Hey y’all!

I’m not from the South so I don’t know why I typed that, but it’s staying .

I’m writing to you from seat 36G on my flight back to the States! I got an aisle seat with no one next to me. Score! But the guy in front of me just put his seat back. And the person sharing my row just put her head on my armrest. I’ve never seen someone do that before. Anyway, I survived my first overseas season! My Kosice team lost in the first round of the Euroleague playoffs to Yekaterinburg last week. Losing was tough but our team finished better than anyone thought we would this season.

I had a great time living and playing in Slovakia. The people there are so incredibly kind and genuine. My teammates and coaches were great and I made a lot of new friends in and outside of the basketball world. To make it more special, I had a farewell dinner with my team last night and they along with my church friends gave me some sweet parting gifts to remember my stay in Kosice. Nice people.

Throughout my overseas stay, I ended up spending time in nine different countries, six of which I had never visited before. I got to stand in front St. Basil’s Cathedral in the Red Square, take a boat down the Danube River in Budapest, walk through the gates of Auschwitz, experience the night life of Madrid, see the Eiffel Tower (from the plane counts…) and so on. Apart from sightseeing, I learned some Slovak, improved my cooking skills, and became efficient at using military time and the metric system. As I recount these experiences, I feel extremely blessed to have this as my job. I mean I get to travel, meet new people, play a game, and get paid. How sweet is that? Sure, professional basketball isn’t always glamorous but the sweat and tears that go on behind the scenes are well worth it.

Man, it feels like yesterday I finished my last college class and was scared and nervous about what my first year in the real world would be like. Well it wasn’t so bad. It was a year of learning about basketball, life, people, and myself. I learned that basketball isn’t life, although gratefully it’s a huge part of mine. I learned that it’s important to carry yourself with integrity and stand by your convictions no matter what you think the outcome will be. I learned that we’re all not so different from each other, though we’re all unique. And I think the most important thing that I learned is that I’m not in control. This was a huge pill for me to swallow because honestly, I’m kind of a Type A, perfectionist, control freak that stays patient and calm. Interesting dichotomy, right? But what a relief it is to realize that God is in control of everything in my life. And how elitist of me to think that if I were in control, everything would turn out the way I think it should.

I have nine hours and twenty-eight minutes until I land in my lovely home state of Arizona. Shortly, I’ll get on another plane to visit my second home (Stanford) and reconnect with my college buddies. After that, I’ll be training for the WNBA season and soaking up the Arizona sun whenever I can.

Some Oscar-nominated movies are calling me now. Got to love inflight entertainment! By the way, I loved The Artist. Best supporting actor: the cute little dog.  Oh, and Moneyball was awesome. That one hit me in the middle of my heart for some reason. Ok, I’m going to stop rambling now.

In conclusion, I want to thank you for your support this season, for reading my blogs, for saying hi on Twitter or Facebook, and for experiencing the past year with me through these mediums and in person. I’m grateful for each and every one of you.

God Bless!

Kayla

Happy New Year!

My Christmas break was amazing! I had about two and a half weeks at home, which is the longest break I’ve had since middle school. It was so refreshing to stay home and do nothing. Well not nothing, but at least I stayed in one place for a long amount of time! I got to participate in all of my family’s Christmas traditions and I brought in the new year with my family for the first time in a long time. And basically every night, I played some type of card or board game with my family. Euchre is the best! I’m also starting to clean out my room so that my parents can turn it into a guest room, which is kind of sad but it gives me an excuse to look through old pictures.

Now I’m writing from the Vienna airport as I head to Moscow. I’ve never been to Moscow so I’m really excited to spend some time in the city! I just got back from a weekend trip in Krakow, Poland. Our coach gave us the weekend off so a couple of teammates and I took advantage of it. We walked around Krakow for an afternoon and then visited the salt mine outside of the city. The mine was really impressive. In the different chambers they have huge salt sculptures of people, chapels, and equipment used to work in the mine. I don’t recommend going to this if you are claustrophobic though!!!

The next day we drove an hour west to Auschwitz. This was the one place I told myself I had to visit while I was playing in this area of Europe. It was well worth it. I remember studying the Holocaust in school and I even took a WWII propaganda class in college but nothing could prepare me for what I was about to see. I walked through the gates of both the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps. I touched the walls of  Block 11, gas chambers, crematoriums, prison cells, and the railroad tracks that brought the prisoners to camp. To be honest, I wasn’t that emotional when I visited the camps. It was all just too much to take in at one time. Of course, I felt sick to my stomach seeing the human hair of the dead and the Zyklon B containers on exhibit but it wasn’t until I was telling my mom about what I saw and learned that it all hit me. How these people died and were treated is beyond horrible. I don’t understand how anyone could let this happen to one person, let alone an entire population. The prisoners were told that because of the war, they were being relocated to a different area to start a new life. They were to gather their belongings, bring toys for their kids, work equipment, etc. Then they were loaded into car trains that had no bathrooms or food and the only time they could get out was once they reached the camp. At camp, they got off the cars and started looking for the rest of their families. Then they were told to leave their belongings because they would first take a shower. Men were divided from the women and children and then sent to a room to undress. The rooms had numbered hooks and benches to put your clothes on and the prisoners were told to remember their hook number so that they could gather their clothes later. Then they were ushered into the next room with shower heads lining the walls. You can fill in the rest of the story. And then the people that weren’t immediately killed would suffer through horrible conditions as they awaited their slow deaths in torture chambers. Horrible, awful, and catastrophic don’t even describe this moment in history. But it is an event that we all can learn from about what not to do and how we let ourselves treat others without realizing what we’re doing.

So now I’m getting to the end of the overseas season. We’re hoping to go out with a bang and I have a lot of confidence in my team. I’m really looking forward to this new year and all of the opportunities that will be in store for me. I never really set New Year’s resolutions because I try to live the way I should and make changes all of the time but this year I’m trying to be a little more conscious of my actions. I’m trying to eat healthier and establish routines that will allow me to maximize my performance without getting burned out. I’m also trying to change the way I look at things. I’ll be honest, 2011 was a great year, but it was also one of the toughest of my life. I’m a huge optimist but I let 2011 get the best of me. I was focused on all of the bad stuff going on and so busy with trying to analyze and figure out every little detail of my life that I forgot to look up and enjoy the sunshine. So this year, I’m doing my best to relax my mind but stay focused, enjoy every little high and every little low, not take myself too seriously, and just trust God with me and my life. His plan for me is so much better than anything that I can ever dream of so I just have to be patient and keep looking to Him.

Alright, it’s time to grab a caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks before my flight. Deeeeeelicious.

Love you all,
Kayla

Hey guys!

How are you all doing? I’m doing well over here in Kosice. Our team just got back from Taranto, Italy with a huge win. We stayed right on the beach and our hotel was surrounded by beautiful houses that reminded me of the Spanish-style homes that you can find in Arizona. So that was a nice little treat for me to experience . And at night, my roommate and I left our porch door open so we could fall asleep to the sound of the crashing waves. Ok, so I’m in love with Italy. Who wouldn’t be?

Our team has been doing really well. Anytime you can get a win on the road, it’s huge. We haven’t lost a Euroleague or Slovak league game since our trip to Poland and next on our schedule is a game on Wednesday against Spartak. That’s another big game for us. Then we have a bye this weekend for the Slovak league so hopefully we get the weekend off to refresh and refocus (and maybe travel to Budapest to do some sightseeing). As for me personally, I haven’t been playing that well. I’ve been in a shooting slump so I’ve been trying to work through that! Good thing I haven’t forgotten how to rebound .

Aside from basketball, everything else is good. I actually just hung up some Christmas lights in my apartment. I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but they don’t celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving over here so I need something to look at while America celebrates these fall holidays! I’ve been trying to keep busy by lifting weights a lot, cleaning and organizing my apartment (I’m an organization freak), catching up on TV shows, and reading. I’m currently reading Derek Fisher’s book, Character Driven: Life, Lessons, and Basketball and Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer. I also just picked up the new Switchfoot album so I’ve been listening to that and Christmas music nonstop. I’ve also got a few side projects going on that you’ll hopefully learn about soon!

Alright, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” just came on which is my cue to stop writing and heat up some hot chocolate. As always, I send my best and feel free to write me on Twitter (@kaylapedersen14), my Facebook fan page, or my website!

Hey guys!

I hope this blog finds you doing well! I’m in Kosice right now. We just got back from a two game road trip where we played a team in Hungary and another one outside of Bratislava. We won both games, although one was just a friendly scrimmage. I managed to catch a stomach virus over the trip. I’ll spare you the details but imagine a six-hour bus ride back home…yikes!

We have played a lot of games already but only two of them have counted. They are for the Slovak league and we won pretty easily. I’m enjoying playing for this team and I’m learning a lot from the coaches every day. After another Slovak league game this weekend, we travel to Poland for our first Euroleague game. I’m really excited for that! So after our trip to Poland, I will have traveled around four countries: Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, and of course Slovakia. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see much in Prague because we only had time to walk around at night. I really enjoyed Sopron, Hungary though. It’s a cute little town surrounded by beautiful greenery.

I’ve gotten some time to enjoy Kosice a little bit more now that I’m settled in. I am no longer scared to drive around town and I feel like I fit right in with these speedy drivers (don’t tell my dad I said that). I’ve learned about 20 new words and my sign language has drastically improved. I haven’t tasted anything that I don’t like and I know where every supermarket in town is. I went to a Kosice hockey game and I figured out how to watch NFL on Sundays. And I’ve met a lot of nice people with some awesome backgrounds and stories to share. So, life is good so far here in Kosice   .

Caute!
Kayla