Oh Hey There

Oh Hey Blog,
I’ve personally neglected you this past month. The only thing I’ve contributed to you besides comments on other people’s well-written posts was my drunken blog post on the evening when the men’s team tasted the rainbow during first weekend. Next to Elliot’s post, it almost felt shameful.

But now I’m back and ready to blog more often. Besides life updates, I have a few topics I’d like to cover. [Also, I’m looking forward to whoever writes the social networking posts.] But for now, a life update, just to catch everyone up and because it’s an easier post to write on a Sunday morning.



For the first time in my 3.5 years at Carleton, my winter break was not restful. I trained with my club team, I lifted, and I hung out with friends. The usual. But I didn’t feel relaxed. It probably had something to do with the 10-page-partial-draft-of-comps-due-on-the-first-day-back-deadline that was looming over my head all break. I think I spent maybe 5 hours on it during my entire 6 weeks off. Oops.

Well, turns out I didn’t actually have to turn anything in on that first day (phew). I had 10 pages of crap, but the extra few days gave me the opportunity to prepare 10 pages of not-so-crappy words and ideas.

So yeah, comps takes up most of my time course-wise. It’s counting for 9 of the 15 credits I’m taking this term. My other 6 credits are a 100 level West African History class – no biggie. Not as great as I was hoping it was going to be, but still enjoyable and not a big stressor. It’ll be nice when comps is done and I just have that class.

Swimming has been up and down lately. I’ve been sick the past 4 days – to the point where I didn’t go to practice one day, and then got sent home by the coaches when I tried to go back the next day. Not to mention performing terribly in the meet and having to scratch one event. Poop. The worst part is, every practice this January – except for 2 (both fly mornings) – I have come off of saying to myself, “I pushed myself really hard today and swam fast and good.” So it’s frustrating when you get sick or get to a meet and not go the times you want. But that’s obvious. One thing that is really exciting: MIAC decisions come out today form the coaches. It’s going to be a competitive team, that’s for sure. Unless they don’t take my sickness into account and think of really making me work on the 400 IM and expect a miracle with my 200 fly (it hasn’t been very good this year), I’ll be tapering for the MN Challenge again. That’s no surprise, but there really is nothing that compares to sophomore year when I swam at MIACs. Glad I could share that with the Ocho.

I’ve also been spending time on exploring my options for my future. Some tell me that I’m supposed to be moving on from that step and actually applying to things. But to be honest, I don’t really want anything too intense right out of school. For the past 5 years, my summers (except for those three weeks before mid-sept.) and school months have been at a pretty fast pace. I think I want a job that doesn’t carry into my night hours or comes with me when I go home. Later in life, when I’m ready to be a teacher, I know are part of it, but I don’t want that right now. So I’m looking at some non-traditional jobs right now: Working on my sister’s boyfriend’s farm in NH, working in an Outdoor Education program, volunteering in Chicago. My summercamp boss has been toying with the idea of creating a Marketing and Development year-round position at the camp and says I have a keen eye for that stuff. So who knows? I also want to travel. And may have enough money after the summer to take a month or two off and really go places.

Oh, I forgot to mention: this summer, I’ve been hired back at my ol YMCA camp in west Michigan. But this time, I am the Program Director, which is pretty much the top of the totem pole in the summer season, besides the Executive and Associate Directors. I’ll be in charge of supervising, scheduling, evaluating the summer camp staff, as well as making sure all the program areas coordinate and function. Its pretty big and I’m nervous as fuck, but mostly because I’ve got big shoes to fill. I’m also really excited though – it’s going to be awesome. In the summer, you should all come and visit over a weekend. It’s like having a whole outdoor recreation facility (lake, boats, climbing wall, archery and riflery range, mountain bikes, hiking areas) as your back yard. Not to mention, West Michigan Karaoke bars are trashy, cheap and really fun.

Aight. That’s all the news thats fit to type.

MOLSON OUT.