Interviewed

BIG NEWS!!!

I, Laura Sarson, am going to be in a magazine coming out in March. YES! there will be an article on me and the clipper race. it is 'Expat' in Singapore and has an audiance of 60,000!!
the interview was odd, although the person doing it, Sunita (dep. editor) was very nice.
in conversations with strangers i usually let them do all the talking. i am not a very social person and i learn more by simply observing, but having what i say written down and even the lamest of jokes being taken seriously was an odd experiance.

i have a feeling i came accross as an enviromental nut, i kept going on about my 'love of nature' and everything. i am a vegetarian, and i have talked to a tree in the past, but perhaps i came accross too strong?
my choice of clothing was a slightly gothic black high necked dress, that i LOVE but conflicted awfully with my cheerful demeanor. it probably would have been better if i had acted mysterious and aloof.

tips for getting interviewed by a journalist...

1. know what the aim of the article is. the focus of the article was my involvement in the clipper race, but MY aim was to make people interested in me personally so they would be tempted to visit my website.
2. come up with some good lines before the interview. these are going to be splashed accross the page so they must be good- an obvious question might be 'why did you want to do the race' and an interesting but focused answer would be ' the challange, the open ocean, and the wild parties!'
3. you cannot pretend to be someone else when you are asked questions. it is like being interrogated, you must get your story straight or you come accross as fake. that is the mistake i made with the dress. i should have worn my normal shorts and shirt.
   

Party Hearty!

hey there.
in September i am joining the crew of the 'clipper round the world yacht race' so i got invited to another 'clipper party' last week. 'Parties' to the mind of an 18 year old involves glitter eyeshadow, a bottle of vodka and a lot of talk about other peoples sex lives between bouts of raucous laughter.
i travelled to the party on foot, to the eastern themed bar 'Kazbar' where i eventually located a lonely looking group of people in the gloom. people eyed me sipping their beers, wondering what i was doing there probably. only one fairly sceptical guy has had the nerve to say 'you doin't look like a sailor' probably because i was wearing a mini dress at the time. everyone was excited about the impending race. i immediatly got stuck into a conversation with a woman doing leg 6 (California, through the panama canal, to her old home NYC) and she told me a great story about achiving your goals:

Achieve your goals in only 13 years!

I was 17 years old (she said) and in Sunday school that week our teacher made us write down everything we wanted to achieve by the time we were 30. so i wrote my dreams down and the envolope was sealed and i never saw it again. i left home to go to university, got a degree then a job, and visited my parents at the age of 29.

my mother rushed to me and told me 'your sunday school teacher is looking for you' of course i had forgotten about the envolope and i was interested to find out what my 17 year old self had written.
to my surprise i had acomplished nearly everything- to get a degree with honours and so on. only two things i hadn't done... to make a certain amount of money per year and to go swimming with dolphins. i was rising quickly in my company so i found that i got a pay rise a few months later, and as a surprise my boyfriend took me on a trip to swim with dolphins.

now, this lady had the help of a rather odd though passionate sunday school teacher (who keeps a letter from their students for 13 years???) but you can DIY. that is the power of writing down your dreams.

later on she started a list of what she wanted. she went on to complete a half marathon after only 3 months of training.

i am starting a list.

1. to raise money to circumnavigate the world in any way possible.
2. to do something crazy every day to write about in my blog.
3. to write a book, but not just any book. THE book- the one you are always looking for in bookshops and libraries but can never seem to find.
   
4. to run a marathon. nuf said.
   

SIngapore Clipper Race departure 2008

Slogging for Sailing

Ever since the Volvo Ocean Race visited Singapore in January, i have been smarting terribly from my defeat in the grinding challange that took place there. grinding is as painful as it sound, being the winching and trimming of sails, done with a two handled rotation device, and it is hard. i have decided that the next time my nemesis, the grinding machine, comes along, i will be prepared. i am starting a vigorous training routine to get me ready for the Clipper Race including running, and a whole lot of upper body work as previous crew members have suggested to me.

i run along the singapore riverside about three times a week doing about four/five miles in 50 minutes (which i know from my excellent 'Polar' heart rate monitor i got for Christmas.). it is the strength training that is a problem, i have been reduced to using baked bean tins for weights as i cannot possibly afford gym membership.
for those doing a bit of home training themselves, here is a few tips;

firstly, running/jogging - if you are already running a few times weekly you will burn roughly 100 calories per mile you run. it is extremely motivating to imagine that donut you had at lunch... simply disappearing, as if you never even ate it. from my experience, i can say that the important thing is to keep going rather than keeping a quick pace. twenty minutes in, if you are going to collapse you need to slow down, to walking pace if necessary, just keep jogging. i promise in two minutes you will be able to go faster again. it is recommended to take about one breath for every three steps you take, but i take four steps. anything is fine as long as you have a rhythm so you don't have to think about it. weight loss experts say that running when you are hungry will burn off more fat, which makes sense. yesterday i went for a run about 9pm and i hadn't eaten anything since 2pm - the first ten minutes i was encumbered with a crippling pain in my stomach but by the time i had finished my usual circuit it had gone, and i did a second one easily. exercise is an incredible appetite sup present which is odd because the two are opposites. if anyone knows how this happens i would love to know!

i used to do swimming, and breast stroke is great for working the arms. honestly, i was too embarrassed to do front crawl as mine is more like a snails crawl. My mum came along with me to the Volvo Race and also partook in the grinding challange and she was excellent. so what does she do all day? Housework actually. yes, all that lugging around of furniture and scrubbing of stains actually puts our flabby arms to shame with their strength.

lastly, some ideas for unconventional training. i love spending ten minutes working on juggling, i can do it for over 30 seconds now and it develops your hand - eye coordination so that you have good reflexes. my dad frequently annoys me by throwing things at me with the phrase muttered a millisecond later 'THINK FAST!' but the head injuries have decreased since learning to juggle. i also have a drum kit. we live in a tiny apartment so i don't get to play it very often, but when i do it works those arms like crazy, just an added bonus to making a hell of a lot of noise for no reason. i should really get muffling pads but I've had no complaints yet (from neighbors).

so there are some things to mull over if you are thinking of starting sailing or perhaps just want to tone your triceps in time for bikini season. (guys... ism looking at you).
toodaloo,
Laura.