Who's a pretty boy?

Monday afternoon I decided it was time to go exploring, a la Dora the Explorer [should click, hilarious trailer]. I walked with followed my kiwi host through the gorgeous, open, twisty, far away backyard land of the Botanic Gardens. From the 'Possum' tree [Possum is this game that people play here [apparently, never seen it] where you'll sit in a tree, in this tree in fact, and drink until you fall out of it], to plants of all national origin, there's a whole lot of beautiful to see. There was a huge green house that fogged up my lens and my glasses upon entry, and a whole aviary of crazy birds, to add to the overly friendly duck population. My favorite was this one called 'Sid.' Sid's a parrot who has two phrases: "Who's a pretty boy?" & "What's up dog?" Immediately I fell in love.

This is the Possum Tree.

This is the sign next to the Possum Tree.

Holy ducks.

Sid, as he tried to run away from my videotaping.

School so far has actually turned into school [vom, or bof, as some people say here]. I've had all the labs, which means I've now had at least one of each class. Chem Lab is the future, and the past. We were using iPads instead of lab manuals, but the most prehistoric/jenky seeming spectrometers I've ever seen. Maybe I'm just stupid though, because I did the first half of the readings upside-down. We had an exit test, and I mean, it wasn't hard, but I was NOT ready to do math so fast.

Psyc lab though was fun. We took M&Ms when we walked in, that we weren't allowed to eat. We went around the room and based on the number of them you took you had to state facts. I was worried about my fatty-took-6 facts, so didn't learn anyones names or facts. Not a very good icebreaker, but had a good aftertaste. Then we watched videos of mental patients. I don't want to say they were funny.

I think I've gotten a little better about taming the oven beast, because my greek yoghurt, oatmeal, chocolate chip, cinnamon muffins of yesterday were surprisingly good, albeit they took 7 minutes to cook when they were supposed to be in for 20.

Recently I've been watching quite a bit of television, and it's really weird to see cultural differences here. For one, commercials suck. Like, really really suck. Like, there are tons of commercials I've seen in the past that I will remember, but won't remember what their for [failure], but here the commercial will end and I still won't know what it's for. OR, I'll be offended by it. Amazing. Also, the news is pretty funny, but it's mostly been blocked by the HUGE recent news of Justin Bieber arriving in Auckland [woop-de-doo?]. Soap Operas here make American soap operas look like they contain respectable actors.

Another major advertising difference I found here, not TV related which is why I digress, is the cigarettes. For one, super expensive, and for two, while ours will be like 'oh hey, by the way, these are going to kill you,' the ones here will say. "YOU'RE GOING TO GET LUNG CANCER AND LOOK LIKE THIS: [insert incredibly graphic destroyed mouth here]"

This weekend I may be going to Queenstown, if I'm not riddled with illness by then [I swear, everyone on campus is sick. Harmonies are formed daily between the coughs, sneezes, throat-clears, and sniffles in class.] Potential bungee jump?

Lastly, some more words

Wee- meaning little. It's not a new word, just the frequency to which it is said is new. '...the electron is just a wee little part...'
Cheers- thank you.
Chur- less formal thank you. I think it's lazy.
Keen- to be 'down.' everyone's always being keen on something.

The new Batman movie premiered at midnight last night [earlier than you, Amurrrica], and no, of course I didn't see it.