In August, I joined a running challenge headed up by GD of PostBourgie notoriety. In it’s second month, the challenge grew exponentially from 6 people running 75 or 100 miles to 33 who set goals to run between 25 and 125 miles.

All July, I’d read GD’s updates on Twitter and Facebook in the form of miles just run/total miles/goal for the month. Meanwhile, I had a lazy month despite perfect running conditions (long days, a very mild summer which included many overcast mornings). My total mileage for July was a mere 42.3 miles. I set my goal for August at 75 knowing it would be a challenge, but attainable based on past months. I also knew I couldn’t slack off.

At first, the increased running was taxing on my body. I overloaded my first week as I knew there would be a few days where I wouldn’t run due to travel. As I regularized my schedule and got to read my body’s signs better, I improved. I ran 5.5-6 mile short runs. My long runs gradually increased to 8.2 miles. As the month progressed, I got a little faster, but mainly focused on increasing endurance. Toward the end of the month, I signed up for my second race, the Long Beach Half Marathon with my sister. (That photo above is from the 5K I ran last summer). I’d previously shied from a half marathon because of the more intense schedule, but I was doing it all month long. Why not just get one fitness goal done?

I caught a cold mid-way through the month. My sleep and work was affected, but not my running. In fact, I’d have a great run, stop and then start coughing. Plus, I couldn’t slack off as I had to check in with the other PB runners twice a week. I definitely benefited from the friendly competition and the encouragement of all the other PB runners.

My final run for the month was a short 5 miles. That brought my total to 93 miles, easily surpassing my 75 mile goal*.

Now, if only I could make myself sit down and write 93 pages of that dissertation.

For September, I’ll be doing 100 miles. The group is bigger now and includes some friends who are sort of new to running, Sean (the boyfriend) and Liz. Hopefully they’ll find that they’ll get better, faster and stronger too.

*Toward the end of the month, I thought I could reach 100. I planned a 7 mile morning run with Lori while I was home last week. Twenty minutes in to the run, I felt queasy. We walked home and I went back to sleep for a few hours. Later, I realized the cough syrup with codeine was likely the culprit for my queasiness. Oh well, sometimes you need a break.

I may be posting this too late in most parts of the country. Oh well.

Iván Noble’s “Olivia” features one of my favorite lines, “tiene casi treinta pero no se notan” (she’s almost thirty, but you can’t notice them).

Olivia por Iván Noble

I picked the 25 photos above shortly before my 25th birthday as a visual about me. At the time, I found them to be a fitting representation of me, where I’m from, what I do, what I enjoy and my own oddities (see Ozo?).

Of course, I’ve changed in the past five years. I’m working on a new 6×5 collage of 30 photos that represent me. Some of the things about me won’t change, but my own view and relation to those things (e.g., school, being a student) has definitely shifted in the past 5 years. I’ll need new photos to represent that.

Aver que I come up with…

It’s the last week of August which means (a) students all around the country are beginning the fall term or getting ready to, (b) all my friends who teach and work at colleges are lamenting the end of summer, and (c) most importantly, my birthday is right around the corner.

This also means I’m almost done meeting 100+ freshmen and getting them prepared for the fall quarter which begins in a month. My summer won’t be officially over until then, but I don’t feel like it ever really started as summers tend to be busier than the fall, winter and spring terms. (And I’m swamped with my own academic work… yeah, I’m still working on that PhD.)

Since I think I’ve learned something after 6 years of working with hundreds of college freshmen, I thought I’d impart a little advice.

1. Ditch the cutesy email address, e.g., xxbabygurl23xx@blahblah.com when it comes to your official school contact info. Your professors and staff can see this on class rosters. Replace it with something simple like firstname.lastname@school.edu or your first initial followed by your last name. I laugh at students’ emails all the time and so do my co-workers.

2. Make sure your financial aid is squared away. Ask lots of questions of financial aid staff even if it feels like you’re bugging them. You don’t want to find out two weeks later that you’re 1 unit/credit short of qualifying for a Pell Grant or something.

3. Tell your parents to back off. It happens every year. I get emails and calls from parents trying to plan their child’s courses. I know you’re barely an adult, but you need to start becoming independent at some point. If you let your mom or dad intervene on your behalf, you’ll (a) never learn how to do this yourself and (b) annoy staff members.

4. Immediately go through all your syllabi and find the days exams will be held or you’re required to turn in a paper. Include these all in your planner.

5. Oh yeah, get a planner and check out time management workshops.

6. If you live on campus, get to know your RA. In a bind, he/she can really help you.

7. Whenever you stop by to see a professor, counselor or other staff member introduce yourself. I can’t count how many times students call me and start explaining their problem. My first questions is always, “what’s your name?” I can’t help you unless I know your name.

8. Avoid skipping class. Education is expensive and every class you skip, you’re missing out on a valuable piece of your education. And future you (if you have loans)/your parents/the taxpayers funding your grants are just wasting their money if you don’t go.

9. There’s no such thing as an easy A course. You’re in college. Those courses are all planned by faculty who spent a lot of time crafting this class and making sure it meets minimum standards. If it’s 4 units, expect to spent 4 hours per unit/per week studying for that class.

10. Don’t rely solely on friends for info on regulations or graduation requirements. Go to a counselor, they’re well versed in these regulations and can often approve exceptions, if needed. You can also get important info from your departmental counselor on which term would be best to take a required course. This can help you stay on track and graduate in a timely manner. It amazes me how few students don’t take advantage of counselors until it’s too late.

Y de pilón, be nice to your grad student TAs who do a big chunk of the teaching and grade most of your work. I’ve never TA’ed. I know some people have great experiences and others hate it, mainly because of the entitled students.

Feel free to add your own about other aspects of college life. I didn’t even get into getting involved on campus or managing your academic/social life, or even managing your family’s expectations (e.g., how to break the news to your mom that you can’t go to your cousin’s birthday party because you have a midterm on Monday.)

Next up, a list of my biggest college regrets.

I enjoy lazy Sunday afternoons with my parents and siblings. During a commercial break from The Goonies on ABC Family, my dad recalled a birthday ice cream sandwich from Diddy Riese. I took him before we headed over to the Dodger game. Dodgers lost, but at least the ice cream sandwich was yummy.

“This is Lily with StoryCorps. May I speak to Cindy Mosqueda?”

“It’s me.”

She went on to tell me that a small portion of the interview I recorded with my dad for StoryCorps back in February had been selected to possibly be aired on NPR’s Morning Edition. The portion was about my father discussing Grandpa’s hobby (if you can call it that) as a sobador in Boyle Heights.

I tried to play it cool. Really. But inside, I was excited and plain old geeked. Very few StoryCorps interviews are played on NPR.

Lily asked me several questions and did her fact-checking duty. Sean waited patiently as I answered the questions and explained what Grandpa’s workshop looked like.

“Do you remember your grandfather doing this?”

“Yes, of course.”

Lily’s call came a few days after I took my dad to a Dodger game. During the game, we once again talked about Grandpa’s affinity for the Dodgers. Dad said he never remembered him going to the game. He was too busy attending to his patients and Grandma’s needs.

Except for Sean, I kept the news quiet, as it still seemed up in the air and they needed to talk to my dad too.

On Wednesday, I got a second call from the producer, Nadia. She had a few more questions to round out the information about Grandpa. She also played the clip for me. It had been a while since I heard it and I cried.

A few minutes later I got a message from my dad. He admitted that when he agreed to do the interview (last minute too ’cause Alex needed to find someone to fill the opening-day spot for the East LA stop on the Historias tour) he never imagined that Grandpa’s legacy would be shared over national radio. “Pretty cool,” he added.

I only wish Grandpa and Grandma could hear it too.

My dad and I will be on NPR Morning Edition tomorrow at 5:20 am and 7:20 am. The web story is currently up (sans audio as of the time this was posted). I’ll be up early to listen!

Two corrections for the web story: my dad as 5 sisters (3 older, 2 younger) and 2 brothers; Grandpa passed away in 1996. Everything else is accurate.

The Monday morning I moved in, Danny drove me to campus. He brought along Lori and Adrian to help. I don’t remember why my parents didn’t go, but it was probably related to work and the fact that few days later they’d be on campus for the 1-day parent orientation. Still, they weren’t missed at the moment. The siblings were more than enough help.

Once I’d checked in and received my key, we took my stuff up to my room on the third floor of the north wing. The floor was already busy with other students and their parents moving in.

I don’t remember if Lily had already arrived at the room. The details aren’t scribbled in my old journal. I do know she was in the room before we finished moving and the siblings left. Lily was one of several students from Garfield HS in the program. She left to lunch with some other students from her high school.

The siblings stuck around a little while, but soon they had to leave. I walked them out. They hugged me and wished me luck.

When I returned to my room, all that waited for me were a few boxes ready to unpack. I sat on the bet, a bit overwhelmed and feeling lonelier than ever. And I cried.

Every summer for the past 4 years I’ve gone back to dorms about once a week to meet incoming freshmen for work. I was up there this morning, admiring how “the hill” — the residence hall area — has changed. After my meeting, I walked over to the shiny, new Bruin Café and had a drink. I pulled out the Adrian Tomine book Sean lent me and got to reading.

Except for the newness of sitting in the Bruin Café, sitting by myself at table didn’t feel strange. I wasn’t embarrassed or terrified of it as I was on my first day at UCLA. I didn’t know anyone and didn’t want to eat at a table alone. Rather than go hungry, I bought a sandwich from the convenience store on the hill and ate in my room.

I still feel alone sometimes, far from my family, but I’m more comfortable with it. I’ve become quite independent and there are times when I relish in those quiet moments.

But there are still times when I want nothing more than to be back in Hacienda Heights with the parents and siblings. Invariably, those are the times when I get bad/sad news and just need a hug.

“I didn’t,” but I’ve written something very similar (the advantages of blogging for nearly 10 years). I fished around the archives of my current and old blog and found the post. It’s still relevant.

Oh yes. Sean passes the test. Of course he does.

yeah, yeah, i love the sandlot [04.18.05]

Last fall I accompanied my best guy friend, Eligio, to the movies. I can’t remember what we watched, but for some reason I think it was related to sports. Anyway, I mentioned that I loved baseball movies and The Sandlot was my favorite. And then Eligio dropped a bomb on me. He confessed that he had never seen the film.

I said something along the lines of, “You’re killing me, Eligio! What?! We’ve been friends how long? How come I never knew this about you?!”

From that point on, our friendship has been different and even a little strained.

It might have not surprised me if Eligio was not as much of a baseball fan as me. We have a lot in common and I just assumed that he always caught on to the frequent references I make to The Sandlot in everyday dialogue. But he hadn’t.

When the film was released in 1993, I immediately loved it. Rather, I loved Benny “the Jet” Rodriguez (Mike Vitar). Yeah-yeah, I was swooning every single time Benny’s beautiful face and intense green eyes filled the screen.

It didn’t hurt that the film was focused on one of my favorite subjects, baseball, that there was plenty of witty dialogue, and that Benny was the star of the film.

If you ask me what my all-time favorite film is, I will always respond with The Sandlot. There are other films I enjoy that are more profound, artistic, and (let’s face it) mature. However, these are films I’ve liked for a much shorter time.

I’ve watched The Sandlot dozens of times in the last twelve years and still have not outgrown the humor and silly gags. If you watch it with me, you might even get annoyed because I have the habit of quoting nearly every line.

I currently do a Sandlot test of most people I meet. I quote a few lines and see if he/she catch the reference. If he/she doesn’t, I know we’re not soulmates nor is he/she a potential best friend. Yeah yeah, it is that serious.

A few of my favorite lines [The Sandlot script]:

• Benny: Anyone who wants to be a can’t-hack-it pantywaist who wears their mama’s bra, raise your hand.
• Benny: Man, this is baseball. You gotta stop thinking.
• Benny: I bet you get straight A’s and shit.
  Smalls: No, I got a B once, but it should have been an A…
• Squints: If you’da been thinkin you wouldn’t ‘a thought that.
• Squints: It’s about time Benny, my clothes are goin’ outta style.
• The Babe: Heroes get remembered, but legends never die. Follow your heart, kid, and you’ll never go wrong.
• Ham: Hey, Smalls, you wanna s’more?
  Smalls: I haven’t had anything.
  Ham: No, do you wanna s’more?
  Smalls: How can I have some more of nothing?
  Ham: You’re killing me Smalls!
• Ham: This pop isn’t workin’, Benny! I’m bakin’ like a toasted cheeser! It’s so hot here!
• Smalls (adult): Even my own mom, a grown-up girl, knew who Babe Ruth was.
• Ham: You play ball like a girl!
• Squints: Come on, Benny. Man. The kid is a L, 7, WEENIE!
  Yeah Yeah: Yeah-yeah, a real square
  Squints: Oscar Meyer even, foot-long, a Dodger Dog!
• Mr. Mertle: Baseball was life! And I was good at it… real good.
• Squints: forever!
• Mom: You’ll always be just an egghead with an attitude like that.

Photo credit: Sean

Dude. I’m a runner.

It’s still weird to admit that. Last year, I felt like a fraud when I admitted it for the first time to a doctor. I had no set training schedule. I ran a few times a week, enough to get my exercise in. I had expensive running shoes and a few usual routes in my neighborhood. Last summer, running was still largely something I was doing to help me lose weight.

It’s different now.

I don’t want to lose more weight. I just want to run.

Sometimes, I can’t. That happened about six weeks ago when I mysteriously hurt my back. I didn’t run for about 10 days and was miserable. Running makes me happy. I smile a lot as I run, even on the bad days when I struggle. On those days, I still smile and give thanks for my health. I grin like a fool on the good days when I know that I’ll improve my time so much that I’ll wonder if my watch stopped working for a minute.

When I get ready for work trips or to visit Sean, I pack my running shoes first. I check the weather and look up popular running routes. On my last few trips I got in a run along the Huron River in Ann Arbor, the Chicago River and Lake Michigan (with rain, strong winds and lightning too), the Hudson River in NY and Central Park. I finally got in a run with G.D. of PostBourgie. He had to slow down a bit for me, but it was still good to have some by my side pushing me up the Great Hill on mile 5.

Sometimes when I’m out on a run, I wonder how I got here.

How’d I get to be the girl whose list of happy places now includes an LA running trail at sunset with the perfect music playing on her iPod Shuffle (iTunes Genius really helps with this)? How’d I get to be the girl who runs rather than walks — if shoes allow — simply because it means getting from from point A (work) to point B (the bus stop) quicker? How’d I become a runner?

It’s not an easy question to answer, partially because the answer is dynamic. I’ve begun writing and abandoned various drafts of this post since early April. In those 2.5 months I went through some ups and downs with running. I’m finally feeling back to where I was early in the spring. I ran 7.2 miles on Monday night to a Mexican-centric playlist in anticipation of the Mexico/Algeria game. I felt great at the end of the run. I always do.

I dug up this draft again tonight and the first part came to me easily. It was only a matter of time.

France 0 – México 2

That was for Puebla, fools.