WIRAs

     Sorry this is so terribly late. I have no excuses, so I will give none. All of these photos were taken by my friend Wally, unless otherwise specified. Enjoy. I did!

Ah. My little novicies. They grow up so fast. 

Travis, why you so sassy?

The Pair. 

#yolo

Most adorable baby geese ever. They were chilling by our tent.

Like mama like baby!

Geese mamas are so feisty. 

Look at that skill.
Photo by Katie McAuliffe.

How did I end up on a team with such sexy lads?
Photo by Katie McAuliffe.

more pictures from Sac State

     Here're some of the pictures that Wally took this weekend. Not very many of my boats actually rowing, but oh well. Also no pictures from my race with the bow four of the Demander, sadly, although they had the most incredible sprint!

Varsity Lightweight Four. Second Place.

Ribbons!

We were all so excited for this race.
Too bad we attacked another boat :[

Photo by Alyssa Towers.

Got a photo of this race.
[and a video, though I'm not sure that I wanna post that one].
Photo by Alyssa Towers.

Flying Angelica!

She deserved it, with first place finishes in every race she coxed!

I simply adore this photo.

*All photographs by Wally Gonzalez unless otherwise noted.

Sac State Invitational

     As you very well may know [considering that most people who read my posts were there], the Sacramento State Invitational was yesterday! I coxed two varsity fours and rowed three seat in the coxswain race! All three of my races were incredible and we only ran into another boat on one of the races [in the coxswain race, we kind of attacked the boat next to us. whoops]! I only took film photos, but I stole some pictures from my friend Alyssa to show ya! [she only got pictures of the coxswain race, so hopefully my friend Wally will post his photos of the other races soon!]

launching at 11:58am... for a 12pm race.

Drew's war face

Us attacking the boat next to us. We were the two lead boats before this.
It totally looks like Drew and the other coxswain are just chilling.

Victory! In the sense that we didn't flip and only caught a crab
in warm-up!

Davis Invitational (a little late)

     Here're some pictures from last weekend's regatta in Davis. It was an absolutely gorgeous day [especially compared to last year's cold, windy, rainy horror of a day] and both my boats, the JV eight and four, did very well! It was a fun course to row, particularly with the bridge around the 500 to go that made it super fun to watch the entire race [even if I couldn't watch the finishes because I refused to run across the street. hey! they said it was against the rules in the coxswain meeting!].

JV eight

JV four

*all photos by Wally Gonzalez


Currently listening to... the season 3 finale of 90210. I've watched like four episodes already today. I need help. hahha  

Davis Invitational

     First race of the spring! Gah! It's been so long coming, but it feels like just yesterday we were going to Lexington for the first time in back in September! The next few weeks are going to be quite a whirlwind with races, finals, spring break, San Diego, more races, Easter, and WIRAs. Then it'll be that insane month of May were all hell breaks loose and the rest of the year is a shit show [I feel bad saying that I can't wait because racing season is just starting.. just fuck it. I can't wait!]. Then the school year will end and it'll be all about summer classes and moving into Lemonade Stand, then it'll be time to leap over to France and get all worldly and sheeit [I'm gonna be so fucking fluent that I'll probably do a couple posts in French!]. All in all, this is the first day of the rest of my life. ahahah just kidding. everyday is the first day of the rest of my life :]


Currently listening to... "Everything Is Alright" by Motion City Soundtrack.

Black Velvet!

     So my chemistry class was cancelled today and my math class was just reviewing for an exam, so I got out of class at 11:35am this sunny, sunny Friday! It's a great start to what is set to be an amazing weekend. It's Parents' Weekend, so the parental figures are starting to pop up around campus, which makes me want my parents here now, and not at 9:30pm tonight [but at least they're coming at all! Last year I told them not to come and I was sad all weekend seeing everyone with their parents]. But they aren't really come down for Parents' Weekend, but for Black Velvet! It was far too much fun last year and I'm hoping this year will be even better. I got myself a purdy dress [the cobalt blue one I wore for Shan's wedding] and already have plans to get my eyebrows waxed and my make-up professionally done! The only downside to this amazing weekend is that I have not one, not two, but three midterms next week, so I have to get cracking on studying for them NOW, so I'll have lotso time with my parentals when they're here. But at least it's so nice [it's 72, already 5 degrees warmer than forecasted for today, so maybe we'll blast through the 71 degree heat of the day!], so I'll get to be warm and outside while I study!


Some photographies from last yurr:

view from the top.

at the banquet

yah. that was a rough time for my hair.

collision course

my funky dream last night

This photo has nothing to do with my dream, but I like it. :]

     Okay so my dream last night was real weird. Maybe someone can tell me how this explains how my subconscious is dealing with the stress of finals, the relief of fall practices being over [there was a lot of rowing intertwined in the dream], the pure ecstasy that I am feeling because I will be home in less than a week and thus no longer submitted to dorm bathrooms [the Dunne bathrooms kinda had a big role in the dream as well], or whathaveyou. 

     Well it was a pretty long, continuous dream with a bunch of random side stories that don't really pertain to the main point, so I'll just start in the middle.. and well stop in the middle too because the dream continued after all this went down:

     So in my dream, there’s a bathroom on the second floor of Dunne that no one can get into [I was living on the 3^rd floor, not the first in my dream] and one of the guys on my team wanted to show me inside of it. We went in and it was just completely gutted, like no toilets, sinks, showers, etc, but there was this hole in the ground that looked down into a level below and when I looked into it, I could see another bathroom [like possibly the first floor bathroom], which was all dirty and gross and then I realized that there was a giant cage in it and in that giant cage was a giant rodent. like a giant hamster/gerbil/mouse thing [it was giant, but it wasn’t as scary or as gross as say, a giant rat]. I, of course, screamed and got the frick out of there.

I'm guessing there isn't such thing as 
a golden rigger because this paintbrush
was the best thing that showed up when 
I typed "golden riggers" into google.
photo credit: http://www.cheapjoes.com

     Well later in my dream we were talking to some alumni [former rowers] who were telling us about some legendary golden riggers [can you even have golden riggers?] that had been stolen or lost or something because they definitely aren’t in the boathouse anymore [sorry for the crewspeak]. Well eenywhooo so they were telling us how they blackmailed the school into buying the golden riggers because they found the giant rodent that was hidden in Dunne and threatened to release the information [because who are we kidding? Not only are they keeping the students from a perfectly good dorm bathroom, but they’re hiding a fucking giant rodent in a dorm! Like around students studying and sleeping and just living their lives! Not to mention how unsanitary it would be to have a rodent in a dorm, let alone a giant one. Like this thing could have eaten someone alive it was so huge]. Well I guess they didn’t release the information because they apparently got their golden riggers and as far as my dream goes, we still have a giant rodent hidden somewhere in Dunne. 

     hahah so yah. My dream was pretty ridic. And please don't ask me where my subconscious comes up with dis shiz, because, frankly, I'd like to know as much as you would.

currently listening to... "All I Wanted" by Paramore.  

                    ["Well, it's a shame, I'm a dream."]

Head of the Lagoon

     So this has to be a quick update on account of the fact that Karla, Alyssa and I are supposed to be heading up to San Mateo in about ten minutes [but knowing Karla, we won't leave for another hour..] so we can bake some cupcakes [from scratch, we're that cool], get some coxswain bonding time, and then actually get some sleep in her very quiet [or at least compared to the dorms] house [and queen sized bed] so we can be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the coxswain meeting tomorrow morning at 7:45am!

     The Head of the Lagoon is the last head race of the fall season for us and I'm excited/terrified/anxious/going to throw up, pass out, pee my pants, or all three [but that's just my basic reaction to any race really]. Yep. But I'm mostly excited because this course is going to be the devil in me for the next 24 hours.

Just look at it!:

     It's gonna be oh so fun to take those curves like a mother-fuckin' drag racer. That's gonna be my nickname by the end of head race season senior year. yep. I'm gonna be a mother-fuckin' drag racer coxswain. :]

a day of firsts

     So as you know, this past Sunday was the Wine Country Classic. And.. well.. Santa Clara University Men's Crew pretty much kicked ass and took some names, those names being Sac State and Sonoma State. Yeah so Sunday was pretty much amazing. And it was filled with firsts:

I drove up the 101 for the first time.

[Sorry, no picture. It was too dark and far too early.]

I coxed my first varsity race. 

My seat.

 I coxed my first head race.

My boat.

 I coxed my first winning race!

[and we got gold medals. be jealz]

My boys.
Photo by Karla Gaitan.

I got thrown in for the first time

[it's kind of a tradition to throw your coxswain off the dock after a dubya]

yep. that's the top of my blonde head you
can see in that big splash.

 I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time.

Photo by Wally Gonzalez.

 I ate at Ike's Place in San Francisco for the first time.

Yep. It was a good day... oh and...

p.s. Head of the American in four days!!!

the Wine Country Classic tomorrow!

 

I love me some Lexington in the morning.

     Well we had short practice this morning than got to land and got our de-rigg on. As per-usual, I helped by tightening the nuts on one rigger and bungee-ing one seat, but Karla and I got both our boats safely on the trailer, which is our only real job.

     But this post isn't about de-rigging [although it is wicked fun]. It's about the Wine Country Classic tomorrow!!! Karla and I get to drive up tomorrow morning around 5:30am, so we can in Petaluma by the 7am coxswain meeting, but we don't race til noon, so we'll have almost two hours chillin' at the regatta before the guys even leave campus. But ohhh well. A coxswain's gotta do what a coxswain's gotta do, and if that includes waking up fecking early to get all the information for the race, well I'd rather be more informed than not. Especially since this is mine and Karla's first head race ever. I'm so excited, but also super anxious/nervous/freaking the fuck out. But I'm tipping a lot more towards the former than I was in March last year [before my first race ever]. Well as a de-stresser before the craziness that will be tomorrow, Meggan and I are baking some shit up in the Kennedy kitch. Should be funsies.

Hurr're some pictures from dis mornin':

look at those eights

whatta cutie.

Biiig Time.

Rustle.

go broncos!

these guyss..

"Don't fall into the trap of eating three donuts and feeling sick.
I did that last time." --Mark Bluth

Brooks is a classy one.

PS Petaluma... TOMORROW!