"Never waste good agony". Taking advice from a Yiddish proverb that appropriately popped up on my feed and feeling a little bit sorry for myself, looking through photos of my happy place.
Sorry for the silence on here of late. My life isn't filled with spectacular weekend hikes in the Alps or weekend trips to different countries any more and I feel like I haven't really done anything lately worth sharing, ya know? It's been very busy with Honours slowly but surely living up to it's reputation and over the past two weeks I've poured my heart and all my attention into a particularly big assignment. Now I feel a sense of loss having handed it in but I'm sure that that wasn't the end of that journey for me. I've been looking into the topic of displacement in the context of offshore detainment of asylum seekers and wow, I chose a pretty complex topic! Even after a substantial amount of research and writing I think I still haven't gotten my head quite around it. Possible major work topic for next semester? Hmmm…
I've started teaching once a week and I love it. I'm considering doing a Masters or even a PHD and entertaining the idea of becoming an academic/ tutor/ part time freelancer, what a nice lifestyle that would be... What I know for sure is that I need to get out of the life-sucking suburbs asap and I need to go on several gap years and get back to the mountains. I feel quite (understatement, more like overwhelmingly) frustrated at the moment because something must have happened to my heel/ achilles when I got back to Sydney and started running again. I ran through the pain for the first 1.5 months till one day I literally couldn't walk any more so took a week, then two weeks off. It kept hurting, even when walking, so this past week I finally got to the physio but despite treatments and not doing any exercise at all (not even cycling to commute or swimming), it feels like it's getting worse. I can't actually put into words how devastating the thought of never being able to run again is to me, so I'm just hoping and praying that that isn't the case. Seeing people out jogging makes me want to cry and I'm feeling very, very restless and have been heavily eating my feelings.
On a lighter note, I'm going to Tasmania next week to go on a week-long cycling trip! I'm flying to Launceston and starting from there, so if you have any tips for that area, gimmie! I think that this break will be very good.
Also trying to plan my fast-approaching US/ Canada trip (eek, 2 months!) which at the moment is looking like: NYC - New England area - Montreal - Toronto/ Niagara Falls - Chicago - Vancouver/ British Columbia - Seattle - San Francisco - LA. Again, tips for any of those places would be amazing. I'll be trying to couchsurf as much as possible while I'm over there, so if you have friends/ friends of friends who wouldn't mind having two friendly girls crash at their place, email me! madeleine.mtn[at]gmail.com
PS. Sorry for the rambling-ness of this post, I think this one is the most over-the-place one yet, kind of resembling my current mindset.
Ahh I absolutely love your blog! I watched your blog last year whilst I was at uni in Dunedin- NZ as I was preparing for my trip which is similar to yours! I am now on uni exchange in Germany and love rereading your blog as I feel like I am doing all the same things/having the same feelings. Europe and travelling is just so great. Also sidenote so sorry to hear about your achilles heel I had a similar thing happen to me last year 3 weeks out from running a full marathon I tore cartilage in my hip :( The pain at not being able to run is so shit but it gets easier and is nice to make you try new ways to exercise! Anyway sorry for the ramble but thanks so much your photos and the scenes captured and described are sooo great!! X Emma an avid follower
ReplyDeleteslash might hit you up for more tips if that's ok!?
ReplyDeleteOh Madeleine! I'm so sorry about your injury - I didn't know.. How is it looking? I saw your tweet yesterday and wasn't sure what the situation was and I'm just so sorry. I saw Sophie suggest swimming, are you able to do that? Oh man oh man. Honours does take a little while to get your head around, and it is the hardest year of study everyone says - because with masters and phd you get more self-directed learning and more ability to dictate time and motion. But with honours it is go go go from start to finish. You can do it though! You will find reserves inside you you didn't even know were there... I am going to send you a message with tassie tips! Where are you going? x
ReplyDeleteCome to Colorado! Masses of mountains and free accommodation with me. :) Everybody needs to see the sun set behind the Rockies before they die.
ReplyDelete