Hey everyone! Once again, thanks so much for the positive feedback to the blog entries. Nothing fills me with confidence like hearing that someone's mom thinks I'm funny, especially because I'm not even sure MY mom thinks I'm funny half the time (kidding Mom. You're required to think I'm funny even when my jokes have all the humor of a bag of turnips. Love you.). Before I discuss the swimming we've done so far and todays excursions, here is a list of all the things I miss about America*:
1. FOOD. More specifically, french toast. Why french toast? I'm not sure. I don't even really like french toast, nor do I eat it on even a semi-regular basis. Despite this, a craving for french toast hit me like a brick wall this morning and I almost completely bailed on warm up to go on an expedition to locate a fragrant, carb filled breakfast.
2. Television. I am by no means a couch potato (quite the opposite- I've been known to clean my bathroom in order to avoid sitting around doing nothing) but the fact that I can't watch Netflix (apparently it doesn't work overseas?) and that my computer is struggling to stream video is making me wish I could curl up like a couch potato. I'm like a child. Even if I don't like something, the second it's taken from me not only do I wish I could have it, I want to hoard it like it has the equivalent net value of Fort Knox.
3. My friends. I've already mentioned how much I love the team here, but going to a team without my teammates makes me feel like I've forgotten something important like, say, a kidney or my carotid artery. I've become so used to swimming for my teammates since being on a college team that the idea of swimming for anything else is just bizarre. If I am going to be swimming for anything else, though, my country is definitely an adequate replacement for my friends (if y'all are reading this, don't worry, I still love you more than peanut butter).
*This is not to say I'm homesick, because I wouldn't say that I am. These are just things that I've realized it's difficult to live life without, regardless of location (and yes, that includes all American food).
Anyway, on the subject of teammates, lets talk pool and swimming! Before I go any further, I'm sorry to say that I actually haven't taken any pictures of the pool besides the ones that I already posted, so if you're looking to gawk, I can't help you. I CAN do my best to describe it to you, and give you a little bit of detail about what I've been doing, since I'm sure you all care about the inane details of my life.
The main pool, as y'all have already seen, is enormous. It FEELS enormous when you swim in it, and apparently they plan on knocking out the wall of windows in order to add more stands when they host the World Cup in 2019. Since being in the water already feels like swimming in middle of a giant fishbowl, I can only imagine what it's going to feel like when the stands are double the size. There's a second 50 meter warm up pool in addition to the competition pool which is reminiscent of an oven. I think I get this impression from the ceiling being low and the room being kind of dark and reflective (can living spaces be described as reflective? I think they can).
Some interesting things I've noticed thus far:
1. Aggression in the warm up pool is universal. I was swimming a 50 fly pace today at the same time as someone from another country (which I will not name, because I am classy and also slightly terrified of causing an international incident) was doing a dive 50 fast. We were on a collision course and within 10 meters of each other, neither of us had flinched. When I suddenly realized I was not going to win this game of chicken, I dove under the water and she quite literally ran me over. I've been smacked in the face and scratched on the leg and kicked in the stomach and spat on, and the meet hasn't even started yet (well okay, nobody has actually spit on me, but I can imagine that I've caused some people to SERIOUSLY resent the stupid American girl who keeps swimming down the middle of the lane).
2. "Normal swimming attire" is a relative term. I've seen people wearing two pieces inside (THAT'S body confidence, people). I've seen people wearing fabric caps, something I haven't done since the age of 8. I've seen people in full on wet suits and scuba goggles (not really). Moral of the story: I'm judgy and need to not laugh at people who wear different clothes from me (13 year old readers, take note: THIS IS A LIFE LESSON).
3. Not everyone yells "take your mark" when doing a start. This should be a no brainer since obviously, English is not everyone's first language, but I guess I've never really thought about swimming terms in general in different languages. More on this later
Now, a brief summary of my swimming thus far and thoughts on the topic (brief because 1) I'm superstitious and don't want to jinx myself and 2) nobody cares but my mom and possibly Rich, if he's even reading this): I don't swim until July 9th, so I've still got a fair amount of training to do. Rich, my coach at UNC, warned me before I left that "you probably won't feel very good when you first get there", so I was hesitant to do anything on a watch today because I didn't want to disgust coaches who generally trained with athletes of Olympic caliber by going slower than the speed of death. Luckily, when I finally DID do some fast stuff, my times were decent and I didn't embarrass myself. This is probably because I threw the practice plan Rich gave me out the window and have been swimming a whopping 1000 meters a day since leaving Chapel Hill (breathe, Rich, I'm kidding).
Here is some more real talk that has absolutely no humor involved (feel free to skim): it's really intimidating to swim with Olympians and NCAA champions. I realize I'm lucky to be part of such a talented team, but at the same time, I get moments where I'm just kind of like EMMA WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE. I'm not saying I think I suck or that anyone deserves to be more than anyone else, but I'm also not going to pretend that I think I'm anywhere near the level of some of my teammates, because I know I'm not. People who I'm with have accomplished so much, and this is as intimidating as it is inspiring. I'm hoping that as the meet moves forward, it's more the former than the latter.
Moving away from swimming, we had a ton of free time today and got the chance to wander outside the village and socialize a little bit. Something that really struck me was how genuinely nice the locals were to us. In a meeting we had, one of the officials said "Koreans love Americans!", but I just assumed that Koreans "loved" Americans in the same way we assume that every single country loves us (read: they don't.). But EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, we saw smiled and waved, even if they didn't really say hello. I took A TON of pictures, which I'll post below.
Finally, something extremely exciting happened today: I talked to a native speaker in Spanish!!! Background: I'm a Spanish major, and have been completely terrified to talk to any native speaker for fear of sounding like I have the rough IQ of a sea cucumber. But today, in the Samsung Villa in the Athlete Village (see pictures below) I talked to an Argentinian swimmer! He was really nice and didn't make fun of my subpar speaking skills at all. I tried to not let my excitement show all over my face, but I'm sure I appeared just as creepily overexcited as I was. He taught me how to say the strokes in Spanish, and I promptly forgot. I was nauseatingly smug and proud of myself for the rest of the day.
On a slightly less happy note, I wasn't able to attend the opening ceremonies tonight. In lieu of attending and taking an obnoxious amount of pictures myself, I enlisted my friend and fellow Tar Heel, Jack the Diver, to take some pictures for me. Also, he did awesome on 3 meter and made semi finals which take place tomorrow, so cheer for him!!
Anyway, before I post tonight's round of pictures, I should probably say mention that competition starts tomorrow, so I'll do my best to provide a summary of both prelims and semis/finals in my post. Until then, good nigh (it's 9:12 here!) and Go USA!
1. FOOD. More specifically, french toast. Why french toast? I'm not sure. I don't even really like french toast, nor do I eat it on even a semi-regular basis. Despite this, a craving for french toast hit me like a brick wall this morning and I almost completely bailed on warm up to go on an expedition to locate a fragrant, carb filled breakfast.
2. Television. I am by no means a couch potato (quite the opposite- I've been known to clean my bathroom in order to avoid sitting around doing nothing) but the fact that I can't watch Netflix (apparently it doesn't work overseas?) and that my computer is struggling to stream video is making me wish I could curl up like a couch potato. I'm like a child. Even if I don't like something, the second it's taken from me not only do I wish I could have it, I want to hoard it like it has the equivalent net value of Fort Knox.
3. My friends. I've already mentioned how much I love the team here, but going to a team without my teammates makes me feel like I've forgotten something important like, say, a kidney or my carotid artery. I've become so used to swimming for my teammates since being on a college team that the idea of swimming for anything else is just bizarre. If I am going to be swimming for anything else, though, my country is definitely an adequate replacement for my friends (if y'all are reading this, don't worry, I still love you more than peanut butter).
*This is not to say I'm homesick, because I wouldn't say that I am. These are just things that I've realized it's difficult to live life without, regardless of location (and yes, that includes all American food).
Anyway, on the subject of teammates, lets talk pool and swimming! Before I go any further, I'm sorry to say that I actually haven't taken any pictures of the pool besides the ones that I already posted, so if you're looking to gawk, I can't help you. I CAN do my best to describe it to you, and give you a little bit of detail about what I've been doing, since I'm sure you all care about the inane details of my life.
The main pool, as y'all have already seen, is enormous. It FEELS enormous when you swim in it, and apparently they plan on knocking out the wall of windows in order to add more stands when they host the World Cup in 2019. Since being in the water already feels like swimming in middle of a giant fishbowl, I can only imagine what it's going to feel like when the stands are double the size. There's a second 50 meter warm up pool in addition to the competition pool which is reminiscent of an oven. I think I get this impression from the ceiling being low and the room being kind of dark and reflective (can living spaces be described as reflective? I think they can).
Some interesting things I've noticed thus far:
1. Aggression in the warm up pool is universal. I was swimming a 50 fly pace today at the same time as someone from another country (which I will not name, because I am classy and also slightly terrified of causing an international incident) was doing a dive 50 fast. We were on a collision course and within 10 meters of each other, neither of us had flinched. When I suddenly realized I was not going to win this game of chicken, I dove under the water and she quite literally ran me over. I've been smacked in the face and scratched on the leg and kicked in the stomach and spat on, and the meet hasn't even started yet (well okay, nobody has actually spit on me, but I can imagine that I've caused some people to SERIOUSLY resent the stupid American girl who keeps swimming down the middle of the lane).
2. "Normal swimming attire" is a relative term. I've seen people wearing two pieces inside (THAT'S body confidence, people). I've seen people wearing fabric caps, something I haven't done since the age of 8. I've seen people in full on wet suits and scuba goggles (not really). Moral of the story: I'm judgy and need to not laugh at people who wear different clothes from me (13 year old readers, take note: THIS IS A LIFE LESSON).
3. Not everyone yells "take your mark" when doing a start. This should be a no brainer since obviously, English is not everyone's first language, but I guess I've never really thought about swimming terms in general in different languages. More on this later
Now, a brief summary of my swimming thus far and thoughts on the topic (brief because 1) I'm superstitious and don't want to jinx myself and 2) nobody cares but my mom and possibly Rich, if he's even reading this): I don't swim until July 9th, so I've still got a fair amount of training to do. Rich, my coach at UNC, warned me before I left that "you probably won't feel very good when you first get there", so I was hesitant to do anything on a watch today because I didn't want to disgust coaches who generally trained with athletes of Olympic caliber by going slower than the speed of death. Luckily, when I finally DID do some fast stuff, my times were decent and I didn't embarrass myself. This is probably because I threw the practice plan Rich gave me out the window and have been swimming a whopping 1000 meters a day since leaving Chapel Hill (breathe, Rich, I'm kidding).
Here is some more real talk that has absolutely no humor involved (feel free to skim): it's really intimidating to swim with Olympians and NCAA champions. I realize I'm lucky to be part of such a talented team, but at the same time, I get moments where I'm just kind of like EMMA WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE. I'm not saying I think I suck or that anyone deserves to be more than anyone else, but I'm also not going to pretend that I think I'm anywhere near the level of some of my teammates, because I know I'm not. People who I'm with have accomplished so much, and this is as intimidating as it is inspiring. I'm hoping that as the meet moves forward, it's more the former than the latter.
Moving away from swimming, we had a ton of free time today and got the chance to wander outside the village and socialize a little bit. Something that really struck me was how genuinely nice the locals were to us. In a meeting we had, one of the officials said "Koreans love Americans!", but I just assumed that Koreans "loved" Americans in the same way we assume that every single country loves us (read: they don't.). But EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, we saw smiled and waved, even if they didn't really say hello. I took A TON of pictures, which I'll post below.
Finally, something extremely exciting happened today: I talked to a native speaker in Spanish!!! Background: I'm a Spanish major, and have been completely terrified to talk to any native speaker for fear of sounding like I have the rough IQ of a sea cucumber. But today, in the Samsung Villa in the Athlete Village (see pictures below) I talked to an Argentinian swimmer! He was really nice and didn't make fun of my subpar speaking skills at all. I tried to not let my excitement show all over my face, but I'm sure I appeared just as creepily overexcited as I was. He taught me how to say the strokes in Spanish, and I promptly forgot. I was nauseatingly smug and proud of myself for the rest of the day.
On a slightly less happy note, I wasn't able to attend the opening ceremonies tonight. In lieu of attending and taking an obnoxious amount of pictures myself, I enlisted my friend and fellow Tar Heel, Jack the Diver, to take some pictures for me. Also, he did awesome on 3 meter and made semi finals which take place tomorrow, so cheer for him!!
Anyway, before I post tonight's round of pictures, I should probably say mention that competition starts tomorrow, so I'll do my best to provide a summary of both prelims and semis/finals in my post. Until then, good nigh (it's 9:12 here!) and Go USA!