Are we tourists?

Yesterday I went to a barbecue at a co-worker's house and we played a fun little game as the guests rolled in: spot the Kiwi.  

Our department has hired more internationally trained and born staff lately, and we found that it was pretty hard to find any New Zealand born English teachers.  Of the 20 plus people who showed up, counting spouses, we found 5 that teach at least one English class.  Two of those only teach one English class.  There was some debate about the head of our department, who was born in the UK but moved here at a relatively young age.  We're calling him British because he had a British passport first.  Either way, the Kiwi Teacher is becoming an endangered species at our school.

So the BBQ fired up and some beers opened, and the conversation turned to what people were doing for weekend trips during our precious last months of golden weather.  People are taking surfing lessons, going to concerts in the park, snorkelling at the marine reserve, tripping up to the bach up the coast, and heading to the spate of weekend festivals that shoehorn themselves into the last days of summer before the rainy season starts.  We sounded like a bunch of tourists, and when combined with our earlier foray into census taking we seemed like a bunch of tourists.

So we had to ask the question out loud: when do we stop being tourists and become locals?  Most of the people from the UK still felt like tourists.  Their opinion on the matter is that New Zealand is so different from the UK that everything feels new and novel.  A lot of them feel like they're getting a second shot at childhood or their early 20s.  They're making the most of it and feel energised by access to the sheer amount of things to do outside of the pub atmosphere.

One guy made the observation that you become a local when you start taking your vacations in Australia.  We all had a laugh at that one.  It's a common joke that New Zealanders consider Australia a foreign land: it's the place where people go to make their fortunes, get civilized, become part of a bigger player in the global community and generally up your game.  New Zealand is still very much out of the way, more so than Oz, and it's funny to us immigrants because both are down here together.  Alone.

This person hit on an interesting point that made me think, a little too seriously to pursue conversationally without dragging down the tone of the party.  I haven't gone to Australia for any of my vacations, but I also haven't been taking many local trips that could be called 'vacation', either.  Those of us who didn't see ourselves as tourists anymore were probably more likely to take our national back yard for granted.  We don't spend our weekends doing things out of the ordinary, for the most part, and stick with the usual: meet with friends, go to the market, watch a movie, etc.  I did this in Montana and am falling into the trap here.  We still haven't done some of those crazy things we talked about doing when we moved here.  We haven't gone bungy jumping, sky diving, sea kyaking, snorkling, black water rafting, blow carting or hiking on volcanoes.  We have gone swimming (of course), yachting, fishing, hiking, and sledding on volcanoes.  We've seen fire dancers, listened to local bands, watched protests, gone to parades featuring santa with a water gun, dressed Peter in colonial garb and put him on Maori TV (more on that later), learned to haka, and enjoyed Chinese New Year.

We don't own any greenstone necklaces.  

We know and like many Kiwis; most of our close friends are fellow immigrants.

So while I feel very much a resident and less a tourist, I still feel very much like there are things that I still want to get out of my time here.  But, like any local, I am very comfortable in my locale.  I find myself saying, "I don't have enough/convenient vacation time", or "we don't feel like we have the money to spend on that."  We're hoping that will change once we figure out if we'll be moving back to North America.  If faced with a deadline we might make better use of those things that we can't do anywhere else.

So How's The Weather?

It's just past 8 pm and it's 77 degrees with 70% humidity.  The air is thick these days and clings to the skin, as if we are swimming through a hot tub filled with chicken broth.  We are a salty bunch down here and nobody in Auckland feels clean right now, especially Peter and I at 8 pm. Clothes stick to our skin all day, our paper droops, food doesn't sound good but anything with fluid in it goes down by the bucketful.  The rain has been coming in misting clouds this week, with actual rain drops on occasion, and for the most part we have been absorbed into that long white cloud of Aotearoa.  Everything is wet.  Most people are irritable.  

Monday night reached 100% humidity and we're told that things will stay like this possibly through next week.  It's a good thing that Peter made a screen for one of the windows in our bedroom so that we can keep it open at night.  As we've mentioned in previous posts, people don't use window screens in New Zealand for some reason we've never been able to pin down.  All we know is that we get overrun by mosquitos, flies and spiders when we leave windows open at night.  Now that we have one screen we can have a bit of cooler air to help us make it through this humid spell.   

Recipe share

Our last post was a reference to how we sometimes resolve conflict in our house, i.e. let the Magic 8 Ball decide and let's stop arguing.  Our dilemma the other day was what to snack upon after dinner: something healthy like frozen berries and yogurt, or something less healthy like cookies.  We were both torn and couldn't decide, hence the Magic 8 Ball.  If you think that the Magic 8 Ball would help you reduce stress in your home, too, visit this site.

Char posted that she'd like us to share the results of our evening's experiment.  Unfortunately, Char, you'd likely get a box full of mouldy / hockey-puck-ish brown things if we went down that road.  If you'd like to make your own for a fresher experience, here's a link to the recipe I used that fateful night.  They're a fave at our house.  You can easily substitute butter for shortening, if you're into that sort of thing, and they turn out just about the same but with a more buttery flavour (of course).  We find that they are better cool than warm.  But when eaten warm they are oh-so-gooey.

The (Sub)Urban Garden

I'm sure that everyone who reads this blog has rented living space at some point.  Renting is pretty nice from a number of perspectives.  For example, we don't have to worry about falling property prices at the moment, or think about anything other than cleaning the floors when we move out of this place.  Maintenance is out of our hands, for the most part, and as long as we treat the place with respect we're pretty much guaranteed our bond back.

For those of us who like to play in the dirt, renting kind of sucks.  The landscaping isn't ours and therefor we don't have the right to dig it up.  We're also likely to move out of this place within a few years of moving into it, so investing in things like raised gardening beds and fruit trees is pretty impractical.  We have all of the benefits of using and hanging out in a yard/garden but don't get to do much to make it our own.

As we've mentioned in previous posts, we're tweeking our diet and lifestyle a bit to minimise trips in the car and processed foods.  I remember growing up with a garden in the back yard, as does Peter, and we're both finding that we really miss the flavour and experience of home-grown food.  There's nothing like walking into the yard, picking a bowl full of tomatoes or spinach or berries or what have you, and then returning to your kitchen to make a meal out of the sweetest food known to man.  If we had our way we would landscape our current yard with an "edibles only" policy, ripping out the simply pretty trees to be replaced with pretty trees that produce fruit.  Edging would be replaced with layered herbs and leafy vegetables of various colours, and the only flowers we would include would be for insect control.  We would be in balance with our plants and I would have a full pantry and plenty of dilly beans in the fridge.

Alas, life isn't that easy when you rent in the city.  Or at least a sprawling suburban city.

We have friends who have built large raised beds in their yard and have done a fabulous job of transforming a weed-ridden plot next to the train line into an attractive and fertile food garden. Like our friends, we realise that in densely populated areas you can't really trust the soil quality and have to plant above ground level.  We're a little more limited with the space and sun patterns, as well, on our property.  Last summer I played around with a few herb pots to get a feel for how plants react to sun without a protective ozone layer (we don't have ozone here).  This year I know where the productive spots on our property are and have placed a variety of planters around the property to grow what we can.  Want to see what we've managed to produce?

Our front stoop is sunny in the afternoon and is basically concrete and brick and glass.  We spruced it up with an avocado tree sprouted in the kitchen last winter from a pit, a jalapeno plant, and a small herb box (in ascending order up the steps).  We'll be giving the avocado tree to the neighbours when it grows up, the jalapenos are coming along nicely and will be consumed quickly, and we've picked the hell out of our herbs already.  Hence their stick-ish look.  More are sprouting inside the house as we speak.  This round includes cilantro and dill.

They don't sell jalapenos in grocery stores here, at least not regularly.  We've seen them exactly twice since we've been down here.  I managed to find a little six pack of plants at the garden centre this spring so I brought them home.  I gave one to a friend and another died before I could get it in the ground, but the remaining four are going gangbusters.  Luckily they're producing in shifts, so we'll be able to enjoying them a little longer.  The plant on the left produced first, and these are two of the nearly 30 that are bogging the thing down.  They seem to be thriving on the strong sun down here but need a lot of water - one litre every other day.

Round two of our basil.  These need to be grown indoors until they get to be about 3 inches high, otherwise their leaves turn translucent in the sun and they fry.  These three are taking over the pot that used to grow bok choy.  The bok choy caught a nasty case of aphids and had to be put down.  I'm not too heart broken; we eat more basil.

Curly and flat leaf parsley next to our spring onions.  We're grazing regularly off of both, and I've let one plant go to seed so that I can get some more going inside for the next batch.

And this is the back yard.  It only gets good sun for about 6 hours in the morning at the height of summer, so we have tomatoes going in the bigger pots and baby spinach in the tray near the shed.  It's not much of a yard but it's cozy.  We keep our bikes in the shed.  Notice the groovy new bbq!  No longer must we huddle over our meat, like nomads, as it cooks on a small Coleman camp stove.  Now we get to stand upright to cook, like fully developed primates who have developed tools like tongs and bbq sauce.

The tomatoes are doing surprisingly well with what little sun they get.  The only problem now are the birds.  They've taken to eating anything that gets at all red, and so they've had more of my fruit than I have.

I've tried bating the neighbourhood cats into the yard with small treats and way more affection but it's not scaring the birds away.  Today I had to go down to the hardware store to concoct something to protect my little red globes of summer.  Four metres fine wire mesh, a pair of snips and about an hour gave me this solution:

The side is made of a loop big enough that the birds can't reach through to the tomatoes. I then laid another length of mesh on top.  By cutting the overhanging mesh into flaps, folding each flap over onto the vertical wall, then bending the edges of the flaps into the vertical mesh, the side wall keeps its shape.  All I have to do is lift it as a whole unit to do my picking and watering, and then replace it over the planter when I'm done.  I'm feeling pretty handy at the moment.  Tomorrow I'll do the other tomato plant, though that one is looking pretty root bound and unproductive.  It still has about 6 full sized tomatoes on it so I'm going to see what I can do.  It may not be worth the $15 worth of wire mesh at $8 per meter.  

Oh, and this is Stalker.  She sits on our window ledge and stares at us frequently.  We don't know her real name but since she started this little practice on our first day in the apartment we've taken to calling her what she is.  Here, she's staring at me while I practice my guitar.  She's slightly neurotic (running away suddenly at odd times, obsessively licking her stomach until the hair comes off and she's oozing from open wounds, etc), so we don't let her in the house.  We scratch her ears, though, which I'm guessing keeps her coming back.  What would a garden be without a cat, however transient and disease ridden?

Take Your Foreign-Dwelling Loved Ones to Work Day

This week I've been back to work for three half days to get things in order.  Between the office printer not working (still - that's how we left it before Xmas) and the usual "how was your summer" banter with the tricklers-in, I didn't get too much done.  In the last post I promised to bring along a camera to show you guys my bicycle commute.

Well, taking pictures while cycling is hard to do (no, I didn't try).  And Peter's got a nice commute in the opposite direction from our house.  So why take a bunch of digital photos of only some of the area when you can Google Street View?  

They got photos of the area up and running a little while ago of a typical Auckland morning, with the sun shining off of recently rained-upon houses and streets.  Just head on over to maps.google.com  and click on "Get Driving Directions" on the left.  If you start at Queens Parade, Devonport, Auckland you'll get a good view of the waterfront.   For the destination address, type in Anzac St, Takapuna, Auckland.  This route shows a good example of the different things a cyclist deals with around the city.  We're lucky in that we have more dedicated cycle lanes than many other areas, but it's not pervasive.  This is only a small part of our collective commute, but those of you with our personal details can probably probe a little more if you have the time to kill.  Welcome to the neighbourhood!

A bike ride in Auckland...

Is like an intense game of frogger: it's ultimately fun but you really have to look out for cars. This week alone (two days into it) I've had two close calls. That being said last week was uneventful. I think this means my riding has been raised to a new level, to continue with the video game analogy, but I could be wrong. There may just be more congestion due to all of those drivers back into the swing of things after the holiday break. Who knows. The only thing I do know is that it feels good to be able to stop at a red light right next to a car that passed me about a kilometre back, and to think that I didn't have to burn any gas while the other guy did.

We're experiencing a resurgence in bike ridership in our home lately. With the longer hours of daylight and drier weather Peter's been biking in to work nearly daily and I've recently bought a bike to toodle around the neighbourhood on. I have to say that it feels darn good to be back on the bike, now that the obligatory and awkward "getting to know you" phase is over. Two years of relatively low physical activity and a shiny new case of asthma have left me a bit out of shape, you could say. The rolling hills of Auckland didn't make the process easy but after a few weeks of short near-daily rides I'm doing better. I can now make it 14 kms without stopping (I actually feel pretty good afterward) and I only need the inhaler sometimes after I ride now. All in all Peter and I are feeling healthier these days thanks to this long-forgotten mode of transportation.

Our readers may recall previous posts in which Peter explained the perils of cycling in Auckland. The roads are narrow; shoulders and bike lanes (where they exist) tend to be filled with gravel, broken bottles and the odd dead hedgehog; storm drains are not always designed well and grates can sometimes run parallel to the curb. And always the aggressive traffic. None of these things make cycling as a commuter mode of transportation an easy choice, and those around here who choose to take the plunge trend toward the hardcore.* I'm trying my best to fit into this category, as I'm lucky enough to live along a commuter corridor that has bike paths for most of its length. My employer also has showers and lockers in the women's bathroom, which means that I can have a quick rinse once I get to work. Not everyone has access to this sort of thing here, so I should probably take advantage of it.

At its heart, this change is simply the latest step in our efforts to become a bit more earth friendly. We never drove the car all that much to begin with, but I'd say that 95% of its use was for my daily commute. At first I didn't feel bad because I could justify it: my weekly petrol bill was half the cost of bus fare for the equivalent distance, and driving cut my commute time in half. What's not to love? We'll, I hate sitting in traffic at the end of the day, getting wheezy 10 minutes into a friendly ultimate frisbee game at work, that extra roll on my stomach that now pops out when I sit down, and generally being a part of the twice-daily single occupant vehicle exodus.

So we're trimming back. My goal is to be able to bike to work come the end of the month without being too red faced and sweaty. Peter's biking to work daily, and we're cutting back on our meat consumption. It's all a part of our attempt to keep healthy and cut down on our carbon footprint.

I'll be taking the camera along some of my rides later this week so you can see what we're up to in our daily routine.

*A special note for Moms Jan and Char: don't worry. We wear helmets, ride only when it's safe and get off the bike or ride on the foot path when it's not. You've taught us well.

What child is this?

'Tis summer here in Auckland.  People are walking to the beach in their togs (swimsuits) and towels, the city is quieter because the locals have packed off on vacation, and the ice cream truck is touring our neighbourhood more frequently.  It's a franchise of the Mr Whippy chain, which serves soft serve ice cream out of a window in the side of an orange, pink and white van.  Most towns in America no longer have an ice cream truck, let alone a rolling soft-serve stand on wheels.  My only recollection of any ice cream truck from my youth is from re-runs of old '50's TV shows.  In my day we had to hoof it down to the A&W for our cones of summer.

This particular van is a bit different from those of the Beaver's day in that it plays religious tunes.  Well, one Christian tune in particular.  "What child is this?", aka "Greensleeves", beeps mechanically through Pohutukawa and ferns from a Midi track, rolls across laws and in through our windows.  I have no idea if any kids, or adults for that matter, go to the curb to give it business.  The thing drives down the street daily now, and the music occasionally stops, which leads me to think that it's worth somebody's time to troll our neighbourhood.

We laughed at the choice of music when we first moved into our apartment.  "What kind of song is that?" we asked each other, and as non-religious people refused to rush to the curb on sheer principle.  It does make us chuckle, though.  What child is this / who comes to call / when Whippy comes along tinkling?  I guess it is December and the Holiday season, but to play the thing year round?  Really?

This is a typical Mr Whippy van (the photo was taken from the internet; we have no idea who the guy is).  They're a New Zealand icon and can be seen at pretty much every tourist beach.  The ice cream's not bad, either, and come with sprinkles, wafers, strawberry sauce, dipped and all of the standard trimmings.

The eye twitch

I am now on day 7 of a persistent eye twitch.  It's probably caused by stress, though the optometrist says that there isn't much data on what actually causes the buggers.  I'm thinking that lots of long days and nights at the office staring down student handwriting has something to do with it.  My nose now sports new glasses (time for an upgrade, anyway) and I'm trying to read less, though I'm not having much success on that front.

How long have eye twitches lasted for y'all out there?  Any record holders, or am I setting a new record?

The changing of the guard

This post is political in nature and is not intended to offend.  It is intended, however, to add to the reasons for everyone to vote in this General Election, whether you agree with the content or not.  I speak only for myself here, despite the fact that this is a family blog, and would enjoy hearing what our family and friends have to say on the topic.  

With the elections within spitting distance I can't help but think about the reasons for why I'm voting from so far away.  Part of this is due to my bone-deep frustration with what the Bush administration has done to America's rights to privacy, intellectual legacy and respect in the global community.  After all, it is still and always will be home for me.  The biggest reason for expatriates to vote, I have found, is to protect what's left of America's reputation and place within the world.

I very much still feel American.  I bargain hunt, appreciate my TV shows on a familial level and hold freedom of speech deep at heart.  (I and a Canadian co-worker just successfully dismantled the office Swear Box, an evil contraption meant to punish those who swore in the office by taking their money in amounts linked to the severity of the swear word.  People should be able to shout at the permanently busted copy machine, damnit, without the propriety police judging them.)  Most of all, I'm beginning to understand a fundamental truth that seems to have become lost on many an American official and citizen: America is and always will be one member within the wider global community.  Her actions are felt across broad expanses of water and her inaction has the same ability to offend as a person on the street has for not helping an accident victim.  America is a part of the world, and because I feel like a part of the world all the way down here in little 'ol New Zealand, I feel an obligation to make my voice and experience count in every way I can.  Mahatma Gandhi had it right when he said to "be the change you want to see in the world."  This is all very fine and well for individuals but it goes for nations as well.

When we first moved down here the first question my students always asked was, "Did you vote for President Bush?"  The middle-school kids were mostly curious; high schoolers tended to frost their words with a bit more indignation.  Most adult Kiwis avoided this pointed and personal question, rather opting for variations on what Americans thought about what Bush Co. Ltd. were doing to Iraq.  We had plenty of interesting conversations but nonetheless felt a bit tired and battered by the end of our first 6 months here.  This social/political grilling wasn't what we signed up for when we moved here, nor was it what we were prepared to endure for the duration of our time here.  Our only recourse was to sigh and develop a handful of strategies for changing the conversation.  Only once did I play the political refugee card; it felt hollow and cheap, so I didn't touch it again.

Perhaps we've blended in or we now have a consistent social circle, but these questions seem to have changed in the last year or so.  It feels like the rest of the world has realised that Bush Co. Ltd. will close up shop and another President will move into his place.  There seems to be less quiet bitterness about things and a curiosity and optimism that things will change.  We are frequently asked what we think of the candidates. When asked who we are voting for, and we say "Obama/Biden", people nod and relax a little...and then they ask if Palin is for real.  We nod, and then they shake their heads.  And I don't feel the guilt that I felt at this time nearly three years ago.  Kiwi's don't despise these candidates the way that they despise Bush, although they are more leery of the McCain/Palin ticket than of the other candidates.  This hatred that the current administration seems to have drawn out of people gets spit out on us expats indirectly and it's rather tiring.

It never ceases to disappoint me that Kiwis are more curious about us than America is of the rest of the world.  With any luck, the next President will encourage people to cross American borders by making border security more humane; maybe my co-workers won't complain so much about having to take a longer route back to the UK through Singapore because they refuse to be insulted by the TSA again.  Maybe the Kyoto Protocol will gain traction with lawmakers as a positive thing, and diplomacy and inter-national conversation will take top priority. 

This is why I am submitting an Overseas ballot.  Not because I hope to live in the US in the future, or because my family still lives there and I want a better place for them to live.  I vote because American policies are having a direct effect on our community down here in NZ.  Just the other day there was a story in the New Zealand Herald about Kiwi troops that are being targeted by militants in a relatively quiet area in Afghanistan.  There aren't any complaints about Kiwi soldiers doing their part to help communities overseas; there are conversations, though, about when they will be able to come home and get on with things, as they say.  Kiwis don't like treading water.

This weekend we are sending our ballots to the Missoula County Elections Office, as that was the last place we voted, and we wear our bumper stickers with pride.  And we're planning on staying up November 5th in the hopes of seeing competent leadership return to the White House.

How to sled on a volcano

About a month ago I was talking to my friend Sarah and we decided that we missed snow.  She's originally from New York and is having the same problem that Peter and I have: winter just doesn't feel like winter down here.   Since winter was coming to a close we decided to go find snow, since it will never snow in Auckland.  Ever.  This is how you go about sledding on the north island of New Zealand, much of which is technically in the subtropics and mostly sits close to sea level.

Step 1: Find some snow.

The central plateau in the centre of the North Island and has a couple of free-standing active volcanoes that accumulate snow during the winter.  They're beautiful, steep, free of fences and trees (a must-have if you're used to sledding in Montana) and the snow is deep enough to cover the rocks.  This last requirement is one of my biggies, as I now have a deformed tailbone thanks to a poorly chosen sledding run when I was a kid.  Mt Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park has all of these required elements. Yes, this is where they shot the Mordor scenes for Lord of the Rings.  The volcano on the left is Mt Doom, also known as Mt Ngauruhoe to us locals.  Just had to get that out of the way.  And no, we didn't see any orcs, just tourists.

Step 2: Be prepared to drive.

Unfortunately, the closest sledding mountain sits about a 4-hour drive south of Auckland.  We wanted maximum quality time on the slopes, so we packed up our gear in the van and took off Friday after work.  This wasn't a bad idea, as the weather report predicted the first rain-free weekend for 8 weeks.  This was a bad idea, though, because everyone and their dogs were heading out of town for the rain-free weekend, too.  Auckland traffic is notoriously slow and prone to clogs, so be sure to have an iPod and an iTrip.  If you can manage it, get stuck behind a camper van with a 12 year old boy in the back who is prone to exhibitionism.  This helps to pass the time.

Step 3: Find someplace to stay with a fireplace in the lobby.

After a few phone calls before we took off we found what probably were the last two rooms in the neighbouring township of National Park.  There was plenty of parking by the time we rolled in at 11:30 pm.  One room was tiny with a train-sized bathroom but came with the standard-issue water kettle, cups and tea/instant coffee set; the toilet paper holder fell off the wall upon first use but was of otherwise of impeccable design.  

The second room was a dorm room with a train-sized bathroom and came with the standard-issue drunken youngsters who try to climb into bed with you at 1:30 in the morning.  They were drunk enough to be harmless, so Sarah had an easy enough time kicking one of them into submission and, subsequently, his own bed. Have I mentioned that Sarah and Mark are freakishly nice friends for giving us the private room?

Needless to say, the fireplace in the lobby, nestled comfortably between the bar and a coffee cart, made the stay for us.  

Step 4: Find some snow pants, gloves, sleds and sun cream.

Most of the businesses in National Park cater to people like us: they know enough about frolicking in the snow to be inclined to get the proper gear, but don't use the stuff enough to actually own it.  A super-waxed toboggan, snow pants and gloves will cost you a grand total of $40, which is the price of dinner for two out if you don't get something to drink.  Not a bad deal.  The people who worked at the particular shop we visited were friendly ski bums who came from all over, including Canada and the US.  Don't worry about having to rent stuff when you want to play in the snow here.  You'll be well looked after and will be given the best and most waxed sleds they have.  Do slather on the sun cream frequently.  If you think goggle face is bad in the US, try sledding under that hole in the ozone.  And wear your sun glasses.

Step 5: Make sure you fit in by looking cool and cruising the lift areas.  Carry your sled with pride.

After a shuttle ride up to the lifts because the only parking was down below the snow line, we were ready to go.  The reception area close to the shuttle drop-off swept past the building where you could buy lift tickets and rent gear if you didn't already have it.  This is also where you stock up on ego, so we got a little before getting to the snow.  One must strut if one expects to be taken seriously.

Step 6: Stake out your own place on the mountain.

Whether you have to climb up the mountain under the lift because you're too tough to buy a pass, or you get forced off of the groomed sledding hill by paramedics dragging the corpses of tourists away, find some open space.  This will allow you to establish your dominance on the mountain and practice your more daring tricks.  Sarah and I are working our way up to the Women's Doubles Tobogganing event for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  Mark is the king of the spinning descent and Peter proved to have ultimate control.  We clearly still had what it took even after all of this time.

Step 7: Avoid the guy on the ski-bike; his cronies look like paramedic bait.

Step 8: Stop for martinis at a chateau reminiscent of The Shining.  

Just don't visit room 237.  Go back to your backpackers (hostel) and dry your boots and feet out by the fire.

Hobbies gained, hobbies lost

Ok.  If we have any readers left out on the interwebs you will have recognised that our blog is now being updated quarterly.  I think I'm ok with that; Peter has given up all hope of ever getting back on the horse.  So it goes.  Looking through the last few posts an update is in order.

Tiki tour through the south island.  I am remiss in posting any photos of this very trip.  While we've been looking through them regularly and enjoying them with friends here in town, I haven't shared them or their accompanying stories with the family.  They'll be going up this week.  I promise.  Again.

The Great Career Shift of 2008.  Peter's still plugging away.  He's signed up to take the GRE here in Auckland later this month, has selected his references, notified his employer and chosen his preferred programs.  Applications are downloaded and will be mailed out within the next month or so.  I am now a GRE vocabulary tutor when I come home, which is much more interesting than the vocabulary work I get to do at work.

The sinking island of lost hobbies: Part 1.  After joining up with a samba group I had to admit to owning a few unpleasant personality traits.  Firstly, I'm still a bit of a music snob.  Playing music with people who can't read music lends itself really well to jamming (assuming that they are amenable to jamming), but it also makes practices very tedious.  The only real way to learn a piece is by the call and response method, which slows the process to a crawl.  I like to have my music in little black dot form and need to know that the people I play with practice their stuff at home as much as I do.  We also never had enough members to cover all of the parts.  This left gaping holes in the instrumentation that grated on my ear.  If the other members were willing to branch out and play some other stuff that used the voices we did have, that would be one thing, but our band leader had his heart set on samba.  And so our partial-band played on.

Secondly, I'm too cheap and undedicated to buy my own surdo primera.  Our practice space was in a 3 metre by 2 metre unit in a storage facility in the city.  Consequently, we had a handy place to stash all of our drum equipment.  My area of expertise became the surdo primera, the lowest base drum that has a standard nylon head covered with a layer of leather and is played with one mallet and various hand-dampening techniques.  It requires a good steady rhythm and is quite fun, if a little tedious and non-pyrotechnic in character.  The sucker is huge and expensive and I wasn't prepared to buy my own.  Consequently, I couldn't practice at home and couldn't make it into the practice space to practice during the week.  Hence I wasn't progressing quickly and got bored with the whole thing.

Ultimately I had to admit that I'm a sucker for melody that can be played by individual instruments.  The group was fun and the people interesting but I have to have more tones to play with other than dampened, undampened and rim.  I was happiest playing the auxiliary percussion parts but couldn't do this much as we never had enough members to cover the foundational voices.

So I am now an ex-samba band member.  Instead, I practice my guitar regularly now and have moved into scale and classical style work.  I suck at this point but my stamina is improving and know the notes of the first 4 frets.  It's wonderfully satisfying.

The sinking island of lost hobbies: Part 2.  Peter's bike now sports a shiny new back wheel, cleaned and streamlined gears and a new chain.  It does not have a front wheel because, to our knowledge, New Zealand only imports the size we need once every 6 weeks, and then only orders 2 at a time before selling them to other people before we have a chance to get to the shop...even though we had ordered them in the first place.  It's all been an interesting and frustrating look into an import economy.  Peter has a co-worker who sells unicycles and unicycle accessories who has ordered a wheel for him.  We've been waiting nearly 6 weeks now for his dealer to get it to him.  So it goes.

He's made another batch of beer in the meantime.  It's looking pretty good and should only be a few weeks before its finished.

The daily grind.  Peter's still feeling unchallenged and uninterested at work.  Not much has changed, alas, and he's really jonesing to just move on already.

That 5 week flurry of work that I predicted in the last blog entry turned into a 10 week slog that only ended last week.  I had no idea just what I was walking into when I signed up to teach in both of the curriculum pathways here at our school.  It's been infinitely interesting and worthwhile, without a doubt.  I thought it would likely entail a larger grading load around exam time and that's it.  What I didn't plan for was the school breaking out the exam schedules into two different sessions, 4 weeks apart, for each of the curriculum pathways.  This means ramp-up and exam grading for one group, then a follow-up ramp-up to prepare for their big end of year exit exam that is set much earlier than the others.  During this follow-up ramp-up, the other classes are ramping-up for their practice exams.  After the first flurry of essays and exams (4 essays for each student), I am now not only working on follow-up essays but another flurry of exams (4 essays per student, again, but for more students).  The grading just didn't stop because the kids now have to put all of these things they've learned into practice.  A lot.  I have never worked so hard in my life.

The current stated of affairs.  I am now half-way through our two week long term break.  Last week entailed lying on the couch reading Bill Bryson's take on going back to the US, with periodic forays into the city to have lunch with friends and shop for cheap books (always a challenge here, the land of the $35 paperback).  Today I'm heading out to pick up a planter box that I bought for a steal on Trademe, NZ's version of eBay.  The goal is to have the herb garden planted and some jalapenos in dirt by the end of the week.  I'm still trying to source some cheap pots to put tomatoes in and get some dirt back under my fingernails.  

To combat stress in our last term of the year I've joined a gym.  It worked well for the last three weeks of last term.  I wasn't sleeping well there for a while and started to get very surly around the office.  I'll keep it up until I don't need it anymore, i.e. come summer break.  By then I should have a better idea of what to expect next year and will be able to better deal with things.  I had to bail on the Aikido club at school.  This didn't have as much to do with time as comfort levels.  The guy running the class integrated a lot of jujitsu into the course, which I'm not comfortable enough with to be practising with young people.  That and there's quite a bit of ground grappling in this combined style, which I'm not comfortable with because it's a boy's school.  It was interesting while it lasted, though.  Man am I ever looking forward to having a dojo close to home at some point in the future.

We have done a few fun things here and there over the last few months, like sledding on a volcano and having dinner with French hippies and learning how to make Japanese food.  As I said earlier, more to come.  I promise.  Again.

Where have Peter and Roni gone?

Peter's decided that when he meets new people from now on, and they ask where he's from, he's going to tell them, "The Internet".  This isn't because he spends all of his time on the web, or because we are tired of the accurate-but-long response of, "Well, I'm originally from the US but now I live in Auckland," which usually begins a tired and predictable Q&A session ending in a small but nonetheless awkward silence as all parties recognise the absurd formality of what just happened.  "The internet" is an answer that bypasses this sort of bothersome exchange, true, but it's also a handy way of pointing out that geographic location is an increasingly small indicator of a person's heritage these days.  We're all mobile, whether we globe trot or not, thanks to a shrinking world economy and culture.  The internet is how we manage to connect to the human communities that help to identify who we are.  

That being said, if you've checked this blog within the last few months we seemed to have disappeared into the ether.  So if we're from the internet, is that where we've gone to?

Not exactly.  We're still hiding here in Auckland.  I've been buried under a pile of work as deep as my knee (I measured the other day with a co-worker during our shared non-contact period) and Peter's buried himself in the more existential task of how to time, manage, and prepare for the big career shift.  Three weeks ago my wonderful parents came down from Montana for a much-needed family get together.  I had two weeks with my parents, all to myself, and I didn't want to waste a minute of it on blogging, emailing, uploading pictures or any of that admittedly considerate stuff.  We had a fantastic time and I hated to see them go last weekend.  I'll sort and upload pictures soon so you can see all of the mischief we managed to get up to.

We're now back to a partially regular routine.  I've already had two late nights at work; exams are looming and essays are changing hands faster than is comfortable (for all of us).  This will likely be my life for the next 5 weeks so bear with me if there's another dry spot in the blog.  To break up the monotony I'll be helping out with an Aikido club that another teacher is setting up at school.  It will only be one night per week but it should get me out from behind the desk and moving around a bit.

Saturdays are now "Lost Hobby" days around here.  I've picked up music again and joined a samba group with a friend of mine.  It's nice to pick up a drum again and I'm having a great time getting to know the other band members.  We're a diverse bunch, with one Kiwi, on Pole, a Scottish woman who has adopted Canada as her homeland and two Americans.  The best part is that my sense of rhythm is still intact after all of these years.  Peter is fixing up a bike so that he has something to toddle down to the ferry on.  Bike parking is limited, and typically outside where bikes are pelted by sand and salt spray all day.  He doesn't want to leave anything worth money down there, for good reason, so he's found a junk bike under our friend Mark's patio and they're fixing it up together.  When all is said and done they have rebuilt a sunny yellow hipster bike.  And then they can get on to the next batch of homebrew.

This friend Mark is also the cause of much merriment around our social group lately.  He's just been published in Geology, the world's leading scientific journal in that field.  Mark's masters thesis on how those peculiar cenospheres, normally a sign of industrial civilisations, made it into the fossil record at the time of the dinosaurs' demise, gained some recognition and now he's all over the news.  The analogy we've come up with is that this is much like being voted an MLB MVP while still in the minors.  It's been a joy to see him, a very modest Kiwi, get some recognition for genuinely good science.  I've never seen a widely accepted scientific theory called into question before and it's exceptionally cool to get to see this process from up close.

And that's life in Auckland.  We're plugging along, looking forward, and enjoying today.  Photos to come of our first trip down to the South Island, along with mom and dad's adventures on the bottom of the planet.

You can't escape cannibalism

48%

I've put off taking this quiz as long as possible, partly because I was a wary of scoring higher than my husband and partly because I was wary of scoring lower than my husband. Now it's settled.

Summer Perks

This post is lifted from my teaching blog, nzontheheartofgold.blogspot.com. It's a perntinent addition to this space, though, as it's a good summary of what I've been up to as of late.

"I wish I got summer vacation off." I hear this all of the time from non-teaching fellow citizens. On rare occasions it's prefaced with some comment about how easy the job must be if you don't do it for a few months each year. I try not to feel too slighted when I hear that some people out there are equating the energy levels required to do the job with how much vacation time you get. The statement implies that the more time away from a job you have, the less you have to do in any 12 month period. If I weren't in the teaching field I'd probably think the same thing. When I then tell these people that I work 50-55 hour weeks on a regular basis they simply say, "oh," and drop the conversation thread. Quietly, though, I still imagine that these people wish they had my job simply based on the "off" time.

I've found that these comments are rare here in New Zealand. This is either due to the national reverence Kiwis have for vacation time or that people here value teachers enough to think that we deserve all of that time off for jobs well done. While I'd like to attribute the absence of derisive vacation comments to the latter, I am pretty sure that the real reason is more than likely the former. Most of the strangers I talk to, upon learning that I'm a teacher, immediately ask how I'm enjoying the holiday. No comments about teachers being lazy or questions about whether we get paid during our off months. I don't hear, "I wish I were a teacher" comments mumbled at the pavement. I do get lots of questions about where I'm going and what I'm getting to do now that I have some time off.

This is a pretty interesting thing for me. After hearing all of the griping about teachers working short days and working as "glorified babysitters" back in the States, I was expecting to hear more griping about vacation time here. Being in New Zealand, though, I think I have the support of a country that mandates a minimum of 4 weeks of holiday time per employee in the labour laws. New Zealanders truly value holiday time for spending with family and recharging the batteries, especially at the beach. Literally sitting on the beach for hours on end. They don't necessarily have to do much beyond take the occasional dip into the water, throw a ball around, and bring snacks to enjoy during a full day out. Most of the country takes a few weeks off between Xmas and New Years, which means that a not insignificant portion of the businesses here are closed for that period of time. Relaxation is a keen passtime for many Kiwis and I think that teachers' holiday time is more respected for this reason.

It's nearing the end of my holiday now. I've had about 5 weeks off from school at this point. Next week I go back to the school and start hacking out syllabi and introductory activities and the other formalities that go along with the beginning of the year. So what have I been doing with myself these long, lonely five weeks?

I've been reading. A lot. Mostly I've been exploring authors that I might be able to use in my classes. Jotting down ideas for activities, notes, grammar integration blah blah blah takes up at least an hour of each day. I've also had time to chew on some weightier "personal reading list" books that I don't have the mental energy to attempt during the school year. I just finished American Pastoral by Phillip Roth. It took me a mammoth three weeks to finish simply because I wasn't used reading non-plot driven novels. It was fantastic, though, and a recommended read for those pondering the American condition. Chuck Palanhiuk has been a wonderful summer friend, as has Chinua Achebe and Fiona Kidman. Now that the academic year is closing in I'll be diving into Harper Lee (it's been so long I can barely remember the plot) and our IGCSE anthology for this year. I'll get to revisit Maya Angelou, which will be damn fun, and all in the name of sharing books and poems with teenagers. After having time to just enjoy books I'm remembering just what it is that I love about my job.

And of course I've been visiting the beach during the day. I don't swim or get much done but I think that means that I'm still learning how to be a kiwi. There's a ways to go, though.

Goat Island, Round 1

As most of our readers may know it's basically summer vacation at our house. Peter still has to work but I'm off until later this month. Peter hasn't seemed to mind, though, as he had two three-day weeks back to back, what with the public holidays kicking him out of the office and all. He got Xmas Day and Boxing Day off and then New Years Day and January 2nd the following week. So what are we doing with all of this time off? We've taken a few day trips here and there but mostly have been enjoying lazy summer activities.

I don't see why people take time off between Xmas and New Years around here. Most places are closed except for tourist locations, and even then things are insanely crowded because they are the only places open. Take Goat Island Marine Reserve as a prime example. We've heard about this marine reserve a while back and decided to take one of Peter's freebie vacation days to explore. It was a beautiful day and we figured there wouldn't be a better time to do it.

The one hour long drive turned into a two hour drive as we hit a traffic jam on the highway just outside of Auckland. I guess everyone else decided to get out of the city for the day, too. It wasn't bad, though, as Peter had never been up that way and you have to go past some pretty scenic outlooks to get to the marine reserve. First gear makes for easy viewing out the window. Our plan was to get out there, take a glass bottom boat tour and then explore the shore a bit before heading home. If you follow the link to the boat tour you'll see a good shot of the beach when it's empty. By the time we got there it was shoulder to shoulder, shuffle your feet so you don't step on kids, couldn't find a spot in the shade to save your life crowded. We managed to make our way over to the section of the beach where the boat would land and found a card table with one person sitting behind it manning the little metal cash box. At this point we're pretty much used to paying with cash card everywhere, even for little things, as that's what everyone does in New Zealand. Everywhere. The boat tour turned out ot be a smaller operation than we predicted, and since we didn't have cash we couldn't take the tour. We did manage to see some fish from a perch on the rocks and a ton of snorkelers. There were more fish visible in person than on our video, but at least you can get to see a few samples of the kinds of fish in the reserve.




We looked out over the crowds and realized that it wasn't going to happen for us that day. Too crowded, blisteringly hot and nowhere to go because of the throngs of people. We snapped a few photos to lure potential visitors down soon (ahem, you know who you are) and then hopped back in the car. The day wasn't a loss, though, as the drive back was nice and we stopped for a beer at the Sawmill Cafe. They brew their own stuff and had some decidedly funky music playing. Interesting note: While this popular marine reserve didn't make it onto our NavMan's pre-programmed Points of Interest list, the Sawmill Cafe did. Figures.

This is the view of Goat island from the beach. Yes, there used to be goats on it but they aren't there anymore. As you can see, it's a small place with lots to do. We were also able to see Little Barrier Island from the beach which was pretty nice.



I definitely want to go back again. Maybe during the off season and with cash and a snorkel.

Just another memetic Monday

Ok, it's not Monday. It's Sunday right now...I just found it very hard to find a synonym for memetic that started with an 's'.

I caught this meme from Steingruebl World Enterprises and thought I'd pass it along. For those of you new to the idea of memes on blogs, this is a little cousin of the traditional game of tag. If you read this meme you've effectively been tagged. You can now, if you choose to join in on the fun, continue the game on your own blog or in the comments page of this post.

Gift Quiz

1. "What was the best gift you have ever received?

The last Christmas I spent in the US before moving to New Zealand, my sister Monica put together a photo album for me. Each page has a little button that allows a short recording to be made. She had each person in our family put a picture in the album and record a message on that page of the album. It's the only place that I've heard some of my family members' voices for a year now, and it's gotten me through I don't how many homesick moments. Thanks, Monica. I don't think you know just how perfect a gift that will always be.

2. "What was the worst?"

Underpants. Without a tag. From a friend. In the third grade. Even as a kid I realised that, the cool My Little Ponies pattern aside, they were a pretty weird present to give a friend. I never wore them and never told my friend that I never wore them.

3. "What's the best gift you've given to someone else?"

I'd probably say that it's a three way tie between gifts I've given to my husband and two of my nephews. For our first wedding anniversary my husband and I took an anniversary/belated honeymoon trip to Europe. That was probably the best three week gift unveiling that I've ever experienced.

For Christmas a few years ago I gave my two of my nephews some special pictures I had taken the previous summer. That summer I had grabbed my camera and a nephew, in that order, then proceeded to execute a series of perfect "take your own picture" manoeuvres with each nephew. I framed these photos, tied ribbons around them, and gave them to my nephews before leaving the country. The following summer my sister's house was endangered by a forest fire. My sister, her husband and each of the boys were told to evacuate one evening on very short notice. The only personal items these nephews of mine chose to take with them other than their overnight bags were these framed pictures. Evidently they meant a lot to the boys and that means a lot to me.

4. "The worst?"

When I was very young I tried to make a gift for my father. When you're a poor 7 year old what else can you do? I chose colorful pipe cleaners as my medium of choice and decided to sculpt a wire-frame style fly fisherman (modeled after my ace-fisherman father). He would be sitting in a float tube, and holding a fly rod that bowed under the weight of a promisingly large fish. When I finished, my grandma assured me that it was perfect and I put it in a box, wrapped it kid style with plenty of tape, and set it under the tree. On Christmas morning dad opened my gift and looked at it in silence for a moment before stating, "how pretty...what is it, sweetie?" I think he felt pretty bad about having to ask, and I know that I felt pretty bad about giving him something that he couldn't recognise. The fuzzy fisherman didn't stick around on his dresser for very long after that morning. I think it was best for everyone involved to dispose of the horrid thing and put the mutual embarrassment behind us.

5. What did you get this holiday season?

I got some boxes of chocolates from a few of my students (before the school year let out-what gentlemen) a lovely artisan stoneware plate from my mother, groovy home made pot holders and pillow cases from my grandmother, and an absolutely fabulous day in with my husband. Peter and I watched a movie, played a game, took a walk in the rain, then cracked open a bottle of champagne with dinner. No fuss, no travel, no gifts...just each other. Absolutely perfect.

6. Where did it sit on the best to worst scale (best being 1, worst 10)?

Overall I'd rate the gift situation as a 2. The only way it could have been better was if the weather had cleared and allowed us to BBQ on the beach New Zealand style. As it was, the Xmas lasagne was pretty satisfying. And it always kicks ass to receive thoughtful gifts from loving family members.

Behaving childishly, and loving every minute of it

Yesterday Peter and I did something neither of us have done since we were very young: we flew a kite. Peter was inspired by a few friends of ours who took him kite flying a few weeks ago. He found it more fun than expected, so we decided to venture down to the kite shop to get one of our own. We gawked at the kite-making bench that took up more space than the display floor, and the decorative dragon models that would undoubtedly snap in a light breeze. The guy who ran the shop had accessories for paragliding, para-boarding (skateboarding behind a big kite), kite fishing and all kinds of other fun things. Since there's always a breeze somewhere in Auckland kites are evidently a popular passtime.

We decided to get a small parafoil, which is a kite without a frame that catches the wind and inflates, creating lift. With a groovy purple, green and black tail it would look good from the ground and be an easy learner's model. It was reasonably priced, and because it doesn't have a frame that we could possibly crush in a bad landing we felt good about the purchase.

Here are the pics from our day out. We went to North Head Reserve, a hill in our neighborhood that always seems to have a bit of a breeze, and had a perfectly fun afternoon.


There were a number of other people out that day, including some paragliders. They drew a pretty good crowd as they hopped easily down the hill to catch the updrafts off the water. They attracted more of a crowd than we did, but a few kids wandered over to see what we were up to. Most of the time the gliders hovered over the hill, never far from the ground.

Below us at the beach a number of kite surfers bobbed in the water with kites ready, waiting for the breeze to pick up at water level. It looks like kites are a pretty popular toy for grown-ups. Peter's eager to try kite fishing next, so watch this space for pictures of a new rig and possibly something dredged up from the sea.

Heads Up, Y'all

In an unashamedly pathetic move that will undoubtedly earn me some seriously bad mojo in the blogoshpere, I would like to use my family blog to bring your attention to my personal blog, nzontheheartofgold.blogspot.com.

I've put up some plans for a project that I need international help with. If you have about $3 US burning a hole in your pocket and want to know how to make people smile in New Zealand, check out my most recent post there.

I'll say no more. You curious readers can now go off to satisfy your curiosity quickly.

Taking the piss out of New Zealand

For those non-Aussies and non-Kiwis out there this post is not an update about how I'm keeping up with my toilet habits. No, this is a celebration of the word 'piss' in the New Zealand lexicon and character.

In America this particular word has nothing but a bad rap. As a noun it refers to body waste, as a verb to similarly waste something that should be put to better use, and, when used as a slang term, it describes a state of anger. Piss is one of the 7 Dirty Words George Carlin rallies for as unfairly banned from use on network television. There is no positive context for the word piss outside of certain medical conditions.

Here on the other side of the planet this four-letter beaut is used in a more light hearted and jovial way. When you 'take the piss out of' someone here you are mocking them to bring them down a peg. Sure, this could be done in a malicious way, but for the most part it's a light-hearted national pass time. No one is exempt from mockery here. National figures, revered figures, honoured individuals, friends, neighbours, enemies and idiots are all subject to having "the piss taken out of them." Mockery is the great leveller.

I've been considering this phenomenon lately because New Zealand has been in a tizzy since the All Blacks lost their recent match with France and are now out of the Rugby World Cup. Initially there were quite a few angry/long faces around the streets and work places. People who were typically pretty jovial around work were actually bitter and non-communicative this last Monday. The Headmaster at our school made a speech at assembly that had the feel of an obituary. He called for the students not to feel let down or resentful toward the team or the referees that are now blamed for making bad calls. Instead, he encouraged the students to send emails of support to the team to let them know that they are still "our boys".

It's no secret that Kiwis take their rugby seriously. The All Blacks hold an elevated status of nearly divine proportions. Saying anything against the All Blacks typically earns you either some well-deserved flack for being an ignoramus, or suspicion that you're in cahoots with Australia. Either way you get mocked mercilessly and then assaulted with statistical and anecdotal information aimed at bringing you into the fold. Kiwis have rallied admirably around their team and their devotion is unrelenting. Definitely a good quality, right?

But this week I've heard, for the first time, Kiwis taking the piss out of the All Blacks. Now I may be wrong, but up until now I've always thought that the AB's were exempt from any mockery by Kiwis. Now I'm convinced that taking the piss out of people is indeed a national pass time with no exemptions. Here are a few jokes I've heard around the school this week:

Q: What's the difference between a tea bag and the All Blacks?
A: A tea bag typically stays in the cup.

Q: How is an arsonist smarter than the All Blacks?
A: An arsonist doesn't waste five matches.

Our International House of Pancakes

We've been doing some inter-continental pancake recipe sharing lately. The Head Chef(s) at Steirgruebl World Enterprises posted a fantastic Buttermilk Pancake recipe that they've taken to making on weekends. It's fluffy, crisp, delicious and everything that the chefs claimed these pancakes would be. The truth in advertising is just as satisfying as these breakfast gems. Find the recipe here.

We really loved it but found that we rarely had buttermilk around the house, and frequently forgot to pick some up from the store the day before we wanted to make pancakes. So we started fiddling with what we typically had in the house and developed a modified recipe that is now a well-loved standard in the house. If we want to add berries to the mix, we still us the SWE recipe as they are fluffier and make space for fruit better. After a few rounds of the "oh, we don't have enough (enter ingredient here)" game we came up with something much akin to SWE's recipe but a little different.

The big difference is that we use a bit more wheat flour and substitute a yoghurt-milk mixture for the buttermilk. We liked the sweet flavour that the vanilla extract added, and so kept it, while cutting out the white sugar. My sweet tooth seems to by dying a slow death as I get older.

2/3 Cup White Flour
1/3 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/2 Tsp Baking Power
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Salt

1/3 cup plain un-sweetened yoghurt
2/3 cup milk
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 egg
1 Tsp Vanilla

Mix wet ingredients together, then add salt, baking soda, baking powder and sugar. Mix until integrated, then add flours a bit at a time. The batter should be slightly lumpy, but pour smoothly.

Heat skillet over medium heat. Pour 2x 1/4 cup measures of batter into the skillet, cooking two cakes at a time. Remove from heat to a warm plate (in a warm oven works well). We like to layer banana slices and bacon inbetween the pancakes and drizzle maple syrup on top. The salty/fruity/maple-ey combo is pretty good.

If you make these and find a different way to make them, please share your changes. I'm always on the lookout for a good pancake.