it without them.

 

The last night we all went out and celebrated. 

Of course I had to take a picture of my toe nails that matched my patch.