Spartan 5K Challenge

I did it!!!! I ran my first 5K this morning and it wasn't horrible!! I was completely expecting to be the last person dragging myself over the finish line, but I actually did pretty well. My time was 34:18, so for 3.2 miles I was running an average of 10min 45sec per mile! I didn't even run that fast as a kid. Probably especially not as a kid... Anthony came as my cheerleader and official photographer. Here is me looking out at the track: It was seriously cold this morning! I was glad because I knew that I would get heated up once the running started, but I had to wait in the cold for at least an hour for everything to start. Ant didn't run with me, so a group of crossfitters (extreme crazy fitness people) invited me to hang out with them. I felt like an adopted stray :)

Here's me running by on my first lap (I'm in the middle of the picture in the far lane close to the grass): I was thinking to myself, "How in the world am I going to do this?"

Here's me on my second lap: See? My need for personal space kicked in and I was willing to run faster just to get away from that huge crowd of people :)

The entire course was actually pretty cool. They had you do the first few laps on the track, then the course ran through the entire University of Tampa campus with different obstacle courses. I had to jump over bales of hay twice, crawl under a net in the sandpit of a volleyball court, and jump over those huge tractor tires. I did my first mile in 10:30. Nice right? No one was more surprised than me, let me tell you! Somewhere after the the 2 mile mark, I was feeling pretty good and passing everyone and then I hit the tractor tires. I was like, "ARE you kiddding me?". After that, my heart rate skyrocketed and I had to literally talk myself out of vomiting. But, I pushed through and as the course made its way back to the starting point I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Ant got a picture of me coming up at the last 1/2 mile:

Finally I was approaching the finish line: You can tell by the look on my face what I was feeling at that moment.

The finish line!!!! Yeah, I know. I'm not one of those people that look cute after working out, but hey you can't have everything right?

Disability Humor

You would think that working in an office full of disability advocates that we would be the last people to tell disability jokes. And you would be wrong! Of course, we all have the utmost respect for our students (most of the time) but some of the best jokes come directly from the students themselves! So, it was a little strange to get used to the atmosphere of the office at first, but it was nice to relax and not worry so much about being politically correct all the time as long as it wasn't in a derogatory way.


So, sharing some humor from yesterday at work. First, a picture my supervisor posted on his facebook page from failblog.com:

This is definitely funny because of the irony, but I seriously see ridiculousness like this all the time!!! It's like people think that they if they throw up some accessible parking signs and paint some parking spaces that all of a sudden their building is accessible. Never mind the fact that there are stairs everywhere with extremely narrow doorways!

Second, we had a meeting about a big event we are having at the university for disability awareness month. We are having a Deaf performer coming and while discussing the schedule for the day, one of our coordinators who is also an ASL interpreter mentioned that on the same day an ASL comedian, Keith Wann is coming to USF. After watching some of his videos on youtube, I can't wait to see him! He is so funny!!!! Here's one of my favorite ones. It kind of reminds me of that youtube video "Evolution of Dance". In this, Keith is acting like a newbie interpreter that is signing a Rap song...

Killer rats!!!

We have rats in our new apartment!!!! Are you as freaked out as I am and that idea? For the past few weeks Bitsy has been going crazy digging at our kitchen floorboards and Ant said that he saw ONE tiny little mouse looking thing the other day. I wasn't too worried because it seemed like the dogs or the cat were going to take care of it.

However, yesterday we found a dead little rat in the kitchen. We thought that it was THE one and that the dogs finally got it. Apparently not. Apparently, it was one of a litter of baby rats that spread throughout the entire apartment! Last night after my mom and my brother left our apartment, Ant decided to go get a fish tank from a friend. I walked into our closet in our bedroom while I was changing into my pajamas, looked down, and there was a small rat on the floor right in front of me!!! I screamed and ran out of there mid-change. I didn't know what to do! I didn't want it to crawl away somewhere where we couldn't get to it but I didn't want to go near it. Eventually I decided to get a cup and trap it underneath the cup until reinforcements came home. After I trapped it (and heard some disturbing squeaking sounds!) I was walking out of the bedroom and saw another one crawling towards our office!!!! Now, my dogs can't get to our bedroom so they were off the hook for that one, but they sure should have been all over this one. I took my dog and pointed her towards the new rat so she could get it and my dog RAN INTO HER KENNEL!!! After all this time of acting like she was dying to get at this thing, she ended up being scared of it! I noticed that the cat was suspiciously absent, so I looked around for her and she had run under our bed!! Traitors!! So all by myself, I trapped this one under another cup, turned on all the lights, curled up on the couch and waited for Ant to come home. Here is a picture Ant took of them after he got home:

Terrifying right? :) I felt so conflicted. On the one hand these are vermin and are in my house, so ewwwwww, but on the other hand I don't want to kill them because they are so little and helpless (and kind of cute in the way that all small things are cute even if they are hideous at the same time). The exterminators are coming on Wednesday, but until then I will not walk into a room without first turning on the light and checking the floors!

Aside from all of that excitement, I took my certification exam last Thursday. I'm pretty sure I passed it, but I won't get the official results until January AND I found out today that I passed my comprehensive exams!!! Now the only thing left to do is show up for graduation! I can't believe I am done with tests, essays, all of it. Now I am free to....work. Huh. Wait a minute...

Beware the hunting knife wielding cowboy and his puppy

So, um, today was a crazy day. Around 2pm today a few of my coworkers received a text message from the USF emergency alert system that there was an armed intruder on campus. The message said the campus was on lock down and to lock the doors and stay inside. We locked the office doors and turned the lights out to the lobby. To be honest, I wasn't too concerned because Ant gets texts at least once a month from USF about a suspicious character on campus. However, this was the first one that had actual instructions with the warnings. We all went to the USF website to get more updates.

A few minutes later we got another alert saying that the intruder was at the library and that police were en route. Guess where the library is on the USF campus? Right across from my OFFICE!!! Crazy right? Then, a few minutes later we got an update that ANOTHER guy was identified on a campus bus as having a weapon and a possible BOMB and that the bomb squad was en route!!! What?? And then, if things weren't crazy enough as it was we got yet another report of a suspicious person who was described, no joke, as a white male wearing a black tank top, a cowboy hat and carrying a black puppy in one hand and a large hunting knife in the other. You can't make that stuff up!!!!!! Of course, that message spurred an entire conversation of conjecture over where that man was going with his puppy in hand. One coworker thinks he was an off duty cop who wanted in on the excitement, forgot his gun and uniform at home, and didn't have time to drop his puppy off at the doggie daycare. My guess was he was a student from one of the dorms that smuggled his puppy onto campus and had taken a vow to protect his puppy (with his trusty hunting knife) from the swarms of investigating police at all costs. Luckily the campus got the all clear right before 5Pm so we were able to leave to go home on time (although there were still helicopters circling the campus). As far as I know no one got hurt, so that is a blessing.

In other news, I am loving taking classes at my new gym!! My next door neighbor has become my official gym buddy and we can't get enough of the group fitness. Tonight we took a kickboxing class that kicked my trash!! I was a sweaty hot mess afterwards and the little scandanavian woman that teaches it does seriously impossible things with her legs. The room all of the classes are in is surrounded by mirrors like a dance studio so I got to see myself losing my balance and kicking out my unusually large feet (I wear size 9 1/2 in running shoes). I swear I almost drop kicked a 65 year old woman working out next to me! Over the past few weeks I've taken a spin cycle class, several Zumba classes (latin dancing basically), strengthing training classes, a step class, pilates, and several dance party classes (where we jump around a lot and shake our booties. It's awesome.) It is really neat to see what a range of ages and sizes come to the gym, even among the personal trainers who you expect to be perfectly toned. Although I will say I was pretty intimidated by this one fitness instructor's body until I found out that she competes professionally in fitness/body building competitions. It made me feel a little more normal to know that she doesn't look that way naturally :)

So there you have it: a day of police, bomb squads, puppy wielding cowboys, and drop kicking the elderly. Hopefully tomorrow will not be quite as eventful.