An Experience

At 5:23 in the morning, I leave to practice.  The newly fallen snow was fresh, white, and untouched.  I trod to the natatorium, and I found deer tracks!  I decided to follow them, as I had a few extra minutes.  

Lo and behold!  Right in the middle of the deer tracks, there was the biggest blotch, the biggest quantity of yellow snow I've ever seen!  Seven dogs together couldn't accomplish such a feat...

I haf a code

Satisfaction: working out hard for over two hours to find that your congested head has finally cleared up.

Disappointment: being all stuffed up again 15 minutes later.

I wish I could write like that!!!

I was browsing around online today, and I found a friend's blog. He's a swimmer on my team, and he's from Switzerland. And, boy! Can he write or what?

Excerpt:

"At a groggy 5:20 in the morning, I force my sleep-deprived body to the pool and dive into the icy water. A swimming pool, no matter what season of the year, is always icy at 5:20 in the morning. And we wonder why swimming is not a commercial sport. It is a sport that you do because you love to do it. There is no other way. There are days when even commitment and dedication fail and a pure love is all that pushes you to jump in once again. The sole satisfaction gained is either success or enjoyment of pain. The majority of swimmers are driven by both. Why else would somebody push his torn body through an element that is not a human domain?And then there is the smell. Swimmers smell. We smell like chlorine, constantly. Au de chlorine. It is not comparable to the fresh summer afternoon by the city pool, no, it’s as if it has been has injected chlorine into you...."

If you're still paying attention, the entire story is here: Marco's Blog (the story is at the very bottom: October 11, "Spartans in Bangkok."

Gah!

Stupid laptop.

It was working fine last night.

But it won't turn on at all today, no matter what method I try.

Reinsert the battery.  No go.

Take out the battery, put the cable in.  No go.

Put the battery in, put the cable in.  Not even a twitch.

When I plug in the cable/charger thingy, it lights up where it plugs in.  But nothing else does anything.  

Stinky Salmon!  I'm frustrated.

(I'm at the Burb, once again so I can get me homework done.  And my hours were all finished on Tuesday!  Dang!  I have to be here some more.)

AY!

You, my friend, are looking at (through) the butt of my suit.
Let's just say I had a hunch that my suit (which has gone through 400+ miles of water, lots of running, weights, and dryland exercises.) was going to rip somewhere soon. Little did I know that it would be today, a huge hole revealing my crack.
What more can I say?

Anyone?

Quick question: I'm trying to find my Jane Eyre movie, and I believe I loaned it out. Do you have it?

Blue collar girl in a white collar world.

I feel lost at college.

All I want to do is play with wood, metal, anything that I can build with. Not sit down in class everyday to discuss what some woman writer was trying to say in the 12th century. I don't want to learn about the reason why this president was regarded as awful, and that president was wonderful. Those are just historians writing down their biased opinion and view of history.

Give me some wood. Some machines. And I'll be so happy.

Should I really be going to a college that doesn't offer anything to do with your hands (except for the fine arts department)? What's the point if I only want to play with wood?

I'll even do landscaping! Just let me play with my hands and actually build something. I'll let the white collar people type on computers in cages all day and read and be smart.

They still need the blue collar studs.

Random Pictures from Arizona Trip Thus Far

A pretty view as we were attempting to find the other team's flag in a game of "capture the flag." Needless to say, the flag was captured only once in about an hour.

We climbed a lot of rocks and such...

Here's the people I swim with. Even when I make a nice face, I don't look so well...

I was trying to express the fact that Jen's feet were stinky. Didn't go so well.

More terrain we covered trying to find a silly flag!

To Breathe, or not to Breathe: that is the question:

While I'm training down here at Tempe, Arizona, we get to train in a 50 meter pool, instead of a 25 yard pool. The problem with this? My coach loves making us do breath control sets. 50 meters is just a little bit longer than 25 yards.
For part of a set yesterday, we had to put fins on, go halfway underwater, halfway butterfly. Rest for about 15 seconds, push off, and go ALL THE WAY underwater for 50 m. Then you have to climb out, take off your flippers, run to the dive tank, go off the high dive, sprint back in the water, climb out, run back to the pool, put your fins back on, and do it all over again. I made the first total underwater 50. After that, however, on the second 50 where we had to do it all underwater, after about 35 meters, my vision started blacking out. Here comes the question, and I have but a few seconds to decide...

To breathe, or not to breathe: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The dead brain cells due to lack of oxygen,
Or to take that breath against the wish of the Coach,
And by opposing to be punished? To die: to wheeze;
No more; and by a wheeze to say we begin
The heart-ache of thousands more yards to be swum.

Poor adaptation, I know. I have burned hundreds of brain cells over the past few months though. Give me some credit.

So by the time I thought this through, I could see absolutely nothing but darkness and panic. So I came up for a breath of fresh air.

I got kicked out. Had to come back in an hour to swim 2 miles. Whoopee.