Cheez-Its Are The Perfect Food

My Dad suggested I write a blog post about it, after I rhapsodized about them this evening. 

I'm pretty sure he was kidding. 

Let me just say that if I could live off of Cheez-Its and black coffee, I would. I stopped my obsession with Ramen noodles after I somehow got it into my head that the insane amount of sodium it contained would literally make me shrivel up and die. That's unlikely, but still. I have nutritional standards.  Sometimes I eat real cheese. Cheez-Its, I've decided, look enough like real food to trick my body into thinking it's actually receiving nutrition. My daily activities would be entirely sustained by caffeine. 

I'm pretty sure it'd work out. I'm also pretty sure it could get me a special on TLC. 

Speaking of which, how does TLC find all these people who don't know they're pregnant? How does that even work?

I would actually love for it to work out that way for me, in like, ten years. Totally natural bodily processes make me nauseous. I didn't look in the mirror for a week and a half after getting my wisdom teeth out because I was scared of seeing my own swollen cheeks. Can you imagine me watching my stomach grow? 

Now that you all are contemplating this lovely topic, I guess I'll address things I've actually, you know, done in my recent life. Today was the last day of my internship at the WIFP. We cranked out a print and online newsletter.  I'll give you the links to both when they're up on the website. I was able to talk about everything from media democracy in Iran to the marketing of the purity movement (Jonas Brothers and all) to the ingrained sexism in sport media. 

It's basically an all out feminist party on paper. For the last day my boss gave us free rockin' t-shirts. It has our snazzy little logo on the front and a Malcolm X quote on the back. Yeah, it was that kind of internship. Aren't I the perfect college student? 

On Monday night I got free passes for an advance screening of Julie and Julia, the new Meryl Streep movie, from my boss. I took my mom, because I am the hippest kid on the street.  And she's awesome. AND she knew who Julia Child was. It was cute. It was mostly about cooking and marriage. These are two things with which I have very little personal experience. Julia Child was, however, like 6' 2," so there were definitely tall moments I understood perfectly. Oh yeah, and the younger one blogs. Who knows what that's like? Such a foreign concept. 

And to continue with the most fragmented post in the entire universe, on Saturday Claire and I hit up the Jason Mraz concert at Merriweather.  It was by far the best show I've ever seen, even though the entire contents of the Pacific ocean were dumped on Merriweather throughout the show. Mraz was incredible even came out to the grass for his encore. His opener, Eric Hutchinson (a Blair grad!) was also excellent. I bought his album yesterday. It's fabulous. 

Now, it's 10:36, and I have to clean my room because I've been procrastinating. 

I promise you, this entire post was relevant to the Cheez-Its topic. It's totally cohesive. 

Really. 

One Last Swim

A few weeks ago I had one of the best races of my life. 

Our medley relay team was neck and neck with the lane next to us. I dove in slightly behind, anchoring the relay as usual. I powered through, stuck my turn, and somehow, I touched first. The rush of winning, the screaming cheers, and the celebration reminded me exactly why I love swimming.

Today, after the same race, I sat on the ledge for a few moments, staring at the hands in my lap. They'd touched second. It reminded me exactly why I love swimming. 

The sting of defeat is still more vividly real and valuable than the tempered excitement of the sideline. It's the almosts, not the victories, that made me the athlete and the person I am today. And as I lined up later for my last race as a Kenmont Tsunami, I began to take stock of the 12 years of swimming that had brought me to the edge of that pool, at age 18, finishing. 

What I take away from Kenmont is not the thousands of ribbons that line the bottom of my swim bag or the All-Stars t-shirts or the trophies perched on the edge my dresser. Swimming took a scrawny and shy seven year old girl and taught her she could be powerful. It gave her the opportunity to work with and watch girls--many of whom are now out of college and working and so far removed from those Saturday morning meets-- who were athletes and leaders take charge and win. It gave her the opportunities to be both a captain and a coach. 

But I think the most important things I take away aren't the ones that propelled me in any sort of direction. It's the moments that meant nothing that mean everything. It was fear of the cold water on the first day of practice. It was countless cloudy morning practices and sizzling afternoons. It was playing and singing in the showers with my friends, figuring out how to inflate ours suits and learning the latest cheer. It was the winter evenings spent in humid natatoriums and frozen hair. It was B-meets that stretched far into the summer nights and the sleepy car rides home. It was the borderline inappropriate cheers and the face-paint and the signs. It's those flashes of memory that I'm keeping close. 

After my last race I grabbed my towel, hugging and laughing and smiling. But after a few minutes a pack of seven and eight year old girls lined up to swim.  Maybe they're discovering that they're good at something. And I hope they love it.

Tutoring

Yes, the title of this post is rather bland. I can't help it. My mind is fried. 

You see, somehow, through some twisted cosmic intervention, I am tutoring a girl in sixth grade math. Me. Sixth grade math. 

I have a complicated relationship with math. My parents were always very set on it's importance. They spent many hours trying to convince us that we had natural talent at the subject, and Claire and I spent many hours figuring out new hiding places for the flash cards they'd try to make us do. Any success we had with math--a fair amount of it, I might add--really has to be attributed to my mother. It helps that she's a genius, but it's really that she would sit down with us no matter what the hour, and by GOD we were going to finish that problem sheet even if it kills us. 

She got me through 1st grade subtraction and 11th grade calculus. Not many moms can help their kids with calculus, but mine can. Totally feminista, right? 

Anyway, I decided that math was dead to me the moment I found out that IC accepted my calc and stat AP credits.   Then, suddenly, I needed to remember how to do simple things like divide decimals. 

Needless to say I felt rusty. I could feel the cogs in my brain churning. It was unpleasant. I think every little wrinkle in my brain was screaming, "What is this crap? Give us more theory! We like theories! Let's structure a paper instead! PLEASSSEEEE?!" 

But no. We had to finish that workbook, even if it killed us. 

Once the session was up, though, I wandered brain-dead into the kitchen and started brewing coffee...mainly because its currently illegal for me to consume anything more appropriate.

I'm Officially Turning in to a Crotchety Old Person

I announced this to my parents, who responded--per usual--by rolling their eyes and sighing, "You're eighteen." 

Which is the rational response. That's true. But, you see, I have been complaining about things far beyond the sullen-teenager spectrum. Oh, yes. 

I am that person that gets annoyed at tourists on the Metro. I NEVER wanted to be that person. I get off for my internship at Woodley Park, which happens to be the zoo stop. Meaning, there are a lot of fanny-packs and A LOT of people who stand on the left. 

Now, listen. I've been riding the metro my entire life.  My Dad's a metro pro.  Any time we were on there, there is no way he put up with any of that crap with us.  We stood on the right. We walked on the left. I am pretty sure that at age five I thought you could be arrested for standing on the left. 

If I ever enter local politics I am totally making that into law. 

I'm nice about it. I'm not exactly screaming, "MOVE!" and drop-kicking people. I'm non-confrontational, and I'll say, "Excuse me!" cheerily and then, in the interest of their cultural education, throw out, "Left side's for walking, right side's for standing!" as I speed down the escalator. Most tourists at Woodley are clinging desperately to the rail, because that escalator is crazily long and steep.  But I grew up at Wheaton, running down the longest single span escalator in the Western Hemisphere. My dad walks down it reading a book. 

Okay, he's a little crazy, but seriously. Suck it up, tourists. 

See what I mean? 

Crotchety. 

Relaxation, Happiness, and Friends

It's almost impossible to describe how much fun I had this fourth of July weekend.  Claire, a few of my friends and I headed up to Otis for a few days of trying to tan and playing in the water.  We all were in desperate need of a break, seeing as we literally picked Claire up fromher organic chemistry final exam on the way. Sometimes, pictures are just the way to go.