Part taking in the rich culture that Israel has to offer

The playoffs is the time where most teams are at a peak in the season, everyone knows their role and is fulfilling it to their best ability. Well my team has a bit of difficult with that! Everyone thinks that basketball is basketball all over the world and its true in some aspects. Let me try to explain the difference between WNBA basketball and international basketball! WNBA basketball is based on talent, skills and the ability to fit within a system, international basketball is based on your citizenship. If you are an American, you will play 40 mins and be expected to win all games yourself. This concept is hard for the international players because that limits their time on the court. With that said this is why my team has such difficulty! Unlike most teams who have 3 Americans, we have 4 players who have either played in the WNBA or who are currently playing in the WNBA which leaves one spot open for the rest of the team to play! This is one of our major barriers that we have yet to find a happy medium with. Its hard to be a player that is expected to do so much and be so close to the Israelis! I say this because they wanna play just like the next person but their is only 40 mins for them to split between 4 players! Its hard to win a game to advance to the next round in the playoffs and have your teammates upset because they didn't play the mins that they thought they would. But what do I know, I've never been in this position ever in my life (sarcastically speaking). I explain to them all the time that its not about the mins you play but about what you give us when you are out there! We then have this never ending argument about how they cant get into the game because they play for a minute then get taken out of the game (I haven't been there before either)! I let the issue go and tell them to go get a dvd of any Detroit Shock game starting in 2005 and tell me that you couldn't find something to do in those few mins on the court that could possibly lead to more mins the next game! Enough for that needless to say we moved on o the second round of playoffs and have so many more games to come!

After working hard its always a plus to party hard, so on Friday here in Israel they have holiday called Purim, which is similar to our Halloween in which they dress up in costumes! So since Im loved by everyone over here and Im so silly, the sports channel here wanted to do something special with a couple mens and women's basketball players for Purim! So I met with the producer, crew and the mens basketball players and found out that my role was to be a costume designer and I had to dress all of the mens players! Can u say hilarious!!!! There was one bit of information that they waited til the last minute to inform me that I would be wearing a costume and they had it already picked out to me! The costume of choice was a DOMINATRIX! I was a good sport about it and put it on, I got into character quick after my make-up and costume was on. I had a blast doing the show, hopefully when it airs everyone who watches it will die laughing too. So on to my own costume of choice for my first Purim party, I searched high and low for the right costume and I found it after 2 whole hours of searching, I was gonna be a Brazilian Carnival Queen! My outfit was banging, my roomies also got into the spirt, they were dressed as Little Bow Peep, a Gypsy, and a Bunny!!! We were one of the few Americans that actually got into the holiday spirit! We even enter the costume contest but we didn't win, Austin Powers won!

Often times we complain about our life being hard but really we are BLESSED and it takes seeing someone in down and out to make us realize that we could have it worst! The city where I play in is known for crime and poverty, the team is the only positive thing going for the people of this city. After shopping all day looking for our Purim costumes, we are driving thru our neighborhood when I spot a young girl who may have been 8 or 9 years old digging thru the garbage near the bakery. I ask my teammate to stop the car so that I could see what she was digging for, it turns out that she was digging for the bread that the bakery had thrown out! Our hearts went out to the little girl, we turned the car around and went back! We tried repetitively to get her to come over to the car but of course she spoke no English and we didn't speak any Hebrew, after she got close enough to see what we wanted, we gave her 200 shekels ($50 USD)! If u could've seen the look on her face it was truly priceless! Moral of the story give from the heart because you never know whose life you might change with just a small gesture!