This past weekend, Cassadie and I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Championship swim meet in Wenatchee. It was the championships for Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, and Northern Idaho. Cassadie swam so well, I can't believe how hard she works. She really amazes me all the time. The funny thing is that she amazes herself as well. Quite often, after a race, she'll tell me that she didn't know she could swim that fast. One day in practice, she had to swim a sprint, and her coach told her to finish in a certain amount of time. She said she swam so fast she scared herself. She just didn't know she was capable of moving that fast. It's funny!

Anyway, back to the meet. She swam in five events. She swam two on Friday, one Saturday and two on Sunday. After swimming each race, the top 20 swimmers come back in the evening to swim a final race for placement. Cassadie got to swim in three final races, placing in the top twenty in three of her events. She also got personal best times in all five of her events, dropping almost 30 seconds altogether.

Her coach tells me that she's hard to coach, but that it's for a good reason. She's progressing so quickly that he has a hard time, there are just so many little things that she still doesn't know. It's kinda like, what do you teach her next that will be the most beneficial? I'd like to say that she gets it from me, but I know that I am not as intrinsically motivated as she is, or as naturally athletic as she is.

I would have pictures except that I don't remember to take any, as I have mentioned in my earlier post, and I can't seem to find my cable that allows me to upload the pictures to my computer. So, I hope to find my cable, and get some video soon so you can all see how much she really has improved.

You can find anything on the internet...

Birds are funny creatures. Living in Central Washington, I have seen my fair share of cranes, hawks, eagles, and other large birds. Alex gets very excited when he sees a bald eagle. I have to say that it is cool to me, but since I have seen then around since I was a child, the sight of one does not thrill me the way it does him. He is often disappointed by my response to a sighting. I do however, get very excited at the sight of a pelican. We have had pelicans in the Yakima Valley for the last five years or so. I absolutely love to watch a flock of them circle in the sky. It seems so majestic the way they soar; their white bodies contrasting the blue sky. It has become a ritual on the way home from Yakima to see if we can spot them in the river. The kids are very excited, I'm sure as a result of my excitement. Tonight, Jarod saw two of them, and we began to discuss their strange bill. He says that when he thinks of pelicans he remembers the scene in "Finding Nemo" when the pelican scoops Nemo up, gets water for him, and flies with him in his bill. Jarod proceeded to look them up on the internet when we got home, because as he says "you can find anything on the internet." He actually found some crazy stories. One was about a girl who had to get 20 stitches from a pelican ramming into her head while she was swimming in the ocean. Another one told about a pelican eating a pigeon...which I find odd. Isn't that kind of like canibalism?

Don't you every wonder why we do this to ourselves?

For those of you who don't know, I am currently taking classes in an attempt to get my Masters' degree. I'm in a program that requires me to take classes for six weeks over three summers - then I complete a thesis-type project and get my degree. This is my third and final summer (cross my fingers), I am taking 14 credits which mean four classes. I am in class from 9 until 3:30 three days a week. The first two summers it was 16 credits each, six classes, and four days a week. 11 of the credits are from education courses and the rest are math courses. All of this to say, it is an intense six weeks.

I can't say that I was excited to go back to school, but as a teacher, a Masters' degree is really a necessity. Not because it changes my job at all, but simply for an increase in salary. I am technically qualified to teach at a junior college with a Masters' degree, so my adjunct faculty position at Heritage University will be legitimate now. (If you didn't know, I have been teaching there for 2 1/2 years, in the evenings.)

So, do I enjoy going to school? Honestly, sometimes. I do enjoy learning new things, especially math, and I love to be challenged. Although I have recently realized that I do not cope well with too much challenge. I am not fun to be around when I cannot figure out how to do something. The other day, I spent hours trying to figure out a math problem, and when I couldn't figure it out, I literally fell apart. It was quite ridiculous. It was kind of like throwing a handful of rocks at a snow covered mountain, and the last one causes an avalanche. In other words, it was one of several things that caused the meltdown.

It really isn't all bad. Doing math all day is fun ( I know I'm a nerd), and the people are great. I enjoy my time with them, although it seems short. I have made good friends.