I can’t believe I haven’t written here in over 2 weeks!  Please forgive me though as the last couple of weeks have been a bit crazy.

A few things to update here.  Training has been coming along pretty well.  In fact, I just finished my last hard week of training before USA Championships.  Yup, USAs…it’s just a couple of weeks away.  From here on out, I will be doing less reps but raising the quality of each turn.  Lower numbers means I get to let my body recover so that I could be in peak condition when USAs roll around!  My hard week of training was rather brutal but I’m totally glad to be done with it.  This will be the first qualification for the Olympic Team!

Some people say I’m interesting because when things get more intense in the gym, I try and do more stuff outside of the gym.  One of the reasons I do this is because I feel that it keeps me grounded, and helps me release the stress that comes along with training.  Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy doing more work (the Google stuff), studying for the GMAT (thinking about eventually applying to B-School), and doing some volunteer work.

I haven't opened up a book and studied in years. My head spins when I think too hard but I'm easing back into it!

Of all these things, the volunteer work has been especially great.  I’ve been helping with the set up for the prom that’s going to be held in a couple of weeks at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.  Although we call it the “prom,” the event is more like an end of the year party since all of the kids that attend the hospital school are invited.  It’s really inspiring and puts my life in perspective when I see these kids fight for their lives with all they’ve got.  Some of them are really young, but super brave.  It makes me not want to complain about the small things anymore.  Anyway, this is my third year volunteering for the prom and this year’s theme is an “Under the Sea” theme.  Dreamworks (the production company famous for movies like Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar) has been gracious enough to let us borrow their facility.  We’ve been working on making signs, props related to the ocean such as paper mache coral reefs, and games booths that we’ll be using during the event.  Things are moving along and hopefully I can share some photos with you guys as we go along!

Volunteering at Dreamworks!