Go me!

Just got an e-mail from the race organizer of the Waterloo Classic. Seems I did get the third place award after all (since Joanna Fedy the captain of the waterloo xcountry team won the race). yay! I have an age group medal.

My poor bike :(

So this morning I went for a bike ride with burger and shortly after she turned around to go back home my bike broke down. Word from the bike store is that there is a good chance it might not be worth the money to fix it, in that case I'll be salvaging the parts and giving what is still good to Burger. She'll have one awesome bike by the end!!!

So I've been looking seriously at Tri bikes. I think I'm willing to go into debt over it. For anyone who is curious as to which models I'm looking at, I'll post the links

1) Norco C-tri
http://www.norco.com/05/2005bikes/road.php
2) Trek Equinox 7
http://www2.trekbikes.com/Bikes/Road/Time_Trial-Triathlon/Triathlon/Equinox_7/index.php
3) Quintana Roo Kilo
http://www.rooworld.com/bikes/2005/kilo.aspx
4) Quintana Roo Tequilo
http://www.rooworld.com/bikes/2005/tequilo.aspx
5) Fuji Aloha
http://www.fujibikes.com/2005/bikes.asp?id=21

If there is anything else that I find that is in my price range I may go for that one too, but so far these ones seem to be the front runners.

I guess I should update...

Not much new is going on in this end of the world. I have been lacking serious motivation at school for about a week now. I'm so close to being done 774, but I can't motivate myself to work on it. Instead I've been spending way too much time working on my TA, just taking my time with it. But I did stay until 5:00 tonight, so maybe the draught is over?

I can't remember what I did outside of school last week, so obviously it wasn't too exciting! But I did go berry picking and made jam (yum!)

This weekend I was helping my sister move and in belleville for my granny's birthday. Since I was in that end of the province, I met up with C-Dub and went to Kalan Porter. I'm a dork :). He was definitely a good singer, I just think he needs to find his own style. We also went out dancing which was super fun. I have been dancing in way too long! C started talking to these two guys asking them why they weren't dancing. Turns out she works with one of them. How funny is that? They were both engineering students from Dal.

S & W's new place is really nice. It was nice getting to see them again, I hadn't seen W since he broke his ankle. It is all healed again and he is allowed to return to sports. I'm trying to convince him to train and do the Niagara Half Marathon. Hopefully he doesn't fall and break his other ankle this time. (He broke it running under my bidding :O :(). I guess that is it.

Oh, and I saw my dad's pictures from his trip to Italy and Greece. Gorgeous! I'm so excited about going next summer. He got me a fake Louis Vuitton Purse. It is pretty nice - I guess there are some benefits to your dad dating someone. Presents are better :)

#@%$!

Not good :( I've been trying to get these stupid model runs done on my computer for like 4 days now. What happens??? The last two somehow crash when there is like a couple hours left on them. I have no clue what caused the crash. But here I go, leaving my computer all day again for the 5th day in a row. GRrrrrrr. I'm not a happy camper.

However, I did order my copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince last night :D It will be available for me to pick up at 12:01 am on July 16th. Only 24 more days!!!!!!!!

Another weekend gone

And none too exciting either! Kind of weird that I like being in waterloo for the weekend and not going anywhere, but I always end up being bored when I'm here.

Friday was a busy tri-training day. Went for a swim in the morning and managed to sneak in 2000 yards, go me! Later I went to the gym and did my weights and drove over to the soccer practice, I was 25 minutes early, so decided to take advantage and go for the run I had planned. Ended up doing 4, I wanted to do more, but I was pretty happy I got in anything at all.

Saturday I went to the Market. I love going there. I bought some orange gerbers and they are totally brightening up my kitchen. I love flowers :). Later on I read some, slept some, and finally got out of my lazy spell around 4 and cleaned my apartment. Top to Bottom. Man, it felt good. My apartment is now sparkling :). Around 9 I got a call from my cousin, she was going to be in KW sunday for her NLS (Lifeguard) recertification and needed a place to stay on Sunday night so that brightened my day.

Sunday, had my race in the morning :D. We all know that it went really well. I'm still grinning about it this morning. It feels really good to have accomplished something I didn't think I was capable of doing! I usually set lofty athletic goals, and am really hard on myself when I don't meet them. However, my last three races (two halfs and my 5K) all went really well. Yes, I was off my goal by 9 minutes in Ottawa, but really I know that the weather played a huge role in that so I was able to move past the time part of it. Later on, I was pretty wiped after such an exhaustive effort. I slept some more, and read a bit. In the afternoon, it really didn't look like it was going to clear up, but it definitely wasn't going to rain, so I took my camping stuff out from last weekend to air out and dry out before dinner. Sure enough, after dinner the clouds had cleared and it was bright bright bright. Oh well, I'm not psychic!

I went to pick up zoers at the Y at 9:30 and on the way home we rented Princess Diaries 2. Very Cheesy, but in a good sort of way. I was a little disappointed though when Julie Andrews broke into song and dance and it wasn't My Favorite Things. Zoe had to be off early this morning so I saw her off and went back to my apartment to work from home. I'm now at school to set up my computer (infinity yay!) and do my office hour. There isn't enough time in the day! Oh well, I have my model running on my computer at home, so I'm multi-tasking :)

I'm a speed demoned :)

I did the Waterloo Classic 5K race this morning, and for the first time ever, I really truely raced a 5K.

Finishing time, 25:43 according to my watch (they have chip timing, but without a starting mat, the number is kind of useless... my official time was 26:04). This is a full 1:30 faster than my PR and watch time, 1:50 minutes faster. I rock :)

Sorry for all you non-runners out there, but I'm super proud of myself! (4/24 in F20-24 too... but all the fastest youngin's run the 10K).

ACK!

Many of you may know, I'm afraid of birds, I can't deal with them. I find them very unpredictable, and they have no limitations where they can be... as humans we pretty much exist in 2-Dimensions. Yes, we can climb a tree, or a hill, but we are still attached to the gound in some way. Not birds.

So this morning, I was out for a run, and what happens? A bird attacks me. Yep, attacks. I hear this thud thud behind me of its wings flapping, and next thing I know, I feel it going at my head, with it beak or its feet, I do not know. I probably broke the world record for the 100m trying to get away from this crazed bird, it scared the bejebus out of me!!!

That is by far, the only drama in my life these days. Didn't do too much to end my fear of birds!!!

Nothing new

So instead of posting my normal boring what-I-did-today crap, I though I would mix it up a bit.

With Burger starting the one month count down (almost! This Thursday :)) to the Half Blood Prince, it got me thinking about what will happen to Harry next.

I did some browsing last night on the net (went to JKR's website, but dissappointingly, there is nothing new), so I went off to browse the fan sites. I found a new one I had never heard of before HPANA.net, or something like that. They had a forum that had some really interesting conversations going on about who the half blood prince is, and what (if anything) the book cover art means. For those of you who haven't seen the cover yet, here is the link http://www.bloomsbury.com/media/hbp_large.jpg. So the biggest question mark on the cover art had to do with the black ring on the spine. What does it mean? Whose is it?

So someone with WAY too much time on their hands noticed that in the Order of the Pheonix there is a chapter called "The Ancient and NOBLE house of Black" in which they mention a black ring. Coincidence? likely not. JK always gives hints about what is to come in her books. Especially since she has known now for close to 10 years how the books are going to end. So me being a big Harry Potter fan (not huge as some people, but I would say I'm a pretty big fan - I'm on my 5th time through the books right now) want to know what the deal is. And I CANNOT wait another month :)

So here are my thoughts. A while ago on JKs website she talked about two things that may be important. 1) the whole half blood prince thing was originally meant for the 2nd book, but that it was too long and complicated to fit in there, so she took it out. Note: the original title of the Chamber of Secrets was the Half Blood Prince. 2) the Weasly's were originally supposed to have a cousin, I believe in the second book as well, but that she was taken out because she made it too complicated, and she didn't really fit (possibly because the HBP stuff got taken out???). So I linked this with 3) for those that have read the 5th book, you remember the family tapestry, all members that showed too much fondness for Muggles/Mudbloods were taken off. Like Black himself, and also the weasleys. Ah... blacks family is related to the weasley's, so could they not also be related to this unknown character that was taken out of the 2nd book? And could that person be the half blood prince with the black ring? Too much speculation I know, but I'm soooooo excited for the next book, I can't wait.

Does anyone else have any other crackpot ideas of what's to come?

One canoe trip down

And I have the wet, smelly belongings, sunburn, and bug bites to prove it!

On friday morning I was up before the crack of dawn (hard to do in June! 5:20) to have a shower and get myself off to Huntsville (got there at 10). Had an uneventful drive up there and met my cousin. In regular Walton fashion things were a little disorganized when I got there and it was 2:15 before we finally got the canoe into the water. The first day saw two portages and about 3 hours of paddling to our campsite, which was pretty nice, not too buggy, nice swimming area. However we notice some very large droppings which I recognized to be bear - they were a little old, but still the thought was in my head, so I had a pretty rough night sleep. (For those of you that don't know, I had a bear on my campsite 5 years ago, and it was very scary, it has kind of scarred me forever... I'm always a little nervous in my tent because I feel vulnerable like I can't do anything to fight back.

Saturday brought more sunshine and fewer bugs, so that was nice. A lot of portages though, the last being over a km. Shortly before the portage we could see clouds rolling in, and sure enough, partway across the last lake we started hearing thunder moving in (from all directions!) we found the closest campsite and set up camp (we had wanted to make it to the other end of the lake, but weren't going to risk our safety for it. Coincidentally there was a cute waterfall across a little bay from us, so that was really pretty :) unfortunately though, the campsite had a) leaches, ewwwwww... one thing I am afraid of, and blackflies, double ugh. I loathe blackflies. So another un-interesting evening at camp. we went to bed early because the blackflies were coming out in droves. Was awoken at 9:45 (yes, I was asleep before 9) by a huge crash of thunder... it proceeded to pour rain for half an hour, and the storm was literally on top of us for a good 10 minutes. My paranoid self was afraid a tree was going to get struck down and fall on top of us... actually, I was more worried that my virgin tent wouldn't handly the torrential downpour and that all of our pocessions would be soaked. When it finally let up, we got out of the tent and made channels with rocks to ensure that the water was draining away.

Sunday morning we were up bright an early since I had to make it back to w/loo, and on the water by 8:30 again. only this time, it was overcast and wet from the thunder, so the mosquitos were out in full force. We did a 1600 m portage right away, and the mosquitos molested me... at one time I slapped my hand killing four of them in one swipe. The rest of the day was better than the first portage, but the sun never really came out so I felt it unecessary to put on sunscreen... bad laura, you know better than that, so I got a little pink... well, in some places a lot.

The drive home was good... except to down pours where we slowed to a crawl, I made it back to wloo in really good time. And I guess that is it... great weekend. The bugs were bad on land, but one the water it was gorgeous!!!!!

Obviously, I'm doing no work today

My super hero identity

Name: Blaze Muffin
Secret Identity: Laura Jones
Special Power: Psionic Push
Transportation: Nuclear Skateboard
Weapon: Quantum Sling
Costume: Stainless Steel Pajamas
Sidekick: Odd Job
Nemesis: Arnold the Unspeakable
Tragic Flaw: Addicted to solitaire
Favorite Food: Salad

weird... I got a really good deal on romaine last week, so I HAVE been eating more than the average amount of salad lately...

La la La

Hmmm... really not much to report. My whole body is sore (but in a good way) from the weights I did on Thursday. My own fault for not going for soooo long.

Last night I went to see "The sisterhood of the travelling pants" with MK and PS (both from CRA) and with QC. It was actually pretty good. The comercials looked corny, but the trailer we saw a couple of weeks ago looked pretty good, so we went. Not upset at all about spending $7.00 to see it, it was worth it. Kind of really hit home in a couple of parts... one of the girls mother's passed away and she was afraid to let herself feel sad, and another one was afraid to love someone, a third had their dad dating someone new... hmm... all of those sound oddly familiar. And even though the movie was about 16 and 17 year olds, they were oddly relateable to my 24 year old self.

So onto my rant. There was a solid 10 minute of commercials before the movie started. WTF, 10 minutes of commercials??? ARe they not already making enough money? And then a few previews... one for Harry Potter :D, had seen it on the computer, but oh, so much better on the big screen :), but by the time the movie started it was well past 7:30 (like 25 minutes of stuff before the movie...), and it was a 2 hour movie! Way too long for my busy self to be sitting still!

This morning I did a brick workout (bike and run). I felt like a studette :) And tonight is soccer. My new soccer motto is "I may not be good, but I'm scrappy :)".

Tagged by Kbum

List five songs that you are currently digging ... it doesn't matter
what genre they are from, whether they have words or even if they're
any good but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post
these instructions, the artist and the song in your blog along with
your five songs. Then tag five other people to see what they're
listening to.

Speed of Sound by Cold Play (I'm going to have to ditto jen on this one :))
Beverly Hills by Weezer
Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani
Behind these hazel eyes by Kelly Clarkson (I'm a dork, but I like her music now)
Don't Phunk with my heart by The Black Eyed Peas

I don't have anyone to tag, so this is it :)

More activity...

This time weights and swimming. Both were sucessfull, however when I did 3x100 m in my swim I felt very out of shape. Not that I am out of shape, guess just out of swimming shape. I also did my weights yesterday for the first time in 7 weeks (I recounted last night, wow, was that a long time). So I am somewhat sore the morning. The first part I could feel when I woke up was my abs, but it has now expanded to include my shoulders and my upper thighs/buttocks. Kind of a good feeling, but it isn't making climbing stairs any easier!

Nothing else really. I get to proctor my first midterm this afternoon. That should be fun. I don't really have any work planned for today since the kiddies will probably be coming to ask me all sorts of questions. (I know they are only 3 years younger and are 21-22, but they are still kiddies in my mind... they don't know what the exxon valdez was, 'nough said).

So I almost forgot, for those of you who didn't see my comments on kbums blog, or my messenger name last night, I found my passport, YAY!!!

Back to activity

Yep, I'm *gasp* training again... not hardcore, that won't start for a while yet.

Last night I didn't do too much. Did my laundry and started cleaning my apartment... maybe I'll tackle one room a night? and did my laundry. I also went for a very windy hilly bike ride, but I still managed 21 kms in just over 50 minutes... a little slower than normal, but not too bad considering the hills and the wind. Hopefully it won't be so hilly in peterborough! Really have to get cracking on this tri-training business... I feel so out of tri shape... although I'm going to go swimming tomorrow morning, hopefully will get in a good 1500m or so.

Also put on the running shoes this morning for the first time since the half marathon and ran just under 5 km. Felt good to be running again, but the heat and humidity were a little much. I really have to get to this summer running business again.

So that is it for now. Nothing exciting to report, sorry to bore you all.

*sigh*

Wow, has it ever been a busy week.

Monday to Wednesday was stressing over getting stuff done for my TA and my conference which was this past thursday and Friday (sorry for not calling you JC, we didn't end up having any spare time during the day for us to have gotten together). Burgers and MKs presentations went really well. They really sounded like they knew what they were talking about :) Me on the otherhand, I'm not so sure. I was terrified! I kept on pressing the wrong button and was fumbling my words. I knew I was fidgiting (tucking my hair behind my ears) but there was nothing I could do to stop it! I was much better with my presentation board though, I was able to explain what I had done with ease and answer questions intellegently. I wish that is all that was involved with presentations. Give me one-on-one instead of in front of a group any day.

So then Friday night I was back to Belleville for D's Stag and Doe. If any of you were watching global news and saw the huge accident on the 401 at Brock Rd, I was stuck behind that. I realized when I saw the news choppers and airplanes flying overhead that I was going to be there a while and turned off my car. We were completely stopped for about an hour and it took us another hour to make it the 1.5 km we had to travel (in one lane of traffic) around the accident. Talk about pain in the ass. I hope no one was hurt though, when I saw the vehicals, I was emotionally shaken. There was an SUV involved that looked like it was packed up to go to the cottage, and it was complete bent in half (middle section up, like this /\), and a small car that was completely smushed in at the back. If there had been anyone in the back seat of either of the vehicles, I'm certain they would not have survived. (there was also another car - a van, and 2 transports involved in the accident.)

Was in Bville for less than 12 hours, I needed to make it back to waterloo to do my marking that I have been neglecting, I knew it wouldn't get done in Belleville. Probably 5 hours of marking on Saturday, 2 hours of finding solutions on Sunday and another 3-4 hours of marking on Sunday afternoon (on top of coming into school for an hour on sunday to enter marks and talk to the prof that I am TA-ing for - their midterm is this week). So all in all, and exciting 11-12 hours of ENV 320 this weekend. I know you are all super jealous.

Back to the grind this morning. Todays goal - get my solution sets in a presentable fashion and get them up on the web. and then prepare for tomorrows tutorial by going over old midterms and understanding the solutions incase I get asked to explain anything. Only 2 more days until their midterm and a bit of a break for me :)

Also - going canoeing this coming weekend with my cousin from BC - Z, her summer job is leading kids on canoe trips, I'm soooooo jealous! So we are going to go out for a little one this weekend... she's never actually been on a canoe trip before, so it'll be good practice for her... maybe I'll get her to do all the work on the portages :)

hee hee

What Harry Potter character will you find under your bed? by kaitkaitkait
Name:
Age
Who	Severus Snape
You say:	"I suppose a shag is out of the question..."
He says:	"I am here for you, my love, in your hour of need. OK, make that four hours."
He comes out, holding a	book, entitled 'Wizarding Kama Sutra'.
You react by	grabbing him with both hands and snogging him senseless.
And finally...	...you have the most fantastic sex imaginable, every night for the rest of your lives.
Quiz created with MemeGen!