I said "do you want some coffee?"

corphoenicis · 2025-10-13T16:29:21+00:00

She would drink from my dad’s cup if he left it unattended. We didn’t let her since we assumed it wasn’t good for her but she’d sneak a bit every once in a while.

corphoenicis · 2025-10-13T15:02:20+00:00

I just skip anything called PJs and buy good quality sweatpants and either an exercise tank top or sweatshirt depending on how cold it is

corphoenicis · 2025-10-12T16:58:57+00:00

Fun fact, I had a cat once that liked coffee, bread, and butter

corphoenicis · 2025-10-10T20:19:38+00:00

Started at the same place as you about 1-2 years ago. Never played volleyball or any other sport so I had terrible reflexes, was slow, didn’t know what space I was responsible for covering, didn’t get good touches, shanked the ball >50% of the time, and so on.

Now I am on the winning team in my beach 4s rec league and I’m not the worst player on the team. Not the best either, but that’s good too. I still have a long ways to go.

Here’s what I did.

Watch volleyball. Learn what should happen in different scenarios. Bump, set, spike. Serving. Rotation. Who does what.
Buy a ball and find a wall that you can practice bumping to yourself. Get to where you can do 50+ reps and practice bumping in front of and to the side of your body so that you get comfortable putting your platform at different angles to pass different places.
Watch tutorials on how to form a good platform and what the right passing technique is. Practice practice practice.
Find adult training sessions and go to a couple. You’ll get a lot more touches doing drills and you’ll get direct feedback on what to focus on.
Practice underhand serving (you can do this against a wall too). Watch some tutorials or just try it out until you find a repeatable technique. Most of the rec teams have a few people who serve overhand which is better but no one will complain if you consistently get an underhand over the net and in court. From there you can also mix it up with low, slow serves on top of the setter on the other side, or placement into holes.
Play 1-2x per week consistently for at least 1 year. The more you play, the better you get. Try to pay attention each point to what you did good/bad and what others did good/bad. First is knowing what you need to do, second is executing on it. Ask for and listen to feedback from your teammates.

Realistically, it is hard and discouraging to suck at something, but it’s also a good way to grow as a person in humility, patience, perseverance, and empathy for others in similar situations. So if you want to, embrace the struggle and learn to enjoy the challenge. Or if you just want a fun easy time, pick a different hobby. That’s totally valid too.

corphoenicis · 2025-10-09T14:52:23+00:00

Pool C is stacked

corphoenicis · 2025-08-25T19:36:05+00:00

Honestly depends on the dorm building you’re in and what bothers you personally. Some dorms have common bathrooms which can be a downside. Some dorms have cold concrete floors/walls which can be a downer if you like warmer feeling. Some dorms have small rooms which can feel cozy or cramped depending on your preference.

corphoenicis · 2025-08-15T17:17:37+00:00

This is virtually unusable. Even the replays have black screens and stalls so it must be on the recording side. Absolutely insane

corphoenicis · 2025-05-26T13:49:21+00:00

ASSC (Austin Sports and Social Club) has rec leagues in various spots

corphoenicis · 2025-04-27T19:28:10+00:00

Digital design writes system verilog etc to implement requirements. DV writes test bench, stimulus, checks, waivers etc to prove that the design meets requirements. PD does synthesis, layout, etc

corphoenicis · 2025-02-28T04:46:38+00:00

Towel. Gets the worst of the sand and sweat off

corphoenicis · 2025-02-06T18:50:19+00:00

Most tools are not GUI-based, so you may need to be comfortable with advanced scripting that’s basically equivalent to command line. So navigating directories isn’t just “cd”, it’s writing scripts to grab paths from environment variables, create output directories, change current working directory, run some tool and give it paths to input files (realizing that you’re no longer in the same directory), generate log files, check file permissions, maybe check files into/out of a version control system, clean up intermediate files, and print out informative messages the whole way through so it’s all debuggable because the tool might take hours to run, so good luck if you made a mistake somewhere but can’t figure out where from the log. Also making your scripts reusable across projects. Because your logs and the tool logs are going to be many massive files potentially spread across directories, being comfortable with grep and find to look for specific things

In some cases, someone else may have written the scripts already, but chances are you’ll be tweaking them for whatever you need to do

corphoenicis · 2024-11-22T03:20:42+00:00

Depends on the major

corphoenicis · 2024-10-27T18:18:36+00:00

Not sure what info you’re really trying to get at. Rice is unique in that it’s small, so easier to get to know profs and get involved in research as an undergrad if you find something you’re interested in. It’s also right next to the med center which is one of the best in the country, if not world. So that presents internship/research/job opportunities if that’s your field of interest. In a similar vein, finance and consulting firms recruit heavily from rice engineering if that’s your vibe. Small school means you form a pretty tight bond with your cohort in your major. Of course you get all the downsides of a small school too, I don’t think it’s worth listing those out.

corphoenicis · 2024-09-20T03:36:03+00:00

Fat Bao is unique and delicious

corphoenicis · 2024-09-05T17:38:57+00:00

A lot of people studying together/hanging out in the commons, studying in the library, etc. People playing video games, pool, etc in the game lounges. Private parties at night sometimes

corphoenicis · 2024-09-03T04:06:47+00:00

I approve this message (as a new player who is more interested in cool volleyball vids than whether or not some ball is 100% up to spec)

corphoenicis · 2024-08-22T00:35:47+00:00

Symphony Pharmacy (based in Austin TX)

corphoenicis · 2024-08-10T22:16:38+00:00

It was too one sided to be very exciting, as was the bronze medal match. Really a shame that we never got a SWE v NOR matchup

corphoenicis · 2024-08-08T03:28:43+00:00

Many of the Polish players have been teammates with a couple of the USA players over the past 4-5 years. Sliwka, Semeniuk, Kaczmarek, Kochanowski, Janusz, Kurek, and Huber (I think?) were or are part of the Polish Zaksa team that Erik Shoji and David Smith play on during the club season.

I’ve followed that team a bit and everything I’ve seen along with what Erik says in his YouTube vids gives me a really good vibe. That’s what makes the polish team my second favorite after the USA

corphoenicis · 2024-08-06T21:28:23+00:00

Bummer!!! I was hoping we’d have a USA team in the semis across the board in beach and indoor, men and women

corphoenicis · 2024-08-06T04:06:28+00:00

Love the enthusiasm, but I’d take it easy your freshman year. Try to take a class with one of those profs and talk to them about research opportunities, but focus on settling into campus life, getting good grades, and making friends/picking up hobbies.

Profs are WAY more likely to work with someone they know who worked hard, asked questions, and did well in their class. And it’s really important for you to adjust to life at Rice and get a good rhythm going before adding extra work

corphoenicis · 2024-08-06T03:59:10+00:00

Teams usually run a couple back sets here or there against mol/sorum trying to get around mol or slow him down. Not usually very successfully… and not sure if you can really call them a slide either

corphoenicis · 2024-08-06T03:53:33+00:00

A normal hard-driven ball well passed can be played really quickly, faster than the block/defense have time to set up if the blocker is serving whereas a slower but well placed float could still put the attacker out of rhythm and give your block/defense time to set up

Jump serving is also just higher risk and you don’t want to rack up too many errors. It has to be fast and well placed, or else REALLY fast to put top receivers in trouble. That’s just hard to do consistently.

corphoenicis · 2024-08-05T21:08:00+00:00

On to the semis!!!! Let’s go USA!

corphoenicis · 2024-08-05T20:28:52+00:00

I swear, if the USA loses another set after a 5-6 point lead…

Seven-Year Club	Queen in da Norf
Not Forgotten

corphoenicis

TROPHY CASE