Below you will find the link to the web site you can visit with help for making citations for the sources you use for this project.
Good luck with your projects and I'm looking forward to seeing your presentations!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
"Safe" sites to visit for Greek School Project
Parents and Students, here is a list of sites you can visit and use as resources for your Greek Gods and Goddesses project. Feel free to explore and find more on your own, but these are some that have been helpful in the past for students. Thank you to Mrs. Bird for sharing these.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Pictures from my adventures...
The first waterfall we got in, this was a baby compared to the other, and much colder, brrr. 
Karekare
A few who chose to remain dry, haha.
Time for a dip?
Don't know what I'm going for here...
View from the top.
Me attempting to be an artsy photographer.
The waves were gorgeous.
"Honeymoon" beach
My battle wound for the day, the rocks fought backm but I won, sort of.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh.....
Wouldn't you want to move here too?
Our first look at Piha from the road.
Beautiful.
Still beautiful!
Thanks Estephanie for letting me steal this one. 
Our group on the way down....
Lion's head at Piha Beach. If you look closely you can see the shape of a lion laying down.
Player for the Australian team, he put his arm around me and I touched his back, I've never felt someone so sweaty in my life!
He wasn't even famous, but who cares, we still wanted to take a picture with him.
Hellooooooooooooooo
At our very first rugby match!
Ames and me : )
Seriously, not tasty in the least.
Uni/Sea Urchin/yuck!
Trying to safe from the sun with the hat.
Jessica, me, Megan, and Arisa....I'm a little obessesed with the trees behind us, I think they're so cool!
Orewa Beach 
Striking our best, er, pose, in Parnell....graffiti is called tagging here.
Sarah, Sofia, Kori, me and Hallie
Lava lavas!
Didn't purchase this one, hmm.
Did I mention we live down the road from a nudist colony? I think I forgot to mention that one...we just missed their open invitation week, dang it.
After the concert
In Otara (aka the ghetto here, but I don't think it's that bad) for a little concert. Random story....they asked someone to come up and sing a song, and at that exact moment I got up to go and say something to one of the guys we were with, and they thought I was getting up to come sing. Everyone started cheering for me to go up and pointing at me. I thought I was going to be thrown out when I refused to go up, haha.
Beautiful Auckland
I really have no clue what's on our heads...
Estephanie, moi, and Megan
Cute as penguins, this one's for you Holly : )
Body of a deceased giant squid, a little creepy.
Sarah and me doing the 30 second frozen water challenge, brrrrrrr!
Our group before heading out to Kelly Tarlton's
Brenda and me at her wedding reception.
Estephanie, moi, and Megan
Cute as penguins, this one's for you Holly : )
Body of a deceased giant squid, a little creepy.
Sarah and me doing the 30 second frozen water challenge, brrrrrrr!
Our group before heading out to Kelly Tarlton's
Brenda and me at her wedding reception.South Island here I come!
Have I been having too much fun to write on this? Hmmm, perhaps, but the real reason is how busy we’ve been with classes, etc. We had our last day of classes this past Friday. I can’t believe I’m already done with a semester’s worth of classes, except for one on-line class which might be the death of me, and a lot of assignments which are due during our time in the primary (elementary in the U.S.) schools. My days the past two weeks have been filled with sitting in class all day long, and some play time on the weekends.
I need to back track a bit in order to keep everyone updated. A few weeks ago I went to the wedding of a girl who served in my mission in Maryland who was from New Caledonia, Brenda Li-Khau. She married a guy from this area and they were married in the LDS Hamilton temple, about an hour and a half from Auckland. Their reception was amazing. They had lots of Samoan dances and the food was incredible. I’ve never seen so many different types of meat, I was hesitant to try some, but what I did try was quite tasty. They don’t usually have wedding cakes at weddings here, sometimes, but they have what’s called Pavlova, a meringue type dessert with cream on top, quite tasty. They must have had twenty different ones, passion fruit, strawberry, etc. And it was my first wedding for ice cream to be served. They had the huge silver urns just piled with scoops and scoops of ice cream. Definitely the most delicious reception I’ve been too. At the wedding the groomsmen and other friends of the groom performed what’s called the haka, a traditional maori dance, to the newly married couple. It was so neat to watch, I didn’t understand the nature of it entirely, but lots of people in the room were tearing up a bit. Some of the bride’s friends and family performed native dances, I decided I need to take dance lessons, I am thought I was an “ok” dancer, but I am severely lacking compared to the skills of people here.
The following week was filled with mostly classes and a picnic on Monday night for all of the families the BYU girls are staying with. Besides a few close encounters with some birds in the park, that was fun as well. Everyone here is so laid back and at ease, I love meeting all of the different families the girls I know are staying with. Each one is different, but good. I love the couple we stay with, they couldn’t be any nicer. And they put up with us talking about all of the boys we think are beautiful (and sometimes even ask us about them! Haha) , so bonus points for them : )
After that week of classes that Saturday we went to Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter & Underwater World. Kelly Tarlton was a native kiwi “diver, dreamer, explorer, inventor, instigator, worker, storyteller and father” . At the museum we saw penguins, sting rays, sharks, and some species of things I can’t even begin to guess. I had never seen a penguin before, they were so cute! After leaving the museum we explored an area called Parnell. Very chic/hip fun area of the city. I got to eat my first sushi in Auckland, quite tasty, but I could barely enjoy it from some slight twitterpation I was experiencing, no need to elaborate on that though, boys, boys, how they toy with our hearts. We ventured onto the main Auckland drag, I bought a pair of sandals (envision a gladiator with some bling) and tasted the nastiest McDonald’s milkshake here. Apparently a regular milkshake here is the equivalency of milk with some nasty flavoring, an American milkshake is called a thick shake (probably because you get thick if you drink too many). I will not be visiting McDonald’s again. Bleh. My roommate is obsessed with fast food, I don’t quite understand it, but she always wants hamburgers. Everyone here seems to be a little obsessed too. The pizza here is amazing though. They put little slices of potato on some pizzas here, strange but yummy. After eating egg on a pizza in France I’ll try anything……including sea urchin which I tried recently. It’s also called Uni, but I would probably call it yuck (sorry if I offend anyone who likes it), it’s basically tongue, and I won’t go intro describing the consistency or taste, I’ll only say people apparently love it or hate it, and I fell into the more later one. Its considered a delicacy though and it’s quite expensive. My roommate almost threw up while eating it, I managed to swallow two tongues, eww. New Zealand fear factor here I come!
All right, so moving along, another week of classes went by, science and social studies. I loved both of our teachers, but I could barely understand our Science teacher, Ian. He spoke so quietly and with such a thick accent, I almost leaped for joy every time he had a power point I could read so I could understand what exactly he was talking about. Very smart man though, and I learned a lot from the classes.
For the weekend we went to a sleepover on Friday night with some of the girls from the local young adult ward (congregation) here. The next morning there was a little service project and we did some yard work. I was slightly afraid of the bugs being found, so I eventually stuck to cleaning the inside of the house and was recruited to make pancakes for the guys who had shown up early to work. Thank heavens! They have so many bugs here. Tonight one of the girls had a cockroach in her bed, we keep find geckos, there was one in my bed the other night, I screamed so loud, I thought I had a brown snake in my bed. Whew.
Later in the day I went to Parakai, a swimming place about an hour from here. It was so nice and relaxing, I got an overdose of sun, but am recovering now. I will sticking to my spf 70 from now on. The drive there was worth the trip itself—beautiful countryside, rolling hills and horses, wineries, gorgeous, gorgeous. There was a little town called Kumeu we drove through, I’ve decided I need to live there. Can everyone wire me some money? I’ll buy and house and everyone can come visit for free? Deal? Why not?
Monday was a national holiday here, so no class, beach day! We headed out early to Orewa beach where one of the local church wards was having a bbq (no, not the real stuff). Once again, beautiful. I haven’t seen anything here that isn’t beautiful. I think it was a marine reserve as well. When you stepped into the water, there were sand dollars everywhere beneath your feet. I remember searching for hours at beaches in the U.S. for one and here I found 13 in about ten minutes. My friends insisted I put some of them back. We asked and were told we could take some home though. I relinquished and only kept five. I slathered on the sun screen that day, but also was overdosed. Now it is SPF 70 + hat for me (don’t say I told you so mom).
This past week we had our maths class, not math, maths. They add an s on for some reason, I’m really not sure why exactly, but I kind of like the way it sounds. Our teacher for that class was a hoot, a feisty little lady, I think we tried her patience sometimes, but she liked us. On Friday it was Sarah’s birthday, one of the girls I live with, so we had a little celebration for her during our lunch break. Our teacher was so nice and ordered a cake (one real one, and one pavlova, yummmm) for her. That night we went to our first rugby game for Sarah’s birthday. We got there quite late, so got in for free. It was a team called the all blue’s versus an Australian team. I’m not quite sure what was going on during the game, but the players were really cute. I kept wincing too while watching, they looked like they were all going to kill one another while wearing no helmets or padding, scary. That night some of the other girls from the group and guys we know came over for cake and ice cream. We didn’t stay up too late though because we had to be up bright and early the next morning to go to the beach…..I really don’t think I can go to the beach too much while I’m here.
Piha beach…..breathtaking. The drive there looked like the road to Hana in Hawaii, green and lush as far as the eye can see. This beach isn’t super popular with the locals, mainly because it isn’t very safe for swimming, lots of drowning incidences have occurred here. We didn’t get in the water except for while hiking to Honeymoon beach, a little beach within the beach. Piha is a black sand beach, and honeymoon beach is a little area with white sand within the black sand. Hiking there was a bit treacherous, but I escaped with only a few cuts from the rocks….I think I’m just accident prone. I also think I should move to the beach. You can buy a beach front home here, quite the luxurious one too, for around $500,000 American, quite a steal, eh? The beach and scenerary there were absolutely amazing. I could have just sat there and starred at my surroundings all day. We drove from there to Karekare, where I decided I should take advantage of the beautiful waterfall and go swimming in it, clothes and all. Three other girls decided this was a good idea too, and the rest just looked on and laughed, there loss : ) How many times can you go swimming in a waterfall in New Zealand? Exactly. Then I found out there were eels in the water…..hmmmm…..probably shouldn’t be telling my mother this. I didn’t see any, I did feel something at one point though…
After returning from the long day at the beach Sarah and I went to play our first game of “touch”. Kind of similar to football, but you can only pass backwards, or lateral passes. And touch does not mean tackle, which I kept trying to do. I finally understood the rules by the end of the game, hopefully I get to practice again. After the game the nice guys who picked us up took us to get “thick” shakes. I didn’t think I had any money, but Jared, one of the guys said “Oh, Jarom’s gonna shout you.” He’s going to what? “Shout you.” Shout at us? “No, um, you know…” So, shout here means pay for you. We get to shout next time. Shout. I don’t know how that became the word for paying for someone, but I kind of like it. If you want to shout me, please send money to Juliet Lewis, 34 B…………
It is currently 2 am and I have to be up in 2 hours to fly to Queenstown, so this is all for now. I’ll be in the South Island for about a week, back here for my birthday, and then leave on the 12th for two days to go to Rotorua, where we’re going to glow worm caves! I’ll take pictures, don’t worry. Thanks for all of your e-mails, comments, etc. Keep me up to date on how you’re all doing, and prayers are greatly appreciated, lots of love!
I need to back track a bit in order to keep everyone updated. A few weeks ago I went to the wedding of a girl who served in my mission in Maryland who was from New Caledonia, Brenda Li-Khau. She married a guy from this area and they were married in the LDS Hamilton temple, about an hour and a half from Auckland. Their reception was amazing. They had lots of Samoan dances and the food was incredible. I’ve never seen so many different types of meat, I was hesitant to try some, but what I did try was quite tasty. They don’t usually have wedding cakes at weddings here, sometimes, but they have what’s called Pavlova, a meringue type dessert with cream on top, quite tasty. They must have had twenty different ones, passion fruit, strawberry, etc. And it was my first wedding for ice cream to be served. They had the huge silver urns just piled with scoops and scoops of ice cream. Definitely the most delicious reception I’ve been too. At the wedding the groomsmen and other friends of the groom performed what’s called the haka, a traditional maori dance, to the newly married couple. It was so neat to watch, I didn’t understand the nature of it entirely, but lots of people in the room were tearing up a bit. Some of the bride’s friends and family performed native dances, I decided I need to take dance lessons, I am thought I was an “ok” dancer, but I am severely lacking compared to the skills of people here.
The following week was filled with mostly classes and a picnic on Monday night for all of the families the BYU girls are staying with. Besides a few close encounters with some birds in the park, that was fun as well. Everyone here is so laid back and at ease, I love meeting all of the different families the girls I know are staying with. Each one is different, but good. I love the couple we stay with, they couldn’t be any nicer. And they put up with us talking about all of the boys we think are beautiful (and sometimes even ask us about them! Haha) , so bonus points for them : )
After that week of classes that Saturday we went to Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter & Underwater World. Kelly Tarlton was a native kiwi “diver, dreamer, explorer, inventor, instigator, worker, storyteller and father” . At the museum we saw penguins, sting rays, sharks, and some species of things I can’t even begin to guess. I had never seen a penguin before, they were so cute! After leaving the museum we explored an area called Parnell. Very chic/hip fun area of the city. I got to eat my first sushi in Auckland, quite tasty, but I could barely enjoy it from some slight twitterpation I was experiencing, no need to elaborate on that though, boys, boys, how they toy with our hearts. We ventured onto the main Auckland drag, I bought a pair of sandals (envision a gladiator with some bling) and tasted the nastiest McDonald’s milkshake here. Apparently a regular milkshake here is the equivalency of milk with some nasty flavoring, an American milkshake is called a thick shake (probably because you get thick if you drink too many). I will not be visiting McDonald’s again. Bleh. My roommate is obsessed with fast food, I don’t quite understand it, but she always wants hamburgers. Everyone here seems to be a little obsessed too. The pizza here is amazing though. They put little slices of potato on some pizzas here, strange but yummy. After eating egg on a pizza in France I’ll try anything……including sea urchin which I tried recently. It’s also called Uni, but I would probably call it yuck (sorry if I offend anyone who likes it), it’s basically tongue, and I won’t go intro describing the consistency or taste, I’ll only say people apparently love it or hate it, and I fell into the more later one. Its considered a delicacy though and it’s quite expensive. My roommate almost threw up while eating it, I managed to swallow two tongues, eww. New Zealand fear factor here I come!
All right, so moving along, another week of classes went by, science and social studies. I loved both of our teachers, but I could barely understand our Science teacher, Ian. He spoke so quietly and with such a thick accent, I almost leaped for joy every time he had a power point I could read so I could understand what exactly he was talking about. Very smart man though, and I learned a lot from the classes.
For the weekend we went to a sleepover on Friday night with some of the girls from the local young adult ward (congregation) here. The next morning there was a little service project and we did some yard work. I was slightly afraid of the bugs being found, so I eventually stuck to cleaning the inside of the house and was recruited to make pancakes for the guys who had shown up early to work. Thank heavens! They have so many bugs here. Tonight one of the girls had a cockroach in her bed, we keep find geckos, there was one in my bed the other night, I screamed so loud, I thought I had a brown snake in my bed. Whew.
Later in the day I went to Parakai, a swimming place about an hour from here. It was so nice and relaxing, I got an overdose of sun, but am recovering now. I will sticking to my spf 70 from now on. The drive there was worth the trip itself—beautiful countryside, rolling hills and horses, wineries, gorgeous, gorgeous. There was a little town called Kumeu we drove through, I’ve decided I need to live there. Can everyone wire me some money? I’ll buy and house and everyone can come visit for free? Deal? Why not?
Monday was a national holiday here, so no class, beach day! We headed out early to Orewa beach where one of the local church wards was having a bbq (no, not the real stuff). Once again, beautiful. I haven’t seen anything here that isn’t beautiful. I think it was a marine reserve as well. When you stepped into the water, there were sand dollars everywhere beneath your feet. I remember searching for hours at beaches in the U.S. for one and here I found 13 in about ten minutes. My friends insisted I put some of them back. We asked and were told we could take some home though. I relinquished and only kept five. I slathered on the sun screen that day, but also was overdosed. Now it is SPF 70 + hat for me (don’t say I told you so mom).
This past week we had our maths class, not math, maths. They add an s on for some reason, I’m really not sure why exactly, but I kind of like the way it sounds. Our teacher for that class was a hoot, a feisty little lady, I think we tried her patience sometimes, but she liked us. On Friday it was Sarah’s birthday, one of the girls I live with, so we had a little celebration for her during our lunch break. Our teacher was so nice and ordered a cake (one real one, and one pavlova, yummmm) for her. That night we went to our first rugby game for Sarah’s birthday. We got there quite late, so got in for free. It was a team called the all blue’s versus an Australian team. I’m not quite sure what was going on during the game, but the players were really cute. I kept wincing too while watching, they looked like they were all going to kill one another while wearing no helmets or padding, scary. That night some of the other girls from the group and guys we know came over for cake and ice cream. We didn’t stay up too late though because we had to be up bright and early the next morning to go to the beach…..I really don’t think I can go to the beach too much while I’m here.
Piha beach…..breathtaking. The drive there looked like the road to Hana in Hawaii, green and lush as far as the eye can see. This beach isn’t super popular with the locals, mainly because it isn’t very safe for swimming, lots of drowning incidences have occurred here. We didn’t get in the water except for while hiking to Honeymoon beach, a little beach within the beach. Piha is a black sand beach, and honeymoon beach is a little area with white sand within the black sand. Hiking there was a bit treacherous, but I escaped with only a few cuts from the rocks….I think I’m just accident prone. I also think I should move to the beach. You can buy a beach front home here, quite the luxurious one too, for around $500,000 American, quite a steal, eh? The beach and scenerary there were absolutely amazing. I could have just sat there and starred at my surroundings all day. We drove from there to Karekare, where I decided I should take advantage of the beautiful waterfall and go swimming in it, clothes and all. Three other girls decided this was a good idea too, and the rest just looked on and laughed, there loss : ) How many times can you go swimming in a waterfall in New Zealand? Exactly. Then I found out there were eels in the water…..hmmmm…..probably shouldn’t be telling my mother this. I didn’t see any, I did feel something at one point though…
After returning from the long day at the beach Sarah and I went to play our first game of “touch”. Kind of similar to football, but you can only pass backwards, or lateral passes. And touch does not mean tackle, which I kept trying to do. I finally understood the rules by the end of the game, hopefully I get to practice again. After the game the nice guys who picked us up took us to get “thick” shakes. I didn’t think I had any money, but Jared, one of the guys said “Oh, Jarom’s gonna shout you.” He’s going to what? “Shout you.” Shout at us? “No, um, you know…” So, shout here means pay for you. We get to shout next time. Shout. I don’t know how that became the word for paying for someone, but I kind of like it. If you want to shout me, please send money to Juliet Lewis, 34 B…………
It is currently 2 am and I have to be up in 2 hours to fly to Queenstown, so this is all for now. I’ll be in the South Island for about a week, back here for my birthday, and then leave on the 12th for two days to go to Rotorua, where we’re going to glow worm caves! I’ll take pictures, don’t worry. Thanks for all of your e-mails, comments, etc. Keep me up to date on how you’re all doing, and prayers are greatly appreciated, lots of love!
Friday, January 16, 2009
A week already?!
Perhaps it’s the time change, but I really feel like I’ve been here in New Zealand forever, in a good way. Maybe I already said that. But I really do. Every day I think “Oh my goodness, I only have 2 months and so many days left…!” I just want to take advantage of everything, do all that I can while I’m here.
This past week has flown by; I can’t believe it’s the weekend already. This week I finished my literacy class and assessment class. I still have assignments I have to do for them during the period of time I’m in the primary (elementary in the U.S.) schools. Now we’ve started our class on teaching social studies and we’ll begin our science and math class later next week. I thought it would be awful to sit from 8-3:30 every day but it really isn’t all that bad. We have wonderful teachers too who make our time more tolerable. One of the things I love is the incorporation of the Maori culture here into everything. Just words and phrases sometimes, legends, traditions, everything is integrated around heritage here and including everyone’s different origins and belief system.
Going to church on Sunday was wonderful. There’s a small group here of young adults and we all have church together. There were a few guys in skirts, or lava lavas as they would be called in some places, everyone has a different name for them depending on if they’re Samoa, or Tonga, or another place. That was a little out of the ordinary. Everyone is very laid back here and casual in some things, but still very strong in the Gospel and their faith in Christ. There were a lot of guys at church….we’ve been told they flock there in mass from the other wards when the “BYU girls” come. Kind of funny to be in a ward where the boys outnumber the girls. Lucky for us! He he.
Monday night we went with Vera and Chlo to her family’s house. Her dad, Bishop Lui, is the bishop of one of two Samoan wards here in the stake. They’re such an awesome family. We had family home evening with them, I had to sing the hymns in Samoan that was an experience, I stumbled through them, definitely need to work on my Samoan. They fed us dinner too. They eat hamburgers here with an egg and beets on them. Interesting but tasty. So far I haven’t eaten anything that’s scary, we’ve been blessed. I haven’t been able to stomach any maramite/vegemite stuff anymore, but maybe I’ll conquer that while I’m here.
When we first got here we discovered the lady we were staying with hadn’t found out until shortly before we arrived in New Zealand that we needed to stay with her for three months. She was supposed to move to Australia next month, but was going to stay here so we had a place to live. That was so generous of her to be willing to stay, but another host family who already had two of the girls in our group was moving into a larger house and was going to have an extra bedroom, so it was decided we’d move in with the Hettig’s. They’re a lovely couple and are so kind to us. We were sad to leave Vera’s and little Chlo, but glad they can go ahead and continue on with their planned move. We Moved on Wednesday afternoon after our classes were finished for the day. We thought it was going to be kind of intense, but Dion (our host “dad”) has so much family around here, they all pitched in to help. In fact everything was finished in time to head to the pool for a little swim party before the night was over. I love it here! I’m definitely not missing the stress/nervous breakdown I wanted to have after last semester. I mean, it’s still difficult here, but the supplemental trips to the beach, swimming, and 80 degree weather are definitely helping. Don’t feel too badly for me : ) Our new house is next to where Xena warrior princess was filmed and Hercules. I didn’t watch those shows, but we’re going to do some exploring because we hear it’s quite pretty back there.
The girls in my group are so much fun. And now I get to live with two more of them! Lauren and I moved in with Heather and Sarah. They’re both from Utah and are turning 21 while we’re here. Kiwi party! Being together all day in classes we’re definitely getting to know one another. My friend Amy from this past semester is in the group. Sometimes we have to separate ourselves because we get a bit too chatty. Every girl in the group is awesome though, or “sweet as” as the New Zealanders would say. My roommate Lauren is awesome, even with her fear of bugs (he he). I’ve gotten quite skilled at killing spiders, cockroaches, and the like. I don’t know why I keep seeing so many, but I’ve started to just try and kill them before she even sees them so she’s not too freaked out. We’re going to be going to the South Island in a few weeks and then we’ll all probably know each other too well in the group. I couldn’t have picked a better group to come with though, everyone contributes something unique. I have been dubbed as “the home-schooled girl”. It’s just a joke though, and I’m rated as being one of the “most fun” people. I think it’s probably just because I’m loud and outspoken at times though, and because of my amazing name, thanks to my parents and grandmother. Earlier in the week we were doing an activity where the teacher incorporated a little bit of Shakespeare into it. I got to play Juliet in Romeo & Juliet (thanks Sarah for giving me your spot, haha) and we’ve been quoting it ever since. My two favorite lines…..”You are a saucy boy. Is’t so, indeed?” and “You kiss by the book.”
So far I’m having a splendid time here in the Kiwi land. Understanding what people are saying can be a bit tricky at times, some people speak very softly and they also have a different lingo here. For instance, a chilly bin is a cooler, and an ice block is a Popsicle. I also keep finding out that words are spelled differently here. A tire on a car is spelled t-y-r-e and yogurt – y-o-g-h-u-r-t. Today our host dad drove us to class, usually Anna his wife does, and he said “Yeah, she’s having a lie in.” Well, it sounded like lion, but lie in means sleeping in here. Good to know, I don’t know if I’ll get a lie in while I’m here. Also the name Alan is pronounced like Ellen, yeah, that one caught me off guard. And when people send text messages here they have a completely different verbiage. I need a translator! I probably should be keeping a little journal of all the random phrases they have here. When we first arrived and we heard a guy say “sweet as” to us, we kind of looked a little awkward, thinking he was talking about our backsides, nope, bad error on our part. Everything is sweet as or cute as, etc. etc. Cute as what I don’t know, but something I guess.
Tonight I’m going to the wedding reception of a girl from my mission, Brenda Li-Khau. She’s from New Caledonia. She served in my mission in Maryland for her field experience while away from Temple Square. She’s marrying a guy from here so I get to go to their wedding reception in Hamilton tonight, I’m so excited! It’s such a small world. I’ll try and post some more pictures soon. Laters!
This past week has flown by; I can’t believe it’s the weekend already. This week I finished my literacy class and assessment class. I still have assignments I have to do for them during the period of time I’m in the primary (elementary in the U.S.) schools. Now we’ve started our class on teaching social studies and we’ll begin our science and math class later next week. I thought it would be awful to sit from 8-3:30 every day but it really isn’t all that bad. We have wonderful teachers too who make our time more tolerable. One of the things I love is the incorporation of the Maori culture here into everything. Just words and phrases sometimes, legends, traditions, everything is integrated around heritage here and including everyone’s different origins and belief system.
Going to church on Sunday was wonderful. There’s a small group here of young adults and we all have church together. There were a few guys in skirts, or lava lavas as they would be called in some places, everyone has a different name for them depending on if they’re Samoa, or Tonga, or another place. That was a little out of the ordinary. Everyone is very laid back here and casual in some things, but still very strong in the Gospel and their faith in Christ. There were a lot of guys at church….we’ve been told they flock there in mass from the other wards when the “BYU girls” come. Kind of funny to be in a ward where the boys outnumber the girls. Lucky for us! He he.
Monday night we went with Vera and Chlo to her family’s house. Her dad, Bishop Lui, is the bishop of one of two Samoan wards here in the stake. They’re such an awesome family. We had family home evening with them, I had to sing the hymns in Samoan that was an experience, I stumbled through them, definitely need to work on my Samoan. They fed us dinner too. They eat hamburgers here with an egg and beets on them. Interesting but tasty. So far I haven’t eaten anything that’s scary, we’ve been blessed. I haven’t been able to stomach any maramite/vegemite stuff anymore, but maybe I’ll conquer that while I’m here.
When we first got here we discovered the lady we were staying with hadn’t found out until shortly before we arrived in New Zealand that we needed to stay with her for three months. She was supposed to move to Australia next month, but was going to stay here so we had a place to live. That was so generous of her to be willing to stay, but another host family who already had two of the girls in our group was moving into a larger house and was going to have an extra bedroom, so it was decided we’d move in with the Hettig’s. They’re a lovely couple and are so kind to us. We were sad to leave Vera’s and little Chlo, but glad they can go ahead and continue on with their planned move. We Moved on Wednesday afternoon after our classes were finished for the day. We thought it was going to be kind of intense, but Dion (our host “dad”) has so much family around here, they all pitched in to help. In fact everything was finished in time to head to the pool for a little swim party before the night was over. I love it here! I’m definitely not missing the stress/nervous breakdown I wanted to have after last semester. I mean, it’s still difficult here, but the supplemental trips to the beach, swimming, and 80 degree weather are definitely helping. Don’t feel too badly for me : ) Our new house is next to where Xena warrior princess was filmed and Hercules. I didn’t watch those shows, but we’re going to do some exploring because we hear it’s quite pretty back there.
The girls in my group are so much fun. And now I get to live with two more of them! Lauren and I moved in with Heather and Sarah. They’re both from Utah and are turning 21 while we’re here. Kiwi party! Being together all day in classes we’re definitely getting to know one another. My friend Amy from this past semester is in the group. Sometimes we have to separate ourselves because we get a bit too chatty. Every girl in the group is awesome though, or “sweet as” as the New Zealanders would say. My roommate Lauren is awesome, even with her fear of bugs (he he). I’ve gotten quite skilled at killing spiders, cockroaches, and the like. I don’t know why I keep seeing so many, but I’ve started to just try and kill them before she even sees them so she’s not too freaked out. We’re going to be going to the South Island in a few weeks and then we’ll all probably know each other too well in the group. I couldn’t have picked a better group to come with though, everyone contributes something unique. I have been dubbed as “the home-schooled girl”. It’s just a joke though, and I’m rated as being one of the “most fun” people. I think it’s probably just because I’m loud and outspoken at times though, and because of my amazing name, thanks to my parents and grandmother. Earlier in the week we were doing an activity where the teacher incorporated a little bit of Shakespeare into it. I got to play Juliet in Romeo & Juliet (thanks Sarah for giving me your spot, haha) and we’ve been quoting it ever since. My two favorite lines…..”You are a saucy boy. Is’t so, indeed?” and “You kiss by the book.”
So far I’m having a splendid time here in the Kiwi land. Understanding what people are saying can be a bit tricky at times, some people speak very softly and they also have a different lingo here. For instance, a chilly bin is a cooler, and an ice block is a Popsicle. I also keep finding out that words are spelled differently here. A tire on a car is spelled t-y-r-e and yogurt – y-o-g-h-u-r-t. Today our host dad drove us to class, usually Anna his wife does, and he said “Yeah, she’s having a lie in.” Well, it sounded like lion, but lie in means sleeping in here. Good to know, I don’t know if I’ll get a lie in while I’m here. Also the name Alan is pronounced like Ellen, yeah, that one caught me off guard. And when people send text messages here they have a completely different verbiage. I need a translator! I probably should be keeping a little journal of all the random phrases they have here. When we first arrived and we heard a guy say “sweet as” to us, we kind of looked a little awkward, thinking he was talking about our backsides, nope, bad error on our part. Everything is sweet as or cute as, etc. etc. Cute as what I don’t know, but something I guess.
Tonight I’m going to the wedding reception of a girl from my mission, Brenda Li-Khau. She’s from New Caledonia. She served in my mission in Maryland for her field experience while away from Temple Square. She’s marrying a guy from here so I get to go to their wedding reception in Hamilton tonight, I’m so excited! It’s such a small world. I’ll try and post some more pictures soon. Laters!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Pictures!
Amy and me at Waiake Beach 
Gettin' down, Maori style 
Longbay beach, beautiful!
They were still moving, ahhh!
A Sea Urchin, supposedly delicious, I'm doubtful...
Chlo, our host mom's little girl, cute as! *cute as is a kiwi phrase* 
First lunch in New Zealand....Dim Sum at the mall?!
Me and my roommate Lauren on the "party bus"
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