better late than never

some belated new zealand pictures

we got stuck in 3+ hours of standstill traffic. meg threw a solo dance party. it was a highlight:

queenstown was rainy and foggy. but i'd still live here:

this is maybe christchurch. but it's from a hot air balloon:

the moeraki boulders were weird circle-y blobs:

it didn't matter where in south island we were. life was gorgeous:

this is what we look like inside fox glacier:

this is our staged snowball fight after a day of snowboarding:

this is what my hot air balloon looked like from above:

this is christchurch at sunrise. that's the moon:

milford sound was just as good as people told us it would be:

snow in june at lake tekapo. and my awesome tiger hat:

new zealand has an ungodly number of sheep:

i decided to jump out of a plane from 12,000 feet:

WHALES!

we went whale watching for a day over spring break. it was amazing. it took all my will power not to jump in and go swimming with them.

more snapshots

the semester so far in snapshots

too tired to think of a title

holy crow, my updating has been well slack. oops. okay, getting up to speed:

melbourne? did i update about that? well, it was amazing. 8 of us (9 maybe? can't be bothered to count) did a great ocean road trip... which ended up only being partially amazing. the stupid rental van broke... THREE TIMES. instead of towing us, the mechanics just kept "fixing" it, only to have it break a few short hours later. my favorite was probably when it died while we were on the edge of a cliff in the pitch black. but the next day was filled with lots of wine on a winery tour and our last day was spent shopping and exploring.

i skipped out on SWOTVAC (our studying week before finals) and flew over to new zealand with another american (meg) and izzi, an english girl. we spent a week driving on the wrong side of the road with an unreal number of sheep, skydiving, snowboarding, hiking fox glacier, cruising milford sound, hot air ballooning at sunrise, and exploring queenstown (AMAZING place). we didn't sleep much and could've used a vacation after our vacation! it was incredible. the south island is breath taking, so i definitely need to make it to north island while i'm still over here. it's so cool being able to see the ocean AND the mountains... at the same time!

i ended up heading back to minnesota for "winter" break. it wasn't the most stress-free break as i had approximately 392486529 doctors appointments. just a rough estimate. i coached tennis a couple hours here and there and spent the rest of my time cuddling with picabo and relaxing at the cabin with friends. the good news is that i don't have adrenal tumors, pulmonary renal stenosis, pulmonary emboli, or any of the other zillions of things they seemed to test for. apparently though i have a stress fracture in my spine! luckily, my heart/being on too low of a dose of synthroid was making me so tired that i wasn't working out much at the end of last semester... which helped mask a lot of back pain. so random. i also got diagnosed with... second degree atrioventricular block? or something like that. it doesn't mean much except that i can't take some antibiotics and there's a vague possibility that i'll need a pacemaker at some point in life. anyway, yes. break was filled with far too many needles for my liking.

now i'm back at school, trying to figure out my next move! so what else is new, hey? i have a couple ideas lined up for "summer" (thanksgiving-valentine's day basically) break. 2 aussie boys are in the mood for a US tour and are hoping i will be back in minnesota to play the role of american host. i also want to live in new zealand for 3 months and work. AND i want to go to haiti. if i manage to find a job this semester (not looking promising on any front, but i'm waiting to hear back on a tennis job), i may try to head home for a month to see family/friends and then head to haiti to volunteer for 6 weeks. if i don't find a job, i will obviously be in dire need of employment, so new zealand it'll be.

on another note, i may only have ONE MORE YEAR of uni left after this semester. i have to wait to see if i can get all my credits from CC. i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! mark your calendars: november 2011 may be one epic, world-wide party. after graduation, i'll hopefully head back to tanzania or some other place where i can do some humanitarian relief work. i am antsy as ever to get away from... well, civilization. less so the civilization and moreso the superficial people, material wealth and competitiveness.

have you seen invisible children? i just re-watched it today. it's a documentary about child soldiers in uganda. it's heartbreaking, but at the same time, it's something that absolutely needs to be watched to remind us of how much help is still needed in other parts of the world. it's easy here to get wrapped up in partying and traveling to fun, exotic resorts in new zealand or bali or fiji or sunshine coast or the great barrier reef. i'm finding though that no matter how much fun i have here, there's always a little part of my heart that feels empty. being in el salvador or tanzania, or hopefully soon-to-be-haiti, centers me. it helps me feel whole and alive and meaningful. the part of me that is usually filled with new clothes and expensive electronics and celebrity gossip gets replaced with dancing and singing and real conversations. it's a beautiful thing, really. no number of good grades or cheap vodka shots can replace it.

this semester is sure to be busy. four classes with lots of homework, hopefully a job!, some volunteer work, possibly another round of mafia... just gotta check college off the to-do list. another new batch of internationals are here, so i've been meeting "heaps" (as the aussies say) of new people, which is always fun. we don't have classes next wednesday so we can dress up, wear ridiculous feather headpieces and go see horses run around a track. we've also got college ball coming up soon, so lots of fun things to look forward to. if only stupid class didn't keep getting in the way of my life!!

'they came to sit & dangle their feet off the edge of the world & after awhile they forgot everything but the good & true things they would do someday.' --storypeople

'when i grow up, i want to remember that i always wanted to be a thousand different things & one lifetime didn't seem nearly enough. when i grow up, i hope it's at the very end when it doesn't matter anymore anyway.' --storypeople

shorty

short update:

mafia is going splendidly. alliances are being formed, plans are being made... i've met so many cool new people through it, even though i don't get to play. a lot of other people have met more of the college residents because of it as well. it's kind of awkward though... everybody smiles at me when i walk by or says hi or facebook friends me... and i still actually don't have any idea who they are.

booked a trip to melbourne for 2 weeks from now. it started out as a couple of us and has now turned into 8 of us flying together, with 6-7 of us spending most of our time together. 7 girls, 1 boy. 6 of us are american. it should be a party, despite the 40-low70s weather that we're in for. we've booked a day long winery tour that takes us to 4 different wineries, we booked a car to road trip along great ocean road, and we're planning on spending a day at the markets and then our last day exploring the aquarium. once again, i'm stuck driving as i'm the old one... yet another massive van i'll be driving on the wrong side of the road, only this time we'll be driving along the edge of a cliff. should be interesting.

we had union college miniball the other night. basically you dress up as anything you like and we get bussed to a bar. so much fun.

procrastination

true story: i always update when i have the most homework to get done.

thanks to anzac day i've had a FIVE day weekend... and yet here i am, late tuesday afternoon, already planning on waking up at 4:30 am to finish my essays. typical.

life has been so unexciting in recent weeks that it's nearly painful. in the span of a couple days, my living plans for next semester fell through (meaning i will be spending my EIGHTH semester in a dorm-style residence. just kill me.) and i found out that studying abroad is a no-go. needless to say, i have been in an absolutely horrific mood the past bit.

i think i mentioned in my last post that i joined choralfest. it's sort of a joke, but i've met some cool people. i also made the decision to start a 2-week game of mafia at college. i invited about 30 friends on facebook... and a couple hours later, over 50 people had rsvped "yes." i ended up having to cap the game at 100 people in an effort to avoid a complete organizational nightmare. i've actually met SO many people through it and people are getting really excited for it. i think the boys are going to get pretty into it :) some of the assassination assignments couldn't be any funnier... so i can't wait to witness them. "you must kill ________ with a handful of glitter in the toilet." somehow a game revolving around fake killing has at least partially pulled me out of my funk. haha don't know what that says about me...

it's hard to be stuck in college when i feel like i could be spending my time on far more important, fun and exciting things. life made me so happy last year--i was ecstatic to wake up in the mornings. i'm learning that elation like that is hard to recreate when my life has fallen into a monotonous cycle of worksheets and gossiping. i keep telling myself that i only have two years left, but at the moment that feels a bit similar to "forever." it's been over 2 months since i've been on an airplane... which i think, actually, is longer than i've gone in the past year. my brain has been set on the "next destination" mode for so long that it's going crazy trying to segue into the "right now" mode. it's like life claustrophobia. i think maybe i'll go to melbourne for a long weekend, if for no other reason than to change things up a bit. i'm also going to see if i can get a position volunteering a couple hours a week with an organization called "radio lollipop." depends mainly on how far away the hospital is by public transport and if i can get a blue card. hopefully it'll all fall into place!

i know this post makes me sound ungrateful, but i definitely am not: i have an incredible life. it's just hard to compare it to those glimpses of pure bliss last year where all the things that were supposed to matter did and all the things that weren't didn't even cross my mind. it's unfortunate that you have to be a college grad to join the peace corps.