hum, hum, hum

The fan is a little boring, just humming. Summer has gotten decidedly mediocre-ly sticky in the past week. Only helped by the evening rainstorms, of which I took advantage the other day... I love running in the rain..

Anyway I made it through Week 1 of 8 of Physics 104.. Its about to get worse, though. hah. I'm doing ok on coursework, since obviously I have nothing else to do... And I've been working on the homework even though that's no fun and I'm already tired of it. Its the same guess and match shit from 103, where you spend a ton of time trying to figure out an answer only to have a computer generated, caps-locks, bright red "NO!" appear once you submit your answer. Well, fuck you, too, sir. Subsequently I have repaired to yahoo answers much sooner than I did last semester, and I don't have the wide support base I did for 103 (i.e. Michelle and her lab partner who always gave her the answers to all of the homework, who then passed it on to me!) sooo this will be interesting. I don't know. I always am left not knowing what I'm doing when it comes to looking at the homework, even though I always feel so good after meeting with Jim, or, at least, I did this week.

He and I spent over an hour and a half talking about physics and doing problems. Actually, the first part was strictly about running. I think he thinks that I will be trying out for the Badgers.. I would if it were possible.. but there are so many reason why I can't. Leading is that Athletic Training takes all of your time, and is a big commitment, and clashes completely with running for the badgers, since that in itself is its own huge time commitment. The second reason is that I cannot physically train as much as those people do. I know that if I train too much I just get injured. I already feel beat up after a season of not training excessively, so I mean... I know I would just end up with more stress fractures and shit, so there's no point. I can dream... I would die for one of those jerseys.. but I'm going to have to settle for the Badgers Sports Medicine clothes that I will be getting in a few months.

In any event Jim and I made a graph of my PRs versus my velocities and he told me that in order to know whether I was truly a distance runner or truly a sprinter I would have to have a good 400 time to lay down besides my other times, because at the moment my PRs make a parabola, and the sharpest curve upward to downwards comes from the 800 down to the 15/1609, to the 5k... I didn't include my 2 mile since obviously that's shitty and two years old besides but we'll see next week if I can't run closer to 12 flat.. I hope I can even though I know Im not in shape so it'll actualyl be a shitty race... I tried to race the mile last year at summer track series and ended up running a shitty 5:45 or something and i felt like shit and like my soul was being torn from my body.... so Im not sure how my untrained body will take a 2 mile.

ANY way, we also determined roughly how long I could have run with Jenny Barringer in her 3:59 1500m... the answer was somewhere between 600-800m, based on my 800m time. I would have to run a :64 to keep up with her for some distance I forgot, prbably the first four. So I have to see if I can run a :64 at a summer track series... although I will feel indelibly silly racing it no matter what..

Anyway Jim taught my physics the rest of the time. He took me back in the place where they keep all of hte demos and we broke down what was happening in the fur-rubbing experiment which came in handy in lab the next day where I was able to teach my groupmates what was happening rather than sit there not knowing what was going on.. and I was actually interested in the lab BECAUSE I knew what was happening.. So all in all my meetings with Jim are very useful if only we had all the time in the world to go over everything in detail for my better understanding.. Oi.

He taught my lecture on Thursday, because my professor was out of town. I grant you that this was the singular, ONLY, physics lecture I have ever looked forward to, because I knew with Jim it was going to be interesting, and I knew from his tutoring me that it was going to be possible to understand what was going on for once.

I actually dreaded the 50 minutes coming to an end, too, because it was so useful. He explained everything clearly of course and I understood what he was talking about and it was really great. Plus, it being Jim, the lecture was full of random little things and tangents he would go off on or just mention so it was great. In discussion right afterwards everyone was really happy about his lecture and I was glad. I think some people were curious about why I had talked to him before lecture because obviously none of them knew him but I had been talking to him about something for Summer track series #1 which was that evening... people looked scandalized. But anyways, everyone was wishing that he taught our lecture every day, and I do wish that, too, because I know I would actually want to pay attention and that Jim would make it interesting and also that he would know exactly how to teach us what we need to know. He always expresses endless exasperation at the poor way in which general physics is taught and is quite passionate about it... so I really do hope my professor is out of town frequently, seeing as he is scattered and never explains things to an satisfactory degree.

Anyway, Thursday was one of hte longest days of my life for there being 5 hours of physics (50 min lect., 50 min disc., then lab), then an hour break, then working summer track series from 4 till nearly 11pm. I don't mind summer track series at all, because its quite fun and I get to hang out with my friends in the club and also see some of my friends and/or coaches from high school... Coaches Neumann and Krall were both there and that was pretty fun. Neumann is sooo ridiculous and he has this manner of always trying to be secretive and cool about things.. it cracks me up. Krall is just awesome and he ran his first Steeplechase, too, so that was really interesting. He didn't do bad, either. He said it was the first real race or anything really that he has done since he ran the Boston Marathon, he said he's done virtually no training since then, so that must have made him pretty sore the past few days!!! haha.

Annnnnyway... Oh man.. I swear I did an epic amount of work at that meet. Jim and I were the only ones there at 4 till about 4:20 when Gavin arrived. Well, Jeff Schmidt showed up before that but that was just to meet with Jim about the grounds and such... Jeff Schmidt is in charge of UW Facilities and one of our best friends as per the Great 2009 Track Usage Debacle Extraordinaire. I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance when he arrived and then I commenced hauling things all over the place.

I was then put in charge of the garbage cans which are heavy.. and then eventually I was awarded a walkie-talkie and command of the entire Registration area. I had to pick up a lot of pieces all over the place, or just fill in the gaps where things were missing.. helping Gavin do registration and helping Jeremy watch the sign-up sheets, and so on, since we were particularly short on volunteers-- which seems to usually be the case, I spose, but it made timing extremely interesting.

I eventually got bored of the registration area it being just me and Gavin at the time because Jeremy had delegated his board-watching to me in favor of just staying over by the timing table. I had in the meantime also taken over Turbo Javelin duty (wherein I tried to teach them how to throw it properly... which, of course, what do I know, being a distance runner? - Jeremy made fun of me for this); and also had taken down 250m of hurdles singlehandedly (of which Ryan Gasper was laughing at me fumbling around with hurdles - once again, I'm a distance runner, yes..). So, those things having calmed down I went over by the start/finish to find they needed timers, so I helped with that while also Jim delegated Ribbon duty to me.. which, I don't like doing at ALLLLLLL.

Honestly, it is probably my least favorite. No, its not giving out ribbons to people, because sure they earned it by winning their age group, but its the obnoxious people who slink up to the table (well, I guess this happens during registration, too, but I also just get to tell those people what to do, rather than give them ribbons), and stand there slyly gazing at you not wishing to fully engage you until you bother to specifically ask them what they desire, and then they demand to know what they have won and so on and so forth, and there are so many results to go through, and whatever else... oh man.. So, I don't like doing awards. I thus delegated this to Gavin, who told me he had to leave in 50 minutes. So I tried to delegate this to Nicole who suggested delegating to Dallas who maturely called "not it" and avoided the situation, in which case Jim overheard and went to do it himself. Although, I think, he was much needed at the start/finish.

In any event the 4x4 got severely botched. Very sad day. the steeple was next. There was no one to help set up steeples. So I started sprinting all over setting up steeples and the guy who is our official at these meets was also doing it but just me and him, and Claudia and I were radio-ing each other about the true height, which was said to be 30 inches, but which the ref, or someone near Claudia, negated, and at this point of the negation I was at the far end of the track preparing the steeple which is put on the track after the runners pass the first time... well I was told to ask Jim or make an announcement.. Jim was at the opposite end of the track and I knew that if I announced for him to help he wouldnt be able to nor would he even HEAR it because he was swamped in little kids and adamant parents demanding small trophies and such.. Sooo I sprinted over there and breathlessly asked him if 30 inches WAS indeed the proper height which was confirmed and radioed and checked for on each steeple and then we figured out if we had enough people to start enough stopwatches and whatever.. oh gosh.. it was just crazy, but it was fun I guess in an interesting way.

The second heat we had to set up the 36 height and move things and so on, then that race was run. afterwards half of us who were left were quite lounging because the novelty of Jeremy practicing hurdles was too hard to resist inquiring about, and meanwhile the other half set about taking things down and such, which eventually we all ended up taking part in of course. And then it was done. And I biked home and it started raining as soon as I got inside, which was perfect because we had been expecting thunderstorms the entire time which we did not like the prospect of.

Today wen to the farmer's market which was quite nice. I got my usual items and also, by hopping around (I'm too impatient to walk slowly around the square in the big mass and prefer to hawk around the edges where I can walk fast but also admire the bright flowers and crisp green vegetables) bumped into Nicole and Dallas who had just gotten there. I walked partway with them till I was at the corner where E. Main goes down near my uncle's place and thus my car, since my ultimate destination was shopping at East Towne... I needed some new clothes. I wouldn't say needed other than that I was getting tired of usually wearing the same things as far as my "nice" shirts go, and I don't like it because I know how often I wear certain things even though I'm sure NO ONE else really notices I still can't help it and wanted to find some new nice tops to wear, and I needed new shorts for sure since I always wear those out so fast. And so on.. a list of things I put off because I don't like shopping.

I also bought two new pairs of running shorts, new Nike ones because they werebuy one get one half off.... oh man.. sooooo expensive. but they are pretty.. one with neon green and cool blue trim against a black background and the other is an orange and white trim on black background again. i wont be buying new running shorts for a while now.. oh man.

After i got home and stuff i went down to the edge of lake mendota with my roommate and we stood in the shallows since it was quite hot today.thn i read for a while and got a little sunburned but it was pleasant... hopefully the weather cooperates for a redux tomorrow.

Sorry this is so long... im reading a wordy novel currently and i always pick up the style of writing that im currently reading.. its kind of funny but i like it.