Erik

So these next two weeks are mid-semester break for us here at the UoA, and I took the opportunity to rent a bike so that I could explore the city with a bit more mobility, I went out this morning to the north and meandered back, snapping some pictures along the way, this isn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason to them but here they are in chronological order:

The plan for the rest of this week is that Tuesday morning I’m going to catch a ferry out to Great Barrier Island for a 3 nights. It’s supposed to be a really nice spot for hiking, so hopefully some good pics will come out of that.

This probably didn’t make it to the US news, but it’s certainly big news down here, there is currently a nation wide peanut butter shortage in New Zealand. That’s right, for lunch I am having to stretch my mind to find an alternative to PB&J because 2/3 the letters are sold out across the country. Apparently what happened was the factory of the largest manufacturer of peanut butter in NZ, which happens to be based in China caught fire or something along those lines, so all the peanut butter shipments, and I think peanut shipments as well have stopped. It’s been a little over a week now since we’ve had peanut butter here at the dorm. I guess it’s strange how peanut butter ss just one of those foods you never really realize how much you enjoy it until it’s not there.

In addition I had  really traumatic moment in my physics class today when the pen I’ve been using to write all my notes with for the past year ran out of ink in the middle of an equation. I went to the bookstore right after class to buy a replacement ink tube, but the only one that looked like it might have been a candidate for the replacement didn’t actually fit, so the pen is out of commission perhaps for good. It is worth noting that that is the first time I’ve ever had a pen run out of ink on me, I always thought the replacement tubes were a sort of gimmick that you hope people buy thinking they’ll need them when they end up just losing the pen first anyway. I guess now I’m going to have to bust the budget and get myself another pen worth holding onto for a long period of time.

Unfortunately this last week starting on Monday I’ve been battling with a fever and runny nose and all the fun stuff that comes along with a normal illness of the sort. Today my nose is still a little stuffed and my body is still a little achy, but I’ve definitely passed the worst of it. Fortunately I was able to make all my classes during the week despite my illness, and also luckily I had no assignments that I had to spend much time on during the week, so I was able to take the time I needed to rest without falling behind. It is a good thing I’m feeling better now because next week I have two assignments due, and my first two tests, one day after the other.

I’m actually a little nervous for these tests because the general academic feel here is very different. When I got my first few assignments back I was worried to see that I was only getting around 75% of the marks on them. I realized looking over the assignments that it was partly due to some silly mistakes on my part, and partly just really harsh grading. They seem to like the all or nothing approach to grading here, which I’m not a huge fan of. The one thing to note about those percentages is that here the grading system is different, and 80-100 is an A, and 70-80 is a B, so even those marks weren’t terrible. But looking ahead to these tests I’m worried that the grading will be similar, so I’m going to be studying harder then I normally would for a test at this point in the semester with the weighting that it has. Just so no one thinks I’m going slipping, I just got my second physics assignment back today, and I approached it expecting a harder grading system, and I got 23.5/25 marks, or 94% which given the system is a really good grade. I’d also like to note that if I had not accidently skipped one part of one of the questions I’d have gotten two more marks (yes that is over 100%).

I got some sushi on my way back from the Uni today as well, it’s relatively cheap here, I got my dinners worth for about $5US and I’ll attach a pic so you all can see what I’m using to build up my reserves for a long weekend of studying.

I just got back form competing in the University of Auckland inter-house soccer tournament. We played four games, one against each of the other residence halls. The tournament was held in the recreation center, which for a University of 30,000 people, is a tiny place. The games were played on a basketball court with roll-out nets and some of strangest rules I’ve ever played under. Probably the biggest difference from normal soccer I’ve played is that there is a sort of crease for the goalie. It’s was an arc around the goal with about a 10ft radius that no one can enter except the keeper, and the keep must stay inside of it. The penalty for accidently running in was a bit harsh in my opinion, essentially they would put the ball on the crease and let the other team take a whack at it. Think penalty kick from half the normal range.

The other difference from most soccer games that I’ve played in was the absolute lack of calls for arm fouls pushing, and obstruction. Slide tackling was a big no-no, but I don’t think I saw a single push blown for a foul. Now New Zealand doesn’t have any big football players like we would normally see in the states, and I mean American football, but instead they have big rugby players, and it seemed like every team except ours had brought at least one of them along to rough up the other teams. At one point I saw a guy who was probably 6’4” 220 with his elbows at shoulder level body check my teammate, a 5’10” 140 guy from Paris, and continue to shove him out of the way until his teammate came and made off with the ball. No foul for elbows, shoving, or even obstruction, when all would have been called easily in a normal Maine High school soccer game.

Despite our team being on average probably 30-40 pounds lighter then the other teams, we managed to hold our own, going 2-2, and coming inches away in the other two games. At one point the ball bounced off a post and then bounced off the back of our keeper in a game we lost 3-2. We did not make it to the finals, which probably was a good things, because having more on the line would have been a bit dangerous considering the physicality of the game.

All-in-all it was a fun time. It was good to hang out with some of the international house people I didn’t know so well before, and it was a lot of fun to finally get a chance to play some competitive soccer a bit. I also am glad to say that I, and the rest of my team made it through the draw unscathed, with only a few floor burns and minor bruises to show for the banging around we endured.

While I’m on the subject of recreation at UoA it is interesting to note the difference in cultures from an athletic standpoint. To my knowledge the University doesn’t have any athletic teams at all. I’ve heard they have some club teams like a club rugby team that visits other schools, but if they do have actual “varsity” type teams, I’ve not heard any mention of them at all so they can’t be well populated events. Also like I said, the recreation center is very small, the actual weight and cardio areas are probably around twice to 2.5 times the size of the Bates ones. But, considering that Bates it a little more the 1/20th the size, and the rec center here is open to the public, where as Bates’ gets almost no public traffic, the gym size to student ratio is massively bigger for Bates. Also, the University has no track. No indoor track or outdoor track, also, there doesn’t even seem to be a track in the area around here, the only athletic areas I saw at the local grammar school are rugby and soccer fields. On top of that, there is no pool here, though there is supposed to be a public pool about a 15 minutes walk from the dorm. Essentially, despite Bates’ small size, it has comparable athletics facilities, Auckland boasting a bigger weight area, and Bates having tracks, a pool, a hockey rink, and several fields. It’s amazing that our obesity rate is so high in the US when our culture, at least at the university level, seems to be so much more athletically inclined…

School has definitely gotten into full swing around here, and I’m starting to have to be careful about managing time between my labs and assignments. I figured so that everyone can get a feel for what’s going on I’d throw a copy of my recent Algebraic Structures assignment up here. It was one of the longer homework assignments I’ve done. Assignments tend to be less numerous but more lengthy and difficult here. I haven’t decided if that’s a good thing or not but it’s another little difference from the way I’m used to at Bates.

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7:15 AM fire alarms are no fun at all. Especially when it’s raining outside.

Got my camera working, and got to somewhere worth taking pictures of. I went running with Carlos, my friend from Bates who ran track with me, and we headed back up Mt. Eden which is a great running loop at about 2-2.5 miles from our dorm. Still an overcast day but since I’m still waiting for one rain-free day, overcast is about as good as it gets. Continuing from about where my other pictures left off:

That’s the next shot after where I left off, the runner in the blue shorts is Carlos pulling away from me as I stop to take pics.

Nearing the top…

Looking down into the crater.

Another volcano.

A bigger volcano across the water.

Different shot of the crater with downtown Auckland in the background.

Closer shot of downtown Auckland.

A rugby game we happened upon, looked like a high-school level game, but there was a really good crowd even though it was kind of a crappy day. I don’t know if you can make it out but they are really muddy, must be from all the rain…

This was all yesterday, I wasn’t able to upload because of some strange error, but my dad helped me get everything working. Today is actually pretty sunny, and there are hardly any clouds in sight… If this keeps up then the run of days with rain will be up.

I was just doing my laundry yesterday for the second time when I realized that I neglected to relate the story of my, rather more exciting, first attempt at doing laundry over here. It was two weeks after I got here, on a Saturday morning at I think about 9:00. I am usually up early and since no one else is up at that hour laundry seemed like a good idea. I grabbed all the coins I had in my backpack, my suitcase which is my makeshift hamper, filled with clothes of course, and some detergent I had picked up earlier in the week. I made my way to the nearest laundry room, and selecting the second of the two machines because the first was in use, I put in my clothes, tossed in the detergent and put in my $2 coin to turn the machine on, as it was displaying $2.00 on the little window.

The $2 coin did not fit. No problem I thought, I’ll just make it up in smaller denominations, unfortunately I only had $1.80, and since it was too early to bother trying to knock on someone’s door and beg 20c, I decided to go to the other side of the residence and use the vending machine to make some change. Obviously this isn’t the best way to do it because in the process I have to make sure to get ripped off by spending 1.50 or so for a candy bar, or over $2 for a soda. 

I came back to the washing machine after buying a small chocolate bar for $1.20(cheapest thing in the machine) with $2.60 in small change. I inserted $2.00 worth to no effect. The little window didn’t change and the machine certainly wasn’t running. The machine spit back out $1.80 worth of my coins(stupidity tax?) and, figuring it only took dollar coins I took my clothes, covered in detergent, out of the machine, and headed back towards my room figuring I would just wait until later and find someone who could trade me for dollar coins.

I actually got lucky at this point and I ran into one of the janitors of the dorm, an older Asian man who doesn’t speak much english, but figured out well enough what I wanted without too much hand-waving on my part(he must have gotten this same thing before). He lead me out to his car (yes, in the rain) where he scrounged up 2 $1 coins, and I payed him back with my $2 coin. Then realizing I would need two more to dry them in all likelihood I got him to find two more and paid him with the rest of the loose change I had. So I headed back to the machine, very much ready to be done with this process, and put my clothes back in, closed the lid, and inserted the two coins.

Nothing.

I pushed the return button and the two dollar coins popped right back out again. I put them back in, nothing, button, out. So, thinking that it might just be a rotten machine, I pop the lid of the other one (which has by now finished), and the girl who’s stuff was in it hasn’t come by and taken it out. I am just thinking about whether it would be worth it to take the stuff out and pile it onto the seemingly broken machine when she walks in. I probably looked pretty dumb having no idea what I was doing, but after she say me try out the coins on my machine to no avail she took her stuff out of the other machine so that I could give that one a shot. Finally I was able to get the wash started (this is like 30 minutes after I headed down initially). 

After the 33 minutes where up I threw everything into the dryer, amazingly I didn’t have a single problem, and seeing the dryer indicate that it would take 60 minutes I was relieved because from my experiences at Bates 48 minutes does not do the trick, and it’s essential to spend the extra 25c to get a full hour. About an hour later I learned that NZ dryers are not as good as Bates ones, as my clothes felt probably just as wet as they were when I put them in, which really made me want to demand a refund, but I’ve never had luck with confronting machines about their rendered services so I didn’t bother. 

I stuffed my wet clothes into my suitcase I started walking back to my room wondering how I’m going to string all my clothes around the room to dry them out when I see a sign that reads “drying room ->”. I figure I might as well see what’s in there because right now anything that can help me with drying is welcome. 

Jackpot. 

The drying room is a rather large room which is noticeably warmer and dryer which just has a bunch of metal lines from wall to wall and little drying racks set up on the floor. I hung my clothes in one of the open areas around the back and came by about 4 hours later to find them significantly better dried then another $2 dryer run would have gotten them.

In conclusion, for anyone interested in doing laundry in New Zealand I would suggest you do extensive research, plan ahead, and bring a buddy, because it can get real hairy real fast if you’re not ready for it.

Here is where I am hanging my raincoat…

Google Map of Auckland

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Yesterday I was sitting in my room just after getting back from class, and Carlos, my fellow track runner from Bates knocks on my door asking if I wanted to join him and two other guys from the dorm for a run. I figured, why not? And threw on my stuff to join them. One of the guys with us is a New Zealand, and I think even Auckland native and we were following him to some mountain that was supposed to make for a good running loop (note that it was actually not raining while we were running, we got really lucky).

After following him into the suburbs and about 2 and a half miles from the dorm we came to the mountain. And me being the hero that I am I proceeded to hit the hill as hard as I could. Unfortunately for me the hill/mountain was bigger than I thought, so I was exhausted when I finally reached the top to one of the coolest sights I’ve ever seen, at least while running. The path leading to the top came up on the shorter side of a giant grassed-over crater, probably something along the lines of 300 feet deep, and quite steep. Around the edge of the crater was a path that looked out over Auckland in every direction with no visual obstruction. We could see downtown Auckland, with the sky tower and in the other direction several more, but seemingly smaller mountains and over the harbor one really big one in the distance. Truly a breath taking sight, which wasn’t great for me since having just killed myself running up it I was short of breath anyway. We hung out at the top for about 15 minutes taking in the sights, but since the sun was already down (I think I missed the sunset by 5-10 minutes) and it was getting cold we had to head back.

This morning I grabbed my camera, and my umbrella because we are supposed to be getting yet another rain storm this weekend, and I headed back to the mountain to get some pictures of the amazing sights. So, starting from the bottom, here is a little picture tour of the trek up.

The very bottom.

And that right there, is when my camera stopped working. That’s not the summit there in the background, it’s like a little hill before the final climb to the top (tricked me when I was running up it >.<). But the camera decided it wanted to stop taking pictures, and no amount of fiddling from me was able to convince it otherwise. I stood on the top for seriously about 15 minutes trying everything I could to get it to work, but nothing-doing. It was kind of funny walking around on the top in a t-shirt with all the Aucklanders being wrapped in big jackets, it was like 55 degrees out, so nice and warm to me but cold considering what they are used to.

Anyway sorry about the lack of pictures, but since my camera does seem to have kicked the bucket, unless maybe my good ol’ techno-master father can help me put it right, it would seem like that is probably the last of them for a while.