The women's soccer blog is back, and this year it's Kendall Johnson who is taking on blogging duties for the Pilots. Kendall will check in now and then with updates on the Pilots, the season and life in general. Be sure to bookmark PortlandPilots.com/KendallBlog to follow Kendall and the Pilots all season long!

ENTRY #6
Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012

Hey there Pilot Fans! 

You all never cease to amaze me. The atmosphere at Merlo Field last Friday night was electric. Although we had to settle for a draw against Notre Dame, you guys are a main reason we keep striving to improve. We will do our best to continue bringing you quality and entertaining soccer.
               
When I’m not playing soccer, one of my favorite past times is pulling pranks on people. I’d like to tell you about three of my favorite tricks I’ve pulled while attending the University of Portland. The first one, all began on a quiet summer night, when Kaila Cameli and I were pondering activities to partake in at 10:30 p.m. Naturally, one of the first things that came to my mind was to scare people. The plan was to dress in all black with paper bags on our heads and scare our fellow teammates at the house across the street. After cutting eye-holes out of the bags, Kaila and I snuck around to the back of their house.  We peeked through the window and saw Sarah Bridges and Sippy (Emily Sippel) all cuddled up on the couch watching a movie. We put the paper bags on our head and stared directly at them through the window. After a good half-minute Sippy spotted us, but instead of saying anything like a normal person would do, she just stared back at us for a good 10 seconds. In my head I was thinking, “wait a tick, I thought we were supposed to be the ones doing the scaring.”  Eventually, Sippy got Sarah’s attention and pointed towards us. Sarah’s eyes turned the size of watermelons and she screamed a few not-so-blog-appropriate words. Out of reaction, Kaila and I sprinted away. A few minutes later, they ran over to our house scared out of their minds. In hindsight, we maybe shouldn’t have ran away immediately after being spotted. Oh well, you live and you learn.
 
Now that we’re on the topic of scaring, my personal favorite scare tactic is to hide in our laundry bin in our locker room. After every practice, we place our dirty laundry on a loop and Jules and his staff graciously wash our clothes, and return them in the bin the next day. Thus, before every practice, each player has to grab their clothes out of the bin. Now, I know what you’re thinking; that sounds like a prime opportunity to scare people. My thoughts exactly. I’m glad we’re on the same page. I must admit my all-time favorite scare was from two years ago when I scared former teammate and current housemate Molly Klier. Unfortunately, I’m having technically difficulties uploading the video, so for now a picture will have to do:

 
There’s one prank that I had been wanting to pull for awhile, but I knew that if I wanted my attempt to be successful, I had to strike at just the right time. I usually like to keep this stuff confidential, but since you guys are generous enough to be reading this, I’ll let you in on my secret. The trick involves four steps: 1. melt chocolate in a bowl 2. dip eggs in chocolate, assuring that all white parts of the shell are covered 3. place covered eggs on wax paper and let chocolate dry 4. serve “chocolate treats” to innocent human beings. Of course I wanted to pull this littler number on my team. Easter was just around the corner and our spring games were even closer. I recruited Ellen “Mischievous” Parker to be my accomplice in this mission. Ellen and I can attest that covering eggs in chocolate is not a walk in the park. After hours upon hours of intensive labor, we finally had our eggs in mint condition. After our games, our parents occasionally bring baked goods for the team. With that in mind, I told the team that my mom had made some Chocolate Easter eggs for everyone. I informed them that these eggs have been a family tradition since I was a kid. And that all of the eggs were filled with caramel, except for one, this one was filled with marshmallow. And that the person’s egg which is filled with marshmallow gets good luck for an entire year. And that everyone must eat the eggs at the same time. And blah blah blah... After spewing all of this nonsense, I finally told everyone to take a bite on the count of three...this is what happened... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SolM84q9g-o&feature=plcp

(not the best quality, pardon Sarah’s laugh, she was in the know, and was quite excited about fooling them all). Needless to say, it was an “eggcellent” success. 
               
It’s always good to find ways to lighten things up, but come competition time, we are all business. Today, we take our first plane ride to play USC on Sunday at 1 p.m. We are all ready to take it to them and continue our success. As Devlyn Jeter so eloquently tweeted last night, “so cal. in the morning. they  aren’t ready for this northwest fire! #gopilots” Amen DJ, Amen.
 
Life,
KJ 

Previous Entries
• Entry #1 (Aug. 10, 2012)
• Entry #2 (Aug. 17, 2012)
• Entry #3 (Aug. 24, 2012)
• Entry #4 (Aug. 31, 2012)
• Entry #5 (Sept. 6, 2012)