Old Decathlon Olympics Journal

May 31st, 2004- I am finished and so is May

May 31st entered on May 31st, 2004

Who-Rah!!! I made it to the end of the Olympic Writing Challenge. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the ten Writing.Com members who took their time and efforts to provide this challenge. Oh, yes I do.

I honestly already feel like I have won. This Olympic Writing Decathlon was a contest that enabled me to prove to myself that I could start and complete a writing project. It has not been simple and easy. I have struggled with real life distractions that almost proved to be fatal in my efforts to complete the Olympic Writing Decathlon, and the point is that I finished.

I actually quit once, but couldn’t due to lack of technical knowledge, so I had to continue. I spent the whole first week before this Olympic Challenge started trying to comprehend the rules, how to make a book, and how to put the Pink Decathlon image in that book. In a moment of emotional weakness, I found myself giving in to some of my life’s momentary dramatic and overwhelming circumstances, and I fired off an “I quit” email to the Milkman. This is probably one of the first times whereby my ignorance of technical procedures proved to be an asset instead of a hindrance. And even before that moment when I sent the Milkman that email, I had to break through the emotional baggage of feeling defeated when I was not able to provide an entry for all of the ten related contest activities when they were presented, and just keep going with the Daily Writing Challenge of producing at least 500 words a day. Even when I got behind in my required daily journaling, I found the will to endure. This single, simple memory of staying the course this entire month of May 2004 will serve me well in future writing challenges. In other words, I am so glad that I was too stupid to know how to quit.

I think too that by completing this Olympic Decathlon Challenge I will fare better this year than I did last year in the NanNoWritMo challenge that I think will again present itself in September.

I also know that I have this Olympic Challenge has helped me to increase my typing speed. I even think that my spelling is improving from the daily exercises. When I am typing in Word now, I have noticed as the month of May has slowly come to an end that the automatic spell check does not have to interrupt me near as often as it usually did.

I survived. I am relieved that the month of May is over. I am encouraged by my mere participation in this Olympic Challenge. I sincerely hope that other contestants have come away with a personal sense of satisfaction and accomplishment in their own struggle to meet the daily and weekly challenges that were provided to us “Olympians”.

And I want this journal entry to be a heartfelt thank you to all the judges for their time and energy. I certainly hope that there will be future Olympic Writing Decathlon Challenges (just not any time too soon in the immediate future). What an emotional rush this has proven to be for me. I look forward to now having time to read some of the other Olympic Writing Decathlon journals.

My coffee pot is empty, my word limit has been met, and I am now going to have brunch with my husband.