Farewell dear friend, you shall be missed...

We've been to fun places, met great people, and made some great memories. But alas, fate is not on our side. You have been taken from me and I am forced to move forward without you. Yes I will have to start over - take new pictures, retake those records made, and forge a new bond.

However, there will be others - because while you were near me virtually every minute of the day you were just a phone. Yes, dear iPhone - when that person decided to take you away from my comfortable and safe purse on Saturday night you began a new life.

I wish you a safe journey and a loving owner.

And now I look to see if my next companion will be a iPhone or another... we shall see.

Delayed End to Final Swim...

Today was supposed to be the final swim of the season - however the ocean gods decided it was not to be.

To start off the course had to be changed simply because the waves out the back were just too big. They were having trouble keeping the pontoons (or cans) in place to mark the course in the deeper water so they brought the course in. At first I was happy with this as it would be a course which I have swam before, plus the obvious advantage of not having to swim in the extremely deep areas.

I was all set to swim the 2.4 K, however as the 1K group was going the 4 rescue boats, jet ski, and 20+ surf life rescue people in there there were quite a few people who turned back.

Before I tell you what happens next, I'd like to just educate you on the Bondi rips. There are two permanent rips at bondi - the North Bondi rip and one at the south which is called the Backpacker Express as that's where all the backpackers get stuck. With the new course using the Northern rip to get out of the waves much faster. However the danger with this is that, if the waves are big enough you will be pushed against the rocks which are on the other side of this rip.

So with this group of people, there were some which decided about 20 meters in that they didn't want to continue, and were promptly swept into the rocks... not good! Then to complicate things even more, a massive wave came in a swept one of the pontoons out of it's secured location and into the rocks. Luckily, the pontoon didn't hit anyone on its way to the rocks.

However this turn of events was a blatant sign for the organisers to cancel the race... which they did. I must admit that I wasn't too sad as there was a pretty decident rip right where we were set to swim back to the beach. So this would have proven to be a very challenging race to say the least.

The plan is for them to reschedule the event to next Sunday, however I have a bachelorette party on Saturday night so I might not be capable of swimming. I will keep you posted on how things go. :)

In the mean time, my knee is feeling good due to my limited drinking which also means I have saved money and spent less time standing in line at the bathroom at the bar. :)

General Update

Things are chugging along here, and I figured I'm overdue for a update.

The Flat

I've furnished the living room area of the flat as all the old furniture was my old flatmates. I ended up simply making a couple trips to Ikea and am pretty happy with the results. My flat has blue carpet so I was pretty limited with what I could use without making the room too dark... so it is a very black and white decor which surprisingly works.

I allowed myself the luxury of the chase as I figure I'll more than justify it during my recovery time

My favourite part is the new HD TV :)

The second wave of furniture will come when I am able to pay down some more of my debt, so for now I still have the old dinning table

As far as flatmates go - I have a new one (obviously) and while it did take me a while to find one I also stepped out of the mold a bit. My new flatmate is a lawyer from Perth, who just moved to Sydney in January. His name is Raury and so far we are getting along great. The new part is that I typically live with girls, so this is a bit of a new adventure. So far we've sorted out the cleaning schedule and are getting all the little things sorted out so things are going well. :)

Swimming

Monday is the last swim of the season - a 2.4K swim at Bondi beach. It is a different course (picture below) and has us swimming out further than normal so that will be interesting. The group which swam today said they saw large sting rays and some other sealife before they hit a large pod of stingers. So my hope is that the sting rays and fishies are around with out the jelly fish.

The typical swims stay inside the two points, so it's quite a bit further out...

My Knee

My knee has been bothering me a bit more these days - so I am taking drastic measure and not drinking. I'm also noticing certain things which make it ache/hurt like crossing my legs. So sorry mother, but I won't be able to sit as lady like as I should as it hurts my knee. I think it has something to do with the whole fact that it puts pressure on my knee in the direction in which I don't have the ligament supporting.

I have my surgery scheduled for the 23rd of June after I get back from the states and luckily my mother is going to be able to come take care of me/keep me company while I'm recovering during the 2 weeks off.

Until then, I am allowed to swim, cycle, and run (but only in a straight line). Which makes things interesting, but at least I have some things I can do.

The Verdict Is In

I have torn my ACL. :(

If you are like I was and have heard about this surgery but have no clue what it means... allow me to enlighten you. The ACL or anterior cruciate ligament is the ligament which essentially the ligament which holds the femur and shin bone together when you bend your knee forward - so it's kind like your brakes. It also provides you knee with support when you do any sideways or pivoting type motion. Without this ligament I have to be extremely careful with any sideways movements especially when my knee is bent. If I'm not careful the bones can slip out of place and cause all sorts of pain and suffering on my part.

Lovely I know. I feel like I'm an old lady who could break with any wrong move - literally!

So what does this mean for me... I can almost walk normally. I say almost because I know I'm not extending my knee completely but to everyone else I look normal. No soccer, basketball, or virtually any other sports... but the worst of all is I can't dance or wear heels (especially no heels when drinking as this typically leads to dancing). I can swim (as long as I am extremely comfortable going in and out of the ocean), cycle, and run in a straight line. So again at least I have my swimming. :)

I do, however, need surgery if I ever want to do any of the above again without the potential of my knee giving way. As it is it feels unsteady and every now and then it feels like the torn ligament bits are saying hello to their friends in places they aren't supposed to be, and I can tell you it is as uncomfortable as it sounds.

The challenge comes in that I have a trip back to the states end of May early June, so if I do the surgery now I could be almost normal by the time I go home. However if there are any complications with the surgery it could compromise my ability to fly. Additionally, there are 3 of our 8 team members from work currently on vacation for the next 3 weeks so if I leave our team will be severely strained in a time when i can do some good stuff. So, I have scheduled my surgery for the Wednesday after I get back from the states.

Until that date I'll be playing it very carefully to make sure I don't do anything to make the situation worse.

Today in Sports News.....

So for over a year I've been involved with a couple basketball teams and all has been well and fine - not injuries, good fun, etc.

A couple months ago I decided to join the Deloitte soccer team which plays at the same building as my basketball league - in fact on the basketball courts. However since I've been playing there have been a couple too many injuries for my liking. It all started with the first game where I was kicked in the calf which cause a massive bruise and knocked knees with a guy which caused a bone bruise and fluid to form... The next couple games I was a bit more tame with no injuries.

Last week we had a bye so played a just for fun game against the Partners and Directors at Deloitte. During that game one of the Partners forgot he was wearing glasses and did a header - promptly cutting a gash on his nose which got blood on my jersey.

This last Monday it all went down hill.... I knocked knees with someone again - prompting a swift return of my previous bone bruise. Then to top it off I managed to do something to my knee when going to play defense against someone and something just wrong happened.

Two doctors later I have an appointment for an MRI next Thursday and the surgeon estimates I have a 70% chance of needing surgery. NOT COOL!

I've obviously not playing soccer or basketball but my doctor does want me to do a bit of swimming - sorry at this point I have to look for the bright side, even if it is one of those small sunny patches on a very dark day.

As I know more I'll post more, for now I have an xray of my knee which looks normal from what I've been told and am attempting to walk normally without hurting myself (which was the doctor's orders).

Ocean Swim Update

After my initial swim I have continued to train for and participate in ocean swimming. As it's been a bit part of my free time I figured it was about time I wrote something about it. :) Today was an amazing swim in the actual Harbour. The swim started at the Opera House and ended at the Opera House. For those who know Sydney it essentially went to Mrs. Macquarie's chair and back in the little inlet/lagoon area next to the Opera House.

The race started and ended from the pier just below the Opera House

It was funny because when you look at the water the waves look pretty small, however they were actually pretty big when you were in the water - or they at least felt big. Through my training group I've managed to find a girl who swims at the same pace as I do and we were swimming by each other the whole time. The only annoying thing was that there was a guy swimming between/around us that was swimming drunk. He literally kept bumping into both of us and it was very annoying.

Now there are couple unique things about swimming in the harbour. One is that the water is very murky. We can typically see the floor of the ocean and fish swimming around, however I don't think we could see more than two feet in front of our hands.

One of the earlier waves

In terms of providing the times they were very prompt... Now my first time pretty good by most standards and I finished 2K in 41 minutes, so when I saw a time of 31 minutes I knew something was off because I did not swim that much better. Across the board all the times were fast so the course must have been very short.

Final Snapshots from Tasmania

To pick up my very drawn out story... we left St. Helens on Sunday morning and set off to the Bay of Fires before heading to Launceston. Now when you plan our trip to Tasmania there are certain things which people rave about seeing. On the East coast it is Freycinet National Park and the Bay of Fires. We'd already made the loop through Freycinet so the Bay of Fires was our next thing to look forward to.

Now it's called Bay of Fire because there is a kind of algae/fungus/stuff that grows on the rocks that stains them orange. And they are really stained - I was walking around bare foot and it didn't come off on my feet.

Anyways, we were very much looking forward to some awesome scenery. Now maybe we were tired or jaded but we weren't all that impressed. We found a lookout point and snapped some pictures and were set to take off. However I will say that I do enjoy these pictures the most of all from the trip. :)

The orange rocks

Yes it was a bit cold but and windy but it was still nice
The beaches were great

We took the opportunity to take advantage of the beach when it was empty

After taking in the scenery we left to go to Launceston. We were looking forward to an easy country drive... little did we know it would be all two lane roads and about a hours worth of hair pin turns up and down the steep hills - and I wish I was joking on the amount of this kind of driving it was. There were points at which I seriously felt like I was getting dizzy from during back and forth down the road.

While the driving wasn't exactly the best, the views were spectacular.

View from the top of one of the hills I was talking about

The country side

Ok, so this is a random one... this was an information center at one of the very small towns which is very environmentally conscious

Once we got to Launceston we were happy to return to the land of nice restaurants and civilisation. After getting lunch by the water we went up to the Cataracts Gorge. This is an area where the Tamar River comes down to the ocean and was damned to create some recreational areas back in the 20's. The area was very awesome. There is an outdoor lap pool, an exquisite lawn area, and some decent hikes. Now we still were a bit over the hiking so we took the easy paths, but it was still a great thing to see.

I also learned something while we were at Cataracts Gorge. There was a Tasmanian Tiger which used to roam the area. However, like with many rare species, it was hunted into extinction and can't be found anywhere.

View of the lawn and swimming pool

The valley goes like this for as far as we could see - pretty spectacular

A painting of the Tasmanian Tiger

The city of Launceston did offer more civilisation than we were used to, however there wasn't enough to warrant too much of description. So I will close this series of posts.