Everything about today was crazy. I knew going in that it would be chaotic, but I didn't know how bad it would be.

It all started with the nutrition midterm I had this morning. I was warned ahead of time that the material is easy, but the questions can be tricky or phrased funny. Some of the questions were straight forward, but there were a bunch that could really trip you up if you weren't paying attention. Hopefully, I didn't do too badly.

Of course, I realized as I was walking out of the test that I had forgotten my watch. Its normally not the end of the world, except that I was going to work and watches are mandatory. I never thought that the few extra minutes that it took me to go home and get my watch would have prevented me from having to help out with what came next.

To preface, a bunch of my athletic training coworkers (also graduate students) were taking tests at the same time and place as I was. We had gotten done with our tests at a slightly staggered fashion. Adrian got done first and went straight to work. I got done next, but had to get my watch. Beth and Anita (a senior student) got done at the same time shortly after me.

Back to the story, I usually walk along our quiet side street as long as I can on the way to work. The sidewalk is far less crowded and I can walk a lot faster. About three blocks up, I have to turn off and walk on the sidewalks on Commonwealth Avenue which is the main street that runs through campus. It is always full of traffic. That in addition to all the pedestrians makes for just one really crazy mess.

As I was approaching Comm Ave (what it is most commonly called), I see a bunch of people standing on the sidewalk. It is normally busy, but never quite this busy. They were all standing next to a bus stop, but just the sheer number of people led me to believe they were not all waiting for the bus. Straight ahead from where I was walking is one of the freshman dorms that has a 3rd story hallway that over looks Comm Ave. The hallway was packed with people looking out to the street. Now, I knew something was weird. I heard sirens in the distance, but didn't really put two and two together until I got closer. I saw a car on the side of the street with a completely shattered windshield. Oh yes, people gawking at a car accident. I overheard someone say to a friend, "She was just crossing the street and she got creamed."

My first thought was, "Oh my goodness, is she ok? Is anyone helping?" I step out to the street to see Beth and Anita already there. Just when I was about to run up and ask if they needed help, the ambulance pulled up. I decided then that it would be best for me to just stay out of the way and not get involved.

I saw Beth and Anita shortly after and asked if the girl was ok and if they were ok. Apparently, the girl was hit pretty hard. I'm still unsure as to the circumstances of the accident, but according to Beth, the girl was not doing well. The EMT's even told her that they don't think she will make it. I gave Anita and Beth both a huge hug as I can't even imagine being in their position. I also can't help but think what would have happened had I not forgotten my watch and I had been there sooner.

Later at work, we were briefed on how Beth and Anita were doing and were asked to be extra supportive over the next few days.

That afternoon, I was covering practice. I have been with this team for over a year now and this is the first time anyone has come to video record practice. They were doing it for a story on the three girls who are on the Canadian national team. Its hard getting used to it, thats for sure.

In other news, I was really excited for tonight's spin class. It would have been the first one that I would actually be able to attend, but I received an email this evening that said it was canceled. I guess that means no workout for me tonight as the gym is a one mile walk away and I don't feel like walking up there if I'm not going to class. I'll just be sure to get a quick run in in the morning.

Tomorrow, we leave for North Dakota. The hockey season is finally here!

On Saturday, the Terriers had a lone exhibition game to start their season. It doesn't count towards their record at all, but its a great way to get the team used to playing with each other again (or for the first time for the newbies). Although, six of the ten new players, including the two Canadian gold medalists, did not play in the game, so its hard to tell how good this team is going to be. They played the University of Windsor from Ontario, Canada. The Terriers started the game with all guns firing and scored only 12 seconds into the game, but just as quickly, Windsor responded with a goal of their own. The rest of the first period was played without any scoring. Finally, in the second period, the girls started to get their groove back and started pulling away without looking back. They won the game 4 to 1.

Regular season play starts on Saturday with a weekend series at North Dakota. I am so excited for the trip. I have never been to North Dakota and I have heard that their new ice rink is nothing short of amazing. I will be sure to take plenty of pictures. The whole team is looking forward to this weekend. North Dakota proves to be a huge challenge to start the season. I have high hopes that they will do well this weekend, but at the very least, it will give every one a good idea on where we stand among the better teams in the country. Then its all downhill (I hope) from there.

*Duh, Duh* *Duh, Duh*

Nothing screams game time like those notes. The Dropkick Murphy's song is commonly heard at many Boston sporting events, but it is and always will be our song in my eyes. Its the song that the team skates onto the ice to. Its the song that signals the beginning of another period of hockey, another period of kicking butt, another period of Terrier hockey.

When the season ended six months ago, it was time for some much needed time off for everyone. It was time to regroup from a harsh season ending loss. It was time to recover from the long bus rides and bumpy charter flights. It was my time to spend more time with Benny and to spend some time away from the rink. It was much welcome time away, but now I am ready, no, thrilled, not quite, ECSTATIC for this season to start. This past week has been like the week leading up to Christmas filled with anticipation, last minute preparation and sleepless nights.

There is so much to look forward to this year. There is the big trip to North Dakota to open the regular season. There are the games against Boston College. There is the Beanpot. There is defending our Hockey East title. There is (hopefully) doing well in the NCAA tournament. Well, at least I'm hoping for better than last year (8th of 8 teams, but just making it there was an accomplishment in and of itself). There are the ten new student athletes, two of whom won gold medals with Team Canada in this year's Winter Olympics. And most importantly, there is the athletic trainer who is returning for round two, who was not scared away after her taxing first year, who is not intimidated by the daunting second year, who actually knows what is going on and how the ship is run and doesn't have to run around like a chicken with its head cut off.


"...to find my wooden leg!"

Yes, my title is taking off of Benny's blog.

I had my last acting class on Monday. Well, at least my last class for now. I had so much fun with the class that I am plotting out my attack for my next class. The next hardest class is the Intermediate/Advanced Acting class which is on Sunday afternoons. The next session starts Sunday and I can't quite swing it then. Plus, it just doesn't make sense as I will be gone a lot of Sundays over the next 6 weeks. The next session after that starts in November.

I also joined the auditions mailing list through the company that organizes the classes. Speaking of which, I need Benny to re-do my headshot. The first one didn't come out as well as I thought it would...

I still have not decided what I want to do with my blog or where I want to go with it. Instead, I've just been working on this one post. It took forever because I have been so crazy busy. Its just one of a few things I have been thinking about while bored in class. I am open to suggestions for topics or focuses for my blog. I have started a triathlon themed blog. I will mention it a little bit here, but I will mainly talk about it on the triathlon blog.

A couple of posts that I am working on that I will post later are about my recent trip to Martha's Vineyard and a post about my last *sniffle* acting class. Hopefully, its just my last class for now because I really enjoyed it and would like to pursue acting a little more.

Without further a do, here's my official post...

Due to the fact that I can't find anything to talk about, let alone something interesting to talk about, I am discontinuing the blog, at least temporarily. I was told that if I expect people to actually read my blog, I can't be so random and I can't talk about myself all of the time. I also have to find something I'm "passionate" about. The problem with me is that I'm passionate about a lot of things, which I guess is too much for other people to handle. Supposedly, readers are only interested in blogs of one passion and get too lost and give up on it if there is a second passion going on. So now, I am off to find one and only one thing that I am passionate about and its not going to be me. This may take a while.

Work has been giving me some really long days recently. With the season fast approaching (first practice in less than a week), I'm working hard to tie up the last of the loose ends. Most of the girls have either completed or are at least scheduled to take the Impact test. Also, 15 of the 25 girls have gotten molds of their mouth for custom made mouthguards. Now, they are not required to have custom mouthguards, but they are required to have mouthguards of some sort and custom mouthguards have not been offered to the team in over four years, so almost everyone wants to take advantage of the opportunity. In addition to my time with the team, I had to put in my weekly hours at the Student Health Center yesterday. Because we are seeing so many patients in such a short amount of time, I hardly notice that I am there for 4 1/2 hours. It really flies by. I am also noticing how good (in my opinion) these patients have it. When I see someone for an orthopedic issue, I see a doctor for about 30 seconds and that's it. These patients are getting a full evaluation from me, the same evaluation that I would do on any one of the varsity athletes, in addition to a "check", official diagnosis and order for treatment by the doctor. I guess its just another good argument for why athletic trainers should play a bigger role in the medical world.

I'm practically a professional cyclist.

Who am I kidding? But I did go for my ride with the BU cycling team.

I wasn't sure what to expect going in to it. I wasn't sure how fast the ride was going to be. I was just hoping and praying that I wasn't the one that the team would have to keep waiting for (it was a no drop ride). I also wasn't sure if I was going to be the only newbie or if there would be others. There were others. In fact, there were about 10 to 15 newbies (its hard to tell for sure when I myself am a newbie).

In all, there were about 25 total riders. There were the returners, the girl with the single speed, the girl who just bought a bike yesterday, the group of BFF's who thought it would be cool to join a team social group, the girl with a hybrid, two other triathletes and me.

Because 25 riders was far too big of a group, we decided to split into two groups, one that would go about 18mph and one that would go slightly slower. I decided to latch on to the slightly slower group as I haven't really ridden in three weeks and they were planning on going 40 miles. As it turned out, the two groups turned into a boys group and a girls group.

We started off pretty slow, averaging about 12mph. We were hardly a mile from home when we had our first crash of the season. Just bought a bike yesterday girl had issues with her gears, had the chain come off and wiped out. She tried shifting a few more times, but her chain would come off each time she would shift. After a while, shortly before the three big hills, we just told her not to shift anymore. Needless to say, we had to wait at the top of each hill for the stragglers.

As we went along, we started to pick up the pace on the flats to about 16 to 17mph and it actually felt like a fairly comfortable pace for me, even after three weeks off. Also, as we went along, I was able to talk to some of the girls. One of the triathletes said she started doing triathlons four years ago, but has only done sprint triathlons. I asked her how many. She chuckled and said, "Three". She admitted that she has a hard time staying motivated to train. I told her I do too, but when I signed up for the half Ironman, wanting to train turned into having to train. I didn't get a chance to talk to the other traithlete, but sprint triathlete said she thinks that the other girl did Timberman as well.

I talked to hybrid girl for a while too. She is originally from Toronto, lived in Montreal for a while, and is now getting a master's degree at BU. Her boyfriend is applying to medical schools in the US and she plans on doing the same once she gets her master's. I can't imagine what that kind of debt is like, but they are going to have some spoiled rotten kids (if it gets that far).

I think I spent most of the time talking to the single speed girl. Even on a single speed, she was one of the faster cyclists. She said she actually considered riding fixie today, but didn't know how hard we were going to go.

As we went, we had to turn around early as the only girl who knew where we were going had other obligations this afternoon and we weren't going as fast as was originally planned. On the way back, the group of 11 girls became 11 girls and 1 guy who had been dropped by the other guys. The group started to break up into two groups as well. I was comfortably keeping up with the fast group (four of us) which was riding at about 16mph on the flats. We had to stop or slow down every so often so we didn't lose the slower group, again because only one person really knew where we were going. She kept apologizing to us and reassured us that the rides get faster and longer as the season goes on. I said, "No worries. I haven't rode in three weeks anyways, so I wanted more a turn my legs over ride anyways."

In the end, we rode about 23 miles. Not too shabby start to my off season training.

One of the returners lives across the street from me so we rode back together. She said that this is the biggest turn out of girls she has seen for a Saturday ride, although they tend to whittle themselves down quickly. Those who feel like they can't or won't hang, or feel like its just not for them, quit. She said usually there are only 2 to 3 girls at each ride and they just ride with the guys. They also work up to 70 mile rides on Saturdays. I mentioned to her my predicament about being a full time student. She said that the league doesn't really care, but the university might, but she wonders how much the university really checks. She said I am still welcome to ride with them regardless, and that if I really want to race, that we'll try to figure something out if it becomes a problem. They have a lack of female racers, so they want anyone that they can get.

The more I hear about this cycling racing business, the more I want to do it. *Keeping my fingers crossed*

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the BU cycling team held their first meeting yesterday. There was an even number of returners and newbies. There were even some newbies, like me, who have never done bike racing, but have participated in triathlons. They have a workout every Saturday morning starting tomorrow with a 40 mile bike ride to Concord. And this is considered a short workout for them, so I'll definitely get a lot of quality training in this year.

The bad news is that you have to be a full time student to compete in the races and I am not. My scholarship through work only allows me to take up to 9 credit hours per semester. I sent an email to the league asking if there was any way around the rule as I would really like to compete. I honestly do not even understand why they have the rule. If you are paying a shit ton of money for college, and are making an effort to get a good education, they should not be able to turn you away from participating in collegiate sporting events just because you are not full time. Its not even a varsity sport for crying out loud. At least I can still train with the team while being part time. Although, I think that is the weirdest part. You can train and be part time, but you can't compete and be part time. Hopefully, I will get good news from the league, but I'm not counting on it.

The past couple days have been really intense. On top of being a week into the school semester, I am now only 12 days away from the women's ice hockey team's first official practice. I am really excited for the season to start, but I still have so much to do before the start even happens.

Here is my work to do list (I repeat, it all has to be done within the next 12 days):
- All freshmen, transfer, and returning student athletes who haven't taken the Impact test within the past two years need to take it. The Impact test is a computerized cognitive test that is used to determine severity or presence of a concussion. In order to know that information, there needs to be a baseline to compare it to, and the baseline needs to be completed before practice starts.
- Any one who needs or wants a custom mouth guard needs to have one made. Mouth guards are required in ice hockey by the NCAA.
- Clean and stock the ice arena athletic training room. The arena was renovated over the summer so I had to remove everything from the athletic training room. Now, it needs to be cleaned and restocked. The new arena looks so much nicer. They put in new, brighter lights, new boards, and a new refrigeration system in the ice floor.

- Form a contact and emergency contact information list for the team. I also need to create a red flag sheet which lists all of the athletes who have potentially life threatening conditions, such as asthma or severe allergies.
- Make sure my personal kit is stocked and ready to go.

Whew...

On the plus side, I have an athletic training student helping me out. Yesterday, we cleaned the ATR and were able to stock part of it. We were able to get done a lot more than I thought we would, so 12 days is slightly less daunting. Also, for the most part, the student athletes have been helpful by doing what I need them to do quickly, so I don't have to try and chase them down to do it. The coaches have also been supportive and have been making sure that I don't have to chase any student athletes down, and if chasing has to be done, they have been doing most of it for me.

17 days until game day...

The past few days have been crazy fast.

Thursday morning marked the first day of school *yawn*. I really hate when I have to buy textbooks for class. I hate even more when the teacher "forgot" to tell the school bookstore that she will be requiring us to have textbooks, so we are stuck having to scramble to get one as we are naturally to have the first three chapters read by now. I made the discovery on Barnes and Noble.com that I no longer need to order and ship or go pick up a much too expensive textbook for which I will only get a small fraction of my money back, if that, because, heaven's knows, a new edition will probably be out by then anyways. Instead, they now allow you to rent an electronic version of the textbook for a much smaller price for 180 days. The only drawback is that you can't return anything to get some money back, but in the end, you are losing a lot less money this way than you would if you bought the textbook. Plus, it is environmentally friendly. It is also available on my Netbook instantly, which happens to be lighter than most textbooks. Crisis averted!

Also on Thursday, my parents arrived for a visit. I didn't get to see them until after class and work, but Benny kept them entertained until then by giving them a walking tour of the city. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out and playing games at our apartment.

On Friday, we went to Bruegger's for breakfast. Benny had to work and I had to put in a few hours myself, so my parents spent the time at Harvard Square and then at Bleacher Bar at Fenway. I joined them for a little bit after work and then we headed back to the apartment. Just as we were entering the apartment building, the skies, err, Earl opened up and let it pour. So instead of doing anything outside, we decided to spend a few hours at Cornwall's playing pool. My mom's birthday was August 10, so I had decided to take her (and now my dad) out for dinner while they were here to celebrate. We went to the Chart House on Long Wharf. Dinner took a while as our server seemed a little scattered, but the food was really delicious. I had crab stuffed scrod and coconut ginger rice. We all shared a molten lava cake for dessert. We were supposed to have two, but one "caved in on itself" and they offered to replace it with a piece of Boston creme pie as it would take 30 minutes to make another. We all agreed that that would be a bit of a downgrade and decided to just share one. Benny wanted ice cream instead, so we headed over to Faniuel Hall. It normally closes at 9PM each night, but with Earl potentially closing in on Boston, all of the shops closed early. In the end, it turned out that all of the Earl hype was just that, hype. I have noticed that weather here can really be at either end of the extreme, so the weathermen always predict the worst. It always turns out that the best case scenario always ends up happening anyways. It rained for a while Friday night, but that was all. No wind, no lightning, no death and destruction.

On Saturday morning, I had to assist at work with freshmen and transfer student-athlete physicals until 12:30PM. Afterwards, Benny and I took my parents to the Cape. We spent some time in Hyannis looking at the shops. We also went to Chatham where we walked along the beach, splashed in the waves, and admired the far too expensive vacation homes. On the way back, we stopped to go go karting and got gelato. I asked for a scoop of peanut butter and a scoop of Snicker's which ended up being a lot of gelato, but I finished it. When we arrived back in town, Benny talked me into going back to Cornwall's to get a few drinks. I highly recommend Absolut Boston and lemonade if you haven't tried it yet. We got a late night snack and then hit the hay at about 1AM. Its been a while since I was up that late.

Two Peas in a Pod

Chatham

Washed Ashore Buoy Enjoying the Sunset

My mom wanted to go to Salem to see where her ancestors lived. Actually, I don't know how it got started, but sometime somewhere somebody started calling her the wicked witch of the west, so its kinda been an ongoing joke. We decided to go to Salem today, but we had to make a pit stop on the way at Mike's Pastry's. Benny and my dad got cannolis, my mom got a black and white and I got the lobster tail which I've been wanting to try for a while now. In Salem, we looked at a few shops, walked along the wharfs and then visited the Witch Hunt Memorial. For lunch, we stopped at Santorini (sp?) by Revere Beach for lobster rolls. I also showed my parents where I want to live if Ben and I end  up staying here longer than the two years years that I have to put in for my graduate assistantship. Before dropping them off at the airport, my parents wanted to go back to Hotel Chocolat because the chocolates that they had bought there melted. Then away my parents went.

"Broom" Lane

I love how creepy this door is

The weekend went by way too fast, but we had lots of fun. We definitely don't get to see either one of our families anywhere near enough. If my next job doesn't have us staying in Boston, it would definitely be nice to live somewhere near our parents. Anywhere in between would be nice too to make it easier to visit.

While I was pondering how I was going to stay motivated for the upcoming off season, I recalled that BU has a club cycling team. I found out about the club when I saw someone wearing the swanky team kit (I was jealous to say the least).

My roommate in undergrad was a member of OSU's cycling team for a couple of years. I never seriously considered joining the team then, but then again, I was a runner and a runner only then. Now that I am a triathlete, I have to focus on getting better at all three events. The swim and bike are the two events in which I have the  most room for improvement. Because of that, I made improvement of time in one or both of these events my primary goal for the off season. The next step was trying to determine how I was going to do that and how I was going to stay motivated now that I don't have any races until May and winter is fast approaching...supposedly.

That's when I remembered that joining the cycling team could be an option. I perused the website and found out that the cycling team accepts undergrad and graduate students of all ability levels. Their season is in spring starting in March which is also coincidentally when the hockey season ends. However, they do have training rides every Saturday and/or Sunday all year, weather permitting.

I was definitely interested, so I joined the mailing list and sent an email to the team president for more information. The first team meeting is next Thursday. I'm looking forward to going. I can't wait to see where I stand in comparison to other cyclists my age. I am particularly curious as I have a triathlon background and I'm sure a majority of the club has cycling backgrounds. I can't wait to see how well triathlon training has prepared me for this.