Fun Fact

It's just been brought to my attention that I'm on URI's film media home page. Wooooo. The picture is from over a year ago and I don't even remember it being taken, haha. I'm moving up in the world.

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/film/

DONE!

Fifteen weeks and one day since I began my journey, I'm officially one hundred percent done with my classes here in New Zealand. The only things that I have to worry about is two final exams on the 4th and 5th of November. I'm really excited for my last 4 weeks here, I'm finally going to be able to go do things without worrying about assignments and getting up early the next morning for 9 a.m. classes. I'm also going to have much more time to update this thing, which I'm sure everyone is thrilled about. 

This week was pretty great in relation to a regular school week. Being as it was my last week of lectures, I took it relatively easy in the attendance area, if you know what I mean. A little bit of sleeping in won't kill you. Class grades here basically consist of two papers and a final paper/essay. So if you've finished two of your papers and have already researched your third, there's not much incentive to drag yourself out of bed, especially when freedom is so close. 

I'm proud to say that went on epic laser tag marathons twice in the last week. This place downtown has a Thursday special: four hours of straight laser tag and any video games you want in the place for 15 dollars. Laser tag is more of a workout than I thought it would be. Also, I think it should be counted as an olympic sport. The intelligence and strategy that goes into laser tag is unparalleled. Sadly, I lost my watch the first night I played laser tag after taking it off to play. I think someone took it. Ah, human nature. It's funny how vulnerable my wrist feels after wearing that watch for four months; I was never a watch-wearing person before. It was a necessary sacrifice, though, for the amount of fun that I had. Me and my flatmates/neighbors did a lot of 3 on 3 games last night, and I slept really well afterwards. The intense physical exertion (including diving, climbing on places that should not be climbed on, and crouching/hiding in uncomfortably small places) combined with the mental strain and paranoia of someone trying to shoot you around every corner really takes its toll on a man. My knee's won't be back to their normal non-red state for a week. I'm convinced that my flatmate Lauren picked up an invincible vest. We executed coordinated velocirapter-inspired "distract and attack" movements on her, and our point-blank range shots would not deactivate her suit. Because of this technical anomaly, the females won the majority of the games.  I for one would rather have a loss than a tainted victory.

My plans for the next 4 weeks involve a lot of fun and a small amount of schoolwork. I think I'm going to join my flatmates and a few of our neighbors in another road trip. They're going around the North Island again, but they're going to a lot of places that I didn't go last time. Because of the fact that we're taking two cars (which don't have to be rented because people own them) and the fact that potential for good weather is exponentially greater (it's mid-spring now), I swayed myself into agreeing to another road trip. Sure, it was tiring, but I'll get to see even more of the country before I leave. Seeing New Zealand is what I wanted to do by coming here in the first place, and all the schoolwork made me lose sight of that. So anyways, we'll probably be leaving Tuesday and getting back on Sunday. This trip is also a bit shorter, so maybe I won't be as drained getting back as I was the last time. I'm planning on doing a couple bungy jumps at Lake Taupo and maybe some river kayaking. The jumps at Taupo involve falling just far enough that you're dipped into the river headfirst, before being plucked back out and flung back into the air. I can't wait. Again, it's a great feeling having school over, it's been a huge inhibitor in the amount of fun things I can go do. I feel like a lot of possibilities have opened up. After we get back, I have to write a quick paper, hang out for another week, and take two exams. I'm not to worried about them because they're for my english classes. After that, it's nine days to home. 

Oh, fun fact. Remember those scary monkey noises I heard in the bush at night when I volunteered on the island? The next day I found out what the noise was coming from. Matt needed our help moving speakers embedded in the woods and powered by the sun. He told us that these speakers turned on at night and emitted loud mating calls of endangered bird species, encouraging them to come to the island and mate there. I asked him if the birds sounded anything like homicidal monkeys, and he affirmed my suspicions. What we had heard the previous night was a prerecorded mating call. This made me feel much better about my personal well being. So the rest of that day was spent setting these speakers up on the side of a steep forest hill. The weather wasn't perfect, but that was alright. It made for a very exciting ride back on the ferry. Fabien and I stood on the top of the storm-swept vessel and got pelted with ridiculous amounts of wind, hail, and spraying salt water. My face was dry red from all the salt for the next few days. Again, though, completely worth it for the exhilarating experience of approaching Wellington harbor like a world-weary sailer, beaten along on the salt-crested waves.

Everyone who goes to England always has their stereotypical "Mind The Gap" picture, 

so I thought I'd take a New Zealand version.

My flatmates and I took a trip to the Rivendell filming locations a couple of weekends ago. Again, the weather was fairly lousy (this is really becoming a trend), but I still had a great time taking it all in. We're planning on going back and camping in Rivendell, maybe going rafting down the river. It's funny how you can almost sense the magic in these places, even though they're very much a part of the real world. It smells different as well, probably from all the plants I'm not used to. Still a plant-y smell, but different. Walking through the forest, we found a couple of swinging vines hanging from the trees and decided to pull some Tarzan moves. Here's the thing about vine swinging. You stand on an elevated ledge, grab onto the vine, and swing. It's a very fun experience going forward. However, the mind fails to acknowledge the fact that as you reach as high as gravity will allow, you're going to go backwards. So after all of our vine, swinging experiences, all of us had some respectable bruises on our legs and backs from slamming into the large trees on our accelerated journeys backwards. Again, completely worth it for the UPWARDS swing. Life lessons here, everyone.

I'm trying something new this week. My friend Allen and I are going to practice a couple of songs together on the guitar and go busking. Busking is a term for playing guitar on the street. I hadn't heard it before but apparently it's common. Playing on the street is big in Wellington, particularly on Cuba street where most of the culture is. I don't expect to make a great amount of money doing it, I'm just looking forward to trying it out. I just hope nobody discourages us by throwing tomatoes and other unsavory vegetables at us. We were going to go tonight, but it's raining, so maybe Sunday night will work. I've been trying to think of simple songs for two people to harmonize with, and I've come up with "Teach Your Children", "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley, "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, "Don't Look Back In Anger" by Oasis, "We Can Work it Out" by The Beatles, "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World" and "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young, and "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who. The playlist is growing. We're about to practice for a bit, so I'll talk to you very soon. Take Care

Bill