A personal update.

This past week and the week coming will be putting me through so much thinking and so much stress. Before this week I thought I had everything set up. My running, my school, my mind. Within one week it all came crashing around me.

I finally go to talk to my adviser. I picked out every single one of my classes and was incredibly excited for my future. I'm in the nicest dorm, got the perfect classes and found amazing new friends. There's just one thing. My financial status.

The price-tag for happiness: $19,000 a semester. My financial aid status: $0.00

Why?

Something I have no control over. Basically it's come to my parents. Since they are not citizens I cannot get anything. I'm a citizen but have the chance of losing out on college because of something I have no control over.

My solution?

A simple paper pleading the people up there to set me as independent. To make it so that I get the financial aid I rightfully deserve. The scholarship I won. The grant given to me by the school. I've been screwed out of my cal grant by people in the advisement offices in my middle school. Out of all the fucking kids in the school I'm the one that they entered wrong. Figures. -.-

The luck I have huh.

So.

I'm stuck here waiting for the phone call to tell me what's going to be my future. They have my future in their hands and I have to wait up to 21 days when school begins in less than 10. I score into the highest classes and everything and I'm left here not even able to register for my classes.

I have to check out my community college options. Never thought I would be saying that. Oh well. If I end up at a community college I will not be going to ULV.

We'll see what the future has in store for me I guess.

An update.

I haven't had time to post too often like I used to. There's a lot of things I haven't had much time to do. One of those is running. I've been slacking so much. This was the second lowest week of mileage I have had all summer. Under 30 miles this week. How pathetic. My first race was last weekend and I ran a 17:09. I ran an incredibly stupid race. Putting in constant surges on the downhill to lose them but in the end I ended up using up too much energy.

Now on to the week. Highest mileage day was monday, put in 9 miles. Extremely hot now and can't find any reason to run.

I guess I have to find my own motivation. My first 8k is in a couple weeks and I have to be in shape. I will bump up to 80 this week no matter what.

Runners Workshop Idyllwild 2010 Day 1

The day began extremely early. 6:00 AM to be exact. I was awoken by my dad, I had not even heard my alarm clock. For about 10 minutes I contemplated going for a run. I had taken 6 days off just because I had not found the time to run. Scratch that, basically I was too lazy to wake up and run at 6 AM and was too much of a bitch to run at 9pm. Finally I got up and said it’s now or never and laced up the shoes and went off. To say I struggled would be putting it mildly. I haven’t had to put that much effort into a run this short since I was back struggling to get to the top 5 in high school. I began in front of my house. Me in full spandex, sleeves, leggings; I was extremely cold what can I say. I got to the corner at about 1:40 and the half way mark at 2:40, there was no way I was going to run 6 minute pace. I finally arrived at the mile mark at 7:30. I sucked. I turned back. Cruising a bit easier since it was all downhill. I think I got back at 13:49, so about a 6:20 mile to finish it off a first run.
From there I finished packing. It didn’t take that long. I even got some time to shower and what not. I left my house and it was on to Idyllwild. I stopped by my work and put in my sale form. Then the long drive to camp really began. I had gotten about 30 miles in when I realized I was pretty hungry. I decided that I would not stop while I was on the freeway but rather stop after I got off. Right when I got off the freeway I ended up in somewhat of a barren wasteland known I guess as Hemet. I kept thinking to myself that I fucked up, but I kept driving. Finally I reached civilization, and less than a minute in I find a Starbucks. It was only 9:00. I was incredibly early. I wasn’t even supposed to arrive at camp until at least 10:30. So I decided to relax, order a coffee and oatmeal, and write a letter to my best friend who is about to ship off to Berkley. I sent it to her and then left Starbucks. Minutes later she had read it and loved it; that was great to hear.
From then on it was a climb up to Idyllwild. I ended up getting lost. I turned on the street too early and I guess ended up on the wrong side of camp. I turned back and finally found it. Parked and went inside for a counselor meeting. We went over our names and I noticed one runner in particular, I knew who he was. He was one of the top runners in state a couple years back. It was awesome to see him here. Some of these guys and girls were going to some amazing running schools. Berkley, UCLA, Arizona State, Florida State, and even Yale. I met the counselor that was going to be showing me the ropes for the week, Matt Miller. Matt runs for UC Berkley. Soon after we find out who are campers are going to be. We end up getting the Torrey Pines A group. Just for clarification there were 36 Torrey Pines boys coming to the camp. This was going to be an interesting camp. Afterward we got our gear. Asics hooked us up so well. I got a new florescent green jacket and a white jacket, new sweats, new shorts, new shirt, new hat, and new shoes. All for free.
We set up everything and went into our dorms to move in. We brought our stuff in and dressed and went back down to the front office. Now it was time to check in the kids. They came in huge groups. I had to pass out all the water bottles and the nametags/wristbands There was so many cute girls but I was working and that was forbidden lol. I then got into my running clothes and went down to stretches. As it turns out Matt is hurt and I was in charge of the guys. None of them listened to me. It was pretty frustrating. We went off for our run and almost all of them stayed together. I ended up running with one of the guys having trouble with the altitude running. He didn't know it but I was too. Could not show weakness because as far as they knew I was in shape lol. 20 minutes were finished not as hard as the morning 2 miles. Then we went off to dinner. Dinner was spaghetti. So good!

We then got back and it turned out everyone in the group looked up to Matt. He knew how to take control. Then came camp comps. Our group dominated both competitions. Afterward we went off to practice our skits. I was supposed to be in the toothbrush skit but luckily they scratched it. They then introduced us at the campfire. Rick said I was a 3:30 miler, lulz ensued. I introduced myself. Went pretty well. We then went back to our cabins and we had our cabin talks. The guys were really united and funny. Their man dares were so funny. Then lights out came and within five minutes some of the guys came in and asked Matt for some help. Can’t say what it was but the conversation was so funny. I guess it turned into one of their man dares.

MyJourney: First day of practice.

All summer I couldn't wait to go to my first day of practice. This was impossible though because the whole summer I was on vacation. I was in Oklahoma for the summer visiting family. I ran once over there for "training".

I had finally got back on August 5th. I came home to a home being remodeled. Not exactly home sweet home. As I remembered I had no bed or even carpet. I didn't care. I was just excited for practice.

The day finally came. August 7th, 2006. 4 years ago today. My dad gave me a ride to practice. I walked up to the track and it was locked. That threw me off. Then I saw two girls hopping the fence. I asked them about practice. Turned out that practice was tomorrow. I was disappointed. So I called for a ride home and awaited another day.

August 8th, 2006. The day had finally come. I arrived at practice at 6:00. I was a tiny kid of 4'10", 70 something pounds. Yes I was that small. I came in my Vernon P.E. clothes and some old New Balance shoes that I had had since 6th grade. Those were my favorite shoes. I wore my 6 minute mile shirt. I came in pretty confident. I mean I was a 6 minute miler. So I got to the track and sat down. I only knew one person there, Katie. The people sitting were pretty awkwardly quiet while there was some others playing Soccer. Little did I know everyone else there though I was someones little brother. I sat waiting for practice to start and BAM! Soccer ball smashes into my face. Not a good start. I later find out 2 years later that my "brother" Gustavo was the one that did it.

So we all got split into our groups. My group was with Ricardo and his cousin. I started my run with the varsity guys. I could take it. This wasn't so hard. I kept thinking I'm a 6 minute miler! I got to only San Jose Street and had to start walking. My legs hurt with every single step and I still had 1.5 miles to go. I finished the "run".

I arrived home limping. I was so tired that it was hard to even walk the steps up to my house.

When asked if I was going to go again, I said yes.

They didn't think I would make it. 4 years later I am still running.

Part 2: The Mafia.

So we all head back to our dorms. Then people start piling into our dorm, and for what? Jersey Shore season 2 premier. We were all waiting to watch it but had to wait and extra hour for MTV to show it again. We missed the first showing since we had Direct TV in our room. So instead we were left watching re-runs of Fantasy Factory, great show but not what we wanted to see.

So our dorm leader Kevin sees that we are beginning to get bored and restless so he presents a solution to our problem. "Would you guys like to play a game?" We all decided to agree. He presents the game: Mafia. Little did we know this game would bring most of us together. So Kevin describes the rules: We each get dealt a card by god, it can be anything from towns person(2-10), a nurse (Queen of Hearts), a sheriff (King of Spades), or the mafia (Aces). First god tells us to go to sleep, then tells the mafia to wake up, they decide to pick any other person to kill off. Then god tells the mafia to go to sleep and tells the nurse to wake up. The nurse has a choice to make, save themselves or save someone else. Then god tells them to go to sleep. God then tells the sheriff the wake up. The sheriff can pick anyone to accuse and god tells them whether it is the person or not. God tells the sheriff to go to sleep. Then god tells everyone to awake. Then the accusations begin. Anyone can be accused. Then it comes to two people that have been accused. It comes down to a vote. Whoever has the most votes is killed off. Then it keeps going until all the mafia is killed off or the mafia overpowers the townspeople.

So we began playing. We played once and then watched Jersey Shore. Then we began playing again. Then again, and again, and again. Then it got to the point where there was only about 10 people left. We kept playing. We played until 2 AM.

ULV Preview Weekend Part 1:Intro

It began on Thursday July 29, 2010. I woke up that day without even packing and was still putting it off. I awoke at 7:30ish and spent the time just laying in bed looking at stuff on my laptop. Try 2-3 hours slacking off. I finished my first half of running and went home around 11:30. I only had an hour till it started and I hadn't even packed or for a fact showered. I had to move quick. I showered then dumped all the clothes into my luggage. I finally was ready and I headed off.

Hit the freeway and what happens? So much traffic on the freeway. I was going to make it right on time and this shit happens. I exit the first exit and take the streets. I'm about to turn on the street that connects to the school when I remember... I forgot my permission slip. Son of a.... I hit every red light on the way there. Like I wasn't late enough.

I finally arrive at La Verne. I go give my permission slip and Bradley helps me to my room. I spend the time just talking to Bradley, talking about running and stuff, trying to log in.

Then we head out to the Learning Enhancement Center (L.E.C). Bradley and I head to a random table and the seminar began. We began with this exercise where we drew our hands and filled the fingers in with answers to their questions. Then came the exercise that brought most of us together without knowing it. They told us to move to each side of the room depending on what we believed our personalities were like. Turtle, Hawk, Rabbit, or Tiger. I went with Tiger. Then came another exercise in which we were supposed to go with the parts of ourselves that corresponded to what we believed adapted to the questions asked.

Then came the mini club fair. I spent the whole time at the Psych table talking to them regarding their club. I ended up meeting one girl Angelique soon after. She was hilarious to me. Always smiling and was just a pretty chill girl. The funniest part came when Bradley ended up shaking hands with the president of the University when she wanted to do it first. Her reaction was priceless.

Dinner finally came. I ended up eating so much. Davenport was great. I sat with Angelique and Bradley. I made fun of Angelique because of her stupid phone. I mean you basically have to smash the screen to use the touch screen. Such a fail. O.o

Student panel came up next. There I noticed a table with people that were pretty loud and looked like they were having so much fun. I learned a lot from the panel. I'm going to have a tough time.

Then we called it a rap for the day. I went for a quick run. About 3.5 miles cruising rather quickly. Came back and and checked out the street fair. Came in for the hall meeting where they described the rules of the dorm.

Next up: Mafia