Dear James, long time no see

Wow! I apologize for being away so long. I had no idea that my sabbatical from blogger would last all these months. However, unforeseen, spontaneous events have kept me trapped IRL (in real life). I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! And thank you to those of you who kept hounding me for updates, especially my homie James Beck. So here's my monthly summaries since my last post which feels like was a million years ago...
July: I had to work to come to terms with the fact that my ankle wasn't healthy enough to finish out the 2012 as I had hoped. Well hummm... "hope" is a funny word to use here... it wasn't so much as "hope" as it was my attempt to defy reality. That was the tough part. Although I'm an optimist, I'm also a realist. And the reality of my situation was that it takes two good (make that GREAT) legs to be a world-class triple jumper and throughout 2011 and 2012, I only had one almost great leg and one a little gangly leg, tagging along like an annoying little sibling who is really too small to do big-kid stuff. However, I was able to take comfort in the fact that despite my physical limitations, I was able to compensate mentally... I willed myself to not only a 2nd place finish at the US Indoor National Championships less than one year after my March 2011 injury, but I also managed to put out the longest triple jump mark out of any American female in 2012... unfortunately, though, that mark was a foot shy of the Olympic 'A' standard. But overall, not too shabby for a "gimp."
August: I had the pleasure of spending the beginning of August basking in the splendor of the Oregon Coast with my adopted parents Kirk and Suanne. It was amazing! We typically spent the mornings on the beach playing in tide pools and collecting agates, the afternoons hiking, then pre-dinner time it was back to the the beach to collect sand dollars. Dinner was always some scrumptious cuisine whipped up by Kirk (including the best Coq au Vin I've ever had), and the days concluded over the occasional dessert while yelling at prerecording television coverage to cheer on the US Olympic team even though the events had already occurred. One of the best vacations EVER! But relaxation time was short lived as I had to start devising a serious plan to tackle my MBA applications for business school.

September: 'S' is for SPONTANEOUS! September began with my friends Anargyha and JJ's state-side wedding reception on September 2nd in Portland, OR. It was beautiful! My friends and I had fun wearing Anargyha's traditional saris and bindis.
But the cultural rush didn't stop there... Adam and I had been feeling the need for some adventure in our lives. So the same night as the wedding, I booked two plane tickets to Guatemala for the next day! LOL. Literally, a couple days in advance we began contemplating how to soothe our need for an adventure. Destinations included Costa Rica, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, or staying in the Bay Area to camp for a week. Guatemala only came into the plans the day before we left when I googled "top 10 things to do in Central America". Lonelyplanet.com listed three sites in Guatemala and even ranked two sites there as #1 and #2. Whooo! Guatemala it was. Neither of us speak a lick of Spanish and knew nothing about Central America. So Sunday, Adam bought a Rough Guide book and some snacks for us. I managed to standby for an earlier flight Monday from Portland so that I would have just enough time to race home to pack a backpack and snag my passport before we raced off to the airport Monday night. The 6 days we spent in Guatemala were some of the best 6 days of my life. The food, the sights, the colors. It all worked and I absolutely feel in love with Antigua.

It felt like a home away from home... despite the fact that I couldn't talk to anyone except for Adam! lol and even when we tried to speak the little Spanish we knew, it almost never failed to come out in French (yeah we both have about the same remedial level French language skills, but the way it kept rolling off our tongues in Guatemala, you would've thought we were fluent. haha) After 6 days of spontaneous adventures, it was back to the States for more 9 hour/ day sessions on a hard wooden chair at Starbucks, trying to crank out MBA applications.

October: Mommy's getting married!!! Yup my mommy got married at the end of the month so most of October was spent back and forth between last minute wedding details and MBA stuff (along with frequent headaches). But it all turned out well... more than well... absolutely spectacular!!!My mommy was a beautiful bride! Her new hubby Eddie is a lucky man! I also got to spend a lot of time with my grammy. I flew from San Francisco to Charlotte, NC to pick her up and travel with her to Texas and back again. We had a great week together! After getting my grandma back to North Carolina, I had to get San Francisco for a day then the next day it was down to Los Angeles for my ankle surgery at center called D.I.S.C. in Marina del Rey that has a partnership with the US Olympic Committee. It was suppose to be a minor, routine scope plus a manipulation procedure, but for some reason I was really nervous. Apparently I had every right to be...

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