Lisa's Sing-Along Blog!

The original rock and roll

2009-09-10T06:21:00.004-08:00

So, the number of times I have signed in to blogger, opened a new post, and then typed nothing since my last post is... four. I have been really busy, but nothing seems interesting enough to put on a blog. But it's your fault for reading this, so SUFFER!

1) Threadless t-shirts were nine dollars yesterday for 09/09/09. The title of this post comes from this shirt: http://typetees.threadless.com/product/1840/Geology_n_Physics_The_original_rock_n_roll

2) I was interrupted between items (1) and (2), as you can see by the fact that yesterday was not 09/09/09, and have no idea what item (2) was supposed to be.

3) I joined water polo, which is heaps of fun! Actually, funny story, I am all kinds of sore today, but that is related to

4) I'm on an intramural soccer team. I know, right!? Plot twist! Lisa + Team Sports = Big Disaster. But Talor (structure graduate student) really wanted to play soccer and needed more people (specifically girls). We had a practice yesterday because Julia and I had never played before (except for the occasional fencing scrimmage). So, water polo on Thursday made my arms and legs sore. Strangely, though I've never been sore from fencing (stiff, yes, sore, no), starting sore made me end even MORE sore. So now my legs are like, hurrrrrgh. Then I went to soccer which made everything else that wasn't sore sore. But it's the good kind of sore, so that's okay. I scored a goal yesterday! Actually, it was pretty funny. We started with a scrimmage. Julia and I were pretty bad. We practiced passing and some other stuff. Then we scrimmaged again. We were four against three, Julia and I on a team with probably the best player, though it's hard to tell at this point. It seemed silly to not only put Julia and me on the same team but to also put us on the three person team. But they must have known what they were doing because Julia scored a goal straightaway, and then five minutes later, I scored a goal. I maybe scored another goal at the end, but the goal consisted of a water bottle and a shoe, so it was questionable whether or not the goal was too high. We have our first game on Thursday. I will be jelly for that game, since I am going directly from water polo.

5) The All Blacks lost the Tri-Nations. I don't want to talk about it. I just want to cry about it.

Mystery Party - to the moon and back

2009-08-22T00:56:00.004-08:00

So, after the mystery party, I always go through this stage that is like, "No more mystery party... murrrrr." Even though it is crazy hectic and sometimes a little bit stressful, when it's all over, there's just this lull. So, to celebrate a successful mystery party, here are some highlights from the mystery parties Shalom and I have written together. I'm not giving any context, so I apologise if they are really confusing. I find them really entertaining, but then... I helped write them.

Erin as Olive de Bois, 2006: I saw Max ninja Shalom to death! Hi-yah!
Max as Kilroy Kilstein, 2006: [Perform a random act of Ninjaness on Devon.]
Devon as Alcid Aves, 2006: Brother Cornelius told me that Erin killed Shalom! Puffins don’t lie!
From Matt's final reveal as Don Morto, 2006: He cannot take time out of his busy schedule to off every KGB member that comes his way.
From Max's final reveal as Kilroy Kilstein, 2006: Martinis_for_Jesus1500 had to die. ... Sensing danger with his ninja intuition, Max quickly jumped atop his refrigerator.

Ethan as Freddy, 2007: Luke... I am your brother.
From Matt's final reveal as Lucas R. Naught, 2007: Luke, miserable and confused, drank enough to inebriate a blue whale.
Heather as ViVi, 2007: Between him and Scarlet, your art is selling like tickets to a talkie.
Erin as Madame Violet, 2007: You always thought you and Arthur had a supernatural connection.
From Erin's final reveal as Madame Violet, 2007: Shocked at what she had done, Violet nursed the doll back to health as best she could. [yes, a voodoo doll :)]
From my final reveal as Scarlet White, 2007: She was Arthur’s right-hand girl, but, unfortunately for Scarlet, Arthur was left-handed.

Jordan as Jordan, 2009: Grant, are you wearing underwear right now?
Grant as Grant, 2009: They stole the stamp with my signature on it and I think they are forging documents!
Matt as Matt, 2009: In some ancient cultures, it is considered respectful to eat the dead because then their strength and wisdom become part of you. Like a Jedi. Devon will always be with you.
Grant as Grant, 2009: One day, you will be the Phantom Smile!
And last but not least, my favourite, from a clue, Ethan to Erin, 2009:

Promise me you'll think about it. Roman may have wealth, land, two handsome children, and a huge amount of trust in your fidelity, but my love is to the moon and back! And I don't mean Earth's moon, I mean Charon, the moon of Pluto. So. Think about it.

New Zealand

2009-08-18T22:31:00.003-08:00

"Nu Zeelind is ruled by Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement (leaders of the political party Flight of the Conchords') who demand to be called the Hiphoppopotamus and the Rhymenoceros (reverent titles in the New Zealish language)."

From the Uncyclopedia: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/New_zealand

Because I cannot let go of New Zealand. I would check out the New Zealand alphabet, under Language, and Rugby, under Sport.

"Technological exports include: 1. Conchords."

Five Hundred

2009-08-17T20:11:00.004-08:00

PARTY PEOPLE!!!

Guess what I just found out!? My uncles both know how to play 500 because they grew up playing it on Kauai!!! Apparently the boys of the west side of Kauai all played 500 and the east side played Trumps. Hahaha!

In related news, on Shalom's last night in Juneau, she, Grant, Devon, and I played 500 for almost five hours. Because we are cool.

Well, that's all, I just wanted to share that strangeness...When I encountered 500 in New Zealand, I did NOT expect it to be originated from the United States! I figured that, like everything else in New Zealand, it originated from somewhere in Europe. But no, according to Wikipedia, it was invented in 1904 by the U.S. Playing Card Company! When Bridge was invented, 500 was phased out in America but is still popular in Australia, New Zealand, and French Canada.

Also, apparently the two jacks are not called the left and right hand "bows" or "boughs," as I thought, but "boweRs!" That's what happens when you learn words from Kiwis :p Also the same with gaffer tape... I thought it was "gaffa tape" until I saw it written.

Although, Nick spells it "bow." Do we trust Nicknick? Actually, he makes a fair point... "Bower," even in New Zealand English, would end in a schwa. Maybe it is just a word evolution and it has actually become "bow."

If you don't know how to play 500, ask me when you see me and we will play. It. Is. Awesome.

Unrelated, but Tasman v. Canterbury Air New Zealand Cup game this weekend!!! GO CANTERBURY! Sorry, Nick, but you know where my loyalty lies :) They are playing in Christchurch. Who has two thumbs and wishes she could go to the game!?!? THIS GIRL!

Okay, all, thanks for reading, I'll see you next time.

FML

2009-08-16T02:06:00.002-08:00

I would just like to share this post to FML:

Today, I literally stopped traffic. I was crossing the street and a butterfly landed on me. Being phobic of butterflies, I had a panic attack in the middle of the road. Oh, and I am 17, captain of our football team, and in very good shape. My girlfriend laughed the hardest. FML

In other news, the mystery party was AMAZING! I... don't think that any of them actually have this address, but all the same, thank you to Erin for hosting and playing, Matt, Jordan, Grant, and Heather for playing, Shane for doing an awesome job filling in, and of course Shalom for being an awesome co-creator and -writer! It's too bad Mac couldn't be there to fill his own role, but I understand completely. Ethan showed up to his own murder, and Shane actually cracked the case at the end! For those of you curious, it was Heather with the gun in the janitor's closet.

Now that the mystery party is over, I'm a little bit at loose ends until Monday, when Transparent Devices reopens. I leave next Sunday. I hope someone with a car wants to go to Chipotle, because the IES group has made me soooo curious about it, and Chipotle just opened in Rochester! Also I hope someone with a car picks me up at the airport... I should really look into that.

I MISS NEW ZEALAND! I've been watching Flight of the Conchords ALL the time, and I don't know if that makes it better or worse! On the plus side, I've figured out how to fold toilet paper, so. That's all for now, bye-o!

The Mystery Party

2009-08-11T18:30:00.002-08:00

Hello,

In anticipation of the mystery party on Thursday, I am going to briefly outline what it is we do. When I was in high school, my group of friends went through all of these "How to Host a Murder Mystery" games. They are written for eight people to play eight suspects. Each character is given information that incriminates themselves (conceals) and information that incriminates the others (reveals). When the group has played through all four rounds of information, there are accusations, and then all is revealed. They have themes, like Ancient Roman or Wild West. But we long ago finished all of the professionally made ones.

So Shalom and I wrote our own three years ago. It took place in present day Juneau. We wrote it for Erin, Matt, Max, Lindsay, and Devon with Shalom (Sasha Milovski) as the victim. The next year, we wrote a mystery for Erin, Ethan, Matt, Heather, Grant, Shalom, and me that took place in the 20s on a yacht with Devon (Arthur Sinclair III) as the victim. We took a year off because I didn't come back until after Shalom left for New Zealand. So now we're back! This year, the theme is Class of 2006 ten year high school reunion. Our players are Erin, Heather, Mac, Matt, Grant, Jordan, Shalom, and me, and the victim is Ethan.

I'll let you know how it goes!

VERY EXCITING NEWS

2009-07-31T15:03:00.002-08:00

OKAY. So this won't be exciting to everyone. But. I had not seen Arthur for a long while, having missed it last Friday (the only day I'm home at three PM), and I think the Friday before that, too. So, today I watched it for the first time in a long while. The opening comes on, and it's Buster returning from outer space... DOES ANYONE ELSE KNOW THIS OPENING??? It's the opening to Buster's Back. Most of you probably know that Arthur episodes come in twos. Two fifteen minute episodes. So every episode has a partner. Buster's Back's partner is... THE BALLAD OF BUSTER BAXTER!!! IN TEN MINUTES, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER BAXTER IS GOING TO BE ON!!! Talk about luck!

It's my favourite episode ever!!! Although, this episode is pretty great, too. "Pip pip, cheerio, crumpets!" Also, I love it when he shows up on the elephant. Also, Arthur's parents are watching a speed knitting competition. Also, I love Arthur. This show is amazing. I love Arthur's trash can. It's blue and there's a space ship on it. Okay, before I dig myself into any more holes here, I'm going to end this post. This episode is over, so Art Garfunkel the singing moose is on his way. Bye for now!

Reentry

2009-07-25T00:52:00.004-08:00

Can I do that? Can I name two posts the same thing? I'm going to try it! I'm going for it! Pushing the limits! LIVIN' ON THE EDGE!!!

Okay, sorry. No, I just wanted to add, really briefly, and this is going to be an overshare, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to fold American toilet paper. In New Zealand, the sheets are skinnier and longer, so three sheets can be nicely folded into four, which confused me at first because that involves not folding on the lines. But HERE, the sheets are really fat (haha, America...), and they're square. So yes fold on the lines, but then you end up with this toilet paper that seems ginormous to me. I do not remember this being a dilemma before...

So. Hi.

Reentry

2009-07-23T18:03:00.002-08:00

So before we left New Zealand, Eunice gave us this whole talk on reentry and how it might suck. Well, it doesn't suck quite as much as all that, although I do get madly "homesick" for New Zealand (New Zealandsick?) at times.

However, I do spend a fair bit of time wondering why we don't have outlets that switch on and off. I still look right first before crossing the street or pulling out at an intersection, so I just have to look every which way several times before going anywhere! I've finally started moving to the righthand side of the stairs at work when I'm going up and someone else is coming down (or vice versa), but my gut instinct is still to move to the left when I encounter someone on the sidewalk. I've stopped saying "tea" for "dinner," but I still type with the British S and U. I sometimes say "zed." I have nearly remastered Fahrenheit temperatures and am in fact losing my Celsius conversions rather rapidly. There was a little overlap period in there during which I had no concept of temperature at all.

I think that as long as I am in Juneau, which is beautiful like New Zealand, I will be okay. As for reentry to Rochester... that is entirely a different kettle of fish.

You know, I never went to that little bookstore that had a pottery section. Well, I guess I'll just have to go back!

For those of you still following, 1) I'm impressed, and 2) the All Blacks beat the Wallabies last week, 22-16 in Auckland! They next play (possibly tomorrow?) in South Africa against the Springboks. Right now is tri-nations, which means they'll just be playing Australia and South Africa for a while.

That's all for now!

Final Countdown

2009-07-01T17:52:00.003-08:00

Hi everyone,

This post is going to be bit jumbled and probably not so interesting, sorry. It's just a wrap-up of New Zealand, and post Simon and Garfunkel, it was relatively low-key. Whenever my planetary geology professor would talk about the main sequence, I always imagined a band of helium and hydrogen atoms (as in Radium Man style). They would be called The Main Sequence, and they would always play the Final Countdown. They would have a drummer. Don't ask.

Anyway, so when I got back from Auckland, I had finals. So I dealt with those. Yay, interesting story! No, really, I studied and I took finals. Whoo! Well, okay, there was also a games night in there and a significant number of movies and TV shows. Okay, so, I really was sort of a slacker relative to what I am at home, but I did study, and I don't feel too badly about any of my finals, so... here's hoping!

Ellen left on the 15th, which is ridiculously early, and that was so sad!!! A bunch of people went to the airport with her to lighten the cost of the shuttle and to see her off at the airport. Earlier that day, we went downtown and did some last minute shopping with her and just puttered around Christchurch.

Tamar, Alyssa, Shalom, and I went on the Grand Tour somewhere in there... on a Sunday, as I recall. This is a photo of Mona Vale, a garden in Christchurch.

When we all had just one final left (and some of us none, but I was not one of those lucky few), we celebrated by going to get souvlakis. Unfortunately, the really awesome souvlaki place was CLOSED and we had to settle for a different one. I do have some really fantastic photos from souvlakis, but Shalom would probably kill me if I posted them. She was disapproving enough of me taking photos while she was eating in the first place. Later that day, Nick and I went to Campbell's window display! It was awesome!

Then, on my last full day, I wandered around Christchurch and took some photos.

The fountain outside of the Canterbury Museum and the house in the Arts Centre. Oh, and I went to the Art Gallery with Kate (Maude) and it was AWESOME. Rita Angus is completely talented, but the gift shop had NO Rita Angus postcards. It was tragic. I have no postcards from my visit to the Art Gallery... unheard of. The Canterbury Museum was nice, but was a little bit too much New Zealand for me on my last day.

So, now I am back in Juneau! I might continue to post, but I'll be less frequent (and interesting, let's face it). I'll see you all when I see you, Americans and Kiwis alike!

Postscript

2009-06-16T19:03:00.003-08:00

Just, as an aside, I think we can all agree that Simon and Garfunkel went above and beyond the call of duty by listening to my blog and coming to sing to me here, in New Zealand, so let's say we call it a tie and let it be even. That's not to say that I won't fervently defend Garfunkel in random hostel conversations, but I will stop holding the Ballad of Buster Baxter over Paul Simon's head all the time. Tens all around, but let's say that one of them showed up and sang Punky's Dilemma to me, then we may have to revisit this. Until then.

"We missed Simon, we missed Simon and Garfunkel, we got Garfunkel!"

2009-06-15T19:18:00.005-08:00

It's a quote that Kate told me from Dharma and Greg, don't worry, I didn't miss Simon, I didn't miss Simon and Garfunkel, and I did see Garfunkel!

Yeah, the concert was alright, not as good as I expected.

HAHAHAHAHA, I'M KIDDING!!! No, it was amazing, it was everything I dreamed it would be and more. But I guess I should cover the first part of my trip, eh!? Don't worry, it'll be short, and then we can get to the details of the concert, which was totally the highlight of the trip/my life.

I arrived in Auckland in the eventimes, so I just hung out at the hostel that night.

The next day, I went to the Auckland Museum and the Art Gallery. Auckland Museum: okay, a little bit disorganised. Art Gallery: Win! Recommended. Then I wandered around Auckland, and made plans for going to the Coromandel Peninsula.

Since I didn't really have the time for a whole organised group tour thing, I really had to pick one place to go to, and I picked Hahei because that's where Cathedral Cove is. The rest of the day in Auckland was pretty much spent going, "So this is Auckland..."

When South Islanders, and even non-Aucklanders from the North Island describe Auckland, you are like, no, it cannot be that bad. What could possibly be so wrong about Auckland. And that's just it. There is nothing wrong with Auckland. It is totally fine. But it's a little bit dirty and not very pretty and sometimes it's hard to pass the time if you're just a poor student who is traveling for a few days. I guess, what it comes down to is, it's nice for a city, but it's sort of a hole compared to the rest of beautiful, beautiful New Zealand. A third of New Zealand's population lives there, and yeah, it's okay, but it's nothing special and after that first day, I was sort of over it.

So then I went to Hahei! This is going to sound strange, but the bus ride there was fantastic. It was really great. I just sat there and thought and dreamed and I wasn't bored, or tired, or antsy, I just sat there and watched New Zealand go by and thought to myself. When I arrived in Hahei, it was late afternoon/early evening. So again, the timing of it, I just hung out at the hostel (which was not really a hostel, it was this couple's house, but it was listed in BBH and it was the cleanest place I've ever stayed, so, yeah) and read American Gods and puttered around.

The next day, pouring rain. POURING RAIN like you would not believe. It was my one day in Hahei, and I had picked Hahei because of Cathedral Cove, and come hell or high water, I was going to go. So, the high water kept up its end of the bargain, and I kept mine. In the pouring rain, I went to Cathedral Cove, and then, because I was already soaked and could not get any wetter, I walked all around Hahei. All told, it must have been... four hours, maybe? I got back, took a shower, and spent the rest of the day writing in my journal, studying lingustics, finishing American Gods, and drinking tea. Maybe it sounds lame, but it was awesome.

The next day, I returned to Auckland, but again only for a halfday, so I didn't go the volcano or anything. I went to Albert Park and wandered around a little bit. Albert Park was very pretty.

When I went back to the hostel, I got this text from Kate, asking me where I was. I answered, that I was in Auckland, in a hostel in Parnell, and Kate replied, "me too," and I was like, does she mean in Auckland or at the hostel or what? and then as I was responding, Kate walked in the room!!!!!

Kate is so awesome.

The next morning, I walked with Kate around Parnell and then saw her off at the bus. Then I wandered around a little on my own. I went to find the arena, and I got really excited standing there, it sort of hit me right then that I was going to see Simon and Garfunkel. It was one of those scream off the top of the mountain feelings, so I just stood there for a second. I had my eyes closed when it occurred to me that it was raining a little bit, but then the sun was still warm, and I thought, there should be a rainbow! When I opened my eyes, there was a rainbow right in front of me! I'm magic!

Okay, so. The concert! I was standing outside in line, and there was this couple next to me, and the woman asked me if I was there alone. I said that yes, I was, because nobody wanted to come up from Christchurch, and she was like, Christchurch! She seemed a little shocked that I would come all the way from Christchurch, but I met another guy on the airport bus who had done the same, and the guy next to me at the concert was from Wellington. Anyway, she may have also been thinking, what is this twelve year old doing at a concert by herself???

When I got inside, I bought myself a poster. I wanted a t-shirt, but one, they were about a million dollars, and two, the ones that had tour dates and locations on them were normal Ts, and I wasn't convinced it was going to fit me (they had some girls fit shirts, but they were pastel colours, and they were generic Simon and Garfunkel shirts, without the dates or locations). So, I bought a poster, which has all the tour dates and locations on it. This poster... Okay, I'll get to that.

I went and found my seat, and I was there super early, but eventually it all filled in, and here was how it went. Nondescript people in front of me, uptight middle-aged guy who was half of a couple to my left (we'll call him... Herbert, going by Herb), younger Wellingtonian to my right (we'll call him Geoffrey), entire row of younger (younger than Geoffrey but older than me) friends behind us. Okay, so shockingly, not all Simon and Garfunkel fans are as pure of heart as I am. The people behind us were A-HOLES. They were clearly drunk, talking a lot, dropping their plastic beer bottles, singing along very badly and loudly (there were parts when we all sang along, and it was good fun, but they were completely obnoxious). At the beginning of the concert, Herb was like, can you keep it down? And one girl was like, we're at a concert, we're having fun, that's what being at a concert is about! Which, okay, yes, but let's face it... besides me and a handful of other people, they were the youngest people at the concert. They were surrounded by middle-aged and even elderly people, and I think they should have gotten a clue and toned it down a little bit.

Anyway, about two thirds of the way through, things came to a head and there was a lot of yelling going on... it was in the middle of a song I didn't know (one of two, not counting the song that Art Garfunkel wrote and the song they performed at the talent show in the sixth grade :p), so I wasn't that upset by it, but it was a little bit frazzling. Basically, Herb yelled at them, they yelled back, Herb's wife backed him up by shouting, SHUT UP! at them, and Geoffrey jumped in and said, go to the bar if you want to talk! and then the guy behind Geoffrey, who had this gravely voice straight out of a movie, told Geoffrey that if he didn't shut up and enjoy the concert, prick, he'd punch him in the back of the head, to which Geoffrey shouted, yeah, you want an assault charge!? So that was a little disturbing, but just a hiccup in an otherwise STELLAR evening.

OKAY! So, they came out and sang Old Friends, because that was the name of the tour, and then jumped straight into Hazy Shade of Winter. Unfortunately, I don't remember all the songs or in what order, but I do know those two. They played many great songs, many of my favourites, including I Am An Island, but they did not play my favourite favourite, which some of you may know is Punky's Dilemma (Kellogg's cornflake and English muffin song, yes), nor At the Zoo, nor Poem on the Underground Wall. But that is so okay, because here is the thing... they still sounded amazing. They did not sound like two old singers at all, they sounded just like Simon and Garfunkel, and I was giddy the entire first half.

After many songs together, Garfunkel soloed for a little while and then Simon soloed for a little while, to give each of them a break as there was no intermission. Garfunkel sang For Emily Wherever I May Find Her, a song he wrote himself, and another song. Paul Simon sang Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard, Boy in the Bubble, and Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes (no Gumboots, but he was so entertaining...). Then they came back together and did more songs together. They finished with Bridge Over Troubled Water, during which I tried to call Mom, but I could not figure out how to make a call to the U.S. (I thought I had it figured out, but then it wouldn't go through, so apparently not), and then they did three encores.

They did Cecelia and The Boxer in one encore, Sound of Silence and Leaves That Are Green in the second encore, and 59th Street Bridge Song for their final encore. Leaves That Are Green really got me, with the opening lines... "I was 21 years when I wrote this song, I'm 22 now but I won't be for long. Time hurries on, and the leaves that are green turn to brown." After he sang "I'm 22 now," Paul Simon stopped and chuckled and said, let me think about that for a second.

I did forget to mention that shortly into the concert, they described meeting each other (as the Chesire Cat and the White Rabbit in the same sixth grade production of Alice in Wonderland) and playing their first song at a talent show when they were eleven or twelve, I think. The song, the song was about this girl they (well, "he" as the voice in the song goes) wanted to meet up with after school, and it was like, want to meet at three, oh wait we don't get out till three thirty, and it was adorable.

When we got out of the concert, I had my poster rolled up, and it didn't rain on the walk back to the hostel! The next day, I had to carry it all around because I'd already checked out of the hostel, and I was looking after that thing like it was a Verticolli hairbrush. It started to rain while I was in the Auckland Domain, where it always rains, and I dropped everything to get a plastic bag and put the poster in there... I kept rearranging my grip on my bag and, I later realised, walked on the outside of it at all times :p It made it back here safe and sound, and I might frame it when I get home.

More info than you want, but here are the songs, in some semblance of the correct order, that I have and that they sang (they sang that song I didn't know, Bebop a lula, the song from sixth grade, and the song that Art Garfunkel wrote, too, but I don't have those):

Old Friends
Hazy Shade of Winter (love!)
I Am a Rock (also love!)
America
Kathy's Song (Garfunkel sang solo accompanied by Simon on guitar)
Scarborough Fair
The Only Living Boy in New York (always reminds me of Devon)
Mrs. Robinson (preceded by a montage... the montages of the two of them were great, and that one ended in the clip from the Graduate)
For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her (just Garfunkel)
Boy in the Bubble (just Simon)
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes (possibly my second favourite Paul Simon song? Although I do love Me and Julio)
Homeward Bound (mildly upsetting because I was feeling a heavy New Zealand inertia at the time)
El Condor Pasa
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Cecelia
The Boxer (they put in the booms!)
Sound of Silence
Leaves That Are Green
59th Street Bridge Song

That last day, I had the most delicious veggie burger I have ever eaten in my life (okay, I'll face it... it was one of the best burgers I've had in my life period, veggie or not. Although that one time Dudley made those burgers at the house... may be number one). Burger Fuel. Jay, if you come to Auckland... Burger Fuel. Also, I have a phone and a Lonely Planet for you. I don't know if you even know I have a blog... will somebody tell him?

MY LITTLE TOWN. That was the name of the song when the fight almost broke out in my row! And A Heart in New York was Garfunkel's third song.

And then I came home! I've been studying, along with watching some movies and getting some new music (so much new New Zealand music, I'm so pumped for it!).

And that is all! The summary is:

Read American Gods
Love Simon and Garfunkel
Buy more than muesli bars when going on a five day trip

Oh, and something that occurred to me on this trip: I assume Art is short for "Arthur." So, Arthur Garfunkel, Arthur Read, and Arthur Dent. I think we can all agree that Arthur is a winning name.

Now I have to go study, but I wanted to share my trip!

I arrive back in Juneau on the 27th. I arrive back in Rochester late August some time. I'll see you all sooner or later :)

Thank you

2009-06-15T19:17:00.002-08:00

Dear Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon,

I love you. Thank you for playing in New Zealand while I was here. I love you.

Love,
Lisa

P.S. I love you.

Rarotonga

2009-05-30T03:07:00.003-08:00

Okay. So, this is going to be tricky. It was more than a month ago now, and to cover a whole week... I'm going to go based on my pictures, and just talk about fun photos. To sum it up, we ate a lot of coconut, met a lot of Cook Islanders, got sick, and did many awesome tropical activities, like paddling in a vaka (canoe), husking coconuts, snorkeling, etc. There are actually many places I did not take my camera due to water, such as the beach and the cross island walk. The cross island walk was a tramp across the island (surprise), but some of the views and such from it were really gorgeous, so it's a shame, but that's how it goes.

We dyed pareau (sp?), Cook Island sarongs. Mine came out looking sort of like a watermelon, but it was lightweight and cool, so I ended up wearing it nearly every day after we made them. I took this photo, so I'm not in it, but these are many of the people on my program, showing off their pareu, and also the sweet ways we learned to tie them.

My best photos are from the school visits, since they were camera-safe, and also fun. We did two, one just to visit. I was actually sick when we visited the first school, so I was less than fun. The students performed for us and gave us really beautiful leis and headdresses, though.

These are both from the second school visit, which was for community service. This one was awesome. We helped fill in holes that could catch water (Jai chopped down plants with a machete!!! It was really sharp and kind of scary!!), to prevent mosquitoes from spreading dengue fever. We also helped put stickers on raffle tickets, which some of you may know is what I love doing, no sarcasm involved. And then everyone ran around with the kids for a while, and I took a lot of great photos on that visit. The first is Amanda playing airplane (she, Melissa, and Ellen had races, with their gradeschool partners), and the second is Melissa, Alyssa, Carolina, Tamar, and Meg on the jungle gym.

We also did a fair bit of dancing, and one night there was a dance-off. In the guys', it came down to Jai versus James. Carolina won the girls' dance-off!!!

Also, we were fed so well every single night. It was fantastic. Our hotel was right on the beach, and I shared a room with Tamar and Ellen. There was one day, my favourite, when we hired bikes and biked around the entire island, stopping for food and beach stops as we saw fit. It... was pretty great. It also poured that day, which was amazing.

Unfortunately, that's what I have about Rarotonga. It was brilliant, but I didn't get very many photos. Also, I've been putting off posting knowing that I needed to do Rarotonga first, so now that I've done Rarotonga, I can continue on with the blog :p

Till next post.

THEY'RE COMING

2009-05-13T01:07:00.001-08:00

Oh my gosh, he totally listened to me!!! PAUL SIMON LISTENED TO ME. HE'S COMING TO NEW ZEALAND TO SING TO ME, AND HE'S BRINGING ART GARFUNKEL WITH HIM. THEY'RE PERFORMING IN AUCKLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TOGETHER! IN NEW ZEALAND! WHILE I'M HERE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Watch This Space

2009-05-06T02:33:00.003-08:00

"Watch This Space" is what the television channels always say when they're getting ready to air new shows or swap the schedule around. VoiceTV has it a lot because the channel has a lot of dead time but is expanding. VoiceTV is the Korean television channel, and strangely, often has the best programming...

Anyway, since my last post, I have been in Rarotonga, which is about a million posts in and of itself, and traveled a wee bit with my parents, and seen Ben and Kate, and all manner of exciting things, but it's also midsemester, so I have tests and assignments and stuff, and just in general have not been able to upload photos or write new posts. I apologise, but I promise that the Rarotonga posts will be worth the wait! So watch this space!

A quick note: the Simon and Garfunkel episode of Flight of the Conchords? HAS ART GARFUNKEL IN IT. Yes. Yes, I know what you're thinking. Art Garfunkel, TWO, Paul Simon, ONE. And, okay, I love Saturday Night Live, but the other of Art Garfunkel's points is ARTHUR... so it's really more like INFINITY AND TWO to one. I'm pretty sure the only thing Paul Simon could do to pull ahead at this point is show up here in New Zealand and sing Gumboots to me. If you're reading this, Paul Simon... I suppose you could sing a different song, but my favourite is Gumboots, and I think you need all the points you can get after that Arthur blow... New Zealand is really lovely...

Nerds

2009-04-15T23:37:00.002-08:00

Lisa: And that's my avocado plant! Its name is Avogadro.
Nick: Avogadro... like Avogadro's number?
Lisa: Yeah.
Nick: ... You're a nerd!

It was neither a compliment nor a criticism, simply a realisation that apparently he didn't have when I told him about Radium Man.

Windy Windy Wellington

2009-04-14T00:13:00.006-08:00

Hi hi. Some of you may know, I went to Wellington for a couple of days with my flatmates, Nana and Mee Siew (Wawa was in Nelson, and did not join us), and friends, Jeevan and Azahari. I flew there, but the others trained, ferried, and drove up.

I got there much earlier, maybe four hours earlier than everyone else, so I went to check in at the backpackers, and then wandered around Wellington. First I went to the Railway Station because it was right across from the backpackers. It is a beautiful building. Here is a photo from our room in the backpackers (it was a room for six, but it was just the five of us, so we had our own room and a bathroom to ourselves).

And then a photo from inside, which made Nana jump up and down. She is so adorable.

Actually, as I walked in, I was thinking, "This is an old school train station. It would be sweet if they had a Platform 9 3/4, because this is just the sort of station I imagine it being in." And then there it was in front of me. Unfortunately, it is not after Platform NINE, which would make more sense, but it's okay, A for Effort. They spend all of their fantasy books-turn-movies concentration on Lord of the Rings, so their Harry Potter is a bit rusty.

Then, I tried to find the wharf. I was walking down Featherston Street, wondering how likely it was I was going the wrong direction, when I realised that it was a beautiful day. Featherston Street runs from the Backpackers more or less North-South, South leading to the water, North leading to... the wop wops, I guess. (Wop wops = Kiwi boonies). So I turned twelve noon to the sun, found halfway between twelve and the hour hand, and boom, North (I know I mentioned this in the fieldtrip post, but I don't know how in-depth the explanation was. This is the trick Tim taught me to find North when the sun is out). I was definitely going the wrong way, so I turned around and found my way to the wharf!

I went to the Museum of Wellington, City & Sea, which was a very respectable museum. I sort of thought that being in such close proximity to Te Papa (National Museum of New Zealand) would give other museums in the vicinity a bit of a complex, but it was an adorable museum. Here is a photo of Paddy the Wanderer. Based on the description, Paddy was to Wellington as Patsy Ann was to Juneau.

After the museum, I continued down the wharf. Many things were closed for Easter Monday, but some of the small galleries and shops and stuff were still open. There was a playground. If I had been with Tamar and Ellen, there would have been some crazy photos, but I was by myself, so all I have is this docile one:

Eventually, I came to Civic Centre, which is where the i-site and stuff is for Wellington. Everything was closed, including the huge library :( , but I saw this on the side of one of the buildings in the square, and it made me laugh. Note the distinction between "useful" and "fine."

Shortly after that, the others arrived, and we went back to the hostel to get them situated. We went to dinner at a yummy yummy Malaysian restaurant. We got three dishes to share, and all of them were delicious. We had mee goreng (goreng means fried, so that one was... fried noodle, I think?), nasi goreng (fried rice), and nasi lemak (literally "fat rice," but it's coconut rice. That came with a beef dish that was my favorite, combined with the coconut flavour in the rice).

After dinner, we drove up to the Mt. Victoria lookout. From there, we could see lights all around us 360 degrees. I reckon you are supposed to go up during the day (the stairs were not lit...), but it was so spectacular at night. It made it harder to get a good photo, but it was definitely worth it. I increased exposure time as high as it would go on my camera, but of course that made all the photos come out fuzzy... Here's one:

That one is probably the least fuzzy. This one is also fuzzy, but I really really love it. I think it might be my favourite photo of the entire exchange thus far:

From left to right, although it won't mean much to you, is Jeevan, Mee Siew, Nana, and Azahari. I love it a lot, partially because I just think it is cool, but also because over dinner, we had a conversation about recognizing people from afar by the way they carry themselves (Jeevan said he can always tell when it is me because I talk with a lot of gestures and move in a "bubbly" way, whatever that means). Without knowing them, you wouldn't be able to tell, but all of them are standing in their own classic stances. I don't think they would have done it if they had known I was taking the picture.

This morning, we walked to Te Papa, and I have a handful of photos from Te Papa (many of the coolest exhibitions were no photography - my favourite was the New Zealand Artists exhibition, because most of it was modern art. My second favourite? THE COLOSSAL SQUID THEY HAD ON DISPLAY FROM ANTARCTICA), but to not exhaust the post, I have included just this one, which is mostly for Dad's benefit:

This is one of the cannons from Captain James Cook's Endeavour. They had to throw it overboard when the ship got stuck in some shallow water, but it was eventually retrieved, encrusted with a foot of coral around it. I just heard "Sand and broken shell!" in my head. They had a copy of the map that Cook drew up from his voyage, but it was about a bazillion dollars (okay, only fifty...) and I didn't buy it.

Then we ate lunch, followed by the Beehive (like our Pentagon). We took a tour through the parliament buildings, which was very nice. Our tour guide was from California, and I didn't realise he had an American accent until halfway through the tour. It just doesn't register as an accent to me yet.

That's the Beehive! I tried to follow the political talk, but there were a lot of things that I didn't understand. There are seven political parties in New Zealand, all represented in the parliament, and they all have a whip, and then there's the mace, and you can't walk in front of the throne or you're thrown out of parliament.

After that, we went to the airport to drop me off. The others are going on to Rotorua. The flight home was pleasant, and I got home right at the same time as Wawa, so we traded stories.

That's all! Next post, unless some madness happens before Friday, will be about Rarotonga!!! Oh, and if you're wondering, that first photo? YES, that IS a Prius taxi. I LOVE NEW ZEALAND.

Easter Eggs

2009-04-12T03:03:00.004-08:00

Okay, one more quick one. I was way behind on the blog posts, but I want to be able to just write about Wellington as soon as I get back without having to do any catch-up, and same with Rarotonga. Today, Erin's friends Adeline and Lauren (sp? on both) arrived. They are both on Erin's study abroad program in Brisbane, and they are both from France. Dyeing eggs was a new tradition to them, as they usually paint blown eggs. We are not quite so patient for either painting or egg blowing, so we dyed them hardboiled as per the American tradition.

Lauren dyeing an egg purple:

I introduced the rubber band to them (Shalom and Erin included) as a decorative device. None of them had ever dyed eggs with rubber bands before, and the result was nice:

The red with yellow stripes is Erin's, the green/blue egg with the lines that look like a stick figure is Shalom's, and the other two are mine.

Erin's egg matched her shirt. And our complete dozen (note the French flag upper left):

Happy Easter, everyone!

Hawdon Valley

2009-04-12T02:33:00.009-08:00

On Friday, Shalom, Erin, Sam, and I went up to the Hawdon Valley hut and stayed the night there. Sam drove (it was about an hour and a half drive to the trailhead), and the tramp was about three hours. Shalom loaned me her smaller tramping backpack, which was nice. It was really nice weather going up, sunny but not too hot. We didn't break for lunch because we were trying to beat this huge group of kids up to the hut (there were maybe nine of them, and the parking lot was full. There are twenty beds in Hawdon hut, so we were worried that if we didn't beat that big group to the hut, we wouldn't get beds, and we all had just sleeping bags, no tent or sleeping pads), and also because nobody was particularly starving. We ate when we got to the hut, and played cards (Sam and I taught Erin and Shalom a game that I learned on the 230 fieldtrip. It's called 500, and it's a partner game with rules similar to hearts or euchre). We went for a short little walk, but there wasn't much of a trail to anywhere.

We saw a species of parakeet that has an orange stomach. They are fairly rare. Apparently there are only 100-300 in New Zealand, and that tramp is one of the few places to see them. We also saw keas (one of them tried to steal Erin's sandal, but only moved it around the deck) and a small mountain wren that was pretty cute. The keas were pretty amazing... it was my first time seeing one, and I was very excited. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the kea, but here is the parakeet:

Sorry, the photo is a bit dark.

The hut was pretty much full, and everyone went to bed way before us. Seriously, the hut was silent by nine o'clock. The next hut on the tramp was nine hours away (we were only doing one night, returning to the car the next day, but if you wanted to continue, you could carry on to the next hut), so we figured they were getting to bed early so they could have an early, well-rested start the next day. That was not the case, as we were the second group out of the hut the next morning, after the South African couple, who had not gone to bed too much earlier than we had.

We left to do a day hike up to a lake in the next valley over. It's the first two hours of that nine hour leg I just mentioned. It entails scaling the ridge just behind the hut and tramping up the neighboring valley. Unfortunately, the sun didn't get the memo and had no interest in scaling the ridge. The next valley over was *frigid* and one big wind tunnel. The scenery was lovely, though.

There were many river crossings, and we had a chilly, windy morning tea by the lake before turning around and booking it back. We ran into the other groups on their ways up as we tramped back down, and they seemed disheartened by our reports.

When we got back to the hut, it was pleasantly empty and quiet. Also, it was sunny because we were back over the ridge. We played a few more rounds of cards, had lunch, threw some marshmallows at Sam, and packed up. We were out by 1:30 and hiked back to the car in good time. It was pretty spectacular. That night for dinner, we had grill cheese and tomato soup. All in all, a good good time.

Oh, and if anyone is keen to know what the coarse-grained counterpart to trachyte is, I forgot to mention it last post: it is syenite, and I will never forget that.

GEOL230 Fieldtrip

2009-04-12T01:42:00.009-08:00

Thanks for the comments, Grace and Chris! The zipline photos are fantastic! And, that has been sorted out. We do have flying foxes in the U.S., but Erin says that they are called ziplines (even the zip rails on the playgrounds). Mt. Redoubt almost messed up my parents' travel plans, and yeah, eruption monitoring is pretty key.

I've been away and am going away again tomorrow, but I wanted to put up some photos from my fieldtrip!

We stayed in the shearers' quarters of the Glens of Tekoa farm near Culverden. We had plumbing, electricity, and beds with fitted sheets and pillows (so we slept in our sleeping bags, but on mattresses). Here is a photo of the living/common room:

That fireplace was the best thing ever... even after fine days, it was nice to have a fire in the evenings, and it was a good place to dry wet tramping boots.

The first few days were intensely frustrating. There was a lot of information being hurled at us and a lot of information expected of us. I had no idea, off the top of my head, what the coarse-grained counterpart of trachyte was... Tom and Rose, our trip leaders, would ask those leading questions, like Dave (sed/strat TA, for those who don't know him), but I would have absolutely no idea. It was like an affirmation that I knew significantly less than the other students and that I was going to be a big fail at field work.

The second night, we had an assignment due. We had to map a small section of our mapping area and create a cross section. The cross section was pretty straightforward, but the mapping was so hard... I had to ask Tom and Rose pretty much every step of the way, and I think they were discouraged by how poorly we were all doing. They thought we would be done by ten, but my entire table was still working at 11:30. This was after our first full day in the field, too, so we were all absolutely exhausted.

Those first few days, we all stayed together and traveled together as a pack. It was good to have Rose and Tom there to explain everything as we went at that early stage, and it helped us get through the area faster. At one point, we sent Tim across a small gorge to bring back a sample for all of us. Taking all of us over there, with our varying degrees of fitness, would have taken forever, whereas Tim just zipped over for everyone. I really really love this photo because later I realised how much the outcrop looks like a bird. For scale, you can see Tim as a black dot on the bird's neck.

The third day, things started to improve. Having done the mapping the night before, I had a little bit of a better idea what to be looking for, but I still felt stupid, especially since I could never find where I was on the map. The turning point was really when Lucy and I found the third dike. My mapping group consisted of my mapping partner, Lucy, and two North Islanders named David and Tim. We had different groups on different days, but they were my core group. On Day 3, we were instructed to map out the rest of the river and look for three dikes among the graywacke.

Dike 1: We were all together when we found it, but Tim and Davo were the ones who really solidified that it was a trachyte dike.

Dike 2: Lucy and I, determined to find it on our own, carried on ahead in search of the second dike. We came to a heavily weathered section of graywacke that looked like it could have been a baked margin, and stopped to look at it. We were fairly certain that it was not the second dike, but decided to stop and see what they thought. Tim and Davo caught up and agreed that it was not the second dike, and then Tim pointed fifty metres past us and said, "But that is." So there it was, hanging out on the river bank, right next to us, and Lucy and I were pretty gutted.

Dike 3: EVEN MORE determined to find the third dike on our own, Lucy and I carried on ahead again. And guess what! We found it! Baked margin, phenocrysts, vessicles and all. It was magnificent. We were triumphant! We showed it to Tim and Davey when they caught up, and they agreed that it was the third dike. They did not sound sufficiently impressed :p Here it is:

After that, the fieldtrip was spectacular. It was a lot of physical and mental work, but pretty rewarding in the end. Tim taught me a nifty trick for finding north with my watch when the sun is out, and by the end of the fifth day, I was pretty proficient at finding myself on the map. All three of them helped me out a lot, plus Rose and Tom, who were hugely patient and helpful.

Glens of Tekoa itself is a farm run by the McRaes, and it is beautiful. It is right along the Mandamus River, which runs through the valley. There are ridges to either side (held up by trachyte or syenite dikes) and a large syncline on the eastern side held up by limestone.

The last day, we had the morning to ourselves to do whatever because the mapping area was finished and the late morning was for clean up and departure. A small group of the diehards went to find a small waterfall up in one of the side valleys. It was not very far away at all, and well worth the walk. It was nice to have that small group of people who had treated the fieldtrip as a trip/adventure and not as an assignment/chore.

The last day, it snowed. It was a little chilly, but we went to find the water fall anyway. It didn't snow down by us, but up in the hills where we had just been days before, mapping.

So yeah, that was the fieldtrip. I can't really put it into words why, but it affected me a lot. I made some good friends and did some good work, and it was sort of sad to come back. Other people were rejoicing at the thought of their warm beds and twenty-four hours of dry feet, and I guess I was happy to be back, but not really in the same way.

The next day, Shalom, Erin, and Sam took me tramping up in Hawdon Valley, and that helped me reacclimatize a lot. I'll make that a separate post, so keep reading! If you have any questions about the fieldtrip, because I haven't been all that specific and I've mainly written around the photos that I most wanted to share, email me or leave me a comment, and I'll talk your ear off about it :)

The News

2009-04-02T00:11:00.002-08:00

So, I heard an interesting story on the news today. I was simultaneously writing an essay on mammoth evolution, so I haven't got all the details, but the gist of it was this:

Somebody important (maybe a Congressman?) changed his wikipedia entry to downplay something that happened during his visit to India. The guy in the news footage was saying that this guy should take wikipedia's advice and read their conflict of interest guidelines. For some reason, this stuck me as highly entertaining.

Wikipedia. It's the revolution.

In looking for the details of this story (if anybody has them, please share them with me. After that guy said that line, I was really sad that I hadn't paid closer attention to the rest of the story - all the headlines are about G-20, so it's hard to find a small story like that right now), I noticed that WHAT, Stevens' conviction may get overturned? Also someone fill me in on that.

Right, reference list.

Who has two thumbs and should be studying for linguistics!?

2009-03-31T23:42:00.004-08:00

So yeah, I am procrastinating right now, but I have two stories that I, at least, find interesting.

One is an exchange about wite-out that some of you may have already heard, but bear with me, and the other is a story that showcases how awesome I am.

We'll go with awesome first.

My inbox was full on my phone such that I was not receiving a very important text about the final cricket score. So, I was going through my phone deleting messages, and I deleted all but FOUR of them, and one of them was from Shalom. It was a text in which she said what ink cartridge her printer took from when I saw ink cartridges on sale in Kaikoura. I held on to it because I knew that she still needed ink, and maybe I would see another sale and then I could just buy the one she needed.

Later that day, I was eating lunch with Shalom, and she said, I'm going to go buy an ink cartridge after this. Then we sat there for a very long time eating our vegetable korma (mmmm), and Shalom said, I could just catch the bus from here (instead of going back to Ilam), but I'm not sure what ink cartridge I need. And I was like, HOLD THE PHONE, and I found the number (HP 21!) and Shalom was impressed with my preparedness. For the win!

Okay, so that's one. Yeah, I know, you were expecting something way more awesome than saving Shalom a five minute walk. I lead an exciting life.

The second one can count as "things I've learned that are different about New Zealand and the U.S." for this post. If it says (w) that means written.

Nick: You need twink.
Lisa: What?
Nick: Twink. You need twink.
Lisa: What???
Nick: (w) TWINK
Lisa: What's that?
Nick: What is - ? Twink! You know, like for blanking out mistakes.
Lisa: Ohhhh (w) Wite-out
Nick: Ohh, okay. (w) tipp-ex <-- British.
Lisa: [huh? face]
Nick: (w) tipp-ex <-- brand.
Lisa: ohhh.
Nick: (w) brand <-- typical British
Lisa: [indignant face] (w) Wite-out <-- BRAND.
Nick: (w) oops

So let that be a lesson to the lot of ya! (nobody escapes from Tweedy's farm!... anybody?) When looking for correction fluid in New Zealand, ask for twink!

Also, in other news, guess what I did today *little dance* Yes, it's very exciting... I cut index cards without measuring them first. Yeah. I went there. You know that Garfield strip... Garfield is making fun of Jon and says something like, this from the man whose idea of an adventure is washing his socks without safety pinning them together. Well, I cut index cards in half without making sure it was actually *in half* and I lived. Also, my eyeballing is really good, because they came out pretty stellarly. I was proud of myself. But I still won't open my window at night, not even for a zucchini chocolate chip muffin.

I got a zucchini chocolate chip muffin anyway, and it was DELICIOUS.

Related to the index cards... I am really good at folding paper into threes. I think this is a skill developed from the symphony office, but I can eyeball letter paper into thirds like none other. I should put that on my next CV. Skills: folding office paper into thirds and packratting ancient text messages.

Okay, I am derailing. Back to affricates and spectrograms. Bye!

Midterms

2009-03-30T11:51:00.002-08:00

It's midterms week here, right before the three week term break, so I don't have much to say except that I've been studying and procrastinating studying. But there are a couple of things I thought I would throw out there:

1) The Black Caps v. India cricket test (five day game) ended in a draw. That happens when not all the innings are completed. I was - oh wait for it - gutted to hear.

2) On Kate's behalf (I saw Grace's post on Kate's blog), last I heard she was in Wanaka, returning to Christchurch on either Thursday or Friday. So never fear, she shall return! Triumphant, I hope.

3) Shalom pointed out that one of the parks on my map looks like an upside down elephant, and now whenever I look at my map I feel guilty for not having written my paper on proboscideans yet...

At the end of this week, when all my tests and papers and everything are done, I will be leaving for the Island Hills fieldtrip for my field studies course, so don't expect anything for a couple of weeks. Sorry, Ben, I'll try to post when I get back from Island Hills, but by the time I return (also triumphant, I hope), Erin will be here!!! Yes, Erin! And then my parents! And then Ben! And then Claire! A party of goodness!

Okay, I just derailed studying for at least an hour being all excited for the parade of visitors that is coming. Thanks for reading, bye for now.

Commentary! The Musical!

2009-03-27T15:22:00.002-08:00

Hi! So, not to be a terrible person, but if anybody is like, man, Lisa's birthday is coming up and I don't know what to get her, someone with a U.S. mailing address and fifteen dollars worth of other things they would like to buy off of amazon - eligible for Super Saver Shipping, anyway - you would be totally welcome to get me the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog DVD, which includes COMMENTARY! THE MUSICAL. I'm trying really hard not to read the lyrics off of the website so that when I do have an opportunity to see it, it will be amazing and new...

So I did already read the lyrics to the first song because I have no restraint, and it looks awesome. For those of you who don't know Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, it stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day, and I highly recommend it. It was originally written during the writer's strike and is a free-to-see internet musical. You can Google it and the website should come up, which links to Hulu. If Hulu isn't doing the trick, try alluc.

So it is true, in the first song, they say that it is commentaries like these that sell DVDs... because I could watch Dr. Horrible whenever I feel like (but am trying so hard not to while I am here because it will burn through my internet... my internet expires on April 12, so if I have internet left over on the 11th, I am just going to watch Dr. Horrible a ton of times), but I do really want the DVD because I want to hear Commentary! The Musical... I'm such a sucker like that.

In other news, Tamar and I are going to putter around downtown in a little bit, and then purchase tea somewhere downtown so we can go to the beach and have a picnic! Yes! Picnic! At the beach! I love Christchurch!

Swings

2009-03-27T04:27:00.002-08:00

So, I was looking through Kurt Halsey's website per xkcd suggestion, and I was looking at the calendar in his store. When I'm too lazy to look at an entire calendar, I just skip to May to see if May is any good. Well, May is AWESOME. So, if you google Kurt Halsey and enter his website and look at store, click on the calendar (the image for the calendar is a boy and a girl jumping a fence), then look at May. Don't know 'bout the rest of the calendar... let me know if you look at the others.

Also, do we have flying foxes (the playground equipment) in the States? I know that we never had one in Juneau, but that's also just Juneau. Apparently it is like a zipline but on a much much smaller scale. Of course, this is coming from someone who didn't know what a zipline was until I explained it, so perhaps not the best of descriptions. If anyone has more information on this topic, I would love to know. I saw Weet-bix today, and next is the flying fox at the playground down the street. Eventually a proper rugby game. Lord of the Rings marathon (Nick is sure that it will happen, but I think that I am going to be ready to leave by hour eight... and leave with four hours left...). But how awesome would it be to watch it with a bunch of Kiwis who can just tell you where all of the movie is shot? Because it was shot all over New Zealand, there are locations on both Islands. But really, twelve hours?

Also, this will probably not mean much to any of you, but the Black Caps got to 619 today before declaring!!! It means 1) that they had an awesome first inning, and 2) they had SUCH an awesome first inning that they had to stop before they were batted out because if they don't finish all four innings in five days, it is a draw. So, this is cricket, and here is what will hopefully be a brief explanation:

The cricket game I went to was a Twenty20 game, which means 20 overs per team. A test, which is what the Black Caps are playing against India now, goes until the entire team is batted out. That means that each batsman on the team plays until he is out, so they cycle through all 11 (ten outs, because the last batsman cannot play without a partner), and that is the inning. There are two innings per team for a total of four, BUT if not all the innings are completed within a five day period, the game is a draw. So, even if you are doing awesomely and you score like a thousand points (which would be ridiculous) before you are batted out, that would likely take three or four or five days. Then the chances of getting through all four innings are very slim, and at the end you'd have nothing to show for all your awesomeness because it would just show as a tie. So, each team has the option of declaring (ending its inning early, before all the batsmen are out). It is tricky to find the balance between declaring at a high enough score that your opponent doesn't then beat it and declaring early enough that all the innings get played through. I didn't know this until today, but 619 is like ridiculously high. So they declared at 619, and tomorrow will start the second inning, India batting. There are three days left in the test, so hopefully they'll get through all the innings, and hopefully, the Black Caps will win.

That was not brief and I apologize. But maybe you understood?

Games night tomorrow, so pictionary, taboo, all manner of excellent games to be played. Also tomorrow, fencers go to Cherry Blossom! Good luck, fencers!

Okay, last last last thing: I came so close to beating Greg at pool today. Well, not really, but we each had one ball left, which is the closest I've ever come to beating anyone, much less Greg (the best player I've played with). We were playing on the cruddy table in the common room, which spits every ball out of the corner pockets and makes life difficult. Okay, that was it! Bye!

Flatmates

2009-03-23T18:19:00.002-08:00

I really have not shouted out enough to my three awesome flatmates. Also, due to the wonders of facebook, I now know how to spell all of their names.

Mei Xiu is always inviting me to join them for dinners and helped me get the skeeter eater out of my room. Wawa and Mei Xiu taught me how to heat my room. Wawa provided the extra mattress for all of us to use, obtained a super long telephone extension so that we can all take the phone into our rooms for private use, and is constantly trying to feed me delicious food. Nana is pretty much the best person to share a bathroom with - our bathroom is immaculate. Also, and this is the reason I am posting this today instead of some other day, she got a moth out of my room this morning.

So I was getting dressed, dum de dum, what shall I wear, Jesse Bear, and I noticed a leaf on one of my dirty socks, and my first reaction was Oh god moth freak out, but that happens to me all the time and after that moment of panic I tell myself, quite reasonably, that it is probably just a leaf and I should make sure before freaking out. So I leaned in closer, and yeah, it wasn't a leaf, it was a proper moth. They have these little ones that Kate pointed out to me when I first got here

Lisa: There is some sort of dead bug over here.
Kate: Oh it's just a moth.
Lisa: Oh god! (recoils)
Kate: Oh right, oops...

Anyway, those barely even count, they just look like normal insects. The one on my sock was like the kind in Juneau that land on the window at dinner time and stay there until dawn the next morning like a little spade of death. So I stood there a little bit panic stricken for a moment before I had the sense to go and ask Nana if she would help me. So she got a tissue and picked up the moth and took it outside. It didn't move when she let it free, and she was like, I think I killed it... So then she disposed of it by wrapping it up in many tissues because she is an angel.

I hope that I can meet up with them in Wellington just because they are awesome, but I'm not sure I will go to the North Island after all because it is such a short amount of time. I will probably go either with Ben or Claire, or with both, so maybe I will just wait. Also, Erin will be here then! and if I leave, I will see her for one day... she will be here from the 7th to the 22nd, and if I go ahead with my present travel plans, I will see her on the 16th and that is it.

Oh, and some other New Zealand things.

1. Crutches here are different. There is this sort of cuff that goes around the lower arm. The cuff goes at the top and comes off the crutch at a ninety degree angle. Then lower down there is a handle coming off the crutch at a ninety degree angle as well. That's where the hands go. So there is no part that goes under your arms like the kind we see in the States.

2. "Never Eat Soggy Waffles" (or worms, or however you learned it) is "Never Eat Soggy Weet-bix" here. Weet-bix is like a big, solid wheatie. It's eaten with milk so that it softens up. It is sort of a cross between cereal and a muesli bar. I said "never eat soggy waffles" while we were determining strikes and dips and Nick and the other Kiwis around me all laughed at me... I suppose it is sort of silly, since "soggy" is not a usual state of waffles, but you know if you leave them in the fridge, they get sort of soggy... anyway. So Weet-bix. Weet-bix is also a sponsor of the All Blacks national rugby team.

3. There are hardly any crosswalks (getting to uni from Ilam across a busy road each day is a learned skill), but when there are, they are non-negotiable. Cars must stop there for pedestrians NO MATTER WHAT. They are marked with large orange circles, and some pedestrians don't even look when they cross at zebra crossings.

4. Cashiers will check the signature on your credit card if you sign for it (instead of entering a pin, which they have for both debit - called EFTPOS - and credit). I always put my card away (because it is often self-swipe) and then have to fetch it out again when I remember that they want to see it.

I don't have that many this time around, sorry. Hope all is well!

Colored Pencils!

2009-03-19T21:25:00.003-08:00

First off, I would just like to share that Nick and I tied for first in orienteering with a grand total of 21 points. In the other lab, one group got 22 points, but fortunately we were only competing against our own lab. My prize was a small set of colored pencils and Nick's was a small circular protractor, both of which are going to be very handy.

Today's lab was taking strike and dip measurements, which is old hat, but we got to wander around campus to do it. It was good fun and Nick and I spent most of the time coming up with other New Zealand-America differences.

1. The concept of borders. As Nick says, why would you want to have other countries around you? Of course America doesn't really have much choice unless they want to invade Canada and Mexico, but just the idea of being near a border is strange to an island nation.

2. Wawa pointed this one out and Nick confirmed it for me - Kiwis don't really talk about their families. We were having the exchange of family information (siblings, parents' occupations, etc.) in my flat over fried rice (apparently in Malaysia, it is typical to have a ten o'clock second dinner, of which I heartily approve), and Wawa said, "If we're making you uncomfortable, just let us know," and I was puzzled by that because it was a very standard information exchange. She explained that in Malaysia, it is one of the first conversations with a new acquaintance, but that Kiwis get sort of uncomfortable about it. I think it is timing more than anything - for a Kiwi, that sort of thing may come up in conversation, but probably only after knowing each other for a long time, and never in that sort of question answer format. Being asked so early on and in that way is just awkward for them. After I asked Nick if what Wawa said was true, I decided not to ask him if he had siblings, although I do know that his father loves Scrabble.

3. You are not allowed to sample bulk foods before buying them...

4. Words. From soft drink and soda pop to car park and parking lot, so many words are different. Today I learned "gutted" (which can either be disappointed/upset as in "I'm so gutted" or an exclamation expressing those things as in "Gutted!" when losing a game of Speed), but there are many others. There are also words that we also use, but not as much. Instead of "lots"/"loads"/"tons", Kiwis use "heaps," and instead of "think," Kiwis use "reckon." There are so many, and I have avoided English language differences in these lists up until now, but I learned that new one today, and wanted to share. Oh, and aluminium. Seriously, what is that.

5. The bus drivers are nice to both their riders and other cars on the road. I know there are plenty of nice bus drivers in the States, but here they are the rule rather than the exception.

Well, that's just about it for this post. There's a book on sale at the bookstore that is about duels in New Zealand (with firearms, not with swords, unfortunately). I'm sort of tempted to get it, but I know I don't need that...

I went to Kathmandu Clearance, which is their outlet, and it was great! I got a shirt (I went with the intent of getting a non-cotton shirt, but ended up leaving with a 100% cotton shirt...) and a thermos.

Kaikoura

2009-03-17T23:12:00.003-08:00

So this past weekend, I was in Kaikoura, which is along the coast North of here. I met Kate there, and we had a good weekend!

The hostel was very cute (not as cute as Chez la Mer, but pretty close) and the owners were friendly. We went there first, but left to find breakfast and then seals. We took a walk around Kaikoura (actually around the perimeter of Kaikoura) to see a seal colony and then up and around on the cliffs along the coast and then back to the center of the township. We thought we saw a penguin, but it was a fake penguin. We did get to see the seals, though, and they were pretty awesome!

After that, we went back to the hostel and proceeded to talk for the rest of the evening (we had a lot of catching up to do!). Our Dutch dormmate was in disbelief at how long we managed to talk. He had gone to see the seals about an hour after us and was skunked. He was not very happy about it, which may be why he allowed the Germans to get him so completely wasted. While he and the Germans had a good time, Kate and I played cards with two Canadian backpackers one table over. One of the Canadians was very good at President and liked to sort of boast about it. He was sort of getting on my nerves about it (not because I was sore about not being President, but because it just doesn't seem like the thing to do when you've just met someone), so when he proposed switching to Modified War (ERS, for some of you), I gladly accepted and proceeded to trounce him.

Also, during this time, Kate gave me a carrot and some crackers and some hummus, all of which were excellent.

Then we went to sleep, at just around the same time as a very inebriated Dutch man :) We woke up early to get to the seal swim, which was CANCELED. It was so sad, especially for Kate, who just wanted to swim with some seals! So we ended up going kayaking instead, which turned out to be okay because WE SAW A REAL LIVE PENGUIN, not the fake kind we'd seen the day before or one in a zoo, but a wild little penguin, hanging out in the ocean. Kate: "Hiiii penguin!"

We came back to Chch that afternoon/evening. We both went to a Maori night tutorial to learn about the Southern constellations, which turned out to be really good. The other IES kids sort of had to talk me into it, but I was quite content once I got there. We saw Sirius and Rigel and Betelgeuse and the Southern Cross and Orion and nearly the Pleiades but we lost patience and went back.

The next day (yesterday), we went to Kathmandu Outlet Store, which was CLOSED. I went to class, and when I got back, we waited nearly an hour for BVS to be online... turns out I wasn't specific about WHOSE Tuesday we were Skyping on, so apologies there. Anyway, we eventually found him, and Kate walked up and down some stairs.

So, we had an evacuation drill just now, it was fun.

Now there is a massive skeeter eater in my room that I cannot seem to get rid of. It is too high up to reach with a cup, and possibly also too large, so I am just a little annoyed with it.

Last night, Kate and I watched Futurama, House, The Life of Mammals with David Attenborough, and How I Met Your Mother. All quality television. Then we played Uno, which I obtained for three dollars (one fifty US!) because the cards are cheap and the directions read like the chopstick sleeves at China Buffet. Both the game and the directions are very entertaining. And that was my St. Patrick's Day!

Now I am going to tend to this skeeter eater (I can't sleep with it in here, what if I swallow it!?). Wawa recommended opening the window to let it fly out, but guess what always flies in at night if the windows are open... my best friend the moth. I would gladly take the skeeter eater over the moth any day.

DanRose, why have you not updated your blog.

And to all a good night!

Where in the what?

2009-03-12T21:53:00.003-08:00

Guess what I did today! Silly question! I went orienteering!

For GEOL230 (field studies), as a crash course in topographic maps, we used an orienteering map (with topographic contours on it) to get around Victoria Park up in the Port Hills. I told Nick I'd never been orienteering, and he said, oh, it's been ages since I've been, five, six years, so I'm not very good at it.

Um, bollocks. Nick is actually pretty superb at orienteering, and I felt bad for slowing him down. 1) bikes all the time, so he can run loads more than I can, 2) Kiwi, so he can navigate steep terrain, and 3) good at orienteering, so knows where he is going. Me? Hm... 1) Fencer, so mostly anaerobic, and not very good at that, 2) American, so unfit and slow, and 3) new to orienteering so I was just like, we're going where? It made me feel better that by the time we reached the end, Nick was also short of breath...

Anyway, so after Nick tricked me into thinking he was bad at orienteering and we agreed to be orienteering partners, we went up to the Port Hills, got dropped off in the parking lot, given a compass (which we didn't need because Victoria Park is fairly open and full of walking trails that are excellent orienteering landmarks), and told to be back in forty five minutes.

Prof. Horton told us that five targets was decent, ten was good, fifteen was excellent, and we got 'round to nearly twenty! We would have gotten to more if SOMEONE hadn't been slow and needed to walk for part of it...

It was all very exciting, and despite being really gross and tired, it was so awesome! So now I'm all psyched for field studies, because I was sort of put out by having a lab from 3:30 to 6:00 on Friday, but if it's going to be running around the Port Hills looking for orange sticks, that is a good way to end the week.

Also, in the back of the van, we were sitting Kiwi - American - Kiwi - American, so we had a nice chat about language differences. Renaissance in NZE: ren-AY-sance, instead of REN-uh-zonce.

I'm going to go chuck around a frisbee for a little while and then find some much deserved edibles. Hope everyone is doing well!

Kiwi birds!

2009-03-10T22:03:00.002-08:00

Hello!

So, two bits of news today.

1. Kiwi birds are adorable! IES went to Willowbank last night and saw the kiwi reserve. We also saw a kea huddled against a wall (apparently they are usually very sociable and love to show off a bit, but it was raining pretty heavily, so...) and some enormous eels and a possum. Possums are like the scourge of New Zealand, so New Zealanders encourage hitting the possums with cars. But the kiwi birds have these little legs, they are just like brown fluff balls with little legs and a long skinny beak. Pretty much all those caricatures of kiwi birds are spot on. They make a low little snuffling sound when they are digging around in the dirt. Also, the kiwi egg weighs 30-40% of the kiwi's weight... so that is like me laying a thirty to forty pound egg... We saw an x-ray of it, and it is ridiculous.

2. For those of you following along at home, I had my seminar presentation today, and it went quite well. I was really impressed with how on time people stayed. Nobody ran over, it ran very smoothly, it was like clockwork. In the States, it seems like everyone runs over and you end up shorting the last person (that was me), but no, we even left early. I'm glad to be done! Now I've got to write the research paper itself, but I am not terribly worried, and I've got until April 3rd. If you have any questions about mammoths, let me know (except when are they cloning one... Greg keeps asking me, but I don't know!).

Yay, I'm going to go play pool!

Soda pop

2009-03-09T13:43:00.003-08:00

Okay, I should be doing work right now, but this just about blew my mind: according to Nick, Kiwis don't say soda OR pop OR soda water OR fizzy sugary stuff. They just never say it. They know what soda pop is, but when I asked what they called it here, he said nothing. I said, nothing? How can they call it nothing? He said they just ask for it by name, as in, "I'll have a Coke" or Pepsi or Sprite or root beer. The need to call it by a broader name just doesn't come up. Kate, is this true???

Speaking of which, I could really go for a Coke right now, but it is really expensive here.

Okay, back to mammoths and their proboscidean brethren. Just had to share.

Photos

2009-03-09T01:33:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone,

I've sorted out adding photos, so take a peek back at the Akaroa post, there should be some photos there now. In the future I'll add them as I go, and I think that's the only one I'll do after the fact, just giving you a heads up that the Akaroa post is now NEW AND IMPROVED.

Dance

2009-03-09T01:03:00.002-08:00

Hey, so, I went to the first dance practice tonight! It was pretty packed, but Shalom said that it's like fencing... it will thin. We did modern jive for the first hour, which is like swing but without all the kicking. That part was really awesome.

We started off learning basic steps, and then we would partner off and do the steps with a partner, and then we would switch partners and learn a new move, and then we would switch partners again to practice the new move, and then we would switch partners again to learn a new move, etc. We learned... three, I guess, technically, it seemed like four because one of them is two of the others strung together. It basically gets you moving around to lots of various dance partners. Anyway, so modern jive was lots of fun, I enjoyed myself.

Then we did merengue, which was less fun. I don't know, I just couldn't get the hang of it for some reason. The step step step step I could do, but I couldn't put any of the moves in rhythm with the steps, and I was just a mess at it. Something that is cool though is that I can naturally pick up when things should switch... like if you're stepping to the side and you want to switch directions, you can't just do it on any step, you have to wait until a proper chance in the music, and I couldn't tell you when that is in words, but when the music is on I can tell. So that helped at least. But yeah, not a huge fan of merengue. I guess on Thursday it'll be salsa instead, which I'm excited about.

I was also super productive this morning reading about mammoths, so I was really proud of myself on that. However, my presentation is in just two days, and I'm still not really sure what I'm doing, so... woohoo! I'm actually going to go work on that now, but I'll write again when something remotely interesting happens!

Caldina

2009-03-07T15:25:00.004-09:00

So today I walked to the mall, and I have to say, it was really nice to just be me. I sometimes feel like I sort of copped out going to an English speaking country, but I was so grateful today to just be able to go out by myself and wander around. I went to the book store and bought myself a ruler and protractor for labs (so Jules, if you find the bag and those are in there, don't bother with them). I unfortunately also got food... I try really hard to avoid getting food, but I have a bit of a weak spot for Shamiana. You know how in America, the food court always has the same generic Asian food? Well, here, being all close to Asia and whatnot, generic Asian generally doesn't cut the mustard. So there are those same repeating restaurants (are they restaurants? They're not really), but there is one for Japanese food, one for Chinese food, and one for Indian food. Also, there is one for Mediterranean food, but that's not Asian. So anyway, Shamiana is the Indian food that crops up at every food court in Christchuch, and I sort of love it.

Anyway, the alone time was good. I could hum whatever popped into my head (Turn! Turn! Turn!, Wind Beneath My Wings, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town - the Xmas episode of Futurama was on last night, which sort of threw me off), I could run away from the butterflies without anyone being a tool about it, I could go as fast or as slow as I wanted. It was great! Also I used up some of my one and two dollar coins, which was good, because they are accumulating quickly.

Something that I noticed, though, is that pies are a big thing here. I was thinking about this on my walk, how meat pies are very popular, and there is this company that I saw advertised several times, Mrs. Mac's Meat Pies, and at first I thought of Chicken Run, which was sort of funny, but then I thought of Sweeney Todd and suddenly felt not amused at all. It's too easy to replace Mac with Lovett, and then I just feel yucky.

On a nicer note, last night, I played pictionary!!! It was excellent. There were EIGHT PEOPLE and it wasn't like OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO TALK OVER YOU ABOUT SOMETHING COMPLETELY UNRELATED AND NOT PAY ATTENTION TO WHEN MY TURN IS AND BASICALLY BRING THE ENTIRE PICTIONARY GAME TO A STOP BECAUSE I HAVE NO ATTENTION SPAN, and we finished the entire game! I think it was the largest pictionary game I've ever finished!

Aaaaaugh, Devon saw Watchmen last night, I'm so jealous. Movies are very far behind here. Jeevan, who is a friend of my flatmates' from Singapore said that he saw a movie in Singapore (which is already a little behind the U.S.) in November, and he saw the preview for its theatre release in New Zealand last week... I can't remember which movie now. Sadness.

Oh, also on my walk, I saw this cute car called a Toyota Starlet, and I wanted it... Mom, Dad, you should look for a Toyota Starlet. I also saw a nice one called a Toyota Caldina, but that was creepy because I saw it, and I was checking it out, and then I realized the driver was sitting in the car, so then I pretended I wasn't checking out his car. That's not the creepy part, sorry, except maybe on my part. About five minutes later, I saw another black Toyota Caldina, and I couldn't quite tell at first if it was a Caldina or not because the font is really bad. But, it had the word Caldina written on the back of the rear window, just peeling off so it wasn't obvious. Anyway, I thought, sweet, I can check this one out instead, and the driver was sitting in it! And I thought as I walked back trying really hard not to stare, that maybe it's the same driver, I wonder if it is. Then, maybe ten minutes after that, I came across a third black Caldina, this one definitely the same one because it had the name across the back the same way (should have checked the license plate number, but didn't think of it), and the driver was sitting in the car. At that point I got a little paranoid because I had made a turn onto another street since the second time I saw the car, but I was nearly to the mall, so it didn't matter.

So I have a photo of a Toyota Startlet, but none of a Caldina because the creeper driver was always with his car.

Have a nice day!

the open window

2009-03-05T16:23:00.003-09:00

In lieu of interesting things to say, I've got a few more things I've noticed that are different here.

1. There are no screens on the windows, ever. Not to keep out insects or keep in babies, they are all just open or shut.

2. It is okay and even normal to take overlapping uni classes. When you enrol (and yeah, they spell it with one l), it's just a little message that says, "Hello, some of your schedule conflicts. Just letting you know it might be a stupid choice! Have fun!" But that's all, you can still enrol in those courses if you think you can handle overlapping classes/obtain a time turner.

3. They love recycling! At every trash receptacle, there are four bins: clean paper, containers, organics, and rubbish. I guess dirty paper is rubbish, I just find it funny that they specify. Anyway, if you have leftover food, throw it in the organics!

4. I haven't gotten conclusive observations on this, but I am beginning to suspect that soda pop is more expensive than beer. On campus, a soda is $3.20. Downtown, you can get a beer for $3.00. But, it could just be that campus is more expensive, which is not at all unlikely.

5. They don't bless! Sam pointed this one out to me, or I wouldn't have noticed, although I started to get a little bit suspicious from the strange looks on the bus... But yeah, when somebody sneezes, everyone's just quiet. For me it's like a shoe falling, who is going to say something? but nobody says anything. What's worse is sometimes I get antsy and say bless you anyway, even though it's not like the culturally appropriate thing to do and also by then it's way delayed so it doesn't even make sense...

That's all for now, folks! I have to go research some mammoths, whoo!

Sticky Wicket

2009-03-02T23:45:00.002-09:00

In response to some comments:

I looked up "sticky wicket" on wikipedia, and it informed me that the phrase actually refers to the pitch, that is the small rectangular surface in the center of the field on which the ball is delivered and batted. Since that is apparently also called a wicket (seems a bit confusing, but okay), a sticky wicket is when the field gets wet in the rain and the wicket dries oddly, creating a surface that deflects the ball erratically. So a "sticky wicket" is a tricky situation, because when you have an actual sticky wicket, it's very hard to hit the ball. Go go wikipedia!

I do have a camera, and I have been taking photos, but I haven't uploaded them yet. My computer is full, so I have to do some deleting/filing/saving to my external hard drive, and I am just not organized enough for that yet. Also, I pay for my internet per gigabyte here, so when I do get all my photos saved and squared away, I will try to be sparing when posting them.

In other news:

I may have finally sorted out my courses, although I am possibly far over my head in an upper level linguistics course and an upper upper level paleontology course. I am researching the evolution of mammoths for my paleontology course, and haven't actually been to the linguistics course because I just got it sorted today.

The linguistics department told me I should be fine, and by the linguistics department, I mean a quite dapper gentleman who was in the department office. He was wearing a rather snappy suit and looked very very distinguished, and looked as if he should have had a monocle. He leaned forward to speak with me like Basil of Baker Street when he is addressing Olivia Flaversham. At least I think that is her last name, he gets it wrong repeatedly, so I sometimes forget. Anyway, he told me I should be fine, even though phonology is a 22 point course (like a five or six credit course at home) and I am only a small cluster student.

Also, Shalom is here!!! She let me do laundry in her flat, as my flat is seriously deficient. In the new flats, there are no ovens or laundry machines, sadly. The price for a newer flat, I suppose. She lives in the middle flats, and they are absolutely lovely, except that one of her walls is cement. My walls are like real walls, but they are only marginally better at keeping the sound out. It was very exciting to walk into my room for the first time to find real walls and a real, clean carpeted floor with no water damage. All the same, a washing machine would be nice... Shalom lets me do laundry there, though, and I'm sure we will be making pizza in the oven at some point.

I might be meeting up with Kate in Kaikoura next weekend!!! Kate! Kaikoura!! Yay!!! Did you see how I did that, the one two three exclamation points? That's what going to college teaches you. But no, I would really love to go to Kaikoura, and I would really also really love to see Kate, so hopefully that'll happen.

I'm out of news, and I could type many things like what I ate for dinner and how rockin' my dinosaur bag turned out to be, but I think I'm going to let you go. I promise a less inane post in the very near future.

Aaaaaakaroa!!! where the wind comes sweeping off the ocean

2009-03-01T12:33:00.004-09:00

So I went to Akaroa this weekend with Tamar, Ellen, and two of Tamar's friends from IES Auckland who were visiting for the weekend! I had Oklahoma! stuck in my head for the entire weekend, and I do not know any of the words except for "Ohhhhhhh-klahoma where the muttermuttermutter." Yeah, I had to look up the wind part just now to complete the post title.

We stayed in an adorable hostel named the Chez la Mer. I would highly recommend it. We stayed in the dorm-style rooms with a boy from Holland and a boy from Germany, except that the German boy did not sleep in there. He was out all night with some of the girls from the hostel, so who knows which bed he ended up in! The boy from Holland was named Albert and was quite pleasant. He had dinner with us, but I'll get to that.

When we got to Akaroa, which is about an hour and a half bus ride away from Chch (but really shouldn't it be Chchch? I've been telling people this, and they all sort of shrug or don't respond, but there are in fact three "ch"s in Christchurch!), we stopped in at the hostel and dropped out stuff off. They weren't quite ready for us in terms of making the beds and such, so we played cards for a little while (Crazy Eights, which for family members is Donkey). Eventually we were all squared away, and we wandered up and down the main street in Akaroa until the dolphin cruise.

Akaroa was originally settled by the French. There is a French half and a British half, but where we were was predominantly in the French half. So all the place names were in French, like Chez la Mer. The first day it was overcast, so we spent a lot of time in the little tourist shops. I got one of those roll-up bags that turn into a little tiny thing. IT HAS DINOSAURS ON IT. Ellen was teasing about how I am a little kid inside, and I was like, oh just you wait, you haven't seen anything yet. So yes, it is red and yellow and has a blue dinosaur on it and a yellow dinosaur on it. They also sell fudge there, and we got samples. I forget the name of the shop now, but if you find a place that says they sell fudge, go in, because they sell awesome roll-up bags and some other stuff.

Then we went on the dolphin swim! I was like, I'm not mad about the swimming part and also I'm cheap, so I just went along for the ride to see the dolphins, while everyone else got all wet suited up. Unfortunately, the dolphins were not feeling super playful, the weather got really bad, and I got really sick. I was already feeling a little like I was getting sick, and then to add seasickness on to it was just not a good plan. I actually almost did not go to Akaroa because my throat was so sore and I thought for sure I was just going to be miserable, but I'm glad that I went.

Anyway, since the swimmers did not actually get to swim with the dolphins (they got in, and some dolphins came swimming by, but there was no interaction), they were given a refund. Oh, really quickly! These are Hector's dolphins, these really tiny black and gray dolphins that are found only in New Zealand. Pretty cool stuff.

After that, we went back to the hostel and made noodles and pesto (and by made I mean boiled the noodles and opened the thing of ready-made pesto and mixed the two together). Oh, by this point, Eliza and Gabe, the two IES Auckland kids, had gone back to Chch. They had to catch a flight Sunday morning, so they didn't stay the night in Akaroa. We saw Albert (boy from Holland) in the room, so we invited him to have dinner with us. Pesto was a new experience for him, and since we added too much pasta, I don't know how much he enjoyed it. Afterwards, we played Scrabble (without Albert. He went to nap). We also played Yahtzee, and then we went to sleep.

The next day, we found that the hike to the seal rookery had been cancelled because of the heavy rain the day before. The rocks were much too slippery. We went off in search of something else to do for the rest of the day, and saw that Chez la Mer guests got a discount on a boat tour of Akaroa, so we went on that. Tamar really loves to be on the water, and after my seasickness the day before, I was not feeling particularly keen, but it was really nice. The weather had improved significantly and we were also not starting and stopping continuously in search of Hector's dolphins to swim with. We did see dolphins, and also fur seals and an ALBATROSS (I was most excited about the albatross, which I think confused some people), and a black petrol.

Afterwards, we wandered around Akaroa some more, found a place that makes excellent ice cream (it's just vanilla ice cream, but you can add two types of frozen fruit, and there is this mixer that looks like it could drill to the center of the Earth, and it blends it all together to make a delicious sort of soft serve fruity ice cream), and played cards.

It was a very low-key weekend, but it was very enjoyable, and Tamar, Ellen, and I had some nice chats on the boat and bus rides. We met a woman who is cycling around New Zealand... it is very impressive. We got to see Hector's dolphins, and I got that dinosaur bag.

To backtrack really quickly, I also went to a Crusaders game! That is the Canterbury rugby team. They were playing versus the Wellington Hurricanes, and they lost. Due to staying out too late the night before, we were all pretty tired for the rugby game, and I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I would have had I been completely healthy and completely rested. The cool part is, horses come out at the beginning of the game! There is the first crusader who comes out on his white horse and does a lap swinging a sword, and then all the others come out on black horses and do a lap as well. Those riders will stop in front of every stand and salute the crowd before continuing on their lap.

We also went to a fun Mexican restaurant called the Flying Burrito Brothers and had dinner and margaritas. The restaurant was really nice, and I would recommend it. We had most of our program, though, plus some roommates and friends, too, so all told we were probably thirty people, and the poor waitress had a rough time of it. Especially once some of the louder students had margaritas, the table got ridiculously noisy. But the food was excellent! Then Tamar, Eliza, Gabe, and I went to a salsa dance! I'm hoping to take salsa, but the first class overlaps with the day IES goes to Willowbank (a wildlife reserve that has kiwis).

Well, that's it until next time! It's back to classes, so there may not be anything interesting until next weekend, sorry. I hope everyone is doing well, and I'll be in touch!

P.S.

2009-02-25T16:08:00.002-09:00

So two things I didn't mention since the last blog post earlier this morning.

1. Cricket games are really long, even the 20Twenty ones. The stadium sells tons of booze over the course of three hours, and the fans can get a little bit out of hand. Two guys got escorted out of the stadium from my section, but one of Olivia's friends said their section had over ten people get kicked out. One of them from my section was leading cheers like "There's a wanker, there's a wanker" and "you F***ed up, you F***ed up" about whichever Indian fielder was closest to us. He also smelled really bad and broke two chairs. When he got escorted out by security, the entire section erupted into, "THERE'S A WANKER, THERE'S A WANKER" and "YOU F***ED UP, YOU F***ED UP!" as he was led out. But you know, a lot of those people were the same ones who were yelling at the poor Indian player... Whatever.

2. I'm writing this blog post from my room because Devon rocks socks. Devon 2, electronic demons that try to make Lisa sad zero! For those of you who have not been following the saga of my internet connectivity (everyone except for three), it's been really frustrating, but now I am super psyched, like when Clay, Giselle, and I were the first group to make the stupid ball float with the wire around it.

And now, it is a nice day, so I'm going to go buy me some avocados (five for a dollar at Farmers Direct, whoo!).

Wicket! Wicket! Wicket!

2009-02-25T12:28:00.002-09:00

So, classes have started! But this post is going to be mostly about non-academic adventures.

First, last Sunday, the day before classes started, a group of us went and wandered around in the Port Hills. They don't seem very high, but New Zealanders are apparently not in for the switchbacks approach and go more for the straight up the side of a mountain style. So, not very tall, but incredibly steep. Also, it was hot out in the open sun, which was not a problem once we got into the forested part of the trail, but at the very beginning, we were just out in the grasses.

We saw a World War II Anti-aircraft battery at the top of one of the hills. From there, we could see the ocean on both sides, Sumner, Lyttelton, and an unknown third town. Having just come from Lyttelton and knowing it was a pretty full hike going back, we decided to continue down to Sumner. The hike took more or less the whole day, but ended in ice cream and the beach (Sumner Beach is pretty amazing). It's a nice hike that I would recommend, although do it with people who have the same hiking values as you (meaning we are not hiking this together, Ben). The gondola also goes up, so you could also take the gondola, but that takes money and isn't nearly as fun or strenuous.

The next day, classes started. My classes all seem fine, except that I'm going to have to switch in and out of some, especially linguistics. Also, I had my first Earth Materials (mineralogy and petrology) lab yesterday, and it was basically learning how to use the optical microscope. The exercise was to come up with some characteristics one might use to differentiate minerals. So basically optical properties. One of the tutors (since recitations are called tutorials, all TAs are called tutors) came 'round and saw my paper and saw that I was using the actual terminology and had nearly identified all the minerals (except for one... I always get pyroxene and olivine confused), so he told me I could leave whenever I felt like it. I finished up the exercise and left early (but not first! Many other people left before me. I was trying to figure out what rock it came from, but then I realized it said it on the next page...).

Also yesterday, I WENT TO A CRICKET GAME!! For the first half hour or so, I was sitting there just going, what is going on? But after that, I moved over to by Tamar, who was having a nice Kiwi boy explain it all to her. I'm pretty sure this bloke was just sort of in to Tamar, but he was also very helpful. So they were playing 20Twenty cricket against India, which means each team gets twenty overs (an over is six balls/pitches/bowls). Each bowler can pitch for four overs (or maybe six? I forget now). Anyway, the bowler can only bowl for so many. Each batter (two up at a time, on opposite sides) goes until he gets out (he either gets a wicket or his hit is caught). A wicket is when the ball hits one of three posts behind the batter. Oh, or he can get out by "blocking with wicket." Because it's if the ball hits the wicket at all, not just as a result of a hit. If the bowler pitches and the batsman doesn't hit the ball and the ball flies into the wicket, that's still a wicket. So if the batter is considered to be blocking the wickets with his body to keep that from happening, he gets out. Anyway, so he gets out, and then he's done.

Batters can get points for hitting a home run, hitting the end of the field, or running back and forth between the wickets (like running the bases in baseball).

So, the inning ends after 10 outs, or twenty overs, or an hour and twenty minutes transpires, whichever comes first. In our case, both teams batted to twenty overs. Well, New Zealand only batted to eighteen overs, but I'll get to that :D

Basically, India went first, and they racked up 163 points in their twenty overs. Pretty good, I think, since India is supposed to be super fab at cricket. So then New Zealand went, and the first two guys went out on blocking the wicket. But, they batted for a long time before they went out. I think New Zealand only went through three batters.

They had twelve points left to go (to hit 163) and twelve balls left (so two overs), and then they had like, one and part of an over left and three points to go, and everyone was yelling home run home run home run! and I was like, if you put all that pressure on him, he's going to get out! but he hit a home run! I couldn't believe it. I mean, he could have just hit the side of the field, and that would have been four points and they would have won, but everyone wanted a home run (six points), and he did it.

That was probably way more than you wanted to know about cricket, but that's how it went, and it was super exciting because we won, and now I'm going to be late to class! I'll let you know how the rugby game goes on Friday! The Canterbury Crusaders are playing.

Bye!

NZ ways

2009-02-21T22:56:00.002-09:00

So, yes, in New Zealand, you drive on the left side of the road. It’s such a simple statement, and it seems so easy to remember. But it changes everything. If you run into someone on the sidewalk, you move to the left. You board the bus on the left. When crossing the street, you look to the right first. Sometimes a car moves to turn while I’m still in the road, and I think they’re going to run over me, but then I realize that I’ve already cleared that part of the road needed by the car to turn. Or I just glance up and see a two-handed texting teenager driving, and then realize she’s the passenger. And so on.

- The light switches switch down to turn on.
- The outlets have switches, too, just like the lights. It’s to conserve energy, I think.
- The toilets have half flush and whole flush. Sometimes it’s two buttons, sometimes it’s not. If it’s not obvious which is which, the half flush is usually on the left.
- I have yet to see a sink that has the style of plug that you pull up on the rod and it plugs the sink. They mostly have separate plugs on chains, but the one in my bathroom is a metal circle that spins in the drain, so if the circle is vertical, the sink drains. If the circle is horizontal, it plugs the sink.
- Cellphone calls are extremely expensive here, so everyone texts. There are only two cellphone providers, Vodaphone and Telecom. Under certain plans, texts to same provider is free or included, so some people have two cellphones, one Vodafone and one Telecom. IT’S HAPPENING. THE TWO CELLPHONE ERA IS HAPPENING. It’s only a matter of time before the machine gun phone comes out, I know it.
- There is a poster at the bank that shows a father showing his young daughter how to bat. She’s holding the bat, and he’s kneeling behind her holding her hands to show her how to do it. But, it’s not a baseball bat, it’s a cricket bat.
- There are no pennies or nickels. They use Swedish Rounding if you use cash and the cost is not in ten cent increments. There are one dollar and two dollar coins, though. The one dollar coin has a kiwi on it! Also, there is tax, but it’s included in all the prices, so what you see is what you get.
- The crosswalk lights will not go on until someone presses the button. So both lights will be dark until you press the button, and then the red No Walk Man lights up. When the green Walk Man lights up, there is also a persistent beeping sound telling you that you may now cross.
- French fries are chips and chips are crisps.

More to come!

Hi New Zealand!

2009-02-17T13:35:00.005-09:00

A post! To let you know I am

1. alive

2. well

3. exhausted from running around the Port Hills all day.

Caution: this is a very long blog post. The next one is shorter and more interesting.

2/20/09

A blog post! What?? I’ve been inspired by the downpour to write my very first New Zealand blog update. It’s been just about a week now, so I’ll try to go light on the details and only do highlights, but most of you know how good I am at summarizing…

In my mind, the week has been divided into three parts:

While Kate was here!
When IES went to Springfield.
Post-Springfield.

So let’s start from the top! Those of you who know Kate will be so jealous! I’m hoping that you will be so jealous that your only option is to come to New Zealand to hunt me down and take revenge. Then, once you get here, you’ll see Kate for yourself, your jealous rage will abate, and you can hang out with us. See, I’ve got it all planned out here, eh?

Kate met me at the airport. I was late, which was great, because the taxi driver seemed like he wouldn’t have waited very long for Kate (he was sent special from IES, so he really only had a responsibility for me, and I was already late, so he was less than happy with me). I had to go through biosecurity because my shoes had red dirt on them. Note to people coming to visit me: no fresh food (especially fruit and nuts), you have to declare all food (they won’t take it away from you, but you might have to go through biosecurity anyway), no camping gear, etc. If you’re going through Kauai, clean your shoes as best you can, especially the soles. They cleaned my shoes for me, which was nice, except that those were the ones I was wearing, so my feet got a little soggy. The only person I’ve talked to who actually got something taken away is Melissa (IES, from Bellevue!). She had some juggling balls and they took them away and burned them.

I got really lucky about my flights and everything, though. Alyssa (IES – goes to UR, actually) was told to get their bags in Auckland, which is ridiculous, because there is like an hour and twenty minute layover between the Auckland flight and the Christchurch flight. The airlines have it set up so that if you have that close connection, you do all your stuff in Christchurch. So they left to go collect their bags, and their bags never showed up (because they had been checked through to Christchurch). So then they not only had to rush through security again, but they had to figure out what had happened to their bags. I’m impressed she made her flight, even with an airline worker expediting them to the front of the security line.

Wow, so already failure with the skipping of details. Sorry. On to Christchurch!

The first couple of days, it was pretty overcast. Kate can attest to this. It was like 30 degrees until the day we got to Christchurch, and then it dropped to probably fifteen. Of course, it was roasting up in Taupo, so Kate was a little cold coming from there to here. The first day involved

Getting lost in Chch repeatedly (but not in a bad way).
An epic search for pizza.
An Irish B-movie with Minnie Driver and Alan Cummings in it.
A constant struggle to stay awake.

Kate did a good job of making me stay awake until 8:30. Otherwise, I would have gone to sleep at like five and been completely messed up for the first few days. At 8:30, full of yummy pizza, I crashed.

The YHA is right off Cathedral Square, which is very pretty. They have some nice shop stalls (I’m pretty sure they are for tourists, but whatever… for the first month, I’m allowed to be a tourist. I bought a fun bag for like US$6, so yeah), a giant chess board (Wizard’s Chess :p but you don’t actually get to be a piece, unfortunately. And you don’t get to hit people, even more unfortunately), and of course the cathedral.

The next morning, we got breakfast at a cute little place across the street from the hostel. Then we got lost looking for the bus stop, and then we went to the uni! MY FLAT!!! Kate can be my witness, my flat is awesome. It is a new Ilam flat, so it is nice and clean and beautiful and well lit and spacious and comes with dishes and such!

My flatmates are all cool so far. We all sort of run on different tracks, and honestly, when we do run in to each other, it seems to be in the kitchen, which means we are all in each other’s ways. But they are really friendly, and last night, Nana even ate dinner with the dinner group (getting there). Unfortunately, I don’t know how to spell any of their names except for Nana’s. So, I’m going to guess, and I apologize if their names are misspelled. Nana and I share a bathroom and Misuyu and Wawa have a similar two room one bathroom set up on the opposite side of the kitchen. To be honest, I am probably the least tidy, so I am constantly checking and myself to make sure I haven’t left a mess somewhere out in the common areas of the flat.

I met Kate in the evening after walking to the city center with IES. It was sad, because we had to get to the airport for her flight, but we went to a sushi place first, and they made Kate’s veggie roll with mayonnaise. So there was some sort of miscommunication after that, and basically we left without Kate getting any sushi :( We nearly missed the airport bus because the stop is in a strange place. If it hadn’t been for some random kiwi guy, we probably would have missed it. But he overheard us talking to Wawa, whom we saw at the bus exchange, and he pointed us in the right direction. Then Kate left :( but she’s coming back (I hope!)!

So that’s Part 1.

Part 2 was Springfield, which I actually will try to keep short. In a nutshell: I got to feed sheep and a goat, see a sheep shearing (which is actually sort of petrifying), go jetboating, ride a horse (also petrifying), and see Narnia twice. On the jetboat, a hornet ran into my neck. I can’t put into words quite how that hurt. There was definitely a stinging sensation, but also a feeling of that side of my neck tightening up. Then it sort of felt like it was burning, and then it just got sore. Strange… Oh, and I played pool for the first time! I’m unbelievably bad.

We stayed at a HI hostel that was run by our bus driver/tour guide named Colin and his Japanese wife Keiko. Colin reprimanded me (in a friendly way) for not knowing Japanese. He has three kids, and the family speaks in both English and Japanese at home. The hostel was amazing. Three of us were in the Narnia Room. Colin gave everyone else instructions to their rooms, but to the Narnia Room folks, he just said, take a look around and see if you can find it. If you go through the kitchen, there is a closet door next to the fireplace. But, if you open the closet door, it leads to a staircase, and if you go up the staircase, you’re in the Narnia Room! We took up the entire hostel. Keiko made an amazing dinner for us, and all in all, Springfield was very pleasant. It was probably 25 degrees while we were there; it was fantastic.

We also went to Castle Hill, which is a vast, rolling, yellow grass field with huge pieces of limestone jutting up out of it. It is right near where the final battle scene in the first Narnia movie was filmed. It looks pretty much just like that, too, only far cooler in person (but without a talking lion).

So that’s Part 2.

I did much better there, see? I just condensed two days of constant activity into three paragraphs! On to Part 3!

Since we’ve been back from Springfield, we’ve mostly just registered. We’re no longer booked all day every day by IES (which wasn’t bad, it was just non-stop), so we have our own time. A group of us have developed a dinner group. We all decide on a dish and each bring ingredients to contribute and then usually two people cook (we max out on cutting boards, knives, and counter space at around three, so two is usually a good number), and then two people are on KP (do you know what that means? Apparently none of them had heard it before. It’s Kitchen Patrol, which means clean-up, in case you hadn’t either). So far, we’ve had falafel pitas (Melissa as head cook), tacos (Alyssa as head cook), and curry (I was head cook for that one). But Greg and Tamar also cook, too. Olivia came to tacos and Kate came to falafel, but we’re the core group. Nana came and ate for curry, and Morgan (Melissa’s kiwi roommate) came for tacos. Morgan said that she would lead a dish soon. She wants to make Moroccan chicken, which I have no objection to. After dinner, we usually watch a movie or play a game or something.

I have been on a wild goose chase for a means to get internet. Sadly, my Ethernet port has finally decided to die for realsies. So I am trying to find a USB to Ethernet port, but that apparently is hard to come by. I’ve been to the main electronics chain, the lesser electronics chain, the little closet computer store, all over. I was so close today, and I was so happy, but then I saw that it was only for Windows/Linux/Vista. That was such a huge disappointment, I got so upset, and then I got homesick just because I was already upset, but now I’m feeling much better. Melissa, Alyssa, and Greg climbed through my window and cheered me up (I’m on the ground floor and the windows are huge and there are no screens. Just so you’re not super creeped out on my behalf, I was sitting here, at my desk, watching them do it, so it’s not like they snuck in while I wasn’t paying attention (the window was locked anyway, so they couldn’t have.)).

Earlier today, I made a shoe rack out of one of those earth friendly reusable shopping bags. It wasn’t the greatest job I’ve ever done, but it holds three pairs of shoes, which is all I need.

Sunday night, right when we got back from Springfield, a big group of us went to the lantern festival in Victoria Square. I guess it was for Chinese New Year’s? The lanterns were amazing, though. I’ll have pictures for you at some point, but internet costs a bit much for me to go throwing them all over my blog, sorry.

Tonight is pasta night, so I have to go get my stuff together and head over to Alyssa’s flat. Classes start on Monday, so hopefully I will meet some more people (not that I don’t like Melissa, Alyssa, Greg, and Tamar, but I didn’t come all the way to New Zealand to hang out with a bunch of Americans all the time), and also I will fall into some sort of routine.

I am taking a mineralogy/petrology course, a structures course, a field studies course, a linguistics course, and a Maori studies course. Three lab classes, and not one day that I start before ten, so I am in for some long days, but I think it will be okay. Most days I start at noon or later, which some of you may know is something I have tried to avoid all throughout college. But, with the lecture halls being large and few, they only offer one section (sometimes two sections) for each course, so scheduling options are pretty much nil. Some people have arranged to have no class on Fridays so they can leave for tramping or outing or whatever on Thursday, but my Friday is from one PM to six PM, so no such luck there.

This was a long one, and I apologize. Next time I won’t wait so long and it’ll be shorter. It’s not as cool as DanRose’s, but I guess that’s the price you pay for having a brothel-free week!

Hawaii

2009-02-06T19:52:00.004-09:00

Hi fun people (and the un-fun ones, too, I guess...),

So, t-3 days and counting until I leave beautiful Kauai for beautiful New Zealand! Sorry contact has been sparse; I only have internet when I am here at my uncle's.

A few comments about Kauai.

I am in this sort of visitor limbo in that I am not a tourist, but I'm not a local either. You can tell I'm not a local girl because I'm too pale :)

All the dirt here is red because of high iron content and a lot of precipitation. On the west side, where my grandparents live, it's dryer, but Kauai hosts the wettest place in the world over on the other side. Everything is stained red from the dirt. Houses, cars, horses, sidewalks, everything. It sort of makes it look like a third world country.

Since people here never have to drive in snow, they drive right up your tail pipe, especially if you're going the speed limit. There are a few select places to pass, but for the most part, it's one lane in each direction on the highway. So if you're going slow, you slowly collect a long line of cars behind you, all riding up each other's tail pipes.

The road system is essentially one long highway with towns spaced along it, right off the highway, so every few miles, the speed limit drops to 35 and 25 miles per hour. This makes driving especially fun.

During Hurricane Iniki, a bunch of chickens got loose, and now there are chickens all over Kauai. They are out in the streets running around. Also, especially near Salt Pond, there are a bunch of stray cats.

The stores here carry things to remind you that you're in Hawaii :) The Costco sells Hawaiian shirts, the grocery store has ika (squid) and tako (octopus) in the meats section, and the drug stores have "Sanrio" aisles (I tried to find something Pom Pom Purin for Ben, but to no avail. Sanrio cycles through their characters relatively quickly, keeping only a handful long term (the more common and well-known being Hello Kitty, of course). Right now, the big players are a panda whose name I forget, Choco Cat, and a devil Hello Kitty. Oh, and in some stores, Hello Kitty is Hawaiian, tan like the color of cafe au lait).

Well, on Monday, I take off for New Zealand, leaving my grandparents and uncle to meet Shalom's friends and SEE KATE!!! Unless something remarkable happens in the next three days, my next post should be from New Zealand!

Oh, and people were saying that they couldn't post here, which puzzled me, but I found the setting that controls posting, and it should now be open to comments. Sorry about that!

Those things with paper and words and stuff

2009-01-20T12:16:00.006-09:00

Happy Inauguration Day!

In lieu of a proper post, since I am still in Juneau and a negative number of interesting things have happened since my last post, I'm just going to list some books that I like and would recommend. Devon and Ryan were like, books, those are still around? so in response, yes... they are. Don't dog ear your pages! Tip your waiters!

In no particular order:

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - after this book, there are two series that branch off. One is Ender's series and the other is Bean's series. I much prefer Bean's series, which follows the children left on Earth. Ender's series follows Ender's life to an adult age, which is less interesting to me.

Black and White by David Macaulay - this is a children's book, but it is genius! Remember how all the books we used to read were huge and full of pictures? Those were the days...

Twelfth Night or What You Will by William Shakespeare - Not a huge fan of Shakespeare, but I think Twelfth Night is hilarious. If Shakespearean lingo is not your thing (or if plays are not your thing... I find them difficult to read in general), you could just try to find the movie version with Ben Kingsley as Feste and Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia.

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech - The book is supposed to be the assigned poetry journal of an elementary school student (kids' literature). It is written entirely in poetry and is the unfolding story of a boy and his dog.

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett - perhaps to the general disapproval of fencers, I do like Terry Pratchett. It really depends on what you pick up, though. He's written a bazillion books about different places and people in Discworld. I prefer Sam Vimes to the witches or the gods, and I don't bother with the wizards. Thief of Time was the first Terry Pratchett book I read, and, perhaps because of that, also my favorite. I was still a romantic then, and it has a cute ending.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon - written from the point of view of an autistic boy. It's a good, quick read. Haddon also wrote A Spot of Bother, which I also liked, but less so.

The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg - kids' literature, but I still love it. It's about a sixth grade academic bowl team and their coach/teacher, and how they are awesome.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut - really strange, but I enjoyed it, for a book I had to read for school. Between the freezing stuff and the foot sex, it's pretty bizarre.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein - also a children's book. Story of a boy and his tree.

Lamb by Christopher Moore - a Dogma-esque comedy about Christ's forgotten best friend Biff.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - I'm not even going to really bother saying anything about this except that it is British humor, I love it, and stop while you're ahead (at the end of the fourth book).

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine and Beauty by Robin McKinley - both rewrites of fairy tales (Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, respectively), both from that romantic period I was talking about. Ella Enchanted is a juvenile fiction book, but sweet. I can't bring myself to watch the movie version, as much as I love Anne Hathaway.

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand - a play, so not my favorite format, but a really very pretty story. Also, there's fencing in it! There was a movie with Steve Martin in it that is maybe called Roxanne that is loosely based on this play.

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan - imagine David Sedaris is an angsty high schooler. It's not a comedy, it's an angsty high school book, but there are some funny parts, and I liked it.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster - in 2004, I drew a frog character every day, and two of them were King Azaz the Unabridged and the Mathemagician. This is also juvenile fiction, but GREAT juvenile fiction.

Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine - Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine travel around the world looking for I think it is six endangered species. One of them is the kakapo, a bird found only in New Zealand! Not at all like Hitchhiker's Guide, in case that is what you are expecting, but awesome in its own way, especially the part about the condom.

Lizard Music by Daniel Manus Pinkwater - I could remember this only as "the book where they watch TV with their eyes closed" for years until I rediscovered it in the public library. It's a great juvenile fiction book, simple but bizarre and great. Also by the same author, the Hoboken Chicken Emergency, about a giant chicken named Henrietta.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith - comedy by the author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Takes place in Europe instead of Africa, a collection of stories about the fictional philologist Professor Doctor Mortiz-Maria von Igelfeld.

The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman - Read all three. The last one is very sad. Darius told me he was unimpressed with the Golden Compass, and I think part of the reason I liked it so much was that I read it when I was right at target age, so maybe read it with a grain of salt.

Persepolis I and II by Marjane Satrapi - autobiographical graphic novel (in two parts) of growing up during the Iranian revolution. The illustration style is almost like woodblock, done in black and white.

On a graphic novel note, I also highly recommend the Asterix books by Goscinny and Uderzo, which follow the adventures of Asterix the Gaul and others in his Gaulish village, and I Killed Adolf Hitler by Jason, which was recommended to me by Jim. Jim can probably tell you more about Jason, and actually probably also more about Asterix, if my bet is correctly placed.

There are a lot more books, especially children's books, but I gather that few of you are going to the Everybody Book section and dig all these out. So, I will leave you with that, and one more children's book, Yo! Yes? by Christopher Raschka, probably one of my all-time favorite books. So yeah, these are just off the top of my head, probably a ton missing. Bye!

BLAME DEVON FOR AWESOMENESS!

2009-01-14T16:31:00.004-09:00

So, Devon used his superpowers to bring the photos back! They have been successfully retrieved! Unfortunately, my camera is unable to recognize them and so I cannot transfer them to my computer for your enjoyment until I next see Devon (July), but honestly, I do not mind so much. I am more ecstatic that the Jesse/Jaime/Jemmy/Devon photo was preserved.

Also, he gave me the mussel bowl! You probably do not know what I am talking about unless you are Shalom, and she is traveling right now, but let me just say that it is awesome. It is a ceramic bowl that looks like a mussel shell, and as I told Devon, it is my second favorite piece of pottery he has ever made, the first being the puffin on the puffin hut.

But in other, less awesome news, I appear to have lost my Radium Man notebook. I think perhaps I left it at school... if Ben or Julie happens across a gray notebook (please don't go looking for it, it is a waste of time and not important, but if you happen to see it), let me know. I don't think I'll have to describe it further, as I usually don't go in for gray things and I think it is the only gray notebook I have ever owned (it came in a set).

I found out today that all of my electronics I will be taking with me (camera battery charger and laptop charger) will take up to 240 volts, so I don't even have to get a transformer (although some of you have seen the little McDonald's Ratchet I carry around in my bag). I've been searching around for both the adapter to change the plug style and the transformer to change the voltage, but I guess I only need the adapter!

That's all for now!

Oh, and the pig's name is Uno.

Flood!

2009-01-13T15:31:00.003-09:00

Still in Juneau, but thought I would write briefly about how the streets look like rivers. Calling it a flood *is* a bit extreme, since the illusion is created by only an inch or two of water.

What happened is this: we had a foot a day of snow for a week, the city was not down with clearing the snow, and then it all warmed up. Now everything is super slushy and melting, and since there are no level surfaces in downtown Juneau, all the water is rushing, making all the streets look like rivers.

I had photos of everything, but I had a misunderstanding with my camera and computer that resulted in deleting all my photos, including a really stellar one of Devon with Jesse, Jemmy, and Jaime. It actually just happened, and I just finished hyperventilating about it, because the snow was really ridiculously high, the highest I can ever remember it being in my life, and I was so careful to document it, along with the mega icicles that formed outside my kitchen window, and those icicles are so long gone... But it's okay. These things happen. I think that Devon has this superpower to get rid of photos he feels were a lapse in his judgment.

For example: I had this great photo of him with a flower behind his ear, and it was on my phone. Then, my phone was stolen. There's no tack on my stool before he moves, and after he moves, there's a tack! Coincidence? I think not!

Anyway, so, sorry, I had some awesome photos to share with you, but no longer. Blame Devon!

In other news, those of you who have met Blackjack, I have a new friend for him! Ben got me the white pig! Actually, it's quite a bit different from the white pig that was lost to clutches of Angelica, as I think the manufacturers have changed designs since Blackjack was created, but it's still really cute and square and, most importantly, bouncy. That was the first thing I tested, actually...

I haven't decided on its gender. I'm leaning heavily toward male, in which case its name will be either: Cecil or Uno. Uno if I decide to stick with the card games theme and Cecil if not. If it's a girl, I think I'll name it Hannelore after my favorite character in the online comic Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques. Before you're like, Hannelore, what kind of crazy name is that, she goes by Hanners for short, which I think is a pretty cute pig name. Feel free to comment, but I think Uno will emerge victorious.

I lead a boring life, sorry. I figure only Ben is reading at this point, so I can write whatever I feel like until I get to New Zealand. I'm off to make a Shaun the Sheep montage!

Oh, for next time, I may take up a suggestion Sparky gave me, and add some pictures. I'm going to see if I can find my old Radium Man sketches and redraw them for you guys. Maybe add a little commentary, because some of the things are really hilarious except that I can't draw them well enough for it to make sense. Like, the main baddie is Bromine, and he sits in a halogen lamp of evil, which is hahaha because bromine is a halogen, but how in Douglas Adams' name do you draw a halogen lamp such that it is indisputably a halogen lamp? But then maybe having commentary like that is like explaining a joke... kills the joy. Have you ever had to explain the hydrogen joke to somebody? You know, the two atoms walking along and one falls down and loses an electron, and is he sure, and yes, he's positive? It's nerdy, it's a terrible pun, it's short, it's beautiful. And then when you have to explain it to someone, it is a little bit painful, because it really doesn't sound that funny all dissected like that.

Holy long tangent, Batman! Bye for reals now! Check back soon for Radium Man!

Happy New Year

2009-01-05T15:50:00.002-09:00

Hey ho,

So, this is my new blog, in preparation for studying abroad in Christchurch, New Zealand. I don't leave Juneau until the 25th of January, and then I don't leave Hawaii until the 9th of February, so it'll be slow and boring until then. Sorry. If you don't like it, then you can just go away.

I used to tell people to go away all the time in elementary school. Once in kindergarten, or possibly first grade (I was in the same room and had the same teacher both years, so the two years blend together pretty effectively), I was playing Monopoly with other kids, and this girl came up and invited herself in and folded the Monopoly money. All of that was okay until we got to the folding of Monopoly money. Monopoly money must stay clean and uncreased! So, I told her to go away, and I got in trouble. Also, there was a corn snake named Corky who was our class pet, and one day, he pooped in the tin of little plastic counting bears.

So. Here it is. I hope that there are interesting things in it later on. Happy 2009!

Lisa