(Our home computer is acting kind of funky... and not the Isaac Hayes "Shut your mouth/Just talkin' 'bout Shaft" kind of funky... so I wrote this one out long hand for Saturday. SM)

Saturday 9/27/03

Easy 10 this morning.

It wasn't easy last night. My stomach was turning because I was so anxious about the run. Were my legs going to hurt? Would I be able to make it without my feet flaring up? That nervousness carried over to this morning.

Got up, got out of bed, ran my hair across my head. Went to the kitchen and I made myself an egg, opened the newspaper and I went into a dream...

(Ahhhhhh, ahhh ahhh ahh, ah ah ahhhh ahhhhhh ah ah ahhhhh.... BUM BUMBUM BUM BUMP!)

Okay, enough Beatles. It was freezing this morning, like, Ohio embarrassing THO cold. It took awhile to warm up, about 2 miles or so. But the run was good-- no, great, especially the last three miles. After struggling to find my stride, low and behold it decided to make an appearance! And best of all, we did a negative split on the return five miles. I was (and still am) stoked.

Before we ran, Robert gave us a quote from a motivational speaker he'd seen last week. The speaker said, "If you're in hell, run through it."

It was, like, the perfect thing to hear as I've been fighting my self-doubts for a couple of weeks. That comment, and the things Denman wrote in his email, has really helped me get through this rough period. I'm reinvigorated. I'm actually looking forward to next week's 14-mile run.

This all brought back memories of that time during my sophomore year at Bowling Green when I hit a wall. I wasn't sure I was going down the right career path. My parents didn't quite get what was going on with me. I think they've lived their lives making decisions they were sure about and my questioning whether I should be a filmmaker made no sense to them (for the record, I was thinking about film journalism).

I went to see my adviser, a great teacher named Dr. Jack Nachbar, who headed the Film Studies program in the BG Pop Culture School (he's since retired). I explained my dilemma, and he kind of chuckled and smiled.

"So, you're experiencing the sophomore slump, huh? Well, everyone does. Tell you what, ride this thing out and come back to me at the end of the semester. If you still feel the same way, we'll figure something out."

And in that instant, because he had understood me and validated my fears and feelings, I knew I still wanted to write and direct movies, and I knew I was going down the right path. It was as if I just needed to hear that someone had been there, and that they'd gotten to the other side safely. It gave me a huge relief then, and I was back on track.

That's how it was this morning. I've been in hell, and this morning I got through it.

Aloha