an update.....
Having not updated in years, this may come as a bit of a surprise. However, this is, of course, because nothing exciting has been happening, and consequently, I feel no need to regale you. I’ll give you a quick overview, though….
I’m doing a combined science/arts degree, majoring in Maths/Stats and Spanish, with a side serve of Arabic at the ANU. It’s a four year degree, but with any luck it will take me at least six years to do, so I can put off all those niggling important decisions about, you know, life, far into the future. To this end, I have taken the past semester off and have been working as an orthodontic nurse, which is surprisingly fun, interesting, engaging and lucrative! I get to do a bit of everything, from assistant work- passing tools, mixing cements and glues- to actually playing with peoples’ braces- changing wires, fitting retainers- then we also have lab work to do- pouring up clay models from the impressions we’ve taken, making plastic retainers- then on the days when the receptionist isn’t in, I take over her job as well. However, I won’t be there for too much longer since I’m going on exchange in July. I’m off to study Spanish (and one terrifying Maths course) at the University of Chile in Santiago- this, however, will count towards my degree, so I might have to take another semester off when I get back- I’ll look into it!
Other than that, I’ve been playing A LOT of Frisbee- really a lot lot. I spent pretty much all of last year training with the Canberra Women’s Team for the World Ultimate Club Championships that occurred in Perth, last November. It was a great Tournament, and we got thoroughly trounced by lots of Japanese teams, who ended up placing 1, 2, and 3 in the women’s division, and also won the men’s division. However, now that there isn’t as much training, I find that I have no life other than ultimate, and that my social circle is about 200 Frisbee players, 2 old friends, my flatmate Jenny, and our ex-neighbours. This is not assisted by the addition of my boyfriend John into the House of Twits, which already houses one Frisbee fanatic, my flatmate Tom – they’re even more pathetic than me and spend AT LEAST one hour a day talking about Frisbee, which drives all the rest of us nutty.
In other exciting news, I spent a month in Ghana, West Africa in Jan 2006, volunteering in a Liberian refugee camp, which was fascinating, but too long a story to get into now. Last summer, John and I went to New Zealand where we spent most of the time getting rained on, snowed on, stuck in bogs, being chased by orcs, rescuing hobbits from said orcs and generally having a wet, dirty, fantastic time. (translation: we went bushwalking, which in New Zealand really means wading through k’s of Bog and also national parks where they filmed the lord of the rings….) We also spent a few days climbing and a few days sea kayaking, and John also did a bit of mountaineering with his brother-in- rule (it’s like a brother in law, but less hard-core!) while I did some solo walking, which was fantastic- I spent five days in the Richardson Ranges, without seeing a single person. We also did some walking with john’s parents: one famous track in NZ called the Routeburn track, where there were actually 8 of us- John’s bro and sis plus their significant others, parents and us. Then John and I also took his parents down a famous track in Tasmania called the Overland Track. So that was good, and even though it involved less orcs, it still rained and hailed a little bit, so that was reassuring.
I’ve still been playing my viola a bit, though had to take a small break last year when I broke my collarbone a second time, which was very upsetting because it was only five weeks before worlds- but I ate lots of yoghurt and calcium tablets and was super-super careful with it, then took it to the tournament and aside from being forbidden to do any super-man dives (which is what had caused the problem in the first place) I played just fine. So now my left collarbone is quite deformed, but Jenny says it’s kind of like a beauty mark, and it doesn’t stop me from playing my viola- there have been stories of violists who broke collarbones and had to take up the bass!- so all is well. And I finally got my driver’s license, with the help of John’s mum who patiently took my driving almost every day, which means John and I are now much more able to drive long distances and do exciting things.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at that, because otherwise this news will be so old when I send this email that I’ll have to write another one! Much love
MICA
PS. So, I waited and this email is now out of date. I am in Chile, living with three brothers two of whom play the cello and violin. Classes start on Monday. I really will try to update a little on bootlog (yay bootlog, yay jenny!)
For those who are interested, my stepmother, Mary bought a house about two and half years ago, and has been renting it out to my friends and me-she has just returned from attempting (unsuccessfully) an 8000 + metre peak called Gashebrum II in Pakistan- my father and brother Martin accompanied her on the trek to Base Camp. My other brother decided to stay at home and work- he is now studying Law at the ANU. My father seems to spend most of his time overseas, having spent most of the past month in Pakistan, he’s now in the US working for Microsoft and will come and visit me in Chile on his way to a conference in Rio. No wonder he thinks I’d make a great mathematician- I’m good at travelling and taking time off, which is all he seems to do!
