Okay, a post full of pictures, watch out! I had a blast at the Swim Trials this week and here's some tidbits from it:
Morning Session warm-ups. It's a lot like a koi pond at feeding time.
Pool + effects for the evening session. Dramatic!
I went to four sessions for the Olympic Swim Trials in Omaha. They were held in the CenturyLink convention center. There were two sessions in the morning and two in the evening. The morning ones were less attended, less showy in the pyrotechnics and theatrics, and made up of preliminaries and semi-final heats. The morning crowd is mostly friends and family of the swimmers that day. I heard a lot of stories about the swimmers from the proud families. It was sweet. The only annoyance I had during the morning sessions was how much of it was spent by people playing on their ipads and phones. It was kind of ridiculous. Two parents who were sitting in front of me had traveled across the country to surprise their son who was swimming that morning. And they spent the entire time messaging people on facebook rather than watching this huge event that their son was taking part in. I mean, they watched his race (er, actually they recorded it on their ipad in-between facebook messages), but they didn't really pay any attention to anything else. It kind of made me sick. And I swore to myself that if I ever have a kid who is in some event that means a lot to them (or me), I refuse to be like these parents and spend the entire time engaging with some machine instead of watching the event/kid/kid's friends. I did get to take a lot of pictures of notable swimmers in the morning sessions, though.
Michael Phelps in the preliminaries for the 200m butterfly
Dana Vollmer in the prelims for the 200m freestyle
Jason Lezak (left, waving) and Ryan Lochte in the 100m freestyle semifinals. Lochte and Grevers both plan to scratch the final, so maybe Lezak will make the team at 36 years old. I'm rooting for him.
Cullen Jones! Yay!
Brendan Hanson! He swam against some Mizzou guys in the breaststroke heats.
Sam Tierney, a Mizzou sophomore, won his heat in the
prelims of the 200m breaststroke this morning!
MIZ! (This finish time wasn't good enough to get into the semifinals, but another Mizzou guy named Jack Brown did end up sqeaking into the semi-finals due to other guys dropping out.) It was exciting to cheer on Mizzou for a few minutes this morning.
Ryan Lochte (blue cap) and Michael Phelps (white cap, flapping arms)
on the blocks for the 200 freestyle final
The evening sessions are way more theatrical with light shows, pyrotechnics, music, interviews, medal ceremonies, etc. It was exciting and the crowd gets super into it. All the swimmers tend to show up and I was in the overflow swimmers section tonight. There's over 1500 swimmers at the Trials and less than 50 will make the team, so it's a huge swimmers' section. I saw two American Records set and those were some of the most exciting races. The 200m freestyle final between Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps was probably the most exciting. I was sitting next to a coach who was schooling me on a lot of what I was seeing and telling me the back stories of some of the swimmers. His son trains with Ryan Lochte and Conor Dwyer, so when both made the 200m freestyle team, it was exciting up in the row.
Lochte's shoes he wore for the medal ceremony. Snazzy, no?
He said that that race will run basically the same next month at the Olympics because Phelps and Lochte are the best in the world and that 200m freestyle final will be another race between the two for the gold medal. But, like I mentioned in the last post, I don't think those two are bitter rivals. They seem to be friendly and happy to be around each other, joking and laughing with each other. I think they're just competitive with each other in the pool, but I saw the two together quite a bit and didn't see anything that looked like they were uneasy around each other at all. Matt Grevers, who won a place on the team last night, did mention both in his post-medals interview. He said that he wasn't like Ryan or Michael who are just like, 'Yeah, I'm going to the Olympics.', he said he didn't think he'd make the team and that's why he was ecstatic about it, despite having been to Beijing in '08. Grevers was probably the funniest dude to chat after his medal ceremony. He was on such a high and was still so ecstatic after his win. He made everybody laugh and feel good because of how excited he was to be on the team.
Matt Grevers during his awards ceremony.
New American Record!
(Not far from the World Record, either.)
Plus, I did see a couple of new records get set. The women are fast! Both Missy Franklin and Allison Schmitt set new records while I was at the trials. It was exciting. Everyone got really amped when someone would get close to breaking a record, but more often than not, they would fall off the pace and end up a few seconds over the record. When they stayed on pace the whole time and then broke it? Pandemonium in the convention center, like whoa.
Missy Franklin getting her medal! I think she cried non-stop through everything from when she broke the record to her post-medal interview. Happy tears.
And, as a final note: I finally recognized an athlete today without having to wait for the mobs to begin to shout her name. I looked over at someone who looked exactly like my cousin and it turned out to be, not my cousin, but Dara Torres. I was proud of myself for finally seeing a swimmer that I recognized pre-swimfan mobfest. If you are stuck in an area with enough crazed teenybopperish fans, eventually, you will begin to recognize people too, eh? Even a blind pig finds a truffle now and again. I refuse to mob anybody, though. It's not my style. I don't like them at all. The terrified look on the faces of the athletes being mobbed does not make for a pleasant photo opp. I think if I were them, I'd try to find another way to get to and fro. Although, props to them for braving the crowds, when they know that they're going to get mobbed. They probably make those people's days by simply shaking their hand or signing their shirt. Not a bad way to make someone's day better, I guess.
It was a really cool experience all around. I learned a lot about the sport, in general. Like, those flags on the pool are there to help backstrokers understand when they're getting close to the wall; the US Olympic Trials are tougher for US swimmers than the actual Olympics; those Michael Phelps arm flaps are really loud; and judging by the screams and loyalty of the swimmers and supporters of certain swim clubs, swimming is more of a team sport than I had realized. It's been a really good experience, all around. People were really nice and friendly to me. When they found out that I came alone to the trials because nobody else wanted to go or could get off work for it, they were excited to include me in their experiences and fill me in on their stories of why they were there. I got a lot of compliments too from older women who told me that they were really impressed by me and that they would never have had the courage to go on a vacation alone at my age. It was fun, and not lonely at all. I think traveling solo could be lonely if you let it, and I do like to travel with other people, but for my first time going on vacation by myself, I have to say that it was nice to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted without having to get a group consensus of an activity or wait around for other people to be ready to go. It was pretty sweet, actually.
Happy spectator at the Olympic Swim Trials 2012!
Less than a month from the London Games! Bring it!
Greetings from Omaha! This is not a city that I've spent any time in prior to this trip, but I tell ya: Omaha and I get along like a house afire! I haven't gotten lost once, all the people I've met have been super nice and friendly, the zoo here is awesome, and the Swim Trials have been pretty fantastic, too. I haven't been disappointed by anything thus far. I didn't have much in the way of expectations, so it's hard to disappoint, I guess. But Omaha? You're awesome.
I saw a little bit of color at the botanical garden. I'm not really into gardens, and the heat has taken much of the color out of the place. I found a few flowers to take pictures of, but mostly it was taking picture of non-planty things:
They have a model train garden with a number of trams and trains running through it. Coolest part of the whole place, I thought.
Some sort of Mt. Fuji replica? It was interesting.
One of the roses in the rose garden.
The zoo is really cool and full of babies!
It was warm yesterday, but I knew it would be triple digit heat for today and tomorrow, so I visited the zoo and the botanical garden yesterday. The zoo was really great. The baby gorilla was especially adorable. He was very energetic and super excited to interact with the visitors. He'd run around and cheese it up for the people. He seriously enjoyed pounding on the glass when people's backs were turned. It was cute and made for a lot of laughs. The baby seal and the baby zebra were both busy most of the time with eating from their moms. The baby giraffe was pretty calm, just walking around. S/he eventually went over and laid down next to Mom in the shade. I haven't seen so many baby animals in one zoo before, I don't think. It was fun. Other animals?
They have a monkey island. The little one in front is a Peruvian monkey.
Babies aside, the gorillas are always the saddest animals to see in zoos, I think. They're too much like humans to really enjoy watching them stuck in glass boxes. This one would sit like this until you walked by one window and then he'd turn his head and look at you before going back to staring off into space again. It made me sad. But, I try to look like this when I do that one sitting pose in yoga. I'm going to remember how well he did it and try to emulate the gorilla next time I do yoga.
Young African Lion. I got several other pictures of this one, but there was a herd of young elementary kids looking through the glass and the cat couldn't stop licking its lips while looking at them.
I have more to tell. The Olympic Trials have been pretty neat so far, but I'll wait and do another post on it later in the week. I'm learning a lot about swimming, though. This is apparently a bigger swim meet for US swimmers than the Olympics because the majority of the best swimmers in the world are here in the USA and there are fewer than 26 slots on both the men and women's teams. So, inevitably, some of the best swimmers in the world are left off the team. I've gotten some good swim pictures in the pool. Not many photos outside of that, although, it turns out that I was standing near Ryan Lochte this evening, but I didn't recognize him. He looked like all the other male athletes walking around in over-sized headphones and track suits. I was kind of surprised when a flock of teenage girls suddenly formed and began rushing toward me screaming 'RYAN! RYAN!' The mob that engulfed the dude screaming for autographs and pictures tipped me off as to who this guy was. I didn't shove my camera in to get a photograph. I can't make myself become one of those people who are pushing and shoving for autographs and screaming at some poor athlete. I'm not able to tap into that part of me anymore. That girl died with my backstreet boys obsession over a decade ago. Here's one picture I'll share tonight from this evening's medal ceremonies when the four guys heading to London in the men's 200m freestyle were waiting in the pit. Of course, everybody getting medals are in a good mood. These guys were having a good time and I didn't see anything that looked like Phelps and Lochte aren't friendly toward each other. I think that's really just something the media want everyone to think to boost ratings. All four fellas seemed pretty cheerful to be together joking around during the wait:
(l-r): Ricky Berens, Coner Dwyer, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte
Today was my first day of vacation! Staycation for the first few days, actually.
I was super impressed by my friends today. We had planned a luncheon/moral support party for a friend whose house was robbed a couple of weeks ago. The thieves took her jewelry, and this is someone who loves to coordinate her earrings and bracelets with her outfits each day. She's so put together. It's a sad situation, not only because it's scary/angering to have your house broken into, but they took all of her jewelry that she had inherited from her mom and grandmother, and all of the jewelry that she had ever gotten from her husband and children. Anyway, we told her that we were going to take her to lunch to cheer her up, but she thought that it would just be four of us for a little lunch. She was surprised when it was 12 people, all to eat lunch and support her while bringing gifts of new jewelry for her. I was so impressed that everyone had been able to keep the secret! I don't work with any of them anymore, so it was easy for me to not spill the beans, but they all kept it quiet for two weeks. Nice job, ladies! I think our cheering-up party worked pretty well. My friend was very touched by it. It doesn't erase what happened, but it makes a big difference to know that your friends are by your side and care about how you're doing and want to help.
I made a new friend, too. It's name is Mod Podge. We're going to become better acquainted, I think. We're starting off slow by just trying to make some of the scrapbook stickers to stick on the canvases that I've been working on, but someday we might move forward to trying to decoupage tissue paper and whatnot to canvasses and other stuff. It's working pretty well so far. One thing I've come to really like about this canvas artwork is that I can use all the art and craft supplies that I've bought during all my other craft phases. So, the stamps and ink that I bought last year during the very brief 'I'll try stamping!' craft phase, and the fabric markers that I bought to customize a pair of Keds earlier this year, and all the stickers and papers that I've kept for years and years after my scrapbooking phase kind of faded away, and even the high gloss paint I recently bought for the furniture painting? All of those things I can use now to make into wall art! Hurrah! And now I have acrylic paint to add to the mix. I think purchasing Mod Podge has made me a hard-core crafter. I never knew exactly what it was before this; it was just something I had vaguely heard people talk about but, like the Monkees, I'm a believer. Plus, did you ever do that thing when you were younger with glue, where you put some on your palm, let it dry, and pull it off like it's skin? Gross, yes. Mod Podge lets you do that again! It was kind of nostalgic and fun to pull the dried glue-like substance off my palm.
Speaking of being a believer in craftiness, here are my first three attempts at artsy fartsy canvasses for my house.
Plus, I'm the proud owner of three more canvasses that I hope to make pretty and put magnets on the back and stick them to my new desk at work to funkify the space a little. I'm not sure entirely what patterns or decorations to put on the ones for work. I'm leaning toward not putting words on them, but sticking with illustrations or patterns. Colorful, of course.
Oh, yeah...and too bad for the OKC Thunder losing to the Heat. I tried to watch all of Game 5 since I didn't have to go to work today. But with the Thunder losing by so much, I couldn't bear to watch.
Oh, boo. I just looked over at the end table and Bea is drinking out of my glass. Sigh. Another glass of water taken over by Miss Potter. Very few things in this house are mine anymore. At Hobby Lobby I was looking longingly at some of the colorful little glass vases that they had on clearance, thinking how lovely it would be to have a few of them in the windows with some flowers in them. And then I remembered Bea and thought of how much glass I'd be cleaning up if I dared to put anything like that in the windows of my home. I can't have nice things.
This morning when everyone was heading to work on campus, there was a bit of excitement when a steer got loose and began running through campus and downtown. It had jumped the fence from a slaughterhouse and was trying to be free, I guess. It did get to run free for about an hour and see campus and some of downtown. Police, Vet School staff, and the owner were all running around trying to catch it, but when it ran over one of the people trying to catch it outside of a parking garage, I think they probably decided they had to kill it before it hurt anybody else. The animal actually got away for a while but it came back and they killed it in a backyard near campus. I decided to go into work early today and so I missed out on the entire thing. It would have been going on when I would have been normally trying to walk through campus to work. I was glad to miss it. As a general rule of life, I prefer to steer (ahaha, see what I did there?) clear of animals that weigh over a ton when they're scared and wandering around in unfamiliar places.
I'm trying my hand at making my own artwork. I found some canvases on sale at Joann's Fabrics and bought some cheapo acrylic paint. It's not worked out quite as I had hoped, but it's going to be okay. I've got only one canvas mostly done right now. It's got the final line from an e. e. cummings poem on it. It just reads "I carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)" and it should add some nice color to whichever room it ends up in. It's not too large. I have one larger canvas and one that's the same size as this first one. I'm debating the next verses or lines to put on the other canvases. A proverb? Another line from a poem? A song lyric? A quote? Not too sure yet. When I get all three finished, I might share them on here. It's not been as easy as I had hoped it would be because I thought that scrapbook stickers of the alphabet would stick to the canvas rather easily. Then I'd just paint it, let it dry, and peel the stickers off and voila! The words would be perfectly visible and beautiful and what not. Oh, silly Jill. It didn't work like that at all. The stickers didn't stick very well and kept moving when I'd paint over them. Then when I would get the paint on them, they wouldn't peel off after the paint dried. So, the first one is actually okay-looking, but not exactly crisp and perfect. It's sort of crooked and stuff. It really wouldn't be a craft by me if it had come out all perfect, though. Everything looks so easy on Pinterest, you know? All those super crafty people making super duper crafts all the time.
I only have a couple of days left of my job. I've been slowly moving things around and cleaning up this and that. I'm only moving across the building, but I hadn't realized how much stuff I had put all over my cubicle in just the 18 months that I've been working at this position. This morning, when cleaning out a drawer, I found 4 mix cds that I brought in the first month that I worked there. I had completely forgotten about them. After listening to a couple of them, I was reminded of some of the songs I was digging 18 months ago. Lots of cheery, upbeat songs that were great for cubicle cleaning and chair dancing this morning. So, thanks to my past self of a year or so ago when I dumped those cds in that drawer and promptly forgot about them until my present day self re-discovered them!
I'm waiting for the fourth game of the NBA Finals to come on tv tonight. I'm not a fan of the tv scheduling that they're doing. I don't like that the weekday games begin at 8. I can't stay up til 10 to see the end of the games. I'm an early-to-bed person now. I usually just make it to halftime and then find out the result the next morning. I'd really like the Thunder to win. It's kind of frustrating to go to bed at halftime with them ahead and then wake up in the morning and hear that they lost it. Boo.
C'mon Durant and fellow Thundery people! I need to keep my mind for a wee bit longer.
Happy Friday! The weekend is nearly here. This is my last full week in my current job and I've been running low on tasks left to clean up the grant work. Waiting on aged servers to upload things, etc. Lots of downtime. I've been watching a variety of things this week. Our office is home to the statewide coordinator for National History Day, which is a national program promoting the study of history in middle and high schools. Students make exhibits, documentaries, websites, write papers, and create performances around a central yearly theme and then they are judged on them in three rounds of competition. The statewide competition here was several months ago but the national competition was this week in D. C. The final awards ceremony on the last day is broadcast on The History Channel, so we were all watching it yesterday morning to cheer for the Missouri kids who won. It was a long ceremony, but really kind of nice to see these kids winning and being recognized on this kind of a stage. There were several winners from Missouri, including a surprise win by a middle-schooler from Joplin who created a website on Iran and it won the overall best website! Woooooot! It was really fun to watch and I wish more schools took part in the competition. These kids can win full ride scholarships to universities, several of them (including the girl from Joplin who won best website) won $5,000 dollars for their winning entries. There are a lot of home-school programs that take part, but sometimes the public schools don't participate. It's a shame, I think. I would have liked to have taken part in this if it were offered at my school when I was growing up. Creating an exhibit on a historical theme? Hello? I would have loved that! I've done that as part of my job now! Nobody ever mentioned this program to any class I was ever in, and it's been going on for 30+ years now. Still, NHD is growing and there were schools from every state + D. C., American Samoa, Singapore, and China this year. This was the first year that some of the International Schools took part in the competition and they won some awards for their entries, plus one of the teachers of the International School in Shanghai won an award for outstanding teacher. It was very cool. I've assisted with NDH at the state level in Missouri and Texas, but I'd never seen their broadcast at Nationals before. It was nice.
I've been watching the Euro Cup, too! It's been cool to see the teams playing and the fans cheering and the cities that they're playing in, as well. The Irish fans have made headlines for being awesome, while their actual soccer team has made headlines for being terrible. But, I was impressed by the Irish fans who sang during the entire second half of yesterday's match against Spain. They lost the game 4-0, and it probably could have been worse than that, but the fans were singing and cheering like they were winning. It was really kind of inspiring and beautiful. They were singing an Irish folk song called "Fields of Athenry"; it was really beautiful to hear it in the stadium yesterday. While the English commentators did not stop talking during the match, I heard that on the German and French broadcasts, the commentators did stop and just let the television viewers hear the Irish fans sing for several minutes. This is just a video from someone who was in the press box at the game in Gdansk, Poland.
Interesting personal sidenote about Gdansk: My family hails from there. Along one side, my family comes from the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland (County Kerry), but mostly, we're Prussian, and came from Danzig/Gdansk. My college roommate went home to Ukraine once and made a point to go to to Poland and see Gdansk and take pictures to bring back and show me. I knew it was a pretty city, but I've enjoyed seeing it on tv through this Euro Cup, too! Both Ireland and Poland are on my short list of places to visit.
Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. Yay for color!
Gdansk at night. Pretty!
Sometimes, when you see the cities and regions that your family comes from, you wonder how bad it really had to be for them to leave there and come to wherever you've ended up, you know? Like, why would someone leave a place like Gdansk that's beautiful and has a beach and seaport, and come to the USA and go to the middle of the country where there's no seaport within hundreds of miles? In my family's case, like a lot of others, it had to do with religion. So, boom. Next thing you know, the family has moved to Protestant-friendly middle America. I recently learned that Omaha is where my family first settled because there was a big Bohemian settlement in Omaha back in the day, so they were able to keep ties to their home culture and community (but practice Luther's teachings without being chased about and killed). I only really learned this because I decided to go to Omaha for the London Olympics Swim Trials and when I mentioned it to my Dad, he said that Omaha was where the family initially settled. I had no idea Nebraska was a part of anything in my family. I don't know if I just didn't pay attention when people talked about it or what, but anyway, while it's not the reason I'm going, I'm going to snoop around and see what I can find about the old part of the city and see what's what. The vacation bug has gotten me pretty badly lately and I'm getting antsy to get going. I've been looking forward to the Trials for months now. I love all things Olympics and this is the closest I've ever gotten to actually going to the Olympics. There are swim trials in the morning (mostly the prelims and some semi-finals) and then they do the prime time stuff in the evening like you would see on tv. So, I have the middle of the day between sessions to explore Omaha and see what's what.
Ireland is a different story. The family didn't have to leave Ireland because of religion, but rather because they couldn't behave themselves. They managed to piss off everyone by fighting a lot. You can only be kicked out of various places so many times before your reputation precedes you and people start to not want you around. They managed to get themselves kicked out of Ireland and then Scotland and then Ireland again, and finally just had to come to America. The family has enough of a reputation still that when my cousin went to the British Isles a few years ago and was visiting a family in Scotland, and he mentioned the family that we come from, the older woman took his knife away and said nobody who came from that family was allowed to have a knife in her house. I don't think she gave it back, either. He had to eat knife-less. From what I've heard, I gather they were still kind of into the rough stuff here and were involved in the Irish gangs in St. Louis in the early 1900s. Somehow, somewhere along the line one of those Bohemian Lutherans took a liking to an Irish Hooligan (or Hooliganess?) and here my family is today! But, still, I think both Gdansk and the Dingle Peninsula are much more picturesque than central Missouri... I would go back and happily live in either place, I think.
Another week is upon us, my friends. And with this week comes the monthly stack of coupons that mysteriously shows up on the break room's table at work. I don't know who brings them in, but it's usually a pretty giant stack. Another employee benefit, perhaps? Like, 'Thanks for working here. To show you our appreciation, please use this coupon to get $1.00 your next yogurt at Yo Yo Yums." No problemo, mysterious coupon giver. I actually found four coupons I wanted. All food related, of course. Yogurt, pizza, and baked goods, oh my. One thing I wish Columbia had was a decent Chinese food restaurant. They are sorely lacking in that area. Jefferson City might lack in many things, but awesome Chinese food is not one of them. I can think of at least three places off the top of my head that I think are waaaaay better than anything Columbia offers. After pondering this at work today, I had to get some car maintenance done this evening and got myself some good Chinese food. And a fortune cookie whose fortune read something like 'Be cautious of the bees with honey in their mouths because even they have stingers on their butts' or something like that. Maybe it was slightly more eloquent, but you get the gist. I threw it away.
Nerd alert on the topic of employee benefits!: I am SO stoked to be getting actual health care benefits with this new job. Super duper over the moon about it, really. This girl desperately needs to get herself to an eye doctor, stat. I've been wearing the same pair of contact lenses for three months now. Three. months. If you're not someone who wears disposable soft contact lenses, let me tell ya: three months with the same pair ain't so good. The online stores won't let me order more from the same prescription because it's too old, so I've been forced to wait it out until I get eye insurance again. I just can't wait to get the correct prescription for these peepers. I heart my glasses though, so if the lenses have to be changed, I'll be keeping the same frames.
Another nerd alert!: I got my June Birchbox this evening and it had this really awesome retro-esque headband in it from Modcloth. I looooove Modcloth, but with my 30 dollar budget thingy that I'm trying to stick to, there's very little in the way of clothing on that website that I can afford. So, getting this gem as an extra in my regular sample box was a really great surprise! Plus, they gave me a coupon to use for Modcloth this month. I don't know if I'll use it or not, but it's pretty sweet anyway. This headband is enough to make me happy for weeks and weeks! It's super simple. Just a wire encased in a bit of fabric, but it works perfectly and holds really well. I highly recommend one! Because it's Modcloth, it's not exactly value-priced. 14 buckeroos will get you this cute fabric encased wire, but the fabric is pretty awesome. And seriously, there will be no headaches with this headband. It's practically perfect in every way, just like Mary Poppins. It knows it's queen of the headbands, too:
I'm keeping tiny tabs on the NBA game between the Heat and the Celtics this evening. I don't really care who wins. I was really happy to have the Oklahoma City Thunder win the Western Division and head to the NBA Finals. That's the team I'm rooting for, (if I happen to catch any of the games) and I don't know enough about the Heat or the Celtics to know which would be the better opponent for the Thunder.
Lots of sporty things are happening this weekend, apparently. I decided not to watch the Belmont Stakes after I'll Have Another was scratched yesterday. I heard it was a good race, though, with Union Rags winning by a nose. Good job. I didn't think I'll Have Another was exactly a super-horse, but I do admit that I would have watched the Belmont only if that horse had been in the race. Mostly because my sports-watching energy has shifted to soccer, as it usually does in June. I watched the two Euro Cup games that were on today. Denmark beat Netherlands, which was a surprise. Germany beat Portugal, which was not, although it was a tough game. Tomorrow morning my Azzurri take the field against Spain. The Italian national team is yet again in trouble with a betting scandal. It's part of the drama of Italian soccer, I think. Wondering exactly how many laws are being broken each time they play. They are scandalicious, but I love them anyway. It's cool that the Euro Cup is being played in Ukraine and Poland. Today they were playing one game in Lviv, but the commentators were saying the city's name a number of different ways. I finally decided that perhaps the British commentator could be saying it correctly in his own way and forgave him his kind of wonky-way of pronunciation, but the American commentator was so terribly off the mark that you could hardly recognize the name of the the city at all. I wouldn't normally be worked up about the pronunciation of a city I've never been to, except that I've heard all about Lviv for years and years and feel that it deserves respect! My roomie in college (and still my good buddy) was from Lviv. She came to Columbia for graduate school and we were apartment roommates for three years until I graduated. She is from Lviv and she pronounces it "Luh-veev". The commentators today were doing all sorts of things to words, but the worst was the American who kept pronouncing it "El-vivvy". I mean, what the hell? Who failed in their job of making sure the talking heads can pronounce the host cities correctly, ESPN? Get on the ball. I hope tomorrow will be better, but I won't count on it.
Over the last couple of weeks, I've come to be amazed by the number of people I know who don't know how to swim. Adults, that is. I don't know why, but I am completely taken aback when I meet an adult who doesn't know how to swim. It's one thing to simply not like being in the water, but to not know how to swim seems really impractical to me. It's a survival skill and I'm kind of surprised at how many people I know that would probably drown if they fell into a lake. I don't always have the ability to hide my emotions on my face and I am pretty sure I've looked at folks like they suddenly grew another head after learning this about them. They may as well have told me they were born on Saturn. It's unthinkable. I almost feel like parents have somehow failed in their upbringing of a kid if the kid reaches adulthood without being able to tread water if they have to...or if they reach adulthood without ever having tasted macaroni and cheese. It just seems very odd to me. I can't imagine having a kid and not making sure they know how to swim. I don't remember learning to swim. My parents put me in a water babies class that had parents in the pool with their infants, teaching the babies how to hold their breath underwater, etc. I obviously don't remember it, and don't remember learning any of it, but I think that's one of the best things my parents could have ever done. And I don't really believe that if your parents don't like the water, you won't learn to swim. My mom was never all that fond of water, but she didn't let that stop her from getting in the pool and making sure I knew how to swim. I admire her for that. And also for not passing on her fear of the water to me. I never found out why she didn't like the water, but I have very few memories of her + water. A few stand out, like when she fell out of a raft during a white water trip down the Colorado River. If you don't like water, the last place you want to be is out of a raft going through rapids, but she did amazingly well and didn't panic at all unlike another rafter who fell out as well and nearly killed himself and others in his panic-stricken state. My mom was very calm on the outside and I would imagine she was worried while being whisked down the roaring river away from those of us still in the raft. That was the most extreme situation I can ever remember her being involved in where water played a big role. Mostly, when I was really little, she would hop waves with me in the ocean and then go back and read a book in her beach chair. My dad was always the one that would go swimming out in the deeper water, and probably that's another reason the fear didn't get passed on to me. My dad would scuba dive, so I had the example of one parent who preferred to sit on the shore (or boat) and the other who preferred to dive under the water and not surface for an hour or so. I did a middle-of-the-road kind of scenario and tended to snorkle and splash about between the two extremes. As a result, I was never afraid of the water itself. I don't like to go out swimming in the ocean as much anymore, but that's due more to a bad experience I had later in childhood during one of those 'middle of the road' scenarios in the Florida Keys. One bad experience shouldn't put you off something altogether. I'm not afraid of water now, just uneasy about certain animals that live in it. I love pools and water parks and things like that. I can't imagine growing up without going swimming. I imagine I'd look something like this sad little elephant, sitting in the super-shallow end while my playmates swim in the deeper sections of the pool. Sad little elephant. So, if you happen to not know how to swim, why not learn now? It's never too late to learn something new.
Remember this post? Well, they've added many races and spots for this year including a St. Louis race for August 18th! And they've re-opened some of the spots for the KC runs. Thanks to Mrs. T's tip-off at lunch today, I got signed up for the St. Louis one! They don't have the map up yet, but registration opened last week and, lo and behold, it's still open! So, yours truly is going to be doing her first 5K in a couple of months. I'm stoked to take part in a Color Run! Remember, you don't have to be competitive, you just have to enjoy the idea of getting color dust thrown on you and having a blast! Plus, it starts at 7 in the morning, so here's hoping that it won't be 100 degrees that morning in (possibly) downtown St. Louis...or maybe Forest Park? That'd be nice...
Tomorrow is a going-away snack day at work for a co-worker of mine. She told me her favorite kind of cookie were snickerdoodles, so I decided I would make her a giant snickerdoodle. I've never made a giant cookie before, but I figured it was pretty easy peasy. It was. The difficult thing is trying not to eat it once you've made it. Because, unlike when you bake regular cookies, folks are gonna notice if you eat any part of a giant cookie. It smells really good in my house right now, just so you know. Next time I'm going to bake a giant cookie and keep a little bit to the side to make a couple of regular sized cookies for me to eat when I'm done. Oh, the torture.
What else? I have barely two weeks until my vacation. It's worked out perfectly in that I will be able to take my vacation and then come back and begin my new position at work afterward. This is great. There was only a little bit of doubt/apprehension about whether I would be paid for my vacation time or not. Never fear, though. It has all worked out. I've got a lot to do between now and then to fully closeout the Civil War grant, but I think it can be done. I've been working pretty hard at it this week so far and it's going to be okay. It's exciting to see this project to the end. I feel like I was a real part of something. And I learned a lot, too. Yay for that. There is a lot of stuff happening or beginning to happen. This has the potential to be a good summer!
I haven't worked out in a gym in a while. I got my notice from the health plex that my membership is about to end. I'm going to try out the rec center like I mentioned in my last post, but until I do that, I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do. But, today during lunch I went and walked 3/4 of a mile around a track on campus and that felt nice. As long as it doesn't get miserably hot, I might try to do that a few times a week. It's not crowded on the track. In fact, it's pretty slow still on campus everywhere, although summer school has begun. It's a nice slow, calm version of campus life. Students are on campus, but it's pretty laid back. Summer school always has that kind of laid back vibe. I like it.
I went and saw Venus crossing the sun yesterday evening. I waited in line for about half an hour to climb up on a ladder and look through the viewfinder of the giant telescope. I couldn't see anything at first, but I finally got my head moved to where I could actually see it. I think the observatory would be really fun to go to at night. I'm sure the staff point out the constellations and things that are visible when you go. I'm going to put that on my list of things to do on campus.
I think the giant cookie might have cooled enough for me to move it from the pan to the awaiting plate now. Beatrix has settled herself on my lap, and I think she's telling me it's time for bed. Her nails need clipping, but I hate to do that. I feel like they should be able to take care of that sort of thing on their own. So far, she's done a pretty good job of it. Bea had the chance to run away last weekend. She got out on the back deck and actually jumped off of it (from one story above the ground). It was only a little scary for me to realize how easily she could have run away. I was out on the deck, but not prepared to have to herd a cat back inside after it jumped off the deck. Bea was kind of freaked out and sat in a corner under the deck crying for me to come and get her. She pretty confident in her outdoorsy-skills because from the comfort of her windows, she's queen of the wild. She's sort of like me with the giant cookie. I'm queen of the giant cookie at the moment, feeling pretty certain that I could eat that much awesomeness just fine. If I started to eat it I'd soon get to feeling kind of sick and not so sure of myself and I'd be overwhelmed by the fact that I'd have to bake yet another cookie for the co-worker after clearly eating most of hers, and here it is going on 10 pm and I'm tired and blah blah blah, I'm actually a giant cookie wimp. In Bea's case, she's got the idea that she would be an awesome outdoor cat (at least in the backyard), but once she's actually out in it, she's no longer so certain that she's made for stomping through grass and chasing birds. She'd rather flop on a carpet and be fed at regular intervals.
So we go on in our own little ways. I hope your own little way is going well, too. I'll leave you now to whatever it is you're doing tonight.
Some people just should not be in jobs where they have to work with other people. Especially greeting people at a front desk. If you have no clearly apparent amiable qualities to your character, being a receptionist is not a good fit. I had a run-in with one such person earlier on a trip to City Hall. First of all, she kept calling me Jennifer despite my telling her what my name was three times. Secondly, she needed an attitude adjustment along with a face that didn't frown so much. And thirdly, I had to wonder how in the hell she got this job? I don't remember her being there the last time I was there, but she might have been. I vaguely remember feeling like the person I talked to was in no way competent when I turned in my tax receipt earlier this year. I have a feeling it's the same person I dealt with this morning. She definitely wasn't there last year, so I think perhaps she came in with the new mayor. I have to assume she's a friend of his somehow, because she certainly doesn't have the personality for this position. Boo to that. Bring back the old mayor's receptionist! The old receptionist always knew how to take a message, how to write down a person's name when they showed up, knew when someone would be in, knew the processes for things, etc. The one they have now seems to know how to do nothing except look at you and speak like you're wasting her precious time. I had to bite my tongue and go sit where I couldn't see her to keep from letting this fool know exactly what I thought of her. I didn't even bother to notice her name. I hope she's on the way out.
This morning Beatrix took my ring off the bathroom counter and threw it down the furnace grate. I managed to find the screwdriver and get the ring back before I had to go deal with the rude receptionist. I've also managed to mess up something at work today. Boo. It will get better, I'm sure. All good things must return at some point.
Like, maybe a Triple Crown winner this year? I saw the movie Secretariat last night and it was pretty good. I love horse racing movies, usually. It generally makes me wish I was involved in horse training. I like horses. Secretariat won the Triple Crown on June 9th, the same day that this year's Belmont Stakes will be run. I don't know if this horse will actually be able to do anything. Secretariat had the benefit of a) being a phenomenally awesome horse and b) having a lot of his competitors drop out of the race. Secretariat had to run against only 4 other horses in the Belmont Stakes. I'll Have Another will probably be facing 10 other horses, so far, in his run on Saturday. I think usually Belmont is a smaller field than the other two races, which is good. And, hopefully, I'll Have Another's race doesn't go the way of Big Brown's race several years ago. That was kind of sad having the Triple Crown contender come in last because of a shoe problem.
Are you going to see Venus this evening/afternoon? The observatory on campus is having a free deal this evening so I'm going to go after work and look through the high-falutin' telescope to see it. I haven't been to the observatory since I was little, so I'm kind of excited about it. I always forget the observatory is here on campus because I'm rarely here at night, but it's cool that there's one nearby. I need to take better advantage of things like that. I'm thinking of possibly taking better advantage of things on campus now that I'll be a full-time employee soon. They have some interesting classes at the rec center, like hula and stuff. I might try it out next semester. Actually, I'm excited to try out the rec center again because I'm interested in having access to a pool again. Especially during the summer while it's quieter around here. Yay, pool.
