Oh man, it has been a really long time since i posted. I must have just been really busy and tied up the last couple weeks because i don't even know where they went...

The Job: I have been working for my coach's company AQx the last month trying to sell aquatic training gear and do various projects for him. It has been a very interesting experience. I have all the freedom in the world to approach the sales however I like. I have been doing a lot of sales calls and a lot of emailing to aquatic directors all over portland and the surrounding areas. It's fairly discouraging though since the economy is so poor right now and even if I am able to generate interest there is very little money availble to spend. However, learning is best done by doing, right? And I am able to do a lot.

I was able to arrange a meeting with Portland Parks & Rec at which Garry spoke yesterday and he was able to spark negotiations for a big sell with them, which is especially exciting because the 10 pools or so within the system must all be standardized. So if they buy for one, then they buy for all, or if the plan to train their persons using our system then they must all be trained and we charge to put on clinics, so that is more income as well.

Garry has asked if I will be able to help him during spring term as well so at least that makes me feel like I am accomplishing enough so that he feels like he is getting something for the company's money.

The Sport: We had our first indoor meet last weekend at Washington State U in Pullman which is about 10 miles from the border of Idaho. It was something like 23 degrees outside and it dumped an inch or so of snow during the day so I was sure glad to be racing indoors, even if it was just a 200 meter track (so twice the laps) and only 3 other girls in my 3000 m race (two of which from Gonzaga and one from Whitman College). I lead the race against the 3 freshman and finished in 10:24 (about 10 seconds off the meet record. This is only the 3rd year they have put on this meet). It was a good start to the season. The 10:24 relates to around an 18:00 5k. Or about what I was running when I was peaking in cross. I have only dipped under 18 once and that was last track season in my breakout at Willamette in a time of 17:47. The next meet will be the first weekend in Feb in Moscow, ID. It is sounding like I will most likely double in 3k again with the mile before hand in the same day. It would make for a good day of training and more worth the 7 hour of driving through the snow.

The big one is in 3 weeks at University of Washington. Their DI women's team is one of the very best in the nation, which most of their top 5 around 16:00 for the 5k. I would really like to run the 5k at their meet but you must run a 17:35 to qualify. Garry is going to try to talk to the director and squeeze me in some how... keep your fingers crossed.

But the legs are doing pretty good. The achilles is feeling much better, my knee is bothering me marginally. I am up to running 5 days a week and back around 40 miles a week or so... a huge improvement from the 10 miles a week I was stuck at for nearly 2 months at the end of cross and into the off season.

The Break: We have a week off after Jan-Term and before Spring term starts. I am leaving tomorrow afternoon for Olympia to stay with Chris until Monday and then I will be coming home until Thursday so that I can be ready to leave on Friday for the Meet on Saturday and then back late Saturday and get ready to start class on Monday..... WHOOO... it's going to be crazy! But it will be fun and free of work and class and just a little break before everything gets going again.

I have never been to Olympia. So it will be fun to see what it's like and to meet his family and see his home. An adventure for sure. :)



So that's about where I am at for now. Hopefully I will have a chance to write in the next crazy week about the semester coming up and also about the Sports & Entertainment fair that I went to last night at the Rose Quarter. Quite the experience that was. Ah, the real world is sneaking up on me. Not a nice trick at all.

Enjoy your night. All love.

Sacrifice

Sacrifice: a loss entailed by giving up or selling something at
less than its value.

I have really been thinking about the idea of sacrifice. It is a commonly accepted idea that in order to get what you want you must give something away at a loss. The more I think about this idea, the more unsure of it I grow. To get a new pair of shoes you must pay $70.00, to keep friends you must spend time communicating and staying in touch, to loss that extra 5 pounds you have to go without that chocolate donut, there is always a trade off. There is a decision to be made... you can go one of 2 ways.

(A.) Do what gets you closer to your ultimate goal (ex. new
shoes, life-long friendship, lost weight)

(B.) Do something else (save the $70.00, read a book instead,
enjoy the chocolotey goodness)

What is the difference between a decision and a sacrifice? I realize that a sacrifice usually has a negative association with it... it is a loss. A decision is not necisarrily good or bad, it is simply a crossroad.

Decision: a position or opinion or judgment reached after
consideration.

The other thing to consider about a sacrifice, if you accept it more simply as a decision, is that you really aren't forced to give something up. It is impossible to have both, you can not have your cake and eat it too. There for what you feel like you are "giving up" you are just going without... and it is impossible to avoid this in any decision. You can not keep your $70.00 and get the shoes. You can not talk to your friend and read your book at the same time (at least not very effectively). You can not eat the donut and loss the weight. There for you are not really giving one or the other up, since you didn't ever have it to start with.

It's not so much a sacrifice because without making a decision, and taking one, you essentially have niether. By making a sacrifice you are actually gaining something either way, although it is also true that you have therefor forgone something else, but you aren't giving it up, you are going without.

Every day of our life we make thousands and millions of small decisions and with every decision a door closes and our possibilities diminish, but also with every decision we are directing our life and moving forward, rather than standing still. You have to let go of the things you can't have or don't have any longer, try not to base your decisions on what you stand to loss and not think of it as a risk, but an opportunity and consider what you have to gain. You can't go back and change what has happened, and even if you find a source of blame or failure or mistake it won't lessen the wrong... all you can do is build and grow and develop into something greater... you can only add and never take away from your life. You can paint over and build on top of, but it is always there, there for you to make something beautiful and grand out of.

Maybe I have this all wrong, but isn't it easier to accept a sacrifice if you can look at it this way?

This has been my first week back on campus after the holiday break. I have been working for my coach helping him do marketing and various projects for his business AQx sports. (http://www.aqxsports.com/) He has developed under water shoes for increased efficiency while doing aquatic excercise. I have learned a lot about his products and also it has been interesting to compare the structure of his marketing aprroach to that of the Oregon Wine Press. Basically I have total freedom to work on what I want and do what I think will be the most useful. I basically spent this whole first week coming up with some lists of contacts and now I will use this next week to start making the contacts and generating some sales and interest. It should be a learning experience fore sure since I don't have a whole lot of guidance. It's nice to have so much responsibility and ownership in a project though. :)

Running has been going pretty well. I did a 30 minute tempo run on land on Tuesday after running both Monday and Sunday before that and re-injuried myself again. Just got a little too greedy and thought I was feeling better than I actually was. So I did the workout in the pool on Thursday with the AQx shoes and was able to do an 80 minute workout yesterday with relatively little issues. I will deffinately be cross training today and tomorrow in hopes of feeling 100% for the workout on Tuesday... We get to do some work on the track then so it will be fun to finally get to that.

On Saturday we have our time trial. We are doing a 3000 meter time trail, or about 7 laps. I haven't ran a 3k since high school, in which I had my highest finish at state (4th) so it will be really interesting to see how my time will compare to when i ran it then. The steeple chase is also a 3k but that is a little different with 4 barriers to take on a lap.

The time trail is at noon and then I am heading home to work for my dad Sunday and Monday and probably driving back on Tuesday. I have to get this passed by Garry L, but it will be fun to see some of the fam and the friends in between cleaning the house next weekend.

I also got tickets for the Blazers vs. Cleavland game on the 21st!! So I am really excited to go with a couple of friends (Tyler Davis and his lady friend will be going with me!) and see as much of Lebron James as can be seen from $10.00 300-level tickets. (We are against the back wall again. ha!)

Well, that is all the excitement I have had here as of late... not so much. It's been kinda nice to just work and train and not have homework though.

Hope all is well.

New Year

Happy New Year All!

I know that it has been a very long time since I have posted. Since November and I entirely skipped over the Holidays and December and now it is January... 1st 2009! Now that is crazy. 2009.

A year ago today I was considering and searching for the right school and what I wanted to do I didn't really have a good idea about what I would be doing in a month not to mention a year. At this point I was enrolled in classes at SOU and ready to make the switch. Since then I attended a couple classes, decided it wasn't the right fit, travelled to New Mexico and decided that wasn't the right fit either and then finally came to realize that I was at Linfield because it was the best choice, the right choice, and it was something I wanted to do not something I had to do. I feel like the results that followed and the outcome from making this decision have really taught me an important lesson

It's not so much in whether you able to determine which option is the
absolute best or the right choice, it's more about making a good decison and
commiting completely and being content with your best effort.

There is no use in regretting or doubting or going half way so that you always maintain a safe emergency exit. It is simply better off just to buy in and give it everything you have. It's not so much what the decision is but in making the decision what you do with it. You will never reach you potential if you are always holding back or if you do everything while holding your fears in mind. You must trust yourself and the good intention of others and the world that everything will work out.

Always be willing to change.

I was talking to a friend at school about good advice that we had recieved and tried to carry with us. My friend had been talking to his Grandpa about his life and asked him from all the living what he had learned and his Grandpa said that we must always be willing to change. It is incredibly difficult to stay flexible in life, but it is necissary to success and happiness. Few things in life are constant and things are always changing with time to resist change is to fight time and life. We must always be able to keep perspective about the world around us, and certainly about our role within the world and in relation to others. Being honest with yourself is one of the hardest things to do. To be able to examine what you are without bias or ambitions or this feeling that we control what we do not. A simple, honest perspective is golden.

Past decisions are irrelevent.

Do not let your future be determined by your past. We learned in Managerial Accounting that one should never consider sunk costs. They are gone and can not be recovered. So you can only more forward and look at what you can gain and not what you have already lost. Allow yourself the ability to let go of where you have been and what you have done and know that you are capable of extended past all of those previous barriers and accomplishments and failures and just because you have been there before doesn't mean you automatically will be there again. Whether this means that you have instant access or unavoidable direction, niether is true. You can be who ever you want to be, and that is all you really can trust or control is yourself. I learned this during cross when I knew I should be a shoe-in for Nationals and it turned out I had to run my heart and legs out to snatch that last spot. I ran this way because of the way I trained and treated my body and the state of my mind, not because of what the coaches told me or the cheers of my teammates or my injuries or diet. This also was became apparent when I was able to come back a week later and stabalize my mentality and run the way I should have at the national meet, because I decided that was what I expected of myself.

There are a lot of things that I learned in 2009 and I don't really believe in waiting for some magical moment or time to put into motion the work and actions to get the things you want. Any time is the perfect time to start, but since the New Year is here I might as well start a long drive to a better life.

"Every morningis a fresh beginning. Every day is the world made new. Today is a new day. Today is my world made new. I have lived all my life up to this moment, to come tothis day. This moment--this day--is as good as any moment in all eternity. I shall make of this day--each moment of this day--a heaven on earth. This is my day of opportunity."

Dan Custer

May the new year bless you and yours and bring you happiness, health, and prosperity. Love you all.

Election Follow Up

I wanted to add one more thing for your consideration and in addition to the blog about the presidential election. My Aunt Belinda forwarded me an really interesting email that she recieved from our Czech Family in which the husband of Marcela who lives in the Czech Republic felt the immediate need to congradulate her on the selection of our next president. Isn't it interesting that the rest of the world has taken such huge notice? In fact, Kenya declared our election day as a national holiday. Crazy how the world works! Below is a bit from that email:

"At television trace just President electionin USA. I believ, that you elect good President. To me is likable BarakObama. I think, that the it'll be correct option. At our place is evening22:40 o'clock and all night will direct transmission President election. Teleview has title American night and begins in 24 o'clock. I wonder, how so will go against..I'm sorry, my English is very bad."

Yours truly,

Jarek Molák.

2008 North-West Conference Championship

Walla Walla, Washington

Video Highlights of the Mens and Womens Races

This last weekend we had our Conference Race which went well. The weather was good and the course was amazing! It is the first time I have got to run on a smooth, fast, hilly golf course for a race. This is what the DI school get to do, it creates good times, but it also cost the hosting school $4,000 for the day... which in my opinong is rediculous!

The night before was halloween so our team dressed up for dinner once we got back to Pendelton, where we stayed, from seeing the course in Walla Walla. This is a picture of Frances, my roommate from last year and one of my best friends, and I in out Nun outfits. Heck yes we look good!

The picture above is of the 3 Linfield Wildcats that placed at conference on the left is my roommate Shawn, who also finished 3rd in his race, and on my right is Tyler, who went to highschool with me and finished 2nd team all conference and ran the race of his life. It was awesome to see how far he has come with all his training since High School. I am really proud of him.

Above is a picture of the Women's All Confernce Team in order of finishing place from right to left. I was closer to the 2 willamette girls this time than last time. Maddie Coffmen, the conference champ is the #5 returner from last years national meet, so hopefully I will keep sneaking up on her in regionals and onto nationals. Right now I am dealing with an achilles injury and I have not been able to run since Sunday, but, hopefully things will come around and I will be ready to roll in Salem next weekend.

Electoral Vote Count: Obama 349 / McCain 163
Popular Vote Count: Obama 52% = 63,423,689 / McCain 46% - 56,079,786

Age
18-29: (18% of total vote) Obama 66% / McCain 32%
30-44: (29% of total vote) Obama 52% / McCain 46%
45-64: (37% of total vote) Obama 50% / McCain 49%
65 and Older: (16% of total vote) Obama 45% / McCain 53%

Highest Voter Turnout Since 1964.

Jessie Jacson Video Interview

This has been my first time voting. Or at least the first time I have been interested enough and inspired enough to take the time to become more educated and vote. I feel like my concern for the future of my country has increased because of this election and this is certainly the first time I have sat anxiously waiting for polls to come in and the states to be determined blue or red. I was encouraged to vote and become educated by my class-mates, my teachers, my parents, my family, complete strangers, everyone realized what an important election this was because this election stood, at the very least, as a hope or opportunity for change and diversion from the ineffective “politics-as-usual.”

Ironically, or due to sweet serendipity, as I was attempting to simultaneously watch the live online news feed of the election and catch up on reading for my American Lit class I passed a line in “Black Boy”, an autobiography of Richard Wright’s life in the racist south, in which he recalled an political cartoon placed in a local newspaper by a white-women’s group of a drawing of a gaudy Blackman sitting in the white house with a portrait of Abraham Lincoln and a heading that stated something along the lines “All the Blackman wants is to sit in the white house and ruin our women”. This book was written only about 50 years ago. As I read through this story of hatred and racism I have an extremely hard time believing that such awful things were ever permitted by anyone, they seem like exaggerations and impossibilities. This has got me thinking.

I think it is very interesting how race has been downplayed and minimized throughout this election. We are all trying to convince ourselves that we are not tied to stereotypes and prejudice. We try to convince ourselves that Americans are voting based on policies and beliefs of the parties and unaffected by age, gender, and color. I believed this, as I am to some degree naïve to the fact that many voters grew up in a time when racism and sexism and other isms were the norm and accepted. I was deeply surprised and some what disappointed by the post election media focus on Obama’s election as the first black president. I do not thing that is what this election was about. It was not about America proving that they could elect a black president, it was about Americans voting for who they thought the best candidate regardless of color, age, or gender. Obama acknowledged the race issue in his acceptance speech but did not dwell on it, Obama really focused on Americans coming together from all sorts of backgrounds so that WE can all work together and be defined as Americans not African-Americans or Latino-Americans. After all, if your think about it, America could not have avoided in this election either the first "black" president, or the first women in the white house as either Palin as the VP or Hillary Clinton as the president if she would have beaten Obama in the Democratic race.

I think that defining people within stereotypes is becoming a more and more foreign concept over time with each passing generation. The generation that was born in the 20s grew up and the peak and surronded by racism, but then attempted to minimized it to their children of the 40s, who minimized if further to their children of the 80s, until we have reached the current generation in which it will further decrease and eventually become a modern non-issue, but rather an always existent and remembered failure of our past to learn from. At least this is what we hope for, that people will not be made uncomfortable by these characteristics which make one person black and one white, one female and one male, one gay and one straight, but that we will be able to acknowledge such differences and accept them simply as what they are, without expanded insinuation or additional associations. There is nothing wrong with differences and as Americans we can accept and celebrate differences rather than try and make everyone conform to a single model citizen.

I recognize the significance of this election, but still was very surprised by the medias Black-pride over-kill of a moment that could have just as easily been more about American-Pride and hope for a better future. I hope that Obama was elected based on his policies, personality, qualifications, inspiration, and potential to be the best candidate in this election, not because of his color and definitely not to prove that American is capable of electing a black president.

I know my reasons for voting and I hope that Obama will live up to all of our hopes for change and improvement and growth for America and that we will come together for the sake of our country and for the sake our future behind the leadership of such an inspirational leader.