Welcome to hard week!

Good evening, and welcome to week 4 of the training cycle: aka when everyone gets overworked and their brains turn off so that every day is filled with extreme fatigue and extreme lack of intelligence. Best of all, everything is funny! These effects will begin to set in on Wednesday, and will continue through the last workout on Saturday. Maggie calls it fatigue retardation syndrome.

I wish I had more to report but my days are only spent training, sleeping, and doing homework. It's very repetitive and boring in a pleasant way. Maybe next week when I have some free time I'll get out hiking or surfing like a real Californian and take some pictures to make you jealous. But for now I'll just keep wearing down the path between my bed to the boathouse, to the kitchen, bed, boathouse, weightroom, shower, kitchen, bed..... you get the idea.

Keeping in Touch with Friends

Did you know you can 3-way video chat....







Across 5 times zones and an ocean!?

Differences Between Training and Normal Life, Part I:

My deodorant scent during the week: "Sport Fever"
My deodorant scent on off-days or for a night out: "Sexy Intrigue"

Fem's Dream World: Part VII

During my nap today, I dreamt that the team was on a flight to Europe. It was frigid on the plane. Mags was in the seat in front of me, and her feet were frozen solid. I handed her the -20 degree sleeping bag that I happened to have on my lap so she could get warm.

When I woke up, I was curled up in a ball beneath all my covers and my sleeping bag.

(This is what happens when it drops down to 45 degrees in California. Also, when it rains so much that the lake rises and you have to wade in 2 feet of water to get to the dock.)

Fem's Dream World: Part VI

Last night, I dreamt I competed in next week's Cross Country Skiing World Championships. Then I built a life-size gingerbread man and stationed him underneath the Eiffel Tower. I circled the area in a helicopter with my binoculars, making sure no one disturbed my creation. I saw a man break off the gingerbread man's head and start eating it as he walked through the park. I flew the helicopter down beside him and swiped it out of his hand, yelling at him for being so insensitive as to ruin my gingerbread man.

Wisdom from one of my very dearest friends

"There is wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down in to the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar." -Moby Dick

Nothing like snake pictures to ruin a perfectly good afternoon

I made it back to California earlier this week! I don't have much to report. I've spent the last few days cleaning my apartment, working on schoolwork (I'm a full-time student this semester, online and at UCSD), and training. So I figured I'd just post a pretty picture of where I live and train.

However, much to my dismay, a google images search for "otay lake" comes up with not only pretty pictures like above, but also pictures of GROSS NASTY BLACK SNAKES!!!!!


Terrfied and confused, I researched further. I know there are rattlesnakes all over the place, but it's very rare that I see one. So what's the deal with all the snake pictures? Well, turns out Otay Lake is home to Rosy Boa constrictors (Lichanura trivirgata), which come in tons of different colors-- around Otay Lake, they're black. Some whacko-- I mean snake enthusiast-- has a website dedicated to them.

eww. scary. SNAKES, STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!!