Erik

I finally had to bite the bullet and buy an over priced umbrella from the school store. I had hoped to get a chance to go shopping on a day that wasn’t raining, but my luck with only being caught by smaller showers ran out yesterday and I was forced to make the purchase. I walked out of my last class to clear skies, only to have rain start coming down hard before I had walked more then 20 feet from the building. So I walked a little faster and grabbed the umbrella before heading back home. Since it also rained today that makes something like two weeks straight with at least one shower a day (and usually quite a bit more then that…). Though today had a rare celestial occurrence in that I did in fact see the sun come out from behind the clouds for about 15 minutes.

I had my first physics lab today, which was perhaps the most pointless physics lab I’ve ever done. It was not a physics lab at all, but simply a statistics assignment tweaked to fit a “lab” classification. And what’s the easiest way to do that? Just have the people doing the lab generate their own data set to work on! We flipped tiddly-winks. 200 times. And then performed far more calculations then have ever been done on a data set involving tiddly-wink flips, except for, presumably, the other groups that were unfortunate enough to be assigned this lab.

Of course since this is a stereotypical college physics lab we have the stereotypical good proctor/ bad proctor thing going on with the two guys who were overseeing the lab. One starts off by telling me off for not having a lab notebook of the type I would have to purchase from the bookstore, and comes closer then I would have imagined to making me run out and buy one before starting my tiddly-winking. The next proctor comes by later and tells me not to worry at all and that the notebook really doesn’t matter and I can just get one at my leisure and stick whatever paper I’m using today into that one, and I don’t have to copy it word for word like the first proctor told me I had to do. At another point in the lab I am doing some scratch work on another piece of paper trying to do one of the problems for the lab, and bad proctor looked over my shoulder and grabbed my attention to inform me that I should make sure that was not what I was going to be handing in to him, as it was far too messy and he would just mark it wrong. Nice guy.

The one good thing about this lab was that it really didn’t take that long. I worked with two other guys and we were able to divide the labor of the flipping so it didn’t take more then about 20-30 minutes and then we helped each other through the calculations at the end, so I was able to get out about 45 minutes early from a normally 3 hour lab session.

Oh and for those of you keeping score, it is still raining as I write this.

I had hoped to get out an explore the city a bit over the weekend, but, yet again, my plans were dashed by a whole lot of sky water. Actually I heard that this last weekend was the worst storm in Auckland for the last 50 years, with something like 90mph winds. This morning I left my room when the sun was up, and made it almost halfway to the uni before the rain started again leaving me a bit damp for my first class. Ironically one of the things I really want to go and get while shopping is an umbrella, but the rain is keeping me home. In a way I guess I’m lucky that school has started so being stuck inside due to rain just makes me more productive in terms of my studies.

So I guess I don’t have too much to add, it was overall a quiet weekend, classes are still going well, starting to get settled in and get started on some newer, more interesting material. I’ve also been able to make good use of the 3 hours worth of breaks in my schedule on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and I’ve put down a book and a half so far of at least mildly educational reading. 

If anyone’s tight with the rain gods and wants to help me out that would be appreciated.

Just finished up my first week of classes. Everything went pretty well, though it looks like my course load is going to include four of the hardest classes I’ve taken so far. Or at least it seems hard, it’s quite hard for me to judge because they are really taught very differently from classes at Bates. The teachers here often give out a printed copy of the lecture notes before class, or as one of my professors is doing, the entire semester’s worth of notes in the beginning. They also are basically only using the books as a reference, all the assignments and stuff are so far separate from the book.

In my Quantum physics class I was surprised to learn that we have a lab component, and to start the labs you need to pass an assignment showing you understand introductory statistics. I have never taken intro stats, so I’ve had to spend a few hours with the 20+ page stats crash-course booklet they gave me in order to make headway in the assignment. Great way to start off the semester.

If anyone happened to see the news piece about U of Auckland students being offered $5000NZ to perform a successful citizen’s arrest on Condoleeza Rice tomorrow when she visits the Prime Minister, it is actually a true story, in fact when I sat down for my first math lecture today this was on the desk in front of me:

Needless to say, the Kiwis are generally not in favor of the current US foreign policy, which has made me feel right at home.

This last week has also been the International House (my dorm) orientation week, for a $20 ticket you get access to a quiz night (Monday), scrabble night (Tuesday), poker (catching on?), bowling, and I think a movie night and a dodgeball tourney tonight and tomorrow. All of these events so far have had cash and snack prizes, and I’m happy to say that a friend and I took second in the scrabble tourney and won $15 dollars, so I guess in a way I’m a professional scrabble player? Maybe not… Anyway it’s been a fun week and I’ve met loads of different people from all over the place. If there is a cash prize for this dodgeball tourney I’ll probably have made a profit over the course of the week too…

I had my first day of classes today, and I’m writing this just after getting back into my room, so I’m a little tired as I’ve been gone since about 8:15 this morning. I left a little early to pick up a few books and make sure I had time to figure out where exactly my first class was, but I had no trouble with either of these things so I ended up getting to class 15-20 minutes early. All my classes look like they are going to be really interesting, and all the teachers have really cool accents which hopefully will help to keep me from getting tired as I have all 4 classes on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. My only complaint for the moment about my schedule is that I have a 2 hour break from 10-12 and then a 1 hour break from 1-2, and finding things to do without heading all the was back to my room wasn’t easy.

I did have a nice little photo opportunity this morning as I walked out the backdoor of the house near my room as saw a big rainbow in the sky.

Of course with a rainbow comes rain and I did suffer a bit of a shower on my way to class but it was nothing major. 

During my 1 hour break I walked through the park next to the University… Technically one of the parks as there is another on the other side of the campus, but it’s across a busier street… Anyway it had cleared up by then so I grabbed a few pictures while the sun was out.

That’s the big iconic Auckland building that’s on all the postcards. And since it’s tall you know there are some businessmen in the area happy to take your money and let you jump off the top, because one of the big kiwi things is bungee jumping. I don’t think I’m going to be getting into that part of the culture…

Yes this is in fact the middle of the winter.

This morning two of my friends and I decided to try out the squash court in the basement of the dorm here. After borrowing two racquets from the main desk we managed to re-locate the court inside this giant maze of a building. To my delight the court actually plays really well, and though one of the racquets they lent us was pretty much a piece of crap we had a good time. I ran the two of them all over the place because they were both beginners. I know exactly how to do it after having it done to me so often by Dave and Dad (PS dad we wore sunglasses for eye protection, no worries, I could hear you wondering from here).

After I had a shower and met them again for lunch where another friend of mine informed me that they were going to be doing a pick-up game of soccer in about 45 minutes. Not being one to turn down a good soccer game I went back to the room, threw my sweaty clothes back on and at 2:00 went down to find another 5 guys starting up a game. That’s about when I got my second shower of the day, as it began to pour down on us, but that type of soccer doesn’t like to stop for just a little rain, so we stayed until long after it stopped raining though we were all very wet. 

The soccer “field” we played on is old astroturf, and for anyone familiar with astroturf when it rains it gets very slippery, and the little bits of rubber on it get very sticky. So after I dove trying to intercept a pass I got even more wet, but a lot more dirty. When I finally called it quits after about two hours I was soaked and most of the front of my shirt was brown from hitting the deck.

The only problems with being so wet is that I only have one pair of shoes, so now I’m sitting here with the radiator cranked and my shoes stuffed with some loose paper that I found, hoping they will dry pretty well by the next time I have to use them…

In terms of my more important business here, schooling, I finally got all my classes finalized as I wanted them to, I was able to track down the math professor I needed to talk to yesterday without real trouble and so everything should be all set for Monday when I have all four of my classes through the course of the day.

After looking again at my schedule of classes yesterday I realized that one of the math classes I was enrolled in was something I had already taken the equivalent for. This lead me to attempt to re-work a schedule including the next level math class, which has a time conflict with one of my physics classes, which lead me to have to choose another physics class, which time conflicted my other math class, so I had to choose another math class… Long story short I spent a lot of time yesterday testing and rejecting different class selections and combinations until the one I think I’m going to be able to work which is:
MATHS320 Abstract Algebra
MATHS315 Mathmatical Logic
PHYS250 Quantum Physics
PHYS270 Astrophysics

Of course, my adventures didn’t stop there, as all international students need departmental approval for any classes above 100 level, so I had to get the two classes I wasn’t already approved for, Abstract Algebra and Astrophysics, approved by the faculty. It took me longer then I would like to admit to find the offices, because the Department of Science building is something like a giant maze with at least 7 floors and several distinct buildings that all look like they should join in easier ways then they do. Once I found the math faculty office I was told the person I was looking for was out at lunch and I should come back in about an hour and a half. So, I went up to the physics office, only to be told to try some professor down the hall, who was also, out to lunch. So after running down to the recreation center to sign up for a membership to kill some time I went back to the math faculty office hoping that he might have come back early. Nothing. Then the physics one. Nobody home. This time I just sat down with my iPod in front of the office and waited about 20 minutes until he showed up, I was very much zoned out when he got there but I didn’t have any problem explaining the situation and getting the very simple signature and stamp combination from him.

I then when back down to the math faculty room and waited outside it for the guy to come back. After about 10 minutes a different person then I had initially talked to came by and informed me that the person I needed to talk to about getting into a 300 level course was not coming back today and that I should try tomorrow. So hopefully sometime tomorrow I will be able to have my courses finalized. I certainly never had this much trouble at Bates…

Sorry there are so few pictures, I really want to take some of the park area that’s about a 5 minute walk from the dorm, but it’s been very dark/cloudy all week since Monday so I haven’t felt there has been a day nice enough to warrant picture taking, hopefully that can happen sometime this weekend.

We had our first official day of orientation today, which was a large information session in one of the lectures halls. From what I could see there is probably somewhere around 200 study abroad and exchange students. Nothing too special happened at the orientation, mostly just gave them a chance to tell us about the international office and some of the events and contact information we should know about.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday walking around the Auckland campus, checking out buildings and getting details like my student ID card figured out. I also got a chance to explore my dorm some more, which is one of the most confusing buildings I’ve ever been in. It’s on a hill, so the first floor of the area I’m in is in line with the upper floors of other areas, and the whole layout seems disorganized, no central hallways, some doors you can get in/out, some you can, no symmetry. In all I have spent over an hour specifically exploring and I still don’t think I know the place well. I brought my camera around with my so you can see the tennis/soccer/basketball court and squash court as well as a little bit of an exterior shot of the place.

I was able to go out and explore the campus a bit more today, and since the banks and stores were open I picked up an ethernet cable, so now I have a reliable connection, so here are the first couple photos featuring my new dorm room. Hopefully more to come in the following days.

When I finally arrived at my dorm at around 6:00 Saturday, after a 4 hour layover in Sydney and a relatively quick 2hr 45 minute flight into a rainy Auckland the first thing on my list was to take a nice hot shower. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, because when I arrived, and until about an hour and a half ago, the hot water was not working. So I flew halfway around the world only to have to suffer a freezing cold dip in the shower to wash what I could without dying of hypothermia. 

After warming back up a bit I followed a hint from the guy who gave me the quick tour of the dorm and went downstairs to check out the rugby game that was on, New Zealand versus South Africa. To my great surprise the first person I saw when I walked into the room was a friend of mine who ran track with me up at Bates sitting on the sofa. It was a very cool, “small world” moment for the both of us. We each knew the other had applied, but no idea we were in the same down, and I certainly would never have guessed he would be almost the first person I saw on campus! 

I hung out and watched the last half of the Rugby game, met a bunch of different people from basically all over the world (Mexico, Canada, Seattle, Thailand, Finland to name a few), and tested out the ping pong and foosball tables for a while before giving into my exhaustion and heading to bed. 

This morning I woke up at 6:00, so I had to wait a few hours for breakfast, but as of about 6:00 I have felt no effects of jetlag, which I’m very happy about, because it gave me a chance to walk around and check out the campus. I regret to say that I had some battery troubles with the camera so I was unable to get any pictures, because it was amazingly beautiful, just remembering that it’s the middle of winter here leaves me amazed as to what it’s going to look like in a few months. I have some pictures of my dorm room, but I’m having some trouble uploading which might well be due to the fact that I’m stealing some random wireless signal because I don’t have an ethernet cable to get access to the UoA network. Should be able to get that all working tomorrow.

It’s now almost 7:00 Sunday morning and I just woke up after some of the best rest I’ve had in a long time. The trip here was pretty grueling, starting at 1:30 Friday afternoon and ending at like 5:30 Saturday night New Zealand time. The worst part of the whole trip was probably the first flight, the 6 hours from Boston to LA where I was stuck in the window next to a… larger man… By the end of it my legs were freaking out and I was dreading the 14.5 hour flight that I was going to have to start in just about two hours after landing.

The LA connection turned out to be an exciting affair because I ended up going to the wrong terminal. I was mislead by a mixture of signage and planning, so I was pretty freaking out that after waiting in line for an hour, with less then 45 minutes left before the flight was supposed to leave, the lady told me I was at the wrong terminal. I ran over to the one she told me and there was no people and only one ticket lady still there. When I first asked her about the flight she told me it was closed, which gave me a really good scare before she realized that I already had my ticket and I was only looking for a boarding pass. 

In the end it worked out really well in my favor, because she actually bumped me up to business class, which I guess was the equivalent to a $3000 upgrade. I think the reason for the upgrade, as it was explained to me was because they overbooked the flight and there were a lot of large groups going together to the World Youth Day, an ill-named week long event in Sydney that features the pope and will probably draw more then 2 Million. according to the guy who say next to me, who was an audio technician for a news organization

Business class was amazing. It was on the second floor of a 747, and the seats had more leg room then I could ever have asked for. They even reclined to flat, so I was able to actually get some decent rest which I am never able to do on planes. The food was also excellent, I had a smoked salmon panini for dinner, with cheesecake with fig sauce and chocolates for dessert. For breakfast before we landed they served scrambles eggs, bacon, sausages, fresh fruit and granola with coffee and tea. It was so comfortable I was not even tired of sitting after the 14.5 hour flight!

I’m going to get some breakfast now because I missed dinner last night and I’m starving, I’ll try and get on later today(maybe tomorrow for everyone in the US) and put up a few pictures and finish the story of my travels.