goin home!

i'm sick AGAIN, so i'll make this short and head to bed. just wanted to let you Maryland people know that i'll be heading over there for a few days in late april! i'll be there the 23rd to the 26th, to be exact, and then i'll be in the jersey/NY area again for the rest of that week. i know i was just there a few weeks ago, but hey, this is what you gotta do in long distance relationships. and maybe i can see yelena this time!

alright, time for nyquil and groggy, wonderful sleep.

1K, baby

i'd like to take a moment to announce that i swam 1000 yards freestyle for my first time ever! i know it's not a lot to many swimming folk, but it's my personal best so far. i was on my high school swim team for a bit back in the day, but i was always in the slow lane, and didn't really know or learn good stroking, kicking, or breathing technique there, and was pretty much in it because i wanted some exercise and because my friend Yelena was on the team. every practice was sooo painful, i couldn't ever finish the workouts the coach gave us, and i h-a-t-e-d swim meets (even though i usually only swam in the exhibition lane, 50-free).

so this time, i took a fresh outlook on the whole thing. i started swimming twice a week at the local community center, conveniently located next door to me. catherine, who also swam in high school (but who was actually very good at it), gave me some really useful technique pointers. i go at my own pace, pushing myself enough to improve, but not enough to make me unwilling to swim again. and i must say, i have a much healthier relationship with swimming than i had the first time around. after a few weeks, i swam 500 yards non-stop for the first time ever, and what amazed me the most about it was that i felt great afterwards! i had totally found a good rhythm and breathing pattern that worked for me, and i was instantly hooked. just a few more visits brought me to this past friday, and my 1000 yards. it was totally a Zen-like experience, just like the feeling that long-distance runners say they experience, which turns them into running addicts. i know i could've swum even longer, but i knew the pool was closing soon and i didn't want to overstay my welcome. very, very fun.

thank you, good people

I just went to visit my girlfriend in the Wilson School at Princeton, and had a timely dose of fun times and awesome people. One night Catherine and her housemates threw a party in my honor (sheesh, wouldn't you feel lucky if you had parties thrown for them just for weekend visits? Thanks hon! Kristy says you spoil me, which is true I admit), and I got to meet some of her ridiculously amazing and down-to-earth friends there. I'd have felt a little intimidated by all these multi-lingual, accomplished, and selfless people if they hadn't been so welcoming and engaging.

That was Friday night; Saturday was just as well, as I went up to NYC to see some of my closest EP friends there, plus Catherine's friend who I also got to bond with in Peru last summer. AND totally unexpectedly, I saw some other friends that night at a birthday shindig that I haven't seen since graduation.

All in all, I felt surrounded for the first time in a while by lots of awesome, politically conscious, real people.