Progress!

Wow, so I've been seriously slacking with the blog posts. Sorry about that for all who have been checking for updates. But now I have lots to tell about! And I just posted a bunch of new photos to my Picasa page, so you can check that out as well.

Where to begin...this may come in a few installments.

I suppose I could pick up where I left off. So I've talked a bit about my frustration over not having completed many climbs. Finally a few weeks ago my perseverance began to pay off. At Castle Hill, I sent one of my projects, Element, after what felt like hours of trying. And the next weekend, I sent another project, Dominatrix, and made really good progress on a problem called Tricky, which I will hopefully get next week. I think what has mostly gotten in my way of finishing climbs has been my lack of commitment to particular moves that I don't think I can do. I've been working really hard at getting over this and I think it's finally beginning to get better. Here's a photo of me on Element.



A few weeks ago, I went to Castle Hill for the weekend with about 50 people from the UC Climbing Club. Every year they run a big trip there and stay at a nearby research station that the university owns. So for 2 days we ran around on Castle and Flock Hills. On Saturday night we got to the Cass station and ate delicious curry and bread pudding. That night we did a bit of table traversing and played in the squeeze box.

Paddy traversing the table.

Jan was convinced to get stuck in the squeeze box again so I decided to squeeze in there with him.


And though some may be surprised to hear this, I have been doing a few things other than climbing! I've been going to pretty much all of my classes, though admittedly not doing much work for them. For most classes here, there is just a test or two and an assignment over the course of the semester. I'm probably going to regret not doing work when it comes time for finals, but it's really hard to focus when graduation is so close.

There is a community garden at school that I've worked at a bit. They grow some cool things there that I haven't seen in a garden before, like quinoa and quince. For the most part, only plants with a practical purpose are planted, as opposed to ones that are just planted to look nice. No synthetic chemicals are used on any of the plants. They also try to use as many re-used and recycled materials as they can to build beds and for things around the garden. And after a couple hours of work, you can bring home a bunch of fruits and veggies and sometimes even jam!

I think that will be all for this installment. More soon...