Life Lesson: East Facing Beaches Don't Have Great Sunsets

Again, another great week in New Zealand. Nothing super eventful happened at school. But I did do a fun art/math project with some of the kids. They had to make a "body garden"--using measurements of their body (wrist, hand, ankle, etc) they created flowers or trees. Some of them actually turned out pretty cute! Here are some pics for yous to see.

Ellie and Victoria with their flowers

Remedy posing with Chyna and Junior and their trees

Kenny and Tyrese with their trees

Tre-D insisted on having his own picture
since his tree was on its own paper

From the title of my blog, you're probably wondering just how dumb I am... Well the answer is: dumb AS. Haha. So on Friday, we didn't have school (because we always get Fridays off) and Whitney and I spent the day sleeping in and doing homework. Nicole and I were talking on facebook chat and we decided that we didn't want to spend our Friday evening in New Zealand doing homework when there were so many great things to do here. Nicole suggested a sunset picnic on the beach, and then we remembered the name of a beach a lot of people had recommended to us. So we looked up how to get there and bus times and whatnot. Of course, the bus came way late and some of the info we got from the website was wrong, but we got it figured out and soon enough, we were on our way to Takapuna Beach. Halfway there, Nicole asked if I had looked up where exactly this beach was located and which direction it was facing. I looked at her and laughed, because I hadn't even thought of that. Being from California, the direction of the beach is not something I really think of all too often. But when you're on an island, that's definitely something that needs to be thought of. So we kept an eye on the signs that we were passing to figure out which direction we were going, and sure enough, we were headed east. We got to the beach though and still had a fun evening eating Pita Pit and walking around (even if the sunset was behind us completely...)

Me, Neeley, Nicole, and Whitney
(notice the view of Rangitoto in the background--that's
the volcano we hiked a few weeks ago!)

Bein crazy, as usual...

Nicole and Me with our delicious pitas

Look everyone! My hair is just long enough
to go into a ponytail!

The non-sunset...but it was still pretty!

For some reason, girls always have to take the
foot picture... notice Nicole and my matching
anklets--Nancy has one too. We got them
at Hot Water Beach!

After we finished our little adventure there, we caught the first of 3 buses we needed to get back to Henderson. We had no problem catching the first 2 buses, but when we were at the stop right before the one where we needed to get off to catch our last bus, we saw the bus that we needed pass right by us. We had our faces up against the window hoping that for some reason the bus driver would stop for us, but that obviously didn't happen. It was like a scene from a movie. So we got off at the next stop and checked the timetable for when the next bus would come. Just our luck--we had another hour to wait. It was already 9:45pm and we've been warned about being alone in the West Auckland (or the Wild West, as Sister Talamaivao refers to it) at night so we pulled out our trusty nokia brick cell phone and rung up Sister Talamaivao. She just laughed at us and came to get us (we were only about a 5 minute drive away from home). She is the best. So luckily, we made it home safe and sound. It was an adventurous evening--as it always is with us.

Saturday was a great day. We went to Pasifika--a HUGE festival they hold at Western Springs Park in Auckland every year. It was really cool! They had "villages" from a bunch of the Pacific Islands including Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Tokelau, Cook Islands, Niue, Tahiti, and of course, Aotearoa. Each village had a bunch of booths set up selling various island-related souvenirs and food. And there was also a huge stage with dancers or singers at every village. It was pretty awesome! We had a great time walking around and looking at all the cool things to buy. I got another one of those delicious ice cream filled pineapples at lunch and it was delicious, as expected. We had a great day, but after about 5 hours of walking around, we were tired as! So we headed home and both Whitney and I took a much needed nap.

Nicole and Me in front of our "home" island's sign

We would have taken more pictures at the festival, but we were too lazy. Haha. Sorry everyone. I know pictures are more exciting than my words, but it takes an awful lot of effort. I think next time I go on a big trip, I'm going to hire someone to follow me around with a camera so I don't have to deal with the hassle.

PS I just wanted everyone to know that I officially have 1 weekend in Auckland, 1 in Rotorua, 1 in Northland, 1 in Sydney, Australia, and 1 in Apia, Samoa before I come home. That is the craziest thought ever. And I'm not gonna lie, even though I'll miss New Zealand, I'm getting really, really, ridiculously excited to see my family and friends again.

No Bad Days - Everything is Kapai

What a great week it has been here in Aotearoa. The other day, I was talking with Nicole and we realized that neither of us can think of a single bad day we've had since coming to New Zealand. We were joking about how bad days must not exist in this country, but then I was really thinking about it later in the week. I realized that there have definitely been days where I could have had a bad day. However, the attitude I've had while I've been here has made every day a good one, even when not-so-great things happen. I've been using the work "kapai" to describe my attitude - it's Maori for good and my associate teacher at Ranui uses it all the time when kids are doing well. I really like it. I've also decided that I want to learn to speak Maori. I don't know when I'd ever be able to use it once I'm home, but I love learning the Maori words and I'm actually getting really good at pronouncing them.

Maori word for Love
Note: I wrote this with my toe. Don't act like you're not impressed.

Tuesday was exactly 1 week after the earthquake hit Christchurch, and Prime Minister John Key asked that the entire country wear Canterbury colors (red and black) and have a moment of silence in honor of those who were affected by that quake. So at lunchtime, our entire school gathered in front of the classrooms and we all took off our hats. One of the teachers who speaks Maori said a prayer in Maori and then we all joined together in a Maori song. At 12:51 pm, the time the earthquake hit last week, we all had a moment of silence together. I was so impressed by the respect shown by these young children. They were so well behaved and you could tell they were really feeling for those who were affected. They truly understood the impact this earthquake was having on their country and they showed so much respect for them. It was truly touching, and I'm not gonna lie--I definitely teared up quite a bit. It was incredible.

Tuesday night I attempted Mom's toffee cheesecake (I was pretty nervous about it, because there were SO many ingredients that I had to use NZ replacements for because they were impossible to find here). But it ended up being a lot easier than expected, and it turned out to be YUM AS. Whitney told me she was dreaming about it because it was so good. When Emi had some we were asking her what her favorite dessert is and she said "I like cheesecake now!" Haha. And I brought a piece to school on Wednesday to share with some of the other teachers. They were super impressed. They liked it much better than NZ cheesecake (with good reason...NZ cheesecake is very different). But all in all, it was definitely a success. I promised all the girls that I would make it for them sometime because they were all drooling when I told them about it.

(I would put a picture of the cheesecake here, but I was too busy eating it to take a picture...)

Wednesday I had my first observation in my practicum and it went super well! I really like Dr. Jacobs and I got some good suggestions from him on how to improve my teaching. I'm really loving my class so much. They are just the greatest! Here are some pictures I took during an art activity we did on Wednesday afternoon.

Alex, Gardenia, and Remedy putting together
fruit buckets for all the classes

Bill and Blessing

Alex and Kairyn being silly (as always)

Ronnie and Malachi 

Remedy and Kaya

Victoria and Eliezer (with Malachi lurking in the background)

Thursday was a fantastic day. I spent the entire day at West Wave pool at our swim competition against 8 other schools in the West Auckland area. Before I tell you about the day, let me give you a little background... In New Zealand, schools are ranked from Decile 1-10 based on the socio-economic status of the students. Ranui (the school I work at) is a Decile 2 school (aka, it is super ghetto). Every other school that competes in this competition is of a higher decile (ranging between 3 and 9). Most of those schools that are of higher deciles have swim teams made up of kids that swim on club swim teams and have done so for years. So the last few years, we have not placed very well. Last year we came in 7th out of 9 schools in the competition. But on Thursday, our kids were doing really well all day. I was very impressed with how they were swimming, and a lot of them were placing in events I didn't think they would be placing in. It was exciting! Finally, at the end of the day, they announced the points of each school...and our school came in second! How amazing is that?? The only school that beat us--Oratia Primary School--is a decile 9 school that has never been beat. I think their kids are on steroids. But it was such a great day. I was so excited to see these kids' faces light up when they realized how well they'd done. They definitely deserved it. They've been working hard. I was so proud of them!

After school, we got picked up by James and we met up with the rest of the group and drove out to Hot Water Beach. On the way there, we stopped in Pokeno at this ice cream place that has 42 flavours (including pineapple chocolate chip, which was delicious). But the real kicker was that you can get 11 scoops! They had pictures of the ice cream stacked up so high. I don't know how you could ever eat 11 scoops of ice cream. That is seriously ridiculous.

When we got to Hot Water Beach it was about 10pm and it was super dark outside so we couldn't really see what the area looked like. But we got settled into the 2 houses we had rented out for the weekend and my house decided to play some games. It was pretty fun, until we realized that our house was under attack. There were literally thousands of crickets surrounding our house and getting in through one door that we didn't know was open like a half inch. It was crazy! I have never seen so many bugs in my life. It was disgusting. When we were finally ready to go to bed, Nicole and I went into our room to get ready and when we pulled back the sheets, there were crickets in our bed!!! We stayed up for about an hour and half killing bugs and trying to spray our room so no more would come in. It was terrifying and needless to say...we didn't sleep very well that night.

(I would put a picture of the cricket plague here, but I was too busy killing them to take a picture)

Friday morning we woke up and got our togs (swimsuits) on. We had breakfast and then we walked outside. When we got there, we realized that our house was literally a 1 minute walk away from the beach! It was just across the street! It was absolutely gorgeous and the waves were really good. Then, I noticed there was little surf shop that hired surfboards and I decided I had to go out and catch some waves for a little bit. Unfortunately, the surf shop wasn't open yet. So I went into the dairy next door and asked them if they knew when the shop would open. They told me they didn't know, but that if I needed to hire a board, they had one I could use for as long as I wanted for $20. Best deal ever! So we paid the $20 and got this 9 foot blue surfboard. It was a lot of fun taking it out in the water! I used it for a little bit, and then I helped Nancy and Nicole catch their first waves ever, which was quite an experience for all of us. Haha. But it was a ton of fun! The water felt fantastic and the waves were beautiful.

Becca, Katie, Neeley, Nicole, Me, and Nancy!

After we returned the board, we went back to the beach and helped the other girls dig a hot tub in the sand! There are natural hot springs under the sand at Hot Water Beach (hence the name) and if you dig in the sand, you can create your own hot tub right there in the sand! It is awesome! So we sat in the hot tub for a little while before walking back to the house for lunch. The rest of the day, we just relaxed and walked around the beach and laid out in the sun. It was a lovely, relaxing day. Just what I needed.

Digging the hole and building the wall
for our hot tub

Jess, Me, and Nicole

Just relaxing after a rough day at the beach :P

That evening, we played some more games, watched 500 Days of Summer on tv, and then had a little adventure down at the beach in the dark. It was seriously the darkest night ever--no stars, no moon, just pitch blackness. It was really cool though!

Just us girls on our little adventure...

Saturday morning we checked out of our lovely beach houses and drove out to Cathedral Cove. It was super rainy and when we got there, we found out that because of some recent rock slides they've been having, the cove was closed. We were a little disappointed, but we still got to hike down the mud to some pretty bays that lead up to Cathedral Cove. It was beautiful!

All the girls in the rain at the top of the trail to Cathedral Cove

Nicole and Me trying to keep dry (and failing miserably)

this was the little cove we went to

On our way home, we stopped at James' house in South Auckland where his friend came to show us his greenstone and bone carvings that he could get us a really good deal on. So I ordered myself a really pretty greenstone necklace. I can't wait to get it!

Monday evening we had a picnic at Bethells Beach! It was seriously gorgeous! I loved every minute of it :)

So PRETTY!

Me and Whit jumping off a cliff (except it was like 6 inches high)

Leaping across the beach is fun!

Roommate Love

View of Bethells from the cave on the North Side

It was just so beautiful there!

Dad--Do you know what this means?

I want to live at this beach.

Honeymoon Cove, Jellyfish Fights, and a Kimono Fashion Show!

This week was just wonderful, as expected. We had school all week again, and it was full of adventures. Isn't it always? Haha. The kids are great though. On Monday, we gave them an assignment to watch over an egg for a week. They had to give their egg a name and treat it as their pet. Those kids who still had their egg "alive" on Friday were given a special prize. We were trying to teach them responsibility and how to take care of something. So we distributed the eggs and the kids were all super excited about the project. Some of them had some really funny names too. 2 of the girls named their eggs after me. But the boys had some of the funniest names. We had a Bob Marley egg (complete with permanent marker dreadlocks), a Vanessa Hudgens egg (because Stephen is in love with her), and a Megan Fox egg (because Kairyn is in love with her). Those are just the funniest ones, but there were quite a few good ones.

Victoria with her egg "Emily"

Gardenia with her egg "Riley"

Torigrace with her egg "Rua"

Kaipara (the kid who has been getting in fights since day 1) has only gotten worse with his behavior. Poor kid, I really feel bad for him. I wish there was something I could do to help, but on Tuesday they removed him from my classroom and he is with a minder all day every day. It's sad because he hates that, but he also can't be trusted in the classroom because having him there puts other kids in danger. I've been praying for him though, and I always talk to him at swim practice to see how his day went. All I know is that even though he has been destroying things left and right, he kept his egg alive until Friday (even though he was suspended on Thursday so he didn't even get to take part in the party for the remaining eggs on Friday).

Tuesday, as I'm sure you all heard, there was a massive earthquake in Christchurch. Although this earthquake wasn't as big as the last big one that hit them in September (a 6.3 compared to a 7.1) it was a lot closer to the surface of the ground (5 km deep as opposed to 33 km deep) so it caused a lot more damage. Luckily, we are nowhere close to Christchurch--we're on a whole different island. But even though we didn't feel the earthquake or experience physical damage from it, Auckland is certainly feeling the effects of this tragic event. The current death toll (as of Sunday 27 Feb) is 146 dead and more than 200 still missing. It is really hard on this country to see that many people dead, missing, injured, and uprooted from their homes. It is such a small country and when something big like this happens, everyone is affected. There are students in my class and on my swim team that have family that lives down there--some are still missing, others injured, and others are ok, but have had no water or power for a week. It is devastating to watch the news and I'm just doing what I can to comfort those students in my class that are having a real hard time with this. What scared me the most is that I was just there less than 2 weeks before the earthquake. I just barely missed all the damage and I'm so grateful that I'm back--safe and sound--in Auckland. It's hard to believe that just a few weeks ago I was standing in front of a cathedral that's now in complete ruin.

What's left of the Cathedral in Christchurch

On Friday I went to the library and to Parnell with Julie, Nicole, Whitney, Diana, and Janet. It was a lot of fun! I checked out a few children's books that were recently recommended to me at the library ("Love That Dog" and "Hate That Cat" both by Sharon Creech). Then we drove out to Parnell--a small suburb of Auckland where there are lots of really cute shops to look at and spend to your hearts content. It was great! I saw only a million things I wanted but did my best to restrain myself and not spend TOO much money. I did, however, find a ring there that I absolutely loved. But it was just out of my price-range so I decided not to get it. Of course, upon getting home and talking to my parents, I regretted not buying it and they (being the awesome parents that they are) offered to pay for it if I went back to get it.
The rest of our evening was spent grocery shopping (which is surprisingly stressful considering the lack of simple ingredients needed for great desserts like cheesecake...) and hanging out at the house. It was a very relaxing and fun day!

Saturday morning, the whole group went with Dr. J, Linda, and James out to Piha Beach. It is absolutely gorgeous there! There was a grom surf comp. going on at the time so we sat and watched the little boys paddle into these massive waves for a little while. It was pretty awesome. Then we hiked around the cliffs over to Honeymoon Cove. It was pretty cool because we were the only ones in the cove and we could hike up a bunch of rocks and swim in the waves and eat lunch on the sand all by ourselves! It was great!

climbing over the rocks to get to the cove
(that's James in the green helping people down)

Nicole and me in front of a cool little cave

Lookin cute at Honeymoon Cove

Me on the edge of a cliff at Honeymoon Cove (I didn't jump)

Yoga!

Future Roomie Pic! Nancy, Nicole, and me :)

After Honeymoon Cove, the tide was coming in so we couldn't hike out the way we hiked in. We ended up having to climb up a huge rock and over the edge to get back. But it was all good and we all made it back to Piha safe and sound. Once we got there, a few of us decided we wanted to hike up Lion Rock (a GIANT rock in the middle of Piha Beach). We were told it was about a 10 minute hike to the top, and we didn't have a ton of time, so we told Dr. J we would run up and run down--we just really wanted to do it. So he gave us 20 minutes to get back to the car and we started towards the rock. Nicole, Nancy, and I (future roommates for this year) were running up the path the whole way and we made it to the top in just 4 minutes! Impressed? You should be. Haha. It was gorgeous though, and quite a good little hike. I was feelin' it at the top for sure.

Me at the top of Lion Rock!

Nancy, Me, and Nicole on Lion Rock

View of Piha from Lion Rock

Then we left Piha and headed over to another beach (which I don't know the name of). We had to wade through a river and walk a little ways before we made it to the beach. But it was TOTALLY worth it. It was so pretty! I found about a million jellyfish washed up on the shore and I brought one over to show the other girls (some of whom were VERY excited about seeing a real dead jellyfish for the first time in their lives. haha). But of course, being the tourists that we are, we all got a picture with the jellyfish. It was fun though!

Me cooling off in the beautiful water

I will call him squishy, and he shall be my squishy

After we'd had our fill of jellyfish, we hiked to Karekare Waterfall (not too far from where we parked the car). It was seriously beautiful. Some of the girls swam out to it and sat on the waterfall itself, but I was feeling lazy so I opted for pictures from in front of it. Haha.

The BEAUTIFUL waterfall at Karekare

Me in front of the waterfall

After Karekare, we were supposed to head home, but I convinced Linda to take me and a few of the other girls back to Parnell so I could purchase the afore-mentioned ring of destiny. We got there (with help from my awesome navigation skills) and I got the ring. It was pretty exciting. And I also bought some chocolates from the chocolate shop up the street (they were DELICIOUS. feel free to be jealous).

You can't tell how sparkly it is, but I LOVE it!

Once I had my lovely ring, I was happy as a clam (are clams really that happy?) and we headed back to Auckland. It was great because back in Auckland, we were preparing for a surprise birthday party for 3 of the girls who turned 21 this month. 21 is a big deal in New Zealand and we had a great time celebrating together. Sister Talamaivao (Nicole and Neeley's mum here) hosted the party and fed us waaay more than any of us should have eaten. It was so much fun!

The birthday girls with the hugest cake EVER!

Sunday after church, our new Japanese roommate, Emi, and her friend Saya dressed Whitney and me up in kimonos! I'm not sure why, because sometimes we have a hard time understanding what Emi is saying, but it was a lot of fun! We looked pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. But you can be the judge...

Whitney and Me looking awesome

I could totally be Japanese, right?

Don't be TOO jealous of how awesome I look

Whitney, Emi, and Me

All in all, it was a wonderful week. (When is it not a wonderful week?) I am looking forward to our trip to Hot Water Beach this coming weekend and some more adventures in the school. Hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for your concern when the earthquake hit! I have never felt so loved! Love you all!