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

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

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!

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

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

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!

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

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?

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!