Since I haven't mentioned it so far, the reason for all my travels this summer is a research project. And, despite all appearances to the contrary, I've actually been working on it.
I'm studying how universities take the environment into account as they develop. More specifically, I've picked four universities, one in each country I'm going to, and I'm comparing them based on four environmental criteria: curricula and research, student involvement, physical environmentalism (recycling, green architecture, power and water conservation, public transport, etc.), and plans for the future. Basically this involves me doing a whole bunch of interviews.
At the University of Auckland, I first spoke with the environmental coordinator, who was phenomenally helpful and gave me more resources than I can handle in the two weeks I'm looking at this university. I also interviewed one of the co-chairs of the environmental affairs office in the student government when I was lucky enough to stumble into an Eco-festival he was organizing. Other than that, I've spent most of my time doing student interviews, with some pretty interesting results. I have a set of seven questions that I ask students to see what their opinion is on environmental issues, and once I have a sample size of fifty I'll compile all the data and see how it all comes out. I like to warn people before I interview them that the first two are kind of intense, then after that they get simple. Then I hit them with it:
1. Off the top of your head, what do you think are some of the biggest problems facing the world as a whole today?
2. What are some of the biggest problems facing New Zealand? They can be the same or different as the ones you have already mentioned.
3. Are you concerned about the environment or climate change? Choose one: yes, a little, or no.
4. Do you think that students at this university are concerned about the environment or climate change? Choose one: yes, a little, or no.
5. How often do you think that environmental issues come up in conversation among students? Choose one: often, sometimes, rarely.
6. Is there anything you do in your daily life out of concern for the environment? (Some examples of common answers include conserving power, taking public transport, and recycling.)
7. Do you know of any efforts or changes the university is making out of concern for the environment?
I won't go into the details of how I break the answers down and how this information ties into my project, but I've gotten some pretty interesting answers to the first question. Things that often com up are poverty, third world civil conflict, and the rising cost of food and fuel. Some less common but more fun answers: America, President Bush (although this could be in the common answers category as well), lack of religion, too much religion, selfishness, McDonald's, and my personal favorite: stupid people.
So I felt like I needed to at least say something about my project while I was here so I didn't feel like I was spending all of my time avoiding any real work. But now that I've said it, I'm off to go cook lunch and go to a museum and maybe some sightseeing.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Never make hasty judgments and other lessons learned in a hostel
Hostels, or backpackers as they're called here, are a world of their own. This is especially true in the off season, when the usual parade of gap year students and young adventurers are replaced by a more varied array of residents. Some lessons I've learned so far:
1. Never make hasty judgments on a person's culinary abilities.
On day three of my stay in Albert Park Backpackers (that's how long it took me to pull myself together and go to the grocery store for supplies), I sauntered into the kitchen ready to wow everyone with my grand plans for making stir fry. I quickly realized that no one would be wowed. Except for maybe me. First of all, I had to wait my turn. Then I had to readjust some assumptions I didn't even realize I had made. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had assumed that the English guys with all the piercings and slightly offensive tee shirts wouldn't be good cooks. Same with the Japanese girls in the room next to me who always look meticulously done up, and the funny German couple who always argue over breakfast. Not so. Simmering around the kitchen were homemade pasta sauces, soups, chicken parm, fish fillets, and you get the idea.
It turns out that pretty much everyone in Albert Park Backpackers Hostel is gourmet chef or at least was one in a previous lifetime. I guess it makes sense for people trying to live on a budget: there's only so long a person can go on noodles and frozen dinners before they get pretty creative in the kitchen. But still, I was surprised. It's been fun cooking with everyone, and I finally learned how to make good fried rice thanks to my Japanese roommates. Unfortunately for my newfound fried rice skills, I will probably never want to eat rice again after this trip. Living and eating inexpensively (and living with other people who are doing the same) means that everyone eats rice all time. It's about NZ$1.50 for a kilogram of rice. And while that innocent bag doesn't look like a lot, we all know how rice expands, and that little bag can probably feed two people for about a week. After a 6 days of having rice with almost every meal, I'm beginning to dream of the day when I reach the bottom of my kilo of rice.
2. A common language is not always necessary for conversation.
One of my roommates had a job interview yesterday. It didn't go well. I know this because when I walked into our room at around 9:00 last night, she was sitting on the lone chair in the room crying. So I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong while she tried to calm down a little. Hitomi's English isn't great yet since this is her first time working in an English-speaking country, but usually we manage the half-English half-gesturing hostel speak that gets most of us through the day. But since she was upset it was harder than usual to try and speak another language, so instead she told me what happened in Japanese and I comforted her in English. Neither of us had a clue what the other was saying, but I think we understood each other anyway.
3. I cannot sleep through everything.
I thought I could. I really did. I've slept through fire alarms and bright sunlight on my face and years of roommates dropping things and talking on the phone. But our room is right below the roof, which is where people hang out at night. And something about cask wine and a rooftop just gets to Matt's head, and he feels the need to yell long streams of insults at his ex-girlfriend in Christchurch. This usually happens about thirty minutes after I've fallen asleep, and I wake up every time. I'm tempted to rent a car, go find whatever girl was crazy enough to date Matt, and bring her to Auckland so he won't have to yell quite so loud.
4. How to make friends you will never see again.
It's not hard to make friends in hostel, especially if you stay for more than a day or two, so I've gotten to know all of the "long-term" residents of Albert Park Backpackers. These transient friendships were solidified on Wednesday, when we all planned to go out for karaoke only to find that the usual bar was showing a rugby match instead, so we went to another bar that happened to have a dance floor. Once you've seen someone dance under the influence of a few NZ$5 beer jugs, there really isn't anything left to hide. I imagine karaoke would have had the same effect.
5. What "Chin chin" means in Japanese.
Just before this outing, one of my roommates cooked dinner for everyone (spaghetti with meat sauce and it was fantastic). As we all sat down to eat, we all raised our glasses and said "cheers" in our respective languages. But before we could touch glasses the four usually reserved Japanese girls at the table collapsed into fits of giggles. It turns out that Jorge's toast, "Chin chin," roughly translates as "a small boy's private parts" in Japanese. Who knew?
1. Never make hasty judgments on a person's culinary abilities.
On day three of my stay in Albert Park Backpackers (that's how long it took me to pull myself together and go to the grocery store for supplies), I sauntered into the kitchen ready to wow everyone with my grand plans for making stir fry. I quickly realized that no one would be wowed. Except for maybe me. First of all, I had to wait my turn. Then I had to readjust some assumptions I didn't even realize I had made. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had assumed that the English guys with all the piercings and slightly offensive tee shirts wouldn't be good cooks. Same with the Japanese girls in the room next to me who always look meticulously done up, and the funny German couple who always argue over breakfast. Not so. Simmering around the kitchen were homemade pasta sauces, soups, chicken parm, fish fillets, and you get the idea.
It turns out that pretty much everyone in Albert Park Backpackers Hostel is gourmet chef or at least was one in a previous lifetime. I guess it makes sense for people trying to live on a budget: there's only so long a person can go on noodles and frozen dinners before they get pretty creative in the kitchen. But still, I was surprised. It's been fun cooking with everyone, and I finally learned how to make good fried rice thanks to my Japanese roommates. Unfortunately for my newfound fried rice skills, I will probably never want to eat rice again after this trip. Living and eating inexpensively (and living with other people who are doing the same) means that everyone eats rice all time. It's about NZ$1.50 for a kilogram of rice. And while that innocent bag doesn't look like a lot, we all know how rice expands, and that little bag can probably feed two people for about a week. After a 6 days of having rice with almost every meal, I'm beginning to dream of the day when I reach the bottom of my kilo of rice.
2. A common language is not always necessary for conversation.
One of my roommates had a job interview yesterday. It didn't go well. I know this because when I walked into our room at around 9:00 last night, she was sitting on the lone chair in the room crying. So I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong while she tried to calm down a little. Hitomi's English isn't great yet since this is her first time working in an English-speaking country, but usually we manage the half-English half-gesturing hostel speak that gets most of us through the day. But since she was upset it was harder than usual to try and speak another language, so instead she told me what happened in Japanese and I comforted her in English. Neither of us had a clue what the other was saying, but I think we understood each other anyway.
3. I cannot sleep through everything.
I thought I could. I really did. I've slept through fire alarms and bright sunlight on my face and years of roommates dropping things and talking on the phone. But our room is right below the roof, which is where people hang out at night. And something about cask wine and a rooftop just gets to Matt's head, and he feels the need to yell long streams of insults at his ex-girlfriend in Christchurch. This usually happens about thirty minutes after I've fallen asleep, and I wake up every time. I'm tempted to rent a car, go find whatever girl was crazy enough to date Matt, and bring her to Auckland so he won't have to yell quite so loud.
4. How to make friends you will never see again.
It's not hard to make friends in hostel, especially if you stay for more than a day or two, so I've gotten to know all of the "long-term" residents of Albert Park Backpackers. These transient friendships were solidified on Wednesday, when we all planned to go out for karaoke only to find that the usual bar was showing a rugby match instead, so we went to another bar that happened to have a dance floor. Once you've seen someone dance under the influence of a few NZ$5 beer jugs, there really isn't anything left to hide. I imagine karaoke would have had the same effect.
5. What "Chin chin" means in Japanese.
Just before this outing, one of my roommates cooked dinner for everyone (spaghetti with meat sauce and it was fantastic). As we all sat down to eat, we all raised our glasses and said "cheers" in our respective languages. But before we could touch glasses the four usually reserved Japanese girls at the table collapsed into fits of giggles. It turns out that Jorge's toast, "Chin chin," roughly translates as "a small boy's private parts" in Japanese. Who knew?
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Greenery
The thing about staying right in the heart of a major city is that I can't always tell that I've gone half way around the world. Other than the crosswalks, accents, sushi, and cars on wrong side of the road, these tall buildings and busy people and chain stores could just as easily be any US city as New Zealand. So I decided to spend today in search of the more New Zealandy side of Auckland, and it was a definite success.
I woke up at around 6:30 this morning (I swear I'm not jet lagged) and after a half hour willing myself to fall back asleep I gave up, threw on some running clothes, and went to find The Domain, which is Auckland's equivalent to central park but they really went above and beyond. I passed people playing rugby and soccer (New Zealandy moment #1), and then some overly
friendly geese, and then discovered that there's a jungle right in the middle of the park! When I first got there the sun was still coming up and the whole place looked like Fern Gully. I could see all the shafts of light coming through the trees and reflecting on the dew, which was stunning and I was so mad that I had dressed to go jogging and therefore didn't have my camera with me. The whole day was sunny and gorgeous, probably one of the last really pretty fall days before winter sets in in June. I'm just hoping I get another one before I leave so I can go take pictures.
On my way back I was looking for the only big grocery store around here, but couldn't find it and stumbled on the Auckland farmer's market instead (New Zealandy moment #2), which is a wonderful thing to find when I am hungry and looking for breakfast, so I spent a pleasant hour walking around there and chatting with people.
Then I took a ferry to this little suburb called Devonport and climbed a volcano cone (New Zealandy moment #3), which is far less intense than it sounds. It's really just a grassy hill, which took only me about 20 minutes to climb wearing a skirt and flip flops. From the top there is 360 degree view of Auckland and the harbor and Devonport. Once I was up there I opted not to tour the town and just plopped myself down on the hillside for a couple of hours to read. There were these kids and their grandfather sledding down the grass on cardboard boxes and people with dogs and cute couples all around. The scene was almost too perfect, but since it's summer and I'm on vacation and I have nothing better to do with my time than read and smile at all the happy people with cool accents, I didn't mind.
On a side note, mentioning accents reminds me that I've caught myself trying to speak with a New Zealand accent twice and it's really pretty embarrassing. I'm trying not to let it happen again.
I woke up at around 6:30 this morning (I swear I'm not jet lagged) and after a half hour willing myself to fall back asleep I gave up, threw on some running clothes, and went to find The Domain, which is Auckland's equivalent to central park but they really went above and beyond. I passed people playing rugby and soccer (New Zealandy moment #1), and then some overly
friendly geese, and then discovered that there's a jungle right in the middle of the park! When I first got there the sun was still coming up and the whole place looked like Fern Gully. I could see all the shafts of light coming through the trees and reflecting on the dew, which was stunning and I was so mad that I had dressed to go jogging and therefore didn't have my camera with me. The whole day was sunny and gorgeous, probably one of the last really pretty fall days before winter sets in in June. I'm just hoping I get another one before I leave so I can go take pictures.On my way back I was looking for the only big grocery store around here, but couldn't find it and stumbled on the Auckland farmer's market instead (New Zealandy moment #2), which is a wonderful thing to find when I am hungry and looking for breakfast, so I spent a pleasant hour walking around there and chatting with people.
Then I took a ferry to this little suburb called Devonport and climbed a volcano cone (New Zealandy moment #3), which is far less intense than it sounds. It's really just a grassy hill, which took only me about 20 minutes to climb wearing a skirt and flip flops. From the top there is 360 degree view of Auckland and the harbor and Devonport. Once I was up there I opted not to tour the town and just plopped myself down on the hillside for a couple of hours to read. There were these kids and their grandfather sledding down the grass on cardboard boxes and people with dogs and cute couples all around. The scene was almost too perfect, but since it's summer and I'm on vacation and I have nothing better to do with my time than read and smile at all the happy people with cool accents, I didn't mind.On a side note, mentioning accents reminds me that I've caught myself trying to speak with a New Zealand accent twice and it's really pretty embarrassing. I'm trying not to let it happen again.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Safely arrived in Auckland
Despite a time change and crossing the international date line, I'm not actually that jet lagged. My plane took off at around 9:30 pm on Tuesday in California, and after a 13 hours of restless airplane sleep I arrived here at 4:30 am on Thursday in New Zealand. Other than being sad that I will never experience May 14, 2008, I feel pretty good.
I didn't do anything too exciting today, other than busting into my room at the hostel at 7:00 this morning to the disgruntled sleepy moans of my roommates. It's now about at 4:30 pm and I've spent most of the day wandering around the streets and park around the University I will be studying. I think I might take a ferry out to an island this weekend, but I'm not sure yet.
Some interesting cultural differences:
Crosswalks
At the major intersections I have seen, pedestrians never cross the street when any cars are moving. So instead of having pedestrians walk parallel to the cars, the traffic lights stop all of the cars for about a minute and let all of the pedestrians (regardless of direction) cross the street. The result is that there is a fairly long wait at a crosswalk, so people pile up at the corners, and then when they finally can go this flood of people pours into the intersection crossing every which way. It's difficult to describe but it's funny to see people crossing the street diagonally which never happens in the US.
Accents
I want one. They're awesome.
Volume of sushi places
About one out of every five store fronts is a hole in the wall take out sushi place. It's like Starbucks in Seattle, but instead of coffee it seems like people here can't live without two servings of raw fish in their daily diet. It's the only explanation for how they all stay open.
I've been warned that it's almost winter here, but today was around 70 and beautiful so I'm hoping that my luck holds. I'm off to go meet people in my hostel and get ready for some interviews tomorrow.
I didn't do anything too exciting today, other than busting into my room at the hostel at 7:00 this morning to the disgruntled sleepy moans of my roommates. It's now about at 4:30 pm and I've spent most of the day wandering around the streets and park around the University I will be studying. I think I might take a ferry out to an island this weekend, but I'm not sure yet.
Some interesting cultural differences:
Crosswalks
At the major intersections I have seen, pedestrians never cross the street when any cars are moving. So instead of having pedestrians walk parallel to the cars, the traffic lights stop all of the cars for about a minute and let all of the pedestrians (regardless of direction) cross the street. The result is that there is a fairly long wait at a crosswalk, so people pile up at the corners, and then when they finally can go this flood of people pours into the intersection crossing every which way. It's difficult to describe but it's funny to see people crossing the street diagonally which never happens in the US.
Accents
I want one. They're awesome.
Volume of sushi places
About one out of every five store fronts is a hole in the wall take out sushi place. It's like Starbucks in Seattle, but instead of coffee it seems like people here can't live without two servings of raw fish in their daily diet. It's the only explanation for how they all stay open.
I've been warned that it's almost winter here, but today was around 70 and beautiful so I'm hoping that my luck holds. I'm off to go meet people in my hostel and get ready for some interviews tomorrow.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
California here I come!
I still can't wrap my head around the fact that school is over and I am off to live out of a back pack for the next three months, but it must be true because every time I go to put on a shirt I realize that I always have the same four choices. Another sign that this is really happening: a week ago today I was in the UNC library studying for a physics final, and now I'm in the Stanford library (which is actually kind of the same, but with better windows) killing time and starting my blog while Eleanor studies. It's definitely nice not to be the one studying!
Anyway, I'm having a lot of fun here hanging out here with Eleanor and her roommates and other SPS kids. The weather has been beautiful and it wonderful not to have anything to do besides lie in the sun and enjoy it. I watched my first water polo game ever yesterday and had a blast going out and getting to know Eleanor's friends. Nothing too out of the ordinary yet, but this is definitely a great way to ease into my adventures this summer.
I leave for New Zealand on Tuesday AND I have a little bit of my voice back so it looks like I'm really on my way!
I leave for New Zealand on Tuesday AND I have a little bit of my voice back so it looks like I'm really on my way!
And I'm off...
Hello everyone!
Welcome to my summer blog! I wanted to call it "Around the World in 80 Days" but it turns out I'm going to be gone for closer to 90. Too bad for the title but I'm happy to spend 10 extra days out and about.
I thought this would be a good way to keep track of my summer and stay in touch with all of the people I am going to miss while I'm gone. I'll be keeping it up all summer so feel free to check it or not check it whenever. I'm going to miss talking to you all and I cannot wait to hear what you all are up to. Stay in touch!
Welcome to my summer blog! I wanted to call it "Around the World in 80 Days" but it turns out I'm going to be gone for closer to 90. Too bad for the title but I'm happy to spend 10 extra days out and about.
I thought this would be a good way to keep track of my summer and stay in touch with all of the people I am going to miss while I'm gone. I'll be keeping it up all summer so feel free to check it or not check it whenever. I'm going to miss talking to you all and I cannot wait to hear what you all are up to. Stay in touch!
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