How sad is it that my life's theme could be a song by Avril
Lavigne?
'Cause I'm just a little girl you
see
But there's a hell of a lot more to me
Don't ever underestimate what I
can do
Don't ever tell me how I'm meant to
be.
Not one but two people told me yesterday, in two
totally differnet contexts, "Wow, I didn't think you could do that." I didn't mind
it so much from my boss because she was talking about several of us meeting a goal
she'd set which we all knew would be a stretch, and because it was a challenge -
for meeting that goal, which puts us well on the way to our overall big goal for
the year, we get half a day off for a group activity.
It bothered me
a lot more when Yosemite Sam said it, talking about my erg piece. He meant to be
complimentary, of course, but somehow -- maybe because my personal best was still
slower than any of the other (much bigger) women there -- it came out sounding
more like, "Wow, I thought you sucked way worse than that." You'd think a guy
barely taller than I am would know better than to underestimate anyone. Sigh. Suck
it up, Dichroic, take it as the compliment intended. Sigh.
Also
depressing: DrunkTina, whose time was only slightly slower than that of the big
girls, pointing out accurately that she's closer to my size than that of the three
fastest women rowers. (I probably shouldn't have given her that dirty look for
saying she was closer to my size, because though she is in fact considerably
heavier than I am, she actually is much lighter and shorter than some of the
others.) This was on the heels of Rudder pointing out last night that if she can
pull a 21 and a half minute piece, and she's two inches taller and only some of
the extra weight is muscle, I probably ought to be able to pull something in the
22s, instead of just under 24 minutes. Sigh again. Maybe another year. Or in
another life.