tests

Coastal and marine geography test today went well.

Otherwise, not too much to post today, busy studying!

Tuesday =)

Lots to talk about even though there isn’t much going on! I’m SUPER excited about when my mom and Sharon come because I worked on our itinerary today. If all goes well, we’ll be diving/snorkeling/kayaking, going on a Jet boat in the Auckland harbor, ziplining through the alpine forest in queenstown, going caving in Waitomo, riding horses either on a volcano or a beach, maybe both, visit some hot springs in Rotorua, seeing a cultural performance, seeing Hot Water Beach in the Coromandel… it’s going to be the trip of a lifetime!

Past that, I can’t wait to be home! To hug my family and friends, pet my dog, sleep in my own bed… eat pancakes and “streaky bacon” on the weekends rather than crappy toast or cereal every single day! Bacon in this country is usually more like ham than the crispy delicious kind. I also can’t wait for home cooked food, walking on a dirt road, swimming in the pool by the boat… I think I’m over living in the city!

These next few weeks will be busy- two tests this week (I know I keep bringing them up but they’re pretty stressful!). Then this weekend I’m either going to go with Flora, Emily, and Njeri to northland possibly diving while they snorkel, or to see Cape Reinga (the northernmost lighthouse in New Zealand, and the only way to get to it is via 90 Mile Beach, which is a huge flat, hard packed sand beach, where cars travel on it when the tide goes out), etc. I’ve already been to a bunch of places they’re planning on going, so I’m not sure yet about that. Plus I’ve got a geography final exam next week which I should really focus on. I do have 7 days with no other plans though in which to study. If I don’t go on that trip, Jo and I are going to rent a car and go quad biking and possibly something else for a day, just to get out of Auckland. We never used our free coupons, so that’d be an awesome day trip!

Some other things- I’ve got heaps of tea in my room, some that my mom sent me in a care package a while ago that I’ve been slowly drinking, and a couple of little boxes of tea that I bought here, because they have delicious flavors like strawberry mango, chamomile & spiced apple, and cranberry, raspberry, and elderberry. Thus, I’ve decided to start having “tea parties,” where my friends come over with a glass of hot water and I supply the tea and the honey and we take a break and just chat. It’s such a nice idea. I LOVE tea now. New Zealand is also huge on hot drinks. Any activity in the cold, you can pretty much expect hot cup-o-soup, milo (essentially hot chocolate powder but you have to add both milk and sugar to make it taste good), instant coffee, and tea. I think that might be a British thing, but I’m really enjoying it. Nothing warms me up like a hot drink because I’m so used to it.

Also, New Zealand is into fast food, you know, like KFC, McDonald’s, Burger King and all that, but they’re also into gourmet fast food. They’ve got lots of gourmet burger chains like Wisconsin Burger, Velvet Burger, and Burgerfuel. They all have huge hamburgers with delicious cheeses like feta, brie, sharp cheddar, and toppings like mango and avocado, cranberry sauce, garlic aoli, etc. WAY better than in the U.S. People here also eat fries "chips" with garlic aoli sauce or mayonaise, never ketchup (which they call tomato sauce).

Also, I got a geography lab grade back today- an A! I haven’t been doing so great on my geography lab grades because it’s a really hard class that I’m taking with upper level geography students, so they know how to explain transgressive dune systems and stratigraphic results of progradational sequences on the beach a lot better than I can because they’ve been doing it for three years now. That’s why I’m proud of myself!

Sunday

Not too much to post today, long day of studying! Tomorrow hopefully I'll have more interesting thoughts to post.

Mid-Winter Christmas

I’ve included some pictures of the Library Bar from last night, and we took more tonight.

Today was “Christmas” at International House. We did Secret Santa, and then had a formal dinner. We ended the night with a karaoke party which was a blast! For Secret Santa, I got my girl a necklace and I got glow in the dark hearts for my walls as well as a scratch off ticket (a “scratchy”) and come chocolate. For dinner, we had SO much delicious food! We had roast pork, roast beef, potatoes, teriyaki chicken, seafood, samosas with mint yogurt, steamed vegetables, and an assortment of salads. For dessert, we had Christmas pudding with custard, pavlova (like meringue) and fresh fruit, almond cake, and chocolate mousse. We also each brought a bottle of wine to dinner, so good times were had by all. I’m SO glad that I will be at home for Christmas, but this was a great mid-winter Christmas celebration. Karaoke was a TON of fun as well. All of us took turns singing, but it pretty much just ended up everyone singing to every single song.

Got this website working again!

Ah, finally. I had some trouble with the blog website so I wasn't able to update it. Tonight I went out with some friends to the Library bar, which is a really cool place where they serve expensive drinks in a setting with shelves of books, fireplaces, and home-type decor. It was really nice to go out for once!

Also going on in my life, one of my friends whose a freshman is strongly opposed to staying at university. Thus, as good friends, we're trying to get him to think through his options before he quits school, moves out of International House, and ends up working at Jucy Car Rentals for the rest of his life, cleaning out cars. He's really impulsive, so we're trying to get him to think through where he's going to live once he moves out, etc. Kind of interesting because I've never had to help a friend with a decision so big, especially because his parents want nothing to do with him if he quits university.

A word on apricots- here at International House they manage to squeeze apricots into EVERYTHING. We have apricot cookies, muffins, scones, brownies, cakes, in our salad with corn and carrots, out at breakfast to put on yogurt or cereal, etc. It's insane how many times I've had apricots this semester. If I never saw one ever again it would be too soon.

Did you know that milk powder is one of New Zealand's biggest export products? A fellow scuba diver, Piotr (moved here from Poland), works in the milk powder industry and apparently it's a big deal around here.

I've decided not to go diving or to explore some caves (another option one of my friends proposed) this weekend because I've got those two big tests to study for! Tomorrow is "Christmas" here at I.H., so we'll get a big christmas dinner and we all did Secret Santa gift swap. Should be fun! Then, I'm pretty sure there's a karaoke dance party to follow. In other, unrelated news, I applied to work at the Borders in Waterford starting the end of August, so that when I'm down at Avery Point I can hopefully make some money.

Photo competition!

Not too much going on, just going to class and trying to study. It's SO difficult to find the motivation to study, but starting tomorrow I'm really going to give school the attention it deserves. Honestly, that's the reason I'm even in this country- to learn.

I've gotten heaps (Kiwi saying!) more out of traveling than I ever got out of a class so forcing myself to study rather than go on wonderful adventures has been really difficult. This weekend I have the option to go diving or to visit the Nikau Caves, which is about an hour and a half from Auckland where there's a 1 kilometer long cave with glow worms and incredible stalactites hanging from the ceiling but I might pass up both in order to focus on school! Next week I have a test that's 20% of my geography grade and a test that's 50% of my logic grade.

I'm also thinking about entering a photo contest that the university is putting on, with the top prize a brand new beautiful SLR camera, I just have to take pictures on any of these themes: 1) campus moments, 2) learning landscape, and 3) holidays. I'm SUPER excited to enter!! I can only enter two photos.

I'm thinking this first picture that I took at the Poor Knights for the "learning landscape" photo, as the girl in the photo is about 12 years old and her first dive after she took the certification course, so for her the dive really was a learning experience. For the "holidays" photo, I'm thinking about using the picture of our campervan at the Gisborne beach.

Tuesday that feels like Monday

Today was back to school. It was REALLY hard getting back into the swing of things after such an amazing weekend. I had dinner at my friend Caitlyn's, where we cooked up some quesodillas in her apartment. It was so nice to hang out with an American for a little while, especially one that dives.

One thing I forgot to mention the other day was that on Saturday night, the skipper on the boat we were on plugged in his karaoke machine and I WAS SINGING KARAOKE!! First time in my life I've ever done that, and man was it fun! We did a couple of duets and I sang Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive!" That was pretty scary for me, singing in front of other people, but I'm so glad I did, it was a blast! Another thing I noticed is that even though the weather was nearly perfect and the waves weren't rocking the boat very much at all, I can still feel myself swaying back and forth today.

I also forgot to mention I picked up a few awesome shells on the last dive (when were weren't in a marine reserve) to add to my New Zealand shell and rock collection.

All in all, I just can't wait to go diving again.

White Island!

So three days without showering? No … problem on a trip this amazing!!!!
I had THE BEST WEEKEND EVER!

Martin and I drove down to Whakatane (about four hours southeast of Auckland) on Friday night, and we all slept on the boat, Ma Cherie. We woke up Saturday morning at about seven, ready to head out. It takes about 3 hours to make the trip, as White Island is about 30 nautical miles offshore and the boat is from the 1960’s.

I should have known from the start it was going to be an amazing trip, as we saw a couple of hundred dolphins on the trip out. Cameron also reeled in a kingfish, which is a highly prized white meat fish that is wonderful to eat.

We got out to the site, geared up, and jumped in to see pink mao mao, tons of starfish, blue and red moki… Some of the best dives I’ve done in New Zealand! We did two more dives on Saturday, and saw beautiful urchins (look for the one with a red sort of body in the pictures), starfish I’ve never seen before (like the black and the white ones), tons of nudibranches… absolutely amazing! We even did a night dive, where I borrowed a torch from Ali and Cameron to use. It was really neat because you could see sulfur bubbling up from the sand, and the sulfur comes up and turns the undersides and some of the tops completely white (look for the picture of this as well). During the night dive I also got to see a conger eel, but he was too fast to take a photo of!

Dylan, the crew on the boat, cut himself while he was filleting a fish the day before, and Saturday night he got a big red line going up his arm, so the Whakatane Coast Guard came out and brought him to the hospital to have them look at it (looked like tetanus or blood poisoning) but he ended up being okay and came out Sunday morning on a day trip boat.

For dinner Saturday we had raw kingfish with wasabi and soy sauce, kingfish on the grill, and kingfish with tomato on pieces of bread, after the fish had been cooked in onions and butter and garlic, soy sauce, salt, pepper, and a touch of cream. It was truly one of the best ways I’ve ever eaten fish! I really like kingfish so it was a real treat to have some fresh seafood!

Sunday we got to dive a reef that comes up to about 18 feet below the surface, up from about 200 feet, as sort of a sunken-island. There were tons and tons of fish, and I had quite a bit of fun poking around in cracks and crevices looking at brittle stars (the starfish in the pictures with really long maroon colored arms). They move quite a bit once you put a flash on them. We also got to dive an area with a neat swim-through, and a large channel between two rocks. I ended up playing with a grey moray eel as he was swimming through the weeds. Sadly, on this dive I put the batteries in my flash backwards so I couldn’t take any pictures.

We were also diving the Volkner Rocks, which was a marine protected area that covers a couple of pinnacle rocks that come up, just to the northwest (I think) of White Island.

Today was my favorite part of the trip. We got to go onto White Island this morning, which is New Zealand’s most active marine volcano. It was SO COOL! We had to wear hard hats and breathe through wet t-shirts because really strong, acidic gasses flow out of the vents on the volcano. We saw the superhot vents, the huge crater lake (which was too steamy to even try to take a picture of) and boiling mud pools. SO cool!

Then we dove a reef, where there were tons of schools of fish, and we saw two stingrays, one of which we got to come up off of the sand. It was a picture-perfect dive. After that, we pulled up near a rocky part of the island and spotted maybe about twenty or so seals on the rocks. While we were doing our surface interval, Martin went onshore to try to get the seals to come into the water and go for a swim, while I waited in the water with my snorkel stuff on. About four of them jumped in!! It was SO SO SO SO cool to swim with them! I took a video and as many pictures as I could. Then, it was time for a dive, so we quick put on our stuff and jumped back in, only to find that a few of the seals were still in the water! What a treat that was to take pictures from below, with the sun’s rays shining into the water around the seals. What an amazing last dive of an incredible trip!
I’ve also included a picture of a horse skull that we found underwater on the last dive, not sure how that got there… There’s also a picture of a yellow shell with a purple and white frilly looking thing coming out of it, that’s an unidentified snail type thing that I need to figure out what it is. There’s also a picture of a gem nudibranch, which is purple and blue with brown wart-shaped growths on it, those are wicked cool, I didn’t see one of those until the last dive, where there were lots of them! Also, there’s a picture of us on the island in a concrete building- that’s a sulfur mine on White Island, well- it used to be. A couple of guys were working out there and vanished one day, and the mine got destroyed from the sediment shifting around.

All in all- phenomenal trip, phenomenal weather, phenomenal diving!

Leaving on a big boat, don't know when I'll be back again... well actually, Monday!

I'm SUPER excited to go down and dive White Island on the boat Ma Cherie. There's 5 divers and a captain and a mate going out. It's a three hour long drive out from the dock in Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty to White Island and the Volkner Rocks. I'm BEYOND excited to go diving here. It's a more advanced dive, and we have much more of a chance to see bigger fish, such as kingfish, and sharks and seals.

Also, White Island is New Zealand's most active volcano, where hot water and steam continuously come up from the vents on the bottom of the crater.

Since supposedly some people are saying the world will end tomorrow, what better place to be than right by an active volcano?!

I won't be back until Monday evening so maybe I'll update my blog then, and hopefully by then I'll have some amazing pictures!!

Thursday

International relations essay is finally done! Not too much to post today, nothing new and exciting going on! I'll post again before I leave for my big trip this weekend!

a few words

I had an Auckland Uni Underwater Club meeting today and I kinda realized I've come a long way as a diver and as a person in general.

As a diver, I'm not afraid to go deep, dive with a buddy I've just met, or go to new dive sites. I'm also more comfortable in helping other people underwater, adjusting my own gear, navigating underwater, and being able to communicate without talking. I'd also be super excited to see a shark in the water, an awesome jellyfish (if I've got the proper wetsuit protection), and even any sort of fish. It got to the point where I'd go up to a scorpionfish (poisonous fish that blends in with the bottom and just sits there because it thinks you can't see it) and tickle them on the chin, where they then get up and swim away. I'd never put myself into real danger, but I'm just saying I've come a long way.

As a person, I've definitely become more independent. I'm definitely a free spirit but now I know that I'm capable of moving away from home, finding my way around a new city (buses included!), eating new food (octopus, lamb, lamingtons, spaghetti on toast, marmite...) and I feel so much more aware of the world. New Zealand is really progressive in that its environmental policy is amazing- i.e. they make an effort to keep the country as natural as possible- and it's a blend of so many different cultures, you barely even notice that the country is predominantly white people. In addition, New Zealand rocks in that they don't have any nuclear weapons, they aren't telling other countries what to do, and they don't feel the need to be at the center of attention (ahem, U.S.). They're just hanging out at the bottom of the world, knowing that they're awesome and not making a big fuss about it. I did find out though, that the current NZ prime minister, John Key, is also the Minister of Tourism, so apparently they're trying really hard to get other people to visit NZ. I think, though, judging by the number of Asians and the proximity to Asia, they're really trying to push tourism from those countries because flights from the US are just so expensive.

work work work

Today I spent 4 hours in a cafe working on my International Relations essay. Somehow, I work really really well when I have caffeine and a hot plate of french toast with bacon (canadian style) and banana in front of me. A very kiwi thing to eat! You literally eat all three in the same bite and it's delicious. I also got a care package from Nanna and Poppy in the mail with pancake mix that we're going to use on a sandwich press/griddle to make pancakes, and put the Connecticut maple syrup from Uncle Steven on it for all my Kiwi friends to try. I'm super excited for that!

Anyway, I got some grades back this week- I got an A on my philosophy exam and I got an A on my marine ecology exam! A's here go from 100 down to about 85, and class averages are in the sixties. Tests here are harder and they expect more, so I'm SUPER excited that I'm doing well in at least those two classes. My other two classes (geography and international relations) have only had one assignment that doesn't count for much, so I don't actually know how well I'm learning the material. This essay that I'm working on for International Relations is really interesting to me,and I feel like I'm definitely learning the material. I initially took that class to learn more about global politics, and I'm definitely succeeding. It hasn't been the easiest class but I absolutely feel like I'm getting a lot out of it. I also feel like I'm going to be pretty stressed for finals (my first final is actually June 2nd!) because they're worth so much of my grade. I do have tons of time to study for them though, because lectures end June 3rd, and then I have over a week to study for my next final.

stuff.

Lots of homework and not too much going on otherwise! Big dive trip coming up this weekend though, at White Island, which is a volcano-island, and it's the most active marine volcano in all of New Zealand. It's a 4 hour drive south off of the coast of Whakatane (on the eastern side of the north island). We'll be living and diving on a charter boat for three days. Apparently because the volcano is exposed to the sea the boat rocks and rolls quite a bit, so I might even get some motion sickness meds, even though I don't regularly get seasick.

I'm pretty excited about that, just have to get through an essay on humanitarian intervention (when it's okay for countries to invade other countries for reasons such as people's rights being taken away, people dying because of differing political beliefs, etc.) and a lab dealing with maps of the shoreline of the coast of New Zealand over the years.

some interesting stuff

Today was just another homework day. I even tried knitting- I’m getting the hang of it but I’m still not sure what to do when I mess up, so I end up taking out all the stitches and starting over with just yarn and knitting needles. I’ll try again when I get some more time- I’m getting determined! I can’t wait to start using New Zealand yarn- they have wool, alpaca yarn, and possum yarn! I’m not so sure about the last one…

Anyway, I was keeping up with New Zealand news and found this article about paua (or abalone), which are about the size of your fist or bigger with rounded shells, which scrub algae off of rocks. They’re local to New Zealand, but I think they might also have them in California. Anyway, they make really beautiful shells which are commonly broken up and used in jewelery, and the meat it quite expensive. Three men were found having over 700 of these little creatures, and they each got nine months in jail as a result. This is the harshest punishment ever received for poaching, but New Zealand generally really cares about their environment. The article is here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/5003654/Paua-plunderers-jailed . When you look at it, notice that they write their dates backwards.

Also, a 55 year old American man died while diving the Poor Knights Islands while diving yesterday. He went out with the same company that Dave and I went out with- Dive Tutukaka! It’s a really professional company that I would highly recommend going out with. I’m sure they did whatever they could for him. Turns out, he’d already had two heart attacks and he had another one underwater, he didn’t have any problems on the actual dive. Crazy that things like that happen, but at least he was out doing what he loved when he died. More information on that here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5006245/American-dies-on-NZ-dive-trip .

On a side note, I have a disease called “diveritis,” where all I want to do is get back in the water and go diving. Just a warning, if you ever learn how to scuba dive, you’ll get it too. I’m going diving next weekend but even that seems too far away.

Birthday celebrations!

It’s been such a beautiful weekend, I don’t even mind walking up and down all the hills of Auckland because the weather is perfect. It’s sunny and warm- hardly feels like it’s turning colder (except on the occasional day or evening). Last night we watched The Shining (that scary movie from the 80’s with Jack Nicholson) because my friend Jo turned 23 on Friday the 13th of May. We also ordered Hell’s Pizza, which is probably the best specialty pizza place that delivers I’ve ever had. The movie wasn’t too scary, but we played some corny birthday party games as well. We played one game where there were two teams, each with a set of balloons with one word on a slip of paper inside each balloon. Each team had to pop all their balloons without using their hands or feet and then put the words together to come up with a Jo-themed phrase. I bent down to get a balloon and my pajama pants literally ripped right up the back! That’s never happened to me before and it was both embarrassing and hilarious at the same time.

Earlier yesterday I took Jo out for a birthday gelato (Italian ice cream), and we ended up sharing a super-cone, where for $16 you get a HUGE cone covered in chocolate and nuts, filled with five flavors and then they put another cone on top. We got pistachio, cheesecake, custard, maple walnut, and a peanut butter and chocolate flavor. It was REALLY good but even the two of us couldn’t finish it. Jo is the girl in the picture below.

Even something as simple as deodorant in this country is different- they use either roll on deodorant or aerosol spray on containers. For being such an environmentally conscious country I’m surprised the use aerosol cans.

Today was Bruno’s birthday, so we went to Countdown (the grocery store) and picked him up a cake and an assortment of food he likes, like bacon and quince paste (kind of like jelly). He LOVED it. He’s turning 18, which is a pretty big deal in this country.

Other than that, all is well! I've also included an ad for "Water for Elephants" that was on the back of a bus and a bench covered in turf grass, as part of a Rugby ad. The rugby world cup this year takes place in right in Auckland in August. Kind of a big deal!

Water for Elephants

Tonight my friend Kaitlyn (from the underwater club) and I went to the movies and saw “Water for Elephants.” It is the best movie I’ve seen in a really long time. It stars Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson (yes, the guy from Twilight). It’s set during prohibition and is the story of Jacob, who joins the circus after his parents are killed and he is unable to take the Cornell exam to become a veterinarian.

From then on, it’s a story about working and living in a circus, deception, revenge, violence and love. The book was originally written as a historical novel, and the movie paints a really detailed picture of what the circus in the 1930’s was like. The circus was pretty much a train where all of the animals, performers, and sideshow people coexist. Also, there was a bunch of single men looking for work because it was the end of the depression. If I told you any more than that, I’d give parts away.

This movie truly is incredible, and would suit all audiences, except for younger people because there are some really gruesome scenes. This movie really makes you think, and I’d highly recommend it! Now I've got to read the book.

On another note, it was great to do something American with a fellow American.

Wednesday

I got up and went to the gym early this morning and spent the rest of the day copying down lecture notes. It POURED today. Then I had dinner with my friend Marc at a really nice Indian restaurant. Even though the food in the dining hall is okay, sometimes it really is nice to get out of International House and eat some different food! I got paneer (Indian cheese cube things) with a tomato, onion, and pepper sauce over rice and we got nan bread (baked fresh) on the side. It was SO GOOD. I even got a glass of wine with it. Classy!

Now I'm just trying to keep up in all my classes and am trying to figure out the next couple of weekends- there's a lot of dive trips coming up so I'm trying to figure out which ones I want to go on and can afford! At this point I'm already borrowing money, so it just depends on how much I want to owe my parents when I get back.

That assassin game is still going on- even though I'm dead there are a lot of other people that live by me that are still alive. Today's immunity was to wear heels, so some of the boys made high heels out of lots of pairs of flip flops cut into a heel shape, glued to the bottom of a single pair of flip flops. Here they call flip flops jandals, but these are the most creative jandals I've ever seen. I'm really glad I'm out of the game because I didn't bring heels and because it's getting really serious!

Tuesday

This assassin game is really crazy! Everyone is turning against their friends and trying to sneak around so that their assassin doesn't "kill" them, but so that they can "kill" their own target.

I ended up getting my first target, then my second. I was awesome! But then, a boy on my floor had to get me, and I had a lot of trouble avoiding him. I kept away from him until my friend Jasmine came in my room and inevitably killed me. It's really hard to explain but she killed the boy that was going to kill me, so I was her new target and I had no idea because she's one of my good friends.

This game really gets into your head and is a TON of fun to play. I also know more people here at I.H. than I thought I did!

This morning I took the bus out to a store that sells art supplies and other junk and I ended up getting knitting needles because I really want to teach myself how to knit. I think once I practice, I'm going to get good New Zealand yarn because New Zealand is so famous for all of its yarn because there's just so many sheep. I ended up walking back from the craft store, a good hour + long walk. I ended up at a really cute shop just down the street from where I live, where I found a rack of really creative necklaces that were only $5 each. So cool! After that was just class and playing the game.

Tomorrow the way to not get killed is to wear high heels- boys included! It's a good thing that I'm not playing tomorrow because I don't have any high heels in this country!

The picture I've included is of me yesterday morning with my drawn on mustache, right before we went to the gym! I've also included a picture of the Easter Bilby my friend Jo brought back for my from Australia. They sell them there instead of chocolate bunnies to promote awareness of these bunny-like creatures.

beginning of assassin week

It's looking like a pretty boring week, but I'm totally okay with that. Next weekend Jo and I might use those quad biking coupons that we won the first week we got here so that'll be neat! Other than that, just homework, class, gym, etc.

This week is Assassin week, so we've all got targets and other people have each of us as a target, and we have to "kill" our person before we get "killed." We "kill" them by throwing balled up clean socks at them, and you have to kill as many of your targets throughout the week as possible. Tomorrow, we are immune if we draw on a mustache, so I'm pretty sure I'll go through the day with a mustache on my face! The immunity changes every day, so here's the plan for the week:

Monday- mustache day
Tuesday- be seated in a buddha position, humming whenever possible
Wednesday- high heels day (I didn't bring any heels so this will be a problem!)
Thursday- Pajama day
Friday- Fake wound day (where you have to display a fake wound all day)
Saturday- paint your entire body wherever clothes do not cover
Sunday- you actually have to shave your eyebrows off!

I'm totally okay with losing before Wednesday because I don't have any heels, but DEFINITELY before Sunday- there's no way I'm going to remove my eyebrows!

Some pictures from the fountain crawl!

For a Saturday, today was extremely uneventful, but I loved it! I woke up early and went to the gym- which was amazing! I plan to go again tomorrow morning.

I spent the rest of the day organizing for my classes, writing out a few more post cards, and doing laundry.

Quote of the day: "Life is easy when you look back on it. It's even easier if you look forward to it"

However boring my day was, here's some pictures from the fountain crawl that was last Wednesday....