Wednesday, June 23, 2004

long post on diverse items.

>> FINALS

I've got two of my four finals done with now, with two left on Saturday. Saturday is going to suck so badly. Not only do I have the two finals, both of which are for English classes (makes sense since I took four English classes here) and so will require tons of writing, but there's a "clash" situation as well -- I'll be taking one of the finals at a different time from most of the class. So for the two hours between the exams, to make sure I don't cheat, the University of Auckland is making me pack a lunch and sit in a supervised room, and I'm not allowed to leave. Thus about eight hours of my second to last day in Auckland will be spent sitting in a room. Oh the joy.

Only two of my finals were what I'd consider kind of hard ... the "Age of Shakespeare: Tragedy" one that I took a couple of weeks ago, which went fine, and the "Middle English Popular Literature" one that will be my last experience with the University of Auckland. The other Saturday one is on Lord of the Rings, which I re-read entirely in the first two days I was at Fiji (I was kind of impressed with myself), so I consider myself done "studying" for that one. It's really hard for me to get back in the groove of studying ... I thought the final I took yesterday would help, and it did, until I was out until 6AM this morning and one of my friends left for home. It's so odd that we're all leaving, and I really don't want to sit in a room and study in the last few days I have with these friends I've gotten so close to, but I have to.

>> LEAVING

Yeah, I'm leaving here on Sunday (at last, heh, Tony said the other day it seems like I've been in New Zealand for a really long time -- which is true). I'm not really thinking about it yet, because of finals and things, but it's so weird. I found friends here that I've basically spent every day of the past four months with, and I don't know if we'll ever all see each other together again. Sure, we'll probably have trips up and down to each other, but I don't know if we'll all be gathered together again. Ever.

Although one of my friends did suggest having a 4th of July reunion party, which is about a week after we get home :-P. We'll see if that pans out.

>> FIJI

Oh right, that ... vacation. It feels like a really long time ago now although I only got home a couple days ago (and until a couple hours ago my room definitely showed it, it was disgustingly messy again since I hadn't unpacked). But yes.

Fiji was amazing. We went to this small island named Beachcomber Island, which literally takes ten minutes to walk around and is nothing except the resort that we stayed at. We didn't have "flash" accommodation -- actually, we stayed in a "Grand Bure" that was basically a house with 86 dorm bunk beds. But it wasn't that bad, except for the bathrooms, but they were kind of nasty all over the island so it wasn't the dorms in particular.

And to do? There was nothing to do. I think if you weren't in the right mood it could get really boring, but I was in the right mood, just to relax and read books (luckily I got a fair amount of studying done, Lord of the Rings as I mentioned above and a good bit of reading for "Middle English Popular Literature" too. It's an interesting feeling to sit on the beach reading The Canterbury Tales ... kind of enjoyable). Plus, I was with probably the best friend I've met here, and we got along really well, had some good talks -- which was good, because both of us were a little afraid we'd hate each other at the end of it :-P. But we didn't, if anything it just cemented our friendship, which was awesome.

But we did do a few things ... During the day, mostly lying on the beach, and snorkeling -- there was free snorkeling equipment if you stayed at the resort. And, by the way, I think I saw a shark on the last day I was there ... which was a little freaky. The snorkeling was amazing though, the water was gorgeous, the reefs were gorgeous, and beautiful fish would just swim a couple feet below you and not even care. You could get so close to everything, a couple times I swore I could've reached out and grabbed a fish.

We also went parasailing on the last day we were there, which was the tamest and most relaxing of the air things I've done while in New Zealand. Such a nice experience -- just a beautiful view of the island, and since the water was so clear you could see the reef stretching out away from it too, and it was just like it was out of a movie. We had amazing weather all four days too, okay I really need to stop using the word "amazing" but that's the only way I can describe it. For a picture, see below :-P.

Speaking of pictures, I have to admit, my friend and I thought it was a hysterical idea to get up one day at sunrise and pose ourselves on these boats they had sitting around on the beach. A couple of them actually came out really well and look very ... calender-ish ... They're so very funny. Those are never seeing the light of Internet.

>> END
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