a puzzle and a poem

a puzzle:









and a poem:
Robert Frost is up there with my favorite poets of all time.

BOND AND FREE

Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about--
Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turn, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world's embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be
But Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius' disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.

His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.

apparently

We took a trip to the gym on Friday for one last time. Papa had something to talk over with Coach Yulia and I needed to clean out my locker.

I'm glad he was keeping her busy because I definitely wouldn't have been prepared if I had to face her. Guennadi gave me a hug and said he missed me, no more than that. Just that he missed me. I'm going to miss him too.

Apparently Yulia said a lot of things.

Apparently she's done SO much for me and I'm very ungrateful.

Apparently I told my teammates that my dad is strict and he doesn't feed me and he makes me workout extra and he makes me work in the family business because we're so poor.

(Is this the same Yulia who thought it was so cool that I was a personal trainer and told me to never give up what I loved and I would definitely succeed?)

Apparently after I had resigned she went home and canceled me as a friend on facebook.

And because I quit gymnastics I'm most likely going to quit everything else I start in life "and before you know it I'll get pregnant or something."

Wow.

This went on for a whole hour while I was out on the floor catching up with my teammates. When she got tired of ranting and Papa got the financial issues taken care of he came out.

He was really confused and questioned me about it later. I really didn't know what to say. I had never been so disrespected in all my life. And the upsetting thing was that it was by someone who was my mentor, role model and guide for such a long period of time.

I was upset and angry for a couple hours and then realized how ridiculous it was and now I can't stop laughing.

The little bit of truth in all those lies was the fact that I did "quit" even though it was for a good reason. The greatest revenge is success.

I was really tempted to go to her facebook wall and say "haha we're still friends."

I find it all quite amusing.

little blessings

Little brother: "When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Bigger sister: "What I wanted to be didn't matter so much to me as who I wanted to be."




sometimes the little things people say hit you harder than you expect...

shoes

CF LiS pictures

So, it's official. I have resigned from gymnastics.

I think the strangest thing about this is that I went from having absolutely no time to myself to having so much. I don't know what to do. I feel liberated and empty. I'm excited and nervous about the change.

The process of my resignation was stressful and ridiculous. My coaches threw a tantrum because they didn't want to lose me. I was insulted my face, told I wouldn't succeed in life and put down about my character. It was pretty dramatic. On the positive side, they were concerned about me and afraid I would regret my decision. Over all they didn't take it too well. This was a decision I made over many months of thought, and I'm confident it was the right thing to do at this point in my life. My coaching position depended on my training status, so I lost my Saturday job. I won't really miss it. I will miss the gym and my team and the way a good performance in competition makes me feel. Gymnastics will always remain a part of me.

My aspirations for the future begin with school. Papa says I've "graduated" from "St. William's Academy", (Hooray!) so I've set my sights on Community College. Naturally there are some complications with not having ID, but hopefully that can be taken care of and/or worked around. For the time being I'm coaching CrossFit in the mornings with Bethany and occasionally in the evenings. I'm doing Olympic weightlifting mixed with CrossFit WODs pretty avidly during the week, training for a lifting meet on October 17th and long term for the CrossFit Games 2010. It has officially been announced! I still haven't decided whether or not to try to qualify as an individual competitor or part of the affiliate team we are putting together. Either way I am excited to be a part of it.

Between coaching and working out in the morning and coaching and working out in the evenings I have lots of time to myself when. I use this time to clean around the house(I'm learning to love it, Aimee, especially since Stefan's not here), surf the web (which really means catch up on all those CF vids I've missed in these last few weeks), and read. When we were visiting California in July we picked up all of our literature books from our old apartment. A large selection of those books(of which I made a list, see below) now lives on my desk shelf.

gates of fire

the black arrow
jane eyre
the legend of sleepy hollow
steppenwolfe

narcissus and goldmund

fathers and sons

brave new world

the stranger

the great gatesby
a moveable feast
a tale of two cities

the princess bride

robinson crusoe

anna and the king of siam

the pearl

frankenstein

king solomon's mines

uncle tom's cabin

les miserables

oliver twist

the hobbit

around the world in 80 days

alice's adventures in wonderland & through the looking glass

fahrenheit 451

the invisible man

doctor zhivago

the hiding place

all things wise and wonderful

all creatures great and small

out of the silent planet trilogy

through the gates of splendor

Right now I'm reading Dune by Frank Herbert.