Apologies

Well, I've been meaning to write about apologies, anyway, but first I must apologize for not writing for so long. The weeks are flying by, and I think of things in the wrong places, and not when I'm sitting down to write. Classes are over, and next week my last academic obligation for the year will be done (two days of oral exams for the poor graduate students)--then you'd think I was scott free, but it's not really summer off for academics here, especially in clinical--there's lots to do with planning for next year and finally having some concentrated time for research. But it should be very flexible, perhaps permitting a bit of shopping around the margins, and some days off for exploring beaches and other places (Manford is not keen on caves, but there are some famous caves near here with glowworms, and maybe I can persuade someone--my cousin Suzy is coming in February--to play tourist with me. There's also Rotorua only an hour away, with steaming mud baths and hot rivers).

Anyway, apologies. They take their apologies seriously here. If you are not going to be in a meeting, you send your apologies, and they say them at the beginning of the meeting ("John and Sue send their apologies") and then they ask if there are any more apologies. I am always sorely tempted to speak up at this point; I must have something to apologize for--but I have kept my mouth shut. They also use apologies in the usual sense--if you do something wrong, you are expected to make an apology, and they seem to use it in the justice system as well. I was talking with someone whose field is "restorative justice" and I will be interested ("keen") to know more about that. When Manford had an early driving glitch and almost hit a cyclist, and the police pulled him over, they had him apologize to the cyclist, and let the cyclist decide whether to give him a ticket (he didn't). A little apology goes a long way...

Emily is starting to say "no" like a Kiwi. I can't quite spell how it sounds, but there's almost an "r" in there somewhere. We're getting ready for Christmas, but around here it involves barbequing things. Your outdoor grill (and the event that surrounds it) is called a "barby"--or "barbie"--I'm not sure how to spell it, and am still confused when someone suggests that we must have a barby for Christmas. I think we have enough Barbies, and we should move on to some more anatomically correct plaything. Emily wants something called a Mooshabelly. I think it is kind of the opposite of a Barbie.

Joseph seems to be doing quite well. His final exams start today; they are exams over the whole year's work, but he seems quite unfazed by it. Perhaps too unfazed...we'll see. I think they got a grade at the end of the first half of the year, but we haven't seen a grade card since we got here, and have only his vague report that he's doing ok...the grading system in high school is "NAME"--N is something bad, like "not acceptable"; A is Acceptable; M is merit; E is Excellent. At the university they have our regular ABCDEF (I'm a bit fuzzy about that E category), but the percentages are quite different: 85-100 is an A+, for instance; 75% is A-; 50% is a C. So we make the questions harder? I'm still figuring it out. In my honours class, I gave quite a lot of A's--I think more than half the class--

Anyway, Joseph is going to Auckland next week to represent his school for chess--it sounds like they have all kind of sports that they play against this rival school, and chess is included...and he might get to go next year on a five-day adventure on a tall ship (http://www.spiritofadventure.org.nz/) with the enrichment programme of his school. It looks great to us--hope it happens. I think they have to get enough interested and schedule a time.

We had Thanksgiving last week, on our Friday, which was your Thursday, and had two American expatriots (one who works with me, one from Friends Meeting), two Kiwis (the husband and child of one American) and a Chinese student (who is living with the Friend). The student kindly took the picture of us here. I forgot to get the turkey in the picture before it was carved. It was a good turkey (Emily said it was the best turkey ever), big by NZ standards (5 kilos), but rather tiny by ours, and expensive (I think I paid about $60 for it, frozen). Not quite organic/free range, but no hormones/antibiotics, anyway. Unfortunately I got the stomach flu that night, and have been barely eating since, but made turkey soup yesterday and it went down ok.

Our tree-trimming party is next weekend, so we got a tree (artificial, sorry...but summer is not really the time to have a real tree in your house. I hear they are even more inclined to drop needles) and got the lights on it yesterday. Trying to translate traditions and recipes. There is no corn syrup in the stores (a major ingredient in gingerbread houses), but there is treacle, and apparently that is molasses, and worked fine for the dough. We may do mulled wine, but sangria really seems more appropriate, so we will try that, too. And I think the cider will be cold.

Stay warm! I hear it snowed in Topeka!

Carrie