On Our Way :)

So NZ doesn’t really celebrate Halloween. No decorations or anything in the shops or windows, no trick or treating. So today just seemed like any other day really.

Stressful actually. Today was crazy because our bus to Christchurch left at 4:00pm, but our final for God & Nature was originally scheduled for 4:00pm. Um, that didn’t work for us… So with a lot of pleading to the staff and our professor, Bret Stephenson, (of whom none were too happy with us), we got the test bumped up for us. But that meant we had almost no time to cram for the exam after class that morning, and then minimal time after the test to pack and rush out the door to catch the bus. After a long, stressful day studying, taking the test, and scrambling to get everything packed, though, we made it! And we got to leave a day earlier than everyone else. Sweet.

We called it an early night in Christchurch once we got there. We had to pull an all-nighter the night before to study for the exam, so on top of my 4 hours of sleep the night before I was exhausted. We have to share a room with 3 other ppl at Stonehurst though (so it’d be cheaper for us), which is really weird. They’re nice at least. Have to deal with communal bathrooms again too. Weird. Only 1 night though. Then we’re off on our roadtrip!

Leah

God & Nature week 1 & planning for 10-day!

This past weekend I cut my bangs. They were so long and I liked them shorter. But I kept cutting and cutting them – now I have legit bangs! Lol. I haven’t had them this short since like 3rd grade. I kind like them though. It’s something different.

This God and Nature class has been really interesting so far. It’s covering a lot of what I’ve gone over in Christian Doctrine and OT and NT classes from Westmont, and some bioethics too. But I like learning it from a new perspective. And it’s always stimulating – we get some good conversations going sometimes.

This whole week has been kind of a blur for me. There’s a lot of reading and homework for this class, so that makes the days go by quickly. And on top of that, we’re finalizing plans for our 10-day break that starts on Friday!

So for our 10-day, we were going to go to Sydney, Australia, which would have been AMAZING, but it was too expensive. So we opted instead to travel the South Island of New Zealand. Anela, Nissi, and I are renting a campervan for 8 nights and we’re road-tripping it all along the West Coast, down to the fjordlands on the Southern tip, then driving up the East Coast back here. We’re planning on going skydiving – we HOPE we can, but we don’t know if the weather will be good enough for us to go. It’s either that or bungee jumping! Then we’re going to Lake Matheson – supposed to be really pretty there. Next we’ll hit up a mini cruise in Milford Sound, then go kayaking in the fjordlands, check out the wildlife in Dunedin, etc. And we’ll be going hiking all over the place. It should be really fun! I’m so excited. :)

Leah

p.s. I’m finally getting pictures up guys!! So if you have time, you can go back and look at my old blogs of Samoa. Still working on the last few days, but I’ll have the rest of the pics up soon! Thanks for your patience. :) I never realize how little time I have to do everything in my life, especially when classes are this fast and crazy.

Stream Ecology – aka “playing with bugs all week long”

So this was the first ecology class here that wasn’t a review session for me. So I was kind of stoked on it to begin with, thinking, “hey, stream ecology, this is new. This should be kind of fun.”

So we start out on Monday with Russel, our professor, giving us a couple lectures on his research and what he does, New Zealand, then Kaikoura, kind of talking about streams and ecology, but not really. It was more of a generalized overview of the ecology of the area, but not really streams. So I had no idea what to expect when we went out into the field that afternoon. But it was pretty good…simple, and I didn’t get near as cold as I did during Marine Ecology.

Tuesday after class we went out again, to start our research projects – so that was another long day. Anela and I were research buddies again. :) we ended up studying if there was a difference in biodiversity in pools vs. riffles (fast moving water over rocks) in the stream. Interesting, I know. Haha. Anyway, we spent that evening studying a bunch of bugs under microscopes lol. There were some gnarly looking bugs we found.

But we didn’t have any class Wednesday or Thursday…we had like half the week to work on our research papers! That was so sweet. It was a lot of work, but we had plenty of time to do it. Then we did a presentation Friday, but it could be on anything, so Anela and I did it on our Marine Biology research project on sea anemones lol.

Class was overall straightforward, different, simple, but challenging with the quality of research he expected from us. I liked it.

Leah

Cultural Anthropology – aka “I have no life”

So this week was for an elective course the students could take if they wanted. 19 students opted to take the Environmental Literature course. For only one week of class you get 3 credits, so it was worth sitting in class instead of taking time off. Anela, Bridget, Catherine (my roommate), and Sarah didn’t take the course so they left for a backpacking trip to the north part of the South Island. As for me, I didn’t want to take the Environmental Lit. class, because those credits wouldn’t count for anything back at Westmont. So I decided to do an independent study instead for Cultural Anthropology. I thought it was a good idea. 3 credits, one week, and then I wouldn’t have to take a sociology class when I got back to Westmont. So it was good, right?

Haha. Yeah right. That was like the hardest week of my life. Even harder than finals week I feel like. Let me give you an idea of everything I had to do in one week: I had to read a 400 pg textbook, read and study 3 research papers on anthropology, read several case studies, read a 225 pg book on Samoa (which I cheated and only read 1/3 of it), write 4 4-5 page papers, and take 3 tests. All in 6 days. Monday to Saturday. I literally read, studied, or worked on papers from the time I got up to midnight, every day. It was so exhausting. That whole week is a blur now.

I now know how much work I can actually do in one week lol. I had to push myself so hard to get all of that work done. And I’m so glad that the week is over! And that I survived hahaha. It was so hard. But I learned soo much, and I thought it was interesting. So at least I wasn’t bored the whole week.

And I’m done! Woohoo! I got 3 credits for that class. :) Definitely worked for those 3 credits. Good class, but so glad it’s over.

Leah


p.s. I'm slowly working on putting pics up for these blogs - the internet here is really slow so it takes awhile. my goal is to have them done by friday!

Marine Ecology - aka "Jumping in puddles all week long"

That's pretty much what we did for the week. Jump around in puddles. Or tide pools, whatever you want to call them. :P

This week was pretty much an overview of my marine biology class that I took last year. A very basic overview. Hardly touched any of the core material I learned last year. It really felt like a step backwards into high school material. Which coming into this program expecting rigorous 300 level course material, I was a bit surprised.

Our 2 professors, Sharyn and Chris, only gave us lectures maybe 1/3 of the time for the week. We spent most of the time out in the field, learning or doing mini research projects. Anela and I researched limpets and whether their shell steepness correlated with wave exposure lol. Very basic stuff. Some class days were 10-11 hours of class with lecture in the morning and field work after. Made the days go by super fast.

Overall, it was a pretty good week. I still don't know if I like the week long classes - I do like how you can focus on one class at a time, but with just a week it's hard to retain any of the information you learn. Good think this a review class for me I guess.

Savaii Day 12 - Faga Village

We’re leaving Samoa today. We woke up early this morning to say goodbye to Eve and Tiota before they left for school. I’ll miss them. Even thought we never really talked a whole lot, we all had a mutual friendship.

Said goodbye to the rest of the family this morning, then packed and waited for the bus to pick us up. I’ve gotten so tan on this trip, and my hair’s been sun bleached too. :) I like it.

We left Faga Village after lunch and caught a ferry over to Apia, where we’re now waiting in the airport for 8 hours until our plane leaves…8 hours. So long. Oh well, we’re going back to NZ. :) Loved the trip to Samoa. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But I am glad to be going back. Can’t wait for Jess’s food at the Convent.

Leah

Savaii Day 11 - Faga Village

Can’t believe it’s October already.

We didn’t do much at all today. Woke up with the sun (it’s hard not too cuz it’s so bright off the water) and had breakfast. They gave us cup of noodle lol. I guess they know we like it, but it was weird having it for breakfast.

Went swimming and snorkeling for awhile before lunch, and read some more. The family really just wants us to relax, and not do anything else. It’s great. Lunch came and went, and we basically sat at the beach until dinner.

We got ready for the fiafia after dinner (where they gave us more cup of noodle lol). They gave us each a “pulatassi” – a traditional dress they wear for special occasions. We got plain lime green ones with white trim. They sized us up really well when they made them, cuz mine was even long enough. They also gave us necklaces and these ridiculous headdresses to wear. They had leaves sticking out every which way to make up look like the statue of liberty haha. Which is what we ended up posing as in ½ the pics we took that night. :P










The night itself was really fun. The guys of the village performed a lot of songs and dances, and we as the CCSP grou sang some songs for them. Compared to them though, we were pretty lame lol.

But they wanted to perform their stuff more than watch us, so it was fine. We all had a turn to dance with our family that night too, which was fun. The whole thing was about 2 hours, and filled with lots of loud songs, excited dances, many bright colors, and lots of laughter. It was a great goodbye ceremony.

I am glad the trip’s almost over. I wouldn’t be able to stand this heat much longer. I’ve never been this hot for this long before. I think I’ve finally agreed with Ralph that I would rather be cold than hot. Used to think I’d rather be hot. Definitely not after this trip.

Leah