Back at it, With a Splash

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WOOOHOOOO

I’ve finally made it back to the blogosphere. I haven’t been able to login for a very very long time. It seems that wordpress can be tempermental or something, or I’ve been missing out on some obvious step to login and now just did it by accident.

Alot as happened since I last blogged. I moved out of my insect infested apartment, the one I had been excited about living on my own in. The place just started wearing me down, my neighbors were bums, and the building and all its dumpness was oozing into my apartment faster than I could clean it out. So, I moved out. I’m living with a new roommate, a dude I hadn’t met prior to moving it. Yea, one of those craigslist situations, but its working out alright. He’s a cool guy, likes to play ball hockey, and watch beavus and butt-head.

The damage has been done though. I lost alot of restful sleep in the last month or so of my stay at the dump. I caught a cold after western, and couldn’t recover properly. Every workout started to get really hard. I remember a workout that was 6x1mile. It was the second time doing it. The first time I averaged about 4:55. My first mile after getting sick and thinking I was ok to do a workout was 5:12, it felt like 4:50. Every mile after that got abit faster, but they all hurt just as much as the first, alot. My fastest one was 5:01, sure…and it was a little windy, but I was scared about how much they hurt.

Provincials didn’t go all that well, I’m bummed I didn’t get to race like I had hoped I would at the beginning of the season, I’m strong, I’m in shape, and I was looking forward to giving a solid shot for the W. But considering everything and the strong competition I was up against, it was inevitable that other guys were going to have a better day. The shitty races are tougher to bounce back from. I’ve had two this season, which doesn’t seem like much, but the training in between has been rough too, so I feel pretty heavy.

I still want to get at it though. Cross Country is my thing, and crap like this doesn’t get in my way. It’ll affect me, sure. But when it comes down to it, I grew up on this stuff, as a kid, and as a runner. Before I started running seriously or really at all even ( as a sport), I was running after cows. When cows got out of the fence and started parading around in peoples back yards, roads or in the woods, where they weren’t suppose to be, my Dad, Mom and I went after them. When I got old enough, probably around 10, I started to be depended on. They’d tell me to get after them, alone, and not to stop. I’d tear through woods without paths and through swamps, or corn fields. The trick was always to take a long way around to get ahead of them, and turn them around. The stints of running weren’t ever very long, but the cows always used ponds or swamps or whatever to try and get around me. They were crafty, but I’d always end up having to barrel right into whatever was in the way.

I look back at all those times I had to do that, remember how mad I’d get at my parents asking me to get tired, dirty, cold and wet and think, well, thats where it happened. Thats when and where it started. They knew I could do it, and I may not have enjoyed it at that very moment-cattle out of pasture is pretty stressful. But there were aspects of those instances that I did enjoy, one of which was running, and covering ground on foot faster than anyone else could, which is why it was me that went. All in all, I love thinking about those days, I keep seeing farmers make good runners.

Disclaimer: The following is a rant, and can be interpreted as bable and things I had to write down to get off my chest.

I’ve been doing alot of soul searching in terms of my schooling and running and where everything fits in….how do I survive? I’m scared of my current direction right now, working on an anthropology degree…I wonder how it will fuel my running career, how I can pump out what I need in order to do what I really want to do. Sure I’m honestly curious about culture, and its differences and its implications in society and everything inbetween. But what I tend to see in my peers are motivated students, who are involved in ALOT of extra curriculars, like committees, and student politics and peers that have travelled and have what they love to reference as real experiences. I haven’t been on an airplane, and with two jobs heavy training when I’m healthy and a full course load, I don’t have the time, energy nor the emotional energy to expend on activism. I wish I did sometimes. When given the chance I surprise myself with how critical I am about matters I’m exposed to at school. The Occupy movement is one. Here is an interesting opinion piece: it turns the argument on its head. Occupiers see soemthing wrong with society, and I do agree that there is something wrong. But its way more complicated than problems with distributing wealth, and the top 1% holding a disguting amount of the worlds wealth. Wente points out a harsh reality that even I am scared to admit. I’m not useful right now. I’m not a contributor. Sure, I work part-time, I go to school, and I run, but I’m a burden. My degree on its own isn’t in demand. There may be room for competitiveness in my field, a really good student, with ground breaking work will find a job in the public and/or private sectors. But theres alot of us, and both sectors seems to me to be already saturated. Wente hits the nail on its head when she says that our generation is full of “the class of people who expect to find self-fulfillment (and a comfortable living) in non-profit or government work, by saving the planet, rescuing the poor and regulating the rest of us”. I’m not saying that that is not a worth while goal. Heck, thats an amazing goal, and one I hope to fulfill some day. But is it realistic? Is it something one can make a living off of? No. Probably not, not when class after class of thousands of graduates year after year are being pumped out of universities across the country, across the continent that are whispered/fed the same goals. I believe that I have something to contribute to society and to the workforce. I see problems and issues I want to help workout. But I’m overwhelmed sometimes at the steps I need to take to obtain my degree, then the decisions I need to make in order to work on a masters, then the uncertainty of ever finding a job or a position with so many other graduates involved and vying for the same postions all the while spending time and energy I know I want to spend on running, when other students can be dedicated to school.

I read somewhere once that students are more and more likely to have the attitude of expecting a job once they finish their degree. They paid their tuition, they put in the hours, they got good, ok, average grades and now they have a degree. But no job. Wente is right, its a larger problem then the fault of the government’s or the 1%. I think it might have something to do with the idea of ‘the educated’ and the respect one gets from being ‘educated’ or at least social postion, and the distance created by I dunno what from ‘manual labor’. Theres no shortage of work in those sectors. Plummer, electrician, construction worker, road worker, farmer. Whats wrong with those jobs? Well, they don’t change the world in the way that our generation would like, and I repeatedly hear discourse on how these are the types of people who are ‘uneducated’. Bingo. Don’t wanna be one of those. But then again, they’re the ones with steady jobs. I often read about anthropologists and philanthropists who travel the world to study and help out cultures the world over. Who are they interacting with, usually workers. Usually lumberjacks, farmers, road workers etc. Theres something there, but I’m getting blogged out.

Whats keeping me from dropping my anthropology degree and going through electrician school? Insecurity, investment, and plain old curiosity. I want to see what will happen, I like what I’m studying. But I have no illusions as to expect something to fall onto my lap. I expect I’ll have to work some job or another, but I’m not concerned as much about if its in my field or not. Yea, I will have paid alot to get this degree, but not getting a grant to go to oka and work with the commuity there, or go work in policy administration in government is reason to through my hands up. Some people working hard for a living and others not having to work hard at all is a harsh reality. But that isn’t a reason to stop working hard. That slips nicely back into running. I want to always work hard in running. I want to run hard when I have to, and recover hard when I have to. Just because dude x isn’t working hard as me, and is faster doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop and get mad at my coach. Its part of it, of life. I work hard for myself, for my team, and for the community I live in. And they do to.

Wow. I love running.