Doctor, Doctor Give Me the News

With the impending doom of the swine flu ravishing our campus, students started becoming pretty worried in the last week before Thanksgiving break. It wasn't that they realized papers and project dates were swiftly closing in and they just weren't feeling up to the task. It wasn't that they were afraid of carrying disease to their homes and families. It was the possibility that the college might cancel the Thanksgiving dinner because of the flu pandemic. Normally our dinners are pretty average when it comes to colleges. A few lines ranging from entrees to the grill to the salad bar; in reality, not too bad of a deal. But the Wednesday before Thanksgiving break, the school brings out all the stops.

They open up the cafeteria and set up a table that stretches along each side of the hall. The line for this thing is unbelievable. People start lining up at 4pm, by the time I got out of swim practice the line was outside of the building and nearly into the plaza--thats about 30 yards, and that's just to get into the cafeteria. Once you've gotten through the initial line, you get into line for the cornucopia you are about engorge yourself with. As you move inch by inch, more and more dishes come into view. Finally you grab your plate that is actually too hot to hold and start going at it. You can always tell who the freshmen are because they actually take up room on their plates for the fruit and salad that's laid out at the front of the table. Too seasoned for that mistake I patiently await what's to come next. At my fingertips are vats of stuffing, tubs of green beans, and sweet corn in bowls too big to lift. Here's where the real dinner starts, I need to lay a base level of all three to cover my plate. Then the heavier stuff, you get the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and fish. Once I've reached this level, I can't expand outward on my plate, since I've already reached about a centimeter off the edge in every direction. The only place to go is up, so I pile it on. At the end of the line are the chefs standing ready to cut off slabs of ham and turkey at your bidding, the missing piece of the mountain I've constructed on my plate. Finally making it through this table--or row of tables--I move on to the gravy, which cascades down the Rockies equivalent of a dinner plate. Now I'm ready to eat right? Well not quite, now you've got your corn bread, rolls, pumpkin bread that I need to shove in every pocket I've got (good thing I decided to wear my jacket). Now the battle of the evening begins. You elbow and shove your way through the masses of starving students to find a table. It's like trying to find a parking space in Walmart on Black Friday. You just need to awkwardly wait at a table where it seems like they might be pulling out, then rush in on it before anybody else gets there. It gets rough out there, I've seen people throwing jackets and bags in front of others, people grabbing and diving for chairs; but my group finally found our seats and the feast could begin.

The hard part is, all of this isn't the end. You need to pace yourself through the dinner, enjoy some of everything, take awhile getting through the meal, and when you've settled yourself enough to actually stand again you leave and make your way to the next room. Give the door person your ticket and you've entered into a wonderland, an entire hall--that's right not just a room, but a hall--filled with the most delicious desserts. They've got everything from blackberry pie to chocolate death cake. Naturally, I like to test the limits and go for the death cake. This is the stage in the night where you actually see people laying down on the floor because sitting in an upright position cramps their stomach too much (and yes I may have been one of those people). After struggling through this massive piece of diabetes waiting to happen, I slowly, painfully begin to stand up and make my way back to the desserts. No, I'm not shoving another one down--well, not immediately. I just take a peanut butter cake for the road and head home to lay down and not move for a few hours.

So, you see, one of the most important days of the year for college students--the college Thanksgiving meal, because what kind of athlete or scholar would go into something without training or studying. The doctors and the school cleared us for our practice Thanksgiving meal, after a night like that you can't be anything but prepared for the real night just a week away. Man, you gotta love this time of year.

You Gotta Have Heart

Well its been a busy couple of weeks up here at Dickinson. The dreaded swine flu has hit us pretty hard claiming about 20 cases a day and 8% of our student body so far. My yearly sinus infection is in full swing. I won't go into any great, nauseating detail, but let's just say I'm thoroughly addicted to nasal spray by now; there's just no way I'd be breathing without it. My swim team is no survivor of this influx of disease by any means. Just this week we lost six girls and three guys to the flu, a few of us have our sinus infections, and one guy has mono. So we're kinda hurting a little. But practice must go on, and so everyday we come in to practice, those skipping who can't stand long enough to walk over; everybody else just running to the bathroom when necessary. And of course all this practice isn't for nothing.

That's right this weekend was our first official meet. Yes, my Thursday and Friday nights have now become insurmountably boring with our new in season curfew--I'm basically stuck to doing homework and sleeping. It also means waking up at 7am on Saturdays to warmup and making multiple-hour bus rides to our opponents pools. Yes, it's a lovely thing this swim season. But it's also the time where the team bands together, where there are deafening cheers for the close races whether it be for first or third place--because every last point counts. It's the time where four guys stand behind the block and cheer and yell and swim till their lungs burst for their relay and for their teammates.

As I was saying, we had our first meet this weekend amongst all the bacteria and viruses devouring our team. We have guys sleeping in between races, puking after races, and going into coughing fits through the whole meet. Our meet was against the Scranton Royals (who's mascot is oddly enough a wolf--explain that one??) who was supposed to be a tough team to beat when we were completely healthy. We arrive at the pool, do our warmup, and get ready for the meet to begin. First relay hits and we pull off a second place while Scranton takes first and third, not a great start, but our times weren't too bad. As the meet continues we don't hold up quite so well as our first relay. The next event was the 1000 freestyle and we had two guys puking at the end of it. The rest of the day was pretty much the same. Swim as fast as you can go (sometimes while coughing in the midst of the race) and then get out and vomit your brains out (by the way, my apologies to the weak-stomached for such descriptions). I'd love to say, that through such adversity our team came back to win the meet and prove that we were the better team, but no such thing happened--it was a blowout 122-67.

But I believe we still are the better team. No Scranton swimmers were lying on the ground after their events; no Scranton swimmers needed to be rushed into the bathroom or removed from the lineup against their will. No, but our swimmers dealt with such struggles and pushed through them. It is true, not all of us had great season opening times (although some of us did manage some great times), but every single person on my team pushed until there was nothing left. In the last relay of the day, I'm standing behind the blocks with the three teams--that's twelve people--who were left standing by the end of the meet. And looking into each of their faces, I knew they were all giving every last ounce of strength they had to those last four laps of the day. The race began, I finished my leg, scrambled out of the pool, wordless--breathless--staring at the teammates around me, determination still on their faces. Each leg went as mine did, the swimmer silently, heaving, climbing out of the pool sapped of all strength. We sat on the ground just long enough to muster what hoarse shouts and cries we could muster for those who still had yet to race their legs. And we finished our races in 2nd, 4th, and 5th, gasping for air, hearts pounding, muscles aching and stomachs turning, nothing left--job well done, meet well swam, goal accomplished. I've seen all I need to know that this season and this team will not be defeated with a score at the end of a meet; no, we are stronger than that, we have more heart than that.