Moved in!

Well, I'm all moved in to the new flat! I have the place to myself til I leave for my trip. I'm mostly unpacked...photo album to the right. But haven't hung anything on the walls, am still waiting for the fridge to be delivered and not liking how small the kitchen is. Other than that, I love the place!

Reverse, reverse, reverse

I had a great time learning how to 4WD yesterday. My department does a course that teaches you the maximum limits that the vehicles are capable of. It was fun, stressful and exhausting. I knew the toughest part for me was going to be reversing through a curvy lane that was staked out. I had to reverse, reverse, reverse, cause I struggled with it more than anyone. I kept overcompensating and ran over numerous stakes. How I can be so terrible at reversing, yet great at parallel parking and backing up a boat trailer, is beyond me! The funnest part was going through lots of rough holes that they would continue digging out making them deeper so that you would lose traction of 1 or even 2 wheels. After mastering going forward through the rough bit, then you had to reverse through it. I decided I prefer the Toyota Hilux for the rough bit, but it sucks for reversing cause it has small mirrors, the Holden Rodeo had the nice large mirrors that made it easier to reverse with. Then we learned how to go up a steep hill and how to do an emergency back down if you started to slip. Then up the hill, turn around and back down. Then reverse up the hill, turn around and reverse back down. Then onto a side slope, forward, then reverse again. So far all these things had been staked out, so you had to follow the course exactly...did I mention how many stakes I reversed over??!!! We had to do each of these things until you could do it perfectly. After all that we had to drive around the hills and test our new skills. Why I volunteered to go first and in the truck that I hate the mirrors on is beyond me! I ended up going along a path that was over grown with gorse bushes and was scratching the truck. After sometime, my instructor finally tells me it's only going to get worse, what should I do now? Bugger! Now I have to reverse along this overgrown path with the bushes scraping the sides of the truck making that horrific high pitched noise of fingernails on a chalkboard. After much over-compensating and having to pull forward to re-align over and over again...during which the scraping noise is horrible and now making me anxious, we finally get back to the path where we came up the hill, which is much of a drop off! I managed to do it...scarily! Cynthia in the back seat says "Kristin that didn't feel too good back here!" I said "It didn't feel good up here either!" And asked the instructor if I could have done it any better and he said no, I did good. Phew! Time to get the hell out and let someone else have a go! Cynthia didn't ride along on the next test, which was a good thing, cause Doug had to reverse it over that same "cliff" I had just drove down. And when he did so, the front end dropped down into the gorse bushes off the path and I kinda let out a scream! F?#%! I thought I had it stressful! Last was Cynthia's turn, she had to maneuvere around a boggy area. Finally, a refresher on how to use the radios to call for help and how to change a tire. Then back to the department to scrub the trucks clean! I was exhausted, and happy to know that more than likely I'll never need to use most of those things I learned today because you wouldn't normally be in those situations!

I don't like vertebrates

Well, my fish have a swim bladder infection and it looks like my experiment is going belly up...literally! I haven't given up on it yet, but I lost 17 fish in a week. It'll only get worse I'm sure, so I'll probably be pulling the plug on it this week. I won't have enough time to repeat before I leave for Australia and I want to make sure I get all the tanks and equipment disinfected before using any of it again. I'm a bit depressed about it cause it's a lot of wasted work, but I keep thinking "I'm going to Australia!" and I have lots of other things to focus on and get accomplished. Maybe I can get 2 of my thesis/dissertation chapters written in the mean time.

But I've been doing a few things to balance out the stress. I went to a wonderful acoustic concert in a beautiful church on Friday night. Kiwi pop singers and the main one, Boh Runga, was fantastic! Saturday was the Spring Food Festival to get folks out for Internat'l Climate Change day. We learned some seasonal cooking with asparagus, got lots of free plants & a free eco light bulb, listened to live music, etc. Then went to Jen's for dinner...we made venison, garlic mashed potoatoes, cali, brocli & aspargus with a sauce we just learned how to make at the festival. Yesterday was yard work - I fixed a terrace that washed out from all the rain during the winter, moved some plants, ripped some out, weeded and Anson weeded, trimmed & mowed so it's not embarrassing to show someone around anymore. Then met some labmates at the pub to play darts...first time since I've moved to NZ! I've missed it! Today is Labour Day but I'm at work...lots to do before my holiday!

Update

Exciting News: I'm going to Australia for Christmas! Flying into Brisbane on the 15th, Rebbeca will pick me up and we'll do some traveling before spending the holidays with her parents! I'm sooooo excited! I had to book my flight back to Dunedin on New Year's Eve to get a good deal, so I'll be back here for the New Year. I started reading Down Under by Bill Bryson...borrowed it from the Aussie that I just got done housesitting for while she was away getting married in India.

I posted a couple photo albums. Anya left a while ago but I'm just getting around to posting photos.

I've been busy getting rust fixed on my truck. This country and it's damn requirements for vehicle "fitness" are crazy and frustrating! I've spent $300 on what needed immediate attention. I still need to have a color matched and paint it myself. Then I'll have about $400 worth of rust to remove from under the body! I really dislike living in such a humid environment...sweat doesn't evaporate, mold all over the house and now all this damn rust!

Lots of work lately! I've been teaching labs (which are over for the semester), doing some grading for extra money, I'm giving a 3-min talk on Friday competing for money, went fishing for dogfish (a type of shark) last week, trying to finish up another paper from my master's research, and most importantly, I've got my last experiment up and running and it hasn't been easy...leaking tank, running a cart into the tank and shattering one end (I cried hard over that one). I'm using eel-scented water to see if my parasite species can sense if it's next host is present or not. I'm also using perch water as a non-host predator. European perch are gorgeous!

Lambs - It must be spring!

Spring is in the air

Had lunch by the leith under the cherry blossoms...


with Rachel and Sabine :)

Welcome Home

I went out for dinner with some friends the day after I got back. We went to the espanlade at the beach. It was a warm spring evening. Heaps of surfers were out even though there was no surf!


What a beautiful sky!


It is good to be home :)

Eating my way around America

I had a grand time on my trip home! A whirlwind couple of days in San Fran and Sac, seeing family, getting in my first Mexican meal and enjoying the 100F temperatures! Then off to Knoxville for ASP, networking, giving a talk and hanging out with Emily, Devon and Katherine...oh such fun times! I was pleasantly happy to be in America amongst Americans, where I can be as loud as I please and not stand out...ok, maybe I still stood out, but it was totally acceptable to be loud. My talk went well and I had lots of questions and interest. Then on to Minnesota...by this point I had taken 8 flights in a week and was so ready to be home! I flew into Humphrey and my mom was waiting for me at Lindberg without her cell phone (it was in the wash machine...oops!) and it took me an hour to get to her...thankfully she stayed put and was sittting there waiting for me! Couple days with my mom, then I headed up north to see both dad's and Chad's family. Colder than it should have been for August...as you will see in the photos, we were often wrapped in towels on the lake trying to stay warm! Then back to my mom's for a week and half. Went to the State Fair (YUM), had another Mexican night, bbq at Tammy's, but mostly just hung out at my mom's. I'm happy to say I ate all the foods I've been missing...turkey (sandwiches and a drumstick at the fair), Mexican food (4 times :), pizza, brats, hotdog, breakfast sausge, my brother's sausage gravy and biscuits, blueberries (only available in NZ when in season), doritos, and a steak actually cooked to order (rather than well done no matter how you order it). My last day was spent at my aunt's in San Fran, just hanging out in the garden and relaxing! Check out the photo albums...

Shakin' my world

So the other night I'm laying in bed just on the verge of falling asleep with the tv on and I think "the cat is really purring" then "how can the cat be moving the bed that much?" then "hmmm my clothes hanging to dry are moving" then "omg! it's a major earthquake!" and I hop out of bed and run down the hall yelling to Michel. She also was just falling asleep and thought somebody was standing there shaking her bed. So there we are standing in her bedroom doorway, clinging to each other. It seemed to last forever...even Michel, being from Cali, said it was the longest quake she's experienced. Previous ones I've felt were over by the time I figured out they were happening, and only shook side to side. This one went in all directions, back and forth and side to side. It made us dizzy so we had a hard time telling when it was over. The whole time I was thinking about how our house is on re-claimed land. It was a 7.8 about 200 miles away. I guess there were 2 more throughout the night, but we went back to bed. Thankfully we didn't get swept away in our sleep as they issued a tsunami warning!

Home sweet Home

Well, I guess I've been avoiding writing a new posting. This last month has been a difficult one. Grandma H was in and out of the hospital and then in a hospice so that they could try to manage her pain (fluid retention due to kidney failure) and make her comfortable if possible. She passed on 23 June. It's been sad, but I am thankful that she is no longer in pain. I just wish I could have been home or at least be home for the reunion and memorial service. Those couple of weeks were not very productive for me. Last week I started to get into the swing of work and this week I can say I've finally been productive again. The pressure of what needs to be done before leaving in Aug for the conference and my visit home is overwhelming! I'll be working most weekends until I leave for the good ol' US of A! Looking forward to being on American soil again...