Te Poti Ro Potae... Day 75

'Ello! So today was my first day back to school. It was actually quite good, but I really like my Acoustics & Phonetics class, so I look forward to it. It was good seeing familiar faces after traveling. It was also nice to see the sun out for a minute or two before it hid behind the clouds again. I was brought back to reality when I went to Anatomy and Physiology, I had forgotten how much I loathed that class. Still, it was fun, I chatted with the girl next to me (the one who taught me the phrase "tits up"...) for most of the hour, like a bad student.

By far the most exciting part of the day was going to the grocery store and getting rung up by a real life Pat. As in the sexually ambiguous Saturday Night Live character. Even more shocking? This person's name was actually Pat. The only thing more exciting than that was finally getting some fresh fruit, as I have been without bananas for a few days & been feeling peaky (read: sick). I also bought a popular NZ drink called "Lift" which is supposed to be an energy drink of sorts. It tastes somewhat like Bonne Belle's Lip Smackers chapstick... not that I ate them or anything as a kid.

Moving on. Here are a few things I've noticed

~One of my roommates continually puts the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable

~Kiwis never say the entire word "chocolate". Not even on packaging. It's always "choc". I like that.

~Even though the exchange rate is favorable to the US, I can get more with groceries with $60NZ than I can at home with $60USD. Minus paper products, which are out of control expensive.

~Juice drink from concentrate is the norm here, but its usually called "squash". You put an extremely small amount in your glass, add water and voila, you have a fruity goodness in your mouth. Sometimes you put in too much squash... then it tastes like death.

~We should revisit dreadlocks. I love them and sort of missed them when I was in Fiji and Oz, not nearly as many people have them there as they do here. I might have to take a picture of this one girl's dreadlocks, she's in all of my classes and they are amazing. No, I won't get dreadlocks... unless I have to shave my head for some unforeseen reason... then I'll get dreads first.

~Dr. Seuss is really amazing. He's even translated into Maori.

~Here's something completely unrelated to NZ. Jason & Becky told me about an awesome website for music & stuff, called Ruckus, you can download free. There are a few drawbacks though. 1) You have to have a college email address and 2) you can't transfer the music onto cds or mp3 players... unless of course you find a way to change the type of file they are. But I strongly suggest going there if you have a college email address, it is so cool. If you elect to get a pay membership (cheap @ $15/semester) you can use their video on demand, which actually has good movies on it and you can download them and watch when you want. How cool.

I think I forgot to put a picture up proving that I was in fact in Mount Pleasant whilst being in New Zealand. Here it is.