an update for you!

Hello ladies!

Just thought I'd update you on my life. I have switched from writing news for the newspaper to just taking pictures, because it's at least 50% more awesome. I am working on a video for the STA World Traveler Internship Application, within which I am including testimonials. I wish I could get some from you guys. Well, actually, if you would like to film yourself saying a few sentences about me (and why I'm awesome, why I'd be a good traveler intern, whatever you want) or whatever you like, you can and e-mail me the file, if you want to be included in my video! The application's due March 8, so it'd need to be soon.

Let's see, I just had 2 midterms... ugh. I have 2 more in 2 weeks, then it's Spring Break! I've got no idea what to do for it. Ideas?

Soon, very soon, I will be adding to Youtube an amazing video of me juggling and hula hooping simultaneously! It's totally for real, I'll link you to it.

I miss you guys a lot. I wish we were all a lot closer together.

I've got a phone interview tomorrow for a horseback riding instructor job at a summer camp in northeast Pennsylvania. It would be June to August. Still hoping for the EPA job though.

Nostalgia

Did you know nostalgia actually literally means "sickness of home?" Yeah, that about sums it up.

Random memory

I was looking through my old playlists and Metro Station - Shake It came up... and brought back a funny memory. Does anyone remember being in Monkey Bar when this was playing, and all linking hands like a human knot and jumping/shaking hands for the rest of the song? Haha.

Life in Los Angeles

So, I'm getting pretty settled into this new chapter of my life. I just finished my third week of classes: Ethnographic Methods, Visual Anthropology: Stills, Documentary Film and Video, Stress Management for Healthy Living, and Postmodern Hollywood. I like all my classes so far, sans ethnographic methods, where my bitchy, snob of a professor ruins my every Tuesday.

I have two jobs! I just landed a hostess/events receptionist type person position at Lucky Strike Lanes, a swanky, "upscale bowling alley and lounge" in Downtown Los Angeles. It's a pretty sweet place and the people there seem very cool. Apparently it's been voted the place with the hottest staff in LA. I had to send in a picture with my resume--somehow this makes me feel really bad about the superficial establishment I work for, but also, it makes me feel awesome. Yikes.

I am also going to usher whenever I can at concerts at a couple of music venues. Between two jobs and 18 units, I should be pretty damn busy, and I couldn't be more excited about it.

I had chai latte boba tea with Brianna the other night. It was really great to see her and for us to talk about New Zealand and how much we miss it. She and Gus are seeing it through, which is great. Also, I'm going to be on the NZ panel at a study abroad panel-y dinner thing tomorrow evening. I'll take any opportunity to talk about New Zealand.

I'm glad you guys are still missing it so much. I'm still incredibly homesick for NZ and want to go back. I was just so damn happy there. It's not that I'm unhappy here, just not as happy. Sometimes I worry I'll never feel as full and happy and complete as I did in Dunedin again. Then I remember happy things for my future, like weddings and babies and fruitful careers, and I think those things will outshine studying abroad. But at this point, New Zealand represented the absolute best time in my life.

In short, I miss you guys like whoa and wish I had a time machine.

new semester

So classes started for me this past Wednesday, so that should mean everyone's back in class. It was really weird actually moving back onto campus. A part of me definitely doesn't want to be back at WM and to reality. Though this semester should be pretty good - there's only one class that's going to totally suck (history of anthropological theory). I'm also taking intro to archaeology, roman art and archaeology, food and drink in the ancient world, and whitewater canoeing! I'm reporting for the campus newspaper (can't remember if I mentioned that), and my first article comes out Tuesday. If it's online too I'll link to it. But today I got this huge pang at lunch, and realized how much I not only miss you guys, but how much I miss Dunedin and New Zealand in general. There's been no clubbing, no bars, no Botans, no museums, no George Street shops, no delicious lunches out, no cooking for myself even, while I've been here. I was going to the library today and I was thinking how I really wished they had celebrity squares like Otago. At lunch today I noticed the huge amount of awkward-looking people (you know, people who look socially awkward just by the way they walk around or stand in line) and I thought, this is not Dunedin! I was cold last night because the heat was off and I almost threw on another layer of clothing instead of clicking on the heater. There are just so many little things that I am surprised that I miss, but I do. That's how I know I really loved Dunedin... and the thing is, even if I make it back one day, it won't be in the same circumstances, and so it will not be the same.

In other news, the new season of Flight of the Conchords has kicked off. I haven't gotten around to watching it but you can online, here.

Finally, I think I am going to graduate one semester early, so after next fall. It looks like I can, so I might as well.

Good luck with classes!

Homesickness

it's funny because i can remember a point at which new zealand was nothing more than a checklist to me. it was a country made up of items to check off a list, things i wanted to do before leaving, things i had never had the opportunity to do before, opportunities i wanted to take advantage of while i had the chance.
new zealand was itself an item on a checklist: somewhere i had decided i wanted to go once upon a time, and while i didn't still actively feel a strong desire to go there like i once had, it was something to check off my life's to-do list.

i remember a time, maybe halfway through my trip, when i sat back and thought to myself how glad i was that i would have managed to finish all the things i had wanted to do in nz, and how that would mean i wouldn't feel a need to go back and do any other things, because i would have accomplished everything.

hell, i remember talking to my mom on the phone, and her asking me if i thought that i was going to have to return to new zealand, if it had affected me that strongly, and i told her no, that i liked it, but once i left, i was going to be pretty much done with the country.

that was before new zealand became home.
that was before i had a life there.

at some point, and i cannot pinpoint when this happened, i fell in love with my life in new zealand. i loved my friends, i loved my routine, i loved our places, i loved every little thing, and i was so damn HAPPY.

and i don't think i really understood that. i mean, i knew i was happy, but i didn't really realize HOW happy i was until it was all gone. and i loved everything about it so much.

what i wouldn't give to go to karaoke at the bowler, or go get rice balls, or go lay out with a book in the botanic gardens, or just go kill an evening at grange. i miss that so much.

i miss the leith, and that willow tree, and looking at the peninsula from my porch.

i miss it all, and i don't know what to do about that.

new zealand is no longer a checklist to me. it's a place, and it's people, and it's a life.
more than anything, it's a time.
one i miss terribly.

The Long Break is coming to an end

Hey guys!

So our long break is nearly over (all the way over for some). I go back to school Sunday and start class next Wednesday. Developments: I'm writing for the Flat Hat, the #1 student newspaper on campus this semester. I got an interview at the EPA for a sweet summer job. I turned 21!!! And I went on a cruise with Jeff.

The cruise was amazing. It was to the Bahamas for 4 nights on Royal Caribbean. We stopped in Coco Cay (Royal Caribbean owned island) and Nassau. It was sooo touristy but once you got over that, tons of fun. There was a rock wall; Jeff and I did a speed climbing competition. I won the women's! We did trivia, karaoke, went to shows, ate tons of amazing food! It was 80 degrees every day. There were towel animals in our room nightly. We gambled in the casino - Jeff came out a dollar ahead, and I lost about a dollar. On Coco Cay we explored and beached it. There were wild chickens and iguanas. Nassau is the most tourist-centered place I've ever been in my life. Several blocks near the port are just jam-packed with duty free booze and jewelry stores. We found a cool 18th century fort and climbed on it. There was a cool staircase known as the Queen's Staircase up to the fort that was by a waterfall. We met some other cool people, and overall it was great. Cruises seem to me a great value and just fun and relaxing. There's tons of things to do and all the food you can possibly eat (they told us how many meals they make a day... it averages out to 6 per person!). So go on a cruise, is what I'm saying.

So basically... I've been great!