Tales of Victory, Tales of Woe

Tales of Victory: I finished deep-cleaning my room in preparation for moving out in a couple of weeks.
It was a disaster area to be proud of.
Tales of Woe: Doing so did not uncover my cell phone, which has been missing for a week.
I hope it's not wedged between my desk and the wall.

IT Band Woe

Yes, IT band woe. It's not a season-ruiner, but it means lots more time spent in the training room and doing extra physical therapy.

MONDAY UPDATE: My shoes got in and they're pretty fabulous.

I've been doing lots of swimming and getting super strong, arr! Dad, guess what - after I did a really hard interval workout in the pool, I did a 34 sec 50 meters.

Knee Update: A Tale of Victory and Woe

The VMO exercises and hamstring stretches that the OHSU sports doc gave me have been working great, but there's more to it. I've been working a lot with the trainers.
What we've found:
It's not the knees' fault. It's my hips! They are ridiculously weak, and they tire easily. So the hamstrings get tight, and the stress goes to my quads and the knee, mainly the IT band and patellar tendon, resulting in inflammation and injury.
What we're doing:
I'm taking care to stay in cardio shape (mostly swimming and some biking), and I'm working with the physical therapist Jonathan about five days a week. We're focusing on hip strengthening, knee stabilizing, and specific core conditioning.
Last week I went on a 60 minute run. (Yay!) Today they hurt, but this Block, walking around campus pain-free has been the rule rather than the exception.

Tales of Victory and Woe, Chapter Three

Championship Woe
Bummer at St. Olaf's [2007 NCAA Division III Men's Cross Country Championship]
The preview said:

"Colorado College's Julian Boggs is the top returning finisher from the 2006 Championships. Boggs, who was second to Occidental's Kevin Chaves in the West Regional last week, was third in last fall's final."

But Boggs got 13th, kind of disappointing. Still, Alex Nichols got 14th and they're both All-Americans and got these cool medals. CC was 21st of 32 teams. We're proud.
Women were 31st, but it's kind of a big deal that they went.

Party Victory
Sammi said I should go out instead of studying all night, literally, for the seventh day in a row -- for the sake of my sanity, even if I needed to study. And to get out the wiggles. So yesterday I slept all day, then went to the hockey game (I love hockey!), then I made midnight pancakes for myself and for random hall people that were willing to barter with foodstuffs (they were delicious. I got chocolate, bread, and chili) and then I met up with Molly and Chelsea and we went to the XC end-of-the-season party which was extremely enjoyable even though most there were utterly exhausted. We mostly danced around like crazy. Wonderful people. After they collapsed, we went to one of the fraternities' spandex party. Boy, that was a lot of spandex. Also, we saw a deer with huge antlers crossing the street. It looked like a little moose. Some people thought they were hallucinating. Molly and I outlasted everyone at the spandex party and everyone left and we were still dancing and then the fraternity people came in and gave us about a million high-fives after we convinced them that we were sustained purely by joie de vivre and our background in endurance athletics. And pancakes. Man, I make killer pancakes. Right now I'm regretting that I forgot my shiny silver pants for that party. Oh well. They were a little dirty. I did wear the see-through blouse to bowling this month. (Redneck theme)

Tales of Victory and Woe, Chapter Two

Tale of Victory
[This time, Hemingway short story style. Ahem.]
Dodgeball yesterday. Tie-breaking revenge victory domination!


(Er . . . is tie-breaking two words or one ?)

Tales of Victory and Woe, Chapter One

Tales of Woe
It didn't work out with Eric Larsen. We didn't see each other.
We were too tired to go camping. Also, Chelsea has mono woe.
Dodgeball season losing woe.
The knee is still inflamed with woe.
Losing goggles woe. Also, aquajogging woe.
Last day of FYE class woe. The Search for Islamic Order is all over. How will I survive without Responsible Lauren down the hall to remind me of assignments?
Missing the book return date by two hours. Now I must woe a month to cash in the old textbooks.
Red Sox 13, Rockies 1. (For my friends that actually care, because I do not: World Series woe.)
Feeding and lifestyle funding woe.


George has woe for me.

Tales of Victory
Generous friends victory! Jeff gave me one of his hockey sticks. I'm a lefty, who knew?
Medical victory! I can walk on the knee without limping. Also, Sammi gave me her knee brace.
Nocturnal victory! I got lots of sleep on Block Break. 15 hours on Friday.
Got into every one of my classes for this year. Preregistration victory!
Being right victory. There is a nickel arcade nearby. I was not making it up, hallmates!
Care package victory. Thanks NCL moms! (Though what was with all of the little notepads?)
Hockey on Tuesday. Hopefully a victory . . . .
HALLOWEEN! The gladiator-slash-Trojan war costume is fully operational. Spartan victory!

Tales of Victory and Woe, Chapter 0.5

Thanks to a certain Grandma, now Mom knows that I'm sick. All afternoon and night I was really burning up with a fever. My hallmates are really concerned. Today I was feeling better so I got up and went to Boettcher (Health Center). I thought the fever was all gone, but the NP said my temperature was almost 100° so by comparison last night might have been 102°, or worse. On the questionnaire I was checking off almost every symptom:
yes Face Pain, yes Achy All Over (a total understatement), yes Fever and Chills, yes Coughing . . . you get the picture.

The NP looked down my throat and said what you always want to hear from your doctor: "Gasp" and "Uh oh!" I heard something about "white stuff." She did a strep test and it came out negative. I have to go back Monday for a mono test.
The only good news is that there's no use in quarantining me from my friends because the germs are everywhere anyway and I just made myself more susceptible to them by studying until 2 o'clock in the morning every night this week. So I guess the other good news is I'm not behind in class.