Lately I've been addicted to StumbleUpon.com. If you haven't yet joined this addiction, I urge you to do so. Or not, if you're more interested in having a life. Anywho, I found this website that has a very interesting/self-fulfilling quiz that confirms basically what you already think you know about yourself. It's kind of lengthy, but here are my results:
My personalDNA Report
If you have 15 minutes to kill, take your own!
Sorry I haven't updated you all on my life. I'll sum it up for you in a few words: swimming, babysitting-ish, CNA, shadowing hospital administration, getting sunburnt.
I hope you all are having wonderful summers!
Friday, July 8, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
RROOOAAADDTTTRRIIIIPPPP!!!!!!!!!! (3)
We got a few miles out of Santa Barbara and stopped through Watsonville to visit Aaron’s aunt and cousins. His uncle was in Nepal creating democracy, so I wasn’t able to meet him. Their house was awesome! It was up on top of a huge hill way out in the woods. But their house wasn’t in a bunch of trees, it was out in a clearing on the hill. They had a pretty large vineyard, too. I thought it was awesome since I’ve never seen a vineyard before. Little did I know that I would later see acres and acres and acres of grapes! His aunt made us this super healthy smoothie for us, with fruit and vegetables and soymilk! And she gave us $20 to get lunch in Monterey.
We left and drove straight south on highway 1 (which gave us a straight view of the ocean) and made our way to Monterey. We stopped at a place called fisherman’s wharf to find lunch. After exploring a bit, we found a seafood place called Domenico’s on the Wharf. The guy out front offered us a clam chowder sample and a card for a free appetizer, so we were suckered into it. We got a table right next to the windows looking out on the pier with tons of sailboats, and a raft with about 20 sea lions sunning on it. It was entertaining to watch the seagulls, pelicans, and sea lions while we waited for out food. Some of the sea lions would jump at the seagulls and freak them out. A few of the sea lions were HUGE and we watched them try to get up on the raft by flopping up with their fins but they were too big so they fell back into the water. We got fried calamari for our appetizer and fish and chips for the main course. I don’t think I’ve ever had calamari before but it was delicious! And it came with a little fried baby octopus the size of my palm and we ate that too!
We jetted out of there quickly and pulled out the maps to figure out how to cut inland to highway 101 so that we could get to Santa Barbara the best way possible. We found a road that went straight through Carmel Valley and appeared to be the best route, so we took it! Right before we went in, we had about 80 miles left on the tank and there was a sign that said that there wouldn’t be gas for 47 miles. There was a gas station conveniently placed right after this sign, but gas was almost $5 a gallon so we decided to suck it up. We were gunning down the road through the countryside and it was beautiful and fun! The road was really windy and the valley was beautiful. However, the first half was uphill so our gas mileage kept dropping and we got a little bit scared. But then we started going downhill and our mileage actually went above 80 so I guess that was nice. There were also a ton of vineyards towards the end of the stretch. And we saw a lot of old guys driving sweet cars. Actually, that’s not exclusive to Carmel valley; there are old guys driving sweet cars all over California.
After we passed through the Valley, we drove down the 101 to Cal Poly. Aaron knows some people that go there, but he didn’t have their numbers so we just kind of drove around there for a little while. It was a nice campus, but nothing special compared to Stanford. After that, we went to Pismo beach. The day was growing late though, and we wanted to meet up with Josh (Aaron’s friend at UCSB) for dinner, so we didn’t stay for long at Pismo. We found parking after a brief 10 minute search, and went down to the beach. Aaron pointed out the spot to me where his parents had gotten engaged, and I aww’ed. We walked in the water for a little bit and pressed on to UCSB.
When we got to UCSB, we met some of Josh’s friends and then went downtown with Josh to find some food. We went to the California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) and got some tasty food, and we saw a little bit of the downtown area. Then we returned to his dorm, chilled with his friends, and decided to go see the infamous Del Playa street in Isla Vista. If you know what I’m talking about, then you know how crazy it is. Apparently, Josh said it looked pretty dead, but Aaron and I thought it was nuts and we are so glad we go to a small private Christian school were we can be sheltered and babied and have our hands held when we cross the street.
We went to bed kinda late, and slept in to 11. Aaron had paid for parking the night before, and it expired at 10 so he got a fine because they’re so stingy about it. We were all hungry so we went to find breakfast with two of Josh’s other friends. There was a huge line at the Bagel Café, so we went down the street to the Café International to get food. We ended up waiting nearly an hour and a half by the time we got our food because they lost all of our orders somehow. We got pretty mad, but it was nice weather outside so at least we got to hang out in the sun for a while. After we ate, we went to the beach and got roasted.
That night, Josh had a funk combo performance. He played the hell out of his alto sax and his group of college friends plus Aaron and me cheered loudly for him after his solo. Their group was overall way better than the two groups before them, too. It made me remember the ol’ days of freshman year of high school when I was last in jazz band.
We all left (except for Josh) at the intermission because Josh was done playing, but he stayed behind to watch the other groups perform. Aaron and I went back to the dorm room and I started compiling and editing all of the video footage that we had gotten so far on our trip. We’re a little bit disappointed that we totally forgot to get videos of some places we went, but as it is the whole video will probably be over 30 minutes. That sounds super long, but we personally guarantee that it will keep you entertained and you won’t be left disappointed! I’m using iMovie and it’s turning out really well. And everyone in the video is really good looking and funny so it will be worth watching. And I don’t want to give any spoilers, but there are scenes where my shirt comes off. And Aaron’s shirt. And there are a ton of scenes of me eating food. It’s kind of gross actually…
Anyways, when Josh got back from his concert, us three guys went to Starbucks to get coffee and hang out. Aaron has been getting me hooked on coffee! What an expensive habit. And it might stain my teeth! I’ll probably stop drinking it in the summer when Aaron won’t be around to influence me. It was fun hanging out at Starbucks though; we had a good time.
The next morning, Aaron and I headed out. His Aunt lives in Santa Barbara, so we stopped by her workplace so that she could take us out to brunch. Aaron’s mom gave us this little ugly frog thing to hide in his Aunt’s things so that she would find it without her seeing us plant it. When they were kids, they started a thing of swapping the frog back and forth and so we were like secret agents. We planted the frog in her office somewhere before she arrived, and then we went to the beach to get brunch somewhere when she got to the office.
I’m just gonna say right now that I love Aaron’s family. I’ve definitely met a greater part of his relatives by this point in the trip, if you haven’t noticed. They’re all so nice and they buy us food all the time, it’s great!
His Aunt went back to work, and Aaron and I lay on the beach right near where we had brunch. We only lay there for a little while though, because his great Aunt wanted to meet up with us in San Luis Obispo for lunch or coffee. Before we got on the highway though, we went through the neighborhood of Montecito where a lot of rich people supposedly live. We saw a lot of nice houses, but the really huge ones were hidden deep in the woods behind big gates and walls. Boring. We also drove through Westmont college, which is tiny and not terribly impressive, but still in a beautiful location.
We got kind of lost in that area, but somehow found our way back to Santa Barbara, and we drove right by the Mission, which is an awesome building. We got gas, then gunned it up the 101 to Atascadero where we met up with Aaron’s cousin and great aunt. We got Starbucks and then went to In-N-Out where his great aunt bought us food! Go figure. Once again, I was impressed by the awesomeness of Aaron’s relatives, and we returned to the road.
After a little while, we stopped for the bathroom, and when we got back on the road we heard a strange noise. Aaron guessed that his bumper had started to fall off, so we pulled off to the side to check it out. He was right, but it was easy to snap it back on because it was just the plastic part. We got to Santa Cruz by dinnertime and had a happy reunion with Caitlin and Elisabeth.
The four of us went downtown to a cheap taco bar, which made amazing tacos and had free chips. It was really tasty. We then walked around downtown a little bit and went in a big candy store and a frozen yogurt place, where we had a bunch of samples. We went back to Caitlin’s house and watched “While You Were Sleeping”, which is an old chick flick with Sandra Bullock. It was pretty funny.
Today we are going to go the beach, and do other hang out stuffs! Tomorrow we are going back to Placerville, then Thursday we are going to go to Aaron’s family’s house on Tahoe. Friday is his birthday, which will be pretty low-key. Then Saturday I fly home!
BONUS: Elisabeth's funny Joke
How many Andrew Ryders does it take to make a bro?
just one.
JAHAHHAHAHAHHA
We left and drove straight south on highway 1 (which gave us a straight view of the ocean) and made our way to Monterey. We stopped at a place called fisherman’s wharf to find lunch. After exploring a bit, we found a seafood place called Domenico’s on the Wharf. The guy out front offered us a clam chowder sample and a card for a free appetizer, so we were suckered into it. We got a table right next to the windows looking out on the pier with tons of sailboats, and a raft with about 20 sea lions sunning on it. It was entertaining to watch the seagulls, pelicans, and sea lions while we waited for out food. Some of the sea lions would jump at the seagulls and freak them out. A few of the sea lions were HUGE and we watched them try to get up on the raft by flopping up with their fins but they were too big so they fell back into the water. We got fried calamari for our appetizer and fish and chips for the main course. I don’t think I’ve ever had calamari before but it was delicious! And it came with a little fried baby octopus the size of my palm and we ate that too!
We jetted out of there quickly and pulled out the maps to figure out how to cut inland to highway 101 so that we could get to Santa Barbara the best way possible. We found a road that went straight through Carmel Valley and appeared to be the best route, so we took it! Right before we went in, we had about 80 miles left on the tank and there was a sign that said that there wouldn’t be gas for 47 miles. There was a gas station conveniently placed right after this sign, but gas was almost $5 a gallon so we decided to suck it up. We were gunning down the road through the countryside and it was beautiful and fun! The road was really windy and the valley was beautiful. However, the first half was uphill so our gas mileage kept dropping and we got a little bit scared. But then we started going downhill and our mileage actually went above 80 so I guess that was nice. There were also a ton of vineyards towards the end of the stretch. And we saw a lot of old guys driving sweet cars. Actually, that’s not exclusive to Carmel valley; there are old guys driving sweet cars all over California.
After we passed through the Valley, we drove down the 101 to Cal Poly. Aaron knows some people that go there, but he didn’t have their numbers so we just kind of drove around there for a little while. It was a nice campus, but nothing special compared to Stanford. After that, we went to Pismo beach. The day was growing late though, and we wanted to meet up with Josh (Aaron’s friend at UCSB) for dinner, so we didn’t stay for long at Pismo. We found parking after a brief 10 minute search, and went down to the beach. Aaron pointed out the spot to me where his parents had gotten engaged, and I aww’ed. We walked in the water for a little bit and pressed on to UCSB.
When we got to UCSB, we met some of Josh’s friends and then went downtown with Josh to find some food. We went to the California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) and got some tasty food, and we saw a little bit of the downtown area. Then we returned to his dorm, chilled with his friends, and decided to go see the infamous Del Playa street in Isla Vista. If you know what I’m talking about, then you know how crazy it is. Apparently, Josh said it looked pretty dead, but Aaron and I thought it was nuts and we are so glad we go to a small private Christian school were we can be sheltered and babied and have our hands held when we cross the street.
We went to bed kinda late, and slept in to 11. Aaron had paid for parking the night before, and it expired at 10 so he got a fine because they’re so stingy about it. We were all hungry so we went to find breakfast with two of Josh’s other friends. There was a huge line at the Bagel Café, so we went down the street to the Café International to get food. We ended up waiting nearly an hour and a half by the time we got our food because they lost all of our orders somehow. We got pretty mad, but it was nice weather outside so at least we got to hang out in the sun for a while. After we ate, we went to the beach and got roasted.
That night, Josh had a funk combo performance. He played the hell out of his alto sax and his group of college friends plus Aaron and me cheered loudly for him after his solo. Their group was overall way better than the two groups before them, too. It made me remember the ol’ days of freshman year of high school when I was last in jazz band.
We all left (except for Josh) at the intermission because Josh was done playing, but he stayed behind to watch the other groups perform. Aaron and I went back to the dorm room and I started compiling and editing all of the video footage that we had gotten so far on our trip. We’re a little bit disappointed that we totally forgot to get videos of some places we went, but as it is the whole video will probably be over 30 minutes. That sounds super long, but we personally guarantee that it will keep you entertained and you won’t be left disappointed! I’m using iMovie and it’s turning out really well. And everyone in the video is really good looking and funny so it will be worth watching. And I don’t want to give any spoilers, but there are scenes where my shirt comes off. And Aaron’s shirt. And there are a ton of scenes of me eating food. It’s kind of gross actually…
Anyways, when Josh got back from his concert, us three guys went to Starbucks to get coffee and hang out. Aaron has been getting me hooked on coffee! What an expensive habit. And it might stain my teeth! I’ll probably stop drinking it in the summer when Aaron won’t be around to influence me. It was fun hanging out at Starbucks though; we had a good time.
The next morning, Aaron and I headed out. His Aunt lives in Santa Barbara, so we stopped by her workplace so that she could take us out to brunch. Aaron’s mom gave us this little ugly frog thing to hide in his Aunt’s things so that she would find it without her seeing us plant it. When they were kids, they started a thing of swapping the frog back and forth and so we were like secret agents. We planted the frog in her office somewhere before she arrived, and then we went to the beach to get brunch somewhere when she got to the office.
I’m just gonna say right now that I love Aaron’s family. I’ve definitely met a greater part of his relatives by this point in the trip, if you haven’t noticed. They’re all so nice and they buy us food all the time, it’s great!
His Aunt went back to work, and Aaron and I lay on the beach right near where we had brunch. We only lay there for a little while though, because his great Aunt wanted to meet up with us in San Luis Obispo for lunch or coffee. Before we got on the highway though, we went through the neighborhood of Montecito where a lot of rich people supposedly live. We saw a lot of nice houses, but the really huge ones were hidden deep in the woods behind big gates and walls. Boring. We also drove through Westmont college, which is tiny and not terribly impressive, but still in a beautiful location.
We got kind of lost in that area, but somehow found our way back to Santa Barbara, and we drove right by the Mission, which is an awesome building. We got gas, then gunned it up the 101 to Atascadero where we met up with Aaron’s cousin and great aunt. We got Starbucks and then went to In-N-Out where his great aunt bought us food! Go figure. Once again, I was impressed by the awesomeness of Aaron’s relatives, and we returned to the road.
After a little while, we stopped for the bathroom, and when we got back on the road we heard a strange noise. Aaron guessed that his bumper had started to fall off, so we pulled off to the side to check it out. He was right, but it was easy to snap it back on because it was just the plastic part. We got to Santa Cruz by dinnertime and had a happy reunion with Caitlin and Elisabeth.
The four of us went downtown to a cheap taco bar, which made amazing tacos and had free chips. It was really tasty. We then walked around downtown a little bit and went in a big candy store and a frozen yogurt place, where we had a bunch of samples. We went back to Caitlin’s house and watched “While You Were Sleeping”, which is an old chick flick with Sandra Bullock. It was pretty funny.
Today we are going to go the beach, and do other hang out stuffs! Tomorrow we are going back to Placerville, then Thursday we are going to go to Aaron’s family’s house on Tahoe. Friday is his birthday, which will be pretty low-key. Then Saturday I fly home!
BONUS: Elisabeth's funny Joke
How many Andrew Ryders does it take to make a bro?
just one.
JAHAHHAHAHAHHA
Friday, May 20, 2011
ROAADTRIPPPPP!!!! (2)
The next day, we got up, had breakfast, and Aaron showed us around Placerville. It’s a quaint little community, and Aaron knows pretty much every person there. It was hard to ever get very far because he kept seeing someone that he knew. We went to his high school and saw a bunch of his teachers and friends. Oh, and we brought his brother Daniel In-N-Out for lunch. I love In-N-Out. Soooo good.
That night, we went to Chicago Fire Pizza for dinner. They make their pizza in a wood fire oven, so it tastes amazing. We got three thin crusts and made quick work of them. On the way home, we saw this giant hill overlooking the town. Of course, we decided to pull over and climb up to see the sun set. It was probably the longest and steepest hill I have ever climbed up. My calves were just a few more steps short of cramping up by the time I got to the top. The view was beautiful though.
When we got back home, Austin Vierra and Aarons friends Max came over so we could go stargazing. We went out to a nice spot to stargaze and spent about an hour there before the sprinklers came on to shoo us away. Since that was over for us, we went to Austin’s house out in the boonies. We surpassed legal speed limits as we cruised through the winding road through the forest to Austin’s house. It was so much fun since Austin’s car was really nice and he told us he used to drive professionally. I hope that makes my parents feel better about that.
Austin has a huge 3d television, and he showed us Monsters vs. Aliens on it. It was pretty sweet! Everyone started to fall asleep at about 1, so we decided to head back to Aaron’s house since we wanted to get a good start to Santa Cruz the next day.
That was kind of a joke, since we didn’t end up leaving Placerville til about noon the next day. Santa Cruz isn’t that far away, but we initially talked about trying to get there at about noon. Then we decided to go to San Francisco and cross the Golden Gate Bridge, so that extended our deadline of arrival to dinnertime at 7.
So, we got out of the door at about 11 that morning and had to stop by this place to get Aaron’s fingerprints done for a job he’s doing this summer. However, he didn’t have an appointment made so he made one for next week and we hit the road.
Our first stop was San Francisco. Actually, we made about three stops before then because the girls had alternating schedules of having to use the bathroom and being thirsty. Aaron said he feels like a dad because we all keep asking him questions like when we’re gonna get places or stop for food or stop for potty breaks, etc. With about ten maps on my lap, I was the navigator for the day, and I figured out how we could best approach the Golden Gate Bridge. We crossed over, and made our way to Pier 39, where there are a ton of little shops and places to eat. There was also a HUGE cruise ship docked nearby, and a bunch of other sailboats and motorboats besides.
We got lunch at this place with clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls. The others got that, and I got a shrimp and crab sandwich that was pretty good and extremely overpriced. We walked around and saw a bunch of stores with key chains, knives, fudge, magnetic things, socks, left-handed objects, and more! Also, there was a fresh fruit market where we got a big mango. Mangoes are so weird, they taste really good but they’re full of stringy sclerenchyma and look like pumpkins on the inside!
After we got back to the car, we wanted to cruise around San Francisco. It is so hilly in that city! I think we drove up and down some hills that were at about a 45-degree slope. It was like being on a roller coaster! We soon realized that it was rush hour, and we needed to get to Caitlin’s house by 7:00 for dinner. We also wanted to see Stanford in Palo Alto. Stanford is gorgeous. After being on campus for about ten minutes, I was in total awe. We went to the quad in the middle and saw the beautiful chapel. I definitely want to transfer there. We again realized that the day was growing old and we needed to head out of there. Thanks to Aaron’s pro driving skills, we got to Caitlin’s house at 6:56. Big win!
Dinner was amazing spaghetti and bread. I can’t remember the last home cooked spaghetti I’ve had. My fast food and school food diet of the past 9 months have left me in a dire state of forgetting what real food tastes like.
After dinner, we went to the Mt. Hermon camp where Caitlin has lived nearly her whole life. There is a huge tree fort, a stream, cabins, a trading post, a giant rope swing, a tire swing, a big tree swing, and a few other fun things there. We met up with Stephen Cooper and his friend Alex there and then went to his house to go in his hot tub. His house was way up on the mountain and we drove up a really skinny, winding road that seemed to go up and up forever. His house is pretty sweet though, and we had fun hanging out there for a while.
We went back to Caitlin’s house and slept for a glorious ten hours to replenish our sleep debt. The next morning, we went for a run. I used this crappy pair of shoes I have and probably totally destroyed my arches. Afterwards, we made eggs and chocolate chip-banana pancakes. I put peanut butter and syrup on the pancakes. They were so good!
After breakfast, we got ready to go to the Boardwalk. We picked up Elisabeth’s friend from UC-Santa Cruz and went to the beach. We went in the water for a little bit, but it was freezing so we didn’t stay in for too long. The waves were huge compared to the places I’ve been to in Florida. Then we laid out for a little bit, and I got the beginnings of my tan line! I was in my Speedo, of course, so I wouldn’t get a weird tan line. My back is burnt more than my front, so I will be sure to even it out next time I am on the beach...which is soon. The beach is right next to the Boardwalk, so when we were done lying around we bought some tickets to ride on the Great Dipper, which is the West Coast’s oldest wooden coaster. It was really fun!
We then brought Elisabeth’s friend back to school, met one of Aaron’s friends that goes there, and went to Mariann’s (not sure of the spelling) for ice cream. It’s the best ice cream place in town! I got the 10-20, which is caramel ice cream with fudge swirl and Oreo pieces. Delicious. I don’t know why it’s called 10-20 though. Then we drove back to Caitlin’s for a “fancy dinner party”, which is going to be a Mexican food feast! All prepared by us, of course. And by us, I mean not me because I don’t know how to cook that many things. Aaron knows how to make good enchiladas, so I am preparing to be delighted by that. I think he’s buying cheesecake for dessert, too. Him and Elisabeth are at the store now, and Stephen will be coming over, too.
Tomorrow Aaron and I leave the girls here and head to Santa Barbara. It will be another long drive, but hey, that is the nature of road trips! Aaron wants to go to the beach before we head out, so we will hopefully wake up early enough so that we can go to the beach for an hour or two and leave straight from there. When we get to Santa Barbara, we will be staying with his friend Josh. Should be a blast!
That night, we went to Chicago Fire Pizza for dinner. They make their pizza in a wood fire oven, so it tastes amazing. We got three thin crusts and made quick work of them. On the way home, we saw this giant hill overlooking the town. Of course, we decided to pull over and climb up to see the sun set. It was probably the longest and steepest hill I have ever climbed up. My calves were just a few more steps short of cramping up by the time I got to the top. The view was beautiful though.
When we got back home, Austin Vierra and Aarons friends Max came over so we could go stargazing. We went out to a nice spot to stargaze and spent about an hour there before the sprinklers came on to shoo us away. Since that was over for us, we went to Austin’s house out in the boonies. We surpassed legal speed limits as we cruised through the winding road through the forest to Austin’s house. It was so much fun since Austin’s car was really nice and he told us he used to drive professionally. I hope that makes my parents feel better about that.
Austin has a huge 3d television, and he showed us Monsters vs. Aliens on it. It was pretty sweet! Everyone started to fall asleep at about 1, so we decided to head back to Aaron’s house since we wanted to get a good start to Santa Cruz the next day.
That was kind of a joke, since we didn’t end up leaving Placerville til about noon the next day. Santa Cruz isn’t that far away, but we initially talked about trying to get there at about noon. Then we decided to go to San Francisco and cross the Golden Gate Bridge, so that extended our deadline of arrival to dinnertime at 7.
So, we got out of the door at about 11 that morning and had to stop by this place to get Aaron’s fingerprints done for a job he’s doing this summer. However, he didn’t have an appointment made so he made one for next week and we hit the road.
Our first stop was San Francisco. Actually, we made about three stops before then because the girls had alternating schedules of having to use the bathroom and being thirsty. Aaron said he feels like a dad because we all keep asking him questions like when we’re gonna get places or stop for food or stop for potty breaks, etc. With about ten maps on my lap, I was the navigator for the day, and I figured out how we could best approach the Golden Gate Bridge. We crossed over, and made our way to Pier 39, where there are a ton of little shops and places to eat. There was also a HUGE cruise ship docked nearby, and a bunch of other sailboats and motorboats besides.
We got lunch at this place with clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls. The others got that, and I got a shrimp and crab sandwich that was pretty good and extremely overpriced. We walked around and saw a bunch of stores with key chains, knives, fudge, magnetic things, socks, left-handed objects, and more! Also, there was a fresh fruit market where we got a big mango. Mangoes are so weird, they taste really good but they’re full of stringy sclerenchyma and look like pumpkins on the inside!
After we got back to the car, we wanted to cruise around San Francisco. It is so hilly in that city! I think we drove up and down some hills that were at about a 45-degree slope. It was like being on a roller coaster! We soon realized that it was rush hour, and we needed to get to Caitlin’s house by 7:00 for dinner. We also wanted to see Stanford in Palo Alto. Stanford is gorgeous. After being on campus for about ten minutes, I was in total awe. We went to the quad in the middle and saw the beautiful chapel. I definitely want to transfer there. We again realized that the day was growing old and we needed to head out of there. Thanks to Aaron’s pro driving skills, we got to Caitlin’s house at 6:56. Big win!
Dinner was amazing spaghetti and bread. I can’t remember the last home cooked spaghetti I’ve had. My fast food and school food diet of the past 9 months have left me in a dire state of forgetting what real food tastes like.
After dinner, we went to the Mt. Hermon camp where Caitlin has lived nearly her whole life. There is a huge tree fort, a stream, cabins, a trading post, a giant rope swing, a tire swing, a big tree swing, and a few other fun things there. We met up with Stephen Cooper and his friend Alex there and then went to his house to go in his hot tub. His house was way up on the mountain and we drove up a really skinny, winding road that seemed to go up and up forever. His house is pretty sweet though, and we had fun hanging out there for a while.
We went back to Caitlin’s house and slept for a glorious ten hours to replenish our sleep debt. The next morning, we went for a run. I used this crappy pair of shoes I have and probably totally destroyed my arches. Afterwards, we made eggs and chocolate chip-banana pancakes. I put peanut butter and syrup on the pancakes. They were so good!
After breakfast, we got ready to go to the Boardwalk. We picked up Elisabeth’s friend from UC-Santa Cruz and went to the beach. We went in the water for a little bit, but it was freezing so we didn’t stay in for too long. The waves were huge compared to the places I’ve been to in Florida. Then we laid out for a little bit, and I got the beginnings of my tan line! I was in my Speedo, of course, so I wouldn’t get a weird tan line. My back is burnt more than my front, so I will be sure to even it out next time I am on the beach...which is soon. The beach is right next to the Boardwalk, so when we were done lying around we bought some tickets to ride on the Great Dipper, which is the West Coast’s oldest wooden coaster. It was really fun!
We then brought Elisabeth’s friend back to school, met one of Aaron’s friends that goes there, and went to Mariann’s (not sure of the spelling) for ice cream. It’s the best ice cream place in town! I got the 10-20, which is caramel ice cream with fudge swirl and Oreo pieces. Delicious. I don’t know why it’s called 10-20 though. Then we drove back to Caitlin’s for a “fancy dinner party”, which is going to be a Mexican food feast! All prepared by us, of course. And by us, I mean not me because I don’t know how to cook that many things. Aaron knows how to make good enchiladas, so I am preparing to be delighted by that. I think he’s buying cheesecake for dessert, too. Him and Elisabeth are at the store now, and Stephen will be coming over, too.
Tomorrow Aaron and I leave the girls here and head to Santa Barbara. It will be another long drive, but hey, that is the nature of road trips! Aaron wants to go to the beach before we head out, so we will hopefully wake up early enough so that we can go to the beach for an hour or two and leave straight from there. When we get to Santa Barbara, we will be staying with his friend Josh. Should be a blast!
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
ROADTRIPPPPP!!!! (1)
SCHOOL IS OVER AND IT’S SUMMER!!!!!! We so excited. We gonna have a ball. My finals went extraordinarily well, and in the last week I was able to have a lot of last-minute quality time spent with my amazing friends. On one night, about 30 of us went to see the sunset from 5 mile, which is a place with an incredible viewpoint of the sun setting over the distant mountains. Gorgeous. I also spent afternoons playing Frisbee and basketball (which I totally suck at) and evenings staying up late just talking with friends. I went to The Old Spaghetti Factory again with about 20 people and saw the replacement window of the one that I broke. It was quality. The manager recognized me and we talked a little bit. What a nice man!
Before I knew it, the week and the school year had come to an end. On the last night (Friday) before everyone left, everyone who was left went to the “smoke shack” where we had a bonfire, sang songs, made s’mores (some more what?), and said good-byes. Then I stayed up until 4am with Levi and Gabe because I was going to pull an all-nighter, but got really tired so I decided to sleep a few hours. I got to bed at about 4:30 and woke up at 7:30 so I would have enough time to get everything together by 8 for my checkout. That morning was so hectic. I had to store a few things still, help Aaron get his stuff together and help move and store his stuff. And we had to mail his giant boxes and some of Caitlin’s, as well. Aaron and I stashed our stuff underneath a little cove under Duvall (his dorm) while we did our last minute storing and mailing and hoped that it wouldn’t get stolen. At about noon, we went to Silverwood!
Silverwood is a theme park in Idaho, a little over an hour away from Spokane. Aaron and I met up with 6 guys from 4th floor of Duvall, where we’ll be living next year. We went on this little roller coaster called the corkscrew, first, and it was soo short. What happened was we went up a chain hill, down a hill and through a corkscrew, then around to the start. I was very disenchanted. Then we went on this ridiculous water ride with the other guys in which we ended up sitting in two feet of water. I spent the rest of the day with drenched jeans and a saturated wallet. Fortunately I took my phone out of my pocket in time and held it high above my head. It was hilarious how much water came into our car, though. We hit up a few more roller coasters and headed back to the swim house to hang out and sleep for the night.
That night I slept for ten hours because I had only slept for three the night before. I got up, hung out awhile, and went with Aaron, Abby, and Mel to hang out downtown before graduation. We went to Manito Park, which is beautiful, and got some coffee before graduation. It was a waste though because the stingy lady inside the Spokane Arena made us chug it or throw it away before we could go in. Graduation was really long but it was cool and went by fast because I was being sassy and talking the whole time. I gave last good-byes to the seniors and Aaron and I met up with Caitlin and we hightailed it out of there!
That night we drove to Gig Harbor to drop of Caitlin at Elisabeth’s house and to stay at Aaron’s Uncle and Aunt’s house. We talked to Aaron’s Aunt for a while, and she’s really nice and likes me so yay! We got to bed at about 2am and then were woken up at 7:30 by his adorable little cousins. After breakfast, we brought the kids to the bus stop and went to get Elisabeth and Caitlin. Before we got them though, we went to this little coffee shop to see Kelsie for a little while! After we got them, we headed out of town and passed into Lacey, which is about 20-30 minutes from Gig Harbor on our way down to California. We stopped there to visit Sam, and it ended up taking us about 30 minutes to get to her house because she thought we were coming from the opposite direction so we went in some giant and small circles for a while because of bad directions. At about 1 o clock we finally left Sam’s house and headed to Portland to meet up with some other friends, Bethany and Ester.
We met up with them at the Lloyd Center, which is this really cool mall in Portland with a ton of stores and an ice skating rink inside of it. Aaron and I learned a lot about bras while the girls tried on a few. Wait…I might have worded that badly. Anyways, after walking around in there for a while, we decided to get Donuts from this place called Voodoo Donuts. Apparently it’s a really well-known chain in the Northwest, but I’m from Wisconsin so what do I know? They have a ton of really…interesting… donuts. If you’ve ever been there you know what I’m talking about. Seriously though, they have a huge variety of donuts. We got a dozen and had a communal donut-eating party behind the store. After that, we went somewhere else downtown to Powell’s Bookstore, which is way bigger than any Barnes & Noble I’ve been to. I called my mommy to tell her I was doing okay, but she had to grade papers or something so we didn’t talk for too long. We left Powell’s after a little while and stopped by a thrift store to check out what they had. Aaron and I found a pair of neon yellow cut-off belly shirts that said “Dr. Muscles” on them that we really wanted to buy for the beach later, but they were $12 each and we figured we could just make our own, so we didn’t buy them.
We said bye to Ester and Bethany, and continued the voyage to Eugene where the Brodys live! When we got there, I was super tired so I wanted to stay behind to go to bed. The Brodys own a chain of grocery stores, so Matt took everyone to see one and they went to the U of O afterwards. I stayed back, chatted with Mr. Brody for a while, showered, and went to bed. I was so sad, my air mattress deflated throughout the night so I basically slept on a wooden floor that night! The next morning, we moved at a pretty leisurely pace. We had breakfast and left by about 10.
We had to stop and get gas, so that was the first matter of business while we were still in Eugene. If you don’t know, Oregon has at least two prominent weird laws that I’ve learned in my time in the Northwest. The first is that there are no taxes on stuff so they get tax breaks in other states. The second is that you are not allowed to pump your own gas. Well, we were at the gas station in Eugene and the guy did an excellent job washing our front window (seriously, he was pro), and he told us we had a screw in our tire. Great.
We ended up going to a car shop in town and waiting 45 minutes to get the screw removed and the tire patched up. Fortunately, we found a coffee shop (Fine Grinds—tell your friends! And “like” it on facebook!) with wi-fi to wait at. Finally, we left Eugene at noon with 8 hours of driving standing between us and Placerville.
After about two hours, we spotted a sign for a wildlife safari. Our curiosity was as piqued as Mount Shasta(which we saw later—it’s HUGE!). So, naturally, we got off the highway, and drove a few miles down this windy road to find ourselves in this safari place! On the way, we were a little bit sad because all we saw were cows and some birds so we thought that that was the safari. However, when we got to the ticket booth, we found out that we could get a big discount if any of us were zoo members. Elisabeth is a member, so we got 50% off and Aaron paid for us all!
Aaron brought a Flip, which is a little video camera thing. So, we took a ton of video footage of the animals we saw. There were llamas, turkeys, Canadian geese, cheetahs, bears, lions, a monkey, emus, yaks, antelope, sheep, camels, elephants, giraffes, and some other animals with weird names. An emu almost pecked Caitlin through the window! And the yaks were all in the road so we had to yell at them to move…which didn’t work, but they moved eventually anyways. And they kept peeing all over, too. And two of the yaks got in a little fight RIGHT in front of the car, it was scary! Oh, and we saw a giraffe poop too…and got footage of it. Aaron and I will be posting a video compilation for your viewing pleasure later!
After the safari adventure, we returned to the highway. A few hours later, we stopped at this bakery called “Heaven on Earth”. The name of the bakery wasn’t too far from the truth. I bought a cinnamon roll bigger than my head and we all shared it. It was amazing!!!
The drive has been overall pretty great so far. We’ve been blasting music, talking about random things, speaking in Spanish, taking multiple coffee stops for Aaron’s caffeine addiction, and enjoying the breathtaking view of the mountains all the while.
We made it to Placerville in one piece after stopping in Old Sacramento for a spontaneous midnight run and search for a bathroom stop. More to come later!
Before I knew it, the week and the school year had come to an end. On the last night (Friday) before everyone left, everyone who was left went to the “smoke shack” where we had a bonfire, sang songs, made s’mores (some more what?), and said good-byes. Then I stayed up until 4am with Levi and Gabe because I was going to pull an all-nighter, but got really tired so I decided to sleep a few hours. I got to bed at about 4:30 and woke up at 7:30 so I would have enough time to get everything together by 8 for my checkout. That morning was so hectic. I had to store a few things still, help Aaron get his stuff together and help move and store his stuff. And we had to mail his giant boxes and some of Caitlin’s, as well. Aaron and I stashed our stuff underneath a little cove under Duvall (his dorm) while we did our last minute storing and mailing and hoped that it wouldn’t get stolen. At about noon, we went to Silverwood!
Silverwood is a theme park in Idaho, a little over an hour away from Spokane. Aaron and I met up with 6 guys from 4th floor of Duvall, where we’ll be living next year. We went on this little roller coaster called the corkscrew, first, and it was soo short. What happened was we went up a chain hill, down a hill and through a corkscrew, then around to the start. I was very disenchanted. Then we went on this ridiculous water ride with the other guys in which we ended up sitting in two feet of water. I spent the rest of the day with drenched jeans and a saturated wallet. Fortunately I took my phone out of my pocket in time and held it high above my head. It was hilarious how much water came into our car, though. We hit up a few more roller coasters and headed back to the swim house to hang out and sleep for the night.
That night I slept for ten hours because I had only slept for three the night before. I got up, hung out awhile, and went with Aaron, Abby, and Mel to hang out downtown before graduation. We went to Manito Park, which is beautiful, and got some coffee before graduation. It was a waste though because the stingy lady inside the Spokane Arena made us chug it or throw it away before we could go in. Graduation was really long but it was cool and went by fast because I was being sassy and talking the whole time. I gave last good-byes to the seniors and Aaron and I met up with Caitlin and we hightailed it out of there!
That night we drove to Gig Harbor to drop of Caitlin at Elisabeth’s house and to stay at Aaron’s Uncle and Aunt’s house. We talked to Aaron’s Aunt for a while, and she’s really nice and likes me so yay! We got to bed at about 2am and then were woken up at 7:30 by his adorable little cousins. After breakfast, we brought the kids to the bus stop and went to get Elisabeth and Caitlin. Before we got them though, we went to this little coffee shop to see Kelsie for a little while! After we got them, we headed out of town and passed into Lacey, which is about 20-30 minutes from Gig Harbor on our way down to California. We stopped there to visit Sam, and it ended up taking us about 30 minutes to get to her house because she thought we were coming from the opposite direction so we went in some giant and small circles for a while because of bad directions. At about 1 o clock we finally left Sam’s house and headed to Portland to meet up with some other friends, Bethany and Ester.
We met up with them at the Lloyd Center, which is this really cool mall in Portland with a ton of stores and an ice skating rink inside of it. Aaron and I learned a lot about bras while the girls tried on a few. Wait…I might have worded that badly. Anyways, after walking around in there for a while, we decided to get Donuts from this place called Voodoo Donuts. Apparently it’s a really well-known chain in the Northwest, but I’m from Wisconsin so what do I know? They have a ton of really…interesting… donuts. If you’ve ever been there you know what I’m talking about. Seriously though, they have a huge variety of donuts. We got a dozen and had a communal donut-eating party behind the store. After that, we went somewhere else downtown to Powell’s Bookstore, which is way bigger than any Barnes & Noble I’ve been to. I called my mommy to tell her I was doing okay, but she had to grade papers or something so we didn’t talk for too long. We left Powell’s after a little while and stopped by a thrift store to check out what they had. Aaron and I found a pair of neon yellow cut-off belly shirts that said “Dr. Muscles” on them that we really wanted to buy for the beach later, but they were $12 each and we figured we could just make our own, so we didn’t buy them.
We said bye to Ester and Bethany, and continued the voyage to Eugene where the Brodys live! When we got there, I was super tired so I wanted to stay behind to go to bed. The Brodys own a chain of grocery stores, so Matt took everyone to see one and they went to the U of O afterwards. I stayed back, chatted with Mr. Brody for a while, showered, and went to bed. I was so sad, my air mattress deflated throughout the night so I basically slept on a wooden floor that night! The next morning, we moved at a pretty leisurely pace. We had breakfast and left by about 10.
We had to stop and get gas, so that was the first matter of business while we were still in Eugene. If you don’t know, Oregon has at least two prominent weird laws that I’ve learned in my time in the Northwest. The first is that there are no taxes on stuff so they get tax breaks in other states. The second is that you are not allowed to pump your own gas. Well, we were at the gas station in Eugene and the guy did an excellent job washing our front window (seriously, he was pro), and he told us we had a screw in our tire. Great.
We ended up going to a car shop in town and waiting 45 minutes to get the screw removed and the tire patched up. Fortunately, we found a coffee shop (Fine Grinds—tell your friends! And “like” it on facebook!) with wi-fi to wait at. Finally, we left Eugene at noon with 8 hours of driving standing between us and Placerville.
After about two hours, we spotted a sign for a wildlife safari. Our curiosity was as piqued as Mount Shasta(which we saw later—it’s HUGE!). So, naturally, we got off the highway, and drove a few miles down this windy road to find ourselves in this safari place! On the way, we were a little bit sad because all we saw were cows and some birds so we thought that that was the safari. However, when we got to the ticket booth, we found out that we could get a big discount if any of us were zoo members. Elisabeth is a member, so we got 50% off and Aaron paid for us all!
Aaron brought a Flip, which is a little video camera thing. So, we took a ton of video footage of the animals we saw. There were llamas, turkeys, Canadian geese, cheetahs, bears, lions, a monkey, emus, yaks, antelope, sheep, camels, elephants, giraffes, and some other animals with weird names. An emu almost pecked Caitlin through the window! And the yaks were all in the road so we had to yell at them to move…which didn’t work, but they moved eventually anyways. And they kept peeing all over, too. And two of the yaks got in a little fight RIGHT in front of the car, it was scary! Oh, and we saw a giraffe poop too…and got footage of it. Aaron and I will be posting a video compilation for your viewing pleasure later!
After the safari adventure, we returned to the highway. A few hours later, we stopped at this bakery called “Heaven on Earth”. The name of the bakery wasn’t too far from the truth. I bought a cinnamon roll bigger than my head and we all shared it. It was amazing!!!
The drive has been overall pretty great so far. We’ve been blasting music, talking about random things, speaking in Spanish, taking multiple coffee stops for Aaron’s caffeine addiction, and enjoying the breathtaking view of the mountains all the while.
We made it to Placerville in one piece after stopping in Old Sacramento for a spontaneous midnight run and search for a bathroom stop. More to come later!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Finals Week
I’m taking a little break from finals study overload to share some more events that I thought would be worth sharing. I had my Core and Revelation finals today, and I am exempt from my Chemistry final because I ended up with an A average beforehand. Don’t hate. Tomorrow I have the plant bio class exam, and Thursday is the plant lab exam. After I finish writing this post, I’m probably going to study plants for about 10 hours (excluding breaks).
First of all, I feel like talking about James Killian. Not because he asked me to, or because he has the cutest curly hairs on his head, or because he can ride a tall unicycle, or because he can run like a Zulu warrior, or because he can swim like a swordfish, or because he can make sweet melodious sonnets with stringed instruments, or because he has a vast expanse of pokemon knowledge (and other, less relevant knowledge), or because he can sketch like Da Vinci. No, I’m just gonna talk about him just because I feel like it.
Actually, that’s all I had to say about him.
Anyways, something really traumatic happened to me last weekend. I could have died, maybe. So here’s what happened: last Friday, my small group had a date with a girls small group and we went to Red Robin. That was fun, and then Levi, Kyla and I decided to stay downtown because others were going to The Old Spaghetti Factory for Sarah Scoon’s birthday. We walked around the mall first, then wandered through the streets toward the restaurant. Along the way, we found this totally ghetto alley littered with trash and awesome graffiti art. The group that was coming was late, so we spent time in this random art gallery that we found nearby. We met the showcased artist, and he had some really cool pieces. Then we went to the restaurant to meet up with the group, and had a great time. Since Levi, Kyla and I had already had dinner we just got dessert. Levi and I split some mousse. How adorable, right?
Anyways, to the trauma. We were taking group pictures in the lobby of the restaurant afterwards, and we all huddled up on this couch. The couch was in front of a rather large window that looked into a foyer room. I was on the top of the couch and had my arm around Michael Ricker and Graeme Lauer, and my back was slightly pressed to the window. The wonderful picture was taken; we all began to dismount the couch, and BAM! The window shattered to pieces! Everyone was okay, except that my hand was bleeding kind of a lot. My hand was basically covered in red and there was like a pool of blood in my palm. I cried a lot! Just kidding.
Graeme used his lifesaving/red-cross skillz and asked the lady at the desk for a first aid kit right away, and he crudely gauze-wrapped my hand after I pressurized it with napkins for awhile. Fortunately, the cuts weren’t terribly bad and there was no glass trapped in the wounds. The worst cuts were on my palm and on my finger. And it was my left hand, which was fortunate. The manager was really concerned, and I don’t have to pay for the window. I think he was worried that I would sue or something. Which I should, heehee.
When we got back to Whitworth, I went to a dorm medic who bandaged me more thoroughly and cleaned me up a little better. They’re still healing now, and they kind of hurt when I accidentally hit them on things, which I should remind myself to stop doing. This accident reminded of another traumatic event that happened on the way back to Whitworth from Gig Harbor over Easter break. It’s pretty different, but reminded me somehow anyways.
So Aaron drove Beth, Gabe, and me back from Gig Harbor. When we were about an hour away, it was about 8:30 at night, so it was getting pretty dark out. We noticed this grey car alongside us with this old guy smoking a joint in it. His headlights weren’t on. He was also kind of swerving. We slowed down a bit to get some distance, and flashed him, and noticed a lot of other people flashing him, too. He never turned his lights on so it was obvious that he knew his lights were off. We debated if we should call 911 or not to report this, but decided not to because we guessed that someone else might have already, or because we just didn’t know if we should. Next time I see someone like this, I’m calling 911, because of what happened later.
After about 20 minutes of watching this reckless car, we noticed that he was gone. We concluded that he must have turned off or something. About 20 minutes after his disappearance, however, we saw a terrifying sight. On the other side of the median, a car was driving into oncoming traffic—on the highway! The cars lights were on, and it was driving about 30mph. As we passed the scene, we started freaking out a little bit and watched to see what would happen. As we watched, the car started turning its lights off and on to mess with traffic. Cars were swerving to avoid this car. I couldn’t believe this was unfolding in front of my eyes. Then, I watched as a car ran straight into the other car head-on! Both cars crumpled and we were all in shock. At that point, we called 911, but cops were already screaming down the highway, so we didn’t get a response from them and hung up.
The next day, we heard the reports. The man in the car was killed on impact, and the girl that hit him was in critical condition. I just couldn’t believe that we had witnessed the whole thing from start to finish. It’s just scary to think that at any time or place, on any highway, there could be a wacko driving down oncoming traffic on a suicide mission. Please everyone, drive carefully!
Now, I’m gonna go sell some books and then study for 10 hours like I said. Byyyyee.
First of all, I feel like talking about James Killian. Not because he asked me to, or because he has the cutest curly hairs on his head, or because he can ride a tall unicycle, or because he can run like a Zulu warrior, or because he can swim like a swordfish, or because he can make sweet melodious sonnets with stringed instruments, or because he has a vast expanse of pokemon knowledge (and other, less relevant knowledge), or because he can sketch like Da Vinci. No, I’m just gonna talk about him just because I feel like it.
Actually, that’s all I had to say about him.
Anyways, something really traumatic happened to me last weekend. I could have died, maybe. So here’s what happened: last Friday, my small group had a date with a girls small group and we went to Red Robin. That was fun, and then Levi, Kyla and I decided to stay downtown because others were going to The Old Spaghetti Factory for Sarah Scoon’s birthday. We walked around the mall first, then wandered through the streets toward the restaurant. Along the way, we found this totally ghetto alley littered with trash and awesome graffiti art. The group that was coming was late, so we spent time in this random art gallery that we found nearby. We met the showcased artist, and he had some really cool pieces. Then we went to the restaurant to meet up with the group, and had a great time. Since Levi, Kyla and I had already had dinner we just got dessert. Levi and I split some mousse. How adorable, right?
Anyways, to the trauma. We were taking group pictures in the lobby of the restaurant afterwards, and we all huddled up on this couch. The couch was in front of a rather large window that looked into a foyer room. I was on the top of the couch and had my arm around Michael Ricker and Graeme Lauer, and my back was slightly pressed to the window. The wonderful picture was taken; we all began to dismount the couch, and BAM! The window shattered to pieces! Everyone was okay, except that my hand was bleeding kind of a lot. My hand was basically covered in red and there was like a pool of blood in my palm. I cried a lot! Just kidding.
Graeme used his lifesaving/red-cross skillz and asked the lady at the desk for a first aid kit right away, and he crudely gauze-wrapped my hand after I pressurized it with napkins for awhile. Fortunately, the cuts weren’t terribly bad and there was no glass trapped in the wounds. The worst cuts were on my palm and on my finger. And it was my left hand, which was fortunate. The manager was really concerned, and I don’t have to pay for the window. I think he was worried that I would sue or something. Which I should, heehee.
When we got back to Whitworth, I went to a dorm medic who bandaged me more thoroughly and cleaned me up a little better. They’re still healing now, and they kind of hurt when I accidentally hit them on things, which I should remind myself to stop doing. This accident reminded of another traumatic event that happened on the way back to Whitworth from Gig Harbor over Easter break. It’s pretty different, but reminded me somehow anyways.
So Aaron drove Beth, Gabe, and me back from Gig Harbor. When we were about an hour away, it was about 8:30 at night, so it was getting pretty dark out. We noticed this grey car alongside us with this old guy smoking a joint in it. His headlights weren’t on. He was also kind of swerving. We slowed down a bit to get some distance, and flashed him, and noticed a lot of other people flashing him, too. He never turned his lights on so it was obvious that he knew his lights were off. We debated if we should call 911 or not to report this, but decided not to because we guessed that someone else might have already, or because we just didn’t know if we should. Next time I see someone like this, I’m calling 911, because of what happened later.
After about 20 minutes of watching this reckless car, we noticed that he was gone. We concluded that he must have turned off or something. About 20 minutes after his disappearance, however, we saw a terrifying sight. On the other side of the median, a car was driving into oncoming traffic—on the highway! The cars lights were on, and it was driving about 30mph. As we passed the scene, we started freaking out a little bit and watched to see what would happen. As we watched, the car started turning its lights off and on to mess with traffic. Cars were swerving to avoid this car. I couldn’t believe this was unfolding in front of my eyes. Then, I watched as a car ran straight into the other car head-on! Both cars crumpled and we were all in shock. At that point, we called 911, but cops were already screaming down the highway, so we didn’t get a response from them and hung up.
The next day, we heard the reports. The man in the car was killed on impact, and the girl that hit him was in critical condition. I just couldn’t believe that we had witnessed the whole thing from start to finish. It’s just scary to think that at any time or place, on any highway, there could be a wacko driving down oncoming traffic on a suicide mission. Please everyone, drive carefully!
Now, I’m gonna go sell some books and then study for 10 hours like I said. Byyyyee.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Twofer
Wowie two blog posts in a row?? Sorry for the overload, I hope you’ll be okay. If not, give me a call and I’ll refer you to a great psychologist. Okay that didn’t really make any sense.
So, I can’t remember what it was I had forgotten to say last night, other than my plans for the summer. I think I will keep blogging throughout the summer so that my West coast friends can keep up on my Green Bay life (if they care…).
Last week, Aaron and I went to the UPS store to buy boxes. I can’t believe how much money they charge for some stupid cardboard. We bought three boxes (him two, me one), and figured we would just stick them in his car. Little did we know that we had terrible spatial awareness. The boxes had too big of dimensions to fit in the trunk, and we barely fit one through the door of his backseat. So, we jammed one in, them pushed my seat forward to put the second one in sideways. Oh, and we had asked the lady to tape them up for us to “save us the hassle”. So we had one box left. Where to put it? Well, I squeezed in the front seat, sucked in my gut, and we jammed that box in on my lap. I had to pee really bad too so it kind of hurt. But we made it back to school okay, so don’t worry!
So now I just have to pack up my box and my big ugly brown suitcase with clothes and items and mail them back home. I’ll be leaving a lot of things here in Spokane in storage, including my sweet, sweet computer and my precious sound system! I might die this summer because I won’t be able to play very many fun video games on my laptop. But, as I’ll address later, I will have a busy summer anyways so there won’t be much time for gaming, which is kind of sad. But probably good that I’m growing up? No, no…it’s mostly sad. Oh, and I finally mailed in my cheap camera and exchanged it for a queen-sized mattress pad and it finally arrived in time for the last week and a half of school! I’ll be storing that over the summer, too.
Now to tell you about my summer plans. After school is over next Thursday, Aaron and I will stay in Spokane for a few more days and see the seniors off at their graduation. From there, we are going to go on a roadtrip with two other girls. Aaron knows lots of people in Washington-Oregon-California (family and friends), so we’re going to try to make it as cheap a trip as possible by mooching off of his resources. Also, a lot of swimmers live along the Western states, so we will probably stop by and visit some of them, too. I think one of the girls lives in Washington somewhere and another one lives in California, so we’ll be bringing them home within the first few days of our trip. I think eventually we’ll find our way to Aarons house in (Placerville?), which is about an hour from Sacramento. We’ll spend a few days there, then roadtrip somewhere south to a nice beach where he has friends. Then we’ll head back to his house for his birthday on May 27th, and I’ll be flying home on the 28th!
As soon as I get back, my busy summer begins. I’m hoping to hear back from NWTC. I sent in an interest packet to them last week, so I should hear back from them by today or tomorrow or hopefully next week at the latest! I want to get into the CNA program that starts June 1st, and then I can take those classes twice a week with Joey. In addition, I plan to do a volunteer internship with the help of Saied, who is kind enough to create the opportunity for me. The internship will be in the realm of public health policy, and he will be giving me lots of reading to do so that I can learn about everything that is entailed in American public health policy. Very nice!
There are other things I would like to do this summer that are on the more fun side of things. The weather here is dreadful…it’s been snowing and raining STILL throughout the month of April. It’s May now, so hopefully that means the snow is gone. We’ve had some really nice days (up to the 60’s) but it literally snowed a week ago. This leads me to my emphasis on fun things this summer. Fun things meaning anything that involves being outside in the warm weather. I want to go to bodies of water and boat around, water-ski, swim, run, fish, and all that jazz! I want to spend time with all of the people I lost touch with this past year. All of this, of course, worked around the time that I’ll be busy with interning, babysitting, teaching swim lessons, and taking class. I basically want to do everything this summer, and make it last as long as possible while doing so.
That’s all I got for ya. Kthanksbye!
So, I can’t remember what it was I had forgotten to say last night, other than my plans for the summer. I think I will keep blogging throughout the summer so that my West coast friends can keep up on my Green Bay life (if they care…).
Last week, Aaron and I went to the UPS store to buy boxes. I can’t believe how much money they charge for some stupid cardboard. We bought three boxes (him two, me one), and figured we would just stick them in his car. Little did we know that we had terrible spatial awareness. The boxes had too big of dimensions to fit in the trunk, and we barely fit one through the door of his backseat. So, we jammed one in, them pushed my seat forward to put the second one in sideways. Oh, and we had asked the lady to tape them up for us to “save us the hassle”. So we had one box left. Where to put it? Well, I squeezed in the front seat, sucked in my gut, and we jammed that box in on my lap. I had to pee really bad too so it kind of hurt. But we made it back to school okay, so don’t worry!
So now I just have to pack up my box and my big ugly brown suitcase with clothes and items and mail them back home. I’ll be leaving a lot of things here in Spokane in storage, including my sweet, sweet computer and my precious sound system! I might die this summer because I won’t be able to play very many fun video games on my laptop. But, as I’ll address later, I will have a busy summer anyways so there won’t be much time for gaming, which is kind of sad. But probably good that I’m growing up? No, no…it’s mostly sad. Oh, and I finally mailed in my cheap camera and exchanged it for a queen-sized mattress pad and it finally arrived in time for the last week and a half of school! I’ll be storing that over the summer, too.
Now to tell you about my summer plans. After school is over next Thursday, Aaron and I will stay in Spokane for a few more days and see the seniors off at their graduation. From there, we are going to go on a roadtrip with two other girls. Aaron knows lots of people in Washington-Oregon-California (family and friends), so we’re going to try to make it as cheap a trip as possible by mooching off of his resources. Also, a lot of swimmers live along the Western states, so we will probably stop by and visit some of them, too. I think one of the girls lives in Washington somewhere and another one lives in California, so we’ll be bringing them home within the first few days of our trip. I think eventually we’ll find our way to Aarons house in (Placerville?), which is about an hour from Sacramento. We’ll spend a few days there, then roadtrip somewhere south to a nice beach where he has friends. Then we’ll head back to his house for his birthday on May 27th, and I’ll be flying home on the 28th!
As soon as I get back, my busy summer begins. I’m hoping to hear back from NWTC. I sent in an interest packet to them last week, so I should hear back from them by today or tomorrow or hopefully next week at the latest! I want to get into the CNA program that starts June 1st, and then I can take those classes twice a week with Joey. In addition, I plan to do a volunteer internship with the help of Saied, who is kind enough to create the opportunity for me. The internship will be in the realm of public health policy, and he will be giving me lots of reading to do so that I can learn about everything that is entailed in American public health policy. Very nice!
There are other things I would like to do this summer that are on the more fun side of things. The weather here is dreadful…it’s been snowing and raining STILL throughout the month of April. It’s May now, so hopefully that means the snow is gone. We’ve had some really nice days (up to the 60’s) but it literally snowed a week ago. This leads me to my emphasis on fun things this summer. Fun things meaning anything that involves being outside in the warm weather. I want to go to bodies of water and boat around, water-ski, swim, run, fish, and all that jazz! I want to spend time with all of the people I lost touch with this past year. All of this, of course, worked around the time that I’ll be busy with interning, babysitting, teaching swim lessons, and taking class. I basically want to do everything this summer, and make it last as long as possible while doing so.
That’s all I got for ya. Kthanksbye!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Summer is Near
Don’t hate because I haven’t posted in 10 weeks. I love you all! But I’m too busy loving life, too. Here I am, writing an update though!
Conference was so long ago but I’ll still tell you how I did. I didn’t do as well as I wanted but still got best times, which is pretty much what everyone says after their big competitions. For me though, I think it’s a little different. I began this year with a pec injury that I spent 2 months working on to heal. After that, I was able to catch up with everyone after a few weeks of hard training. At the husky invite (about 4 weeks into training) I hit times that were near my best. By Christmas training I was in the best shape of my life. I’m not sure what happened after that, but about 5 weeks before conference, I was just super tired and slow all the time. I think it was probably because of a long-accumulated sleep debt. Because of my sluggishness, I was rested extra. In fact, I was rested too much. At conference, I felt really fast for my first race—and then I was really tired. I knew that I had over-rested. But, I got best times and scored, so I can’t complain.
I took a week off after conference, and then I started to swim and lift a bit for the next three weeks after that. Then, Steve’s Sports Conditioning class began, which is basically our way of getting around the NCAA practice regulations. However, I only swam about 4 times a week and lifted 3 times a week, which is much less than in-season. This week, I started lifting at 5:15am with Rory and Austin on Monday and Tuesday, and swimming after. Tomorrow I’ll be lifting in the AM with them, again…I’m soooooo tired! I honestly don’t know how I did as much as I did in-season. I’m struggling to do half as much right now. I suppose it is much easier once I fall into a routine—but still. I’m definitely not in the shape I was in the middle of the year, but I’m getting back into it.
Spring break was really fun. That was about 3 weeks after conference, and was the same week that our 7 guys and 1 girl went to NCAAs. On the first weekend, I was invited (along with two other guy friends) to be ushers in my friend’s sister’s wedding! That meant free food too! The wedding was beautiful, and we helped load up the 5000 pounds of gifts into the parent’s car and went back to my friend’s (Giles’) house to sleep over. We watched a movie, had man talk, and went to bed. The next day we went to the new husband’s parent’s house to watch the new couple unwrap their presents (P.S. for my wedding, DO NOT buy me 25 sets of ceramic plates and cups), and then they went to their honeymoon!
That same day, the day after, and two days previous, I went to three different malls with three different groups of friends. I had been given some money for my birthday back in February and I basically went on a shopping spree. Let’s just say that when I went to buy tacos at the end of the third day, my credit card was declined. How embarrassing. I’ve since stopped buying anything. Ever.
The day after the wedding, I went to hang out with Noah Peller (my AWESOME RA) and slept over at his house. Then I spent the rest of the week at the swim house and we did lots of fun stuff like hiking, driving to Coeur d’Alene, and just hanging out watching Netflix. Oh, and of course, working out.
The break went by really fast, of course. I had more classes, etc, etc, found out I got 100% in microbiology somehow, whatever, and then before I knew what had happened it was Easter break! This was probably the funnest weekend ever…and I’m not being facetious.
I was invited by Kelsie Jenkins to go to her house in Gig Harbor with 5 other people (Gabe, Jonathan, Rachel, Beth, and Kate). Lindsay was there for a little bit when I got there, and we saw a bunch of other friends who lived in the area a few times throughout the weekend. If you’re reading this from Green Bay you have no idea who any of these people are but trust me, they’re all so awesome!
Anyways, I drove to Gig Harbor with Aaron (my future roommate) and it was scary because there was a blizzard on the pass on the way over. Also, we almost ran out of gas in the middle of the blizzard. But don’t worry because we’re obviously okay! We also got lost when we got there because we mapquested the wrong address (my fault). Aaron dropped me off because he went to watch Whitworth’s track team in Oregon and later met up with his friend and then went back to his Uncle’s house in Gig Harbor. He helped drive us home, too.
That night, we all slept in a big pile in Kelsie’s basement after watching a movie. The next day, we woke up kind of late, and went to this brand new park that had a really nice turf field that we ran around on and played Frisbee and just had fun taking pictures and stuff. We came back, made a bunch of Mexican food, and had a homework session. That night we stargazed, had massage trains, and fell asleep watching a movie again.
The next day, we met up with some friends and went to a park in Tacoma, and it was beautiful out. We played some more Frisbee, walked around, and ate bread and drank sparkling juice from Safeway. That night, we went to a friend’s house where we sat around a bonfire that was on the shore and sang songs and talked until the tide came up to put the fire out.
On Easter, we went to Kelsie’s church, came back to the house and had delicious crepes with fruit dip, strawberries, and chocolate sauce. Then Kelsie hid Easter baskets for all of us to find! Her dad is a candy man so it was no problem but it was so nice of her to thin of that for us! Actually, her mom thought of it, but still it was really nice. Basically, it was the perfect weekend. There were so many inside jokes and the weather was amazing and the group was fun!
Last weekend, our school had “Pirate Idol”, which took all of the top two winners of each of the “Whitworth Unplugged” musical competitions we had throughout the year, and pitted them against each other. A band called Alma Desnuda opened, and they were hilarious and were a pretty good and musically diverse band, too. The contestants did great, and the place was packed full of people.
The next day was Springfest, which was really cheesy. Well, actually, it was really fun. I went to the HUB with Levi, and we got breakfast, sumo wrestled in giant costumes, raced through the blow-up course, climbed a portable climbing wall, and fought in a different blow-up pen. Then we went frolfing with a few other people including Kelsie’s little brother who was visiting for the weekend. He’s only a sophomore now, but he said he’s coming here for sure…I’m holding him to that! The rest of the weekend I spent writing essays.
A bunch of other stuff happened during the past ten weeks, but I can’t totally recall EVERYTHING. The most significant other event was that I failed running for dorm senator…but there were a lot of circumstances surrounding that process that explain my loss. I’m okay with it though…it’s for the best.
Basically, I’m really excited for school to end for the summer, but I’m also going to miss all of my blossoming friendships! So sad. Of course I am full of nostalgia and some regrets, but I look back on my freshman year and see a year packed full of hard work and I am happy with how I turned out at the end of it all, with everything that’s transpired.
I have more to say, but it’s bedtime. More to come later!
Conference was so long ago but I’ll still tell you how I did. I didn’t do as well as I wanted but still got best times, which is pretty much what everyone says after their big competitions. For me though, I think it’s a little different. I began this year with a pec injury that I spent 2 months working on to heal. After that, I was able to catch up with everyone after a few weeks of hard training. At the husky invite (about 4 weeks into training) I hit times that were near my best. By Christmas training I was in the best shape of my life. I’m not sure what happened after that, but about 5 weeks before conference, I was just super tired and slow all the time. I think it was probably because of a long-accumulated sleep debt. Because of my sluggishness, I was rested extra. In fact, I was rested too much. At conference, I felt really fast for my first race—and then I was really tired. I knew that I had over-rested. But, I got best times and scored, so I can’t complain.
I took a week off after conference, and then I started to swim and lift a bit for the next three weeks after that. Then, Steve’s Sports Conditioning class began, which is basically our way of getting around the NCAA practice regulations. However, I only swam about 4 times a week and lifted 3 times a week, which is much less than in-season. This week, I started lifting at 5:15am with Rory and Austin on Monday and Tuesday, and swimming after. Tomorrow I’ll be lifting in the AM with them, again…I’m soooooo tired! I honestly don’t know how I did as much as I did in-season. I’m struggling to do half as much right now. I suppose it is much easier once I fall into a routine—but still. I’m definitely not in the shape I was in the middle of the year, but I’m getting back into it.
Spring break was really fun. That was about 3 weeks after conference, and was the same week that our 7 guys and 1 girl went to NCAAs. On the first weekend, I was invited (along with two other guy friends) to be ushers in my friend’s sister’s wedding! That meant free food too! The wedding was beautiful, and we helped load up the 5000 pounds of gifts into the parent’s car and went back to my friend’s (Giles’) house to sleep over. We watched a movie, had man talk, and went to bed. The next day we went to the new husband’s parent’s house to watch the new couple unwrap their presents (P.S. for my wedding, DO NOT buy me 25 sets of ceramic plates and cups), and then they went to their honeymoon!
That same day, the day after, and two days previous, I went to three different malls with three different groups of friends. I had been given some money for my birthday back in February and I basically went on a shopping spree. Let’s just say that when I went to buy tacos at the end of the third day, my credit card was declined. How embarrassing. I’ve since stopped buying anything. Ever.
The day after the wedding, I went to hang out with Noah Peller (my AWESOME RA) and slept over at his house. Then I spent the rest of the week at the swim house and we did lots of fun stuff like hiking, driving to Coeur d’Alene, and just hanging out watching Netflix. Oh, and of course, working out.
The break went by really fast, of course. I had more classes, etc, etc, found out I got 100% in microbiology somehow, whatever, and then before I knew what had happened it was Easter break! This was probably the funnest weekend ever…and I’m not being facetious.
I was invited by Kelsie Jenkins to go to her house in Gig Harbor with 5 other people (Gabe, Jonathan, Rachel, Beth, and Kate). Lindsay was there for a little bit when I got there, and we saw a bunch of other friends who lived in the area a few times throughout the weekend. If you’re reading this from Green Bay you have no idea who any of these people are but trust me, they’re all so awesome!
Anyways, I drove to Gig Harbor with Aaron (my future roommate) and it was scary because there was a blizzard on the pass on the way over. Also, we almost ran out of gas in the middle of the blizzard. But don’t worry because we’re obviously okay! We also got lost when we got there because we mapquested the wrong address (my fault). Aaron dropped me off because he went to watch Whitworth’s track team in Oregon and later met up with his friend and then went back to his Uncle’s house in Gig Harbor. He helped drive us home, too.
That night, we all slept in a big pile in Kelsie’s basement after watching a movie. The next day, we woke up kind of late, and went to this brand new park that had a really nice turf field that we ran around on and played Frisbee and just had fun taking pictures and stuff. We came back, made a bunch of Mexican food, and had a homework session. That night we stargazed, had massage trains, and fell asleep watching a movie again.
The next day, we met up with some friends and went to a park in Tacoma, and it was beautiful out. We played some more Frisbee, walked around, and ate bread and drank sparkling juice from Safeway. That night, we went to a friend’s house where we sat around a bonfire that was on the shore and sang songs and talked until the tide came up to put the fire out.
On Easter, we went to Kelsie’s church, came back to the house and had delicious crepes with fruit dip, strawberries, and chocolate sauce. Then Kelsie hid Easter baskets for all of us to find! Her dad is a candy man so it was no problem but it was so nice of her to thin of that for us! Actually, her mom thought of it, but still it was really nice. Basically, it was the perfect weekend. There were so many inside jokes and the weather was amazing and the group was fun!
Last weekend, our school had “Pirate Idol”, which took all of the top two winners of each of the “Whitworth Unplugged” musical competitions we had throughout the year, and pitted them against each other. A band called Alma Desnuda opened, and they were hilarious and were a pretty good and musically diverse band, too. The contestants did great, and the place was packed full of people.
The next day was Springfest, which was really cheesy. Well, actually, it was really fun. I went to the HUB with Levi, and we got breakfast, sumo wrestled in giant costumes, raced through the blow-up course, climbed a portable climbing wall, and fought in a different blow-up pen. Then we went frolfing with a few other people including Kelsie’s little brother who was visiting for the weekend. He’s only a sophomore now, but he said he’s coming here for sure…I’m holding him to that! The rest of the weekend I spent writing essays.
A bunch of other stuff happened during the past ten weeks, but I can’t totally recall EVERYTHING. The most significant other event was that I failed running for dorm senator…but there were a lot of circumstances surrounding that process that explain my loss. I’m okay with it though…it’s for the best.
Basically, I’m really excited for school to end for the summer, but I’m also going to miss all of my blossoming friendships! So sad. Of course I am full of nostalgia and some regrets, but I look back on my freshman year and see a year packed full of hard work and I am happy with how I turned out at the end of it all, with everything that’s transpired.
I have more to say, but it’s bedtime. More to come later!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
An Essay I Wrote
I know I haven't talked about my life in a while, and I'm sorry. But here is something I wrote for extra credit for biology about a movie we watched. WARNING, it's kind of controversial, and I might sound like I don't know what I'm talking about, so don't judge me. But it's what I think is correct.
Tracing the origins of life in a scientific way has been difficult for biologists for a very long time. It wasn’t until Carl Woese came up with the idea of phylogenetic classification that scientists were able to relate living things to each other in a more scientific way than simply how things appear. This is indeed an ingenious way to view how closely related all of life actually is. There are certain elements within the hypotheses that have formed as a result of this method that I can see reason in, but as a Christian it is hard to incorporate evolution as a part of my worldview.
Carl Woese’s method of phylogenetic classification involves looking at and comparing strands of the 16SrRNA gene, which is found in all living things. The video that we watched stated that of all of the DNA in living organisms, the amount that differentiates all life is only about 3% of that DNA. This is an incredibly small amount, obviously, and leads to implications about the similarity of all life. The 16SrRNA gene is within that 3% that differs, and so with that Woese was able to create a new “Tree of Life”. The new Tree of Life that was created makes sense to me biologically.
The only part of Woese’s Tree of Life that makes me uncomfortable is the idea of a common ancestor. His Tree of Life also implies evolution. It has been suggested that God may have used evolution as a mechanism for creation, but the Bible in Genesis says that God created the animals “…each according to its kind” (Gen 1:24). This is not to say that I don’t think natural selection occurs, because it does. But from my understanding, natural selection combined with genetic mutations as a mechanism for evolution is not a correct idea. I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that most genetic mutations are not beneficial, and they are also often not passed along to offspring. Because of these things, I think that a common ancestor for all of life, and therefore, all of evolution, is and will always be only a theory and not a fact.
In the movie we watched, Karl Stetter’s work also revolves around finding the origin of life. He looks in extreme environments such as Yellowstone National Park to find organisms in the domain Archaea. In the 60s, these organisms were classified in the same group as other prokaryotes. However, using Woese’s new classification, these microorganisms were found to be very different from other bacteria. They prefer extreme conditions, similar to primordial earth. This is the basis of Stetter’s research, and this makes sense to me. However, it is also possible that these Archaea were simply created by God and placed in these extreme environments for His purposes. Perhaps their metabolism and contribution to maintaining balance in nature is what their sole purpose is. In any case, I think that if Karl Stetter is looking for the closest thing to a common ancestor, he will be disappointed because I don’t think there exists such a thing.
The final thing that I did not agree with in the video we watched was the mention that the earth IS 4 and a half billion years old. They did not suggest that the earth MIGHT be that old based on certain hypotheses made by geologists. Once again, the genealogies in the Bible along with the story of creation infer a several-thousand-year-old earth. The idea that evolution occurred over billions of years nicely suits the idea of a common ancestor and natural selection, but evolution over the course of several thousand years is simply not noticeable. So, if the earth is only several-thousand years old, a common ancestor could not have had enough time to diversify into all of life on earth.
In conclusion, because of my Christian faith, I refute many of the ideas we talked about in class, but I do accept them as scientific and worth study.
Tracing the origins of life in a scientific way has been difficult for biologists for a very long time. It wasn’t until Carl Woese came up with the idea of phylogenetic classification that scientists were able to relate living things to each other in a more scientific way than simply how things appear. This is indeed an ingenious way to view how closely related all of life actually is. There are certain elements within the hypotheses that have formed as a result of this method that I can see reason in, but as a Christian it is hard to incorporate evolution as a part of my worldview.
Carl Woese’s method of phylogenetic classification involves looking at and comparing strands of the 16SrRNA gene, which is found in all living things. The video that we watched stated that of all of the DNA in living organisms, the amount that differentiates all life is only about 3% of that DNA. This is an incredibly small amount, obviously, and leads to implications about the similarity of all life. The 16SrRNA gene is within that 3% that differs, and so with that Woese was able to create a new “Tree of Life”. The new Tree of Life that was created makes sense to me biologically.
The only part of Woese’s Tree of Life that makes me uncomfortable is the idea of a common ancestor. His Tree of Life also implies evolution. It has been suggested that God may have used evolution as a mechanism for creation, but the Bible in Genesis says that God created the animals “…each according to its kind” (Gen 1:24). This is not to say that I don’t think natural selection occurs, because it does. But from my understanding, natural selection combined with genetic mutations as a mechanism for evolution is not a correct idea. I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that most genetic mutations are not beneficial, and they are also often not passed along to offspring. Because of these things, I think that a common ancestor for all of life, and therefore, all of evolution, is and will always be only a theory and not a fact.
In the movie we watched, Karl Stetter’s work also revolves around finding the origin of life. He looks in extreme environments such as Yellowstone National Park to find organisms in the domain Archaea. In the 60s, these organisms were classified in the same group as other prokaryotes. However, using Woese’s new classification, these microorganisms were found to be very different from other bacteria. They prefer extreme conditions, similar to primordial earth. This is the basis of Stetter’s research, and this makes sense to me. However, it is also possible that these Archaea were simply created by God and placed in these extreme environments for His purposes. Perhaps their metabolism and contribution to maintaining balance in nature is what their sole purpose is. In any case, I think that if Karl Stetter is looking for the closest thing to a common ancestor, he will be disappointed because I don’t think there exists such a thing.
The final thing that I did not agree with in the video we watched was the mention that the earth IS 4 and a half billion years old. They did not suggest that the earth MIGHT be that old based on certain hypotheses made by geologists. Once again, the genealogies in the Bible along with the story of creation infer a several-thousand-year-old earth. The idea that evolution occurred over billions of years nicely suits the idea of a common ancestor and natural selection, but evolution over the course of several thousand years is simply not noticeable. So, if the earth is only several-thousand years old, a common ancestor could not have had enough time to diversify into all of life on earth.
In conclusion, because of my Christian faith, I refute many of the ideas we talked about in class, but I do accept them as scientific and worth study.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Conference
Here I am, one month removed from my last blog post sitting in a hotel bed about to spend the next few days swimming really fast.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll enlighten you. I’m at conference, which is held at a pool in Gresham, Oregon this year. It is in a pool that is normally outdoors, and it is covered by a pressurized bubble to make it adaptable to the snow that is currently dumping down.
Crazy thing, so it hasn’t been snowing at all in the past month, other than a few fluffs here and there, and all the snow was melted. Well last night it dumped an entire foot in Spokane! There wasn’t too much bad weather on the way here, but there was a scary part where we were driving on a cliff and it was foggy, like in a movie.
Starting Spring term classes hasn’t been very exciting. I’m taking the gen ed Core class on worldviews, which is a pain in the butt. Chemistry has been simple, and my Biology teacher is funny and nice but he wants spot-on specificity on exams, which was irritating for the first one. I’m also in the Book of Revelation for my bible-lit class which has been very interesting, and it involves a lot of reading. Lastly, I’m taking a seminar for health professions, which meets once a week and features guest speakers from different health professions.
Obviously, swimming has been winding down and I am about to reach the climax of the year. I will be swimming the 200IM, 400IM, and 200 Fly, and I might time trial a few other events. You can follow live results here (http://www.lcpioneers.com/sports/swimdive/2010-11/NWC_championships/NWC_championship_page) . After this weekend I’ll have so much free time I won’t know what to do with myself! Except I’ll probably keep working out right away so it’s not like I’ll have a ton more free time or anything, but I will have a much more favorable bedtime. Kbye!
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll enlighten you. I’m at conference, which is held at a pool in Gresham, Oregon this year. It is in a pool that is normally outdoors, and it is covered by a pressurized bubble to make it adaptable to the snow that is currently dumping down.
Crazy thing, so it hasn’t been snowing at all in the past month, other than a few fluffs here and there, and all the snow was melted. Well last night it dumped an entire foot in Spokane! There wasn’t too much bad weather on the way here, but there was a scary part where we were driving on a cliff and it was foggy, like in a movie.
Starting Spring term classes hasn’t been very exciting. I’m taking the gen ed Core class on worldviews, which is a pain in the butt. Chemistry has been simple, and my Biology teacher is funny and nice but he wants spot-on specificity on exams, which was irritating for the first one. I’m also in the Book of Revelation for my bible-lit class which has been very interesting, and it involves a lot of reading. Lastly, I’m taking a seminar for health professions, which meets once a week and features guest speakers from different health professions.
Obviously, swimming has been winding down and I am about to reach the climax of the year. I will be swimming the 200IM, 400IM, and 200 Fly, and I might time trial a few other events. You can follow live results here (http://www.lcpioneers.com/sports/swimdive/2010-11/NWC_championships/NWC_championship_page) . After this weekend I’ll have so much free time I won’t know what to do with myself! Except I’ll probably keep working out right away so it’s not like I’ll have a ton more free time or anything, but I will have a much more favorable bedtime. Kbye!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
I'm Lame
My home meet went pretty well. My times were all pretty fast considering how tired I was, except I tanked the 500, which was my last event on Saturday. On Friday, there were a whole ton of students and parents who showed up to the meet. On Saturday there were less, but there were still a lot of people. On Friday, I pumped up the crowd, and just embarrassed myself.
Since my home meet, I’ve had a meet at like 4 other schools, and I have my final dual meet and home meet of the season this Saturday! Overall, I’ve been feeling sort of trashy, but my times haven’t showed that to be the case. Therefore, as soon as I rest a bit, I’ll be cruising! I talked to my coach about taper, and he and I feel pretty confident that my times will be pretty fast. I won’t share just yet what my goal times are…I’ll update y’all once I actually reach them.
Steve also said that if I time trial a certain 200 free time, I could be on the A 800 free relay!!! Super exciting. As of now, I’m just excited to compete at conference, but if I went to nationals that would just be insane. After all, I’ve been training all season just to see the times drop. We’re about 3 weeks away from conference, so that means that we’re slowly dropping the yardage and starting to sharpen up to swim fast. I can’t wait…I’m so tired of being tired, and going to bed early.
Jan term finished up well, I got an A in my African life and culture class. I was a bit concerned, because even though I participated well, did the readings, and felt I had pretty strong presentations, the tests were kinda hard. Well, I got an A on the two tests, but the final exam took me two and a half hours! It was really ridiculous because the class was only 100-level. I walked away from the class with a really informed view on Africa, though. I’m really glad I took it. Part of the liberal arts education is taking classes like this to make me a more well-rounded person, and it’s pretty sweet.
Currently, I’m in the Book of Revelation as my theology elective. Theology classes are notoriously hard, as in a lot of reading and difficult exams. We had a quiz on the second day and it was easy, but the test will have a lot of content. I also have to read between 40 and 80 pages from supplementary reading books just for this class two or three times a week. I’m also in Core, which is a reading-intensive class on worldviews. Last weekend I read an entire, depressing book called “Deep River” and wrote an essay about it…. and then read my Revelation assignment. My eyes hurt.
Over Jan term, I was pretty social. That’s probably the reason why I barely updated this blog. I’m really sorry for those of you who follow me closely-ish and who haven’t been sustained by my words. After Jan term, there was a one week break, which wasn’t really a break because we had regular practices and a swim meet.
However, that weekend was like swim team fun weekend! On one night, we had a 15-minute sci-fi themed dance party….and your costume had to be promiscuous. It was supposed to be a joke; a mockery of dance parties. It was pretty funny though. Me and Korey body painted with blue paint and wore booty shorts. Obviously, we were a couple of Na’vi from the movie Avatar. After this dance party, we washed the paint off, then stayed up allllll night at the guy’s swim house and played video games and ate junk food (just the guys, that is)! There was some conflict with the girls though. They were having their own shindig at the girls swim house. Apparently at one point, they took over the upstairs. But we took a girl hostage in the girls house while this occurred. Later, the girls stole straw from one of the coaches trucks and put it in front of our house…so we lifted one of their cars and put it underneath it.
The next day, I slept for a reaaaaally long time. Then I just kinda sat around all day. That night was the lip sync show, where a bunch of groups within the swim team formed to make little lip sync/dance performances. I didn’t participate though, because I was too lazy to practice with a group.
If anyone wants to keep in closer touch with me, e-mail me at asumnicht14@my.whitworth.edu. I check it often, so that’s a good way to get the scoop from me. Otherwise I’ll try to keep the ol blog updated more often. Kbye!
Since my home meet, I’ve had a meet at like 4 other schools, and I have my final dual meet and home meet of the season this Saturday! Overall, I’ve been feeling sort of trashy, but my times haven’t showed that to be the case. Therefore, as soon as I rest a bit, I’ll be cruising! I talked to my coach about taper, and he and I feel pretty confident that my times will be pretty fast. I won’t share just yet what my goal times are…I’ll update y’all once I actually reach them.
Steve also said that if I time trial a certain 200 free time, I could be on the A 800 free relay!!! Super exciting. As of now, I’m just excited to compete at conference, but if I went to nationals that would just be insane. After all, I’ve been training all season just to see the times drop. We’re about 3 weeks away from conference, so that means that we’re slowly dropping the yardage and starting to sharpen up to swim fast. I can’t wait…I’m so tired of being tired, and going to bed early.
Jan term finished up well, I got an A in my African life and culture class. I was a bit concerned, because even though I participated well, did the readings, and felt I had pretty strong presentations, the tests were kinda hard. Well, I got an A on the two tests, but the final exam took me two and a half hours! It was really ridiculous because the class was only 100-level. I walked away from the class with a really informed view on Africa, though. I’m really glad I took it. Part of the liberal arts education is taking classes like this to make me a more well-rounded person, and it’s pretty sweet.
Currently, I’m in the Book of Revelation as my theology elective. Theology classes are notoriously hard, as in a lot of reading and difficult exams. We had a quiz on the second day and it was easy, but the test will have a lot of content. I also have to read between 40 and 80 pages from supplementary reading books just for this class two or three times a week. I’m also in Core, which is a reading-intensive class on worldviews. Last weekend I read an entire, depressing book called “Deep River” and wrote an essay about it…. and then read my Revelation assignment. My eyes hurt.
Over Jan term, I was pretty social. That’s probably the reason why I barely updated this blog. I’m really sorry for those of you who follow me closely-ish and who haven’t been sustained by my words. After Jan term, there was a one week break, which wasn’t really a break because we had regular practices and a swim meet.
However, that weekend was like swim team fun weekend! On one night, we had a 15-minute sci-fi themed dance party….and your costume had to be promiscuous. It was supposed to be a joke; a mockery of dance parties. It was pretty funny though. Me and Korey body painted with blue paint and wore booty shorts. Obviously, we were a couple of Na’vi from the movie Avatar. After this dance party, we washed the paint off, then stayed up allllll night at the guy’s swim house and played video games and ate junk food (just the guys, that is)! There was some conflict with the girls though. They were having their own shindig at the girls swim house. Apparently at one point, they took over the upstairs. But we took a girl hostage in the girls house while this occurred. Later, the girls stole straw from one of the coaches trucks and put it in front of our house…so we lifted one of their cars and put it underneath it.
The next day, I slept for a reaaaaally long time. Then I just kinda sat around all day. That night was the lip sync show, where a bunch of groups within the swim team formed to make little lip sync/dance performances. I didn’t participate though, because I was too lazy to practice with a group.
If anyone wants to keep in closer touch with me, e-mail me at asumnicht14@my.whitworth.edu. I check it often, so that’s a good way to get the scoop from me. Otherwise I’ll try to keep the ol blog updated more often. Kbye!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Return of the King
Don’t act like it’s been forever since I’ve updated the blog….because that would be an exaggeration. It’s been more like a month. How are you? I am well, thanks.
So where to start? I flew home, and when I got to the airport my parents were so happy to see me and I was so happy to see them and I got all warm inside and my mom cried with joy! Then we drove home, and my stupid dog didn’t even act happy to see me. I guess her love for me doesn’t manifest in physical expression, but I can feel the love all the same. My cat, on the other hand, was so happy to see me! He kept rubbing against me and cuddling with me and meowing at me the whole week. And sleeping on my clothes.
I got home on a Thursday night, and not having swam for like a whole day, I swam with GBY on Friday which was barely worth my time for getting in a good workout, but totally worth it to see everyone there. After, I went to Krolls to eat greasy, fatty food with some of the swimmers and to catch up a bit. The next day, I swam with John and chilled at home. On Sunday, I went to church, where I realized how much I missed going to GBCC, and where I got to see more friends. After, I hung out with Nathan Freier and we made a ton of banana bread.
Monday through Thursday were a whirlwind of trying to swim, lift, and see friends as much as possible. In addition to seeing a bunch of friends, I got to spend a few hours talking to my mentor, Saied, about college and life in general and he gave me some super secret pointers for pre-med success, and for talking my way out of a speeding ticket. Unfortunately, there were also many friends I was not able to see, and the people I did get to see, I only saw briefly. Oh, and I also swam with the Bay Port High School team which was fun. Ryan Keuler was there, and he walked onto the Madison team this year. It seems like a ton of work, but there are perks like free stuff and a training trip in Hawaii. He sounded like he probably wouldn’t do another year of it, but it would be cool if he stuck with it.
In the midst of trying to see everyone as well as swim a bunch, I didn’t get much sleep until Christmas day, which is the only day I have truly slept in basically since swimming started. My grandparents came on Thursday (or Friday, can’t really remember), which I was very happy about. Since they’re basically the only ones that read my blog or care about my life or send me cards and money, they’re pretty much my best friends from back home. I got them the first season of Fringe, which is an amazing show, and I hope they like it! I also bought my family clothes and some Whitworth thermoses. I also bought James some running Schwartz and Lauren a blanket and she bought me an Azusa T-shirt and I bought my club coach a polo. Sorry to anyone who didn’t get presents; I’m poor.
Now to the real fun. My flight left the day after Christmas, at 6 in the morning, meaning I had to get up really early and haul my stupid big brown suitcase without wheels all over the place. Fortunately, as I later discovered, I didn’t forget to pack anything except for a few things including my swim equipment bag from Whitworth. However, my mom had some paddles and a pull buoy and I found my old kickboard from swim camp.
The flight was average, except for the inconsiderate person in front of me who put his seat back, but that’s average considering it happens to me every flight. I’m not bitter at all about it or anything. When I arrived at the airport in LAX, I stood at a bus stop for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get the bus to stop and pick me up, then I realized that I wasn’t at a bus stop. Then I found the right bus stop and got to the terminal with all the swimmers that had arrived early along with me. We waited for a few hours, then loaded up two big vans and left to our houses in Oxnard, about 2 hours North.
On the way back, we stopped at the glorious In ‘n Out Burger. I got a double double with fries and a chocolate milkshake. Glorious. When we got to the houses, I dropped my big stupid suitcase in my preassigned room (A king bed that I got to share with Kalen) and chilled for a while, waiting for the later group of swimmers to arrive so that we could shop for the week’s supply of food. When they arrived, we went to a store called Vons and bought so much food. There were 8 guys in the house, and we each received $100, so we decided to pool the money and buy meals and snacks together. In theory, it was a great idea.
So that was Sunday. The next day, hell began. Practice was 6 to 8:30 every morning and 4 to 6:30 every afternoon. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, we arrived an hour earlier to lift for an hour. Yes ladies and gents, that’s 5 to 6 hours of practice a day. Then on Saturday, we had a 10,000 yard, 3 hour workout. On Thursday we had a meet against about 5 schools. We beat UC-Santa Cruz, which apparently has never been done before by the guys’ team. Go us! My times were embarrassingly slow, I have to say. I was in so much pain. Overall, my practices were all pretty solid, except for Wednesday afternoon’s practice. That was really stinky.
As if being at the pool for extended hours wasn’t bad enough, our coaches love being early. It’s so annoying. They thought it took 45 minutes to an hour to get to the pool, so we left at 5am in the mornings, but arrived at about 5:35, and then stood around on the pool deck for 15 minutes after we changed waiting for the masters swimmers to get out. And by the way, the weather was not beautiful and warm as we had all hoped. Nay, it was between the 30s and 50s for a majority of most practices. On Wednesday, there was some rain, too. On the bright side, the pool was heated, and the sets were hard enough to warm me up. But standing around shivering because we were so early was NOT cool. Pun intended.
I didn’t do anything fun in between practices. Not anything. I napped, ate a ton of food, and read a buttload of comics on my laptop. Speaking of eating, I have to spend a few words discussing this topic. We bought five or six hundred dollars of food that first night. By the end of Tuesday or maybe sometime Wednesday, we had burned through nearly all of our snacks, seven or eight loaves of bread, and tempers were wearing thin. We collectively ate SO much. Okay I guess that’s all I have to say.
Something else that happened while there was that I plugged the toilet and it spilled everywhere and I had to plunge and clean it all up and it was really gross and it was quite an experience and I hope it will never happen again because everyone makes fun of me now and I’m ashamed of it.
Something really sad happened when I was there. Or I should say, didn’t happen. I didn’t see my good friend Quinn Mason, who goes to USC and was really close to my location. She was avoiding me, I know it. Now I probably won’t see her for a year…or nine years. Like in the movie “Before Sunset”.
On Sunday, I once again had to get up really early to go to the airport. Our coaches wanted us to start loading the vans at 3:45am because it apparently takes 45 minutes, so we could leave at 4:30. We ended up leaving at about 4:05. We got to the airport at about 6:20, and the earliest flight that any swimmer had was 8:40. I stood in line for an hour only to learn that I couldn’t check my big stupid suitcase until four hours before my flight left. Then I lugged my big, stupid, brown suitcase without wheels that weighs 47.4 pounds with luggage in it, all the way to terminal 1 to hang with some swimmers there. Then Korey said that there was food in terminal four, so I left my big stupid suitcase there with some people and went to chill where the food was for a few hours and read more comics and my African book.
Anyways, my flight was delayed by an hour. Did I mention my flight was at 5:55pm? Actually, 6:50 from the delay. So yeah, talk about being early. Thanks coaches, planned out that one really well. And because of that delay, I missed my connection. Thankfully, my Uncle Mike lives in Phoenix, which is where my first flight took me, so I stayed with him for the night and got in Monday.
Getting in Monday kinda sucked. It meant that I missed morning practice, I missed class, and I had been sitting around doing nothing for about two days straight. As it turns out, 17 swimmers had missed that morning’s practice. However, Korey was the only other person whose flight prevented him from getting to practice that morning. Other people just slept in. So, that Monday afternoon practice, which was fifteen minutes after I returned to campus, we had a meeting to discuss the fact that so many had missed and the problem that this was. It was a nice little ten-minute Steve speech, and then he asked if anyone had anything to add. Big mistake. This led to one girl commenting on some pent-up, long-standing, latent issue that she had with the coaching staff, which led to a chain reaction of similar complaints by a bunch of other girls. After about an hour, I told everyone that they were way to sensitive and then I was called naïve. Then we swam for like 40 minutes and I was SO TIGHT because I had been sitting around for two days straight.
Apparently, our team has lots of issues. Actually, our coaches do. We surmised in a guys team meeting later that week that the assistant coaches exercise more power than they have right to over the head coach, who should probably make his word more firm. It doesn’t help that the assistant coaches are married to each other.
Enough about that. I really like my African Life and Culture class that I’m taking for Jan-term. It’s really interesting. I’ve learned so much about Africa already in the week and a half I’ve been in class. Well, it’s three hours a day, so I guess a lot of learning can take place in that time.
Since training camp, I’ve been pretty sore and tired still, but I’ve also been practicing faster than I ever have. This weekend is our first home meet! I invited a ton of people, and other swimmers have been inviting lots of people too, so it should be packed full. I really hope it is. On Saturday, there will be a live feed of the meet for all of you back at home. Here is a link to the swimming page, I’m not sure exactly how to access the meet, but its at 12pm Washington time on Saturday afternoon, so check right before that. http://www.whitworth.edu/Athletics/Teams/Swimming/Index.aspx
Well, that was a mouthful. I’ve been typing for almost an hour. Hopefully that amount of detail satisfies you, even though I’ve left a good amount out. I’ll be posting more regularly now. Bye for now!
So where to start? I flew home, and when I got to the airport my parents were so happy to see me and I was so happy to see them and I got all warm inside and my mom cried with joy! Then we drove home, and my stupid dog didn’t even act happy to see me. I guess her love for me doesn’t manifest in physical expression, but I can feel the love all the same. My cat, on the other hand, was so happy to see me! He kept rubbing against me and cuddling with me and meowing at me the whole week. And sleeping on my clothes.
I got home on a Thursday night, and not having swam for like a whole day, I swam with GBY on Friday which was barely worth my time for getting in a good workout, but totally worth it to see everyone there. After, I went to Krolls to eat greasy, fatty food with some of the swimmers and to catch up a bit. The next day, I swam with John and chilled at home. On Sunday, I went to church, where I realized how much I missed going to GBCC, and where I got to see more friends. After, I hung out with Nathan Freier and we made a ton of banana bread.
Monday through Thursday were a whirlwind of trying to swim, lift, and see friends as much as possible. In addition to seeing a bunch of friends, I got to spend a few hours talking to my mentor, Saied, about college and life in general and he gave me some super secret pointers for pre-med success, and for talking my way out of a speeding ticket. Unfortunately, there were also many friends I was not able to see, and the people I did get to see, I only saw briefly. Oh, and I also swam with the Bay Port High School team which was fun. Ryan Keuler was there, and he walked onto the Madison team this year. It seems like a ton of work, but there are perks like free stuff and a training trip in Hawaii. He sounded like he probably wouldn’t do another year of it, but it would be cool if he stuck with it.
In the midst of trying to see everyone as well as swim a bunch, I didn’t get much sleep until Christmas day, which is the only day I have truly slept in basically since swimming started. My grandparents came on Thursday (or Friday, can’t really remember), which I was very happy about. Since they’re basically the only ones that read my blog or care about my life or send me cards and money, they’re pretty much my best friends from back home. I got them the first season of Fringe, which is an amazing show, and I hope they like it! I also bought my family clothes and some Whitworth thermoses. I also bought James some running Schwartz and Lauren a blanket and she bought me an Azusa T-shirt and I bought my club coach a polo. Sorry to anyone who didn’t get presents; I’m poor.
Now to the real fun. My flight left the day after Christmas, at 6 in the morning, meaning I had to get up really early and haul my stupid big brown suitcase without wheels all over the place. Fortunately, as I later discovered, I didn’t forget to pack anything except for a few things including my swim equipment bag from Whitworth. However, my mom had some paddles and a pull buoy and I found my old kickboard from swim camp.
The flight was average, except for the inconsiderate person in front of me who put his seat back, but that’s average considering it happens to me every flight. I’m not bitter at all about it or anything. When I arrived at the airport in LAX, I stood at a bus stop for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get the bus to stop and pick me up, then I realized that I wasn’t at a bus stop. Then I found the right bus stop and got to the terminal with all the swimmers that had arrived early along with me. We waited for a few hours, then loaded up two big vans and left to our houses in Oxnard, about 2 hours North.
On the way back, we stopped at the glorious In ‘n Out Burger. I got a double double with fries and a chocolate milkshake. Glorious. When we got to the houses, I dropped my big stupid suitcase in my preassigned room (A king bed that I got to share with Kalen) and chilled for a while, waiting for the later group of swimmers to arrive so that we could shop for the week’s supply of food. When they arrived, we went to a store called Vons and bought so much food. There were 8 guys in the house, and we each received $100, so we decided to pool the money and buy meals and snacks together. In theory, it was a great idea.
So that was Sunday. The next day, hell began. Practice was 6 to 8:30 every morning and 4 to 6:30 every afternoon. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, we arrived an hour earlier to lift for an hour. Yes ladies and gents, that’s 5 to 6 hours of practice a day. Then on Saturday, we had a 10,000 yard, 3 hour workout. On Thursday we had a meet against about 5 schools. We beat UC-Santa Cruz, which apparently has never been done before by the guys’ team. Go us! My times were embarrassingly slow, I have to say. I was in so much pain. Overall, my practices were all pretty solid, except for Wednesday afternoon’s practice. That was really stinky.
As if being at the pool for extended hours wasn’t bad enough, our coaches love being early. It’s so annoying. They thought it took 45 minutes to an hour to get to the pool, so we left at 5am in the mornings, but arrived at about 5:35, and then stood around on the pool deck for 15 minutes after we changed waiting for the masters swimmers to get out. And by the way, the weather was not beautiful and warm as we had all hoped. Nay, it was between the 30s and 50s for a majority of most practices. On Wednesday, there was some rain, too. On the bright side, the pool was heated, and the sets were hard enough to warm me up. But standing around shivering because we were so early was NOT cool. Pun intended.
I didn’t do anything fun in between practices. Not anything. I napped, ate a ton of food, and read a buttload of comics on my laptop. Speaking of eating, I have to spend a few words discussing this topic. We bought five or six hundred dollars of food that first night. By the end of Tuesday or maybe sometime Wednesday, we had burned through nearly all of our snacks, seven or eight loaves of bread, and tempers were wearing thin. We collectively ate SO much. Okay I guess that’s all I have to say.
Something else that happened while there was that I plugged the toilet and it spilled everywhere and I had to plunge and clean it all up and it was really gross and it was quite an experience and I hope it will never happen again because everyone makes fun of me now and I’m ashamed of it.
Something really sad happened when I was there. Or I should say, didn’t happen. I didn’t see my good friend Quinn Mason, who goes to USC and was really close to my location. She was avoiding me, I know it. Now I probably won’t see her for a year…or nine years. Like in the movie “Before Sunset”.
On Sunday, I once again had to get up really early to go to the airport. Our coaches wanted us to start loading the vans at 3:45am because it apparently takes 45 minutes, so we could leave at 4:30. We ended up leaving at about 4:05. We got to the airport at about 6:20, and the earliest flight that any swimmer had was 8:40. I stood in line for an hour only to learn that I couldn’t check my big stupid suitcase until four hours before my flight left. Then I lugged my big, stupid, brown suitcase without wheels that weighs 47.4 pounds with luggage in it, all the way to terminal 1 to hang with some swimmers there. Then Korey said that there was food in terminal four, so I left my big stupid suitcase there with some people and went to chill where the food was for a few hours and read more comics and my African book.
Anyways, my flight was delayed by an hour. Did I mention my flight was at 5:55pm? Actually, 6:50 from the delay. So yeah, talk about being early. Thanks coaches, planned out that one really well. And because of that delay, I missed my connection. Thankfully, my Uncle Mike lives in Phoenix, which is where my first flight took me, so I stayed with him for the night and got in Monday.
Getting in Monday kinda sucked. It meant that I missed morning practice, I missed class, and I had been sitting around doing nothing for about two days straight. As it turns out, 17 swimmers had missed that morning’s practice. However, Korey was the only other person whose flight prevented him from getting to practice that morning. Other people just slept in. So, that Monday afternoon practice, which was fifteen minutes after I returned to campus, we had a meeting to discuss the fact that so many had missed and the problem that this was. It was a nice little ten-minute Steve speech, and then he asked if anyone had anything to add. Big mistake. This led to one girl commenting on some pent-up, long-standing, latent issue that she had with the coaching staff, which led to a chain reaction of similar complaints by a bunch of other girls. After about an hour, I told everyone that they were way to sensitive and then I was called naïve. Then we swam for like 40 minutes and I was SO TIGHT because I had been sitting around for two days straight.
Apparently, our team has lots of issues. Actually, our coaches do. We surmised in a guys team meeting later that week that the assistant coaches exercise more power than they have right to over the head coach, who should probably make his word more firm. It doesn’t help that the assistant coaches are married to each other.
Enough about that. I really like my African Life and Culture class that I’m taking for Jan-term. It’s really interesting. I’ve learned so much about Africa already in the week and a half I’ve been in class. Well, it’s three hours a day, so I guess a lot of learning can take place in that time.
Since training camp, I’ve been pretty sore and tired still, but I’ve also been practicing faster than I ever have. This weekend is our first home meet! I invited a ton of people, and other swimmers have been inviting lots of people too, so it should be packed full. I really hope it is. On Saturday, there will be a live feed of the meet for all of you back at home. Here is a link to the swimming page, I’m not sure exactly how to access the meet, but its at 12pm Washington time on Saturday afternoon, so check right before that. http://www.whitworth.edu/Athletics/Teams/Swimming/Index.aspx
Well, that was a mouthful. I’ve been typing for almost an hour. Hopefully that amount of detail satisfies you, even though I’ve left a good amount out. I’ll be posting more regularly now. Bye for now!
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