I'm neither culture I'm stuck between, I'm forging my own path.

(This post comes to you via Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition software) :)

Tonight, I discovered a determination I didn't know I had. Tonight, I discovered that stamina I didn't know I had.

Tonight, I swam and I swam and I swam. And most of the time, I didn’t use my legs, but just forced each arm over the other arm to drag me to the end of the pool. Every time, I felt that long long stretch in each arm.

Each length I swam, I revisited 10-year-old Sonya. When I was 10 years old, I was part of a swimming club, and my family also had a key to the pool. I remember nights, when it was dark, just me and my goggles swimming around and deep into this giant pool, not swimming front crawl/freestyle, but just kind of living in the pool like it was my home, underwater.

Sometimes I wonder how life would have been different, if I had done dancing and swimming from a young age. I think I was made to dance. Maybe my body is not a dancers body, but I have always danced, my whole life. For about three years, the dance team at my old church continually nagged me to join. I can't remember why I declined, but it was something to do with fear. Sometimes, even now, at 19, I will meet older people in the street, and they will say, "I remember when you used to dance at the front at church, when you were a little girl.”

With swimming, I wasn't overly good, but I felt free and good in the water. I could swim lengths fine, just not do any of the other stuff. I still can't dive, or tumble-turn, and I used to embarrass myself every single day at primary school, because I couldn't dive. In year 10 health, at age 15, some boys in my class mentioned the time they "rescued me" in the swimming pool at primary school. I had started to swim a width of backstroke, but ended up going crooked and found myself in the middle of the deep end, with about 60 kids yelling at me, but I couldn't hear them until I realised and panicked. I was definitely not the coolest kid in primary school.

But tonight, every stroke, it was like I finally found it in me to just keep going, even though I ached, even though I had no one to motivate me but myself, even though I have always struggled with exercise, because I've never been good at pushing through the pain.

This morning I remembered the giant life motto I painted on my desk, which in the last two months, I have definitely forgotten. It reads,

“So many people believe in you; believe in yourself. Trust in your God, who has proved himself faithful. Pursue wisdom and discipline."

I will beat RSI, through

1. Faith in God, prayer, positive thinking and attitude and will and determination.

2.Exercise, and stretches, and swimming, walking, and frequent exercise.

3.  Discipline and life, rest, sleeping, good eating, lots of water (lubricates tendons?).

4. Adaptations to my living: using food processors and bigger knives instead of small vegetable knives, wearing wrist guards/bandage supports, ASKING for help, using note takers for lectures, using the reader writers for exams, using my book seat for reading (seriously, could not do life without this, thank you Taylor's mum!), Cooking dinners that do not require a lot of stirring - I will have to start using the oven more! Being honest with my new flatmates, when it comes to cleaning, I really can't do those fiddly jobs, or vacuuming either, USING DRAGON

5.being smarter in my living-this means ergonomics! Slowly learning to touch type, when my wrists and arms allow it; finding a joystick mouse, or similar; finding an office chair that is good for long periods of sitting (trusting God on this one, for finances); not doing long periods of sitting!; Always watching my posture.

Wisdom and discipline, eh..., trusting God, eh.., believing in myself, eh..