An Outdoorsy Ascent

Hi Readers,

Yesterday I went with NS and a couple of other people we met at the ARC rock climbing wall to go climbing in Jackson Falls, in southern Illinois. It was the first time doing outdoor climbing for both NS and myself, and we were pretty psyched. I almost said "no" when the offer was first made, but then I thought, "mehwhatthehellwhynotyouonlylivelifeonce......" It turned out to be an awesome decision!

We left at 6am. It was probably the earliest I've been up in at least half a year, so I was yawning the whole car ride down. We got there at around 10, and it was already soooooo hot. Ditched the jackets, grabbed the water bottles, and we started our trek out to Mr. Jimmy's, which is a giant cliff with many climbs. Along the way us noobs discovered from the pros (CK and EP) that southern Illinois is peppered with awesome climbs. Who knew?!? Certainly couldn't tell from the FLAT CORN-NESS that is Illinois.

We started with a route called "Luscious Babes" (5.8), moved on to "Venom" (5.10a), "Chicken Shack" (5.6), "Chimichonga" (5.8), "Deetle Dumps" (5.8), and "Meanest Flower" (5.9). For those of you who don't know rock climbing lingo, the 5.x levels rank rock climbing. A 5.1 is akin to a steep hill that you walk up, a 5.4 is probably scrambling over boulders, 5.6 is vertical but pretty easy, and apparently nobody has done more than a 5.15 here before. Below are some of the routes that we did (I didn't take pictures for others), so you can imagine what the rating system is like.

5.8 - "Luscious Babes"

5.8 - "Chimichonga"

5.10a - "Venom"

5.6 - "Chicken Shack"

Since it was the first time that I had climbed outdoors, I was nervous as hell and not sure what to expect. Mostly I was afraid of failing and having others laugh at me. But luckily enough, it wasn't so bad! I guess all those hours in the ARC climbing wall paid off after all! I was able to all except one of the climbs that the others could do, and it was amazingly fun. The difficulty levels seemed easier than the ones at the ARC, the holds were almost always easier to hold onto than on the artificial rock wall, just because they are real rocks, and I loved being able to just go up a wall and not have to worry about, "oh this rock belongs to this route and that rock is off-limits." It did make for a very interesting phenomenon, where everybody would get up a route using different methods, and get stuck at different spots because of that.

This was also the first time that NS and I tried lead climbing (in addition to top-rope), another technical jargon. In rock climbing there are many types of climbing. "Top-rope climbing" refers to the fact that your anchor rope is all the way at the top of the route, so when you are climbing and fall, you stop immediately where you are. "Lead climbing" refers to a method where you are starting your climb without any anchors. There are various anchors scattered throughout the route on the way up, and you clip your rope into these anchors as you go up. It is scarier than top-rope because if you fall, there is the possibility of you falling a longer way down, since you will fall underneath the last anchor that you clipped into. An analogy of these two styles would be the concept of respawning in a video game. Top-rope climbing would be analogous to the situation where if you die, you "restart" at the exact same spot and continue on. Lead climbing would be akin to a "checkpoint" system, where you respawn at the last checkpoint you passed. We are very thankful for CK and EP for teaching us how to do lead climbing, because we had been curious about it for awhile.

It got quite hot out as midday came and went, and it got progressively more humid until we were sweating even just standing in the shade. However, we did not let it bother us too much, since we were armed with our chalk bags. We stayed out there from 10am until 7pm, when it began to get dark out. In the process, everybody got in ~6 climbs and we had a blast. Ended the day at Steak n Shake with burgers and milkshakes. It was an awesome day. =)

-FCDH

Mammoth Caves

Hi Readers,

Last weekend I went with SB, one of my friends, to Mammoth Caves National Park in Kentucky. We had planned on going somewhere after graduation for 3-4 days, partially because it was summer and we both wanted to relax, and partially because I will be leaving for Stanford soon and we won't have another chance to hang out like this for awhile. We originally thought about going to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, but since SB left the planning of the trip up to me and I didn't know anything about the UP, I looked up the National Parks list and chose Mammoth Caves.

Mammoth Caves are the longest caves in the world, at 392 miles in length. Many geologists think that MC may contain a system of more than 600 miles in length. Most of these miles are not open to the public, for fear of contamination and of disruption of the fragile ecosystem. But there are ~12 miles of the caves that are open to the public for tours, since these are parts of the caves that have been open for centuries for tourists since the time when the caves were private. SB and I went on many of these cave tours, including

1) Historic Tour: this tour was very history-intensive, including talks about the saltpetre mining operation that took place at the caves, the slave tour guides that first explored the caves, as well as some geology. This mammoth dome was brilliant, as were the tour guides.

2) New Entrance Tour: this tour gave us a tour of the Frozen Niagara section, which was stalactites and stalagmites galore. Was great, but if we had known we would have gone through the same parts during tours 3 and 4 we probably wouldn't have done it.

3) Introduction to Caving: Easily my favorite tour of the bunch. We went caving and spelunking through tiny passages, armed with only headlamps, helmets, and kneepads. I wish I could do it again.

4) Grand Avenue Tour: Some of the rooms we passed through were humongous! We climbed 3 underground mountains that were 200 ft high each. It was awesome.

SB and I at Frozen Niagara section

Going through the caves were so fun and cool (literally, it was 56 degrees inside the caves year-round). Everytime I saw some kind of passageway leading off to the side, I had to suppress my urge to go down it and explore. If I had done that I might not have been able to get out after the tour guide leaves. I also found Kentucky to be awesome, and I especially love the sexy accent lol. It was too bad that SB and I weren't able to find a spot on the Wild Caving tour, which would have been beyond awesome. Oh well.

I also found Kentuckians to be really friendly, much more so than I imagined. SB and I went on mini-roadtrips around the Mammoth Caves area, and for dinner we stopped at a steakhouse. Needless to say we were the only Asians in the place. We were just chatting about life problems and stuff during dinner, and as the neighbouring table was leaving, the old lady stopped at our table and offered us advice on our problems. It was the first time that something like that has ever happened to me, so I was somewhat taken aback by their frankness and openness. It was quite refreshing. Also, when SB and I went hiking in the park, everyone we passed by on the trail said "hi" to us, always with a smile. One even stopped and talked to me about sushi (he was wearing a shirt with different kinds of sushi on it and I chuckled as he walked past me).

On the way back, SB and I decided to ditch the interstate and to drive back the entire way on county roads. I had a map of Kentucky so I was able to navigate through KY on county roads with no problem. When we hit Indiana we started navigating blindly, since neither of us had maps. It was quite an adventure, especially after sundown when there was no more sun to tell us which way was north. Eventually we found I-74 near Danville and made our way home. But it was so relaxing, passing through all of these small small small small small rural towns in Kentucky and Indiana.

Next week I'm (probably) going with another friend to the Cedar Points amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. I'm sure it'll be a blast!

-FCDH

Graduation!

Hi Everyone,

This past weekend, I finally graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Right now it feels so weird, to know that I'll probably never be back here in the capacity as a student in the future ever again, and to know that 4 years have passed already since I came in as a freshman.

On Thursday, my sister and my parents came over from Taiwan. Their plan was to spend 5 days in the US, including 3 days in Chicago and 2 days in Champaign. It didn't go off to a good start - I went up on Wednesday night, intending to just sleep overnight at O'Hare and meet them when they arrived on the early morning flight on Thursday. At O'Hare I found out that: the airport terminal closes from midnight until 5am, and that their flight was delayed from Wednesday night until Thursday afternoon because of the bad weather that was plaguing Chicago (I was really hoping for a tornado, as a parting souvenir gift from the American Midwest, but it never manifested itself. Boo). Thanks to the quick response of EE at midnight (Thank god she responded to my text message), I was able to crash at her place for the night.

The whirlwind tour of Chicago started on Thursday and went until Saturday. In the middle, we saw Grant Park, Millenium Park, an architectural boat cruise, and the Field Museum. I planned on doing more with my parents, but due to jet lag they were not up for doing all that was possible. Overall it was good. I took them to Giordanos, where they finally tried Chicago's stuffed crust pizzas (and loved it).

Hanging out with my parents definitely stressed me out, however. They are somewhat racist and conservative (my dad more so than my mom), which made it uncomfortable to have quality conversations with them. I swear, my dad is like the Taiwanese version of a Republican. I even had to convince my dad that Obama isn't a Muslim. Ugh. Sometimes I can't believe that I am actually their son.

On the first day they arrived, I was so happy at first to see them. Things started to go downhill as soon as my mom asked me if I had a girlfriend yet. I basically told her to stop living under the delusion that it was going to happen. And then she started to beg me to get a girlfriend. I almost lost it right there. It was hard to restrain myself, to keep myself from being disrespectful to my parents. If not for the fact that they were on their vacation, and the fact that I was trying my best to give back to them as a show of my thanks, I would have flipped out right there. She dropped it and it was never brought back up again for the rest of the trip, of which I am thankful.

I found graduation (both the campus and engineering ones) to be somewhat dull. I was yawning throughout and found my eyes wandering the crowd. In my opinion Bill Daley was a much better commencement speaker than the guy they had for the engineering commencement. I also had a lot of fun listening to the catcalls and whistles and other cheers that the audience had for different people....I'm pretty sure I heard a vuvuzuela at more than one point as well. I cheered for my friends when their names were called. It felt so weird walking across that stage, to shake both professors' hands, and to know that now it's officially over.

The last day in Chicago that I spent with my family was the best time I had with them. The weather was great, I took them to Sears Tower, and we ate Giordanos. It was a great way to cap off their trip. I tried my best to show them a great time here, so I am hoping that they had a great time here.

I took a couple of days break in the middle of writing this blog entry and my mood now is a lot better than when I had to say goodbye to all my friends. I know it will be hard to rebuild friendships and connections, but it is simply a process of life.

Next post about the trip to Mammoth Caves that I took.

-FCDH

My First Marathon!

Hi Readers,

This past weekend, I officially ran my first marathon! On April 30th, I participated in the Illinois Marathon and ran 26.2 miles! It was super exciting and it wraps up my last goal of finishing a marathon during my years in college. I can't believe that I only started running a year and a half ago. In my view, it is one of my biggest accomplishments in college, to overcome the physical barrier that had stood in the way of my running all during high school.

So to start off, I didn't put in anywhere close to the amount of training that I should have. Even for last year's half marathon, I put in a lot more training than I did this year. Thanks to the 20 credit hours that I am taking this semester, I really didn't have the time to run as much as I could. In the month and a half before the marathon, I only ran twice, and those were 13 and 6 mile runs respectively. So you can understand that I was really worried about the marathon as it approached: being able to see it coming, but not being able to run due to some homework or project that I had to work on. The only good advantage that I had this year which I did not have last year was the sleep I got the night before the marathon. Last year I carbo loaded so much the night before that I couldn't sleep the entire night because I was just pulsing with energy. This year I didn't carbo load too much (I went to a pasta dinner at Willard's house, which was nice) and because of that I was able to sleep for about 5 hours.

So the morning of the marathon I woke up feeling really worried (and tired - it was 5:30 am). Showered, got dressed, ate oatmeal for breakfast, and then I started the longggggg walk to the start line. The walk took me about 40 minutes, and I barely had time to drop off my bag at the gear check. Then the marathon started. Because I was so unsure of the time I would be around, I decided to stick with the 5 hour pace group. It might have been good because I could have started way too fast and died halfway through. It might have been bad because I could have gone at a more normal pace and not worn out my legs as much from each step. But I guess we'll never know which one.

The rest of the marathon (from mile 0 - 14) was a blur. It sounds so weird to say it, but they passed like nothing. Even by mile 14 I was feeling fine, as if I had not been running for about 2 and a half hours already. Granted it was at a horrendous pace (11:27 mile) but I was surviving! And then things started to go downhill (figuratively only, of course) from there. The sun came out and it became scorching hot. My feet started to hurt at around this point, and our pace group began to dwindle. We originally started with probably around 20 people, and by this time we had probably around 10 left.

There was a lady who really inspired me at this stretch (from 14-22 miles). She said that she had never been able to run past the 18 mile point, and that it always had been a wall for her and that she really wanted to push past it. So the entire group took it as our goal to get her past the 18 mile point. The last glimpse I saw of her was around the 22 mile mark, when I turned the corner and lost sight, but she was still running at that point! I was so proud of her.

By mile 20, every additional mile was a struggle. Each mile from mile 20-25 seemed to double in difficulty. There was a small uphill incline at around mile 24 that just killed me. But this was also the part when I started going ahead of the pace group. At this point my legs were beginning to cramp up from the slow pace that we were going (which put more stress on my thighs), while my hamstrings still felt fine. So I picked up the pace and began to use my hamstring muscles more. The last mile really flew by in a whirl, since I was running hard for much of it, to try and finish strong. If not for the strong headwinds that prompted me to walk right as I came into sight of the stadium, I would've had a much better time.

When I crossed the finish line that was like a huge sigh of relief for me. I got the medal (as everyone else did) for completion of the marathon. I finished in 4 hours and 57 minutes, which isn't a good time by any means, but leaves me plenty of room to improve in future marathons. I hugged my pace group leader for all his help to get us across the finish line (at around mile 24 there were only 3 of us left in the pace group. Everyone else had fallen behind).

I can't believe that I actually managed to do it. To me that seems like an incredible triumph. The willpower that it takes to do something like this is so hard to muster that I doubt normal people would be able to do it. Even though I say that everyone should be able to do the half marathon (and I still believe in it), not everyone can do the full marathon. But everyone SHOULD try and do the full marathon! Because the sense of accomplishment you feel afterward is so huge.

The outer arch of my right feet is still hurting from the marathon, I think because of my form. I will try to let it rest as much as I can in the meanwhile. Finals are done! Next post coming soon.

-FCDH