A Summer Containing the Best and Not-So-Best Parts of My Life✯

best | best | superlative of Good

adjective

of the most excellent, efficient, or desirable type or quality.

antonym: worst

~

This has certainly been an exciting summer! For me. I mean, I didn't really see my friends that much or anything which some people would consider a complete fail but I did do/accomplish some other things which made it great. However, it has also been on of the most emotionally challenging summers with a few minor (a.k.a. major) bumps in the road.

A Review of My NSLC Experience

*Sighhhhhh.....

It definitely doesn't feel like I spent 10 days in California. More like four or maybe five. Now that I'm back home, I really wish I had taken more pictures and videos. In fact, I wish I had just video-taped the entire thing. Like ALL of it! Thankfully, I went in half thinking I was going to die, but the other half of me knowing this was going to be one of the best experiences of my life and that I should savor every moment. (Talk about cliche...)

Hand Decor

Sorry, guys. This has to be a pretty short post because I just finished packing and it's nearly midnight. And I have to get up at 6:45 tomorrow. Anyway, it was our last day and emotions are running high! I know ten days sounds like a short period of time, but you have to understand that we spend more than 14 hours each day together.

A Day by the Bay

There are officially only 1 and 1/2 days left of this camp, and I've been trying to savor every moment. I'm going to miss the people, the TA's and the unique experiences from NSLC. Today, we spent a few hours on the pier and then came back for some lectures and a talent show!

Dissection Perfection

I would just like to point out that for once, I actually tried on my title! Okay, well, actually I always try, it's just this time I had a burst of creativity. For me. That's creative... for me. :)

Okay, now that we've had our nice title rant for the day, we can get on with real things.

Optometry, Suturing, and Drilling

The schedule from today:

9:00-9:45  AM                 Breakfast

10:00AM-12:00PM         Berkeley School of Optometry Visit and Lecture

12:00-1:00PM                 Lunch

1:15-2:15 PM                   Suturing with Dr. Parsioon

2:25-3:25PM                   TA Group Check-in

3:20-5:00 PM                 Diagnostic Simulation

5:15-7:00                         Dinner

7:15-8:45                         "A Day in the Operating Room" with Dr. Parisoon

9:15-10:15                        Karaoke.

The Best Day in History (of NSLC)

So yeah. The title pretty much says it all. Okay, it's the best day in the history of my NSLC experience. Still! Since everything has been amazing, you should at least be a little interested in what happened today, right? Would it help if I said it included brain surgery? Mwahahahahaha....

So anyway, here's the rundown of today's schedule:

Exploring San Fransico

Today was a pretty relaxed day, and despite trying to take a lot more pictures, I took about four. Go me! We went to Fisherman's Wharf and the Gladstone Research Institute.

Ropes Course!!

Today we went to the Ropes Course. Hehehehehehehehehehe. If you know we, you would know what tone of voice that was in. :)

For the Medicine Camp, there were two different groups. The first group goes in the morning and the second group goes in the afternoon. Yesterday, my TA was pretty sure we were in the morning, so he listed a ton of reasons why being in the afternoon was terrible.

It's Like College. Except Not.

Wow. Can I just say wow? After approximately 19 hours, I am already addicted to this camp.

Let me catch you up. On Saturday afternoon, I flew down to San Francisco with my brother on an fight full of noisy kids, having already accepted that my first few days at the NSLC Health Care and Medical Camp might be super nerve-wracking and maybe even miserable.

Theres Too Much To Summarize For One Title

Well, so much for commitment. :/

In my defense, I've been busy? The question mark isn't a typo, that's my own doubt seeping through into writing. But anyway, a lot has changed.

Eight Things a Regular Person Wouldn't Know About Gymnastics/Gymnasts

Yes, I know this is the last blog assignment, but I have convinced myself that I will continue posting at least throughout the summer. I know, so dedicated, right? But anyway, I'm treating this like a regular post. It's pretty funny when somebody who is evidently not a gymnast trys to talk gymnastics. So here are a few things you may want to consider when I go off on a rant at school or something. And they're just weird and funny.

A Random Collection of Recent Experiences

Not many of my recent posts have been about me personally, and I don't mean to sound narcissistic or anything, but a lot has happened in the past few weeks.

Hmmm, That's Either a Psycho or a Gymnast... (Plus a short story!)

There are many ways that a stranger can spot a gymnast. Most of the time, appearance gives it away: Athletic, buff, and very, very short. However, there are a few other characteristics and behaviors of gymnasts that will make an "outsider" look twice.

Bars. Just Bars. (Skill Explanation Compilation)

I should probably start explaining things more.

I now have three drafts in my post section. All drafts because in the middle of each one, I started talking the "gymnastics talk" and thought to myself, hmm, I should probably tell my readers what this means before I post this. So then I start another one and do the same thing. So now, I am going to give an short explanation for every basic bars skill I can think of.

Random Pictures of Awesomeness

As I was looking for pictures for my previous blog post and came across a ton of really cute pictures, but I couldn't put them into my other one because they had nothing to do with gymnastics. I still feel the need to share them with you, so without further ado......

Best Song Lyrics in the Universe

So, we're deciding which songs to buy right now, and listening to some pretty good ones. And some pretty bad ones. Anyways, here are some the best lyrics in the world universe.

Blast to the Past

I never really know how to answer questions regarding when I started gymnastics and why. Because, truthfully,  I don't remember how I started, and now that I think about it, there was never life before gymnastics for me, or life without gymnastics. Well, except for last year, but that is a completely different story. Me starting gymnastics wasn't my decision, it was my parent's. They apparently couldn't control me. I "moved too much." So they stuck me in dance, skiing, gymnastics, and soccer, but gymnastics just stuck. So anyway, here's my gymnastics story.

The Complications of Gymnastics (Minus All the Flips and Twists)

Today I had a wonderfully confusing conversation with my coach. She is an official judge for USAG, so she knows all the rules for competing, and what the difficulty is for each skill. Now, I'm going to attempt to explain some of the things we talked about, although I am pretty sure that by the end of this paragraph, most of you will decide that maybe that essay you're procrastinating for isn't so bad, or thinking, yeah, I do have things to do. And I totally get that.

The Pros to Having an Injury

No, this post does not mean that having an injury is all fun and games, and it is definitely not trying to convince you to go and hurt yourself. Please. Just don't. It is simply a post explaining the upside to an injury, so that I can stay positive, and it will be a nice break for my friends because I'm sure they are completely sick and tired of me complaining all the time. :)

Meet...... My Teammates

My teammates. My obnoxiously weird friends. My competition. My family. No matter what, they're still my best friends. In fact they're pretty much my only friends apart from about seven, give or take a few, who I go to school with. In this post, I'm going to try to introduce each one so that if I ever name them in stories or future posts, you know exactly who I'm talking about. And I just think this is going to be a fun post.

My World of Tiny Accomplishments

You know, aside from being on crutches, not being able to do gym, and my left leg turning into a tiny little stick, one downside to fracturing my tibia is not having anything to write about, due to fact that I pretty much do nothing all day long, all week long. Another sad thing is that right now, I should be in California, getting ready to compete, jumpy and excited from my nerves. Instead, I am here, in Comp Tech, with nothing to do.... *Sigh.

Alrighty then, enough with the self pity party. Here are a few things that become huge accomplishments when you have an injured knee/on crutches.

Skill Explanation: Double Back, Hand-Lay-Pike, and Hand-Full

Okay, peeps. Time for another skill explanation! But since I can't come up with a big skill with a long explanation and a cool name, I'm just going to explain my three tumbling passes in my floor routine. They are a Double Back, Hand-Lay-Pike, and Hand-Full. So, without further ado...

Awkwardness and The Olympics

Well, for the first time in a long time, I have no idea what to write about. Actually, scratch that. I never know what to write about. But still, I don't know what to write about, again. Well this is fun.

Okay, so I'll awkwardly explain how my injury is going and hopefully by the time I finish, I'll have a real idea.

Competition #3: Salt Lake City

So it's been a special week. It all started with the competition on Saturday......

Yes, we did not travel this time. It was not quite as exciting but also a nice break from all of the craziness involved with traveling. Well, at least that's what I was thinking. The meet took place at Salt Lake Community College. I would be lying if I told you that I was extremely overjoyed, because I had a really frustrating two weeks of workout.

Skill Explanation: Yurchenko Vault

This week I decided to do a skill explanation because I don't have any competitions, and I also just haven't done one in a while. This week's skill: Yurchenko Vault.

Event: Vault
Type: Umm, it's a vault?
Difficulty: Depends on what type of flip you do out of it. (B,C,D,E)

Competition #2: Phoenix

I'm writing this on the airplane back form Phoenix, looking out my window at the Grand Canyon. Can I just point out how cool it is? So anyway, I'm really supposed to be talking about my trip, which was also pretty darn cool.

We left for Phoenix on Friday after school, and unfortunately missed the team dinner. We stayed at the Arizona Grand Resort which is huge and was pretty eerie at night. We went to bed pretty much right away because we had to get up at 6:00 to get ready for my meet the next morning. In the morning, we did my hair, had some breakfast, and walked to the meet.

Competition #1: Seattle/Tacoma

Well, I competed at my first meet in one and a half years! As I said in one of my previous posts, this meet was in the Seattle area, Tacoma specifically. My trip included three caesar salads, an extremely special floor routine, a Toblerone bar, and lots of glass.

We flew in late Thursday, and had a late dinner in the hotel restaurant. Friday morning, we got up around 9:00 AM, ordered room service for breakfast, and then went to the glass museum. I must mention that the glass museum was very, very cool. The first part was wandering around the gallery, where there were many different styles of glass artwork. Then, we went into the "Hotshop."There were live artists who actually blew glass right in front of you. It was pretty interesting to me, especially since I didn't know anything about glass art. (I didn't even know that glass was actually blown-- *facepalm.)

Holiday Extravaganzas!

Happy holidays, everyone! I hope everyone has been having a good break. I've had so much stuff going on lately and it's all been great. Two full weeks of "break" is great, but as one of my friends put it (check out her page here), teachers use it as an opportunity to load us with crap. I have had two huge projects, four finals to study for, and a few extra assignments. Yay!

For the entire first week, I procrastinated with everything. I pretty much just laid around with the occasional gymnastics practice. Then, I sort of got this sense of urgency (ohmygoshthesemesterendsinaweek) and got myself out of bed for reasons other than food, family, and gymnastics. Success!

SUCCESS! Photo courtesy: Satyavrat

The Long Recovery of a Concussion

About two weeks ago, I got a concussion. I could pretend that I was doing something awesome and then go on to explain my crazy, eye-widening story, but then I would be lying.

I over-rotated on a single back tuck.

I know. I'm special. Photo courtesy of: knowyourmeme