Musical Distractions

When I was in high school, I would listen to music or watch TV while doing my homework. What happened after that was I didn't retain any of the information that I had just read. Now when going over work or reading I have to have music off. I know that a lot of people need music when they study, and I find that so bizarre. Sure, if it's music without words like classical music I'm fine. However a lot of people will watch a show and be able to get their information just fine.

I've been told that I'm just not as good at multi-tasking if I have trouble listening to music and doing other things at the same time. Seems a bit insulting to my intelligence, but whatever. I think I retain the information a lot better than others personally. Ha, who knows.

When I'm blogging even I usually can't have music. If I do, I tend to have it at a kind of low volume. My thoughts never come out as well if I have music playing because my thoughts get mixed with the lyrics in the songs. My thoughts are never as coherent written out when I listen to music. Because of that, if I'm writing something professional I never listen to things with lyrics. I just want to make sure that I sound professional in such things, and that tends to not happen when I have music.

If you didn't realize, I'm currently listening to music as I write this post. So if I seem less coherent, that is the reason.

Last midterm happening tomorrow. I have no idea how to study for it. I've done well on all of the quizzes, and it's English. How on earth do you study for an English midterm? I suppose I was able to study for them last year, but that was more when I didn't know what the characters did. In Greek plays, many of the characters say very similar things. That means when using quotes, it was difficult to match quotes to characters. Yet I feel like I know who says what in these current books. I know who has what problems, who would say which type of things. It's the essay parts I have no idea to study for. Hmm.

In random news, my cousins are thinking of doing a half! I'm so excited! They don't know which one yet, but my sister suggested this one happening on the fourth of July. That would be fun, and I know I'd be in shape in time for it. I mean, my sister and I are training for a half "race" June 3rd, so if I just kept continuing my mileage at around that area, I would be fine. Once they register for one, I think I'll join them.

How is it almost ten? I just don't understand.

Are you able to listen to music/watch TV while doing work?

Lack of Motivation and The World of Bloggers

I believe that the effect of studying for a good chunk of the day burnt me out, causing me to have a lack of motivation to complete anything today. That, and receiving a certain paper back.
Don't you hate it when you get great marks on the smaller assignments, making you think that you're writing everything right, then discovering that apparently you're not when it comes to the big essay? No? Just me? I know, I shouldn't be complaining about this, but I honestly thought that my writing had been good for the class. Well, I'll just be done with that for now, but I just wanted to get it out.

The blogging world is such a quirky, fun place. It's amazing how people can connect, tell incredible stories, and just create an environment where you can find at least one person if not many with the same interests. Before I started blogging, I occasionally looked at some blogs. I never really read any of the blogs on a regular basis though. As I started blogging, I started exploring blogs more often. Soon I had my regular blogs. I continued getting more regular blogs on my reading list, and I still am finding more blogs I like. (There's too many, it's ridiculous!)
Now it's funny because sometimes I end up thinking about some of my favorite bloggers like someone I know in real life. On a run recently, this is seriously how I was thinking:

I wonder if Annie's finals went well. They should be done by now.
Speaking of finals, how exciting that Lexie graduated from college! I wonder how she feels now that it's over.
I wish I had the confidence of taking pictures like Caitlin.
Gosh, all of the 50's inspired dresses that Jessica wears are so adorable. I seriously want to steal her clothes.
Speaking of things that are adorable, all of the treats that Erica makes look so fun and tasty. I wonder how her move has been going.
Rachel has been doing lots of home decorating hasn't she? And she just went on vacation, it looked really pretty.
Oh, that reminds me, how much longer is Mimi staying in the UK? She goes to the coolest places over there.
I can't believe Ashley went and ran a half marathon with her fiance who only had run a four mile run before. Crazy. She is a beast, and it's meant in the best way possible.
And Kat? Getting ready for her wedding, training for a marathon, and having two loved ones graduate right after another? Girl has a lot on her plate!

If you didn't already guess by now, those are a few of the blogs I read the most. Sometimes I'm forgetful in commenting, and some I miss a post or two. There are even more blogs than that that I like to look at. Geez, they're all women aren't they? Maybe it's just me, but I feel like a lot of bloggers are women.

To these bloggers, I'd like to say thanks. Not just to the ones who've peeked at my own blog (but you guys are AMAZING), but to all of you who have let the rest of us into your awesome lives. For being real, even if we can't prove it. For inspiring us unintentionally or on purpose. I'm pretty sure a huge part of the reason I thought it would be cool to do a half marathon is because I saw so many bloggers who had run them, or even farther. Bloggers who had only run 5ks, and had wrote about how scary that was. So anywho... yeah. Bloggers are cool.

Another thing I've noticed? All of the bloggers I read are older than I am by a couple of years. Many of them are about my sister's age (I think). Once again, I am drawn towards older people. Odd.

The main reason I started thinking about this was because Lexie messaged me asking about adding a Name and URL thing to the comments like so many other bloggers I know do. Currently, I am not sure how to do that. My skills in the language of HTML have disappeared, so I'm not sure what to do to fix that. It's like any language, you've got to continuously use it or you lose it. It could be because of Blogger, but I'm not really sure. So, if anyone has any knowledge on that... let me know! That would be great. (Geez, how far I've fallen in my tech skills.)

Right now I am lacking any good food for snacking. At first, I thought this would be a good thing so unnecessary snacking would not occur, but this is not the case. I've realized when I'm hungry, but not hungry for a full meal, I need snacks. Peanut butter, Top Ramen, and Bagel Thins are not good munchy foods. I shall jack some snacks from home when I pass by on Thursday.

My feet are horrendously disgusting. Good lord. Now that you know the status of my feet, you can sleep soundly. Or have nightmares, your choice.

How have blogs affected you? What are some of your favorite blogs?

Making Big Decisions

Yesterday, I did something a little crazy.

I spent $145 dollars without remorse. Without thinking about it. I won't even get anything from it. I have to pay for what I paid for. How ridiculous is that?

...Actually, that's not really true I guess.

Yesterday I paid for a tee shirt.
Yesterday I paid for a few months of training, either by myself or whoever wants to.
Yesterday I paid for the inevitable pain and soreness to come.
Yesterday I paid to have a day on my calendar filled, with a few hours every week.
Yesterday, I registered for The Portland Marathon.

And the part about not thinking about it? I guess I could say I didn't think about it when filling out the form, but I certainly did take a large chunk of time to think about it before. This has been on my mind for weeks, maybe even months. Really, I probably started thinking about it after my half marathon in January, but it was fleeting thoughts then. After the Cascade, people would say, "Are you going for a marathon now?"

I thought, "No way. A half marathon is one thing, but a full marathon? Now you're crazy."

Granted, the thought is still crazy hence the extensive amount of time thinking about it. I went through the thoughts, "Will I have enough time to train?" or "Can I actually motivate myself to do it?" I gave myself a million reasons why, but the didn't matter. Then I decided to ask why not?

And there wasn't really a good reason. My mileage has been going up automatically. I've looked for training schedules, and I'd already be ahead of schedule.

I'd like to be able to say I ran a marathon before my twenties. Just because that would be really cool. And now, I kind of have to.

I don't mind.

I'm sure it'll register with me in a few days, but for now all I can think is "Huh."

What big decision have you made recently?

The Big Goal Finally Acheived

What a day, what a day.

Today I accomplished a goal. I did something that I decided to do at the beginning of the school year, and knew I was going to do when 2011 started. Today, I ran my half-marathon. And it was AWESOME.

My shirt and medal!

There are a million little things I could say that happened during my race, and a lot of it would seem  meaningless to others but for mean were a million amazing moments. Like when I tried to take a swig of Gatorade but instead splashed the whole thing in my face on accident.
There were a few people who helped me finish this race today, and I'd like to thank them:

• The old guy in the orange and grey jacket,who I ran with/near from mile 3 to mile 8. You gave me a good target to keep with, wearing that neon orange and all.
• Guy who was listening to Keep on Dancing by Gwen Stefani and some metal music. Thank you for unwittingly letting me play the "Guess what that person is listening to" game and running a similar pace to me for awhile. It was also cool to run with someone who was running their first half marathon too. But man? Running 11 miles on Sunday and not running for the rest of the week before the race does not sound like a good plan. Maybe that's why I broke away from you at around mile 11.

And last, but definitely not least, I'd like to thank my mom, my grandma, my cousin Ali and my sister Chloe for coming to support me. If you guys weren't there, I don't know if it would have felt as great to finish. Having someone there for you at the finish line? That is a great feeling indeed.

There would be more pictures. However, there was a wardrobe malfunction I was unaware of until after the photos were taken. This is one of the few you can't tell very well.

As for the race itself, it was... rough. It was rough because the whole race was pouring down rain and terrible wind. 12 mph wind? Yeah. (Actually, I'm not sure how bad that really is, but it felt intense.) Strangely enough, I felt fantastic the whole time. Maybe it was adrenaline, but I just felt... good. Sure, there was a side ache for about half a mile, and my legs were starting to feel like bricks for the last two miles. However, I get sickly feeling a lot usually for longer. That didn't happen.

I had two main goals: Don't stop to walk whatsoever and get under the two and a half hour time (That was when they would start taking the guiding things down). I could have thought about things such as, "People have run way father distances than this! I'm getting all hyped about this little thing, and some people have done much more amazing things." I've had these thoughts pass through my mind before, when reading blogs and such. That is not what I thought today though. The thoughts passing through my mind were:
"You are going at such a great pace. Don't slow down because you feel like you might loose your energy, because you've done that before and ended up with energy to spare. Slowing down will make you tired. Keep going."
And
"Do NOT stop to walk. You know that if you walk, deep down you'll always feel like a quitter because you knew that you didn't actually need to stop. You are not a damn quitter. Don't give anyone the reason to say you are. Keep going."

Yeah, I can be a bit of a jerk to myself. It works though. (I might sound a bit nutty as well in my mind... I do have songs from various Disney movies play through my head when I run long distances.)



I really like this picture for some reason. Another thing I thought was, "Dang! I'm looking good!"

 My race overall? Fantastic. At the end I was even able to pass two girls right before the finish line! My inner high school cross country runner was exuberant. My time was 1:58:11. You read that right. I finished under two hours. I don't know about you, but that felt pretty amazing. I told my family, "I should be done about two hours ten minutes, so be around the finish line at two hours." I gave myself ten minute miles, just to give myself the benefit of the doubt. My time right there averaged me 9:01 minute miles. I finished 244th out of 524 runners.

After my race, I ended up eating enough the rest of the day to fuel a marathon runner and watched the Golden Globes. A "fun fact" I've realized over time? If something you talk about is not related to the person you are speaking to, they will not remember said information. People are conceited. Well, maybe all of the people in my generation that I meet. I specifically said to one of my hall mates, "Okay, I just want to make sure there's time in between my race and the Globes. I don't know how long it will take to get back from my race." She said I had never mentioned my race to her, taken aback by my accusation of her forgetting. I even mentioned to my whole hall, "Hey, on Sunday I have my half marathon in Turner at 9:00 am. If anyone is interested in coming, I just thought I'd let you know. It can just be draining. Sure, I can be super forgetful, and I admit that. But I also try to remember details, and I admit that I've probably asked things before.

Goodness, I have written a lot! I simply decided to pour myself all out I suppose. Now, I am exhausted. Love to you all!

What's your greatest fitness achievement to date?

Granola and DJ-ing

Oof. I wish I was one of those people who could run on no sleep, but I need at least 7 hours… That will probably have to change with college. I must start enjoying the taste of coffee.
Almost every morning I have one of the most delicious breakfasts ever. I have a mug of granola, milk, and some peanut butter mixed in. It may sound a bit odd, but it is wonderful. I’ve been getting the granola from Valsets since I have early class most of the week and get there before class starts. I must get more granola though…

Mmm, yummy!

I saw my mom and grandma today. We were making sure that my financial aid was all correct for the umpteenth time. I just like to make sure, you know? I worry that I’m doing the thing everyone says not to do which is see your family a lot the first year. My mom reassures me I’m fine. I suppose I over think these things.

My run today was a weak one. I was not feeling it, I was tired, and I didn’t drink enough water. I ran for 32 minutes but my Runkeeper bugged out again. I’ll have to do the drive test and see how far it was, but I think it was only 3 miles. Since we’re on the subject of running…

I am officially registered for 2011 Cascade Half Marathon on January 16th.

This is crazy! The most I’ve ever run I think has been 6 miles, and that was a run/walk. But I can do this. I WILL do this. And it will be awesome.

I’m getting sick. My throat is starting to really hurt. I’ll have some O J tomorrow and get some sleep tonight. I know you should be doing these things before to prevent getting sick, but I’m a college student! I don’t think logically!

My cousin deejay-ed a dance over here! How cool is that? I went for a little bit, but my throat was killing me after awhile.



Rocking the DJ booth

 It's time for me to drink some tea, finish my Shakespeare reading and then it's bedtime for me. Night everyone!
What's your go-to breakfast? What are some things you do when you are starting to get sick to feel better?

Spaghetti Night and Maybe Trying Something Crazy

Hello out there blog world! How are ya doing?
I'm doing alright, but I still have a million things I need to get done. As you can see in the picture above, I'm always trying to get something else done.
You know how I said I was trying to budget my life? Goodness gracious, it takes a lot of work. I'm not even looking at the big things like tuition, I'm just looking on spending money for random things I need during the school year. Such as laundry and Zumba and school stuff. So many things, so hard to try not to spend all of your money! I think I've managed to budget it all together, but... we'll see, won't we?

It feels like the teachers are starting to crack down on the big project plans. I have two pretty decently-sized things due in two weeks and a smaller project in a week that we got today. Time to get crackin'! It's scary though.

We had a 'Bistro Night' in our hall tonight. Basically it was our RA making us spaghetti. We were all so hungry we just inhaled it.

Amanda and Karin, our RA. She's adorably bubbly.

In the title of this post, I said maybe trying something crazy. This has to do with my project due in a week. For Individual Health/Fitness, we need to make a fitness plan. I've been running and I want to try running more and more. This got me to the thought: What if I ran a half marathon? It is on my bucket list, and it would be a great thing to do!  I looked up some info on races here in Oregon and found one happening in January. Could I do it? I keep running around the idea (ha ha, pun). Then I went for a run today and ran 4.20 miles for 38 minutes. That's about a 9 minute mile! I think I should. If not now, when?

I was going to go to the Save the Ta-Tas thing going tomorrow, but I'm going down to Eugene to have dinner for my sister's birthday. She's turning 21! (I got her a WOU shot glass, ha.) I should do something else too... I think after this, I'll draw her a picture. If homework doesn't consume me.

Have you ever done a Half Marathon? Any training tips/suggestions?