The Adventures of the Red Baron and Mount Doom!

I guess it's been a while since I last updated this blog, but so much has been going on! I've been pretty busy writing a paper for my Maori class about why the Great Fleet Theory is wrong. Basically the Great Fleet Theory says that after New Zealand was discovered by Kupe in 950 AD, a fleet of 7 canoes came from Hawaiki (which is a mythical place speculated to be Tahiti) around 1350 AD to Aotearoa (New Zealand in Maori) and settled in different places and formed the foundations of Maori tribes today. That is the popular belief, and I essentially had to prove why it was flawed from an anthropological perspective.

Last weekend I was supposed to go on an Alpine Instructional Course with the alpine club, but there were limited spots so I wasn't able to go, so instead I planned a little roadtrip with a couple of my friends to Taupo. Our original plan was to go skydiving, but it was pretty overcast and rainy the whole weekend, so we decided to just stick with exploring. We went and saw Huka Falls again, along with a thermal spot where stem comes out of these huge craters called Craters of the Moon. Pretty creepy, but cool looking. We stayed at a really cool hostel and made a fantastic spaghetti dinner that night. We also found a natural hot spring along one of the walking trails and took a prolonged dip in the evening. One of the best parts of the trip was the drive back from Taupo when Diane drove the red baron (Richards 1992 little red car). Probably really stressful for her, but hilarious for me because since we had 5 people in the car it couldn't go over 45 kilometers/hour up a hill!

Yesterday I went with Atawhai Village to Mount Ruapehu for an awesome day of skiing! We left at 5:45am so we could get in a full day of skiing. Mount Ruapehu is better known to the rest of the world as Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings, so essentially I went skiing on Mount Doom! It was beautiful skiing weather at first with the sun shining and light wind, but then some clouds came in and visibility was greatly reduced. I haven't been skiing in years, so it took a little warm up before I was comfortable enough to try black diamond slopes. SO many people on the mountain and I had near collisions with some crazy snowboarders! I still can't get over how beautiful New Zealand is.

School is officially over for two weeks now since it is the mid semester break so I'm planning an awesome road trip up to the Northern part of the island, called the North Lands, known for the beautiful black, golden and white sand beaches. I'm taking the bus up to Auckland and then renting a car for 4 days and see where that takes me. On Saturday I'm meeting up with Richard and driving down the Eastern Coast and hopefully going zorbing in Rotorua as well. If you don't know what zorbing is you have to youtube it! So next time you will hear from me will be after this awesome adventure! Wish me luck!

On the Black Rock

This weekend was my first try at climbing outdoors on real rock and (no pun intended) it rocked! I went with the Alpine Club to Lynn Hill about an hour and a half away and climbed a little ways up a hill until we got to a patch of boulders and pretty much just started climbing from there. There were several different climbs that tested everything from finger strength to balance. The weather was perfect and the view was even better! Rolling green hills covered with sheep and the beautiful volcanic snow topped mountains in the background. My favorite climb of the day was a crack climb we did towards the end of the day where you just had to use your back and legs to scoot your way up. We finished the day off with some awesome Turkish kabobs, which seem to be really popular here.

Class is pretty much the same as always, except I turned in my first official assignment last Friday! Now I have to wait for the grade...We've been having some pretty interesting lectures about Mastitis in cows for our Animal Health class, and we had a tutorial where we had to come up with a management strategy for a farm afflicted with chronic Mastitis cases. We received our first assignment for that class today and for the paper we will have to go observe parturition and calving on a dairy unit nearby.

I'm still in the planning stages for my mid-semester break, and it looks like it is going to be more spontaneous than expected, which will probably be way cooler! Still planning on going skydiving in Taupo at some point, maybe during the break.

On My Way

So it's been a pretty uneventful week. I decided to drop my Animal Behavior class because it's a lot of statistics that I wasn't really ready for, plus it's just not that interesting. And I figure if I'm going to take boring classes I might as well do them in the states. And it frees up a whole lot of time for other things. Currently I'm trying to fill that time with volunteer work on a dairy or sheep unit somewhere, but it's a work in progress.

I had my first try at the rock wall here on campus and I can definitely tell that it's been a while. I'm trying to get some practice in so I can go on the bouldering trip and be mildly successful. This weekend was pretty relax, but we did have a lot of parties going on. Two birthday parties, one of which was at our flat, and they were a lot of fun and pretty crazy at times. I decided to stay in and watch a movie last night, instead of going to a house party, and it turned out to be a great decision because I had a very meaningful conversation afterwords. Today I went slacklining for the first time with the alpine club near the city and it was so much fun. It was very tricky because you had to use strength and balance. I progressed pretty well throughout the afternoon and I'm looking forward to next time. Pictures to come for those of you that don't know what slacklining is.

Random note: Oddly enough I figured out that what makes me miss the States is not when I talk with my friends or my mom, or look at pictures, but rather when I listen to country music, especially songs like Zac Brown Band's hit 'Chicken Fried'. :) Being around all these other cultures is great because I'm learning so much about the rest of the world, but it also helps me appreciate my own culture and makes me happy to come from where I do.

Tomorrow is another day at school, but I'm probably going to be spending more time working on my paper for my equine reproduction and breeding class about pneumovagina in horses.