February 28, 2010

First off, I just want to recognize how terrible it was to hear about the earthquake in Chile. An 8.8 magnitude. The largest ever recorded was a 9.5 magnitude. It kills me to hear about things like that. I have a friend who is studying in Chile (Hixon, to all you UVMers). I found out he was ok via facebook, thank God.

I received a phone call at 3:30 in the morning from my dad yesterday morning (or I guess it was this morning), and I knew something was wrong. Tsunami warnings were in place for New Zealand, especially the east coast where Khali is from, and Hawaii as of last night, but I was glad to hear that nothing too destructive or powerful ever amounted.

But on a lighter note, the weather here has been wonderful! Pretty much every day this entire past week has been sunny. Of course the burn time around here is something like 9 minutes considering how the ozone layer is more or less a gaping hole above New Zealand.

Yesterday we organized a game of ultimate frisbee on campus. It was really casual, but a lot of fun. However, there tended to be little prickers in the grass, and we were all barefoot (as I mentioned before, everyone goes around barefoot). Somehow I tended to be drawn to them, so it was pretty uncomfortable when you stepped on them, but then you get over it pretty quick.

After frisbee a bunch of us got together at the common area around our flats and had a BBQ. We had burgers, pasta salad, chips and dip, corn, fruit salad, and ice cream. We also had Heinz Ketchup! Now this may seem a strange thing to be overly excited about, but it turns out that the Kiwis use this ketchup-like stuff that is actually tomato paste. I'm not even too sure how to describe the taste. Maybe sweeter than what we are used too? Nonetheless, it definitely does not compare to good old Heinz Ketchup!

Following the BBQ we ventured down to the Square where they had some live music. It was an outside venue set up right in the middle of town. Everyone was dancing and just having fun. I always enjoy live music. We heard some more live music later at a local bar, Murphy's Law. They played awesome music. You know those songs that you can never resist singing along to? That is what they played all night long! I loved it.

Other than yesterday the rest of my week has been pretty low key, just hanging out, staying on top of my work and what not. But this weekend I am headed to Taupo! It is supposed to be beautiful, situated right on Lake Taupo with all kinds of outdoors, adventurous, and cultural activities. I am excited to see what we end up doing!

So anyway, not too much else has been going on. I do miss the snow at home. I have always had a weak spot for winter, so that is a little disappointing, hearing about all the snow, but I of course would never dream of trading places!

peace.

Politics, Food, and Volleyball

Today I had two more papers. My 11:00 paper was Political Anthropology. My professor is a fellow American. He is this crazy guy who gets very enthusiastic about what he is teaching, which I like. Having a professor who is enthusiastic about what they are teaching makes the class much more enjoyable. He went to Berkeley and did his fieldwork in Northern Ireland, studying the resistance armies and their efforts. It should be an interesting paper!

My next paper for the day was Food and Eating. Yes, that is right! I am taking a class all about food and consumption from an anthropological perspective. The lecture is two hours long, which is quite a long time to be sitting in a classroom talking about food right around the time of lunch. But my professor is this crazy Kiwi woman who talks non stop. She had us break into two groups and put together a sponge cake with cream and jam. I'm not too sure it was necessary to proving her point, but I sure didn't mind eating it! It will be interesting to see how the rest of the semester unfolds in this class. It may change the way I look at food forever.

The rest of my day was pretty dull. I did some reading, took a nap, drank some tea. But then Khali, Alyssa, Anke, and I headed over to The Centre, a lounge run by the Massey Chaplaincy team, for a free pancake dinner. I am certainly never one to turn down free food, let alone pancakes. So off we went, down the treacherous stairs to our pancake dinner. They were large pancakes, that actually looked more like a thick crepe, but they were delicious.

Afterwords, the four of us were sort of hyped up on sugar so we initiated game time. We played ninja and a very short round of tunnel tag (due to the inability to run for long after consuming pancakes). But finally we decided the best game to play was volleyball. So we headed over to the volleyball court on campus with whoever we could round up from the dinner. We played for hours. By the time we left the court it was after dark, but it was so much fun. We even had our RA Wiremu playing. It was really cool because people would walk by and be like "oh cool, can we play?" so we had a lot of people coming through the game. I think I might join the volleyball club.

Tomorrow I have no class because we have what are called tutorials, which are basically where you break the class down into smaller groups and have discussions on a more interactive level, but they do not start until next week. So I only have one tutorial on Wednesdays, which leaves me with a day off tomorrow.

Just some random thoughts:

• The ice cream here is phenomenal! I must say, I think it might beat Ben&Jerry's.
• The guys here wear their shorts awfully short.
• They also tend to sport the always lovely rat tail hairstyle (although it isn't quite as bad as you might think)
• The view from my window is quite unpleasing. I look directly at a large cylindrical water tower and a tall mushroom shaped water tower.
• Hipi means sheep in Maori.
• I have no dryer, so therefore am forced to hang my clothes (personals and all) on the clothes line in front of our flat for all to see and admire!

peace.

Kia Ora!

To family and friends: Kia Ora! (a Maori greeting commonly used here in New Zealand) I am brand new at blogging, but I thought this would be a cool way to stay in touch and keep everyone in the loop. So I will give it a try and attempt to stay on top of of things.

So here it goes! After months and months of applying, waiting, responding, preparing, and so forth, I have finally arrived at the lovely destination of Palmerston North, New Zealand (better known as Palmy by locals and students at Massey). I arrived in Auckland International Airport on Thursday, February 11 and spent the night. Upon waking up on a lovely little bench in the airport on the morning of Feb. 12 I made my way over to the domestic terminal where I boarded a tiny AirNewZealand plane. I was picked up by a friendly Kiwi by the name of Claire along with two other girls from the States. I arrived on campus by 10 am where I met my first flatmate (my flattie).

Sindell is from Arizona and is studying pre-vet. She is enrolled in Massey for the full five years. Later that night Blake and Rudy arrived to the flat, however they moved out already. Blake goes to UVM with me and so I enjoyed being able to talk about Vermont. I felt a little bit more at home. So anyway, she and Rudy, her boyfriend, transferred to the campus in Auckland. Anke is now living in the room Blake was in. She is from Germany and is studying geography. Alyssa and Khali are my other two flatties. Alyssa goes to Iowa State and is from Nebraska. She is also pre-vet, animal science. Khali is a Kiwi and Maori (the indigenous Polynesian tribe of NZ). She is studying psychology.

The five of us live in a nice little flat in a village called the Atawhai Flats (the "w" is pronounced like an "f"). It is made up of mostly International students, some families, and a mix of undergrad and postraduate students. We all have single rooms with their own sinks, large walk in closets, a desk, and a bed. They are rather roomy! We also have a fully equipped kitchen and a living room. I would say I am living rather comfortably!

This entire past week was a bit of a whirlwind. We had orientation every day. It got quite redundant and very tiresome by the end of the week. Definitely an information overload! We visited a milk farm and a sheep farm, since Massey started as a farm, where we saw cows being milked and a sheep get shorn. There were many lectures on what to expect and the services offered throughout campus, and lots of free food! By the end of the week I befriended people from all over. Singapore, Dubai, Iowa (a lot of people from Iowa State), Norway, Germany, the Pacific Islands, just to name a few.

On Friday Feb. 19th we had Market Day on the concourse, where representatives from different places on campus and throughout town came and gave away a lot of free stuff. Also, it was the opening of the first on-campus bar (interesting, i know!). One tent was from the Empty Vessel, a bar downtown, and they had people do crazy things to win prizes. Bernsten, from Dubai, had to have vinegar, wasabi, lemon juice, and Tabasco sauce put on his tongue for thirty seconds. Another girl had clothes pins placed all over her face. Kayla, one girl from Iowa State I have become particularly close with, got pied in the face five times and won a free round of drinks for her and whoever she brought out with her. So that is what we did that night. No worries though, the drinking age here is 18.

Yesterday there was an outing for international students. We arrived a kiwi's house where we gathered before going tramping (hiking) along a short path in the Manawatu Gorge. I got to see a silver fern, the national emblem of NZ, and a koru plant. The koru plant, shown at the top, is part of a fern that starts out tightly rolled up, like a scroll, and slowly unwinds into a fern. It represents the unfolding of new life or renewal to the Maori. From here we made our way to the wind farm. This was a spectacular site. It was amazing how little sound they made. The windmills were enormous and numerous. They were complimented very nicely by the rolling green hills and blue sky!

I am situated centrally on the southern part of the North Island. Palmy itself revolves around the town square, which is made up of a large green park complete with ponds of ducks, bridges, monuments, and beautiful gardens. It is a small city on US standards, but large for NZ. There is lots of shopping, and buses are free with your Massey ID.

Massey's campus is full of gardens, ponds, and lots of lush green trees. My walk to class every day consists of 167 stairs down a hill surrounded by full green flora and fauna and many loud insects, and a bridge across a small stream. Everything smells fantastic! I have grown to really admire the campus.

So today was my first day of classes. I didn't have my first paper (class) until 3:00 so I was able to get lots of rest as well as fit in a run. Although, I do not suggest running up those steps! So I had Victoria's World at 3:00. It was a small class of only about 23 students, but I think it should be interesting. It is basically a survey of the Victorian era, focused on Britain. We were let out early, but I will be back to that class come Thursday. But I think I have just about exhausted myself of every topic right now. I apologize for the novel I just wrote, but I needed to get everyone up to speed. I miss you all more than you could know!

So for now I will just leave you with a few NZ phrases:

Cheers: Thanks
Sweet as (not what you think it is when you first hear it spoken): great, or a general term of enthusiasm
Rubbish: garbage
Lollies: sweets
Uni: university
Wop-wops: an remote area; boondocks

p.s. No one wears shoes here! I love it!


peace.