NDF Conference in Wellington and Education Seminars

The National Digital Forum Conference up in Wellington was surprisingly very good. It was mostly surrounding what is going on in digital projects by the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sector, which I normally view as being stale. It actually has some really interesting things going on, even in New Zealand! Before one meeting, a guy at my table was on the subject of  how cats were ruining the native wildlife and birds here, and I said there was an easy solution: just have indoor cats like we do in the U.S. He seemed to have never thought of this before. One fun part of meeting new people is meeting Dune fans and trying to convert others. I convinced two women who are science fiction fans but hadn't read it yet (mostly because its length is intimidating) to add it to their list. I’m pretty much a Dune ambassador at this point. 

I checked out the National Library's little exhibit on the 1975 Maori Land March while I was there. In short, a large group of Maori led by a 79-year-old woman, Whina Cooper, marched the length of the North Island south to the capital, Wellington, to protest the loss of Maori land. Petitions of support were circulated, and I thought how real and concrete these seem in contrast to today's online petitions.

There were some interesting seminars at the university. One was a Digital Humanities seminar on the issues surrounding preserving, storing, digitizing, and dealing with copyright for all of the old university radio shows and music still stored on cassette tapes. Two others were on the Education Campus and featured Professor Antonia Darder from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles . She spoke on decolonizing the body in education and how we are doing a disservice to young people by enforcing the mind/body split and pretending that education is only about their cognitive abilities and not the rest of their physical selves. Immobilizing them in rows of hard desks and viewing teachers as technicians rather than pedagogical leaders is hampering a development of empathy and whole selves. I had never heard of Paulo Freire before, but I am interested in now checking out his Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Professor Darder also was the keynote presenter at an Education Symposium where she elaborated on her notion of what is needed for critical leadership for social justice and community empowerment in today's world. She ended with reminding us that the Western mentality is a conquest mentality, making everyone believe that everything has to be big to be worthwhile. But she said local, small acts can have great impact and translate bigger. She was a really passionate and inspiring speaker, and I'm glad I had the chance to hear about different ways of thinking about education.
 

Dr. Antonia Darder in her lecture on decolonizing the body in education

In other news, we were invited for dinner at someone's house where we tried some new foods: parsnip and leeks. We brought American-style buttermilk biscuits which were happily scooped up. They taught us how to play Mahjongg, which was great because we had just bought the game at a garage sale that morning and I have been wanting to learn so I can play with my Chinese friends. Apparently it is so addicting that it is banned in Chinese universities so the students don't get distracted.
 

leaving the South Island

my 6:40am flight was mostly businesspeople (men) in suits

view of downtown Wellington - weather stayed mostly nice

one conference presenter had a Dune reference on his slide - sweet!

sighting 1 of neighborhood cat in Wellington

sighting 2 of neighborhood cat in Wellington

sighting 3 of neighborhood cat in Wellington

Parliament building in Wellington is called The Beehive

Wellington airport has lots of Lord of the Rings stuff hanging

I beg to differ: insulation here stinks

leaving Wellington at 8:00pm

returning to Christchurch

China, High School, and Democracy in Disasters

I had some interesting conversations with some Chinese students about food and displays of affection. They had no idea about kids' menus in restaurants and picky eaters, so I told them about the problem of "latchkey" kids who come home to an empty house and pretty much make their own dinner and take care of themselves. This leads to them growing up on frozen food and things they can easily make on their own, like mac n cheese and spaghettios and breaded chicken nuggets. Or they get fast food several times a week and don't tolerate anything not on that kind of menu. The conversation arose as I was asking what kind of food a young Chinese child was being introduced to and she said it was the same things the parents were eating, like rice and such. I showed her some examples of kids' menus online so she could see what I was talking about. I also learned that the words tea and tofu originated in China. Regarding displays of affection, apparently it is not common for parents to hug/kiss their kids. The society is a lot more conservative than others, and the students said that they find it unusual how much affection is shown between families on Western tv and movies. As I reflect more on it, what is on tv and movies isn't necessarily the norm for a lot of Western families either, but it is the image we project to the rest of the world and how they think we all behave.

I spent two mornings as a tutor for high school students who were attending a week-long school camp at a nice resort called Living Springs over the Port Hills from Christchurch. It was very disappointing discovering that everything I've learned about the NCEA education system was largely true, with predigested assignments given to students without context or connection and no incentives for doing any better than the bare minimum to pass. Most of them could not even articulate basic ideas like what subjects they enjoy or do more than give plot summaries. I enjoyed teaching the 5-paragraph essay structure and helping out with talking through assignment guidelines and arguments. What was ridiculous was that the NCEA worksheets (which should be given to teachers, not students, because it has hard-to-decipher learning outcomes and policy things like the number of credits all printed right on the front) had errors themselves. You really shouldn't give students examples of things that have spelling and punctuation errors on them. Who created these materials anyway?

The Living Springs camp is nestled up in these hills

The view from Living Springs

The view coming down the road to go home

I substituted as a note-taker in a class on New Zealand politics, and it was really interesting to hear about the lack of democracy in disaster areas. Basically, politicians and governments use disasters to enact emergency powers and shut down discussion and debate. We watched a clip from Naomi Klein about her idea of "shock doctrine", where politicians quickly pass legislation that might be unpopular while people are still recovering from the shock of a disaster, either human-caused or natural. In Christchurch, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) was created after the 2011 earthquake to handle the recovery process, and it has a lot of power and is not elected, so people here are still living in an area with a suspended democracy. It was supposed to return power within a certain timeframe, but that seems to keep getting delayed.


There was an interesting lecture on China as a Great Polar Power, but it is based on unpublished research so we aren't allowed to discuss it. Suffice it to say, I didn't know about the recent Chinese movements near the Aleutian Islands and we might want to be concerned.

I can't understand why people are okay with sausages being served in white bread slices instead of buns. It's just not the same.

There were massive winds unlike even the worst ones we've experienced so far. Weather reports said there were gusts of 150-160 km/hr (90-100 m/hr). The glass in the window panes was shaking and it sounded like a massive storm. All kinds of things were blowing down the street.

We prepared and planted the garden with new seeds and are hoping for another successful year. I bought more strawberry plants to add to the existing bed, but everything else is starting from seed.

Rigid Systems

Health

I received a care package from home (yay Chex Mix!), but unfortunately it was intercepted by MedSafe and they confiscated some of the supplements inside because New Zealand's nanny-state health system requires a prescription for them. In the U.S., melatonin is a sleep aid and sold as a supplement. The letter gives you 30 days to get a legitimate prescription from a doctor (and if you have more than a 3-month supply, the doctor has to take anything over 3 months' worth and dole them out to you gradually) or they destroy them. The letter tries to convince you how bad it is to order drugs online because they could be harmful. I really don't like the health care system here. Also just found out that the junky student health insurance they sell us is really only intended as a travel insurance, so that's why it doesn't cover anything. The government discontinued students getting onto the good health insurance in 2011 apparently.

My Presentations

I had my one-year confirmation oral presentation with my supervisors, a moderator from the department, and a friend who wanted to come along. I'm glad she did because then I could complain about it afterward with someone who had been there. It wasn't too bad, but I get frustrated at constantly being told I haven't include this, that, and the other French theorist for some point, and how the paper won't pass if I don't include them. Research has gotten so bogged down in these theory fads; it used to be psychoanalysis, but of course that went out of vogue. Now it's poststructuralism, but that too will pass eventually. It seems to become more about pleasing others than making a good, original contribution to the field that is accessible to not just a minority.

One of my former students invited me to give a lecture to the public downtown for International Parking Day, where people buy a parking spot and protest cities being made for cars instead of people by setting up alternate things in the parking spot (like a living room set or a table with leaflets and hands-on activities). There weren't too many passers-by in the early afternoon, but I still got a chance to practice presenting and time myself on my Digital Humanities presentations. We had some good conversations before and after about education and travel, so it was a nice experience.

Got to meet the cutest white German Shepherd walking by!

 Others' Presentations

There continue to be interesting presentations that fill me up with all kinds of ideas. It's what I am enjoying most about being back in school. One of the Digital Humanities ones was on the shift from product-based capitalism to financial capitalism where people make money off of money and digital things like data. Basically, we're giving away our data for free when we use social media and other apps that harvest our data and sell it to advertisers. It's digital sharecropping and we should be cautious about further enriching the .0001% (Google, Facebook, etc.). Hard to disagree that we're being taken advantage of.

Peter Singer, who helped start the animal rights movement in the 70s, was in town speaking on effective altruism, utilitarianism, and rationalism. He believes that people should give their money away to charities and places where it will make the most impact, so like to African charities that provide very low-cost mosquito nets to combat malaria. He says saving more people is better than saving fewer, even if that means not helping people in your community because the money will make more of a difference to really impoverished people. He specifically called out things like walk-a-thons that require a lot of people's time that might be better spent working and earning money that could then be given away. But some people do things for the psychological benefit and so aren't being as altruistic as they could be. It was an intriguing talk with some good audience questions afterward.

An Emeritus Professor of Political Science gave a lecture on throwing out the political science canon (Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau) because it limits people's perspectives and the ability to make new connections. He said there is no reason we need to keep reading these men's works as if they are the only way of looking at political issues and motivations. I had to agree with him, more in the context of my own field (see above on my confirmation) where a handful of theorists now dominate the perspective one can take when critically examining literature. But the only reason he can say this is because he's retired and has the freedom to challenge the canon.

Diane Foreman is one of the most successful women in the Asia-Pacific region, and the university's entrepreneurship program invited her to give a talk on her successful business career. I had just read about her in a magazine my friend gave to me so some of the information was repeated, but it was cool to hear about some of her business experiences and how she thinks of herself as a capitalist feminist. She believes in treating her employees well and incentivizing them to do better, which has been missing in a lot of my former workplaces. She also talked about the issue with selling time, a point raised in the magazine article. Kids are encouraged to grow up and enter the professions: doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc. But the problem with these pathways is that you can only make money by selling your time. You might bill out at $1,000 an hour, but you aren't making money without billable hours. As a business owner, though, you can make money without having to physically be at your business. You aren't at the mercy of needing others to pay you for your time. She said we should be encouraging kids who have the entrepreneurial spirit to become business owners. I would add that we should be teaching basic business and financial skills to everyone, so even those with Art and Science backgrounds can go into business if they desire. 

The second annual university Feminist Society day conference went well, and I learned some interesting things, including some scary facts about how radicalization is affecting kids and women in the Middle East. There are no easy answers.

 Education

My friend recommended a TV show where several Chinese teachers go to a British school and teach the kids in the "Chinese method" for 3 weeks and see if it is more effective than the British method of teaching. He thought I would be against the Chinese method because it is so rigid and involves 10-12 hours of school per day, but I told him that I had a similarly rigid method of teaching at some points in my education and am all for it. I didn't know how many hours Chinese kids go to school though. He said in junior high and onward, they are constantly at school or at home studying; they have very little free time. Everything is geared toward passing exams to get into a good college. [The BBC documentary was called Are Our Kids Tough Enough? I watched it on YouTube, but it has since been removed for copyright complaints from BBC. It might be available elsewhere.]

Speaking of education, the more I learn about the NCEA high school education system here, the more concerned I am for this country. I had to help a student who is constantly being marked down for his bad grammar and punctuation and said he has a tendency to write long sentences that are incorrect; when I asked him if he knew how sentences work (with a subject and verb and stuff like that), he gave me the saddest face and shook his head and said no, he didn't. Where do you even go with that? It's incredibly difficult to try to explain why something is grammatically incorrect if they don't know the parts of speech and how sentences fit together with punctuation. I learned from the Chinese vs. British show that the UK stopped teaching grammar in the 60s, so I assume that carried over to New Zealand as well. I know some schools still do it, but it's probably only the good ones. I'm hoping the U.S. hasn't given up on grammar; I know they were still teaching it when I went through.

When students here try to apply to PhD programs in the U.S., they are completely intimidated by the GRE tests since they don't have to take anything like the SAT or ACT to get into college. If they don't pass their high school classes here, they can wait until they turn 20 and get in without any requirement. And since there are a lot fewer requirements for what they take in high school, the last time they took a math class might have been junior high! I would venture the rate of doing well on those kinds of tests is not very high; they're hard enough for those of us who've been conditioned to the standardized test system!

Spring is finally coming!

Prince Harry, Demolition, and High School Education

Prince Harry visits the University

Harry's visit coincided with one of my tutorials, so attendance was even lower than usual! It was raining and hailing, but hundreds of students still turned out to see him. I snapped a photo on my way back to the postgrad room. Look for the red hair!

American Treats

I made some white chocolate-covered pretzels with sprinkles and powdered-sugar-covered chocolate cereal bites for my fellow postgrads, and they really enjoyed them. I can't believe you could be on this earth for two decades and not have had these sugary treats. Despite the preponderance of sugary things here, they are really missing out on some of the best ones. 

Neighborhood Demolition

A second house in the last couple weeks was demolished in our neighborhood. The crews decided to start around 7:30am for good measure. It was strangely entrancing to watch this excavator scoop away parts of the house, mattresses tumbling down and brick walls collapsing with just a touch. Two days later, the whole lot was completely empty, as if nothing had been there before. I have no idea whether or not these lots will be filled with new houses.

New Zealand High School Education

Oftentimes, learning the history of something can help illuminate why current things are the way they are. This has been the case with my trying to discover what might be going on with the high levels of student apathy I've been encountering in my tutorials (and a general sense of it on campus).

It turns out, one of the doctoral students in my postgrad room is actually researching education and educational philosophies in New Zealand. I had heard from multiple students (both undergrad and postgrad) that the relatively new NCEA education system in high schools was not doing a good job of educating students, but he really pulled it all into perspective for me. Note that so far I have yet to do my own internet research on this topic, so everything I know I got from him and others. Basically, about ten years ago the NCEA education qualification system was implemented and meant that high school students were working toward completing credits to obtain a qualification (I'm not sure what system was in place before then -- my fellow postgrad says New Zealand had previously experimented with both British and U.S. models of education). So students take various assessments to earn credits, and then when they have enough credits, they are done with high school. He says that while they still have graduation ceremonies, the emphasis is more on completing the qualification than reaching a major life milestone. 

The part that I can't believe is how these various assessments have contributed to the fragmentation of the curriculum to the point that students are finishing high school without ever having written a full essay. I have heard from multiple sources that all they needed to do in terms of writing to pass the NCEA requirements was write paragraphs, never a complete essay. So they are shocked when they come to university and are expected to know how to write an essay. And this is the huge gap I have identified and that my friend acknowledged is definitely there: the high school curriculum is not designed to prepare students for college. It is designed at a rudimentary level for all students, including those who just want to go into the labor force after receiving the minimum qualification. 

Then, he told me that there are no standardized tests nor any mandatory curriculum content aside from some very general ones. Coming from the U.S. with constantly changing standards and tests, I couldn't believe how much freedom the state here gives to teachers. While freedom for teachers to teach can certainly be a very good thing, it seems like this means the students from the private schools -- which do have college prep and International Baccalaureate classes -- are miles ahead of the students who go anywhere else. 

Another interesting thing is that the push for "equality of opportunity" for New Zealanders has led to there being essentially no requirements for entry into New Zealand universities. I think students have to meet some of the NCEA requirements to get in. But even if they drop out of high school, after age 20 any New Zealander can be admitted to university. I told my friend, exasperatedly, that just because you let someone into college, that doesn't mean you are doing them a favor if they aren't at all prepared; you are setting them up to fail miserably and put them through a lot of anxiety. He knows, but he said that this ideal is more important to the country than actually making high schools more aligned with university standards so students are better prepared. 

Now, the lack of grammar, punctuation, and writing skills of the New Zealand students in my tutorials and at the skills center makes so much more sense. And because the bar has been set so low for many students throughout high school (what is the difference between a "meets expectation" and "exceeds expectations" if you receive the same NCEA credit regardless?), they are conditioned to meet the minimum standard and do no more. If attendance isn't required for a grade, it is just extra work. If a C will let them pass the class, striving for an A will just be more work. Some people will always want to do well because of internal motivation, but this system seems to make it very difficult for everyone else to put much effort into their education (and life? work?) since there is so little incentive. 

All of which leaves me wondering where to go in terms of teaching under these conditions. In some good news, I received a little Kudos award and chocolate bar from the skills center for my one-on-one tutoring with students. 

Not-so-pleasant Aspects

After the two-week trip in the North Island, the time has come for some of the not-so-pleasant aspects of New Zealand. The speeding ticket from the first day of the roadtrip waiting in the mail did not help...

Healthcare

My first experience with the New Zealand healthcare system was not enjoyable. The law only allows pharmacies to dispense 3 months' worth of prescription drugs at a time. You have to go back in for a doctor's appointment every 3 months to get a refill (contraception is the exception - it is every 6 months). For people on a medication for years that does not require close monitoring, this is ridiculous. The international student insurance of course doesn't cover the appointment or the prescriptions, so this could quickly become a signficant cost. Some other students have said that it is sometimes possible to get a cheaper nurse's appointment for refills, but I have not tried this yet. (Also, even over-the-counter drugs from a pharmacist can only be given out in 1-month supply.)

Living

We have found that toilets here don't flush well, regardless of whether or not they are in rich people's houses or nice business establishments. It is nice that most of them have the dual-flush option to save water, but they don't get enough power to actually get the water clean. I finally looked up the difference and found an Australian company trying to show that their way is superior to the North American way: 

"North American toilets most commonly utilize siphon jet technology. Most of the water in the tank is used to create a vacuum or siphon effect in the trapway of the toilet bowl, which then pulls the waste out after the water. [...] Washdown toilets do not use this flushing mechanism. When flushed, the water is released very quickly from the tank and into the bowl through an open rim bowl design" (http://www.caromausa.com/resources/faq.php#a2). 

Sorry, but the washdown toilets just don't do the job. It's not saving water if you have to flush several times. 

Power outlets are not installed in most bathrooms, at least not in older places. If they are, they are in inconvenient locations and not usable for things that need to rest, like electric toothbrush charging stations. I'm not sure where people who use electric appliances (hairdryer, hair curler, etc.) get ready in the mornings. There is also a general lack of power outlets in hallways or rooms; often there is only one or two for a whole room. Power strips are the norm here.

I think I've already mentioned the absurdity of the sub-standard housing and lack of central heating, but now that colder weather is here again (52 degrees F in the house this morning), it is very frustrating. Just using the heat pump for a little bit in the morning and evening and heating blankets has shot the electricity bill up a lot. It will easily be over $300 a month for electricity this winter. Also, I downloaded the manual for the heat pump which is technically an air conditioner to try to figure out how the timer works so the kitchen won't be an ice box in the morning. I had to laugh out loud:

"Heating Performance: The air conditioner operates on the heat-pump principle, absorbing heat from outdoor air and transferring that heat indoors. As a result, the operating performance is reduced as outdoor air temperature drops. If you feel that insufficient heating performance is being produced, we recommend you use this air conditioner in conjunction with another kind of heating appliance."

So...the main source of heating in most New Zealand houses is not really designed to work well when it's cold outside. Great... Guess it's good I have three space heaters, three heating blankets...

Part of the reason we study at school is because most of the buildings are heated (who knows how much that costs). But it is unclear who is in charge of the heating. Sometimes if the weather outside warms up, it actually becoems too hot in the room and students start opening windows to get a breeze. Having heaters on and windows open is so wasteful. 

We started using our clothes dryer and discovered that because it doesn't have a vent on the back, all of the moisture in the clothes shoots out through the front vent and soaks the laundry room floor in front of it. I'm not sure who designed it this way or why there isn't at least a warning that you will have a puddle to contend with when you use the appliance.

"Morning tea" is basically snack-time at 11:00am, and last week I went to one as part of a staff meeting. As in the past, there were napkins but no paper plates or utensils for eating some of the food. All of the food is not finger food, and yet they still do not provide a non-messy way of eating them. This has happened with fruit before, but this time there were full sponge cake and carrot cake pieces. I picked up a piece of the chocolate and raspberry sponge cake with my bare hand and it oozed raspberry jam and whipped cream all over. I put it in a napkin to hold it, but this still involved sacrificing one hand to become entirely messy. I cannot understand how anyone thinks this kind of food can be eaten without a plate and fork. 

Education

I know a lot of U.S. college teachers still take attendance in their classes and count it as part of your grade. Here, taking attendance is not the norm (although I've heard some teachers do it). Sometimes lecture halls are full; other times they are visibly missing most of the students. My tutorial attendance has been steadily dropping and I know I have neither carrot nor stick to hold over them. Fewer students are actually completing the weekly reading as well, making it difficult to have discussions when no one has read. The whole system seems to be based on the ideal notion that students are there to learn, rather than complete the assignments, pass the classes, and earn a degree that can then help them get a job. There are some good students, of course, but you have to wonder what the rest of them are doing with their time since most classes don't have homework and just have a couple essays or tests for the entire grade. 

I also just finished grading their first round of essays and encountered an astonishingly high number of grammar and punctuation errors. From asking around the staff and other postgrads, I have learned that the New Zealand education system is not very good and if you don't go to a good school or have a good English teacher, you probably won't learn grammar or how to write an essay.  

Another interesting thing is that the school allows time clashes, so a student can be enrolled in two classes that have lectures at the same time and not go to one of them but complete the assignments and get credit for it. Some of my students are unable to attend my tutorials because of time clashes. There are also three-week-long study breaks with exams at the end. We never had that long to study for our exams; plus, we had homework throughout the semester! I believe these breaks are a legacy of the British system.

General 

D learned in one of his law classes that there has been boilerplate language regarding acts of God (like earthquakes) in mortgage agreements for decades, and people signed them without any consideration that their homes could be repossessed and demolished by the bank if it deemed earthquake damage irreparable. So technically, if a homeowner didn't have earthquake insurance, they wouldn't be entitled to receive any compensation in the event of an earthquake. Yet because the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes caused so much damage to the city as a whole, public pressure ended up turning against the enforcement of these clauses. The situation raises interesting questions about whether it's fair to the people who prepared and bought earthquake insurance that people who didn't pay for it ended up getting bailed out because of the disaster. Four years later, people are still waiting for insurance claims to be settled and a couple houses in our neighborhood are in the process of being demolished. 

Also, earthquakes are getting to be a pretty common occurence for me here, though I am still scared when they happen. We experienced our first one while at school on April 24th. Since we were several floors up, the shaking was gentle. It lasted for about 20 seconds.

A lot of roads are poorly marked. In the U.S. there are Botts' Dots and reflective markers so you can clearly see the lanes. In the dark, it is hard to tell where lanes are, and it is dangerous when it's raining and you can't see where you're supposed to be driving. In construction areas especially, you sometimes have to guess where the lane dividers are. 

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I think that is the bulk of it for now. It will be interesting to compare Australia in a few months with New Zealand and the U.S. It should hopefully be a bit warmer there!

Arts and Fireworks

School & Work

Admittedly, I haven't done much for my research since the trip to Queenstown. I've been working on several editing projects and planning upcoming trips to the North Island and Australia (finally booked our flight to its east coast -- very much looking forward to it!). The English PhD student in the cubicle next-door who is rarely there and never speaks finally talked to me and actually offered me a grading job for the semester! Also found out that her research is something to do with Star Trek television shows. She needs a group of people to grade papers for the one writing class that engineering students have to take (because employers complained that recent grads couldn't communicate). Add that to my other three part-time jobs and I will have quite a schedule when the school semester for undergraduates starts on February 23rd. Of course, I don't have a schedule yet because everything is done so last-minute.

There were two research presentations on-campus by the two candidates for a part-time English faculty position, so it was interesting to see this part of the job interview. The first just received her PhD last year and is looking at representations of women in horror films; the second is an American who moved to NZ over a year ago whose research is on contemporary women's representations in literature and film through the lens of literary theory. They were very different, so I have no idea whom will be chosen. The first was a graduate of the department, so there could be some bias there, although the decision-makers might also be looking for a fresh perspective.

D and I have been having several discussions about arts education, and a particularly intense one after I read aloud parts of this long but informative article on liberal-arts education (link below), how it has changed, what people think it means, and whether or not it is still valued/valuable in various societies. I haven't yet formulated an essay on the topic, but I feel like one is in the works in my mind.
The Chronicle of Higher Education's "The Day The Purpose of College Changed"

In a similar vein, one of the reasons I nominated myself to be on the committee of the university's feminist society/club was to help ensure there are opportunities for education on women's issues and civil rights on-campus. Along with the recent cutbacks in many of the school's Arts programs (including American Studies) was the removal of the Gender Studies programs, which means that currently there is only one class on gender, in the Sociology department, which is only offered occasionally. This seems odd for a well-regarded university of over 14,000 students. So I was successfully voted in and will be doing my part this year to incorporate educational events for interested students into the club's schedule.

Outdoors

We went on a hike in the Port Hills which was particularly hard because it was a hot day and all uphill. The hills were brown but we still enjoyed good views of the ocean and harbor on either side at the top.

Another day we went on one of the trails at Halswell Quarry Park. The blue-gray Halswell Stone from there was used to build many of the city's buildings. The city has done a nice job of preserving the history with several boards around the 30-minute trail. 

For some reason, Christchurch likes its fireworks shows. The third show since November was on January 31, called "Sparks". The Christchurch Symphony Orchestra played movie themes for two hours beforehand. The weather was bad -- it drizzled the whole time and was windy -- but that didn't deter them from lighting off the fireworks.

Home

D had a packet of San Francisco sourdough yeast mailed to him and, after days of prep, successfully made a loaf of bread with some of that sourdough tang he so enjoys. Later, he made another batch and will keep the starter going in the fridge to help it become even more sour-tasting. This kind of bread-making is definitely an intensive process. I made pumpkin pie (with a homemade crust) for the first time for a friend's going-away board game party. It turned out pretty good! Thank you, Libby's canned pumpkin. I advertised my financial guide ebook on social media (a little side project I finished last year) and enrolled for a short cooking class at the local community center which starts tomorrow. My sunflower bloomed and our car passed its Warrant of Fitness test (required every 6 months for older cars). Yay! And today we went to the park to hear the Scottish Society Pipe Band play bagpipes and drums.