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It's finally hot! And in Canberra - that's a very rare thing. We leave tomorrow morning for World Champs trials in Brisbane, and so I will hopefully have some good results for my next diary entry!

The trials are held at Chandler Aquatic Centre which is my club. Even though I train at the AIS, Chandler is still my club team and my family live just around the corner - I am really looking forward to catching up with them!

Training has been going really good. I have definitely done the hard work and taper has been a great relief. I hope to swim well and qualify for the World Champs which is being held in Melbourne in March next year. I hope that my fellow Fuji Xerox athletes, Libby and Jessicah also qualify.

I finally got my results for the semester (three weeks after finishing uni)! It seems to be that even though lecturers demand the completion of assessments by a certain date, they can take all the time in the world to actually mark it! Anyway, I walked away with a credit in both of my subjects, Data Analysis in Science, and Systemic Anatomy and Physiology.

One year of Uni completed! Yay! Being a part time student means only 5 years to go. Oh help me...

As part of our preparation for World Champs trials, we attended a high altitude camp in Thredbo. Most of the time, it is cool, but not freezing cold and you can get away with a jumper and a scarf. And, being mid-November, you wouldn't expect anything too different to this. Well this was the case for the first 2 days, but overnight on Tuesday, some serious weather changes must have occurred, as we woke to a beautiful day of constant snow fall.

Being in taper already at the time, we were lucky enough to have that whole day off training, so our afternoon consisted of the biggest snow ball fight I've ever witnessed, plus plenty of typical crazy behaviour from people who rarely or never have seen snow. I'm positive we embarrassed ourselves in front of the locals. Ironically, it was the first time it has snowed in Thredbo Village this year. We got about 20cm of snow, but by the next day, it was sadly all melted and back to grass.

Our usual race on the bobsled showed my coach to be the biggest kid of all of us, but he was also the fastest, so we now have to live with the knowledge that he can actually beat us...

After trials it is time for Christmas! I am spending it with my family at home and at the beach, in Northern NSW at a place called Fingel. I love it there and can't wait to just relax and enjoy being around my family who I miss so much everyday I'm in Canberra. So until then it’s bye for now.

Thanks for your ongoing support and I wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas!

Alice