so its been 10 days since i've posted anything on the blog, and i'm definitely due for a post, its seeming more like a chore now, but here it goes, for you readers.
first i'll outline some of the major events in the last 10 days that have prevented me from writing on the blog:
- went to the auckland horse races and "told" my host parents to "bet" on some horses with "money they borrowed from me" which just happened to "collect" like $100 "profit"
- went to piha beach to see the lifeguard boat races
- made more friends
- made another ridiculously good meal (chicken paprikash)
- had "athletics day" at school
- hung out with newly made friends
- went to raglan to go on a surf expedition and meet the rest of my host family's family, but got totally skunked at raglan
alright, so i'll start with last weekend. but first, let me explain what a quiz is. Every Tuesday night at a local pub called The Hangar, people from around the area gather to partake in a 'quiz.' it's 8 rounds of random questions on random topics and you're limited to the knowledge of your team. my host parents are a part of the team (Paul pretty much is the team) and go every Tuesday night. And apparently, out of all the teams (there is a lot of them actually) that participated in quiz nights in 2010, their team had the highest total score.
For their prize, they won free VIP tickets to the Auckland horse races, this included free food AND drinks (nice).
So, last friday, the team (and me) got to go to the horse races. it was super fun. everyone was having fun and most all of us (of legal age of course) were winning loads of money.
They also had a good friend that met us there who used to help run the racetrack and breed and own horses. he pretty much new everything about horse racing and basically told everyone who to bet on. he also helped us in picking 6 horses that were racing in Christchurch that night to. if we won, we would have split like $30000, but unfortunately, out of the 6 horses we picked, 5 won, in a row. it was a heart breaker. but no one was complaining, everyone walked away with free food and drinks and some extra cash in hand.
the next day (last saturday) we went to the piha paddle boat race classic. teams from around Australia and New Zealand, and even a team from the UK, were competing in races that were extremely gnarly (that's really the only way to describe it.) They had these huge paddle boats, filled with about 8 people rowing and one person in the back with the steering oar, and had to paddle out in and around the surf and then come to the beach and race to the finish line. and with the huge rivalry between aussie's and kiwi's, national pride was on the line, which is pretty much greater than anything in New Zealand.
The surf out at piha was killer, and it hurt to look at it and not have a surfboard. It was perfect lefts, shoulder to a few feet over head, with awesome barrels. But, although it was good to be a surfer, the easily 8 -9 ft sets were nothing short of shit for the paddle racers.
it was crazy to watch, huge wipeouts, broken oars, broken faces, broken pride, all in all, it was awesome. But unfortunately, most of the Kiwi teams fell short of first place and let the Aussie's take first prize. But what really was proved in that afternoon, was how hardcore and tough New Zealander's and Australian's are. I saw this one lifeguard guy pretty much break his nose, and then go back out to paddle again. It was crazy.
I also sliced my foot open on the beach, which wasn't as hardcore as the races, but still, it was pretty wannabe hardcore.
The next day (last sunday) i had to go to a AFS student picnic. The picnic itself was really uneventful, except i saw this one huge islander guy with a face covered in tattoos fishing for eel, by hand. But the coolest thing was being able to see the town near the beach where the picnic was. the town is called titirangi and is a really cool artsy community situated right in the jungle (called ranges.) There's not many houses, but there are a lot of art galleries and pretty much art where ever there is a little space. Painted fences, random sculptures on the side of the road. It was pretty cool, the town, not the picnic.
Anyway, school this past week as been pretty cool. Not the actual school portion, but the social part has been really fun.
Work wise, school is super boring because all the material we're learning is stuff i've already learned. For instance, the advanced english i'm placed in, is the equivalent of 8th grade english. the "hardest project ever," was writing three paragraphs about a crappy poem. Math too. "super hard math," is factoring. which, is definitely a little tricky when you learn it at first, but it's pretty easy when you've already been doing it for about 4 years. But i keep this to myself. I don't want to offend anyone, but it's pretty hard to be at school (at least in these classes) when you just feel like you're getting dumber.
On the other hand however, i've been making more friends daily, and now pretty much have a solid friend base which is really cool and fun. i get invites to go do stuff, and i'm slowly detaching myself from the 'exchange student mark.' it's cool, and as far as the social aspect of school goes, i'm having a lot of fun.
but the BIG event this week at school was Athletics Day. athletics day is a huge all-day event in which the entire school participates. The school (everyone in the school) is in one of 3 houses that compete against each other all year in order to claim the title of best house. it's sort of like harry potter, like with griffindor and stuff.
anyway each house has a color and you're supposed to come decked out in your color on sports day, you're also supposed to compete in events to earn points for your house.
my house is Aroha (which means 'love' in Maori), and is traditionally known as the 'shit house,' that has yet to win anything in the last 15 years or so. Our color is red, and on Athletics Day (which was on Friday) everyone comes to school in their red stuff ( everyone who is in Aroha.) But, alas, i have no red. and instead, i thought i would come to school in other colors that would be acceptable amongst my Aroha peers, yellow and green, and a white shirt. Unfortunately, yellow and green are the colors of the other two houses, and i had to draw AROHA on my arms in big red letters just to let everyone know what team i was on.
The day was a lot of fun though. Everyone was pretty much hanging out on the field all day, and i got to know a lot of people way more. Pretty much, i know good group of kids now, and i'm not an outsider. I'm a part of their group i guess. i'm accepted amongst them, and i can truly say that, through waterpolo and through school life, i've made a bunch of friends with a bunch of really cool people.
As far as Athletics Day events go, i only did two, the intermediate high jump and the 100 meter sprint ( i came in 4th behind all the extremely athletic islander kids.) But hey, i tried my best and got some points for Aroha i think, but judging on my colors i probably just earned points for the other teams.
Then there was this weekend.
Friday was cool and pretty mellow. It was after Athletics day, so everyone was pretty worn down from a long day of athletics in the sun and crazy humidity. So i just hung around with a couple mates and watched Harold and Kumar, and then went to this kids house to play night-tennis. Night tennis was cool, and it got even better when it turned into nigh frisbee on the kids private tennis court (he was pretty loaded.) Then, we went swimming in his equally awesome pool that changed colors.
But the real highlight of the weekend was going to Raglan to do some actual surfing (i haven't surfed in forever it seems.) The plan was to surf all day, then meet up with Paul's sister's family and have fish and chips and spend the night at their house in Hamilton, which is 45 minutes from Raglan. However, upon reaching Raglan, to my dismay, we realized it was as flat as a pancake. we got skunked.
so we talked to the surf shop manager in raglan, to see if he could some how offer us (by us i mean me) answers to why it was flat. He simply said: "that's shit luck." Apparently it was the flattest day he'd seen in a good long while. But this isn't to say it was a fun trip. Raglan in one of the coolest places i have seen in NZ, not unlike Santa Cruz. Super laid back and downright funky, with barefoot people everywhere in the pubs and cafes. i also got to meet the rest of my "family." which was pretty cool. And i also got super good meal of fish and chips (pronounced 'fush and chups') i don't know why, but that's how they say it.
any way, that's pretty much it for now, that's a good long post that will hopefully last me another 10 days or so. NZ ( n zed) is pretty cool right now, especially with having made a solid friend base.
right now, i'm preparing for my first waterpolo game of the season. i still have to learn the rules, but i think it'll be good, i can do the eggbeat thing (waterpolo slang), which is a good start.
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