GAHHHHH I hate trees so much.

I am having a bad allergy day. My eyes feel so scratchy and bad. :( My whole face is itchy, including my eyeballs and inside my mouth. Whyyyy.

Allergies are just the dumbest things ever.

TADA! Here is the long awaited DOUBLE daily dinners post: Los Angeles and Fiji edition. Thanks for waiting! I hope you enjoy this post, there’s lots of new stuff and I chatted a bit.

Favourite Recipe #6: kokoda, duhhhh. I will try and make it this week I think.

Favourite Recipe #7: rorou. I doubt I would be able to make this at home though! Rose should try it at her apartment. :)

march 8th, 2013 – breakfast buffet (at Ayres Hotel in El Segundo, California)

This is actually a lie. We had popcorn for dinner at the basketball game but I didn’t want to show you a picture of that (again) so I took a picture of my breakfast at the hotel the next morning.

march 9th, 2013 – tree hugger sandwich for me and seafood skewers and broccoli for scott (at Sloopy’s Beach Cafe in Manhattan Beach, California)

march 10th, 2013 – in-n-out animal style burgers and fries and pink lemonade (near LAX, California)

(LOTS) more pictures after the jump…

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Oh my goodness catching up on blogging is taking AGES. Good thing I don’t have much school work to do this weekend! I’m almost done though, I’ve finished my Fiji recaps and my next (DOUBLE) daily dinners post is almost finished and ready to post on Monday morning. Hooray!

Today I thought I’d just tie up a few loose ends and get completely caught up.

My overall impressions of Fiji are AWESOME. I LOVED my trip and I’m so grateful that I got to see and do so much. I feel like I got quite a decent picture of Fiji since I got to see it from so many different viewpoints: as a tourist, as an international student, as a local etc etc. It was great having Rosemarie to show me around and introduce me to her friends from Fiji and all over the place.

Fiji is a little more expensive than South East Asia but it’s also so much less stressful because (almost) no one tries to scam you! It seems that Fijians are very honest people. I found the prices to be generally fair and there were no tricks. I’m sure there are exceptions to this but really I didn’t have any problems. It is also handy that there is no language barrier.

One thing about travelling in Fiji though is that you have to be pretty willing to eat whatever is made for you. At a lot of the resorts you don’t get any choices and your dinner will just be brought out for you already served up on a plate. This is pretty much my favourite way to dine, so I was happy, haha. But if you’re a bit picky you might go a little hungry and I would pack some extra snacks.

I would totally return to Fiji. It’s really not too far from Australia so I’m quite confident we will return some day.

It was also soooooooooooo nice to spend so much sister-time with Rosemarie. She was fairly busy with school while I was there but we still managed to squeeze in a lot of visits. YAY! And then the family reunion at the end of the trip??! Even better! (It would have been perfect if Scott could have come too. :()

Oh kokoda, how I love you. I ate this FOUR times in Fiji. The first was homemade by Rosemarie. Then we ate it together for lunch at Beachouse. Then it was available for lunch at Octopus Resort, where my gushing convinced EVERYONE at the table to try it as well. And then finally they had it at my last meal (lunch) in Fiji on Robinson Crusoe Island. I WAS SO HAPPY.

I read 8.5 books on my Kindle on my trip. KINDLES ARE AWESOME. I read Hopeless, Safe Haven, The Silver Linings Playbook, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Power of Habit, Warm Bodies: A Novel, White Teeth, The New Rules of Lifting for Women, and half of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (no insignificant feat!).

I went to Trader Joe’s in Los Angeles again on the way home and they were sold out of cookie butter AGAIN! I seriously almost cried. I am cookie butter cursed, I swear.

Since I’ve been home I’ve just been at school mostly. I’m back at the gym too following a new weight lifting plan that I’m very excited about. And we had a games night the other night with Lesley. I don’t have very much school work so this weekend has been nice and relaxing. I am so so so close to finished school!!! (5 more weeks of classes/clinical, then 3 months of clinical over the summer…. at SURREY!! my first choice!!!). Then DONE!!! I CAN’T WAIT!!!

I am REALLYBUSY right now but I thought I’d just drop in and let you know that I’m still alive post-skeleton and everything.

I was going to post a really gross picture of my friends helmet after he hit his face on the ice but I just changed my mind. I will spare you. Let’s just say it looked exactly how you would think if you got a nosebleed at very high velocity.

He is fine, by the way, he still did a run afterwards. That’s just what might happen if you choose a helmet that is too small so your nose is pressed up against the visor. My nose has plenty of clearance so it won’t happen to me.

I finished 1 of 4 midterms, I’m keeping up on labs, case study is done, essay draft is done, assignments are done. I’m doing well at keeping on schedule so far. Probably going up to Whistler this weekend is not the smartest choice, but it’s the last skeleton session of the season and I can’t miss that!!

I’m hoping that the ice will actually be a little slow, so that I can try out out some new things and try to arrive early in each corner as opposed to late. Early means less slingshot type forces on my body so hopefully that makes everything a little smoother. Our coach only told me this AFTER our last run of the last session, so I’ve been sitting on it for a month.

I am also really excited to see if my weight training has helped at all. I’ve been doing a lot of training of my traps, which should help in holding my head up in the really high pressure last corner. And hopefully I will have an easier time carrying my sled around as well. We shall see.

All for now, gotta get back to studying.