Skip to main content

Swimming, Teamwork, and Individuality

It's been a while sice I last blogged about significant things in life. Well, mainly because events in my life have been put on a halt, thanks to swimming training, competitions, and a new outlook and more new goals.

I've been training hard for the past few weeks, and now I'm feeling comfortable with my ability. I have to improve my kicking power for all the strokes, as well as my endurance and pace. However the technique of my strokes seem clean enough that now I'm just going to have to work on the power.

Yesterday morning, I had the chance to represent the organization that I belong to (UPLB Computer Science Society) in the swimming events for the intra-collegiate sports-fest. I swam in the 50m men's freestyle and the 3x25m freestyle relay. Aside from feeling great because of the meal replacement diet that I've been taking for the past week (which are by the way VERY effective), I had a feeling of confidence in my skill even before getting into the pool.

Even if I didn't win the individual events (just placed 4th in the 50 m freestyle -- disappointing, but nonetheless good enough for my standards) I feel great winning with the team in the 3x25 relay. I now have a reason to go to the awarding ceremonies, and party that night away with my brods and sisses. I have also realized that even with individual efforts pooled together to accomplish a common goal, success is sweet and individual dedication is key. I'm just thankful that I'm part of the winning team, and I am grateful to very dedicated brods and sisses who also just want to succeed bearing the name of our organization.

I've also found renewed confidence in myself when I stepped on the weighing scale -- before, I weighed in at 89kg -- and a week later, I lost 1 whole kilogram aside from a whole inch from my waist. That's 2.2 lbs in 1 week, and 1 inch in the same time frame. Aside from looking better, I feel a lot healthier.*

Anyway, I've really enjoyed this past week -- even if it involved looking back and tying up loose ends and knowing that there are still more things to do. I would also have to work for a new goal, which are a new pair of "fast skin" jammers and a legsuit. I should have those in my christmas wishlist, and hope that santa gives me any of the two. That is, santa or someone who actually cares. :D

Chill...

* NOTE: if you're interested in that diet, please drop me a line at mikhailberis [at] gmail.com

Comments

  1. ey dean,

    just wanted to congratulate you... nice job on the swim :)

    so when am i gonna bump into you? weekends afternoons ah?

    *kim

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From FOMO to JOMO

Until very recently I believed that I needed to be on top of the latest news and happenings not only in my field (computer science and software engineering) but also in as many things as I can be on top of. This meant subscribing to all sorts of magazines, newsletters, YouTube channels, Twitch streamers, watching TV and live sport events, etc. — I was on top of a lot of the latest happenings, trends, news, interesting developments. I was having fun and I felt busy. What I did not feel was particularly effective nor productive. I felt like I was consuming so much information with the thought that it might be useful someday. When I was younger this wouldn’t have been an issue but I realised that ever since I’ve started taking stock of what I’ve been spending my time on, that a lot of it I’ve been spending just staying on top of things that I really didn’t need to be on top of. This article is about some of the realisations I’ve made in the course of exploring this issue of “FOMO” or ...

Reconnecting with people

2021 started with a a good sense of connection for me, having spent time with friends and family in a simple celebration of the oncoming year. The transition from 2020 to 2021 and being able to look back at a good part of my recent history got me thinking about how life has been for me and the family for the past decade. There’ve been a lot of people that I’ve met and become friends with while there are those that I’ve left behind and lost touch with. There’s a saying about treating old friends different from new ones, which I do appreciate now that I’m a bit older. It also means that my relationships with people that I get to spend a good amount of time with take a different shape. This reflection has given me some time and space to think about what it means to reconnect with people. Friends are the family we choose ourselves. — Edna Buchman I have the privilege of having life-long friends that I don’t always stay in regular contact with. From my perspective, if I consider you a frien...

Keeping a work log

I have been keeping a journal for my personal life with some regularity for the good part of 4 years. The difference between my earlier attempts at journaling before four years ago is the regularity and the structure. I started with a very structured and regimented journal (doing it everyday with prompts and blanks to fill), to a ruled journal notebook, then a plain notebook (no rules nor grids in the pages), and then settling on a dot-grid notebook. This allows me to doodle and write free-form to help me commit thoughts and observations of my day but it was mostly for archival and looking back to "feel good" or reminisce (also to sum up a month, a year, etc.) The approach helps a lot with self-improvement in terms of my mental health and my reflection to see where I was a specific amount of time ago and whenever I was reading it again. In a previous post I wrote about keeping a work log, and I realised I only mentioned that in passing. In this post I detail the structure of ...