Hahaha, I'm a joke.

For working in sports (clarify, collegiate), I really don't know that much about pro sports. But I would like to work in professional sports someday!

So pretty much whenever a job in pro sports opens up, I'm always half-heartedly applying. A few months ago, something came up with ESPN and I figured what the heck, if anyone ever calls me back, it doesn't hurt to keep practicing my interview skills, right? Well the chances of anyone ever calling me back are VERY minor when you apply online.

Buuuuut, ESPN called me this weekend, looking to fill a statistics/information position. Which is cool, because I work in sports information and keep stats often.

So when I finally called back, to my surprise, instead of an interview, they had a list of "random sports knowledge questions" to ask me, just to see if I'd even be worthy of moving on to an actual interview.

So here are the six random questions they asked me and tell me if you think I passed or not:

1.) Explain how you calculate a pitcher's earned run average
2.) Name five current Lakers other than Kobe
3.) Name all of the golf masters tournaments
4.) Who is the winningest college Division I men's basketball coach and what years was he at the school(s) he compiled that record
5.) Something about NASCAR, I had no idea so I asked to come back to it, but never did
6.) Which NFL player recorded the most career touchdowns, what years and who'd he play for?
7.) Name the last 10 Heisman Trophy winners and where they played in college

How'd you do? Could you work for ESPN?









....Yeah, I apparently didn't answer enough of those questions right to move on to the interview. I'm the worst sports journalist/statistician, ever. The ONE time my name actually gets picked from a billion online applicants and I actually think I might have a shot, I blow it. Hence why, I'm a joke. I wonder if I'm ever going to make it to pro sports. And I'm really let down in myself, because this might have been my one big shot, you know?

But they did say I had an impressive résumé.... just not impressive knowledge I guess ;) I can't explain how lame I felt when I responded to their little quiz. Like I'm a girl who knows how to stat sports, just nothing actually about professional sports.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Hopefully I'll do better on this Friday's Jeopardy online quiz, where if you get a certain amount correct, your name goes into the database to be randomly selected as a competitor on the show!

I may slip up

I just realized that I've now blogged for one straight week.

So far it's been pretty easy, but now I'm running out of gas. I'm not that exciting of a person. And my work schedule is getting to be quite hectic.

For example, this week we had women's basketball last night, three men's volleyball games this afternoon/tonight and then another women's basketball game tomorrow afternoon (not to mention my 9-to-5 work schedule... but let's be honest, it's more like 10-10:30-to-5).

And check out my upcoming road trips:
-at UC Irvine Friday-Sunday
-at UC Davis Jan. 23 (but it's only an hour drive, so that's really just a day trip)
-at UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly Feb. 3-7 (booo, traveling on Super Bowl Sunday!!)
-at Sacramento State (day trip) Feb. 13 (ha, working against my boyfriend's team, we might be enemies on Valentine's Day)
-at UC Riverside and Long Beach State Feb. 24-28
-Big West Tournament (if we finish in the top 8) March 10-13

Yikes... that's only basketball season, let's not forget about baseball which kicks off at the end of February. If you live in any of these areas, let's hang out when I'm down there!

And I'm really nervous about every weekend from Feb.-Mar. ... here's a small glimpse why:

Saturday, Jan. 20:
Softball vs. Santa Clara, 12:00 PM
Women's Tennis at San Francisco, 1:00 PM
Softball vs. Santa Clara, 2:00 PM
Baseball vs. San Francisco, 3:00 PM
Women's Basketball vs. Long Beach State, 5:00 PM
Women's Swimming at Big West Championships, All Day
Women's Water Polo at Cal State Monterey Bay, TBA
Men's Basketball vs. TBA, ESPNU BracketBusters
and
Men's Swimming at Big West Championships, All Day

That's taken straight from our website, folks. Realize that each game at home requires 2-3 people there working. And we only have six of us total in the office. Eek!!!

(P.S. I apologize for the cop-out post. Maybe I'll write about my progress on the book club soon, it's getting kinda good!)

All B-ball, All The Time.

Tonight's Stockton Showcase downtown at the Stockton Arena kicks off four-straight games for me before my Vegas trip.

After working professional sporting games in the past, going to a mid-major Division I collegiate team has been a nice change of pace. While the pressure still is great, it's not as terribly demanding as the professional realm.

But when we host Pac-10 opponent Cal downtown tonight, in front of nearly 8,000 fans and 25 media members to perform for, I think it's finally going to feel like what college hoops is all about on the grand scale. Tonight just might be a glimpse into working for a big-time BCS school. And I'm fairly excited about that prospect!

So we have tonight's game, women's basketball tomorrow night, men's basketball again on Saturday night and women's basketball Sunday afternoon. Then I head out to my parents' house in the East Bay Sunday night, so as to catch an early flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas on Monday morning.

Gosh I can't wait!

And I really am trying to practice my story writing. I made a promise to myself that it's going to get me somewhere. But you can't run a marathon before stretching... so consider this my pre-warm-up lap stretch.

Second Post of the Day.... Wow.

I just can't get over this women's soccer play off game between BYU and New Mexico..... the best part is we had a redshirt transfer from this school on our women's soccer team this year.

Even though this Big West Conference is extremely dirty, I saw NOTHING like this while I was working with our women's soccer team. Brings the game to a whole new level.

But with soccer season under my belt, it's now time for women's basketball. First home game is this weekend, and I travel to New Jersey and New York to do some radio broadcasts on Nov. 20th!

Bring it on!

Why does this always happen to me?

As I said earlier, we had our road trip to kick off Big West Conference play this week. Our Pacific Tigers took on Long Beach State for the conference-opener, and we actually won! (Yes, I wrote that story... that's what they pay me for) We haven't beaten the 49ers since 2003, but they finally did it. And that part pretty much makes the rest of what I'm about to say almost irrelevant. So here's my 36-hour trip to Long Beach:

Wednesday afternoon: We're set to leave for noon. Or so I though. The timeline said noon, and it also said "get lunch at 12:30," so I assumed that meant leave as a team and get lunch.

Oops, I was wrong. As soon as I packed my stuff on the bus, I realized that everyone else was scrambling to get food at 12. So no worries, I'll just go to my car, drive to Subway and grab a sandwich. It wasn't until I went back past my office that I forgot I didn't drive that morning. J.D. drove me to work so my car didn't have to sit in the lot for two days. With only 15 minutes left until departure, I told my boss about the mistake and luckily he had peanut butter and bread, so I made myself a nice little sandwich.

Which was not long enough to hold me over until dinner. We were set to check-in the hotel at 8 p.m., so I was thinking we wouldn't eat until after that. But luckily we stopped at the Macaroni Grill after passing through the Grapevine and I was able to eat at 5:30 p.m. But I was feeling very uneasy from 12:30-5:30, since I only had a banana for breakfast.

Wednesday night: Upon arrival to the Holiday Inn in Long Beach, the night staff has no idea where our room keys are. We had about 15 rooms and 25 people waiting in the lobby at 9 p.m. for their room assignments. So they swipe and re-key 25 new keys and hand them out to us. Once we checked in at 9:30 p.m., I realized I had a room all to myself! This was going to be awesome, since I didn't think I'd ever get a room to myself with a soccer trip. I always did with baseball since I'm the only female they travel with, but there are several roommate options on the soccer team. But I got lucky!

Or I thought I did....

When I opened my door, I put all my stuff on the floor and went to go wash my face in the powder room area. Then I realized I heard water running in the bathroom, so I went to check it out. And my toilet was overflowing from the top part where the flusher mechanism is. The water was seeping out quickly, flooding the entire bathroom floor and into the powder room area/hallway. So I try to call the front desk desperately hoping for someone to pick up. They never did, so I frantically grabbed all my belongings and went downstairs to the first floor. They gave me a new room without any problems. I went to get ready to meet a friend from the area for my "second dinner" since I only had pasta, chicken, a small PB sandwich and banana to eat all day. As I make my way down into the lobby about 30 minutes after switching rooms, I noticed that there was a large flooded area down on the first floor, with caution cones.

The problem wasn't actually a leak, but that FLOODED TOILET dripping down from the third floor and into the lobby. I looked up and noticed that the lobby ceiling tiles had crumbled onto the floor and water was leaking from them. So that means that room had leaked down into the second floor - someone else's room - and into the lobby. Only in Long Beach....

Thursday afternoon: Our women's soccer team beat Long Beach 1-0. In high 80º weather, despite reports claiming it was going to be mid- to low-70s. I had originally packed pants, but realized after we grabbed lunch it was going to be too hot for pants. So I took out my khaki shorts that I thought I had washed a few days before. But I was wrong, they were still dirty from my last home soccer game, when I somehow got rust all over the bottom of them by rigging up the electricity lines to our extension cable for internet and power. So I hand washed the shorts in the bathroom sink. And had to sit in damp shorts during the bus ride, since the hairdryer wasn't powerful enough to dry them completely. But luckily it was hot enough that they dried out in the first 10 minutes I got to the field. And then with 30 minutes left on the pre-game countdown, I was sweating profusely. And continued to do so throughout the remainder of the game.

Thursday night: After the huge victory, the team decided to celebrate by dining in Long Beach near the campus so all the girls' parents could stay and catch up. We also got a little bit of extra spending money for dessert too! About halfway through our dessert (and the three-hour dinner) my friend Lisa called me to say that she heard there was a massive oil spill on the Grapevine that closed most of I-5 down. Once they had started cleaning up the mess, the closure had blocked traffic from two hours south down the road. One of our players' parents drove back up immediately after the game and said he'd been sitting in traffic for nearly three hours - the same amount of time we'd been eating dinner.

So it actually turned out to be even better that we won and took our time with dinner, otherwise we'd be stuck! When dinner finally finished around 8 p.m., we took an alternate route... 405N to figure out which would be the best way - go three hours out of the way and take 101 N through Santa Barbara/San Luis Obispo and then try to reconnect with 5, or just take 405N to 5N and pray that it'll be open?

Our bus driver kept radioing people and heard that the Grapevine was back up and running, so we decided to take 405N to 5N. It was fine on the 405, but once we got to the Grapevine we encountered a bit of traffic. And at that point I think I realized I had drank too much water.

Early Friday Morning: So I tried to fall asleep on the bus, but couldn't beacuase it was too uncomfortable and I didn't have a pillow. I kept tossing and turning and by 2:30 a.m., woke up to realize we were getting off at the school's exit. So I called J.D., waited for him to come pick me up, went home, brushed my teeth and passed out after 3 a.m.

My boss told me not to worry, get some sleep, and come in at noon on Friday for work in the office.

Friday afternoon: Instead, I slept through my alarm and woke up at 11:45 a.m. on Friday. I showered faster than I ever have before, got ready and make it to work by 12:15 p.m. And now I'm exhausted. Can't wait to go home and pass out.

Anticipated Friday Night Plans: Make pizza with J.D. and then maybe go out! Because....

THIS IS MY FIRST FREE WEEKEND!!!!! Hopefully we'll go wine-tasting tomorrow and do some house-cleaning on Sunday.

Have a good weekend everyone.

La-La!

I still wish I lived in LA.... ALL the time! But my friend Lisa lives in Santa Monica right now. She held up her end of our "after college we're moving to Los Angeles and being roommates again" deal.

I did not.

So in attempt to make up for that, I get to stay with her for a few days mid-week. Why would someone drive 5 hours each way just to go to LA from Tuesday night until Thursday afternoon?!...........


..........Because J.D. got us tickets to go see the ESPYs!!! ESPN's version of an award show. And the much-wanted tickets to the after party with celebrities and sports stars!

See, having a journalism degree pays off sometimes ;)

This is what they look like:


This is the host in 2009:



And this is the venue.

Here's to hoping I'll make some famous friends in just a few days ;) My only complaint is that it conflicts with the All-Star game..... buuuut I'd be watching that on t.v. anyways, so I'll just catch one of the 85 times it re-runs on t.v.

Hope I'll have pictures when I get back!

What a weekend!

This was one of those weekends that seemed to keep going, no matter what day it was. Friday seemed like a Saturday, and yesterday a Sunday, so today's lazy and exciting.

But I worked for the Kings on Friday night and had such a great time! I ended up keeping stats for the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves radio announcers, and they mentioned my name on the radio as the "official statistician" a number of times. However, no one really heard it, because it was broadcast in Minnesota, but whatever. Hopefully I'm developing contacts now and I can for sure put the NBA on my resume as an employer. I believe more opportunities like this are going to come up in the future, so I'll get other chances to go work for them.

My cousins live up in that area, so they were able to see me on tv often! I guess every time the camera would pan to the visiting bench, coaches, referees, I'd be on it. I was essentially sitting at the end of the visitors' bench, so I got to meet a few players and listen in on all their group huddles, etc.

(That's my very concentrated, stretched out widescreen face down in the left corner! Photo thanks to my cousin.)

One player's famous uncle, Mike Love of the BEACH BOYS! was actually sitting near me to watch his nephew play. So that was a whole range of excitement, possibly too much for one lone weekend.

Then I got to visit some friends and family from the area, all of whom I haven't seen for over a month, so that was all really relaxing and enjoyable.

Yesterday I worked our Pacific basketball games in the evening, then went out with a bunch of coworkers and assistant coaches into the early morning hours. This was a really fun weekend for me, one I've been hoping to have for a long time.

I haven't always been so sure that Stockton is the place for me to be, but little glimpses like this are making me glad I've ended up here for now. I know I won't stay long term, but I'm really starting to come into my own here. Hopefully, this continues to happen and wasn't just a one-time-accidental thing.

Only time will tell :)

Big day!

Even though I'm crazy busy (wow, I'm going to try and blog just one time without saying anything about how busy I am), work is getting better by the day!

I'm slowly collecting more and more responsibilities as time goes on. For example, today I was told I'm going to be the primary contact for baseball! Meaning I get to be in charge of the media guide. Which, really won't change that much because I was already working on baseball anyways, just not as the official SID. But now it's mine.

So that means I get men's and women's swimming, men's tennis, women's water polo and baseball all to myself.

Apparently I'll get to do some radio for women's volleyball in the near future, so I'm hoping I get better at calming my nerves on the radio. I don't know why, but it makes me so nervous!

And finally, remember how when they came to play at Pacific, I got to work for the Sacramento Kings? Well, they're playing the Minnesota Timberwolves tomorrow night and guess who will be working at ARCO Arena?

That's right, I'll be back on the Kings' media team. I would not be opposed to this becoming a regular occurrence.

On to politics (because everyone seems to have an opinion right now). I heard a lot of people saying that if Obama won the election, gas would finally start to drop. Here in Stockton it's been steadily doing so over the past month, little by little.

Today, I almost died of shock when I filled my entire gas tank for under $35!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gas here has almost fallen below the $2 threshold. I say give it another week or so and we'll be back in the $1-range.

Now that is a welcomed change. I don't know if you had anything to do with it or not, Obama, but thanks and I'm looking forward to the next four years with you.

SUPER exciting prospects

So thanks to a late-night email from Michelle tonight, I learned about a REALLY cool summer job prospect. I've been kind of stressing about Summer '09, because my grad assistantship is two years, but only covers the academic year. That means I kind of need to find some summer cash flow. Or be a complete mooch and have my parents pay my rent/bills -- yeah, right.

Well, the prospect is with Major League Baseball, so fingers crossed that actually works out!!! I'd die and be in heaven. Honestly.

But in other news, I'm helping out with the men's basketball media guide -- essentially I'm doing all the layout/design and player biographies. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out and this is a huge deal because men's basketball is our biggest sport here. So that's kind of a major responsibility; hopefully I'll get my name mentioned in the credits section for the design so I can show it off to future employees.

And I can tell it's fall because good old Northern California wind is howling, like it usually does. I'm actually sort of nervous about parking my car in the street, because our neighborhood is lined on both sides of the sidewalk with very large trees.

One of those trees lost about three enormous branches a few houses down thanks to gale force winds. They landed right in front of the house, off the sidewalk where someone would normally park a car. Knock on wood (ha, get it?) branches don't start launching off trees in front of my house anytime soon.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot!! I get to work an NBA GAME next week!


The Sacramento Kings are taking on the Los Angeles Clippers in our campus arena, and I'll be working media for the event. Super excited! Let's hope that I'm paying my dues now being worked to the bone so that way I can have it better off in a few short years....

Where'd Monique go?

I know, I know.... sorry I haven't been posting much (Mom).

Life is getting pretty busy, what with grad school, fall and winter sports starting up and weekend tournaments/games! I've been working, going to class, eating and exercising. That's about it.

But I do get to do a mini lecture presentation to Prof. Schroeder's undergrad sports marketing class tomorrow, as one of my first big projects for his graduate-level sports marketing class. I'm kind of looking forward to it! But this is actually a neat indicator for me, because I'm still tossing around the idea of one day getting a Ph.D. and lecturing/researching at the university level. Who knows if it'd be in sport sciences, French or English lit. All sound equally exciting. Though, if I found a way to get my master's education completely funded, I'm not even thinking about post-doctoral unless I can pull off the same deal again.

Oh and, I get to travel on the team bus this weekend for my first away game road trip! The women's volleyball team is traveling to UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly. So I get to go back to my alma mater and do my first radio broadcast of the year! Can't wait, we leave on Thursday. So don't expect any updates on my end anytime this weekend, I'm warning you in advance.

(Click on the UCSB "listen live" link if you wanna hear me on Friday and Saturday!)

It's about dang time!

After two years of inactivity, I'm now back in the softball world.

I joined a team with other members of our athletics staff (think, assistant coaches and alumni players) and our first game is on Tuesday.

I'm so excited and ready to get back into "semi-competitive" softball, and I've brought all my old gear (along with some new stuff) back to Stockton in preparation for what's to come.

...hopefully I'm not too rusty!

Time to start thinking about that thesis

Even though it's nearly two years away from completion.

One of my first grad classes at Pacific is my research methods course which every sport sciences student has to take. The premise of the course is to provide solid research in academic journals to start heading us down the daunting path towards a master's thesis.

I think I've finally come up with a concrete topic to research: the rise of beach (or "sand") volleyball to an intercollegiate NCAA-sanctioned sport. Not sure what the heck I'm going to argue or where I want to go with that, but I am researching all kinds of Title IX information and things like "gender equity in sport." If sand volleyball is picked up across the country, in order to ensure equality between men's and women's sports, most schools will have to either drop a program, or add two in order to keep spending and funds even across the board.

And the best part is that for our sports marketing seminar, class will be held at a River Cats (minor league baseball) game next week to see how media relations functions at the professional level in sport.

....Hmm, good thing I know nothing about that, right?

Phelps Phever?

Let me first point out that I have no problem with all the media coverage and exposure Michael Phelps is receiving. He's doing ridiculously well and deserves all the spoils he's receiving after working so hard to get to this level.

In fact, watching him is getting me extremely excited and pumped for my upcoming two years working with collegiate swim teams.

The problem is not with seeing Phelps, but hearing him.

Yeah, I said it. After Michael tied Mark Spitz's record of seven medals in a single Olympics, NBC aired an interview between the past and future of the sport. And I was blown away at how terrible an interview M.P. actually is.

I wish I could find that interview online, because at one point I lost track of how many times Phelps said "uhhh" or "you know." No actually, we don't know, Mike. Ninety-nine percent of the viewers in the States have never come anywhere close to even qualifying for the Olympic Games. And he kept butting into the interview wanting to talk, when questions were posed for Spitz to respond.

In his defense, he's just accomplished a mind-blowing feat and was probably out of breath after the 50M Fly. Oh wait, that was over an HOUR before the televised interview. And earlier that day NBC interviewed the swimmer, who never once took his eyes off his Blackberry, texting his heart out.

Michael Phelps clearly doesn't need much swimming guidance anymore. What he needs now is an interview coach.

If I could find his interview on YouTube, it would be one of the worst recorded sports moment since Mariah Carey threw out an opening pitch in Japan.

UPDATE: I found the link for the Spitz-Phelps interview on nbc.com, here it is in a separate window (requires download if you don't already have the latest video player)

Un peu de drame

(And now, a little bit of drama)

Watching the Olympics last night, I felt a bit of the tabloid backlash surrounding the French swimmers. Thinking about the prospect of the French standing on that podium playing La Marseillaise actually made me somewhat excited to see the races heat up.

Let me backtrack a little so you know what I'm talking about:

Laure Manaudou, defending gold medalist in the women's 400 Free at the Athens Olympics was facing off against her biggest rival and the current girlfriend of her ex-boyfriend, Federica Pellegrini of Italy. I heard a bit about Manaudou while living in France, especially during the extensive coverage of the European tournaments and championships this past winter. Long story short, she's a huge celebrity in the French athletic world and was touted to be arguably one of the greatest French athletes if she could repeat in the Olympics.


Long story short, both Manaudou and Pellegrini slipped off the radar during that event, in which all medalists came either from Great Britain or the United States. So apparently all that off-season drama got to the European athletes' heads.

Over on the men's side of the pool, the French men's relay team was being touted as the favorite to take gold in the 400 Freestyle Relay. Adding in a bit of color, Alain Bernard told reporters that the French came to Beijing to "smash" the Americans. And while they did end up shattering the previous world record in the event by nearly four seconds, it was the American squad anchored by Michael Phelps and Jason Lezak who took home the gold.


So much for "smashing" the Americans.

I am really proud for the French though. This really puts them on the map as a world contender. And I lived there twice!

Olympic Fever

Who knew a few years back that I would personally know a handful of American athletes competing in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games?!

It's crazy to think that I worked with all eight U.S. beach volleyball players and two indoor volleyball stars while being on tour with the AVP last summer. It's incredible to watch these intense matches and see errors/big plays and know exactly what is going through those players' heads in that exact moment. That's the nice thing about being a sports journalist -- we get commentary on almost every single play from the athletes themselves. I don't know, I can't explain it, there's just this really big feeling of pride watching everything take place on the world's stage in Beijing.

And now that I'm working on swimming at the collegiate level, the Olympic swimming events are even more exciting and engaging than previous years (since I, myself never really was a swimmer). Michael Phelps?!?

Amazing. Who else could continually break his own world record time after time???

In short, Go USA! I'll be rooting for the American athletes all the way over the course of the next 14 days.

It's not a rivalry unless.... wait, it's not at all.

Obviously since I've graduated from and spent many years at UC Santa Barbara, my athletic loyalties lie with the GAUCHOS. However, this is somewhat difficult to manage working for another Big West Conference team in the University of the Pacific.

When I was first hired on board here in the athletics department, nearly everyone inquired as to where I spent my undergrad years because I am one of the few non-Pacific alumni to secure a job here. Apparently they like to keep it all in the family, especially with the grad assistants.

Anyways, most of the coaches shunned me, my boss almost didn't hire me and many other employees downright told me they were upset with me, solely because I used to be a Gaucho. (Once a Gaucho, always a Gaucho, right?)

After his resignation, the men's tennis coach even told me, "If that's your car with the UCSB sticker, I wouldn't be surprised to one day find a brick in the windshield. And you can't do anything about it because I'm moving back to Europe next week."

For a little bit of background, UCSB has won the Big West Conference championships for many sports over the years. Pacific, who historically has had a really good men's basketball program, only had a handful of teams finish above .500 last year. Not looking very good when measured against Santa Barbara's success last year.

So long story short, a bunch of coworkers have told me they don't like Santa Barbara because we're simply rivals.

However, as a fervent Gaucho supporter who attended/worked at many athletic events in my four years at UCSB, I never noticed such a rivalry. In fact, the only team we vehemently hated was Cal Poly because of the geographical location of the two schools. Last I checked, Stockton is five and a half hours north of Santa Barbara and less than an hour from UC Davis, another Big West team.

Did I miss something here?!

Get to work

Articles I have written/contributed to/published lately:

(These will multiply infinitely once my sport gets underway during its season)

Pacific Alum Ryan Brown To Serve As Assistant Coach In Olympic Games

Dan McCabe Hired as Ticket Operations Manager

Tigers Stay Sharp Midway Through Summer Play

Swimming Bios (Men's)

Swimming Bios (Women's)

Coaches Predict Fourth Place Finish For Pacific

And there will be more to come tomorrow. I love my job! We also have a formal BALL coming up in a few weeks. So there are things to look forward to...

What has the workforce done to me?!

Oh my God, I'm one of those boring people who has a full-time (sort of) job and consequently nothing cool or of significance to note anymore.

Well, that's not entirely true. I'm really enjoying my job and all the people I work with. Since I'm not in charge of any fall semester sports, I don't have too much work to do on my own teams meaning I can help out whatever sport that needs attention. And I did get to drive one of the campus golf carts to the library this afternoon, so that's pretty big time. However, the small load of work on my plate lends to very short hours and I'm able to hit the gym for 1.5 to 2 hours each day. And I'm still not losing my damn France weight! In time...

I have been thinking a lot though, since I'm a grad assistant I will be taking classes in less than a month and I have two things I really want to check into. As a grad student, I don't imagine I'll have too many classes/seminars, but more ongoing research work for my final thesis. If this is the case, I would love to take some upper-division French undergrad courses to keep my French at a decent level so I emailed the head of the dept. this morning. And also, I want to start learning another language, so I want to see if it's possible to sit in on/audit any grammar classes like Spanish or possibly German.

And speaking of French, I'm sort of developing a long-term goal here. When I have my Master's in two year's time and once my assistantship is up, if I can't break back into professional sports I would definitely plan on staying at the collegiate level. However, I still want to use my French, so I'm going to think very, very hard for the next two years about applying to work at McGill University in Montreal if there are any openings. I want to say their Athletics Department has something ridiculous like 50 varsity sports including winter sports like skiing, ice skating, hockey, etc. and BASEBALL, basketball and American football!


Yeah, I realize there will be snow and extreme colds, but I'll also get to work for a collegiate athletics department and use my French on a daily basis (and if I ever get to this point... have bilingual children!).

But that's quite a long time away.

Bastille Day!

In my busyness -- and the MLB Home Run Derby, I still can't believe Justin Morneau won after Josh Hamilton's 28 homers in the first round alone -- I completely forgot that today is Bastille Day, France's equivalent of the 4th of July.

This would have been my third year spending the holiday in France, however I jammed out of the country early. And strangely enough, when I was studying abroad in 2005 we opted to go to Florence, Italy instead of spending the weekend in Paris. An opportunity I guess that was too good to pass up.

And in other French news the Tour is still going pretty strong right now I guess, nearly halfway into the race. Though I couldn't tell you who's the yellow jersey wearer right now. I guess no one here really cares with Landis and Lance Armstrong out for Team USA. Speaking of Team USA, the Olympics are right around the corner and I soooo cannot wait to watch those. The swimming and running trials in California and Oregon got me all pumped up for what's to come. Where the heck is this year going?! I still can't believe I'm working on my third week living in Stockon and working for Pacific.

So now that my little -- or big, depending on how you look at it -- tangent is over, Happy Bastille Day, France.

Three to go!

Big news all around today. I finally met with some (NORMAL!!!) people and found myself a place to live over the next year. Which means, Tuesday I'm moving to the Central Valley.

I also found out the sports I'll be responsible for at Pacific (beginning July 1st). Here are a few hints:



ANNNND.......

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!