More of the Normal?

I suppose a good deal has happened since last I wrote, but I'll try to keep it to the fun things.

I had my first real visitors of my stay here in NZ a couple weeks ago. Jessie and Vikki came to stay for a week before their departure back to the US. Jessie and I went for a great run along the water one morning and had some great sunshine as it rose over the harbour. The three of us planned to go on the coast to coast walk but got to the Domain and took a nap there on the grass in the sunshine instead. We followed this up with a perfect piece of chocolate cake and some hilarious ab exercises in the evening. I'll spare you all the photos of that occasion (mostly for Jess and my sake actually.)
Sorry Jessie, just had to put this up cause it's funny. She was making faces for my computer's camera---but the ab exercises are still the best.

I was going to go out on that thursday night (dressed and liz even put make up on me!) but I got tired by the time everyone wanted to leave at 11 so I, in my grand loser tradition, decided to stay home. The picture of what I would have looked like had I gone out is below. Liz looks very pretty though. I dropped Jessie and Vikki off at the airport on that friday for their trip back to Yakima. That was weird, especially since they arrived here in NZ only one day before me. I don't know if I can quite describe what that was like (sort of the very beginnings of the end,) but I was certainly sad to see them go. They left me their car and a phone so really I'm all set these days.

See I really was going to go out...eyeliner and everything.

That friday night turned out to be incredibly bizarre and fun. I rushed back through horrible traffic to see this comedy show with my friend emma. It's called One Man Star Wars, and as the name suggests, it's a guy performing the Star Wars trilogy on his own in one hour. It was hilarious. I wish I knew the movies really well so I could have gotten every detail, even so, it was great fun. Emma was there with a few other friends, so I got to meet a new crowd as well. Afterwards we all went out to Denny's to get dessert. I badly wanted a waffle but even denny's doesn't serve waffles here. It's hard to comprehend I understand, but it's true none the less.

So following this excursion em asked if I wanted to come hang out with her friend James and her. Turns out James is a police officer here in Auckland so we went to the police bar (it's where all the police hang out, and really it's just police) We spent a good deal of time there, which was fine because they had free desserts, pizza, and karaoke. I of course took advantage of the brownies, homemade whip cream, and the pizza. Her friend insisted on buying us wine, so that came with the deal as well. The bar didn't have ginger beer (it's a spicier version of gingerale) so I had two glasses of red wine instead. We talked with a lot of police officers that night, they were far more outgoing then the other men I've encountered here in NZ. His senior sargent, Rob, was an especially big kick. A few more of her friends showed up, but soon we all decided to leave. James gave em and I a back tour of the station where we decided to breathalise ourselves for no particular reason. Having had almost nothing to drink I was far below even the youth limit, but it was a funny experience even so. The machine is very polite, it says "Please Blow," "insufficinent blow"---if you're bad at blowing, and "stop blowing" when it's taken a sufficient sample. Em and I were ready to go home by this point (around midnight) so we walked down to the Auckland central station with James (the station he was transferring from) to catch a ride. We sat around for awhile talking to two officers on duty who were monitoring the cameras around the city centre, and finally got a ride home from one of the sargents in an unmarked police car. Originally they were joking about putting us in the back of a padiwagon. So that was my adventure for the week, possibly month.

Not much else happened the next week except for a nice knock to the head during field hockey practice on thursday. I have a nice bruise in the middle of my forehead (and a small cut), but I imagine that should be gone in a few days? Was kinda funny since it's my third head injury in the last seven months. A helmet might be in order for regular daytime activity?

Speaking of field hockey, I scored during our game on saturday! We didn't win but we played so much better, and the game was a lot more fun than usual. I also got two really fantastic hits to my right leg so I'm sporting a great bruise on my shin and ankle (one hit my shin guard, the other hit right underneath it on my ankle.) Was good fun all around and my friend Susie came so that was particularly awesome.

Eden Park

We went to a Blues Rugby game that evening (the blues is the Auckland rugby team) and they won! It was a good time with the boys and Liz since we all piled into my car and went together. We sat in the terrace (cheap cheap tickets) where people like to throw their plastic beer bottles. Two guys behind us were screaming Auckland into each other's ears and then by the end of the game one of them was completely passed out. It was pretty hilarious. Charlie and Falenczykowski (that's pronounced Fay len cha cow skee) play rugby here so they're always particularly excited about rugby related things.

Charlie and I...he's making a stupid face
Lizadoo and I at the game..with creepy Garcia in the background.
Falencyzkowski and Garcia (the alex's) looking awesome as usual.

My other flat mate, Leighanne, moved out today. Her parents have come to live here for a couple months....so she's gone to stay with them. She removed the many many many tea towel maps of NZ she had put on the wall, so things are a bit barren here today. It's a bit weird, but I won't go into that.
A random but awesome rainbow that appears outside my window now and then. It arches all the way across the city and ends on the roof literally under my window. No pot of gold, I checked.

It's monday once again, seems to sneak up on me. I have an exam tomorrow so I'm going to stop this procrastination and study some more. Sean's here in about a week so that's basically the next big thing happening around these parts (or at least that appears to be the case for now.) I have everything due before he comes, so mostly work until then.

Oberlin (and I guess everyone almost) are all finished now so congrats! I can't believe it's already May, I have only three more weeks of class...craziness. Time flies.

This is a fantastic photo of me after my first field hockey game. It was cold out so I took Liz's hood from her vest. I got some really strange looks on the street (for a good reason I think.)

"normal" life: class, a fish down my shorts, and field hockey

That's technically called a jab ---I'm in the checkerboard jersey with the yellow stick next to the red-skirted player.

Well nothing so exciting as dead sharks and lost adventures in enchanted forests has happened since last I wrote, but even so, I figure at some point I should write about the normal aspects of life…well since that’s what happens most of the time. Also, I’ve been getting some comments questioning whether or not I’m actually going to school, so I want to alleviate those fears as well.

Classes are going well thus far. The whole system here is extremely different, and not necessarily one I want to become completely adjusted to. This experience had definitely showed me how much more I appreciate the small private school education I’ve been privileged to have thus far. So many students basically makes me a number. I guess some people really enjoy being able to blend into the crowd, get by, and not worry as much about creating relationships with professors and learning from their peers as I am used to. For me this has been difficult to comprehend. I miss seeing my profs, talking to them, having them know my name, and well, the general discussions of class. I know this may be hard to believe but I don’t think I’ve said more than 10 words in class since I got here! I bet Harden especially can’t comprehend this, but it’s true I swear. Even so, the lectures are generally good and I’m learning. My friends who are students here can’t even begin to understand what kind of world I come from. Often they sound so excited when I tell them what Oberlin is like in the classroom. Some of them are planning on studying abroad so hopefully they too will have the opportunity to experience what I’ve had for so long. I know everyone has different needs, but in NZ, there really is only one option: huge school.

So other than this, grading here is so different than home. I don’t know how exactly to describe this, but I know a lot of kids in my program aren’t digging it too much right now. When they send grades back to our home schools they usually scale them up since the system here is so different. All this is going just fine for me thus far, knock on wood…

I’ve spent the past two weekends here at home in Auckland. Last weekend we had Friday off for Anzac day. This is a holiday to celebrate the soldiers of the New Zealand and Australian armies who fought in WWI. We went out Thursday night for awhile. This was mostly good fun since I hadn’t actually been out since my birthday. When we got to the club I ended up having to convince this huge Maori bouncer to let my two guy friends (alex and alex) into the club. He was being weird and racist, but after awhile he was like “okay, you’re good, they can come in.” There was actually no premise for him first turning them down, he just didn’t like their look or attitude or something. I was standing right next to them the whole time, I think he was just intimidated by their size and that they were laughing? Who knows but it was weird. The five of us (Liz, Alex, Alex, Charlie, and I) sat around all day Friday napping and watching movies together, it was great. I would like to note that I got home from field hockey practice at 10:30 pm and everyone (susie, nancy, charlie, alex, alex, liz, and jay) was waiting for me, so I had to get dressed having not showered. So I'm really gross, but I sort of pulled it off....only sort of. That's Susie in the middle and Liz on the far right in the shadows. We're in the cab on the way to the club. Faleczykowski is on the far left out of sight, and nancy's up front.


Saturday morning I went to breakfast with my friends Katya and Emma. Kat is from LA and Emma from NZ. We had this assignment for geography involving going to two cafés so we took the opportunity to have breakfast together. Afterwards I met up with my friend Linn, she’s from Sweden, for breakfast at the same place followed by some stream sampling for invertebrates. The breakfast thing was weird, but I ate when I first woke up, then only had tea while Kat and Emma ate, then got hungry again by 11 and ate with Linn. It’s understandable since I eat most all the time. But anyways, we went sampling at our stream in the domain. This is also for a class. While we were digging through the tray of our sample looking for whatever, this fish jumped out and landed in my shorts. Linn watched this all happen and screamed “oh my god there’s a fish in your shorts” it landed as she finished the statement and I got up screamed and tried to get it out. Finally it fell out and landed on my camera case. It was funny, and we plan on including this in the sampling procedure section of our report.

When I got back around 1:30, Liz and I got ready to go to Charlie’s rugby game. This turned out to be quite the adventure. I was reading Ender’s Game (fantastic book) while Charlie wasn’t in and because I couldn’t put it down, and then all of a sudden I just felt someone running at us so I grabbed Liz and pulled her backwards (we were sitting next to each other right next to the field.) The huge rugby players stepped on our feet, but they completely knocked over the old man next to us. I felt horrible because they actually injured his knee and he couldn’t get up. The other team was really hot, so that made for good viewing. Most everything else about the weekend was low key and involved homework on Sunday.

This weekend has also been pretty low key. I spent Friday evening at a small potluck dinner party for Kat’s bday. I hadn’t met most of the guests but we had a great time and ended up hanging out for a good five hours. I gave them some rice krispy treats I received in a package. They had never had them before and loved them. There were some kiwis, some French, and the Americans had already had them of course. I was thankful for the taste of home. Yesterday (Saturday) I walked forty minutes to Mt. Eden (an area of the city) to take an abseiling course. I didn’t have any cash so the bus was out of the question. It was a bit cold, rainy, and windy, but I learned a lot and had a good time all the same. Abseiling is essentially repelling (lowering yourself off a high place.) It’s beneficial because the rope stays static, reducing the wear caused
by the friction of having a belayer lower a climber. It’s what they do in heist movies.


I wish I were number 3 but alas, I got 14 and a size 16 skirt.... (it's rolled extensively so it's not down to my knees.) I think it's cause I'm American : )


My field hockey team had our first real game in the evening. We shan’t discuss the score. In short, I did wind sprints for an hour as the three girls on our team who refused to pass would take the ball up, lose it and then I would, as a left inner (forward/link) have to get all the way back on defense. You might be able to tell that I am kind of frustrated by the lack of trust, but such is life. Got a good workout all the same. It also turns out that my team is extremely unfit, but I think I already had an inkling of such. Oh, and I almost scored (the closest anyone came!!!!) The goalie dove for this save and then I chipped it over her but it hit the post ahhhh it was so good though. Anyways, that’s all there is to say about field hockey except that Liz and Charlie showed up for the end of my game. That was really sweet, and I hope they can come again to see some better action. Photos curtesy of Charlie.


Today it rained all day long. I stayed inside except for one adventure down to one of the many asian food markets to get some chocolate ice-cream. The first chocolate ice-cream I can recall having since I got here. It was perfect in every way. I think that’s all I have to say about that. Hope y’all are well.