conquering the world one oxymoron at a time
Archive for July, 2006
July 31, 2006 at 12:00 am · Filed under fitness
Well, we finished!! :) Here are the three of us after the race. Sarah and Kristen look genuinely happy; I look like I’m trying too hard not to look exhausted.
The swim was shorter than half-mile, and I had people slithering around me the whole way because the course was too short to separate people out completely. The end of the swim was still a good quarter/third mile to the transition area where our bikes were, so we all had to run on sand/gravel barefoot to our bikes after the run. Surprisingly, running with bike cleats wasn’t all that bad, especially after the whole barefoot gravel ordeal, and also because I no longer cared about clunking and wearing down my cleats.
There was a long stretch of NASTY hills (a mile or two?) in the middle of the bike. I pushed myself enough to make it up all of them, mainly by repeating “I didn’t come all this way to walk my damn bike up a hill.” Too bad I couldn’t similarly motivate myself on the run. I definitely walked for bits and pieces of the run, not really because I was completely exhausted, but really because I just didn’t feel like pushing myself that hard.
I did have a crash on my bike, right before the dismount during bike/run transition. The girl in front of me dismounted early, and I swerved, lost my balance, and couldn’t clip out of my pedals before I hit the pavement. There were many gasps in the audience because I’m sure the crash looked pretty bad; I slid a couple of feet after I hit the pavement, and I have the road rash to show for it. Lucky me, I picked the most spectator-populated stretch to crash. Nothing major was hurt besides my pride perhaps. My bike was fine, so I hopped up from the ground immediately and started running my bike back to the racks. The audience clapped for me; that was cool :)
So the end result:
Overall rank - 675 of 1981
Age group rank - 34 of 81
Final time - 1:36:12
I’m happy. Not competitive fast, but I finished! Yay!
More pictures are coming, and there were official race pictures that the Danskin people took too that we are all waiting on.
July 29, 2006 at 1:34 am · Filed under people
When I met Jack’s friend Matt Johnson, I thought he was crazy. Here was this good-looking kid who seemed perfectly normal otherwise, but he was in Boston en route to Europe, all a part of his 1-year trip around the world … on a motorcycle. You can read all about Matt’s adventures at 5pairs.
Growing up in Charleston and seeing the leather-clad bikers go up and down Highway 17 every May to Bike Week in Myrtle Beach–no, I am not making this up, and yes, this is a real annual event–I definitely associate a very specific stigma to bikers, and while it is not entirely negative, it is certainly not positive.
But admittedly it does sound pretty cool to tell your friends, kids, and maybe even grandkids, “yeah, when I was in my 20s, I biked around the world.” But, who even comes up with an idea like that? And who actually follows through?
For one, Matt Johnson. For two, Andrew Norton and J Hite, two kids I went to high school with, who have no idea who Matt Johnson is, but who have the same idea of going around the world on their motorcycles. Thanks for the news tip, Katelyn. Andrew and J’s travels are documented at DualsportDiary.
One Matt Johnson was weird enough, but two groups of people with no knowledge of each other all deciding to bike around the world?? Does anyone else find this odd? Who would have thought that this would the ultimate chic way to exert some manliness in this here 21 century America?
July 26, 2006 at 5:15 pm · Filed under people
y*******: men are boring
y*******: selfish
y*******: stupid
wahooswu: hate hate hate
y*******: flakey
wahooswu: flakey
wahooswu: YUP
wahooswu: heartbreakers
y*******: pretty much
y*******: horny
wahooswu: arrogant
wahooswu: bossy
wahooswu: overbearing
wahooswu: unappreciative
y*******: oh thats a good one
y*******: ill-mannered
y*******: lazy
y*******: i already read the news..and basically its men killing women
July 26, 2006 at 12:35 am · Filed under people
My dad forwarded me a jury summons letter yesterday, which asked me to appear at the Mount Pleasant Municipal Court on August 24. I was wondering how long it’d take before my name got drawn from the hat and summoned for jury duty. General life-sense tells me that people usually see this as an annoyance and get frustrated that they HAVE to appear at court. Me, I’m actually really curious as to what happens. I really want to go and see, but perhaps after my first experience, I will come to see it as a burden as well.
Anyway, being in Boston makes it rather hard for me to make jury duty in Mount Pleasant, so I called the Court today to ask what I should do. Completely expecting a rude clerk who’s been on the phone with strange people all day, with no desire to hear me give my excuse of “I am out-of-state for school and thus cannot serve as a juror,” I was pleasantly surprised by a very nice gentleman with a southern drawl telling me “yes ma’am, no problem.”
He then proceeded to very patiently explain exactly what I need to write and fax in, why it is that only the judge can excuse jury summons, and “please ma’am, if you have any more questions, feel free to call us.”
“Yes sir, I will. Thank you sir, so much. You make me miss home.” All spoken with the best southern drawl I can muster.
July 25, 2006 at 2:36 am · Filed under daily grind, pictures
I didn’t have time to make an album, so here are the low-res pictures from my camera from this past weekend. Maybe I’ll make an album when I get everybody else’s pictures, too.
I don’t feel particularly motivated to write anything right now, though I am brewing about lots of stuff in my mind … recent headlines in the news, various people&places&love&lovelost, bragging rights from something a couple of months ago, and how the summer’s more than halfway over. Maybe I’ll get around to updating in a couple of days.
July 24, 2006 at 12:38 am · Filed under hobbies
I’ve been away this weekend. Even in the rain with overcast skies, Acadia was breathtaking. Will write more later.
July 19, 2006 at 12:05 am · Filed under grad life/MIT
Being summertime, and prime college visits season, I see multiple tour groups through campus all day everyday full of bright, young, wide-eyed kids bored through their minds and their baby-boomer parents who keep volunteering things like “my child made a foam horse that could fly when he was still in the womb. He is a natural genius conceived to go to MIT; he will fit right in.”
Riiiiiiight … but the point of this isn’t to talk about baby-boomer parents, nor even offer any opinion on the undergrads who are here. I want to take a moment to address the tour guides, and offer a few quick pointers, if I may:
1) DON’T WALK BACKWARDS. What are you trying to accomplish? Being able to walk and talk to your tour group at the same time? Well, I hate to break it to ya, but when you’re walking across Mass Ave full of cars honking, construction cranes drilling asphalt, and walk-signals chirping, who the hell even hears what you’re saying anyways?? You’re risking your life walking backwards for nothing. Maybe that mother in the front will get overzealously unselfish enough to actually warn you before you slam your back into that telephone poll. Urgent care over in Medical is open 24/7, okay?
2) TOUR GROUPS OF 30 DO NOT FIT INTO ELEVATORS, so quit trying to stuff them all in like sardines. What’s so important on the second floor anyways? Building 56 has labs on the second floor, and the third floor has yet more labs. With locked doors. Oh, but you can walk over to building 18 on the third floor skywalk. I bet the tour group would like to do that, just so that they can have a do-over on the whole sardines experience going back down, but hey at least they get to see the inside of the Building 18 elevator, too! Anything for elevators.
3) THE BASEMENT IS NOT SOMETHING TO SHOW OFF. Standing in a darkened corridor with nothing but closed doors on either side talking about the MIT social life just isn’t fair. I mean, darkened hallways are so great for fun things like sliding down the freshly waxed floor with socks on, running into zombie grad students, taking a late-night stroll by yourself when you really want to go to sleep but can’t because your roommate’s “friend” is over … these are much too exciting things to show these prospectives & parents! They might think that MIT isn’t a serious academic institution, and that all kids do here is have fun sleep-walking. *GASP*
4) DO NOT EVER WALK BACKWARDS!! EVER!! This one’s so important that I’ll repeat myself. Handsome, you’re too cute to get laughed at for running into a parked car, and way too precious to your darling mother to trip over that step and bust your head on the concrete, go to the ER with blood on your face, and subsequently have to listen to your mother wailing over the phone about her poor poor baby.
Okay, rant closed. Call me a snobby tour guide. You know you want to. I was only a University Guide for 4 short years and gave 100+ tours. Big deal.
July 17, 2006 at 4:45 pm · Filed under dating/relationships
Yup, that’s right folks, me who swore I would never do this, delved into the deep murky waters of meeting people over the internet. I was very skittsh about the whole thing, but a suicide pact is a suicide pact. I left my profile up for about a week, and here is what transpired:
Day 1
This started because a friend suggested a suicide pact: I make a profile, and he’ll make a profile. At first, I said, “no no no no.” But then I thought about it, and I really couldn’t come up with that great of a reason for why not. So I picked a rather obscure site (instead of a big names like match.com) to minimize the chances of being recognized.
I went through a couple of iterations of a profile post, finally scrounged up a paragraph or two to describe myself, and then started listing characteristics for my ideal date: age 23-30, height 5′8″ or above, race/ethnicity any, body type HAS to be slender/athletic/average. The body type one is rather shallow I know, but looks and height are important! I really can’t deal with extra weight, and really, I would have prefered 5′9″ (so I can wear my 3″ heels), but I started feeling bad for the short guys.
My friend didn’t come through on his end and chickened out of making a profile (you know who you are, but I’m not gonna name any names, even though I’m bitter). By this time, I’d already plunged in … so may as well go along for the ride.
Day 2
Within a day, I had about a dozen responses (wow, this market is much bigger than I thought). They ranged from harmless but no thanks to eh, okay to one downright rude guy who wrote something about his big white cock, and offered me pictures. Um, no thanks, and why are you paying for a subscription just to send women lewd messages? (Having a profile is free, but you have to subscribe in order to send messages to people. I didn’t subscribe.) Since I had no subscription, I couldn’t answer anybody back, which was just fine by me.
Day 4
A few guys with a helluva lot of potential have now come through my Inbox. I am very tempted to just subscribe for a month so that I can write them back. So this is how these sites lure you in. I am also getting less skittish about this whole thing, and I even think about making a match.com profile.
Day 5
I learn that you can get a free trial for a few days, so I sign up for the free trial, and start writing people back, and I wonder if is it better to write back to say “Sorry, but I’m not interested”? Or better to just not write back at all? A few messages go back and forth between me and a couple of guys, which eventually moves to actual emailing without the stupid messaging interface of the service website (yes, against all better judgment, I gave out my email address).
Day 6
In a random search, I came across a guy I know, sending panic through me as I freak out thinking “omg, now he knows I’m dating online, how am I ever going to be able to spend time with him without feeling totally awkward???”
Day 7
Since I was emailing the guys with potential anyway with no need for the actual service itself, I decide that I am done with internet dating and cancel my subscription before the free trial runs out. I also make my profile unsearchable.
So what did I learn through all of this? Not sure. Maybe it was all just a part of me always wanting to try things out at least once. I think in general, I am also MUCH less skittish about this whole concept, and I no longer really care about that guy whose profile I found. I mean, he had a profile TOO! If I’m apprehensive about him knowing I’m there looking, he’s probably just as freaked that I may have found his profile.
Would I do this again, sure … but probably not for another few years when I’m not really meeting new people anymore in my own real life, and need some external help. In the meantime, there are still those couple of potentials who’s emailing me …
July 16, 2006 at 12:58 am · Filed under dating/relationships
I am not a very forward person when it comes to feelings and relationships, and I am notoriously bad about making it known to a guy that I am interested. I think that I am fairly sensitive to picking up on a guy’s interest in myself, but I never let myself believe that sixth sense and always manage to convince myself that the extra linger of his hands when he handed me that glass of water was purely accidental, or better yet, completely imagined in my own mind.
A recent missed connection seemed like it would forever remain a missed connection because 1) the situations surrounding our meeting each other and subsequent friendship just really would not be conducive to developing something more, and 2) I felt that the connection/wish for something more really only existed on my end of things.
Given this, I never even considered making my feelings known, because there was no chance for anything to happen, and telling him I like him would just make the friendship awkward. However, due to a recent isolated incident, I got a glimpse that perhaps he too feels the connection that I’ve felt ever since we met, and that he too was trying not to entertain thoughts of “something more” because of the nature of the circumstances mentioned in problem #1.
Some further interactions later, however, I think that I was just making it all up in my head. There is no reciprocal connector on his end, and I am just another girl in his social circle. That hurts, because the spark that we did share for that short moment meant a lot to me, and I had hoped that it meant something to him too, but I really don’t think he put much thought into it.
I’m more devastated than I would be had I just continued to dismiss all thoughts of “something more”. Having allowed my feelings for him to surface for that short while, having thought there could be something more, makes it THAT MUCH harder now for me to have to go back to the state of letting the friendship be only a friendship.
July 10, 2006 at 11:15 pm · Filed under life thoughts, people
Conversation with Ryan
Sunday morning, as Ryan drove me and him to Paul’s house inside the Beltway for some brunch, I told him about Dave. Ryan had only met him once, so I asked him if he remembers a guy named Dave whom he met when we went to that Jeff Scholar cocktail thing at the Boston Harbor Hotel. Ryan knew immediately exactly who I was talking about, which continues to speak volumes about just how personable Dave was.
Ryan was absolutely shocked and couldn’t stop saying “no way”, “no way”, “no way”. His comment that really hit home was, “My gosh, but I remember him being such a great guy, super good looking, really easy to talk to, so genuine. I mean, he was so good; he really had it set. No way.”
With my mom:
While sitting at Dulles Airport later Sunday, waiting for my flight back to Boston, I called my mom and dad. I told mom about Dave, and the fact that on Friday, I randomly thought about how we haven’t seen or talked to each other for a while. She immediately said, “Don’t dismiss things like that. It was a premonitive sign.” She, like me, remarked on you never ever know what will happen next in life.
With my BUDA team:
I had to explain my absence from the game last week, along with the road rash and prominent scabs I have on my arms and legs. Maybe because it’s been more than a week since the crash, or maybe because these people are still strangers to me, I really toned down the details, despite really wanting to say “I would probably be dead had I not been wearing a helmet”. Mourning and missing Dave, I often shake my head in wonder and disbelief at my own sheer luck. I could have easily also made it onto the local news.
With people who think helmets look “uncool”:
Smashing your skull open on the pavement is even more uncool. My helmet took the beating and saved my life:
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