First College Update 11/16/10

Hey everybody!

Well...i said i would try to update this blog every month or so. guess im really exaggerating the "so".

After 2 and a half months of college, i have decided that i have enough information to entertain an audience for a little bit!

I guess ill start with swimming since thats what my blog is named after... Swimming...is going... During the preseason (when i moved it August 28th to start of season Sept. 7) i felt like i was on the track team! a lot of running, which i dont mind, but it was hard going from no running to a lot. We ran to the beach a lot and had beautiful weather and beautiful views to be tortured to while doing endless body holds, sit ups, jumps, push ups, and running "the hill". Once the season actually started, more swimming was involved and it just has been down hill (or uphill?) from there. A usual day for me starts with weights and ends with my legs feeling like they are about to fall out of my hip sockets. I am sore from tuesday until saturday ish and get about a day to recover. It has been the hardest swimming i have ever been exposed to. I swim, i lift weights, i run, i do dryland (body squats, push ups, sit ups, etc) for about 18 hours a week, not counting if i have a meet. By the time i get to a meet, my body is usually so exhausted that i feel like i can not preform as well as others. About a week ago, i couldnt even walk normally and was expected to preform in a meet. My preformance and not been as good as it usually is around this time of season but all the older swimmers are just saying its because my body isnt used to what its going through. Im really excited for our rested meet that we have the first week of decemeber which we get to rest for (dont have to swim as much, no weightlitfting or dryland) for a couple of days before. Thats when i hope to show the coaches the reason im on this team :)

As for the team itself, i really like it. I love the head coach, assistant coach and my sprinting coach. My coaches will seriously walk up and down the side of the pool watching every one of my strokes. Its much different that the coaching i got in high school. I like it so much better because they know so much about the sport and are really there to make me faster and have taught me things that help improve my stroke really well, things that i thought i was doing right before but now i found out i can improve it. I like my team mates as well. There are about 27 girls on the team (not counting divers) and then theres an equal amount of boys. I like how many people there are because it gives you a great option to be able to find someone who you will get a long with really well.

Now for the college part... Right now im in french, biology, math and english. My french class is so easy. I get really annoyed and we always have stupid bookwork and little worksheets that just annoy me but I'm glad i get to use this class to ease into the college foreign language world and solidify my foundation of the language. My biology class is a joke for me as well. Since i took AP bio in high school, im just relearning everything i already went to in depth. Why didnt i test out of bio 102? Because im a horrible test taker and got a 1 on the AP test...poo. And since i didnt test out of math i couldnt take a chemistry class. Oh well, i guess thats why they say freshman year classes are usually boring. My math class is literally my FST class all over. I love it. I feel smart in math for the first time ever. I have the best grade ive ever had in a math class right now. I know that feeling wont last for long because today, i just signed up for a Calc class for next semester. I already have plans to get a tutor for that. And english ...is english. Its a pretty horrible class. Im liking it more now because we are really getting in depth to our research paper. Im researching conserving the rainforest so i got really excited that i could pick a topic that i really care about and could use that for a class. The work load was pretty tough for all my classes. In most of my classes, my first exam was my worst grade. I just think i didnt have it figured out yet how to do the whole swimming and college thing. I have a good regime now and am managing my time much better (besides for now, because im supposed to be revising my english paper).

Now social part of college...I haven't really met a lot of people. I havent really tried. I have the swim team. I kinda feel bad because i met someone in my math class, and every time she asked to hang out, i had a swim function so that friendship never happened. The swim team is a really solid group of people to be around though :) i dont mind.

Living in the dorms is a different story though. It is by far my least favorite part about college. I cants stand the dorm food and im constantly enduring acid reflux during swim practice and always feeling like crap because of it. I try my hardest to get protein and vegetables(even though sometimes it includes choking down greenish brown green beans). Just all the food has so much grease and who knows if all the grains are refined and white or if the apples have a waxy coat of pesticides on it... I also dont like the floor i live on or the suite i live in. We have a trouble some room mate who started off our experience here rocky and now theres just tension. Also there are 2 guys on our floor who are friends with her and they always come in here and are loud and mean and disrespectful and i cant stand them. I also hate my suit style dorm room. I wake up in the morning every time the suite door or bath room door, or anyone elses door shuts. its horrible.

The most i miss about home, to be quite honest, would be my friends of course, my family, my cat, my church, good food, and the kids i baby sat. I miss my cat quite a lot since she used to sleep in my bed and now theres no kitty any more :(

I dont know really what else to say but if you have any questions please post them and i will respond!!

Love,

Sophia

How I Won a Bottle of Rum (In Jamaica)

Colorado in a few paragraphs that doesn't do its justice.

My last routine trip to the Rocky Mountain Continental divide trail ended in tears.

I don't know what it is that makes me love those trips so much but anyone who backpacks can tell you the same.

Crammed into a car for 24+ total hours, no showers for a week, carrying a 40-45 pack, back aches, foot aches, altitude obstacles, pine cones as tp...

but those are the things i love the most about it.

The car rides to start, have to be one of my favorite parts. While many people may take a book, craft, games, and ambien to get through a long car ride. I brought an ipod only to be played throughout the whole car, a blanket, and snacks.

On the way there, our car sang along to our favorite tunes, got to know each other and shared stories that kept the time moving. I actually got upset after i woke up from a nap to find out my youth pastor sang his favorite opera song or someone told a great story i missed. The car rides were energetic and filled with excitement on the way there and i love it.

The excitement that filled everyone when we arrived at a church to crash at was also unique. Most people were very tired but still had smiles stretched across their faces for what had yet to come. Everyone sat in suspense as Lief announced the groups, while maybe one friend may not have been in a group of choice everyone was still happy to be able to meet new friends.

The car ride to the ranch was amazing. I enjoyed my stomach ache from the switchbacks up the mountain as Lief tested how fast he could take them. Just kidding. He didn't drive a mile over the speed limit the whole way.

Intensified sun beat down on our pale Wisconsin skin as we met our guides for the week and filled our packs. Our group only had 2 members who had never been on this trip before but everyone was excited for a new adventure.

While playing a get to know you game at the trail head, we heard thunder. Everyone shrugged it off. The sky usually threatens everyone underneath it by mid day in the summer in the Rockies. Before i should share my name and dance moves it began to POUR. Not only did it start to pour but while we were standing in it waiting for it to pass over it began to hail. Now, I've never stood in a hail storm before but the pellets were a little bigger than peas, pelting against my skin. The trees we were standing under no longer offered adequate support. After we all collected our packs and hid under the visitor center's shelter, our guides smiled and yelled "Welcome to Colorado!!". We ended up laughing it off in the end.

The next few days went by too fast. Before i knew it, it was friday and we were saying trail confessions of rules we'd broken throughout the week (mainly consisting of unacceptable places to...excrete human waste). The soreness on my hips from my pack were gone. My hair was fairly fresh from dipping into a river, and my knee was cut up from hitting it on a rock after cliff jumping. I had new friends sitting beside me that i had go to know very quickly and i, once again had a fresh out take on life from being able to clear my head for a week.

When i got home, i routinely logged into facebook and just thought to myself, "I didnt miss any of this". I didnt miss whos dating who, i didnt miss know if lebron was going to pick this team or that, i just wanted to be back with nature and my friends, and no cares or worries. I sulked around for a day or two looking a pictures again and again but eventually tried to cheer myself up. Every scrape i got from the trip brings me a smile when i think about how i got it. Scratch on my shin from tripping while excited to meet the other backpacking team at a crossroad, gash on my knee from cliff jumping and swimming out, cut on my foot from climbing a mountain of rocks, all of these, the pain included, i love.

These backpacking trips have changed me a lot, if we combine all four that i've been on.

I'm going to miss those trips so much and I know that i'll probably go on another back packing trip in the future, but Blackhawk Church started it all. And i'm very thankful for it.

-Sophia.

To Get Updates

If you go to the comment function (which im still not sure if you can comment if youre not a member) there's a link that says "subscribe to email updates" that way you dont have to come back checking and you'll get an email when i post !

Thanks!

-Sophia

Bienvenue a mon Blog !

Hi Everyone (Well, no one at this point)

As i was going door to door collection money for a raffel for swimming a parent said to me, "Keep me posted". This phrase echoed in my head especially for one reason, so many people have said the same thing. Then I thought to myself, how am i going to keep all these people posted while trying to balance everything else I'm going to have going on?

Blog !

Ding a ling.

So. Welcome to my blog (thats what my title says but in french)

I invite everyone to "follow" this which i will try to update with entertaining information as much as possible. I'm thinking anywhere to twice a month or once every other month. I dont know. I like to blog but i dont know if im going to forget or not have time but i'll try.

So for the families I babysit who are wondering how im doing: please read this to your kids :) only if they care though, of course.

I'm going to try to update with my success in swimming, how my classes are, or just any other random yet entertaining bits of my life that i feel have importance.

I hope you follow and check, i dont know how the updates work but i think if you follow you will be notified every time i post, not sure how this works yet...i just signed up a couple minutes ago.

-sophia