Waikat-O-week

Alright so past orientation now we are in school and classes have started, but since it is the first week of classes we still need a good way to meet random people and interact socially so O-week is here. Now WSU- the Waikato student union puts on this festival. There is a big piece of grass in front of the cafes and bank stations that look towards the lakes, which you can walk by on your way to class. This was a hot spot during the day. They handed out free breakfast as you walked to class and they had loud music blaring to let you know that they are there. They had lots of booths up on the green, giving away free stuff to attract the students attention; the wireless provider was giving away free trial vouchers, the WSU was giving away bags and information on what is happening every day, banks were advertising themselves. Monday is "Sexual heath day" at night they had a quiz game at one of the bars. Tuesday was "Who are you?" They had a hypnotist show up and if you are a student you got a free ticket in. Wednesday was "Clubs day" so all the sports, leisure, interest clubs you could sign up for and get information on. I signed up for heaps of stuff. They do not have a girls rugby team here... you have to drive two hours to Auckland to play girls rugby... kind of reminds me of Lacrosse season. There is a lacrosse team (boys, but girls can practice), and a comparable outdoors club that we have at Furman. The other days were international days, but on thursday they had three comedy guys show up. They were also giving out tickets to the Chiefs game (local rugby team). At the bars there were heaps of stuff to do as well. Apparently O-week is a pretty big thing in Hamilton. There were themed bars for every night, monday was a beach party, thursday was flouro or white out, tuesday was 90's. It was really fun to dress up for some of them and go out with my hall, and it was even more fun to watch them dress up and go all out and leave for the bars.
The first week of classes were normal 1st week of classes, you don't do much other than hand out a syllabus and say see you next time. I have class from monday to thursday. I am taking four papers (they call classes papers). I am taking an english: Victorian literature, a Anthropology: Ritual and Magic, a TIKA: Contemporary Maori Society, a earth science: Discovering planet earth. The english and earth class are each an hour and the other two are both two hours. The earth class has a lab and a tutorial and the english has a tutorial as well as the tika class. My days usually start off around 9 or 10 and end around 6 or 1. Only two of these course will transfer to my home Uni; the earth class and the english class and they transfer as general education requirements. I am very excited for my classes and think they will all be very interesting. I am especially excited about the anthropology class as well as the contemporary maori class.
The week was fun it had its ups and downs, got really board with the club scene and was ready for some actual lectures to take place. Friday was the rugby game though and that was worth waiting for, but the Chiefs lost. It was fun to watch a NZ game and be with the crowd and eat nasty sausage hot dogs. Goal before next game get a jersey, that and learn some of the states on the Chiefs. I wish I could play here at the University it would make life so much easier. I met a lot of new people and look forward to continuing that. First impressions are that I can't really tell you until I have an actual class, but people here are a lot less stressed then at Furman.

Orientation Week before classes start

Last week of February

All the first years are moving in and it is getting a lot louder in the once was quiet dorm. They are from all over the North Island and all are around 18 years old. They are all very much excited to be at the University for their first year. When I got back on the bus I realized that orientation was just about to start. Lots of name games and attempting to take away the awkwardness of meeting a lot of new people all at once. We are divided up into blocks. So I live in Student Village, which is a dorm, but I live in block 4. I think there are 6 blocks, some of the blocks are flats (meaning 4 people live in one room). I live in pod one meaning first floor. Oh in NZ they don't start their floors on the first floor when you walk into a building you are walking into the ground floor so the 1st floor is one level up... makes so much sense. We got t-shirts that say SV (student village) on the back of them with cool designs. The shirt is black and the writing is in red. Looks pretty cool.
The next couple of days were filled with learning about rules of the dorms as well as rules of the school. The run down of the rules in the dorm goes as follows: You can drink if your 18, but only in your rooms. You can't have more than 6 people in a room, otherwise its considered a "party." Lock down starts at 10pm and they have a drinking rule of drinking only from 10am to 10pm so that you can get to your studies. You must report if you have guests and if you aren't going to be sleeping in your dorm room you need to tell your RA you will not be there. There are more, but I don't want to keep writing them. All you need to know is that I know them and have been told them many times. They are much stricter here on the rules, not saying rules are a bad thing, but they are not as lenient as we are when we set a rule in the states. When they have a rule to follow at this Uni they follow it and will write you up for anything that you are doing wrong. Everything is reported. It is interesting.
There was an introduction to the school at the University's powhiri (pronounced poferi), a traditional Maori welcome filled with singing and speeches in Maori. We walked in the traditional way with women in the front and men in the back and were greeted with a song and when we flied in the men sit in the front and the women sit behind them (apparently this is so the women are protected because they make the babies). The leader of the the other sang and gave a speech then someone from our group, a male, would also sing and give a speech. It was all very exciting, but I could not understand the words. We were outside, but could see traditional carvings, each with its own story and each representing someone's ancestor. The international orientation was after this and we loaded up on some free garb and special offers they were getting people interested in.
Friday we played top team, which is where all the dorms competed against each other in friendly games; ultimate, soccer, touch rugby, water slide, handball, swimming challenge, human knot and some other ones. A hall that I didn't know won. During the night we attended the "block party" where you were to dress up as the first letter of the dorm you are living in. I am living in Student Village, so I had to think of something that started with an 'S'. I dressed up as a smurf... it was really fun and I was happy to have another dress up with me. She is also from the states and goes to school at UNC Charlotte. She also plays rugby and I can't wait to have someone to visit when I eventually make it back to the states. There were many cool and interesting costumes. Other 's' costumes were: sheep, school girl, shower...
Saturday night I went to a flat off campus with some of the australearn people I had met earlier and we met a lot of Germans. The night eventually took us to town to get a glimpse what the club/bar scene is like in Hamilton. Well it is loud, lots of people and they play American music usually remixed with techno.
Sunday I went to the gardens and had a glimpse of a symphony. There was an art exhibit in the gardens, but because of the symphony I couldn't see much of the gardens. And started to prepare for classes on Monday.

Weekend trip to Tauranga

21-2-10 and 22-2-10
Hey so I decided that I would leave school by myself and make it to Tauranga, which is on the east coast of the North Island. One of the RA's hooked me up with a family to stay with and after getting off at the wrong stop and being driven to the right stop by really nice people I got to Tauranga. I arrived in the middle of town and it seemed smallish, but it looked like a lot was going on. The mother of the family picked me up and drove me to their house and they have a beautiful view overlooking hilly cattle farms and you can just see a vineyard on the farm hill. Reminded me a bit of home, or at least Petaluma (smelled much better though). There is a lot of green and lots of trees. I went with the daughter (whom is coming to Waikato for her 2nd year) to climb "the mount." Climbing Mount Maunganui gives you a great overlook of the city as well as the ocean. You even get a interesting view of sheep with beach and water in the background. We got some good ice cream that ended up all over me by the time I was done with it and headed back. That night we went to the hot pools and I challenged on of the brothers to Halo... I don't even want to tell you how that ended. The hot pools were really nice and relaxing, the sun had gone down so you had a good view of the stars as well.
The next day I got the luxury of sleeping in and going to McLaren falls all day. I brought a snack lunch (tuna and crackers) and we did a nice walk/tramp and ate our snack on top of the falls. A guy jumped off the bridge, but apparently if you don't hit it right you might end up somewhere you don't want to be. It was really relaxing not much noise. We jumped from rock to rock following the water upstream and even were so relaxed we took a nap. The water was refreshing and when we ended up going back to town she showed me a local chocolate store and a equivalent of a jamba juice from the states. It was great fun, the family was incredible they treated me like family and I am really happy I got the experience to stay with them. I think they are coming to the states at some point hopefully I can house them and give them a good time as well.

catch up before school

So the week when I got to Hamilton and there was no one here we found a free concert to go to and traveled by bus to the furthest distance to get to a beach in New Zealand. Raglan really isn't that far away 45min is nothing compared to a drive to Tahoe. There was a sign post with a street called Wallis.... that could look really cool at the Winery right?

In Auckland pictures

here are some of the pictures I took while I was in Auckland before I met up with the australearn group. We went to Devonport and I got a lesson on how to surf.