We owe it to each other to tell stories.

This blog is a strange thing, particularly when considered with its relationship to the rest of my week. You see, throughout my week, I see and do all sorts of strange, wonderful, dreadful, or at least marginally anecdote-worthy things. Yet, when I sit down to write on the blog, as of course I am doing right now, I can't help but think that a thousand tiny stories have come and gone from my busy little head over the last seven days, a few of which I would have liked to share.
I suppose I'll have to stick to the big stories, for now. Let's start with the track meet.

Seven days ago I boarded a bus that took me to Medford, Massachusetts where I spend the night at a very nice Hyatt. I feel compelled to mention that this was the first time I had spent the night in a hotel on a cross country or track trip and did not room with Chuck. I'm not sure why the coaching staff broke tradition last week, but they did, so I roomed with Mark. Mark's a good guy. Definitely a Grade A Masshole though.

We got up too early for my liking on Saturday morning, boarded the same bus, and rode it to Boston University's indoor track, where we spend the next eleven hours. This is one of the reasons I like cross country so much more than track. In XC, you show up, you warm up, you race, you cool down, and you leave. Usually, there are only two races per meet, men's and women's. A track meet is a much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much longer ordeal.

On the upside, we got to watch Galen Rupp (Olympic silver medalist in the London 10,000m) run a mile in 3:50. Let me repeat that number, slowly: Three minutes and fifty seconds. That's between 57 and 58 seconds per 400, or 28-29 seconds per 200, which is my 200 pr. So picture me doing my all-out spring for 200m (that's half a lap on an outdoor track, like CdM's), and extrapolate that same pace for 1,600m. Wow, wow, wow. To put that in historical context, that is the second-fastest indoor mile ever run by an American, and the fifth fastest ever run by a human being, ever. Ever. I don't expect you to watch the whole thing, 'cause, y'know, that would probably take up your entire year's quota of watching sports, but you should at least watch the end. Or not. I guess I really can't make you.

For those curious, I ran 9:27 in the 3k. I went out in 5:01 for the first mile, which was too slow. I intend to do better tomorrow at Darmouth.

We didn't leave Boston until close to 9:00pm (Because track meets are much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, peanut butter, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, longer than cross country meets, remember?), so we didn't get back to Middlebury until around 1:00 am Sunday morning. I left my phone on the bus, and a couple days later I called (using someone else's phone, dummy) and the bus service will hopefully return my phone to me tomorrow when I board their bus to go to Dartmouth. Not having a phone for a week is awesome, guys. And I mean that. I feel the same relief that I felt right after deactivating my Facebook account. No needless responsibility to things that don't matter. So I'm not sure I'm looking forward to getting it back.

Corey Perry's marvelous and botched OT chance.

The Ducks are still playing well, by the way. They are 3-1-1 on the season, and I thought the last game they played, which was a shootout loss to the Number One team in the league right now, was the best they had played all season. Incidentally, this was the game that Jason almost went to. I can't help but think that if Jason had gone to that game, Selanne's shootout bid would have skimmed the bottom of the crossbar and gone in instead of hitting it squarely in the front and bouncing out. 'Tis a shame.

In other Ducks-related news (but wait, you guys might actually want to read this), I applied for a position as a blogger (I'd like to say sportswriter, but that might be pushing it) on the prestigious (well, in my mind at least) blog Anaheim Calling. I submitted two pieces of writing, one arguing that J-S Giguere is the most important player in Ducks history, and the other recapping the aforementioned Ducks-Sharks game, and lo and behold I got the position. My writing has not yet appeared on the website, but it will soon. So that's exciting if you're me, which you're not.
Wait, here's why it's exciting for you: Now that I have a place to blog about the Ducks besides here, I might talk about them less on this blog! You have gotten your wish, Rachael.

Today is February First. February First is the deadline for Middlebury students to apply for study abroad. Which I did yesterday. To the University of Otago. In Dunedin. On the South Island. Of New Zealand. New Zealand? You know? This place:

So I'm not excited at all about any of that.

Back to school though: J-term is now over, and we get a week off. Next week, specifically. So I'm meeting my parents in Park City and we're gonna do some skiing. Hooray. Now the forecast just needs to get a lot better.

And while we're on the topic of weather, WHAT IS WRONG WITH IT HERE? How can it go from below zero with lots of snow on the ground to 50˚ and raining with all the snow melting and all the grass showing to back to below freezing with snow covering the ground, all in a few days. Very, very strange. I do not like it, Sam I am. I do not like green eggs and ham.

I think I'll conclude this week's post with (more than) a few words on the class I have just finished taking.

Class picture we took on the last day.

If I had to rank every class I have ever taken in terms of favoritistness, from circle time in preschool through kindergarten and elementary school and middle school and high school and college and the few classes I've taken in the summer for various things, the class I took this month would be Number One. We read lots of good things, we wrote lots of decent things, and we listened to each other read out loud the things they had written, and that's all we did. There were some really, really, really good writers in that class. Funny, clever, heartbreaking, and surprising. At the end of the class, the teacher put together a book with one story from each person, and we all got a copy. So that was good.
I think that's it. Bye.