productiveness feels good

Those of you who know me might say that i am at times, lazy. However this is not the case, i am simply selectively active and as of late, i've been on somewhat of a "productive streak" if you will.

This all started last week on tuesday chemistry lab. Usually, i'll do the lab and wait till next day to get all the facts and figures from my various lab partners and what not. But this Tuesday, something came over me, i said to myself "Gabe, why don't you just copy down the data now and then you won't have to worry tomorrow". And so i did just that and that night, i went home and did the whole thing. Next morning comes and HELL YESSSSS, i was able to ride the bus and get through lunch without asking once to copy the lab, as a matter of fact, i was asked quite a few times for someone else to copy mine, and it felt phenomenal.

Now i was hooked on productiveness, wednesday, i did the physics homework in my home and thursday i did chemistry homework at my home, friday did physics work at home and today, i write this after completing another set of physics homework. But homework aside, i decided to put ever so little effort into my other subjects by paying mild attention in class and i must say, my grades have skyrocketted.

So here i am, and what is the only thing that my fantastical mind can think of is how this whole thing relates to Cross Country. See, during this season, i brought my time down from 21:39 to 19:33 after i realized that it really was all mental and once i put in the tiniest smigeon of effort, i would be better.

The point of this tirade is that, cross country f*cks you up deep deep down in that part of the mind that talks to you when you're all alone in bed.

The Snowball Escapades

holy crap, i almost died today, i kid you not, my life was almost actually ended today, while running track ironically enough. How you may ask, well this story is so fantastical, you can't make this up.

As you may know if you live in New Jersey, it snowed all last week and it was beautiful, no school on friday, but this has very little to do with my story, only the snow matters at this point. Dave Gaynor, fellow cross country afficionado, was running in front of me and the idea occurs to me, i think i shall throw snow at this child. SCOOP....BAM, ouch, that one hurt even me.

Dave: OW, SCREW YOU GABE, I'LL GET YOU
me: no you won't, ha ha ha-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I honestly did not think that he was going to do anything to actually retaliate, but i was just a little wrong. The workout continues much without incident, and then we started our cool down, my imminent doom only minutes away. Now, for some reason, he was running towards me, i don't know, but Dave Gaynor just pulls a piece of ice out of his pants and then i decide very quickly, "I do not want to get hit by ice, i shall dodge this ginourmous piece of ice".

I dodge, i see such a look on Dave's face like Adam Sandler in the Water Boy rigth before he tackles someone and i was perplexed, and then i understand. I heard a screech and a horn five and one quarter feet behind me and i realized i had just dodged Dave Gaynor right into the path of a moving vehicle, what the F****? Man, i was actually afeared for my life, it was by the mear grace of God that i did not die earlier today.

O well, just another chapter in the Fabulous Misadventures of Gabe Villegas.

A Glance Into the Mind of a Track Runner

You know, something came to my attention recently, something that i feel must be discussed because it questions all that we have learned about the human mind and phyce. Why do people who run cross country feel the inability to quit, even when they are not running cross country.

A rescent poll of fellow winter track runners, WINTER TRACK may i reiterate (very cold), revealed that only the ones who had not run cross country would be willing to quit the team, all those that had run cross country said that they were afraid to quit the team. Now, let us look at this situation a bit more closely. 87% of the people (boys only so far polled) say that they hate the sport of running with a passion, myself included, and yet feel the irrational, inexplicable inablity to stop running. Day after day, we board the shuttle over to the track. Why? Because for some strange reasion, our track happens to reside at the middle school, why would the highschool track field be at the high school, that would make too much sense.

We arrive at the track, we are given a 45 minute speech by head coach Campbell, and we begin our workout. For those of you not familiar with track and field, there are three divisions: Sprints, Distance, Lifting, the hardest being Distance, funnily enough, i run distance. Why haven't I been slapped yet? This question has puzzled cross country runners since the beginning of time. After every workout everyone in Distance division, this "Cross Country Cult" if you will, every single person begins their daily tirade about how distance sucks, should have stayed home. However, none of us seems to posses the god damn abiltiy to stop freaking running? AYY DIOS MIO, WHAT THE HELL!!!!!! I could go on forever, i just ponder, what went wrong with the people that run, this is most definately not normal. But something else is true:

through this expieriene, i have learned that human beings can learn to turn off feelings and emotions on command, because after a while, you just get anesthesized to the pain, but it's still there.

The point of this rant: Don't do track. It's too late for some of us, but you still may be able to save yourself