Pushing Limits

This summer, when I was deciding whether I would join the crew team, my dad said something that stuck with me.

"Right now you can push yourself," he said. "There's going to be a point where you just can't push your body to do the things you want it to anymore."

I decided to join the crew team.

Last year I wasn't an athlete anymore. I woke up every morning feeling frustrated with my body. That's sad, and that's a little twisted, but that's the truth. It wasn't the fact that I'd gained weight, exactly, but the fact that I didn't feel strong anymore. My shoulders weren't tense from exertion, they were tense from stress and from going day to day with a focus that was entirely singular and at the same time extremely fragmented.

My life was centered around journalism, resume building, and fear of academic failure. There was no point in my day where the fear of missing a deadline or botching a quote wasn't on my mind. I was happy in Ithaca, but at the same time there was a something entirely off balance.

I discovered politics second semester. I realized it was something I wanted, and that maybe my path would not take me to a newspaper or a magazine.

Today we raced for the first time. The top two novice boats went head to head for a 4k. Half way through you realize that you don't really see anything. The sound of oar locks thunking and water rushing and your coxswain yelling and your legs screaming takes precedence over sight. It's a blur and it's furious and all you can do is keep breathing and think you must be close, you're almost there, even when you're not.

I can still push my body. I know I can push it farther.

Being a part of a team and pushing my self makes me better. It makes me feel stronger when I get out of bed in the morning, when I write a paper, when I'm searching for an interview, or reading a case.

I'm figuring out what I want to do as I go. For now, I know I love to write. I know I want to be part of the change, and not just the observer. I know that the median GPA for Yale Law School's class of 2011 was 3.90 and the low was 3.51. I know that I love to laugh with my friends and curl up in bed with a mug of tea on rainy days.

I think I'll take it from there.

If You Haven't Given Up on Me

I know.

I KNOW.

I got this text from my sister today: "It's awesome that you update your blog frequently so I know what is going on in your life. SIKE."

You know things are getting serious when your family members begin to punctuate sarcastic statements with 90s-era slang.

So here I am. I'm back. Let's see how long this lasts! It's really a lack of time that's kept me away from your lovely computer screens. I spend most of my time...not blogging. In fact, I spend most of my time doing many things that aren't sleeping, or paying attention to things like laundry. My best and worst decision ever was putting a laundry basket where I can't see it. It can be overflowing and I don't even have to look at it.

Also luckily, I am basically turning into my father and couldn't resist cashing in on a 2-for-1 deal on athletic socks. So I have tons and tons of athletic socks now. I can run out of them and open a new bag. They're practically potato chips.

I also spent some time tweeting about my ill-informed ideas about treating the blisters on my hands. It involved me thinking myself, "I should probably clean it before I wrap it up. Oh, look, because of the swine flu I have ample amounts of hand sanitizer at my disposal. Let's use that!" I think my roommate might be tragically getting used to hearing me yelp at odd times throughout the day for stupid reasons.

Speaking of blisters, crew is going well. The campus is still adapting to seeing me walk around as a sweaty mess all the time. IC students may have to speak with a counselor about the whole "spandex for pants" part. They can deal. It's actually going so well that I may be racing WAY earlier than expected. Try...October 3rd. This is really unbelievable to me because it seems like yesterday that we finally got into a boat and...couldn't move. Oh, how things change!

In class I spend a lot of time ignoring any social niceties that tell me to shut up and let someone else have a chance to talk, or asking myself why I am in this class? It's hard to take a lecture about blogging all that seriously. So much of these "theories" of online journalism are the norm for our generation. Sometimes these classes on multimedia--when they stray away from the practical like, using photoshop or creating audio slideshows--are one huge hour and a half long DUH.

Based on the quality of my writing today, you all are probably thinking I should pay more attention in class. I actually just finished writing a paper for my journalism ethics class. There is seriously nothing more fun than explaining moral development levels and their applications to citizen journalism.

SIKE

Life in the Fast Lane

Well, as far as the "fast lane" reference goes, my meaning is more towards the "I walk really fast to get everywhere" idea rather than the "my life choices mirror those of James Dean," possible meaning.

Basically, I am really excited that I am actually in my dorm right now.

On Sunday, I spent eight hours in Park working in my new position as an Associate Producer of our television news show Newswatch 16. It'll stream live next week, and shows should be posted on the ictv.org website. I'll link you up here if you're interested in listening to what I write. My main job is writing up copy for the anchors.

Yesterday I was in my room for a total of 20 minutes between 8:15 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. Today I got two full hours in that time span. It was leisurely.

The reason for this is, as you know, I try to do everything. Everything. So I'm either in one of my five classes, writing/performing a radio broadcast, picking up some sort of sustenance, running to the boathouse, rowing on the water, at a meeting, working in the dining hall, etc.

It's hectic and crazy and tiresome but I am just constantly amazed that I'm doing it all. My greatest fear is looking back on my college years and wondering, "What if?" It was my main reason for joining the crew team. I wanted something and as crazy as it all sounded, I'm making it work. I'm also loving it.

For my News I class, we all have to maintain some type of newsy blog. Surprise! Mine's on women's issues. If you've looked at mine, can I just mention how self-conscious I feel comparing my new blog to my classmate's? Don't even try to comfort me.

Oh, and of course the NFL season has officially kicked off. The Redskins looked predictably ineffective and frustratingly normal. I also had some of my friends here e-mail their teachers saying they had flu-like symptoms and therefore could not attend class (Swine Flu is a real threat here, particularly with that festering pile of Ivy league, Cornell, having over 500 cases and all) because they were literally too depressed to function. This is because they are Bills fans.

You'd think they'd be numb to it by now, but you've got to remember that my friends were babies during those Super Bowl...appearances.

Now, I want to end this post with something cheery. Let's all meditate on how freakishly good looking Tom Brady and Gisele's child is going to be.

Hey...I Live Here

At approximately 12:07 today, I realized I live in Ithaca.

I was with roommates L and C, and we were sitting on a wooden bench, peering through the trees to the gray, rippling lake. L had a whole grain pumpkin muffin, C had an indian samosa, and I had an egg roll. Behind us Ithacans were bustling around underneath a mammoth structure made of wooden planks, lugging bags overflowing with produce and cups full of sweet cider. Ithaca's farmers market is the strangest combination of experiences (hence our cuisine), but it all felt entirely natural.

While we were watching the lake, I thought back to yesterday when I was actually on the lake, learning to row with varsity. Torrential, freezing rain poured down our backs and soaked our shoes, the girl in front of me could hardly hold her oar from the shivers. I was experiencing two things for the first time. One was the sensation of wet spandex. The other was the thrill of a single successful stroke, when you hear the rush of the water underneath the boat punctuated with the thunking of the oar locks.

We finished and headed back to the car, dodging puddles and breathing in the smell of dew on leaves just entering fall.

And I realized I lived in Ithaca as we laughingly piled into the car to face the adventure of manual transmissions on Ithaca's hills.

Now I'm here, in my dorm room, typing up a blog post and eyeing the stack of reading I've got lined up for me this afternoon, and I feel at home.

Labor Day Weekend

When Claire and I were little, we'd sometimes go up to our parents to tell them we were bored ask if we could have a playdate. 

"Why?" they'd ask. 

"Because we don't have anyone to play with," we'd whine. 

They thought this was hilarious.  We were confused. 

Now, I move my spandex-clad butt into a car for three and a half hours or so just so I can hang with her for a few days. And it's totally worth it. 

And for the record, my butt was actually spandex-clad, because I left straight from practice. 

Claire and I spent the weekend putting around Troy, eating pizza with strange toppings, napping way too much, chatting with her friends, buying cookies (yes COOKIES! Isn't it so unlike us?) and visiting with some other lovely ladies who share many of our physical characteristics. Mainly because we're related to them. And by that I mean my Mom and both my grandmothers came up to feed us brunch, and to give us more stuff than can actually fit under my dorm bed. 

Isn't it great that my expensive journalistic training has taught me to be concise and get right to the point with everything? 

It was a great weekend. 

Today I had to get back into the swing of things. I worked breakfast and then headed to ethics, which basically turned into a cacophonous class-wide argument about the journalistic morality of that Cincinnati Enquirer Banana Republic case back in the day. Basically I was told I was a terrible, immoral person for believing that if a company grossly mistreats and intimidates its hundreds workers AND traffics of cocaine, its stupid and wealthy executives deserve to have their incriminating voice mails stolen. And maybe I am. I think that was the point of the whole debate...the idea that sometimes you just don't know. 

Just another day in college. 

Then later in my history of mass media class I got props for actually knowing what the Crimean war was about. It literally blew my mind that most of the kids in my class had never heard of it. Ms. Carballo would have cried herself to sleep if she'd heard them. I can't even tell you how many thesis statements I wrote about World War I that had the Crimean war in them. 

Public school, suckers! Half of those kids paid unbelievable amounts of money for an incomplete education. I guess my current attendance at a private institution undercuts my self-righteousness. But still. Even my politics 101 professor knows I'm obsessed with socioeconomic and class issues. 

Downright obsessed. 

Well, anyway, I'll wrap this up. 

If you want to listen to me actually talk about things that matter for about 5 minutes tomorrow, boot up the radio on WICB.org  tomorrow at 8:46 a.m. and listen to my newscast. 

First Crew Practice

I think I've been spoiled by Twitter. I'm keeping this short, because I should be reading. 

The insanity of my schedule yesterday was even more insane because it actually all worked out. Like clockwork. I don't even want to go into it, it was so insane. 

Yesterday, however, I did have my first crew practice! We went to the tanks at Cornell, and because we only get off-hours, my boat was scheduled for a 9 p.m. practice. It was such a weird experience. It was late at night, and I was huddling with a group of girls outside an ivy-covered (I know, they've actually got it, right?) building at Cornell late at night, about to go row in weird non-moving boat things surround by water. All I could really think about was, "How in the world did I get HERE?"

We're just learning now. Tomorrow, however, the butt-kicking commences. What cracked me up yesterday was that my coach told me the exact same thing Claire had criticized me about.  She said my recovery was too fast. "Abby," she said. "The fact is that your legs are approximately three times longer than anyone else's here, and it may feel like you're going incredibly slow, but you're not." 

So far I really like our novice coaches. They're super sweet and both rowed for Ithaca back in the day. We're really lucky to have a coach and an assistant. We have 46 novice women at this point, so the extra help is probably necessary. I know. 46.  It's unlikely that the number will stay that high, but it's pretty incredible. 

In other news, I actually have to do my homework.