May 2005 Archives

I was talking to a friend the other day about summer vacation and how I was going to fill my time when he told me that he knew he would be bored within the first week. I said "really? then find something to do!". When he looked at me blankly and said "like what?" I quickly rattled off a list of things. Go for a walk. Volunteer somewhere. Go to a movie. Read a book.

"I don't read".

"You don't read? Really? Not at all?"

"Well, I read for school, yanno, casebooks and such ... but I don't read for fun. Ever."

This was startling to me. I wouldn't consider myself especially well-read, nor would I say I'm an avid reader, but its not because I don't like to read. I love reading. Its just one of those things that seems to get pushed on the backburner when I get busy with school and training and the boyfriend. And now that i have free time, I have a long list of books just waiting to be picked up.

I was perusing the bookstore today, trying to decide what to read next when I started thinking of my friend. Along with all the new (or new to me) novels, there were the familiar covers of some of my favorite books, staring at me from the shelves like old friends. It suddenly made me incredibly sad that somone would pass all this up, that they would dismiss reading as something to be done only when absolutely necessary. I just don't understand ....

... if I do say so myself. :)

Three hour run today. I was slow, as always, but it was BY FAR the best super long run I've ever done. By the end of three hours, instead of slowly, painfully slogging home, I was moving at about the same clip as I had when I started out. Now, 8 hours and a beer later, my legs only feel a little tired. This was very very encouraging.

Ironman CDA is exactly a month from today ... come to think of it, a month from right now I should hopefully be in the final miles of the marathon. Its been really cool to see everything come together for this race. I've felt like in training for my other IMs, that something near the end has kept me from getting in quality workouts in the last few weeks. Usually this barrier to my training has come in the form of an injury, which I fortunately seem to be free of this year. Hopefully I will be able to round out the last 10 tough training days and then put together a good three week taper.

If my long ride last weekend and my long run today are any indication, I just might pull off a finish this year !! Getting SO excited ........... !

The last week has felt like a whirlwind! I finished my last final on Friday, did a century on Saturday, taught my 23 year old best friend to ride a bike on Sunday and spent the early part of this week puppysitting for the parents in the BigBadCity. Finals finished almost a week ago, and I feel like I have yet to really decompress. Tomorrow, fortunately, should be a slower day for me and I'm sooooooooooo looking forward to finally getting to LOUNGE a little bit! Having said that, I HAVE gotten to grill with friends, go out to dinner, and have a beer or two. Ahhh.... summer.

At 11:28 a.m. I turned in my final final of 1L year. I am too exhausted to even put together a post about it. Its that bad.

Tomorrow I celebrate (and add to the exhaustion) with my first 100 mile ride of the year. Its going to be 90 degrees and sunny and windy.

Look for me to sleep straight through Sunday.

This weekend the Looneyville played host to the Collegiate Road National Championships, which meant hundreds of cyclists congregated in this fine town for a weekend of bike madness. Unfortunately, thanks to this looming behemoth of a final, I was only able to catch one day of the festivities, but believe me, that was all I needed to be inspired.

The crit took place on a rainy, cool Friday afternoon on Looneyville's main drag. A big chunk of downtown roads were shut down so that the riders could race around and around past the historic buildings and enthused crowds. It was way cool. We managed to catch all four races (men's and women's Division I and II) and I have all sorts of thoughts on the things I saw that will have to wait for another day. The biggest lessons I learned tho were that:

- Roadies crash
- Roadies crash a lot
- Roadies crash and they get back up on their bikes and hop back in the race
- I could stand to be a little more roadie like

Watching people spill all over the place, dust themselves off, and get back on the horse, so to speak, taught me that I really am a huge wuss. Its not that I don't brush myself off and get back on ... its that I'm so damn terrified of crashing that it greatly impedes my ability to progress in the sport (and puts a bit of a damper on my enjoyment of it in general).

I'm inspired. And tomorrow, I will ride. Hopefully, a little less afraid.

The whole thing also prompted a way enlightening discussion on sports psychology between the boyfriend and I. We dissected my head and found a few gray areas as far as sports go, and I'm actually thrilled to be able to put what I learned to use. I will explain it all in another post on another day when i don't have a final that i am certain to fail (and no, I'm NOT a possum - I'm really in deep sh*t) the next day. Plus I want to think about it more.

P.S. The boyfriend took some amazing pictures this weekend which can be found here. If you look closely enough, you might even find a pic of me with one Mountain Bike Hall of Famer's dog !

I was at the pool swimming today when I noticed a guy at the other, deeper, end getting ready to get in. He was a big guy ... and by big I mean 400+ lbs ... and not so tall. He was with another guy who was helping him put on SCUBA gear. He was obviously being taught how to dive. I watched this big dude get all suited up and then disappear into the twenty vertical feet of water between the surface and the pool's concrete bottom. And I couldn't help but think about how good that must feel for him. How it must feel to carry around all that weight all the time, in a very critical world, and then, instantly, be weightless and not anywhere near the eyes of anyone who could judge you. I pictured this big guy diving in some beautiful coral reef somewhere ... with sunshine and blue water and tons of fish ... and I imagined the joy he would feel at being there ... being weightless and exploring a whole nother world, far away from the reality of whatever caused him to get that way to begin with.

So I'm sitting here and its the first week of May and I'm asking myself where the hell did my first year of law school go?!

It seems like it wasn't so long ago that I was posting about my first day of class, the first time I got called on, and the schedule I fell into (and soon fell out of) at the beginning of this whole experience. And now I suddenly have almost an entire academic year under my belt??

Have I learned anything? I suppose so. I've learned that law school is a lot like high school. I've learned that I hate Contracts class just as much as I expected I would. I've learned that some girls get all gussied up for class, and that I'll never be one of those girls, and that thats ok. I've (I think) learned when to speak up and when to keep my mouth shut. I've learned that the cases they mention on Law and Order are real (at least some of them). I've learned that good friends and a couple glasses of merlot will make most sticky situations tolerable, and many of them even funny. I've learned that sometimes the best gift you can get from someone is a fantastic outline. And wine is a close second. I've learned that coffee is as necessary as water and that the daily coffee break is even more valuable.

Two more years of this.... and then they expect me to go out into the world and be a lawyer??? THAT is what I have a hard time comprehending.

One final and two classes done. Four more to go. And then, 1L year will draw to a close. Crazy...

The stress of finals must be getting to me because a simple phone call just about sent me over the edge.

The boyfriend and I have had tickets for about six months now to see my absolute favorite band. This isn't that big of a deal, as I have seen them many MANY (read: thirteen? fourteen?) times... but its been several years now and I was totally psyched for the show.

Unfortunately, real life got in the way. Finals start on Friday and I am oh so unprepared. Plus there's that whole pesky Ironman training thing. I made what I know is the right decision to stay home and train and study and I told J that of course I didn't care if he went without me and that I truly hoped he could find someone to take my ticket.

The ONE stipulation of that was that he NOT call me from the show.

I'd rather NOT think about the concert I'm skipping so that I can study CrimPro. And I hate noisy drunk phone calls. Especially when they come from concerts. Call me way too crotchety for my age but I don't think there's anything more irritating than being home having a nice, peaceful quiet evening and then getting a phone call from someone who you can't even hear because of all the background noise. This is even worse at concerts because the music is so loud. And its even WORSE when the phone call is coming from the concert that you were supposed to BE at.

So my phone rings tonight and I pick it up and I hear this far away voice saying "you there? hello?". It didn't sound like J, even tho it was J's phone number, so I was utterly confused. I kept saying "hello? HELLO? WHAT???" into the phone but I still couldn't hear and I'm pretty sure that whoever it was couldn't hear me either. I only got glimpses of what the person on the other end, who I'm assuming was the guy J gave my ticket to, was saying... something about how J was having a lot of fun. Umm... ok? Thanks? I'm glad? Could this have not waited until you were some place that I could actually hear what you are saying? And then there's the wondering of what came AFTER the "having a lot of fun" part? Having a lot of fun... and therefore making out with some hot hippie girl in the porta pottie line? Having a lot of fun and therefore passed out drunk and/or stoned on the grass? Having a lot of fun and desperately wishing I was there?

There was a reason I said call me AFTER the show. Why don't they listen? Am I really this crabby? I'd like to blame it on finals but the truth is, I've always hated those kind of phone calls...

A few months ago I wrote about my daily trip to the coffee shop. This ritual has morphed somewhat since then. I still go to the same coffee shop, but now my best friend accompanies me on most days. We always park in the same parking lot and on the way back to the car, java in hand, we always walk past one of the many downtown shops with a resident cat that seems to run the place. A whole lot of downtown businesses have critters (of the invited sort, but I'm guessing there's probably some uninvited critters as well...) that call the shops home. For whatever reason, we've taken a liking to this particular cat. She's small and cute but has tons of attitude. Every time we walk by she meows at us and gives us this look like "how DARE you walk past me without coming in!". So we started going in.

Now almost every day we stop to pet the cat. This is a store that I would never normally visit, and have never purchased anything from (comic books just ain't my thang), but we go in anyway. Its gotten to the point that if the store isn't open yet and the owner sees us walking by, he will unlock the door and let us in so we can pet the cat. Its just another one of those things that has made me fall in love with the quirky laid back town.