Classes have been on for a little over a month and we already get a 2 week break- sweet! Most of the people I know are Kiwis and decided to just go hang out at home, or alternatively are international students going to the South Island. After weeks of somewhat obsessive planning, I ended up with no actual plan. That being said, vacation has been nearly perfect. Started off with sharing a bottle of wine with flatmates after our classes/tests ended Wednesday night, continued northwards to Matauri Bay for epic scuba diving, pranced southwards to Tongariro Alpine Crossing, back to Auckland to chill out/study for a few days, and back north again to the Bay of Islands for some more marine time.
Back to classes: not very interesting, as usual. My mass transfer class is really tough with accompanying labs we don't get any credit for (but fail the course if we don't complete at a satisfactory level); applied chemistry has been pretty easy so far, just review of things I've seen before; stats (applied probability) would have to be my most interesting class, but sneakily gets more difficult by the day; and at last, mind brain and behavior psychology, an epic waste of time. The psych class is designed for first years, but seems around the same level as something I would've taken in 8th grade. In our first lab we trained sniffy the virtual rat to push a lever down; ever since, it's been hard to take the class seriously. Now that we've moved onto developmental psychology things have gotten weird, as a lot of the girls in the class are now a little baby crazy.
Not doing as much tramping (hiking) as I initially expected, but did manage to the famous one day walk the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. In the last couple of years the name was changed from Tongariro Crossing to better reflect the weather conditions, but I reckon it was done to make the trek sound more treacherous. The track itself is pretty well maintained in most spots; the first 1/3 isn't too pretty, as the elevation prevents most vegetation from thriving. Think brown, everywhere, lots of brown. It was pretty cool to see Mt Doom up close though. Even cooler might be the volcanic activity and sulfur (I refuse to spell it sulphur) lakes (certainly not my favorite aroma). The 5 hour car ride wasn't half bad, mostly spent trying to convince the Germans I went with to go to Disneyland instead of back to Auckland and speaking with a Southern accent.
Diving, in a word: AWESOME. Even the most boring ocean landscapes seem to be filled with interesting marine life. Perhaps because I'm new to it. Moray eels look CREEPY up close and the smaller coral growths/fish are fun to look at. My first real dive was in Matauri Bay at the Rainbow Warrior Wreck; hopefully pictures soon, but it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Growths covering the ship with plentiful fish swarming the area. Camping with the kiwis for a few days at the bay was also great fun, hopefully Bay of Islands will be equally, if not more, cool.
Doing dishes and laundry grows quite tedious, I must admit. If only that would take care of itself..
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
re: laundry...or if mom could take care of it for you ;)
ReplyDeleteits so fun to hear about all of your adventures bex! i will be a good sister and write you soon. in fact, i've been slowly adding a sentence here and there to a letter i've been writing you at odd moments during classes. it is difficult to do this because we are so often looking at music; it would be easy to get caught writing words on a blank sheet of paper rather than notes on staff paper. sigh. it sounds like you're still doing well :) i sign on to skype every once and a while, but we never seem to be on at the same time. i failed to get a webcam after going to a third store, and have finally decided to order one online (over the weekend probably since i imagine it will take at least half an hour to figure that all out). love ya! ~Sarah