Halloween 2014: Rain . . . yes, something California desperately needs right now. yup.
At Spanish class at Foothill college, the rain was coming down “pretty hard” for CA standards this year. I think most people in not-so-dry areas would consider it between a “somewhat heavy drizzle” and a “really light rain” but idk. Walking from the classroom to the parking left my hair pretty drenched though. . .
Since it was the last Friday of the month, we would be having time trials at swim team. To get my youngest brother to his soccer practice on time, my mom dropped me and my other brother off first, so we got there pretty early. Within a few minutes there were a few other guys there who were pretty early like us (practice starts at 4, and it was about (maybe) 3:45 –almost 3:50). We found a random basketball [that, btw, is still there now] and went around outside to the basketball hoop. We began just, you know, shooting around and doing what guys casually do with a basketball XP The other guys were younger (darn this was ½ a month ago) I think two of them were middle-schoolers and the other still in elementary school. But it was still fun cuz I’ve known them for a long time and we’re all homies now.
So, to be honest, I’m not really even sure why I want to spend time to talk about this . . . but it’s just one of those moments in my life where I feel really good inside and want to remember as a good memory.
While we were having fun out there in the light rain with slippers (and in someone’s case, jammers o_0) on, I thought to myself “I have to blog about this.” –so yeah here we go XP
More people started arriving, and soon our coach was yelling at everyone to get in.
If you want to see my results at time trials, they are (possibly) forever immortalized on jellymoop’s blog (note: you probably won’t have to look far for them if you’re reading them around the time of this post)

So 2 Thursdays ago (11/13 –about 1.5 weeks ago) we had another one of those killer sets at swim that I won’t forget for a while. -Like that one more than a year ago (maybe almost 2??)
Sometime within the past few months (maybe about 1.5-2) the coaches have implemented a rule where if you’re late by a certain amount of time you get dryland (lunges/push ups/etc. but it always includes lunges). However it’s not just a lap; it’s usually been at least 2 or 3 laps.
Well so on that Thursday, my brother(s) //oops already forgot if both were there// and I got there about the time we usually do, which is like a minute or two right before the time we have to get in. This usually gives us just enough time to put our stuff in the bathroom, change (if need be) and walk out and get in the pool. Well this time I had to take a leak and I did the logical thing: I relieved myself before going to swim. (Getting out in the middle of practice and going to the bathroom kinda sucks at this time of year when it’s chilly and being wet makes it way worse)
Because I took those extra 20ish seconds in the bathroom, my brother was able to get in 20ish seconds before me. Turns out, according the coach he was on time but I was late. Derp -_-
Also: I actually got in the water thinking I was on time. However, some of my friends showed up a bit later than me and my coach started talking to them about their consequence. While he was talking with them I swam a lap, and for some reason he decided that I also got in late. I got back to the wall and was told to get out and join them –sigh*
Our coach thought for a bit and said that one of my friends, T., could get in the water because he had just come back from water polo season and couldn’t be held responsible to this “new” rule, which has actually been around before, when he was here.
But whatever, so the rest of us (3 in total) were left to face whatever the coach felt like. . .
Well here’s what he chose for us: 4 laps of lunges (around the pool), with 10 pushups every 10 steps. I pointed out I couldn’t/can’t do pushups right now (broke my wrist like ½ a year ago) Thus I got: 4 laps of lunges with 10 crunch/sit-ups every 10 steps.
I say crunch/sit-up because here it is: In sit-up fashion with your hands behind your head, you raise your upper body until your shoulder blades are a few inches off the ground. For normal sit-ups you usually fold your arms forward so you pull yourself up until your elbows touch your knees. For this version I had to do, you simply lift yourself up about half that distance. It sounds easier, but actually you can’t use a ton of momentum all the way up and rest there. You’re supposed to do these mini-situps/half crunches (idk but that’s sort of what they are) relatively faster, also continuously.
Anyway, I guess it’s good that my dryland set was basically the same as my friends, because then we could go at the same pace and, ya know, not have a boring day of dryland. XP Well we started off. From here there are a few things of significance:

• Weather: It wasn’t extremely cold and raining like that Wednesday from a year and a half ago, but it wasn’t warm either. Temperature was maybe between 60-70 degrees F (?) Not really any wind so that’s good.
• Mini-sit-ups, like normal sit-ups, hurt your back when done on rough concrete (I ended up getting two kickboards to carry with me. When I did the sit-ups I laid the kickboards on the ground, and lay down on them (w00t tricky verbs))
• K. sorta gave up literally right when we started. He lagged behind and ended up about half a lap behind me and N. for most of the time. He had a really depressed look on his face the whole time. .
• I learned how to slap my biceps(!) Some time ago (maybe a month or two), my brother (buff+athletic remember) learned from one of our swim coaches how to slap his biceps. It sounds weird, but it’s this way of relaxing your arm muscles (& intimidating people around you lol) You basically twist/jerk your arm in such a way against your side so that your bicep “slaps” the side of your upper torso. If done properly, the bicep should be relaxed and will flap and thus slap and achieve the clap/slap sound.
  I always thought I was too skinny to do this. However, on this fateful dryland day, I was kinda bored so I suggested to my friend that we try to do “the muscle-slapping thing.” (N. couldn’t do it either although he was pretty muscular) Well we started off the way everyone does it; jerking and flapping our arms in a weird way. I don’t know what it was, but I suddenly did it correctly (well apparently) cuz I made the slap sound. Bicep-slapping is like one of those things where, once you do it correctly once, your muscle remembers how to do it. It just takes that one time. (Another one of our friends also figured it out randomly one day)
  Well yeah so it was pretty exciting –I explained to my friend how I did it and he ended up figuring it out too (well sorta, he still does it kinda weird)
  *As a sidenote, another one of our friends at swim team just figured out this strange ability recently. Darn I haven’t posted in a while*
• This dryland set took forever. We started around 4:5-10ish (ugh forgot . .. ) and finished at like 4:50. Literally 80% of our practice was making our way, suffering, around the pool 4 times.
  My skin dried off about 15 minutes into the set, and my hair was mostly dry when we finished.

Since I can’t think of anything else to write about I’ll talk about yesterday:
11/22/14: day with very much stuff. Mathleague contest, Piano Auditions, cello recital. The mathleague and piano auditions were conveniently at the same location (Valley Christian), and I just stayed there for both events.
Mathleague: lol signs were labeled “ARML” Our team ended up doing really well, with several teammates placing in top ten for different grades. (And yes briantix getting sole perfect score -> first place \clap)
Yours truly did not do so well however. I did much better at last year’s Mathleague at Amador Valley (that one that Petaminx won). I actually don’t remember if that was 2013 or 2014 but w/e.
For team round (on which we got a perfect score yay /clapforbriantix) I wrote out every single positive integer from 1 to 215. –Took about 5 minutes if anyone’s interested
After Mathleague, my mom and brothers showed up with my dress clothes for Piano Auditions . . .
Piano Auditions: (which btw aren’t auditions, they’re a sort of test/competition) After I changed in the bathroom, we walked into the building where we were going to play (I think it was the arts building or something), and I hurriedly ate lunch.
I was going to play three separate times: Accompanying my brothers for their duets, and my turn.
Ok this was like more than a month ago* -long story short: I did pretty badly but ok. Two days ago (2/5) I got my score: 4 out of 5. Well to be honest that’s better than expected.
Cello Recital: Woah this was 2 weeks ago? For some reason it feels like yesterday but at the same like a really long time ago. . .
My friend and I played the first two movements of the (famous) Vivaldi double cello concerto in g minor. The first movement is the one with the famous theme; it’s Allegro so it’s pretty fast. The second movement is Largo, so kinda slow. We played the 2nd movement first, to end with a more exciting piece.
Before the concert, I was with my friend with whom I was performing the piece, when our teacher came up to us. He said that we were going to “up the tempo” of the second movement a bit. We had always practiced it a certain speed but apparently we were going to try to play it a little faster. I was cool with that because we always played it so slow that in several places I would be on the verge of running out of bow.
The program had us as the second-to-last piece. The finale was another cello guy who’s really good at cello. For some reason he wasn’t there yet, but the recital got started anyway. Of course, as the recital progressed I got more and more nervous. A few minutes before we had to play, I showed my friend my hands, and they were as they usually are when I’m nervous: RED (like ridiculously fire-color) –actually they also turn red randomly, so idk, but at least, always when I’m nervous-
Ok it’s 12/18, and I don’t really feel like telling a long take right now, so here’s a long story short:
We played the second movement (the one we performed first) insanely fast. I kid you not almost twice as fast as we normally practiced it. (mostly my fault cuz I cued it at the beginning) Then we played the first movement (our big finale: also the recital’s finale) also lightning fast, though just a bit faster than our practice speed.