YEAH!!! I am DONE!!!

I finally submitted my last set of grades today for my last class so I am officially done with summer school this summer. I don't ever want to teach 3 classes in summer school again. It was just way to exhausting, both physically and mentally. There were days that I couldn't even remember what I was talking about anymore. And it didn't help that all three of my classes were completely different-College Algebra, Calculus 3, and Statistics. I mean 3 totally different classes with 3 totally different sets of students.

I can now relax a little bit. Except for the fact that my advisor wants me to finish a part of my thesis by next week so that he can have it when he goes on vacation. Other than that I need to work on putting together my resume package for applying to schools in the fall. And in a few weeks Eric and I will be heading off to Yosemite for vacation! Yeah, I can't wait!

Kure Beach

I signed up for a triathlon that was down at the beach over the weekend. When I signed up I had no idea that I would be overly busy with school work to train all that much, but oh well. This was my first triathlon I did two years ago and I enjoyed it then, so I thought I would sign up again.

The format is crazy as it is a 375m ocean swim, followed by a 1.5 mile run, 12 mile bike, 1.5 mile run back to the beach and another 375m ocean swim. Now 2 years ago when I did this race the ocean was beautiful and calm race morning. Yesterday, we got to the beach and were welcomed by lots of wind, a little sprinkling rain and huge waves and crazy undertoe. At first I thought, no big deal about a month ago we raced surf n turf and it was pretty bad their. But after what I went through yesterday, I don't want to do another ocean swim again. I was seriously scared out of my mind.

First the buoys they anchored out (kind of past the breakers) all came undone and floated away since the surf was too much. So the race director had the lifegaurds swim out and hold the buoys in place. How they did this...who knows. We were all convinced that practically everyone swam a different swim course. After the first swim and being hammered by the waves I wanted to give up, but I fought through a painful run and a pretty great bike to not give up. On my way back on the worse run ever I did not want to get back into the ocean. And actually it was way worse the second time around. It took so much energy to get out to the lifegaurds and on the way back in a got taken under by a wave just flipping me upside down underwater. When I got up to the surface gasping for air I got swept under again and flipped around-total black and very scary just hoping that I can hold my breath long enough to resurface and get some air again. It was just horrible.

I have never been so happy to finish a race. You can read the race report if you want-over at our website link on the right.

The Man Cave

The last night I was up in Michigan with the family we went over to their friends house. THey have the exact same house as my parents do except backwards (you know one of those neighborhoods where you pick the model). Well, they have remodeled their basement to be what is now called the Man Cave. My dad and a bunch of guys play poker there once a month and no joke, this place is amazing.

There is a huge bar/kitchen area with gorgeous marble countertops and they have a whole sound system set up where the computer monitor hangs on the wall and then they can choose their music (from the 12000-yes 12 thousand) songs they have on itunes. There is alos a theater room with a massaging chair which I had to test out! The theater room has two levels, so the people on the top row can see over the people on the bottom, they don't have theater sytle chairs, just nice couches and chairs-very comfortable. The projector scree is definitely the biggest I have ever seen. There is also a temperature controled wine celler (not too big but big enough). These folks are into their wines.

So while we were there they opened up some red wine. I am not a huge wine person, so instead he opens the fridge an asks me what I would like instead. My choices include just about every type of beer/malt liquor possible. So I opted for a margarita. After the first bottle of wine was consumed, they opened a second and then a third, and then a forth. I proceeded to try the peach wine cooler after the margarita. We all just hung out and talked and tried this $100 (VERY small) bottle of Cherry Balsamic Vinegar from Italy they had bought on a recent trip. The vinegar was actually really good. So 5 hours later (11:30pm), we all headed home to pack up as we had to be up at 4:30am to go to the airport.

Anyway, it we ever have a big house and a lot of money, this would definitely be a cool room/floor of the house to copy. Definitely need the massaging chair!!

Wicked

So two weeks ago I flew up to Detroit for a long weekend (not the best of time since it is the middle of summer school). Eric didn't come since it was a little too expensive for both of us to fly up there for the weekend. I flew up through DC (Regan) and got delayed...wow I don't ever want to fly through that airpoit again, what a mess. I got in late Friday evening and my parents had the fire pit going so we sat around and drank and ate and stayed warm.

I convinced Krista to go running with me while I was there since I am in the middle of heavy training and she said sure-even though she hasn't been running hardly at all. So Saturday morning we went out for a short run (4 miles for me, a little over 3 for her) and then got ready to go see Wicked.

We were going to the afternoon show since apparently the theater is in a bad part of downtown Detroit and the Masonic Temple was beautiful!! I had tried to read the book but I just couldn't get through it...just too slow for me. I read Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and thought it was great but Wicked was just a bit slow. After seeing the play thought, I could tell that second half of the book was probably really amazing. I would highly recommend this play to anyone, it ranks right up there as one of my favorites, along with Rent (and Mamma Mia). And the music was just great. The lady who played Elphaba (The Wicked Witch) was the understudy and I think she had the best voice out of anyone on the stage (and including the recording voice on the soundtrack), it was that good. I would see it again if it ever comes to town here, but definitely want to be a little closer.

My Aunt and Uncle and cousins came over for the evening and we just hung out and watch the hockey game...good times as usual. Sunday morning I convinced my sister that we could run to Jenny's Farm Stand (a little over 8 miles) and get breakfast. Actually, my mom and Ethan would drive over to the farm stand and pick us up on the way if we didn't want to go the entire time. I ran together with her for the first 4.5 miles and then I ran ahead and she ended up getting picked up while I managed to make it the whole way...this is my 3 longest run ever. My first being the half marathon I did back in 2000, my 2nd being the 10 mile run I did over a year ago...the day my knee began to hurt...so this is very good for me.

We got some strawberries and sweet cream biscuits and ate "strawberry shortcake" for breakfast...and it was SOOOOOO good. Wow, those biscuits were awesome. The rest of the day consisted of running errands (twice to Costco) and lunch with my other cousin and her husband...who might be moving to Tennessee.

I will write more about the evening (the Man Cave) another day...this is long enough!

Either way...what you should learn is to go see Wicked!!

Sorry Monica

So I have been really slack about updating my blog...but I have very good reasons. My last blog was about a month ago, right when summer school started. I initally was teaching two summer school classes-College Algebra and Calculus 3. This was keeping me busy enough, but then a couple weeks into summer school I was asked to teach a third class-Introduction to Statistics and of course I said yes...I thought it wouldn't be too bad as I was taking over for someone. I figured, it is only a few weeks and the pay is great for summer school-it turned out that it was a lot more work than anticipated and I have been just struggling to make it. Luckily, this is the last week of summer school for all three classes, so after this week I am free for the rest of the summer! Yeah! And then I promise to keep my blog updated Monica!!!

I did a race about a month ago down at the beach and did pretty good. I was third overall and beat some really great people which was a huge confidence booster. You can read my race report here: http://www.elitetriangletriteam.org/scgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?b-race/m-1148241182/ Training has been going alright despite the fact that I hardly have any free time from the teaching. I was doing great until this past weekend and my knee has been really sore for some reason. Hopefully I didn't do anything serious to it. I have been icing and popping advil and it is slowly feeling better, but we'll see.

I will try to update more frequently-as I actually have some things to report!!

Oh and by the way-GREAT JOB CANES ON THE STANLEY CUP VICTORY!!!!