I'm just about spent. This week has thrown at me just about everything that it can. Was it Shake Kate's World Up week?

I really like the song that James told me about a few days ago. The lyrics are pretty cool. I feel like they fit my life right now.

Hello, good morning, how you do?
What makes your risin' sun so new?
I could use a fresh beginning too
All of my regrets are nothing new
So this is a way, that I say I need You
This is a way
This is a way

That I'm learning to breathe
I'm learning to crawl
I'm finding that you and you alone can break my fall
I'm living again, awake and alive
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies

Hello, good morning, how you been?
Yesterday left my head kicked in
I never, never thought that
I would fall like that
Never knew that I could hurt this bad

I'm learning to breathe
I'm learning to crawl
I'm finding that you and you alone can break my fall
I'm living again, awake and alive
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies
These abundant skies
Yeah, abundant skies, yeah

This is a way that I say I need You
This is a way that I say I love You
This is a way that I say I'm Yours
This is a way

That I'm learning to breathe
I'm learning to crawl
I'm finding that you and you alone can break my fall
I'm living again, awake and alive
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies
Yes I'm dying to breathe in
These abundant skies
These abundant skies, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm learning to breathe
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies
Hello, good morning, how you doin'?

-Switchfoot I'm learning to Breath-

It's very peaceful right now. Finally. Now I'm off to crew practice and the first annual Hudson Scramble race.

Big dilema. Keep writing, or try and delete everything and never write again on this blog. I guess this page is going around the corps now. Maybe I'll just keep writing, but leave out all the stuff on guys.

I deleted a paragraph of a post from last april, but google hasn't updated the pages it uses yet, and so it's still there. Computers can be so annoying sometimes.

Today for some reason I wasn't very hungry. At meals I would stare at my food a few minutes before making myself eat it. That's really weird for me, especially since breakfast and lunch were both meals I like. Okay, so I probably ate about the same amount as a female college student at some other college, but for me, I didn't eat very much, especially with crew practice thrown in there. Right now I'm feeling the effects of it. Ah well. It's all good.

This morning it was amazing, I actually was happy when I woke up, at that was at 5:50am. And that's not all, I was looking forward to getting out of bed! Of course, half of me was still tired and wanted to sleep a little more, so I stayed in bed for a few minutes past when my alarm went off at 6:01am. I had that feeling like I used to get at Christmas. The one where I'm so excited and happy and can't wait to get up and run downstairs with Heidi and Besty, turn on the tree lights, open our stocking, and count all of our presents. It definetly a wierd thing to feel at West Point, but I don't mind. I'm hoping that this happy mood lasts. I even managed to make it through spanish today and didn't even feel tired once. What is going on? The only bad part is that I keep thinking back to beast where if I was happy or comfertable for a moment, i knew it was all going to change again real soon and be even worse then before. It was like walking on egg shells.

Ah well, I'll enjoy the moment.

Wow! Today's been a day of unexpected things. I guess it makes up for yesterday. The first thing was that the physics quiz was a group quiz and I think we did okay on it. Then, the math quiz that at first I thought I aced, and then thought I failed, Igot back and got a 87% on it. The next good thing was the practice today was only a Dyno test and then a 3 mile run to Lee Gate and back.

Ah yes, and the last good thing about today is that I"m not an Air Force exchange Cadet. At least two of them have had their furniture moved outside and set up in the middle of central area, or on the porch roof of Scott Barraks. That really sucks for them,especially since it started drizzeling later on. I hope they had their stuff moved back in by then.

Go Army! Beat Chair Force!...I mean, Air Force!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the Army Chief of Staff, or somebody, was at the boathouse yesterday. Mindy ran around reminding everybody to be polite and use "sir". The atmosphere at the boathouse is a lot more relaxed, but it's not so relaxed that we'd forget that basic stuff. At lunch today there were a bunch of White House Fellows. Alyson said that the person at her table went around asking what everybody planned to do in the Army. Tucker told him about how he's getting kicked out for sexual misconduct. Anyway, it was a funny story when she told it to me.

Some days are just bad days. I'm not sure if this was a bad day or not so I'll just start describing it and go from there. I was working on my econ spreadsheet this afternoon and realized that the spreadsheet and the memorandum had different times that they were due. I had assumed that they were both due at 4:30 this afternoon, but as it turns out the spreadsheet part was actually due at 7:30 this morning. That was the major thing that went wrong today. When I found out I immediatly emailed it to CPT Morgan, my teacher, and described how I hadn't paid attention to detail. I'm guessing I'll be marked as having turned it in a day late. The rest of the afternoon was spent with my feeling like kicking myself in the face.

I just spent too much time talking on IM to James and to Betsy. So much for talking about my day. Maybe later.

-They took my brain out of my head, beat it with a meat tenderizer and then made it into hamburger.
-Shoot me in the face!
-BOHICA
--My thoughts on the econ spreadsheet project

"Shoot me in the face" and "BOHICA" were commen phrases during first detail of Buckner, aka Buck-Nam or Buckghanistan. "Shoot me in the face" was first said by an NCO who was teaching us how to set up a claymore mine. It stems from "shoot 'em in the face" which I think was to remind us to position the claymore so that it detonated towards the enemy. "BOHICA" is an acronym for "Bend Over Here It Comes Again" reffereing to any seemingly pointless or stupid thing that we had to do during Buckner. An example being...hmmm, it seems I've blocked most of them out of my mind. I guess it was too traumatic.

Ah yes, the joy of lower back/butt pain. I think crew is slowly ruining my back. Hopefully it's not long term or anything. It seems to be only on the left side and somewhat deep inside. It's more of a sharp pain only when I move. As I told Alyson, we're no longer on the water and so hopefully the pain will either go away or just even out since I won't be leaning to port all the time anymore.

Yesterday was a good regatta for Army Crew. We medaled in almost every race we entered. My boat finished fifth out of around twenty in our race and the top five got medals. I was really hoping for first and so I was kinda dissapointed, but I guess it's better than nothing. During the race I thought we were doing really well because we pulled really far away from the boats behind us and then we passed a boat ahead of us. Oh well.

Last night I talked to Frank, Steph, my parents, and Betsy on the phone. I'm so happy for Steph because she just joined the Air Force. She reports to basic in Texas in March. I think it'll be an awesome experiance for her. Betsy's moving home and bringing Asher, her rabbit, with her. Mom sent me some pictures of Asher and Berry together. I can't wait to see them at Thanksgiving. Asher is so cute. I wish that I could see Besty longer at Thanksgiving, but she's going to go visit a convent in NYC the day after Thanksgiving. It figures, I come home from NY and she leaves for NY. I told her that we have to spend a lot of time together during Christmas. Frank, as usual, needs sleep. I feel like I'm getting more sleep here than most of my friends at home do. Perhaps I'm just better adjusted to a lack of adaquate sleep.

On the way back to West Point I talked to Annah about my feelings about the Army and West Point. Before I came here I thought that I'd stay in the Army and wouldn't do the five-and-fly option, but now I'm really questioning that. Sometimes I think I'm too idealisic and buy into things too easily. I expected West Point to really be the best of the best and the everybody in the Army to exemplify the Army Values. I have way to many thoughts swimming around in my head right now and their all crashing into each other. I want to graduate from West Point, be an officer in the Army, work for the NSA, marry, have kids, be happy. Right now I want it to be Thanksgiving. Only
23 and a butt days until I go home. That actually sounds okay.

I also talked to Annah a little about guys, notably the absence of one right now. I haven't really liked anyone in a few months and although it's been nice most of the time, occasionally I wonder if there will ever be anyone out there. Is there a nice guy out there? Anway, Annah offered to introduce me to Paul. She says he's a nice guy and Beth said that she could see us together. I've never really talked to Paul, but I've hung out with Annah a couple times when he's been around. He seems like a nice guy. Paul, however, likes Annah although Annah does not feel the same way about him. I do want her to introduce me to him, but I don't know if she'll remeber, plus I have no clue what'd I'd say after "Hi". Besides, Paul likes Annah as I already said. Then, I keep remembering about how in high school I kinda hooked Frank up with Sarah only to realize that I liked Frank. What if, on an off chance, somethine miraceoulsy did happen and then Annah realized that she liked Paul. I would never want someone to feel the same way I did sophmore year. Basically, I want something to happen, but I'm coming up with reasons why it shouldn't and why I should just forget the whole thing. I think I'm in the self-protect mode again. My solution is to leave it up to Annah. If she wants to introduce us then she can, if not, then fine.

Hmm, I make my life really complicated sometimes. Why?

I just got back. It's late. I'm going to bed. Why am I even up typing this? I don't know.

I bought new running shoes today at the c-store. They're Addidas Sonva Cushion M. Not great, but they were the best ones I could find out of a very limited selection. What I really wanted were New Balance. My old running shoes were New Balance and they served me pretty well, but I didn't like the fact that they were trail running shoes. I got them about five months ago and Buckner and Crew have really taken their toll on them. The rubber on the bottom of the shoe is all worn away in some spots and the cushioning and shock absorption is almost all the way gone. I don't think I've ever destroyed a pair of shoes this fast just from working out in them. When I was little I destroyed many shoes pretty quickyly, but that was because I would play in mud and stuff. Anyway, I don't expect this new pair of shoes to last very long or even be extremely comfertable. I just needed something to get me to Christmas when I can actually buy another good pair of shoes.

Tomorrow I have one class all day. It's physics first hour and then I'm done. That's because I have a Calc drop and then am leaving at 1245 with the crew team to go to Washington DC for the race on Saturday. Normaly I have econ last hour on Day 1's, but I get to miss it tomorrow. Yay! The huge spreadsheet project is going along pretty well and I'm hoping that I won't have to stay up late Sunday night working on it.

Coach finally told us the results from last weekend. My boat finished 3rd in the JV boats. I don't know what our place was overall. The A boat did come in fourth which is totally awesome. This weekend I'm back rowing in the four. DCA hasn't even ordered the quad yet. It's pretty frustrating because we know that the boat is ready for us to pick up the moment they put in the order, but we're not allowed to get the boat before it's even ordered. Coach Hall said that it looks like it'll be a pretty good race and we have a good shot at coming out on top. Last year at the Occaquan my boat, a novice eight, came in second. Then, Coach suprised four of us and told us that we were rowing again in a varsity four race. I think in that race my boat came in 11th out of 20-some. This year I was going to row in the four and the quad, but since we don't have the quad we're only rowing the four. I'm kinda sad, but also glad that I only have to row six miles instead of twelve on saturday.

I wish that we could stay in Washington DC a little longer and go look around. I haven't really done that since Junior Year of high school at NYLF and then the Naval Academy Summer Seminar. Beth is probably really sick of Washington DC, but that's because she grew up there. Both her parents retired as LTC's in the military and I think at one point they both worked in the Pentagon so she actually spent many saturdays when she was little rollerskating inside the Pentagon on weekends while they worked. That sounds kinda cool, but musta sucked for her after awhile because she couldn't go play with her friends at home.

Now that I've broken 8 min and know I can do it I need to work on improving my time even more. I want to get under 7:45. Maybe then Coach will notice me once again. It's been very humbling going from stroking the novice A boat last year to being in the forgotten four this year. I think Coach Hall might think that I have a really big ego or something. The truth is that he kinda scares me and I feel inferior compared to a lot of the rowers on the team so I don't talk a lot. Today during the briefing I thought of a new goal for myself. I want to be the stroke of the varsity A boat that wins Dade Vails my firstie year. In order to do that I need to step up my almost non-existant personal workouts by lifting and running more. Besides, I need to get in shape in case I go to Airborne school this coming summer. It'd also be great if I lowered my body fat percentage. I don't know what it's at right now, but I'm guessing it's higher that it should be.

More on that later. Time for bed. Yay. Bed. good stuff.

I BROKE 8 MINUTES!!!!!

For the past few days I've had the feeling that if I rowed a 2k on the erg that I finally break 8 min. That's been my goal since last fall and there have been a few times when I've been really close, like one tenth of a second one time, but I could never seem to break it. On Monday I decided that this week I wanted to try again and so I decided that I would on Tuesday before practice, but then on Tuesday I was talking to Leah and she said that on Wednesday Coach was going to have us all row a 2k with the us being coxed. Today I had the feeling that today was the day. Ann was the coxswain for Beth, Abby, Molly, and I. This time was a little different because we were supposed to row it like a race and she would call power 10's and 20's at the different points. I started out a little too fast with the first 20 strokes, in fact I think I saw a 1:41 split time reading very briefly. That was one of the hardest 2k's I've ever rowed, but mentally it was a lot better. I was expecting around a 7:58 or higher time for the piece, but when I was done and looked at my score I saw a 7:52.1 staring at me. It was awesome. Of course, physically I felt like crap, but I also felt like shouting for joy. I didn't mind the fact that I felt like throwing up, was about to fall over when I stood up, and my throat was on fire. I was just happy that I'd finally broken 8 min.

Yes, I am listening to Christmas music right now. I love Christmas and the period leading up to it. I know it's still a long ways off, but the music makes me happy and peaceful. Plus, it snowed today which makes it even better. Okay, so it was only around three flakes which I didnt' even see, but that doesn't matter. It still snowed. James was complaining about it and saying that he wants to temp to go back up to 80 degrees while I was saying how happy I was that it snowed. I guess that's the difference between people from Michigan and people from Texas. I'm happy with every season because I'm used to them all.

Speaking of feeling peaceful, I was at Bible study today and was thinking about how peacefull I felt there. It reminded me a lot of my Church youth group in middle school and high school. I loved the youth group because the people were so special to me and I looked up to them because I was usually the youngest. I didn't talk a whole lot at the meetings, but when I did speak they would listen. The retreats were something I actually looked forward to in the winter. I didn't care for the actual talks on Luther's Small Catachism and stuff, but what I really enjoyed was the rest of the time we had to spend together. The first few years there was a battle between the girls and the guys over spray bottles with water in them. We would each try and steal them from the other team. Going into a guys room wasn't allowed, but we still managed to find ways, usually in the middle of the night, to sneak around and steal them from the guys. I thought that the different youth group leaders, Mike M., Mike S., Lisa, and Susan were some of the coolest people I knew and I really respected them and looked up to them. I loved being around Anna, Jen, Teresa, Donny, Carla, and everybody else. When I was in high school I really like youth group because it was fun being the only girl and I liked hanging out with Matt, Dan, Joe, James, and everyone. I really looked forward to going to Church because I could see all of them. They are all really special to me.

It's amazing! Frank and I actually talked on the phone tonight. The first game of phone/email tag came to an end. We talked for about 45 min. He's doing well, needs sleep, but that goes for just about everyone. I'm really glad that we're talking a lot more again. He's a great guy. Christian, nice, easy to talk to, we both share about the same morals. That is why I want to become better friends with him.

Today I was thinking (i know, me thinking means you should run for your life) about this blog/journal/whatever. Recently I've noticed that I'm watching what I write because of what someone might think. It's not that what I want to write is anything bad or would get anyone in trouble, it's just that someone might take it too literaly or think that my writing is sloppy and I sound stupid, or take something personally that was actually just one of my random thoughts about the world. I don't like the fact that I'm doing that. When I started writing this I told myself that it'd be the one spot where I wounldn't care what other people thought. It was my place to write whatever I wanted and vent. Now I'm putting constraints on my venting and I want to stop doing that. I don't want other people to influance what I do or don't write about. I want people to read my page because it helps me be write and I think it gives them to see the side of me that has a lot to say. I like knowing what other people think about what I write and what their opinions are, but I don't want that to influance me. I need this to be my free space to vent and say some crazy stuff because I can't do it anywhere else. Therefore, I'm going to do my best to write about whatever again. In a way, I feel kinda like I'm being selfish because my main purpose of this page is for My life and other random thoughts and I'm not using it to respond to my friends. I see the comments section as the part where I can step out and talk to them personally.

Crap, it's getting late and that's why I'm rambleing on.

Yesterday I had to vote on a new uniform for West Point. It's the "civilian" uniform. Usually, when I think of civilian clothes I think of the absence of uniforms. The word to me implies freedom. The uniform that the Comm had us vote on was a polo shirt, kahki pants, brown belt, and brown leather shoes. It looks very preppy. This would be what we'd be required to wear to optional dinners, the PX, the bowling alley, and basically time that we're not in the duty uniform or the seasonal uniform. General Brooks wants this because he thinks we're wearing gym-A too much. It's the most comfertable uniform and so everybody changes into it the first chance they get. If the uniform change is approved then we'd only be allowed to wear it when we're actually working out or at practice. Everyone just loves the new Comm.

The only thing that I can think of to compare to what I am feeling right now is the second 500m in a 2k race. The 2k represents the four years at West Point and the second 500m is more specifically Yuck year. To be rather blunt, it sucks. In a 2k race the first 500m go by rather quickly and the pain of the race has not started to set in yet because adrenaline is pumping through the body. Sure, you're really nervous and feel like throwing up while you sit at the starting line and wait for the officals to count down, but then you finally start and everything becomes a blur as there's a rush of adrenaline. You're only thought is passing a boat and not getting passed. Before you know it you're done with the first 500m. As you reach the 1500m mark of the race you realize that you've only gone 500m and are not even half way done. The adrenaline rush starts to fade away and the pain starts to set in as the long haul begins. It doesn't help trying to focus on the finish because it's too far away and only serves to lessen the motivation to row. You think "this is taking forever and we're getting nowhere. Would it really be that bad if I just happend to fall out of the boat right now? What would happen if I just stopped rowing?" You, of course, keep rowing but only for the sheer fact that you don't want to screw over your teammates. Besides, you know deep down that if you quit right now you'd regret it later when the other boats finished. The 3rd 500m is only a little better because at least now you can say that you're in the 3 digits instead of 4. You're still thinking "why do I do this to myself? I never want to row again." The end is looking a little closer, but it doesn't help to think about the fact that you're half way done because the thought "Crap! It took that long to row the first 1000m and I still have 1000m more to go." Once you get to the last 500m you're almost done and there's another surge of adrenaline. It is the most painful part of the race, but you don't really care because you're almost done and the harder you row the sooner it will all be over. Then you hit the finish line and collapse, but feel a tremendous amount of accomplishment having survived the race and stuck with it.

As I said before, that is what West Point feels like. Plebe year you're focused on avoiding the upperclassmen and surviving to yuck year. It sucks, but since you're mainly focused on the present and being prepared for the next time someone asks you a piece of knowledge it all goes by rather quickly. Then comes Yearling Year. Plebe year you thought it'd be great to be a Yuck and were sure that all of the yearlings who were saying that it sucked were just trying to scare you. Now you realize that they were telling the truth. Graduation seems ages away and all of your P's seem to be ganging up on you. You're still only taking the required courses and haven't started you're major yet and so classes can be rather tedious and boring. The theme of the year seems to be "blame it on the yucks." You think "what am I getting myself into? I have 2 more years of this still and then at least 5 more after that. Do I really want to do this? Am I happy?" Cow year you at least have started your major and are probably realizing that when the cows last year said "you're an idiot if you major in __" but you still do anyways, you should have listened to them. Firstie year finally comes and all you can think about is how many days there are untill graduation for the class of __. It's so close that you can almost taste it. Soon this will all be over and you know that what you've heard is true; the moment you through you're cover into the air at graduation really is the best momement of your life up to that point. Right now, however, you just have to keep pulling through the pain.

The general consesus is that my glasses make me look smarter. Perhaps I'll start wearing them instead of my contacts occasionally. For some really odd reason I have a lot more left eye contacts remaining than I have right eye contacts. It's not like I only wear one contact sometimes.

Today I was able to get a lot of sleep. I love daylight savings time. It makes everything so spiffy.

Okay, so I have this friend who was practically my best friend the first few years of high school. Then, stuff got wierd, we didn't talk as much, etc, but still remained good friends. Fast forward to the present. A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to start over because I didn't want to lose him. We started talking a lot more and it's really enjoyable. It's like nothing ever happened. Well, it is a little different. We've both grown up some. What I'm scared of is that we'll get too close, or one of us will feel like we're becoming too close and it'll all blow up again.

Right now I'm updating this from Annah's computer while she forces me to eat all for her food that she didnt' eat. That being Ben and Jerry's icecream and fritos. I don't think I can eat all of it along with my sub and my coffee and so I'm making Tia eat some.