In Constant Flux

So, I'm hometeaching for the first time in the new ward, and after we're done, we are making the rounds about the neighborhood. Apparently my companion is quite the social butterfly. We stopped at a neighbors house and they start talking about this triathlon they are doing the next weekend. So, my interest is peaked and I decide, what the heck, I can do it. So, last minute registrations and goggle buying and here we go.

I think it is a bit of an understatement to say I was kind of nervous. The only training I had was on my bike, so I was not worried about the bike part. I hadn't been in a pool for months and none of that was lap swimming.

They call this one a beginner triathlon. It's in reverse order and its a one and a half mile run, 10 k bike ride and 200 yard swim. I ran the mile and a half one time before the actual race. Bro. Allen let me run with him during the race, so I felt like I had someone to pace myself off of. My home teaching companion was gone. We didn't see him the rest of the race.

I felt pretty good when I had actually finished the run and never had to walk. I was about middle of the pack so not bad. I was looking forward to the bike section the most because I knew it would be my best part. I got a great start. The entire 6.2 miles, I only got passed twice, but passed a lot of other people. The first person to pass me was an old man, which is a bit of a morale killer, but he obviously knew what he was doing because he didn't just pass me, he blew by me. The next time I got passed was a couple of girls. I tried not to focus on them and just kept peddling the same speed. They only got about 10 feet in front of me then I caught back up. You can see them a ways behind me in the next picture.


I finished the bike with flying colors and on to the drowning.

Like I mentioned, I haven't been in a pool much. I dove in and did about 3 strokes of freestyle and thought I was going to die. I promptly started into the breaststroke. The rest of the 8 laps were spent flopping back and forth from breaststroke to some weird hybrid craziness on my back because I couldn't breathe.

Luckily, I didn't drown. I did have to stop swimming and ask Aimee if I had done enough laps cause I apparently forgot mid swim.
This picture is Aimee's favorite. She already has it on her blog, but I figured what the hey.


After the race, I'm watching the board and I'm waiting and waiting and I never see my name go up. Finally It comes up and it says I'm listed 15 out of 18. I was a bit bummed, but I figured I hadn't done any training so it's not all bad. After the shindig, I went to look at the board and they had put my name in the wrong place. I actually finished 8 out of 18 in my age group and 18th overall. I was pretty proud of myself.

Of course I didn't win anything in the drawing because no one in my family can possibly win at drawings unless it is my dad and that is a guaranteed grand prize. But, I'm glad I didn't drown and now I look forward to actually training and doing another one.

Wow, where to start. This has been a whirlwind summer of academic overwhelming. The end of this summer officially marks 5 semesters of non-stop class-taking. That equals almost two years with almost no time off. I feel that next summer will be reserved for avoiding classes at all costs.

I am proud to say, however, that I survived Organic Chemistry II. I actually did quite a bit better than I expected.

I also was accepted into the Bioscience Ungergraduate Research Program which should be an adventure in and of itself. I'm sure there will be more about that in the future.

Right now I have a week off until fall semester starts, but during that week I am writing lab reports from the last two weeks. I am up to about 35 pages so far and just a couple more to go. Not too shabby, eh?

This summer has also been a re-awakening of sorts as to what I want to do with my life. After lab one day I was standing around talking to Dr. Gray and a few classmates and we were discussing all of the hoops one has to jump through to get into medical school. Now, for those of you who don't remember (or didn't know in the first place), after much internal struggle I had finally made up my mind that I actually didn't want to go to medical school and wanted to get a Ph.D. in biology instead. Well, all the talk about med school after class made me second guess my previous decision and I began to panic. This was not just a little panic either. I mean I was on the verge of breakdown.

So, after class I pulled out my computer and began looking at different medical schools and comparing them to graduate schools and trying to figure out what my life had in store for me. I said some little prayers to see if I could get a hold of myself. Well, my prayers were answered and I decided that I had, in fact, made the right decision to pursue the degree in biology. Crisis averted.

Now I started panicking because I really don't have much time to get ready to start taking GREs and applying to different schools so I set out to find my schools of choice. And, after much deliberation, I found my dream school.







You may recognize this little building from a film called "Good Will Hunting." If not, it is the dome of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I'm not entirely sure if this little dream is realistic, but I'm going to try anyway. My GPA is good enough, so we'll see if they like me. Of course there are some other little schools I would like to apply for such as Harvard, Yale, UC San Diego, among others, but there's always a preference, right?

So, the next year will be devoted to obsessing over a little school called MIT and probably trying to kiss up to whoever I can to try to make it happen. Wish me luck!


On another note: I saw the Declaration of Independence this weekend and it was awesome.