Just "Lust A Prima Vista"

And all at once it became clear to me.

Only it didn't.

But nevertheless, the guy I took at the sprint in the single and beat by half a second last year at MACCC's? Well, he was the guy I was racing today. And despite massive support from our own 8, William and Mary, and Rob from UMaryland, I lost it in the last 500, being only half a boatlength ahead for the entire race, and sprinting too early. Too early, too little, and he took me at the sprint this time. Alas, I still medaled, but he surely came back with a vengeance.

My excuse is that I've only practiced in the single 3 times all year. And have coxed the rest of the time, while he's actually raced as a rower... For that guy's size and experience, he should've won by way more than 4 seconds at the sprint, pretty damn good if you ask me.

Men's 8, 5th in Grands. Women's 4, gold in the 4's. NMen's 4, silver in grands. NWomen'4, 5th in Grands. Oh yeah, and the Michelle/Renee pair got gold too. Not too bad especially for the women. They're really stepping it up this season.

And I'm now officially done. Alas, I'll still go to practice and sit in the launch, but done is done regardless of whether or not I go to practice, right?

Tonight though, after the regatta, made dinner for the coxswains and captains for next year. Majorly fun. Though it took quite a bit of planning and prep, it worked out. Fresh white corn and red onion salad with a ginger-soy dressing. Followed by lime-ginger scented jasmine rice, accompanied by Mr. Yoshida's marinated chicken with green onions, plain roasted carrot spears, and fresh roasted asparagus sprinkled with parmesean. Finally to round it all out, some vanilla ice cream, a quick warm strawberry sauce from frozen berries, and fresh strawberries. For 12 people! And Lukasz said he was full! That's... that's...






Still waiting for that next big thing to come into my life to keep me goin' on.

For One Day Only

A cut above the rest. Better than anyone else. Understanding what's best and doing it.

I wish for once I had a good idea of the decisions I should make. I can't ask what I want. I can't do what I need to. I'm afraid of confronting what should be dealt with. And not doing so breaks up the continuity of my sanity. Dwelling on something for so long I can't seem to realize how significant they become. How incredibly difficult they are to finally resolve. Only to be put off.

Last pasta dinner for the year was tonight. I'm so glad cause I've definitely been burnt out. Cooking's great and all, but not when I don't have enough time. I never have enough time. Even on a Saturday, I'm running between grocery stores, the farmer's market. A 2 hour session on the beach with stressbusters... and 30 backrubs later, cook nonstop basically for 3 hours. My feet want to fall off. I'm dehydrated. I have to race in a few hours.

And for what? Is it to prove a certain pain or responsibility tolerance. Life doesn't have to be as elaborate as it is now. Why go for the best possible, or the best that we can manage. The best that I can manage. What am I proving, who am I trying to impress? Nothing work, I need to stop being so selfish.

There's more to be attained, there are greater things than just one race.. or 10. I hope. I really hope, cause I don't know what all my energy's working for right now otherwise.

A Bit of a Countdown

29 days til my birthday. 27 days til my parents come and help me move. 24 days til this year's commencement and my pre-birthday drunken party with clare. 17 days til my last final and the start of summer. 15 days til the end of the year bbq. 12 days til the end of our 05-06 crew season (and subsequent party!). 6 days til i defend my silver medal in the single at MACC's (hopefully). 4 days until i'm done with french elements.

so what's been up recently? last week, crew formal. way fun. clare was my date, she in lauren's olive/dark green dress, me in my charcoal suit with a grey shirt and a black textured kenneth cole tie. i needed something to match with clare, so i went to the florist, got her a few stems.. a fern, a stem of red alstromeria, and two white gerbera daisies. the green tissue paper it was wrapped in was way lame.. so i cut the stems really short, took some kitchen twine, and wrapped a handle down the stems. it looked pretty awesome. i also took some of the cut fern leaves and stuck one in my breastpocket.. i really should have pinned it there cause it kept falling. but.. it was hot.

on another note.. have guys always matched their girls at formals? or is this something new that's recently come about? we did it back home at proms and such, but i didn't see any of it here at all.. until our formal this time where it seemed like everyone was concerned about matching. i, of course, always cater to my date :P whatever, totally not a big deal.

anyway, then vacarro's afterwards. then had ACLS in york this past weekend. cox'd the 8, but basically done coxing for the season now. just finished my last midterm today. just 2 finals and done for the year.

so it's been bugging me that i'll probably be rowing like every other day now. especially in this last week of serious rowing. everyone knows the week before vails is just a major taper.. so this is basically the last week of serious work. super-lame.

boys will be boys.

i've had a very weird eating schedule lately. i get hungry late at night... i probably shouldn't have gorged myself on saturday. it's been a while since i've approached so many calories in one day, without relieving them somehow.. no matter now, weight's irrelevant. whatever.. i needed it.

i've been downloading like a maniac again. i finally got rid of my crappy quality mp3's, well some of them, and am downloading whole albums. imogen heap, panic! at the disco, benassi bros., rihanna.

some things that have been annoying me lately... my bamboo won't grow evenly, one of the stalks is kind of stunted. totally sick of pchem and trying to get this damn sodium lab done. not having studied the right topic for my personality midterm. my apple juice bottles being too big to fit in my fridge. still living in this crappy apartment.... i can't wait to move at the end of this month!

Four to the Floor, Stuffed to the Brim

Wow, spring fair weekend has definitely dealt me a major blow. Amidst all the funnel cakes, smoothies, turkey legs, and chicken on a sticks, I've consumed so much food in the past 3 days that I'm keeling over! But it was all quite good, and I'm certainly even more thankful that this only happens once a year, really. It was just much too convenient walking out of the library to see a massive expanse of food vendors, all at my beck and call.

Speaking of the library, I fell asleep in there today for quite some time...

Hum, so we didn't have a regatta this weekend. Last weekend at the Invitational, finally one of our Hopkins boats got a medal, the varsity women's 4 of Laura, Ellie, Angela, and Becky. Our men's 8 was 5 and some seconds off of Loyola, getting second, in the race. No comment there, it was a good race, but alas, things that could have been helped weren't things that could have been done during the race anyway, so it was good despite it all.

Its scary to think that so many people took the MCATs yesterday, Theodore included, and that if I had a bit more diligence, it could have been me as well. But unfortunately, poor planning and my general inability to focus leaves me a bit lacking again. August.. here we come. I also should plan for GRE's this summer as well... do they have set test dates or are they something you just go in and take?

I've decided to narrow down my gradschool options. Masters in genetic counseling, or doctorate in genetics, or in nutrition/public health nutrition. Since I can't decide on what I need to focus on, I just need to bite the bullet and choose something. For now at least. Now I need to find some way of researching programs and finding what's good and what's not. Hopefully doing so will give me a bit more insight on what I should be doing in general. It'll be difficult when I ask for recommendations for so many places, so many programs, with so many focuses. How do I manage that and explain that to a professor I'm not exactly too familiar with?

I got lots of free t-shirts lately. And I'm excited about moving. Ariel, when will you be in Baltimore in the near future? I might be in my new apartment, I move at the end of May. I'm so glad my entire family decided to come out and visit and stay with me for that whole moving process. Since hiring moves will cost a few more hundreds of dollars than I was expecting, we're just going to do it ourselves, which will be difficult, but in the end, the money I save is like.. the value of at least half the furniture that I own anyway.

And Rachel, Emily, Helena and I are planning on having awesome get-togethers this summer. Coxswain action, here we come!

Working Toward The Impossible

I hate the gym. Why can't I enjoy running, or doing the elliptical, or erging. My head starts hurting, I feel dehydrated even though I know I'm not.

Tomorrow: Hopkins Invitational. Varsity men are putting out a pair and the V8. Women, 2 V4's. Novice men, 4 and an 8, and the Novice women, a 4, 8, and a pair.

Let's see if we medal. Occoquan Sprints were a bit of a disappointment medal-wise, save the novice women's 4 who blew away the competition in their heat. Knecht was last weekend. Rainy weather, fast crews, guy's V8, in the varsity event, didn't make it into petites even, but good effort. VW8, made it into finals in D2/D3, and did well considering as such. Novice women got cancelled, and NM8 got 2nd to Wash Coll.

So that's the update on crew stuffs. More to come later when I finally get my 5 hours of sleep... I need to find a good way to call out maintaining power as approaching the sprint, and to not get confused with counting, calling stroke rate/splits/distances/time, calling up power and 10's, and comparing positions with other boats, and steering all at the same time. I really hope I'm getting better... now time to write out some calls to remember for tomorrow...

Time to Decide

So, I've been seriously considering genetic counseling now. But, perhaps it isn't right for me. It seems as though the programs are all relatively difficult to get into, seeing as how most institutions accept 5-12 new masters students into the program each year. But requirement-wise, it is currently manageable.

That's mainly to give me time to become ready for medical school. So genetic counseling is a stepping stone for me to get into medical school.

But why do I want to go to medical school? The only thing I can see myself enjoying, at the moment, is anesthesiology. I'd like to work in acute care, but yet, something about the patient-practitioner relationship bugs me... an anesthesiologist greatly interacts with a patient, but in a manner that just seems right to me. Just take all the crap I'm telling you, shut up, and go to sleep :)

AND.. so.. that's what I want to do. But that's like what, 2 years for gradschool, plus 4 for medschool, then however many for residency, ASSUMING I get into a residency for anesthesiology.

And now, I look, and I find a program at Case, or Emory, for Anesthetists, Anestesiologist Assistants. They can administer anesthesia under supervision, and training is just over 2 years to get a MS. After those 2 years, and going through exams, bam.. right into job that's comparable to ones that Nurse Anesthetists hold, 6 figures.

That's what I want to do.

I don't want to be uber smart, or know a lot about medicine, I really just want to stick things in people, tell them to count to 10, and knock 'em out. Then make sure they don't die while staring at a computer, watching the cool surgeries. Then bring em back. And get paid.

But the catch is, there are only 3 programs in all of the US that offer just an AA masters degree. And according to case, the average MCAT score for accepted students is 25. I just happen to have a C in orgo, and no possibility of taking a year of anatomy with lab and a physiology course because Hopkins Undergrad is lame like that.

Sigh. Sounds like genetic counseling it is then...

Waiting for the Breakdown

So last night was the first time I've gotten more than 5 consecutive hours of sleep in a night. 8 hours in fact, and even despite the fact that yesterday was a pasta dinner!

Its been a pretty busy week, among all the lab reports, homework assignments, getting exams back, I haven't done much studying, but yet I'm so incredibly tired. Yesterday was the worse because I only got 2 hours on Thursday night, and yet I still went to class, went to the grocery store, prepped for the pasta dinner (chopped onions, roasted vegetables and garlic), went back to class, prepped some more, walked to Keswick, played bingo and carted old people around for 2 hours, walked back, finished cooking (an overcooked meat sauce and an over-sweetened roasted vegetable tomato sauce), and attempted some semblance of socialization amidst the crazy spaghetti cooking scheme I was attempting.. to come home and crash before 10.

It was worth it. I feel much more rested, my body at least. My head, still hurts a bit. But no matter. Today's the Casperson Cup, hosted right here in Baltimore. I'll be coxing the varsity 4. From stroke, its Greg, Chris, Wesley, and Josiah, in the Evans. I always have my qualms about being in a 4 where the next race is only an hour away.. but I guess it works itself out. We'll get some pretty awesome footage from the bridge (hopefully).

So Coach has been critiquing our coxing techniques. I find it immensely helpful, just difficult to implement. When I first learned to cox, I was always told to do everything, absolutely everything, in the 2 part call with calling 1, 2, etc. I guess this change has something to do with the two part, using "ready, now!" instead of 1, and 2, and not calling the "in 2". Perhaps it is still useful for drills and land events, but I can see the logic in a race, or during sprint pieces. Thinking about having to do something, without doing it, over a period of 4 strokes is often conducive to preparing oneself, in the bad sense of storing energy, opening and breathing more, which in turn can lead to lost boat speed. And counting everything out, which I am often likely to do, makes moves very obvious. Not to mention, Joel dislikes our secret pieces and finds "2 seat your rigger's broken" distracting. Oh well.

More on that later.

Anyway, any opinions? I'll update post-race to tell how we did too. We have boats in every event, hopefully we can take the Cup again this year.

Ok, time to make my index card.

---break---

No cup. But a few medals. Got first in WV4, MV2-, MV4, and MV8. Yeah, we swept the men's varsity events, with some awfully pretty DVD-potential footage to boot. And also my first coxswain "tossing". Well.. rather, my first coxswain "getting dumped with a lot of water" due to the health risks of the Baltimore Harbor. Hah.

It was exciting, yes. A little sad. But good. But I'm not feeling fantastic. Perhaps the drowsiness of the Tylenol Cold I'm taking is finally setting in. Perhaps I'm just fighting this inevitable, chemically-induced sleep that I need so badly.