Raise your hand if you understood the reference to "Friends" in the title of this post. IF you're not raising your hand, you need to watch more television. Once again, I'm sitting on the floor of my room as I prattle meaninglessly to a bunch of people who I'm only 45% sure are listening to what I have to say. Is this what being in politics is like? The only thing different about my setup from yesterday is that I'm holding a steaming cup of coffee (causing sweat to pour from every orifice of my body) and I'm 10,000 won poorer, which I'll explain shortly.
EDITED: I had part of a post written during the afternoon yesterday with the intention to finish after finals. Unfortunately, I didn't get back to my room until 11 and felt an overwhelming need to dive into my bed in lieu of blogging. I honestly can't even remember what I had planned to write, so instead I'm going to summarize my field trip to Gwangju, talk about last nights finals, and then go over some highlights of prelims today (which may or may not include significant progress on my ABC country challenge).
So yesterday during prelims my phone decided to no longer be eligible for the census. And by that, I mean it died (I can't take credit for that- I just googled "Mafia euphemisms for death", some of which are extremely bizarre). I took it to the tech support booth in the village, and nice as they were, they couldn't figure out how to revive my phone. They did give me an address (in Korean!!) to give to a taxi driver to get to a building where they could apparently provide me with tech support. One of the coaches (bless his soul) offered to accompany on my mission to reattach a functioning phone to my right hand, so off we went. The streets around the village are blocked off, so we had to walk a couple of minutes to get to a road where cars were driving and taxis could pick us up.
When we got into our taxi, we handed the driver the card the village people (of the tech booth, not the group that popularized the song "YMCA") had written for us and pointed to it and said "here", a method of communication that would dominate our field trip. Even though the driver took off, he was yelling something at us in Korean and gesturing with his hands. We did not understand. He continued yelling at us and gesturing yet, strangely, that didn't rectify the fact that neither Coach Looze or I speak a single word of Korean. My back was sweaty and I was on the edge of my seat. Was the address bad? Did he not know how to get there? Had we inadvertently requested transportation to the headquarters of the most notorious drug cartel in Korea? Fortunately, the shouting seemed to be a whole lot of nothing and we ended up at our chosen destination.
The tech support center was in the fifth floor of the building in an office that kind of reminded me of a dentist office. Guess how many people there spoke English? Exactly as many people have ever successfully set foot on mars, that is to say, zero. We returned to the tried and true method of pointing to things and speaking loudly via holding my phone up and saying "broken" and "fix please". One of the tech support guys took my phone into the back room for a couple minutes and then returned with my functioning phone. I have no idea what was wrong it or what he did to fix it, but he was very sweet and didn't charge us anything so I gave him a USA pin and we were on our way.
The most notable thing about the taxi ride back was that our driver spoke a little bit of rudimentary English. When I got into the car he said "Hey girlie" in a way that I'm sure wasn't intended to be creepy but unfortunately was. It reminded me of a story my sister told me about her swim coach boyfriend's foreign colleague who learned a lot of his English by watching American movies and accidentally used a substitute for the word "butt" when yelling at his ten year olds that would have been better suited for a rap song.
Last night, as I journeyed to finals with my (now functioning) phone in my hand and a smile on my face, I had no idea just how long the session was going to take. Some highlights:
- My roommate Lindsay got second in the mile! She swam the mile twice, went faster the second time, and was surprisingly cheerful afterwards. I am mystified by this, as I would have been laying on the ground moaning that the world was conspiring against me after a similar ordeal.
- The American men went 1-2 in the 200 free, an event that has always made me wonder how less than two minutes of my life can cause so much agony.
- One of the USA boys tied with an Australian for first in the 200 IM! I've never seen anyone tie for a medal anymore, let alone for a GOLD medal, so this was interesting and I can't imagine very satisfying for either party, but who knows? I'd honestly be satisfied with ANY medal, even if I had to share it with the entire Russian delegation.
- One of the swimmers in the men's 50 fly was in the wrong heat of semi finals. I sympathize with him, because I've done similar things, but I also frown on him because he caused a sizable delay of the meet around the time that I was starting to hit a brick wall.
- The American women also went 1-2 in the 100 free! Sprinters, tell me: what exactly does it feel like to move fast in a short distance? Does it feel like me sprinting (read: painful and pathetic) or do you KNOW you're booking it? Enlighten me, because this is something I will never understand.
- One of the American men swam the 200 free and the 400 free less than an hour apart and medaled in both of them while making both swims look disgustingly easy. Those of us not racing today stayed to cheer while he stood on the podium for his (well deserved) medal in the 400 let loose a collective sigh of relief when he looked up into the stands and laughingly told us (possibly horrified by our bedraggled appearances) "Go get on the bus". That's a wise man, ladies and gentlemen.
This morning's prelims felt like a walk in the park after last night. We weren't even on deck for two hours which, for those of you in the know, is like the blink of an eye in swim meet time. I've realized that reading all of the foreign names is one of the most fun parts of the meet. My favorite by far is Bagdadhi, a male swimmer from a country that I can't remember. Bagdadhi did win his heat of 100 free today, so go him. Coach Bottom of Michigan agreed that this last name was hilarious, and I think we can all acknowledge that is the supreme authority on funny last names for obvious reasons.
EDITED: I had part of a post written during the afternoon yesterday with the intention to finish after finals. Unfortunately, I didn't get back to my room until 11 and felt an overwhelming need to dive into my bed in lieu of blogging. I honestly can't even remember what I had planned to write, so instead I'm going to summarize my field trip to Gwangju, talk about last nights finals, and then go over some highlights of prelims today (which may or may not include significant progress on my ABC country challenge).
So yesterday during prelims my phone decided to no longer be eligible for the census. And by that, I mean it died (I can't take credit for that- I just googled "Mafia euphemisms for death", some of which are extremely bizarre). I took it to the tech support booth in the village, and nice as they were, they couldn't figure out how to revive my phone. They did give me an address (in Korean!!) to give to a taxi driver to get to a building where they could apparently provide me with tech support. One of the coaches (bless his soul) offered to accompany on my mission to reattach a functioning phone to my right hand, so off we went. The streets around the village are blocked off, so we had to walk a couple of minutes to get to a road where cars were driving and taxis could pick us up.
When we got into our taxi, we handed the driver the card the village people (of the tech booth, not the group that popularized the song "YMCA") had written for us and pointed to it and said "here", a method of communication that would dominate our field trip. Even though the driver took off, he was yelling something at us in Korean and gesturing with his hands. We did not understand. He continued yelling at us and gesturing yet, strangely, that didn't rectify the fact that neither Coach Looze or I speak a single word of Korean. My back was sweaty and I was on the edge of my seat. Was the address bad? Did he not know how to get there? Had we inadvertently requested transportation to the headquarters of the most notorious drug cartel in Korea? Fortunately, the shouting seemed to be a whole lot of nothing and we ended up at our chosen destination.
The tech support center was in the fifth floor of the building in an office that kind of reminded me of a dentist office. Guess how many people there spoke English? Exactly as many people have ever successfully set foot on mars, that is to say, zero. We returned to the tried and true method of pointing to things and speaking loudly via holding my phone up and saying "broken" and "fix please". One of the tech support guys took my phone into the back room for a couple minutes and then returned with my functioning phone. I have no idea what was wrong it or what he did to fix it, but he was very sweet and didn't charge us anything so I gave him a USA pin and we were on our way.
The most notable thing about the taxi ride back was that our driver spoke a little bit of rudimentary English. When I got into the car he said "Hey girlie" in a way that I'm sure wasn't intended to be creepy but unfortunately was. It reminded me of a story my sister told me about her swim coach boyfriend's foreign colleague who learned a lot of his English by watching American movies and accidentally used a substitute for the word "butt" when yelling at his ten year olds that would have been better suited for a rap song.
Last night, as I journeyed to finals with my (now functioning) phone in my hand and a smile on my face, I had no idea just how long the session was going to take. Some highlights:
- My roommate Lindsay got second in the mile! She swam the mile twice, went faster the second time, and was surprisingly cheerful afterwards. I am mystified by this, as I would have been laying on the ground moaning that the world was conspiring against me after a similar ordeal.
- The American men went 1-2 in the 200 free, an event that has always made me wonder how less than two minutes of my life can cause so much agony.
- One of the USA boys tied with an Australian for first in the 200 IM! I've never seen anyone tie for a medal anymore, let alone for a GOLD medal, so this was interesting and I can't imagine very satisfying for either party, but who knows? I'd honestly be satisfied with ANY medal, even if I had to share it with the entire Russian delegation.
- One of the swimmers in the men's 50 fly was in the wrong heat of semi finals. I sympathize with him, because I've done similar things, but I also frown on him because he caused a sizable delay of the meet around the time that I was starting to hit a brick wall.
- The American women also went 1-2 in the 100 free! Sprinters, tell me: what exactly does it feel like to move fast in a short distance? Does it feel like me sprinting (read: painful and pathetic) or do you KNOW you're booking it? Enlighten me, because this is something I will never understand.
- One of the American men swam the 200 free and the 400 free less than an hour apart and medaled in both of them while making both swims look disgustingly easy. Those of us not racing today stayed to cheer while he stood on the podium for his (well deserved) medal in the 400 let loose a collective sigh of relief when he looked up into the stands and laughingly told us (possibly horrified by our bedraggled appearances) "Go get on the bus". That's a wise man, ladies and gentlemen.
This morning's prelims felt like a walk in the park after last night. We weren't even on deck for two hours which, for those of you in the know, is like the blink of an eye in swim meet time. I've realized that reading all of the foreign names is one of the most fun parts of the meet. My favorite by far is Bagdadhi, a male swimmer from a country that I can't remember. Bagdadhi did win his heat of 100 free today, so go him. Coach Bottom of Michigan agreed that this last name was hilarious, and I think we can all acknowledge that is the supreme authority on funny last names for obvious reasons.
On the swim front, shout out to Leah and Linsday for qualifying 1-2 for finals tonight in the 400 free! Apparently Leah's time was kind of fast, but I wouldn't know anything about that. The American men are tied for top seed in the 100 free (Really guys, neither of you could have gone one one hundredth faster?) and the American women are 1-2 going into semis of the 200 breast.
FINALLY, my international interaction was at an all time high this morning. Pin trading is a HUGE thing here, and I've so far not been super successful at getting pins from countries where a language barrier might hinder my ability to say "OH MY GOSH DO YOU WANT TO TRADE?!" as obnoxiously and cluelessly as possible. This morning I traded with Thailand, Japan, China, and Chinese Taipei. CHINESE TAIPEI! I'm so proud of myself I could vomit.
LETTERS FUFILLED: A (Argentina, Australia), B (Brazil), C (China, Canada, Chinese Taipei), F (Finland), G (Germany), I (India, Italy), M (Mexico), S (South Africa), T (Thailand)
PLASTIC BOTTLES OF WATER CONSUMED TODAY: 5
Hopefully I'll have another post up around finals tonight, but if not, I'll post tomorrow (any maybe even throw in some pictures!!)
FINALLY, my international interaction was at an all time high this morning. Pin trading is a HUGE thing here, and I've so far not been super successful at getting pins from countries where a language barrier might hinder my ability to say "OH MY GOSH DO YOU WANT TO TRADE?!" as obnoxiously and cluelessly as possible. This morning I traded with Thailand, Japan, China, and Chinese Taipei. CHINESE TAIPEI! I'm so proud of myself I could vomit.
LETTERS FUFILLED: A (Argentina, Australia), B (Brazil), C (China, Canada, Chinese Taipei), F (Finland), G (Germany), I (India, Italy), M (Mexico), S (South Africa), T (Thailand)
PLASTIC BOTTLES OF WATER CONSUMED TODAY: 5
Hopefully I'll have another post up around finals tonight, but if not, I'll post tomorrow (any maybe even throw in some pictures!!)