You ever...

...have one of those days, you're feeling great and being productive. Then you realize, oh shit. For whatever reason. In my case, it's the realization of being a senior in college. I was all happy, cleaning my room and organizing everything, when it hit me that this time next year is "grown up" time. Sink or swim. My Dad will be handing over car payments, insurance bills, anything and everything that a normal working human pays for. But, I'm not decided on anything. People are asking me, "Wow! You're a senior already! That's great! So what are your graduation plans?" Insert blank stare in response. Is it awful? I'm going to be 21 in like 27 days, or something like that, and I'm as lost as ever. I talked about it with Paul the other day because he's leaving for Pittsburgh at the end of August. 6 months without probably seeing him. I even looked up plane tickets from LGA to PITT. Problem: tickets are 86.00 NOW. In a few months they'll probably be back up to 250.00, which I cannot afford. I guess it's just the realization that time is moving forward really quickly. And while I want to have fun and live life, I'm still scared. I really want to go do grad work. I don't want the giant bill from it. I'd like to be able to visit Paul. I don't want to work in my dad's insurance agency for the rest of my life. There are too many thoughts about next year already and I fear a nervous breakdown will occur at some point in time.

Argh. Enough. I took a few days off from running. The weather has been abysmal now that I want to start back up. RAIN RAIN RAIN. WIND WIND WIND. Ridiculous. So I'm in search of an affordable gym membership. Failll.

I went to RIT for the weekend. Pretty amusing. Lots of movie watching and grilling. Found a good book at Goodwill for 2 bucks. Sat in Java Wally's for a couple afternoons with the best vanilla coffee ever and a good book. Spent a rainy Sunday afternoon watching the weather be ugly, as Paul and I just lay on the couch and talked. It was probably the best part of the weekend. Finally relaxing. And Lola, the new Subaru, handled the drive like a champ.

Mom needs me to go clean my dirty rug from my dorm room. Since it's raining, I'll be writing more. Guaranteed. ha

 Jasper :)

 Mom's Dogwood Tree

 Lilacs

 Some random tree in our backyard. I felt inspired I guess.

 Subaru Love

 Paul's Impreza and my Legacy. Nina and Lola. haha

 Inside of Letchworth cabin that we only got to stay in for an hour to eat delicious steak. Long story :/

 Paul putting together steak and peppers with Greg. He has skills. haha

 Greg and Megan. Greg broke upon a glo-stick and put it all over his shirt. Smelled a bit but looked wicked cool.

"I'm a beautifulllll butterfly!" hahaha. Paul explaining his mummy sleeping bag. haha. 

And that was my weekend in photos pretty much.

Almost done...

Grad work in creative writing? It's seeming like more of a possibility. As much as I stress and pull my hair out over it, I'm comfortable there. I like to read and write. I always have. I could go into publishing, teaching or being an agent. I just know that I need to be putting serious thoughts into it NOW.

MAACs are this weekend. And my Law exam is next Tuesday. So I will be stressed beyond all know how. :/ Of course. How annoying.

This past weekend at RIT was fantastic. I did a really awesome 11 mile accelerator run on the treadmills there. Their gym must have better ventilation or something. I was NOT a sopping wet mess afterwards. I went rock climbing for the first time. I sucked, but then again, it was my first time and now I really, really like it. The formal was fun :) Lots of dancing. And of course it was nice to just spend some time with Paul. He took me to get coffee in their library and showed me the academic side of campus on Sunday. It was nice and peaceful. But of course we went and watch the Dodgeball world record get broken in their gym. haha Had to do something crazy. And I met the craziest guy on the train ride home. He had is 24 oz. Natty Ice and kept watching this girl's ass every time she walked down the aisle. He kept asking me what I was writing. Told me all writers are "loonies". He was just a crazy person. He was swearing at someone in his sleep and kept jumping up out of his chair. Albany station stop was a godsend.

I have to go run. Write up the final version of my Reckoning Essay. And then it's off to MAACs and studying for my law final. And then I'm a senior. Life is actually moving too fast. I want to be done with work, but I'm not sure I want to be out on my own. I feel like I can't swim yet and they're taking away my lifesaver.

 Yeah, I laugh HYSTERICALLY every time I see this picture. hahaha

 Couldn't find black shoes. Wear Vibrams instead :)

I haven't written because the humidity makes me grouchy...

The title says it all. I've been DYING this week. Even on the treadmill. I took Sunday off and Monday night was alright, but then Tuesday, WHAT a nightmare. I ran later at night and that may have screwed me up, but it shouldn't have. I almost passed out in McCann yesterday trying to do my 800m repeats on the treadmill. It's been 80 with HIGH humidity and pollen levels. AKA disaster for me and running. I have MAACs next Saturday and I can't train. I'm stuck on the treadmill and even doing 10 miles on that has been torture because it's so HUMID in the gyms. I am pouring sweat eery time after just 1.5 miles. That's pathetic. I also become really, really tired. The race was kind of a disaster last weekend. It never spread out and I was running in lane 3 the entire time and pretty much beat myself up with that. Some Georgetown girl almost mowed me down in lap 3. she just shoved everyone and I almost face planted over the rail. I just never settled in to my pace and on top of that, the race was so jumbled because we were all seeded the same pretty much. All 33 of us.

I think I just need a break. I've been training really hard up to this point. It just stinks that I'm wearing out now when I only have a week left. Two workouts, one race and then I get a week off.

Easter was nice. I ate too much of my Aunt Pinky's Gnocchis and made myself feel sick. ha.

I'm just overall exhausted by this point. I'm going to take a shower and then I'm off to RIT for the weekend for Paul's formal. :) He just told me last night that he's leaving for Pittsburgh next December for co-op and he'll be out there until September. So almost an entire year of him being 10 hours away. He got mad at me for crying about it because I was upset and yelled at me for keeping him from taking good opportunities. I wasn't doing that at all. I know he has to go do this and I'm just upset I won't be seeing him. I want him to take it. It just sucks because I'm going to be graduating and then need to figure my life out. I feel like we've come to a major cross road and we need to enjoy the time we have now. I want to not think about it. I don't even really want to deal with it. But I need to stop running away from my problems. I'll survive. It'll be tough at first. But maybe once I start work out of college, and if it's for my Dad, I can go visit him one weekend after I graduate. I just feel like he'll find someone else out there...You can't control who you meet and end up falling for. But then again, if we make it, we make it. Ok. Enough. I can't think about that anymore right now.

We're getting a monster thunderstorm right now. Wait, scratch that. It just stopped. Crazy weather. As long as the humidity goes away, I can deal with 70 degrees. I think.

You MUST watch this.

http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_mcdougall_are_we_born_to_run.html


That's right! Women marathoners. Tough as nails :) This 15 minute clip is incredible.

"we're really good at being sweaty and smelly". Amen.

Suby

The sun is shining and I'm going home for Easter break this morning :)
Princeton is Friday night. Hopefully my legs decide to wake up and stop being little babies about everything because there's only two races left. Time to man up, legs. Seriously.

I went to a 7 Eleven for the first time ever last night. Sad, I know. The coffee was too strong. I couldn't sleep. But I got fruit snacks. Saving grace of the night.

Andd....when I get home...baby car will be IN THE DRIVEWAY.

This isn't mine, but it looks exactly the same. Super excited. Named her Coco. Really not caring that it sounds like a stripper's name anymore. Coco fits. Dad just wants to call her the "Import". It burns his eyes to look at a car that isn't American made. Sorry, Papa John.

I think the sun being out just made me happier. But I'll be complaining again when I go outside and it's hot, sticky and there's no breeze. And allergies are supposedly worse than ever. What a cruel joke. My lungs will be dying in my last few weeks of training. Even summer. I need the super inhaler if it exists. Mike makes fun of me. He does a nasaly, nerdy voice saying, "My inhalerrrr!" Yeah. I have to laugh otherwise I'd seem like a complete poor sport. But still, I hate that I need one now.

Otis soon :)

Picture from Jenn

From Summer 2010 on the Moltenbrey boat. Oh, summer

"I watched a worm slime across the track today..."

Can I just say that Poughkeepsie has been having the shittiest weather ever this week? Fo' realz. haha. Sorry. Just had to let that out.

I need to add "people watching out my Fulton window" as an activity on my resume or info page or something. It truly takes up so much of my time. It's great for providing a good laugh as well. Sometimes I like to make up conversations between people who are walking together or I make up what they did for the day. I'm a pro procrastinator.

So the big news today is that I SURVIVED! my mile repeats workout with Britt. This is the very same Britt who just ran a 16 second PR over her own school record in the steeplechase out in Cali. Yes, the girl is incredibly fast and I was shaking in my boots, well sneakers, about doing mile repeats with her. To make matters even BETTER it was 42 degrees and raining today. It also got windier as our workout went on. Fabulous. Well, Britt and I warmed up and the workout ended up going well. Our first one was too slow. Like 5:41. We were supposed to be running 5:36-5:40. I guess our legs were just cold because after that we ran a 5:36 and finished off with a 5:35. And Britt pushed me to actually kick it up another gear on the last 200 meters. She has a phenomenal kick and she started rolling away and I had to really push to get after her. It helped though. Pete was happy. haha. And he put things into perspective for me. I ran UMass, the 10k, like 10 days ago, so less than 2 weeks. and then 6 days after UMass, I ran a 5k at Rutgers. Plus I had two solid workouts in there. So he said I should be feeling a little roughed up. I just need to chill the next couple days before Princeton. It'd be nice to go for a rip and feel like I used to on that track.

I watched a worm slowly make it's way across the track lanes while we were running today too. Each lap it made its slimy way to the other side. I think I ran faster because I wanted to see how far it got and if I could run a mile before it crawled across 6 lanes of rubber. He was a brave one though. I think he beat me. I need to sleep more. 

My parents are the best and said I can drive home Thursday morning and then they'll rive me down to Princeton Friday afternoon to watch me race. I definitely made sure I told my mom about the really great shops and the really great restaurants (those were more for my Dad. He needs to focus every trip around where we're going to eat). But I feel so much better being able to go home now.

I'm at 7,972 miles on my mileage tracker that I started on 2/14/07. Almost at 8k. These legs have traveled pretty far by now.

We're making Easter baskets for the little kids tonight in our house. The college is reimbursing Andrea for getting everything and we're going to assemble them tonight. I'm excited. I can actually relax and have fun tonight because I got the majority of my work done. I got up early to finish my Ethics paper, do my law extra credit and work on my forum replies. I'm just happy Easter is coming up. I need to decide if I want to take Saturday or Sunday off. ha. Probably Saturday.

And I officially decided on my dress for Paul's formal. hehe. Black on black on black. Car lingo. But seriously.

Ok. I'm reading this terrific book right now...well, so far it's good. And I have a feeling I'm going to crash any second.

Jasper...love him