finis. almost.

so its been several days since the candadian henley Blow Out Party (CHBOP as it will be known) and i was going to blog a blog that would have shattered everyone's world. (meaning it would have been less cool than i made it out to be) but its been several days and I dont feel like doing it anymore. I drank my martinellis and took advantage of the generosity of those less sober than myself. I scored: two bottles of martinelli's, a bag of mint cups, a free beer (which i could/did not drink)and a frosty.

I am home know and i want to leave indiana behind me. I was in airports and traveling for over 12 hours on tuesday and i am throughly practically done. While in transit I got a call from my mom saying i needed to do my sister a favor and work the morning shift. I flew in at 8pm and was at work at 5:30am the next day. back to my regular life. somethings about home have changed and some will always remain the same. I need about two weeks to process the last two months and then i will be able to be rid of it and move on with my life. I read a book about the AT on the way home and that was therapeutic. After I'd finished i decided against reading Vanity Fair or Mere Christianity and just thought about my summer. I learned a lot about myself and the way things worked. In someways it felt like i was subjected to a type of mental and physical torment that i inflicted upon my self day after day in the pursuit of a dream. other times it felt like i was fully in control of everything and the master of my own fate. There was a goal insight and I made it but the journey was not as smooth as i thought and hoped it would be. it was development camp. and thats what happened.

Give me two weeks, the good parts will rise to the surface and the annoying mindkilling parts will fade.

Its already changed me. I went running yesterday. who knows what will happen next?

Oh hey

So. I had a stellar blog planned. which involved my last two days or racing and partying in canada. in which i was the DD and was sober so i definately know and remember what went on. yeah. it even involved my reactions to watching: I Was Pregnant and Didnt Know It marathon on TLC. I now know all the symptoms of people who find out they are pregnant while in labor and giving birth on the toilet. and also my thoughts on the chronicales of riddick which is an awesomely terrible sci fi movie. "If i owned hell and this place, I'd rent this out and go live in hell." so bad its soooo good. plus its like vin diesel. it cant get better. plus he wears goggles the whole time and I was a swimmer so thats like high fashion. almost as good as wearing ballet flats around

anyway. yeah. it was going to be the tell all blog of the summer and my computer got a virus and wont turn on. I have no cell service to call my brother. so I am borrowing a computer to "check email" yeah. when i get home expect something better than the summer blockbuster.

CANDADIAN HENLEY PARTY BLOWOUT!!!!

and they were so hung over that they left most of the food and so i'm eatting cookies and applesauce and anything else left in the fridge.

One hellish day of three people in a bench seat in a stick shift truck and then flying home. barring death or accidents i will be home in TWO DAYS!!!!

Royal Canadian Henley Regatta

Yesterday I had two big races. Quad and Double Semi final.

First up was the quad, 6 in our heat with top three going to the final. we pwnd. seriously. amazing start and we were in front by the first 250 down. then it was cruising (code word meaning extreamly painful and wrecked feeling from energy output) to the finish and come out second in our heat. despite a few problems it was our best race in the quad so far.

Double Semi was two hours later. First off. I hate the double. you have no idea how much i dislike this boat. I feel fear 75% of the time I get into it. my strength is not finesse and form which is what this boat demands. I pop so many supplements that are supposed to help with mental stress, anxiety, to staying calm before i get into the double. I needed to nail this race, I panicked in the first two regattas of the season adding to my weakness and I needed redemption. Even more so since the heat race went well. Top two go to the final.

As i was praying I knew that I needed to go with what i knew. The SPU race plan.
So as soon as the start sequence ended i worked my way down the seats Starting with Savage. thank you SPU teammates for getting me through that, i even remembered your focuses. around 750 or rather 4 seat, we crabbed. dropped from the middle of the pack to the end. we quickly picked it back up, the best rescue ever and hammered it out. I would just like to say that I appreciate people who can stroke so much. I do not enjoy it, its hard. I like the quad because the boat is stable and I get to follow. In the Quad I have Caity's back. In the double she has mine. I have to hand it to my partner she has been very patient with me, doing a wonderful job bowing, as well as giving me as many verbal cues as she can. (I'm still a little to cox dependant) we hammered it at the thousand. and at the 1250 started pulling even on the boat next to us.

I honestly dont remember most of the last half of the race. I remember the coach yelling at me from the shore, and knowing i needed to take it up a notch. my legs ached, my lungs felt like they were useless, but th last 500 we walked back up to our original position. and finished 3rd. and in the lane of the club we walked on. they were not happy we were in their lane. but they obviously didnt need it right then. I have a sneaking suspicion that when we walked they freaked and crabbed, adding to their dislike of us in their lane. So we didnt advance, but it was our best race. Caity was happy with it and i was so brain dead/oxygen deprived that i was gripping the riggers and trying to breathe. It was an aggressive race. Overall we finished 12th out of the 18 in the Semi's. honestly it was a longshot to get into the final. For only skulling 2 months vs most of these girls have several years of experiance I'd say we did very well. I am happy with what i accomplished. I pulled everything together in the last week.

as Caity and I were getting out of the boat at the dock, an official came over and commented, "much better than tuesday night." it was the guy who fished us out. redemption full circle.

tomorrow is the quad final, we're ranked 4th out of 6 with only ten seconds seperating us from 1st. its going to be a race. and its going to be good.

Water. Falling. A long Distance.

today was my day off!!!!! which means i went to niagra falls. Not because i wanted too initially. but because i owed catherine a tank of gas. canadians are peusdo europeans and put things in km and liters. i have no idea how much gas 60 liters is. but i bought roughly 30 pepsi bottles full of gas. that is revolting. and it cost a lot too.

so i went to niagra. I now know why this is a honeymoon destination. one look and basically you are done. back to business. I was more excited to be where Wonderfalls the ill fated tv show starring Lee Pace was set.

The rest of the town is a garrish amusment park type place/mixture of carnival. ferris wheel and expensive parking included.

so that was niagra falls. and i know to cross it off my list of places to go to. I think TV and the internet has taken most of the mystery out of nature and tourist traps.

"are you going to dance your way to the finish?"

first off. today at the race course i learned that ballet flats equal high fashion. my teammates thought this was the most rediculous/funniest thing ever that i showed up wearing them. I would like to say that sopping wet tennis shoes from flipping or ballet flats? i choose ballet flats. it was a nice distraction from nerves.

Racing:
My double, the team of Pitts/Smith-Staines (yes, its Pitts Staines) made the semifinal!!! we thought we were 5th and we turned out to be third so we advanced! we had a powerful sprint and now i just need to NAIL it tomorrow and I'm golden. we battled it out, attempting to steer straight, not hit the boat in the lane next to us, keeping on it with the legs, we did Not having ANY crabs (a major improvement), coming out with a time 45 seconds faster than our club nationals race. I had the worst case of nerves but I prayed, tried to focus and stay calm and we didnt have our greatest race ever but so much better than Tennessee. With a little determination and LEGS we can hopefully make it into the final tomorrow afternoon.

tomorrow we have the quad race and the semi final. and hopefully it will go well.

sometimes i do fall in the ocean

so. I did it again. for the eighth time this summer. and the second time with a partner. I flipped a double. yeah. there are times like these that there are no excuses. its just a, "yeah i did that..again" moment. this is one of them. Afterwards my coach asked, "so have you flipped on every waterway we've been on?" no actually i avoided the waters of tennesee. but i have flipped with everyone I've rowed long term with. Helen escaped.

canada just gets better and better.

I have a doubles race in 3 hours.

Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.

The goals:
keep calm
set a good rythm immediately
stay on the legs
be aggressive
go straight
quick catches
finish top 2 in a tough heat.

Picture Post!

These are pictures! of my summer. The last picture is of the guest cottage and the lady who i met who made my summer more enjoyable. I sadly did not get any pictures of the church.

There is the double wide as seen from the gravel road. the bushes cleverly sheild most eyes from the fact its a cedar clad trailer.

There are some pictures of the interior. This was on the day we cleaned. usually it was not that clean and clutter free.

There is a picture of the road i biked/dragged my body by foot to get to practice.

some good memories. some trying times, and a lot of lessons on endurance and preserverance.

Another cell service announcement

So. imagine my shock and horror after riding in a car for 12 hours to get from Indiana to Canada to discover that I HAVE NO CELL SERVICE. well. thats sad. but you know i spent lots of time in indiana with out my cell. so hey. one week big deal. even though i have five bars I'm on roaming. whats with that? Being forced off the grid by canadians.

I would also like to point out that canada is NOT the USA. no it is not. I went shopping at a grocery store and tried to check out only to discover that they didnt take VISA. who doesnt take visa? who???? canadians! at least those canadians that were celebrating civic holiday at the No Frills Grocery. Food is expensive here.

This morning when i tried to get on pandora, i found out pandora is not availble in canada due to legal reasons.

and then the mighty internet giant hulu was not avalible because i was outside the US. and my world was shattered. This is how i escape my teammates from time to time. and canada was looking to be very miserable.

But all is NOT lost! Daniel Rupert saw my facebook status and sent me a link which gives you a fake IP address for the US and fools these websites into thinking you are in the motherland. Thus i am listening to pandora as we speak.

This doesnt solve my cell problem. Everyone who I said i would call? yeah thats not happening. Sorry. and due to this fake IP address I cant access my email at the moment.

I miss you America States. I will be back in less than a week.

Cell Service and internet. and guns.

I have been on count down. I am ready to come home. really really ready. I have 8 more days. So now I am in canada. to finish out racing at the canadian henley.

Back Up:
I finished out the last week of practices, moved out of the doublewide, returned the bike to my friends who own the guest cottage. Missy had made me cookie bars. Unfortunately they didnt turn out but we salvaged part of them and my teammates were glad to see them after a long day of cleaning. I moved into our coach's condo for the last two days (our landlord wanted $500 for the two days in august we would be here) It was nice to only have to share a condo with another teammate and a coach. I am so excited to be out of indiana. so excited.

After a practice 2k on saturday (which i and my doubles partner nailed) we ended up going to a movie, My fourth one of the summer. So far I have seen Star Trek, Year One, Transformers, and The Proposal. Movie addict much?

My coach does not have internet, but after roving around the yard of the condo complex, finding internet, had a deer with antlers sighting, lost the internet, went searching again and thanks to unprotected internet found another connection. Its a good life, even if I look like a complete idiot carrying a laptop around hitting refresh wifi every five seconds.

Sunday:
I was now 9 miles out of unionville but a family offered to help me out if i needed anything. They ended up coming and getting me and taking me to church. I got to have family dinner with them. Their daughter is my age and we hung out playing cornhole with involves throwing beanbags at a board with a hole in it. this may sound lame. it is not. and I throw terribly. after losing we got board with that and ended up shooting guns. hand guns, and bigger guns. in the backyard. that was my first time doing that. I definately like throwing knives better but guns are cool too. Its a little less easy to kill or injure someone with a throwing knive in my opinion. It was such a great time to hang out with a complete family. Kids, Grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, the food was the first homecooked food I'd had since i came out here.

I was able to talk to a few people while in town. Amy, Chloe, Parents, Blackhorse, Ellen. I will never take cell service for granted again. until next time.

Not a bad way to leave indiana. I loved the church, the people, disliked the lack of cell service, watched too much tv and hulu, didnt read my books, and didnt write as many letters or send as many post cards as i planned. All in all if i had to rate this trip so far. I'd give it a 7. the guns alone bumped it up a point and half.

FREEEDOM! (almost)

I moved out of the double wide and into my coach's condo on friday. I am staying here until tomorrow morning and then i am leaving for the canadian Henley Regatta. Holla! Yes. and I have NINE days until i am at home. I have a longish update for the past few days but i am going to write that when i get to canada. Right now I am sitting outside the condo complex with my laptop using the mickey network. Thank you unprotected internet user. I am being eatten alive by mosquitos but this is a small price to pay after been internetless since friday afternoon. I have taken pictures and here is a teaser of the amazing update that is to come.

Yes. It is real.