An Orchestra Weekend

Today we had our orchestra concert! We (UofA Orchestra) performed with Auckland Choral and the University of Auckland Chamber Choir. It was at the town hall, which was beautiful. I've definitely gotta go back sometime and take a picture.

http://www.acs.org.nz/index.html

I'm exhausted now, so much violin playing in the past week. Monday and Thursday, 2.5 hours each, another rehearsal on Saturday from 2-6. and rehearsal this morning from 1-3:30, concert from 5-7. I really think that they should provide post-concert massages for all the performers, as well as conductors. It would make everyone so happy! I know this is bad of me to say, but playing these past couple weeks reminded me of why I always end up joining orchestras then deciding not to be in it anymore. It's exhausting! I mean, I did my fair share of playing in high school - 6 days a week. Intense concerts. When I got to Rochester I wanted to try out the orchestras, so I did Symphony for one semester and Chamber for one semester. It was too much for me. But anyway. I'm glad that I did do it, even for a brief time. Everyone was so nice! The atmosphere was comfortable and the conductor was great.

In between rehearsal and the concert today we went out to lunch at this space station food court and I spotted this:

Warped chicken! No way!

Friday night Jessica and I went out to Pakarangua (a suburb) where 7 bands were playing at the London Shed. It was waayyy far. All the bands were good until the last one. Haha. At least they had a cool sign.

Things I Like And Don't Like About New Zealand (to be updated periodically)

Good! :)

1. Nice weather
2. Kiwi birds
3. Everyone hangs up their laundry rather than using a dryer
4. No poisonous creatures!
5. Pretty police cars
6. Buses apologize if they're not in service
7. University of Auckland 2-Week long mid-semester break
   

Bad :(

1. No ozone layer
2. Stores not open til late hours
3. Everyone has a cat and when you walk home they stare at you as you walk by
4. University of Auckland needs a wider variety of sweatshirts
   

Walking light man

Ok so multiple posts today before I forget.

Down Queen St. their cross the street green light men make me really happy.

A Night to Breathe

Tonight is a night to get my stuff together. Yes, it's a Saturday night, but I'm gonna use it to catch up! Update my blog, get a little work done (two assignments due next week), and do a little writing.

Saturday, March 14th, was the Pasifika festival, an annual event put on by the Auckland City Council celebrating Pasifika culture. There's a large Pasifika presence in New Zealand, obviously. Each country had it's own section, complete with vendors selling food and cultural things (jewelry, clothes, artwork, etc.)and music/dance performances. It was packed even though it was raining (not downpouring, but enough to get your clothes a bit damp).

Definitely was impressed with the music. I remember being really happy - all the music we heard was AWESOME. And it was all types too. The first band we saw was a metal band, we also heard a R&B singer who sang a really sweet song about his grandma (reading that over it sounds cheesy, but I'll tell you it was great), and also a female singer/songwriter who played the guitar.


(Link!)
http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/whatson/events/pasifika/default.asp

We tried to make it around to all the countries, and I had to make sure that I saw Samoa, because that's the ethnicity of my homestay family. Also, something I realized, I had always heard it pronounced suh-MOE-uh, but the correct pronunciation is SAH-moe-uh. Good to know. I always feel ignorant/cultuarlly insensitive when I think one thing for so long and it turns out to be wrong.

The next day, the 15th, I went with Krista to Waiheke! I'd been in the country for nearly a month, but hadn't made it out to the beach until that day! It was definitely a bit chillier than I imagined it'd be that day (I had to keep my sweatshirt on all day) but still a lot of fun!

Krista and I on the beach! :D

Annabelle frog on Palm Beach!

Fast forward to the 21st - after deciding to not go onto the ArtLink bus (we'll make it out to the galleries before we leave) Jessica and I rode a bus over to Takapuna beach. Even though I had been to Waiheke the week before, it wasn't a proper beach day, since it was too cold to go into the water. Finally got to put my bathing suit into use in Takapuna! The water was kinda cold...so I didn't walk in past my hips and laid out tanning for a while. OH. No ozone layer in NZ so always gotta make sure to wear sunblock.




On the way back to the bus stop we ran into a very pretty mini-park Potter's park. And of course we had to stop to take pictures! Pretty!



Went back to Jessica's homestay house and got some movies, we watched 23 (good movie!) and The Tatooist, a New Zealand film...which was uh..interesting...


To end the night we had a Seafood pizza from Pizza Hut. Why can't we have boxes as cool as these in the States?

haven't updated in 11 days? really?

and my goal was to update every 3 days. ah crap.

ok i'll just work my way backwards even though it's confusing.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOooo today. today was a busy day. began with asian302 tutorial, followed by a two-hour break, then linguistics class (which i nearly fell asleep in). not really liking how i end at 4 on fridays.

anyway. then i took a bus over to outhwaite (sp?) park for the Filipino Students Association barbecue, their first event of the semester. went there not knowing anyone but met a lot of nice people! hopefully i'll see them around campus. left from that a little bit early to make it over to the marae where the kiwi asian club had their game night. played taboo, jenga, cranium, and pictionary. my team came in 3rd! it was a lotta fun and met some more cool people :) some i recognized from their barbecue a few weeks ago.

thursday was my first auckland uni orchestra rehearsal - ironically enough i didn't plan on joining the orchestra, nor did i bring my violin over. and yet, my homestay sister plays the violin (not as much anymore) that she's letting me use, and a girl Sam from my program who happens to be in the orchestra recruited me to come play. and alas! i'm a member of the 2nd violin section of the orchestra. i didn't even have to audition! not liking the whole rehearsing 2 days a week for 2.5 hours a week, but it's all good.

ok i'm tired. rough summary. will fill in blanks later.

Last last weekend, 3/13-3/15:
Out with Jessica on Saturday, Pasifika festival
Waiheke on Sunday, must return to find the alpaca

More on my classes

I realized I didn't say any more on my other classes! Or the rest of last week. lol.

On Tuesday I had Asian Studies 302: Asian Diasporas. One of my smaller classes, about 20 or so people. Mostly Asians in the class. Looking forward to this class the most of all my classes.

Wednesday: Sociology 101, again.

Thursday....no classes! Though I did sign up for a fitness class called "stretch". They had some other cool sounding ones, but I needed something low intensity for my knee. Thursdays will probably become my workout day.

Friday: Linguistics 205: Language and Identity in New Zealand. This class is smaller as well, about 30 people I think. Definitely gonna be interesting.

It's only been about a week of classes, but I'm feeling really good about my class choices in terms of them fitting together in my Take Five program. I see that there will definitely be connections between classes...a major emphasis throughout on the connections between ethnicity, identity, and society.

3 weeks? whaa?

if there's two things i reference, it's how tired i am at the end of the day, and how i can't believe how quickly time has passed.

it's been 3 weeks since i flew out from cincinnati, and i can't believe everything i've done! (and how much is left to be done, and how others have packed even more into their schedule than i have)!

this past saturday was really fun! started out with the kiwi asian club barbecue where i met a lot of cool people, and i'm sure i'll be going to more of their events this semester. they've got something nearly every week (ridiculous!), and knowing a thing or two about planning events, it's pretty impressive!

after that got picked up by bettina and she drove me down to the globe bar were we were meeting to go to the rugby game together.

walking there, a massive herd of people.



should probably learn the rules of rugby before i watch the next game.



jessica, me, and krista.



after the game we went around town (i had to run home and get my passport cuz i forgot it, argh, the only ID they accept is a passport, NZ driver's license, or HANZ 18+ card which I'm gonna hold out on buying for as long as possible). all in all a good day :)

Ugh.

Think I'm coming down with something. Noticed something with my throat and thought it was an allergic reaction, but it still feels weird. The weather is nice, but I think it might be that it alternates between really hot and really chilly depending on where you are. My body doesn't do so well with temperature change!

Hope I feel better by the weekend, I've got a lot planned!

First day of classes!

Geez only 10pm and I'm so tired! Ahh!

Anyway. Started classes today. Had two: ASIAN 100 "Images of Asia" and SOCIOL101 "Sociology of Aotearoa/New Zealand." Started at 10:00, was done by 1:00.

My first class was in the Large Chem Theatre, with about 250 students. The professor was American and enjoyed saying the word "shizzle." He was funny, and warned us that he was a bit of an abstract/theoretical thinker, and he really was. The other professor there pretty much had to tell him to stay on track and remind him how much time he had left haha.



After that had to rush across campus to my Sociology class, which was another big class. It was only an hour this time and she just went over course policies and stuff.

Met Jessica for lunch and basically people watched til her next class. You know how when you walk you don't really look down and the ground has been flat but then all of a sudden there's a random dip or rise and your foot scuffs across the ground, and then you're embarassed for about two seconds and hope no one saw you? Well, we sat on a bench without realizing we were right by one of these points. She pointed it out to me and I couldn't stop laughing! One by one people walked by (a campus of 40,000 means a steady stream of people) and we'd watch them approach the mini-bump to see if they'd scuff the ground. I tried to not be too obvious about it, then I noticed people on the opposite bench from us kept staring, then realized that they might've thought we'd been staring at them, just because the bump in the ground was in their general direction. Oh well!



(Can't see the bump but it's there I promise!)

I also saw a "24" ad on a bus. Must remember. Thursdays. 9:30PM.



Yesterday I went to Devonport with Krista and Jessica.

Not really a place with much to do, but we had a nice walk up Mt. something and along the water. There were a lot of birds:



This one was injured unfortunately :( We watched him fly away with one leg obviously not in good shape.



This one had a nice little spot atop the lamp post (which really needed cleaning by the way).



And lastly, this bird decided to have sushi for lunch. Aggresive fellow he was.



Had a nice view of the city!

Saturday was Anneke's birthday so I went out with her and her friends to the city. Fun night!