Monthly Archives: March 2006
The Weekend
UT Cycling. Friday. 3.5hr Drive. Aw Skeet Skeet! Cleburne. Camping. Eating. Beans. Rice. Chorizo. Cold. Stars. Raccoons. Saturday. Early. Cold. Oatmeal. Road Race. 40 miles. Fast. Fun. 12th Place. Awesome. Warm weather. Clif Bars. Peanut Butter. Afternoon. Time Trial. Hard. 7.7 miles. Painful. Hard. 16th Place. ½ lb Hamburger. 3.5hr Drive. Laughter. Tired. Fun. Awesome. Austin. Shower. Sleep.
UT Cycling. Sunday. 9:00am. 45 miles. West Austin. Hills. Too fast. Slightly painful. Beautiful weather. Beautiful scenery. Too fast. Tired. Food. Shower. More food. Nap. More food. Anthropology. Portuguese. Sleep.
Impressions
Sometimes I get the feeling that people are getting the wrong impression of me; or maybe not wrong altogether, just vastly incomplete. I will admit that certain topics seem to come up more than others in my conversations (*cough* cycling *cough*), but I promise there’s more – or at least I hope there’s more… So, to break the trend, here’s a brief introduction to the non-cyclist life of the Kietzer.
I’m a nerd in denial; school has always been my thing and I’m finally starting to realize that I think. The signs have always been there I guess; although they’ve kind of changed along the way. I graduated high school salutatorian (somehow) although I never really worked hard, consciously at least, to get there. I didn’t study much at all back then… Things changed drastically when I started university. I learned how to study, and a close relationship between passion and motivation also developed. With so many other activities to willingly devote my time to here, if I couldn’t find passion in my school work, motivation to do well (as in A’s over B’s) was hard to come by as well. I came to UT with the idea of becoming a medical doctor in my head; which, after a one year volunteer job at a local hospital, wasn’t exactly set in stone seeing how I could never really get over my weak stomach… Long story short – biology as a major, with the exception of ecology which I first considered as an alternative career field, generated absolutely no passion and the doctor idea went out the window shortly afterwards.
I went major hunting with the idea of anthropology floating around my head after a wonderful intro to cultural anthropology course, and made the decision to change to the College of Liberal Arts majoring in Anthropology. No more Daniel M.D. After a semester of unbelievably boring liberal arts introduction courses, I finally found the passion I was looking for.
It’s a wonderful feeling knowing that you’ve finally found “work” you actually enjoy doing. My new concentration/interest is centered in the realm of cultural anthropology – more specifically the concepts of “race”. I’m gradually learning a new language – Portuguese – and hope to concentrate my studies in Brazil in the future. People always ask me what I plan on doing with my degree; and I never seem to have an answer. Like everyone, or almost everyone, I’d like to have the maximum positive impact on the world as possible – and I think by lacking a definitive plan and taking opportunities as they come along, I’ll have the strongest chances of achieving my ultimate goal. At the moment, if I’d have to guess, I’d predict a long career in academia; so who knows, maybe Dr. Daniel (minus the M.D) is still in my future… We shall see.
Regardless, school is what I do – and now that I’ve finally found what I’ve been looking for it has, in a sense, consumed my life – but not all of it of course. There are no size limits in place restricting my passions and activities; and with a little creativity I’ve found I can balance each of them without too much trouble.
Cycling Section in 102 words:
I’ve been riding my bike a lot lately and have deepened my ultra cool tan lines. On Tuesday myself and the guys did sprints which was a lot of fun/work (yes, the two overlap); Wednesday we busted out some hill repeats in the morning, and then myself and one other rider proceeded to get extremely lost during an afternoon ride; and on Thursday Austin, John, and myself did some interval work at the Old Airport. Fun! I also acquired some ultra-sweet tiger striped socks, Clif Shot electrolyte replacement drink, two boxes of Black Cherry Almond Clif Bars, and two of these guys:
Sweet!
Spinning the Wheels
Spinning the wheels – is that supposed to mean there’s somewhere I want to go? I can’t seem to decide…
Something just hasn’t felt right these past few days; the balance in my world has been thrown off. I feel so…dead… As if there’s no will and if there is will there’s no proper means of execution; like I’m sick without any symptoms. So I’ve been taking it easy lately – maybe the busy last week tweaked my system a bit…but it doesn’t seem to be getting better.
There’s a new thing that’s recently came into my life that I’d love to go after today, or I think I’d love to go after – that’s the problem. I’ve never been one to question my instincts; why am I doing it now? There’s a connection – definitely – but the wheels are still spinning and I’m going nowhere fast, no matter how much I’d like to… Maybe I’ll dial the phone number tomorrow… Maybe it’s maybe that’s the problem – maybe this and maybe that – I’ve lost my confidence.
And it’s not just from that particular perspective either – this plague of inability seems to be infecting other parts of my life as well recently; it’s a good thing it’s the beginning of spring break and I don’t have too many important things due yet on my schedule. And that’s not to say I haven’t accomplished anything in the last few days; when doing tasks for others I can still function normally. But it’s me – it’s me that’s lacking right now. I went to a concert last Thursday and it was awesome; awesome music, awesome people, and an awesome environment – but for the life of me I just couldn’t seem to get into it. I wasn’t particularly happy or sad, instead it was almost like a state of complete indifference; and that’s definitely not me…not at all…
My cycling progress has been affected as well, but not completely. I’m not sure I’ve been making any progress recently; I feel like I’ve hit a wall as far as training goes – which sucks. I know I’ll get past it eventually, but patience has never been my thing… Cycling is different though because cycling seems to exist in two realms for me – serious and casual – they overlap a bit and each realm is driven by its own motives, but when one is at a stand still I still have the other to fall back on. I used to ride with this girl, one of the strongest women on a bike I’ve ever rode with; but she didn’t race, she just enjoyed being on her bike and going fast. It’s the same way with me at times. I ride my bike because I love it, and I ride my bike fast because I love that even more. So when following a serious training schedule doesn’t seem to work out, I always have this other realm to fall back on. That’s kind of what I’ve been doing recently. I rode for four hours on Friday (training schedule called for 1.5 hrs) – maybe looked at my heart-rate monitor twice during the whole ride, rode fast off the front of the bunch when I felt like it, rode slow with the bunch when I felt like it, and had a blast. It reminded me of the reasons why I started cycling in the first place. I don’t think structure’s mixing too well with me right now, and my body/mind seems to be rebelling against it… We’ll see how tomorrow’s attempt at structure goes, but part of me just wants to break off from the group and do my own thing; it’s supposed to be a short ride though…so maybe afterwards…we’ll see…
A mental or physical issue – I guess that’s always a fine line to draw; I hope it’s not physical though, because for someone with my level of health that probably means it’s pretty serious. I just hope I get over this wall of inaction soon; and something tells me it’s all in my head anyways…
It’s amazing how well writing can set your thoughts straight, and get you back on the path towards productivity and success. It has always seemed to accelerate things for me at least.
Thanks for reading.
Another Cool Website
“Desktop Earth is a wallpaper generator for Windows. It runs whenever you’re logged on and updates your wallpaper with an accurate representation of the Earth as it would be seen from space at that precise moment.”
You have to check this one out…it’s awesome!
Salty
Wow, I haven’t posted in a while… I’ve been going at full speed for a while now – unbelievable. My cycling season started last weekend at the Pace Bend Road Race here in Austin, TX and continued this weekend with the Texas State University Criterium and Road Race in San Marcos, TX. My results in the three weren’t surprisingly good, but I think I am getting a feel of how to race – which I’ve quickly found out is just as important as fitness. I still have some work to do, but hopefully I’ll be in the mix by the end of the season. Despite my results, I’ve had a blast doing the whole “center the weekend around the bike race” thing; this weekend especially as the collegiate cycling scene can be very entertaining. Our club is awesome, and I think – at least among our competitive team – we’re really starting to come together as a close group, which is really cool. And speaking of the rest of the team, we also had some promising results this weekend.
Saturday’s Criterium:
4th Men’s A
1st Men’s B
1st, 2nd, and 3rd Men’s C
2nd and 3rd Women’s B
Sunday’s Road Race:
3rd Men’s A
1st and 4th Men’s C
1st and 3rd Women’s B
Pretty damn good…
The rest of my life outside of cycling – yes, it does exist – has been rolling along smoothly (unlike the rear wheel on my bike, which is ridiculously out of true Edit: which I broke a spoke on thanks to TX State’s lovely rough road section in today’s road race). I’ve had some impressive grades in my classes; impressive not because I consider myself incapable of getting good marks, but rather because I really haven’t been putting much effort into my school work lately. Regardless – an A on my first government midterm/quiz (which I opted to slack on studying for in order to attend a party the night before instead), an A on my first Cultures in Contact midterm (which also happens to be the first upper division test I’ve taken), all A’s on every single Race in Brazil paper I’ve written so far, and an A on my last Portuguese exam. I don’t mean to brag…but damn… My friends seem happy – which makes me happy. My family seems happy too – which is even better. I’m slowly beginning to figure out my off-campus living arrangements for next year too. Sweet!
My life is going well at the moment. There’s still one or two loose ends that seem to get caught in my spokes every once in a while; not things I particularly enjoy, but I think I can deal with them. They slow me down sometimes, but the resistance makes me stronger so I’ll be more capable when I finally do break free, right? Enough cycling metaphors for tonight – I’m operating on way too little sleep right now and I’ve been around bikes all weekend – I think the theme is solidly cemented in my head at the moment…
