hot lava.

HELLOOOO!! I have not been very good about blogging. Lets just say I've been quite lazy, but also very productive. I guess I have been working on the things that I will be graded on so that's a smart plan. At the same time there is no excuse cause I still could make time. I will see how well I can remember about the past few weeks. Here I go...

Ok. This ones easy. Last weekend was our little excursion to Taupo. In the rental van it was me, Amanda, Mike, Mike, Robbie, Connor, Mallory, Kathleen, and Emma. We managed fit all of our junk and nine people in the vehicle. We were on our way! The drive was about four hours and when we finally got there the hostel was closed. We didn't know what to do so we just pitched our tents and thought awww...we'll pay in the morning. Lucky for us...the bathrooms were even open. It was perfect. We got up in the morning and people weren't at the reception desk so we each save 12 bucks. Ooops. Felt kind of bad, but at the same time it was nice. We were going to hike mount doom, but then realized we missed the bus. It only comes at like 6am and the wind was apparently really bad that day so they didn't even reccommend it. We devised another plan. We were going to go hike this other trail and see a waterfall and then go skydiving!!!

Skydiving.

This was the highlight of my weekend. Absolutely amazing experience! The guys that we were strapped on to were very experienced divers. Mine was 22 and had jumped mmm...like 1500 times! Holy! Anyways...they were hilarious. Very chill. I was freakin out cause my harness thing seemed to big and they joked around and all looked at each other like ohhhh crap. We were already on the plane! Ahhh...what am I supposed to do. They were like yeah...umm....did they give you an extra large or something? Jerks. Haha. It was fun though. Their sense of humor made the experience. I think my favorite part was jumping out of the plane. It's just like this big rush. You are like alright...we're next. Ok. GO! You don't even realize that you're free falling. I felt perfectly safe. So weird! When he let out the parachute he let me steer it for awhile. Now THAT was fun. The view of lake taupo was stunning. The scenery...yeah.

Mt. Ngauruhoe (aka Mt. Doom)

Well...lets just talk about Mt. Doom, shall we. It started out fine...didn't really think much of the 7 hours hike we would be doing. Just one step at a time right? Oh. My. Gosh. It was difficult. I think about everything I do now and look back on that experience and go awww...this will be a piece of cake. I climbed a fricken volcano! So yeah...scenery was breathtaking...once again. It was different this time though...it was like we were one with it. There was no civilization. It was just hikers and the earth. Ok. That sounds way cheesy, but seriously! There was something really cool about it.

Alright...so we started off in a group then all started to go our own pace. For a few hours it was just me, Emma, and Kathleen. THEN we started to climb the mountain (volcano). We didn't stick together. There were soooo many times where I was like okay...I'm done. It seemed like we would climb and end up a few steps back from where we started. I was literally bear crawling hands and feet. There were lava rocks and sandy ash kind of stuff that I had to overcome. I looked at this mountain as something that I needed to do for myself. I could have turned back, but I'm glad I didn't. For me, it kind of represented life. You have to keep pushing forward, because if you go back you won't end up anywhere. You'll just be right where you started. It also represented this never give up sort of attitude. It doesn't matter if you fall down or scrape your leg (that's what i did) just keep going and in time things will heal.

The top. I can't believe I made it. This sounds ridiculous, but I really can't. I was so tired, but what makes me mad is that I wasn't as sore as I thought I should have been the next day! What the heck. We won't talk about it. I must just be in good shape, right? Whatever. So I didn't think I would make it after I thought I reached the top then realized there was more. I did though and I've NEVER seen such an amazing view in my entire life. It was literally like I was on top of the world. I mean...we climbed a mountain so we were basically.

Climbing down.

More like sliding, skiing, or falling down. This was better than going up, but it was still annoying. Mallory and I had to hold on to each other for a lot of it. I fell a lot. I mean a lot. It was so sandy and hard to stablize yourself. Sooo many bruises from that day. When we finally made it down I felt so accomplished. We climbed a mountain and survived. What a relief. It felt like life or death at times. It actually was a pretty dangerous thing to do.

YAY! WE DID IT!

Back to reality.

I really needed to buckle down this week with school. I finished my video project. Finally! It had erased like three times and I had to start over...along with the entire class. Technology. I had two papers to write which I'm still fine tuning, but am proud to say I'm about done with. (which is good cause they're due in two days). They are both about 8 pages long or so and were a lot harder to write than they should have been. Maybe it's cause I haven't had school since...umm...December! Yep. I'm going to blame it on that. It was our last week working with pegasis students. It was sad. I really got to know these kids and it was so special to build relationships with them!


This week.

I feel like I have been writing my fingers off with the essays I have been doing. I am proud that I wrote all this and have to call it quits for now.



Toodles!