From One To The Other

So, today has been an extremely nerve-wracking day. You would think after having both skydived and bungy jumped, and traveled to a random country without knowing anyone that I would not have been nervous on my first day back at Colorado College. Unfortunately, you would be wrong. However, loss of sleep managed to calm my nerves as I was too dazed to be affected by the stampede of acquaintances that I have not seen in 8 months. Having a schedule again has also helped calm my nerves, yet has frazzled my brain, which is wondering why I ever missed the intensity of the block plan. To break another nerve, I finally entered my essay into Nicholas Kristof's Win-A-Trip on the day of the deadline. This essay has been a long time coming (the contest was announced a month ago) and I do not believe I have much chance of winning. However, I can say that I learned a lot about myself and confirmed the general direction that want to head in life. It also gave me a lot of new ideas for this blog and youtube page, so get pumped!

Today's photos are of Spirit's Bay in Northland, New Zealand. For the Maori, it is where the spirits of the dead head off for their journey to the afterlife. Considering the pain, rubble, and shock in Haiti right now, I feel that showing images of this amazingly peaceful place brings a little hope that though we are in pain on earth, those who have left us are no longer suffering (and are perhaps, better off).

Stand Tall

Cape Reinga, New Zealand

Hard to Resist

I was feeling a bit nostalgic last night while looking for an image to post today, so I peaked back into my orientation folder (we spent time the first 3 days overcoming jet lag and shock in Shakespear Regional Park). It's hard to believe that my semester at the University of Auckland will be complete in 2 exams and 4 days, and I'll be departing the land of the long white cloud in 27 days. This is when I ask myself, "wtf?" Where did all of the time go? I loved glancing at a few of the photos from the first days in New Zealand because I remember taking them and being so overwhelmed about standing on land all the way around the world (on the edge of the world as I've learned New Zealanders view it) with completely new people and knowing I was going to be here for what seemed like an extremely long time. Now I'm sitting here wondering, what the hell was I thinking? 5 months is an extremely minuscule amount of time. Thinking about everything that I still want to do is making it harder and harder to get myself into the land of hardcovers and silence (aka the library). I never actually knew what studying was until I came to AU and met some kiwis, they motivated me for a bit when classes got out, but I'm quickly losing steam; the 21 year-old American in me is saying, "who cares about studying when spring is upon us?" (Is this perhaps why we're called "lazy Americans"?) In addition, this video is highly distracting: They Just Turned Life Into A Musical