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!
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