I bought tickets last winter for the Celine Dion concert that was scheduled for October 30th in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, half an hour after I ordered the tickets I realized we would most likely be leaving for conference cross country the next day. I ended up selling my tickets in August (for an $8 profit) which was a good decision, as we ended up leaving the day of the concert. About a month ago, I decided to check TicketMaster, I'm not really sure why, and saw Celine Dion was performing again in Minneapolis on December 18th. I ordered the cheapest tickets, which were located about as high up as you could go. After some investigating, I found out the concert scheduled in October had been postponed due to some kind of throat infection. Fate? I think so!!
Anyways, my friend Andrea and I roadtripped to Minneapolis on Thursday for the concert. I started to regret going to the concert because of the weather forecast and also driving through Minneapolis during rush hour. I was even stressed about the concert waiting in line to get into the arena. But that all changed when we had our tickets scanned. The scanner beeped and the guy told us we would have to go to guest services. I was thinking it was just my luck that our printed off tickets were defective in some way. The guy said we were probably being relocated. After weaving back through hundreds of people waiting in line, we got to guest services. The lady asked us if we were big Celine Dion fans. We said we were, but not over-the-top or obsessive. She then asked us if we were big enough fans to be on the floor- Andrea and I looked at each other and nodded excitedly. Our mangy printed off tickets were then exchanged for two beautiful silver tickets. I think I had a look of utter shock on my face the whole time before the concert started.
I wasn't sure if Celine would have an opener since she is the greatest female singer of all time, but she had a guy named Gordon who plays at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas perform for about thirty minutes. He did imitations of other musicians, which was pretty funny but I wanted Celine to perform so we could get back before the snow hit. She started the show off with "I Drove All Night", which seemed really fitting since we had driven 3 1/2 hours to see her and would be driving all night on the way back to Cedar Falls. The next song she played was "Taking Chances", one of my favorites of her newer songs. It was pretty obvious how much she enjoys performing. After just about every song where she had a really high and long vocal, she would pump her fists in the air like she had just scored a touchdown or something. She played "My Heart Will Go On" as her encore, which was amazing.
After the concert we drove around Minneapolis for half an hour trying to get on the right road. We even took a scenic drive along the river for a few miles until we realized that was not going to get us anywhere. We finally got on 35-W South, and since it hadn't started snowing yet, our only concern was staying awake. After driving for about an hour, it was like we crossed a boundary between no snow and snow everywhere. It wasn't bad at first, but close to the Iowa border it began to drift and turn the interstate into one lane. We poked along at about 40 mph behind a vehicle in front of us. When we got in Iowa, we ended up behind a snow plow. Though it was pretty safe behind the snow plow, we were driving less than 30 mph and at that rate would not be home until 5:00 am, and the blowing snow was starting to affect our depth perception and attentiveness. We made a really good decision and stayed at Country Inn & Suites right next to the Diamond Jo Casino. We drove about an hour and a half the next day and finally made it back to Cedar Falls around noon.
Even with the crappy weather, this was probably about the best experience in my life so far. I think Andrea had a lot of fun too. If nothing else we enjoyed jamming out in her car for 7 hours.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Hate it or Love it
I decided to make a new post on my blog because I now have about 10/16 (which I guess is equal to 5/8?) of the way done with my two page paper. I think it's actually coming together, but I need a little break from the last forty-five minutes I spent on it. I skipped cost accounting today because I thought I might be about a minute late. I could have gone, but instead I was able to get breakfast (because my fridge is empty) and also write down some ideas for my paper. Oh, and we were going to start discussing a chapter I hadn't read yet, so what was the point? I have been highly disappointed with that class this year. Right now I'm expecting to possibly get my first B in college, but even if I get a B+, that would be the lowest grade I have gotten on a non-liberal arts core class. Today was the only day I have skipped for reasons other than a conflict with cross country. I always do the homework- not always on the first day we start going over the chapter, but it always gets done by the end of the chapter. Usually my professor calls on me to give the answer because no one else has done it. So why will my grade be in the B range? I know how to calculate the material and interpret it on the tests, but it is the ambiguous conceptual questions that I miss. I don't feel that my grade reflects what I know at all. This last test, I did a horrible job studying, but got an A. Maybe my best strategy is to study very little?
I actually intended to talk about indoor track in this post, but for some reason accounting is on my mind. We have a workout today on the football turf. We have been practicing on the turf for the last two weeks. Some teammates went as far as to say they wanted the football team to lose so we could run on the indoor track. I don't mind running on the turf that much, except possibly today. We are running 2 x 1000s, 2 x 600s, 2 x 400s. Those are short distances compared to what distance runners usually run, but at a faster pace than I prefer. It probably won't be too bad, but it's the longest reps we have done since before cross country was over. I tend to not give myself enough credit with running. I have improved immensely since walking on my freshman year. Some highlights of the last two years are breaking my personal high school records in the 3000 and 1500. I ran my fastest time in the 3000 when I was a sophomore, so never running faster than that again during high school made me believe I had gotten a lot slower. I ran the 3000 during indoor last year and ran six seconds faster than my record at indoor conference. I finally ran under five minutes during outdoor track last year, something I had been trying to do all during high school. My reward for doing that was getting my belly button pierced during the summer, as that was the deal in high school if I ran under five minutes. My times aren't really fast for a Division I track program, but they are decent to finish around the middle of the pack, which I'm happy with for now at least. I almost didn't go out for cross country this year. I was set on trying other things, such as intramurals and being a regular college student making popcorn and watching Oprah in the afternoon. Participating in two sports at a Division I college is a big time commitment, plus having a job, etc. But, a wise friend told me I would regret it and I decided to stay out. Overall I would have to say I am happy with my decision. I had a great cross country season, though it got off to a slow start. I ran my fastest 6K time (which was the distance of most of our meets), even with a cold and body aches. It was at Bradley in Peoria (my favorite place to run at), so maybe that's why I had such a good race. My biggest highlight of cross country was finally running at Regionals. I was injured my freshman year and got screwed out of running at Regionals last year for one reason or another. This year I ran and had a great race. I finished fifth out of six on our team, which meant my place counted as part of our team's score. Going into the race I had low expectations because I had a bad race at conference and thought I may have peaked at Bradley. The meet was in Oklahoma and was windy and just an insanely hilly course. I ended up having the best race of my life probably, and if it weren't so windy and hilly probably would have set a personal record for the 6K.
Now indoor track is starting up, and I am trying to stay motivated before break. Running in the winter is hard to stay motivated to do, but I won't be working during break so I can run when it's not dark out. The circumference of my town is about a mile, so let's just say I had trouble staying motivated last winter. I hope to run the steeplechase this year during outdoor track. The steeplechase is a 3000 meter race with barriers to jump over and a water jump on each lap. We have a new coach this year and he is going to let us try it, so I guess I have that to be excited for.
I actually intended to talk about indoor track in this post, but for some reason accounting is on my mind. We have a workout today on the football turf. We have been practicing on the turf for the last two weeks. Some teammates went as far as to say they wanted the football team to lose so we could run on the indoor track. I don't mind running on the turf that much, except possibly today. We are running 2 x 1000s, 2 x 600s, 2 x 400s. Those are short distances compared to what distance runners usually run, but at a faster pace than I prefer. It probably won't be too bad, but it's the longest reps we have done since before cross country was over. I tend to not give myself enough credit with running. I have improved immensely since walking on my freshman year. Some highlights of the last two years are breaking my personal high school records in the 3000 and 1500. I ran my fastest time in the 3000 when I was a sophomore, so never running faster than that again during high school made me believe I had gotten a lot slower. I ran the 3000 during indoor last year and ran six seconds faster than my record at indoor conference. I finally ran under five minutes during outdoor track last year, something I had been trying to do all during high school. My reward for doing that was getting my belly button pierced during the summer, as that was the deal in high school if I ran under five minutes. My times aren't really fast for a Division I track program, but they are decent to finish around the middle of the pack, which I'm happy with for now at least. I almost didn't go out for cross country this year. I was set on trying other things, such as intramurals and being a regular college student making popcorn and watching Oprah in the afternoon. Participating in two sports at a Division I college is a big time commitment, plus having a job, etc. But, a wise friend told me I would regret it and I decided to stay out. Overall I would have to say I am happy with my decision. I had a great cross country season, though it got off to a slow start. I ran my fastest 6K time (which was the distance of most of our meets), even with a cold and body aches. It was at Bradley in Peoria (my favorite place to run at), so maybe that's why I had such a good race. My biggest highlight of cross country was finally running at Regionals. I was injured my freshman year and got screwed out of running at Regionals last year for one reason or another. This year I ran and had a great race. I finished fifth out of six on our team, which meant my place counted as part of our team's score. Going into the race I had low expectations because I had a bad race at conference and thought I may have peaked at Bradley. The meet was in Oklahoma and was windy and just an insanely hilly course. I ended up having the best race of my life probably, and if it weren't so windy and hilly probably would have set a personal record for the 6K.
Now indoor track is starting up, and I am trying to stay motivated before break. Running in the winter is hard to stay motivated to do, but I won't be working during break so I can run when it's not dark out. The circumference of my town is about a mile, so let's just say I had trouble staying motivated last winter. I hope to run the steeplechase this year during outdoor track. The steeplechase is a 3000 meter race with barriers to jump over and a water jump on each lap. We have a new coach this year and he is going to let us try it, so I guess I have that to be excited for.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
My First Blog
So I decided to make a blog because apparently it's the cool thing to do, and I'm trying to write a paper about Dante's Inferno. It's only two pages long double-spaced, but right now that is equivalent to me trying to write a 10 page paper. I currently have the attention span of a dead person, and at about the worst possible time as finals are next Monday. I am going to blame it on a recent re-addiction to pop, gummy worms, and other sugary things. I also had a really fun weekend and don't care to do anything not fun at the moment. I have five tests spread out Monday through Wednesday and then I'm done. Wednesday night I am doing something fun, to be determined, because on Thursday I'm roadtripping with Andrea to Minneapolis to watch Celine Dion, the greatest female singer of all time, perform! We may gamble a little too since I'm legal in Minnesota. Friday I am heading back to the big city of Aurora where I will have absolutely nothing to do and will enjoy every minute of it... for a few days anyways. I'll be venturing back to CF to check on my fish, run workouts on the indoor track, hang out with friends, and keep my sanity. Anyways, back to reality......
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