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.

Make a guess, win a prize!

Peter and I heard a song in a restaurant this weekend that was just too fun not to share. The lyrics are posted below sans title, artist, or sound file. If you guess the English title of the song you will be the lucky winner of a Mystery Prize from rainy/sunny New Zealand!

Our contest rules are simple:

1. The first person to post the correct answer in the Comments section of this post wins.
2. Name must be present on the winning Comment to be valid.
3. One entry per person.
4. Void where prohibited.
5. Winners will be contacted personally by the Prize Giving Committee. Prizes may take 2-4 weeks for delivery and include shipping and handling.

And yes, this is a dare to those of you living in the Southwest. Can you figure out the title to this song without pasting the lyrics into a Google search?

No rompas más mi pobre corazón
Estas pegando justo entiéndelo
Si quiebras poco más mi pobre corazón
Lo harás mil pedazos quiérelo.
No soy lo mejor ni tu única opción
No tengo más partido que mi amor
Dime algo baby bien
Ya no me hagas perder
Serás siempre mi nena como el sol
Te gusta vivir bien te juro que tal vez
Yo pueda darte algo de valor
Obtengas con amor y con mucho calor
Lo que nunca llegaste a tener

No rompas más mi pobre corazón
Estas pegando justo entiéndelo
Si quiebras un poco más mi pobre corazón
Lo harás mil pedazos quiérelo. uuuuuu

Ve y dile a tu mamá que no abra la ventana
Cuando te visito por las noches
Que tu tienes que ver si te puedo convencer
Para que tu me quieras como soy
Me he andado por las ramas
Por vigas y por nada
No tengo mas motivo que tu amor
Dime algo baby bien
Ya no me hagas perder
Serás siempre mi nena como el sol.

No rompas más mi pobre corazón
Estas pegando justo entiéndelo
Si quiebras poco más mi pobre corazón
Lo harás mil pedazos quiérelo.uuuuu

No rompas más mi pobre corazón
Estas pegando justo entiéndelo
Si quiebras poco más mi pobre corazón
Lo harás mil pedazos quiérelo. uuuu


Good luck!

American Pie

New Zealanders love pie-not the kind of pie that most North American continent dwellers love, though. Kiwi's have savoury pies, which are small pot-pie sized pastry shells filled with meat and gravy. Sometimes they are topped with mashed potato instead of a top pie shell in an effort to cut the calories, but it doesn't help all that much: they're still basically gravy and starch. They come in vegetarian varieties and gourmet varieties, like curried sweet potato or pumpkin and lentil, but these aren't as popular as the good 'ol beef flavor.

Pies are a well established high-calorie delight for much of the country, kind of like hot dogs are America's favourite nitrate flavoured fat log. They're everywhere: convenience stores, grocery store freezer isles, festival events, schools, and special bakeries dedicated just to pies and sausage rolls (a sausage wrapped in pastry crust). There's recently been moves to ban their sale in school cafeterias because they're so unhealthy. Judging from the vocal backlash to this law, though, I doubt it will get very far. Kiwi's have a pretty strong love for their pies. I know the boys I teach are practically up in arms about it.

I've eaten a few pies at this point, and I have to say that I'm not sure that I'll ever get over my preference for pie as a dessert item. They don't do fruit or sweet pies as frequetly here and certainly not the same kinds of pies that you come across in the States.

In an attempt to make pumpkin pie, we found that they don't have the ubiquitous canned pumpkin in grocery stores. What takes up the space at the back of these peoples' pantries? What do they give away during food drives? When we asked around no one had even heard of pumpkin pie. In fact, the typical response was, "ew, pumpkin in a can?" Many Americans have found this lack of canned pumpkin decidedly un-cool, especially around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and 4th of July times. Some have even resorted to buying cans of the stuff when they visit home and bringing them back in their luggage. We have to have the stuff, and most Kiwis don't understand that until they've had a taste of pumpkin pie.

Since the precooked stuff is nowhere to be seen we had to cook some of the fresh pumpkins sold in grocery stores. The best recipe for pumpkin pie we could find was on the Cooking for Engineers site. We then looked up instructions for how to cook fresh pumpkin, grabbed grandma's recipe for pie shell and set to it. It turned out perfectly. The easiest way I've found to cook raw pumpkin is to just gut and cut it, put the pieces on a plate in the microwave, and cook for 7.5-8 minutes per pound. Large hand sized chunks seem to be the optimal size for even cooking, one pound at a time. Don't worry about cutting off the skin. It's much easier to cut it off once it's cooked and the flesh is soft. One pound of raw pumpkin will yield just about 15 oz worth, which is the average size of a can 'o pumpkin.

We've since turned a number of Peter's Kiwi co-workers over to the Pumpkin Pie loving way of life. A Canadian co-worker of mine has mentioned that she really misses the stuff, so her and her British boyfriend are next on our hit list. Some of my other co-workers overheard us talking about it and now they've asked me to bring some in to the office. If I ever get sick of teaching I could probably make a good living at this.

To balance out the scales of cultural swapping we've taken to making our own Kiwi pies at home. We stuff them with Mexican mole or carne asada filling to make them healthier and much tastier, though. Gotta get our Mexican fix.

American Independence Day in New Zealand

Happy 4th of July!

Yes, I say this after reading shocking news about "un-American" actions by our political officials. Yes, I say this as an American who's living in an country who's official head of state is The Queen of England. And I definitely say that as a person who is wholly jealous of those consuming BBQ grub and watermelon, not to mention blowing things up, on a hot afternoon.

There's something about a 4th of July parade that is quintessentially summer. Even if we had had access to a parade down here, it wouldn't be the same. On the 4th we got a freakishly heavy amount of rain, including some sleet, and our front yard is now basically a bog. At the moment we're running the heater, as it's a very humid and cold 55 degrees. Think a cold summer morning up at the cabin after a thunder storm in the early spring.

But the night of the 4th, as we were lamenting the fact that our family members were likely to start blowing things up within a few hours, we heard the thud of large explosives going off. We thought it was the nearby Naval base at first, as they're prone to holding ceremonial cannon firing practice at odd hours. (We have no fear of the sounds of artillery fire coming from the Navy base: their total fleet could probably be counted on my fingers and toes.) Instead it was a rather large and beautiful fireworks display being set off over Rangitoto Channel. We gave our dinner on the stove a stir, grabbed our glasses of wine and stepped outside to see what the fuss was all about.

We live about 5 minutes walk from a beach that looks out to Rangitoto Island not far off shore. Someone was setting off a display from a barge inbetween the beach and Rangitoto and we could see the fireworks from our front yard. Our neighbour in the apartment next to ours came outside to watch it with us and wished us a "Happy 4th of July!" I was wishing we could have watched the show from the beach. Instead we waded out onto our soggy grass with our glasses of wine and watched the highest-shot rockets bloom over the corrugated metal roof of the neighbour's house. Everything else was a masked glow below the tops of the roofs. The show was brief, maybe 5 minutes. When all was done we went inside to a quiet dinner of central asian plov, as it's the best meal to have on cold winter's night, and another glass of wine.

All in all it was a very surreal night. Here's a file photo of the channel and Rangitoto Island. I climed a hill on this shore and saw a few flat barges bobbing out in the water. I'm guessing they were responsible for the good show the previous night.


I could use this opportunity to rant about the state of Democracy in America these days, but I won't. I'll instead relate a short conversation I had with some Kiwi's a few weeks ago. Some old co-workers of mine from Wellington came to Auckland and I met them for drinks in the city. The conversation made it's way to differences between the subjects that kids study in different countries, specifically the US and New Zealand. I mentioned that I was surprised to see high school "social studies" as two seperate departments, history and geography, and that it is only required that students take two classes in either department at the school I work at. That's two classes over 5 years of high school.

One of my co-workers mentioned that she had spent a few weeks observing in a US school and was very impressed that the kids had to take at least three years of history, two of which are usually US or State history and that Civics was required. Here, it's ok if kids take two years of history about other countries. She mentioned that the US students she talked to had a very good sense of where they came from, were much more savvy about current events, and knew quite a bit about national trends and attitudes toward larger ideas or philosophies.

My Kiwi co-worker, on the other hand, said that she was never required to take a single New Zealand history class when she went through high school. The first time she leared about the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document for the country, was at University when she took a class about the professional obligations of public service sector employees. American kids, on the other hand, get a full dose of the Constitution from an early age.

It made me feel proud to know that we, as a nation, are proud of our past. Sure it wasn't all rosy, but we're able to see the good for the bad and know that we have a hand in improving whatever bad situation we happen to find ourselves in (hint, hint). Americans have a tendency to gripe and complain but our civic involvement is fairly high compared to that of New Zealand. New Zealanders vote in high numbers, but volunteerism is low and most will readily talk about how cool other countries are ("You come from America? What are you doing here?").

Americans have a good sense of ownership (or entitlement, depending on how you look at it) of their country. Most would say that they are proud to be from America and most Kiwis are quick to point out that this makes American's very friendly toward them when they visit the States. This same co-worker pointed out that the Americans she met were very wiling and able to share the history or unique characteristics of their city or region. As a tourist she appreciated the info and a friendly face.

That's something I miss here. The information I most often get from Kiwis is directions to the best restaurant in town, and then directions to closest city that is bigger than the one I'm currently in.

Tiritiri Matangi: Once long ago...

Once upon a time (two and a half months ago), I didn't have a care in the world. I sat firmly in the two week long school break between the First and Second Terms of the year. I had plenty of time to enjoy the last of the warm autumn weather. This is a story of what I did with one such day.

Since coming to New Zealand I've discovered how my comfort levels and my knowledge of what's going on in my natural environment are inextricably linked. Maybe I've been spoiled gowing up in Montana, but I miss seeing deer and elk and squirrels and bears right on the edge of town. Even snakes and muskrats have a place in my nostalia centres at this point. Since New Zealand doesn't have any native mammals other than bats and sea lions, and there are no reptiles here, that means I had to acquaint myself with bird and insect life. The bugs are creepy and slimy and cool, and the only one I really needed to know about was the Whitetail spider. It's not deadly but can give you a nasty bite that is rumoured to turn your flesh rotten if not attended to properly. You can learn more about them here. We've found a few in our house here in Auckland so far, but we seem to have gotten rid of them by this point. That means that birds are much more interesting.

A girlfriend of mine, another recent transplant here from Missoula, lives in the Bay of Plenty. She volunteers at a bird sanctuary that skirts her property in the country side and we've started talking a bit about the various kinds of birds that we see and hear on a daily basis. By the end of summer we decided that we would like to spend a day on Tiritiri Matangi, an island bird sanctuary off shore just a bit north of Auckland. She came up the night before and we were out early the next morning to catch the ferry to the island. It turned out to be the perfect day.

To start with, our ferry was greeted at the sancuary by a small pod of bottle nosed dolphins. This was the first time I had seen dolphins in the wild. I thought about trying to get a picture of them playing in the ferry's wake. I couln't stop laughing at the 50 some-odd people who kept herding from one gunwale to the next as the dolphins swam back and forth under the boat, though, so no pictures. We had a nice side-to-side motion going from all of the hustling back and forth. Kids and adults alike were having a great time; even the struggling boatie (that's Kiwi for a person who drives a boat) was smiling as he somehow managed to pull the boat up to the dock without slamming into anything.

When we stumbled off the ferry we were greeted by Greg the Takahe. He's an old timer on the island who's gotten pretty used to the people who come to gawk at him and his fellow island dwellers. He stood quietly next to one of the Department of Conservation workers while she told us about the island and how we shouldn't bring mice there. His much younger mate, Cheesecake, hid demurely in the shrubs, waiting for him to finish. Evidently Greg's a bit of a cradle robber; Cheesecake was only about 2.5 years old, while he was a ripe old 15. All I can say is, way to go, Greg.


A little history is required here. I'll make it brief. The island was once owned by a family named Hobbs. They quickly cut down the vast majority of the trees to make way for pasture land, as was the agricultural practice of the day. In the early 1980's the island was bought by the Department of Conservation, which promptly recruited an army of volunteers to re-plant hundreds of new trees in an effort to establish a bird sanctuary. Islands are particularly suited for this purpose, as many native bird species here are endangered because of threats posed to habitat, food sources and nests by introduced pests like possums, rats, voles, skinks and domestic cats. Greg is a pretty good example of why these pests are so dangerous: he can't fly and doesn't have any evolutionary defenses mechanisms build up against mammals. It's a good thing in one sense, though. He made for a pretty convenient photo op...and tour guide.


As a new comer to the island I was impressed by how well the vegetation had grown since the '80s. For the most part trees were standing at and above the 12 ft level and the bird population has surpassed expectations because of the good cover. There were a few glimpses of what the island would have looked like had the deforestation not taken place. This Pohutukawa tree hovering over Hobbs Beach must be over 100 years old, or so our volunteer tour guide told us.

Tiritiri Matangi is a small island, so Sara and I were able to see basically all of it in one visit. This was our view from our picinic site. Just off to the left we could see the occasional kite surfer, but for the most part we gawked at the nearly two dozen bell birds hanging out in the tree above us. The racket was wonderful as we ate our sandwiches. Bell birds are little greenish-yellow guys about the size of if a large finch. Their call is warbly with a higher-pitched lilt to it. Sara wanted to see these most of all, so our trip was doing pretty well by the time we sat down for lunch. Bell birds are pretty hard to come by on the main islands and we considered that another good omen for our trip.

Because nothing's more boring than reading about birdwatching, here are a litany of photos that I took, along with a few notes about the birds that they show. I only took pictures of the coolest birds that you can't find flying around most places other than New Zealand. Alas, most of them didn't turn out. These are the creme of my pitiful crop. Enjoy!

Red crowned parakeets feeding and bathing near the track. They're the little dark-green spots at the centre of the photo.


A Pukeko. We have some of these hanging out in our neighbourhood, too. They are an Auckland/Northland icon. They look a bit like a malnourished goose and can only fly enough to get to the top of a short tree, where they like to scream at you for making them use their weak wings.


The view looking out on Fisherman's Bay.


A rare Brown Teal duck. There aren't many of these left on the planet, so I'm pretty happy to have had them practically shove my feet aside to get at whatever it was that I was standing on. Sorry for the blurry photo. Evidently they were pretty hungry when we stumbled onto them by their pond.


Note: Only one bird was harmed during the making of this blog post. As I was typing this a Blackbird with striking orange rims around its eyes and an orange beak decided to go Kamikaze on the glass surrounding my front porch. Upon hearing the thud I opened the door to find the poor little thing talons-up on the front stoop. Rest assured it will receive a poper burial under the Morning Glory tree in the yard. Please add "window glass" to the official list of threats to New Zealand bird species.

In Other Easter News...

You'll be pleased to note that 16,121 bunnies were killed in Central Otago during the annual Easter Bunny Hunt this year. As a major pest in New Zealand, Kiwis are pretty pleased with the haul.

Another story in today's paper reports that the Easter kiwi (that's the bird, not the fruit or the person) has been voted the preferred Easter mascot for New Zealand by the people at the Makenzie Easter Show in Canterbury.

Maybe we'll see chocolate kiwis popping up in the seasonal isles of the supermarket next year.

How I'm spending my summer non-vacation

Did you know that everything is the opposite of the US in New Zealand? Students go to school in the summer, boys play jump rope in high school, and teachers can actually pay the bills on a first year teacher's salary.

Of course I'm speaking with a bit of hyperbole, but not much. Indeed, it's summer right now and school started for me 5 weeks ago. While I was baking away in my office last week I wandered over to the window to get a bit of a breeze. My shared window looks out over one of the sports fields, and what do I spy on the far edge of the PE activities but a group of students playing jump rope. Blink, blink. At a boys' high school. Blink, blink. Later that day I was talking with the boys on the tennis team I manage, and I mentioned that boys don't jump rope in the States. Nor do they usually play volleyball competitively in high school. They were aghast; volleyball is one of the more popular sports for boys here. "Skipping rope is just...well...fun," they added. We all had a good chuckle about those backward Americans that were stuck down in the Northern Hemisphere.

Of course there are those things that span cultures as well. Boys still scratch themselves flagrantly in public places, their feet smell just as bad (if not worse) down here, and I'm realising that teaching is basically the same no matter where you do it. Given a little support and respect, every day can be productive and enjoyable. And, of course, we all have our off days.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) my life is revolving pleasantly around my work these days. Sorry about the lack of blog posts, but I just haven't really done much in the last month or so. I get to work while the sun rises over Rangitoto Island, which I can barely see from my office window, and I typically don't finish my day until about 6 pm. Monday nights I go back to school for an evening Maori language course that is run through our Community Education department. Teachers study for free and partners get in half price, so Peter's taking a Russian conversation class on Tuesdays.

Saturday mornings I cheer on the tennis team that I "manage." I've not been asked to coach, but instead to organise a group of boys to play socially. We practice once a week if they are done with their homework and I go to their matches every Saturday to keep score. So my Saturday mornings are spent outside in the sun with a group of friendly young men who enjoy playing a sport simply for the fun of it. Things could be worse; I could be asked to coach pee wee soccer in the suburbs of America.

I've had some requests to share my experience teaching in New Zealand schools. My goal is to set up a separate blog for that purpose. Watch this space, as they say, for the upcoming URL. I'm probably going to get that going come the end of the first quarter of school. That's coming up in-yikes!-4 weeks. Man! Time flies when you're having fun.

Pictures of my school will be forthcoming as well once I figure out if it's legal for me to go snapping photos of my workplace to post on the net.

Beef...oh, so THAT'S what's for dinner!

Continuing on with our "Things to Eat in New Zealand" thread of blog entries, we have a few new gems for all of our devoted readers. Some of you may remember the Great Wallaby Incident of '06 we wrote about a while ago. Well, for all of you living in cattle country, here's another meaty wonder just for you.


Peter immediately started laughing in the grocery store when he saw this and snapped a picture with his cell phone. I just sighed; I had seen this before in other supermarkets. What has the world come to? And just what were these sausages made of if not beef? They had no ingredient label, so my mind just had to wander through all of the worst case scenarios as we walked by the sheep's kidneys toward the kleenex isle. The best thing I can say about these sausages is that they were much cheaper than any of the other items in the meat case. Needless to say we didn't get any.


We also saw this product near the checkout stand. Part of me actually wanted to by a box, just to compare it to the original. I know that they call raisins 'sultanas' here and that it probably tastes exactly like it does in the States, but still. Unfortunately, like most of the imported food here (and a lot of it is imported), it cost way more than I wanted to pay for it. We're in the process of sifting through the markets to find the cheap and healthy locally produced food. It's not proving an easy task, but since when is anything healthy or responsible easy?


I'll end this post with nod to all of you Futurama fans out there. I actually found this product at a dairy (aka convenience store) in Wellington. Not only was is Bachelor's brand food product (conjuring up images of Fry living on specially formulated brown stuff in the year 3000), but it claimed to be the UK's favourite mutilated vegetable matter.



My official review is mixed. It was better than I expected it to be-reminiscent of the condensed Campbell's split pea and bacon soup I loved as a kid-but still a cylindrical mass o' mashed vegetable that tasted just about as good as something like that can. I would only recommend this product to people with a nagging and sick sense of curiosity who also have $2.50 to spare.