Loooong Overdue...

Each day passes me by more quickly. I’m sure I sound like a broken record but the thought goes through my head each day that I’ve been here. I’ve done so many great things, and by the end of each week I always ask myself, “Where did the time go this week?” If there were a way to slow down time, believe me, I would. It has been nice staying around Auckland the past few weeks after travelling for so long. It gave us all a chance to plan the rest of our semester and catch up/begin our work for the remainder of the semester.
Last week was the “Air New Zealand Fashion Week” her e in Auckland and I found myself with a front row ticket to a runway fashion show. Now I’m sure most of you already starting laughing because the thought of me at a fashion show is quite comical. I never thought I’d be stressed over what to wear, but even I didn’t want to show up to a fashion show looking like an idiot, so the girls and I went shopping and I bought some “ cute wedges” to go with the outfit we salvaged from the clothes I brought with me. I did, however, walk there in my flip flops while carrying the ‘shoes of death’ in my bag :o) I wasn’t about to injure myself walking in heels…that phone call home would have been all too humiliating… All in all it was a fun day out with the girls—and now I can say 2 things.. 1. I really know nothing about fashion. And 2. I’ve done it once; I don’t need to do it again!

Last week Sunday was my beautiful roommate Sarah’s 21st birthday! Being the party animals that we are, we all made some food or dessert and sat around and talked all night. The night before we made our big trip to Foodtown to get all the food we needed –always a good time. Other than that the weekend was just filled with homework and relaxing- the weather wasn’t so great!
Tuesday evening Kate took all of us Arcadia students to see a play on campus called “The Pohutukawa Tree.” It was long and a little slow at times, but I still enjoyed it. It was good to see the other members of our group and as always, it was great to see Kate and get a “mom hug.” Plus a free night out beats out staying in and studying any day….
Mariel’s friend, Jillian (who we stayed with in Australia) is here visiting for a week! We’ve had a fun time hosting someone and have had some pretty legit dinners, too  Saturday we rented our sweet 8 passenger van, and after a few problems with the rental company, we were on the road to Coromandel Peninsula to go to Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach! It’s about 2.5 hours away and of course, we had to stop because I got sick.. (NO more road trips for me) It rained on and off the whole day, but we still saw some sunshine. First we had lunch and a café and then headed over to hike about 35 minutes down to Cathedral Cove. We hung out down there for about an hour and hiked back up and drove over to Hot Water Beach. We rented a few shovels and headed over to the area where you’re allowed to dig! There are natural hot springs under the sand on some areas of the beach so when the tide is out, you can dig a hold and presto!..you’re own natural spa! Unfortunately we were extremely early for low tide so we didn’t end up actually digging a real hole, but I went in the freezing cold ocean and we dug our feet in the sand to feel the hot springs.. Very cool. We left about 6:30 pm and stopped in a little town for takeaways and headed back to Auckland. We took advantage of having the van and stopped at Foodtown to buy groceries! It was a long day and a late night, but it was a fun time!
Saturday night was also daylight savings here, so we “sprung ahead” an hour. Of course we all had it written down in our calendars but that doesn’t mean we were going to remember about it…so Mariel and I were a few minutes late in returning the rental van Sunday morning—and if we would have been on time we probably wouldn’t have had to walk back in the rain… We got back, made some coffee and changed for church! The Watomo Children’s Choir from Uganda, Africa was there to lead the service! We definitely enjoyed their ministry!

I do have a bit of bad news to share with you all. You know that delicious cup of coffee I mentioned earlier? Well, I was unable to enjoy most of it because it had an unfortunate run in with my laptop…..needless to say, I’ve switched to chai tea lattes for the time being.. I’m took up all the liquid as best I could, got some advice on how to save it, so now we’ll see if the repair people can do anything for me. At this point I’d just like the pictures from my hard drive. I can live without a computer, but those pictures are special  Everything I’ve taken is backed up online—at least most of them! I’m staying positive about it tho—just means spending more time at the library and on campus using those computers! I’m finding it hard to freak out a ton over it because 1. It happened and I can’t make it un- happen and 2. I’m just so lucky to be here having this experience, I’m finding it hard to complain about the bad things. .. God has provided all my needs and then some, so I’m not worried! This same lap top survived the great candle wax incident of '07 so maybe I'll be just as fortunate this time :)

I continue to ask for your prayers as we finish up! Our coursework overall has proved to be a bit more of a challenge than we first anticipated and most of our classes have a final exam worth about 50% or more of our semester grades! Right now I feel great about all my classes besides stats. It’s just not clicking and I have to spend a ton of extra time on it.. So prayers for clarity and focus would be much appreciated!
Also, a prayer request from home.. My cousins Mike and Jenna Sluiter’s little guy, Jake is being hospitalized right now for a possible shunt infection. I haven’t heard any details or updates yet (some of you might know more than I do at this point) but if you could remember them and the doctors in your prayers, that would be great too!!

Well, I thin that’s about enough for now.. sorry (CORINNA) that it took me so long to update! Hopefully I can use a friend’s computer to put up some pictures and liven up this post and hopefully I’ll have another post after this coming weekend! Because I don’t have a computer accessible to me at all times anymore, communication might be down.. the best way to reach me might be via post or carrier pigeon.. Whichever you prefer  I’ll try to stay as connected as possible with everyone back home! Have a great week! Until next time….