Greetings, friends! I'm coming at y'all live (is this still an expression people use?) from the floor of my condo. Why the floor? This genius only brought one cord for her computer, and it's roughly 3 feet long which means there are exactly zero flat surfaces close to outlets on which I can place my computer. How does our condo look at this moment in time? Four words: completely covered in plastic bottles. We've been basically drinking exclusively bottled water here, presumably to prevent us from ingesting the tap water which is undoubtedly laced with MERS (I'm kidding people). While I appreciate the gesture by FISU, the waste receptacles we've been provided with are the rough size and shape of a "fun size" box of cereal you'd pick up at a hotel breakfast (which, coincidentally, I don't think are all that much fun because they contain about 4 pieces of cereal) and can't really accommodate the amount of water bottle's we've been going through. There are so many bottles in here it kind of looks like a meth lab (actually, I just googled a meth lab and it doesn't, but I like the way that sounds so I'm leaving it).
Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post, I want to stop one more time and thank all everyone for reading and for the positive feedback I've been receiving about this blog. If you think that that (extremely canned) expression of gratitude sounds overused in this blog, join the club. I don't know any synonyms for positive feedback that don't sound extremely awkward in this context, so if you do please let me know! But really, all sarcasm aside, I don't think this many people have said so many nice things to me since I let the 11-12s skip the last 400 of swim practice at work (they're extremely easy to please). It's both humbling and gratifying, more of the latter than the former because now I know I'm exactly as funny as I've always thought I am.
NOW, onto the swimming!
This mornings session managed to fly by and drag on at the same time. Is that even possible? The first couple events went really well for us and (don't quote me on this, because I could be VERY wrong) I'm pretty sure everyone who swam for the US made it back to either finals or semis! I say it "dragged on" because the last event of the morning was the prelims of the women's mile, of which there were three heats. As a sometimes distance swimmer (SOMETIMES, guys, so Rich don't get any ideas about a senior year sub 15 minute mile from yours truly), I just have to ask: why on earth would you ever be so cruel as to force anyone to swim a mile more than once? Honestly, I'm still trying to figure out the point of swimming the mile at all. Poorly kept secret: I loathe it. Luckily, Lindsay and Katie are made of stronger stuff than I am and powered through this morning to make the final tomorrow.
After prelims, we were tired and hungry and ready to go. Unfortunately, the buses were NOT ready to take us. When we emerged from the pool into the stifling heat and humidity, there were roughly the same number of people waiting in the parking lot as there were last night after finals, and not a single bus in sight. People were congregating in a massive clump in order to attract the attention of the buses when they arrived. When a bus did get close, the entire cluster of humans would chase the bus in an extremely undignified manner and press up against the side of the bus when it stopped in order to force people on. Picture the jelly fish from Finding Nemo moving in a formation (the scene where they play charades with Marlin. Don't pretend you're too cool for Pixar movies, I know you all know the scene I'm referencing). At first, Team USA didn't join the pack, not wanting to generate any excess animosity after our unprecedented display of aggression after finals last night. Eventually, though, we did join the mob, and it was terrifying. At one point we were packed so tightly that I couldn't move any of my limbs and the bag of the guy in front of me was pushing so hard into my stomach that I almost regurgitated. It was a pickpockets dream and a germaphobes nightmare.
One of the coaches gave me a great idea today: to attempt to speak to one person from 26 different countries, each of which started with a different letter of the alphabet. I like this idea, mostly because it will encourage me to actually speak to other humans instead of being a socially awkward hermit who can barely produce more than five words around strangers. The only issue with the ABC challenge is that there are no countries that begin with X, but I'll cross that bridge when (and if) I get there. I attempted to jump start this quest today at lunch by introducing myself to some Jamaicans. They asked me where I was from and I said I went to school in North Carolina, and asked if they knew where that was. They all started laughing, and informed me that they went to LSU. Takeaways: I am a gigantic ignorant moron.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty wiped tonight and I'm not sure I could do finals justice/keep my English coherent if I attempted to do a recap. Instead, as promised, here are some pictures!
Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post, I want to stop one more time and thank all everyone for reading and for the positive feedback I've been receiving about this blog. If you think that that (extremely canned) expression of gratitude sounds overused in this blog, join the club. I don't know any synonyms for positive feedback that don't sound extremely awkward in this context, so if you do please let me know! But really, all sarcasm aside, I don't think this many people have said so many nice things to me since I let the 11-12s skip the last 400 of swim practice at work (they're extremely easy to please). It's both humbling and gratifying, more of the latter than the former because now I know I'm exactly as funny as I've always thought I am.
NOW, onto the swimming!
This mornings session managed to fly by and drag on at the same time. Is that even possible? The first couple events went really well for us and (don't quote me on this, because I could be VERY wrong) I'm pretty sure everyone who swam for the US made it back to either finals or semis! I say it "dragged on" because the last event of the morning was the prelims of the women's mile, of which there were three heats. As a sometimes distance swimmer (SOMETIMES, guys, so Rich don't get any ideas about a senior year sub 15 minute mile from yours truly), I just have to ask: why on earth would you ever be so cruel as to force anyone to swim a mile more than once? Honestly, I'm still trying to figure out the point of swimming the mile at all. Poorly kept secret: I loathe it. Luckily, Lindsay and Katie are made of stronger stuff than I am and powered through this morning to make the final tomorrow.
After prelims, we were tired and hungry and ready to go. Unfortunately, the buses were NOT ready to take us. When we emerged from the pool into the stifling heat and humidity, there were roughly the same number of people waiting in the parking lot as there were last night after finals, and not a single bus in sight. People were congregating in a massive clump in order to attract the attention of the buses when they arrived. When a bus did get close, the entire cluster of humans would chase the bus in an extremely undignified manner and press up against the side of the bus when it stopped in order to force people on. Picture the jelly fish from Finding Nemo moving in a formation (the scene where they play charades with Marlin. Don't pretend you're too cool for Pixar movies, I know you all know the scene I'm referencing). At first, Team USA didn't join the pack, not wanting to generate any excess animosity after our unprecedented display of aggression after finals last night. Eventually, though, we did join the mob, and it was terrifying. At one point we were packed so tightly that I couldn't move any of my limbs and the bag of the guy in front of me was pushing so hard into my stomach that I almost regurgitated. It was a pickpockets dream and a germaphobes nightmare.
One of the coaches gave me a great idea today: to attempt to speak to one person from 26 different countries, each of which started with a different letter of the alphabet. I like this idea, mostly because it will encourage me to actually speak to other humans instead of being a socially awkward hermit who can barely produce more than five words around strangers. The only issue with the ABC challenge is that there are no countries that begin with X, but I'll cross that bridge when (and if) I get there. I attempted to jump start this quest today at lunch by introducing myself to some Jamaicans. They asked me where I was from and I said I went to school in North Carolina, and asked if they knew where that was. They all started laughing, and informed me that they went to LSU. Takeaways: I am a gigantic ignorant moron.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty wiped tonight and I'm not sure I could do finals justice/keep my English coherent if I attempted to do a recap. Instead, as promised, here are some pictures!