You never know whats coming for you

This is my "hmm, that sure is nice" face

This quote is from the popular film Benjamin Button. It was a very beautiful movie in my opinion and although I really could not connect with any of the characters in much of any sense at all, I do have quite a few stories that could go along with that quote about not knowing whats going to happen.

Like today for example:

SOL week has granted me a strange and wonderful opportunity! I do not have to be at school until noon all week.

With this said, I slept in until about nine today, awoke wonderfully refreshed and ready to conquer the day. Given that today was the day that the President was said to be announcing his choice for the vacant Supreme Justice position, my parents schedule was a toss up and race around the block type of situation. My mother works for a non-profit organization where the competition is everyone and anyone who might get there press release out faster than her organization might be able to. She tends to be pretty good at what she does:

Washington Post

Associated Press

AUL!

What a fun day rushing about in downtown DC!


And! It was the last day of crew!!! I can hear the Hallelujah chorus...
All in all I learned a lot this season, I dropped about 20 seconds off my 2k time (!) and can sit happy and proud on a 7:39.2 time! Yes this year had its ups and downs, but it was probably one of the bests I've ever had.
For our last day at the boathouse we put away boats and through our coxswains in the water and took pictures. That was about it. I bought my friends ice cream and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I was not elected to be our class representative but I figure you can't have everything. Next year I will be the vice president of our class, hopefully make it onto first eight again, and be taking a good number of art classes.

Rowing. my day of under currents

This is me. Courtesy of my little sister. This is my "are you kidding me?" face. Today day was one of those days where I wore this face perpetually...

I row. It's a race.
And today I let myself think I was done with it.

Today was the first day of the Scholastic National Regatta. My boat raced in the heats and got fourth so we had to race in the repecharge race instead of moving on straight to semi-finals. We came in fifth at reps when we needed to make third.
The problem with this race was that our lane (lane six), the steak (I doubt that is the correct way to spell that) boat (the mini floating dock that has a person on it to hold the boat in place before the race/helps keep boats in alignment before the race) had sort of deflated and they didn't want to put a person on it for fear that the whole contraption would sink or otherwise fall to pieces endangering the person in charge of being the steak-boat holder.
The problem with this scenario is that you need a stake (I think that way is more correct...not positive) boat for the start when the race isn't going off a floating start or a head race start. So to fix the problem the officials pushed my boat into lane 7....instead of a stake boat there was this little tin can of a boat tied down, that they put the stake-boat holder in...to hold our boat for the start.
To further complicate this whole transaction the wind and current decided to change up on us and push in every which way except for that in the direction of the make shift stake-boat. Eventually after a good few minutes of trial and error our coxswain managed to back us into the lane and get alignment for the start. The officials called a count down start. Generally they just go "ATTENTION....GO" no, today they had to go: "ATTENTION...ALL HANDS ARE DOWN...WE WILL DO A COUNTDOWN START NO HANDS WILL BE ACKNOWLEDGED...5......4..........3.............2.....................1...................................GO"
They literally called this the second we got allignment. Usually they wait and drag out the drama of it all for a good minute before calling the start after all the boats get in position, apparently we wasted their patience and they called the start immediatly while we are still recovering from the nervous energy and anxiouty caused by the dumb move of pushing our boat into lane 7.
Our start was a mess with the adrenaline and our nerves flying everywhere. One girl missed water and the rest of us just tried to follow stroke. We roewed as if the devils own were after us.
We where on it. We rowed so together it was fantastic. The most intoxicating race. One that you love to watch because it is such a fight and you never know who's going to make a move and win. Six tenths of a second. The time difference between us and making it to semi's.

So that was the race that I ended my season with. Or so I thought.
Our team is upset, tired, exhausted, you think of an adjective we feel it in our bones.
We went out to diner at Ruby Tuesday's, fun stuff seeing as since we don't have to row tomorrow we can eat anything we want...then we get some *good* news: we are in the semi-finals.


...


So my season isn't done? Oh.
Does that mean I can't eat my New Orleans Seafood plater?
Wait? I had planned on a nice evening consiting of Ben and Jerry's and a couch...does this mean thats going to be called off???

I had my shrimp, my ice cream, my headache...all I am waiting for now is the nervous breakdown.
This year has shot my system. I can bearly lift my arms I am so tired and sore. I am begining to genuinly hate some people. I have lost the motivation to push onward.
This season was one week, just one week, too long.

Tomorrow we will race yet again and I really at this point don't know what to think. It's as if everything is going wrong and I can't fix any of it.

A day on the beltway

This is a picture of my friend Helen all dolled-up for the Opera a few nights ago, I just like the picture not much to do with this post unfortunately

Well seeing as I am currently locked away and chained to my computer I thought I would keep this whole blogging thing going...

I came upstairs to fetch my brother for my neighbor. Unbeknown to me my brother was employed by my father working on footnotes for some paper my mother had written (this ladies and gentlemen is the most efficient form of child labor) and he was miserable.

I came up and offered to help him, at which point I ran downstairs to retrieve my computer, because I was just as anxious to go next door to see our neighbor.

This was my mistake. Not only does John immediately throw the entire paper, some 16 pages, at me and say "Screw this" he then ran out of the room to go next door. Cruel...the only word I can think to describe this situation I so often find myself in.
I am constantly wondering why I never seem to accomplish anything or finish projects I start. I do believe I have found my answer: I have tendency to not say "no." And it would appear those that lack self discipline, case in point, my brother, have taken to exploiting this little habit or mannerism of mine.

At this point I am a bit resigned.

Oh well. John has been coming and going, Hunter (my neighbor) came with him both times... terribly annoying for him (John) to be hostile towards me about being in his room while I finish his work...

Well that would be my current situation, the rest of the day has been not quite as melancholy. All the same it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. The whole family accompanied my mother wig shopping. Here is the set up:
Chemistry SOL: 9:28 am
lunch
World History
Drive to middle school to get my sister, who turned out to still be testing, so I figured I would run home, grab food, change and come back and pick her up. This scenario would have been perfect had I not left my rowing gear at home when I went inside to change.
This one simple act of forgetfulness cost me $28 and a panic attack and more than enough frustration with a few girls on my team who could have been a tad bit more helpful, say even considerate, but wait, no! It really would have killed them had they taken two seconds to think of someone other than themselves.
Anyways this was all prelude to going into the wig store where my family helped in deciding on a cranial prosthesis. There where no major meltdowns much to my surprise. I am not counting mine because I figure it was purely due to hormones.

After the wig shopping we drove on down to boathouse with me teeming with anger directed at a few girls who shall remain nameless. The result of my lack of appropriate attire was fixed by a dash (by dash I mean full on sprint through Georgetown traffic) into Running Company, where I spent literally four minutes selecting and buying a pair of shorts by Nike. This I accomplished while in four inch heels.
A word to the wise: wedges are not entirely difficult to run in...stilettos are the ankle killers. In the end my parents drove me down the rest of the way after I dove into the car. I still had to run a good block and a half to the boathouse from the Swedish Embassy (again still in heels...this time in spandex instead of a dress though.) My arrival was not exactly dramatic, but given my catty-wompus attire it was unusual...out of breath in running clothes while wearing four inch heels? Welcome to my life.

the tipping point

this is a picture I took of the boathouse where I row...

Today I reached my limits.

I am not a morning person, never have been, never will, and most certainly was not this morning at 7:30.
I am woken up by the sound of an elliptical spinning while my father "runs," and erg fan turning as my mother rows, and my lovely younger sisters bickering about nothing.

The previous night I had gone to sleep not to late with the assistance of Tylenol PM, hoping to combat a cough I had picked up over the past few days. The reason for the late hour in which I fell asleep is mainly due to the fact that I had promised a friend I would draw a few sketches for a project she was looking to finish. I willing accepted and naturally forgot. So at around 10ish I broke out pencil and paper and threw down a jot basic enough to fit time restrains, but also dynamic enough to fit my friends idea of a finished drawing. The drawing, however, did not take that long and seeing as I would finish earlier than expected I decided I might read a few chapters in the book I had been reading by Ken Follet: Whiteout. It is very good and I highly recommend it.
This is all pretense to the fact that when I awoke this morning I was groggy and not in any mood to wake up before 10. Seeing as I had no tests, no quizzes, absolutely nothing to turn in for any of my classes, today would have been ideal to stay home sick. I am not, I am afraid, quite clever enough to have realized this the previous night. In which case, had I been clever enough to pull the day into perspective, I might have been able to play the "sick and exhausted" card and stay home.
But no. I slaved through the day, coughing, miserable, doing absolutly nothing of purpose in any of my classes, two of which I watched movies in. It was horrible, I was late to every single class I think. I was so tired.
Then at practice this afternoon, naturally the one day I do not bring a tank-top it is terribly hot. I had not eaten lunch due to a lack in funds, I was quite dehydrated, exhausted from practice the previous day, and still trying to emotionally recover from the race at Stotesberry we had just come home from.
In short, I was tapped out and running on empty.
This does not bide well for three-by-twelve minute pieces with twenty stroke bursts on choppy water.
By the second piece I was crying behind my sunglasses in exhaustion. It was as if every stroke was heavier than the one before it. And every worry and concern I have been carrying around the past month seemed to crash down around me in those few minutes.
In the past few months I have managed to effectivly lose:
my wallet (with my permit inside)
my phone (the only nice electronic equipement I own besides my camera)
all of my rain gear ($170 coat, GONE.)
a pair of my shoes that just disapeared
the battery charger to my camera
any number of homework assignments I either forgot to do or simply left at home, never to be seen again

and I have begun to bite my nails again...a habit I have not engaged in since elementary school

My grades have fallen from bad to worse. The beginning of the year I had all A's and B's, second quater I caught pnemonia, and my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. My grades fell to C's and D's. Third quater nothing spectacular happened and I pulled most of my grades back up and won a Principles award, and was elected to be vice president of our class for next year. However this quater comes around and throws me for one. Midterms came out: all time low. D's and E's. This quater, the wieght of the year bore down hard.
The fact that I have to enroll in summer school for the first time really bites. The fact that I threw my brother a huge birthday party that he will never fully appreciate and that I won't be able to have such extravagance on my birthday because my mom will be too sick by then to handle it. The fact that I will never be able to both go to parties on the weekends with friends and have my parents trust at the same time. The fact that crew is ending in five days, and it isn't soon enough.
I am a complete mess.
The money I had saved up to get a hair cut with ended up going towards my art lab fee. This would put getting a hair cut out of the realm of possibility for a good time now, seeing as tomorrow after I take the chemistry SOL I will be accompanying my mother wig shopping. She just started chemo and will be loosing her hair soon.
She's trying to put on a brave face.
But it doesn't help at all.

All these thoughts, all these internal struggles that I can usually just push down inside me, they all found their way out into the light at 5 PM today somewhere on the water between Key Bridge and the Boathouse. It was literally all I could do to hold onto that oar and keep from screaming.

After practice a few of the girls asked what was wrong.
I said I was fine.
I didn't know where to start.

All I knew was that I was done.

Apologies and warning

So I'm pretty much the laziest blogger out there, so sorry, my fault, I'll work on it.

Yeah, it's 5:30 in the am, and so in an hour, in a perfect world I would be waking up from 12 blessed hours of beauty sleep, refreshed for the miserable 14 mile run I plan on enduring for three hours after I load up may siblings into a double jogging stroller and hike them down to the track to clock in 56 laps while my parents board a plane to Chicago to acquaint themselves with the head-quarters of my mother's new job. So with the 'rents out of town, I will be installed as overseer of the household preparing for our grandparents in the evening who will be crashing with us for the week while mis padres scope out the Windy City.
So anyway back to that 14 miles thing I'm supposed to do in about an hour, my long run prep has consisted of grocery shopping and volley-ball tryouts (Made JV, a fact I am extremely bitter about, since my friend who is of equal ability and who I played club with, made Varsity, her in would be some extra 3-4 inches and leaner frame than yours truly). Yeah, then I had to go and chug one of those "Cranenergy" 46 oz. drinks at 11, so brilliant. Midnight, my mom finishes packing and kisses me goodnight and says go to sleep since lately I've been barely regaining consciousness somewhere around 1 in the afternoon for the last week, seeing as all I've had to attend where v-ball tryouts at 5:30. Anyway point being I have to babysit four exceedingly "extra-grace-required" children all day and if I sleep through the whole morning lord knows what kind of gory and war-scene like disarray I would find in the living room when I came down stairs. So I genuinely tried to will myself to sleep after setting an alarm for 6:30, the time mom and dad where getting up at to catch the plane. I figured I'd see them off and just put the sleeping babies in the stroller get my run out of the way and take them for ice-cream at Baskin-Robins after they woke up, figuring we get to the track at 7:30ish, I go steady 10:30/11:00 min. I could be done by 10:30-11 o'clock and if they managed to sleep comfortably in the stroller they very well could sleep through my run which would make my job so much easier.
OH! So, back to the "Cranenegry" thing, so by 1, I put my book down and make an honest attempt at sleep, give up at 1:30 and dig my book back out and grab a glass of water, by 3 I've got groggy wanting sleep feeling in my stomach so I try, honestly, to go to sleep and can't, I pull out Proverbs and do a late-late-late night Devo, yeah no luck, I'm not wired but I'm not sleepy at all, I'm semi-bored-exhausted-saggy eyed just out of it. So now after knocking out some 7 odd chapters in my book, it's 6 in the morning and in a half hour my phones going to start it's unholy ringing telling me to get my butt to the track and start actual training for that marathon I keep telling myself I'm going to run. Last I pulled it off with my parents at a semi-run/walk hybrid motion, involving pumping your arms while bouncing on your toes, for seven hours. It was like rapid Chinese water torture on the balls of my feet and the simultaneous burning of my quads and calves. So yeah, I'm so looking forward to this year...

Yay! I'm supposed to get my pictures back today!

All week I've been going to a volley-ball clinic, and now I'm so sore I'm having to coax myself into moving from the computer to bed, all movement causes pain. But I have a decent chance at JV and nobody gets cut from the freshmen team so the pain has to be worth it. It would be nice to make Varsity and at my old school Varsity was all there was (it was really, really small), having a bit of resentment over the fact that I'm a freshmen so making Varsity is near impossible, unless I was some freak of nature and several inches taller (like half a foot taller...). My spike needs a lot of work for some reason?? I used to be able to just hit it over no problem and the coaches don't seem like the sympathetic type so I have to work on that before try-outs on Tuesday *gag*

Support for Allison Stokke

The other day the Washington Post published an article featuring a story on the 18-year-old pole vaulter, who after unwanted Internet attention received from a photo was posted on a sports blog has now been so cruelly victimized by insensitive, comedic sports photographers and middle-aged male bloggers. For the full article by Eli Saslow: Teen Tests Internet's Lewd Track Record .
My parents are still figuring out the lesson they want me to take away from the whole affair, so far they have: now you see your mother isn't totally crazy when she tells you to watch out for crazy people and stalkers or to wear modest clothes, you can finally see my reasoning... this is my mom's reasoning and I'll listen to her point, but as some of my friends can vouch I'm not exactly the person you see jumping in front of the camera trying for all the attention, I'm the one who strategically ducks down just as the flash goes off and avoids picture day for as long as possible.
The lesson I think I've taken away is to never wear spandex again, and after spending my entire spring break in them at rowing camp I can much oblige, especially after gaining the worst, I repeat worst spandex tan (it literally cuts off at mid calve leaving a quarter of my leg starch white). Of course if I chose to never adorn spandex again I'd have to give up crew, seeing that our uni's are JL's and we wear the material every single day (besides Sundays) and giving up crew would be a real waste after devoting so much time into getting my goal 2K time (8min 30sec's, I managed an 8m 33sec, and I saw my lunch afterward--I'm so glad I got that over with), oh well, I won't be giving up crew any time soon, but I will be sure to wear less form fitting shirts.
Back to Miss. Stokke, it is truly aggravating to see another young woman fall prey to Internet blowout and victimized by a photograph that has caught the eye of some comedic sports blogger, who as I repeat is as insensitive and rude and cruel as they come (man, I sound like a feminist) It's unfair and horrible when anything like this happens and I want for Miss. Stokke and her family to know they hold my support as they try and get everything under control...
here is another blogger in support of Miss. Stokke in his post at: Bullet Points

Miss. Stokke pole-vaulting:

I swear, having the courage to do something like that must be an amazing feeling...

On the road again!

The update! Mi familia y yo are out in the boondocks at another one of Johns baseball tournaments, where he had three games (all that he won) yesterday (which pretty much guarantees them a place in the championship) today he has two games for sure and then there is the champion ship which will most likely stretch into two games with extra innings, meaning it will probably be close to 9pm when we leave for our seven hour car ride down to the beach... you can be sure we will suck up to Dad the whole way down as he drives long into the night, running on coffee and what ever we pick up from gas stations...

this picture is from a tournament last year when John pitched.

Fun Crew Videos

at no piont was i actually in any of these boats! surfing youtubee is so much fun!





i didn't know it was legal to have a coxswain that is apparently both blind and deaf...

the exorsist stairs

God has given coaches a place to punish their crew team. we ran 5 sets of stairs-75 steps total, fifhteen times. i'm not sure if want to do the math...
that picture is for real, we RAN that so if you think you have issues, youare mistaken. anyone with the lack of socail life to not only run them but do them again and again and again, needs serious serious help.

a sport?

i have completely lost my sanity and presence of mind clearly, and have come to grips with the fact that it is my own fault. i have joined the high school Crew team. the sport were you go down on the river and row till your shoulders become dislocated and when the waters are too choppy we run till we puke and yes, we have practise for two hours everyday. it is a lot of fun and is guaranteed to get you into shape in 48 hours or less.