365 Days Later

Well, today is the one year anniversary of my arrival back into the United States.  It's hard to believe that I touched down in San Francisco 365 days ago, but each of those days since have been full of memories that I cherish.

Flash forward to this past week and let me tell you how crazy it's been!  I started "teaching" at Stanford which has been awesome.  I have my class twice a week and the kids in there really want to learn gymnastics and are fun to work with.  The first week is always crazy because there are so many more people enrolled than are allowed so you have to balance 35-40 people at once but I think I've got the class list down to a reasonable limit now so we can really get going on things.  I was told to use conditioning as part of my "weed out" process and I think it worked...I had less kids on the second day than I did on the first and even more have dropped out over the weekend.  I still have some formalities to take care of like getting my ID card and everything, but I'm looking to have that done in the next couple of days.

One of the many perks of the job is that I can take PE classes for free.  I signed up for a cross training class as well as tennis and both have been a lot of fun.  Cross training is a good change of pace from all the running I've been doing and tennis is teaching me a lot.  I like the teachers of both classes and I'm really hoping that the weather holds up so we can attend as many sessions as possible.

In the gym we're getting ready to head out to Colorado.  I checked the weather this morning and it was 30 degrees colder there than here...brrr!!  I'm excited and nervous all at the same time for our first competition; I think the girls are prepared and ready but you also never know how things will go on the floor of a meet until you are actually in that situation.  Well, ready or not we leave on Thursday, competition on Friday.

Today was the first meet of the 2013 season for Stanford Men's Gymnastics.  It was held in Berkeley and so Alex and I drove up together this afternoon.  He was dressed and ready to go out onto the floor if they needed any help, but he ended up sitting in the stands with me and the rest of the cheering section for the time he was there (he had to leave early to get back to campus and open the AARC).  It was a little strange for me because it was the first meet ever where I watched with him by my side instead of on the floor (or vice versa when I was competing).  As much as I loved watching him compete, it was nice to have him there to talk to :)  I wasn't as nervous for the team as I used to be because I don't know as many of the guys, but of course I still wanted them to be successful.  Even though there were some rough patches, they pulled out a win against Cal (425.00-411.15) and have a lot to look forward to this season.  It was also great to see and catch up with some of the alum in the audience; the love and support for this team is contagious and it's always nice to be around others who care so much about the members of the team carrying on their legacy.