Home

I am finally going to go home, it will be the first time since I left to come to the University of Maryland that I will be able to get some of my mother's good cooking (possibly a sample of the Thanksgiving feast) and sleep in my own bed. It will be the first time that I am seeing my little sister since I left for school since she did not come down with my mother and I. And of course, I am going to have to make time for my friends at home and see what everyone is up to. Anyhow the real reason I am making the four hour trip by bus all the way back to New York is so that I can surprise my sister. Like me my sister is a runner, cross country to be exact, and she is running in the race that decides who the county champs are and who gets to run at the State Meet, both indivdually and as a team. I know she's been practicing like nobodies business and sometimes she works to the point where she is too run-down to perform the way the team expects her to, but more importantly the way she expects herself to run. That girl puts more pressure on herself than even I can imagine, sometimes all that stress and energy is misplaced and she can function the way she wants to in those big races. My reason for being there is to simply make her feel at ease, if I have learned anything since becoming apart of the Maryland track and field team it is that you will never perform well or the way that you want if you do not relax. My coach relies heavily on that phrase when we are working out on the track and are clearly tired, he just tells us to relax. Hopefully by my being there and her not seeing me in months will make her listen to what I have to say and she can just go out there in the race and do her thing. She has been patient for so long, and I know that she is ready to bust out and have the greatest race of her life. I hope that this weekend will end up being that time. Other than that, I really am just trying to get some of that good home cooking that only a mother could make and take a "break" from the campus dining food.