Courtenay Brown

It means Halloween is upon us and I'm again unprepared. I have a great costume idea, but ideas get you nowhere when you get fed up and declare you hate Halloween only 5 minutes after going to the Halloween Spirit Store of tacky disgustingness. But, where the crap do you find gold body paint and butterfly die-cut molds? Where is MJ Designs when you need them?? "Cold" also means a segue into winter training and my 3rd annual assertion that THIS is going to be THE YEAR that my swim takes off! It really is though. To that end, beyond laughing respectfully at Dave of course, but to that end ...

A few weeks ago, one of my professors said that if I started to feel lost or overwhelmed (who, me?) any time during my first year in the program, just "keep kicking". Keep doing the work and keep going to office hours and keep reading and eventually it will feel under control again. Then the other day at swim practice, Dave Scott told me that I'm lazy. He said the only reason I can't kick and my feet keep dragging is I'm lazy (which, I respectfully laughed out loud). So, thing 1, to my professor: do we need a new metaphor? And thing 2: ...

Or really, academically subsistent living? Grad school has been wonderful so far, but I am still very much on a day-to-day, what-the-crap-is-due-NOW kind of pattern. Readings, memo's, homework sets, and big-picture stuff. Last week I had to settle on research questions for my two big projects this semester. I also proctored a midterm, and now I'm grading the midterm. Which, kids these days: it's Forest Service not Forrest [Gump] Service! Training took a bit of a back burner last week but now I'm back at it, in preparation for the Amica Sprint in a few weeks. Goal #1 is to have fun, goal #2 is to stay on course, goal #3 is to be awesome. Oh, and since we last spoke, ...

I had a very fun weekend actually. My homestay family was incredible, and any time I get to meet new people and play with dogs and complain that a bike ride is too long, short, flat, and pretty is a guaranteed good time. But on paper it was a little bit terrible! Gah! Tiny violins please: What's been a wetsuit swim at Tinley's for every recent year was suddenly not, and what was my longest swim in a race ever was not really race pace. I followed volunteers' instructions and wound up missing 4 miles of the bike, finding out about my disqualification only after running my little heart out to what I thought (admittedly with a little confusion) ...