7:30 to 8:30 p.m.: The team will find dinner somewhere.

8:30 to 10 p.m.: People watch television or venture out into the night life (although excessive fun in the forms of drinking and dancing--as examples--are prohibited or frowned upon).

10 p.m.: Time for bed.

Now, I don't want to seem like a whiner or anything, but this isn't terribly fun; it's certainly not the paradise it's cracked up to be. Of course, there are occasions when the team does do other activities like going to the beach or going to a luau.

The real kicker, for all of you still unconvinced, is that all of this is paid for by the athlete and is mandatory. So, we must pay for the hotel and flight and all that jazz, and we really don't do anything radically different from what we do all year.

Despite what the above may say, I don't hate the training trips, but I certainly do not enjoy them either. It is somewhere in the middle.

I did not write this because the athletes here at Harvard have it rough and we should all pity them. Not at all. There are advantages and disadvantages that come with playing a sport.

The training trip, however appealing it may sound, is not one of the advantages, though, and some (including myself during several of the trips I have taken) would even argue that it is a distinct disadvantage.