Reason number 384 why I know this is the Masters program for me...

...I just got done writing a 3-page paper on yellow-eyed penguin conservation in New Zealand.

(")>

School Days, School Days, Dear old golden rule days...

First week of class is done! I made it. Only about 40 more weeks of school to go.

Ok, so what have I been up to this past week? Hmmmm, last Saturday it was gorgeous out! Absolutely perfect. A little windy, but that's expected in Wellington. So I just spent the day wandering; through town, down on the water front, then spent a few hours just laying in the grass by the water reading. Life was good. I also discovered this craft market thing that they have every Saturday. There's a whole variety of handmade goods like knitted items and jewelry, and foods like breads and pastries. It sounded right up my alley, so naturally I loved it. I will be going back frequently.

Here's a funny; I've been looking for a job (I can work up to 20 hours per week on my student visa) and in my search I found a posting for a casting call for extras for the Hobbit! I always knew I'd be the perfect hobbit; I'm short, have brown hair, love to eat, and then, naturally, Elijah Wood and I would become BFFs. I continued to read the posting to see the where and when of the audition, I discovered some terrible, terrible news....I WAS TOO TALL! When, when have I ever been too tall for anything?!?! Huh?! By 2 stinking inches. I should have just gone and slouched the whole time. Maybe they'll need more extras and increase the height requirement because not enough people showed up that were that short. Ugh, my dream of living in Middle Earth was almost a reality. I will not give up hope!

Alright, so now we come to Monday the 30th, the day that I start school again. I was (and still am) quite nervous for classes. Yes, I have spent most of my existence in school, but after taking an almost 2 year break from it,  I don't know how hard it will be to get back into the school frame of mind. I can't come home from class and not think about it again until 9am the next morning like I have been for the last 2 years with work.

For those of you that don't know exactly what I'm even doing here, here's a quick update. I am doing a year long Master of Conservation Biology program, which is done by coursework. Typically, postgrad degrees can be completed in one of 3 ways; by research, by thesis, or by coursework. This particular program appealed to me (not just because it's in New Zealand) because it's more focused on experience than sitting in a classroom or lab. It's also pretty awesome because it has an international focus. This means I get to go to Australia for second term! It also means that most of my classmates are international students. Out of 11 of us in the program, only 2 are kiwis! The rest of us are from US, Canada, Germany, China, and Australia. So, we've got quite the mix, which I also think is really awesome! :) The first semester doesn't start until March 5th, so what am I doing here now? This is a special, one-month long course called New Zealand Conservation Practice, where we get to travel to various conservation sites throughout the country and basically get free access to see, learn, question, study, anything we want. Tomorrow starts our trip to the South Island to Kaikoura and Able Tasman National Park.

This past week we went to Zealandia, which is a conservation site just outside of Wellington, that is privately owned by the Karori Trust. We also went to Matiu/Somes Island in the Wellington Harbor. For those blog readers that followed my adventures to New Zealand the first time around, you will recall that I did a volunteer weekend to this island 3 years ago. To refresh your memory, here's the original post. I could not wait to go back to the island! I was so anxious to see if Charlie had grown at all. After we finally got to the island and were free to wander (which likely only took an hour or so, but it felt like all day to me), I took off straight for Charlie. I was the first one up the hill and didn't care if anyone else was with me. I wanted to see Charlie. I turned the corner around the old quarantine house.....and there he was!

Look how much our trees have grown! Top picture = taken last week. Bottom picture = taken 3 years ago. That's the same building on the left side of both pictures.

Charlie last week.

Charlie 3 years ago.

So, even though it was raining the entire day and I was completely soaked at the end of the day, I had a stupid grin on my face the whole time. Charlie is growing big and strong, and will be for many more years to come! (I couldn't get any closer to him because we weren't supposed to go off the path...and the trees were growing so thick, I probably wouldn't have even been able to.)

Now, I'm finally moved into my room. The person who was in there just moved out yesterday, and since I had to be out of my hostel on the 1st, I spent the last few days sleeping on the couch (which, btw, is a pull out couch so visitors are more than welcome!) The room looks pretty pathetic because all that's in there right now is a bed. I bought a desk at the Salvation Army store for $20 NZD but it's not coming until Tuesday.

View from the kitchen window. Not bad, eh? 

AND, lastly, for those of you that may want to send me snail mail, here's my new address

30 Verviers St

Karori, Wellington

6021

New Zealand

K, time to pack for my trip and finish an assignment before tomorrow.

PEACE.  (")>

It Starts.

Alrighty folks, so here's post #1 of my new adventure. The internet at Quinn's place in AmSam moved at a glacial pace, so that's why you got no posts until now, and this one's going to be a whopper, since so much has happened. Settle in, you might be here for awhile. Yay!

Anyway, here's what I've been up to since leaving the snowy landscape that is Minnesota.

Saturday (the 14th) I flew from MSP to Seattle, very uneventful. Then had a 4 hour layover in Seattle, also uneventful. (I did spend the layover in the same gate that I had to spend 8 hours in when they messed up my flight from Alaska, so I've never actually been to Seattle, but have spent more time than I'd ever want in their airport). Flew from Seattle to Honolulu that evening, landed around 10pm, and spent the night in a hotel near the airport. This hotel was pretty dumpy, and I've stayed in my fair share of dumps (i.e. Paxson Lodge in Alaska, haha!). I picked it because it was the cheapest I could find that had a free 24 hour shuttle to/from the airport. It seemed like it was probably very nice in the 60's when it was likely first built and just hasn't been very well kept. Apparently there was an episode of the new "Hawaii Five-O" shot there recently, because they had pictures hanging in the lobby. My flight to Pago Pago, American Samoa didn't leave until 5pm Sunday evening (little fun fact, flights to AmSam only fly from Honolulu on Sundays and Thursdays), so my plan was to spend the day exploring a lagoon/park thing I saw on a map before I left that was near the hotel. I stopped at a gas station/convenience store just around the corner from the hotel to get breakfast and was talking to the lady working there and when I said I was going to the lagoon she quickly said, "No no no no no, you don't want to go there. There are lots of homeless people that hang around there". OOOOOOKAY, I guess I'm not going to the lagoon! In order to get to anything else she said I'd likely have to take the bus or taxi AND since I was on limited time, I decided to spend my day reading by the pool of the hotel. :) What an exciting time in Hawaii!

Here is the beautiful view I had of Hawaii, taken from just outside my room door.

My flight from Honolulu to Pago Pago was delayed by about an hour and no one batted an eye, such is the way of Samoans. Quinn says that is both something she loves and hates about it here. :) The AmSam airport doesn't have gangways or anything, she we deplaned our giant Boeing airplane using the stairs. I stepped out of the door and BAM! was hit in the face with a wall of heat and humidity. Since big flights only come twice a week, they call Sundays and Thursdays "flight night" and a lot of people (kids mostly) come to the airport to watch the big planes land and see everyone get off. I FINALLY got through customs (remember, we're on Samoa time now) and there was Quinn, waiting for me!!! Yay! We took a taxi (which was an old truck in worse condition than the old Explorer was, ha!) to her house in Leone, which was about a 30 minute ride and I was met at her house by the crazy barking dogs. One of the dogs, Tsunami, has the most pathetic sounding bark ever. Seriously bud, you're not scaring anyone. There are also chickens roaming around everywhere, so between the dogs barking and the roosters crowing (and me sweating like crazy) I didn't really get a whole lot of sleep this week!

Monday (the 16th) the schools were closed for MLK Jr day, so we spent the day at the beach with some other World Teachers (that's the program Quinn is here through), Quinn's host family and a few of their family friends. To get there, we piled into the back of their truck (as is custom in Samoa, or as Quinn and her roommates like to say, TIS, This Is Samoa) and on the way there got completely poured on! There's another TIS; one minute it's sunny, the next it's pouring, but you just keep going. Spent the day swimming (in ocean water that feels as warm as bath water), eating, and playing in the water with the family's kids! It was quite the fun and exciting first day in AmSam! The families I spent the day with were wonderful and more than willing to make sure a friend of Quinn's enjoyed her time here. AND I finally got to meet Mavaenga, the little boy that lives next door and Quinn's new BFF!  :) (Did I spell his name correct Quinn?)

back of the truck, on the built in bench, just for people to ride on

Another TIS; AmSam is very conservative. You don't just swim in your bathing suit or show too much skin. T-shirt/tank top and shorts over the bathing suit is where it's at.

The beach we spent the day at. Notice the ground; that's ALL big bits of coral. Before the 2009 tsunami they said that this beach used to be all grass and sand, now it's completely covered in coral and rocks that extends way up the hill away from the beach, all dumped by that tsunami. 

Tuesday the 17th I went with Quinn to school. She teaches junior English classes at Leone High School. I was forewarned that Samoan high school boys can be quite cheeky, and they definitely lived up to that reputation. Before her first class even started I had an admirer and by the end of the day I had 4 love letters and Samoan drawings, done just for me! Most of her students also thought that Quinn and I were sisters, since we both have brown hair and blue/green eyes...well, basically we have eyes that aren't brown. :) Also, apparently "Erin" really isn't a name that many of them had ever heard before, because many of them struggled to say it, even after I spelled it out. "What's your name again, Miss?" "Erin." "Ureen?" "Erin." "Aren?" "E-r-i-n." "Eeron?" In steps Quinn, "Say 'air', now say 'in'. Erin." Haha, it was very funny, I've never had a confusing first name before! 

After school Tuesday they had a basketball game against Tafuna high school. Notice the outdoor gymnasium. One of the students was asking me about Minnesota and what it was like where I went to high school. When I told him I found it bizarre/cool that their gym was outdoors, he said he found it weird that my gym was attached and inside of the building. Then I showed him a picture on my camera of the snow storm last year where my car is almost completely buried in snow, he just started laughing. :)

Wednesday I decided to sleep in and just hung around Quinn's house while they were at school. Since I hadn't been getting much sleep I was pretty exhausted and needed to just rest for awhile. It rained most of the day too, so I got a little break from sweating too! Also, (and I'm warning you, this is a little gross) here's a little gauge to how much I was sweating while there; On Tuesday, I went to the bathroom at 6:30am right when I woke up. During the day, I filled my water bottle up about 2.5 times, and the next time I peed was right before the varsity bball game at 7pm! Where did all that water go?! Sweat. Blagh!

Thursday the 19th I took the day to explore. I got a ride to the market in Pago Pago with Mel and his daughter (one of the families we went to the beach with on Monday.) I was walking and they drove by and picked me up, it was about a 30 to 45 minute drive to get there. I had a small list of things I wanted to see and had all day to do it in, so I just started walking back towards the direction of Leone. I just kept walking and walking and walking and before I knew it, 2 hours had gone by, and I had walked about 7-8 miles in my flip flops, and had 2 giant blisters on the bottom of my feet! Then I decided I should probably take the bus the rest of the way back to try to save the rest of my feet. The buses are pretty awesome. They're basically a truck with a wooden back built onto the bed of the truck and are usually blasting music so loud my ears are still ringing. 

This is one of the few pictures I snapped on my long walk since it was raining off and on most of the day and I didn't want my camera to get wet. This is Pago Harbor.

Friday I went back to school again with Quinn. For 2 hours that day they had Samoan Day practice. Samoan day is a day at school where they celebrate Samoan culture and each grade has to come up with a dance/song to perform. The dancer in me found this very fun and enjoyable because I really liked seeing the traditional Samoan dancing. (Hey Quinn! Between you, Amber and Abby, one of you should try to record part of the actual Samoan Day performances for me!) Because they had 2 hours of practice, and since it was Friday, the rest of the classes that day were pretty pointless. A lot of the students just didn't even show up for school that day; TIS.

Quinn's students LOVE taking pictures of each other. Since they didn't actually do any classwork on Friday, one of Quinn's periods decided we should have a photoshoot instead. This is just one shot from the photoshoot. They wanted any and every combination of picture with me; individually, in groups of 2, some with Quinn, etc...! They stuck the stool right in the front center and said it was for me. Really guys?! I'm going to stand out enough the way it is with my palagi (white person) skin, it doesn't need to be emphasized by being front and center! Ha!

After school Friday, Quinn and I walked down to Sliding Rock beach to cool off in the ocean. All those rocks we're standing on are covered in a layer of moss/algae or something, making it VERY slippery, hence the name.

Quinn's matching shirt and sunglasses. :) Her shorts were blue too.

Having fun with Quinn's underwater camera.

The current was quite strong here...and there were some big waves. :)

Saturday was another day for exploring. One of Quinn's roommates, Abby, Quinn and I took the bus into Pago and did a short hike up to Blunts Point Memorial. During WWII they built cannons on top of the hill to protect the harbor after the Pearl Harbor attack.

"Get off the nuclear warhead" Armageddon anyone?

Pago Harbor from Blunts Point

Next stop on our adventure day was Quinn's favorite, a grilled wahoo sandwich from Rosie's in Pago, and some ice cream from a gas station down the road. It's a good thing we fueled up because we neeed it four our next stop. Quinn had heard of a village up on one of the hills/mountains that has an abandoned house right at the top that has amazing views of the island from. We waited and waited and waited for the bus that would take us up there, and it never came, so we decided to walk it. Oh My Goodness, I have never been so hot in my entire life! The equatorial sun was beating down on me, I was hiking up this ridiculous hill, and I had run out of water. My fingers were so swollen I could feel my heartbeat in them. I was miserable, but I was going to make it to the top, darn it, even if I was moving at a glacial pace!

Abandoned house frame...Abby's arms are too short, ha!

After I had cooled back down a bit and decided to take a look at what I had just hiked up. All those tiny houses in the distance, that's where we started!

OK, is everyone still with me?! Have you taken a restroom break yet? Taken a coffee break?

Next comes Sunday the 22nd. Since AmSam is very religious and conservative, Sunday's in AmSam are set aside for going to church and staying inside with your family. You're not even supposed to go swimming on Sunday. It was fine that we didn't have anything to do because I needed a good chunk of the day to repack all my junk into my suitcases for my flights the next day. To get to New Zealand, I had to fly to Western Samoa first, since no flights go to New Zealand from AmSam. Quinn and I had originally planned on taking a short vacation over the weekend together to Western, but about a month ago, Western decided to jump the international date line, but AmSam did not, so Western is a day ahead now. That kinda messed up our plans, so we decided to skip the trip and save a little money. I still had to go to Western so I waited to leave AmSam until Monday the 23rd in the morning, so I landed in Western in the early afternoon on Tuesday the 24th (even though the flight was only 30 minutes long. Confusing? Yes.) This was one interesting flight. It was a small prop plane that probably only fit 15 people, and before you get on the plane they weigh you to determine where in the plane you sit in order for it to be balanced properly. I got to sit right in the front just behind the pilots, and it was so loud! About halfway into the flight something up by the pilots started smoking...TIS! We landed no problem and I got to see some of the most incredible views of the islands.

Good-bye AmSam!

Hello Western! I love love love love this picture (if only I didn't get the edge of the window in the corner) It was soooooo cool to see the reefs from the air.

My flight to Auckland left Western the evening of the 24th (I just spent the afternoon in the airport because I couldn't check my bags until 3pm, and didn't want to bring them with me to explore). Landed in Auckland around 10:30pm, and since my flight to Wellington left at 6am Wednesday morning, I decided to try to sleep in the airport; TRY being the important word. And, I can't believe I'm going to admit this Quinn, but I got COLD that night! It's summer here and I had to put on a sweatshirt and use my jacket as a blanket! Darn AmSam throwing off my body temperature. As we were coming into Wellington on Wednesday morning, and I got my first glimpse of the city from my window, I'll freely admit to this...I got a little emotional. I think it was a combination of excitement to be back in the city I love, nerves about starting school again, stress of traveling, and lack of sleep. I didn't actually let out any tears, just got a bit chocked up.  :)

I've got temporary accommodation for the next week at a hostel in downtown Wellington so I could find somewhere to live, and I got to check that off my list yesterday. I'm living with Hanah again! Pretty excited about that. Hanah and I got on real well as roommies, or I guess I should say "flatties" as they call it here. We met for breakfast on Thursday and then went to the house so I could check it out. It's quite a way from downtown, but it's right next to one of VUW's other campuses, so I've still got a library and computer lab near to me, since you know, apparently I came here to study, or something. :) So, I've just been checking things off my list of stuff to get done like buying a phone, finding somewhere to live, opening a bank account, buying my school books, etc...Had orientation this morning so I met the other international students in my program and enrolled for classes. To get to campus I had to revisit that stupid hill that separates downtown from campus....I had to spend about 5 minutes wandering around trying to find the hidden staircase that leads to a "shortcut" up the hill. It's weird those little things that you forget. I took that shortcut at least 3 times a week last time I was here and my brain just didn't want to remember where it was. Hmmm, what else have I revisited.....TimTams! Duh. They have so many more exciting flavors here. I picked dark chocolate/mint TimTams for my first. :) Had my first flat white at breakfast yesterday (NZ's version of a latte). Kiwi's like their coffee. I think tomorrow I'm going to hike back up Mt. Victoria...if it's not raining. 

ALRIGHT! So, that's the start of my new adventure. Uffda! Sorry it's so long...would have had smaller, more frequent installments, but internet in AmSam is slow, so it wasn't really working. 

Class starts Monday!

And (as you know) PEACE. 

(")>

It's Been Over 2 Years

And I am headed back!

Since I haven't even been on this beautiful blog in over 2 years, I really doubt anyone else has, but I'll start it up again soon enough!

It's official, I got my offer of place to the Master of Conservation Biology program earlier today. I have until October 1st to 100% decide if I'm going, and classes start the last week of January 2012!

More on my decision to go back/what I've been up to the last 2 years that led me to this decision later. Time to (try) to go to sleep. That is if I can get my mind to stop thinking about it. :)

4 Months Ago...

Wow, been here for 4 months already, and I'll be heading back home in only 16 days; whew! Classes ended on the 5th of June, but I haven't taken any finals yet. They give a month for finals here, which is weird...an entire month?! That seems a bit excessive. But, whatever, it gave Quinn and I an excuse to go on another trip. My first final is tomorrow, but I needed a study break, which is how I found myself writing this.

So, Quinn and I went on an adventure of the North Island, and it rained EVERY SINGLE DAY. No joke; suuuuuper lame. Also, we were at a different beach every day on this trip too, which was interesting because it's winter here, so it's not like we could go swimming or lay out and get a tan or anything...but it was fun nonetheless.

We left in the afternoon of June 5th after our classes were done, rented a car, and that night drove up to Napier, which is on the east coast in Hawke's Bay.

We then continued up around the Bay to Gisborne, which is typically the big surf spot in New Zealand...in the summer, not the winter...it was quite cold.

Also, Gisborne is one of the most eastern cities in New Zealand, and since New Zealand is in the first time zone just after the International Date Line, when the sunrises, people in Gisborne are the first in the world to see the sunrise for the day. This was our attempt at seeing the first sunrise on Sunday June 7th, but seeing as how it was raining/cloudy, this was the best we got.

We then attempted to go north towards Whangara, which is where the movie Whale Rider was filmed; however, we are convinced that the town of Whangara does not exist because we drove towards it, and never saw any town....but we did see this magical rainbow.

An old wharf near Tolaga Bay, just north of Gisborne.

Adorable old man fishing on the end of the wharf

A random beach, somewhere near Whakatane, I think, on the Bay of Plenty.

Cool looking tree and what I'm guessing is a volcano.

In Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula. One perk of all the rain was we got to see a neat waterfall, I suppose.

Cathedral Cove, which was suuuuper cool, and would have been spectacular, had it not been raining. It was about an hour hike to get there and an hour hike back...in the rain. Cathedral Cove was where they filmed the scene from the second Narnia movie, Prince Caspian, when they first go back to Narnia. It's not very good quality, but the clip from the movie you can enjoy here. 

Bay of Islands. We were supposed to take a boat cruise of the islands, but guess what? It was RAINING so they canceled it.

Magically colorful clouds from the sunrise in Bay of Islands; however, that was the end of the magic of the sunrise, because the rest of the sky was cloudy.

Cape Reinga; the northern-most point of New Zealand. Also where the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean meet.

Looking back at the rest of the country from the Cape. You can also see the end of the 90 Mile Beach and the giant sand dunes.

The giant sand dunes (although in this photo, they don't really look so giant i suppose). We went body boarding down them, which I guess is similar to sledding down a hill in the snow, except here you get sand everywhere, which can be quite unpleasant.

Frolicking on the 90 Mile Beach, which is actually only about 55 miles long...

Cool looking fog/rain clouds

About the only place on the North Island where the leaves actually turned colors in the fall/winter.

Whangerei Falls

Ok, so now I suppose I should get back to studying. Final tomorrow; another on Friday; All Blacks game on Saturday; last final next Thursday; fly home on the 2nd. And there we have it.

PEACE.