Surviving the Night

...and somehow October has already passed, and with it a full, but incredibly fun, Autumn season. World Champs, Night Hawk, NM Ultra, Antwerp Sprint Meet, NM week, World Cup Final (the orienteering one. Not the Rugby one. Which NZ won. Just by the way. #subtlesidenote), 25-manna, Blodslitet and Smålandskavlen. But I'm not writing about any of them. Not this time anyway.

But I will just slip this little pic in here ;-)
Photo: 25-manna

 Because the end of the Autumn season has also meant the advent of winter training, and that means night-training, which, in my case, makes far more entertaining reading.

That Last Minute WOC Post

For those that have been paying attention to Orienteering media, you'll be well aware that the 2015 edition of the World Orienteering Champs kicks off tonight in Scotland. For those that have not, well, now you know!

Fortunately, I've been aware of this fact for a while now, as have the rest of the kiwi team, and we're all pumped and primed for the start line! Some flight issues and typical Scottish summer(?) aside, preparations have been good and we're itching for the races to start!

The E word

Experience.
What a word.

When I arrived in Europe almost three months ago, my main motivation was to gain experience, orienteering and otherwise. I had no illusion that moving across the world would be easy, and I still know it will take a while to fully grow into the experience. But what has taken me aback is just how quickly the individual experiences are stacking up! The past 2.5 months have been crammed full of good, a few not so good, the occasional unusual, and many (intentionally or not) funny experiences. It's definitely been a lot to take on board!

Northward Migration

I'm never the most up-to-date at the best of times, but it seems that my post-thesis writer's block hasn't broken yet, and I'm getting further behind on blog posts. A fair bit has gone on since my last blog post; a month back home in NZ, catching up with sleep, family, friends, mountains (a sub-class of friends really), and running NZ champs. But that's not what I'm going to write about right now*. Because:

Surprise! I've made it to the Northern Hemisphere!

To Canberra, with love

A friend once told me, on our parting, "this is not an end, just a new beginning". Which I thought was a pretty damn wise thing to say. And kind of wish it was me that thought to say it (Even if it's not exactly original).

Just over two three four weeks ago I finished dotting the final i's, crossing the final t's, and inserting the final commas into my PhD thesis. After an evening spent battling with the RSES printers, and the following morning spent alternating between wrestling with the binding machine and/or loudly singing and dancing to today's popular music*, I finally submitted. 2pm Friday 27th March 2015, almost exactly 4 years and one month after arriving at the ANU.

Novelty pen, the only way to sign off your Phd really.

Behind the times: Tassie World Cup

Yep, I've finally got around to a very belated report! Usually I'd be able to blame this on the slowness of the internet down here...but seen as everyone else has already posted their reports from Tassie, that excuse may not fly this time. So I'll have to take the flak on this one. Sorry. It's now been over a month since Tassie and the 1st round of the World Cup. And let's be honest, I've had time to write this post. But I haven't.

On arrival home from an amazing two weeks in Tassie, it was straight back into student mode: and as any grad student will attest - as submission gets closer and closer (or atleast, as you think/hope/pray that it may be getting closer), any time spent doing something that's not writing or working is accompanied with tremendous guilt. But on the flip side, anytime you succeed in remembering or doing any every day task you're incredibly impressed with yourself. You almost expect a huge fanfare and congratulations...Like last Sunday, when I managed to go to the super market, AND reply to an email. (sidenote: sorry anyone whose emails to me have got lost in a black hole of thesis)

The current string of PhD comics reflect my life scarily accurately.