Back to uni any minute now . . .

Greetings!  I'm now in the last few days of the mid-year uni break.  The last semester ended in a haze of assignment-writing and studying, and I've had a comparatively easy last few weeks.  I've been working on transcribing interviews from my year-long research project. 

I just got back from a few days in New Plymouth, a town along the west coast about 6 hours north of Wellington by bus.  My flatmates all laughed at me when I said I was going there, as they seemed to think it was not a very exciting place.  However, I had a great time!  The weather was beautiful.  It was just nicely warm in the sun, though it got quite cold at night.  I went hiking along the shore in the mornings and basically spent my afternoons reading.  New Plymouth’s coastline isn’t particularly dramatic, but it is very pretty and Mt. Taranaki in the background provides a nice focal point as well.  Some of the early European settlers apparently landed here in around the 1840s, and there are lots of monuments to them scattered around the area.  Pictures below. 

Getting away for a little while was great.  I think I've discovered that I really need times away to just be quiet and take in some nature in order to maintain my sanity the rest of the time.  Now I'm back in Wellington where it is getting down almost to freezing at night (both inside and outside our house, of course). 

Next semester I will be continuing my Spanish literature course, as well as taking Abnormal psych and another neuropsychology course.  They look like they should be fun!  I've recently started singing with the Wellington Community Choir, and I hope to keep that up as well.  I'm finding it tough getting back into singing, but it's a lot of fun and the choir is a really interesting group of people - a different cross section of Wellington than I'm used to. 

I continue to explore career/employment options.  The myriad possibilities at the moment include law school or social work grad school, maybe preceded by trying to get into Teach for America, a program where you teach in a high-need area for two years. 

It'll probably be a while before my next update, I'm afraid.  Hasta entonces.

 Paritutu rock, a bit of an old volcano.  I had to walk west of the main port to get there, past lots of industrial sites.

Looking out along the coast from Paritutu Rock.

Mt. Taranaki seen from Paritutu Rock.  Mt. Taranaki according to legend used to hang out with Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ruapehu etc. (whom I met on my last excursion).  The mountains were all in love with Mt. Pihanga and eventually fought for her.  Tongariro won, and Taranaki was wounded and limped away to the coast, creating the Whanganui River and other natural features as he went.  While he slept, the Pouakai ranges blocked him in, trapping him where he now rests.

The way down from Paritutu rock.  It was almost vertical in spots. 
(No, I did not take photos while climbing down.)

The city park

A cemetery with some pretty old graves and monuments to preachers "massacred" by Maori and the like.