I’m sorry I’ve been so remiss in my blogging…I have been thinking a lot about many friends, and seem to be fitting in with what we hear is a common pattern of being hit by culture shock (I’m calling it culture fatigue. I don’t feel shocked. I feel tired, and a bit confused—is this new? Am I used to this or not? I can spell programme without hesitation, but some little things irritate me. Things breaking. No marshmallows. I can’t seem to understand high school—you stop whenever you feel like it? Mysterious high-stakes exams. You can go to university from 12th or 13th year, or with no particular qualifications other than turning 20) after six months. The last couple of months have been beautiful, weatherwise—actually, a drought, not happy for farmers, but lovely for the rest of us. Sunny, this month peaking at about 25 Celsius, which is about 77 Fahrenheit, and a bit of rain occasionally, for which we are obliged to be grateful. We have done a bit more exploring, thanks to my cousin Suzy’s visit (see pictures), and her stories about her trip to the South Island are making me thirsty for a trip there.
We started classes at the university this week, and so the campus is hopping and it stirs up a bit of that start-of-term excitement, and confusion, since it should be September, but it’s not. I’m starting to get it straight, though. I’m just teaching in the graduate clinical programme this semester, and the students are good, and I think it will be a good year. I’m also planning a new class (“paper”) for next year (meaning July, 2009) on child development, for undergraduates—I have to do various forms and submit them to a “prescription round” so that the paper can go into the catalog (“Calendar”) and can be scheduled (“timetabled”) for next year.
Charlie has started school, too; she started obedience classes last week. They are held in a park near downtown, and there are about 5 or 6 classes going at once. Manford took her last week, as I was in Wellington, but I took her last night. Both times, she was excited at first to meet all the other dogs, but then got scared and overwhelmed—and then she gets stubborn and won’t move, or only moves trying to drag herself (and me) away from the group. I’m wondering if she’s scared of the teacher, actually. Anyway, the teacher does seem very good, and we’re watching from the fringes and getting used to the whole thing. Lots of treats. But not for being scared; we must ignore her when she is scared. Poor Charlie.
Joseph seems happy at school, and has friends who seem like nice kids. He is taking computer programming, design, and JEEP (junior enrichment and extension programme, a kind of gifted sort of thing) for his electives, and seems to be enjoying them. They are going on some mysterious trip that I think is a camping trip of some sort, but we have no information other than having been charged $160 for the “10th year camp,” and seeing a “Y10 OE” on a school calendar. It’s in two weeks, but Joseph is remarkably blasé about knowing nothing about it. We will find out at least 24 hours in advance, I hope.
Emily also seems happy that school has started, and is making some more friends in the neighborhood, which is useful. She finally let us take her training wheels off this week, out of fear of being teased at the school bike day on Friday. The park near us is a great practice ground, and she’s found she can ride just fine. She is going to start violin lessons at school. Any recommendations for ear plugs for the early weeks? Months? Years? And she is still doing cricket, and drama, so is kept busy. A boy in her class gave her a frog this week, so she is very excited to have her own pet. We think he finally ate one of the flies we managed to capture, but I am unsure how long this pet is going to last…
And Manford has been doing a bit of consultation for a local ENT on dizziness patients, and that has been good for him—he’s so good at it, and having a bit of contact with patients, and the puzzle of diagnosis for some of those is a challenge to him. He has also been going bowling (bocce balls) with a neighbor, and seems to be enjoying that. And walking Charlie, and being the house dad, which is great.
I'd better get back to work...
Carrie
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Just a note
At least I put some pictures on. My cousin Suzy was our first visitor, and inspired us to do some exploring--she got to do a whole lot more, driving around the south island. I promise, I will write more soon. First week of classes...
Carrie
Carrie
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Brief note
The plague of flies seems to have pretty much left us but the nighttime noseeums are out in force. We have air conditioning/heating from two heat pumps recently installed with occasional differences of opinion about how cool is cool enough. I had about an hour of trying to get bigger balls near a small white target in outdoor bowling today - with my neighbor the patient tutor - fun and a little sore arm. Emily continues to create with paper and cardbord - made a mask and party hat for one of her friends - and may start t-ball this week on Thursday and possibly start violin lessons down the road. Joseph is still growing taller and may get to play at a chess tournament in Auckland in March. Charlie barks a lot and is sometimes lonely for company of other dogs. We start obedience training this week. I is still pretty dry. Ta ta for now and all our best to you, dear reader.
Friday, February 15, 2008
my (our) new computer
I am writing this on our new Compaq Presario V3000 that we got as a replacement from insurance for the one the youngest family member did in with a glass of orange juice and i don't type any better on it so far but am watching more carefully for errors. It rained hard (briefly) this am - we are in a drouth believe it or not - the playing fields in the parks are brown and some of our plants droopy - there is a sprinkler ban but we can hand hold a hoses to water them. One of Carrie's cousins is visiting from New Hampshire - she borrrowed our Beemer to drive around the south island which is more scenic and she and Carrie will hook up in Wellington next week. Today we went to what is called a dairy here, a convenience store in the US, and she had a single (pretty large) dip cone of hand dipped chocolate ice cream - cost $ 1.40. I took Charlie the wonder dog for walks this am and at noon - next week we start obedience training. Carrie does not start teaching until next month but is busy getting ready for that and some research. I have done two VNG studies for a local ENT - felt good to get back in that groove. We are trying a different med regimen for the Parkinsons - too early to judge its effectiveness but at least it does not make me feel horrible like the last regimen. Bought some good edam cheese and tasty bread for lunch and had a beer with it since we are out of pop. Well happy valentine's day if you read this today. Manford
Monday, February 4, 2008
Pictures, finally
I've finally posted the pictures from our trip--you see, the laptop where we usually put the pictures lost its "v" key, and apparently this is a serious complaint--no one wants to fix it--so it was laid up a while, until we decided to just avoid all words that use that letter...ok, I'm at the office now, plenty of v's to go around. really, I think we will attach a keyboard and pretend it is a desktop. The better to avoid spills, fumbles, and other catastrophes, anyway. But I finally downloaded the pictures and sideloaded them to a flash drive and brought them to the office where they load in a fraction of the time...
Our Trip to the Coromandel Penninsula (where, by the way, it is has been lovely ever since we left): they are in reverse order, I suppose, so from the bottom up, Manford is sitting on the deck of our lovely house in the Macadamia orchard, overlooking bush and cow pastures and, on a clear day, the estuary. It was near Hahei, a cool little beach town where the swimming would have been good if the swimming had been good...This is one of the places Captain Cook visited early in his travels, and he named a lot of the parts thereabout--including Shakepeare Pointe, a jut of land where he went to watch the path of Mercury, or something like that, to figure out where he was. The whole area is called Mercury Bay for that reason. We later went up on Shakepeare pointe and took a picture of Lonely bay, a little bay next to it that's kind of hard to get to. The you've got some examples of New Zealand culture. In case you can't read the sign on the little building, it is the Ferry Landing Library. Home Kills is just a particularly beautiful example of the kind of sign we seem to see in many of the small towns--advertising "custom killing" and variations. They do not mince words. On the way home, we drove around the peninsula to the other side (the middle is all bush and low mountains), and found this one view point where you could see some of the islands in the Firth of Thames.
We've been missing our pool, but going to the campus pool that is really quite nearby. Maybe I will add a photo of the park ("reserve") near our house--there are two of these huge parks within a few blocks of the house, and Charlie and I have been exploring them in the mornings while it is still cool. You can see, though, how dry and brown it is--usually here the vegetation is lush, but it has been so dry that all the grass is shrivelled. Charlie doesn't care. They play soccer in this park--and I think also cricket, sometimes. It can have at least three, maybe four soccer games going at a time. The other park has rugby goals.
We have the unfortunate deja vu of seeing pictures of Fred Phelps and his gang of sign-brandishing family members on the television the last few days--they are having a show tonight on the most bizarre and hated families, or something like that, and Fred Phelps is featured. I'm not sure if I'll have the stomach to watch. But already one colleague has said "Topeka, Kansas--isn't that where you're from?"--so I leave it to all of you still in Topeka to do something worthy of fame, rather than infamy. Manford's hometown (well, birth town--Alice, Texas) was in the paper this morning, with an odd little story about how the mayor resigned after stealing a neighbor's dog. We can all wonder why this was in the newspaper in New Zealand.
Take Care!
Carrie
Our Trip to the Coromandel Penninsula (where, by the way, it is has been lovely ever since we left): they are in reverse order, I suppose, so from the bottom up, Manford is sitting on the deck of our lovely house in the Macadamia orchard, overlooking bush and cow pastures and, on a clear day, the estuary. It was near Hahei, a cool little beach town where the swimming would have been good if the swimming had been good...This is one of the places Captain Cook visited early in his travels, and he named a lot of the parts thereabout--including Shakepeare Pointe, a jut of land where he went to watch the path of Mercury, or something like that, to figure out where he was. The whole area is called Mercury Bay for that reason. We later went up on Shakepeare pointe and took a picture of Lonely bay, a little bay next to it that's kind of hard to get to. The you've got some examples of New Zealand culture. In case you can't read the sign on the little building, it is the Ferry Landing Library. Home Kills is just a particularly beautiful example of the kind of sign we seem to see in many of the small towns--advertising "custom killing" and variations. They do not mince words. On the way home, we drove around the peninsula to the other side (the middle is all bush and low mountains), and found this one view point where you could see some of the islands in the Firth of Thames.
We've been missing our pool, but going to the campus pool that is really quite nearby. Maybe I will add a photo of the park ("reserve") near our house--there are two of these huge parks within a few blocks of the house, and Charlie and I have been exploring them in the mornings while it is still cool. You can see, though, how dry and brown it is--usually here the vegetation is lush, but it has been so dry that all the grass is shrivelled. Charlie doesn't care. They play soccer in this park--and I think also cricket, sometimes. It can have at least three, maybe four soccer games going at a time. The other park has rugby goals.
We have the unfortunate deja vu of seeing pictures of Fred Phelps and his gang of sign-brandishing family members on the television the last few days--they are having a show tonight on the most bizarre and hated families, or something like that, and Fred Phelps is featured. I'm not sure if I'll have the stomach to watch. But already one colleague has said "Topeka, Kansas--isn't that where you're from?"--so I leave it to all of you still in Topeka to do something worthy of fame, rather than infamy. Manford's hometown (well, birth town--Alice, Texas) was in the paper this morning, with an odd little story about how the mayor resigned after stealing a neighbor's dog. We can all wonder why this was in the newspaper in New Zealand.
Take Care!
Carrie
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Hello
Greetings from down under. The kids start school next week - this is how school works in New Aealand - the new school year starts in the new year. Carrie found a giant doll at a garage sale for two dollars - her head lights up and a horrible sound emanates ffrom elsewhere. Her right ear just fell into her head! She has a pink dress and blonde hair. I thought you might be interested in some grocery costs, keeping in mind that a kilo is about 2.2 pounds and that currently the nz dollar = about 80 cents usa. 1.5 liter coke = $1.49, kleenex double 4 rolls = 4.69, 1.5 kg sugar = 1.85, chicken drumsticks = 5.49 a kilo avocados = 69 cents each, pork loin = 12.99 a kilo, fresh snapper filets = 19.95 a kilo, wattie's frozen peas = 1.99 a kilo, glad wrap dispenser = 7.69 for 100 meters. We have Domino's and Pizza Hut, and an Australian/New Zealand brand called Hell's that offers, among others, gluttony, greed and sloth varieties. Dinner at local restaurants typically runs 20 - 30 dollars for a Mains, 15 - 20 for appetizers. Breakfasts run 14 - 20. Gasoline is around $ 1.70 a liter. The weather has been warmer than average and the Hamilton City council has placed a ban on sprinkling lawns - the driest January since 1906. Carrie has planted a variety of herbs and it is ok to water them by hose but can't do unattneded sprinkling. We are looking forward to a visit from one of Carrie's cousins. I am meeting with a local ENT to talk about my working with his dizzy patients - will send a report after the meeting. I was laid low for a few days with a powerful virus that kept me in bed for two days - now am getting over a foot fungus that I brought home from a Quaker summer gathering where I foolishly wore the same socks several days in a row in dry and damp - eeewww, shame on me. I will be walking Emily to school most days so will get some exercise. I hope all who read this are well and have been able to manage with the harsh weather in the midwest. We did finally, recently, sell our Woodlawn house. If any of you Potwinites read this please make the new owner welcome and thanks. And many thanks to all who have e-mailed me at manford_barber@hotmail.com to keep me up to date on their goings on!
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