An Update

As I lay here in bed sunburned and tired from a fun weekend up in Louisville, I'm not too creative tonight so it's going to be a quick update.

When I last left the blog, I hadn't been doing anything at the internship but wasn't too worried. But on Monday when the other intern got a call to do some stuff on top of what they already had her doing and I was still sitting there, I got extremely frustrated. There's only so much I can take of doing nothing when everyone else is doing a lot of stuff so I kind of had a silent freak out and started questioning some things. Thankfully, Tuesday I was given a lot of things to do so the questioning was short term.

With all of the Olympic short lists named, we have been working on an Olympic team website so I spent my week writing and updating team member bios in addition to other stuff. Friday was another boringish day, but after spending the three days prior to that doing a lot of work, I was okay with the break. 

Friday night, I headed to one of my best friends' houses to stay with her and her fiance for the weekend. She was extremely eager to introduce me to bison lasagna, something I hadn't had yet. Let's just say Friday's dinner  was amazing.

Saturday we headed to Churchill Downs for a day of racing including the Debutante and it was so nice to be back at the track. We also went to the Derby museum between some races and let's just say, it made me once again think about some stuff but that's for another blog.

Today, we went and visited her horse which was desperately needed on my end because I am having massive equine withdrawal without a horse to mess with all the time. I got home around 5 tonight and spent about 3 hours putting up some of the pictures I took Saturday because I just can never stop working. I have one folder done and have one more to go before I'm totally done but that gets to wait for another night because I need to rest a bit before morning.

Until next time,

Mel

The First Week of Work Wasn't So... Full of Work

After nearly six months of waiting, I started my internship with the USEF on Monday. In my head I had grand ideas of immediately being given a long to-do list of articles to write, interviews to conduct, videos to edit, etc. Instead, I waited in the office for an hour while the secretaries tried to find out where I belonged since my boss was on her way back from the Festival of Champions in New Jersey and the human resources head honcho wasn't in yet.

I would be lying if my week got any better on the ideas I had at the top of this blog, although I did get to find clips of a Canadian event rider who had been named to the Olympic team so we could send it to one of the canadian channels to air for a segment. The office was maddeningly busy except for me. The other intern was doing stuff for an event she's been hired solely to work, my boss was running around trying to get stuff ready for weekend two of Festival of Champions, and I was sitting at my desk waiting for an order. At one point, I actually built the two bookshelves that had been ordered (with the other intern) because it gave me something to do.

During the first few days of the no work, I was getting frustrated. After all, I had drove across the country for this internship after waiting for six months to start and all I was doing was sitting at a desk doing nothing. But then I put everything in perspective. 

    * First, the USEF internship is something that not everyone gets to do. In fact, right now there are only three interns in the whole office. That's a ton of space and not a lot of interns.    

    * Second, I came to the USEF partially because it is an Olympic body. Sure, I may not be getting any experience at this particular event (the selection trials for London are being held at FOC) but I am able to observe how everything works around the office and prepare myself for the next organized chaos. 

   * Third, I am here for six amazing months and am already in love with the place. In the grand scheme of the almost 26 weeks I am at the internship, this is only 4% of the opportunity. Sure, I may not have had the chance to shine this week but I did put myself out there and let everyone know I was willing to work so it wasn't a total bust.

Today I got a brief "tour" of the Horse Park when we ran magazines out to the racks at three different places and even got a chance to watch a few jumping rounds when we had some issues with the gator and needed to be rescued at Rolex Stadium. This is the stadium where I've seen amazing things happen on television but have never seen it live, let alone actually seen an event in it. 

 One of the jumping rounds in the Stadium today.

So while this week didn't go as planned, I have 25 more weeks to experience and hopefully, if I'm lucky I'll be allowed to stay here. There's no doubt in my mind that I want to work in the equestrian field now and that I want to stay in Lexington if at all possible. After spending a week "researching" all the talent we have on the US teams in addition to the up-and-comers, I am truly excited for the future of equestrian sports and want to stay at the national level where I can really be a part of it all. And if I can do my part to bring retired racers into a second career here as well (in addition to possibly investing myself into one of these disciplines), then all the better.

So yes, this first week may have been challenging for much different reasons than I expected, but it was definitely a learning experience and probably a good break before the chaos starts. Hopefully next week will bring a little more work and a new lesson that only working at an organization like this can teach me.

Until next time,

Mel

Kentucky Highs... and Lows

Well I've finally gone and done it. I've arrived in Kentucky (I've actually been here since Tuesday night) and am settling in. I still have a bit of room arranging to do but that will probably come tomorrow and Sunday, along with some other things on the to-do list.

The first day spent here was basically relaxing after a long five and a half day trip while we waited for my new roommate to get off work. The next day was spent buying me an actual "bed" (aka a very comfortable air mattress) and stuff that I needed. But today was the big day.

I've talked in the past about my love for Three Chimneys, Point Given, and their communications director Jen Roytz. Well Jen and I have been talking a lot back and forth over the last few months and when she offered to show me around Three Chimneys and have lunch with me, I jumped on the chance.

My stepdad and I started off this morning at the repair shop as my car has an A/C problem. After discovering the compressor is out on it, I'm making my summer an A/C free summer because there's no way I can afford that... what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, right?

But our next trip was to the first "sightseeing" thing we've done all week, our tour with Jen at Three Chimneys. Jen knows my love for Point Given and we've had many conversations about him and his retired son Point of Impact that she is training off the track so of course, the first place she took me was to the big man's stall. What she didn't know is that Point Given got me into racing as a 2-year-old in 2000. 

When I was at Three Chimneys for their Open House in November, I had gotten my picture taken with him in the background but hadn't got a chance to really pet him or anything like that as it was a show but not touch type of deal. So when Jen learned that I hadn't had quality time with my boy, she asked for him to be pulled out so I could get a proper picture. Of course, I also got to love on him and admire the horse I can pretty much thank for this move. Imagine meeting your favorite athlete or actor and getting to talk to them, that's what this was like for me.

It'll take a lot to top this moment!

Our next tour stop was to see Flower Alley, sire of this year's Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another. I'll Have Another's connections created a fundraiser before the Belmont where they would donate $20 to the Thoroughbred Charities of America for each picture posted on their Facebook page of toe nails painted purple. Jen and I had talked earlier in the week about posing in front of Flower Alley's stall with our painted toes so last night, I got the nail polish out and prepared the toes.

Jen decided to cheat with getting Flower Alley to come over to the door for our picture and grabbed mints which immediately got his attention. I did an extremely bizarre thing for the picture, taking off my shoe and sock in a barn (and a multi-million dollar stallion barn at that) for the picture while Jen was smart and wore sandals. Here's the end result of our extremely fun picture.

Not only did I get an extremely fun and unique picture, I also got a picture with someone I've looked up to for a long time!

 
As we were leaving the barn, we heard about I'll Have Another's injury and scratch from the Belmont. Of course, our happiness in this picture shot down to utter disappointment and I don't think I'll ever forget Jen saying "Bye Bye Triple Crown" as we walked back to the office. With this development, we had to reschedule lunch and walked away from the farm with a bittersweet feeling.

Our next stop was to the Kentucky Horse Park and the United States Equestrian Federation. I went in to the office to introduce myself but since almost everyone was in Gladstone for the weekend, I only got to meet a few of the cool people I'll be working with. 

I'm second guessing my abilities now that I've graduated but I'm sure I'll be fine after getting in the groove of how everything works. My goal is to learn as much as I can in the next six months while getting all the real life experience I can. If the last few days are any indication of the future, I don't think I'll ever want to leave here.

Tomorrow morning, my stepdad flies home and I continue this adventure by myself. I'm both apprehensive and excited. Hopefully it lives up to every expectation I have and more! It will definitely leave me with some great memories either way.

On the Road Again

Time for a quick blog update while on the road to Kentucky!

We started this leg of my summer journey on Friday bright and early (for me) at 7am and literally spent the day driving through three different states (to be fair, we were only in Washington for about 20 minutes until we crossed into Oregon). We covered about 700 miles in a 14ish hour drive and passed out in Idaho Falls.

Yesterday, we explored Yellowstone and it was AWESOME! It took a ton of time and set us back about half a day or so on the traveling but it was well worth it. We got to see multiple animals on the road and got to see two different types of geysers go off (including Old Faithful, below). Trying to put that visit into words would take way too many pages on this blog.

However, we got set back even farther with an ummm.... interesting side trip that our gps decided to take us on. It took us on an alternate highway that is closed during the winter. Usually that's not too bad, except for the fact that it was straight up the side of a mountain at a 10% grade. I already don't like heights so going up the side of the mountain from about 4,000 feet to 9,000 feet was not a good experience for me (or my car as we were putting up the mountain at about 19 mph). We did get to see some cool things when we hit the top of the road but it is not something I would like to experience again.

That white area is part of the road we went up.

Today, we visited three landmarks in the Wyoming/South Dakota area. Our first two jaunts were to Devil's Tower (which has a really cool legend attached to it) and the famous Sturgis (a must for my biker stepdad). We had an awesome lunch at Sturgis' Knuckle Saloon, I highly recommend it if you are in the area. 

However, the best part of the day was going to Mount Rushmore. I'm a very patriotic person and going to a memorial that honors four presidents was awesome. It reminded me of why I'm moving to Kentucky for my internship and made me even more excited to get there. Like Yellowstone, I can't put my Mt. Rushmore thoughts into just one blog so I'll leave it with a picture.

We have a few more days of traveling before we roll into Lexington sometime next week. If anything else exciting happens, you can bet that I'll try and include it in my next blog.

Until next time,

Mel

Busy Trying To Be Unbusy

Lesson of the vacation, it is impossible for me to not be busy.

One of my main goals for my two weeks at home was to do absolutely nothing. I figured that I was already packed and had everything ready for Kentucky so I could just sit back, catch up on my TV shows and sleep. Oh how wrong I was.

First, I stupidly decided that a two week break from school would be a good time to fix my ankle. Back in 2010 on my first day in Canyon, I sprained my ankle extremely bad. Of course, I was in an unfamiliar place so I just let it sit, but then I discovered the activities center and pushed a bad situation into an even worse situation. 

Fast forward two years and many lessons in the fact that said ankle won't let me ride like I should and I decide to get eight shots (23 pokes by the needles to find the right places) in various muscles down there to try and fix it.

The nifty little machine she used to figure out where to torture me

After the initial torture, I had to start PT to really make sure the shots were being used to their max. So two times a week for my 2 1/2 week break, I am driving across town to be beat up for 45 minutes. According to the measurements we got today after three sessions, it seems to be working so at least my time isn't going to waste, but that's a big chunk of time.

Second, you never realize how much time is spent doing little things like running errands. Today after PT, I had to run home and take a shower (getting up even earlier than I have to just to take a shower doesn't work for me), run to dad's and get something for him, then run back into town to give it to him. After that, I stopped to get lunch then went to the store to try and get stuff to tame the afro that my hair has become in this humidity. Stuff like that keeps you busy.

And last, there's the god-awful packing that comes with moving. I'm only taking clothes and a few other necessities but even that takes a lot of work. Basically, I have to take all the stuff in the picture below and try to organize it so I don't forget anything.

Most of the stuff isn't going with me but by the end of packing up my rooms in Texas (first my dorm then my actual bedroom), I would just start throwing stuff in tubs. That makes for a very messy situation and makes it hard to find... well... anything. I'm also needing two of the tubs for Kentucky so massive cleaning is going on. I really hate packing and how long it takes so here I sit at a very big and boring job.

Thankfully, I get a respite from that in the form of technology. If you know me, you know that I'm AMAZED at how far technology has come in the last 100 years. I'm a massive dork, so every time I realize this, I kind of freak out a bit.

I've gotten used to some of these comforts, such as talking to my best friends on AIM basically all the time (I'm blaming Ashley for distracting me from packing the other day when she was talking while I was packing) and texting others friends all the time

Heck, I've even used my webcam to talk to people before but it's always been one-on-one conversations. So when I actually got to see the whole multipeople webcam chats in person on monday when I talked to a bunch of my friends, I did a bit of a freakout. I mean how awesome is this?!?!

Picture courtesy Z.

Five people in one conversation and only two within 20 miles of each other? Yep, awesome to the extreme. Plus, it let's me be lazy for a few minutes, win/win. 

Well, we're at almost the week countdown for the big summer move so I guess it's time to do something productive. Talk to my whole three readers later. Maybe next time I blog, I'll be on the road (see, technology is awesome)!

Until next time,

Mel 

 

Onwards and Upwards

To say that the last week was extremely weird and depressing would be an understatement. While being in Washington for a break is nice, being reminded that this isn't just a summer break was hard. Thankfully, I talked to a a lot of my friends from home, which really helped but not seeing the people that have been my family for the last nine months every day was a huge hit.

However, the time for sulking is over.

Don't get me wrong, I love and miss my friends and if I had a choice to do it over again, I'd stay in Canyon as long as possible to keep that phase of my life going but there are a lot of big things coming down the pike. 

For one thing, it's almost time to "repack" for another 3,200 mile journey to Lexington. I mean, how cool is that? Not only am I moving to a place where realistically part of my family got started, since my grandmother was raised in the Bluegrass, but I'm also moving to a place that I was adamant I'd move to in elementary school. Obviously that got a little off track as my first year of high school, I changed to moving to Texas. But looking back on it, I'm achieving both of my teenage dreams by going to both states for extended amounts of time.

Second, I'm working for an Olympic team. Sure, the USEF does a lot more than just the Olympic sports but in an indirect way, I am one of the heads bringing everyone news from London. My goal for the last two years has been to do something with the Olympic teams during an Olympic year (and beyond), even if it's wavered, and here I am.

Third, I'll be in horse racing country. Even though I'm still working towards the Olympic goal, one of my passions is writing about horse racing, so being in the Horse Capital of the World, especially for racers is huge. And who knows, maybe it will open up opportunities that push me in one of the many directions I've been wanting to go. Over the past few years, I've learned that opportunities come from some of the most unexpected places. So I'm definitely not closing my eyes to anything that may be sent my way.

Sure, I miss Canyon and my friends more than even a whole blog could describe but as one of my best friends said, in a few years, all of us will be gone from there doing amazing things all over the world. Heck, this same person is moving to South Korea to teach school in just a few months. And if the last week has had any lesson at all, it's that we don't need to be in the same place to stay connected. 

In fact, not being in the same place gives us the opportunity to experience new things and go on even more adventures when visiting each other. So while I'm still working on the whole moving on thing, it's just onward and upward from here. Who knows where my life will take me next.

Good Bye Time

"The sun goes down The stars come out And all that counts Is here and now My universe will never be the same I'm glad you came"

-The Wanted "Glad You Came"

What a difference a year makes. In August as I was driving to Canyon, I really didn't want to go back. I was dreading this year but returned because I just had eight months left before I walked across the WT stage with my diploma safely in my hands (really, it's a diploma holder but same difference). But oh how those eight months changed my life forever.

I originally got involved in a ton of stuff this year to make the year go by faster. But what it brought me was a ton of friends and memories. Who would have thought a house warming party for one of my first real WT friends would have started the MCOMM craze that led to all sorts of wild hijinks. And who would have known that spending extra time at school would be some of the highlights of my year. Yet both these things pushed my year from "just getting by" to "never want to end".

While I had an amazing time at WT all year, it wasn't until my journey home that I realized just how great it was. About the time I hit my second day of traveling back to Washington and got a tweet saying "Come home!" from one of my best friends did I realize that I do think of Canyon as home now. Washington may be the place I grew up and called home for 22 years, but Canyon is where I grew and where I had the best year of my life. And it's still hard to think that I won't be moving back any time soon. 

After a chat with one of my "home dogs" on this subject the other night, even though Canyon is my home now (and probably will be for a long time to come), in the coming years I will be moving a ton and will probably go through this "withdrawal" every time.

I honestly had this blog all written in my head and it was supposed to be extremely long but there are no words that can describe this last year, especially the last few weeks, so instead, I'm just going to end it with a picture and a reference to the lyrics at the top of this post "My universe will never be the same" thanks to the awesome MCOMM people that I'm proud to call my friends. This isn't good bye, it's just see you later.