Heading Home

Hello,

Well my room is ashambles despite the fact that I think I've packed everything that can be packed at this point. I'm flying out on Wednesday afternoon. My dorm is more or less empty at the moment. They officially kicked us out Saturday, but as far as I can figure out I'm allowed to stay until Wednesday. Fingers crossed.

My exams are all over, which is a strange feeling because I had about a month with (officially anyway) nothing to do but study for them. There were lots of good-bye parties for various people who aren't coming back next year. There were also some really cool fireworks shows. They had one display for the Diwali festival here (actually a Hindu holiday, but here they've turned it into sort of an Indian festival). Those fireworks were amazing, largely because they were shot off really close to us. They were literally going off overhead and filling the entire sky. It was kind of scary, but very impressive. The other fireworks display was on November 5th for Guy Fawkes Day, which commemorates a failed attempt to blow up the British Parliament in 1605. I believe the celebrations started because they used to burn Guy Fawkes (one of the plotters) in effigy, but that seems to be happening a lot less now even in England (or so I read). Anyway, those fireworks were nice too, and it was kind of cool to see personal fireworks displays going off all over the city. This was also occasionally terrifying, as when you saw little kids shooting them off sideways and that kind of thing.

Yesterday I went for another hike. This time I went across the Eastern side of the bay and did a walk along the coast. It was really pretty. I'll put some photos below.

Anyway, I shall see many of you soon!
































The coolest bus-stop I've ever seen.















The lake where I stopped for lunch. This was my favorite part of the hike.















The coast, looking south towards where the South Island ought to be.



















New Zealand's oldest permanent lighthouse (1859).

Kiwi

A kiwi, for those who don't know, is several things:

It is a large flightless bird native to New Zealand. They walk around on two legs and eat insects and things like that with their long beaks. The one I've seen at the zoo was about the size of a serious rabbit in terms of its body, but with long legs. There used to be flightless birds in New Zealand called Moa bigger than ostriches but they got killed off by humans because they were such tempting targets.


















It is a fruit (here always called kiwi fruit rather than just kiwi to avoid confusion).












It is a person from New Zealand. The one below is named Danielle.















It is an adjective describing anything from New Zealand. (e.g. kiwi culture, kiwi exports)

What happened to September?

Greetings!

I am writing to you from my first relaxing, guilt-free day in quite a while. Yesterday I handed in my last essay due before exams. I had four major assignments due over the last two weeks, so I had several very late nights. I was writing essays on:
a book by the author of Whale Rider, for those who've seen the movie, for English;

the oh-so-tenuous connections between spatial abilities, testosterone, and finger length ratio -or 'why males perform better than females on visual-spatial tasks' for psychology;

whether or not everything we do is unavoidable and already determined (this one drove me absolutely nuts) for philosophy;

and finally the ways in which Buffy the Vampire Slayer challenges assumptions about heterosexuality being the only legitimate sexuality for Sex and Society.

So I've been very busy researching and writing. My classes are still going quite well. Right now we're talking about commercial sex in Sex and Society, which is especially interesting because New Zealand legalized prostitution in 2003. The aim was to bring prostitution into the open so that health and social workers and police had greater access and so that 'sex workers' would have more scope for protection from attack and abuse. The jury's still out on whether this change is having overall positive or negative effects.

My English class is also going well lately. I've never had a class before that made literature seem like such a living thing. We study recent works and talk about current trends in New Zealand and Pacific literature rather than those of decades or centuries ago. We're also looking at Pacific writing from quite a political angle: how Pacific Islanders are reclaiming their history and culture through stories and poems. I feel like I'm learning a lot about the cultural tensions in the region.

Anywho, fun things lately have been going to see Stardust, which came out in the States a while ago. The book it's based on was written by one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, and I really enjoyed the movie.

I also went out for a birthday celebration at Lone Star Steakhouse, which is heavily American themed but also vehemently Kiwi. They've even got little explanations in the menu of how, despite the theme, the whole place is New Zealand run, gosh darn it. McDonald's does much the same thing: all of its wrappers proudly proclaim that they use Kiwi meat, bakeries, fish, vegetables, etc. The Kiwis are really a very patriotic lot. It's remarkable how many of them go around wearing sweatshirts with "New Zealand" emblazoned on them. Right now the Rugby World Cup is on, so everyone's in something of a tizzy. New Zealand's All Blacks are always in the top few teams. Given the size of the country, this is a point of considerable pride here. America, for those who are interested, haven't won a game and are out of the running. They did do respectably against England, though, which apparently surprised people.

There are only two weeks of class left before exams and then I'll soon be heading back to the States.

Here I am on a windy Wellington night by the harbor:

Why hello again,

I'm in the middle of a two-week mid-semester break at the moment. St. George is once again very quiet, but one of my good friends stayed this time, so we've been having fun. We spent yesterday exploring Wellington. We hiked up Mt. Victoria, which is basically a big hill overlooking the city. Unfortunately we managed to go up there while the summit area was off-limits for some kind of construction, most annoying. Oh well we got some good views of the city anyway. After that we went down Mt. Victoria and walked through part of the city we don't normally see much of in order to get to the zoo. It was quite a nice zoo, with very active monkeys and Malayan sun bears. The kangaroos were jumping around quite a bit too, and the ostriches were looking quite threatening as they patrolled their enclosure. I got to see a kiwi, too. It was bigger than I expected. It's body was about the size of a good-sized rabbit's, with long legs and a long beak.

Anyway, until next time,


Me at the zoo with my eyes closed
















Wellington



Wellington



Interesting presumably native flora

Hello all,

Let's see. The semester has started out well enough. I had a lot of fun the weekend before classes started helping out at a program for international students who had just arrived for the new semester. I kind of got shanghaied into staying for a quiz night thing, but it turned out to be really fun. I had forgotten how much I like hanging out with, for lack of a better word, foreign students. I also went for another short hike on a thin strip of beach between the sea and cliffs. The hike went past a place called Red Rocks, where the cliff face and fallen rocks are indeed red, and then went out to Sinclair Head, where there were many seals hanging out. It was a blustery day, but there were constantly rainbows appearing and disappearing, so it was quite pretty anyway.

My classes have changed somewhat. I spent the first week going to heaps of them to try to decide what to take and ended up with Literature of New Zealand and the Pacific (despite all my Kiwi friends telling me they don't have any good literature), a philosophy class on the Big Questions, Psychology (more brain based this time around), and *I pause to stand up straighter* Sexuality and Society. Don't judge me on that last one, though I admit it sounds a bit fluffy: it comes highly recommended and it has been quite interesting so far. They're going to bring in professors from lots of different disicplines so we'll have art history lecturers talking about sexuality in art, classics lecturers doing the ancient world, etc.

Let's see, other than that, the big news is that there are like 4 different diseases (the chicken pox, colds, stomach bugs) or strains of diseases going around my hostel, and I've caught 2 of them so far (or else a single particularly tenacious, tricky, and adaptive one). I think I'm on the upswing now, though, so I'm confident that I will get better before long. Luckily the Harry Potter book came out when I was sickest so I had something to do. The book came out at 11:00 AM here, and there was a huge line at Borders, where I got my copy. For an hour or so after 11, everybody on the street seemed to be carrying a bookstore bag of one kind or another.

Anyway, I shall leave you with a few photos of my most recent excursion.
until later,

Back from Auckland

Hello everybody,

Well my exams went off okay, and after spending several weeks waiting for my Spanish exam to come and go I headed up to Auckland to stay with two of my friends. They're a lot more casual about flights here than in the States. I was waaay early for my flight to Auckland. I arrived at the airport about an hour before my flight was to depart, but most of the other passengers didn't start filtering in until about 10 minutes before departure. I knew I was going to be comparatively early but I didn't expect to be the only one in the gate area and to be asked what I was doing there! The flight to Auckland takes about 45 minutes, and my friends Jess and Danielle picked me up at the airport. That day, Thursday, we walked around the suburb of Auckland where they live, Devonport. Auckland is a massive sprawling city of about 1 million people. The group of suburbs (including Devonport) referred to as the north shore is part of a peninsula across the bay from the CBD. Anyway, Devonport is quite a pretty place with lots of old houses, small beaches, and several large dormant volcanic cones that allow you to look out on the cityscape and the ocean.

That night we took the ferry across to the city, wandered through Auckland a bit, and ate dinner in the rotating restaurant at the top of the Sky Tower (at 328 meters or 1076 feet it's about twice the height of Seattle's Space Needle and half of Toronto's CN Tower and is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere) in celebration of Jess' birthday. The view was very impressive.

I actually spent most of my time in Devonport hanging out with my friends and their friends and families. It was, overall, a lovely relaxed kind of trip. I'm back in Wellington now and I have a few days before classes start again on Monday. Next semester I'll be taking another psyc class, an English one, the philosophy of Art, and Spanish once again. I also need to look for a job . . .

Some fun kiwi words for you:

gutted -"I was so gutted when we lost the Americas Cup." =disappointed, laid low
and my personal favorite:
the wop wops -"They went out to the wop wops a few days ago and haven't been seen since." =the middle of nowhere, the countryside

until next time

Hello all,

Well today is the Queen's Birthday here in New Zealand. It is not actually the Queen's birthday, and I believe New Zealand is the only country that celebrates it today (it'll be next week in Australia, sometime around now but not today in the UK, etc.), but that doesn't stop anybody. It's basically just a day off school and work for most people -the fact that the Queen is still technically New Zealand's head of state doesn't really make much difference here.

My first semester has ended and I'm busy studying for exams, which will start next week. Philosophy is by far my scariest exam because they want us to produce new ideas and examples and other completely unreasonable things along those lines. Some people. To that end, I'll be spending the next few days trying to come up with things to say about the ethics of euthanasia, corporate responsibility, 'therapeutic' cloning, and war. I'll also be memorizing lots of psychological information, which reminds me: the psychology department of Victoria wants the entire world to be aware once and for all that schizophrenia is not and never has been multiple personality disorder. They seem quite fixated on that fact.

I went to see Swan Lake performed by the Royal New Zealand Ballet (almost worth being part of the Empire so you can have Royal things) the other night with a friend of mine. It was quite impressive and very well done as far as my untrained eye could tell. Of course, probably the more exciting news is that High School Musical is in town. If you walk downtown at the wrong time of day you risk getting trampled by hordes of small and medium-sized children entering or exiting the theater.

Exams should keep me busy for the next few weeks, and after that I'm going to be spending a week in Auckland with two friends.

That's all for now.

Hello! Well my Fall break has ended and we're back in the thick of classes and assignments. My classes are still going quite well, though we've just started the abnormal psychology topic and I'm in danger of becoming something of a hypochondriac as regards schizophrenia and the like. Anyway, I went on another beautiful hike last week. This one went through basically the entire length of Belmont Regional Park, which you can reach by train from central Wellington in about 20 minutes. It was a long hike, lasting about 7 hours, but it was well worth it. It wasn't so much that there was any one especially nice sight (although there were some noteworthy ones) as that vast majority of the walk was over open rolling hills so that I could see all around me all the time. There was just this wonderful feeling of freedom and openness. Oh, I saw my first New Zealand sheep, in such abundance as to make up for the previous dearth thereof, (I also had to walk among them, which was considerably less pleasant) as well as a whole lot of abandoned World War II ammunition bunkers. Pictures are below. By the way, if you want to see the full-sized pictures, just click on them on the blog webpage.

In other news, Anzac day was yesterday, April 25th. Anzac stands for The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and the day is now basically their Memorial Day. It commemorates the disastrous landing at Gallipoli (in Turkey) during World War I. Australian and New Zealand soldiers were landed on the wrong beach and found themselves facing not a gentle slope but serious cliffs. British commanders basically told them to hang in there. The casualties were horrific on both sides. Approximately 1 in 4 of the New Zealanders serving there were killed and many more were wounded. Although absolute numbers of New Zealanders involved in World War 1 were of course small, as a percentage of their population the numbers who served, were killed, or were wounded, are very high. Anyway, Anzac Day is quite important. There were dawn services all over the country. There was some disruption this year by anti-war protesters with very poor taste, in my opinion. There was even a New Zealand flag burned (which is a crime here) near one of the services. Anti-war sentiments do run high around here, but it seems very disrespectful to express them so.

Kiwi observation of the week: This can best be illustrated by an anecdote, though it is far from being an isolated incident or observation. Background: my friend Jess' father is a psychologist in Auckland -many hours drive from here or a 1 hour plane ride if that helps. Anyway, Jess made some comment about our new psych professor. I asked how she knew this and she said: "Oh I asked my dad." I, assuming her father and our professor must have worked together or been at university together or something, asked how they knew each other. The response? "He's a psychologist," said in the most matter-of-fact tone as if that should make their connection obvious and in fact she wasn't even sure why I was asking.

Moral of the story: It's a very small country.

Back Again

Hello all,

I'm sorry I haven't posted lately. The fact is that there's just not much to write about. I've spent the last month working on various assignments and projects and now I have a 2-week break. Almost my entire hall has left, so I'm spending a quiet holiday doing some work, lounging around, and exploring Wellington. Yesterday I went on a 5-hour hike from the Wellington CBD to the southern coast. It was kind of a strange trail that connected all sorts of little parks and things, but the last leg of it was gorgeous. There were beautiful views of the hills, the sea, and even the mountains of the South Island. My pictures really don't do it justice.

My classes are still going well, although I have a new Philosophy lecturer who put me off from the start by being a self-hating American (not that I'm all gung-ho about my country myself, but it irks me to hear it being bashed indiscriminately for laughs).

Almost everyone had Friday through Monday off for Easter, and the stores were full (when open) of Cadbury eggs and hot crossed buns (which are nothing special, in my opinion). Overall a big difference from home is the opening hours of shops. Things start closing at 6 most nights and if you want to go anywhere but the grocery store or clubbing after 8, you're pretty much out of luck -even the coffee shops close early.

Kiwi food-oriented observations of the week: the domestic fast-food burger joint here, Burgerfuel, serves 3 kinds of vegetarian burgers. Also, Girl Guide Biscuits (girl scout cookies) come in only 4 flavors, all short bread: small or large and chocolate iced or not.


Somebody's house number. Cheap thrills, I know.








Graffiti, Wellington style.









The hills and sea on my hike.

Still Here

Hello all!

Well the last week was full of classes, meetings, and the like. Philosophy is driving me quite insane: if anyone wants to discuss moral theory and/or animal rights, I'm ready. Psychology has provided more than the usual amount of interesting material: I was really rather shocked to see how many people in my psych class claimed (in response to a query from our lecturer) to believe that George W. Bush either planned or was aware of plans for the September 11th attacks before they happened. It was probably 1/3 to 1/2 the 300 people in the lecture.

In other kiwi news, the legislature here has been debating the controversial "smacking bill" which would basically prohibit all physical punishment of children. I think the idea is to make it harder to get away with serious child abuse, but needless to say it's causing a lot of controversy.

Socially, there have been rock concerts, dances, Charmed marathons . . . life is good.

Kiwi lesson of the week:

Anything you ever hear is from Australia was probably in reality stolen from New Zealand. (e.g. Russell Crowe *before he started assaulting people with telephones)

until next time

Photographic proof

Hello everybody,

Things are good here. I just finished my first week of classes and pretty much enjoyed them. For those who are interested, I'm taking a psychology class, a mandatory statistics class, a philosophy class (ethics), and Spanish. I'm really enjoying the philosophy class already, and the others are still kind of in introductory mode. Next week I'll have considerably more class time because we'll be breaking into small groups for weekly sessions in addition to the big lectures. My smallest class (3rd year Spanish) has probably 30-40 people in it while my Stats and Psych classes both have about 350 students.

Campus has been very lively over the past week. Wednesday and Thursday were the clubs information days, so the quad was covered with displays. There have also been all sorts of activities and shows sprinkled througout the grounds. This weekend, I hope to get myself organized.

That's all for now, folks. Until later.


on the way down the hill to the city

my dorm

the nice old building on campus

looking down at the city from the cable car station above the university
Civic Square with suspended artwork

Settling In

Hello everyone,

I've moved into my dorm and am starting classes tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to. I've been pretty impressed with Victoria so far. They've worked really hard to make sure we know about all the services and activities available to us. I've had a nice week getting to know people from my hall and becoming further oriented. I've befriended a few Aucklanders and am very glad I chose Wellington as even they say Auckland isn't very nice at all. Apparently it's a sprawling city, whereas Wellington, besides being artsier, has laws against expanding into the 'green zone' on all sides. Auckland is constantly abused here, along with, more jokingly, its people who are referred to hereabouts as jafars, which stands for something not very nice at all.

This past week has mostly been filled with activities organized by my dorm, St. George. It used to be a hotel (the Beatles stayed there once) and is still in the process of being renovated, which gives us all something to grumble about. St. George is in a great location, just down the (really big) hill from campus and just a few minutes from the fun part of town.

Oh, and we need to stop giving the Canadians grief for saying 'eh.' The New Zealanders employ their version (the same sound but spelled 'aye') much more often than any Canadian I've ever known.

Good morning readers. All is well in beautiful Wellington. I'm still living in a hostel with prodigious numbers of American study-abroad students and German postgrad students. However, I should be able to move into my dorm this coming Sunday, which I'm looking forward to. I've had orientation and enrolled in my classes already, so now I have time to wander the city and participate in all the welcome activities that have been organized. Today there is going to be a Maori welcome ceremony, a powhiri, which should be very interesting.

The city is beautiful. I'll post photos once I'm settled. It is bordered by the sea and by hills (which I'll be climbing often to get to my classes). It is also very windy here. Although when I mentioned the wind level to a 4th year student, she intimated that I haven't seen Wellington wind yet. I'm also working on my sunburn: although the temperatures have been pleasantly cool, New Zealand has one of the highest uv indices anywhere.

Also I don't know where I got some of the numbers I was giving people, but Wellington is in fact a city about the size of Toledo in terms of population. The total population of New Zealand recently reached 4 million (which was a big deal, I understand). The city reminds me of Ann Arbor in its levels of funkiness and things to do. Right now, there's a big arts festival on, and I've already gone to a few shows.

Anyway, with that I shall leave you for the time being.

I made it. Wellington seems amazing so far. All is well, except I have nowhere to live all of a sudden, but I have reason to believe that will resolve itself before long.

More to follow.

Today is the day.

Well I've spent the last several days trying to squeeze all the paraphernalia of my life into two suitcases. My bags are packed. My flights are confirmed. I guess I'm really going! It's hard to believe that this is actually happening because I spent so long planning for it and worrying about getting everything ready. Next time you hear from me, I'll be in New Zealand. That is assuming I make it through airport security.

Emily, signing off.

Ready to go?

Testing, testing, 1 2 3 . . .