Last Week of Classes...EVER!

Kia Ora! Time again for me to post on the ol’ blog for yous. As always, I’m loving life here in NZ. It’s just wonderful. Here’s a summary of my week:

Sunday (23 Jan): We went to church for the third time in our ward. I got to teach singing time again which was really fun. It went pretty well! I met a guy in the ward is getting ready to serve a mission in San Diego and he was really excited to find out that I’m from Southern California. It was raining buckets and Beau was sick so Julie stayed home with him and we got a ride with Natalia, Heber, and the kids. After church I just hung out at home for a little while, then Julie got a text from Shayna (one of the YSA in our ward) inviting us to another activity. Whitney, Nicole, and I went with her out to the Pilling’s house in Hobsonville (the same house the last big YSA FHE thing was at) and had a great time. We played games, ate food, and made lots of new friends. 2 of the guys there were trying to get our numbers so they could hang out with us but I didn’t have a phone number to give to them. Haha. Then they were grilling us about whether we had boyfriends back at home. Apparently the BYU girls are notorious for having relationships with guys in the YSA here. Don’t worry Grandma, it’s not gonna happen with me. Haha. They’re super nice though, and I got to borrow a guitar and play for a little while too which was great! I haven’t played since I’ve been here! (although I’m pretty sure Julie has one that I could borrow, I just have yet to ask her about that. I need to get on that). It was a great day though and I’m looking forward to getting involved with the YSA here because they are all super nice.

Monday (24 Jan): Sometimes 8 hours of classes feels like 800 hours of classes. That’s how Monday was for me. Haha. It wasn’t really that bad, I just have a little trouble sitting in one spot for soooo long. But that’s ok. I survived it and it really wasn’t terrible. After school we had our FHE potluck (with the whole group of “American BYU Princesses” and their host families) that was postponed from last week because of the rain. It was a lot fun though! We had it at the Lord Family’s house in Massey (just 10 or 15 minutes away from here) and it was gorgeous! They have a bunch of fruit trees and grapes and a beehive in their backyard and they have a really pretty view of a river. It was great. And the food was delicious, as always. I always leave those get-togethers feeling like I’m going to die. It’s fantastic. I love getting together with all the girls outside of school though. We always have a lot of good laughs and a great time. We’ve got some fun group activities planned for the next few weeks. I’m super excited! (I'd put up pictures from the potluck, but I didn't take any with my camera, and everyone else is slow putting them online. So you don't get any right now. Haha)

Tuesday (25 Jan): In science class, we did a pretty awesome experiment with m&m’s. The lesson was on dissolving and we put m&m’s in water and soaked them until the candy had all dissolved and the color had dispersed and it was just the chocolate left. It looked way cool! And made for some pretty sweet pictures. After school, Whitney and I came home and got started on some homework. When Julie got home, we went with her and Beau over to an ice-cream stand a few blocks away and got some delicious real fruit ice cream. It was great! You just pick your fruit, and they mash it up with some vanilla ice cream for you. I got pineapple, and Whitney got strawberry. Both were delicious, but the pineapple was far superior. We went for a little drive over to a jewelry shop that ended up being closed and then came back home to work on homework until tea-time. We had filleted fish and I actually ate it! Aren’t you so proud of me? It really was pretty good. I didn’t even hate it like I expected to. Haha. After dinner, Shayna came by again and picked up Whitney, Nicole, and me and we went to another YSA activity. I guess they play basketball twice a week, but we didn’t know it was going to be basketball so we definitely didn’t dress appropriately. We ended up just sitting on the stage and playing mad-gab with some of the other girls who weren’t playing. I bet we really looked like “American BYU Princesses” then. Haha. We had a great time though, and the other girls loved playing with us because apparently mad-gab was not made for kiwi accents. It’s a lot harder to play with an accent, so they liked hearing us say the phrases. It was great.

Some cool looking m&m's dissolving

Whitney, Beau, and Me with our ice cream!

Wednesday (26 Jan): In social studies, we had a really great discussion about the living conditions of people all over the world. Alexis (our teacher) gave us some pretty shocking statistics about literacy and wealth and poverty around the world and we had a really great class. After school, Whitney, Nicole, Neeley, and I walked to the little market by our house and I bought a Diet Coke (surprised? I think not) before heading home to work on homework. Nicole came over for a little while and worked on our science experiment planning too. Then Dr. Jacobs came by to drop off the chilly bin (cooler) he had borrowed from Julie and we talked to him for a little bit. He is way funny. After Nicole and Dr. J left, Julie asked us what we wanted for dinner and we suggested chicken fajitas. Turns out, the Mexican food here is so scarce, she didn’t even know what a fajita was! It was crazy! But she was on her way to the store, so she got the ingredients to make them and we helped her with them when she got back. There was one minor adjustment though…apparently she forgot to get chicken at pak’n’save so she opted for BACON at the market by our house. Don’t ask me why, but I’m pretty sure bacon is the go-to substitute for anything and everything here. It makes me laugh. So we had bacon fajitas for dinner. Interesting, but not bad. Haha. I definitely want to make some chicken ones for her one day though. 

Thursday (27 Jan): In science, we had to present lesson plans to a small group. My lesson consisted of making popcorn on the stove and discussing physical changes (and of course, eating the popcorn). It was a lot of fun! Then in social studies we got to basically just read children’s books the entire time. It was great. I love children’s books so much. They’re the best! After school, Whitney and I went to the dairy by our house to buy a phone card for our new cell phone. It’s pretty ghetto… it was Julie’s daughter’s old phone. But we’re excited to have a phone now. It will make getting in touch with the other girls a lot easier and we feel pretty cool using this old-school phone. Two of Julie’s grandsons were over for dinner. Mosiah (11) lives just a few minutes away (and his family actually has a couple BYU girls staying with them too. Liam (12) lives in Sydney and is here on holiday before he goes back to school in a couple weeks. They are both super cute, and after dinner they offered to teach us how to play rugby. So Whitney and I took them to the park by our house and we played a game of touch rugby with them. It was so much fun!

Me in a tree

Whitney posing with Liam and Mosiah

Liam trying to look cool

Friday (28 Jan): LAST DAY OF COLLEGE CLASSES EVER! What a great feeling that was. I can’t even begin to tell you. Whitney and I went to the bakery on our way to school and got donuts for breakfast. I had a chocolate donut with sprinkles and Whitney got a custard twist. They were delicious! At school, we had a great day—especially knowing that it was our last day ever! We did some fun experiments in science and had a great time. After school, Whitney and I came home and our internet was magically working (the wireless had been down the entire day on Thursday). We were pretty excited and I got to skype with Mom for a bit, but then in the middle of my skype conversation, our internet cut out again! It was very frustrating, and we got on the phone with the internet people for like an hour before we figured out what was wrong. It was stressing me out because I was supposed to have a skype date with my roommate Jillian from back home at 5, and that was right when the internet went out. So we finally got it fixed and I had my skype date with Jillian (which is always a pleasure). And I got another pleasant surprise too! My friend Nate was over at Jillian’s house too, so I got to see him. It was great. After talking to them for almost 2 hours (and keeping them up way past their bedtimes, I’m sure) I got off and had some dinner before starting my mounds of homework. I worked on homework for a couple hours, and then went to bed. Not a super exciting evening, but it was productive!

The whole group eating lunch in front of the chapel
where we have classes (i'm in the back on the left)

Saturday (29 Jan): What an exciting day we had on Saturday! I woke up around 8 and it was beautiful and sunny so I was thinking we were going to go to Piha beach (that was the plan for good weather). So Whitney and I got in our swimsuits and packed a lunch—ready to be picked up at 9:15. Of course, the weather started to take a turn around 9:30 and as we were waiting for our ride, it started raining a little and the wind picked up a lot. We finally got picked up, and met up with the rest of the group to go to the Auckland Museum in the city. It was a really cool museum, and we got to see the Maori cultural performance too, which was AWESOME! After that, Nicole and I wandered around the museum and looked at a bunch of cool stuff—lots of WWII memorabilia, some cool dinosaur stuff, and a lot of traditional Maori culture stuff. It was a really cool museum. Then we spent FOREVER in the gift shop because they had a ton of cool stuff and I spent a little more money than I originally planned…but I didn’t spend it all on myself! (Haley, Olivia, Ivy, and Mom—you all got something cool today. But you don’t get to see it til April so…sucks to be you. Haha). After the museum, we headed out to Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World. It was a really awesome place! We got there just in time for the Stingray Encounter—where this guy gets in a wetsuit and goes in the tank with the sting rays and feeds them and stuff. It was pretty awesome. I would never have gotten in that tank though…they were HUGE! After the stingrays, we headed over to see the penguins. They were super cute! I wanted to take one home with me, but that didn’t work out too well. They were seriously adorable though. After the penguins, we went and saw some little sand tiger sharks and then ended up in the gift shop where I spent even more money and got a really cute bag! It was a wonderful day full of excitement and spending money. Haha. But I had a great time. Came home just in time for lamb chops and to plan my singing time lesson before finishing up my last homework assignment and heading off to bed.

Nicole and me bein crazy in front of the museum

a REAL tapa cloth (slightly cooler than the one
I made...)

Me in front of a cool tiki man

View of the Skytower from the museum

beautiful view from the museum

HUGE stingray with a crazy man feeding it

PENGUINS! They were so dang cute.

Another shot of the giant stingray

ME!

Some sharks we saw

I took videos of the Maori performance, the stingrays, and the penguins, but my internet is being slow and it would take like 6 hours to upload them... so looks like you guys don't get to see those. Maybe when I get back from the South Island next week I'll be able to get it working again. Sorry! Love and miss you all!

P.S. I leave tomorrow (Monday 31 Jan) for a trip to the South Island (Queenstown, Christchurch, and Milford Sound) and I can't bring my computer with me. I'll have my iPod so I can still get emails and FB notifications and such, but I won't be able to update my blog or skype with anyone til I get back (on the evening of Wednesday 9 Feb). But when I get back I'll have quite a bit of adventure to tell you about, so get excited. Haha. Love you!