back to school, back to school, to show my dad that i'm not a fool
christmas break is over. it went well, i'd say. the 27th my swim team left for st lucia, where training sucked and the weather was amazing. so basically, i was exhausted but i got myself a nice little tan. it was a lot like jamaica, and i wish i could have gone there when i wasn't supposed to be training, but what are ya gonna do....

this was the first week of classes. guess what: i actually like all of them. this is going to be the best semester ever. there are people i know in some of them, all of my professors seem pretty cool, and they are classes that i got to choose this time around, so it's stuff i'm sort of interested in. i think there's going to be more reading and work this semester, but i don't really care all that much because it's not hard stuff, and the last two months of this semester i'm out of season for swimming, so i won't be dead tired all the time.

speaking of which....only a few more weeks till taper! a couple of months ago, i thought swimming could not get much harder, but oh baby, it did. basically we get our asses kicked every day for several hours. don't get me wrong, i still feel really lucky to even be here, but i can't get beat up for too much longer. i'm looking forward to a much needed spring break in ft. lauderdale. basically the thought of that is holding me through till taper. that and the thought of me maybe swimming at big tens. i figure if i keep trying harder every day, i'll have a better chance of getting to go. and even if i don't get to go, i'll still be really excited to watch the girls win, because that's what we're going to do.

anyways, i thought a mid-year entry was in order, so there you have it.

feliz navidad
soooo that's it, folks. christmas is over. i'd say it was a pretty good one. since i asked everyone in my family for money instead of presents (so i can pay off a crapload of stuff), i didn't think about what i was getting and got to focus on my family. I love all of my little cousins, and i missed them so much! before i went to school i would see them all the time, but this is the first time i have seen some of them since the summer, with the exception of thanksgiving. christmas makes me feel very lucky to have everyone, or at least more so this year than in the past. it also made me feel very old this year. i mean, i've always been the oldest of all my cousins on both sides of the family, but i just feel particularly old this year because i'm not around them any more. not being around kids for a while really changes the way you are when you're around them.

WE LEAVE FOR ST. LUCIA TOMORROW!!!!!!!! dudddddddddddde i can't wait. this is going to be the best week ever, even if it rains while we're there. i mean, who can compete with 85 degrees and white sandy beaches? all i know is it's a heck of a lot better than the blizzard that some people like to call michigan. it's going to be soooo nice to be warm for a week, even if vacation has put me out of shape and practices are going to suck. practices suck even when i'm in shape, so i figure it can't get too much worse. speaking of st lucia, since we're leaving tomorrow i really need to get all my stuff packed right now.

i'll think of you when i'm passed out on the beach :)

who knows
so basically i just feel like writing because i'm completely bored out of my mind. i haven't done much of anything so far this break, with the exception of losing my puppy on monday. i've been really sad since then, but i'm done talking about it on here. i went to courtney's to make christmas cookies and meet her friend keri, but i was there for like 20 minutes so i didn't get to decorate or anything. yesterday i swam at ths, and actually did somewhat of a workout (if 5500 yards even constitutes one). i went straight from there to babysit my cousin parker. let me tell you, he is really cute, but lord can he scream....literally, the moment he figured out his parents were gone, he was hysterical. he screamed at the top of his lungs for an hour straight, to the point that he was making himself sick and exhausted. pretty much that hour consisted of a screeching "MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA DADDADADADADADDAAAA!" until i wanted to shoot myself. finally i calmed him down by singing old macdonald for A HALF HOUR. my vocal chords were pleased, and i ran out of animals about five minutes into it. i started resorting to things that would never be found on a farm, like monkeys and camels and fish. fun times. anyways, he went to bed and i watched eloise at christmastime on abc family. that movie is so cute. i was supposed to go over to scott's for a movie night and watch napoleon dynamite, but my aunt and uncle got home later than i anticipated. i wanted to see that movie soooo bad because every person on the green earth besides me has seen it and has fun exchanging lines and joking about it while i laugh and pretend to know what they're talking about....
after i babysat, i came home and courtney brought my family a basket of cookies (the ones that i didn't get to finish decorating) for christmas, so that made me happy :) after that i went to bed because i'm cool.
today, i was planning on getting up early to go to practice before my aunt jenny picked me up to go shopping, but my alarm clock went off and i decided it just wasn't in the books today. so we go to somerset to find me some pants to wear on christmas, and i got a cute pair of black velvet festive type ones to go with my new sweater. we walked around for a bit and came home.
mi madre made lasagna from scratch for dinner tonight, and it was awesome....i love home cooking. she left with my daddy for a bit to get some last minute christmas shopping done, and i watched max and just sort of chilled for a while. now i'm totally bored so i think my mom and i are going to watch titanic. anyways, here you have the result of me killing ten minutes of time...pretty exciting, huh?

r.i.p.
can you remember, or even distinguish, the worst day of your life from all the other days? i can.

i mean, sometimes people have bad days but not often does it happen that someone can truly assert that one out of so many has been the worst. the reason i can remember is because mine was yesterday.

i don't want to throw myself a pity party, but i just need to vent, so i guess i'll start at the beginning. it actually started when i came home this weekend because i found out that my dog, isis, was dying. she's 13 years old, and all of a sudden she stopped eating a few days before. she also couldn't breathe that well or get around the house. and the weird part is that i had just seen her last week and she was fine. but this time, something was wayyy wrong. she was so skinny, she looked like she had lost about 20 pounds and i just started crying when i saw her. by sunday it hadn't gotten any better, so my parents told me that monday (yesterday) they were going to put her down. i had a greek exam monday, so all day sunday i was trying to concentrate and study but i was so upset about my puppy that i couldn't concentrate. kyle came home that night because he wanted to stay with the dog for the last night, and at like two in the morning we just sat in our living room with her and cried. it's really hard when you are right in front of a loss, staring it in the face with no idea as to how you are going to deal with it when it actually happens. so that was pretty rough. i pretty much cried for the greater part of that night. got to bed around three, and got up at eight for practice. came home, and wanted to sit down for a while and study before i had to go to ann arbor. i still couldn't concentrate because my mom told me that at five we were taking isis to the vet to put her down. so my exam was supposed to last till 3.30, and then i would have about a half hour to pack all my stuff and get in the car to make it back in time to see my dog. so i'm driving to ann arbor, and i spill hot coffee all over myself. beautiful. once i got downtown, it took me a half hour to find a parking spot. i paid the meter like five bucks and had to walk close to a mile to get to my classroom. needless to say, it was snowstorming, and probably no more than 3 or 4 degrees. the exam itself was really really hard, and it took the full two hours when i was hoping to get out as early as possible, which stressed me out even more. so i walk alllll the way back to the car, drive to the dorms, and i finally find a spot and manage to parallel park, when i realize that it's a handicapped parking meter. there were no spots anywhere, so i just parked in an authorized parking lot and prayed that i wouldn't get a ticket. i hiked up to the dorms, threw everything i fricken owned in my bags, and carried this huge suitcase, an enormous laundry bag, my backpack, and my computer all the way through the storm to my car again, which was totally miserable. by this time, it was about 4:05 and i needed to get to trenton before five to say goodbye to my dog, which would have been a piece of cake, except for the fucking snowstorm. driving the on-ramp of 94 alone took me about ten minutes. traffic was so slow, and i was so frustrated because i thought my family was going to do it without me. after all the shit that had happened that day already, the thought of losing my dog without saying goodbye was enough to send me over the edge. it took me an hour and a half to get home, and i was sobbing the entire way. i called my aunt helen and told her not to let my parents do it without me. i finally get to the vet at 5:30, and my mom, dad, brothers, aunt, and two cousins were all there, crying. my aunt and cousins were waiting in the lobby, and my family went into the room with our dog. the doctor had already given her a sedative, so basically she was awake but a total vegetable. she couldn't even move. it was so nauseatingly sad to see her there, unable to move, about to die. i think she knew that it was time to go. we all stayed in the room with her, and petted her and hugged her and cried. my dad was holding on to her when the doctor gave her the shot, and i don't think i've ever seen him so upset. he was completely torn apart by it. i hate seeing my dad and kyle cry. they never do. never. our whole family was just devastated by this, and when we watched her die, it was like the ceiling had just come crashing down on us. that was probably the lowest point of my life. i could not fathom the fact that i was looking at my dog and she was not alive. she looked like she could have just been sleeping, and i would have never known the difference. i kept telling myself over and over that i would never see her again, and the thought of it was too much. when we walked out into the lobby, and all these people were in there waiting with their pets, they all stared at our puffy eyes and tears like we were from another planet. i wish i could be like them and still have my dog. it's not the same in my house at all. no one comes to the door when you get home, i can't hear her toes clicking on the kitchen floor, and no one comes up to be petted when i'm sitting on the couch.

i just miss her so much.

i <3 my puppy.....:(
this sincere goodbye
makes it hard to hold back tears
how can something for the best
hurt so badly

with every shaking breath
i taste more salt
every time i watch you
i miss you more and more

knowing the blow i'm about to face
hurts more than i care to understand
a piece of my childhood
is torn from my heart

waiting is the worst
when you know what will be next
when you feel that pain
that premonition of emptiness

i know it's hard to hold on
but to be there one more day
would make everything better
at least for now

i don't want you to leave.

merry fucking christmas
this is the worst holiday i have ever experienced in my life, and it has barely started. first of all, my family has absolutely no money this year, due to the amazing presidential accomplishments of george w. during his residency. i don't care about having gifts on christmas, but there are so many things that need to be paid for that just can't happen right now. here my parents are, struggling for cash, and i'm going to fucking tropical st. lucia with my swim team in a week. i feel so guilty it's not even funny. why is it that the best people (my mom and dad) get all the bad breaks in life?

the money issue is like nothing compared to my dog, isis. she's dying. she hasn't eaten in close to a week, and she's having trouble breathing. she has lost at least 15 pounds since i saw her last weekend. when i walked in and saw her, i immediately started crying because i just can't fathom the fact that my dog, who has been in the family since i was six, is going to die. she has always seemed so happy and so strong and had so much energy, even since she has gotten old. to me, it seems like she has been around forever, and to watch her unable to even walk around the house is too much for me to handle emotionally. my dad wants to take her to the vet and put her down tomorrow. i know that she's suffering, and that it will be better for her to end the pain now, but i just can't take it. i've been crying on and off for the past two days. i don't think some people can understand what a dog means to someone unless they have one like mine. she has been the best dog in the world. we have never had a single problem with her, and she has been so good and made everyone happy for the past 12 years. everyone in our family, even the ones who don't like dogs, love her. she is truly a part of our family, and coming from someone that is not a huge animal person, that is a big deal. i'm going to miss her so much.

i'm trying to study for this greek exam, which is another part of my depression, and i can't focus. i just keep thinking about how much pain my dog is and how this is probably the last night she will ever be in my house. when i have to say goodbye to her tomorrow, i don't know what i'm going to do. i just keep typing about how said i am, but i can't take it anymore. i feel so terrible that it's not even funny. i mean, i knew she would have to go eventually, and i was never one of those people who cares obsessively for their dog, but now that she's going to be gone, i'm devastated. i feel like there's no way i can be happy this christmas.

i just have to keep remembering how lucky i am to have my family and my friends.

let's see if i can bust one out...let me know what you think of it
mischevious eyes
playful grin
so close to my face,
but so far out of reach

your breath so close to my lips
so sweet
so distant
so tempting

would it be wrong to let you hold me?
to feel weak when your cheek brushes mine?
holding back this way
just can't be good for me

pulling closer feels so right
and so wrong at the same time
i just want to see your lips
smile with you

there's no crime in feeling good
when you're around
losing inhibition
in your eyes

you feel the tension too
so thick you could slice through it
the knife is glinting in this dim light
cut open our emotions

you don't need to hurt her
just take away this burning
this echo in my head
don't make me regret

ahh yess
lol last night was sooooo funny. and a lot of fun too. sometimes i feel like i get more of what i want without trying. whenever i go looking for something or make a plan for the way i want a night to go, it ends up falling through. last night, i had absolutely no expectations for what was going to happen, i wasn't out looking for anything, and i totally had more good things happen to me than on a regular night. it's so funny how that works. sorry this doesn't make much sense for those of you who are reading, but it makes sense to me, and that's what matters.

i guess i can just say that last night was a maaaaaajor self-confidence booster. i have not felt that important for a while. ahaha. last night also reminded me how much i love to dance at parties. i hadn't gone out and danced like crazy for a while, and it felt soooo good to just let go. even though i was exhausted from our meet this weekend, for some reason i always have the energy to dance with my friends.

speaking of the swim meet, we won. which was nice, since there were eight other teams there, so it really made us feel good. friday i swam the 100 free, and my dive was probably the worst i have done since i was about 10 or 11. no joke, i was probably eight or ten feet under water off the start. i mean i didn't just go straight down, but somehow my foot was not quite anchored on the block and the angle was a little steeper than i had hoped. needless to say, i came up about a body length behind everyone and had my worst time since high school. i thought it was kind of funny since it was all due to my deep sea diving experience. the weirdest part was that i felt really good that day and really ready to swim fast, but i was like ridiculously slow. saturday morning, i felt like shit and i was all shaky and anxious because i had too much coffee before my event, and then i went and swam my best time ever by like a half second, so i was excited about that. saturday night, we warmed up and were done by 5:30. my event, the 50 free, was not until 8:00. i waited 2 1/2 hours until my event, and let's just say i didn't feel quite so warmed up by the time it was my turn. i was pissed. once again, my start sucked, so my time was my worst one since high school. i really need to work on my starts. i don't know what it is, but they just suck. i can't seem to get my body to do what i want it to do when i'm on the block. i think i'd be able to cut off as much as a second if my start was really good.

even though two of my three events sucked, i had a lot of fun at the meet this weekend. i feel like our team gets closer every time we swim together at an invite. we have so many stupid jokes going around the deck at one time it's impossible not to have a smile on your face while you're there, even when you don't want to swim. i love my team!

turkey day break
wow i haven't written in more than two weeks. that has to be some type of record for me. i am in an exceptionally good mood today. why, might you ask?

for these reasons:
i just finished my last ann arbor practice before break
i get to sleep in my own bed for the next five days
i get to see my friends, who i love
i get to eat a ton of amazing food and not feel guilty
i get to sleep in as late as i want

the list goes on....anyways, life has been pretty hectic lately. we went to indiana last thursday for a swim meet and got back late sunday night. it was pretty cool, considering the whole thing was a totally new experience. there were some pretty fast girls, but fortunately i was actually able to beat people, which was a good thing. i swam bad in some events and good in others, so the meet as a whole was kind of neutral for me. the team did really well....we got second out of eight teams who shaved and tapered for the meet when we were definitely not rested. it was also nice to not have to go to practice. granted, we had two meet sessions a day but it was still fun.

i've been having lots of good times with the swim team gurlies lately. we went out last night (yes, i am aware that it was a monday) and had a lot of fun. pretty much just as good a time as the weekends. you'd be surprised how many people are out on monday nights. we once again created some hilarious drunken moments that will be recounted a zillion times over the course of the season. besides the fact that i went to bed at 4:30 in the morning and had to go to class and practice, it was actually a pretty good day. jim cut down our dryland a little bit, and my sociology gsi let us out of discussion an hour early, so it was a good day overall.

it's kind of sad, but i'm the most excited about going home because i get to sleep. it makes my day just thinking about it. i would go to sleep right now if i could, but allison and terra and i are leaving to go home in a half hour. i have so much stuff to bring home it's ridiculous. i dunno how we're gonna fit it all in her car.

i'm rambling, i know. but i don't really care. i feel like wasting some time before i get off my butt and pack. my shoulders hurt ridiculously bad. it's not even funny how much pain i am in right now. i think it's because of the fact that sj gave me a little stroke improvement session during practice today, and changing my stroke just really didn't go over well with my arms. i just figured out that the reason my stroke is so shitty is because my shoulders are in such crappy shape that my body adapts to make it so that swimming doesn't hurt. that is really crappy and i hope that i'm wrong. i hope that i'm just doing the stroke wrong, and not that my shoulders are truly that messed up. i guess i'll find out once i keep working on my stroke.

okay i really need to pack now.

happy thanksgiving!

samantha

so i lied the last time i wrote in here that practices aren't kicking my butt too much. suddenly, they are. big time. jim decided to make this the week where he kills us, i guess. hopefully i'll have enough energy to swim fast at the meet (Friday, Nov. 12 at 5:00 pm in Ann Arbor...be there), because i actually have people coming there to watch me. it would be sort of a shame to swim like crap with my friends watching.

even though i'm totally beat, i'm in a really good mood. probably because i'm not going to study tables tonight. i decided against it since i'm way tired. i'm not going tomorrow either because i have to watch the o.c. there's no way i can miss that. a little sad, don't you think?

so i had an astro exam this morning. i hadn't read anything or stayed awake in lecture over like the past five or six weeks, so i had to read seven chapters before the exam. basically i read 150 pages of astronomy in one day. fun times. the weird thing is, i actually think i did really well on my exam. i seriously knew all the answers. maybe cause i went crazy reading for like three hours before the test. anyways, i'm glad that's over.

i had the funniest dream today. if i talked about it on here everyone would read it and prolly think i'm a weirdo, so i won't. but anyways, one part of the dream i wish would happen in real life. i'll leave it at that.

i went home this weekend and slept for 12 hours on saturday night, which was amazing, but for some reason i felt even more tired than i usually do. most saturdays i go out and party until like four in the morning, but i feel pretty okay once the week starts. i think maybe stuff's just catching up with me. i have major time management issues. like now, for example. probably should get started studying for greek, but i don't really want to right now. i think i'll start in a couple minutes. i figured i could take time off of homework to write in here, since i hardly ever do it anymore. i feel obligated to write, but lately the only thing on my mind is everything i have to do. i can't wait for thanksgiving break. four days of food and sleep. it will be the best four days of my life. it's come to the point that the two things i look forward to the most are sleeping and going out on saturday nights. speaking of which, this saturday night should be sweet, since it's the last home football game. we will make it sweet if it's the last thing we do, because damn it, i wanna have fun.

anyways, i should probably get on that homework.

samantha

hmmm
sooo i haven't written anything in like two weeks. kinda weird, considering i used to write in here like every day. i guess i've just been really busy with school and swimming and everything.

speaking of which. swimming. it's been going really well lately, and the practices aren't kicking my butt too much. i mean, they don't seem all that terrible when i'm in the water, but i'm definitely exhausted afterwards. some days it just seems pretty simple, but then other times i get sort of loaded down with everything that's on my plate. as far as the combination of school and swimming goes, it sucks. i am so damn sick of greek and astronomy and sociology(ps that's every single one of my classes) that it's not even funny. i never ever had to study in high school, and i got straight a's. now i actually have to try, and it gives new meaning to the concept of hating school.

so kerry lost the election. talk about being pissed. i hate george w. bush with a fiery passion. no joke. the entire day after we found out i was totally depressed. now i have to spend another four years living in a country being led by someone i absolutely can't stand. he is the most incompetent, closed-minded bastard ever. to think that he can screw over our country's economy, not to mention use his power to impose his own morals and values onto the citizens, and still win is sickening. okay i'm done venting about this so i'll stop now.

anyways, i should probably go to bed since i have to get up early tomorrow.

love, sam

lalalala
even though this weekend was a big disappointment as far as what we wanted to do, there were still some reaaaaaaaaally funny moments. some hilarous things that i would like to remember:

*bad boob jobs
*ashley's first shot (of 151, no less)
*losing to softball players, and then getting our asses handed to us by a guy
*falling in the street
*me, justine and susan's goal
*drunk dialing in order to complete that goal
*chilling in a random empty house for like 2 hours
*devouring a pizza at like 3 in the morning

the list goes on....

hummmmmmmm.....
picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies

somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
a girl with kaleidoscope eyes

cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
towering over your head

look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
and she's gone

lucy in the sky with diamonds...

follow her down to a bridge by a fountain,
where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies

everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,
that grow so incredibly high

newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
waiting to take you away

climb in the back with your head in the clouds, and you're gone

lucy in the sky with diamonds...

in case you didn't know, that's a song by the beatles. it describes my mood particularly well at the moment. very nostalgic, dreaming, childlike, relaxed, comfortable, whimsical. i like being in this mood. i've sort of been feeling this way for the past few hours. i let my hair go. i mean really go. after i took a shower, i brushed it and that was it. no straightening, no gel to keep it under control, no ponytail. i kind of like the feeling of being free and unleashing the curls. definitely reminds me of my childhood. i haven't done that in a long time. i just feel very calm right now. not afraid to look myself in the mirror and be happy. i can't really describe it. i guess when i'm not worrying at all about the way i look i just feel really good. that sounds really fake, but it's true. i think it must be because i've been at home for the past two days. no one to impress. nothing to look good for. i'm in my environment. just........comfort. don't get me wrong, i'm definitely in my element away at school. i wasn't homesick, but it just feels good to be at home for once. sigh, 'be it ever so humble....' well, you know the rest. i've been sitting here at my computer for pretty much ever, just happy to be in my living room. i feel very, very good about myself when i'm with my family. i haven't gotten to the point that i can say i 'love' my swim team, because i've only known them for like a month. i am definitely close to them, and i think they're an amazing group of girls, but i need a year or two for me to feel like they are truly my sisters, to know everything about them, and have so many inside jokes that i can't even remember them all. that's how it was in high school. it took until the beginning of my junior year to really come into my own, which is weird since i'm not a very shy person. i swam with the high school team today, and it was refreshing. refreshing to be with people you know, and to be able to tell a story without explaining every single person in it. i might be a little sad when i go home tomorrow night, but i'll get over it as soon as i've been in a2 for the day, because i love it there too. i just realized that i called ann arbor 'home' in that sentence. i really am a lucky person. i've found two places that i love. i have one amazing family at home, and hopefully another one in ann arbor. i am just in an amazing mood today. i drove to a store that's like 40 mins away, and usually when i go there, i am totally dominated by road rage. i was way patient today. happy, even. which is a strange word to call me while on the road. nothing made me upset or sad or nervous or angry or anything at all. i'm having a damn good day, and i hope everyone knows it.

yeah maize!!
hell yeah to the maize team at the intrasquad meet! i'm really proud of all the girls on both teams and really looking forward to that email from nique :)

i didn't have the best meet, but i think maybe it was because i was a little tired out from the past week. no big deal though.

i went and watched trenton kick some a$$ at news heralds! great job girls! it made me a little sad to watch my old team cheering and crying like that, but i was really glad they were able to pull it together this year and i guess it's just time for me to move on. i've never been as close with a group of girls as i was with that team, and hopefully it will turn out to be the same by the time i'm a senior at um. i just hope i'm right about it....

finally!
i can see the light at the end of the tunnel
or is it just my imagination?
is the sunlight teasing me?
is there even a light?
just out of my grasp
its warmth tickles my fingertips

i want to drink it up
breathe it into my soul
this claustrophobic tunnel
is so devoid of air
the pinpricks on my face and arms
are just enough to keep me awake

my chest is about to collapse
when i remember the feeling of the light
and keep going
is the end worth the means?
will it feel the same as last time?
the same excitement and freedom?

all this time spent wondering
pushes the light even further away
maybe i should just inhale the crowded air
pick my head up
close my eyes and picture happiness
the light will come soon enough