Photos and Interviews (and lemurs)

After practice yesterday I got pulled over to do an interview for AT&T Blue Room, who will be broadcasting thursday and friday's events live over the internet. They took video of me making my "serious" face, then my "happy" face. In my head I kept thinking of that scene from Austin Powers where he's photographing models: "You're a tiger baby. Grrr. Now you're a lemur. Be a lemur baby, yeah." If any of you watch the AT&T Blue Room broadcast and there's a shot of me with a funny look on my face, it may be because I was trying to do a lemur impression.

I always feel a little silly interviewing. When I was in highschool and the local papers first came a-calling, I dreaded them. I was terrified that they'd ask me a simple question and something really dumb would come out. My mind would sort of freeze up and I'd keep forgetting words.

I've gotten better at newspaper interviews, even to the point that I enjoy some of them, but live ones still give me the heebie jeebies. I love the opportunity to express myself and help publicize my sport. I love writing. Blogging is great because I choose when to post, and I can edit as much as I want before I do. But live stuff, and things that involve other people trying to make their own stories out of what I say, is different - I worry that what I say won't really convey my message, or that my words will misrepresent me. I think, in the end, that most interviews end up sounding just fine, which should, eventually, teach me that it's silly to stress over them. But I guess I'm still a worrier when it comes to public speaking. I'm hoping that practice and time will help fix that.



Here are a few pictures that my mom took of me the other day.


This is me diving. I really like the boards at Indy, which is lucky, because we seem to have an awful lot of meets here!


There have been a lot of swimming, diving, and synchronized swimming trials at Indianapolis. Behind the boards are the names of all of the people who have qualified to the Olympics from Indianaplis Trials. The most recent is the 2008 Women's Synchronized Swimming team.


This is me and my synchronized diving partner, Nancilea. There won't be synchro at this trials - We'll compete for our spot in the 3 meter synchro event at the US Olympic Selection Camp, which will be in Knoxville in two weeks. The stands behind us are empty now, but they'll be completely full once the competition starts!


This is just a bunch of people waiting in line at practice. Every single one of us is in it to win it, but the sport of diving is also sort of like a family. Everyone knows each other, and we're usually a friendly bunch.