Introduction

Hiking the "BatCaves" in Bronson Canyon

Hi Guys!
My name is Katie Gerstenberg, but my last name is long and annoying, so I usually go with my middle name, Katie Michelle. I was born and raised in San Diego California, I'm going on my fourth year as a psychology major, but I probably have 5+ more years to go with graduate school and whatnot. My long term goal is to become a sports psychologist and work with elite aesthetic athletes, bettering their performance and overcoming obstacles in their athletic career.

The present

The past

Seeing my career goals, you can probably guess that I play sports. I do. I was a nationally ranked figure skater from when I was 5 up until I was 18 (national titles did not start getting earned until I was 12) .  I quit/"retired" a few years ago and I transitioned into All Star Cheerleading, which is what I currently live and breath...because "cheer is life!"  When I was  little girl, my coaches  in figure skating expected me to be AT the ice rink at 4:30 in the morning, ready to freeze my butt off, it was awesome. With that being said, my mom told me "if you want to skate THAT badly, you are responsible for waking yourself up and you have to wake me up, I will not wake you up, period." SO with that being said, I set my alarm on my super cool, super hip flip phone at 3:15 A.M., woke myself up, woke my mom up, and skated 5-6 days a week before school. I also was pulled out of school at lunch time because I had to be back at the rink for my afternoon practice. I had my own sports psychologist and I admired everything about her. I hope to be like her one day. In high school, my skating coach suggested that I did cheerleading for 1 season because it would help with involving myself in a crowd...but little did she know that I would fall in love with cheer and choose to stick with it. (you can imagine how thrilled my mom was...)

Mayhem!

The Big Brothers

A lot of people ask me why I quit skating if I had a good future in it, but the sport is incredibly lonely at times and the love for the sport was not there anymore. In all honesty, I do not miss skating one bit. I don't miss waking up. I don't miss the 30 something degree ice box I called "home" at one time...and I definitely do not miss looking like an abused child from all of the bruises I walked around with due to how many times I fell learning new skills. BUT I will tell you that I appreciate what that sport gave me...that can not be taught in books, at home, or anywhere except in elite sports. I learned that if you want something bad enough, the amount of work, commitment, frustration, anger, isolation, and money do not matter at the end of the day. I gave up an entire "normal" childhood to become the athlete, and person, I am today. I learned about time management, team work, communication, dedication, and several life lessons that I still use to this day.

But enough about sports. I have a life, kind of, outside of school and the gym. I am the youngest out of 3, my oldest brother, Jonathan, is a fireman/paramedic (if you're from San Diego, he was that firefighter on the news who got hurt in the Spring Valley fire a few weeks back) I have another older brother, Thomas, who graduated from SDSU with a computer engineering degree . I also have a super cool dog named Mayhem, he's the love of my life. We like to go hiking together when it isn't too hot for him.

Thats all for now! Good luck to everyone this semester!

Katie