Nearly there, just a red-eye and a subway or bus to go.Being back in travel mode is making me realise how much I love it, mostly for the apparently random encounters with strangers which occur so often. I have so much to tell already but I left my laptop at home - poor baby! And the net is mega expensive here.In brief, here's four key "randoms" who entered my life today:Eve, the poor Korean girl who's had a very stressful day: we met at the bus ...

Why the picture of New York? you ask. Cos that's where I'm headed on Friday!!That's right; decided it had been a little too long since my last extensive adventure, got a call this evening from a fellow Kiwi-come-UCSD-student on the phone who's headed that way tomorrow, looked up flights, came across a sweet deal and booked!New York, here I come!

Today I had not one, but two midterms. Right after the other too. And I don't mean with the usual hour's break in between either. I mean one was due to start about ten minutes after the other was due to finish. Phew! Hope that makes all you Kiwis back home happy to be enjoying your summer holidays with a good few weeks left until you even have to begin thinking of study!  Though if I'm honest with myself I know you're probably all working you...

Today a bunch of us internationals and American UCSD students ventured out to San Pasqual Native American Reserve to learn a bit more about Native Americans and to help out with a community service project. I was disappointed to learn very little about their culture - their crafts, or songs, or languages - but learnt a ton about their history, namely the injustices done them by the early colonisers. It was interesting from an NZ perspective looking at the paralle...

Yesterday at International Christian Fellowship, we got asked to share an 'unexpected blessing' we'd experienced recently. I chose my flatmate, sitting right next to me at the time, as she's been exceedingly helpful and friendly to this l'il new Kiwi girl in the big, wide world that is the United States! But I could have listed a dozen more blessings, mostly in the form of people, but also in the form of experiences, like watching the sun set ...