Best Day Ever!

Friday in second period my teacher asked me what my third period class was, because a friend of his from Iowa State was visiting. He had told me that he was friends with the Iowa State coach Paul Roads and when he told me this I was ecstatic. I have always wanted to meet him. So in third period I was practicing my Chinese fan dance when all of the sudden I see Paul Roads standing next to my teacher! I ran up to him, introduced myself, and shook his hand. We talked about Memphis and my cross country running, but unfortunately I was so nervous I didn't really know what I was saying and I don't think I made much sense. I wish I could have come up with better things to say and not have sounded so stupid, but it was Paul Roads!!! How could you not be nervous? Meeting him turned my boring day into one of the best days. Paul Roads is an awesome coach!

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NFL vs. College Football

I have been raised on football, going to Iowa State games with my parents, watching the Vikings play on T.V., even going to sports bars with my dad when I was a little girl. As the years go by my love for football increases and now I watch football all the time even when I don’t have a favorite team playing or my dad isn’t around.  After all these years watching football I started to wonder whether I liked the NFL or college football better. There are many similarities between the two, but there are also many differences.

In the NFL all the players are being paid. It seems to me that when I watch NFL some of the players care more about how well they do and what their paycheck is going to be than how well their team does. They just don’t put their heart in the sport like college players do. College players are trying to make it somewhere, they want to go to the NFL, the team acts as a family and I feel there is a bigger connection between them than what you would see in a NFL team.

Another difference between the NFL and college football for me is that it is so much harder to go to a NFL game than a college game. This doesn’t apply to everyone, but college games are a lot less of a drive than NFL. College games are also normally on Saturdays, while NFL mostly Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays and NFL games are more expensive. Nothing beats going to a football game and not just watching it on T.V., but NFL games are so much harder to go to.

Playoffs are awesome! NFL has playoffs that lead to the super bowl where you can watch two of the best teams fight for the trophy, while college teams go to bowls. Don’t get me wrong, bowls are a lot of fun, but it is one fun game and then the season is over. With playoffs you get to see teams really pull through and sometimes surprise you, because they all want to make it to the super bowl.

Another thing that makes the NFL better is that there is less, “Oh Shit,” moments. NFL players are just better; there aren’t as many interceptions with an 80 yard run or missing a field goal from the 20 when there is no wind. The players are simply better, especially the defense, but it can also be very fun when it’s your team with the 60 yard run.

NFL and college football are both really fun to watch. Although I love them both, in the end I think I like college football better. NFL might have playoffs and better defense, but you can’t beat cheering in the stands and the passion that college players have and NFL players lack.

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Trail

I have probably run almost 1000 miles on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. The trail runs all the way from Hiawatha to downtown Cedar Rapids. Scenery on the trail includes some trees along the trail, a creek, and a small polluted lake that we run around on the long days. After running on that trail for almost 1000 miles I have seen quite a bit of interesting things.

                First of all, I think I have seen more drug deals then a teenager who doesn’t do drugs should ever see. Seriously is it really a good idea to deal drugs as a bunch of runners and bikers pass by? Sometimes they deal drugs right on the trail, a guy hands some guy some money and receives a white bag, we run by them and almost choke on their strong smoke sent. Other times they do it more in the trees, they leave their bikes on the trail and you look over and see a couple men in the trees whispering and passing things back and forth.  

                Although the trail doesn’t seem like a place an animal would want to live, I have seen A LOT of animals on the trail. On Saturday mornings the trail has so many rabbits that once I almost stepped on one who decided to cross the trail at the wrong time. On morning I saw a beaver swimming in the creek and I have also seen a lot of other animals, such as snakes (mostly small snakes ran over by bikes). In the fall and summer (and for some reason this winter too) the trail surrounding the polluted lake is covered with geese and these geese are mean! They think they own the trail or something. I am slightly scared of them and have had to try multiple methods to avoid getting attacked. First I try to scream at them and make them run away, but sometimes they just hiss at you and don’t even flinch. Next if there are any bikers around I try to pass through the geese herd with them. One time I literally ran right in between two bikers who were talking and gave me the death glare the whole time, but at least I passed the vicious geese without getting attacked. If there are no bikers, and the geese won’t move I am normally forced to run right through the geese yelling and acting like a crazy maniac as I try to avoid the monstrous geese. There are many animals on the trail that make my runs a little bit more interesting.

                There are also a lot of homeless people on the trail. There is a bridge that we call the Hobo Bridge where there are always a lot of sleeping bags and large cups and in the summer there are homeless people up there too. I once saw a homeless person meditating on the train tracks with his sleeping bag and large cup sitting next to him. There was also a bed of sheets and blankets laying on the trail once and our coach said would give us 5$ for laying on it, but no one dared to take his offer.

                My coach normally rides his bike while we run on the trail and decided to grow a beard his year, so he looked really creepy. One time a lady started biking right next to us. We were really confused and then she turned to us and quietly said “do you guys know that man behind you,” we didn’t really know what she was talking about so she repeated in a louder voice, “do you guys know that man that is following you,” we all started laughing and told her he was our coach.

                We have had some very interesting times on the trail and seen some very interesting things. Although sometimes it can be a little scary it’s a lot of fun.

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Running Tights!!

One thing I love about running in the winter is getting to wear running tights. They are super comfy and really warm. I wish it was acceptable to wear them every where, because I love them so much.

My favorite brand of running tights is Nike. They fit the best and they have the most styles and colors. During the winter you can find running tights from Nike in Dick's Sporting Goods, Scheels, and almost every other place that sells sporting wear.

Here are some of my favorite running tights.

 
These are the thinner Nike Pro Combat tights which are really comfy and perfect for races.

I just bought this pair of the thicker Nike pro combat tights and they are very warm.

These are really cute and look really warm, so I think I might buy them with my christmas money!

Memphis!!

After eight hours of driving to Memphis for the Iowa State vs. Tulsa Liberty Bowl game, we arrived at the hotel, unpacked and went to a really cool restaurant called Blue’s City Café, which had a really cool pink Cadillac hanging on the ceiling and really nice and funny waiters. I had really good chicken tenders with amazing barbeque sauce.

The next day we went to Graceland and got a tour of Elvis’s house. After my dad forced us to listen to about three hours of Elvis radio on the way to Memphis, I wasn’t really looking forward to going to Elvis’s house, but I was pleasantly surprised. He got headphones which told fun facts about elvis’s life, his house was decorated very interestingly and we got to go into his two planes. We saw his funky looking outfits, his rooms which were very gaudy looking (one had crazy patterned carpet on the floors, ceilings and the walls), and after spending a few hours there I can say I am now a fan of Elvis. After we visited Elvis’s house it was around 1:00 and we were starving so we drove around and found this restaurant called the Butcher Shop, which happened to have one of the best burgers in town and we didn’t have to weight very long at all for them. Then we went back to the hotel, relaxed a little, visited a couple little shops, and got ready to go to the rodeo. The rodeo was a blast! It was extremely entertaining (except for this annoying clown that was supposed to entertain you, but just made dumb jokes and interrupted the actual rodeo). That was the first time I have went to a rodeo and I would love to go to another one!

We started the next day by going to the Peabody hotel to watch the ducks walk in. Every day at 11 am five ducks ride down the elevator from the roof of the building to the fountain and walk back to the elevator and back to the roof every day at 5:00 pm. So we waited a while, some guy gave a brief history about the Peabody and the ducks, and then watched five adorable ducks wobble down to the fountain. After watching the ducks we rode a trolley down to a restaurant called Central Barbeque. I got barbeque pork, which was extremely good and possibly the best barbeque I have ever had. Afterwards we went across the street to the Civil Rights Museum. The museum was interesting, but I think it focused too much on Martin Luther King Jr.’s death rather than his inspirational life. After the museum we went to the mall Wolf Chase Galleria and shopped a while. That night we went to a place called Silky O'Sullivan's, where we enjoyed some appetizers and then spent a couple hours singing songs, listening to the band, and cheering with the other Iowa State fans, which were starting to take over Beale Street.

By our fourth day in Memphis we were starting to get tired and there were cyclones everywhere. For every Tulsa fan we saw we saw easily over 50 cyclones (all wearing red and Gold). You could not go anywhere in downtown Memphis without seeing a bunch of fans. Restaurants on Beale were even running out of food and beer, because of how many cyclone fans there were!!! We decided to go to BB King’s, which is a pretty famous restaurant, at 11:00 am, because we figured that would be our only chance of actually getting to eat there without a two hour wait for food and not getting a table, and we were probably right. We had to wait a little less than an hour and I ended up getting to taste by far the best fried chicken, which you dipped in a mouthwatering gravy sauce. After we ate we walked around Beale street, I bought a really cool hat, and then people started lining up along the road for the parade, which didn’t start for a couple of hours, so we lined up along the road too. This was probably not very smart, because even though we got a really good spot for the parade it was freezing, we were tired and after the parade (which lasted way too long) we didn’t even feel like going to the pep rally. We lazily walked over to where the pep rally was taking place and saw how packed it was. I heard someone say that they weren’t allowing anyone else in, because there wasn’t enough room, so we walked around with numb feet looking for a restaurant that we didn’t have to wait over an hour for a table. We found a little restaurant where we could sit down right away and soon realized that it wasn’t crowded, because it was quite expensive. We ordered appetizers and headed back to the hotel, not even attempting to party on Beale Street, because of how cold and tired we were and how crowded everything was.

The next day was game day. We headed down to a really cool stadium and tailgated for a few hours and then headed into the stadium, which was almost as cool inside as it looked from the outside. The Iowa State side was almost completely full, while the Tulsa side was almost empty. The game started out really good. Iowa State was winning 17-7 by the end of the first quarter, but then it took a drastic down turn and we ended up losing 17-31. After the game we ordered Aldo’s pizza, and ate some very delicious and unique pizza’s.

Although the game was very disappointing, I am glad we went up early, had fun, and ate extremely good food.

 

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My official last post about the Holidays

This will be the last post I will write about the holidays, because they are almost over. Christmas was yesterday and the only holiday left this winter is New Years. The Holidays coming to an end is sad, but also kind of good. The holidays are really fun and no one really wants to go back to school yet, but they are also stressful. I spent the holidays a lot differently this year than I have in the past.

 

Every year for as long as I can remember, my family and I go to my relative’s (not quite sure how he is related to me) Girl Scout camp. We eat turkey, talk, and walk around the camp attempting to burn off all the calories we had just consumed. This year my grandpa was in the hospital, because he had been falling a lot and they found excess water in his brain, so my grandparents wouldn’t be doing anything for thanksgiving and we decided not to go to the Girl Scout camp. Instead we went to my Uncles house. We had always spent Thanksgiving with my dad’s side of the family, but this year we were going to my mom’s side. It was nice to go visit them for a change, but it was also kind of a hassle. They really didn’t know what they were doing and we didn’t eat until 2 o’clock. They also have a super hyper dog that annoys the crap out of me and we spent most of the time sitting around or listening to stories that we had heard hundreds of times. Even though it could have been better, I did enjoy hanging out with my mom’s side of the family and I was glad we got to visit them.

 

                Christmas was also very different this year. My mom’s side still came down on Christmas Eve and it was a lot of fun, but instead of going to my paternal grandmother’s house on Christmas Day, we spent most of the day in the hospital. We celebrated Christmas on my dad’s side on Saturday, because it worked better for most people and it was really nice, I don’t see my cousins very often. We didn’t have any plans on Christmas day, so we decided to see my dad’s best friend and a very good family friend who was in the hospital. After having a kidney stone removed, he became really sick and could hardly breathe and was diagnosed with pneumonia. He has been in the hospital for a week and at one point was doing really bad. He is getting a little better though, and we ended up spending hours at the hospital with him and his family. One of his daughters came home with my family that night and went sledding with my sister. She came home limping and later went to the hospital and found out she fractured her ankle. So I spent most of my Christmas in the hospital, which actually turned out to be okay and reminded me how lucky I was.

                This year for New Year’s Eve we are going to Memphis to watch the Liberty Bowl!!!!!! I am extremely excited, but I will miss going to a hotel with family friends like we have done in the past.

The holidays were a lot different for me this year, but they ended up being equally as good. Although I am sad that all the holiday fun is ending, it is also quite relaxing. Hopefully I will be able to spend more time running now that the holidays are ending. :)

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The True Meaning of Christmas

There is twelve more days until the best day of the year! CHRISTMAS! Christmas is my favorite holiday, family, food, presents, but I find myself having a hard time remembering what Christmas is all about. Christmas is all about Jesus, which in a materialistic world where everything is about who has the best clothes or the newest technology, it’s really hard to focus on the real meaning of Christmas.

 

Presents are still an important part of Christmas, but it’s not about what you get, it’s about being grateful and giving, like Jesus was grateful and giving. Everyone makes a big deal about what they are getting for Christmas (including me) and nobody really thinks about what it means to give. My sister has a huge list of very specific gifts she wants and she is constantly reminding and begging my mom for the gifts. I try to tell her to stop it, but she gives me glare that says “you’re stupid” and she tells me, in a creative way to shut up. So I drop it and leave her alone to beg, and I occasionally find myself begging to and thinking too much about the presents. Presents are an exciting part of Christmas, but if it is the only thing you care about then you are missing all the other great things about Christmas and all the wonders Jesus gave us.

 

Not taking things for granted is also very important during the holiday season. Instead of focusing on not getting that IPod 5, like all of your friends be grateful that you even get presents and that you have someone who gives them to you. There are plenty of people who don’t get any gifts for Christmas (and not because they’re Jewish) or have families that would even give them gifts. It is important to be thankful like Jesus, who died on the cross for us and suffered so much, yet never complained or even cared about how hard his life was. So every time you feel pity for yourself, because you didn’t get the things that you wanted, just think of all the good things that you have and be grateful for them.

 

Presents can be great, but it can also cause people to be ungrateful. Not getting what you want for Christmas should not be a big deal and people should focus more on family and Jesus then getting everything they want for Christmas, but every one occasionally finds themselves thinking about presents or being ungrateful for what they have. Try to focus more on the real meaning of Christmas this year.

 

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