Adventures of New Zealand: It's Been A While...

It's Thursday, 30 July, I have been here for 3 weeks already, and today has been a good day. It was sunny and warm today which is a nice change from the cold weather we've been having down here. I had class today and was done at 1 (which is 8 p.m. back in the midwest), since then I've been chatting with people and doing some homework. It was nice to catch up with people back home, especially since I haven't talked to some of them since I got here. There's not much planned for tonight, more homework and possibly the stoplight party at the Foundry. That should be a lot of fun. A bunch of us are probably going to go. Today, I realized how much I really can't stand my one art lecturer. She's awful. She can't get through one power point presentation that she made in 50 mins, she always runs out of time. She should time them so that she has to change topics when the slides do haha. But next week should be good cause it's the other lecturer, he's funny. He spent 5 mins yesterday saying um and pacing trying to find the right word ha!

Let's see yesterday, I went to the Tramping club meeting, which I am now apart of. They're doing a bunch of tramps this weekend, some easy ones and some more difficult ones. But I'm not going on any of those. Rachel, myself, and some of her friends are going to do a day tramp out at Sumner, which takes us into New Brighton. I'm excited because I haven't been to New Brighton yet. I also saw Rebecca and Fabian last night and that was fun. We hadn't hung out in a couple days and it's just more fun with them around. =D. I was studious and went to the library, I started reading the articles that I printed off for my essay due next Friday. It should be an interesting essay, it's going to be on the whistles of the bottle nose dolphin. I've already learned something from it, which is what I'm supposed to do right, I am in college. But each dolphin, especially wild dolphins, have a signature whistle which is distinctly different from everyone else. How cool is that!!! So I have to finish that. Also I was definitely manhandled last night. Literally. Fabian flipped me over his shoulder and threw me onto Rebecca's bed to then body flop onto me. Rebecca then decided to join and flop on top of Fabian, so I guess it was more of a Kait dogpile. Later that night Chris decided it would be a good idea to flip me over and carry me into Mary's bathroom to threaten me with a swirly but that didn't happen he put me down unharmed.

Tuesday was a good day too. So far everyday has been a good day, minus Sunday but I'll come back to that later. Tuesday I had class all day, along with a lab. I went to lab thinking I was going to dissect a pigeon (poor George =( haha), but found out I was going to be looking at amphibians and reptiles. I got to see a salamander that is completely aquatic (completely lives underwater) with some funky looking gills, two frogs that are also completely aquatic and then compare those with a terrestrial frog. It was really funny watching the aquatic frog try to jump across the floor, because their legs aren't positioned for that. It kind of just belly flopped and made a mess, haha. It was one of those you had to be there moments I guess. Tuesday nights at the Foundry (the campus bar) is quiz night so I once again went and participated. It was fun, but the questions seem to get harder and harder each week. I mean the animal category should be relatively easy right? Wrong! The questions were ones like: what is a baby eel called? what is the national bird of India? what animal does cashmere from? I mean come on how many people can answer those questions without looking them up.

Monday was kind of foggy, was still in my cold fog. I'm not completely over my cold but it's getting there. I had 2 classes and my exercise & health lab. That was interesting we did body fat composition and skinfold tests. I had to poke and prode this poor guy (I found out his name is Richard) that is my classmate. First I had to mark him with a pink marker, couldn't find a more manly color but it worked. I realized about half way through the lab that I will have to do this in my line of work after grad school, so I better get used to it. I know I've prolly said this before but I'm really enjoying my Exercise & Health class. Moday night I went over to Gem and Mary's where Gem made pasta bake. It was delicious!! Then Sarah came over, made brownies and gave me a backrub!! It was nice. Chris then came over with chocolate, gave all four of us girls a piece, and according to Gem "satisified 4 girls at once"! Hahaha that one will live on! Golden Tom (he's from Golden, CO) came over, I went home got Tom (my flatmate) and went back over to watch Slumdog Millionaire! (I heart that movie!!! =D). We then searched for a bunch of YouTube videos, and after that I came home and went to bed.

Sunday was a not so good day. I woke up with a really bad cold. I went to the computer lab to work on my lab report, came back and slept for 2 hours. I finished my lab report and started to talk to Ben, who offered to make me dinner. I definitely took him up on the offer cause I was not in the mood to cook. So he made me fish and chips in his toaster oven. We then proceeded to watch Family Guy and some other shows like that. I then watched my first episode of Curb Your Enthusiam, which was alright, it's not my favorite show but I'll watch it if it's on. All of this was fuzzy cause I was drowsy from the Nyquil I had taken and just being sick in general.

On Saturday I went to Hanmer Springs with Gem. We went and sat in the Hot Springs all day, which was amazing. It was so relaxing!!! We had lunch at Saints Cafe, where I had a really good pizza, and the good part was that I had leftovers for at least 2 more meals! Saturday night was a quiet one. Heather and Cameron had made dinner and offered me some. It was a good curry pasta dish. After dinner we watched Hot Fuzz, it was funny and I hadn't seen it before. I didn't realize that the guy that's the main cop was the guy in Shaun of the Dead. After that we watched Fight Club, which is a really good movie. "The first rule of Fight Club is that you do not talk about Fight Club, the second rule of Fight Club is you do NOT talk about Fight Club!" It reminded me of Secret Window with Johnny Depp (he's hott!).

Friday, I went to class and came back and slept for an hour. Then I went shopping to get ready for Ben Reidie's Birthday Bash we were having that night. That was a fun shopping trip! Dollar stores are the best places to get the most random and funny crap! Friday night was Thai and wine night. I made the mistake of wearing my new black stillettos to walk to the restaurant. Let's just say after we got the restaurant the shoes came off and stayed off. Dinner was fun, because Heather, Ben, and Ben ordered all their curry dishes extra extra HOT! And boy, did they get what they asked for! After dinner, we came back and partied, some drama went down but that's all behind us now. I have moved on and don't care anymore. Otherwise Friday was a good day and everyone had fun!

Quick overview of last week, let see. Last Tuesday (the 21st) was club day and that's where I joined the tramping club. I didn't get a chance to see all the clubs Uni offers because I had class. But that's ok, I think I might join the Climbing Club, which is a rock climbing club. I think I've decided to join the Rec Center here, they have a lot to offer and it's cheaper if I join. Quiz Night was tough, The Misfits only gained 29 points over 5 rounds! We really sucked last week. Fabian and Tom climbed the library on Thursday, it was really cool. The library here is 11 floors and huge. They started on the 6th floor and climbed up to the roof. It's not an easy climb there's literally nothing to grip or push off of. But they did it and were successful! Thursday I can't really remember, was pretty uneventful. I did go to the Foundry and shoot some pool. Anna and I lost two games, then Heather and I won but it wasn't exactly a real win (thanks Anita! hahaha). Anita wanted to shoot and so she did but she pocketed the 8 ball so we lost but continued the game anyways cause it was Ben's birthday. Tea Time on Thursday was fun and Rebecca turned Rachel and I onto Best of Bootie Remixes. Some are really good but some are not so good.

Plans for this weekend: Rumors of ice skating at the Art Fest on Friday Night, Southshore Walk to New Brighton on Saturday, Coraline Saturday night?, Boogie Nights/Town late Saturday Night?, Sunday TBA.

Oh and Fiji is definitely on! I think I've conviced Rebecca to go to Australia for a week over break.

Tom climbing the library last Thursday (the 24th):