The Mile

Today we ran a timed mile in my tri training class. Last semester my time was... rather embarrassingly... a little over 16 minutes. This time I did it in 14 minutes (flat!) and I jogged the whole way! I may still be super duper slow, but I cut my time down by 2 minutes WITHOUT an ipod to distract me. Maybe by the end of the semester I'll be able to cut my time down by 2 MORE minutes. Then the next semester, 2 more! Then by the time I do my triathlon, I can be doing a consistent 10 minute mile... maybe.

Teenage Poetry

I'm taking a poetry class this semester (from my favorite teacher EVER, so the combination is perfect) and rather than just enjoying and analyzing poetry- which I can do- we're actually WRITING poetry. This intimidated me at first, but now after I've written a few poems for the class I'm feeling better about it. I'm not quite secure enough yet to post my poems on my blog, but hopefully tomorrow's class will give me confidence. Anyway, I've dabbled in poetry before and thought it might be entertaining to go back and look at my previous work from middle-high school. I did so, and I can't decide whether I'm more horrified or amused. It's atrocious! I almost died laughing when I re-read my poem titled very reassuringly "Love of the Soul."

Triathlon Training

On Friday (morning at 6:30 a.m. to be precise) my tri class did a few funny running exercises. Basically the point was to run on our toes and lean forward. Later that night I went on a 30 minute jog and now my calves are killing me! MURDER! We're biking on Monday, so I'm hoping the pain goes away by then. The bright side? My already well-defined calves shall soon be perfectly sculpted like a greek goddess!

Excel? No.

I definitely do NOT excel in "Excel." I've known next to nothing about Excel and spreadsheets and stuff and I've achieved 12 years public school + 3 years of college without any problems. Until now. With my quantitative chemical analysis class (it's scary, but not as 'run-like-the-wind-to-escape-the-horror-of-the-bloodthirsty-beast-with-laser-eyes-and-poison-claws-as-big-as-grandfather-clocks-scary as it sounds... ahem) Where was I? Oh. With my chemistry class, we have already received our first homework assignment and guess what program we use for this and throughout the rest of the course? That's right! Excel. Funeral services for my loyal TI-83 TBA. Sigh.

Athleticism

I've never been an athlete, but I'm training to become one. Taking this into account, one can imagine my joy when in my tri training class I realized I'm the best swimmer here. All those body-building marathon runners can choke on my bubbles because I'm like a fish. A FISH! A really adorable fish... that swims... like fish generally do. If my class is out running and a bear decides we look tasty, I'll die, BUT if we're in the water and a shark chases us, I'll freestyle my way to the front and let it chew on somebody else. So HA!

Good Quotes from Class Today

Today was a day of excellent quotes in my Poetic Form and Theory class.

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then... I contradict myself;
I am large... I contain multitudes."
-Walt Whitman, excerpt from Song of Myself

"Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom."
- James Wright, excerpt from the poem A Blessing

"He raised up his hook into the terrible starlight
And slashed the wind."
- James Wright, excerpt from the poem Hook


I took a class from this professor last semester and absolutely adored him. He's one of the best teachers I've EVER had, and when I'm a teacher, I want to be like him. He's passionate and poetic, insightful and positive. He's personal, yet professional. He lets his students know enough about him that we feel like we know him, yet leaves much unsaid such that he remains a figure of tantalizing mystery. Every sentence he speaks reflects his brilliance as a teacher, an academic, a reader/analyst, a poet, and a- as my friend put it- "Grade 'A' human being." I have taken to writing down some of the things that he says that strike me as profound, insightful, amusing, and often downright funny. Here's the list from today.

"Breakage has to occur before we become something other."

"Reading itself is a creative act."

"Read poems with a dreamy attentiveness."

"The heart of poetry is contradiction."

"Achilles is The Terminator." (Just plain funny!)

"I think this is a kick-ass poem!" (The fact that he said 'kick-ass' to describe a poem makes me really happy)

"Obviously it's a rhetorical question because you're like 'NO.'" (This was in reference to the question in the poem Hook, 'Did you ever feel a man hold Sixty-five cents In a hook, And place it Gently In your freezing hand?' You have to imagine the facial expression, the tone, and the hand actions on this one to get the full effect.)

Hurrah for School!

After an immensely enjoyable summer of escapading adventures, I finally return to a different, yet nonetheless exciting semester of school. Two days down. Four(ish) months to go. I've taken on quite a load, but they're all classes that I should love. Some observations thusfar:

-I'm not a poet, but I want to be.
-A man with a voluminous vocabulary could quite easily seduce me. Be still my swooning heart!
-Sometimes teachers try to scare you away from their classes by making them sound like torture. I think I'll stay just to spite them.