Hard work and hard workouts

Nothing is more challenging then the first few weeks for me. Its catch up time/go time time when it comes to training but also its an adjustment period to new classes. Nobody in high school life prepares you for the stress of life outside college. That don't mention how rich kids just relax and study all day and have big meal plans and nice houses, or most kids go to school on financial aid and hold jobs like myself to do work study in order to survive the high costs of college. They don't mention that even though you are getting an education investing in your future, college is a business and as such cares more about the tuition money then making sure you sign up for good classes with quality teachers. As such I have a french teacher who is self taught English. Did I mention she is Arabic so her french has a huge accent and her ability to explain things to use is little to none thanks to the self taught English part. Grace à mon prof I wrote my paper a week early because when I asked if we needed to turn in the paper next class she said yes thinking I wanted to turn it in early. Really a week early, me, the kid who just got out of 202 and is now taking two 300 level courses and feeling way over his depth, wants to do a three and a half page french paper early. Fat chance of that, regardless it is now done, glad I wasted precious study time for today 300 french exam to write it. Well looks like the 6x6 sprint pieces will just kick the last pieces of my energy to the curb leaving me drained for Friday. At least I have the weekend to catch up on the other two classes HW.

Rain or shine

I love rowing in light rain. Its very peaceful, but the idea that practice would get rained out had me bummed last night. This morning I woke up before my alarm just to jump out of bed and look out the window to see if it was raining. The process of waking up seemed shortened with the terror that I may have to lead workouts at the gym instead of working on technique on the water. Luckily it seulment  misted so practice was on!. Turned out to being a perfect practice weather, with cool air there was no overheating and with a headwind we had better boat feel while rowing all eight on the square. Nothing is as cool rowing all eight set on the square. The feel of power one gets hanging on the oar with rigid form and hard concentration gives a sense of perfection and confidence that most people never get to feel. Even though we aren't quite there and starboard side is still having trouble getting in time together I have high hopes for this boat. Makes me wish we had a year to build this boat and didn't have to worry about races for another two months. I would not look forward to the number of 5k tests that would come of that, however The wish to row all day is so strong.

Just keep digging this hole

I like to think of luck in life as a roller coaster sometimes your up and other times you are down. Currently feel like I just got pushed into the pit of despair or like the never ending fall in spykids. Only thing that keeps me grounded is rowing. Something that doesn't change in my life. No matter how much stress I accumulate in a day that erg will always take the punishment I dish out. Today I finished a hard two page paper in french only to find out in my other french class that I had a three and a half page paper due. This is the equivalent to most workplace comedies when the desk worker finishes his stack of papers and its all neat in the out pile and the boss drops a workload twice its size in the In pile. The want to give up was so high and my mood plummeted, however my faithful erg took 45 min of pain releasing me of all the stressful toxins in my blood allowing my to start writing my new paper with a fresh mind. Fingers crossed that practice is not rained out tomorrow because that morning row no matter how bad is still the best part of my day. Nothing compares to a morning sweating over an oar functioning simply as an engine in a great big machine. However a light at the end of the tunnel or a rope out of here would be much appreciated or even a random unexpected hug. Preferably by a cute girl wooo single life problems adding to the pile!

First day for the new crewbies

Not so bad for a first day back on the water after a week of hell also known as land training to break in the new recruits. My eight man boat still needs a lot of work with time differences of almost two minutes from top to bottom. Still only on the square and we have about 4 weeks until our first race so im nervous about our progress. For a varsity boat to be still on the square with three weeks already on the water we need to be practicing racing on the feather. All I can do is trust the coach who of course is a former rower so much trust level is low with him as a coach because I actually have more rowing experience them him. At least the team and boat is making progress I will give it that but sometimes I question the level at which he yells at the team. only race day will hold the real answers after that real discussions may be had about coaching techniques. It becomes a struggle to fight between rowing my true passion and school which has become a bore this year except for my french classes which feel overwhelming and work which is Tuesday through Friday three hours a day making life very difficult to  balance hw and workouts for rowing. I wish to be the best at school and rowing but financial problems raise their ugly head to make life difficult which not many people understand. Being asked to take more time out of my day for extra practice when projects pile up become impossible as the list of responsibilities piles up.

Barging into my sunday

NO day goes by without something draining all my precious study energy. As week two or three, I've lost count already, comes to a end not so does my work list. Today's task seemed simple drive at 8am to the boat farm and pick up two boats with 7 other guys and build the tandem 8 man rowing boat aptly named the barge or more informally "Fat Amy". 6 hours, a sunburn, and lots of fatigue and jury-rigging later we are finally done. Not my ideal Hw doing Sunday so far. Whats next? Ah yes the Hw that was put aside for today good thing i'm mentally exhausted now I probably will be less stressed when doing the Hw because I wont care as much. Good thing I have a paper in another language that I am so prepared to write. Hell week parties seem less appealing when one must write papers with drunk sleep levels of energy which are less then I get on an average day which is only about 6 hours. Excitement for this devoir is about as strong as the gravitational pull of an ant.

As a beginning ends so starts the story

The endless blurbs of a student athlete. Welcome!