22 Aug

Hello, friends. Coming at you from a sunny Dunedin. I think it'll be good enough that I'll be able to run outside today, and not inside on a treadmill that cuts me off after 30 minutes (not really complaining though). Kinda crazy that just last weekend we were snowed in. This weather is like bipolar or premenstrual or something. Just can't seem make a decision on what season it is right now.

The other day I found out that the french guy that we almost beat the shit out of for saying some really bad things about America (like I had decided to leave out the shit he said about 9/11, which he probably should've been punched for) is actually neighbors with my cousin (that other asian guy from my school) and a bunch of my friends. In fact, my cousin's girlfriend lives WITH him. And he agrees; the guy is a huge asshole. I discovered that he lives there when I was walking by and saw a guy a recognized, politely said "'sup man" and kept walking, ONLY TO REALIZE THAT HE WAS THE FRENCHIE FROM QUEENSTOWN!!!!. I silently, tucked that little fact away within my brain, unsure of whether or not he recognized me, but he should ever feel like following the, "I will find you, and kill you" remark he had shouted in parting to my friend, I think he's in the wrong neighborhood for it. There are a lot of Americans on that block, and I think one other french person: a girl (who is also our friend and knows about the incident and sided with us. lol.).

This past week was pretty uneventful. With the cancellation of school on monday (due to snow hahaha) I got out of two of my four weekly lectures (only 4 last week, this week I have 5 because of the alternating schedule my math class has). Throughout the course of the week I then decided that I didn't feel like going to my other math lecture or my other philosophy lecture. I went to the tutorials (which are kind of like labs, or tutor sessions), but I realized on friday that I had gone to NO LECTURES that week. I had been to every tutorial and also my physics lab, but I had totally skipped all lectures. At the end of the week, I also found out I had managed to noticeably increase my grades in all classes. I'm not sure I've figured out how school here is supposed to work...I guess if I get good enough grades, I don't really care. In any case, I now have a B-something in physics (up from a C-something), a B(minus probably) in math (up from a C) and finally actually have a grade in philosophy (but I haven't gotten my essay grade yet, but it's probably better than a C). Yay for my adequacy!

I'm super duper excited for this weekend. On saturday I'm going to be waking up at 6:30 am to walk downtown and get on a bus. That bus will take me to Christchurch (a 6 hour drive) and then fron there I'll take some good old public transportation to the Christchurch International Airport (CHC). Since I have a few hours in between my flight and my bus arrival I'm hoping to check out some of Christchurch and see if any of the earthquake damage is still real apparent. Could be real interesting actually. Anyway, from CHC I'll be headed to Auckland, where we'll be hopping a plane to Apia, Samoa for the week. See what I didn't tell you is that this weekend is the start of Spring break (or midsemester break for those of you who get confused by Spring in August). My friends and I are going to spend a week on the warm beaches of Samoa, living in Fales. Here's a wikipedia picture of a Fale for your visualization convenience.

Try not to be too jealous.

The place we're staying has everything I could ever want. Free coffee, tea, bananas and mopeds are available to rent. I don't think I'll want to leave. There's even tennis courts nearby, but I don't think I'm going to feel too much like hitting when I can explore this tropical island instead (perhaps on a moped).

Samoa is on the other side of the international dateline too, so I'll be back in the same day as the US, actually behind you guys in time, rather than 19 hours in the future.

But before all my dreams of riding a scooter named Sasha around an island in the sun, cruzin with my crew can be realized, I have to get through this week. But even this week won't be so bad; I'm in New Zealand LOL. So here's to you mom and dad, and here's to this.

Catch ya'll on the flippity flop, in some flippity flops later.

16 Aug

What's up guys? How's the world's best democracy treating you all? In recent news, Pawlenty dropped his candidacy for President after some of his friends were more popular than him, and Google is going to buy Motorola.

This weekend I was in Queenstown. It's called the adventure capital of the world. It's a nice little ski town up in the mountains that also happens to have a little bay and about 4 bungee jump spots around.

My friends wanted to go up saturday morning and leave sunday, but I thought that sounded dumb. I wanted more than just one night in Queenstown. So I went up with these 4 girls I knew who were going too and spent the night in a hostel with them. It was pretty interesting being the only guy in a room full of girls, and even more interesting when my friends came up and I moved into the place they were staying at and there happened to be only one girl in that room (she was our friend who came with us so it's chill). I mean I guess it wasn't really that interesting. The ride up was actually a lot of fun, we stopped in a couple places just to chill and check it out. These girls were all at least two years older than me, but still acted like teenagers (not the annoying kind) so it was good times.

My friends bungeed from Nevis, which measures in at 134m. It sounded so cool. I might be reconsidering my choice to not jump if we ever make it up there again.
While they were jumping (we didn't go with because it costs $50 to go up and watch), we went on a little hike up to the top of the mountain that over looks the city.

It was super cold (even more so since I was sweaty from that insanely steep hike), but the view was pretty cool.

That day we also played some frisbee golf on a course they had in a park in town. I don't have much else to say about that...It was fun though.

Later on Saturday we heard about this massive storm that was supposed to be coming in that would supposedly strand us in Queenstown until Wednesday. That freaked the girls out, because they all had something they needed to be doing this week, so they left. I wanted to stay because my friends were there and I had already paid for my room, so I did.
We had a great time that night and I'm really glad I stayed. A friend got hit on by some 55 year old lady and got a huge kick out of it. He then went on to almost get in a fight with some french douchebag. He kept his cool and was mostly laughing at the guy when he was expressing his dislike of America, which only made the frenchie more angry. If the guy would've thrown a punch, not only would the bouncer have had his head in a headlock in split seconds, every American (and there's tons of us all over this country, especially in a tourist town like Queenstown) would've been there to back him up. That frenchie would've had a real rough night. Luckily (or maybe unfortunately), things chilled out, and I asked frenchie's other European friends to grab him and walk him the other way down the street (this was after they got kicked out and we had left) while we walked a different way down the street.

We had agreed to wake up Sunday morning at 7 to hit the road before (we hope) the storm came in. When I woke up, the sky was still clear and I wanted to go back to sleep, but we were rallied by someone and eventually we were on the road (most of us were hung over, I think our girl friend was still drunk - although, I'll also point out that our driver and navigator went to bed early and were feeling find). We were an hour into our voyage when the snow started coming down. It was a very good decision to get out that early. In New Zealand, if they get just an inch or two of snow, they start shutting highways down. Bunch of pansies here.

So by the time we were back in Dunedin, the snow had blanketed the ground and the people were freaking out. OMG SNOW WE HAVE NO MOBILITY...
School was cancelled on Monday because of the snow. Apparently, two inches is too treacherous.

I talked to a kiwi about the snow yesterday, and she told me that in her 5 years at this school, she's seen snow like 4 times, and it's happened twice this year already. So this kind of shit is out of the ordinary. GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

8 Aug

I turned in my first essay in about one and a half years today. All the philosophy essays have to be turned in at the philosophy department building (house?) which is a block off campus amidst a bunch of raggedy old flats. You also have to sign a plagiarism contract thing and attach it to the front of the essay. I guess they're pretty strict on plagiarism here and I couldn't help but worry as I slipped the essay into the box if I had cited everything I was supposed to and done it adequately as to not get kicked out of school. I'm sure MLA format was sufficient, and that the 5 times I quoted something I cited it (I'm pretty sure). I think the TA is reading them anyway, and he always comes into tutorial with some kind of cutoff sweatshirt like he's some jock out of the eighties. He's gotta be chill.

As it turns out, I've been looking at the wrong thing when finding my math assignments. The thing I've been reading is like 3 times as long as the actual assignment sheet. I was wondering why my grades were so bad, I guess I've been straight up doing the wrong problems. LOL. My math grade is sitting at like a 56% (WHICH IS A C LOL), and I guess not knowing what the assignment is can greatly contribute to this.

My life seems to be getting pretty boring. Sorry I don't have much more to report this time. This weekend I think I'll be heading to Queenstown where the highlight will probably be watching my friends bungie jump. I don't think I'll be doing it (yeah I'm a pussy), for a couple reasons: 1) it's like $200; 2) I'm not super into 10 second free falls, and I'm not sure I want to spend the money to piss my pants. If I was the kind of person that would really enjoy that, I would gladly "invest" the money in the experience. But since I'll likely black out after the 5th second, I don't think it's worth the money.

That's all.
Peace out!

4 Aug

Damn, it's been a long time since I've done one of these. Maybe I'm feeling less dependent on it. Like I less and less require connection with the world of the northern hemisphere. So that's probably good.

Jeez, I guess that also means that a LOT of stuff has happened since my last post. There's definitely not enough time for me to tell you about it all. I posted quite a few pictures on facebook of some of the adventures I've been on, but for those of you who haven't sold your souls and identities to the great social network, I'll be sure to put up a few here. There's definitely some gems that you have to see.

Maybe I'll just run through the highlights of the last week.

Turned in my math hw late, but pretended to be confused and sad about it and it was accepted. Score.
That dubstep concert was really dumb. The dude didn't go on until 1:30 and by then most people had left. I'm pretty sure the entire audience (which was literally like 50 people) was international students that weren't clue yet to the fact that this guy was nobody. It was still a really fun night, though.
Last weekend we went to the Otago Museum and hiked Mt Cargill. Both were awesome. What attracted us to the museum was the butterfly exhibit where you can actually walk around in a butterfly room with butterflies flying around and landing on you and stuff. But when we got there, easily the coolest thing there was the one made for kids. They had this mind game where the objective was to relax your mind and whoever was most relaxed won. It kept track of your brain waves or something and moved a metal ball towards the person who was more tense.

I never lost a game. I've got meditation skills these hakujin can't begin to compete with.

Here's some pictures of me in the butterfly exhibit. They were actually kind of scary, these butterflies. Like flying praying mantises coming right at your eyes. It's okay when they land on your shoulder, but face is a no-no.

We heard they like the color red. So I had to rep the Asian Student Association tee.

The next day we hiked Mt. Cargill. It isn't really a real mountain, but it has some really nice views from the top. On the way, we stopped at a place called the Organ Pipes, which is a columnar basalt formation. These kinds of formations are crazy cool. Here's a few pictures there.

From there we made another stop at a place called Butter's Peak, just because it was on the way. One of my friends was like, "It looks kind of dumb." And we were like, "Uh, no it looks kinda tight." So we told her to shut up and we went. And it was awesome.

That's what it looked like from the bottom. Looks awesome, right?

Then someone peed up there and it was the most epic pee I have ever seen caught on photograph.

Eventually, we got to the top of Mt. Cargill, but honestly I think the previous two stops were way cooler. Here's some pictures from the top of the "mountain" though.

That's Dunedin in the distance there in the bottom picture. Pretty sweet stuff.

I'm hungry now, so I'm gonna be done with writing. This weekend, I don't have any huge plans. I was going to go to the Catlins, but the car ran out of room, so I'll have to hit that place at a later time. It's supposed to sleet out there anyway and I have a philosophy paper to write, so I'm not super upset about it. Yeah, that's right, I have a paper to write.

I'll keep warm if you guys keep cool.
Peace out.