Heading for the Hills

I know that it has been nearly forever and a day since I updated this blog. That tends to be my habit: get myself a nice, cozy piece of cyberspace, write for a little while, and then disappear. I had a reasonable excuse this time, though: one of my classes, Operating Systems, was eating my soul. For some reason, I decided that taking this plus 14 other hours of classes would be a good idea, and consequentially, I barely had time to sleep, much less update my forlorn little blog.

Puerto Rico was great. I still haven’t written most of the travel journals I intended to write on the many places we visited, but hopefully those will come along before the end of the summer. I have, however, written about pretty much everything I did on my recent trip to England, including the Three Peaks Challenge. In short, the weather was absolutely atrocious, with 40mph winds at the top of Snowdon (when we finally made it up there), 65mph winds on Scafell that made the entire group turn around 1/4 of the way up after the guides couldn’t stand up anymore, and snow, freezing temperatures, and terrible wind at the top of Ben Nevis. I unfortunately only summited Snowdon after suffering from carsickness on the drive there and the aftereffects (mostly nausea and heaving) while climbing the mountain. As I stated before, no one made it up Scafell Pike, and about 2/3 of the group made it to the summit of Ben Nevis. I did not make it after pulling my hip flexor muscle on Scafell; I was too slow and was holding the group back so therefore had to turn around.

That is a very, very condensed version of it all; click the link above to read my whole long-winded account of the weekend. IgoUgo has written quite a nice blog post about my trip as well, and I really enjoyed seeing that my being a little crazy touched others! In spite of the weather and the injuries, I still had a great time and would attempt the Challenge again in a flash, so I can summit all three peaks this time! Not only did I meet a lot of cool people on the trip, I also raised £590 for the sign a shirt for an internet friend’s son, Tom, who came down with meningitis last year and, as a result, lost his ability to hear. He is fortunately doing much better now after having 2 cochlear implants. It was so great to see how much people cared and to hear how many questions they asked about how Tom was doing now, and it was really a great way to end the weekend.

So, in conclusion, you should try the Three Peaks Challenge too, if you are anywhere near England in the summer. Just work out a little bit more than I did beforehand (meaning, of course, don’t take Operating Systems!).

My next travel adventure starts on August 2, the day after I finish my internship. I’m heading off to Oz to see James for three weeks, since it’s been five months since we last saw each other! I’m not going to be gadding about Australia–I’m much more content to just see James for a while–but I’ll probably go to the Ekka and back to Straddy, which is off the coast near Brisbane. Over Labor Day, I’m going to visit my friend Liz in New York, and I’m really excited both to see her and the city, since I’ve never actually visited NY before! I felt that it was a city I should see before leaving the country for good next year.

Next year brings my backpacking trip around New Zealand, which I’ve just started planning and am very excited about. I hope to be there for at least three months, mostly going tramping (NZ’s form of hiking) around the backwoods and doing the other outdoorsy things that NZ is famous for, like kayaking and abseiling. After I’ve worn myself out/run out of money/run out of time on my visa, I’m heading back to Brisbane for the rest of the year and hopefully finding myself a job!

I’ve had another article published on Bootsnall! The Pharmacist’s Honest Opinion can be found here.

I’m in my last class before Spring Break starts! My plane for Puerto Rico takes off tomorrow morning, and then it’s a week of seeing everything we can possibly see. Sunday starts it off with a trip to Old San Juan, the Bacardi Factory (which is free and gives you a voucher for two free drinks!) and the place where piña coladas were originally made. We all can’t wait–I’m even happy about packing, which is how excited I am!

I was very proud of myself last week–I managed to run about 8 miles and do a little bit of elliptical training and soccer in between all that. Unfortunately, I think I’ve hit the trails a little too hard, after being a little out-of-shape and out-of-practice for quite a while. My ankles started throbbing midway through my run on Thursday; I thought it would go away, but unfortunately, it only got worse when I finished the run. By Friday afternoon they were feeling alright, but the soccer game I played on Saturday just made them hurt again. As of Monday evening, I can still feel them, although not nearly as much as I originally did on Thursday.

I don’t think it is tendonitis pain, since it is in both ankles; they are probably just inflamed from running after only doing low-impact elliptical infrequently for so long. At least, this is what I hope. I tried to do the elliptical yesterday, and only made it through 10 minutes, and I’ve decided it might be a good idea to take today off, especially since I am going to Puerto Rico on Sunday and do not want to jeopardize everything we plan on doing there. I also invested in some slip-on ankle braces to give a little extra support during the workouts.

Fundraising for the Three Peaks is chugging along. My fundraising site is located here (you know, in case you’d like to donate and help out the Meningitis Trust, a great charity that helps out survivors of meningitis and their families). So far, I’ve raised £125. I have to raise £140 more by the middle of April, and £110 more than that by the middle of June.

Speaking of fundraising, I was especially touched when I got a message from Jay, who writes the blog at mysontom.com. Tom was 20 months old when he contracted meningitis, which put him into a coma for 5 days. When he woke up, he was profoundly deaf. He now has cochlear implants in both ears and is doing incredibly well–I definitely recommend reading his father’s blog, because it is incredibly touching and emotional. Plus, Tom is adorable–I especially recommend the “Tom gets a racecar bed” video. The Meningitis Trust has helped out their family immensely, and it was great to hear a personal story about the charity that I am doing my best to help as much as possible.

And finally, I’m going to Puerto Rico on Saturday! Since it’s our senior year (even though I’m not graduating until December), 11 friends and I are spending a week there. One of my friends’ parents (who are awesome) are taking us around the island and showing us as much as possible. We’re planning on visiting Old San Juan, Ponce, Vieques (which is an island off of Puerto Rico and has a wonderful bioluminescent bay that we’ll be snorkeling/kayaking in), El Yunque rainforest and the Camuy caves, to name a few. In between all that, we’ll be lying on the beach, drinking piña coladas, and generally soaking in the tropical goodness. Plus, we’ve never been on a big group trip before, so that’ll be fun, and possibly interesting. Hopefully we won’t kill each other by the end of the week!

I hope that I’ll be able to update this every night as we go along, but I’m certain that we won’t have internet for at least two nights, and I’m not sure about the other nights. So, chances are, there will be a whole lot of updates from my handwritten journals starting about March 11.