**UPDATED** It sounded like a good idea at the time.

Tonight I have my first swim session for triathlon training. It’s through a local club called Velocity Triathlon. It all sounded like a great idea when I decided to contact the coach and sign up, but now that it’s *tonight* I’m a bit nervous.

You see, I’ve never participated in any sort of coached swimming. I’ve never even had a formal swimming lesson. I started wondering what the heck I was thinking signing up for this. My grandpa taught me to swim at White Cliff Pool (back when it was still an actual pool and not a water park) when I was about 3 years old. My only reason for listening to him and actually learning was simply because I wanted to go off the diving board and it was a rule that you had to be able to swim, doggy paddle, flail your arms, etc., to make it to the wall safely.

I don’t really remember how my grandpa taught me to swim. I remember there being a lot of frustration -- me wanting to play, he wanting to teach. But, in the end it worked out because obviously I didn’t drown.

As it turned out, I was a water baby. I LOVED being in the water. My parents literally had to drag me out of the bathtub because I would play in there for hours until I was completely pruney like a raisin. Eventually, my Mom would have to cut me off from adding hot water to the bath so that I’d get out. It’s funny looking back that I was never involved in any sort of swim program. I probably would be in the Olympics right now**!

Fast forward to the 6th grade when swimming was part of our gym class since the middle school had a pool. That would be awesome right?? Yeah wrong. Swimming at school is just not cool! Especially if you’re a girl and you spent an hour in the bathroom that morning fixing your bangs just so.

Plus, the pool was gross. It was an indoor pool (obviously), which are only great if you’re at a hotel. I doubt that it got substantial maintenance and it smelled like the janitor would empty all of his cleaning products into it at the end of the day after mopping the entirety of the school’s hallways and bathrooms. You get it. It was gross.

Most of the swimming curriculum was centered around teaching kids to swim. Once you could show that you were water safe, you usually got to hang out in the deep end while the teacher worked with the non-swimmers. There was, however, a list of swimming tests that each student needed to complete to get a passing grade. I forget what they all were, but there was one that I absolutely could not do! It was the stupidest thing. It was something like hanging onto the wall and submerging yourself for 20 seconds. It was impossible for me! Try it sometime! Sure it’s one thing to swim underwater holding your breath, but this seemed like an eternity! Inevitably, I would rise to the surface as the teacher was counting 16…17… and so I’d have to do it again. Miserable. One day, I decided enough was enough. On one of the days I had an *excuse note* to sit out of swimming, the teacher asked me to be in charge of the clipboard. It had the master sheet of everyone’s name and a check mark next to each test they successfully completed. When she wasn’t looking, I helped myself by adding several check marks to the row with my name. Come on, you would have too. I think I added a few for my friends too.

I think I’ll be okay tonight as long as I don’t have to prove I can hold my breath for 20 seconds…

** But probably not.

---UPDATE---

So I went to the swim class and it went much better than I thought it was going to be. In fact, the coach said that I probably could have been an Olympian***. Funny because I was super close to not even going. First of all, I was starving. Absolutely famished. All I could think about was how hungry I was going to be after all those laps were swum. On the drive over, I scrounged in my car and found a Quaker Chewy Granola Bar so it and it's 90 calories would have to tide me over.

There were only about 10 or 12 of us at the session. I didn't know who the actual coach was having not met him before, so I kept walking up to people introducing myself as "Hi I'm Kristi. I'm new." until finally I found the coach and he remembered telling me to show up at this session.

A second, much younger coach, showed up and had all the regulars get into the lanes on one end of the pool. Myself and three other people were put into lanes on the other end. Our coach was this super-stud multi-Ironman, UK national triathlete. I only knew this because this woman was totally worshipping the ground he walked on! To the point of embarrassment! She like knew all of his race times and how during that one Ironman he totally bonked during mile 8 (or something like that) of the run. Really? It was awkward to be in the vicinity of this spectacle she was making, she with her running mascara and matted hair.

Anyway, once in the water, my fears of being too slow or suddenly forgetting how to stay afloat quickly dissipated. The group I was with were newbie swimmers. The first thing our coach had us do was swim two laps freestyle. When I was done, I looked up to see I was the only one at the wall. Nice! The rest of the session was largely the same. Coach telling us to do something and me doing it pretty fast and good. Myself and another girl noticed that we really weren't being corrected at all. We asked him what was up and he said we were swimming "perfectly". Perfectly! And he said that word with his British accent like Gordon Ramsay as in "this chicken is cooked pah-fekt-ly."

So all-in-all it was actually pretty fun! Silly me for almost skipping and going home.

*** Legal Disclaimer: Note that this was neither mentioned nor inferred during the session.

Tell me again why MST needs my support?

Today Sara and I took a drive down to Rolla to see how campus has improved since we graduated almost 10 years ago. What we saw confirmed that the campus does not, I repeat DOES NOT, need any further financial donations*. I mean really. Kids these days have it so easy. They have flat screens in every room, computer labs full of computers that actually work (that no one was using, I might add), and dorms that were built in this half of the century.

The first noticeable change is the huge Havener Center at the corner of 63 and 14th Street. The Havener Center is a plush building that contains large ballrooms, student rec center, the University Bookstore, and an Einstein Bros. Bagels. Yes, they have real food options that aren't run by Chartwells! This building replaces what used to be the Student Health Center and a couple smaller buildings that really had no purpose that I can think of.



This new seal is pretty prevalent around campus.



But, I did manage to find one they hadn't changed to the new name yet!



Another noticable difference is that 14th Street is no longer 14th Street, but rather the more affluent-sounding "University Drive". The street is blocked off leading into campus so you can no longer drive in front of McNutt and Harris Hall. Perhaps it should have been named University Walk. Looking the other direction towards I-44, you can see that it is now five lanes. Five lanes!! With trees! And sidewalks! And, is apparently maintained by the St. Pat's Committee.



Here is a quick pic of the new Residential College. It's basically a dorm that promotes working on projects together, so they have a lot of little meeting rooms where students can work together with peers from the comfort of your luxurious five-star accommodations. Don't look too closely because you'll be mad just like me, considering what we endured at TJ. They probably even have elevators that work without the use of wire coat hangers!



This is a pic of Sara and her brother John in front of McNutt, where Sara and my own brother spent many days learning about the inner workings of the Earth's crust. Her brother still works on campus as an IT director and had a sweet Master Key that got us into any building or room we wanted to see. McNutt was pretty much status quo.



From there we headed over to the new Toomey Hall. In case you don't recognize it, it's okay because neither did I, aside from the geographical location giving it away. They basically demolished the ME Annex and completely remodeled the existing ME building and added a whole new wing. The building is huge. The new part was pretty nice. The ceilings in the hallways don't have ceiling tiles so the duct work and piping are all exposed. The idea is that these are mechanical engineers, so they better have an idea of how buildings work. They also enclosed the building's HVAC system in a glass room as a learning tool.



This is where ME Annex used to be. They inexplicably moved the statue of St. Pat out of his warm inviting place of rest in the library and stood him on this corner like a prostitute.


This is the lobby of Toomey. When they gutted the old ME building, they changed ME 104 to a smaller room a fraction of the original size by building a wall behind a row of seats about halfway up. Many of us had Freshman Engineering in there or at least watched a SUB movie or two.


Here's a view looking at Haevener and Engineering Management toward what used to be 14th Street.



Not much changed at the library. Still looks like they are tracking UFOs from the roof. The ever-present doom and gloom clouds and wind were also still there.



Is something missing from this photo? Can anyone guess what this barren patch of grass used to be? Anyone?



If you said UCE, you'd be correct. The building must have offended someone because they completely took it out and made sure to make it look like there could never, ever have been a building there. Ever.

One thing we were happy to see hadn't changed was the Puck. Sara commented that she was surprised it hadn't been upgraded to stainless steel like everything else.



My favorite building on campus is the Rolla Building, which is as old as the university itself built in 1871. Thankfully nothing has changed here, except for now all math classes are held here. The Mathematics & Computer Science Building (MCS) was downgraded to just Computer Science (CS). They unceremoniously ripped Mathematics right off the side of the building. That's okay though, I had Calc II there and wouldn't mind if that whole CS building just burned to the ground. I'm just sayin'.


From there, we walked over to the building everyone loved to hate, the Physics Building. This building looks like it's stuck in time. Almost zero changes except for some fresh paint in the hall. Wouldn't you be pissed if you picked Physics as your major and your building was still crappy like this when other majors have fancy pants high-tech electronics and microfiber couches in the computer labs?


The lecture hall was just as old and just as steep as we all remember, except with maybe a little more graffiti on the desks and a couple flat screens on the walls. At least they still use real chalkboards in this room and not those crap whiteboards. Is there a quiz today?



The Civil Building is really impressive. Too bad we all had to go to class in a building that had only one women's restroom. Now they have a building that looks like a museum! You know when you get those Phone-a-thon calls from a CE student every fall.... well y'all must've donated a LOT.



At least my name's on the wall!


Our last stop was TJ, the dorm Sara and I lived in for 4 years of our lives. We were surprised to see that the South Tower was undergoing renovations, so it was completely closed. What's funny is that the South Tower was a heck of a lot newer than the North Tower where we lived. I guess the construction wasn't that great. We also looked for Bill, hoping that he would give us fresh cookies or throw an ice cream sandwich at us.


The TJ lobby was completely rehabbed. It actually looked pretty nice. And, they actually *gasp* installed new elevators!


I'm sure everyone remembers how rickety those old ones were. They would notoriously break down on move-in and move-out weekends leaving everyone to schlep their stuff up and down the narrow stairwells. They were also notorious for getting jammed at the most inconvenient times. That's why once when I was stuck, I momentarily got super-human strength and pulled the doors apart and jumped out.


Personally, I think the saddest part is that they repainted the 5NN hallway and covered up all of our artwork!


I mean, who didn't want to see this Elvis Mary painted....


Or the blocks with our names on them...


Or this mural I painted...


They also got rid of Ariel in the bathroom!
Before:



After:

Okay, maybe that change was for the better.

But anyway, it was good to go back and see the old place. It seems hard to believe that so many years have already passed. I loved college and if this whole work thing doesn't pan out, I may just go back...



*I'm really just kidding. Of course they need money. I noticed a few of the classrooms didn't have a flat screen yet.