So, I leave tomorrow at about 5:00 AM on my "adventure."  :D

New life-style, new country...new blog.  Just because...I've decided to devote a new blog specifically to my time in Austria.

www.xanga.com/Europop87  :)

Take care, all!!

Seriously, I've never been so immersed in such a chaotic experience in my life!  I'm struggling to complete my finals two/three weeks before the rest of my college, as well as keep up with the intense workouts my coach is putting us through (since Nationals are in a week and a half), as well as saying good-bye to all of my friends: at school, at church, or the ones I've known for as long as I can remember, going to various going-away parties....the list goes on.

Needless to say, I haven't got much time to update.  :P

Love!!

So, I "survived" surgery on Friday.  :)  FYI - if you've never been put under before - it's a thoroughly bizarre experience.  One moment you're having a coherent conversation with someone, the next second you feel like you're waking up from a long night's sleep (minus the whole rested feeling, though).  Apparently, I sound like a ditz when I'm coming out of general anesthesia.  Note: I said sound like one, not talk like one.  My mom, who brought me to and from Dr. Freedman's, said I actually had intelligent conversation, so...  :D  So, now we all know what I'd be like drunk (minus the getting sick/hang-over the next morning thing).  LOL!

Making my way from the car back into the house was quite interesting, as far as I remember.  My feet had seriously different plans about where they were going than what my head had planned, but somehow my mom managed to get me successfully from the car to the house, although not before I completely weirded out the gardener dilligently mowing my neighbor's lawn.  *Yes!!  LOL!*

I'd planned to go to Ojai Video Thursday night to pick up some new releases to watch when I got home but, when I finally made it to the store, they'd just closed.  Bummer.  Ben was really sweet, though, and took some time to rent a few flicks for me to watch - "watch" being a loosely-used term here.  I don't really remember much of what I watched until about 7:00 that night when I started watching "Proof of Life."  Good thing, too, because that's an awesome film.  Russell Crowe is a really amazing actor, and it has an interesting story-line (and *spoiler*I particularly liked the fact that the guy doesn't get the girl), so I had fun watching that.  I followed it up with "She's the Man" - slighty less intellectual, perhaps (:P) but had some pretty good lines in it.

Basically, other than some slight swelling (the chipmunk look just doesn't do it for me, unfortunately), and a really unpleasant (albeit temporary) Vicodin "dependency" due to the fact that one of my teeth was basically on the nerve line when they pulled it, I'm doing just awesome.

Now, I've got to make it through this week.  Just a brief run-down:

Back to regular classes, although spring break was way too short, and way too "at the office" to count, but....
Swim training four days this week, and two proposed swim meets on Tuesday and Thursday.
Post-Op on Friday at 1:00 at Dr. Freedman's
and then of course....the real big stuff:

My sister, Agne, is getting married on Saturday, so that basically means that this week is going to be absolute chaos.  Thursday evening is her bachelorette party, while my Friday will be spent at school, swimming, getting a manicure (:D), going to a post-op, and frantically decorating the church hall, followed up by the wedding rehearsal at the chuch and rehearsal dinner at Aloha Steak House, and Saturday.....well, let's just not even go there yet, shall we?  Wish me luck!

-Love!!