Brookfield Bog Challenge

Obentos and Mud Races

Kia Ora! This past week has bee pretty laid back. I have spent a lot of time in the library because I have two exams this week, one tomorrow and one the following day, plus I have a research paper due. So I have been pretty busy in that sense. A few people I know went away for the week since we had no classes, so it was quieter here which was nice for studying. My two friends Lauren, who is from Queens, and Tatiana, from Nebraska, spent a lot of their time at our flat studying with me, so that was nice. They were mine and Khali's adopted flatmates. We got in the habit of cooking big 'family' meals every night. I really enjoyed having them stay with us. After studying all day it was nice to just kick back and listen to music (Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros = my new obsession) while sitting around the table talking.

Wednesday morning I went downtown to this cafe on George St., Cuba Cafe. I sat there and read some for my exams It was nice to be able to get off campus but still be productive. Everyone came back Saturday night.

Sunday Alyssa, Anke, Mike, and I drove down, almost to Wellington, where we ran a cross country race. We all ran a 3k, except for Alyssa who ran a 12k the crazy girl. It was one of the coolest things I have done though. It was a true cross country race where we had to run through streams and up this massive hill through the bush (woods). The weather was rainy, which was perfect so everything was super muddy and the pond we had to go through was extra high which meant me and Anke were swimming. Keep in mind it is going on winter here so it wasn't exactly war either. They also had tires you had to run through, and other obstacles. We had mud everywhere by the time we were finished. The worst part was the hill because it never ended and I felt like I was hiking up a mountain and then when it finally turned into down hill it was through all these pine trees and the ground was coated with them so it was super steep and slippery. I took a few falls. It was hard not to. But I would do it again in a heart beat! I attached a short video of what the course looks like, but I must say that wherever you see them in water, it was much higher when we ran it. It was almost always at my knees or higher at all points.

So I am studying for my Food and Eating exam at the moment and I was just reading through some of the articles we read through the semester, since I need to incorporate them into my exam essays. The one I am looking through now is all about these elaborate lunchboxes, obentos, that Japanese mothers create for their children in school. It is all about how the mothers and the children's role in society are reproduced through these obentos, but I'm not going to go into that. What I found so cool was how intricate these obentos are when I googled them. Google image 'obenots' and you will be impressed too!

I suppose I should stop procrastinating and get back to work. I will definitely be happy come the weekend because I will only have one exam remaining and the All Blacks vs Ireland game is on Saturday and a huge group of us are going! Less than a month now and I will be home. It has been raining like crazy here. Its insane! Some sun when I get home should be nice.

Just a few thoughts:

• Today is the Queen's birthday
• Gisborne, where Khali is from, is the first city in the world to see the sun daily (learned that on a Tui bottle cap)
• "Ko ___ toku ingoa" means "My name is ___" in Maori
• cuz, mean, cheers, and choice are some popular NZ phrases I have been hearing lately
• I met Kahli's mom and she has the moko tattoo on her chin, which is a traditional Maori tattoo. I really like her.
• The Cardigans, Cat Power, Great Lake Swimmers, Metric, Band of Horses, Imogen Heap, Florence and the Machine, and as I mentioned above Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros are some of my new favorite bands that I have been listening to. Look them up!