Monday, October 22, 2007
7.1 Blue Fins Diving
Prior to coming to Cornell, one of the most important communities in my life was my club diving team: Blue Fins Diving. While our entire club had a total of about sixty kids, there were seven of us who made up ‘the group’. There are a few reasons I can come up with as to why we were so close: We were all members of the Junior Olympic team, we were high school athletes with the intention of continuing our career in college, and we were fairly close in age (the difference between the oldest and youngest girl was three years). Also, we practiced 5 times a week for two and a half hours, which meant we were spending about twelve and a half hours together every week. We also traveled to competitions together in Ohio, Maryland, New York, and Canada. As you can imagine, these girls became my closest friends, and support system. In terms of SNA, we were a community because of common ground: we had similar challenges in terms of balancing diving with school, and had the same time commitments. We could also reciprocate in the pool because we were working on similar dives. Diving takes a lot of mental energy and we could help one another out when someone was trying a new dive for the first time. Today, the seven of us are at various colleges across the country, including Cornell, Bucknell, UPenn, and Minnesota. Though we no longer practice together everyday, and each of us has joined a new team, there is a piece of Blue Fins diving in every one of these schools. Facebook helps us continue our community, as we reminisce through wall posts, pictures, and memories. We also have a Facebook group entitled “It’s Good to Be Blue”. This online synergy was able to be formed because of our community in the real world.
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2 comments:
Having been on sports teams throughout high school, I understand the bonds that being on a team creates. I was never talented enough to participate on a Junior Olympic team (very cool), but I had friends who were, and there was a very strong bond between them. Two of my friends were Olympic figure skaters. They’re extremely close, and that can definitely be attributed to the fact that they spend so much time together on an off the ice, traveling, practicing, etc. Looking at their relationship through SNA, they were a community because of the common ground they had, which is definitely similar to what you had with your teammates.
In response to your comment, I can really see the similarities in our communities. It’s interesting how we can form communities with so few people, but those few people can add such diversity and knowledge. I really like how you calculated the time you spent together, it made me think of when I did gymnastics competitively before college – our team spent at least 20 hours a week together! I like how you compared having similar dives to reciprocity, because you guys can help each other while helping yourselves get better – I never thought of it that way, but that’s definitely what it is. Great post, Gretchen!
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