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.

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

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

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

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

A lake seen from Mt. Tongariro

Fellow hikers silhouetted

Mt. Ngauruhoe and Mt. Ruapehu seen from Mt. Tongariro

A vista

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.