Antipodal Geca

Entering part two.

2008-11-18T18:36:00.001+13:00

The weather report says it "feels like 45-degrees F" at home in NJ.

Winter...you mock me.

It got me.

2008-11-18T07:56:00.003+13:00

Today is my last day in Samoa, my last day in the Southern Hemisphere, my last day before flying home.

I've been so careful about not drinking the water: no ice cubes (but so tempted), no water...the only mistake I've made was a bit of a salad I had for lunch three days ago. And whatever it is, whatever is lurking ominously in the water has got me. Somehow.

Instead of going on my day-tour around the eastern side of the island (Upolu) , I've got stomach cramps and the whole shebang. I've cancelled my tour (goodbye beautiful waterfalls, rainforest-covered mountains, ocean grottos and stunning beaches) and booked an extra day so I can limp around the inn feeling like death on a too-warm day.

If I feel slightly more alive I'm going to venture into the city again, perhaps if I have a sudden amazing recovery I will even walk to the Marine Reserve five minutes away and have a swim.

My pathetic palagi insides got done in.

Samoa!

2008-11-15T10:40:00.002+13:00

Hello! I'm here! I've arrived! Finally!

I spent an hour writing up a post, but when I tried to insert my USB drive to upload it I was swooped on by two of the hotel ladies. Oops.

Anyway, it's very warm and muggy and I haven't been outside of the hotel yet. We arrived at 3:30 and even though I woke up for an amazing free breakfast at 8:30, my travel comanion is still sleeping at nearly 11. I can see the ocean from the front door and I have a strong urge to make a bolt for it.

I'm alive, not quite melting (yet), not that rested, but well fed and relaxed. When I can, I will upload my already written post.

Preparing.

2008-11-14T00:48:00.001+13:00

And tonight was my Last Last Night.

I'm Back

2008-11-13T12:38:00.005+13:00

I've grown so comfortable in Christchurch and my current situation that --except for last night when goodbyes to some of the good friends I've made here choked me up-- I hardly believed that I was leaving. Just time and ease of the familiar made this morning's taxi ride to the airport disjunctured, unreal. I half-believed that I would be returning: more, I really couldn't comprehend the situation...that this was over and I was out.

I did, however, kind of expect to get to Samoa.

What Happened:
This morning was quite foggy and by 7 in the morning most of the morning's planes had been canceled, leaving me unable to get to Auckland to transfer to Apia, Samoa. The man behind the check-in desk gave me a slip of paper with the number to a flight with a different airline and told me to take it to the International Tickets & Sales desk, which I did. The man behind that desk, however, only half paid attention to me, looked at the flights and told me across the board that they were canceled. He told me I couldn't leave until tomorrow at 5:00pm.

I crawled outside, hailed a cab and headed back to Ilam.

What Happened Next:
The fog lifted -- it's now a brilliant bright beautiful day with not a cloud anywhere to be seen. I hop online and check the Christchurch Airport website...just in time to see the second flight (the one written on my slip of paper) finish boarding and depart while I watch. My travel companion decided last minute not to take a taxi and have a friend drive her to the airport so she could say goodbye -- and thus we were separated and having gotten rid of our New Zealand cellphones, totally unable to communicate. I haven't heard from her since so I assume that she's happily flying across the South Pacific on the flight that wasn't really canceled.

What This Means:
$45 on cab fare
The possibility that I might lose $64 on the hotel in Samoa for two nights
Arriving in Samoa at 1:40 AM instead of 2:40PM
Reduction from 5 days in Samoa to 3
Extreme frustration and irritation
An extra day-and-a-half with friends in Christchurch
Having to unpack my tightly-packed bags for PJ's and more clothes

The weirdest part is this feels so normal: it's become my home and so being back here doesn't at all feel unreal. It's played into that side of my head that feels like tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day will still be New Zealand. I simply cannot wrap my mind around the fact that I'm leaving.

I can, however, wrap my mind around the fact that I'm missing out on two days in the tropics.

Update:
Though I still haven't heard directly from my travel companion, I heard through the grapevine that she was also grounded and could not make it to Samoa. Today I spent relaxing, soaking up some more of Christchurch and some more friendship, and tonight I'm feeling the impact of expecting the jarring disconnect, and then returning --suddenly-- to normality.

...

2008-11-12T09:47:00.002+13:00

Today is my last day in New Zealand. When did that happen?

Roses

2008-11-12T02:16:00.002+13:00

Yesterday I was at the Botanical Garden:

Adventuring in Middle Earth

2008-11-11T10:26:00.010+13:00

As I've mentioned before, New Zealand has embraced their Lord of the Rings legacy: when the movies were being filmed the NZ army was enlisted to build a road to the set at Hobbiton and a no-fly-zone up to 5,000 feet was enacted over the area, a Minister of Parliament was named Minister of Lord of the Rings, the crowd at an All-Blacks Game (rugby) was recorded yelling like orcs and which was tweaked for the battle scenes, and Viggo Mortenson was almost arrested for tromping around Wellington in full regalia with armor and sword.

And the line, of course, blurs in funny ways, calling New Zealand "Middle Earth" or making some special claim on Tolkein.

In this vein, I'm going to dedicate a post to all of the Lord of the Rings territory I've visited while roaming through New Zealand.

Matamata -- Hobbiton and the Shire

Matamata (on the North Island, about 2hrs from Rotorua) is notable as having the only remaining set from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was a result of advantageous misfortune which presented half of the Hobbit holes from being torn down, and after several years of bitter fighting with New Line Cinemas, the farmer who owns the land won the right to keep and show off what was remaining.

Gollum was there to greet us in downtown Matamata.

The Party Tree! Apparently this was the biggest reason why Peter Jackson chose this location: a huge, perfectly round tree.

Here am I, giving a speech for Bilbo's Eleventy-First Birthday Party.

Looking directly across the water, where The Green Dragon Tavern near Hobbiton once stood. The spit of land to the right was where the bridge used to stand.

Along the back, near the fence, marks the furthest Sam Gamgee had been out of the Shire.

Bag End and other Hobbit holes.

Bag End is definitely the best Hobbit hole in the shire!

Some of the other Hobbit holes in the Shire.

I'm inside Bag End!

Looking out from the door of Bag End.

Living like a Hobbit!

Looking down across the Shire from above Bag End.

Franz Joseph Glacier -- The Lighting of the Beacons

There are Lord of the Rings sites scattered all across New Zealand, it's hard to miss them. This is really an incidental location that I visited as only afterthought. These peaks that surround Franz Joseph Glacier were used in the lighting of the beacons, when Pippin climbs up the tower in Minas Tirith to light the first beacon. The beacons are then lit from peak to peak across this area. The shot in the film is taken high above the top of the peaks, while this photo was taken by my lowly position as a mortal on the ground.

Franz Joseph Glacier and the peaks that surround it.

Tarras -- The Great East Road

The only compilation of information about the sites of many of the Lord of the Rings location is terribly written, disorganized, vague, and astonishingly useless. (After days of trudging around, hunting for locations with Kelsey on our South Island Road Trip and muttering "Oh, he's getting a bad review!" to eachother, I finally got my thoughts out.)

Somewhere near Tarras, some kilometers down a dusty unpaved road, we were supposed to come across the pine forest where the flight to the ford along the Great East Road (when Arwen is transporting a sick Frodo and fleeing from the Ringwraiths to escape towards the river) was filmed. As our directions were unclear and our divining rod was out of commission, I'm not entirely sure if this is the correct batch of pines, though clearly we were very close.

One possible candidate for the pine forest with the path transfomred into the Great East Road.

A more likely candidate for the location of the Great East Road.

Kawaru River, Queenstown -- River Anduin

Amazingly, the directions to this site were some of the clearest (with only one false start) though it involved one of the scariest roads I've ever driven: a terrifyingly narrow gravel road going uphill along the edge of a cliff.

This is the Kawaru River, which was used to film the River Anduin. Particularly, the Pillars of Argonath, the giant statues of Kings which the Fellowship passed as they boated down the river were computer-graphicked into the area.

Looking down on the River Anduin from on high.

In Tourism Theory, this photo is called "a Certificate of Presence." So there you go: I was there.

Middle of Nowhere, near Mavora Lakes -- The Edge of Fangorn Forest

To get here, we drove 40 minutes down an unpaved dirt road: we left a dust trail that stretched far behind us and everything inside and outside of the car was coated with find brown dust. The whole way down the road through farmland, the lambs fled in a panic at the sound of our hefty beast of a car approaching on the gravel.

When we located the site, it was a bit of a triumph! It was exciting to see that it is so recognizable. This is the edge of Fangorn Forest where the Rohirrim's ambush on the Orcs takes place and where Merry and Pippin crawl into the forest to escape.

The field at the edge of Fangorn Forest.

Standing on the battlefield, at the edge of Fangorn Forest.

At the edge of Fangorn, where the Rohirrim burned the orc bodies. (I'm a dead orc, obviously.)

Mavora Lakes -- Silverlode River

This was one of the prettiest places I got an opportunity to visit while traveling around the South Island, but the directions were, again, absolutely terrible. (Perhaps it did not occur to the author that "lone bathrooms" and "park benches" are not permanent landmarks and that looking for "the log in the forest" might not be a unique marker.) However, we did far better than we realized and happened to be right on the correct shores which we found by memory.

The end of the River Anduin spills into the Silverlode River, and it's near here where the Fellowship camps out and where Sam and Frodo take off on their own, after their scuffle mid-water.

A view of the South Mavora Lake, the Silverlode River and a shot only in the extended edition of the first film.

North Mavora Lake and on the beach where the Fellowship made camp. On the other side is the far shore to which Frodo and Sam crossed in their boat.

Twelve Mile Delta -- The Hobbits Lunch with Gollum & Oliphants

This is a park and campground about a half-hour drive outside of Queenstown towards Glenorchy (which really isn't a bad drive, but extraordinarily daunting at night -- a feat which also involved a slow drive down a gravel hill with our lumbering vehicle and peeing behind a bush in the pitch black darkness which we later discovered was no more than 150 yards from a bathroom in the light of morning.) It was really quite nice to wake up and spend the morning right in the area, exploring.

At this point in the trilogy, Sam and Gollum are arguing over the coney which Sam insists on cooking. This is the area where they stop and have lunch.

The guidebook suggested that this area was supposed to look like it was being run down from the evil influences of Sauron as the Hobbits and Gollum got closer to Mordor: scrubby and hard-packed dried dirt and pebbles.

This ledge was where Sam and Frodo lay and watched the movement of soldiers below them and Sam saw his Oliphants!

Somewhere I read a quote of Peter Jackson describing what he loves about New Zealand: that the landscape is so varied and so beautiful that it is simultaneously familiar and fantastical. It's a statement that has really struck home for me and is the closest way I have of adequately describing the impact the country has had on me.

The land is so beautiful it hardly seems believable.

Anxious

2008-11-10T23:45:00.002+13:00

I'm so anxious about leaving that I've given myself a pretty exciting migraine. I wasn't quite expecting that.

Spring in Christchurch: Guy Fawkes Night and the Seafarer's Service

2008-11-09T22:14:00.008+13:00

I'm pretty beat. It's why I've been remiss about writing, apart from the occasional marginally topical brain-spurt. Exam season has been something else: when 50% of your overall grade is at stake, it makes you buckle down and focus. Not all of Ilam Village, however, may have received the memo as there were also some notably ~~disruptive~~ spectacular parties (despite the all-out ban) which have involved drunken screaming, celebratory car-honking and erupting fireworks until at least 4:00 in the morning. Lack of sleep and intense study = wiped out Geca.

Since I finished my last exam (yesterday) I've been doing my solid share of sleeping/lounging/lazing. Even so, my sleeping self hasn't yet caught on and I regularly jolt myself awake, panicking that I've missed an exam. (This morning at 6:30AM: "LIGHT THROUGH THE WINDOW! RED ALERT! RED ALERT!") I'm nursing myself back to sanity and have even returned to home-cooked food! How wonderful! Tonight I made totally amazing salmon, with a glaze of wild plum stirfry sauce and balsamic vinegar. (Though I failed at couscous, again, drastically.) This is a vast improvement over my previous instant-noodles-easy-mac-and-burgers-from-the-dirt-cheap-and-slightly-sketchtastic-fish-&-chips-shop-at-the-corner diet.

In this spirit of returning to normality, I'm trying to observe and absorb as much as I can of New Zealand. A large component of this includes writing about it and taking pictures. That said, as long as I can keep my energy up, expect the blog posts to come fast and furious.

__________________________________

In preparing to depart, I'm trying to come to terms with Christchurch. While it's not a very thrilling or happening sort of place, it's where I've actually lived for the past 5 months. It's a very new kind of relationship for me. I've never lived in a city --as much of a city as Christchurch is-- and have never been part of the mundane and practical relationship that it entails. I ride the bus (or walk) everywhere I need to go and know the first and last busses in and out of the city, I buy my groceries and carry them down the street or run quick errands for milk or cheese or bread when I'm out, I stand in line at the post office and the bank, and I've become such a weekly regular at the souvlaki stand in the market on Sundays (don't laugh!) that the man has come to recognize me. I've never had this independance before, or this independance in a city, and the two are vitally connected. Having to leave this place is going to be a very strange experience simply because I'm severing the accepted network of my daily routine -- this is for-good leaving, maybe-never-coming-back leaving, not-going-to-be-there-anymore leaving, something very hard to wrap my mind around.

And so to make my peace, I've been making a conscious effort to explore and enjoy Christchurch.

Last Wednesday afternoon, as a break amid exams, LaRae and I went downtown for a wander. Though we embarked with specific intentions, it transformed into a really pleasant aimless stroll. We stopped and admired the Cathedral, and ambled over to Victoria Square, passed a tall statue of Queen Victoria, looking like a mean and ugly bulldog glowering down on all who enter. Victoria Square is a pretty little garden area with several fountains, small bridge-covered waterways, a Maori carved wooden post that drones "tena kotou, tena kotou, tena kotou" formally at the press 0f a button, and a floral clock with a large electrically-powered mechanism and enormous hands stuck in a bank of flowers...and running about a 1/2hr late.

Another angle on the ChristChurch Cathedral

Daisies in Victoria Square

Upside-down Tiki in Victoria Square

We made our way, head-on into shockingly cold wind, which later became rain, hail, snow, and rain again in succession, into the northeast corner of Christchurch where we'd never been before. The roads got bigger, the architecture got frillier, and an old man on a bike struck up conversation with us, telling us "This is Eric Clapton in disguise," pointing to a stranger on the sidewalk, "and I'm Batman!" before pedalling away. We stopped at the fancy "Cupcake Parlour" that I've plotted to visit for months, and, picking from a selection of pastel-colored cupcakes, sat to eat them with small forks off floral-patterned china plates. It was cute, yummy, a warm refuge from the cold walk, and a bit of a 50's flashback: wildflowers in glass milk bottles, waitresses in lacy aprons, baby blue wallpaper with a pink country rose pattern, and little girls in school uniforms and hats with their mothers.

We returned to Ilam Village --but not before having rain, hail, snow, and more rain dumped on our heads-- just in time to see Barak Obama win the US elections and hear the small fragment of his acceptance speech that was played on NZ television! (And how's about that! I'm amazed that the US actually has a drive to health, that something like idealism and optimism actually won out in politics!) Still giddy with the political excitement, we ran to the bus stop and rode an hour on a packed bus to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night at New Brighton Beach. As a part of the British Commonwealth and in the tradition of settler societies honoring the history of their mother countries, New Zealand makes a pretty big deal of the festivities. New Brighton is a gorgeous beach with a really long elegant pier, lit with a shifting rainbow of colors. The rest of the beach was transfomered into a carnival with rides, food stalls, and most importantly cotton candy! It was a great night -- spectacular fireworks shot off the pier and reflecting over the ocean, and the bright loud carnival atmosphere which always makes me exhuberantly happy.

The group before sunset at New Brighton Beach: six Americans, one Aussie and two Kiwis.

Carnival! (Yay!)

Fireworks!

New Zealand-colored fireworks! (And Obama-colored fireworks! Yay!)

It was fitting for us and suitably celebratory, too, in light of our own political triumphs. The funny thing is --and this may be telling of my own political leanings-- I've never really understood Guy Fawkes Night as a celebration of the overthrowing of the "gunpowder treason and plot," (yes, despite the traditional burning of "guy" effigies) but the sparks, the fire, and the explosion of fireworks seem instead to reclaim the event and recall or even replace the failed explosion. In that sense, I find it an exciting reminder and celebration of the role of the people, and the power and duty they have to effect their government.

Interlude: enter some days of frantic studying, stressed sleeplessness, and a brutally creul exam.

Today I woke up early (after two or three neurotic false starts) and went with two friends, LaRae and Sam, to the ChristChurch Cathedral. I wanted to experience the Cathedral alive, as more then an empty Neo-Gothic husk. It was really quite touching as it happened to be the annual Seafarer's Service, to bless and remember all those who live or play on the water. There were sailors in all sorts of uniforms (commercial sailors, sailors currently enlisted in the New Zealand Navy and little old men who formerly served and wore their Sunday suits decorated with medals) and the prayers for those lost at sea gave me wave after wave of goosebumps. In addition to the church choir (gorgeous) the church's brass band was there and played beautifully haunting music before switching to both "Tuxedo Junction" and another circus-like song...an interesting juxtaposition. After the visit to the Cathedral the day was far more low-key: my last visit to the Art Center Market (and my last gyro from the souvlaki stand), errands and quick groceries and a glorious nap. In the evening I went for a long walk with my flatmate, Number 1, around the Ilam area and it was really friendly and nice to be out with the nights beginning to warm up.

Newsflash:

2008-11-08T17:59:00.003+13:00

NEWSFLASH:

I AM DONE WITH EXAMS. HURRAH. HURRAH. HALLELUJAH.

(That last one was akin to getting my nails ripped out, for a survey course on literature it was surprisingly nasty. )

Conceptualizing the Ocean

2008-11-08T12:55:00.003+13:00

Studying Pacific Island literature, and Oceanic literature as a whole, is really fascinating because of the very different understandings of the relationship of land and water. Particularly, indigenous Pacifica perspectives understand water not as the limit and boundary of the land but as vital extension of their accessible universe, at least as primary as the land they live on. Paraphrasing one Pacifica critic, Epeli Hau'ofa, instead of the Western colonial understanding of Oceania as a collection of small isolated spits of land scattered across a vast ocean, indigenous Oceanic peoples conceive of their world as necessarily watery, a "sea of islands" rather than "islands at sea."

This made me also realize that all of the places where I've ever lived or traveled have been under an hour from the shore and had an immediate and fundamental connection to the sea. (Greece, Nova Scotia, Ireland, New Zealand, Samoa.) Coincidence?

Racism.

2008-11-07T00:50:00.005+13:00

I'm in the push to study for my last and final exam, for NZ Literature. I'm less panicked, largely because I'm more apathetic.

I've mentioned that I've had a few issues with the lecturer, but by picking and shuffling through a lot of verbosity, there are some good things. This gave me a bit of a wry chuckle, since the subtext is so clearly "WHAT is GOING ON in New Zealand?!":

"How do we like our biculturalism served: "either/or" or "both/and"?"

Not having been here long enough to be able to decree much of anything, I can say that I don't usually encounter so much (passive, or not) racism.

If I hear "some of my best friends are Maori" (I kid you not) or "the problem is their attitude!" again I'm going to come out with a tongue lashing.

Similarly so with:

"I like hearing about ancient Maori societies, but now they just complain about trying to claim their land!"
"That part of town is full of Maori! I don't go there and lock my doors when I drive through!"
Some reference to Maori people as a lost cause because "they're not educated/don't get jobs/join gangs."

I'm agog at the self-centered ignorance, the lack of reflectiveness, the narrow-mindedness. Usually, these are haphazard remarks (and sometimes alternating quickly with an explanatory "I come from a place with lots of Maori") and when I hear these sorts of comments they take me so aback I do nothing but choke, silently.

(Chalk "racism" on the list of Things That Make Me Uncomfortable About My Flatmates.)

Impending.

2008-11-04T00:48:00.002+13:00

In a week and a half I leave New Zealand.

The horror of that is beginning to sink in.

Learning Curve

2008-11-03T20:48:00.002+13:00

Apparently kumara come in a rainbow of colors. I bought the wrong one.

I wanted orange, but my choices were between red and yellow, which was unhelpful.

Just in time!

2008-11-03T13:26:00.002+13:00

Dear Brain,

Gee, thanks. You knew exactly what I needed to prep for this exam: a migraine. Spectacular. And here I go, off to wander through the Engineering building, with a seriously skewed sense of perspective.

Ever yours,
Me

Spring Lilacs

2008-11-02T23:10:00.004+13:00

After years of living next to the world's most stupidly exuberant lilac bush --which yearly invades the house as The Mother tries to find places to stash the stuff...it even penetrates the bathroom in pretty little vases perched on the toilet tank-- my nosedar has become highly attuned to the scent.

After two days of being holed up in my room, studying frantically (or alternately crying myself sick over my kitten) I stepped out into a really nice cool spring night and was almost literally smacked in the face by a powerful whiff of lilac.

I sniffed my way across the street, and down the row of shrubs until, lo and behold the discovery of the source. What a ridiculously excitable plant, a flower totally unable to contain itself -- which is to me an eternal source of bemusement.

Such is Life

2008-11-01T12:03:00.006+13:00

Million dollar question:
How do you study for an exam when you have just found out that your kitten (whom you adore) is dying of cancer in his kidneys while you are across the world?

Irrelevant but important.

2008-10-31T13:46:00.003+13:00

There are three foods I love above all else:

Chocolate
Cheese
Avocados

Rarely do they go together.

I would like to announce that I am about to have the most amazing lunch ever: toast, cheese, and avocado slices with lemon juice and pepper...finished off with a chocolate cupcake for desert!

Such a combination of foods and ecstasies, I fear, may end me like the end of Like Water for Chocolate: all my soul's matches will be lit up at once and I will spontaneously ~~be set ablaze~~ combust. At least you know I went happily.

That's all. Go about your lives, citizens.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T09:38:00.015+13:00

This is a sore point.

Halloween is one of my favorite Holidays, ranking just below Christmas Eve -- what I enjoy are holidays full of magic, color and curiosity. And Fall is my favorite season (I get laughed at. Here it's universally called "Autumn.") To me, Halloween is the crystallizing nodal point of Fall, the high point, the zenith.

This year, I will have had half a Summer, two Winters and two Springs, but not at all a Fall. There is no way of describing adequately how much that upsets me (the leaves simply don't turn colors unless I get to see them. I don't believe it!) Thank you, thank you, world, for consigning me to two cold and dismal Winters without the last brilliant blowout that is Fall.

So, as you might imagine, in a country where they've only begun Halloween in the very smallest ways (with very small children in dress up, though most houses don't give out candy, and there are also celebrations at clubs and bars -- similar to the Cinco de Mayo phenomenon in the US) the American kids are all very much wounded by the lack of Halloween.

Last night, we had a Halloween party, which three Kiwis and one Saudi Arabian also attended. Otherwise, it was typically American, and typically full of candy: there was an extraordinary amount of chocolate, and I made chocolate cream cheese cupcakes (so yummy!) There were even two jack-o'-lanterns carved out of real pumpkins (but different than the bright orange large round pumpkins you'd expect.) The jack-o'-lanterns were wonderfully soothing -- the smell of warm pumpkin and the orange glow really like nothing else.

__________________________

(This said, we interrupt this broadcast for an announcement to the people who love Geca: now would be a great time to fulfill the Geca's need for Halloween vestiges!

--> Cheap post-Halloween candy that she would definitely appreciate:

candy corn
Three Musketeers
Butterfingers
Kit Kats

--> Pumpkins, and pumpkin-carving! (Hint: this would certainly be one of the world's coolest dates. Just sayin'. If anyone wants to take me on a date. Ya know.) Trasmission over.)

__________________________

Other very Ammurikan things we did included bobbing for doughnuts, not something I've ever done before, or ever heard of, but definitely a tradition worth repeating! Wow, is it silly! Doughnuts, covered in whip cream, are dangled over somebody's face while somebody else stands on a chair, manipulating the doughnut. It's the kind of activity that ends with messy whip cream all over face, chest, hands, and floor, and lots of wonderfully awkward photos. (And in this I excelled: cream all over myself --including cream which slipped down my shirt, surprising!-- and then my dash for the bathroom to mop sticky melted whip cream off of my face was followed closely by two papparazzi-like friends. So funny!)

Bottom-line: the party, though it was a bit awkward --no parties during Exam Period meant that when we got caught by one of the RAs, he didn't make us leave but did ask us to kill the music, which then meant the party degenerated into one of those awkward but thoughtful moments of sitting around together in a circle in the dark-- was really sweet. It's nice to know that for the most part (despite some strained relationships and some warring egos) we've pulled together as a genuinely warm and comfortable group. It's going to be strange and sad leaving this group, though at least I am one of the first to go and leaving with another friend which eases the separation somewhat. The flight from LAX to JFK will be genuinely weird, not having spent much time alone in the past 5 months. But, anyway, this is a conversation for a different time.

Have some photos:

First ever pumkin carved by one of our Kiwi friends.

The flatties hosting the party: (L to R) Night sky, Giraffe, "Sunburnt Zebra"

(L to R) Fairy, Penguin, Dirty Cop

The carving pumpkin [edit: clearly I had a brain synapse misfire: "pumpkin-carving"] Kiwi himself! Look, a brilliant example of cross cultural contact: the story of Sleepy Hollow and the Headless Horseman is a distinctly American tale and yet it's instantly recognizable on the other side of the globe!

The aftermath of the doughnut bobbing. (No adequate picture of the process, sorry.)

The above is a photo which provides no evidence of my costume. Why? Because a crucial bit was removed:

The Bearded Lady!

I was rather proud of this costume, since, the only thing I didn't previvously own was the $2 beard which I trimed to a rather flattering point (don't you think?) A costume idea sparked, in the dorkiest of ways, from our discussion of Carnival Freak Shows in my seminar English class ("The Exotic.")

I am, in fact, The Exotic:

And besides the fact that as a passionate Gender Studies Geek and appreciated the greater implications of the outfit (GENDER BINARY, YOU DONE BEEN BROKEN), clearly, I am also my father's daughter.

This means that some several very strong themes surfaced at the party.

The First:

Facial Hair! In pretty abundant, ridiculous fashions

The Second:

Particularly ladies with facial hair! Spontaneous gender-bending! How deliciously progressive!

And, of course, a group picture of the core of the girls that remained at the end of the party:

(L to R) Back: Fairy, Night Sky, Giraffe, Pirate Wench
Middle: Bearded Lady, Football Player, Dirty Cop
Front: Dead Bungee Jumper

Anchor

2008-10-27T23:16:00.002+13:00

What's getting me through this rough period of stress, panic, and studying for exams is the determination that I will spend my first day back in the US playing cello.

(and apparently flaring up my carpal tunnel in one fell swoop...)

Woes of the Greek-American Kid

2008-10-27T00:19:00.005+13:00

This is really for the benefit of my family and anyone else who happens to know Greek, but there's a restuarant in Christchurch named "Santorini Greek Ouzeri & Restaurant," complete with the fake columns, the bouzouki band, and the Greek dancing. I haven't gone simply because it's expensive, but a friend went today for a celebration and got me intrigued to go reunite with my people.

(From recent studies of Diaspora Theory: common characteristics of diaspora -- 1) the migrant's children are equally affected and feel strong about being "displaced" between cultures, 2) the creation of a really strong separate ethnic identity within the host community is vital to cultures in diaspora, and finally, 3) this diasporic ethnic identity trasncends different host communities so that it links people in different nations. See! Diaspora Theory saved me years and money on psychotherapy.)

But with renewed interest in reveling in Greekness, I looked up the menu again, and found, to my amusement, this traditional of traditional Greek desserts:

"Pagoto and fruita: Prime New Zealand vanilla ice cream served with chocolate sauce."

Ah, nothing like Pagoto and Fruita. Particularly good with New Zealand pagoto. And no fruita.

Return to Uni

2008-10-26T22:01:00.006+13:00

Exciting things that have happened since I've returned to Canterbury Uni:

1) On my way to grab the vacuum to clean my room yesterday, I uncovered an ENORMOUS SPIDER with about A BILLION LEGS. I froze and hollered for Flatmate Number 6, who, as the resident Kiwi identified it as the DREADED WHITE TAILED BEASTIE. We made a formidable killing team and Number 6, armed with a cutting board (....it's what we had readily available) smashed the monster, and I quickly turned the vacuum on its remnants. We are cold-hearted mercenaries, foot soldiers in the front line, defenders of Flat 26 from the horrors of the invading spiders and their white bottoms.

2) After a late night, this morning I was awakened at 6:00am by a vicious torrent of hail, hitting the full-length window behind my head where I sleep. Very strange. This comes from a country where thunderstorms are a rarity. (So much so that they prompted one of my truly stupid compatriots to ask a Kiwi at a party, "Do you have thunderstorms in New Zealand?" In fact, weather is a specifically American phenomenon.) Even so, this morning's weather turned out to be both bizarre and vindictive as during a stroll downtown, the weather having cleared and turned into brilliant blue sky, was suddenly overtaken by marauding storm clouds which again dumped a fresh volley of hail down upon us. Is it unhealthy if I believe that perhaps the weather is out to get me?

3)I just forgot my kumara (a NZ sweet potato) in the oven for two hours. When I finally clued in that I was still hungry, I suddenly remembered that I was in the process of burning down the building. I tore down the hall and into the kitchen to discover that, while the room was slightly smoky, the kumara was hardly singed. Verily, sweet potatoes are brilliantly delicious things: when the [insert Creator Being] thought them up, [He/She/It] knew what was up. Also, clearly, contemplation of the spiritual origins of the sweet potato engenders in me a theological crisis.

4) I have exams. I don't like exams. As an English major, it is my firm stance that it makes little sense. (In very few cases does a pressured exam prove that you can analyze and synthesize theory and literature, and produce a well-written, well-thought essay.)

Previous to my exposure to the exam-heavy culture of countries in the Commonwealth, I have only ever had one English exam. (And it was pretty awesome: for a Contemporary American Poetry class, we had to identify the poets --from a selection of about 10 poets-- that had written each of 20 poems we had not previously studied in class, and argue for our choice. It was brilliant, since it forced me to become keenly aware of each poet's tendencies -- the tendency to endstop or enjamb, the tendency to rely on "--" or ";" or "?!", the tendency to make up words or to drill the poem home with monosyllables. Really exciting sort of exam.) However these exams are going to prove far less exciting: for each, to write three essays, in three hours (by hand, with carpal tunnel, when your sister stole your expensive, fat, round, physical-therapist-approved pen, before you left for New Zealand...) Over the course of the next few weeks I have an exam this Tuesday, Oct. 28th at 9:30AM (The Exotic), next Monday, Nov. 3rd at 2:30PM (Heroines in History) and next Saturday, Nov. 8th at 2:30PM (New Zealand Literature).

While I have never previously panicked for exams, the mood on campus is heart-stopping. All the Kiwi students are in a state of sheer panic and are engaging in prolonged study with deadly ferocity. This is making me wonder if perhaps I am taking the exams too lightly and am becoming infected with a similar sense of dread and absolute terror. If I do not surface much for the next two weeks, you will understand why. (Perhaps between exams, for a break, I will find time to update this blog per my huge, enormous, really cool, South Island Road Trip.)

For Future Reference: Road Trip Map

2008-10-26T18:02:00.003+13:00

Queenstown Towards Otago

2008-10-22T21:46:00.004+13:00

Written 10.21.08:

"Yesterday was a pretty quiet (boring?) day in QUeenstown. I was determined to have one day without driving and so we did what one does when visiting a new city: eat and shop.

We wandred through shops (souvenir and not, interesting and kisch). We had a $10 lunch special at a Thai restuarant where my food was so spicy I guzzled down an entire pitcher of water by myself (and startled myslf by running to the bathroom to pee five times in the next hour.) After lunch we went o a chocalatier where I bought two scoops of gelato -- white chocolate and hazlenut, fruit-of-the-forest and mascapone cheese. Truly luscious and completely decadent."

"We spet a long time wandering through the city: it's an attractive city, cute, snappy, fun and built for skiing/snowboarding culture. Iti is in a valley, built into the side of the ills (steep) and built to show off and adire the Remarkable. (Aptly named mountains, and probably more so with snow.) ...by the ninth hour we spent klooking at soucenir kitsch I was in a foul moood and exhaustd from standing on my feet. I went back to the campervan for a nap and with the windows open --and a cool breeze -- it was the most glorious and refreshing thing. Sadly, though, during the rest of the day the wind was bitterly cold making my inclinaion to find creative ways of exploring Queenstown slim-to-none. We passed flocks and flocks of geese huddled in on themselves from the cold. "

"When I woke up I spent several hours alone, lounging and reading some more of the bone people by Keri Hulme. I could not think of a more fitting novel to read on this adventure: a beautiful, fascinating book written about a quirky fiercely independent Maori woman, trying to reclaim her spirituality and form a relationship with the physical environment. ...I keep returning to it voraciously on this trip -- both because I enjoy the novel itself and also the mindset and the content really suit me on this trip."

"I think if I had written about yesterday yesterday, it would have sounded very differen. I was incredibly sad, an emotional wreck. Thinking about it know, I can understand some of what through me. I am already fragile: the stress (extreme) from the end of the semester, the further stress worrying about my kitten. ...Additionally Queenstown (fun and small) reminded me of home, and places I would explore with friends. ...Since we've been on the move I've been much happier."

Written later, 10.21.08

"We hit the road out of Queenstown at about 11am today to make our way further south down this southernmost cornder of the globe. After taking the wrong turn, we made a circular loop outside the city, abnout an hour's lost time but it was pretty. It reminds me of the stylized English countriside in landscapes from the 19th c. So ey green in may different hues, with the requisite pastures of sheep and hilly, tree-scattered backdrops. Ultimately verdant, b ut almost manicured, a sunny-eyed depiction of orchards, vineyards and farmland framed by mountains whose beauty downplay how extraordinarily inaccessable they actually are.

As Queenstown is surrounded by Lake Wakatipu, and is nestled in the crook of one of its several zig-zag elbow points, it wasn't long until we were tracing the edge of the water along a narrow, etraordinarily curvy spit of road. It is really astounding how blue the waters in som many of the NZ lakes and riers are: either a brilliant saphire or a turquoise typically reserced for the Caribbean. However, that we went so slow in a van that is reluctant to go uphill meant that we collected rows of cars behind us like magnets on a string.

From Queenstown we made it to Otago, flat, sunny, sheep-and-cow land. ...We stopped ,after a few small towns that interrupted the long empty (but nonetheless scenic) drive, and took a turn off for the Mavora Lakes. It was 39km down an unpaved dir road, kicking up a long dust trail in our wake. As we drove past pastures full of sheep, it was funny to see all the tiny lambs turn and flee at the sight (and sound, no doubt) of the approach van."

"Partway along the road we stopped for a brilliant view of the edge of Fangorn Forest, where Merry and Pippin scuttled into the forest and the exact shot where the Rohirrim (yes? it was them wasn't it?) burned the dead orc bodies. We climbed delicately through some barbed wire (a first, for my generally law-abiding self) and ran over dried tufted golden grass, lumpy mounds that crunched under out feet. We peeked into the forest (no Ents) and posed on the ground for photos as dead orcs. (Yes, it was weird. And I got dried gras down my pants.) It was a brilliant stop, not only because it was a distinctive shot for several pivotal scenes, but because it is a stark deliniation: inside of Fangorn and out, a line between golden grass and dark tangled woods.

After Fangorn we drove several more kilometers towards the Mavora Lakes which are some of the most beautiful places I've seen in New Zealand. A large, dark, flat, and reflective lake, ringed with snow topped mountains that seemed to anchor the slippery shining thing."

Mt. Cook and Queenstown

2008-10-20T20:50:00.007+13:00

I hate homesickness. I hate it with a deep abiding disgust. It's been my firm belief that homesickness is for the weak. Homesickness orients you the wrong way and obscures the possibility for new and interesting adventures.

At the moment, I'm in Queenstown and I'm desperately homesick. Really. It's thrown me for a major loop -- usually when I'm busy traveling I don't get mopey, I don't wish I was home, I'm never ten seconds away from fleeing for home with my tail between my legs.

And yet, right now I'm so distressed and homesick I feel like vomiting.

And so, to ignore this, I'm going to type up the neat, cute, trim little pieces of travel-type writing I've collected in my own paper journal thus far on my travels:

Written 10.18.08:

"It was really hard to get the trip started this morning, I didn't have the heart to pack, plan or preare, I spent so much of my mental and emotional ennergy worrying about my kitty. When we went to pick up the campervan too, we arrived a half-hour late, and at 12:01pm. The lady dismissively told us that they close at 12:00pm on Saturdays and that we would not be able to pick up the van until Monday. We argued...and suddwenly she melted into sweetness. An hour later--after an excessive run-through of the car (the engines are under the seats!)-- we left, but not before getting lost in Christchurch (twice), furiously packing and washing dishes, and a nervous hunt for gas."

"The drive up was somewhat unexciting and not that pretty on a straight-shot road through flat (grey and rainy) Canterbury. When we hit Mackenzie, there were beautiful green hills everywhere, rises and dips which looked as if they'd been draped and covered with green fondant. We stopped to take pictures of one field completely filled with yellow flowers. The clouds, farmhouse and trees on the horizon and the sheer yellow glow of the field made it look like a Van Gogh painting.

In about 3hrs from Christchurch we arrived at Lake Tekapo which is a large clear blue lake, framed by the Southern Alps. Its main attraction (besides the view) is the Church of the Good Shepherd, tiny and built in 1935 right by the lake. There was also a monument dedicated to the collie dogs who helped sheep farmers settle the land.

We stopped for dinner at a sushi restaurant and had warm miso soup, rice and the most beautiful juicy tender teriyaki salmon. I believe the salmon was local (Mt. Cook Salmon) which made it all the more flavorful.

After dinner (it had goten dark while we were eating and from the restaurant's picture window we could watch the white mountains turn pink berfore the sky faded) we left for Mt. Cook, about 1.5hrs away. The drive wasn't bad until we hit a long grassy stretch completely teeming with rabbits. They darted everywhere, across the road, to the right side, to the wrong side, everywhere just moving rabbit bodies.

And then I hit one.

Between its poor decision and my inability to break fast enough, I smacked into it with a heavy thud. I really really hope that it was an instantaneous death. It realy upset me: I felt weak and shook all over and said my apologies, pointedly noting the loss of one rabbit among hundreds. It is the first animal I've ever hit, and the first animal I've ever killed and not eaten.

Not too long later we arrived at Mt. Cook, located and parked at the campgrounds without too much hassle. There are no lights here, so the night sky was cleare, like splattered milk drops on velvet. We watched them for a while and I saw a shooting star fall across the sky.

Then we had our second altercation with wildlife: from somewhere in the dark, I heard an I-don't-know-what growl. Eerie, low, almost like a whisper. I froze and tried to think what in New Zealand would do that. As I was thinking I heard it again and launched myself bodily into the van. I was explaining why to Kelsey, who dismissed it and also questioned the growl -- until it growled a third time and she frantically scrambled into van as wwel.. My only guess was that it was a mustelid of sorts (stoat, weasel, ferret?), but we spent the evening hiding in the car."

Written 10.20.08

"Yesterday we woke up at the foot of Mt. Cook and at dawn I glimsed out of the campervan to see one of the surrounding snow-covered mountains purely orange with the light. We hiked a bit, visited an Alpine Memorial to those who had been lost climbing in the area. It was so beautiful and sad -- families who could onl;y commemorate their lost loved ones with a plaque because their bodies had been claimed by the mountains. One in particular caught my eye: a man whose plaque had the quote, "For Solitude Sometimes is best society" -- Milton. How immeasureably sad, wise and loving -- a man who is forever in his element, a family who understands and let him go.

We continued hiking up some steep and treacherously rocky hills forst to one of the "blue lakes" (which was really very green) and up to an amazing look-out, bare and at the mercy of the wind. From one side was a view of the mountains, Mt. Cook et al, and the blue lakes inset like gems in the land below them. From the otherside was a view of the Tasman Glacier and its terminal lake, white milky water with enormous icebergs anchored in the lake. We stayed looking out on the view for a short while (expansive and regal!) but didn't otherwise stay in the area long: it was vast, empty and barren; rocks, dust and scrub like a foreign world.

From Mt. Cook we drove to Lake Pukaki, which was the prettiest big blue lake -- azure in the purest sense. The Mt. Cook mountain range is perched delicately at the far end, white like cold mountainous trim of lace. On our drive past Lake Pukaki we came upon a very typically New Zealand scene: two shepherds, with 10 border collies between them were attempting to corall hundreds of sheep down the road and across the one-lane bridge. A major road block. It was exciting to watch them work -- the men with their walking sticks and hiking boots shouting to the dogs, the dogs running around everywhere at once and gradually moving the sheep forward. Very rugged, very Kiwi.

From Lake Pukaki we drove several hours and aimed for Twizel (which given that it was a Sunday in the tiniest town imaginable was a mistake.) We got back in the car and continued ever onward. We drove through Lindis Pass, which was hilly and mainly empty brown landscape. Driving through Lindis Pass, we stopped at another tiny town called Tarras, in search of The Great East Raod -- or rather where "the flight to the Ford" was shot, when QArwen takes Frodo across the river to escape the Nazgul. (But not the actual river, just the road through the Pine forest.) We drove up and down unmarked, unpaved dirt roads through farmland and while the scenerey was amazing, we didn't find the exact location of the filming. We got quite cdlose though, and were in the vincinity of several possible pine groves.

After Tarras, still more driving. Several hours more (1 or 2) and the landscape changed again -- the hills became green and luysh, lined with blooming plants, fruit orchards and beautiful neat rows of vineyards. By the time we finally reached Queenstown, wineries completely spoted the landscape and the cliffs got higher and more craggy.

Several times down the length of the Kawaeru River we stopped to look at ruickety old bridges or deep gorges. No surprise that it was gold mining country, or that the Chinese were once again exploited in search of the stuff. Finally we got to a tiny spit of land where a road snaked along the mountain towards yet another winery. Partway along we stopped for an amazing fview down on the the River Andquin, or where the Pillars of the Kings were graphicked in during the movie.

That evening we arrived in QUeenstown and parked ourselves at a Holiday Parked, filled to bursting with campers in asphalt grids: so retro, so kitsch, so disgusting. I was way happier wamking to the mountains and the wilderness, even though we don't have unknown animals to growl at us and fairly nice toilets."

Departure

2008-10-18T13:22:00.004+13:00

In about an hour, I will be off for a week-long road trip with my friend, Kelsey, around the South Island.

We meant to leave a lot earlier today but for a number of reasons (that are out of my control...) we're leaving at about 2:30 this afternoon.

I'll be gone until about the 24th (unless we extend the trip) and will travel around to Mt. Cook, Tekapo, Queenstown, Wanaka, Te Anau, and Milford Sound, but maybe not in that order. This is --for many reasons-- one of the least-planned trips we're taking. It's something that always makes me nervous, but we have resources and time so I'm going to try to let it go and see what fun we can come up with.

Though we tried to get a pretty quiet campervan, about the quietest they could provide was one with the entire Osbourne family painted on to it. It's pretty funny.

Also, I found out today that one of my kitties is sick with kidney problems that haven't been figured out yet. That makes me a nervous wreck who's been crying for hours this morning and isn't in the mindset to do much but ~~ache~~ worry.

Bottom line: I should be pretty out of reach but may make an occasional (brief) post. I am, however, readily reachable by cellphone if you're one of the lucky few who's got it.

My Absentee Ballot Making Its Way!

2008-10-17T11:24:00.005+13:00

This is an announcement to witness that Angelica has just voted in her first general election for the President of the United States. From this point forward, if the country goes to hell in a handbasket it is not her fault.

Actually, I'm positively terrified of Republican fear mongering, overt racism and appeals to "Joe Six-Pack." Me, and Joe Six pack: nothing like super-average booze-induced machismo to warm my heart. Here's to "pitbulls-with-lipstick" upholding the patriarchy!

Last Paper: Final Push

2008-10-17T00:40:00.002+13:00

This is going to be my last all-nighter for a paper while I'm in New Zealand...sure I have finals that need intense study, but no more all-nighters to do homework.

With that said, I have to get through this one. A 1500-word history paper due in 15 hours, interrupted by 2 one hour classes, and about 1.5hrs worth of apointments. Meaning this is much more like 11hrs, and in light of the stressful few weeks I've had and the crummy weather I've been running at very low energy levels.

Here's hoping that sheer force of will and my stash of caffeine are enough to get me through this next day.

What's really worrying me, though, is that the stakes are up: papers are 25% of my grade each, and my last one for this class I (in no uncertain terms) bombed.

More Duckies

2008-10-16T18:15:00.003+13:00

I was walking back from the library when I saw a Momma Duck and about a bazillion (ok, maybe 8) baby ducklings on the lawn in my apartment complex . Momma was standing over them and shepherding them forward, and they combed over the grass, necks down grazing the whole way like an army of tiny (voracious) lawn mowers.

They're so funny lookin'.

Realizations

2008-10-16T17:25:00.002+13:00

Tomorrow is the last day of class.

I have less than a month left in New Zealand -- on the 13th I leave for Samoa.

Wow.

Spring

2008-10-14T15:39:00.003+13:00

Quick update from the library:

On the way to class I cross over a footbridge over the Avon river, which runs all the way through the center of Christchurch and becomes a small stream here in the center of the University campus. All the ducks have had their baby duckies, and it's been fun watching them grow.

Today as I was crossing the bridge, I looked down and saw three little baby ducklings, trying desperately to swim against the current. Their tiny ducky feet were pumping away, but they couldn't get anywhere, occasionally veering off in this direction or that with the strain of the effort. Poor Momma Duck was upstream looking back at her babies, who were simply not coming any closer during the 5 minutes I sat watching.

Success!

2008-10-13T16:49:00.003+13:00

I would like to announce:

I got an A+ on my English paper!

It came with a note that said "utterly compelling" (ok, in addition to a critique of one of my arguments -- legitimate) and comments down the length of the margin, "terrific!" "fantastic!" "very good!" "well put!"

I'm really pleased and excited, but I can't help but think that if I hadn't been so tired, if I wasn't down to the wire with the deadline and had a bit of extra time to review it I could have cleaned it up still further. Still, what an ego boost, especially since it came from my hard English class.

...oh, and not a mention of the fact that I was about 800 words over the limit. That's good.

Spectacular Recipe

2008-10-12T20:01:00.006+13:00

The interesting thing about having my own apartment and having to fend for food is learning to cook, especially learning to cook when I'm worn down and exhausted.

I just came back from the West Coast and the glaciers a few hours ago, after almost 6hrs of driving and I was ravenous. I will talk about the trip soon, when I have my pictures pulled together (in short: it was fantastic!)

I've been using RecipeZaar for ages, which is a pretty nifty site since you can search ingredients you have around (in my case "spinach" and "pasta") and then organize by category (in my case "simple") and then sort by rating. In addition, people rate and add comments, usually suggestions and ways in which to tweak it. At the top of the list was a recipe that inspired some further changes on my part (originally: cream cheese + spinach = pasta sauce)

Therefore, here is my unbelievably tasty and dead simple from-here-on-out fall-back recipe:

Cheese, Garlic & Spinach Pasta

1) Put pasta on to boil.
2) Heat olive oil in pan, add 1 clove garlic (2 only if you're Greek), basil, oregano, pepper.
3) Add a good helping of spinach and wilt.
4) When spinach is wilted add 1 or 2 tbsp of cream cheese, and stir until melted.
5) Play with the proportions of spinach:cream cheese until it's pretty mushy spinach with cream cheese. (The proportions I can't really describe, I eyeballed it, and it was the hardest part to determine.)
6) Add feta cheese, melt, stir.
7) It takes all of 15-min to prepare the spinach sauce, at which point my pasta was already ready.

Yummy yummy yummy yummy!

I'm forever keeping spinach in my fridge from now on.

Trip to the West Coast

2008-10-10T02:38:00.005+13:00

I forgot to mention:

Plans for this Weekend Include:

Not one, but TWO Glaciers
Pancake Rocks and Blowholes
Long Winding Roads
Glowworms
Swing Bridges
Intrepid Adventure

There will, of course, be photos. I plan to be home Sunday evening. Catch you then!

World, Hold On!

2008-10-09T23:34:00.005+13:00

I am, again, in the midst of writing a paper while feeling the pressure of an intense time crunch. Currently, on Albert Wendt and Pacific literature as literature of "deracination and diaspora." He's a fun writer and it's an easy topic, so it shouldn't be as hard as it seems.

However, some particularly colorful explosions of disgruntled flatmate interactions have significantly distracted me (and I've been wanting to hide in my closet for a while) neither of which are a conducive state of mind for paper-writing.

This Albert Wendt paper is due on Tuesday, while by Friday I have another paper (on the influence of her husban Pierre on Marie Curie's achievements -- a prompt in a feminist history course which I assume is eliciting something like: "while Pierre significantly influenced Marie Curie, she worked hard independently and used her connection with a prominent, though loving and just male figure, to advance her position in a male-dominated world") for which I haven't begun researching.

A mild antidote to the current feeling of drowning in stress has been this photo a friend took at the Wikipedia party:

Yes, I am a superhero! Papers, research, mounds of homework, and flatmate drama fall before my glory!

Oh, and as per the title, this music helps too:

The music video is pretty awesome too!

Apartment # Fed Up

2008-10-08T17:27:00.004+13:00

I have made a promise to myself that I will never ever again share an apartment with people I don't know. If it wasn't only a few more weeks left of this [horrible] living situation, I'd have moved out of here by now.

The South Pacific

2008-10-05T01:08:00.002+13:00

"Polynesians also believe that when we die we become the stars that help to guide the living across that huge body of water [the Pacific.]" -- Albert Wendt

Spring and Transcendentalism in the Garden City

2008-10-04T19:02:00.007+13:00

Today I had an absolutely spectacular day!

I haven't spent any time by myself lately, adventuring alone. When I traveled through Ireland (when I wasn't staying in Connemara) I was mostly alone and there is really something to be said for traveling only in the company of yourself.

(Yes, when I was in Ireland, alone, I was first almost deported --when the nice man at customs asks you "how much money you have on you," he does not mean the contents of your pocket, an answer which goes over very badly-- and a few hours later was almost run over by a crazy Dublin bus.)

I've found that when I only have myself for company (what the Transcendentalists called Solitude, with a capital "S") I really get to see: it's a seamless process between seeing, exploring, adventuring and learning. It took me a long time to really understand but it is the spirit of Emerson's roving "transparent eyeball," that is, losing yourself in your experiences, taking in everything as pure observation and understanding -- "Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both." Really do read the article, "Nature" is short and painfully beautiful. I really wish I had more wherewithal to stick with my class on 19th c. American Literature, but I was too sick and lost to glean enough from it. Thankfully, though, the Transcendentalists made an impression on me. I painted a line from "Walden" on the wall of my sophomore-year dorm room, in red script between the bed and the window where the sun flooded in in the morning:

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. ...Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would directly inform us how this might be done.
-- Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods

The bolded words were the ones emblazoned on my wall and it did a lot for my spirit (or Spirit, as them Transcendentalists would say.) As much as I otherwise dislike Thoreau (I find him to be an arrogant grouch, who is sometimes totally full of it. As, case in point: Henry David finds a badger rooting through his garden, kills it and then decides to eat it in order to --something like-- "imbibe his wild and manly energy." OH YEAH RIGHT, HENRY DAVID, WE TOTALLY BELIEVE YOU. Far more likely that Mister Independence found an easy source of meat and did what any hungry isolated vagrant in the wilderness would do. Guh! It's a characteristic my professor called being "crunchier than thou." Right, this wasn't meant to be an English lecture, sorry.) I think he might be onto something. (Another fascinating tidbit: while living all granola in the woods, Thoreau brought his dirty laundry home to his mother. At 28 years old, do your own laundry! Now I swear I'm done ragging on the guy.)

Roving transparent Trancendantal eyeball: today, as this aforementioned eyeball, I took to exploring Christchurch.

It's called the Garden city -- alas! from Garden State to Garden City! such is my burden!-- and it's becomes glaringly obvious why. Now that it's turned to spring I'm really enjoying New Zealand so much more. In the winter, we dread the southerly wind which blows up from Antarctica and is absolutely bone chilling. One evening, on the ten minute walk back from the library at night, the south wind kicked up and when I finally arrived back in my room, my face was read and puffy and my eyes were streaming tears. I felt as if eye cubes had flayed the flesh off my skull. Now that the wind from the south has eased up it's gorgeous. Every day when I wander around I get the most intoxicating whiffs of flowers since the place is overflowing with them. It's an exciting reminder that I really am in the South Pacific. Today in addition to the flowers we had a hot breeze; nature seemed positively drunk on spring.

In the morning I went and got a badly needed haircut, which happily turned into the best haircut I've ever had. As a girl who was called "Puff Daddy" through elementary school, my extroardinarily thick hair attracts attention like a sick antelope attracts lions. After having it short for six years and very short for four, it's a bold move for me to try and grow it out. Finally, today, I had a haircut that has made my mane less bulky, more manageable, and dare I say, even shapely. The stylist told me that the magic words are "thinned out from the roots with blended layers." While I'm sure my haircut make fascinating reading material, it really made my day!

I wandered back over to the Saturday Arts Center Market and per usual had a fantastic gyro from a blue and white stand called "Dimitri's." (Ahha! Supsiciously Greek!) I lunched, sitting in the grass while listening to the gorgeous music of a one-legged Maori man on the guitar with a voice like Israel Kamakawiwo'ole singing the blues. Perfect combination: unbelievable weather, a gyro and sad, gritty blues. I wandered around the several markets in town, grabbed a few more gifts for folks back home (I'm trying to get birthday and Christmas presents out of the way) and an additional few postcards. I strolled over to Honeypot Cafe (my Christchurch coffeeshop of choice) basked, had an iced mocha --which to my surprise means less "ice" and more "ice cream"-- and enjoyed writing postcards.

Written down my day doesn't look so exciting: it's the joy in the simple things, the simple-but-deliciously-enjoyable-things, that really made my day so great. Since I've been back in my flat, I've been blasting Cat Stevens: another contributing factor to my mood. Man, I love me some Cat Stevens, at the moment particularly "Sad Lisa" and "Wild World."

Very occasionally I will take photos that suit my mood and I think mine today had a bit of my excitement in them:

Adventuring: Kaikoura and Hamner...and EVERYWHERE A LLAMA LLAMA!

2008-10-03T01:57:00.000+13:00

Despite how ominous the weather appeared the morning we set off to leave for our adventure, the Weather Gods more or less cooperated nicely. After a pit-stop for breakfast (for me: the three small homemade apple muffins I'd made a few days earlier, I've been a baking queen lately) we arrived just outside of Kaikoura for some quad biking.

I have mixed feelings about the activity -- on the one hand I'm really glad I got to try it, it wouldn't be something I'd have gone out of my way for if it hadn't been offered to us. It was an interesting adventure and I won't deny that it was fun riding around -- 40mph feels a lot cooler when you're whipping by cows and sliding around gravel trails.

On the other hand (not even examining the tendency for testosterone to kill its host through the use of ATV's) I'm a little bit put off by the idea of "let's go enjoy the outdoors by driving all over it, and in particular, driving all over forgotten, hard-to-get to, unspoiled land." The idea of getting closer to nature by driving on it feels quite flawed.

Still, it was stunning. The drive was about 20km through a large expanse of farm -- huge rolling green hills, cliffs, valleys, gorgeous trees, gorgeous fields, lambs and their mommas, cows and calves, rocky streams, even a little pond mirroring the reflection of a small red shack hanging over it. At one point, winding through the hills, we turned a corner and through an opening between hills I was struck by this stunning view of an enormous crystal white mountain covered in snow. Mountains, being as big as they are, I had no idea they could hide around corners, and suddenly surprise you, taking your breath away with the full weight of their presence. And by "stunned," I mean my mind wandered away and I forgot to press on the accelerator. My bike slowed almost to a halt. (And I got a little bit yelled at for holding up the line.)

It was really fun to watch the critters -- the cows would look at you as if the whole quad-biking-through-their-grass-game had really gotten old and they were longer amused, while the sheep were significantly more standoffish and fled at the site of us. Some of the babies got upset and one calf brayyed at us, berating us over and over for our intrusion, while another ran around in a temper, throwing up it's wobbly legs in all different awkward directions. Driving quadbikes through the living quarters of cattle, however, had the effect that every time I'd hit a patch of cow poop, the tires would make it spray, flinging cow poo everywhere. During one particularly filled out obstacle-course of poo, I laughed constantly, almost cackled, at the airborne poo that accompanied me. Whipped and aerated cow poo.

While we were biking, it warmed up and the sky mostly cleared, though sets of dramatic clouds would sometimes roll by. We made it up to a grassy plateau and from the cliff edge there was an amazing view of the Pacific and the Kaikoura mountains. Between the green of the grass, the endless shades of blue from the ocean waters and sky, and the whites in the mountain snow and clouds, I've really never seen colors so vibrant.

At the halfway point, we switched bikes and I got to ride in the Argo, a beastly little six-wheeled all-terrain machine, with no seat belts, swivel-type turns, and on top of it all manned by a manaical driver. It was, to say the least, an exciting ride. We took "shortcuts" down steep embankments, through waist high brush, rolled through a stream which fanned out in jets around the vechical, took rugged turns that jerked our arms and knocked my head against the steel frame and, at one point, reached a deep gorge. With a "this is going to be interesting," the crazed man behind the wheel attempted to take us over the gap: we teetered on the first edge, back end up, front end down, see-sawing for a few moments. We braced ourselves and clung to the minimal railings, and the madman finally kicked the beast into gear and we leaped out and over the gorge, tires spinning up gravel.

After quadbiking (an endeavor that leaves you completely coated in a layer of grey-brown dust) we had a barbeque. In New Zealand, I'm always a little hesitant about barbeques -- their BBQ meat of choice is this white and slimy tasteless sausage, topped with their peculiar variant of ketchup that is choked with clove. There was a vast array of picnic salads, though, (I love salads -- pasta salad, coleslaw, potato salad, tuna salad, chicken salad ,egg salad) and in addition there was a brilliant celery salad, with raisins, cashews, and some cream-based dressing, marking the first time I've ever actively enjoyed eating celery.

During our BBQ, the wind had picked up and the sky was ominous again. The afternoon and evening we spent in the city of Kaikoura was formidably cold, dark, windy and wet. Notable events of that evening were:

lighting a fire in a wood stove in this winding, rustic hostel with layers of long, wrap-around wooden porches
playing large games of Fluxx (one of my absolute favorite games) though it is a testament to some of the awkward personalities in our group that the game goes far too slow -- when it gets quick and vicious, that's when the strategy and other elements of the game really shine through
curling up in bed and reading Coraline by Neil Gaiman
being taken to a corner store (called a "dairy" in New Zealand) and given ten dollars, and told to scrounge up dessert -- like kids set loose in a candy store, we each left the place with cookies, ice creams, and bags of candy.

The next morning, was the second time I was surprised by mountains. I set my alarm to wake up early, and on my bleary walk to the bathroom for a shower, I had enough wherewithall to be completely taken aback by the site of an impressive mountain range, turned pink by the dawn, that I glimpsed through a window at the end of the hallway. Prior to this point I had no idea we were this close to the mountains and what were huge hot pink mountains doing staring right at me through the window? I rushed back to my room, dropped my shower stuff on my bed, grabbed my camera, and froze myself outside taking pictures of the morning.

This is the beauty of Kaikoura: on the one side a majestic snow-topped mountain range, on the other side an intoxicating bay. I took these photos, standing in the same place on one of the upper-level porches of the hostel, simply turning myself 180-degrees this way or that.

In my New Zealand experiences, the best breakfasts come from local bakeries, and one croissant, chocolate milk, and banana-chocolate-chip muffin later, I found myself on a picnic bench with the most brilliant blue sky, again face to face with white mountains.

After breakfast we drove to Hamner, a town about 2hrs away, and were let loose to explore. A few of us ventured forth to a petting zoo where we made friends with a large round grey pig, covered in sparse, straggly grey hairs, who subsequently toddled after us around the place. Donkeys, sheep, bunnies, geese, and we're happy. Then, the hilarious incident of the day we meet a goat we're already calling the Crazed Goat. He leaped his fence into the sheep pen and thrust himself forward for our atteniton. His eyes are gold orbs with little black slits, rolling independently around in every direction, and he's nervously jittering his head from side to side with his ears waggling. It feels like in a moment the junkie's nervous energy's going to blow and he's going to begin frothing at the mouth.

About thirty seconds after I hand my camera to LaRae and say, "Hey take my picture with the Crazed Goat," this happens:

Yes, exactly what it looks like: a sudden and vicious attack from a completely deranged goat. A bigger version is here. After the shock of getting punched in the chest by a goat hoof and moving rapidly out of the beast's clutches, I devolve into hysterics.

After the goat, I spent time hanging out with the llamas and the alpacas. I've always kinda liked llamas -- they're funny llooking, and "llama" is a funny word. After joining them in their enclosure and turning myself loose, I have to say that now I absolutely llove llamas. I knew they hummed to their babies (they hum! to their babies!) but I didn't know they greeted eachother by touching noses!

(This is an alpaca --on the left-- greeting a llama --on the right.)

I knew they were soft, but I didn't realize how soft their noses are and how delicately they move their velvet lips to eat out of your hand. I never realized how sweet and gentle they are when they like you -- and how expressive, with their deep black eyes that shine with happiness or narrow in annoyance, and the long swiveling ears. I was surrounded by a group of soft, loving, happy llamas and it was blissful -- totally heaven. One of my friends called me among the llamas, "being in my element."

(A friend told me I look like I'm telling stories to the llamas and they're llistening.)

(Happy is surrounded by llamas!)

When we left the petting zoo it was a short walk into town, and spring was taking hold of the area around the mountains -- dandelion-filled fields and the mountains, again, rocky with snow peaks that looked down on us like fat gods.

Returning back to Hamner, we met the rest of the group for a soak at the hot pools for which the place is famous. The ideal scenario is to soak at Hamner in winter, surrounded by snow and with the mountains as your backdrop. Perhaps the temperature difference really makes the hot pools pop, but compared to our experience with geothermal pools on our first night in New Zealand (at Waiwera, outside of Auckland) it was a bit weak. Between 37 and 41 degrees, the water was warm bathwater, not so much the deep muscle-releasing, bone-soothing heat from before. Still it was pleasant and nice...before the sulpher from the mineral pools that clung to our skin and hair turned the 2-hour ride back to Christchurch in a hot van a bit of an undesireable experience.

All in all the weekend was a really fun, colorful and relaxing one and what I've been beginning to realize is that in New Zealand I really love the outdoors. I haven't ever really enjoyed the cities (except Dunedin, which is a very peculiar, cute and artsy type of city) and have felt uninspired and underwhelmed when we visit cities. It is when I'm outdoors, in the scenery and getting to know and feel the land is when this country really lights me up.

This is a fairly huge realization for me, and one that will certainly color the rest of my time in Aotearoa. Next weekend (not the upcoming, but the one after) I will be on the West Coast of the South Island, tramping, exploring flat rocks and blowholes, and climbing in and ontop of glaciers. Then, for a week, a friend and I will be taking a campervan all over the southern part of the south island, hiking, camping ("camping" in a "camp"ervan), and driving around the vast empty parts of this country. I'm looking forward to really capturing an experience of New Zealand that's much more breathtaking than citylife.

Music-Related Meltdown

2008-10-02T12:56:00.004+13:00

LAZARUS, WHY?!?! HOW COULD YOU?!

My ipod just blitzed and wiped itself clean of about 40GB of music, most of which is no longer on my laptop (but on my external hard drive) including a WHOLE BUNCH of lovingly put together PLAYLISTS.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHGHHHALSFKMALGNLASKM

A Day in the Life

2008-10-01T22:39:00.004+13:00

Two exciting things that happened to day:

First, I earned my Greek merit badge: I made a huge batch of lentil soup for the first time ever. And they were deliciously good. I mean, we're talking really good. (If I do say so myself.) The two hour cooking time gave me a bunch of time to get my work done, too, which was nice.

Second, I finally managed to get my hands on THIS, for free:

Needless to say I am both crazy excited and really gung-ho! The book has a ton of details (driving/walking directions, and specific shots/scenes...even GPS coordinates.) Given that Edoras is more or less in my backyard, I'm definitely definitely going to go explore me some Middle Earth. The book also has the most unbelievable photos.

Little Electronic Zombie: Lazarus the iPod

2008-10-01T14:11:00.003+13:00

I think I shall christen thee, Lazarus, o faithful iPod.

It's definitely seen better days. I have a fairly ancient (as far as these things go) iPod -- a 4th generation one from 2005, the very first ones with color. Right before the warranty ran out, its previous incarnation gave up the ghost and I was supplied with a brand new one from Apple -- albeit without the original engraving of my name on the back (grrrr, Apple for not stinking to your own terms on the warranty.) Since then I've been having an endless amount of trouble with my iPod -- I take a fairly fatalistic view of it now that the warranty's run out: it means there's nothing I can do, just make it comfortable and ease its way into the other world.

That doesn't mean I want the poor little thing to go, though. Every time I think it's at the brink, and it does its variety of bizarre flickery, stucky, black-screened, frozen, unhappy-face things, it pulls through. A couple good cardiac thumps (either a whack or a snap of the wrist) and it's back to life: my lovely little electronic zombie.

I live by this thing, I listen to music constantly: I can't travel, sleep or relax unless I have music. It is simply not ok for this iPod to die on me while we're stranded in New Zealand. Hold on, little guy, we'll make it together. I'm not going to leave you!

Stay tuned for possible music-related meltdowns.

Gross, or Flatmates With Propensity Towards Hairballs

2008-09-28T23:24:00.006+13:00

Dear Boys,

Enough is enough: praytell, what is this bizarre hacking, coughing, spewing, spitting, throat-clearing ritual? I would like to inform you that your strange ablutions echo through the entire flat -- every last drawn out wet rattle -- and, needless to say, it is a notably forward and unpleasant invitation to the cavernous depths of whatever mucous-producing organs evolution has not yet rendered obsolete in you. I am curious about the need to continuously empty yourselves of this foreign agent, and in particular, your uncanny ability to do this as noisily as possible. Please, please understand that this is a truly unattractive quality (and sounds notably unenviable, though I can attest that it is similarly unenviable to live through these experiences vicariously) and so would suggest launching a retrieval expedition to the site of whatever ancient bezoars have nestled themselves in your tangled insides and provoke this eternal battle against profligate phlegm production.

Yours (in equal parts horrified amazement and disgust),

Angelica

It was a Dark and Stormy Morning

2008-09-27T07:21:00.004+12:00

I'm halfway through my paper due Monday, running on four or five hours' of sleep, and wake up for this weekend's trip (with my program) to Kaikoura and Hamner Springs to discover that the sky looks cold and grey, and the wind is frighteningly Gothic, howling and slamming itself into the buildings and viciously attacking the little dogwood outside my window.

This couldn't feel more gloomy.

We may or may not be quad biking, then, today in Kaikoura, followed by a soak in geothermal hot pools tomorrow in Hamner. Either way, I feel a little zombified.

Woo, Migraine.

2008-09-25T23:25:00.001+12:00

[Insert strangled, gurgling, reanimated-corpse/zombie noises here.]

An Update: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

2008-09-25T09:43:00.004+12:00

The Good:

Last night for our "Food From Home" potluck, I made a Greek salad. A real one (who told all you folks to put lettuce in your Greek salads?!) with cucumber, tomato, green pepper, red onion and lots of feta. I consider myself a feta snob and have really low tolerance for feta that's dry/tasteless/overly salty/styrofoamy. I decided to give it a go and bought feta from the supermarket -- and opted for one flavored with basil to mask whatever unorthodoxy might be going on in the cheese. Happy surprise: it was so delicious! I have two tupperware containers full of leftover Greek salad, and given that I am craving some now at 10:30 in the morning, I would place bets that it will be all gone within the next three days. (NB: I just fetched some and am currently eating straight out of the tupperware. SO good.)

The Bad:

I received an email from the GWS department at home with announcements of awards/practicums/scholarships/conferences/grants/etc. available to apply for, and after just waking up it put me into a really foul mood and a bout of jealous inadequacy, that of the three folks in the department who repeatedly win cool stuff like that, neither of them is me. One of them is likely reading this blog, you unforgiveably smart, poised and awesome world-travelling, conference-going cat. (You know who you are.)

In response to the sudden collapse of my self-esteem I did a quick search and sent off emails for internships with three different organizations in New York city. Listed in order of want they are:

1) A feminist documentary maker
2) A lesbian magazine (editorial department)
3) A general mediafest about activism and activists.

No more than 30 minutes later, I've already gotten two responses (#2 & #3). This is somewhat soothing my bruised and dented ego.

The Ugly:

I haven't started my paper yet, though a long conversation with my professor yesterday really helped the matter. The paper is due Monday, but I will be gone this weekend so am convincing myself that it is due tomorrow. Additionally, the distant rumble and thunderclouds of a migraine are on the horizon.

Classwork

2008-09-22T23:18:00.005+12:00

I am back, again, in the grind of producing a paper for my brilliant upper-level English class, "The Exotic." This one, on Life of Pi by Yann Martel. While I'm definitely intimidated by the response I got to my last paper:"extremely lucid, sophisticated and well-written" and "astute and complex" while simultaneously pointing out that "For the quality of the writing and thought, and the evidence of research, it deserves an A grade; but as a response to the [stupidly vague question about the "aesthetics of exoticism"] question it scarcely warrants a pass mark." (Ouch! Jason has told me that I should never ever under any circumstances become a professor because my arrogance, impatience, and elitism would leave my victims withering. Having now been on the receiving end of being so dismissed -- with my darling professor referring to grading my paper so magnanimously as "to settle about halfway in between," Oh thank you, thank you, for the gift of a B+! -- is rather an eye-opener.)

Even so, for this paper, I'm in the early stages of crazed excitement and enthusiasm. I've also begun pouring caffeine and chocolate through my veins again, and realize how much of my academic progress I owe to stress-related mocha consumption. Verily, it is my drug of choice.

In addition to a mocha junky, I am also a research junky. I love it and get a perverse level of enjoyment out of it. It's like a detective game! It's the academic version of big game hunting! Ahhaha! I'm good at it and it's become a crucial part of my Process. This afternoon when I attempted the beginning of this paper, I was doing really really poorly on the research front and that whipped me into an extraordinarily foul mood. Happily after dinner (and the adrenaline boost that came from conquering our Demon Microwave that repeatedly caught fire/spontaneously combusted) I have been on a role with the research.

Additionally, I have been mulling over my class choices for next semester and my return to Conn. While I have a fair number of notably boring prerequisites left (Science and Math for example, as well as French, which, while not boring, the prospect of returning to the language I studied for 6 years after a 4 year moratorium is a crushing prospect) there are a number of English classes that I have been hoping to take for years since I've been in college, and finally they are being offered. My first instinct was to ignore them and take necessary classes rather than leave those until the last minute, but these classes will still be fulfilling requirements and I will never again have an opportunity.

At the moment, I suspect that my class load for next semester will look like this:

~~Senior Seminar in English:~~

English 493z, 494z The Ghost Story: Genre, theory, Politics A close reading of a wide range of ghost stories, old and new, local and foreign, famous and not, together with critical and theoretical readings that situate the ghost story historically and politically against other more well known literary genres.

I've been excited about this class for as long as it's been in the course catalog, however my last class with the professor, while fantastic and extraordinarily enlightening, was intensely hard work and single-handedly ravaged my GPA. I haven't decided that ramping that up to a senior-level seminar, particularly on a topic that will likely scare the wits out of me, is a wise choice. At least my fear-induced sleep-deprivation will give me ample time to do my schoolwork.

Uh, never mind. Apparently an English thesis precludes taking an English seminar, so I have to wait and find out whether I will be doing a thesis.

I guess that means I'm taking an Astronomy class for my Science Prerequisite. Woo.

English elective:

ENGLISH 221 NARRATIVE NON-FICTION Intensive writing course emphasizing use of narrative techniques in nonfiction writing. Relationship of fiction and nonfiction, integration of storytelling with essay-writing and reporting. Focus on the development of individual style. Readings may include Didion, Mailer, Thompson, and James Baldwin. Admission by permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 15 students.

Again, this is a class I've wanted to take ever since I learned it existed. The professor is brilliant, wacky, hysterical and has the sort of magpie mind that I hugely respect. I'm a pretty shy writer and think that taking a writing course would be a not-to-be-missed opportunity, but still, "intensive" scares me somewhat, as does the prospect of, er, "writing."

Gender and Women's Studies elective:

GENDER AND WOMEN'S STUDIES 224 TRANSNATIONAL WOMEN'S MOVEMENT A gendered examination of twentieth-century social movements and the emergence of autonomous women's organizations and networks worldwide. Emphasis on violence and the state, anticolonial movements, communist and postcommunist states, feminism vs nation building, women in industrial and postindustrial economies, and the challenges and opportunities of non-governmental women's organizations in the twenty-first century.

The prodigal GWS-major returns! After fulfilling all of the required elective slots, receiving a department award, and doing an enormous amount of extracurricular GWS work and activisim, I am now getting around to doing the basic preliminary work for the major. Oops. This fourth-year junior will now be joining freshman and sophomore majors and minors in this fairly fundamental class.

While this courseload definitely means that I will be returning to Conn with a bang, and will need to hit the ground running, I am actually excited because I have been really missing paying any real and adequate attention to my English degree in any real depth.

Eau* de Rotorua

2008-09-18T10:22:00.014+12:00

The most notable aspect of Rotorua is the smell. I'm told that people in New Zealand react to Rotorua in the same way that Americans react to New Jersey: "oooooh, that's the place that's stinky..."

Surrounded by complex networks of hot geothermal pools, geysers, and pits of broiling, bubbling, frothing grey mud, there is a powerful and distinctive sulfurous smell that overtakes the town when the wind blows. The aroma is so omnipresent that it seems almost like a slow goopy liquid, an invisible sludge that assuredly works its way through every smallest window crack and into every corner, spilling through the streets and alleys of the town, rolling over you and coating you in its trail of goop, as it slides by and works its way along. In Rotorua, the smell is more urgent than God: powerful, undeniable, your willing and determined guide.

The other remarkable thing about Rotorua is the sheer number of roundabouts splattered all over the city, strung in rows like beads and hiding unsuspecting around corners and down small, casual roads. Some civil engineers in Rotorua, undoubtedly high off the fumes leaking from the earth, gleefully went to town sketching their curliques and loopdiloops to the point of ridiculous excess.

Also like my homeland in this fact (a phenomenon rather peculiar to my small cross section of the States) I thought I had seen my fair share of roundabouts, and despite my Jersey-girl experience, it was quickly apparent that we were playing on a whole different level. Anxious about city driving and unsure about navigating roundabouts (apparently foreign to Tennessee), LaRae let me drive through Rotorua. There is nothing quite so astonishing as being thrown into an endless circuit of roundabouts with cars darting in and out of the center from the left of the road, on entrances and exits mirrored from my memory. To my great relief, and not a small amount of surprise, I managed not to steer us down the wrong path, on the wrong side of the road, or into oncoming traffic. (To wit, we are still alive.)

We affectionately nicknamed Rotorua, "Land of the Rotary," and I would suggest that perhaps Rotorua shares the same Latin prefix, rotare/rotatus/rota, as the vile automotive merry-go-rounds that litter the place.

After an action-packed few days of driving all over the Coromandel Peninsula, we ran out of steam in Rotorua. ("Steam": perhaps an inadequate choice of a word for a place riddled with geothermal activity) Our first morning in Rotorua (Friday, August 29th) was split between wandering the town in search of breakfast and in search of souvenirs. On both counts we were highly successful: breakfast we found at a cute little bakery where I bought a fresh-baked apple turnover cut open and filled with clotted cream, and the sweet little grandmotherly lady behind the counter stuffed extra napkins into my hand; for my particular souvenir I found a carved bone necklace at a stunning Maori art gallery -- Maori owned and operated, from Maori artists, which was pretty important to me. Maori carvings have a lot of significance and meaning, and necklaces made of bone or pounamu (jade) are an incarnation that are really popular and fairly traditional. The first necklace I spotted was a stunning, intricate, carved koru, but just my luck that it was bought by somebody else when I left the shop to think about it. By the end of the day, though, I found another, simpler, koru that I really liked.

The koru is a spiral symbol, a stylised representation of an uncurling new fern -- another one of New Zealand's emblems. The spiral, too, has all the contemplative interpretations of "...peace, tranquility and spirituality along with a strong sense of regrowth or new beginnings," "new life, growth, strength and peace" or "its circular shape conveys the idea of perpetual movement, and its inward coil suggests a return to the point of origin. The koru therefore symbolises the way in which life both changes and stays the same," depending on the interpreter.

Here it is, modeled by yours truly:

I've always loved ferns (and spirals), and if you know me, you'll know why the meaning strikes me so signficantly. The circle and the shape of the swirl remind me of a wave and the moon as well -- both of which I particularly like. I really like wearing it -- I think it's simple and attractive and interesting but it also lies flat and nice against my skin, getting warmer and smoother as I wear it. According to wikipedia this means, "When bone is worn on the skin, it changes colour as oil is absorbed. The Māori took this to symbolise that the spirit of the person was inhabiting the pendant. When someone gives a pendant to someone else, it is the custom that they wear it for a time so that part of their spirit is given as well." I know this also applies to greenstone (pounamu) pendants as well, and the rock is shined by rubbing it against the skin. I find this understanding of the closeness of skin and the value of uniqueness, personhood, individuality and sincerity really quite beautiful and aware.

In the afternoon, we ventured up to a nearby hill for a gondola ride (underwhelming) and luging (awesome). While the gondola lifted you into the air for views of the city, Lake Rotorua and Mokoia Island in the middle, the views while luging were much more exciting -- whipping around corners near the edges of the hill while soaring over the town way below, eye to eye with the assortment of hills that encircled it.

A woman named Marinella (and told us to call her "Nona"), a grandmother from Peru, who was soft, cheerfully round and laced in gold jewellery in the way that always looks maternal to me, spotted LaRae and I looking stupid while we attempted to photograph ourselves wearing our helmets. She happily offered to take a picture of us, and fussed over putting us in the right positions overlooking the city.

The maternal fussing continued, and on her insistance one photo of us in our helmets turned into a photo of us luging (while she waited, looking down from above):

(I'm in front.)

and a photo of us returning on the chairlift, with her standing below shouting up to us, "Look at Nona! Wave to Nona! Smile! Smile for Nona!":

We met her son-in-law (viciously fast when luging) and her grandson when we returned for our camera, and watched them convince Nona to try luging herself. Nona continued bubbling over, both nervous and excited, "Oh! My husband never believe this! Pray for me, girls," she said, crossing herself, "Pray for me!" We volunteered to take photos of Nona and her family on the luge in return, and giggled to see her inching ever so slowly and with enormous trepidation down the winding track.

When we left, Nona gave us a huge hug, and then when they passed us in their car while we waited at the bus stop, her son-in-law driving, honked and she waved frantically at us.

That afternoon we had plans to travel to geothermal pools and a redwood grove by bus, but the Rotorua bus system was more than a little flaky, and never showed up. This consigned us to more aimless wandering and a glorious though somewhat of a sell-out buffet dinner at Pizza Hut (occasionally, the trashiest things are the most comforting). We were so simply exhausted that 7:30 felt desperately late and by 9:30 I was out cold.

Saturday morning, before leaving for Rotorua, we wandered past our hostel to a little park filled with hot mud pools, smelly steam clouds, and flowers. Rotorua marks the first place in New Zealand where I encountered plants in bloom, spring beginning.

Not everything was blooming, most things were bare and particularly ugly on the backdrop of steam that fillied the park, but I was happy to see large expanses of bright yellow daffodils, and several kinds of blooming pink trees. While only a small portion of its plants were in bloom there was a section of the garden, with waist high flowerboxes and walled paths called the Garden for the Blind -- aromatic flowers raised and closely lining the paths to maximize their impacft. I wish I could experience that garden in full bloom, it's an amazingly thoughtful and touching place.

The mud pools themselves were really quite startling, little pockets where the Earth seems to cook itself. Grey, rancid, seething open Earth wounds, almost: ugly, strange, surreal. Most of all: stinky.

While not at all haunted Scottish landscape, there was something distinctly Macbeth about the place. Not just the "double bubble, toil and trouble, witches' brew and cauldrons bubble" of it all, but had the eerie darker feeling of Macbeth's meeting with the witches, the strange brew, the pool and the nightmarish procession of kings. Why is the Earth brewing and draining its own grey pus? It's uncanny: nature, like the well-timed lightning bolts, the wind carrying voices over the moor, in cahoots with evil witch agendas.

Needless to say that the contrast between the bright morning and the vibrant new flowers, with the dark, muddy, steaming absesses was a mindboggling dichotomy.

Further into the park, following the trails of smoke, we stumbled onto a small but bustling market. After a week and a half of travelling, it was like stumbling onto an oasis with piles of fresh fruit and vegetables brilliant in the sun and luxurious bunches of cut flowers.

Of course, in light of the afternoon's bus trip to Taupo, it was definitely a mirage, not bearing fruit, not replinishing. Given that lunch was once again Subway sandwiches before scrambling onto the bus, being surrounded by momentary freshness and health was enough to lift my spirits.

More blog soon, I promise.

*A double pun! "Smelly" "Water"

Day #79

2008-09-18T01:07:00.004+12:00

Ahhhh, the stress: it's beginning to bubble up.

The halfway point of my stay in New Zealand went unnoticed in my blog. This is because I tried to unnotice it, generally. All I know for certain is that we have passed the halfway point, I don't want to know too much more.

...at which point I promptly sat down and calculated everything -- a clear sign of how high my brain is revving, I need to follow the ends of every thought as it snakes around and tries to slip away so that I can carefully pin it down and tack it in place.

In total, from when I arrived in New Zealand to when I fly out (not counting, of course, the Lost Day of July the 3rd, which slipped magically into oblivion as I crossed the International Date Line) I will be in Aotearoa for 137 days, which is 19 weeks and 4 days, rather, 4 months 3 weeks, 4 days or more simply, a hair's breadth under 5 months.

In light of this, my halfway point was (Day # 68) September 7th, 11 days ago which makes today is Day #79 of 137, and I am officially approximately 58% of my way through my time in New Zealand.

This caluculation, however, also doesn't include the time that I will be spending in Samoa (extending my time on the Southern Hemisphere) or the day that will be relived twice as the Pacific burps up the time it took.

As a result of all this mental fury, I am slipping back into my twitchy, nervous, absent-minded, fuzzy-haired state of intense preoccupation. Common symptoms include: getting lost halfway through a thought, a sentence, an activity, or simply walking across the room; distracted conversations with long distended pauses; and heightened levels of auto-narration.

Sunbird (the Mozilla calendar program) has joined my arsenal of Organizational Tools and Tricks that Fool Geca Into Doing What She Needs to Do (which also includes compulsive list-making, strategically located sticky notes, a calendar book by which I live and breathe, and clocks set between 8 and 12 minutes ahead to fool me into being on time.) Between the upcoming exams (3 of them) and upcoming papers (3, again) and my drive for more New Zealand travels the blues and greens (tags for School and Travels, respectively) on Sunbird are fairly intimidating.

So this is the long way of saying that I have both very exciting trips on the horizon as well as school assignments that terrify me. I am doing my best to stay ahead of both, but know that, as always, the process will feel a little like being eaten by a lawnmower when at first it only seemed like a gentle tug at the hem.

And also, in light of this strung out and evidently neurotic update I would like to announce that, armed with a kitchen, I have found my stress relief: baking.

Tomorrow? Apple-pie muffins.

Return to Christchurch and Adventures with Friends

2008-09-16T19:56:00.008+12:00

Written a week ago, finally posted today:

Being back at the University of Canterbury has been rather difficult – everything from a week in desperate need of grocery shopping and making creative meals out of the random foods at the back of my shelf in the cabinet; receiving two graded English papers, an A- and B+ respectively, which while not bad grades (and even better when translated by Butler to suit our delicate American sensibilities and rampant grade inflation) the B+ paper came with a fairly cold slap in the face (“brilliantly researched and argued, beautifully written but hardly worth a passing mark” because I apparently did not answer his vague and open-ended prompt to his satisfaction, so he gifted me a B+, what?); unending battles with my flatmate, Number 4, about toilet paper and not dealing marijuana from his bedroom; the mothering and shepherding of some of my half-grown peers through cooking disasters, affected states of giddy faux-drunkenness, or messy flare-ups of chronic verbal diarrhea; and to top it all off a keen gnawing for cello music that I haven’t played in years.

I’ve been back for a full six days now. At the end of break there really was nothing more I wanted than to return home to a small city with a practical bus system, a soft and reliable bed, food that didn’t need to be tracked down from unknown sources, bountiful supplies of clean underwear, and long hot showers at my smallest whim. These things I still really am enjoying – clean socks! who knew they could be so wonderful? For the first few days I showered with such copious amounts of soap (glorious glorious suds and lather!) that between my apricot face scrub and my vanilla-and-cinnamon-scented body wash I felt and smelled like a walking cobbler.

Since I have been back, I have to admit, there have been some genuinely fun times. Immediately upon our return from the North Island, the sudden turn around of hosting and entertaining four friends visiting from the University of Auckland was a bit overwhelming, and in addition I was nominated to organize a last-minute potluck. Numerous annoyances and my raging misanthropy aside (after 12-days of constant contact with other human beings I was, as LaRae said, “people phobic”) there were some really good times.

The potluck was a full-blown success with everything from mulled wine to quiche, fresh baked bread, gazpacho soup and the most amazing couscous I’ve ever had (honey, dried apricots, raisons, walnuts and onions). There were a lot of silly conversations and also really enlightening ones like learning that the building across the street from where I live is the one where the family of Juliet Hulme, the girl who’s mother wasn’t murdered in the Parker-Hulme murder (in Heavenly Creatures, which I’ve mentioned before) used to live. Our friend Felice, from Auckland, is also a really impressive magician and did some stunning card tricks and several really astounding displays of mentalism – one on me that really gave me chills down my spine. I love the sheer joy of “magic,” of someone’s performance ability and their ability to coax you towards wonderment, but I also really enjoy the cerebral delight of knowing that this dazzling mentalist magic is a really different subtle sort of talent. Brilliant!

The next two days were full of exploring Christchurch – a fantastic gyro and another black forest crepe in the Arts Center Market, some souvenir shopping (including buying an “upside-down” map for myself, one of the things with which I wanted to leave New Zealand), an outdoor garden with a Dyslexia art display, back to the museum and the Cathedral.

The inside of Christchurch cathedral.

The Dyslexia garden.

In the Canterbury Museum -- note, for Christmas I want a bike like this.

The weekend also included a trip out to Sumner, a nearby beach about a forty-five-minute ride on the public bus.

I really love spending time at beaches, at all times and in all weathers -- I find the varied personalities of these different factors mesmerizing. I’ve been at the shore (swimming – wise idea?) in thunderstorms with lightening and towering purple clouds; on perfectly stunning beaches at sunset when the sand goes orange and the waves go turquoise; at night where the only difference between the world filled with darkness and the world filled with black water is a subtle sense of movement and the unmistakable sound; an impromptu picnic (French limonade and baklava on the beach) during an impromptu fog that totally enveloped us in heaven – white sand below and a brilliant whiteness from a cloud so thick it blocked out the ocean. It is the feeling of being in a museum, collecting visual memories, lost and adrift in the details of brushstrokes or the shape of the sand, the same intense and peaceful zen. But even so, it’s better – it is unexpected, changing, surprising, not a display that someone has primped, that can’t be touched, but an exchange that is far more personal. The ocean is the ocean, no pretenses (or promises, of course) and you are free and welcome to engage it.

The beach at Sumner reminded me of a diamond – a cold, smooth, crystalline, shimmering gemstone. On the day we visited, the sky was so clear that the Southern Alps looked spectacularly snowy white, long, large and impressive. Playing on the beach under the quiet gaze of a really dazzling mountain range was awe-inspiring, and the enormous expanse of flat beach glazed with reflective silver puddles made the entire world feel magic and sparkling. Doffing my shoes, the chill of the wind and water were startling and the thorough soppiness of the sand sucked and grasped at my feet.

Sumner Beach.

Rejoicing in cold, sloppy, muddy feet.

View of Sumner from the top of the rock.

There were a number of rocks, brilliant black and encrusted in mussels that fascinated me at Sumner. I hate eating the things, the popping, fleshy, crunchy, tearing, sandy, slippery surprises of the ordeal are really not for me– but the glittering black bivalves up close are quite impressive. They strike me as mollusks with a kind of edgy urban fashion sense, a crust of shimmering black gems.

The notable thing about Sumner is the enormous rock that has been deeply pitted with caves and winding paths running through and over it. I spent a good long while exploring the various surfaces of the rock, scrambling over it, venturing into its numerous caves and outcroppings that felt like so many little shrines to be visited.

From a forgotten part of the rock.

Cave and tunnels in the rock.

From inside the cave.

At the top:

(The celebrations have angered Grendel.)

After returning from Sumner, the evening was a flurry of activity: a dinner of shrimp alfredo and chocolate cake à la mode as provided by our Auckland friends and then a Wikipedia Birthday Party for LaRae's flatmate, David.

Yes, a Wikipedia Birthday Party. The premise was to do a “random article” search and dress in costume, as inspired by the article! It was all kinds of silly, and numbered among the costumes was a snail (in an enormous purple cardboard shell) and the concept of “lost in translation” depicted by a white shirt with “lost” written in many languages (with it being ironic that I only figured out what the shirt said by reading the Greek, not the English translation.)

I present, from left to right, The Flag of the Republic of Macedonia, Florida Swamplands (note the cattails and the alligator), Yellowjacket – a comic superhero with power over bees—and Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons.

Then again, later, we ventured out into the city at night (for the first time ever) and did a cursory exploration of Christchurch’s nightlife. Clearly clubbing and drinking is not my thing, and as we hopped from The Treehouse – a bar that tries to imitate a locals bar from somewhere in the Midwest US, complete with bad karaoke and men trying to impress their girlfriends by attempting to ride the mechanical bull – to Shooters (my nightmare club: filled to brimming with dancing bodies and up to my ears in machismo and cigarette smoke), and spent a while in CultureClub a small underground bar, 80’s themed with blacklights, Star Wars posters and a small corner devoted to Ms. Pacman. CultureClub was the high point of the experience, singing to silly and upbeat music from the 80’s and hanging out with Ms. Pacman...

...Ms. Pacman – feminist hero, of course:

Interim Update

2008-09-15T23:09:00.006+12:00

I apologize for my not having posted an update in a while: I owe you, dear blog, several entries from the tail end of my trip. They are on my to-do list and I promise they will be coming soon.

In the meantime here are some updates:

The weather is tentatively turning towards spring, and both the plants and the people are embracing it fully. I'm loving the bright weather and discovering that Christchurch (called the City of Gardens) is actually bursting with flowers -- a well kept secret during the winter. Watching the willows clothe themselves, in particular, is a real treat.

I got my ear pierced almost a week ago-- the upper ear, a cartilage piercing that I've been wanting to get for a long time and mulling over for a while. The experience of getting it pierced was really fine: I'm known to do very poorly with needles, ie. turn a shade of pale green and swoon. (No joke about going green. Between my octopus-like display of colors and the fact that the world turns purple just before I faint away, let me tell you that it is a fascinating and vibrant experience.) This time, though, I did great, it was painless and I was cheerful. The next moment I watched the piercing lady stick two long and large needles into LaRae's ear. Why did I watch? It had the horrible mystique of a train wreck for me... and subsequently I turned very pale and lightheaded and had to slip onto the floor of the piercing room with my knees in the air to keep from passing out. SIGH. Anyway, you will find a picture of my accomplishment here.

A see-saw mishap this weekend left me with two fairly strained thigh muscles, a further strained relationship with one of my comrades, and a very disgruntled mood as I waddle my way around campus. A see-saw.

This morning, as I was volunteering at a cat shelter and cleaning out one of the cages, a longhaired cat named Rosetti took offense to my sunglasses (perched atop my head) and swatted me good. First time I've been slapped upside the head by a cat.

____________________________________________

Lastly, here is an article I wrote about CouchSurfing for the next IFSA Butler Newsletter. I guess it has some good information.

On Tiki Touring and Couch Surfing

In Taupo I met Lesley, a spunky, lively grandmother, who backpacks the world and eagerly dreams of skydiving. Armed with a fresh-baked batch of bran muffins, hot water in thermoses, and little packets of Milo and instant coffee, we set off for a picnic and a short hike around the Atiriri rapids.

In Wellington I got to know Joel, a fierce traveler of South East Asia and an IT guy in his mid-twenties, who had done some technical work for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers but had yet to watch the film. Joel provided a thorough tour and an insider’s guide to Wellington’s many cafés, bars, and Malaysian restaurants.

Tiki-touring through the North Island during our semester break, LaRae (another Butler/Canterbury student) and I decided to join CouchSurfing, a community and global network of travelers and friendly people open to hosting or letting others “surf” their place. Its official mission statement speaks highly for the organization as "CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding." Facilitating the network of surfers and hosts through its website (www.couchsurfing.com) the organization places a huge emphasis on both safety and community.

Here’s how it works: first, create a profile, with a personal photo, a description of your interests and the type of people you enjoy, details of your couch and/or world travels, and a marker indicating your ability and willingness to host others – marking your current couch availability as “definitely!,” “yes,” “maybe,” “traveling,” or “no couch.” If you do not have a couch/guest bed/spare mattress available and are not currently on the road, there is always a “meet for coffee or a drink” option to encourage visiting Couchsurfers to contact you, such as Gina, from Chicago, who was on her way to Antarctica and wanted company before “being trapped on the ice for six months.” The community operates through a fundamental network of references, verification (various levels of verification of your name and address are achievable by paying a $28 commitment fee by credit card) and vouching (a rarer and highly-respected signal of a CouchSurfer’s trustworthiness). Searching for a CouchSurfing host is as easy as filling in the destination of your choice and scrolling through profiles until you discover someone with an available couch whose personality resembles yours, references and a verification level you trust. You then submit a CouchSurf request through the website, detailing the number of guests in you party, and the dates and times you are hoping to stay, and several email exchanges later, you find yourself staying with and meeting all sorts of friendly locals, expats, and other characters who are happy to get to know you and show you around.

The emphasis on community is a vital component of CouchSurfing and charging money to host a traveler is strictly against the terms and conditions of the organization. The emphasis on personal contact and friendly exchange is the most beautiful part of the organization: people welcoming each other into their homes, briefly involving themselves in each others lives, with the whole system relying on a network of trust and a larger give-and-take exchange than money. In gratitude for a free place to sleep, it is expected of the visiting CouchSurfers to give back in what ways they can by staying neat and behaving politely, cooking or treating the host to dinner, giving a token gift of thanks or friendship, or helping with chores around the house. In addition, giving back to the CouchSurfing community yourself by hosting or otherwise meeting and welcoming travelers in your own locale is the ideal way of accruing good CouchSurfing karma. In addition to the benefits of housing and unexpected friendships while traveling, joining the community and reading the forums of local groups (cities such as Christchurch Wellington and Auckland have their own forums) provides further opportunities to get involved in fun activities and events, and meet more people, both travelers and locals.

I have CouchSurfing to thank for some of my most memorable experiences in New Zealand, from a lunch of fresh-bread and homemade feijoa preserves with Lesley, to late nights watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate Atlantis with Joel and his roommates crammed into the living room. It is certainly something I intend on staying involved with, both as I continue exploring New Zealand as well as back home, when a spare mattress in my dorm room will certainly be available for passing travelers.

Samoa!

2008-09-09T14:31:00.002+12:00

For $25, I have a stop over on my flight back home, either to the Cook Islands or to Samoa. Since before I left for New Zealand I have been teeter-tottering on my decision.

Now I just found out that there is a Robert Louis Stevenson museum on Samoa, and he's buried there.

I AM DECIDED. I am also....A DORK.

ARACHNID MELTDOWN THE SECOND

2008-09-06T08:44:00.003+12:00

So I'm back. And will update about the rest of my trip soon, I promise.

But. OHHOLYFISHSTICKS. I just woke up, open the door, and a ENORMOUS, GIGANTIC SPIDER STROLLED OUT OF MY ROOM AND MEANDERED DOWN THE HALLWAY.

I assume it's going to be a bad morning when the first thing I say upon waking is a strangled rendition of "OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"

Let me reiterate that we are talking about A VERY LARGE SPIDER. Arachnid freakout the first had a spider perhaps ONE TWENTIETH THE SIZE OF THIS BEHEMOTH.

THE BEHEMOTH SPIDER THAT CASUALLY AMBLED OUT OF MY ROOM AND DOWN THE HALLWAY.

Don't know where it's gone, either, I'm just trying not to think about it. (This is me REALLY trying. It's not working.)

I don't THINK it had a white bottom, but I had ZERO INTENTION OF GETTING CUDDLY.

Anyway, it's ALREADY BEEN IN MY ROOM, DEAR GOD.

The Roadtrip: Matamata and the Coromandel Peninsula (Backdated)

2008-08-28T00:22:00.007+12:00

Written in Rotorua:

While there has been prolonged silence on my end during the course of this trip (the combined result of infrequent internet access and the kind of exhaustion that has me falling asleep mid-blog-writing) I suspect that it is far better you hear from me now than three days ago.

Tuesday morning we took two buses from Waitomo to arrive in Rotorua, at which point we immediately rented a car and hit the road for the road-trip segment of our trip.

First stop out of Rotorua was Matamata, home of Hobbiton.

The Hobbiton segments of the first and third Lord of the Rings films were all filmed here, and it is really easy to understand why: rolling green hills, a shady grey mountain range in the distance, a perfect blue lake, and oodles and oodles of sheep. The site where Hobbiton was built is extraordinarily remote, at the back end of a sheep farm where it is difficult to get to over steep hills and gorges. The New Zealand army was hired to build a long gravel road through the farm to the site to accommodate several tonne trucks, hundreds of vehicles and several hundred (400-600) people a day. Additionally, to keep the films a secret, the New Zealand government instated a No-Fly-Zone up to 5,000 ft over area. The Hobbits were kind of a big deal.

Perhaps I am too much of a dork, but it was amazing to see things come real, and to walk around in a place that has become iconic. To remember where the scarecrow and corn patch marked the furthest Sam had ever been from the Shire, or the site of the urgent river crossing to escape the Nazgul, or the moment when Gandalf rode into Hobbiton and the fireworks escaped his cart.

Here I am, under the Party Tree, giving a speech for Bilbo’s 111^th (Eleventieth) birthday part.

Here I am again, in the doorway of Bag End, Bilbo and Frodo’s home at the top of the hill. (And leave it to Bilbo to have the best view in town: a clear view of the land in all directions, with a beautiful glimpse of the mountains.)

In the early evening, after Hobbiton, we headed out for our road trip up to the Coromandel Peninsula. Driving on the left side of the road really wasn’t troublesome. It was easy to remember which side you stay on, and though turns required a little more thought, it was fairly clear that right turns meant crossing two lanes of traffic while left turns meant slipping easily into the nearest lane. The most difficult part was trying to use the turn signals: they were reversed which meant that flicking the handle on the left made the windshield wipers go beserk, and was not the turn signal. That was both flustering and humiliating, a clear sign to everyone around that Americans were driving the car.

By far, the three-hour road trip from Matamata to Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula was the most exciting and nerve-racking adventure so far. No one told us the road was quite so treacherous – the windiest roads I’ve ever driven on, narrow, with cliff-drops, many many one lane bridges and hairpin turns. Worse still, we drove it at night. (While also driving on the left side of the car, on the left side of the road.) Instead of a road, this was more of an obstacle course – terrifying and exhilarating. (At least now, writing this, you know I have survived it.) There were all sorts of memorable signs on the road, from a handwritten sign that read “Horse Poo 4 Sale,” and a yellow X-ing sign with the silhouette of a man and the words “AGED PERSONS,” to heart-sinking signs alerting us of windy roads for the next 10km, or the mysterious and even more ominous orange signs that bore nothing but an enormous “!”.

Driving on windy back roads with invisible cliff-edges and darkened wilderness felt straight out of some terrible horror movie. My sister and I developed the concept of “momo’s” – invisible fairytale-like creatures that stalk the woods and brush of no man’s land. You can never quite see momo’s, but they are out there, taking the form of crazed, seething, axe-murdering hobos. This, certainly, was momo country.

After three-hours’ driving from Matamata we reached the outskirts of Whitianga, a town on the Coromandel Peninsula where we were going to spend the next two nights. Unable to find our hostel, we pulled into a lighted parking lot, where I pulled out a map and LaRae called the hostel for directions. Ten seconds after the spooky thought of an unknown person approaching the car flitted across my mind, a big, sturdy, bald man with a huge metal flashlight clutched in his fist lumbered up to the side of our car and I leaped out of my seat. Seeing that he’d startled me, he grinned and asked us if we were lost, we told him we were ok and he got in his pickup and drove away. Yet another horror movie moment averted.

After driving past our hostel three times, we discovered that our double had been upgraded to a beautiful little suite right on the water, with five beds, two bedrooms, one bath and a kitchen. We fell asleep to the sound of the ocean.

On Wednesday we drove a half-hour away, past hundreds and hundreds of dairy cows in all colors, on more scary, steep roads lined by ocean cliffs. At Hahei Beach Scenic Reserve we took a hefty hike, mostly uphill, in the heat to explore the various secluded and local beaches.

Down unending lengths of uneven, muddy, vertical wooden steps, we went first to Gemstone Bay, a secluded cove with a rocky beach made entirely of large colorful boulders. We sat on the rocks and poked at the snails and strange barnacles clinging to the rocks.

Wheezing and heaving back up the stairs, our next beach detour (down another steep set of wooden stairs) was Stingray Bay, a windy, rugged cove, shaded and secluded.

About an hour later, we arrived at Cathedral Cove (only after I stomped straight into a large and surprising pile of cow poo.) It was entirely worth the trek – as one of the sites where Prince Caspian was filmed (the entrance into Narnia, where the siblings play on the beach) it was definitely the most beautiful beach I have ever seen.

Clean, crisp, the whole beach shining and brilliant like a gem – white sand and light blue water. On the one side of the beach there was a natural waterfall, from high on the cliff into a little clear pool on the beach. I crawled behind it and basked, taking it all in.

Far on the opposite side of the beach was the “cathedral” formation of Cathedral Cove, a beautiful stone arch opening.

We decided to cross over, through the cave, through the water, to the Other Side of the beach. I rolled up my pants above the knee, hiked up my backpack and timed the waves, making it easily and wading across during a low point. The Other Side was as beautiful (but, sadly, no Narnia ruins on the cliffs) though more secretive and more special.

With no one else on our side of the cave, we played on the beach for a long time, climbing on rocks, running in and out of the water, poking at huge hunks of driftwood braided somehow together. Really, it was a whole separate magical place. The time at the beach has, so far, been my favorite New Zealand memory: peaceful, fun, warm.

After a while we decided to head back through the cave. With jeans, again, rolled up way above the knees, we tried to forge our way back to civilization. LaRae went first and made it across, while I waited and timed the waves. One thing we forgot to take into consideration: the rising tide. This made crossing through a partially water-filled cave especially tricky – I waited and watched and waited and the waves simply weren’t getting smaller. Finally, I found the slightest gap and darted through.

My mistake. Caught in knee-high water halfway through the cave, I looked over my shoulder to find an even larger wave heading my way, with no escape. My urgent fear was crashing into the rock or going under against the cave wall, I was shrieking at the wave and tried to race it towards the other side of the cave. Know that feeling when the sand and the water pull back against you to form the wave that’s coming ever nearer? At about that moment, I jumped and leaned into the wave –fully dressed and all—and avoided being thrown into the rock, but was thoroughly drenched and more thoroughly humiliated. The tourists posing at the mouth of the cave all watched me and laughed, LaRae was doubled over in hysterics, and I sloshed out of the water, wet up to the waist.

Surprisingly, covered in sandy, wet clothes, the long walk back wasn’t much worse than the walk down. Then, gritty and squishy, we went to the grocery store and I tried to hide behind the cart. That night in our little suite I cooked our first real meal of the trip: garlic and herb encrusted steak with mashed potatoes and a cheese, chives and bacon sauce. With the optimistic hope that our small beach vacation was warmer than the end of winter could provide, we brought our dinner onto the deck and ate outside, well-bundled, and waited to watch the sun set over the beach – before we realized we were facing east. Even so, later that night as I made numerous trips back and forth to the laundry room in the courtyard behind our room, the stars out in the Coromandel were stunning: more like sea-spray than astronomy.

Thursday was an action-packed day, we had intended to visit Hot Water Beach and make the drive back to Rotorua by 1:00pm – I don’t what we were thinking, but needless to say, it didn’t happen. In the morning we checked out and drove out to Hot Water Beach.

Hot Water Beach is called such because for two hours across low tide (an hour before and after) digging under the sand produces water so hot it bubbles and steams. The tradition is to bring a shovel and dig a hole in the sand to soak in. We followed that tradition in our own way: after crossing a very, very cold knee-deep stream of water (at 9:00am, low tide was at 10:15am) six times in search of a shovel, finally renting a shovel, digging four separate holes resulting only in cold water (“Feel like you’re digging your own grave? Your own watery grave?”), finding a natural stream of hot water and scalding a foot in it, changing into my swimsuit in the bathroom and dropping my underwear into the public toilet, we finally managed to dig a hole mixing areas of cold and hot water in which to soak.

And soak we did! It’s surprising how hot the water was, even at the end of winter it was a perfectly wonderful day at the beach. With the cool breeze and at the edge of the ocean, you could see swirls of steam rising from the water holes.

After both indulging in our hot water soaks and mistiming the windy drive back to Rotorua (Google said 3hrs, we drove it in 4.5 – possibly because we decided that driving tight and narrow tangles of road at 100km was not a sane decision) we kept our rental car over by several hours. This also included a short (but amazingly nerve-wracking) detour down another route which, while I more direct route on the map, proved to be even windier, higher, and treacherous as it wound past the Karangahake Gorge (while beautiful, proved inhospitable and unwelcoming.) After about a half-hour of sweaty-palmed terror, we decided to turn back: the evil we knew, rather than the one we didn’t. Just outside of the city boundaries of Rotorua, the car rental company called and let us know to keep the car until the next morning with no extra charge.

Immediately we turned right around and went for a visit at Mamuku Blue, the blueberry winery. A little old lady told us more than we’d ever wanted to know about blueberries and gooseberries, and we dug in immediately into the various chutneys and preserves. The blueberry wine, too, (made solely out of blueberries, no grapes involved) was absolutely amazing, like a red wine but without the mouth-drying tannin. However, the blueberry liquor was so sweet it was positively vile. (I am quickly discovering that I do not like sweet booze at all.) We also bought a jar of blueberry chutney –really good, just the right amount of spice and not too sweet—for the Couchsurfer we planned to stay with in Taupo. From Mamuku, it was only a short drive back to Rotorua, where we checked into our backpacker’s and laid low for the night.

Auckland to Waitomo (Backdated)

2008-08-26T19:42:00.004+12:00

Written in Waitomo:

I’m currently at a cute backpacker’s hostel in Waitomo, where it’s warm, cozy, and mostly empty.

Rain has definitely been our undo-er so far on this trip.

On Saturday morning, LaRae and I caught an early bus to the airport and made it with plenty of time to spare. After receiving our boarding passes and checking our bags, we strolled through the shops, I got a passionfruit and yogurt cup and somehow I managed to lose my boarding pass. It was a few minutes of cold panic, but the lady at the gate let me on with a photo ID. (Airport security is so relaxed here, it’s comforting and startling at the same time.)

Do you know those rare moments where you find the perfect song to go with the moment? I was in that groove during the flight. It really was amazing, listening to Vaughn Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and seeing the snowy mountain peaks of the Southern Alps poking through a flat expanse of clouds.

I’ve loved Thomas Tallis for years – it’s an amazingly lush, subtle, and emotionally varied peace of music with heartbreaking melodies. It also has a really special significance for me because I played it at the last concert I was ever a part of in high school, and the sensation of being surrounded by two hundred string players (and all of my close friends), in this pulsing flood of complex chords. If I were marooned on a desert island, I’d take it with me, I could feast on this music and bury myself in the harmonies. This music spontaneously (and almost always) makes me cry.

Now you understand how stunning the view from above the clouds was.

When we got to Auckland, we maneuvered our way to meet with a friend from Butler who is studying at the University of Auckland and allowed us to sleep on her floor for the weekend. After plunking down our bags we had wanted to go to Rangitoto, a big volcanic island in the middle of the bay near Auckland, but we discovered that we had missed the last ferry. (Ugh.) Instead we went to Queen St., one of the main shopping areas in Auckland and looked around.

In the late afternoon, we met up with a friend of LaRae’s, roommate, Kevin, who had come to visit at Canterbury a few weeks earlier. He was friendly and funny and showed us around. We went to the Sky Tower, the most prominent building in Auckland (and shaped like a hypodermic needle.)

He treated us to coffee, but after a ridiculously long wait and ordering three separate times, I was elected to go complain to the manager (I think I may have included the phrase “40 minutes for some boiled water.”) We finally received our drinks and had them comped – not bad for an hour spent socializing.

That evening two friends from Canterbury joined us in the city, as they were spending their first few days in Auckland, too. As a group we went up the Sky Tower (348 meters high – 4 meters higher than the Eiffel Tower. Coincidence? I think not!) and had a stunning 360 view of Auckland’s city lights at night. Additionally there was a video camera you could maneuver with a joystick to get closer look of the city – and also afforded surprisingly clear, creepy views into apartment buildings.

Also, there were sections of glass floor, where the view made you hyper-aware of the overhang hundreds of meters over a roadway.

Sunday in Auckland was not much better. Again we tried to do Rangitoto and also had tentative plans with a friend of a friend to go out sailing, but when we woke up to begin our volcanic adventure, we discovered that there was a violent and torrential rainstorm outside with whipping winds and rains. During a break in the storm, we set out to walk around town, the group of four Canterbury students, and Felice, a Butler Auckland student who does mind-blowing magic tricks. However, with my level of exhaustion (from mid-terms and traveling) in combination with the rain made me feel sick, so I left the group and headed home – but not before stopping for some souvenirs that have me quite pleased.

Sunday evening was a reunion with the Auckland Butler kids – we were treated to pizza from Hell Pizza (with pizzas named after the Seven Deadly Sins) and it was all a lot of fun. The reunion evolved into several games of Fluxx and a never-ending game of Egyptian Rat screw (keeping a close eye on Felice who does really sneaky card tricks.) We made plans to see these Butler kids again when they come down to visit Christchurch, which should be a blast.

Monday morning we awoke early and caught a bus from Auckland to Hamilton and a very small van from Hamilton to Waitomo. All in all, about two and a quarter hours of driving.

From the hostel it was about a 1km trek into town, past farmyards and sheep and goats and a rooster that kept continuously crowing.

On the outskirts of town we stopped by the shearing shed, to watch an angora rabbit shearing.

This is Bailey. He is a handsome angora bunny. And his nose is twitchy.

Finally, finally, I found just the perfect amount of fuzzy. (So much fuzzy!)

Watching the shearing was something else: they tied the bunny’s little feet into rope slings and stretched her out so the loose folds in her skin would go taught and wouldn’t be caught by the shearer --looking a bit like a bunny on the rack. Additionally, the rack spun so that the person doing the shearing could flip the bunny round and round and shave various parts of its body. Like it’s belly.The bunny, named Sheila, was really quite well behaved. She didn’t fight, but each time she would be turned this or that way she snuffled her nose and gave a really long-suffering look of disapproval. When she was shaved, her skin and the fuzz on her were unbelievably soft, and how surprising to feel a really small bunny body underneath.

This, friends, is a freshly shaved angora rabbit, tied up on the rack.

After the bunnies, we walked to town to discover that most of the glowworm caves were flooded and our tubing trip through Waitomo caves was cancelled. The company offered to upgrade us with no extra charge to an abseiling trip through some other, more vertical caves. We deliberated over this for several hours – rappelling heights of 30m, 9m, and 8m while underground cave-water pours in buckets down your head, trekking along in rubber boots for 2hrs. Ultimately we decided that, with my fear of heights and the level of adventuring involved, it was simply too much. Instead we went on a walking tour of Ruakuri, another local cave that includes a Maori burial ground.

Ruakuri was stunning – cool, quiet, dark, like the halls of some forgotten underground palace. I was truly awed by these caverns, decorative with their abstract formations, watching ancient processes as stalactite tips dripped water on us like a blessing. Most of all I was struck by the fact that the earth has such magic openings, places that beckon you underground to glimpse the insides of the world.

Ruakuri’s glowworm action wasn’t as impressive as some of the caves that were flooded out. Still, the glowworms were surprisingly blue, like neon constellations on a close black sky. They drop feed lines like gummy threads to lure in prey (and sometimes eachother), their glow is from their slimy mucuousy waste that covers them and is the world’s most efficient light source (98% light, 2% heat.) Pretty strange to reconcile the idea that the blue sparkles came from creatures our tour guide called, “cannibalistic maggots with shiny glowing poo.”

On the walk back from the caves we watched the sun setting over gorgeous farmland. Even though it is winter, here, and there are no leaves on the trees, everything is so green here. Green and expansive, with rolling hills and tropical brush that is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

We cooked a simple dinner when we reached the hostel (pasta and canned sauce we had brought with us from Auckland because Waitomo is too small to have a supermarket.) While we were cooking, LaRae alerted me to the sound of a sheep bleating and we were surprised to realize it was coming from the laundry room.

The American woman working that night at the hostel brought out a lamb that was a few weeks old. His fleece was curly white with black splotches and his trotters didn’t work well on the smooth flooring, so he wobbled and stumbled around. The lamb’s name was Oreo, and he was a pretty sad thing to watch: his buddy, Cocoa, had died a few hours earlier, so Oreo bleated frantically, ran around the room, and charged up and down the hallway, hysterically searching for the other missing lamb.

From Waitomo, the trip continues next –briefly—to Rotorua, the Coromandel Peninsula, and back again to Rotorua.

Begin Radio Silence

2008-08-23T01:28:00.002+12:00

After pulling an all-nighter last night (who knows which night last night was) and sleeping 2 hrs during the morning (from 9:00-11:00), today (yesterday? Friday?) was one of those terrible days where nothing could go right, and it started very early in the morning. I kept walking into walls, dozing off mid-sentence, and attempting to cook dinner for my friends was just a mistake -- though they were sweet when I had a meltdown over the noodles. Also: I burned my thumb (a nice painful blister-bubble in the middle of the thumbpad) and slammed another finger hard enough in the door that I reeled and was dizzy from the pain. All in all? Not a good week.

Though I am sleep deprived, I managed to fit adequate supplies for my 12-day travel around the north island in my two bags. This is a good start. I will try to reverse my current run of bad luck and hopefully you will here nothing but stories of adventure from here on out. I leave tomorrow morning!

New York's Hostile Takeover

2008-08-21T22:55:00.005+12:00

Today, in class, my Kiwi history professor told us of a dramatic 19th century sea rescue that went down in:

"Newport, Rhode Island, New York."

It fits the general rule: what's not in California or Texas must be in New York.

Orientation Videos!

2008-08-21T16:59:00.003+12:00

At some point I'm going to sit down, break open my head and my heart and tell you everything about the powhiri and our visit to the Marae from my first week in New Zealand. It's too incredible that it requires a fair bit of thought and time to write down.

Even so, Butler has a fairly silly video up that I can't help but show you

At the Marae that night, after the hangi (huge feast, cooked together underground in a stone pit) when we were being shown/taught traditional Maori performance arts. These are poi, and you can definitely recognize me, I'm the one with the grey sweater, trying not to smack myself in the face.

Itinerary, Or Something

2008-08-21T02:46:00.012+12:00

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move. -Robert Louis Stevenson

Hello again, ungodly hour of the morning! I come bearing an itinerary for my North Island Tour*!

North Island Tour*

This is a bare bones list of things we are hoping to do, plans almost certainly will fall apart and grow as we breathe life into our traveling. Here's just some of our hopeful highlights (but unless something seriously unexpected happens, the dates should be more or less correct.)

Auckland:

Saturday, August 23

FLIGHT: Christchurch to Auckland, 9:40-11:00AM
Rangitoto - trip out to Rangitoto in Hauraki Bay near Auckland to climb the largest and youngest volcanic cone in the area
SkyTower - go up and see the sunset and city views from Auckland's most prominent hypodermic syringe building
Stay the night with friends at the University of Auckland

Sunday, August 24

Coast to Coast Walkway - a 4 hour walk (though I would not feel averse to hitching a bus ride on the way bus) north-south across the Auckland area, which is one pretty skinny piece of land
Continued exploration of the city with Butler friends from Auckland

Monday, August 25

BUS: 8:15 - 11:45AM from Auckland to Waitomo

Waitomo:

12:45PM, public Angora bunny shearing!
Travel to Waitomo Caves for Blackwater rafting, toobing, and general mayhem through underground glowworm caves (!!)
Explore nearby Raukuri Scenic Reserve for a redwood grove and even more glowworms!
Stay the night at Juno Hall, a backpackers with "cosy fireplaces"

Tuesday, August 26

BUS: 9:15AM - 12:20PM from Waitomo to Rotorua

Rotorua:

Rent a car and drive 1hr to Matamata

Matamata:

ohmygodit's Hobbiton!

Coromandel Peninsula:

Drive 1.5 hrs to Whitianga
Spend the night at a hostel SMACK on the beach (aptly called "On The Beach Backpackers")

Wednesday, August 27

Drive to Hot Water Beach -- which, while not for swimming because its riptides make it New Zealand's 2nd deadliest beach (Oh, woops, I think my mother just fainted away) but it is instead for renting a shovel and digging yourself a nice little hole in the sand -- that promptly fills up with hot mineral water.
Stop by Purangi Winery for a taste of kiwifruit wine as well as manuka honey! (Free and en route, so why not? And yes: it's a very small taste of wine.)
Drive to Hahei Beach, walk "70 minutes" to Cathedral Cove - all kinds of craggy cliffs and rocky arches
Spend the night again in Whitianga

Thursday, August 28

Drive 1.5hrs to Karangahake Gorge - while pictures of tall scary cliff-like places and suspension bridges prompted Jason to ask me if I'd suddenly gotten over my fear of heights, I'm more interested in the 1km tunnel bridge, with windows blasted into the sides
Stop by Mamuku Winery -- blueberry orchard and winery, a sampling of blueberry wine, liquer and preserves (yes, it's odd, scheduling winery stops into your road trip: very small tongue-wetting tastes)
Drive back to Rotorua (40min from Mamuku, which is 1.5hrs from Karangahake, in total about 3.5hrs of driving)

Rotorua:

Stay the night at a female dorm in a backpacker (female dorm = less snoring)

Friday, August 29

Visit to the Museum and Blue Baths - historic hot water baths (do you get the geothermal theme here?)
Zorbing!
Walking tour of the city
Possibly learn to paddle a Hoe Waka, a Maori war canoe
Local geothermal park, with a very large hole/thermal pool called "Hell's Gate" in English, and even more ominous in Maori: "Tikitere," short for "Taku tiki I tere nei" or "my youngest daughter has floated away" -- DUN DUN DUN.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that it is clearly the youngest daughter that has floated away. As the oldest daughter, I find this highly significant: woops, I guess it sucks to be you, Rebecca!

Stay the night again

Saturday, August 30

BUS: 11:25-12:25AM from Rotorua to Taupo

Taupo:

A 2.5hr sailing cruise on the lake (either mid-afternoon or at sunset!) to see enormous Maori carvings in even more enormous rocks
Spend the night at a backpackers, YWCA or with a sweet and spunky little old lady on CouchSurfing

Sunday, August 31

NB: The missing day: you may notice that this day is significantly less planned than the others, up until today, we forgot that there was a 31st in August. It is, in fact, an exciting discovery. Additionally, I am making sure that everybody else knows this -- everybody, August has an extra day.

Do something or other. Possibly involving outdoorsyness or more geothermal stuff.
Possibly scrounge up the guts for a 1.5hr (and 1.5hr back) drive to Mt. Doom, and by Mt. Doom, I mean Mt. Ngauruhoe, a pretty formidable volcanic cone
Stay the night, somewhere.

Monday, September 1

BUS: 2:30 - 8:20PM from Taupo to Wellington, reading The Bone People by Keri Hulme for my New Zealand Lit class

Wellington:

Stay the night with a CouchSurfer in Wellington

Tuesday, September 2

Visit Te Papa, the enormous museum in the capital
Visit Mediaplex museum, full of NZ movie "heritage"
Visit the Tattoo Musuem (with a display on Moko!)
Red Rocks Costal Walk - 2-3hr walk, along the volcanic coast
Make dinner/baklava to thank CouchSurfing Host for letting us park there

Wednesday, September 3

Visit Butler staff at the Wellington HQ. They promised us cookies. (No, seriously.)
Walking Tour around the city
More putzing around
FLIGHT: 9:15PM - 10:00PM, Wellington to Christchurch

Christchurch:

Return home and pass out dead from exhaustion

Our break doesn't end until September 8th, giving us yet another long weekend after we arrive. In this time, friends from Auckland will be coming to visit Christchurch, and another friend of mine will be hosting a "Wikipedia Party" for his birthday -- the premise being that you dress up as an article surfaced through a "random search" (best of five tries). I am, in fact, an obscure comic book hero, Yellowjacket, who, uh, can magically harness the power of bees. (Wooh!)

But, back to this time in the North Island (see, I refused to give it that name) for those of you worry-type people (mother, boyfriend, etc.) I will have my cellphone on me and you can feel free to assuage yourselves of that fear by giving me a ring. Otherwise, I suspect that my communication will be infrequent and irregular, though I will be traveling along with my laptop, and will keep a running set of blog updates to upload at the first hint of internet access.

One last hurdle now: the history-of-cross-dressing-women paper of DOOM.

Then a mad-scramble to pack.

*Verily, this trip needs a much cooler-sounding name. I am open to suggestions, though I suspect that it will be the sort of thing born out of repetition (in which case, the thing is already infected and has already been named) or out of a moment's inspiration, sitting on a plane, bus, car, boat or bike somewhere along its length.

The Final Push

2008-08-20T19:00:00.003+12:00

I really went through the wringer this week. After a series of all-nighters (and more nights that weren't, technically, because at 4:00 or 5:00AM I finally went to bed) some balls-to-the-wall research and paper-writing, the elastic of my brain has definitely been outstretched and shot.

Further stress has come from the fact that planning what is nearly two weeks of city-hopping and touring is rather a challenge, negotiating the knotted, tangled bus maps and hunting for the cheapest, least-skeezy hostels. LaRae and I appear to have done some good work on this matter, though who can really know until we are in the trial-and-error of the situation. We have finalized about 95% of our basic plans, and I will soon post an itinerary so that nobody gets distressed about my lack of regular contact. However, one thing about my itninerary that is certain: we will be visiting an Angora bunny farm to watch an Angora rabbit get sheared.

Really, there are not adequate words for my level of excitement I have because, dude, we're going to see somebody shave a very ~~hairy~~ fuzzy bunny.

And, oh, will there be pictures of this event! Just you wait!

Other possible events on the itinerary: visiting a blueberry vineyard for some blueberry vino, paddling a Maori war canoe (hoe waka), and zorbing.

What is zorbing, you ask? A potentially terrible idea, or the fine line between madness and genius:

No promises, yet. I haven't quite determined my exact feelings on a hamster-ball hurtle down a hill -- but it is distinctly among the possibilities.

But other than distant happy-thoughts of break, I'm just popping in to say that I'm desperately in need of sleep, a shower, and studying the history of women who cross-dressed.

(Here's to a 1500 word history paper in 36 hours!)

Three poems by J.C. Sturm

2008-08-19T04:06:00.004+12:00

After the last batch I couldn't help myself: here are some more that absolutely blow me away. All of them are "for Jim," written to her ex-husband James Baxter after he died.

Grieving, 1972
for Jim

You -- bugger
You -- arsehole
You -- stinkikng shithouse

Dying
without me
Leaving
me stranded

Having
to keep on
Living
without you

Knowing
I'll never
See you
again

You bastard --
You bloody bastard you ---

-JC Sturm

_______________

Urgently
for Jim

My dear one
And only dear
My moonrise
And early morning sun

When the time comes
Will you light my way
Through the dreaded fog
Of Hine-nui-te-po

And bring me safe
To that bright place
(I believe --
I swear I believe)
Where we may be together
Again, for ever.

-JC Sturm
_______________

Honestly
for Jim

It's all very well for you,
Saef and smug on the other side,
Knowing at last without doubt
All the answers you spent
Your whole life looking for
With not much more success
Than Frame, McCahon
Johnson at his bet.

All very well for you,
But how about me
Still stranded in the garden,
Wide awake now and all ears
needing to be told,
I mean, desperately needing
To be told what it's all about
And where to go from here.

You cannot hold out on me
This time. I know you know.
Tell you what -- send me
An unmistakable sign
Pointing the right direction,
One omnipotent, omniscient
Syllable explaining all,
And I will try to forget
(Much harder than forgiving)
All the lies and deception
You brought to our living.

After all, they never made
Much difference, did they?

-JC Sturm

_______________

Wow, what a woman! These blow me away, though the first one is far and above my favorite: she turns one of those ugly strangled gut-wrenched sob things into a poem. Wow.

About JC Sturm.

Two Poems by Hone Tuwhare

2008-08-19T03:35:00.003+12:00

Song to a Swinging Contemplative

Yesterday when she came
a smile dimpled her glasses
She looked out of the tall windows
to the broken quarry-face: sensed
the traffic-knock below the trees'
first green breath stirring
And turning to me with a composure
of a Queen Penguin said: you must
leave these buildings. They're unhealthy

On a four-wheeled chariot rode
with her to the Rock at St. Kilda:
to the headland where a geyser played
the ninth wave. Long kelp-strands swirling
a baptismal of green-haired daughters:
slow indrawn sea-snore grind of teeth

Later at the Cathedral heart-sway
as gentle as a bell afraid to dong:
caught up in a curtsying flurry
of hand-crossed water: coloured glass
filtering a late sun

And passing the slow Stations wondered
when we should reach the painted Lady
Before whom I heard my Sister say: I do not
like these plaster-cast Virgins

for chrissake (under my breath)
You're hard to please
What do you want Michelangelo's Pieta?

But yes she said turning
to watch the children and quiet priests
come separately in to lip
the brine of His sad wounds
the vinegar in the blood
the rough dry bread of love
--Hone Tuwhare

The notes I scribbled from class into the margins read as follows:

"Fun Fact: Tuwhare was having an affair w/ a nun; ultimately nun left holy orders"

______________________________
On a Theme By Hone Taipapa

Tell me poet, what happens to my chips
after I have adzed our ancestors
out of wood?

What happens to your waste-words poet?
Do they limp to heaven, or go down easy
to Raro-henga?

And what about my chips, when they're
down--and out? If I put them to fire
do I die with them?

Is that my soul's spark spiraling; lost
to the cold night air? Agh, let me die
another hundred times: eye-ball

to eye-ball I share bad breath
with the flared nostrils of the night.
For it's not me I leave behind: not me.

Only the vanities of people;
their pleasure, their wonder and awe
alone remain.

Bite on this hard, poet: and walk careful.
Fragmented, my soul lies here, there: in
the waste-wood, around.
--Hone Tuwhare

Useful background info: Maori wooden carvings have a lot of significance and represent ancestors or important figures in history/religion/mythology.

______________________________
Also, Hone Tuwhare.

Dear Jung,

2008-08-18T12:56:00.004+12:00

Not to suggest that everything is all daisies Down Under, perhaps it is most succinctly indicative of my current emotional and mental state to describe the dream from which I just woke up:

Somehow I had managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up in a Mafia mansion and happened to get myself tangled in the middle of an insidious plan. There was a meeting taking place at the house with lots of people attending, but the pretense of the peaceful business negotiation was blown apart when the mansion was shut, sealed and set on fire. Not a part of the initial crowd for whom this fate was intended, I took off running, dodging obstacles, hidden mines and things rigged to blow up (light switches and door handles, say). Separated and alone, I ran through hallway after snaking hallway until suddenly the space broke open into the edge of a high chasm, carpeted and clearly still within the burning mansion. I had met my obstacle: in order to get out, I had to cross the very high chasm on a very narrow, very flimsy bridge made out of knotted black black rope. Over crocodiles. Though some of the crocodiles only snapped at my feet as they slipped through the rope and waited for the hemp to fray and spill me before them as an offering, a fair number of others were much less patient and climbing towards me. I knew I could get out just over the knotted bridge, but I awoke just as the crocodiles were closing in.

Midwinter Ball - Ilam Village Ball

2008-08-17T22:18:00.006+12:00

Saturday night was the Ilam Village ball, called the "Midwinter Ball," and it was great.

With all the stress and schoolwork that I've been treading through lately, I had no attention to spare to thoughts of the Ball -- my friends and flatmates kept asking me if I was excited throughout the week and I told them to ask me again Saturday night. Whereas everyone else was primping and pruning and stocking up on wine and shoes and glitz all of the week before, my only preparation was to spend 10 minutes at the mall during a grocery run to buy a really cute black clutch purse. Then again the day of, as my flatmates and their friends spent three hours curling hair, rummaging for barrettes, drinking wine from the bottle and taking photos of each other, I frantically planned my trip around the North Island and -despite a 10 minute interlude where I was corralled into my flattie's room to have my hair straightened- took all of 20 minutes to throw myself together.

Here are my two female flatmates and I decked out and at the dance:

We were taken from Ilam in chartered, public transportation Metro buses (drunken girls in heels climbing onto the high benches, glitzed up, decked out college kids filling the entirety of a city bus...) and driven to the Addington Raceway, which was pretty snazzy. Unfortunately, however, there was some awkward planning so at 7:00 when we arrived, after most of the Ilam students had been drinking for hours and expected (needed) food, we discovered that dinner was at least another 1.5hrs away. Given that free bottles of wine were on the (otherwise empty) tables, the whole thing lead to some fascinating displays -- girls teetering over the toilet bowls in heels, retching, and a particularly artful spill when a girl on the dance floor passed out while standing upright. She crumpled to the floor when, half-way through her descent, she was caught by an RA who then swooped her into his arms and carried her out, in the process displaying every bit of her thighs, with her short dress and flopping stilettoed feet. It was truly a glamorous evening.

When food finally came the night improved dramatically: besides the mere addition of yummies (pumpkin lasagna! roast beef!) and chocolate cake (with raspberry sauce!), the environment sobered up to a state of only mildly drunken mischief and fun.

During the Ball, there was a big-screen TV with the Olympics playing. When the sculling matches were up, a competition where New Zealand was expected to do well, be-dazzled students, waiters and security staff from the venue flocked to the screen, anxiously watching and cheering on the teams. While New Zealand did unexpectedly poorly (the single male sculler broke from the pack far too early -- a total of 2 bronzes and 1 gold, 3 medals of 5 sculling matches) and deflated the Kiwis a bit, it was really exciting to see the impact of the Olympics and the power it has to draw people together. This was only a fraction of the crowd, many more were around the corners, standing on chairs or running back and forth between table and TV screen to update their friends on New Zealand's progress.

Here is a picture of some of the Butler ladies at the Ball, posing with a great styrofoam snowman:

The best part of the evening was that it became a silly affair. All awkward attempts at glamor openly discarded, people dove enthusiastically into the dessert buffet, women kicked off their shoes to dance barefoot, someone's pimp cane turned into a limbo stick and the DJ started playing silly music. The fun thing about the music was that it was very much the music I would play if I DJed -- which is exactly the reason I shouldn't DJ and this music doesn't normally get played at dances: "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Build Me Up, Buttercup," "Thriller," "Feel Like a Woman," "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," "R-E-S-P-E-C-T," lots of Jackson 5. When "I Will Survive" and "Summer Loving" (from Grease, of course) came on, there was a whole lot of dramatic, unabashed signing along. It really was great: I don't usually enjoy drunken dancing things but this event became something fun and lighthearted, like the late stage in a wedding reception, where everyone has given up taking things seriously and just has a fun time.

Here is a prime example of the silly that took over: two friends from Bulter, Mir and Shalom (two girls with names meaning "Peace" in different languages) and myself inspired by the prevailing mood.

Less into the dancing as the other girls, LaRae and I stayed behind guarding the table, drinking gloriously delicious jasmine-green-tea and keeping an eye on our communal wine bottle to protect it from the scavenging that began occurring as other tables' rations ran low. Of course the bottle did get swiped but our friend David, a very slight and skinny RA with a curled imperial mustache, marched up to the offending table on our behalf and gave them what-for --they shuddered in fear. Later, when Mir returned to the table to give her shoes into our keeping, it instigated further silly:

Shortly after this moment, we were accosted by yet another drunken male Neanderthal. Perhaps LaRae and I are (deceptively) low-hanging fruit: we are appear to be removed and quiet ladies, less intimidating than girls who are already matched up or bouncing around contentedly on the dance floor. This, then, triggers a light switch within the simple mind of the male Neanderthal, who concludes that what these ladies need is a charming young specimen to entertain them.

The particular specimen in question was from Kentucky, spoke in a really honking deep Southern drawl, and continuously, repeatedly, called us "Ma'am." As a result of this I couldn't help laughing (snickering?) to myself and he kept drunkenly stating "Your laughing at me! You're laughing!" The matter was that LaRae, from Tenessee, was perfectly used to the "Ma'am"ing while I was wholly taken aback (I like to think that perhaps I don't look quite like a "Ma'am" yet. Or ever will.) Additionally, Mr. "Ma'am" from Kentucky was at the stage of drunkenness where he had the mental processes of a goldfish, asking me three times where I was from, making quips and mocking apologies about the fact that I was from New Jersey, and excitedly asking me if I lived in Cherry Hill (because "his boy" back home was from Cherry Hill). Each time we went around this circle, and if a fourth time was required I would have answered that I was from Florida. Thankfully, we were yet again rescued by David, who parked next to us and with whom I initiated a furious conversation about our travels in the North Island.

All in all, it was a great, fun night -- and a very welcome distraction from the stress of the rest of these two weeks.

Triumph!

2008-08-15T14:00:00.002+12:00

The upside of the numbing academic boredom provided by my "New Zealand Literature" and "Heroines in History classes" and my resulting reluctance to spend much time or attention to these classes has resulted in a brutal (though masochistically enjoyable) marathon of essay-writing. Even though my mocha-powered analysis sometimes keeps me up until nearly 6:00 AM, with the only interruptions as the drastic repeated bladder-calls of diuresis and attempts to convince my mother to put my kitties on Skype (what?), I am having a blast.

(Largely, I think, due to a conceited belief in my self-flagellation as the pathway of the devout and exceptional in academic pursuits. Even so, my mental states flip rapidly between this inflated sense of my brilliance, and the hyper-awareness of my own ego-stroking and chilling suspicion that perhaps everything as I know it exists only within the conditions of my own head. I begin suspecting that I am in reality only carrying on a happy jibberish conversation with myself, irrelevant and unintelligible to everything beyond the confines of my own refracted brain. Venturing out into the realm of crazy, I wonder where the boundary is of the disheveled, pointedly forgotten vagrants lurking in the corners of train stations, carrying on desperate impassioned arguments with the air. Fact: my inner workings are a distrustful, tangled jungle, with lurking pits of quicksand.)

AND, so! This is my long and bizarre way of saying that finally, with 2 hours to the deadline, I have completed my essay (203 words above the ~~25000~~ target) about which I am particularly proud and satisfied!

Edit: Jason is correct. Too large an order of magnitude: It was a 2500 page paper, not a 25000. If I had just finished a 60-page paper, I wouldn't just be triumphant. I would be passed out drunk, snoring in some corner of the floor.

Arachnid Meltdown

2008-08-15T03:36:00.005+12:00

HULLO I JUST ENCOUNTERED A SPIDER AND EVEN THOUGH I DECLARED OPEN SEASON ON ARACHNIDS I COULDN'T KILL IT BUT I DIDN'T WANT IT TO BE THE BAD SPIDER AND I COULDN'T TELL. OH NO MAYBE THIS IS A SIGN OF SPIDER INVASION, SEND HELP!

DRGIJWOFERHKJKERSOHDGHDOPITLKFNFDGLKJM

Grumpy, Annoyed, and Lethally Bored

2008-08-14T20:44:00.003+12:00

In this current phase, I have reached a whole new level of cynical annoyance. The fascinating thing about my current cynicism is that it's a bold hard line below which fall all the things for which I have no patience, it brings into stark contrast the things that I appreciate.

For example, I really enjoy living in a flat. Now that I've mastered the various necessary domestic skills --cooking, cleaning, laundering, grocery shopping-- I'm really quite happy: I have my own little nest and I am able to engage in the world in very crucial ways, by which I mean the necessary practicalities of cooking and cleaning, for example, become opportunities for creativity or at the very least, opportunities to effect change. (In this, I surprise myself by my optimism.) At the same time, though, my attitude toward my living environment is frosting over into a vicious winter of my discontent: my flatmates are sinking into new lows of uncleanliness and inconsideration, while the piles of dishes in the kitchen sinks climb ever higher and the quest to find an available fork becomes ever trickier. (In order to maintain my moral high ground, I have been diligently washing my every dish, immediately.) Through continued exposure to my flatmates I am further annoyed by some of the underlying reasons, say, Number 1's sense of machismo and entitlement or Number 4's carefully cultivated level of incompetence and apathy. Despite my currently oppressive living environment, the simple pleasure of baking (kiwi bread! it came out great!) or making simple delicious treats (instant mocha! baked apples!) are amazingly soothing.

In another area I have lost most of my buffer of optimism towards the reality of my study abroad situation: while I have discovered the rare friendship that I genuinely enjoy, the truth is that I am otherwise stuck among an assortment of people I do not know and with whom I am expected to play nice. From the inescapably clingy girl, who's unstoppable stream of consciousness is a narration of her upbringing as a rich, spoiled, only-child (and who may soon be the unwitting victim of a verbal thrashing since she seems to have adopted my flat as her personal laundromat, dropping off her laundry at night and returning the next morning to pick up clothes that someone has inevitably bundled for her out of their own need to use the drier) to the cliquey cattishness and determined priggish stupidity lurking below the surface of Numbers 3 and 6 -- I am losing patience for the various vices and immaturities of people with whom I would never willingly waste my time. (Did I mention I was a misanthrope?) Despite all of this, I am still excited to continue cultivating the friendships that have surprised me, and also by the prospect of encountering new people as I travel (and couchsurf) around the country. More so, however, I am growing to further cherish the friendships I have left at home.

The academic situation is also regrettable. Of my three classes, my senior-level English class, "The Exotic" remains brilliant, inspiring and enlightening. I am supercharged and thrilled by everything that has to do with that class (the writing of my paper, the critical readings, the literary readings, the lectures, the discussions.) Yet, as excited I am by this one class, I am at least as discouraged by my others. In "New Zealand Literature" my professor --as mentioned-- barely teaches, and what is taught has very little to do with, say, literature, and more the political and literary history of Maori in New Zealand. (To survive the tedium of the classes, which feel more and more like a waste of my time, I doodle furiously.) In "Heroines in History" I am always dumbfounded by the very basic amoebic level of thought expected of us, as, for example, during my tutorial the professor began our analysis of the assigned articles by asking us to define "catafalaque" a rather irrelevant term mentioned once, in passing. When the five of us stared back at her blankly and confused, she then asked us to define the even more basic and irrelevant word "petulant" - which, after answering that it meant "argumentative," still has me stumped as her chosen method of initiating (or its relevance to) a discussion and comparison of the funeral ceremonies of Elizabeth I and Diana, Princess of Wales. Halfway through the semester, I am choking on the realization that these two classes are completely and entirely worthless, while simultaneously relishing the acuity of thought and nuanced analysis required of "The Exotic."

And so, the bottom line of this rather cranky update is that, while I fully admit that I am by nature an arrogant, cranky, high-strung and judgmental ball of fun, my current circumstances are the slow, drip-by-drip death of Chinese water torture. Perhaps this is the accumulated lack of sleep and baseline homesickness talking, but I am tempted to begin eviscerating myself with a grapefruit spoon in order to provide some form of mental distraction and entertainment.

Mid-Term Stress

2008-08-13T22:46:00.003+12:00

Somehow, some way, in this next week I need to accomplish:

2500 word essay due Friday
2500 word essay due Tuesday
1500 word essay due Thursday

In the meantime, I also have:

Ilam Village Ball on Saturday evening

Additionally, next Saturday I leave for my whirlwind tour of the North Island, which means that on top of everything else, I also need to plan bus rides, rental cars, tours, city visits, couch surfing, and then pack.

As a result, at the moment I have a very flexible relationship with sleep and a strained relationship with hygiene. I am also becoming very well acquainted with the inner sanctums and removed corners of the 11-story library. However, my triumphant discovery of a Nescafe instant coffee mocha powder is fueling the current madness and is very tasty by the by.

Geca Does Dunedin

2008-08-11T10:29:00.011+12:00

To be perfectly honest about this weekend's trip to Dunedin: I am worn out.

I enjoyed what I saw and it made for a better exploration of what New Zealand is really like, but some of the company was a bit more than my nerves could handle. It was a learning experience that saved me from what would otherwise have been a pretty rugged spring break. With that short prologue, I will elaborate on this weekend's interesting adventure.

On Friday, after skipping my New Zealand Literature class (the professor reads straight from his lecture notes -- and not even all of his lecture notes -- which he then posts online and instructs us to read) four of us made our way into central city Christchurch and caught the bus to Dunedin. Seven hours later, after a prolonged detour and the roads through the hills closed by snow, chai tea at a 70's themed rest stop, and watching all of Memoirs of a Geisha we arrived, at midnight to a frosty and very dark Dunedin.

We stayed at a backpacker hostel a few blocks from the center of town. It was cheap, with a private room for the four of us, however, because the heater was truly pathetic --timed to turn off every 45 minutes-- we slept bundled in layers of sweaters, thermals and blankets. There was also a really offensive stench of stale body odor and moldy musty ick that struck you whenever you had the misfortune of inhaling. But, otherwise: no problem.

Saturday we spent exploring the city; it is a city with strong Scottish heritage and is touted as the "Edinburgh of New Zealand" (just to be clear: "Edinburrah" the city, "Edinburg" the street that runs behind my house.) Though I have never been to Scotland, the city was colorful and trim and reminded me somewhat of Galway city, Ireland.

The morning we went to the Otago Farmer's Market at the train station, which was enormous and ornate with dozens and dozens of windows, archways, a clock tower and curlicued finials. The market had a surprising number of stalls for midwinter, beautiful vegetables, local fresh fish and meat, herbal teas and an astounding array of honey. Instead -- and in sharp contrast-- we made a very affordable breakfast out of baked goods from the local grocery store. Cheap and stranded indoors by the chilly rain such as we were, we sat in the entryway of the store and breakfasted, getting very startled looks and snorts of laughter from those who were getting their carts. LaRae and I split a package of cheap, day-old apple-rhubarb muffins, and despite it all, it made a tasty and memorable start to the day.

After breakfast, we made our way to the Cadbury factory (CadburyWorld) for a tour. It being a weekend, the factory itself was closed for the tour, however we were given a preliminary outline of chocolate making (I finally discovered that white chocolate is white because it is only made of condensed milk and cocoa butter), tasted some fresh cocoa beans, received free samples of two very Kiwi candies, chocolate fish and Crunchie bars and read some about the history of chocolate. We were shown various chocolate-making equipment on display (and mixing chocolate) in the museum itself, but it got even better when, at the end of the tour, we climbed a set of long and intimidating spiral stairs up a silo to witness a chocolate waterfall -- one liquid tonne and $5,000 worth of chocolate spilling over before us.

The CadburyWorld tour also included some fun purple cars and various other photo-opportunity kitsch of which we happily took advantage:

We strolled around the city, and though the wind was icy and the weather far colder than what we'd grown accustomed to further north in Christchurch, it was a fun way to get to know the city. Of course, the cute artsy city that it was, we stopped in many a small shop, admiring shiny jewelery, cheesy souvenirs and lots and lots of little hippie shops. I bought myself my souvenir t-shirt: a really classy looking brown shirt with a green sketch of a silver fern shoot --one of the major emblems of New Zealand-- with very subtle writing that reads "Aotearoa - New Zealand." Not that reporting on this is terribly exciting, but I was really pleased with my find as it was important to me to find something that acknowledged Aotearoa as the true, non-colonial name of this land.

In the afternoon we went to the Otago Museum, which was free, cute and fun. There were, of course, lots of moa bones and stuffed kiwis, but there was also a large cabinet full of various bees, beetles, moths and butterflies stuck with pins, a really colorful Rube Goldberg machine, a giant electric keyboard to walk on, and a life-sized plastic human model whose organs you can remove (and consequently struggle to reinsert, rotating stomach and liver over and over until you can correctly shove his guts back in.) The long and short of it is: I find interactive, natural history, family oriented museums a blast.

Also, I found this Maori carving -- originally from a Marae -- really moving. It is a depiction of the two ancestors of the creation myth, Rangi (Sky father) and Papa (Earth mother) in an embrace. In the carving, you can tell by the moko that Papa is on the left (traditionally, moko on women is on the lips and chin) and Rangi (with moko all over the face) is on the right:

In addition to the Museum itself, LaRae and I broke off from the rest of the group and ventured to the Tropical Forest and Butterfly exhibit. It was a wonderful reminder of the summer we had just left behind on the other side of the globe: lush, humid, green, with a beautiful waterfall, golden koi and entirely filled with thousands of brightly colored butterflies. I had several land on my hands and LaRae had a massive black and blue specimen alight on her forehead. Too nostalgic for summer, we wandered the area for a good hour or more before we could tear ourselves away and back into cold.

In the evening we took a rather eclectic, spontaneous food-tour of the city: dinner was cheap and plentiful Japanese food from a tiny hole-in-the-wall where I discovered that a steaming bowl of udon was one of the best antidotes to a blustery winter day; dessert of a decadent passionfruit cheesecake at a swanky cafe and bar called "The Black Dog," where I then humiliated myself by toppling over my empty plate and silverware -- the posh couple sitting across from us shot me a scathing look after all the clattering, but I was reassured that the waitress laughed; and afterwards we went to a small Irish pub in the center of the city called "The Craic."

The experience at The Craic was a strange but memorable one. The four of us sat together relaxing quietly, listening to the band. (I had a half-pint of Bulmers cider out of nostalgia, but lusted after Shalom's much tastier mulled wine -- warm cinnamon-and-clove-tinged red wine: that is something I could get used to.) Even though the four of us sat together, quiet and content, we were attended by a rotating cast of drunken, Neanderthal males. With the four of us combined we rather efficiently managed to cooly shake them off --from the lanky guy in a cowboy hat and silver longhorn belt buckle to the short stumpy one who kept asking us if we were leaving when we were pointedly bundling ourselves in jackets and scarves.

Between these two encounters, though, there was a nearby herd that pointed and stared until, finally, one of their number pulled up a chair to our table and sat down. "Would you mind if I joined you?" he said, after introducing himself: a novel feat none of the others had previously attempted. "If I stay here for five minutes I win $20," he told us. Someone asked him if this happens every time he goes out, and he, flustered, awkward and shy, said "Not at all! My heart is racing!" While this only happens in movies, the poor guy was so nervous and the experience so surprising that we laughed and let him stay -- on the condition that he split his winnings amongst us.

Sunday morning was a mad dash to pack up, check out, find an affordable rental car and driving directions for a miniature road trip. These tasks successfully accomplished, we head out of the city into the countryside.

First point of interest, I would like to present Snow in August, a totally Southern Hemisphere phenomenon:

Our intended destination were the Moeraki Boulders, about an hour or so drive out of the city. On the way, though, we stopped at a beautiful beach called Shag Point:

Of course, we took pictures, climbed over rocks, and chased the waves in and out across the shore, as was necessary.

At the beach I encountered this surprisingly undaunted bird. I was able to get quite close to it, only flustering it when, climbing back up the rocks, I accidentally climbed almost on top of it. Only now, researching, I discovered that it was the beach's namesake and another one of New Zealand's fun endemic birds: the spotted shag.

We also took the opportunity to take a necessary New Zealand road trip photo. For me it was several firsts: first ever official road trip, first ever rental car, first ever time trusting an American to drive me on the left side of the road.

When I talk to friends back home, I am always asked how I like New Zealand and what I think of the country. So far, I have never had a satisfactory answer -- usually my answer comes out as some combination of "it's winter! and cold! and people fly to the Antarctic from Christchurch!" which, I suspect, is not really the answer being sought. Driving through the New Zealand countryside was a really fantastic opportunity to get a better feel for this country, being able to exist within it and really observe it. As a result of this weekend's mini-road trip, I feel much more positive towards this place and am eager to continue exploring it. In short: the environment and landscape is so varied, so big and empty, and quite exciting.

Since I'm at it, I will answer the other two most frequently asked questions:

1) Yes, there are very many sheep here. No, they have yet to realize their superior numbers and revolt.
2) Yes, I AM in the future. Here we have flying cars.

While I do not as of yet have any pictures of tomorrow's flying cars, I will give you the next best thing -- proof of plentiful sheep:

When we ultimately arrived at Moeraki, we lunched at the tourist trap of a cafe and proceeded towards the long stretch of beach, inset with very many perfectly spherical boulders.

Beyond the fact that the sight was surreal -- clusters of stone orbs on a beautiful expanse of beach -- I also have a slightly weird affinity for rocks, especially large, friendly climbable ones. I will refrain from waxing too poetic about some big rocks, but I will say that when I carefully maneuvered myself over wet stones and touched the first boulder, the feel of it--how smooth it was, and the sense of its strange drum-like hollow interior-- was awe-inspiring.

The reminded me sometimes of giant eggs, or a spaceship's escape pods come crashing to earth, sometimes of mysterious sightless eyes and other times of enormous grey gumballs that have tumbled out of the dispenser.

(And sometimes, 'cause I'm a real dork, they reminded me of Tatooine.)

As a result of the impressive presence of the rocks, we have affectionately nicknamed our road trip The Epic Rock Tour.

When we drove back to the city, we made a point of visiting Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world.

Unsure of the way our little rental car would handle the very notable incline, we parked at the bottom and at my (later-to-be-regretted) instigation, we climbed it.

It was an adventuresome hike. There were stairs cut into the walkway of one side, and a flat ramp-like path on the other side. For some reason (that totally stumps my retrospective self) we climbed the entire length on the flat side, heaving and panting and walking bent over at the middle from the strain. We were also well laughed-at by the various cars of tourists that zoomed past us as they drove down the hill. Finally, after walking Methuselah-slow and lumbering up the last stretch, we made it to the top, where I wheezed and hacked like the asthmatic nerd that I am.

Ultimately, though, we were victorious conquerers and it was a fun afternoon adventure.

On Sunday evening, we had a six hour bus ride back to Christchurch, which was perfectly pleasant for the first two hours or so until my iPod battery deserted me - after which point it was a jostling, dark, boring bus ride on which I had a total inability to nap.

As previously mentioned, while the sites and adventures of the trip were great, it was otherwise a wearisome experience. Though I have learned to become more extroverted, I am not and have never been (and likely will never be) a people person -- to be honest, I am a crotchety misanthrope. As a result of a hitherto unforeseen clash of personalities, I spent much of the excursion with nerves worn totally raw. Further, the state of my nerves was not improved by the harrowing discovery that one of our drivers made me very glad of our decision to spend an extra $20 and reduce our rental car liability by $800.

At the end of it all, when I returned back to school, I was fed up with all of humanity and relished spending today holed up alone in an upper floor of the library, buried in my reading and being soothed by the wonderful soft musty smell of books.

Off to Dunedin

2008-08-08T14:53:00.003+12:00

I have to hurry, so don't have much time to write.

I'm leaving tonight for a 6hr bus ride to Dunedin, a city further south on the South Island. I will be staying there this weekend and returning at late Sunday night. If there is radio silence, you know why. (Ahem, mother.)

In the meantime (watch Dr. Horrible --ahem, boyfriend) here are some 60 photos of my first month in New Zealand, in convenient album form, courtesy of Facebook.

Off to Dunedin, where it's colder, wetter and wintery-er!

Again

2008-08-07T12:56:00.004+12:00

This morning my alarm went off, and I dutifully got out of bed, flipped open and shut my cellphone which turns it off, and stumbled into the kitchen. Number 4 was already up and eating breakfast -- impressed that even though he had been partying late into the night he was bright and chipper (and drinking water out of an empty vodka bottle.) I blinked around, getting my breakfast together and remarked on his ability be so awake after so little sleep.

I went back to my room, noticed a new text on my cellphone and couldn't quite figure out when my friend had sent -- something about the time was not right. I stumbled back into the kitchen with my dishes and noticed the clock was off. I asked Number 4 if the clock was right: It was noon and I had slept 11 hours and right through my two classes this morning.

The sound of my alarm was ACTUALLY the text message arriving and my alarm had never gone off at all! And somehow my body demanded 11 hours of sleep as tribute.

Really, I'm entirely stumped. The fates have it out for me and cook up a variety of fascinating scenarios by which I sleep through my classes.

I'm totally stumped.

"We are language's magpies by nature"

2008-08-06T12:20:00.007+12:00

"We are language's magpies by nature,
stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny"
- Salman Rushdie

I thought I was a Salman Rushdie fan before: now, I have goosebumps and chills keep shuttling up and down my spine.

I'm determined to write my paper for my class "The Exotic" on Shame by Salman Rushdie, and though I'm not wholly settled on a topic (or half-finished with the book, to be honest) it is so brilliantly --it is redundant to say "magically"-- constructed that my mind is definitely blown by the complexity and depth of this novel. I've studied his essays in several different classes and always loved them, and over New Year's I read Shalimar the Clown.

Twice in my life I have had startling reacquaintances with the English language: being introduced to ways of language that were so wholly unimagined and unexpected by me that they initiated total shifts in my comprehension of the craft of writing.

The first time this happened was during an attempt to read "Can the Subaltern Speak?" by Gayatri Spivak for my Postcolonial Literary Theory class. The language was so dense and complicated that it was totally impenetrable -- I really can't begin to describe what was so foreign about it, or how agonizing an experience it was attempting to decipher it.* It was far and away the most discouraging moment I have ever encountered in front of a page (or, 20) of text. Imagine: in my third year of college, attempting to read something that I know is written in my language and being entirely incapable of recognizing it at all? I cried and cried as I tried to read it; it was a devastating blow, suddenly slamming into an unexpected brick wall language barrier at several hundred miles an hour.

The second time was reading Shalimar the Clown on the train to New York City. The train ran late, and even so, in the 1.5 hour trip, I managed to read all of - maybe - 12 pages. The language was so beautiful and subtle, and the narrative so intricate that it had to be slowly, carefully, gently sifted through. It was thrilling! Such a magnificently lush and beautiful thing: who knew people wrote like that, thought like that? And who knew other people took them seriously?! Fantastic!

But beyond his genius, beyond his unbelievable way of braiding language and stories together, beyond the fact that the normal, linear, back-to-front passage of time is of absolutely no object to him in his storytelling and his immeasurable creativity, I have chills and visible goosebumps because he is a writer who is able to move worlds or make them come crashing down with his words.

To me, you are a character to be idolized if you can simultaneously write into existance unbounded magical worlds, inspire --and then survive 20 years of-- a fatwa against you, singlehandedly create a diplomatic falling-out between the UK and Iran, spark firebombings and riots at bookstores and STILL manage to score cameo roles as a gynecologist in Helen Hunt movies. Salman Rushdie, for sure, is a brilliant wonderful monster of a man.

Jeezus.

*Incidentally, with this as with all things, the Wikipedia gods have come to my rescue: halfway down the article is a short and sweet comment that "Spivak's writing has been described by some as opaque," with a link to a [really helpful] critical article on Spivak's writing style. While my mind is still and irrevocably broken by the entire experience, this article has done wonders to soothe my busted ego.

Return of the KiwiBurger

2008-08-06T11:41:00.003+12:00

Here is an epic moment! As documented by my friend, I am about to begin my first KiwiBurger.

Where else, ladies and gentlemen, but here?

A Tour of My Flat

2008-08-04T19:54:00.023+12:00

Here is a picture of Hippie Bear and myself ~~drooling over~~ studying Salman Rushdie's Shame. Both Hippie Bear and I are pretty big Rushdie fans.

You can also observe my valiant attempts at trying to cozy up my strange little room -- purple flannellete sheets, an extraordinarily punk (but very cheap!) duvet set from the kid's section covered in skulls and nautical stars, and teal lantern string-lights that remind me of fireflies as I fall asleep. On the other side of that forbidding cement wall -- which is speckled with ancient remnants of tape as evidence of a long history of previous ~~inmates~~ residents -- lies Guantanamo Bay.

I'm half-tempted to scratch tick-marks into the wall and tally up the days and nights of my stay here:

||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| |||||

And speaking of which, for those who have not yet had the pleasure of meeting my travel buddy, let me introduce Hippie Bear. He is a well-traveled and loyal companion, who keeps me company on my long drives back and forth to college (in the front seat, with his seat belt on, of course!), keeps watch for shady characters in Irish hostels as I sleep, and is pretty cool about being stuffed head-over-heels (he is incredibly athletic, you see) in my backpack for the 21-hour flight to New Zealand. When he's not traveling the world, he's pretty keen on fighting the System.

Now that you have met the inhabitants of Room 5, Flat 26, let us back-track:

At Ilam Village, there is an eternal debate of the merits of the three different sections of flats, Old Old Flats, Middle Flats, and New Flats. While the Old Old Flats are flatly discounted, the crux of the issue is as follows: while the New Flats are cozy, warm and pretty, with cushy couches and a plasma screen tv in the living rooms, there is no oven (only a tiny convection oven) and it costs $4 to run a load of laundry. Alternately, we in the Middle Flats have a brilliant oven, large stove, and free laundry. However, this is what we have to contend with:

Welcome to my Cell-Block.

While the unpainted concrete walls are really a nice touch, the combination of the indestructible metal doors and the naked white lights outside each of the rooms particularly spook me. It feels like something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to me.

Just to heighten that effect, they added a big red button:

As I said, I'm kept in Room 5.

This is the entire room, as viewed from the door:

I spend most of my time in this little corner, splitting the time between my homework at the desk, and sleeping and reading in my bed:

Observe my super punk bedsheets.

This is the Command Center. (I have temporarily moved away from the prison allusions, perhaps this is too much mixing of metaphors? Yes?)

With regards to my bulletin board, my decor consists primarily of metro maps and freebie brochures pinned to the wall. I did, additionally, put up four of my favorite quotes on four squares of colored paper above my laptop:

"Peace may sound simple - one beautiful word - but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal." - Yehudi Menuhin

"Whatever you do will be insignificant. However, it is vitally important that you do it." - Gandhi

"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." - Eden Phillpotts

And my absolute favorite (even though I think that Thoreau is a cantankerous old fart):

"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep." - Henry David Thoreau

While one half of my room is extraordinarily corporate with the enormous built-in desk, the other half (as previously mentioned) feels more like Gitmo -- and, with my fluffy double-decker duvets and fleecy whale-patterned bathrobe, it desperately wants to be the cozy half.

As thrilling as it is, this is the rest of my room, as viewed from the bed:

When I blog, Skype, write, or otherwise make contact with the outside world, it looks something like this, complete with the "I'm-not-doing-homework" face:

Being in my room otherwise looks (and feels) something more like this:

(With this concrete monster of a wall as my daily backdrop, I half expect to be held for ransom and posed holding the front page of the day's paper.)

Beyond the confines of Room 5, and at the opposite end of the infinite, nightmarish hallway, is the kitchen and living room.

Here is half of the kitchen (and by far the neater half):

Not pictured: a second sink, two more burners, a full-size freezer and a full-size fridge, and enormous pile of dishes in the dish-rack as well as endlessly overflowing set of recycling bins -- and no matter how quickly attempt to tame both recycling and dishes, we are soon overrun.

Finally, this is the living room, with it's eclectic mix of tokens left over from previous inhabitants:

In addition to a beat-up red surfboard (stuffed behind the chairs), leis, tinsel garland and giant world map, on an opposite wall there is a string of large Christmas lights woven through the blinds that cover a glass door.

It is definitely an odd little place we live in.

"The world is a mess and I need to rule it!"

2008-08-04T02:09:00.005+12:00

And this has absolutely nothing to do with New Zealand, except for the incidental fact of my being here located, but it is meant to be.

I just discovered "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," and, like all the other awkward cultish Internet sheepies, I am deeply and fanatically in love.

For those of you who have yet to be introduced to this Internet wonder of wonders, it is a three act forty-five minute piece of brilliance, full of wackiness and musical numbers. It is the perfect kind of quirky, dark and witty creative genius that makes it one of my favorite things ever*.

Go! Go forth, watch it, and rejoice!

*Up there with MirrorMask, Neil Gaiman novels, and The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy by Tim Burton -- which my sister has borrowed and not returned: she should be advised that her death (slow and painful, for sure) is impending.

The End of the Rains

2008-08-02T13:27:00.004+12:00

Finally, finally, after almost two weeks of non-stop rain, we can see the sky. It was completely miserable - the water had saturated the world to the point that there was no possible way to stay dry or keep the water from seeping in everywhere. For days I walked around with my shoes and socks soaked and the bottom of my jeans wet and chafing against my legs (and thinking of those forlorn schoolgirls in Gothic novels* who traipse across the moors in soaked woolens, developing chilblains.) Now that the Biblical weather has lifted, so have my spirits.

After repeated trips to the Christchurch visitor's center and a frenzy of research, two friends, Heather and LaRae, and I are deep in the planning stages of several New Zealand trips. The Glacier trip is not going to happen for a few more weeks but instead, the three of us and another friend, Shalom, will be traveling down to Dunedin. Dunedin is the second-largest city on the South Island (second to Christchurch, of course) and is one of the "must-see" places for any tourist. While we're still pulling together our exact plans, certainly we're going to visit Cadbury World, as well as try to visit the Royal Albatross Colony. While the Albatross colony keeps triggering thoughts of Coleridge and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" for all of my friends, I can't help but think of John Cleese:

We are also feverishly pulling together our plan for our two-week holiday at the end of August. At the moment we are planning to fly into Wellington at the bottom of the North Island, travel the lower half by bus and make a road trip of the upper half, finally flying out of Auckland and back to Christchurch. Still in the process of deciding where and how to spend our time, but as road-tripping appears to be the only effective way of traveling the Coromandel Peninsula, it is certain that together we will be cautiously driving and furiously praying as we three Americans attempt to drive On The Other Side of the Road. Additionally, I am crazy tempted by the amazing painted 3-person camper vans: like this or this or this! In my imagination, this is a road trip for the ages!

Today we spent again around Christchurch: we visited the ChristChurch of Christchurch, in --where else?-- Cathedral Square. Cute catholic church, with a wall full of swastika symbols. (Awkward?) At some point I definitely want to visit for one of their Tuesday-night change ringing practices.

Afterwards, for lunch, we went out of our way to go to McDonald's and get a KiwiBurger. (The bold disclaimer on FastFoodFever.com's KiwiBurger website says: "the KiwiBurger does not contain the ground meat of the severely endangered New Zealand national bird.") A KiwiBurger is a New Zealand specific thing: a hamburger (lettuce onions cheese ketchup mustard and all) with a slice of beet and a fried egg on it. While this was a necessary experience, it is not one I am intending on repeating again any time soon -- definitely not my kind of thing.

However, the packaging was all kinds of Kiwiana and kind of cute. Ahhh, globalization.

*What, you don't automatically make mental leaps to Romantic literature!? While this is only a short reference to what is the crux of a rather significant decision-making process, I've been toying with the idea of following my true love and writing a senior thesis in English rather than in Gender and Women's Studies. The more I mull over it, the more I admit to myself that my love affair with English literature is a bit too all-consuming to ignore, and particularly so with Gothic fiction. While I wrote my 100-page high school compendium on Edgar Allen Poe, I am now moved to write something on the women of Gothic fiction and their tendency for madness, lingering illness, death, and especially returning as un-dead. Spending a year with Victorian Zombie chicks, desperately in love or bitter with vengeance -- what could possibly be cooler?

Also, it's easy enough to find three [fantastic!] thesis advisers: one is an expert on the Bronte sisters (and my academic adviser), one's passion is ghost stories and Henry James, and the third is big on Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and deeply obsessed with Freud. While these are three of the most brilliant professors that I could ask to work with in the English department, asking to be graded by them is like asking to be flayed alive.

Week Three

2008-07-31T21:45:00.004+12:00

It is easy to describe this past week: it has rained more in Christchurch this past week than it has in all of last year. It has been cold and very soggy. The walks to and from class have me arrive looking somewhat like a drowned rat. Beyond the sheer dreariness of the weather, it also complicates travel plans since New Zealand is a place to be enjoyed outside, in nice weather.

My classes are progressing well, and while I do feel as if I have finally caught up on the backlog of reading, I know full-well that this is a very transient state of affairs. In two weeks I have three papers due, one for each class, all of which are 2500 words in length (about 8 pages) and require additional external research. I am scribbling notes constantly in the margins of my books and notebook, attempting to compile essay topics and arrange my thoughts. The good news is that immediately after the accomplishment of these rapid-fire papers, we will have a 2-week holiday for touring the country and resting for the second half of the semester.

I finally saw The Dark Knight on Tuesday with a few friends (it came out here on Friday) and all I have to say is HOLY BATMAN! Really the only truly fantastic part of the movie was the Joker, but wow, what a part! Heath Ledger's acting is almost disorienting it's so good: my mind couldn't reconcile the sweet Aussie boy with the make-up covered maniac. Going to the movies in New Zealand is a very different experience too. The seats are enormous, very very plush with covered arm rests and tons of leg room -- I've never been able to curl up in a movie theater seat before. Additionally, in the lobby, they have coffee shop, a full-service bar and sell ice cream (apparently eating ice cream at the movies is a very Kiwi thing to do.)

Last night Butler took us out again, to a fancy dinner at the Dux de Lux, an upscale restaurant in the center of town that turns into a club at night. It was an enormous dinner and I had a plate of smoked salmon pasta in a vodka-cream sauce that will easily span two meals for me. After dinner we went to the local theater and saw a play called "The Cape" which was a fun production about four high school boys who take a road trip across the North Island. Of course, as with any other coming of age story, the boys have dramatic encounters with the realities of the world, life, death, and so on.

Even so, now I'm itching for a good grungy New Zealand road trip, and really do want to make it out to Cape Reinga ("the cape"), which is the northernmost point of New Zealand and where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean crash into each other. It is also where the Maori believe spirits leap into the other world.

Plans for this weekend are not yet fully-formed but so far appear to involve a trip to Lyttelton and a few hikes around the place, going out for sushi for a friend's birthday and baking her a chocolate cake. Also one of my flatties (No. 1) organized an 80's Party for the residence villlage we're in so I'm rather obligated to go, which, for this awkward Capricorn is definitely ugh. Next weekend, though, we're hoping to plan a trip to the glaciers - both Franz Joseph and Fox Glacier, which is one of the few glaciers in the world to still be advancing!-- as well as the Pancake Rocks.

Bad day

2008-07-30T10:01:00.002+12:00

It's been a rough two days, but my classes end at 12:00 today, which will give me a bit of a chance to relax.

I woke up this morning when the fire alarm went off. I did sleep 10 hours, but that was not a shy fire alarm at 9:00 in the morning. It startled me and I leaped out of bed, grabbed my slippers and my bathrobe and then the alarm stopped. And then I hear it go off in the next building over: whoever decided to test the alarms at 9:00AM is playing a mean joke.

Yesterday afternoon Number 4 (Mr. Pothead) and a buddy were smoking in his room, and then just to be subtle about it, he burned some incense. And then to continue being subtle about it, he came into the hallway and heavily sprayed some flowery air freshener. The combination of marijuana/incense/air freshener was noxious. You couldn't breathe, so I did the smart thing: open the windows in the hallway. Things have progressed to a point now where I'm so fed up with him that I carefully keep my mouth shut. The fact that the trashcans were full, and he had some girls over for dinner and stuffed more garbage into the trashcans so they were overflowing? I wouldn't mention it for fear that I'd say something particularly nasty. There will be an intervention shortly.

I also got really frustrated with my New Zealand lit class yesterday, since on top of an enormous amount of reading to accomplish for the class, my professor writes 11-page lecture notes and scrolls through them quickly while they're projected on the wall, saying, repeatedly, "Oh, we don't have time to talk about that so...you can read more about that in the lecture notes." It makes the lectures incredibly challenging - and what's the point if I have to take the time, later, to read the lecture we didn't cover in ADDITION to the reading. I sent the lecturer an email asking if it was possible to put his notes online prior to the lecture so that we can access them and follow along. I received a fairly long email in response and I'm not sure if I offended him. (Rather, it doesn't sound like it but it was a surprisingly lengthy explanation.)

Not really sure why things like this are getting me down, but I was totally beat last night, frustrated and exhausted, and managed -again- to sleep for 10 hours.

More Hobbits

2008-07-29T15:06:00.002+12:00

Of the Americans that I have gotten to know, it is fascinating to discover who among them only smile pleasantly when I mention some fact of Lord of the Rings Tourism, and who else devolves into shrieking and incoherent squealing so that our conversation becomes more full of goosebumps and weird muscle tics than words.

While I am not quite geeky enough to buy the guide book bible of all things Lord of the Rings in New Zealand -- complete with GPS coordinates-- I am definitely gung-ho about the Hobbit-hunting. (And apparently the author of that book has read the trilogy over 40 times - I suddenly feel far far less dorky.)

Delight in my dweebiness: here are some wonderful things I have found so far:

* New Zealand Tourism - Lord of the Rings
A site which actually has some pretty great audio clips, though some of which feel a bit, uh, over the top:

"Middle Earth actually is a real place, and it's New Zealand."- Sir Ian McKellan.

Then, of course, at the bottom of the main page you can search by region, and I'm in Canterbury.

* New Zealand: The Home of Middle Earth
Again with the claims of an Epic New Zealand, which has a map of New Zealand (a la Middle Earth) and then has all the locations noted, with references to the place and scenes in the films. Ohh yes.

* "Lord of the Rings Tourism Hits New Zealand"
A fun article about Lord of the Rings and New Zealand:

"Postage stamps of both films have been released, Air New Zealand has painted hobbits on one of its 747 planes, and Wellington was officially renamed "Middle-earth" for a week when The Fellowship of the Rings was released in 2001. A member of Parliament has even been named "Minister Responsible for Lord of the Rings."

One of those Days

2008-07-27T21:42:00.005+12:00

Today was just one of those days. Grey, gross, and plodding.

I lost half of a pair of my favorite gloves (elbow-length red and white stripes with black hands and black little balls lining the entire outer edge), watched a very pale man in shorts with knee-socks draw large swastikas on the foggy windows of the bus, and when we reached my stop and I got up to leave, my knees turned to jelly with fury at myself for doing nothing. We spent 40 minutes on the bus to discover that the Sunday market was "rained out" and waited half an hour in the cold to take the bus back.

I organized a potluck for my friends from Butler, and it was really quite nice - I made chickpea curry, someone else made a baked pasta dish, there was a beautiful fruit salad with yogurt, nuts, and raisins, homemade fudge, and gorgeous bakery bread with camembert, brie, and garlic butter. It was delicious, friendly, happy, sweet.

Still I'm worn out, tired, and missing my glove.

Refinement: Waipara Region Vineyard Tour

2008-07-27T00:52:00.009+12:00

My cultural experiences in New Zealand have so far been heavy on the wine. Not that I'm complaining.

The program, Butler, arranges some pretty fantastic experiences for our group. In addition to orientation, they organize occasional trips and events through the semester. While the folks studying abroad at one of the universities in the North Island get to see the All Blacks at the last New Zealand home game this season, we at Canterbury in the South Island get to check out the vineyards - for which New Zealand's South Island is pretty famous. And during orientation: we had another wine tasting.

On the last day of orientation, after we had packed our bags and worried over the size and weight limits for carry-ons for New Zealand Air, our bus took a detour from the road to the airport and the organizers told us we had a "surprise": the surprise was a wine-tasting at New Zealand's top award-winning winery. It was super snazzy and felt very posh, swirling and sniffing. There was a tour of the winery which smelled like Halloween, cold, crisp and pungent. It was relaxing and wonderfully silly to visit a vineyard and enjoy a wine tasting no more than an hour before being shuttled down the street to the airport.

This morning's trip began with a wander through the Canterbury Museum (again) but this time included a trip to the "Da Vinci's Machines" exhibit. It was a fairly awesome exhibit, with miniature models and explanations of Da Vinci's various machines, from flying machines to the shoes that walk on water, to battle tanks and the Archimedes screw. Most exciting was this particular video clip on determining what Leonardo's face really looked like. Really quite persuasive:

Again, we wandered through the Art Center market, met a round Maori hippie man in tie dye with dreadlocks who sold beautiful handmade skirts. He knew our program -- and our personal director -- well and his friendliness made me smile. His skirts come with a tag that say something along the lines of, "Not to be worn in anger or in hate..." and with some more positive blessings. Lunch again at the Arts Center- a glorious baked potato stuffed with chili, and a huge bunch of screaming seagulls who were eyeing it. (Not that I made a lunch out of the seagulls - they were there with me at mine.) These were organic, locally-grown potatoes, sold in biodegradable cardboard boxes. I applauded the woman who sold them for being the only food stall not to use Styrofoam and she thanked me; except for the plastic spork and the beef in the chili, I'm proud of the environmentally friendly, cheap, plentiful and warm lunch on a cold and drizzly morning. And then there was a fresh Black Forest crepe - probably the most blissful $6 spent so far: melted dark chocolate, nutella, and thick raspberry jam, with cold whipped cream melting over the top.

During the hour-long drive to the Waipara region, the boys sat in the back being moronic but ultimately amusing. Since the moment we initially stepped off the plane, the boys huddled closely together and throughout orientation, and now into the semester, there has been a very distinct gender gap, like the awkward space on a middle school dance floor. So the boys amuse themselves and were in the back of the bus playing "Horse,"car-game gaining points for each horse you are the first one to spot, and losing points for incorrectly calling out "horse!" Besides the frantic shouts of "Horse! Horse! Horse!" from our men, there were some devastatingly intelligent conversation. Observe the following, initiated by the mis-identifcation of both lambs and ponies as horses. Please imagine the following interchange voiced by your stereotypical Hollywood-film high-school/college jock crowd.

"Dude, would you rather be a pony or a lamb?"
"A pony! Girls like ponies!"
[More discussion ensued.]

Ironic (and very very funny) in light of their current displays of gynophobia, and the rather obvious eventuality that as ponies they would have very little interest in human females.

The vineyard tour itself included three vineyards, about 20-different wines, and a grand total of perhaps 2 or 2-1/2 glasses of wine. I tried so many wines, wines that I liked and wines so much like turpentine they made me choke. Noted on the list of wines I liked were: sauvignon blancs (some more than others), pinot gris, one particular chardonnay that tasted like citrus (another chardonnay tasted more like bathroom chemicals), gewurztraminer which was really very yummy, rose (never had one before) cabernet-merlot, and cassis, which is not a wine at all but perfectly amazing. I was most surprised by the fact that I turned out liking white wines, when I previously only ever enjoyed tastes of red wine. We also took a detour by a brewery where I re-confirmed my total distaste for beer.

At the first winery there was a great big black Newfoundland dog named Chloe, who was at least as exciting as the tasty wine. We were served crackers and cheese, and she had a thing for the crackers. If you were attempting to eat a cracker, Chloe would trot up to you and sit herself down, huge and very furry, giving you enormous sad puppy eyes.

The day really was luxurious, friendly, and great. The wine tour ended with a cup of really hot tea and a scone in a covered patio -- perfect. If anyone had drunk the entirety of all the wine samples, and was, like me, a victim of inattentive and very generous portions, they would perhaps have consumed hardly more than three glasses of wine in three hours, if we are being liberal; Not drunk, only lightly buzzed, relaxed, happy. (The picture below is of myself and Heather, one of my literary and politically-minded friends.)

We were a cheerful bunch of Americans being bussed back to Christchurch, singing along to Elton John as it was blasted over the bus's audio.

(Note: As many seem shocked by my lack of interest in alcohol, and feel the need to wonder amazed at me for this fact, I can only assume that many will also fluster themselves over the sudden fact that I have been drinking wine at all. While I am always highly suspicious of alcohol and do really agree with the Islamic outlook on alcohol and "a mind befogged," --possibly the greatest description of my personal feelings towards drinking-- the greatest reason I have for not drinking is the dominant mindset I encounter. This, among immature underage college students can be summed up as: "CHECK IT OUT I WENT TO THE LIQUOR STORE THAT DOESN'T CARD AND SCORED BOOZE NOW LET'S GET WASTED." In a far more relaxed, pleasant, casual environment, where people are not proudly keeping tabs on how drunk or not they are and making [often erroneous] declarations to the fact, it is far more enjoyable for me. And if you pressure me and I don't drink with you, it probably also means that I don't like you, at which point you have a snowball's chance in hell.)

We had dinner at a place that I would characterize as an upscale pub called "The Fox and the Ferret." Dinner was delicious, though ultimately ended on a bad note when, after dinner, I turned to the two girls I had been sitting with and asked them not to leave without me as I went to the bathroom. Returning momentarily, I found that the group of 16 was nowhere to be seen, and that all the dessert bags that were piled in the corner were missing. I searched for a bit, and found the group way down the street at the bus station, having just missed the previous bus by seconds. They hadn't yet realized I was missing by the time I returned and had just chalked up the fact that hey, there was one extra dessert! I was fairly annoyed and our director kept apologizing, and I rather directly asked for the dessert that I'd ordered. If I'm going to be left behind, I'm certainly going to get my cheesecake out of it.

Tomorrow, more excitement.

Week the Second

2008-07-25T14:04:00.007+12:00

It's been a wonky week. The combined effect of the weather and seriously messed up sleep schedules (part jetlag, homesickness, homework and lack of discipline) has resulted in at least three distinctive migraines (and some threatening distant-thunder-rumbles at other times) and a whole lot of very strange nightmares. I suspect that the transition to school, to winter, and to being across the globe may be wearing on me more than I've realized.

Also the flat situation is interesting. There are five of us total, living in a flat with six bedrooms in rooms number 1, 3, 4, and 6 -- I'm in number 5. Numbers 3 and 6 are female, numbers 1 and 4 are male. Number 3 is American and works as a hotel maid, so both she and I did a pretty thorough scrub-down of the kitchen (counters, floors, shelves, cabinets, etc.) and then, in a bout of frustration, she also cleaned the entire bathroom. The cleaning has really improved my outlook on the flat.

I have gotten to know Numbers 3 and 6 quite well, and like them a lot. Number 1 I have spent a fair bit of time with and have found him to be a sweet, funny and infinitely awkward guy. All in all I have spent a lot of fantastic evenings sitting and talking with my flatmates. Last night, we all stayed up until 1:00 in the morning chatting, snacking and giggling -- it's really making me feel much more at home to realize that I am living with a group of people who do pay attention to how you're feeling, your comings and goings, and your general well-being. There is, however, a growing issue with Number 4: he is the odd man out.

While perfectly friendly, Number 4 is definitely a partier. He returns quite sloshed and stalks the hallways at all hours of the day and night. Further, Number 4 is a bit of a pothead. Encountering while on your 3-AM trip to the bathroom, stalking the hall with his hood up like a cowl and his eyes bloodshot is a very startling experience, eerily reminiscent of Darth Maul. The most I have encountered has been a slight sweet scent wafting from his room which has so far not bothered me - surprising given that even the faintest smell of pot usually has such a searing effect on my sinuses. Number 3, however, who lives on the other side of Number 4, is preparing to do bodily harm to Number 4. However as Number 4 is losing himself in his stoner-ness, he is becoming more and more of a hassle to the flat: the other night there was a 2-hour screaming fit between himself and a selection of the rotating assortment of girls that flock to him; doors sometimes slam at 4:00AM; while his munchies produce a prolific number of dishes, they never seem to get washed; and last night he passed out stoned with his computer blaring so loud that No. 1 banged on his door for 15 minutes and didn't wake him.

I suspect that he will be shortly voted off the island.

Other than that, I have finally bought all my books required for class. From the campus bookstore I bought five unimpressive, mundane medium-sized paperbacks for $130. After having searched seven different used bookstores this was the best price at which I could find these particular books. Ultimately, it appears that I am in a country in which books are ghastly expensive. I find this horrifying.

In total my school books this semester cost me:

Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
- $20

Life of Pi by Yann Martel ($34!?!!)
Shame by Salman Rushdie
South Sea Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson
Mr. Albones' Ferrets by Fiona Farrell
The Long Forgetting by Patrick Evans
- $130

USED:
Where We Once Belonged by Sia Figiel
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
- $22 (probably saving myself $30)

I am floored by the price of a simple mass-market paperback book in New Zealand. (Holy fishsticks!) In addition to the books required for class, I also bought $114 worth in course readers which are collections of essays, articles, photos, charts, etc. compiled by the lecturer. They are brilliant beautiful things.

I had tea with some of the girls from the Butler program at a cafe, today, as paid for by our program. They're very sweet and I'm definitely enjoying getting to know them. I was invited to go to the $3 ballroom club lessons for salsa/merengue/modern jazz last night but, in addition to the prospect of a cold and rainy walk to campus, I decided not to humiliate myself.

This weekend I will spend a fair bit more time with these girls. Our program is taking us out on Saturday and treating us to a day on the town: taking us to the Canterbury museum again, but this time visiting the really fun exhibits that my friends and I could not afford to spend the time or money to see; wandering the Art Center Market; and finally taking us for a vineyard tour and wine tasting in Waipara, a wine country area just north of Christchurch. That evening, Anika Moa is in concert in town, touring with another singer-songwriter who has gotten great reviews. The ticket is only $35 and would really like to go, though the question is a matter of returning from the Wine Tour in time. In exchange for a free CD, I'm wrote a review of her latest album In Swings the Tide for the Butler Program newsletter. I'll attach it, for curiosities sake, to this entry, so see below if you want to know more about her.

On Sunday there are plans to go to one of the bigger open air markets in Christchurch and purchase cheap produce! Later on Sunday we will be exploring some of the local beaches, and though it's winter we will walk along them, climb on, over, and in the rocks, and take lots of photos, possibly braving our toesies in the water. Sunday night I am also organizing a potluck for the Butler kids.

It's going to be a fun and busy weekend.

____________________________________________________________________

My Anika Moa Review, "In Swings the Tide" :

As an American student from across the world, Anika Moa was completely unknown to me. Listening to her album “In Swings the Tide” was an exciting surprise. Discovering that she is one of New Zealand’s top-selling musicians as well as a multi-platinum artist was even more surprising. With a voice soft and smooth, her silky sound is laidback, cheerful and inviting – the stuff of coffee shops and languid afternoons. This is a contemplative and down-to-earth album, honest without the flashy emotional exaggeration of most pop. The understatement, the subtle shifts and varied range of her emotional being gives Anika Moa’s songs their appealing combination of creativity and authenticity. It is uniquely surprising music: with mixed flavors of country guitar and jazz, lush orchestral accompaniments and the beautiful sincerity of a singer-songwriter engaged in her music.

Her most famous song from the album, “Dreams In My Head” is airy and upbeat about hopeful love, and is currently one of the top-played songs on New Zealand radio. Anika Moa’s flirtation with country jangle makes its full-blown appearance in the skippy song “Day in and Day Out,” “Hangin’ Around” and “Honey You’ll Be Alright.” The jazz influences in “Miss Universe” and “The Blind Woman,” show off a voice that is warm and dreamy. (Oddly, the album’s title track is totally unremarkable and easily forgettable amid what is otherwise an intriguing and skillful set of songs.) My personal favorite, “Standing in This Fire” is a sexy and soulful elegy to a broken relationship, with earthy lyrics and a melody as sweet as a lullaby.

In addition to Anika Moa’s enticing and colorful sound, she herself is a character to be respected. She is an admirably strong woman, casual and down-to-earth in her interviews, openly lesbian, and, after a stint with Atlantic Records in New York City, returned to her roots in New Zealand to continue making her music her own way. Her singer-songwriter integrity and musical expressiveness makes Anika Moa a thrilling, breath of fresh air on the pop scene.