Sorry, this is long overdue i know. I have been back at school for almost 2 weeks now. Its all going quite well although i'm knackered, the 4:30 mornings are getting hard, i am still rowing with leichardt in the mornings but some of there training is pretty hard, they were doing powerstrokes in singles today so i gave that one a miss and decidied to go out in a tinny and watch the first 8, there looking pretty good, no check at all. The leichardt girl i get on best with is pretty good, she's the one who rows for oz, she's pretty speedy and overtook me in a single the otherday with no effort at all. one of the coaches is just like beany, she sounds like her, she looks like her, she loves the colour orange and wears it the whole time and even got married in orange the other day, shes really fun. The girls are getting better i think, they are soooo noisy on the bus its unbelievable, so we introduced a three strike system because i thought i was going to flip, so now they ALL get a detention if there too loud, so far i have given all the intermediates detentions, 21 in total! But it does seem to have some effect, it works better on the juniors though. I booked nz today, so were off on the 5th of dec and travelling on the kiwiexperience bus, which should be great fun. I have todo BMAT next thursday which is really scary, but everyone is being really nice and giving me time off to revise. I found a book from Elle White, i went into one of the spare rooms to steal a cupboard because i don't have enough and i found the lonely planet for sydney in there and in the cover it says to Ellie Wilson, hope you find this, have fun, we loved it. And get ready for some serious drinking! Love Elle so that was a nice surprise. I did calisthenics with the girls the other day, it was pretty hard work with hill sprints and the like, they also do step ups for 8mins in time, which i sort of regreted joining in with as the steps are rediculously high, about knee high, no joke! For all the rowers out there, they also have clip on riggers! Quite natty, they are so quick to put on, and seem quite stable, no flex, there wing riggers of course though. It means that they can put two boats on per rack as they all sit next to each other and then they have these rigger racks where they hang them on. Better go and revise. Ellie