The things keeping me busy this week

1. Coffee, in a somewhat constant stream.

2. Work - supposed to be working on one grant, and I managed to make a mistake a while back on a different grant that I'm now trying to fix by Friday morning and I'm having massive work-related-guilt about working on the wrong grant, and not getting done what needs to get done under the grant I'm supposed to be working on (most people would not be bothered by this. maybe I'm just too ethical, or something.)

3. Running two events this weekend - Ski like a girl! on Saturday, and a ski orienteering race on Sunday.

4. These events require a little prep work. Lets talk about the ski-o meet first - there is no map of Weston. A map is sort of a prerequisite for an orienteering meet. Since Weston is a small area and its all out in the open, you'd think it would be really easy to make the map. I guess to an experienced mapper who is comfortable using ocad (the orienteering mapping software), it would be easy, but to someone who has rarely if ever used ocad, I'm still on the steep, lower part of that learning curve. Simple tasks seem daunting. At least I am really good at downloading the data and putting it in the right formats... then once I get the basemap (basically just contours and an aerial photo), I get to go out and field check everything - trails, large individual trees, fences, you know, all those things you could possibly run into while skiing. Luckily for me, Ed likes doing stuff like this, and will probably save my ass when I can't finish the map in time.

5. Once I get the map done, I have to design some courses. For the most part, designing orienteering courses is fun and easy, but when its a ski-o meet on a golf course, it actually takes quite a bit of thought to make it interesting, so people don't feel that they're just skiing in circles.

6. I have to acquire all the various bits and pieces for e-punching for the event - luckily, Ed is running all of that, to iron out the kinks before the US champs on February 13-14, where he is doing all the e-punching. Poor Ed gets volunteered for so much crap 'cause of me...

7. Then there is the Ski like a girl! event. Luckily, I have Anna and Sarah helping me out, and they're both super competent and good instructors, but Anna and I both suffer from the problem of only ever coaching people who already know how to ski. So, we have to brush up on how to teach true beginners how to ski, come up with a lesson plan, and make this whole thing run smoothly. Anyone want to donate a whole bunch of hot chocolate? I feel that hot chocolate is a very necessary part of learning how to ski.

8. Lets make things a little more complicated, and teach the rest of the CSU orienteers how to ski right before the ski-o! This means I have approximately half an hour to set all the controls for the event, since there is a MA state qualifier ski race at Weston in the morning.

9. I have three athletes right now who after last weekend contacted me wanting to get together some time this weekend and talk about training plans. I don't know when that will happen, but training plans can't really wait, when JOs are on the horizon...

10. Grad school applications... I just finished those. But, it deserved a mention, since that was where most of the related stress came from.

I feel better now.