Happy Valentines Day

Hannah and I when we went bowling

Just a short post to hope that you all had a happy valentines day, even if I do think it's a bunch of over advertised nonsense to spend extra money on flowers, chocolate and things that are red. You shouldn't need a specific day to tell the people you love that you love them, you should do it any day and everyday.  

We had Wrestling Sectionals in the weekend and four of our five wrestlers came either 1st or 2nd so that means they are going to State Wrestling this week : )

We leave Wed at 7.30am and get back Sat / Sun depending if we make the finals. I'm excited.

Hope you're well and everything's great : )

Okoboji Wrestling Sectionals.

Aleysha and I at Sectionals :)

Today we had Wrestling Sectionals. So the Emmetsburg Varsity Wrestling team and cheerleaders went out to Okoboji for the day in hope of progressing to Districts next week and State the following week. 


The day went really well, as a team Emmetsburg got second (out of six or seven schools) which means on Tuesday we will compete in team district duals. Apparently we'll have no chance though because even though we have a few really good wrestlers, we don't have a large team and so will give points away for when we have byes. For duals every wrestlers points count towards the team points, you get a certain amount for a win and if you win before the time is up you get more. If you have no one to wrestle the other team (all wrestlers are in a certain weight bracket) then the other team gets three points for a bye. That's the basics anyway that I know.


Five of our wrestlers got either first or second in their weight class and that means they'll go on to districts next weekend to compete to go to State. 

Autumn and I at Sectionals :)

For us cheerleaders it was  a nicer day because the gym wasn't too hot (our uniforms get really hot and your bums and legs get sweaty if you cheer lots of matches in a row if it's hot). Unfortunately the refs were real weird and told us we couldn't cheer on the mats. No one had heard this "rule" before. Usually we hit the side of the mat that the wrestler is wrestling on and it's no where near as hard as the wooden floor, not only does this help our hands but it makes a much louder sound.. Not today. Today we hit the wooden floor and boy did that hurt. Trying to hit the floor as hard as I usually hit the mat sent shocks up my arm and made about 1/4th of the sound. It sucked big time. And now my hands are extra sore, usually they only hurt a little bit. Now they're gross and puffy and they have bruises and they get dry and coarse every five minutes so I'm going through lotion like crazy. Stupid refs. 

Bridgette, Mum and I

If Mum was here right now I think she'd offer to give my poor, puffy, bruised hands a massage. How do I know this? Because some days after working 10 - 12 hours she would give me a foot massage. I could really use a hand massage right now and so I find myself giving myself one while doing my history homework. 


The moral of this story? 


I didn't appreciate all the little things Mum did for me while I was home, but not having her around has really made me thankful to have such a great Mum. (Not that my host mom isn't great, but Mum really knows how to help my tired ligaments).


Also, don't hit the wooden floor hard. It hurts. 

New Month. New Post.

I suppose I should update my blog, since I said I'd update more often. Though I haven't really got anything super exciting to write about. I guess that everything just seems kinda normal, as if all of this has become normal. It's a weird feeling. I'm not bored with anything, everything's still great, but it's just kind of a weird feeling. 

Hannah and I baked cupcakes on one of our snow days. 

Last week I received my flight confirmation pack from EF which says I'm on wave two, which means I'll leave here between May 31st and June 2nd. It seems so close and my time here seems to have gone so fast. But then I remember that it's still four months away and back in New Zealand before I had left, four months was such a long time. 


I probably should have used sometime during my mid-week weekend to update, but I guess blogging has slipped my mind. And about my mid-week weekend, well it was great. Tuesday and Wednesday were both snow days because it was so cold and on Monday after noon and Tuesday we got a lot of snow! With the amount of wind we had (up to 35m/hour) it blew everywhere and created some cool looking snow drifts on the roads and on top of what would be sidewalk. 

The snow day earlier this semester was spent playing in the snow.

The roads weren't absolutely terrible, the school was more closed because of the country roads. The roads in town are generally scooped before 8am but a lot of the country roads when it's really bad don't get scooped before midday. We have to make up the days at the end of the term which I don't mind because I do quite enjoy my mid-week weekends. Hannah and I always spend a part of our snow days together, it's become somewhat of a ritual. The four we've had this semester have not been without a bit of Hannah time. The ones in January were both spent actually playing in the snow and this week we baked cupcakes and drew some pretty pictures.


School so far this semester is going well, I enjoy all of my subjects a lot and even though I have quite a bit of homework each night I've gotten really good at managing my time which is nice. 


The past week I've been sick, I have a cold, and it's gotten a lot better now but last Thursday and Friday it was quite bad. Apparently during the BCIG two day wrestling tournament the weekend earlier there was a lot of bugs going round and that's why my cheerleading coach got influenza a and b and strep, and in the past two weeks five of six cheerleaders have had a cold. It wasn't much fun and I've still got a runny nose, but I don't have a sore throat or temperature anymore which is nice. 

Hannah makes lovely cupcakes.

We have regional wrestling this Saturday in Okoboji, the following weekend we have sectionals and then the week after we have State Wrestling. By the sounds of things we will get a couple of wrestlers to State because we are a 1A school (the smallest category of school, larger schools wrestle 2A and 3A because they have more wrestlers or more funding or for some other reason are more superior than little 1A schools with under 170 people.) State wrestling goes from Tuesday the 15th to Saturday and so I will have a lot of school and homework to be catching up on! It's in Des Moines and all of the cheerleaders and wrestlers are staying down there for the week. That's about all I know right now about it, but it's the highlight of the season apparently. 


I guess that's about all right at the moment,
Enjoy your 75 (24 Celcius) Fahrenheit weather Auckland while I enjoy my 15 (-9 Celcius) Fahrenheit weather. 
Send me a little sun?
:)