It's almost three am and I should be going to sleep but I feel the need to put this down before I forget to do so.

First off, time flies by so fucking fast. It's almost the end of Junior year and yet it feels like it was only yesterday when I was sitting in my parent's car with Eric Pon after my first college race thinking the following things:

1) Something NEEDS to be done about this team.
2) What have I gotten myself into..?
3) Maybe I should have gone to UCLA, UCSD or joined SFL instead.... (sorry!)

A couple of weeks ago, the captains/officers back then sent out an email with regards to elections.

The email is included here:

"As you may know, two of our leaders are going to be graduating this May. We will need to fill these positions for Fall 2008, and once we have a vote for these new officers we will begin training in the Spring semester.

Team leaders should have the following qualities:

• Good leadership skills
• Dedication on and off the water
• Actively gets to know the team
• Good sportsmanship

Here's a brief description of the officer's responsibilities:

Coach
The coach is responsible for organizing practice, teaching paddling techniques, and improving performance on the water. The coach must work with the managers and captains to create lineups and set unified goals for the team.

Manager
The manager is responsible for the logistical aspects of the team such as managing paperwork and team roster.

Captain
The captain motivates the team by emphasizing teamwork. He or she shows team spirit, promotes team interaction, and balances competitiveness and fun. The captain serves as a liaison between our team and the CDBA as well as other teams."

Back then, I wasn't sure I really wanted to run. I was only a freshman (technically a spring admit), so I didn't think I would have as much "cal" experience as the other potential candidates and because I was pledged APO during that semester, I didn't really go to a lot of practices (though back then, going to the Sunday practices was good enough, as it was more 'experienced') What I did know was that 'Cal Paddling Bears' HAD to change one way or another. I thought, if I did decide to run, I definitely would not go for coach. In high school, I had experience with being captain for a relatively new youth team but I also preferred to work behind the scenes as well, with regards to logistics. So finally, for the hell of it, I emailed Julia/Jackie/Nancy/Colin back about being interested in running for captain and team manager.

Time passed by until the day of elections and I noticed that the only position that was up for running was captain (for this election, two people were selected to be co-captains) and the candidates were the following:

-Eric Pon & Eliot

-Me

-Jon Su

-Harrison

-Luke

Clearly, all the following candidates were experienced and possibly spent more time with the team back then more than I did. Also, I was the only girl running against a bunch of big guys. and Eric Pon.

All the candidates were given a chance to give a short speech saying why they wanted to run. It was pretty lax in comparison to this past captains election. Candidates chose to stand up whether they wanted to and said a sentence or two about why they wanted to run. Finally, people voted and Eric Pon & Eliot were chosen to be captains while there was a run off between Luke and I.

At this point, shit went down. lol. I thought, "Dude. I've seen this tall white guy with curly hair during my freshman year with Galileo Celestial Dragons (YES. BEFORE IT WAS NICKNAMED 'GCD') and heard that he's really good. How in the world would I be able to win over him"

Whether that the officers didn't like Luke or it was the luck of the votes, I was elected. I was in utter disbelief until Mike Rauser turned around (who was sitting in front) and congratulated me. While I'm glad things turned the way they were (Luke ended up being coach while Eric Pon and I were captains), I wondered why I was chosen to become captain that day when to be honest, I hardly knew anyone on the team. It isn't until now that I realized exactly why (or at least i'd like to think so.):

Family.

Thinking back, one of the things I wanted in our team was to create a family; a group of friends who could rely on each other through laughter, joy and pain. During the speech, I tried to emphasize the importance of family and how important I wanted to maintain that sense of community among us. While I definitely cannot vouch for the upperclassmen on the team at that time, I could most definitely say that the new people had no concept of what it meant to be apart of a dragonboat family.

Back then, we would just go to practice, paddle and went back home. Occasionally, we would go out to eat but asides from that, we would go back to our own lives with our other friends and forget about dragonboat until the next weekend.

Within the next semesters of my captain-ship (harhar) Cal Paddling Bears changed to Cal Dragonboat/ Bear Force 1/ Team Stupid through the help of Luke and Eric. We started to have more practices, more random socials (started to be come more of a 'wet' organization), All of us back then did not want a repeat of college race 07' and we were determined to redeem our names back to one of the strongest collegiate Dragonboat teams in California. In the process, more people saw our cause/determination and joined while others had to leave and go on with their lives. Our team as a whole also became a lot dumber and through that, practically became more of a unit together. We were always training and trying to work hard for the next race to prove to other teams that we are competitive and someone they want to try and beat. we were determined to bring Cal out of its shithole and hoped College Race 09 would be its redemption.

It didn't work so much as we had thought. While we earned 1st in our division, we choked and knew we could have done better (which is the worst of it all). I cried because all the work we put into the past year and a half was amounted to moving up only by one place in comparison to last year. I was also scared because Eric Pon and Luke were planning to retire, pretty much leaving me in the search of a co-captain/coach to work with.

When elections came, we posted an EXTREMELY long criteria list for officer positions in comparison to the one made 3 years ago. I could sense the officer group of Eric, Luke, Me, Jas, Jon and ED were afraid of new officer roles and a drastic new change in leadership. The team eventually voted for their leaders and I'm glad it worked out the way it is now.

To be honest, this semester in DB has been kind of rocky at times. Although some of the main officers were still around, there was still a slight change of leadership and there were those who weren't sure whether it would work out. While our officer group was determined to go to Alcan, it started to all apart as more issues started to pile up and we ultimately decided to put it off until next year. I felt doubt and uncertainty about the upcoming baby long beach as our 'cal 1' had only a semester to learn a modified stroke technique as well as a completely new race strategy and yochan wasn't going to be there to give feedback on it due to a crew competition.

This past weekend proved me wrong. We did exactly what we wanted to do, raced our race-and it felt amazing. There are so many people who came along the trip that I would like to thank for helping the whole along the way and without you, I don't think Cal 1 and 2 would not have done as well as they would have.

To be continued..