Whenever you swim, please remember this the best Keep your legs together when you swim butterfly Hold your breath on your finish, tuck your chin to dive And most importantly, please remember to streamline off the walls
That song is to the tune of "Kindergarten Wall" by John McCutcheon. I made up the lyrics, though, in a daydreamy state coming home from my hike today. We went to Brainard Lake and hiked to some lakes. It was quite entertaining. Beautiful weather, too. In Boulder today it's 92 degrees, which is much too hot for me, thank you very much.
Tomorrow is the Mesa vs. Meadows swim meet. As I am coaching for one team and swimming for the other, it'll be very interesting. We're kinda rivals, and the little kids aren't quite sure what to make of it. Mackenzie made me a shirt that says "Kristen is netsirk" which is a fabulous connection that no one will understand. But I will, so that's okay. I have to find some red shorts to wear. Green on top, red on the bottom, and perhaps a red bandana to tie it all off. I'll let you know how the meet goes. I'm swimming the 200, 100 and 100 backstroke. woot!
Angie, Ellen, Julia and I went to the Sand Dunes on Monday. Twas bundles and bundles of fun. I was quite impressed by the pure amount of sand. And that we could just walk where ever "curiosity took us" and get lost in the middle of this giant sand box. The first night there was a tornado south of us, we could see it, and the winds were really strong, but no one told us to be careful. =) We camped and ate pasta and s'mores and hot chocolate. I loved it. The sand farted, by the way. It's completely true- when you stepped on it at a cetain angle, it went "fhhhbbbt" It was great. I want to walk all the way across the Sand Dunes- wouldn't that be amazing? Unfortunately, there really isn't a road on the far side of them, so you'd have to walk across them, and then walk several more miles to a road. Hahaha, not fun.
Welcome to the human race With its wars, disease and brutality You with your innocence and grace Restore some pride and dignity To a world in decline
I always get very confused when people talk about second and third cousins and cousins-removed and so, after a final-straw encounter with a friend, I decided to take matters into my own hands. The handy-dandy Wikipedia (note to population: never site wikipedia in an essay for school. This is not a mistake I have made personally, but it should be known that it is no looked well upon by those citation-sticklers) explained to me the difference between second-cousins and second-cousins-thrice-removed. Please review the Cousin chart if you, too, are suffocating in guilt over not knowing this important fact.
Yesterday I went to a Mesa meet instead of a Meadows meet. It was fun- I bonded with the kids. woot! We won handidly, of course, and there were only a few slip-ups. A 200 free relay small disaster occured, but that's alright. Poor Bridger- I'll make sure he swims it next meet. =(
I swam across I jumped across for you Oh all the things you do Cause you were all yellow
I love my job. Really. It's probably the best thing I could be doing. I'm training the future swimmers of America- the state qualifers and the olympic relays and the world record holders. All right-so none of them will probably ever swim at a national level, but you never know. It's really fun. And I love my co-coaches. Amy is probably the nicest person in the world, and hilarious and smart and just great in general. Today she gave me the best compliment EVER and it just seemed like she was telling the truth. I didn't stop smiling for the rest of practice. =)
We're watching the soccer World Cup on spanish television (because we get 5 spanish channels, and not ESPN) and the commercials are all for American companies (vehix.com, State Farm insurance) but they're in Spanish. The McDonalds commerical was actually pretty neat. =)
Your Birthdate: January 14
You work well with others. That is, you're good at getting them to do work for you. It's true that you get by on your charm. But so what? You make people happy! You're dynamic, clever, and funny. And people like to have you around. But you're so restless, they better not expect you to stay around for long.
Train this chaos turn it into light, I've gotta see you one last night, Before the lions take their share, Leave us in pieces, scattered everywhere,
So, graduation was really quite entertaining. I still stand by point of the throwing-of-the-cardboard-caps was the purest moment of joy I've had in a long time. Mr. Stensrud gave a speech about joy- and every time he said "joy" I thought of the person Joy, not of joy, the intangible feeling. Joy's going to Switzerland. That's a really long way away, and though I'm not great friends with her, or anything,it's her destination that makes me the most nostalagic. weird. She said she'd keep in touch- that we'd write snail-mail letters from California to the other side of the world. I hope we do. That would be neat.
This last weekend has been graduation-party galore! It was great. I went to 10 parties this weekend, and then one on Monday night and another on Tuesday, and then last night Sarah, Ang, and I had a bonfire that was pretty incredible. I almost fell asleep on Sarah's trampoline last night, but then we had to evacute because of the sprinklers. After the party Tuesday night, Sarah and I froliced in a park, and we lay in the field, and I rescued us from the sprinklers, then, too. I wouldn't have minded either night running in the sprinklers, but Sarah isn't as hydrophilic as I. Look at that use of biology terms =) And, last night, after we moved inside away from the sprinklers (this was long after the fire had burned out) Sarah had a half-awake/half-asleep dream about the Excal list. And I'm curious who got in, but I know that Gracie did, and that's exciting. Woot!
But, thanks to all these parties, my sleep-schedule is way off. I'm an early-to-bed-early-to-rise kinda gal- especially in the summer when swimming starts at 6:30. But now the parties are over, and Sarah is in Italy (I'm so jealous...) so I've only got Angie and El- and we don't do things late at night, so I'll get back on track. That's good. We have our first swim meet on Saturday! gah! I love Meadows! But I've been coaching as of late- which I also really like a lot lot lot, but it means I haven't been swimming as much as I should. But I get to hang out with stellar kids and Amy and Dan (both of whom are truly amazing. I love Amy and Dan.) Jesse and Gabrielle are pretty great, too, but I'm just meeting them. They aren't Amy, though, that's for sure. Of course, who is? =) It'll be a fun summer.
PS- That picture is of Maggie, Ellen, Angie, and mine amazing button. It's the best button EVER. It's giant, and has our faces on it. Who wouldn't want a button like that. That button is my pride and joy. =)
If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world? I don't quite know How to say How I feel Those three words Are said too much They're not enough
I graduated yesterday! It was very exciting. And it hasn't really hit me yet that I'm not a high school student, and I'm never going to go back to Fairview as my home (which it has been for four years). But I'm quite content- been partying it up with 10 (!) graduation parties. I still have three more, all of which should be fun. But the 10 so far were great. I love friends and food and water guns and trampolines and pools! and singing along with "The Lion King soundtrack". It has been a good two days. Although today there is a party that "the whole senior class is invited to", according to Steph, but I wasn't. I don't think I would have gone, but who knows? I may have partied it up. I also wasn't invited to the South Boulder party last night (I guess I'm just not known as the partying-type) which is fine because, according to Sam, it was a Teen-movie-party. Which I really don't have a lot of interest in. =) Graduation was fun. That single moment, when we threw our caps in the air, was so full of absolutely pure joy. It was strange- I was happier in those milliseconds than I had been in a very long time. It was cliched, and I have that classic picture of the hats being thrown, but I was just so incredibly overfilled with happiness. Great. Of course, the whole ceremony was lovely. DC, Casey, and Jimmy were the student speakers. And Mr. Stensrud was good, too. And we were done in two hours. It only took them 40-ish minutes to read all 485 names. Hooray! There's a lot more to say- about Eliches and the senior barbeque and the parties and the visiting grandparents and the presents I got, but I'm just really really exhausted. And I have lots of pictures I want to post. =)
And that we could just walk where ever "curiosity took us" and get lost in the middle of this giant sand box. The first night there was a tornado south of us, we could see it, and the winds were really strong, but no one told us to be careful. =) We camped and ate pasta and s'mores and hot chocolate. I loved it. The sand farted, by the way. It's completely true- when you stepped on it at a cetain angle, it went "fhhhbbbt" It was great. I want to walk all the way across the Sand Dunes- wouldn't that be amazing? Unfortunately, there really isn't a road on the far side of them, so you'd have to walk across them, and then walk several more miles to a road. Hahaha, not fun. 
