I committed! I am an up and coming Golden Gopher!!
Initially had no intention of committing anytime soon and I was really feeling stressed about the whole situation. For a while I was having a tough time! There were countless hours spent thinking about it, and then trying not to think about it and then asking other people what you should do. I kept asking my coach what he thought the right decision was for me but he wisely kept his decision silent. On October 5th after school I was sitting here at the computer casually browsing (lurking) (…lurking hard) Facebook and waiting until I had to walk over to the gym for a weights session – I was going to tediously ask Emil again what the thought I should choose. I went to get changed into gym cloths and the three shirts from the universities that I visited had just come out of the wash. I put on the first one, and after thinking about it, took it off because I didn’t want to steer Emil’s opinion in any direction. So I put on some old race shirt and before I left, realized that I actually really wanted Emil to tell me to go to Minnesota. I had that classic Dr. House-when-he-finally-cures-the-patient-around-the-50minute-mark/Oprah-aha moment.
I called Coach Kelly while walking to the gym but he didn’t pick up and I got his voicemail. I left one of those unfortunate awkward voicemails that happen when you aren’t really prepared to be sent to voicemail and go something like “Hi…its um Kierra, from Kelowna…Canada. Yeah I’m um, going swimming but uh, ill call you back later maybe um if I don’t hear from you and um yea talk to you soon. Uhmmm bye.”
I went to the gym in my Minnesota shirt (I don’t normally change three times in an hour) with the plan of committing after swimming. Being way to excited and of course, impatient, I committed before swimming.
While I was driving from the gym to the pool I called Coach Kremer.
I thought it went to voicemail.
I tried to hang up but there was water on the screen from the rain and the call wouldn’t end.
I thought I was 13 seconds into a voicemail!
I put the phone up to my ear and didn’t know how I would recover from awkward phone incident number 2.
I hear this “Hello? Kierra? Why are you yelling at me for not picking up?”
Worst.
But it ended well, and I verbally committed. Exciting!!
I get to see my soon-to-be-coach and two of my soon-to-be teammates (Haley Spencer and Ashley Steen) since they are on Team USA going to Pan American Games. I am really looking forward to racing in Mexico!
Here’s an article from the Swimmers Circle about my and Brittany’s commitments.
October 9, 2011
