Day 3

January 2, 2010

 

Day 3:

 

            For some reason we all woke up very early today. The door closing behind Edie and Anna who were going out for an early morning run awakened me.  I noticed that Derek was awake and we had decided last night that we would go to the gym together today whenever we woke up. When I went into the room with all of our still unpacked luggage I noticed that Peter was no longer there. He had stolen some pillows from the couches and made himself a make-shift mattress in the room with the luggage. By the time Derek and I were ready to leave, Ben had woken up and wanted to accompany us to the gym as well. We caught a cab and headed to the resort.

            Once we got to the gym and got it unlocked for us, we noticed that there is a TV in the gym and the LSU-Penn State game was on. I can’t believe the field conditions for that game. I always loved practicing in the mud and rain but after playing in it for years, before Sycamore renovated the stadium, I hated playing in such conditions. It was a good game however. A huge win for the Big 10. Oddly enough, Anna and I were speaking last night about how bad the Big Ten is. I was glad to see Penn State win. I thoroughly enjoyed a specific sign that I saw in the stands that read “Jeaux Pa”. Not sure why that intrigued me but it did.

            Let me explain this “fitness center” to you. At a glance it contains a stair master, a seated bike with the back support, 2 elliptical machines and an Urg. That’s the cardio equipment. The stair master had no resistance so when you stood on it, it rather quickly sank to the ground. The Stair Master was so dysfunctional that, although only one button worked on the control panel, the screen always read “Won’t Slow Down”. I’m not sure what exactly that means. I wanted to use that for my warm up but it didn’t work so I settled for one of the elliptical machines. Derek was using one, and Ben was on the bike machine. Well the elliptical machine I was on didn’t even turn on. So I used it for about four minutes before I replaced Ben on the bike machine.

            So in the middle of the fitness center was a home gym weight station. It had four branches: Chest fly, leg press, bench press and a multipurpose branch with pull down, row and bicep sections. Only the multipurpose section worked. The other sections either had pulleys with detached fulcrums or fulcrums with absent cords. The fitness center also had free weights ranging from 8 lbs to 45 lbs. in random increments and not always in sets. Nonetheless, I got a great workout in.

            I left the fitness center before Ben and Derek and headed to the restaurant. There I hooked up my computer and ordered a small stack of buttermilk pancakes and some bacon. The signal was very good, probably because only one other computer was in the restaurant sharing the network with me. I ended up getting my Skype to work and I video chatted with the family. It took them a while to get the video to work and the audio never worked but it was still good to see Mom, Cam, Gramma, Daddy Curt and Ra-Ra. Ben joined me at the table while I was talking with the family. Derek watched the end of the LSU-Penn State from the bar. After I ate I joined him by the bar and that was when I realize that the Rose Bowl was kicking off in a few minutes. We stayed and watched the first half of Ohio State – Oregon before returning to the apartment for showers. We picked up Anna who’s from Portland, OR to come back and watch the end of the game. I’m glad Devier played well. I only saw him do anything in the first half, but he had something like four catches for around 40 yards. The only Fox broadcast that they have on the island is Fox News so we couldn’t see the Sugar Bowl, but Derek and I watched the Stat Tracker on Espn.com. Once the score was 30-3 at halftime I left to come back to the apartment.

            Edie and I walked down to Auntie’s Store to buy me some sheets and then I came back to do some reading while Edie walked toward the Jetty to get some fresh air. I put a dent in  Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy. I’ve got about 40 pages left. I love how Dungy infuses his faith into everything he does. I feel like most people who claim to be Christian can proclaim that but putting it into action is so much harder. I certainly don’t. I’m working on it though. Dungy dealt with the death of both of his parents and his son in the span of two years and he kept the faith and even found the strength to, in what would be the lowest point possible for most people, encourage those in much better situations than his own. James Brown put it best and that’s probably why it’s quoted on the back cover of Quiet Strength, “In football and in the game of life, Tony Dungy is a winner.”

            After reading, we sat around the living room telling random stories. Eric cooked shrimp fried rice that turned out pretty well. Making it was quite the adventure apparently, but the product was more than sufficient. After eating we watched Kenneth Branaugh play Hamlet on Derek’s computer with Eric’s speakers. The video is four hours in total and we watched about 2.5 hours. I felt like I was back at school trying to stay awake for a 10a. The combination of the darkness of the room, the food coma and the lack of nap that I got made it really hard for me to stay awake. We followed that up with a discussion of how we would do the play. For those of you who don’t know, an ongoing project of our program is the production of a Shakespearian play. This year we have chosen Hamlet. Auditions begin Monday or Tuesday and we will begin to introduce the plotline to the cast Thursday or Friday. After watching Hamlet, we were all more than eager to pass out. Eric and I switched places to sleep so I slept on the floor and he slept on the couch.

            All of us are getting a tad anxious about getting into the classrooms. We’ve had now four days to explore the island and familiarize ourselves and we’ve all expressed, at one time or another, how we wished we had more to do as far as a structured routine. While being lazy and enjoying the clear blue water is, in fact paradise, I’d love to have something to do. Tomorrow I figure I’ll go to church, familiarize myself more with Hamlet and get ready for the first day of school.