Fighting Cabin Fever

As Spring Break draws tantalizingly close, I find myself eager to escape dorm life and get out into that Spring weather that should be here anytime now. Dorm life definitely has it's positives, but being shut indoors during long winter weeks is not one of them. In order to combat the sweeping epidemic known to some as "cabin fever" I have prescribed several remedies for myself. *Note: These remedies only treat the symptoms of cabin fever, not the disease itself. Cabin fever can only truly be cured by copious amounts of sunshine and 50 plus degree weather.* My remedies are as follows: Running, leisurely reading, Flight of the Conchords, working out, doodling in my assignment notebook, playing basketball when possible, and taking naps. The most successful of these prescriptions has been Flight of the Conchords (season's one and two) which successfully alleviates stress within five minutes of inserting the dvd into my laptop. These two clever men from New Zealand put my disease into remission for sometimes up to three hours, depending on when the next class is.

Retreat on the Rock

This weekend I attended Campus Ministry's "Retreat on the Rock". For those of you familiar with Kairos, it is close to the same thing. I would recommend anyone looking for a weekend away from the nagging stresses of college life, (and who isn't?), to attend this retreat. I find myself refreshed, reorganized, and like my laptop--refurbished. Only any given college campus, no matter how great, students will find themselves under more stress than usual during these cold months in the dorms. Retreat on the Rock helped me to deal with this stress. Only two more weeks till Spring Break! I still have not heard back from any of my job applications unfortunately, but hopefully I will be able to post some good news soon.

I Won a Drawing!

Finally. For the first time since my arrival at Rockhurst I have won a drawing. Often at campus events there will be drawings for various prizes like gift cards. Even when the odds have been heavily in my favor, (I recently found myself with three tickets in a room of forty people and ten of them won), I still managed to come home empty. All of that changed, however, last week at a small presentation on dating relationships. Only four people failed to win something and for once, I was not one of them. Ticket number 14673131 was called and I had myself two tickets to see the movie "Valentines Day" (see happy accompanying picture). Of course I have no interest in seeing this movie but that is completely beside the point. What matters is that, for the first time and hopefully not the last, I have won a drawing. As a side note I ran 13 miles in 18 degree weather today. Less than two months till marathon day!!!!

Cool Runnings

"Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, it's cross country time!" In the 1993 movie "Cool Runnings" four natives from Jamaica leave their tropical homeland to compete in the winter Olympics. After leaving my home in Cape Girardeau to resume my training here at Rockhurst, I felt a certain connection with the Jamacian bobsled team.
The month of January marked the official beginning to my marathon training. Typical temperate weather of Southeast Missouri was not an issue during Christmas break, but once I came back to Kansas City I had to deal with consistently sub-freezing temperatures. The cold itself is more of an annoyance than a roadblock to my training since I wear multiple layers of clothing and employ the use of a "balaclava" (see the light blue thing in the picture). However, snow, sleet, ice, slush, and any manner of wintery mix as the weatherman says, does make running difficult. When there is snow on the ground, as there is today, I am forced to the confines of a treadmill. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with treadmills, it's just that I feel like a hamster on a never-ending wheel of misery. In this picture I was able to get my run in before the sleet really began to come down and escaped with only two eyelashes literally lashed together. Only nine more weeks of training! And I little warm weather wouldn't hurt.