Why, hello there!
My name is Jocelyn Wong and I work as a prosthetist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, just outside Washington, DC, our nation's capital. I spend my days making some really cool prosthetic legs for our American heroes who have had their limbs blown off while serving our country.
My claim to fame on the interwebs is primarily from my time as a professional triathlete on teamTBB from 2007 to 2011 (you can find my old blog here and read a brief tri bio on this site here). I've been blogging since before I was "famous" and will continue to chronicle my shenanigans to this day. The latest title of my blog is a double entendre -- the obvious meaning (other than the blatant reference to "My So-Called Life" circa the mid-90's) is from my work as civilian status serving both active duty and retired military guys at Walter Reed.
The other is from my days as a teamTBB warrior -- the training under Brett Sutton was notorious for being a military-esque regimen, with ridiculous discipline, unparalleled mental tenacity, and incredible results. Our first training camp was half-jokingly dubbed "boot camp" and I'll never forget being berated for returning to camp one time after gaining 10lbs over winter. Brett's harsh words: "You left a warrior and came back as a civilian. Do you want to be a warrior or do you want to be a civilian?"
Those words would haunt me in the year following my decision to take a break from triathlon to focus on my prosthetic & orthotic career and to regain some financial stability. I often questioned that decision and found it hard to let go of being "The Wongstar" -- my pro triathlete alter ego -- and my ambition to be an amazing athlete. I even went through a brief stint of trying to learn the Olympic sport of racewalking in order to get to Rio in 2016, and thought I wanted to being the next big thing in the crazy world of ultramarathoning.
But my experiences from being the Wongstar and the transition back to working again eventually lead me to my current post at Walter Reed in January 2013, and I haven't looked back. This so-called civilian life includes working at my super cool job (so cool that Prince Harry came to visit us!), learning my way around the DC area as a city girl, paying down the credit card debt (accrued from "chasing the dream") as well as some hefty student loans (from P&O school), and co-habitating with a 6'9" fella in a 600-square-foot studio apartment.
As far as triathlon these days...let's just say: the internal civilian vs. warrior debate lives on.
