Off to Paris, Rome, & London…

Today I’m off to the airport to fly to Paris. I’ll be meeting up with Mom on Sunday. She had thought she was coming in on Saturday, but she got confused by the time change. Paris is not my favorite city, but it seems all Americans have this stupid need to visit it. This will be my third visit. A week later we are going to Rome, one of my favorite European cities!! I love that place. I couldn’t let Mom take a tour of Europe without a tour of Rome. Seriously, other than being in constant danger of pick-pockets, the place is amazing. From Rome, we’re flying into London, and then taking a small detour to Nottingham. Then we’re taking the train back to London, my other favorite city. Not only can I speak the language, but it has tea/coffee shops and bookshops on every corner. It’s equivalent to heaven for me.

So I shall blog again when I get back. Ta!

Unexpected Prizes...

These next two weeks I will be crazy busy. Right up until Easter Break, when I fly to Paris to meet Mom. Or at least try to find her in the airport. That will be a fun day.

At her urging, she has asked me to post pictures of my medals from a recent archery competition. It is an annual competition between all the universities and the largest archery competition in Britain. Usually it takes around 2 1/2 hours to shoot at these competitions, but for some reason this one lasted FOUR HOURS. The good news, was this gave me plenty of time to rest my arms between shots. Which was probably why I improved my personal best score from 491 to 512. I surprised even myself.

Now I wasn't very optimistic about winning anything, and honestly, I just wanted to improve my score. The shoe-in for first place in the Woman's Novice category was the girl from University of Edinburgh who shot a 564. Which is an insane score for someone who has been shooting for less than a year. There are experienced archers who have been doing this for years, and they can't even shoot that kind of score.

So realistically, I would count myself lucky and honored to even receive a bronze medal. But somehow, by some unknown divine power, every woman's novice apparently choked and I came away with a silver medal. Second Place. I was gobsmacked. When the called out the score for the bronze medal at 508, I sat there thinking, "Well, I did better than that. Why didn't I get the medal?" Not even realizing that if I did better that meant I got a higher medal. Sometimes my brilliance amazes even me.

Then, in the group competition, the judges take the three top scores from the male and female novice teams and give medals out for those top scores. Nottingham came second, so I got another silver medal.

So here is a picture of my medals thus far.


I almost feel bad for the other girls on my team, because truthfully, they are better than me. I just seem to do better under pressure. The highest scorer amongst the Nottingham woman's novices has scored around the 530's, so I know she could have easily beat my score to a pulp. So I continue to work to improve my own score, and try not to pay any attention to what the others have achieved.