Sunday, February 27, 2011

Tap tap, tap tap yo feet!

So dudes, I saw Lord of the Dance on Friday (Feb 25th) and OH MY FREAKEN GOD IT WAS MIND BLOWING!!!!!!!! no joke :P If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, first off, *shakes head* and secondly, don't worry, a lot of people don't know what I'm talking about haha But i'm here to enlighten you a bit, so be ready!
Here's an awesome quick clip of what MIND BLOWING stuff I saw:



Incredible right??? All that tapping was their FEET DUDES!! Do you get what I'm saying!!! THEIR FEET!!! GAHHHHH!!!! simply incredible. :) my life is now complete. haha I have always been into this kind of stuff ever since I could remember. I did tap and ballet when I was younger and aspired to being a part of this group when I grew up. Of course, that dream died when I found that dancing really wasn't my type of thing, but boy do I love watching it! This stuff truly makes me proud to be Irish! haha so yeah, that was great. It was playing at Miller Auditorium in Michigan and the place I interned at this past summer, my supervisor gave my family 4 tickets to see it, and they were the best seats in the house!!! I bought the CD, a wicked t-shirt and I bought the DVD off of ebay (was like 25 bucks cheaper that way :P ) now, I kinda want to get back into all that awesome tap and irish jig stuff, maybe I'll try it out this summer, see where it takes me :P haha yeah maybe not...

In other news! Our last Indoor track meet was yesterday and I ran the 1mile, the 800m, and the 4x4 Relay. Yeah, it was a lot to ask for that's for sure :P But, in all, it went okay, I didn't do worse, but I didn't meet my expectations :/ I ran the EXACT same time in my mile, and my 800m sucked only because I was put in the 1st heat and the closest girl to me runs a 2:32 (I ran a 2:36 last week) so there was a huge gap from me and the rest of the group, yeah not fun, and it also frustrates me how in high school I ran a 2:32 all the time and now I struggle trying to run a 2:36 gahhh! me' old legs I guess :P and finally the 4x4, this was my last chance to give it my all, and dudes, I totally did :) our goal was to get less than a 4:20 and we finish with a 4:19!!! yeah it may only be one second but hey! we made it and did it!!! :DDD so at least it ended on a good note :)

So yeah, pretty productive weekend. The agenda for today: Study for Midterms booooo!! Spring break is less than a week away, and all I can say is Florida here I come!! :DDD
Peace

~Annie

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

I'm ahhhhhhhLIVEE!!!!!

It's been a bit over a week since my last post, sorry peeps for keeping you waiting! That's how the life of a student works though during Midterms week :/ Yep, I've been stressed up to my neck! But hey, I'm here to give you good news and to kinda escape the stressful environment ;)

So first things first, TRACK! We had a meet last week on Friday, and dudes, I dominated!! And when I mean dominated, I mean it as in like, I proved myself, not that I won the race or anything, but yeah :P So anywho, I ran the 800m for the first time this year on that Friday and, I was kind of afraid of what was gonna happen to tell you the truth since I haven't ran a good 800m since my senior year in high school (last year/freshmen year was an epic fail on my part when it came to that race). But, I know this race, more than the 1600m that I've only just started running this year so, yeah! It was AWESOME! My madre was there too, I swear she's like my biggest fan out there :P Running all over the place, getting ready to cheer and shout out commands (she's a former runner, and was an AMAZING one too, or so she says, hehe) so, in the end, I came out with a 2min 36sec run, which isn't great, but it's an awesome starting pointing for me :D And I came in 3rd! The thing that sucked was, 2nd place was about 7 seconds in front of me (2min 29sec) and then BAM there was just a void/emptyness between me and her so I had no one really in front of me to push me to catch up to :/ I think if just one person was somewhere in that void I would have at least cut off 4 seconds, but hey! I survived and did better than what I thought I would have :) My 400m times in both the DMR and 4x4 relay were great too, like a 63-62sec so that's awesome :D All in all, a huge sucess on my part and I was glad my mom was there to see it :) this is defiantly gonna be a better year than last. Not looking back from here!

Besides Track, in Air Force ROTC we had our Physical Fitness Assessment just yesterday. That's where we're tested on how many sit-ups we can do in a minute, how many push-ups we can do in a minute, and then a timed 1mile and 1/2. Well, I haven't worked on my upper-body or core lately, so out of 10 points for each, I was able to score a 8.5 on push-ups (33 push-ups total) and an 8 on my sit-ups (44 sit-ups total) which were my goals initially. The 1.5mile run though, I was gonna KILL! :DDD To score the max points of 60 from the run you have to run like a 10min 23sec, but my goal was 10min! And dudes, I ran a 9min 56sec!! Ye-YAH! I was so happy just because I had been working on that all along and finally I broke 10min which was better than what I asked! woot woot! haha That's like a 6min 28sec mile so not too shabby hehe
In total I scored:
     8.5 Situps
     8.0 Pushups
   60.0 Timed 1.5mi
+ 20.0 Meeting the weight requirements
   96.5!!!

The Detachment's goal is a 90 and I totally broke that, so *pats self on back* good job Annie, proud of ya ;)

Other good news! I got an A on my child and adolescent psychology exam! I studied for about 10hours or so, yeah I know, crazy right? But it paid off so woot woot!
what else.... hmmmmm I haven't fallen yet from all the ice on EVERYTHING! haha so that's a plus hehe
and, spring break is in T-Minus 10 DAYS! my mom and I booked 2 tickets to Florida, yup! We'll be chillen or err heating up with my twin and older sis down there so it's gonna be a blast, just all the girls together :D

Alrighty, well I believe it's my nap time now, sprinter workout today :/ not so sure about this...
PEACE!

~Annie

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Run Run! As fast as you can...

You can't catch me, I'm a TRINE TRACK RUNNER!! hehe yep totally just thought that one up. Brilliant!
So yeah, the 3rd Indoor Track meet of the season went on today and it went stupendously!! Running started at noon, so I still got to sleep in (thank god!) and was able to grab a bite before running :) I ran in the DMR (Distance Medley Relay) which goes in this order of legs: 1200m - 400m - 800m - 1600m. I thankfully was the 400m leg and ran a 65sec which isn't bad, but I know I can go faster later in the season fo sho. Our DMR team did great too! We didn't win, but we held up a good fight against Manchester, who were trying to get a qualifying time for nationals, so we had a lot up against us, but hey! we didn't get lapped and that's all that matters ;)
Next, I ran the 1600 with 3 other fellow Trine ladies. I broke my PR with a 5:54! This is only the second time I've ever competed in this event, and considering I've cut off 8sec from my last time, I know I can only continue to go down :) My other fellow Trine 1600m runners also did great! Beating their goal time and snatching their own PRs so already, early in the meet and ultimately, in the entire season, everyone is running extremely well, and it's only gonna get better from here!
So finally, the last event I ran was the 4x4 Relay. We had a great team set up, but when the time came, only myself and the anchor were able to run it (one runner wasn't cleared and the other pulled her quad muscle in the 60m dash). Yeah, it sucked. So we both tried to recruit two other runners, because we both just really wanted to run this race. So who do we find? Two 3k runners, and the 3k race is right before the 4x4 relay! and they're not especially trained to run the 400m... But hey! I respect both them a lot and they were the only ones that had the guts to suck it up and run 400m! Well, I popped it (and i guess a lot of people don't understand that term, so what I mean by "pop" is starter/1st leg) and ran a good time, a 63/64sec and our 2nd and 3rd leg were our 3k runners who ran extremely well! Better than what they both thought they could run! One ran a 1min 14sec, and she was at least hoping for a 80sec! and our anchor totally booked it and, dudes, watching her run is sooooo awesome! she just like flies!! no joke! She also won the 800m race with a 2:28, which to her is going "easy" haha :P Well, we didn't win the 4x4, but we never expected that and just did it for fun. :) I looked at the opposing team's final time and if we had the team we were supposed to have, we totally woulda dominated that race! no joke! ahhhhhh! if only :P next time, we will!
Ahhhhh..., whew it was a longggggg day! And after the meet we got a team picture, I'll post them once they're up and done editing them. I don't know who won the meet or how many points each team had, we were up against Defiance, Manchester, Sienna Heights, and Aquinas who were all awesome competitors! The boys did great too! To sum the whole meet up, it was a success :) and I totally cannot wait till our next one, which is this upcoming Friday, so woot woot!  Be there or be square ;)

And after the meet a few of us runners got together and drove to Steak and Shake and just chilled, it was great and well deserved for our hard work ;) I totally got the double chocolate shake and ate that whole thing in like 2sec! it was soooooooooo good haha

Well, i think i've painted a pretty accurate picture of the meet that happened today, and now will let your eyes rest from reading this post (and well let myself catch some well needed shut eye) :) Later dudes!
peace

~Annie

Thursday, February 10, 2011

must be WINDSday

Yup, thanks to that windchill, instead of it feeling like a "warm" 12F degrees today, it felt as cold as -16F!!! Yeah, -16F. so thank you again wind, you really burn my day, literally! my face is wind burned! haha but Trine University had vans on stand by this morning ready and willing to drive students to the cafeteria and classes, so that was a great thing to wake up to at least :)

Ah, well I guess I better finally update you on the second half of the basketball tournament we cadets enbarked on. haha Well, on Saturday, after throwing in about 5 hours of sleep, I got up and lugged my lifeless body to the van to head off once again to the Det. And, just a quick shout-out to Walt, our driver, being just such a wonderful guy. Willing to drive us multiple times that week and being able to even get a van in the first place was just wonderful of him to be there, always willing and ready to help us get to the places we need to go. Thank you Walt!!
Alrighty, so continuing, we got to the Det about 8:30am and headed off to the basketball court we are scheduled to play Purdue AFROTC at, at 9am. So we get there, ready to go, and.... Purdue never shows up. So we're like okay, whatever, we'll just play each other then since there was enough us there to just play each other on two separate teams. So we did that for like an hour then headed off to our respected scoring tables. THEN! it turned out that Purdue AFROTC was staying in a hotel only 10min from the Det! So we Trine Cadets made it to the game on time, being over an hour away, and Purdue, just 10min for the Det. couldn't make it!! And we still had to play them, no forfeits since I guess Purdue AFROTC was unaware of the game that morning, yeah, so we played them at 11am instead and got slaughtered. Final score: 82-23. :P I scored 2 points! haha But Purdue was actually really cool and apologized for not showing up that morning, so it was whatev. What sucked the most had to of been knowing we still had another game to play. Since we already pretty much played two games that day, and only got about 5 hours of sleep the night before, by this last game we all were like walking zombies haha
But the last team we played against, Wisconsin ROTC, was almost at about our level of expertise with basketball so it was actually a pretty fun game. Final score of that game was 48-25 YEAH! Even though we lost, we had over 1/2 the points! woot woot! haha And I totally got all bruised up in that game too, but it's battle wounds I'll proudly show off. I Survived playing in the Mens Bracket! ye-YAH! haha
Everyone did great too and had fun. We all started working as a team by that last game against Wisconsin so I think we really bonded more. It was cool :)
Then after that game, I checked my phone and saw Walt called. I listened to my voicemail and it turned out that we had to leave immediately because Angola was getting hammered with snow and the storm was heading right to ND, so I informed all the cadets of the emergency and called up Walt to tell them we were on our way out. We got home safely, thanks to the great driving by Walt, by about 4:30pm, and after dinner, I totally crashed on my futon at 6:30pm and didn't wake till midnight to quickly study for some ROTC happening the next day, and then went back to sleep at 1am and finally woke up, refreshed at 9am. Ahhhhhh... it was nice to finally sleep. But OH MY GOODNESS did i feel soar! You don't move like we did in basketball as we do in track, so it really awoke muscles within me that haven't moved around for awhile :P haha. But again, it was totally worth it :)

Ah well, I think i've blabbed enough haha. So even though we lost all 3 games this year,it just sets the bar low for us for next year, so we can really show the other ROTC cadets what we're really made of ;) heck yeah!
Later dudes,

~Annie

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Trine Cadets bring the THUNDER!!!

Alrighty, so it's like 1 o'clock in the morning on Saturday and I'm only up this late because I gotta update you on what happened less than a few hours ago! We Trine AFROTC cadets headed up to Notre Dame today at 1700 (5pm) for the 25th Annual ROTC Basketball Tournament our Det. hosts. Our game started 1900 and we were up against Notre Dame Navy ROTC. Though we had our awesome Trine AFROTC T-shirts, the ND NROTC had freaken jerseys! Yeah JERSEYS! But we put up a good fight. Cadet Winkler was our captain and even though I was new to the game, at least competitively, he taught me quickly. We put a strategy together and tried to impement it, but ya know, it was the first time we all actually had played together, so it was a little rough, and Navy was dominating up! But we had fun and never gave up. I scored two 3 pointers, yep ME! Unbelievable right? :P I pretty much just closed my eyes and let the ball do all the talking haha But everyone did awesome! We have two more games tomorrow. errrr... I mean today! We're gonna head out at 0730 and just try to make our moves in these upcoming games and just come out happy campers :)
*yawn* well I better head out, but before I do, here was our score from our 1st game: 16-51 or something like that haha I know, but hey we put up some sorta fight :P
Peace

~Annie

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

sNOw School DAY!

Yes, you heard right, college actually does have snow days!! crazy right?? I thought that was all a myth, but nope guess not :P Waking up at 10:30 this morning was AMAZING!!! no class, no homework to worry about, just chilling in the room, putting boots on to go get some food, and staying warm. ahhhh.... it was awesome. Though, track practice still was scheduled to happen at 1600, so I trudged on over there through the foot high snow and did my running. 3 miles on the indoor track and 20min on the bike. Not bad right? NO! dude, running 24 laps on that track was hypnotizing, I was like a zombie. So many turns ahhhhhhh!! But the bike was worse, the workout room was sooooooo hot and I was already sweating so after biking on that, it was sooo nice walking outside back to my room, that cold air felt soooo goood! :)

Track practice has been going well! I've been having an issue with my hamstring lately but the trainers have been giving me good advice on what to do. 20min of heat and a couple ibuprofen if it's that bad and whalah! i can go run without much of any pain. though, they've been insisting I take it easy this week, just so my hamstring can heal so I wont be running this weekend at IU. :( I know, sucks! But on a good note, I will be going to Notre Dame for the ROTC Basketball Tournament our Detachment hosts for Army, Navy, and AF Detachments around the nation! It's a lot of fun, even though some teams do take this like really seriously, but it'll be fun fo sho :) Us cadets from Trine made our own team and will be competing on Friday and Saturday. I ordered the team some shirts from a shirt printing store that is just down the street from campus and they were really kind and open to making the shirts for us so I'm totally excited to be showing off my shirt around campus, ohhhh yeah :D Here's the design I put together and hope to see it come out:

Photobucket

So, before I leave I'd just like to announce that I GOT THE RA POSITION!! ye-yah! I'm gonna be an RA next semester so woot woot! :D And! to top it all off, it's groundhog's day and it seems that Phil didn't see his shadow this year! So spring is coming early :DDDD But looking outside, I defiantly do not see that happening haha Alrighty, stay warm dudes ;)
Peace

~Annie