winning and losing

I would love to make this a super up-beat and happy post about our win at Chicago, but suddently this week has become a much more complex mix of emotions for me. I'm so happy to say that this past weekend, the Ninjas went down to Naperville, Illinois to defend our championship title at the Chicago Invite and WE DID IT! We went 7-0 for the weekend, we had a lot of parents/family there to watch and support us, and we had almost our entire squad there working together beautifully the entire weekend. Coming back to reality and a week full of tests and papers and projects was hard, but riding that championship wave made it bearable, and seeing my girls every day at practice didn't hurt either.

Yesterday at around 9pm Liz and I were sitting in a cafe studying when the new USA Ultimate (preliminary) rankings were posted. We knew we would move up in the rankings since we had just won a tournament (and won all of our games), but I don't think anyone was prepared for us to jump 11 spots to 19th place! And as of now, we have 4 NORTH CENTRAL BIDS TO NATIONALS! At this time the team kind of flipped out, the group text went crazy, twitter feeds were blowing up, and facebook of course.... We are now a top 20 team! How nuts is that?? I am so so so so so so so proud of my team, how hard we've worked this season and how we've really come together to work towards our goals and become a tight-knit team and family. No matter how we do at Sections, Regions, if we make it to Nationals or not... I know we will push it hard through all of those tournaments and support each other and do our best. And that's all we can ask for! So that was kind of exciting! I don't think anyone could really concentrate on school work for the rest of the night!

But then when I came home I heard some sad news that my friend's little brother had died. I haven't actually talked to this friend in a long time, but we were neighbors growing up and we were good friends from kindergarten all the way into high school. This news hit me pretty hard, and I was just plain shocked for a while. It is obviously heartbreaking to lose any family member or loved one, a parent/grandparent, but for some reason it is always so much more tragic to lose a young person. All I could think of was how my friend must feel... or how I would feel in her place. I couldn't imagine it, and all I felt was overwhelming sadness for her and her family. I've never experienced the death of someone that close to me, and I don't know how I would respond. Although I've lost three of my grandparents, I think I was too young at the time to really understand...

All day today, my mind has kept going back to this. It made me at least slow down for a few minutes at a time and think about what I value and prioritize in my life, because it could be taken away in an instant. I (and I think many college students) tend to focus so strictly on school, working myself to exhaustion just for a deadline or a grade. My education is important to me, yes, but is it as important as being happy? How do I balance those things? Am I making the right choices to make sure I am living the life I want to live? Am I being honest with myself and with others as much as possible? And most importantly, am I surrounding myself with people who are supportive, people who I love and who love me in return? Do they know how important they are to me? Knowing how, as a fellow teammate so rightly put it, "shy and awkward" I am, I probably don't vocalize these things enough. Maybe I should try harder. Maybe they already know. I'm often reluctant to show my emotions and risk appearing vulnerable, but all these emotions are bottled up somewhere in here, and I wish I were better at letting myself open up and tell those people in my life just how much they mean to me. I hope they do know... but I think I'll make the effort to tell them anyway.

Catch-up

At the beginning of the semester I told myself that I would try to write in my journal every day and blog as much as possible. Goal number one started off okay but has tragically crashed and burned. I could argue that, even though the last time I wrote a blog post was almost one month ago, goal number two is still doing okay, since "as much as possible" all depends on the circumstances! And given, the circumstances, I think I'm just hitting "as much as possible." I've been playing so much catch-up in my everyday life that I don't even have time to play blog catch-up.

And then of course, I never know what to write about. In typical Hannah fashion, I will come up with an idea and promptly shoot it down. "No that's too boring...nobody will care...too cheesy..." etc. But why should I care what my "audience" thinks? Since my audience is all of 5 people, it really shouldn't matter. Wasn't the whole point of this for me to express myself and write about anything and everything that I felt strongly about or that just struck me on a whim? Let me tell you... YES.

So this is what's up right now in my life: I'm extremely busy and extremely stressed. I am constantly either in class, at work, or doing homework/studying. When I'm not doing those things, I'm worrying about this summer, figuring out where I'll be, if I can get a job/internship, etc. I have approximately zero time to do fun things, and I rarely get to see my friends. I feel like I'm literally just barely scraping by day-to-day. But honestly, this is what's keeping me going:

I love these girls and I love this sport. For some reason I'm almost reluctant to admit that my frisbee team is the best thing I have going on right now, because it's "just a sport" and I would feel silly to be the only person who felt that way... but hey, it's the truth! It's usually the highlight of my day/week: practice, tournaments, agility workouts, Ninja get-togethers, you name it. I could really go on and on about how much I love ultimate and how much I love my team, but I think I'll leave it here for now, short and sweet. My life is such a mess right now, I'm just happy I have my Ninjas to keep it together. Thanks ladies. 

xoxo, 

hcon

the view

Right now, more than ever, I want to go back in time. I want to sit on this rock and enjoy this view, with not a care in the world.

Sometimes...

Adele and Joyce rock the Grammys

Some of this year's Grammys was pretty cool, some of it was super weird, some of it was great and some of it was boring as usual. But there were two particular things that I found refreshing and awesome: Adele and an opera singer.

1. For some reason, I don't think I've ever watched Adele sing before. Watching the Grammys last week, it was so refreshing to see a singer who can actually sing. Hmm... what a concept. She didn't need to wear strange costumes, she didn't have an extravagant set, she didn't have 50 background dancers... oh wait, she wasn't even dancing, and she wasn't sing-talking or yelling. She stood in front of a mic and effortlessly sang a beautiful song, pouring out all kinds of emotion without forcing anything... because she's a talented singer.

And the cool thing is that she actually did sweep a lot of the big awards. It was great to see the Grammys celebrating artists who are actually truly good musicians/singers/performers (shout out to Bon Iver as well!!).

2. Today I found out about something else very cool (even cooler, in my opinion) that happened at the Grammys, but it was during the pre-telecast ceremony... so not a lot of people saw it. First of all - I love opera. It's kind of an odd interest that not many young people today share, in a world where opera is just not popular amid all this pop/rap/stuff that our society loves. But I absolutely adore it.

One of my favorite opera singers is Joyce DiDonato, a native of Kansas. Her album of classical arias was nominated for a Grammy (Best Classical Vocal Solo) and she was invited to sing at the pre-telecast ceremony. Turns out, this was the first time a classical singer has sung at the Grammys. Seriously? I mean, I know classical music isn't really "in" with the usual Grammy stuff... but this was the first time??

I think one of the reasons that classical/opera singers feel so out of place at an event like the Grammys is that usually they're not creating new music. Opera is a very old style of music, and these singers have been for the most part singing the same music for hundreds of years! But when you actually watch an opera singer in action, you have to recognize and appreciate that they have amazing control of a huge range of vocal abilities... it's very impressive. And all of the top-level opera singers around the world are this good, but they go largely under-appreciated as singers because the general public is not interested in opera. Turns out Joyce DiDonato won her first Grammy last week and got a standing ovation after her performance. Way to go!

healing

The past few weeks I've been in a weird funk that's really been getting me down. I just keep getting busier and busier and I get so caught up in a whirlwind of school, homework, practice, a new job, trying to find internships and research opportunities, and thinking about the future in general, that I rarely get a chance to finish everything, much less have some time off to relax and have fun. Even the things that are usually fun and help me unwind from time to time, (i.e. orchestra, frisbee), just aren't doing the trick!

That's why this weekend was magical. For just a few short days I got to escape the bustle of the cities life to go up north and stay in a sweet cabin. To unplug, unwind, relax and enjoy the great outdoors with awesome people. And not just anywhere up north, but my favorite place of all... ITASCA.

Itasca Summer 2011 

Itasca holds a very special place in my heart. Last summer I spent 5 weeks at the U's Biological Station in Itasca State Park taking field courses in Ornithology and Animal Behavior. If you've never heard me talk about this before, it was like summer camp for adults (and especially exciting for those poor souls who never went to summer camp as kids... aka me). Half the time I was taking awesome "classes" about animals, learning about science, and the other half of the time we got to frolic around the wilderness. Win-win, if you ask me. It was at Itasca that I first really felt affirmed that I was on the right path (academically), where I fell in love with birds, and where I finally became friends with other like-minded sciencey people!

Hiking out to Bear Paw Point

So when I got the chance to go back to Itasca for a weekend with the U's Center for Outdoor Adventure, I jumped on it. It was like a much-needed vacation: with just a small group of outdoorsy people, including two of my best friends, we stayed in a cozy "cabin," hiked some of the beautiful trails of the park, ate lots of good food, played board/card/word games, made new lumberjack friends, and just chilled! (and I saw a few birdies!) It was so healing to just get away, forget about my hectic life for a few days, revisit a place that I love and just be calmed by the simplicity and beauty of nature.

Headwaters in the winter

You know you best

When you're having a bad day, sometimes you are the only one who can make you feel better. For example, only Past Me would have the foresight to buy one piece of Lindt chocolate, put it in my backpack and forget about it... so that days later, Future Me could be surprised and overjoyed to find a beautiful, delicious piece of dark chocolate waiting for me just when I needed it most! After all, chocolate is my go-to problem solver, and I ought to know better than anyone.

So, thanks Past Hannah.

Yours truly,
Present Hannah