Journal for hvietmei

I’m trying to keep up with this. Sorry for the long delays.

Alright, so I’m pretty much fully settled in now, I think. Life in Australia is starting to seem like, well, just life. It’s a good life though. I’m enjoying it.

The only really exciting “event” that I’ve participated in since the opera house was a tour of the south coast. It was cool and I was glad I at least got to see another part of Australia, but it was definitely too rushed. The coolest part was when we got to stop at this cool national park where there was a beautiful beach and listen to/participate in a presentation by a couple of park rangers who were members of aboriginal tribes. They showed us how to make rope (I’m still wearing a string of it as an anklet), showed us some edible and medicinal plants, demonstrated the steps in making a boomerang… it was a blast. Unfortunately, we didn’t even get to hear the whole presentation because we had to go on to the next thing! I think it would have been totally worth my money just to hear the whole talk and then spend some time on the beach. Oh, well, it was still a good day.

Other than that, I’ve been buried in papers. I wrote a research paper about human mating systems for Science of Sex and an essay about the tension between madness/irrationality and reason in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and some of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories for Goth Class, so the topics could have been a lot less interesting. Still, though, it was hard to convince myself I actually had to do school.

My running is still going well, although it looks like I won’t be able to race for silly bureaucratic reasons. Both Willamette and NSW Athletics seem to think I’m going to sue them if they let me race. Crazies. Anyway, training is going well. My coach has me doing a lot more hard speed work than I’m used to, and I can tell that it’s making a difference. Hopefully, I’ll actually have a kick for my senior year! We talked about it yesterday and decided that the next step is to make me sprint longer distances. I’m a little intimidated, but also excited.

My mom is going to be here in two days!!!!