reunion and my second half marathon!

a week ago, i ran my second half marathon!  the plan was concocted while i was in vietnam last november.  i'm not sure where the inspiration came from but all of a sudden, i remember thinking, "i want to run another race!"  so i did a quick google search, found the rock 'n roll half marathon in DC and sent an email out to friends.  who wanted to join me?! 

since we ran the bavisela together in trieste last may, it was easy to convince V and L and the plans were set.  march 17th, 2012 = reunion half marathon + early bday celebration for me and my quarter of a century! 

so how did the training go?  well i got into really good shape in december when i wasn't working.  i was lucky to have beautiful running weather at my parents' in roanoke, and not having a job gave me plenty of time to focus on the running.  unfortunately, when i did start working again in january - things got a bit hectic.  i was stressed and with minimal daylight hours, it was difficult to find time to run outside - and who wants to do a long run on the treadmill? definitely not me.  

thankfully, living near V again gave me extra motivation.  we started running together during the weeks and doing long runs on the weekends -- it's amazing how much more fun it is to run 11 miles with a friend than by yourself.  overall, things were much easier this go around.  i knew what to expect and i was more confident in myself knowing that i had run 13 miles before.  in addition to V, i knew lots of other people in the area training for the same race or another race so there always seemed to be people doing the same thing i was.  and running through the monuments in DC isn't the worst thing ever.  

as we turned the corner to march and the weather gods decided they weren't into winter weather, things began to heat up around here.  and by that i mean, temperatures very quickly rose to mid-70s and wearing a jacket was no longer necessary.  beautiful! wonderful! excellent! i first thought.  but then i went on a run and was super sweaty and the heavy, humid air was hard to breathe and WOOF i was not trained for this. enter, nervous emotions.  

my goal for this race (the one i told other people) was to beat my time last year (2:14) but my secret goal (the one i didn't tell many people) was to break 2 hours.  i was feeling really good and the times of my long runs made me think i could do it.  alas, neither happened, officially.  my official finishing time was 2:16 but i did have a 7ish minute bathroom stop in the middle.  so, minus those 7 minutes of standing in a line, i would have finished in 2:09 and boom! met my outloud goal.  

the race was a fun one.  there were SO MANY people running and going through DC on st. patrick's day made for humorous spectator circumstances.  there were lots of encouraging signs saying things like "beer: 5 miles ahead," or "hurry up so we can drink."  there was even a make-shift service station of good samaritans passing out cups of green beer to runners.  i may have taken a cup if they hadn't been positioned right at the bottom of a big hill around mile 8...

at the end of the race, we weren't greeted with jello shots like last year (we missed you, K!) but the race did have a giant expo with lots of free swag and live music! we did our best to hoard the free swag and milk the expo for all we could.   

then we spent an excellent day hanging out in DC, catching up, refueling, and yes, drinking our share of guinness to celebrate the holiday.  the race was fun and the reunion around which the weekend was centered was even more fun. 

i love the camaraderie of running races with friends -- luckily, i have a few more coming up!  in may, i'm doing a triathlon in san diego with my sister as well as tentatively running another half over memorial day weekend with lizzy in boston!  apparently i'm into being physically fit.  thanks to daylight savings, it's much easier to find daylight hours in which to train...  you know me, just thinking about running in the dark makes me nervous.

i'm still amazed with myself and my enthusiasm for running now as an "adult."  on every long run i took, i found myself thinking back to my high school track days and the passionate hatred i had for running the 400 meter warm-up lap that was required.... man how things change.

x!

a taste of vietnam

this is an exceptional video (sent to me from S -of alaska fame) showcasing a two weeks meant for "exploring the food of vietnam."  it also hints at many other awesome things about vietnam and the vietnamese people that i experienced while i was there in november (don't they all look so friendly!?).  so in addition for making me terribly hungry, i'm crazy-nostalgic right now.

enjoy! and plan your trip to vietnam. you won't be sorry.

A Taste of Vietnam from Daniel Klein on Vimeo.

x! 

monsieur lazhar

i just saw an excellent movie, monsieur lazhar.  it was one of the 5 films nominated for the "best foreign film" academy award and was showing at the national geographic theater in DC.  the plot chronicles a classroom in montreal as an algerian immigrant takes over after the teacher dies tragically.  the story is inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time while the new teacher, monsieur lazhar, works to figure out the students and school and the students cope with their immense grief.  

to all you non-teachers out there, it accurately shows how a teacher is never 100% off work; the kids are always on our minds.  

check it out! and watch to see if it wins the oscar on sunday!

dear parents, love teachers

the other day, i was filling out a job application for a teaching job.  the application required essay questions and one of the questions was, "explain a difficult situation you have encountered with a student.  what steps did you take to resolve the problem and was it resolved successfully? how did you know? should a similar situation arise in the future, how would you act differently and why?" 

i procrastinated answering this question for longer than i can remember putting anything off.  i mean, months and months and months....  i was really struggling to recall a challenging situation that, if explained, would be a good representation of my classroom management skills.  i've been lucky in my (short) time teaching - i've had pretty great classes and haven't run into anything major that would really fit here.  of course i've had challenges, every day is a challenge in the life of a teacher, so i had to think of something.

i finally sat down and told myself i was going to respond.  i typed a full 600 word answer, edited my work, and then as i was re-reading it a final time, i realized that the problem was centered around a parent conference and wasn't actually a challenging situation with a student, it was a challenging situation with a parent!  so, back to square one.  i opened a new document and started over.  as i was typing out a second response, i realized i was explaining another problem that could have been avoided without obsessive parental involvement.  

and then i found this article from CNN in september.  

can i get an AMEN?! 

cronicles della mia cucina: spinach and sausage quiche

speckled eggs

recently, i had a bunch of eggs that were just about to go bad.  they were straight-from-the-farm eggs, so for them to become rotten without being consumed would have been absolutely tragic.  how to resolve this situation quickly?! a quiche!  it took me longer to figure out how to spell "quiche" then it did to gather up baking instructions - it was so easy! AND one of the most delicious things i've ever eaten.  (i'm so very humble)

ingredients:
pie crust
eggs
milk
whatever you'd like to add to your quiche

step 1: purchase frozen pie crust (deep dish) and thaw.  preheat oven to 350.
step 2: put all quiche additions inside pie crust (i used sausage, spinach, onions, and the best cheese in the world)

step 3: scramble eggs together with a cup (ish) of milk - i used 4 medium eggs. pour scramble mixture overtop of pie crust with ingredient filling.

step 4: bake for about 40 minutes

step 5: admire

step 6: devour (see the sausage on the bottom?!) 

like i said, this was one of the easiest things i've ever made.  and it was incredibly delicious.  i'm sure the delectable taste derived from the farm-fresh eggs AND sausage AND the best cheese in the world.  i mean all three of those things are incredible individually - just thinking about combining them again is mind-blowing. 

YUM! 

memories of parma: bikes! and un panino di pesto cavallo.

last september, i spent a weekend in charlottesville, a place that i love.  the weekend was full of concerts, good food, good friends, and the beginning of incredibly crisp fall weather (!).  cville visits are always full of memories that make me terribly sad college is over.  however, since returning from italy, one of my favorite things about visiting cville is chatting in italian with one of the best bartenders on the corner, N, and invoking a whole different kind of nostalgia.

last year, N spent some time in parma, italy, playing for the parma panthers football team.  i know it sounds strange, an american football league in italy?  have you read john grisham's playing for pizza?  well N lived the life of the main character in the book - he played for and also coached the panther's football team.  in his spare time, he was hanging out in parma! lucky for me, he had a lot of free time during the day and his stay in parma overlapped with our spring break from school.  so before our epic malta adventures, V and i ventured to parma.  hanging out with him in cville brings back wonderful memories of our visit so enjoy a much-overdue review of our trip to parma in spring 2011!

________________

parma was an amazing surprise. the people must be very interested in keeping their little town a secret, because i haven't heard nearly enough rave reviews about the city.  being just a short train-ride away, it often gets overshadowed by the historically famous university city of bologna.  i haven't been to bologna myself, so i can't offer a comparison but i loved the quaint charm of parma;  it was beautiful, and just bustling enough to feel alive.

i arrived before V and spent an evening strolling the cobblestone streets with N and his football friends. similar to other small italian towns i've visited, people were spilling out of bars and cafes and flooding the streets.  it was a clear night and the streets were filled with light and weekend city noises - i was in heaven.

V arrived the next day and we only had the afternoon to explore before heading onward in our spring break journies.  thanks to the preferred method of transportation in the city, we were able to cover a lot of ground in a little bit of time.  

everyone in the city bikes, which i LOVED.  thankfully, N had 2 spare bicilette that V and i were able to borrow.  N was an excellent tour guide and led us on a speedy tour past all the sights.

we started at the duomo which was rather plain on the outside but incredibly beautiful inside.  this is unusual in italy as many of the churches seem to be competing with their neighbors to see who can have the most magnificent display.  it was refreshing, actually, to see a church that was so humble from the outside.  it seemed as if it was saving the beauty for the true visitors who ventured inside -- why waste all the effort on the half-hearted tourists who didn't bother to enter? 

after the duomo, we continued on our bike tour by the river, over bridges, and through a gorgeous park with lots of ruined things.  

then it was lunchtime.  N led us to a tiny alley that was full of parked bikes and people having lunchtime conversation - our hole-in-the-wall destination seemed like the place to be!  N assured us that we were getting something authentic to parma. 

we walked in and N ordered for us, "tre panini di pesto cavallo per favore"

knowing he was still just learning italian, i offered to help.  "hey, N? you just asked for some horse, what did you mean to say?"

nope, he ordered correctly.  we were about to receive a sandwich with RAW horsemeat.  the thing to eat in parma? who'd have thought?

the preparation

the finished product

in addition to the raw horse, the sandwich had grilled vegetables and some sort of white condiment.  and oh MAN was it good.  the horsemeat was very light - not too filling (which was good because it was piled on) and the crunch of the veggies went well with the texture of raw meat.  the bread was that perfect soft and flaky italian variety and it was just all perfect.  you could tell it wasn't their first time creating the masterpiece.  

as we left, it was a bit unsettling to see the horses trot by pulling carriages... but i would definitely eat the sandwich again.

after our raw horse sandwiches, the only thing left to do was buy postcards to send our friends telling them that "we ate raw horse!!!"  no other tourist attraction was going to top lunch.

the whirlwind day in parma was magical. beautiful weather, wonderful friends, bikes! and raw horse (?) - what more could you ask for?

xx

hello, nostalgia!

just to get those memories flowing, here's a pretty cool video of trieste that a friend sent me from the internets.  it shows trieste in absolutely impeccable weather conditions (which almost never existed in my real life there) and i want to go back now. 

Trieste from Andrija Kovač on Vimeo.

x!