Two Weeks to Nike Half Marathon

It's only two weeks until I walk the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco. I found someone from workto go up to San Francisco with beforehand to get my running packet. I also found out that I can wear my iPod so I'm super happy so I can walk and listen to my book on tape. I'm trying to decide which book will help me walk the fastest.

In other news. It's 3 weeks until the Making Strides against breast cancer walk in San Jose. I am not walking the San Francisco on in Golden Gate Park because it's the day before the Nike Half Marathon. Luckily this year there is a San Jose walk. I am excited to do the walk, but sad at the same time. It's hard knowing that we must walk in order to fight breast cancer. But hopefully with research and pre-screening we can lessen what women have to go through.

FINALLY NEW TEETH - before and after

I ran into someone today who had before and after photos of me. In case you don't know... I went through 3 and a half years of changes for my teeth and jaw. We are coming up on 2 years since my major jaw surgery. It's been a year since I've had my braces off. And it's been 4 months since I got my new caps and veneers. I am VERY happy with the results of everything. Please enjoy my before and after photos. Also, if you look very closely at the x-ray, you can see where I broke my jaw years ago.

Another Opera - Eugene Onegin

So a friend of mine was able to get me tickets to see Eugene Onegin in San Jose on Friday. The tickets ended up being only $11. You can't beat that! Anyways, the opera was wonderful. This one was in Russian and is by Tchaikovsky. It's based on a novel by Alexander Pushkin. The opera was about love and friendship and bad choices. We really enjoyed it. I asked my friend today how much those seats normally are (we were in the orchestra) and she said $70. So much for just going there for fun without a discount. I found it interesting that you could tell Tchaikovsky music style in the introduction. I think it's funny that I could even tell his musical stylings. It was hard not comparing Eugene Onegin to The Bonesetter's Daughter. The were done by such different companies. San Francisco's opera house is so HUGE and ornate. But the San Jose house was much more comfortable. I am grateful to have been able to see another opera so soon. And I'm looking forward to the other musical events I have coming up.

The Bonesetter's Daughter - The Opera

Last night I went into San Francisco to see the World Premiere of the new opera, The Bonesetter's Daughter. It was an amazing experience. I also got to see a lot of the people who actually worked on it. And I was even standing right next to Amy Tan!! I was tempted to take a picture, but refrained out of respect for her and any opening night jitters. In case you don't know who Amy Tan is, she is the author of The Bonesetter's Daughter and other books like The Joy Luck Club. She worked with Stewart Wallace on putting together this opera. My friend, Erin, and I went to the lecture before hand and learned about what they went through researching different types of music to use in the opera. There was a good blend of Chinese sounds and traditional opera.

http://sfopera.com/o/265.asp

There are some amazing clips on the opera's website.

Family Newsletter - FINALLY DONE

Another issue of the Willis Family Newsletter is done. It's great to get those done. This time was hard because there were so many awesome photos that I didn't include, but I was already at 12 pages, and I didn't want to add more. I thought be going every 2 months we could make the newsletter smaller, but it just seems to want to be large, or I'm not very good at cutting things down. Actually by not putting everything in, there will be exciting new, never before seen photos at the family Christmas party.

Stephanie Meyer Puts Next Book on Hold

Yeah, so I'm reading the last book finished in the famous "young adult" Twilight series. And last night I came across the article saying how Stephanie Meyer's final book in the series was leaked on the internet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080903/lf_nm_life/books_meyer_dc_2

This is disturbing to me. I love the internet and all that can be found on there. But I do believe in the right to protect your material from being distributed around without your permission. I also really appreciate the point she makes in the article that books are the same as music and movies, they are original protected materials that are being created and should be respected by the copyright laws. And now because some yahoo had to post something to the internet before it was done, she might not finish the series.

Training

On Saturday I did double training. I am still in my beginner running training. So I did my 30 minutes of interval running. (13 minutes of running, 1 walking, repeat and run the difference to 30 minutes.) I then went out for my walk to train for the half marathon I'm walking in October. I walked another 8 miles on top of the 3 that I ran. Man I felt like I could do anything. I am so happy with my little Nike Sportsband that tells me all my nerdy information, like how far I've gone, my pace, how many calories I've burned (A LOT - it was 11 miles!), and how long you've been going.

Today I got up and went running in the morning because I didn't have work. I was doing my run on the track like normal, but it always bruises my ego when people pass me up on the track. I know that I don't run fast and that I'm a beginner, but man, my pride is sometimes a great stumbling block (no pun intended.) I don't know if there is a time limit for walking the half marathon. I think I can handle the distance no problem, but if it's like the Disneyland Half Marathon (which I plan on running next year), then I'm in trouble. The Disneyland one they want you to be done within 2 and a half hours. That's a pace of like a 12 minute mile. That's some heavy duty walking! Anyways, I'm doing this because this is a year of not accepting defeat just because I'm afraid. I might baby step my way there, but I'm doing it. (JUST DOING IT!!)