The weather is getting better. By better, of course, I mean overcast with showers and no sun! At this point, anything beats the snow!
I just got back from the gymnastics team's Big Tens Championship. It was a conflicting meet. While I was so proud of what the team did, I was frustrated because they could have done so much better. We did really well on three events, and blew vault. In post-season, you can't blow an event and expect to still prevail. Turns out that we got 5th instead of about 2nd. (We would have beaten Penn State - damn it!) On a positive note, Larissa received the honor of Big Tens Coach of the year (even though she had to share it with Bev.!), and there seems to be a lead into why the teams 2 lowest scores are such....
It became apparent to me on the bus ride home from the meet after a specific conversation, that there is one coach that seems to correlate to the low score of the meet. Originally on beam this season, she was pulled from it because she was doing such a poor job and put on vault and floor dance. As a result, our beam scores went way up (we havn't counted a fall yet) and our vaulters have forgotten how to vault - they are now doing vaults of lower values with just as much deduction - great!
I was happy to support the team, and it was really good to see some other alumn and Larissa's parents, I am still not comfortable with my spot in this show. I feel distanced from the team, while my better half is becoming closer to them. It is a weird pull for me, and really hard to commuicate between the two of us. As much as I am happy that I went, I find myself constantly questioning if it would have been better if I had just stayed home. But enough of that....
Our new addition to the family is doing really well. He spent a long weekend with his new friend Gunner (a Great Dane). My better half has great pics of our kids, Odin and Baker, on her blog. It was just updated with pics from Odin's sleepover as well!
Enjoy....
Here's to the beginning of yet another stressful week.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Redefining Me...
The other day, I agreed to be interviewed by a PhD student here at the university about my experience as a college level athlete. I was very eager to talk about my experience. I've been through a lot, but I left the sport sad to go and still loving it, which is more than most gymnasts will admit to. I walked into her office with thousands of ideas I wanted to make sure I conveyed. All of these vanished like a scared cat meeting a new "friend" with the first question.
"So Danielle, let's start with something easy.... How would you say you define yourself?!"
Silence.... Define myself. Images started flashing through my head. My 8 hour day job where I sit at a desk, on the phone, fixing the problems the wonders of technology have brought us. Well, I think health is important, but lately, I'm lucky to get a 30 min. workout in every other day or so, and showering has become a luxury that I usually only partake in when the hair on my legs starts hurting underneath my pants, or I start to notice a strong odor when I point to a map I want any of my little gymnasts to go get for practice. So, how can I sum up who I am and differentiate it between who I would like to be?...
In the past, it's always been easy to explain who "I" was. I was, primarily, a gymnast and a student. Now, I am left with a blank spot after the question mark that I'm scarred to fill in. I'm a clerk in Procurement? I'm a gymnastics coach for a team that barely exists?
I suppose I could always fall back on the, "I'm gay" statement, but I feel as though that show very little of who I am since the gay culture is not something that I have been much a part of.
Now, I have to look deeper into myself (scary!), and find out what I am past the labels that are so easy to place on each of us. Can I consider myself someone who lives a healthy life? Do I work out enough, do I take care of myself mentally and spiritually enough? What about a loyal friend. There was that one time when.... or that one person who....
In the end, I gave her a list of adjectives that I hoped described who I was - or at least what I hoped I was viewed as (hard worker, etc.). But, even after the 45 min. interview, this question was still bouncing around in my head. I am....... I am a...... I can be........ Never completing the sentence.
So, I ran around, chasing my tail for days, trying to find the right combination of adjectives and nouns to fully describe what makes me, well, me. As of now, I've come to the decision that I am in transition (and no, my breast will still be in tact when I am through). Just as much as I a physically in transition between graduating from undergrad and looking to further my education, I am also emotionally and spiritually in transition. I still plan to strive for the parts of my that I believe in like working hard and caring about the people close to me in my life, but I no longer feel like I swallowed an apple whole on an empty stomach when this question pushes its way to the front of my conscious. I am who I am. I will let the rest of the world work on defining what that is, and I will simply just be for now!
1 more venting session accomplished
"So Danielle, let's start with something easy.... How would you say you define yourself?!"
Silence.... Define myself. Images started flashing through my head. My 8 hour day job where I sit at a desk, on the phone, fixing the problems the wonders of technology have brought us. Well, I think health is important, but lately, I'm lucky to get a 30 min. workout in every other day or so, and showering has become a luxury that I usually only partake in when the hair on my legs starts hurting underneath my pants, or I start to notice a strong odor when I point to a map I want any of my little gymnasts to go get for practice. So, how can I sum up who I am and differentiate it between who I would like to be?...
In the past, it's always been easy to explain who "I" was. I was, primarily, a gymnast and a student. Now, I am left with a blank spot after the question mark that I'm scarred to fill in. I'm a clerk in Procurement? I'm a gymnastics coach for a team that barely exists?
I suppose I could always fall back on the, "I'm gay" statement, but I feel as though that show very little of who I am since the gay culture is not something that I have been much a part of.
Now, I have to look deeper into myself (scary!), and find out what I am past the labels that are so easy to place on each of us. Can I consider myself someone who lives a healthy life? Do I work out enough, do I take care of myself mentally and spiritually enough? What about a loyal friend. There was that one time when.... or that one person who....
In the end, I gave her a list of adjectives that I hoped described who I was - or at least what I hoped I was viewed as (hard worker, etc.). But, even after the 45 min. interview, this question was still bouncing around in my head. I am....... I am a...... I can be........ Never completing the sentence.
So, I ran around, chasing my tail for days, trying to find the right combination of adjectives and nouns to fully describe what makes me, well, me. As of now, I've come to the decision that I am in transition (and no, my breast will still be in tact when I am through). Just as much as I a physically in transition between graduating from undergrad and looking to further my education, I am also emotionally and spiritually in transition. I still plan to strive for the parts of my that I believe in like working hard and caring about the people close to me in my life, but I no longer feel like I swallowed an apple whole on an empty stomach when this question pushes its way to the front of my conscious. I am who I am. I will let the rest of the world work on defining what that is, and I will simply just be for now!
1 more venting session accomplished
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