Week 2: Settling In

Ok, second week down and I seem to  still be in one piece! Ha ha, I am just kidding. I'm starting to get used to the kick-back nature that is the Kiwi lifestyle. I find myself forgetting about all my stress and relaxing. I've even found myself  walking around barefoot outside on the streets. But this new-found laziness is very inconvenient considering we started classes this last Monday.

As I mentioned before, living in New Zealand is not all that different from living in America. But, as I found out this week, there is one distinct difference. The school system. Not to say that the structure of Massey classes (or papers, as they call them here) is bad. I am learning. But, I would say I've been a little spoiled while studying at Whitworth. Going to a bigger and more public university like Massey, I now appreciate my small liberal arts education a lot more than I have in the past.

Thought I'd add a picture right here. I get bored when I have to read a bunch of words with no pictures. So look! Its a Kiwi inside a kiwi! Yay!

Here is roughly how the system works. You take three to four papers (classes). The papers are made up of lectures and tutorials. The lectures are two to three hours long and are once a week. Tutorials are basically extra study sessions you can go to to review the material you learned in the lecture. Here is the thing though. For most of the classes, the lectures and tutorials are not mandatory! Everything including lecture notes and power points is online. So in other words, you don't need to go to class! Weird huh? For example, my housemate Kristian  attended 0 lectures last semester and still passed all of his papers. That is something you could never get away with at Whitworth. You also only get two or three assignments during the semester.  No busy work or reading quizzes for me this semester!

Other than starting classes, this week has been pretty ordinary. On Saturday Emily, my two housemates Nic and Kristian, and Robbie (he's from Coeur d'Alene, YAY IDAHO!) took a day trip to the west coast. We went to Muriwai Beach, which was unlike any beach I'd ever been to because the sand was black! And hot! But it turned into a beautiful and relaxing day filled with sand castles and time spent in the waves.  This picture right here is the view from the top of a cliff on one side of the beach. You can see the gannet colony where there are hundreds of gannets nesting on top of the rocks. There are more pictures on Facebook if you want to see more. I do have to make a confession and say that I did not take these pictures. I regretfully forgot my camera that day, so I must give the credit to Robbie, who took these pictures with his iPhone.          

I have not talked much about our housemates. Here is Unit 14, Millennium Village. The taller one with the rugby ball is Nic and the one on the end is Kristian. (for those of you who don't know, Emily is on the other end) We have a great group. Both boys are very friendly, as are most of the Kiwis I have met here. Interestingly enough they have mainly two hobbies (or addictions you might say). One is going to the gym, which you can probably tell by their figures. The other is playing League of Legends or World of Warcraft, which I can relate to, having a boyfriend back home who plays LOL all the time. I also mean this in the nicest way possible. It's not like that's all they do or anything :)

But it has been great, we have had a lot of laughs in our flat and more is to come. 

I think that is all I have to say at this point. I am going to try and blog once a week. Once I start traveling around, I will probably blog a little more. Until next time!