A Little of Everything

Just like that, it was the penultimate week of class. On Monday, May 22nd, I was hard at work on my children’s book. It was originally due on Wednesday but our professor was happy to give a one week extension if we needed it. I needed it so I have another week before I turn it in.

After my Media of New Zealand class in which we learned about the Music sector, I walked into town with my friend Sophia from class and I went to New World for groceries. The weather was so gorgeous so I thought I might go fly my drone near Oriental Bay. I brought my stuff back to my room, ate some food and then headed back out. The sun is setting so early these days so I didn’t have much time. Luckily, I spotted an electric city scooter WITH a helmet! For those that don’t know about these, Wellington, like many cities, have these electric scooters you can rent by using an app on your phone and then you can zip around the city. I have been wanting to try one but most don’t come with helmets.

It was fun to ride around. I didn’t go too fast and it was hard to pass the people walking but I got the hang of it. I ended up not flying the drone but just riding around instead. Then I went to a bookstore and looked at the books by New Zealand authors and then headed back to my flat.

After the devastating news last week that rice can go bad, I had to pivot and instead of spending gobs of time twice a week cooking rice, I tried out my flatmates’ rice cooker. He showed me how to set it up and let me say, it is a GAME CHANGER! I just plop the rice in, add some water, go do something else and let it cook! I’m never cooking rice the old way again lol.

In the evening, the hall was showing the movie Boy which is by Taika Waititi. I had been wanting to watch it so I hopped over to the hall to join them! Everyone else there (there was only like three people) had seen it before and were from New Zealand so they wanted to see what I thought as someone from the US. It was a very quirky movie. I liked it and now the opening song is on my Spotify favorites 🙂 I also learned the New Zealand use of the word “egg” as an insult. For instance you can say “Stop being such an egg” where egg means idiot. It was used frequently in the movie.

Tuesday started with flat inspections. I woke up and vacuumed the flat to do my part. Apparently the inspections can be pretty strict. I learned that some people were spending their Sundays cleaning the whole flat. My flatmates and I had not done that but we keep things pretty well because we have our weekly chores. The head of hall and the new deputy came by and approved the flat minus our oven which we are supposed to clean before Thursday. It was also a nice opportunity to meet the new deputy. He is trying to plan a walk to a windmill that I haven’t done yet but everyone recommends so hopefully I’ll be able to join on that. I had to head off to class after that.

Today was my last day of Media of New Zealand tutorial. Scott, the tutor, was mainly just going over our essay which everyone got an extension on until next week. I’m going to miss tutorial. There was something special about it and Scott was such an engaging teacher. I’m a pretty sentimental person so these next few weeks are gonna be filled with moments like this. I walked back to campus and went to the help desk about our fourth and final AI assignment about scheduling and routing.

In the evening, Skye and I met up for tramping club. We are signing up for a tramping trip next weekend where we paint in the woods and stay in a hut. Sounds fun! I really wanted to do one more tramping club trip before they end and this is it! I also talked to one of the leaders about getting some merch they were selling. They have some stickers and patches. Few people people if any in the US have Victoria University Tramping Club stickers!

And just like that, it was Wednesday. I was still very hard at work on my book and by the time of class, I had drawn all the main pages! Today we had a guest speaker who was an illustrator with a wide variety of projects in her portfolio. Recently she has been illustrating children’s books and told us about her process and all the research she does for her historical projects. After the presentation, we had time to work on our projects and have check-ins with the professor and tutors. My professor liked my pages and said the story had really grown stronger since the concept deck. I felt this way as well! After class, my friend Jacquey showed me how to use InDesign for the final steps of making my book and then I went over to the Te Aro Design campus to check out her photography exhibit and take photos of the campus for my friend in the US who is thinking of studying at the Design School next year.

On the way there, a man started calling out to me and I was thinking “stay away, you don’t know who this is” but suddenly I realized it was Liam(!), the dude that drove me to and from set back in March when I played a dead body. He was coming off of work and was still in his uniform (I think he works with plumbing or something, I don’t recall). We said hi and he offered me a ride but I was just a second from campus so I just walked. What a nice guy! It was cool to see him again!

I checked out the photography exhibit, pretty impressive work, and then headed home.

On Thursday morning, I walked over to Te Papa to fly my drone near there. Along the way, I ran into the deputy head of hall and he was interested in learning about the drone because he has wanted one for when he goes surfing. I also ran into Ari from my abroad program and we walked into town together. When I got near Te Papa, I noticed my proposed flight had been declined on the flight app. I had to call Air Traffic Control and they told me it was because I wanted to fly 400 feet up but I was too close to the airport to do that so I was only allowed 200 feet. That was fine with me so they approved the mission. I got some nice shots! See below!

In the evening, Everton had a pancake night so I headed to the hall and got some yummy pancakes. I met up with some other students also from the US and chatted with them about their various trips they had been on/going on.

On Friday I had my AI tutorial and then I printed off my children’s book as a test print to see what it looked like! It came out pretty well but there are definitely some changes I want to make! I talked to my parents a bit while walking in the botans and in the evening I met up with Skye and Lauren and we walked over to the Fringe Bar to watch some comedy. This time, the show that was just one comedian doing a Comedy Festival show unlike the multiple comedian shows we had seen in the past. He was pretty funny. I was laughing a lot.

Saturday was predicted to have worse weather than Sunday so we saved our weekly hike for Sunday. That left Saturday open so my friends Skye, Lauren and Rebekah ventured over to Sky Stadium (rugby stadium) for the Wellington Food Fest. Basically food companies had set up booths in the circular hall surrounding the stadium where concession stands are during the games. We walked around and tried a variety of foods. I tried some dumplings, some non-alcoholic juice mixers, popcorn, a pie and more! I also bought some chocolate peppermints to eat at home. Yum!

The rest of the day wasn’t too fascinating. I worked a lot on the final touches of my children’s book. It was a bit exhausting because I kept noticing minor changes to make.

In the evening, I went to another comedy show. This one was Neil Thorton’s comedy special. I’ve now seen him twice at the Fringe Bar so I wanted to see his full show because he is pretty funny! The show was in the same building as my Visual Narrative class and the same room as the circus act I went to way back in early March. Originally, I thought I would be going with others but it ended up just being a solo trip. I recognized one of the Fringe comedy show’s MC in the audience. During Neil’s performance, he mentioned Free to be You and Me (he grew up in the US in the 70s) and I think I was the only one in the audience who knew what it was. But I only know that because my dad has shown me.

On the walk home, I noticed a guy in front of me that kept turning back and staring at me. He was also coughing loudly so I decided to keep my distance because honestly he was creeping me out (and possibly sick lol). And then, all of a sudden a police car swooped up and arrested him. So he wasn’t looking back at me, he was looking back for the police. I felt weirdly validated that I had made the right decision to be staying away since something was clearly up…

The next day was Sunday and in New Zealand, that is the last day of the weekend. I met up with Lauren, Skye and Sol and we took an uber to Makara beach. It isn’t really accessible any other way. Here’s a picture of where Makara beach is.

It was a gorgeous beach and we took a walk up into the hills and saw some gorgeous New Zealand views. We even got up close and personal with a windmill. And of course, there were sheep! It makes sense Wellington has so many wind turbines because the city is known for its intense wind – might as well make use of it! We stopped at the top for lunch.

The second part of the walk was mainly on the rocky beach which was harder to walk on than you’d expect but we made it back and right on time for the taxi we had booked which drove us back to Karori (suburb of Wellington) and then we bused home from there.

I was pretty exhausted upon arrival home. I did the flat’s laundry (my chore this week) and also went to the hall where they were showing Shrek. I had actually never seen it before so figured now was as good a time as ever. It’s a great movie!

So that was the week! Thanks for reading about it. Stay tuned, more blogs to come!