Watch It Wednesday - Orphan Black

I was originally going to make this TV Tuesdays, but then I realized that today was Wednesday. Oops. But I watch a lot of TV shows, and I figure people will be looking for new things to marathon during the summer. So Watch It Wednesdays will feature a TV show that either I've started watching or a show that I love that I want you to love, too.

For my inaugural "Watch It Wednesday" post, I'll be talking about a show that I'm actually in the middle of watching right now, a show that basically everyone on the internet is talking about: Orphan Black. (minor spoilers through the first four episodes, but really nothing more than is revealed in the trailer.)

Throwback Thursdays - Summer League Swimming

One of the trends on Instagram is to post a "throwback" picture every Thursday for "Throwback Thursday" (#tbt). Since my past is actually more exciting than my present, at least when it comes to things to blog about, I'm going to try and write Throwback Thursday posts every week about things I used to love, stories from back in the day, etc. And, of course, a potentially embarrassing old picture.

In 2000, my local neighborhood pool formed a summer swim team. I joined with a few of my friends and thus began my (not-very illustrious) competitive swimming career. I went into the beginning of the season only knowing how to do freestyle, but by the end of the summer I was doing the 100 IM at meets, and I was hooked on swimming.

My team picture from 2002, back in the days when I used way too much Sun-In

Movie Review - This is the End

On Monday night, I had the amazing opportunity to attend a free screening of Seth Rogen's new movie This is the End. While I can safely say that this movie is not for everyone, it was definitely the right movie for me. I don't think I've laughed that hard in a movie theatre since I saw Bridesmaids back in 2011.

Let me preface this review by repeating that this movie is seriously not for everyone. If you're over the age of 40, unless you have a weirdly youthful and drug-related sense of humor, you will hate this movie. I knew for a fact after about ten minutes of the movie that my mom would've hated it. There were at least four people in the screening that were way older than her, and I'm honestly curious as to why they were even there - sure, it's a free movie, but I wouldn't go see a free movie that I had zero interest in.

With that out of the way, let's get on with the review (with some slight spoilers I suppose):

Where's the Wall??? An Adventure in Long Course Swimming

For my entire swimming career (if you can call a binder full of participation ribbons a career), I have swam short course yards - only 25 yards per length. The only time I did meters was when one of the pools we swam against during summer league was meters, and I would always look at the heat sheet in confusion because my times were much slower than I remembered. I also never did club swimming, which would have had me swimming long course meters (50 meter lengths) ages ago. Unfortunately, I didn't, so my first experience with swimming LCM was today, during my first trip to the pool after it switched over from SCY for the summer club season.

Happy 100th Birthday, US Soccer!

When I was nine years old, I wanted to be Mia Hamm when I grew up. Not just a professional soccer player - I literally wanted to grow up and become Mia, somehow. I'm not sure how I planned on accomplishing this, and obviously it didn't happen, but after the 1999 Women's World Cup, all I wanted was to be just like Mia.

This weekend, US Soccer celebrated its centennial. The team has been the biggest sporting constant in my life other than the Atlanta Braves, who I've been a fan of practically since birth. I was so excited by the US Women's National Team (USWNT) gold medal victory in 1996 that I continued playing soccer, even though my first season of co-ed youth soccer was so unsuccessful that the only time I got the ball, it was taken away from me by my own (male) teammate. I moved over to an all-girls team at the YMCA and began idolizing Mia and the other members of the USWNT.

Mia, Brandi, Michelle, Julie, Tiffany, Kristine, Shannon, Joy... these amazing women helped shape me into who I am today. At some point before the 1999 World Cup, I got a book called All-American Girls, which was essentially a biography of every member of the USWNT. I still have it with me today, and it's possibly the most torn-up, well-loved book I own. I read it constantly, learning as much as I could about these women. How they went from not really even having a national team to winning a World Cup and an Olympic gold medal, how they had to deal with playing with boys and having people tell them they weren't going to succeed as a soccer player and that they should do something else. Reading all their stories from when they were just kids playing in youth leagues like I was at the time gave me something to shoot for in the future.

I still get emotional when I see clips from 1999 (I may have shed tears while writing this post) and it's still probably my most vivid childhood memory. I didn't go on to become a professional soccer player, obviously. But they taught me other valuable lessons about persevering and not letting being a woman stand in the way of your dreams. So thank you, US Soccer, and congratulations on 100 years, but in my opinion, 1999 will always be the best of those years.

Final thoughts on WWRLD (with gifs!)

I've commented on Ryan Lochte's E! reality show What Would Ryan Lochte Do? a couple times previously, both negatively and postively, and since the show finished up last week, I figured I would give some final thoughts on it.