COUNT IT!!!!!!!!!

HA 5 MORE MINUTES AND THIS POST WOULD HAVE BEEN IN MAY!!! IN YOUR FACE MAY 1st!! I BEAT YOU BY 5 MINUTES!!! Okay that's all, just wanted to get one more post in April before time ran out!!!!!!!! HAPPY SMILING!!!!!!!

HIGH SCHOOL ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!

Saturday night.....8:05pm........sitting on my couch after a long 3 days......high school Superfan symptoms are back once again:

-tired/exhausted
-no voice
-headache
-our teams have just lost big games
-received compliments on pumping up the crowd during the entire tournament:)

WHAT A FREAKIN WEEK IT HAS BEEN!! EXHAUSTING IS A WORD THAT ISN'T STRONG ENOUGH TO EXPLAIN THE WEEK IT HAS BEEN!!!!! Thus I'm forced to make a new word that is stronger than exhausting, which I will do right now: exhaustralescent poopedoutage!!!!! THAT is what is going through my voice and body right now!! However you ask, was it worth it?!?! ANSWER: HECK FREAKIN YES!!!!!!! It was like high school all over again!! White-Out Wednesday was the opening day of Woodstock's own Win Mumby Tournament and it was AWESOME!! At least 73.4% of the crowd was in white and the rest were either pooheads or other teams!!! WE had a Pep Rally at 4pm then our first of 3 games started at 7 and Woodstock's games were at 8pm (girls) and 9pm (boys)!!! We WON both to start the tourney on the right foot!!!!!!!!!:) Arrived home around 11pm and got to bed, after a late night snack, around midnight!!! Then Thursday there were day games, so while Ajay was down at Ridgewood and Hanson coaching/being head master of the tourney, I was teaching classed in the gym!! Then Thursday night we had 3 games again, one of which Woodstock played in (9pm, senior boys)!!! SOOOO again another late night!! However, Thursday night Woodstock lost which ended our 2 game winning streak!! Thus setting up a MUST win Friday night to advanced to the semi's on Saturday!! Our girls were rolling over the 2 days going 2-0 and into Friday night with a much lighter load of pressure, because win/lose they were in the semi's!! Friday night's game was for higher seeding in the semi's for the girls!! Let me back up the bus a little bit, BEEP BEEP BEEP, during ALL of these games the "retired Superfan" kind of came out of retirement!!!! Leading some cheers, bringing the WAVE to Woodstock, AND starting a NEW Woodstock halftime tradition: YMCA with dancing!!!!!:) IT WAS A BLAST!!!! I have video of YMCA/the Wave that I'll upload via picasa, so be patient there!!! Okay back to the tourney!! Soooooooo Wednesday and Thursday were late nights, staying up until 10-10:30 for the games and not getting to bed around midnight!!! Friday night came and the girls were playing first!!! This game got out of control fast and the crowd as well lost enthusiasm fast!! We were down by 20 by halftime and no upside in sight!! Not until 5 minutes to go left of the game we started a MASSIVE comeback and totally pulled within 9pts. with 1 1/2 minutes to go!!!!! CROWD WAS BACK IN IT AND WE HAD HOPE IN OUR EYES!!!!!! But during those last 10 minutes of the game they sped up the clock to not "embarrass" us any more!!! HOWEVER, with our comeback being smashed with NO time left, we could have used those minutes they shaved off!! SO that was lame!!!! BUT with that comeback came energy, which was a PERFECT prep for the boys game that was coming up next!!! Girls game ends and Eye of the Tiger starts playing on the speakers and the crowd is going crazy, full of energy!!! Boys enter the stadium and we WIN the GAME putting us into the semi's!!!!!! Yeah it was a one sided game so no real explanation needed!!! Now we were set for this morning (Saturday)!!! Both teams in the semi's and playing at 9 and 11am!!! Because we started the tourney off with a white-out it was only reasonable we ended with something special!! BLACK-OUT WAS A GO!!!!!!!! A color definitely favored by the student body!!!! About 90% of the Woodstockians that arrived at the game were blacked out!! It was awesome!! However, for the girls game there were only 4 students that showed up!! Literally, we counted and it was 4!! So that was sad!!!! And on a sadder note the girls lost by 40 and ended the journey for them!!! Next was the boys game at 11am and AGAIN not the type of attendance by Woodstock we expected!!! Stadium was about 80% filled and 90% were dressed in black!!! Energy was kinda there, but you could tell it has been a looooooooooong 3 days!! Also, energy never really came since we started the game off down 20-5 at one point!! So that stunk!! Boys lost as well by 30!!!! After the game Laura, Nan, and I went to Chardukan to relax and get some lunch!! I walked up in barefoot which seemed like a good idea at the time! HOWEVER, walking back down again.....PAINFUL/IDIOTIC!!!:) The Championship games were scheduled for 3:30 and 5pm!! Both games were kinda blow outs so no excitement there, and I was just dead to the world and sat there trying not to fall asleep!!!:) After the game slept walked home and relaxed on the couch!!! It was a 7:30am to 7pm day!!! ALTHOUGH WOODSTOCK DIDN'T GET EITHER CHAMPIONSHIP WIN IT WAS A FREAKIN BLAST!!!!!!!!!!:) CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR AND YMCA/WAVE/NEW CHEERS/HALF TIME DANCING!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!!!

EGGS FOR BREAKFAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So one thing Nicole and I often discuss at breakfast time is EGGS!!!! And how much better our day starts when having EGGS FOR BREAKFAST!!!!! Thus the title EGGS FOR BREAKFAST!!!!! Let's give an example shall we!! Monday morning, had a nice 5 mile run and was hungry for breakfast like always!!!:) It was a low barometer type of day, meaning it was Monday, cloudy, energy was gonna be hard to find from the students, etc.!! Well I get to breakfast hoping for eggs to start this day off right, and BAM!!! In the two containers, where one is usually full of a beautiful type of egg (scrambled, hard boiled, fried, etc.) there were TWO types of potatoes!! Now I mean honestly!! Breakfast potatoes are fine, BUT, both options being potato!!! COME ON!! You're killing me Samals!!! NOW fast forward to this morning (Tuesday morning)!!!! Had a really intense workout this morning!! I mean sweat was dripping from ear to ear, nose to mouth, armpit to buttcrack, it was everywhere and it felt good!! Thinking about what was to come for breakfast I was praying for some eggs!! Yes, some people pray for world peace, others there friend to feel better, EGG is on my mind in the mornings!!! Get to breakfast, look into the two containers and sure enough FRIED EGGS were in one of them!!! THIS WAS HAPPY DANCE TIME!!! Energy and dance instantly fills the body and blood, Indian cooks are wondering what the heck is going on, and the breakfast crew just goes on eating normally cause this is nothing new to them!!! Even though I KNOW on the inside they dance whenever they see egg!!! Now that was ONE example of how eggs can make or break the beginning of a day!!! Multiply that example by like 50 and you have the entire year so far!!!!:) YOU BETTER BELIEVE EGGS ARE THAT IMPORTANT FOR BREAKFAST!!!!! Not to mention the AWESOME protein boost you get from them, AND the wonderful smelling farts!! Joely, Mikey, Matty (my roomies) ALL know my egg farts for 4 years of living together!! AND THEY ARE GLORIOUS!!!:) Also, thinking in deeper thought, eggs are kinda a home away from home comfort food!! Always made them for breakfast back in the states either at college or at home in the summer time!! It brings back GREAT memories, ESPECIALLY OUR 4 CHRISTMAS BREAKFAST'S AT UMD AND THE GOING AWAY BREAKFAST RIGHT BEFORE INDIA!!!! THE BEST BREAKFASTS EVER!!!!!!!!!:) Yes, they are way better than weekend breakfasts'!!!!! So how much do eggs for breakfast rock?!?! If you haven't figured out the importance of having eggs by now, then you need to move to Antarctica!!!! No eggs at all, except for penguin eggs, and those eggs will give you heartburn and indigestion!!! Also, the penguin moms will EAT you, for eating her young!!! That is all!!! I see Nicole is too cool to blog about eggs, even though she agreed with me that we should!! NOT CLASSY!!!! Well HAPPY SMILING AND HAPPY EGGING!!!!!:)

Round and Round it goes when we get off WE DON'T KNOW!!!!!:) PART 2!!!!

We make it up to the hill and sure enough our same rickshaw drivers were there waiting for us!! Nicole, Kate and I headed up first to tell them we were coming, cause it was around 5:45 (15 minutes late) and didn't want them to wait any longer without knowing if we'd come or not!!! While we waited for the rest I decided to run back to the rickshaw place and let Dave and Cookie take mine, cause we were one short!! I took off running at a pretty good pace and never saw the rickshaw's once until I began my loop once I reached the place and they weren't there and headed back towards Happy Valley!! Well not 2 minutes into the retrace I see Nicole/Kate so I run beside them and we head back to the rickshaw station!! Everyone shows up and before we head back home some of us had this urge to ride the HUMAN POWERED FERRIS WHEEL!!!!! None of us have ever been on this before, but we have all seen it a million times!!!! They load us on one by one and mind you this is human powered, so to load us on they basically climb up the sides and step on the bars to put their weight on the axle so it would lower down!! After about 10 minutes they finally get us all loaded up and good to go!! Now unlike the American system where they get you loaded, have you go around a couple times, load someone else and by the 3rd person they load they unload you cause that's been enough, INDIA IS WAY MORE COOLER!! After everyone gets loaded that's when they begin your ride!!! Again to get it started two guys climb up the sides of the ferris wheel then come across on the same bar and let their weight take them down!! Then once the ferris wheel gets moving they stand in the middle of the entire ferris wheel and just walk from bar to bar as it comes to them!! IT was AMAZING!!! AND IT WENT WAY FASTER THAN MACHINE POWERED!!!!! So we go one direction for 5 minutes, THEN they switch up directions for another 5 minutes!! After that came the unloading process which again took like 10 minutes, and in random order!! We had no idea when we were getting off and how long it would take!! But they got us all off, and after all of it we definitely agreed that was totally worth only 20Rs (45 cents)!!!:) On the way home we stopped in several places, one including BASKIN ROBBINS for some DELICIOUS ice cream!!! While walking with our ice cream I mentioned to DC (Dave and Cookie) that today/tonight felt a lot like the State Fair!! You have your ferris wheel, ice cream, loud vendors trying to sell you stuff as you walk by, and of course a LOT of walking!!!:) Oh and all you Minnesotans, YES, there were gondolas we could have gone on if there was enough time!!!:) Our plan was to head back to the Farley's and watch a moooooovie, which one you ask West Side Story (NOT MY IDEA!!!!):) The Wiebe's head home along with Jennie so it's Laura, Kate, Nicole and myself that stayed and attempted to watch West Side Story!! We made some popcorn and got comfortable on the bed and popped in the movie!!! Yeah that is a freakin LONG movie, cause at 1hr. 20 minutes was HALF WAY!!! And at that point Laura and Kate were going downhill in energy FAST!!! Didn't help that Laura wasn't feeling good!!! However, after we stopped the movie we did have some reminiscing on youtube with Sesame Street!! Including Kate's own youtube version of Captain Vegetable!! OH MY GOSH HILARIOUS!!!! Especially when she has an awesome baritone voice!!!! Then of course Laura and I had our expected conversation about poop!! It never fails, whenever we are together POOP comes up, and we don't even try to talk about poop, it just comes out!!!:) So yeah after Sesame Street we headed home and that was that for an AMAZING DAY OF FUN, STATE FAIR TYPISH ATMOSPHERE AND POO TALK!!!!!! Oh and Nicole West Side Story will NEVER replace "Springtime For Hitler" (found in Mel Brook's "The Producers") as my favoritest musical of all time!!!! NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!:) AND I WILL TAKE THAT TO THE GRAVE WITH ME!!!!! HAPPY SMILING!!!!

Round and Round it goes when we get off WE DON'T KNOW!!!!!:)

HOLY SCHNIKEE WAS SATURDAY EVER AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:) So earlier this week our plan for Saturday was to hike to Nag Tibba and be back Sunday by 1pm!! Well we found out in the middle of the week we couldn't leave for Nag Tibba until 1pm, which would give us basically 6 hours or so from Thatyur to reach Nag Tibba's peak!!! Instead of trying to rush the hike, we came up with another plan: HAPPY VALLEY!!!!:) Half of the crew has NEVER been to Happy Valley yet, and the other half hasn't been in a while!! Then there's me who's been there 4 times this year already!!! BUT I love it there and always something new to discover each time!!!!:) We head out from Woodstock around 1:20 with a 2 hour walk in front of us!! Heading all the way through the bazaar and past Picture Palace we come to the place where they offer bicycle rickshaw rides for tourists/lazy people!!;) If you don't know what a bicycle rickshaw is, picture a bicycle with a carriage attached to the back of it to pull people around!!! Well we haven't been on the bicycle rickshaw's before so we thought it'd be a fun experience to take them to Happy Valley!! Dave and I had ambitions to take that one step further!! We wanted to PEDDLE the gang around!!! In our fluent Hindi that we know, somehow Dave and I talked to our rickshaw drivers and let us PEDDLE THE RICKSHAW!!! It was awesome!! Well not the first minute of it, mostly because I started to peddle mine and totally took out this guy's shoe polish stand!! I mean honestly who sets up their stand right in front of my wheels!!!;) So that made the owner of the rickshaw so much more at ease!!! There were 4 rickshaws in total!! Dave was peddling Cookie and his owner around, Laura/Jennie were in another, Kate/Nicole in another, and I was going solo with my driver!! Won't lie Dave and I had this HUGE smile on the entire time, especially since the bicycles had little bells on it to tell people when you're behind them!! So we had fun with those!!! However, let me tell you how different those rickshaws are to what we thought they'd be!! When you sit down in them its exactly like sitting down on a bike, YET, the front wheels on these are freakin slanted towards the slant of the road!! So immediately when I started to peddle I thought I was going to tip the freakin thing!! After running over the guys shoe polish stand and peddling for a bit Dave and I got the hang of it and OFF we went!! Not gonna lie, unlike the usual stares we get for being white in India, these got us 4 times the stares, AND a lot of smiles!!!!:) Especially since the owners of the rickshaws were riding in back and they were talking to their friends as we biked by making jokes!!! We get to this one part where it's uphill and my owner starts yelling something that doesn't compute in my head, so I start slowing down like he wanted me to get off or something, then I realize he's yelling the Hindi translation of GO FASTER!!!! So I freakin put the peddle to the metal and start peddling up hill, which made him very pleased!! Along with the constant use of the bell!!! Well we arrive in Happy Valley in no time, I think around 15 minutes from Picture Palace!!;) First we visit the Tibetan Home School's art museum which was REALLY freakin sweet!! They had these oil paintings that were absolutely amazing!! And sure enough the ONE time I didn't bring my camera there were opportunities like this!!! But the REALLY cool thing about it is we can actually bring in pictures that we want turned in to an oil painting, and it only costs around 2000-4000Rs ($50-100)!!! And these are professionally done, or at least they appear to be professionally done!!!:) After the museum we head to the Temple and look around there for a bit!! Then we headed up to FlagHill and searched for this cave that Casey said was at the edge of the ridge!! Well after 20 minutes of walking, Kate and Nicole head back, so I turn around too while Jennie, Laura and Dave keep looking!! Kate, Nicole and I head to the Mess Hall where we said we'd all meet!! Cookie took a little path that she thought would take her right to the Mess Hall, 10 minutes later she shows up, while Laura, Dave and Jennie finally show up 20 minutes later!!! We order 49 mo-mo's, egg fried rice, 2 tingmos, and of course butter tea!!! Now Kate, Laura and Nicole have never had it, and again the expression on their face when tasting it for the first time was EXACTLY like everyone else's' I've seen!!! Like they just drank pure lemon juice!!! It was hilarious!! Needless to say when I offered them more they refused!!! After lunch/early dinner we decided it was time to head back to the top of the hill where our rickshaw's said they would be at 5:30 to take us back to Library bazaar!! MORE TO COME..........

TTC FAILED!!!!!!:(

Saturday morning 4am, body felt destroyed and unable to get up and run to Nag Tibba!!! So went back to bed, got up naturally at 9:30am without any alarm and though I gotta run SOMEWHERE to make today not all a failure!! Decided to run to Pepper Pot which is about 10 miles total, down and back!!! That felt good!!!:)


Final numbers from this challenge!!!!:

Mt. Hermon to Binog Tibba Peak to Mt. Hermon: 4hours 51minutes 29seconds

Mt. Hermon to Top Tibba Peak to Mt. Hermon: 3hours 31minutes 41seconds

Mt. Hermon to Pepper Pot Peak to Mt. Hermon: 2hours 24minutes 38seconds

Feeling of failure: NONE!!!!:)

Yeah granted I didn't accomplish what I wanted to accomplish this challenge, but not only was this GREAT practice for the next time AND the Paavo Nurmi Marathon, it gave me a chance to get outside and away from everything!!! Nothing is honestly more relaxing then getting away from civilization by running to tops of Tibba's or smaller hills around here!! GREAT START TO A QUARTER BREAK!!!!!:) One thing I did learn for the next time I attempt this is to start with Top Tibba and end with Binog Tibba on day 1!!! Top is easier and Binog has such STEEP down and up that to start with that just exhausts a person!!! So next time the order will be Top-->Binog-->Nag Tibba!!! Oh and to put into perspective of all these runs with our hike times:

Binog Hike: Left Mt. Hermon at 11am and didn't get back until 8:30pm!!! (9 1/2hr hike)
Top Hike: Left Mt. Hermon 10am and returned at 4pm (6hr. hike)

So kinda shows the tempo I was at to almost split both of these hikes in half!!!:) Well that's about it!!!! Overall freakin GREAT EXPERIENCE!!! Shows me how much harder I have to work now and how out of shape I am!!! EYE OF THE TIGER BABY!!!!!!!:)

TTC WEEKEND BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:)

WELL ITS FINALLY HERE!!!! TTC WEEKEND!!!!! TRI-TIBBA CHALLENGE WEEKEND TO BE EXACT!!!!!! Benog Tibba, Top Tibba, and Nag Tibba will ALL be conquered in a span of 2 days!!!!:) Benog Tibba's peak is at 7,835ft, Top Tibba's peak is at 8,536ft, and THE BIG BERTHA Nag Tibba is at 9,917ft!!! So not only is the distance TO them a challenge, but climbing all those peaks will be real fun!! LET'S GO OVER THE CHALLENGE AND RULES!!!!

TTC: To accomplish summit on all 3 peaks leaving from Mt. Hermon and arriving back at Mt. Hermon within 30 hours!!!

Rules:
-Challenge/clock begins when locking my door, standing up, and taking the FIRST step
-Must reach all 3 peaks and bring back an object proving success on each peak!!
-Can go ANY path to reach top of peaks
-Order of peaks can be any
-Only sleeping stops clock (cannot sleep for more than 8 hours)
-MUST run/hike/walk the entire Challenge (NO WHEELS)
-Challenge/clock stops once I reach my lock and insert key into key hole


Distances from Mt. Hermon to peaks (as the crow flies; meaning straight shot):
Mt. Hermon to Benog Tibba: 5.85 miles
Mt. Hermon to Top Tibba: 4.56 miles
Mt. Hermon to Nag Tibba: 9.52 miles


My order for this challenge will be Mt. Hermon --> Benog Tibba --> Top Tibba --> Mt. Hermon (sleep) --> Nag Tibba --> Mt. Hermon!!! I originally was planning doing Benog to Nag and then Top, buuuuuuut I don't know that route between Benog and Nag and I didn't feel like guessing in my first attempt at this challenge!!!:) And this way I can be home to sleep and don't have to run with a sleeping bag!! LESS WEIGHT!!! Also, ending with Nag I can practice when I go for the record from Woodstock to Nag Tibba as well!! Which Kleiner did back in '97 and he did it in 11hrs.!!! Now I'm pretty sure I won't do that on this one since it is considered practice, BUT to see how close I can get will be pretty sweet!!! If I do break it, ummmmm SURPRISING BUT AWESOME!!!! Well that's about all the info I have for these next 2 days!!!! So while other people are out relaxing in a national park or hiking to a hill a mile away during their quarter break, I'm freakin pushing myself to the physical limit!! OH THERE'S NO OTHER WAY TO DO A BREAK BABY!!!!!! YOU KNOW IT!!!!!!!:) Fresh air, sun, and sweat!! 3 combo's to an amazing break!!!!!! Granted Sunday and Monday I'll be dead to the world, but it'll be WORTH IT!!!!! HAPPY SMILING AND HAPPY BREAK EVERYONE!!!!!!