Rowing My Soul

I haven't wrote in a while, for myself like I usually have had. I don't know if I mentioned this, but diary-x died a month back or so (dying as in the webmaster of the site had only one hard-drive copy of everyone's data, and lo and behold, it crashed beyond recovery). Meaning a lot of people's blogs were gone forever, mine included. I had entries since sophomore year of high school, if you want the gist of how much I lost. And if you knew how much emotion and experience I put into that little blog, you'd know I felt pretty devasted.

EMOOOOO =[ Actually, I got over it rather quickly. It's strange, but in some crazy sense I felt like it was my time; that everything I've written should lay to rest, so that a new chapter in my life could begin? It felt apporpiate enough that I didn't really get hung up on it.

Tendencies die hard though, as evidence of this entry and the livejournal account I started (though I usually just use that to bitch about whatever). But anywayyysss...

Last weekend I went down to San Diego for a really big crew regatta, and it was a blast. If you guys can imagine the race you saw in Sacramento, multiply that by 10. Mission Bay was literally full of crews from all parts of the state (and country, including Notre Dame and Texas to name a few). We raced against Cal, UCLA, Stanford, UCI, USC...the list goes on. And to sum it all up, it was INTENSE.

We placed 9th overall, which isn't too bad, considering there were around 30 novice crews there. Cal of course murdered everyone. I'm convinced the reason they're so good at everything is people (or robots?) like Doug go to their school. Their efficiency is almost...cruel.

Some action shots

There were other things besides racing though. The part of San Diego we stayed in was surprisingly seedy, as in every couple blocks you'd see either a strip club, a porn shop, a bar, or a liquor store. I was half expecting the city to be less...dirty? But then again our crew is pretty poor, so maybe we couldn't afford a nicer location.

That's my team captain getting paddled by an old chinese woman. I really don't have any explanation for that...we went to a bar for dinner in between races and I guess it's a bar tradition? We all got paddled, including my coach, which was very satisfying to watch.

We found these JL at a bargain bin, and I kinda regret I didn't buy one. It's kinda piratey in my opinion, and it was only $5 or some ridiculously cheap price.

Some prerace pics. It was really cool launching the boat via beach instead of a dock. There's something serene about wading through the water and launching that way, especially in really nice San Diego weather.

Driving there and back was pretty fun, given of course it was a 9-11 hour car ride that wasn't very comfortable to sleep in. Which I think says something about the team; I feel as a whole what brings us together is the fact that 90% of the time were not comfortable at all, which I suppose says something about crew as a sport. Or the fact that we can't afford plane tickets.I have anywhere from 1-2 months left of the season, and, overall, it made the school year go by REALLY fast. At the same time though, it feels like a lot has happened, and that, even a few months ago feels like a lifetime, moreso way back into last year, or even summer. It's a dream of sorts, and a little surreal to think about how much has been going on since last year (and it feels weird saying "last year").

All I know is though, I'm ready for the season to end and come home; to settle down, live in Alameda, and enjoy the summer. Most of all, I miss you guys, more then I realize sometimes. Davis is certainly an adventure, and hard at times, and I know it's a character builder of sorts, cause I'm definitely not the same person I was a year ago (in a good way). But it isn't home, and it isn't entirely who I am.

I think I've decided that the weekends I don't have crew I'll come visit. And yeah, Lucio, I mailed my $30 to Travis yesterday. Sorry for the delay.