Snapshot Book Review: Bossypants

Bossypants by Tina Fey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amusing, although not as good as I guess I had hoped. I needed more structure from the book (it wasn't quite a collection of vignettes, nor was it a chronological narrative), and as a close friend said, "This is a book that would have been better written ten years from now."

However, I did hear an interview with Fey on a NPR: Fresh Air podcast, and hearing her read passages from this book made me love it 100x more than when I read it on paper. So my advice, for those intending to read this book, is to get the audio version. I'd wager that it will be worth the auditory performance.

View all my reviews

Going Clipless: First Ride

I am beginning to think that winning the NYC Triathlon lottery is more similar to winning the lottery in that ___ short story where the winner gets stoned to death than to winning a million dollars. My quest to compete is bringing me closer to death than to money, anyway.

So as you probably know by now, I am a triathlete-minus-one. I tell runners that I am a swimmer. I tell swimmers that I am a runner. But to neither group would I ever deign to classify myself as a cyclist.

Thus, winning the lottery to enter the NYC Triathlon is pretty much the only reason I now own a Cannondale racing bike, complete with speedometer, tire repair kit, and—as of yesterday—clipless pedals. And to think, I really only wanted to buy a lighter-weight bike so I could carry it up and down from my apartment. . . .

Although I have owned the bike and most of the accoutrements since late last September, I only just bought clipless pedals (and the cleats and shoes to go with them) yesterday. I might have procrastinated even longer in making this scary, expensive (perhaps also scarily expensive) purchase had my caged pedal—the kind where you fit the front of your shoe inside a plastic cage and tighten a stirrup to keep it on—not broken on my last ride. Actually, the stirrup might have broken the ride before without my noticing, but when I got on my bike this last time, I quickly realized that the noisy flapping going on at my ankle was not an untied shoelace, but a broken stirrup. The entire thing had pulled free from one side of the pedal and was flapping wildly in the wind.

“This,” I told myself, “is a sign.” I had been meaning to get more advanced pedals, anyway, since my racing bike almost seemed to require them. Plus, if I wanted to get good at this sport before the race, I had better start practicing with the gear sooner rather than later.

With all of these factors in mind, I grit my teeth, took my Visa out of its vault (okay, make that out of my wallet), and sallied on down to the Grove Street Bike shop. Of course, I had to return to my apartment soon afterward, because they needed the bike in order to install the pedals . . . but as I said, I never claimed to be a bike pro.

Which leads me to today: my first ride with the new pedals.

For those of you who are as clueless as I was about competitive cycling, here is how clipless pedals work: first, you buy special shoes and cleats that you then screw into the bottom of those shoes. These cleats attach to special pedals, which you could never use with regular shoes. You get the cleat into them by sliding the toe of the shoe forward until the cleat catches the pedal; then, you push downward through a revolution to clip in the heel. Once you have done this with both of your feet, you are successfully attached to your bike. The bike and you are one. To get out, you have to twist your heel away from the bike to “un-clip.”

Sound pretty straightforward? I didn’t think so, either.

Here is the sum total of my first clipless pedal ride:

• 5 falls while dismounting
  
• 2 falls while mounting
  
• 1 chain dislodgement (for which I had to ask for help from a man passing by on his bike)
  
• 1 seat bent sideways
  
• 1 skinned elbow
  
• 1 pair of lost sunglasses

The scary part is that this list could easily include items such as:

• almost hit by bus
  
• collision with pedestrian
  
• boken _______ (tibula/fibia/ulna/scapula/cranium/etc.)
  
• broken bike!

So all in all, I guess I got away lightly with just a scraped elbow and sore shoulder. I am definitely going to have to take one of those bike repair classes, though. Because try as I might, I cannot get the seat back into alignment!

Snapshot Book Review: The Hiding Place

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As distressing as the Holocaust is, this book--unlike most WWII novels--was more a tale of the beauty of human kindness than an account of a gruesome war.

The Hiding Place is the true account of Corrie Ten Boom's experience during WWII, first as a key player in the Dutch underground resistance to the Nazis and then as a prisoner shipped off to a concentration camp. Yet despite the violent drama that typically surrounds these sorts of narratives, Corrie's account is one of love and admiration for those around her.

As a character and as a narrator, I especially related to Corrie because her sister Betsie is the "perfect Christian" who always seems to think of God and others first, while Corrie, the narrator, always finds herself falling short and wondering how Betsie can manage to be so selfless. This is one of the truer, more heartfelt accounts of the struggle that not just Christians, but anyone who upholds a moral code faces when they are confronted with horrific, all-consuming evil on one side and seemingly perfect selflessness and kindness on the other. Few if any of us fit into one category or the other, and Corrie's observations about each are worth reading.

View all my reviews

How to know when you are truly OUT of your parents’ house

You know you have officially moved out of your parents’ house when you return for a visit and find yourself sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of your sister’s old bedroom.

Now, I like to think of myself as a generous person. Whether or not this is actually true, I am at least practical enough to agree that it makes more sense to allow someone to stay in a fully furnished bedroom that used to be mine as a child than to keep it locked tight and gathering dust. Therefore, when my cousin K___ needed a place to live and my parents offered her my room, I agreed that this living arrangement was a good idea.

However, when I arrived home the weekend of my sister’s graduation, this “good idea” suddenly felt like a personal affront. I was forever going upstairs and heading straight into my old bedroom on autopilot, only to see an array of unfamiliar belongings strewn about the room. Not only that, but my formerly meticulously organized possessions and decorations were now scattered haphazardly about, buried beneath a pile of knickknacks or pushed aside to make way for an assortment of my cousin’s pictures, hair ties, and lotion bottles. I opened the dresser drawers (ostensibly looking for makeshift pajamas) and found myself facing a collection of clothes that were not at all mine.

While I wholeheartedly acknowledge that giving someone else my old bedroom when I am obviously no longer living there is, in fact, the best possible arrangement, I cannot say that seeing my room completely covered in someone else’s stuff didn’t make me feel somewhat replaced. I felt as though my parents had found a new daughter to live in my old space. Without my childhood sanctuary intact, I finally felt like a visitor in my childhood home. My neat, orderly, sunny yellow bedroom was no longer “mine”, and it probably never will be again.

Looking at the situation objectively, this is clearly a good and necessary thing—I need to be out on my own, earning and developing my own space in the world. Yet as I confronted this reality head-on in the span of one short weekend, I realized that I have not yet completely moved out of my parents’ house, at least mentally. I have not yet defined “home” for my adult self.

Swimming History Revived

Technically speaking, I can say that I have swum for almost all of my 25 years of life. In fact, still technically speaking, I have competed in swimming for almost two-thirds of that time. However, I didn't get "serious" about swimming until the summer after my senior year of high school. That was when I joined the Woodland Hills Aquatic Team (appropriately abbreviated WHAT).

WHAT was one of the local club swimming teams--the cheapest and most accessible team, for me at that time. I had actually wanted to join WHAT much earlier in my swimming career, but when I first made my case somewhere around eight or nine years of age, my mother told me that I could either swim on the club team or I could keep my other extracurricular activities (which, at the time, included flute and piano lessons, tap dance class, basketball, and a once-a-week paper route). I chose the more well-rounded route.

Instead, I swam for my community team every summer starting when I was 8, up until I graduated from high school. I also joined my high school team swim team in my senior year because I quit playing basketball...that's a long story. However, the important thing is that by swapping basketball for swimming my senior year, I met the best coach I have ever had: G___. G___ taught me to love swimming and training and competing in a way I had never experienced before. He was the most motivating coach I have ever met, and when our season ended, I approached him and asked whether I could join the club (WHAT) team, which he also coached. He said yes.

Thus began what I consider my "true" swimming career. Rather, it could be considered more of an education in endurance training, since it ultimately set me up to become a long-distance runner, as well. But progression went as follows:

Summer 2004: Joined WHAT. Trained through the spring and summer--first time in a long-course (50m) pool.

Winter 2004/2005 (Freshman Year): Went to college at University of Rochester (UR). By happenstance, roomed with swimmer. Swam on my own during the pool's open lap times.

Summer 2005: Returned to train with WHAT, this time with the goal of joining the UR team.

Winter 2005/2006 (Sophomore Year): Given permission to "walk on" to the UR team by the coach, with the understanding that I could be there if I could/would do the work. I did the work. I was the only swimmer left behind when the team flew to Atlanta for the year-end meet.

Summer 2006: Trained again with WHAT.

Winter 2006/2007 (Junior Year): Discovered that I am a middle-distance swimmer; trained for the 100 and 200 free in particular. Only competed half the year because I went abroad in January. Found a pool in England and swam on my own to stay in shape for the summer and following year.

Summer 2007: Trained with WHAT. Received a call halfway through the summer from the head coach at UR, informing me that I would be "unable to perform at the level the coaching staff was now expecting" and that I could stay on as a "team manager" if I wished.

Winter 2007/2008: Took morning shifts at my job at the campus coffee shop to replace the time I had expected to be at practice. Swam 2-3 days a week with the community masters team (hosted at the UR pool).

Spring/Summer 2008: Graduated. Moved to NYC. Started running in lieu of swimming. Found city-subsidized pools and started swimming again.

2008-2009: Taught my new 30-year-old friend how to swim.

Summer 2009: Met open water swimmers; started swimming at Brighton Beach.

Summer 2010: Competed in my second-ever open water race (NYC Aquathalon).

Fall/Winter 2010/2011: Formed Chelsea Chubs with other swimmers at public pool.

Spring 2011: Competed in my first swim meet since 2006.

Plans for this summer (2011):

1. JUNE: Liberty Island Swim (1.2k)
   
2. AUGUST: NYC Triathlon (Olympic distance, 1.5k swim)
   
3. SEPTEMBER: Little Red Lighthouse Swim (10k)

Also, now that I am back in "competition" mode, I dug out my old "personal bests" from college and updated them according to my latest performance. Here is how the times compare. All-time bests are in red. One might argue that I am in the best "long distance" shape of my life right now...!

Event	2005 (Soph)	2006 (Jr)	2011 (Masters)
50 free	31.44	29.86	n/a
100 free	1:08.6	1:05.81	1:05.84
200 free	2:23.61	2:21.98	2:25.34
500 free	6:26.41	n/a	6:24.19
50 back	n/a	37.5	n/a
100 back	1:23.7	1:17.36	n/a
200 back	n/a	2:43.86	n/a
100 breast	1:30.2	n/a	n/a