BIKE!

I've wanted to get a bike for about 3 years now, but I didn't know how to buy a bike and I was intimidated by the idea of riding in the street with cars. I haven't been on a bike since I was about 14, at which point I was still allowed to ride on the sidewalk because I was just a kid.
I decided to try to find a cheap bike at a yard sale, that way if I didn't ride much I wouldn't be out much money. On Sunday, Dan and I set out in search of an awesome new bike. We spotted a couple of road bikes, but I wanted a mountain bike instead so that I wasn't committed to just riding on the road. We went to a yard sale that had advertised "BIKES!" on Craigslist, but they only had one road bike out. I mentioned to the guy that I was looking for a mountain bike and he went into his scary shed and got out this crappy bike and offered it to me for free. It needed a new seat and a chain, but it was free to I took it. I put a seat on it that very same day, and my boss put a chain on it for me (hi Greg!) and now it is the most amazing bike in the world!!! LOOK:

I've gone on 3 bike rides since Sunday, and I am so glad I got this bike. I forgot how much fun it is to ride a bike! So far I haven't had any problem with cars, although I don't trust those suckers. Soon I will ride downtown and if it's an easy ride (I think it will be; it's only 3 miles or so) I will be able to ride my bike home from work instead of having to wait for rides. Hooray! 

Sheesh, between running, playing tennis, climbing mountains, and now biking, I'm pretty much a jock by now. 

Running FAIL

I was up until 3am this morning because of some ill-advised coffee consumption at 9pm last night. I then slept until 10:30 this morning and debated going for a run. It's supposed to be 81 degrees today, so I figured I would have to go before noon if I didn't want to be too hot. Finally at 11:15 I decided to go. I ate a banana, drank a little water, and stepped onto my porch to gauge what 58 degrees felt like. I decided it was pants weather. 

I also decided to try for 30 minutes (which is my next goal) of continuous running, which would be about 3 miles for me. I went on a new route which was nice, and decided to run 15 minutes in and then back. It became apparent after about 5 minutes that a) 58 degrees is not pants weather, therefore I was not dressed properly b) I hadn't eaten enough and c) I was not properly hydrated. I also forgot sunscreen, and there was little to no shade along the way. I am pretty stubborn, so I just pushed on. I decided to turn around at 12:30 and just try for 25 minutes, since thus far 20 minutes is the longest I've been able to run. I got there and turned around, but when I hit 16 minutes I had to stop to walk because I started feeling dizzy. D'oh. I tried to start running again a couple of times, with no luck. I speed-walked back home, feeling crabby the whole way. I'm not sure if the lack of food was the biggest issue. I see people running at 5:30 am all the time. I have a hard time believing that they get up at 4, eat a regular breakfast, wait an hour, and then run. I think it was the heat/dehydration; if I had had a little more water and worn shorts, I would have been fine. Oh, well. Live and learn. 

I'm going to have to figure out how to run without dying now that it's getting hot out. I'll (hopefully) be working full time starting next week, which means early mornings for me , so running before it gets hot isn't an option, and I need to get in bed early so waiting for it to get dark also isn't an option. I guess that's why people get gym memberships. 

wedding and running and pen pal, oh my!

Ah, freedom. Today is my first day off in a very long time. No homework, no work, no class, no commitments...it's nice. And now my life consists of wedding planning, running, and becoming BFFL with my new pen pals! Yeah, you read that right. Ms. Popular over here has two pen pals now! Beat that, loser!

Now that my semester is over, I am in full-on wedding planning mode. The big day is 7 weeks from tomorrow. How the hell did that happen? At this point, I am trying to figure out what we have left to do. I think we're in good shape. Tomorrow I am going to look for a bridesmaids dress with Tara and find shoes. I want some that look like this, but white:

My dess fitting appointment is a week from Saturday, and I was talking with my awesome friend Krissy, who is doing my hair for the wedding, about our plan for that day, all of which is making the whole thing seem more real. I think the day is going to be a lot of fun. We're keeping it pretty casual because we're not fancy people, which I think is cutting out a lot of stress. Although, there is still a lot of stress. Gross!  

I just went for a run. It's the first time in a long time I've had time to do it during the day, so I was able to run my old route instead of laps in the yard. It was good and bad; it felt psychologically harder because it's easier to zone out in the yard, plus I would see all the spots I used to stop and walk in and my brain was like "heeeey, it's walking time!" but I was able to run much farther and I was really appreciating how far my little lungs have come since even the last time I ran that route. Not only was I able to run the entire time without taking a walking break (something I wasn't able to do last time I ran that route), I even added on about half a mile (making the run about 2 miles) and never stopped to walk. My plan was to run the two mile loop and keep going past my house for about 3 or 4 minutes before turning back, which would have made my run about 25 minutes long. But when I saw my house, I suddenly felt very lazy and only ran about 32 seconds before turning around. So I gave up at 18:40. Oh, well.

PENPAL UPDATE!!! So my pen pal and I are basically bff's by now. We've written each other like a million emails. Well, actually only four, and two of those were just us deciding whether or not to be pen pals and how we wanted to go about writing messages. Whatever. The main thing she says to me is "Jejejejeje!!" which is hilarious. Example: I told her that I'm studying to become a translator and she responded: "Translator! Jejejjeee!" 

As if it couldn't get any better, this guy from Peru sent me an email asking me to be HIS pen pal, so now I have two! I'm glad that I have one from Latin America and one from Spain because I will learn the different dialects. I'm going to be way more awesome at Spanish like next week. I've already learned some new phrases ("by the way" and "sounds good to me"). This is awesome. I bet you're jealous! 

Penpalz!

Whoamg I have a pen pal! Yesterday I mentioned that I was searching out a language exchange, and I already found someone! This is just as exciting as when my 4th grade class became pen pals with a 4th grade class in, like, Missouri or somewhere. Except this time, my pen pal is from SPAIN! And I'm already struggling to understand what the heck she's saying to me! This is going to be awesome.

girl with plan

Ah, so close. One final down, three to go. I have two tests tomorrow, and a paper due on Wednesday, and then that's it for the semester. I'm trying not to get too stressed about these finals; however, it is in my nature to be stressed out at all times.

I'm feeling a little anxious about not speaking Spanish between now and September. I felt rusty after winter break for crying out loud. But I have a plan, believe you me! First, I'm seeking out a language exchange--which is something worth looking into if you want to learn a language but don't want to commit to a class. There are several free websites (I chose lingofriends.com) where you can sign up and find what is essentially a pen pal whose native language is the one you want to learn and who is interested in learning English. There are options to chat and skype as well. I just signed up and sent some messages to prospective amigas, so I'm not entirely sure what will happen. I'm imagining writing emails back and forth that are half in English and half in Spanish. I'm also imagining that it will be awesome.

Beyond that, I'm planning on watching a bunch of movies and reading books in Spanish (I got a dual-language book of short stories which is much less frustrating than tackling a novel at this point), but my main plan is to teach Dan Spanish over the summer. I'm thinking about trying to find some students to tutor in the fall, so this will also be good practice for that. The only downside to Dan learning Spanish is that the game we like to play where he strings sentences together using words he's heard followed by me translating what he is saying will be much less fun. Example of what I'll be giving up: "No comprendé el poquito mono. ¡Tengo hambre!" (I didn't understand the little monkey. I'm hungry!) So basically, when my fall semester starts I'm going to be the greatest Spanish speaker the world has ever known.

!!

Brooklyn

Dan ad I like to sneak away to NYC when we can, and we've gotten in the habit of driving to Poughkeepsie, staying overnight, and then catching the train in the morning rather than doing the round trip in one day. It makes the trip a little more exciting, and hotels in Poughkeepsie aren't that expensive.
So we stayed at the Hampton Inn on Saturday night (a great hotel if you're a germaphobe like me--it's really clean and comfortable) and made our way to New York yesterday. We wanted to visit the aquarium and then find the McSweeney's store, both in Brooklyn. We were pretty excited to explore a new area as we usually just stay in Manhattan. Here are some highlights from our trip:

While waiting for the F train, we saw some rats on the tracks, which got Dan all excited. He tried to take a picture of them, but they scurried away too quickly. When we got to Coney Island (which is where the aquarium is located), we (I) immediately ran over to the ocean. Although it was supposed to be hot and humid, it was really chilly at the shore, but this didn't stop tons of people from laying out in their bathing suits. Dan convertly snapped this photo of this little scene:

The water was obviously freezing, a fact which I investigated by standing where a wave could wash over my feet. As soon as it hit, I squealed and ran away at the exact same moment an 8 year old did the exact same thing! I'm a grown up!
Next, we walked along the boardwalk a little bit and had some lunch before going into the aquarium. The best part was this enormous walrus who kept swimming directly towards the glass and then turning at the last second, bumping the side of his body against it. At one point, she laid her entire belly against the glass, and my face was located in an area that allowed me to identify it as a "she." We also saw the sea lion show, which was cool.
Finally, we went to a showing of Planet Earth: Oceans in 4-D (dimension four: they spray you with water). While they were corralling people into the the small theater, this insane woman was sitting in the middle of a row and refused to move to the end so that other people could come in (her excuses for not being able to move 3 seats down? She was pregnant and she'd paid for her ticket!) until the staff threatened to call security. Much to my dismay, she moved (while yelling out to no one in particular "I want a refund....by the way!"). I would have loved to see security remove her. After the movie, we considered following her to see if hilarity ensued, but we decided to leave instead.
After we'd had our fill of aquatic life, we set off in search of the McSweeney's store. Dan has wanted to go to it for awhile, but we hadn't been able to track down an address until now. Except when we got to the storefront, it was actually a dry cleaners. Thankfully, there were some hipsters nearby who directed us to the actual store. It was interesting, the sell all kinds of "superhero supplies" and all of the proceeds go to a creative writing tutoring center in the back.
That was all we had time for. We wanted to check out the botanical garden, but that will have to happen another time.