Life is often a vicious circle...

As my first month of a full-fledge college student comes to a close, many patters of my way of living has become increasing apparent. For example, I tend to leave things sitting about in my room for a long time before I do anything with them (i.e., books, clothes, dirt, rocks, the essentials). I have approximately 3 dozen rock samples, from olivine to k-feldspar, strewn across my desk from my geology field trip last weekend that I have still not arranged into a fashionable display. But should I? No one is going to haphazardly find themselves wandering around that particular corner of the hall and decide to break into my room to admire my new rock collection. Atleast, I hope not. Anothing aspect of my personality that has risen from the deep dark abyss that is my soul is my tendence to wake up at 6:30 every morning and go running. Blacksburg is so beautiful in the morning, with the Appalachians on one side and the Alleghanys on the other, that someone ought to admire it's sunrise, the fog lifting out of the valley. I'm simply trying to fill it's position.
I have also notcied that I'm "cute." This was brought to my attention on my first night at college. All the girls in my hall and I were "hanging out" (this term makes me squeemish, because I personally prefer for all my body parts to be secure) and suddenly the question, which they all asumed was to be proven rhetorical, of "do you drink?" was being passed around. I literally knocked the wind out of them when I replied with a firm, proud "No." Is it that uncommon? I'm only 17, for goodness sake. There are so many other thing to be doing. So anyways, they asked what I do on the weekends. So I told them that on Saturday's I am either at a race with my mom, or on a long run. Then they asked me what I race. So I told them my mom and I run ultramarathons. Then they asked me what that was and so on a so forth yadda yadda yadda they decided I'm Cute. What kind of cute, I wonder...
I hope it's not this kind of cute...


This poor kitten is often used as a "cute" reference, however, I know on the inside that this kitten in miserable, being dressed up as a pig. Who's dememted idea was this?????



Well, they could call me other things! I shall be content with cute, whatever the context.

I wonder if I will be "cute" pacing people at Grindstone 100 next weekend. Hm. Something to write about next time!

Back to the point. My obsessive tendencies do surface at the most convenient of times. And my convenient I mean "at a time convenient for them and often times for my physical wellbeing, while at other times at convenient times for me yet often detremental to my physical wellbeing." This is what is refered to as a symbiotic relationship. Take two Saturdays ago, for example. I woke up at 6, realized I had no one to go for a long run with, so I fell back asleep until 9:30, and decided to go run this paved trail twice, which would be a 24 mile long run. A nice distance. However, I was having a bit of a mental breakdown, so the first 6 miles consisten of my running quite fast in order to get my brain to stop thinking about school stress. Thus, I ran it in 3 hours and 30 minutes, a SUPERB time for me, but I supressed all my emotions yet again. But that's just "how I roll."

So in conclusion, My Obsessive Behavior is working quite well here at college. And by quite well I mean that I am essentially the same Rachel that was dumped off at Virginia Tech on my birthday (Aug. 20th) to move in. ), inside and out. I hope. I get stressed, so I run, then I get stressed again, so I run some more, and so on. But I never get stressed about running. The trails are always there for me. I wonder how some students get by without running..and by some I mean about all...So I have a race scheduled every month/other month from here until the end of this year:) just to keep my mental sanity in balance.

Can you see Mountain Masochist out there?! I can! Almost only 1 month until I scorch the trails at my first 50 miler!

Until next time, I hope many wonderful adventures cross your path, and my path.