misc.

well, i'm not sure about this new blog banner.  it's not colorful and cheerful, and even though i like aldo leopold, that's maybe not the best quotation i've ever read.  although i do think it has something to it.

things i have done recently:

• burned several months of photos on dvd.  several more months await.  not sure if i should send them home, don't want these to get recycled too!  (kidding, mom!)
  
• filled out an "enquiry" form at the post office to look into a package missing since march.  which would be, of course, my journal.  only fitting since my photos from that time are also in limbo.
  
• spoke to immigration about my visa so i don't stay here illegally.
  
• gone on a tour at the speight's brewery where i looked at a lot of shiny copper apparatuses.  (is apparatuses a word?  too lazy to go to dictionary.com)
  
• went on a tour at the cadbury factory and got some free chocolate!  i also saw them making creme eggs, which i really wish i could have had.  i learned they store the easter stuff in a super-secret location.  i think i understand why!
  
• listed one thing on trademe, new zealand's answer to ebay.  i only hope that i can sell it.
  
• this afternoon i spent a good half-hour or so at the otago museum in the butterfly exhibit.  it's a big room with a lot of really pretty butterflies, some koi, a few turtles and some finches.  it's very nice, and it would be relaxing if not for all the school kids.  still very beautiful!
  
• booked a rental car for the beginning of next week so i can do some travelling on my own.  this will include camping, unless i get caught in some torrential downpour.  i'm hoping for the camping, especially if a nice big campfire is allowed!
  
• and it goes without saying, lol'd at the lolcats at icanhascheezburger.com.

clearly, i'm not too bored.  and i haven't really been working on my knitting either, which is a no-no!  i need to mail the needles back, and i need to learn to not be frustrated and give up when it takes me five minutes to start a row.  although i have never been a very patient person.

to make you jealous!

a few more photos from yesterday!  it was so amazing.  i wasn't sure of the weather at first, because it was cloudy in te anau, but once we got through homer tunnel it was just BEAUTIFUL!  clear skies and everything!  (thanks easterly!  you can go back to westerlies now!)  we did a few stops along the way, a couple of times to deliver mail (i got to through a newspaper from a car window, through an automatic door and on top of a reception desk.  i made it and received an ovation!) and just to get out and look around.  one place, called the chasm, is where the first photo was taken.  the only thing is that there were so many tourist buses wherever we were.  i don't really like them much, but in some places they are just unavoidable.  (like uluru.)  the company i went with was small, just six of us in a van, which was fantastic.  we got into milford and onto a boat, and ate some lunch and just had a great cruise.  on the way out, the wind was behind us, so it was just so warm and sunny with some fantastic views of mitre peak, and out to anita bay and the end to turn around.  anita bay is the location of a form pounamu (greenstone) called taniwai.  at hollyford camp on the way in, i had purchased a taniwai pendant that is really pretty.  it's translucent and has the white markings that look like the tear tracks the name means.  i want to keep it, but you aren't supposed to buy greenstone for yourself.  it's supposedly bad luck, you're supposed to give it away.  it's a bit of a dilemma!  anyway, we came back by stirling falls, which is three times high as niagra falls.  that is in the photo from my previous post.  it's so fantastic!  when i was in te anau, i saw a film made by a local pilot called ata whenua (remember that "wh" makes an "f" sound) which means "shadow land", the maori name for the fiordlands.  it's so amazingly beautiful that i bought the dvd, but it has a scene with stirling falls in it.  so everyone can ooh and ahh with me when i get home!  after we finished on the boat, we went on a helicopter!  it was a bit of a splurge, but i was so excited, i had never been on a helicopter before!  we went up on a mountain, i can't remember which one, and stopped and were able to walk around on it!  and we went all over, to homer tunnel where we got off!  money well spent! milford area is very sharp mountains, it's so dramatic, so it was so cool to see it from the air.  and then we drove back, and i was so tired!  i didn't even do much actual moving around, but it was so exhausting anyway!  and it was so amazing.  and now i am back in dunedin, and kind of sad about it.  can't wait to get back on the road!

what a day!

it was so fantastic!  it makes up for the thickly falling snow of doubtful sound.  i will try to write about it tomorrow, but i'm so exhausted!  and cold, still.  i'm sad now that tomorrow i have to board the bus to go back to dunedin, although once i'm there i'm sure i'll be glad to be planning my next adventure.  but a couple of photos!

 

(yes, that is my shadow on a mountain next to a helicopter!)

knit & purl

i've only just realized that this computer has a card reader, and that i can resize photos on my camera.  it goes without saying that i have been a bit spacey recently.  (the last several months, perhaps?)

anyway, to fill the time here i've been learning to knit.  it's going better than my numerous previous attempts at learning to crochet, but i'm still messing up stitches here and there.  and i'm not entirely sure that i care for my chosen color scheme, but i had somewhat limited options.  i suppose i could always take the parts i do like and re-make it after i've had the practice, if i really want to.

it's not such good lighting, but i hope you can sort of get the idea anyway.

this weekend i get to "take charge" and then on monday i'm going to milford sound, before heading back to dunedin on tuesday.

tick & tock

i've been trying to decide how to explain this phenomenon of temporal brain fire, and i have nothing.  well, no, i have a theory on how this happened.  a) the whole seasonal backwardness has me confused.  b) not having a schedule doesn't help.  a week can go by and i don't know where it went, simply because i have nothing i necessarily have to do.  (even when i was working it was true, i have to know what day it is, but not the date.  it's not like i have to remember that such and such a date is this commitment or whatever, because i don't have anything except "flight home" which was so far in the future.  some days i don't know what month it is, let alone day.  no wonder time is passing me by.)  the downhill theory from a few months ago is so definitely true.

and now i hear that clock ticking down!

the weather is pretty awful here, on thursday i went to doubtful sound on a boat cruise, but it started to snow.  wilmot pass sure was pretty underneath it all, but it was terrible for trying to sightsee in the sound.  i saw...snow.  and some trees on a hill.  covered in snow.  a disappointment.  i'm not even going to try to go kayaking in milford, what's the point?  i'd freeze to death.  and probably my fingers would fall off, because of this.  recently i've noticed an awful pain in my fingers when they get cold, even mildly, and then i remembered reading about this syndrome in my winter hiking and camping book.  obviously self-diagnosis means little, but i have no other explanations for the cause.  (although it could be panic attacks, that's what webmd's symptom checker tells me.  it gives me that diagnosis as an option no matter what symptoms i put in, i could put in my leg hurts and it would tell me i'm either having panic attacks or have generalized anxiety disorder.  i don't put much stock into symptom checker!)

so bad weather = a lot of time watching olympics.  this afternoon was men's 20km speed walking.  oh, the excitement!  also viewed: badminton and ping pong.  but also some genuinely exciting stuff, michael phelps!  and shawn johnson, fellow iowan, getting silver in gymnastics!  that was pretty great.  tonight should be good, lots of rowing finals in which new zealand has finalists in five groupings.  and tomorrow?  i'm hoping for better weather!

out of my hands

one thing leads to another, but what if it's not what i want?  i can stay in te anau and clean for food and accommodation, but what would i do when i'm not doing that?*  nothing.  i like quiet, but not this much of it.

and if i leave, what happens then?
oh! if only i had more time!

*not to mention i'm sort of over cleaning toilets and making beds for the time being.

nz pronunciation guide #2: "te anau" pronounced "don't ask me!"

this afternoon i am going to te anau. i have no idea how to pronounce it, even though it seems it should be easier than some places/words i've had trouble with, like "pohutekawa".  i'm going to spend the rest of the week there, as it is the sort of gateway to the fjordlands.  i'm hoping to do some kayaking and cruising and whatnot in doubtful and milford sounds, and not be precipitated on too much.  i'm realistic enough to know that it will probably not be sunny, or at least much. 

i have other things i want to talk about, like how time is passing in an extraordinarily fast way (thereby setting my brain on fire, temporally), the peace lecture i attended and how my perceptions on the u.s. have changed in the last nine months, and the final film in the film festival that i went to.

but i also have to pack and get myself sorted, so it will have to be later.  that with my new camera arriving today (at least in theory), perhaps it will give everyone something to look forward to, eh?

i need a library card, or a second-hand bookshop.

the only book that i found on the bookshelf here that looked remotely interesting (as in not a book by jeffrey archer or some horrible chick lit thing) is the return of merlin by deepak chopra. i'm only a few pages in, but i'm already unsure as to whether or not i will continue reading it based on these things:

"This version, The Return of Merlin, is about waking up the wizard that sleeps deep within all of us, so that we can reclaim the field of pure knowledge and dream a new world into reality, from the purity of our hearts."

and

"As you read this book, I hope you will see in the characters of...the different roles you play as your soul sleeps in beams of light."

i didn't exactly get any further into the introduction than that, i just sort of wanted to start banging my head on the wall. the main idea of the book, according to the cover, seems to be that "we can change our world" which is all well and good, but why does everything have to feel so trite all the time?

it's like the alchemist, by paulo coelho. i read it twice straight through when i arrived in nelson (it's short, it's easy to do) and while i did like it, i did get annoyed the second time around with the whole "personal legend" bit. i mean, it's good, you need to do what you think you need to do, but it got to be a little much for me. you have to have a book tell you to "follow your dreams"? (or that "you can change the world"?) really?

i think this goes hand in hand with a problem i've been having. (i apologize if you have already been subjected to this train of thought, it happens to be on my mind often.) a lot of people (a LOT of people) back in the states make comments to me along the lines of "wow, you are so lucky, i wish i could do that but i have x excuse." it's so incredibely frustrating because it happens nearly every single time that someone else finds out i am living in new zealand. i have met so many people while travelling who could have used these same excuses to just sit at home and not go, but they found a way around it. two of my good friends that i met here left long-term boyfriends at home to come, others had given up relationships. i've met people who have given up good jobs, apartments and houses, and all manner of things to do something they really and truly wanted to do. there was an irish couple who were renting out their house and travelling with two sons under the age of five for several months. how easy do you think that was to sort out?

as for myself, half of the money i used to come here was earned by working 14-ish hour days, seven days a week, for nearly ten weeks canning salmon. that wasn't exactly the easiest thing i've ever done but it was worth it. basically what it comes down to is, i'm tired of hearing people's excuses. if it's something that people truly want to do, "where there's a will, there's a way." i think what it comes done to genuinely is that people are afraid. another thing i hear often is that i'm "so brave" to go away for a year on my own. i don't think anything of it, it's not at all something that ever crossed my mind, but it speaks volumes on other people's points of views. yes, sometimes i am outside of my comfort zone, but does it bother me? not really, not anymore. i wanted to do something, and i found a way to make it happen. that's all, that's what it comes down to. and i didn't need any book to tell me to "follow my dreams" or "personal legend" either.