Hello all,
No exciting pictures this time as I'm pretty much working flat out to finish my Honors year alive at this point. I keep thinking I'm about as busy as can be and then getting busier. In case anyone's wondering, I didn't even notice the earthquake, although apparently many Wellingtonians did. It sounds like Christchurch is a real mess, but thankfully there were no casualties.
Classes continue apace. I'm also working as a research assistant for one of my professors. We're trying to see if we can improve kids' emotion understanding with an intervention using stories that emphasize emotions. (This is important because good emotion understanding is related to better social, academic, and mental health outcomes as children grow up.) The study involves going out to preschools and kindergartens and getting 3-year-olds to sit still and pay attention while we read to them and ask them questions. Needless to say, this can be a frustrating task. It's lots of fun playing with the kids though. It's also nice to get out of the university, where I would otherwise spend most of my time chained to a computer.
To add further variety, I'm working on a project to raise funds and awareness about the Pakistan floods, which have left 20 million people in need of assistance but are getting relatively little attention. (For a well-written and nuanced account of one writer's experience in Pakistan, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/opinion/26sethi.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4 )
There have also been a few interesting presentations here. Yesterday I saw a talk about the archeological evidence that Pacific Islanders made it to the west coast of the Americas well before Columbus landed. (Essentially, they found pre-Columbian chicken bones that shouldn't be there, since the Europeans were supposed to have introduced chickens to the Americas.) It was fascinating. They're also using gene-sequencing to trace lineages of people and animals, thus showing how prehistoric people may have moved across the world.
Another interesting talk I went to was about the idea of using a Financial Transactions Tax to rein in the financial sector (perhaps using the revenue for development work as a bonus). Apparently this idea is gaining traction given the underlying causes of the current economic crisis. Mostly, this talk just reinforced for me that I know absolutely nothing about economics and should really learn more.
Otherwise, I am spending my days applying for various things. It looks like law school is the best bet for where I'll be next Fall.
Until next time!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
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.
A cemetery with some pretty old graves and monuments to preachers "massacred" by Maori and the like.
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.
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.)
(No, I did not take photos while climbing down.)
The city park
Saturday, April 17, 2010
She's ALIIIIIIIIIIVE!
Hello all, I'm sorry my tardiness has reached such epic proportions this time around. As a heads-up, I think I probably won't update again until June or so when I next have university holidays. This year has been really crazy so far in terms of work load. I'm doing my Hono(u)rs year at the moment, which is considered to be graduate level by NZ's reckoning, though I'm not convinced.
In any case, the emphasis has changed from learning in class to learning through reading and research. I only have 6 hours of class a week, and spend the rest of my time working on assignments and doing readings. There is a huge amount of work to be done. Psychology Honors has a reputation for being particularly evil, and all of us spend most of our time in a state of constant dread. (There are about 70 Psyc Honors students I think.) This is the main reason I haven't had time for blogging.
However, we all have fun together too when we're ignoring the incipient panic, and I'm learning a lot. I'm currently taking Drugs, Brain, & Behavior, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Latin American Literature. I'm also doing a big project looking at how kids use rating scales (like a series of smiley faces or a thermometer) to rate their feelings. I'm also a "tutor" for a 2nd year class, which basically means I run some of the lab sections for the class. I'm enjoying it, although I still find it quite nerve-wracking to be the voice of authority. My final major preoccupation of the moment is my attempt to figure out what to do with myself next year. Suggestions are welcome.
Exciting things in the last several months have included going to see a talk by Neil Gaiman (probably my favorite living author), seeing several shows at the New Zealand International Arts Festival (including some surprisingly enjoyable modern dance), and visiting Tongariro National Park.
Tongariro National Park is the home of Mt. Ngauruhoe (perhaps better known as Mt. Doom) and also of probably the most well-known day hike in New Zealand, the Tongariro Crossing. I took the train up. It was an absolutely beautiful journey north from Wellington, and I spent a few days in a mostly deserted town near the park. The hike was beautiful but crowded. Pictures follow. It was a great trip. I hope to do some traveling during the mid-year break as well. That's all for now, folks!
A vista from a hike in Wellington
An unfurling silver fern -the "koru" (spiral) shape of the unfurling leaf is
very important in Maori art and also as a general NZ symbol
In any case, the emphasis has changed from learning in class to learning through reading and research. I only have 6 hours of class a week, and spend the rest of my time working on assignments and doing readings. There is a huge amount of work to be done. Psychology Honors has a reputation for being particularly evil, and all of us spend most of our time in a state of constant dread. (There are about 70 Psyc Honors students I think.) This is the main reason I haven't had time for blogging.
However, we all have fun together too when we're ignoring the incipient panic, and I'm learning a lot. I'm currently taking Drugs, Brain, & Behavior, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Latin American Literature. I'm also doing a big project looking at how kids use rating scales (like a series of smiley faces or a thermometer) to rate their feelings. I'm also a "tutor" for a 2nd year class, which basically means I run some of the lab sections for the class. I'm enjoying it, although I still find it quite nerve-wracking to be the voice of authority. My final major preoccupation of the moment is my attempt to figure out what to do with myself next year. Suggestions are welcome.
Exciting things in the last several months have included going to see a talk by Neil Gaiman (probably my favorite living author), seeing several shows at the New Zealand International Arts Festival (including some surprisingly enjoyable modern dance), and visiting Tongariro National Park.
Tongariro National Park is the home of Mt. Ngauruhoe (perhaps better known as Mt. Doom) and also of probably the most well-known day hike in New Zealand, the Tongariro Crossing. I took the train up. It was an absolutely beautiful journey north from Wellington, and I spent a few days in a mostly deserted town near the park. The hike was beautiful but crowded. Pictures follow. It was a great trip. I hope to do some traveling during the mid-year break as well. That's all for now, folks!
A vista from a hike in Wellington
A stop on the train journey north -we were getting into ski country
and since it was off-season, it was basically a ghost town
and since it was off-season, it was basically a ghost town
An unfurling silver fern -the "koru" (spiral) shape of the unfurling leaf isvery important in Maori art and also as a general NZ symbol
Mt. Ngauruhoe (AKA Mt. Doom) -this and several of the other volcanoes in the area are active, in the sense that small amounts of smoke are coming from them and they could theoretically erupt at any time
A volcanic crater along the Tongariro Crossing
-about a minute later, the cloud had completely cleared
-about a minute later, the cloud had completely cleared
A lake seen from Mt. Tongariro
Fellow hikers silhouetted
Mt. Ngauruhoe and Mt. Ruapehu seen from Mt. Tongariro
A vista
Monday, October 26, 2009
Hello all!
I am currently recovering from the last week of classes. Things were pretty crazy assignment-wise, and on Monday I had to give a talk for the members of the psychology lab I worked with this year. I have to admit that all these talks have been good for me. I really wasn't too nervous about actually giving the talk this time, just about the content.
I've still got two Spanish exams, and then I will be done with my Bachelors! My plan is to go back for an Honors year next year (kind of like the first year of a Masters). I'll take classes in psychology and Spanish and do a year-long project in psyc. At this point, I'm deciding between working with a professor who measures brain activation and response to emotional stimuli and working with another professor who studies children's abilities as eyewitnesses as well as how they develop healthy mechanisms for processing emotions. I'm leaning in the latter direction, because I've recently decided that I might want to work with kids in some capacity in the long term.
I'll be staying in Wellington for most of the southern summer, measuring electrical signals in the brain (ERP, for those who care) and looking at how they relate to certain kinds of decision-making. However, I will be coming back to Ohio for 3 weeks at Christmas!
Recent highlights included visiting the tulips at the Botanic Garden. They were absolutely amazing. There were brilliant color combinations and everything was just beautiful. They're all gone now, but I suppose their ephemeral nature is part of the charm. There are still lots of flowers springing up along the hills around my house.
A couple of my flatmates and I took part in a flash mob on Friday, meaning that we all trooped into a food court, froze in position for 5 minutes, and then went our separate ways. We managed to confuse large numbers of people, which was the goal. I love the concept of flash mobs and the fact that their whole aim is pretty much to show people something that they are not expecting.
I also went to an interesting talk a few weeks back about the banning of cluster bombs. Cluster bombs are problematic because many of the bomblets fail to explode on impact, meaning that they often kill civilians after a conflict has ended. New Zealand was instrumental in getting a recent cluster-bombs ban signed into effect. (Unsurprisingly, the US didn't sign it, but quite a few other major players did.) The talk was given by a NZ government negotiator and a representative of a Non-profit that was involved in the fight. It was very inspiring, because it is an example of a time when a small country, as well as private organizations, actually were able to accomplish significant change.
One more movie plug to send you off with: go see Ponyo if you get the chance. It is a delightful animated movie very loosely based on the story of The Little Mermaid. It's probably aimed at kids, but was very enjoyable for my friends and me (which may or may not tell you anything). It's from the creator of Spirited Away and other well-knowns anime movies, but I'd recommend it even if you don't really like anime. It's just very whimsical and fun.
Take care, everybody!
I am currently recovering from the last week of classes. Things were pretty crazy assignment-wise, and on Monday I had to give a talk for the members of the psychology lab I worked with this year. I have to admit that all these talks have been good for me. I really wasn't too nervous about actually giving the talk this time, just about the content.
I've still got two Spanish exams, and then I will be done with my Bachelors! My plan is to go back for an Honors year next year (kind of like the first year of a Masters). I'll take classes in psychology and Spanish and do a year-long project in psyc. At this point, I'm deciding between working with a professor who measures brain activation and response to emotional stimuli and working with another professor who studies children's abilities as eyewitnesses as well as how they develop healthy mechanisms for processing emotions. I'm leaning in the latter direction, because I've recently decided that I might want to work with kids in some capacity in the long term.
I'll be staying in Wellington for most of the southern summer, measuring electrical signals in the brain (ERP, for those who care) and looking at how they relate to certain kinds of decision-making. However, I will be coming back to Ohio for 3 weeks at Christmas!
Recent highlights included visiting the tulips at the Botanic Garden. They were absolutely amazing. There were brilliant color combinations and everything was just beautiful. They're all gone now, but I suppose their ephemeral nature is part of the charm. There are still lots of flowers springing up along the hills around my house.
A couple of my flatmates and I took part in a flash mob on Friday, meaning that we all trooped into a food court, froze in position for 5 minutes, and then went our separate ways. We managed to confuse large numbers of people, which was the goal. I love the concept of flash mobs and the fact that their whole aim is pretty much to show people something that they are not expecting.
I also went to an interesting talk a few weeks back about the banning of cluster bombs. Cluster bombs are problematic because many of the bomblets fail to explode on impact, meaning that they often kill civilians after a conflict has ended. New Zealand was instrumental in getting a recent cluster-bombs ban signed into effect. (Unsurprisingly, the US didn't sign it, but quite a few other major players did.) The talk was given by a NZ government negotiator and a representative of a Non-profit that was involved in the fight. It was very inspiring, because it is an example of a time when a small country, as well as private organizations, actually were able to accomplish significant change.
One more movie plug to send you off with: go see Ponyo if you get the chance. It is a delightful animated movie very loosely based on the story of The Little Mermaid. It's probably aimed at kids, but was very enjoyable for my friends and me (which may or may not tell you anything). It's from the creator of Spirited Away and other well-knowns anime movies, but I'd recommend it even if you don't really like anime. It's just very whimsical and fun.
Take care, everybody!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Greetings all,
Well it's been an exciting few weeks! I've just come back from a trip to Palmerston North where I did a presentation at the New Zealand Psychological Society conference. This conference talk thing has been terrifying my fellow undergraduates and me for months now, so it is wonderful to have it finally over with. We had a pretty good time at the conference, although neither the city nor most of the sessions I went to were particularly exciting. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, nothing too controversial happened. My professor is fairly outspoken and has in the past gotten into clashes at this type of thing. She does research on how easy it is to create false memories, and her conclusions are not well-liked by those who believe that memories (of child sexual abuse, for example) can be repressed and subsequently recovered.
We had a great deal of fun hearing tales from my professor and the PhD students about the adventures of various big-names in psychology. Palmerston North also boasts the best playground I have ever seen in my life. Two of the guys from the lab and I chanced upon it as we were out exploring the city. It went on and on and had a giant hamster wheel, trampolines, and a sort of big zip line that you could sit on and fly down. It was amazing! I'm pretty sure it could not exist in America because of the potential for lawsuits.
Anyway, overall we had a lot of fun, and it was good to get out of Wellington for a while and see a bit more of New Zealand. There were lambs gamboling in the fields as we drove along, and it was all very picturesque.
Despite my best intentions, I have not been doing as much fencing as I planned this year. However, my flatmate's boyfriend recently brought most of the flat along to the Medieval Club's fighting practice, which was quite an experience. They basically just hit each other with blunted rapiers and sticks and things, without any of the rules that sport fencing has. I found it difficult to adjust to both the lack of rules and the new style they tried to teach me. Needless to say I was trounced repeatedly (I had some serious bruises to explain the next day at university), but it was lots of fun!
On the classes front, the most exciting thing lately has been a visit by an Iranian woman to the Political Islam class that I have been sitting in on. She was absolutely fascinating. She did a great job of explaining Iran's political system, and convinced me, at least, that there is much more potential for real change there than I would have thought. She also had great stories about jumping from roof to roof while fleeing the morality police and dancing with her head scarf wrapped around her arm so she could put it on immediately if necessary.
Finally, another movie plug. I highly recommend District 9 for those who like Sci-Fi. It was very unpredictable and kept me riveted the entire time. It was gross in parts and there is a lot of death, but it's a great story very well done.
Well it's been an exciting few weeks! I've just come back from a trip to Palmerston North where I did a presentation at the New Zealand Psychological Society conference. This conference talk thing has been terrifying my fellow undergraduates and me for months now, so it is wonderful to have it finally over with. We had a pretty good time at the conference, although neither the city nor most of the sessions I went to were particularly exciting. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, nothing too controversial happened. My professor is fairly outspoken and has in the past gotten into clashes at this type of thing. She does research on how easy it is to create false memories, and her conclusions are not well-liked by those who believe that memories (of child sexual abuse, for example) can be repressed and subsequently recovered.
We had a great deal of fun hearing tales from my professor and the PhD students about the adventures of various big-names in psychology. Palmerston North also boasts the best playground I have ever seen in my life. Two of the guys from the lab and I chanced upon it as we were out exploring the city. It went on and on and had a giant hamster wheel, trampolines, and a sort of big zip line that you could sit on and fly down. It was amazing! I'm pretty sure it could not exist in America because of the potential for lawsuits.
Anyway, overall we had a lot of fun, and it was good to get out of Wellington for a while and see a bit more of New Zealand. There were lambs gamboling in the fields as we drove along, and it was all very picturesque.
Despite my best intentions, I have not been doing as much fencing as I planned this year. However, my flatmate's boyfriend recently brought most of the flat along to the Medieval Club's fighting practice, which was quite an experience. They basically just hit each other with blunted rapiers and sticks and things, without any of the rules that sport fencing has. I found it difficult to adjust to both the lack of rules and the new style they tried to teach me. Needless to say I was trounced repeatedly (I had some serious bruises to explain the next day at university), but it was lots of fun!
On the classes front, the most exciting thing lately has been a visit by an Iranian woman to the Political Islam class that I have been sitting in on. She was absolutely fascinating. She did a great job of explaining Iran's political system, and convinced me, at least, that there is much more potential for real change there than I would have thought. She also had great stories about jumping from roof to roof while fleeing the morality police and dancing with her head scarf wrapped around her arm so she could put it on immediately if necessary.
Finally, another movie plug. I highly recommend District 9 for those who like Sci-Fi. It was very unpredictable and kept me riveted the entire time. It was gross in parts and there is a lot of death, but it's a great story very well done.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Classes, movies, and books
Hello all! Well I'm back at uni and have been very busy with classes, experiment-running, and meetings. I'm taking Neuropsychology, Psychology, Crime and Law, Spanish language, and Spanish literature. So far all of my classes are going pretty well. Spanish language is particularly fun as the teacher is very enthusiastic. Psyc, Crime and Law is also fascinating because the professor in charge has a lot of experience working with violent criminals and really knows her stuff. We've been talking about factors that contribute to crime as well as what kinds of programs and sentences reduce reoffending by released criminals. The overriding message so far has been that more punitive approaches do not work, as far as reducing reoffending goes. (Of course, that's not to say that such punishments don't serve other useful purposes, but in terms of turning criminals away from crime, the evidence suggests that they're not the way to go.)
I had a pretty good break and did a bit of hiking. I'll put some photos below. Since school started again, my main source of entertainment has come from the New Zealand International Film Festival. The festival happens once a year and there are always tons of really interesting-sounding movies on. This year I've actually managed to make it to several, mostly because my flatmate works at one of the cinemas involved and has inside info on ticket availability and things. The highlights so far have been Dead Snow, a Norwegian movie about Nazi zombies, and Examined Life, which basically involved several big-name philosophers being given free rein for ten minutes each. I highly recommend the Nazi zombies, if you're into that kind of thing. It was very gross in spots, but also very funny. The philosophy was appropriately thought-provoking and occasionally bemusing.
As my final topic for the day, a book plug! I want to recommend Lipstick Jihad, by Azadeh Moaveni, for anybody who's been following the recent goings-on in Iran. It's an autobiographical account of an Iranian-American woman who goes back to Iran in the 90's after growing up in the States. It really made the country come alive for me and certainly makes me read the news regarding the political unrest differently than I would have otherwise. Among other things, she describes how Iranians spend huge amounts of time and energy getting around the restrictions placed on them. One caveat, though: a major focus of the book is on the author's search for identity. Undoubtedly, this is very important, but sometimes it seemed (for me, but then maybe I'm just cold-hearted!) that she was spending a few more pages on soul-searching than were strictly necessary. Still, a great book that anybody interested in Iran should read!
This is from a small lake which is part of the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, a large area that they try to keep free from predators in order to protect native animals (mostly birds). This valley is basically across the street from my flat, but I had no idea it was there until recently!
Here is the view from a road near my flat.
The windmills along the way during one of my hikes. There was barely any wind that day (very unusually for Wellington), so they were moving barely at all. Seeing them rising from the hills was a little bit creepy.
Looking out towards west coast of the bottom of the North island.
I had a pretty good break and did a bit of hiking. I'll put some photos below. Since school started again, my main source of entertainment has come from the New Zealand International Film Festival. The festival happens once a year and there are always tons of really interesting-sounding movies on. This year I've actually managed to make it to several, mostly because my flatmate works at one of the cinemas involved and has inside info on ticket availability and things. The highlights so far have been Dead Snow, a Norwegian movie about Nazi zombies, and Examined Life, which basically involved several big-name philosophers being given free rein for ten minutes each. I highly recommend the Nazi zombies, if you're into that kind of thing. It was very gross in spots, but also very funny. The philosophy was appropriately thought-provoking and occasionally bemusing.
As my final topic for the day, a book plug! I want to recommend Lipstick Jihad, by Azadeh Moaveni, for anybody who's been following the recent goings-on in Iran. It's an autobiographical account of an Iranian-American woman who goes back to Iran in the 90's after growing up in the States. It really made the country come alive for me and certainly makes me read the news regarding the political unrest differently than I would have otherwise. Among other things, she describes how Iranians spend huge amounts of time and energy getting around the restrictions placed on them. One caveat, though: a major focus of the book is on the author's search for identity. Undoubtedly, this is very important, but sometimes it seemed (for me, but then maybe I'm just cold-hearted!) that she was spending a few more pages on soul-searching than were strictly necessary. Still, a great book that anybody interested in Iran should read!
This is from a small lake which is part of the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, a large area that they try to keep free from predators in order to protect native animals (mostly birds). This valley is basically across the street from my flat, but I had no idea it was there until recently!
Here is the view from a road near my flat.
The windmills along the way during one of my hikes. There was barely any wind that day (very unusually for Wellington), so they were moving barely at all. Seeing them rising from the hills was a little bit creepy. 
Looking out towards west coast of the bottom of the North island.Wednesday, June 17, 2009
As usual, I'm late in posting. Sorry! I can only say that I've been either working flat out or collapsed for most of the last month or so.
One highlight since I last wrote was a panel discussion on human rights that I went to. The topic was whether there are such things as universal human rights or not. Now, the panel was lacking a committed cultural relativist so there was no one there saying that all such concepts are cultural constructions and that there's no such thing as objective right and wrong or anything like that. However, there was much good discussion and lots of arguments against cultural relativism. This was helpful because I always find myself arguing against relativism, and it was nice to get some backup.
My semester has just ended, so there was a lot going on at university lately. The most exciting things was a mini "conference" that I had to take part in along with all the other students working on doing research with my psychology professor. We all had to give 20 minute presentations on our research and then take questions. It was terrifying but fun. We got to use a nice conference room at the university and various bigwigs came by to give us words of encouragement. Afterwords, we all went out for a really nice dinner at the house of a woman who owns a restaurant in town. The woman is very Italian and also very New-Agey, so she hugged us all upon entry, gave us various heavily accented speeches about eating only fresh foods, and corrected my posture while I attempted to grate cheese for her. In about 2 months, we are all going to present again at the New Zealand Psychological Society annual conference, which is going to be much more terrifying, but a good experience.
I thought I would leave you with a few cultural tidbits:
First of all, what I had long suspcted has recently been confirmed by my flatmates: New Zealanders do not rinse their plates before drying them. So if you're drying, they hand you a plate covered in soap suds and bits of food and you're just supposed to smear it all off with the towel. This supposedly has something to do with most houses only having one kitchen sink, but personally I'm not buying that and still just think it's kind of gross. I'm trying to adjust. Other foreigners I have talked to here have noted the same thing, so it's not just me.
Also, my belief in the superiority of American desserts has been vindicated once again, as the "American-style" Brownies I made went over exceedingly well with people here. (What they know as brownies tend to be kind of dry, or at best very chewy and tough.) The parts of the world I've lived in so far just doesn't understand the concept of decadence in desserts. I'm obviously not planning my destinations very well.
One highlight since I last wrote was a panel discussion on human rights that I went to. The topic was whether there are such things as universal human rights or not. Now, the panel was lacking a committed cultural relativist so there was no one there saying that all such concepts are cultural constructions and that there's no such thing as objective right and wrong or anything like that. However, there was much good discussion and lots of arguments against cultural relativism. This was helpful because I always find myself arguing against relativism, and it was nice to get some backup.
My semester has just ended, so there was a lot going on at university lately. The most exciting things was a mini "conference" that I had to take part in along with all the other students working on doing research with my psychology professor. We all had to give 20 minute presentations on our research and then take questions. It was terrifying but fun. We got to use a nice conference room at the university and various bigwigs came by to give us words of encouragement. Afterwords, we all went out for a really nice dinner at the house of a woman who owns a restaurant in town. The woman is very Italian and also very New-Agey, so she hugged us all upon entry, gave us various heavily accented speeches about eating only fresh foods, and corrected my posture while I attempted to grate cheese for her. In about 2 months, we are all going to present again at the New Zealand Psychological Society annual conference, which is going to be much more terrifying, but a good experience.
I thought I would leave you with a few cultural tidbits:
First of all, what I had long suspcted has recently been confirmed by my flatmates: New Zealanders do not rinse their plates before drying them. So if you're drying, they hand you a plate covered in soap suds and bits of food and you're just supposed to smear it all off with the towel. This supposedly has something to do with most houses only having one kitchen sink, but personally I'm not buying that and still just think it's kind of gross. I'm trying to adjust. Other foreigners I have talked to here have noted the same thing, so it's not just me.
Also, my belief in the superiority of American desserts has been vindicated once again, as the "American-style" Brownies I made went over exceedingly well with people here. (What they know as brownies tend to be kind of dry, or at best very chewy and tough.) The parts of the world I've lived in so far just doesn't understand the concept of decadence in desserts. I'm obviously not planning my destinations very well.
Our lounge, or living room.
Standing in the same place as above. This is part of the same room.
Our kitchen. Note the steam issuing from the kitchen sink. In our house, you can perpetually see your breath, and everything steams because it is very COLD!
The view from our balcony.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Psychology stuff and general update
Hello everyone,
Things are good here! We had a two-week break beginning with Good Friday and running through Anzac day (Memorial Day), which was the 25th of April. I did not do anything special over the break as I had a huge project to get done and also managed to get sick halfway through. Easter was fun though, as we had a spirited Easter egg hunt in my flat. In New Zealand, hunting for real eggs does not seem to be the done thing. Instead, you hunt for chocolate eggs, often Cadbury Cream eggs of one variety or another.
The big project I was working on over the break involved gathering materials for the psychology experiment I am helping to set up. We are looking at how the difficulty of pronouncing foreign names affects the judgments people make about those names. The basic idea is that if things are easier to process (in this case, simpler names) we often assume that they are more positive, less risky, more familiar, etc. (Thus if you show somebody fake names of additives in food, they will assume that difficult-to-pronounce additives are more harmful.) These shortcuts are not always helpful, and they can influence us without our noticing it.
So anyway, the search for foreign names accounted for most of my break. As long as I'm talking about psych, here's a probably more interesting demonstration having to do with human attention. If click on the following link, you will find a video of some people tossing a ball around. (Some of you may have seen this before.) Your job is to count the number of passes between the team in white. http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php If the link doesn't work, you may need to copy and paste the address. I will put the answer below, so if you want to try the demonstration, do so before you read on.
I've been trying to go to events put on at university more often this year. Today there was a great speaking event which featured three people talking about gender and development. All of the speakers were very interesting, but my favorite was an MP and former government minister who spoke about her work within the New Zealand government trying to make their international aid programs more effective. One of the nice things about living in a small country is that you tend to be able to get national figures to come and talk to you.
So, have you played the counting game with the video yet? How many passes did you count? Did you notice anything strange? Did you see the gorilla? Over half the people who watch this video don't see him. (If you did see him, congratulations on being observant! It's better to do this in a group so you can laugh at everyone else.) The video is meant to show how selective our attention can be. Something can be right in front of us without our seeing it. I think this is pretty cool, but here's an even better example done on the campus of Harvard. Do you think you'd notice if the person you were talking to changed into another person? People think they will, but quite often don't! (You don't have to participate in this one, just watch.) http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/10.php
I shall leave you with that.
P.S. Sorry, Mom, maybe I'll take some photos of the flat for next time. Grampa, I heartily enjoyed your comments, and periodically suffer from the same epistemological quandaries.
Things are good here! We had a two-week break beginning with Good Friday and running through Anzac day (Memorial Day), which was the 25th of April. I did not do anything special over the break as I had a huge project to get done and also managed to get sick halfway through. Easter was fun though, as we had a spirited Easter egg hunt in my flat. In New Zealand, hunting for real eggs does not seem to be the done thing. Instead, you hunt for chocolate eggs, often Cadbury Cream eggs of one variety or another.
The big project I was working on over the break involved gathering materials for the psychology experiment I am helping to set up. We are looking at how the difficulty of pronouncing foreign names affects the judgments people make about those names. The basic idea is that if things are easier to process (in this case, simpler names) we often assume that they are more positive, less risky, more familiar, etc. (Thus if you show somebody fake names of additives in food, they will assume that difficult-to-pronounce additives are more harmful.) These shortcuts are not always helpful, and they can influence us without our noticing it.
So anyway, the search for foreign names accounted for most of my break. As long as I'm talking about psych, here's a probably more interesting demonstration having to do with human attention. If click on the following link, you will find a video of some people tossing a ball around. (Some of you may have seen this before.) Your job is to count the number of passes between the team in white. http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php If the link doesn't work, you may need to copy and paste the address. I will put the answer below, so if you want to try the demonstration, do so before you read on.
I've been trying to go to events put on at university more often this year. Today there was a great speaking event which featured three people talking about gender and development. All of the speakers were very interesting, but my favorite was an MP and former government minister who spoke about her work within the New Zealand government trying to make their international aid programs more effective. One of the nice things about living in a small country is that you tend to be able to get national figures to come and talk to you.
So, have you played the counting game with the video yet? How many passes did you count? Did you notice anything strange? Did you see the gorilla? Over half the people who watch this video don't see him. (If you did see him, congratulations on being observant! It's better to do this in a group so you can laugh at everyone else.) The video is meant to show how selective our attention can be. Something can be right in front of us without our seeing it. I think this is pretty cool, but here's an even better example done on the campus of Harvard. Do you think you'd notice if the person you were talking to changed into another person? People think they will, but quite often don't! (You don't have to participate in this one, just watch.) http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/10.php
I shall leave you with that.
P.S. Sorry, Mom, maybe I'll take some photos of the flat for next time. Grampa, I heartily enjoyed your comments, and periodically suffer from the same epistemological quandaries.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
first month back
Well I am back in Wellington and have been very busy! My trip here was not particularly fun as I was just getting over being sick (I cringe to think of the disease vectors). Also my flights were delayed at every turn, such that I ended up literally walking off one plane and on to the next several times. Then when I arrived in Wellington, it transpired that my bags were still in LA.
However, I made it and made it to my new flat where I am living with two people I knew from previous years and one I didn't know. I spent much of the first week back moving things up lots of stairs and into the house. I'm living in a suburb just outside the city called Karori. It's a very green and hilly area. It's actually a little bit like Hong Kong, in that there are hillsides covered in concrete to stop them collapsing, and as you walk along you can see evidence of microlandslides. In any case, it's really pretty around here. I took some photos on the way to and from the grocery store which are below. My house is up the side of a hill surrounded by trees in which live tui, native birds with little white balls at their necks that make fairly melodious noises. It's all rather idyllic really.
My classes are going well so far. I'm taking cell biology, a psychology class on memory, and a philosophy/international relations/politics class on ethics and international affairs. Memory is fun. If I remember next time, I will give you some links so you can see and/or participate in some cool psyc demos.
Ethics is fascinating and sobering. We've been spending a lot of time so far talking about how much of an obligation inhabitants of rich countries have to inhabitants of poor countries and why such an obligation does or does not exist. I came across an idea I quite liked in one of my readings for the class today. The author was making the point that almost everyone, if asked how much he or she should be doing to help the global poor, says "more than I am now." According to the author, we all know we should be doing more, but are constantly distracted by our own needs and wants and those of the people close to us. A virtuous person, then, is simply one who is able to keep his or her attention where it belongs, which in this case is on the millions of people who desperately need our help right now. All issues of the efficacy of international aid aside, I like this idea of virtue as simply paying attention to the right things.
I'm also working with one of my psychology professors in a "class" where I help with some of her lab's research. I'll let you know more about that once my project gets underway. Due to my expressing an Idea, I have been taken off the experiment I started out with (which had to do with how the presence of photos affected people's judgments of whether celebrities are alive or dead) and am now tasked with designing a new one. I'm really enjoying working in the lab and getting the chance to actually design an experiment.
Anyway, I shall have to end there as I have readings coming out of my ears.
Until next time.
On the way from my house to the grocery store.
Looking back towards my flat. You can't see it from here, but if you were to
follow the road on the left of the photo towards the center and take a left,
rounding the hill, you would basically be beneath the house.
The commercial hub of Karori!
However, I made it and made it to my new flat where I am living with two people I knew from previous years and one I didn't know. I spent much of the first week back moving things up lots of stairs and into the house. I'm living in a suburb just outside the city called Karori. It's a very green and hilly area. It's actually a little bit like Hong Kong, in that there are hillsides covered in concrete to stop them collapsing, and as you walk along you can see evidence of microlandslides. In any case, it's really pretty around here. I took some photos on the way to and from the grocery store which are below. My house is up the side of a hill surrounded by trees in which live tui, native birds with little white balls at their necks that make fairly melodious noises. It's all rather idyllic really.
My classes are going well so far. I'm taking cell biology, a psychology class on memory, and a philosophy/international relations/politics class on ethics and international affairs. Memory is fun. If I remember next time, I will give you some links so you can see and/or participate in some cool psyc demos.
Ethics is fascinating and sobering. We've been spending a lot of time so far talking about how much of an obligation inhabitants of rich countries have to inhabitants of poor countries and why such an obligation does or does not exist. I came across an idea I quite liked in one of my readings for the class today. The author was making the point that almost everyone, if asked how much he or she should be doing to help the global poor, says "more than I am now." According to the author, we all know we should be doing more, but are constantly distracted by our own needs and wants and those of the people close to us. A virtuous person, then, is simply one who is able to keep his or her attention where it belongs, which in this case is on the millions of people who desperately need our help right now. All issues of the efficacy of international aid aside, I like this idea of virtue as simply paying attention to the right things.
I'm also working with one of my psychology professors in a "class" where I help with some of her lab's research. I'll let you know more about that once my project gets underway. Due to my expressing an Idea, I have been taken off the experiment I started out with (which had to do with how the presence of photos affected people's judgments of whether celebrities are alive or dead) and am now tasked with designing a new one. I'm really enjoying working in the lab and getting the chance to actually design an experiment.
Anyway, I shall have to end there as I have readings coming out of my ears.
Until next time.
On the way from my house to the grocery store.
Looking back towards my flat. You can't see it from here, but if you were tofollow the road on the left of the photo towards the center and take a left,
rounding the hill, you would basically be beneath the house.
The commercial hub of Karori!Friday, February 20, 2009
The British Isles
Hello again, everyone! I've had a lovely summer break here in wintery Ohio and have enjoyed catching up with friends and relatives. I'm heading back to Wellington in just a few days, but I thought I'd let you know how my trip to the Emerald Isle and environs went. For those who don't know, I just got back from spending a fortnight in Ireland and Scotland. Two of my best friends from Hong Kong are living in Dublin. It was great to see Caoimhe (Irish, pronounced Queeva) and Attiya as well as some other friends.
I spent a good deal of time wandering the streets of Dublin and quite liked the city. It's not too big, but is bustling and full of nice streets and old picturesque buildings. We made the requisite trip to the Guinness museum, though I was personally not too impressed, perhaps because I cannot see any earthly reason anyone would voluntarily drink Guinness.
After a few days in Dublin, we flew to Glasgow, Scotland and made our way in the dark to Edinburgh. Now Dublin is nice, but Edinburgh is gorgeous. It is chock full of beautiful old buildings and picturesque streets. (Prompting Caoimhe to remark that it must never have been bombed, though this turns out to have been untrue.) In the center is a castle, parts of which date from the 1300s and earlier. It looks great from the outside, though it is too kept up and restored for my taste.
We also quite accidentally bumped into David Hume's grave, which made me quite happy. (David Hume was an 18th-century philosopher who has a special place in my heart because I once had to do a project on him. He argued, among other things, that just because your senses tell you there is a physical reality, you can't really know for sure. It might be all in your mind. He's my kind of philosopher.) We stuck around Edinburgh for the day and had deep-fried Mars bars, which were heavenly. In Scotland, any fish-and-chips shop will sell you such delicacies, and many advertise that they will deep-fry anything you bring in. (It's no wonder Scotland's traditional diet is considered to be among the unhealthiest in the world.)
That evening, we took a bus to St. Andrews where another Hong Kong friend of ours goes to university. Now, personally I was not too excited about the prospect of visiting this town because I associate it mostly with golf, and a Scottish friend told us repeatedly (and in rather more colorful language) that it was in the middle of nowhere. It is certainly small, but had some beautiful medieval ruins, including a great castle. The castle was made even cooler by the fact that they recently discovered a mine once dug by a besieging force as well as a counter-mine dug by the castle defenders to stop the invaders. You can now walk through them and see where the two connected.
Anyway, after exploring St. Andrews for a few days, we headed back to Dublin. We saw a bit more of the city, and Monday night Caoimhe took me to a pub which was perhaps the highlight of the whole trip. It was full of mostly Irish people (though there were some tourists such as myself) of all pub-going ages. There were old men drinking Guinness and chatting, and there were people our age out for drinks. Eventually, a three-person group started playing and singing traditional Irish ballads and drinking songs, and the whole room sang along with them with great gusto to what I gather were the better-known ones. It was a great atmosphere. I even got to sing along when they did songs I knew (like the Molly Malone song- "In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty . . ."). At the end of the night when last orders had been called for by the bar, everybody sang the Irish national anthem (which is sung in Irish of course, since an English anthem would be ironic at best). It made me want to be Irish.
The last day I explored Glendalough, a beautiful valley in the Wicklow mountains with monastic ruins. The ruins were alright, but the natural beauty was probably the highlight.
Anyway, it was a great trip!
I spent a good deal of time wandering the streets of Dublin and quite liked the city. It's not too big, but is bustling and full of nice streets and old picturesque buildings. We made the requisite trip to the Guinness museum, though I was personally not too impressed, perhaps because I cannot see any earthly reason anyone would voluntarily drink Guinness.
After a few days in Dublin, we flew to Glasgow, Scotland and made our way in the dark to Edinburgh. Now Dublin is nice, but Edinburgh is gorgeous. It is chock full of beautiful old buildings and picturesque streets. (Prompting Caoimhe to remark that it must never have been bombed, though this turns out to have been untrue.) In the center is a castle, parts of which date from the 1300s and earlier. It looks great from the outside, though it is too kept up and restored for my taste.
We also quite accidentally bumped into David Hume's grave, which made me quite happy. (David Hume was an 18th-century philosopher who has a special place in my heart because I once had to do a project on him. He argued, among other things, that just because your senses tell you there is a physical reality, you can't really know for sure. It might be all in your mind. He's my kind of philosopher.) We stuck around Edinburgh for the day and had deep-fried Mars bars, which were heavenly. In Scotland, any fish-and-chips shop will sell you such delicacies, and many advertise that they will deep-fry anything you bring in. (It's no wonder Scotland's traditional diet is considered to be among the unhealthiest in the world.)
That evening, we took a bus to St. Andrews where another Hong Kong friend of ours goes to university. Now, personally I was not too excited about the prospect of visiting this town because I associate it mostly with golf, and a Scottish friend told us repeatedly (and in rather more colorful language) that it was in the middle of nowhere. It is certainly small, but had some beautiful medieval ruins, including a great castle. The castle was made even cooler by the fact that they recently discovered a mine once dug by a besieging force as well as a counter-mine dug by the castle defenders to stop the invaders. You can now walk through them and see where the two connected.
Anyway, after exploring St. Andrews for a few days, we headed back to Dublin. We saw a bit more of the city, and Monday night Caoimhe took me to a pub which was perhaps the highlight of the whole trip. It was full of mostly Irish people (though there were some tourists such as myself) of all pub-going ages. There were old men drinking Guinness and chatting, and there were people our age out for drinks. Eventually, a three-person group started playing and singing traditional Irish ballads and drinking songs, and the whole room sang along with them with great gusto to what I gather were the better-known ones. It was a great atmosphere. I even got to sing along when they did songs I knew (like the Molly Malone song- "In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty . . ."). At the end of the night when last orders had been called for by the bar, everybody sang the Irish national anthem (which is sung in Irish of course, since an English anthem would be ironic at best). It made me want to be Irish.
The last day I explored Glendalough, a beautiful valley in the Wicklow mountains with monastic ruins. The ruins were alright, but the natural beauty was probably the highlight.
Anyway, it was a great trip!
A street in Dublin
A street in Edinburgh
The Governor's residence in Edinburgh
A deep-fried Mars bar
Yasmin and Caoimhe walking along the perimeter of cathedral ruins in St. Andrews. Yasmin is attired in traditional St. Andrews University robes. These are still worn occasionally during exams and the like, and anyone wearing them can get into the castle for free.
A view of the cathedral ruins from the pier. (Attiya is sitting on the pier.)
The castle ruins
Glendalough from above
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Oz
Well I've been holding off from doing this post partly due to laziness and partly due to my hope that one of the people I was traveling with would post some photos (my camera didn't make it onto the plane). However, I'm rapidly forgetting what went on over there across the ditch, so I think I'd better just go for it.
Wednesday, the day after Jake and Robin left for home, I got on a plane too, and headed for Melbourne, Australia. I got to fly business class, which was an experience. I felt rather out of place in my jeans and t-shirt among all the suits. Anyway, I got in to Melbourne after the 3-hour flight, and was met by my friends Lachlan and Maša (both of whom I know from Hong Kong). I should explain at this point that the reason I went to Melbourne was to attend a birthday/all-around celebration for Lachlan and his family.
I spent four full days in Melbourne. I quite liked what I saw of the city. One highlight was going to the aquarium, where there were some very sizable sharks and some amazing jellyfish. We also went to see Wicked, which I would recommend highly. It's a great show, even though I felt the story could have been more convincing. I think it was about the second night of the preview shows (before it officially opened), so there was a lot of excitement around town, random areas bathed in green light, and that kind of thing.
On a different evening, we went to see an Australian Football match. Australian football bears very little resemblance to American football or soccer (or rugby or any other sport I've ever seen for that matter). It was pretty easy to follow, though, and quite entertaining to watch. It was also not nearly as violent as I would have expected. Personally, my favorite part was when they played cheesy recorded fight/theme songs at the beginning.
The other kind of exciting thing we did was go to a wildlife park (basically a glorified zoo, but bigger and many of the animals got to roam). We saw kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, echidnas (I liked the echidnas), etc. We also saw platypus, which are very cool little animals up close. They can sense tiny electric disturbances with their bills, allowing them to pick up on brain waves from crayfish and such.
I am now back in Wellington, of course, and am currently on break again. Hmm, Olympics-wise, New Zealand is fiercely proud of their medalists. They may not have many, but they're way up there on a per capita basis. Most of their realistic medal chances seemed to be decided on a single night, which I watched. Again the most amusing part for me came at the beginning when a fatherly sportscaster gave a little speech about how we mustn't get too excited now, because there are lots of good athletes competing. So if it doesn't turn out like we hope, let's not beat ourselves up about it, alright? Alright.
Finally, I shall leave you with some psychology fun fun times. Your job is to look at the two faces below and decide which one looks happier to you. There is no right answer, (and the fact that the writing is flipped on one of them is not important). When you have picked a face, read on.
Face A
Face B
Echidna. Not part of the psychology experiment.
The two faces are exact mirror images of each other, yet most people say B is happier. This is because the right side of your brain is better at perceiving emotions (and faces for that matter). The right side of your brain is also the side that first receives information from the left side of visual space. Therefore, the emotional information from the left side of the face (as you look at it) predominates your interpretation of that face's emotional state. It's amazing! Some people get brain injuries that prevent them from being able to perceive emotion properly, and others end up unable to recognize faces at all, although they can "see" perfectly well and have no memory problems.
Wednesday, the day after Jake and Robin left for home, I got on a plane too, and headed for Melbourne, Australia. I got to fly business class, which was an experience. I felt rather out of place in my jeans and t-shirt among all the suits. Anyway, I got in to Melbourne after the 3-hour flight, and was met by my friends Lachlan and Maša (both of whom I know from Hong Kong). I should explain at this point that the reason I went to Melbourne was to attend a birthday/all-around celebration for Lachlan and his family.
I spent four full days in Melbourne. I quite liked what I saw of the city. One highlight was going to the aquarium, where there were some very sizable sharks and some amazing jellyfish. We also went to see Wicked, which I would recommend highly. It's a great show, even though I felt the story could have been more convincing. I think it was about the second night of the preview shows (before it officially opened), so there was a lot of excitement around town, random areas bathed in green light, and that kind of thing.
On a different evening, we went to see an Australian Football match. Australian football bears very little resemblance to American football or soccer (or rugby or any other sport I've ever seen for that matter). It was pretty easy to follow, though, and quite entertaining to watch. It was also not nearly as violent as I would have expected. Personally, my favorite part was when they played cheesy recorded fight/theme songs at the beginning.
The other kind of exciting thing we did was go to a wildlife park (basically a glorified zoo, but bigger and many of the animals got to roam). We saw kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, echidnas (I liked the echidnas), etc. We also saw platypus, which are very cool little animals up close. They can sense tiny electric disturbances with their bills, allowing them to pick up on brain waves from crayfish and such.
I am now back in Wellington, of course, and am currently on break again. Hmm, Olympics-wise, New Zealand is fiercely proud of their medalists. They may not have many, but they're way up there on a per capita basis. Most of their realistic medal chances seemed to be decided on a single night, which I watched. Again the most amusing part for me came at the beginning when a fatherly sportscaster gave a little speech about how we mustn't get too excited now, because there are lots of good athletes competing. So if it doesn't turn out like we hope, let's not beat ourselves up about it, alright? Alright.
Finally, I shall leave you with some psychology fun fun times. Your job is to look at the two faces below and decide which one looks happier to you. There is no right answer, (and the fact that the writing is flipped on one of them is not important). When you have picked a face, read on.
Face A
Face B
Echidna. Not part of the psychology experiment.
The two faces are exact mirror images of each other, yet most people say B is happier. This is because the right side of your brain is better at perceiving emotions (and faces for that matter). The right side of your brain is also the side that first receives information from the left side of visual space. Therefore, the emotional information from the left side of the face (as you look at it) predominates your interpretation of that face's emotional state. It's amazing! Some people get brain injuries that prevent them from being able to perceive emotion properly, and others end up unable to recognize faces at all, although they can "see" perfectly well and have no memory problems.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Adventures Part 1B: On the Road with Jake and Robin
After arriving back in Wellington from the South Island, we decided to take the following day off to do laundry and rest up, before heading north to Taupo and Rotorua. This was what we in the industry like to call a BAD MOVE.
Things started out fine enough the next day. Then it started to snow. It took about 10 hours to do what should have been a 4-hour drive as a result of accidents, road closures, and dead stops. We got out and had a sludge fight at one point. This is not normal weather for the central North Island. In fact both the locals and the evening news were heartily impressed. There wasn't actually that much snow, but given the small, winding roads and the fact that snowplows are few and far between, it was more than enough to almost paralyze the middle of the island. We kept having to go farther and farther out of our way. On the plus side, we did get to see some nice scenery, and there were a few places where it went from being completely snow-covered to ridiculously green and back again over the course of a few kilometers.
We did finally make it up to Taupo, a town on the shores of Lake Taupo that the snow had not even touched. We did very little that night beyond trying to watch some rugby on tv (and being mystified. None of us understand rugby.) The next day we headed up to Rotorua, which is an area with lots of geothermal activity. There were some nice mudpots and steam vents and that kind of thing, though it's got nothing on Yellowstone. Rather than Old Faithful, they've got a "geyser" that erupts if (and, as far as I know, only if) they put soap (actually, biodegradable soap substitute) in it. Jake dubbed it a fauxser. (There is a good story about how a bunch of guys from a prison camp in the area accidentally discovered it while washing their clothes, though.)
We also did some nice walks in the area. My favorite was through a geothermal area just outside Taupo called the "Craters of the Moon." It's this field that's full of big, collapsed steaming craters. It had kind of a surreal feeling to it.
There's a lot more to see in the North Island, but we didn't have enough time to do any more, so we headed back to Wellington the day before Jake and Robin flew back out again. That about wraps up our New Zealand travels. The South Island was much more memorable than the North, but then we didn't really do the North justice.
Next time: Emily braves the land of DEATH (otherwise known as Australia).
The photos below are all Jake's.
A cop got stuck on this uphill stretch and stopped us all here for about 40 minutes to let the snow melt.
10 Minutes from the snow, it was beautiful.
Robin by a steaming crater.
A "Crater of the Moon."
Things started out fine enough the next day. Then it started to snow. It took about 10 hours to do what should have been a 4-hour drive as a result of accidents, road closures, and dead stops. We got out and had a sludge fight at one point. This is not normal weather for the central North Island. In fact both the locals and the evening news were heartily impressed. There wasn't actually that much snow, but given the small, winding roads and the fact that snowplows are few and far between, it was more than enough to almost paralyze the middle of the island. We kept having to go farther and farther out of our way. On the plus side, we did get to see some nice scenery, and there were a few places where it went from being completely snow-covered to ridiculously green and back again over the course of a few kilometers.
We did finally make it up to Taupo, a town on the shores of Lake Taupo that the snow had not even touched. We did very little that night beyond trying to watch some rugby on tv (and being mystified. None of us understand rugby.) The next day we headed up to Rotorua, which is an area with lots of geothermal activity. There were some nice mudpots and steam vents and that kind of thing, though it's got nothing on Yellowstone. Rather than Old Faithful, they've got a "geyser" that erupts if (and, as far as I know, only if) they put soap (actually, biodegradable soap substitute) in it. Jake dubbed it a fauxser. (There is a good story about how a bunch of guys from a prison camp in the area accidentally discovered it while washing their clothes, though.)
We also did some nice walks in the area. My favorite was through a geothermal area just outside Taupo called the "Craters of the Moon." It's this field that's full of big, collapsed steaming craters. It had kind of a surreal feeling to it.
There's a lot more to see in the North Island, but we didn't have enough time to do any more, so we headed back to Wellington the day before Jake and Robin flew back out again. That about wraps up our New Zealand travels. The South Island was much more memorable than the North, but then we didn't really do the North justice.
Next time: Emily braves the land of DEATH (otherwise known as Australia).
The photos below are all Jake's.
A cop got stuck on this uphill stretch and stopped us all here for about 40 minutes to let the snow melt.
10 Minutes from the snow, it was beautiful.
Robin by a steaming crater.
A "Crater of the Moon."
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Adventures Part 1A: On the road with Jake and Robin
So Robin, Jake, and I were supposed to do a joint post while they were over here, but we were tired from traveling and ended up watching Dr. Who episodes in my room instead. Anyway, here goes.
Basically, they arrived and hung out in Wellington for a few days as we waited for my last exam to be over. (Wellington, by the way, experienced several days of solidly bad weather (wind, driving rain, hail) starting from their arrival.) However, we had a nice enough time, and saw the big museum and went up the hill overlooking the city and that kind of thing.
As soon as my last exam had ended, we headed for the ferry and started off for the South Island. It's about a three hour ferry ride across the Cook Strait, and the last bit of the crossing winds through some gorgeous sounds (flooded valleys). We took the train down the coast from Picton to Christchurch on the east coast, then took the other (rather more scenic) train through the Southern Alps to Greymouth on the west coast. From there we rented a car and drove south via several national parks. Eventually, we headed east again to Dunedin and then drove back up the east coast to Picton and the ferry.
There were very few cars on the roads, which was good because virtually all the highways are 2-lane roads, and most of them wind around coasts and mountains and pass over 1-lane bridges quite regularly.
The scenery was amazing. I knew it was going to be pretty down there, but it was really ridiculously gorgeous everywhere we went, and the drives from place to place were generally just as nice as the destinations. In fact it was rather anguishing that daylight only lasted about 10 hours. We had to do some driving in the dark, knowing full well that there were mountains and lakes and valleys on all sides. The west coast and south-west of the island are most dramatic, but the whole things is pretty in different ways. Anyway, along the way we hiked, went sky-diving, hiked on a glacier, cruised through a fiord, rode a jet-boat through a canyon, and saw various wildlife.
The sky-diving I enjoyed mostly for the scenery. I cannot imagine a more beautiful place to do it. The actual falling was not as exciting as I expected, but the gliding over the mountains was very nice.
Wildlife spotted included dolphins, seals, various notable birds (New Zealand, having no native land mammals, has many interesting flightless and flighted birds), and, thank goodness, penguins. We had to cheat a little bit for the penguins. We went to a penguin colony near Dunedin that people are working to conserve. They've dug trenches in the beach so that you can hide in them and watch the penguins going out or coming in from their day's hunting. It was rather a surreal experience running through the trenches chasing our weathered penguin-guide woman to the next likely spot. Anyway, the penguins were appropriately cute and amusing.
I also enjoyed seeing black swans, and there was the call of one bird that may haunt me for the rest of my life. I think it was a bird, anyway. It sounded like gentle bells jingling in many tones. Frankly, it sounded magical. (Jake and Robin are not quite as enamored of the memory as I am, though they were pretty darn impressed at the time, no matter what they tell you.)
And on that note, I will end this for today. Look out for Part 1B: The North Island or Emily, Jake, and Robin Drive into a Blizzard and Part 2: Oz.
Below is a sampling of Jake's and my photos.
pretty penguin preening party
I think this is Milford Sound, the most famous of the fiords. However it may just be somewhere random within Fiordland.
This is the gorgeous little campsite in Fiordland where we stopped and heard the amazing bird call.
Black swans!!!
Franz Josef Glacier
Basically, they arrived and hung out in Wellington for a few days as we waited for my last exam to be over. (Wellington, by the way, experienced several days of solidly bad weather (wind, driving rain, hail) starting from their arrival.) However, we had a nice enough time, and saw the big museum and went up the hill overlooking the city and that kind of thing.
As soon as my last exam had ended, we headed for the ferry and started off for the South Island. It's about a three hour ferry ride across the Cook Strait, and the last bit of the crossing winds through some gorgeous sounds (flooded valleys). We took the train down the coast from Picton to Christchurch on the east coast, then took the other (rather more scenic) train through the Southern Alps to Greymouth on the west coast. From there we rented a car and drove south via several national parks. Eventually, we headed east again to Dunedin and then drove back up the east coast to Picton and the ferry.
There were very few cars on the roads, which was good because virtually all the highways are 2-lane roads, and most of them wind around coasts and mountains and pass over 1-lane bridges quite regularly.
The scenery was amazing. I knew it was going to be pretty down there, but it was really ridiculously gorgeous everywhere we went, and the drives from place to place were generally just as nice as the destinations. In fact it was rather anguishing that daylight only lasted about 10 hours. We had to do some driving in the dark, knowing full well that there were mountains and lakes and valleys on all sides. The west coast and south-west of the island are most dramatic, but the whole things is pretty in different ways. Anyway, along the way we hiked, went sky-diving, hiked on a glacier, cruised through a fiord, rode a jet-boat through a canyon, and saw various wildlife.
The sky-diving I enjoyed mostly for the scenery. I cannot imagine a more beautiful place to do it. The actual falling was not as exciting as I expected, but the gliding over the mountains was very nice.
Wildlife spotted included dolphins, seals, various notable birds (New Zealand, having no native land mammals, has many interesting flightless and flighted birds), and, thank goodness, penguins. We had to cheat a little bit for the penguins. We went to a penguin colony near Dunedin that people are working to conserve. They've dug trenches in the beach so that you can hide in them and watch the penguins going out or coming in from their day's hunting. It was rather a surreal experience running through the trenches chasing our weathered penguin-guide woman to the next likely spot. Anyway, the penguins were appropriately cute and amusing.
I also enjoyed seeing black swans, and there was the call of one bird that may haunt me for the rest of my life. I think it was a bird, anyway. It sounded like gentle bells jingling in many tones. Frankly, it sounded magical. (Jake and Robin are not quite as enamored of the memory as I am, though they were pretty darn impressed at the time, no matter what they tell you.)
And on that note, I will end this for today. Look out for Part 1B: The North Island or Emily, Jake, and Robin Drive into a Blizzard and Part 2: Oz.
Below is a sampling of Jake's and my photos.
pretty penguin preening party
I think this is Milford Sound, the most famous of the fiords. However it may just be somewhere random within Fiordland.
This is the gorgeous little campsite in Fiordland where we stopped and heard the amazing bird call.
Black swans!!!
Franz Josef Glacier
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Hello,
Well k.d. lang was wonderful. (I'm sorry, Grampa. I know you'll be devastated, but I was unable to get an autograph. Next time.)Cats was less than wonderful. It really didn't work for me. For those who haven't seen it, there is basically no story, half the words they use turn out to be made-up names, and basically nothing makes sense. Luckily both my flatmates knew all about the show and were able to explain these things to me during the intermission, so I stopped trying to understand during the second half. They did make a really neat pretend train at one point from the set pieces, though.
Strangers have been asking me a lot lately whether I'm Canadian. Now I am living with a Canadian, so it is possible that I'm picking up the accent to some degree. My theory, though, is that everyone's just being careful because they've learned that many Canadians over here seem to get very touchy about being assumed to be Americans.
The big news here over the last week has been that the Government officially apologized to New Zealand's Vietnam War veterans for the official reception they received on returning from Vietnam (which was apparently just as ungrateful and hostile as that they received from New Zealand society in general). They had an official homecoming ceremony for the veterans and their families this week. I understand about 3500 New Zealanders served in the war. 37 died.
For those who don't know, Jake and Robin are coming to visit at the end of June, and we're going to travel New Zealand. When next I write I should have plenty of tales to tell of our travels.
until then
Well k.d. lang was wonderful. (I'm sorry, Grampa. I know you'll be devastated, but I was unable to get an autograph. Next time.)
Strangers have been asking me a lot lately whether I'm Canadian. Now I am living with a Canadian, so it is possible that I'm picking up the accent to some degree. My theory, though, is that everyone's just being careful because they've learned that many Canadians over here seem to get very touchy about being assumed to be Americans.
The big news here over the last week has been that the Government officially apologized to New Zealand's Vietnam War veterans for the official reception they received on returning from Vietnam (which was apparently just as ungrateful and hostile as that they received from New Zealand society in general). They had an official homecoming ceremony for the veterans and their families this week. I understand about 3500 New Zealanders served in the war. 37 died.
For those who don't know, Jake and Robin are coming to visit at the end of June, and we're going to travel New Zealand. When next I write I should have plenty of tales to tell of our travels.
until then
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Holidays
Hello again,
It is currently our mid-semester break -two weeks without classes. However, I have been busy. I've started working at Borders, which I'm quite enjoying. Working in a bookstore has been pretty much the height of my ambitions as far as part-time jobs go. Before Borders, I briefly worked in a grocery store deli. My main job there seemed to be putting dozens of raw chickens on racks and into the oven, and I am glad to be done with that. I think if I ate meat before that experience I might not now.
Anyway, apart from training at Borders and doing school work, I've gone on a couple of beautiful hikes. I did one in the hills northwest of town and another today with my flatmate Theresa from town south to the sea. The one today was really nice. We weren't quite clear on how to get to the beginning of the hike so we spent about an hour following a creek bed more or less straight up a hill in the hope of eventually getting to somewhere useful. Thankfully, our scrabbling through the forest did eventually bring us to where we wanted to be (pictures below.) There is pretty much nothing that can kill you in the New Zealand bush (unlike Australia, the land of death) and it's hard to get lost since you're never far from the sea, so wandering the forest in the general direction you want tends to be a feasible option.
My classes have all been going pretty well. I'm really enjoying Brain and Behavior, as I'm constantly fascinated by all the things our brains are constantly doing.
Coming up, I'm going to go see K.D. Lang in concert on the 5th, which I'm quite excited about, and also going to see Cats with my flatmates at the end of May. I'm less excited about Cats, as it's never been high on my list of musicals I want to see and I'm prejudiced against Andrew Lloyd Webber, but hopefully it will be fun.
Hike #1
The top of this mushroom was about the size of my hand.
One of those "shall I / shan't I?" kind of fences.
Hills and the South Island in the background.
The Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship based in New Zealand. This ship is named for the original which was sabotaged and sunk by operatives of the French government in 1985 when it was part of protests against and monitoring of French nuclear testing.
Hike #2
This is what we were rewarded with after blundering through the woods.
We came round a hill and what should we see but ostriches! It was kind of surreal. Later on one of them did a very strange sort of flapping, neck rolling thing at us. We kept our distance.
Theresa and the hills.
It is currently our mid-semester break -two weeks without classes. However, I have been busy. I've started working at Borders, which I'm quite enjoying. Working in a bookstore has been pretty much the height of my ambitions as far as part-time jobs go. Before Borders, I briefly worked in a grocery store deli. My main job there seemed to be putting dozens of raw chickens on racks and into the oven, and I am glad to be done with that. I think if I ate meat before that experience I might not now.
Anyway, apart from training at Borders and doing school work, I've gone on a couple of beautiful hikes. I did one in the hills northwest of town and another today with my flatmate Theresa from town south to the sea. The one today was really nice. We weren't quite clear on how to get to the beginning of the hike so we spent about an hour following a creek bed more or less straight up a hill in the hope of eventually getting to somewhere useful. Thankfully, our scrabbling through the forest did eventually bring us to where we wanted to be (pictures below.) There is pretty much nothing that can kill you in the New Zealand bush (unlike Australia, the land of death) and it's hard to get lost since you're never far from the sea, so wandering the forest in the general direction you want tends to be a feasible option.
My classes have all been going pretty well. I'm really enjoying Brain and Behavior, as I'm constantly fascinated by all the things our brains are constantly doing.
Coming up, I'm going to go see K.D. Lang in concert on the 5th, which I'm quite excited about, and also going to see Cats with my flatmates at the end of May. I'm less excited about Cats, as it's never been high on my list of musicals I want to see and I'm prejudiced against Andrew Lloyd Webber, but hopefully it will be fun.
Hike #1
The top of this mushroom was about the size of my hand.
One of those "shall I / shan't I?" kind of fences.
Hills and the South Island in the background.
The Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship based in New Zealand. This ship is named for the original which was sabotaged and sunk by operatives of the French government in 1985 when it was part of protests against and monitoring of French nuclear testing.
Hike #2
This is what we were rewarded with after blundering through the woods.
We came round a hill and what should we see but ostriches! It was kind of surreal. Later on one of them did a very strange sort of flapping, neck rolling thing at us. We kept our distance.
Theresa and the hills.
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