Hey Fans!

Dear Internets,

I am a girl of many odd skills, as may be apparent to some of my long-time readers (are you still out there? Yeah, yeah, I know. Insert Catholic guilt here). But some of you might not know that one of my little-known skills is public address system operations. That's right, the voice you hear over a PA system just might be mine. And if you happen to be in the King County Aquatic Center right now, that voice IS mine.

I started my illustrious career in athletics event announcing back in graduate school. I had completed my time as a college volleyball player, and was back watching my former teammates play, when I realized the announcer was terrible. And I thought, "hey, I'm here at every game, and I know what's going on--and also what should and shouldn't be said during a match--why don't I see about an announcing gig." And a star was born.

I could also segue here into my stint as a college athletics mascot, but I won't because that's another story AND because in addition to being a highly skilled announcer, I'm also on a blog post race. You see, this weekend, I've picked up announcing again and am currently announcing a collegiate conference championship swimming meet. We're on the last day, and I made a little bet with the Commish that I could start and complete a blog post in the amount it takes these swimmers to swim their last event. So, in the amount of time it takes 6 student-athletes to swim a mile, I will provide you with a fun little post (hopefully I'll have time to spell check).

If you ever think, how does one prepare for PA work? Well, one thing I do is imagine I'm in an airport listening to the woman on the intercom calling for people to come to the white operating telephone, and I make my voice sound like her. Oh, and I also completely freak out about what I have to say and name pronunciations and the like, but I don't recommend that prep work at all.

It's the bell lap, and I'm proud to say I can type as fast as people can swim a mile, and for what it's worth, I think I'm just as tired.

LMNT Disclaimer: Just note, in my mile of typing I was unable to truly proofread this message. Maybe it would have helped if I had a coach and teammates standing next to me yelling "move... move... move" everytime I came up for air.