FREEZING UMBRIDGE

I spent four hours this afternoon finishing the fifth Harry Potter book. If you don't remember this is the one with Professor Umbridge the insanely frustrating awful Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher that the ministry has instituted at Hogwarts. She gives out painful detentions, wouldn't let students do magic in the classroom, takes away Quidditch from Harry, and generally is a major pill. I'd forgotten how much this book drove me insane reading it. This is probably the fourth time I've read it and yet I still had to slam the book down and go rant at Mel about what was going on at multiple points while reading it. And then to top it all off Rowling has to go and kill off Sirius the surrogate father for Harry! Freakin' A!
After I was done some of my floor mates wanted to watch the movie. Within three scenes I had get up and walk out of the room I could not handle Umbridge.

Recently (as in within the past two weeks) I've made a change in my stroke (in rowing that is). This is nothing new, I've been constantly tweaking my stroke since Day 1 of my rowing career and switching over to a new team this year I've had even more tweaks to make. Some of those tweaks are less like fine-tunes and more like overhauls. So this change I've recently made is more on the overhaul side of things. And I'm drained. The ache is settled deep in the muscles. There's sore and there's stiff and there's completely wiped out. In my shoulders, my middle back, the outside of my hips, my forearms, my calves. I'm to the point where I'm considering taking an ice bath. In the training room there are two tubs: one with hot water at about 104 degrees and one with water at about 53 degrees. Most athletes just put in a leg or at most up to their waist but surprise surprise rowers whole bodies need be iced so we get to sit up to our necks in 53 degree water for 10 minutes. So anytime a rower says they need to take an ice bath you know its time for desperate measures.

MISH MASH

A few interesting moments from the past couple weeks:

1. I went snow shoeing in the mountains. It was spectacularly refreshing. I wasn't in Corvallis and I wasn't rowing. I was in the mountains with my friends. We were giddy we were so excited to be doing something different. Our good spirits were so high we somehow convinced ourselves it was a good idea to hike back UP Mt. Hood instead of take the chair lift. Our good spirits lasted until 3/4 of the way up but they quickly returned when we saw the summit.

2. The freshmen rowers fell apart. I guess it's been coming. One of us is quitting and moving home at the end of winter term, one is injured and the doctor isn't very informative, one is trying to get back on it after an injury, and then there's me. I've been the most...calm in the center of this black hole that's been swallowing us up. Something snapped about a week and a half ago and I was not happy. BUT I've learned from my year off(yeah!) and didn't shut down but talked to various people, got some encouragement. The team also stepped up major this past half week to boost us freshies. So I feel like the general morale is higher in the Sackett Dorm E Wing 3rd Floor this week, then last week.

3. TT came and visited me! We walked for French Vietnamese sandwiches, we went to a basketball game with a cousin and his kids, she rode the launch at practice, and we went for a stroll into the countryside. It was very good to see her.

4. I bought High School Musical 3.

5. I registered for classes for spring term. Geography of Asia (I'm hoping this one turns out good. I'm not too psyched about it yet, but it's an upper-division geo class, that and I found the books online for $25!), Statistics (math but not, right?), Lifetime Fitness Lecture (required for graduation. yuck!), Yoga (also required for graduation. for some unknown reasons student athletes don't get exempt from the physical fitness requirement. I could take running, swimming, walking, weight lifting, or yoga. Yoga is full of all the student athletes because its the one that interferes the least with training plans), Wine in the Western World (from the Food Science and Technology department. Everyone should have a basic understanding of wine, right? plus the professor got rave reviews), and Intro to Writing (also required for graduation. I hear this one is pretty easy. Readings, grammar lessons,a couple essays etc)

NO LISTENING

For my Comm class for our final project we have to social or communication experiment and present it to the class. For some reason my group came up with the brilliant that each day we'd cut out one form of communication (reading, writing, speaking, or listening).
Today is the Not Listening Day.
Very hard so far.
I forgot about it this morning so I went to church and half way through the sermon realized I wasn't suppose to be listening. So I decided to start at noon.
It's only 12:50 and I've already run across some issues:
1. I can't listen to music while I study.
2. Ordering food is awkward. Because I can hear them I just can't really respond or acknowledge. So I ordered what I wanted, handed over my card and totally ignored them when they asked if that was all.
3. Jenna, my roommate. Anything she says I can't acknowledge so she's whipped out the white board. This is effecting her because I can talk so I'm talking at her but she can't respond unless she writes it down.

This is going to be an interesting day.
And tomorrow is No Reading...hmmm. I might not be on the computer then