Orana Wildlife Park, Shakespeare, and Chinese lanterns

We had our last round of visitors scheduled to come during our program, and we got the chance to go to a new place that we'd been meaning to visit before we even moved here: Orana Wildlife Park in Christchurch a little ways past airport. The day we went, we had a very packed day with the park in the early afternoon, an outdoor Shakespeare play 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' in the early evening, and the Chinese Lantern Festival in the late evening.

Some highlights at the park were the lion feeding where the lions climbed onto the enclosed truck to get some scraps, some fun birds like a talkative tui and a mischievous kea, and a lot of tuatara lizards, including one that was just perfectly positioned for a close-up. The cheetahs had also recently been fed and were pacing around and looking so graceful and lean. Big cats really are so similar to domestic ones and so beautiful. The Shakespeare play included one of my former students, and it didn't rain on us so that was good. We popped over to the lantern festival and the timing was good because it was by then dark enough to see the lanterns lit up nicely and we saw lots of new ones -- it's a nice annual tradition in the park downtown.

Now we are nearing the final stretch of completing our theses, which means long hours and getting frustrated at having to go back and re-edit and re-write and cut words and add them and patch holes in arguments and all of the other work to put together an 80,000-word tome. We're not planning other travel or conferences or much of anything to be able to focus on the writing. It will be a challenge for sure.

caught this little critter with its tongue out!

my favorite NZ bird: the tui with two voiceboxes and fun warbles

the very intelligent kea

"Two Gentlemen of Verona" with a swingin' sixties theme

Pavlova Paradise and Chinese Lantern Festival

I've been having several spurts of entrepreneurial activity and thinking and trying to pass it along to others whom it might help, and it really is infectious. I don't think the students who hole up in their rooms or in the library and don't interact much with anyone else quite understand that they are missing out on all kinds of valuable learning experiences. To me, going to university is about so much more than studying and writing papers and passing tests: it is one of the only times you will be in an environment packed with learning opportunities (visiting professors and businesspeople, like-minded and un-like-minded peers) where you have the time and energy to do deep thinking and wrestle out ideas with others, to have people disagree with you and force you to defend yourself or change to adapt to new information. Plodding along is certainly one way of going to college, but such a poor experience and value for your money compared to really taking advantage of so many resources in one place.

On that note, several of us attended a public lecture by Austin Mitchell, who is famous for writing The Half Gallon Quarter Acre Pavlova Paradise in 1972, which is a satirical look at New Zealand culture, and then a sequel called Pavlova Paradise Revisited in 2002. It was so heartening to see the lecture theater packed out. I arrived late because of getting off work late and had to sit in the sound booth room at the back crushed with a bunch of other latecomers. Mitchell is British but spent some time in New Zealand as a lecturer in history and sociology. He had a great character and captivated the audience. After discussing some of the disturbing trends since the 1980s deregulation and privatization, he ended by saying that New Zealand should use its small size to its advantage, not to be anti-intellectual but to push for using things like television and documentaries to educate its populace and make positive change. He inspired me to want to read his books, and it was heartening to hear that New Zealand used to be better even if it has declined since the mid 20th century. He challenged academics to get out in the public eye and not just write articles that few will read, which is something I have been thinking a lot about, especially with Digital Humanities' call for open access rather than pay-walled content available only to the privileged. Afterward, there was a hang-out where they gave everyone free pavlova (like an airier angel food cake) and we continued the intellectual discussion with our friends. To me, that evening was the stuff universities should be made of and encouraging. 

At the university's clubs day, I met several American students here on exchange, and it was fun talking about U.S. politics (more commiserating) and explaining some things about New Zealand. I like the immediate sense of camaraderie I can establish with most other American students here. You already have something in common and can launch into almost any topic without hesitation. It makes me feel old hat since I've been here for over a year. I also met a Canadian recently and we got along immediately.

We gave up on trying to mow the lawn ourselves and paid a lawn-mowing guy who left his business card in our mailbox to decimate it and trim around all of the overgrown edges. One of the best uses of $30 I've spent. It was done so fast and saved us a bunch of time and back-breaking work. I can't believe how much time, energy, and money people who have lawns spend to maintain them. When the water supply goes, I hope lawns will too. Xeriscaping is easier for everyone!



The Chinese Lantern Festival in Hagley Park turned out to be way more popular than the organizers anticipated. It was the most crowded event we've been to here, and a later newspaper article said it had 30,000-50,000 people (anticipated 20,000) over the two nights it ran. We met up with our Chinese friends and I suggested some business ideas they might want to look into beyond fighting for the few spots in academia, which excited them. It was hard to see the stage from the way back where we were, but we could hear the drums and the famous Chinese rock band, and then there were fireworks at the end. The lanterns in and around the trees were cool, too.

 

 

 

Doing Things Around Christchurch

As for things to do around Christchurch, we went to the Airforce Museum, Savemart thrift stores, Benson Chinese restaurant with our Chinese friends, Botanic Gardens, Canterbury Museum, ReStart Mall, and the ruined Christchurch Cathedral (what we call disaster tourism). There was a Hare Krishna group performing at the ReStart Mall, which was my first time hearing them. While we were at the Canterbury Museum, there was a 4.1 earthquake, but I was the only one in the group who felt it. I looked at a woman next to me and she confirmed it: 'earthquake.' I checked the Christchurch Quake Map website on my phone and sure enough, there had been one. It was the final days of a Da Vinci exhibit which was really cool -- the display on anatomy and bodies showed just how ahead of his time he was.

Celebrating New Year with Driver's Licenses

We rung in the New Year in Hagley Park again -- couldn't help but notice that the same band was playing the same songs as last year. I enjoyed them, but I can see how people that go there every year might want a little change sometimes.

Since you're supposed to get a New Zealand driver's license once you've been here for a year and we hadn't yet...we finally went in to AA to submit applications. Of course, I read the instructions and had everything photocopied and ready, and then the clerk tells me that my U.S. license has to be at least two years old to avoid retaking the driving test. Did it say that on the form? Nope. So I had to come back the next day with my expired U.S. license to prove it was older than two years. In the U.S., no one even wants to see any ID that's expired. Good news is that other than that, it was easy, the licenses arrived in the mail within five days, and they're good for ten years. Now we don't have to lug our passports around if we need to prove our age.

Our Chinese friends nicely invited us out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, and I decided to learn how to use chopsticks finally. It wasn't too bad once I got the hang of it -- I had to keep a death grip on the lower stick to manage. Interestingly, the restaurant served the water warm, which apparently is a common practice. We had a nice evening talking about food and life.

Otherwise, I am plugging away at the first chapter of my thesis, finally. The "summer" has been mostly cool so far, with a few scattered days of warmth. Our pepper plants are still hardly more than a couple inches high, but the rest of the garden is taking off, though the hail storm has destroyed the spinach beyond hope I think. It stays light out until late in the evening, which distorts one's sense of time.

pretty sunset -- after 9:00pm here!

my first homegrown raspberry!!

the broccoli is actually growing this year