Orchard Park, Classes and Rotorua (June 30- July 12)

This past week has been the most restful time I've had in years (literally, years). I've been sleeping 8+ hours every night and walking slowly around places I don't even need to go. The only thing I really had to do was orientation for Waikato, which was only a couple hours a day and followed the tradition of all orientations: well-intended and useless (other than making friends). I did an event called the international student amazing race, where we ran all around campus to complete tasks. It was fun and my team didn't finish last.

I'm living in a place called Orchard Park. It's a community of four bedroom cottages that are university owned. They're really quaint and have a lot of character. What they don't have a lot of is insulation. They get super cold at night, especially the floor! I wear my slippers almost constantly because the floor is almost the same temperature as the ground outside. Orchard Park is kind of separated from the rest of campus and tends to be mostly older and international students. It's perfect for me because these are the people who have the same priorities as I do. I also love having my own kitchen. My room is a little sad because I didn't bring anything it decorate it with. Luckily, my dear friend Rachel Paul is sending me something pretty.

Perhaps one of my favorite parts of Orchard Park is the cat. Most people call her (him?) Oreo, but I don't like that name very much. She's an absolute doll. Nobody's really sure where she came from, but that's fine! She's spent a few nights in my bed and I know there's a few cottages (ours included) who have been feeding her. She seems young to us and I hope she sticks around.

I'm taking just three classes when I'm here: coastal morphology, applied freshwater ecology and environmental history of New Zealand. I'm actually pretty nervous for them because I haven't taken any of the prerequisite classes. AP bio is high school and basic Earth science is pretty much my entire background and I'm in senior level classes. So far they've been really interesting but I know I'm behind the rest of the class. Thankfully our next assignment in geology is math based, and math has been my life for the past two years.

This Saturday, July 6, I went on a day-trip out to Rotorua. It's a town about an hour and a half drive from school. We spent most of the day on a walk around the lake. Rotorua is a really geothermically active area, so there are thermal upwellings and boiling pits of mud all around the lake. One of the pools was notable for releasing nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and I saw a bird struggling near the pool. It looked like it was trying to fly but couldn't because of an injury. I jumped over the barrier and carried the bird to a safer place. My friends and I watched him for a while and he seemed like he was getting better, but we can't be sure. My guess is that the nitrous oxide was too much for him to handle when he flew close to the pool. Poor darling! After lunch we drove back to Hamilton for the rest of the weekend.

It's been a long while since I've uploaded anything, but I promise another post on my more recent trips soon! Today, July 21st, marks one month that I've been here in this beautiful country. I'm so sure that this is the right place for me right now, and I feel so lucky that I have this opportunity. The next step is to make the most of it!