Ready, Set, GO GO GO

Last night I dreamed that Bill Gates flew me up to Seattle to interview me for some kind of communications job. He picked me up in his car and we had lunch sitting on the deck of a restaurant next to a lake. He said he wanted to hire me. So I went back to my hotel, where I was apparently staying with Jose, Nick and Heather. As I walked in the door, Jose got very excited because he saw a guy in the hall of the hotel with a monkey hanging onto his shoulders.

Dreams.

I feel totally and completely unprepared for the Texas Independence Relay this weekend. I know which legs I am running and how far they are, and even approximately what time of day I can expect to begin each leg -- but I don't know what I'll eat, when I'll sleep, if I'll sleep, what to wear, what to bring.

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Ok, I started this blog entry 12 hours ago and didn't finish it because suddenly my day turned CRAZY and this is the first time I've gotten to sit down and do something for myself since then. It all began with someone walking into my office and telling me that there were people upstairs waiting for me to do software testing. Why do I never seem to know when I'm supposed to be doing testing? Oh, because I never get the schedule of testing activities. Frustrating! But off I went for 2+ hours of oh-so-fun software testing. I got about halfway done before deciding that I would need at least one more session to finish. Off I went with just enough time to grab a pre-packaged sandwich from the cafeteria, which I ate at the beginning of a two-hour meeting. We talked about one line of changes for 15 minutes, and 25 pages of changes for only an hour. Funny how that works. After that it was back to the office to sit down with my group lead and mentor to go over how I did in the sim on Tuesday. We ended up talking for over an hour, but everything is good and I am going to be scheduled for my final cert sim right after STS-123 (that'd be early April). Then it was off to meet my design client for more transfer of materials and such (lots of hard copies of photos that need to get in the program, mainly), and then it was off to class.

In class, my luck turned! I wasn't prepared for the quiz, but he decided not to give us one! And he let us out at 8:30 instead of going until 10:00! That made me so insanely happy.

Oh, and ANYWAY, my previously mentioned fears about the relay were allayed soon after I typed them when I got an email from Jon, who sent our entire team a final reminder and "what to bring" list. Thanks for being organized, Jon!

This is the first night all week that I've gotten home before 9:30. The schedule has taken a huge toll on my working out. I stupidly took Sunday off after my long bike ride, not realizing that it would be the last opportunity to exercise for a while. I did manage to squeeze in 30 minutes on the bike trainer last night, but I have not run since Friday. Hopefully this will serve as some sort of massive taper for the relay this weekend!! I hate not working out when I'm busy, since working out is my primary stress reliever!