College!

Welcome to the big world now. The world has now expanded to include more than 400 Polar Bear freshmen and not just my class of what, 68 back at Gould? I can't get enough of the life here. Everything is walking distance away and Brunswick is such an amazing town. The people here are just out of this world: always saying hello with a smile on their face. I had my first team practice last week which was pretty fun, especially because I got to meet all the girls. The girls team is so small compared to our boys squad. I mean sure, we're missing three girls due to some study abroad programs but I have a feeling our boys team is going to do VERY well this year (but I don't want to jinx it). So far, the track workout was our most fun/intense session we've had. We were doing 200m repeats at a strong clip with a 100m recovery in between, both taking the same time. We did those for about half an hour and then finished with a great cooldown/team meal. All and all, I'm really looking forward to the more intense sessions this fall. I was finally cleared to roller ski and Wednesday we were out for about an hour and a half session of double poling and classic work (in the rain of course, that's the only way to REALLY ski). I'm glad I'm finally getting back into a rhythm of practicing. It helps me focus and hone in on my academics.

SPEAKING OF WHICH! I guess you may be curious as to exactly what classes I'm taking. Well my first year seminar -a requirement for all freshmen as a writing intense course- is an Archeology class which was a pretty random pick. I'm also taking Psychology, The History of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, and my favorite class so far: Russian. Yes, I'm finally learning something other than French and I'm absolutely loving it. Здравствуйте. Меня зовут Шелби. Я люблю кататься на лыжах. The alphabet is a tad strange but once you learn how to read the Cyrillic Alphabet, pronunciation comes relatively quickly. That little example above is "Hello my name is Shelby. I love to ski." I wouldn't be able to hold a conversation about skiing, but I have learned the word to ski, which I just love to mutter under my breath, because there is nothing more intimidating than someone who mutters in Russian.

So yes. I am officially college student. You -if you have been reading this since the humble beginnings of this wonderful little blog- have successfully (or not so successfully at some points) followed me from junior year in high school, a rough season, a summer of 'redemption', my transfer to Gould, my acceptance into Bowdoin, my JO's adventures, another summer of training madness, a shoulder separation, recovery, and now here we are.
Good luck to all you baby freshmen out there!
Cheers!