Spring Break 2009, Take Two

Hey everyone!

Okay, since certain people have been bugging me about the blog and not accepting my I-never-do-anything-worth-posting excuse, I guess I’ll have to write something, lest Allison decides to come after me. Incidentally, I received a package from her today, containing Pop-Tarts (which they do NOT have in this country), Gushers, an amazing mix CD, and a two-page letter. I would not complain if anyone else felt like sending similar presents my way, just saying.

It’s the first Friday of spring break—read it and weep, kids, I have TWO weeks of SPRING break when you’re all starting classes in the Southern heat. Heck yes. I was planning to go tramping with Rachel, Dale, Alex, Matt, PT and Nora this week, but then at the last minute I remembered that I forgot that I hate being so intimate with nature and not being able to shower on a regular basis. Plus, every group of adventurers needs someone to play mom for them, making dinner when they get back and calling in the state troopers, or whatever they have in this country, if they fail to make it home on time. I am gladly filling this role. The moral of this story is that if one is not outdoorsy, one should avoid New Zealand. Guess I missed the memo. Love for the Lord of the Rings will only take you so far; I should really be in Europe looking at art. But since I am here, I’m enjoying all the fantastic people I’ve met and the beautiful scenery that still takes me by surprise every time I look outside. If I squint, I can see the Southern Alps from my bedroom window. How cool is that? And now that the weather is warming up, it will only get better.

On Tuesday, my friend Katie and I went into town and had breakfast, then wandered CHCH for a few hours. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. We decided to take the ferry from Lyttelton to Diamond Harbour, which I did once before with Jas, but it’s so beautiful there that I would go again and again. Also, it’s two dollars for ice cream. You can’t go wrong. Other than my pictures from Diamond Harbour, I don’t have much to show for this week. Rachel kindly lent me her computer, as mine has finally made it to Auckland via courier post, but they’re waiting on a new fan to arrive (good thing we’re right next to Asia, where the fan lives). I’m good friends with the Lenovo technicians in Auckland now. I call them all the time to ask about their progress on my stupid Thinkpad, so we’re on a first-name basis. There may or may not have been a day this week that I spent five hours chatting on Skype. God bless Rachel is all I have to say about that. Tomorrow I’m going back into town to check out a three-story used bookstore, and I’m so excited! (Even if I am taking a break from English classes this semester, I’m still a huge nerd when it comes to reading.) Also, the craftsy people will be out in full force at the Arts Centre, and I’m going to spend my hiking money on cool stuff for Christmas presents. Yes, I am already thinking about Christmas, so sue me. I love Christmas. Katie and I are planning to throw a Christmas party sometime next month, because we can. It’s going to be sweet as.

I haven’t been totally lazy this week. I wrote a 1500-word paper on Russian history. I started it a week ago, and the topic was so straightforward that a child could have written it. But being a horrible procrastinator, naturally I didn’t finish it until last night and then turned it in at 10 til 5 today. I really can’t be blamed, considering the staggering volume of Scrubs episodes they have on Youtube. And the Roman myth paper our lecturer told us to start a month ago? Started and finished it in one day. I am that good. Okay, Rachel is far more impressive, writing both these papers in the span of three days, while still getting ready for a week of tramping. We’ve both decided that with two years of double-majoring at Work Forest under our belts, a stint in New Zealand public education system is a piece of cake. We work hard on essays and tests, but day-to-day reading is really a waste of time. Why read in excruciating detail about Russian architecture when you could be watching Anastasia, or baking cookies while having a dance party? This is what we figure.

We’ve almost reached the halfway point of our time here already, not that I’m counting. As hard as it is to believe, classes are half done, with another six weeks to go before we finish on 16 October. I’m excited about the month of September, because it goes like this: another week off (road trip perhaps?) and three weeks of class, during which I have two 500-word assignments due—read: I’ll spend perhaps an hour on schoolwork next month—then I finally have my weekend on the sheep farm with Dale and Alex, and the weekend after that, our whole group is going river rafting. I’m so pumped. October is going to be a little more intense: four essays, a test, and a final. I have 11 days between the end of classes and that first final, so I might go WWOOFing for a week. Willing Workers On Organic Farms is an organization that will set you up at a farm, vineyard, etc. where you’ll work in exchange for room and board. If I like the sheep farm people, I might just go back there for a bit. We’ll see. Rachel and Briana and I are thinking of flying to Sydney for a few days between exams as well, as if I ever study for finals anyway.

Oh yeah, if anyone wants to help me enjoy the one football game of the season I can experience live, let me know, and my Pops will get seats for Wake at Duke on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Dad says the entire Duke team just had the swine flu, and hopefully they will play even worse that usual this season! Fingers crossed.

Please, please, please help me harass Rachel into writing about her tramp on the blog, for heaven’s sakes.

One last thing: I would like to compliment the Intervarsity gossip chain for its ridiculously fast timing at getting news to me on the other side of the world. Well done, people!

love, hugs and kisses-
Carie Mac

A chill couple of weeks in NZ

Hey everyone,

Time for another update from En-Zed, although we have been pretty low-key these past few weeks and there's not much to say. I'm supposed to be reading The Odyssey, so naturally I'm finding other things to do. The weather this weekend has been miserable, cold and grey and depressing. Rachel is out tramping in the rain! She would be. She's become a tramping fiend. The rest of us staying at Ilam over the weekend are having fun though- we went to a rugby match on Friday night, and Canterbury absolutely massacred the other team. We got the cheapest seats, for $16, and sat wherever we wanted because the stadium wasn't full. It's not the same as football, but rugby helps cheer me up about missing Wake's football season. Last night Nora bought The Fellowship of the Ring: three hours of group bonding : ) Also, last Wednesday, Alex, Jas, Nora, PT and I went to hear some Beethoven piano/cello sonatas at the Arts Centre, which was awesome. We like to get our culture on.

So, last weekend was the adventure weekend, which I hear was a lot of fun. They rode four-wheelers for part of it and also went to Kaikoura and saw baby seals. (If you happen to talk to Rach, try to make her write her own post. I can't keep writing about all these events I didn't go on! I'm not that good!) Here's what I was doing last weekend: writing an eight-pg paper on the role of women in Nazi Germany. Enough said. Rachel and I have a paper on Ovid due for classics this week (Rach also has like three others due this week), which our grumpy American prof told us to start on a month ago, but being Wake students, we haven't looked at the assignment since she handed it out. I should probably find that. Writing it will be tricky seeing as how my Thinkpad bit the dust yesterday, and I may have to send it back to Wake for repairs. I love my life. Fortunately I have a ton of great friends here who are very generous with their computers. One more week of classes and we're out for a two-week spring break! Still not sure what we're doing for that. Knowing us, we'll decide next Saturday or so.

Thanks to everyone who has written us letters! Seriously, it makes our day, and we will write you back.

love, love, love-
Carie and Rachel

Reflections on Nature, School, Cookies, etc.

Hey everyone!

This past weekend I bummed around CHCH and Rachel went tramping with CUTC. Her group got pulled down by the current in the river and her Nikon more or less drowned : ( Frankly we're all more impressed with the bruises on her legs. Her paintball wounds from this past spring can't hold a candle to the battle scars she'll have to remember this adventure. They bushwhacked a trail for themselves, getting pretty scratched up by thorns in the process, and Rach still has splinters in her hands. She's going to write a post with more details hopefully soon.

While Rach was out risking life and limb, I was pretty much sitting in my flat watching Scrubs on Youtube. Sounds like us, right? On Sunday, though, I went to a nearby town called Lyttelton with my friend Jas, where we took a ferry then walked around looking at nature for a few hours. I'll put up some pictures of that soon. It was nice to get out of Ilam, although I should have been working on my two essays about the Iliad. (But who are we kidding, I'm not going to finish those til it's absolutely necessary.) I'm so not in school mode right now, and I'm determined not to be until, say, February, when Wake picks up and I'm taking seminars for my majors and there's no escaping it.

I've given it a lot of thought and decided that while nature is very lovely, I mainly prefer it in small nonfatal doses. One of my favorite things to do is walk around in the woods for a few hours, but after that I go back to civilization. Basically what we can draw from this is that I'm studying abroad in the wrong country. Everyone in New Zealand loves nature like it's their job. Rachel fits right in. It's become a joke between us. Last night someone asked if I was going to do snowcraft with CUTC- that is, learn how to camp and tramp in snow- and before I even answered Rachel died laughing, picturing me out in the wilderness wielding an ice ax. (It is kind of a hilarious image.) Actually the first thing she told me when she got back from her tramp this weekend was that I would have hated it because I'm too short for bushwhacking. This did not upset me. I'm ok with my homebody-ness, e.g., last night was a lot of fun because Rachel and I camped out in Matt's flat for six hours because he has an oven (also we love him) and baked a lot. Being domestic is therapeutic; it makes one feel accomplished. The three of us each made a different kind of cookie and I also made muffins for Navs, which is the campus ministry we are trying out. I really like it. Rach is still on the fence. They're a great group of people for sure, but I miss IV tons.

Our group from Butler has a choice between two weekend trips that are part of the package so they're paid for: an adventure weekend wherein you four-wheel to some hot springs, or a country weekend on a sheep farm. Although Rach and I wish we could do both, we decided to go on different trips and I bet you can't guess who picked which one. The adventure trip is this weekend, so I'll be on campus by myself. The two others kids going to the farm weekend with me, Dale and Alex, are going on the aforementioned snowcraft trip this weekend.

Oh yeah, we got our exam schedules. We each have three. This is how NZ does university semesters: you have class for a month and a half, then a two-week break, then another month and a half of class, then you have a MONTH off for exams. It's sweet as. Seeing as how I'm one of those people who can't make themselves do work in any sort of timely fashion and just studies the day before for every test she has, a month to "study" is going to be awesome.

Thinking of all you suckers as you head back to your REAL colleges where you'll have to do tons of work, ha ha ha-
a whole lot of love-
Carie and Rachel