Aloha everyone!!

I have done so much since the last post! In a nutshell: Went home for a day, then to Sydney for 5 days, then Yongzhou (middle of nowhere China) for a week, then LA for a week, then home for 3 weeks, and then back to Hawaii for school.
Sydney was awesome, got to stay at Olympic Park and hang for 4 whole days with my beloved beautiful amazing sister.
China was incredible, got a taste of what it's like to be famous in a place where you don't know the language, food, culture or where the heck you are and probably half the people you meet have never seen a white person before.
In LA I learnt that, despite my continuous rants about how terrible American food is, it's actually magnificent delightful fantastic after eating only rice and OSM (nutrition bars) for a week : )
The water polo was hard, discouraging, heart-breaking, but also put a determination into me that I don't think I've had in a while.
If anyone is interested I'd totally love to talk more about it and fill you in on everything but right now I can't be bothered and it feels like a bit too much to cover without making many of you fall asleep!
The real reason I'm posting is because I have a strange desire to draw something but Meike (my endlessly patient and wonderful roomie - who is very in touch with her creative side) isn't here and I can't find her pastels. So woe is me, I go to the next thing that she quietly and consistently, through example pushes me towards, and that is keeping my blog up to date for those who might be interested in my meagre existence : )

Have been back in HI for a bout a week and a half, the first week was the big stress trying to find somewhere to live. After being taken incredible care of for a week by one of my team mates and driven over half the island every day, we found an awesome apartment right across the road from school. On the 10th floor of a condominium apartment building (whatever that means) But it is lovely. We have a washer and dryer in our unit, 2 bathrooms, and we even have a dishwasher! Filling the apartment has been a lot of fun (other than trying to balance the bank account - probably the most un-fun thing in the world) thanks to walmart. With it's endless supply of almost everything.
For the first time since being here, I also got to see the freshman orientation - all these clean faced excited young adults and their parents, trying to make the transition as easy as possible. I got to spend a couple of hours and our Campus Crusade for Christ table, and I have to say it was really cute when so many parents came up to us asking for details for churches and info about us, and all these kids were totally mortified trying to hide. So funny and so cute.
Classes so far look pretty hard, but pretty interesting too. I have 2 political science classes - one of which is pretty much about images and advertising which is always interesting. And the other one, we do a whole section on refugees and their rights and just general being, which is totally what I'm into so I'm so excited about that. Then 2 french classes which is guna be awesome considering I haven't done much french at all in the last year and a half, but I always did like a challenge : ) and one english - literature of the Pacific - taught by Albert Wendt - famous NZ-Samoan writer and Reina Whaitiri. So I'm really excited about it. Of course it's going to be pretty political because of how hard it's been for so many polynesian cultures and the impacts of colonisation and thats what a lot of the writing is about, but it's pretty real and I'm excited to learn more about cultures in my part of the world.
Interesting fact - did you know that you can fit all the land above water in the whole world in the Pacific ocean with room to spare!

Training starts next week and I am determined to have a blast in my last year of elegibility. And so it will be : )

Hope everyone is awesome - it would totally make my day to hear from anyone at all : )

much love
A xxox

weddings

I went to the wedding of my friends Brenda and Marcus today, it was a sunrise service, starting at 5.30 am and we the bridesmaids were ofcourse up hours before that, the first waking up at 11.30pm to be ready for the big day. Let me tell you, it was chaos.

But I think the ceremony was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen... the sun came up just as they made their vows and both of them were radiant, you would never had known the bride had had 2 hours sleep in the last 40. It was just 2 people, so excited about their love for eachother and for God and it was just really beautiful to watch and be a part of.

I guess weddings are always like that, I've just never seen the stress and work that goes into even the tiniest little details before; the costs that are paid (whether smart or unsmart) to set up the beginning of their lives together. I've never really noticed before the lengths that people will go to for someone they love who isn't their child. I know my parents love eachother so much but I haven't until now, realised the little sacrifices they make each day for eachother, and the willingness with which they give things up for eachother.

It was just a really cool day.

Will put up photos when I get them : )

much love
A

Warning: Essay Follows

Hey everyone,

well I feel like I have so much to tell so hope you've got some time set aside for this essay you're in for.

We just finished school a couple of weeks ago, we did pretty well at our conference finals - we beat USC 9-10 to make the championship game and we ended up coming second so that was huge. Mich could hardly believe it. It was a pretty fun weekend - we were in Irvine and it was just a fun time I think. I didn't really play - I got majored in a couple of games so that was a bummer but it was fun anyway. The girls did really well.

Then we got home with a week to do finals, get out of the dorms and sort everything else out that we needed to do before leaving for nationals at UC Davis in Northern California. So that was a sleepless and slightly stressful week but managed to get on the plane to Sacremento having finished all my work and exams so it was awesome to just be able to think about polo and not have to worry about school or anything. The day we left was such a mess, Meike and myself had spent the whole night before packing so we'd had about 4 hrs sleep and then we got up, went for a swim, got a car from the athletic dept, packed the car and then Meike checked us out while I went to the chiropractor and then we got back to the pool just as the bus pulled up so we just managed to put all our gear (and trust me there was a LOT) in the storage room at the pool before jumping on the bus.

Davis was really special. We started out with 3 seniors at the beginning of the year and we finished with only one, Mari, and Ief was leaving us for national team commitments back in the Netherlands, and our assistant coaches Coralie and Margie were leaving us as well. So it was just a really good time of enjoying eachother and having fun playing together and I duno I just had a really good time. We ended up coming 4th but honestly, it didn't bother me. The last night we had a team dinner which was a lot of fun, everyone ended up giving a little speech about something they enjoyed about the team and saying thanks to eachother and the coaches - even Mich's friend who none of us had ever met before! so funny! and it was just so cool. We're going to miss them so incredibly much next year but I know wherever they all end up they're going to tear it up and keep being their awesome selves.

And then we came home and I spent a couple of days at Coralie and Margie's with Kelly (another Kiwi) and we went sea swimming and hiking and even did a short pool swim - it was a good time just relaxing. Me and Coralie went on this awesome hike around these rocks at a beach and there were all these deep rock pools you could swim in so we went for a dip and then kept going, and there were blow holes - that was cool. And the colours of the sea were so intense and so beautiful it was just rocking this world.

Now I am in Wyoming with my friend Emily from the UH soccer team for a couple of days before going to an Athletes in Action camp in Colorado tomorrow. It's been so nice. She has the coolest "American" house - has a basement and an attic! (never been in a house with either of those before) and from the outside it really looks like a doll house. So fun! Today we went on this little hike at a national park near here and it was so awesome driving out. just a road in the middle of these endless plains with the Rocky Mountains on the horizon. And the sky was so cool, we could see storms on the horizon and you could see lightening and stuff it was so cool. Also this afternoon when we got back, there was an afternoon thunder storm (quite a common summer occurrence) and the thunder was seriously right after the lightning. And you could see the lightning bolts. It was awesome. We were making guacamole and Emily's mum was like "I smell smoke!" and started running around all crazy like to make sure the house hadn't caught on fire or something. It was awesome.

And tomorrow I'm off to Fort Collins. Can't wait. This week is going to rock this world!

K, hope everyone is well - you should totally email me or something

much love
A xxox

Still Alive

Hey everyone,

sorry again for being so slack at this. i am going to be making more effort from now on i promise.

so how is everyone anyway? haven't been hearing much from the southern hemisphere lately *cough cough* I hope everyone is fantastic and Debbie if you read this I hope baby is fantastic and healthy and amazing fun even if you never get to sleep and are having to change nappies all day long : )

Here is good, the semester is finishing in 3 weeks and I'm baffled at how fast time flies. It's crazy I tell you. School has been going well - it turns out I'm smart or something - I got invited into the honours program which means I can take harder classes and on my diploma it says that I graduated "with honors" (no u because we're in america). I'm not sure if I will join yet, I haven't spoken to anyone, it would be cool to be a bit more challenged in classes and not just have to regurgitate everything I'm told but I do want to graduate asap and the thought of having to take extra classes isn't really very appealing. But we'll see anyway.

Polo has been improving, we started out shocker losing twice to Arizona which should NOT have happened but it did and twas horrible but then again I guess it was good to get a kick up the bum to get us motivated and realising that even though on paper we have an Iamazing team, we still have to work hard. Next weekend is our conference (league) finals are next weekend and it's basically going to come down to whether or not we beat berkeley to decide if we get to go to Nationals so that will be an exciting game. We've improved a lot this semester I think, and we definitely can it's just all up to us. I hope we do : ) will keep you posted on that one anyway.
I haven't had the most fun time with polo this semester, have had some major communication problems with the coach but we had this massive talk the other day and we both surprised ourselves with how un-stubborn we were and how much we actually listened, it was so good. Now I just have to remember to do that more often if a problem comes up and not get all prideful and try to ignore it and make everyone miserable... lol isn't that so funny how things snowball so much when all it would take to fix things is a bit of old fashioned talking over a cup of tea or something.

Went to disneyland last weekend! It was my second time there, and I have to say to anyone who goes in the future, make sure you scream your lungs out every ride. The first time I went, I thought I was too cool and was trying not to scream, but this time I just let loose, and it was so much more fun. So the key my friends, I guess for any adventure is to scream your lungs and and keep your eyes open and really experience it ya know? yea.


My sister in law had a baby on Friday NZ time, I have no idea what it is, or if everything went ok or anything. Mum and Dad have gone away for the weekend and I don't have their number, Emily thinks I'm really strange for not having my brother's number with my here. I've never thought about it. Maybe I should get it. I would quite like it - to be able to talk to my brothers/sister whenever I wanted just coz I could...My other brother is moving to Invercargill this week he's on the Southland NPC team and he's pretty much the best loch in the world so everyone keep your eyes open : ) Rees Logan yup, thats my brother!

Just watched a really intense movie called "Tsotsi". It's about South Africa and this boy who lives in a shanty town and steals a car that has a baby inside. It's based on a book. It's so good to see film coming out of Africa. What is it about Africa? It just tugs on my heart strings, not even really one place over another, when I look at my map, my eyes always come back to Africa. It could be because it's bang smack in the middle of my map, but I think it's something more than that...and I can't really explain it. Anyone else get that?

OK well I better go, will try to put some photos up, my computer is very stubborn at the mo and isn't uploading so will keep trying but otherwise you'll have to check out ringo.

OK I just found out about the unknown baby - 12.1 Lbs, 59 cm, Terence Nicholas Jens Logan. Will be called Nick most likely. My over 2m tall brother Rees the loch was 54cm when he was born. He is beautiful, lovely fat chubby cheeks but nothing else everything else is hot stuff. His hands are huge. He has a head full of black hair. Following all the voices around the room today (this is mum talking). When mummy was giving him his first bath the other day, his sister Kate asked "where's his fanny?" she really is quite intrigued with him. And he looks like his Aunty Amy - but you shoulda got that at the beautiful part ;)

Alive

Hey all,

yes I'm still alive... sorry its been so long for those who have wanted updates!

Anyways, here I am back in Hawaii ish. It's week 7 of school and so far I've been to about 3 or 4 of each of my classes. We didn't get back until Feb 1st and then left on the 7th for a week and now, a week after arriving back again we are off again for another 8 days. It doesn't stop I tell you!

Home was good, I didn't get to see my family as much as I wanted to which was gutting but I did get to hang with polo peeps a LOT and that was heaps of fun. I am in love with my country. Everything I saw was like the most beautiful thing in the world I felt like such a tourist. haha.

The preparation for the Commonwealth Tournament was pretty tough, we had a week between xmas and new years in Tauranga, there were about 20 of us sleeping in a class room literally right next to the pool. It was an outside pool so that was really nice, and the Marae experience of communal living was surprisingly fun. We ran up Mount Maunganui a couple of times, which was one massive slog I tell you, but the view was awesome. It was such a killer but I decided that if I was any kind of runner or something I would be into mountain racing. Definitely a feeling of accomplishment (for the non-kiwis I honestly don't know how big the mount is but it is called a mountain so it's not that small...)
Anyways, then we got a couple of days off for new years and a bunch of us went to Emily's batch at cooks beach,which was a nice break, mostly consisting of sleeping but also got to see a few beaches I'd never been to before and that was awesome.
Then we went to another place for another week long camp, known as death camp II. We pretty much died. For my birthday the team filled my car up with balloons and shaving creamed the outside and I got a book called "Amy the Amethyst Fairy" and I even got cake. So it was a pretty good day considering we did about 5 hours of training during it...

Then we came back up to auckland for a tournament with England and Japan, which went pretty well we won it so that was good for us and our confidence going into the games. I won the MVP award which was really funny and cool, have never won an MVP before so I was stoked.


And then we left for Perth. I think I laughed more on this trip than any other trip I've ever been on, our manager Sharon was such good value and it was really cool to be on a trip with the NZ mens team as well and being able to watch and support them and hang out. We ended up coming third which is what we were expecting. It was nice to win something for once and to send our coach Peter off on a good note. We got him this massive Pounamu (greenstone - has a lot of cultural meaning - they're Taonga = treasures, and you can't buy themyou have to be given them) hook which means strength, prosperity, and fortune over the water. It was really hard to say bye, we took him to the airport on the last day b/c he was going straight back to Hungary and it was really hard to say bye, I was surprised by how close we all were to him. But it's ok we'll be in touch he'll be around. Can't get rid of us that easily! And after that it was the usual mad rush 7hr flight home, 4 hrs at home then back to the airport to come here!



Hawaii has been heaps of fun so far with the extra kiwi girls here, especially em its so fun having someone in training I can properly wrestle with who can laugh about it and not get all upset. And just to see her all the time once again. Can't wait to start playing with her!

ok guys, for now this must be it, I know its not that entertaining but I am out of practice

peace out, would love to hear from anyone. Kelly whats your blog address?
So much love to everyone
A xxox