Changes in Latitudes

On July 5th I landed in Bangkok at about 11:55AM local time. I got a taxi to my hotel which was supposedly only 15 minutes from the airport, but it felt more like 30 minutes. I spent the day getting used to the heat and time difference. The next day, I asked the reception to call me a cab to take me to downtown Bangkok, but we had some language difficulties so I was taken to a shopping mall instead. Then Marius arrived and we managed to get to central Bangkok to Wat Pho. I didn't think to look up the local customs before hand, but because we were wearing shorts and I had a tank top, we were loaned out clothes to cover our legs and shoulders at the Wat. They were very attractive (not). We spent some more time exploring Bangkok and were also interviewed by students in an English class. The next stop was Phuket (Karon Beach on left). We got a flight down there and spent a couple days at Karon and Kata beaches. I loved the food! Then we had to take a bus from Phuket to Chumpon. There w...

Back in Auckland from my 20 days in Thailand safe and sound as of Sunday morning local time. Took over 300 pictures, and Marius has even more! You can see more on Facebook, but I'll post the best handful on here. Time to go to Ecological Physiology though. P.S. -When Marius sends me his pictures, I will post some pictures.

Exams are done and I am now one sleep away from heading to Thailand. Since exams have been finished, I have kept myself occupied with FIFA World Cup games and work. We went to the USA vs. Algeria game and really got into the spirit of the World Cup. I was also sad to say goodbye to many of my friends this week because they all go back to their home countries. Tomorrow I will have one more day of work before some friends come over and celebrate the 4th of July with me. We will have some hamburgers and play cranium before I hop on the bus to the airport. Then a 12 hour travel to Thailand! What an experience this will be!

FIFA 2010 kicked off on June 11 and today, New Zealand will today make a return to the world’s greatest football stage exactly 28 years to the day since their FIFA World Cup debut. The All Whites will take on Slovakia at 11PM (New Zealand time). It is hard to say whether it will be a good game or not; however, the fact that NZ is in the world cup for the first time in so long is enough of a reason to stay up so late. Saturday morning was the big USA vs. England match. The Americans are so happy with a tie that the New York Post had this as its front page: The time difference makes it a bit hard to keep up with seeing the games, but it's always fun to rub in the fact that the British tied the US in their first World Cup game this year to some British friends. Next exam is Saturday for Invertebrate Diversity. And only 20 days to go til Thailand!!

So this month kicks off a couple big events: June 12th is my first final exam of the exam period. It is for my Hydrology & Fluvial Geomorphology class. One of the options for the essay portion of the exam is: "Chorley and Kennedy (1971) contend that 'Time is not a process in time.' Discuss the importance of this state ment as a conceptual tool with which to interpret the behavior and evolution of river systems." I have been spending the past week trying to figure this one out and I think I have made significant progress on it today. However, something more exciting on June 13th at 6:30AM is the USA vs. England FIFA World Cup game. In other news, my friend Hannah, who I call the Yooper (from Iron Mountain, MI), taught me how to knit over the weekend. My current project is to knit a blanket. I will give one more update before I head off to Thailand in July.

Yesterday I celebrated Norwegian National Day (Syttende Mai or 17 Mai) ...well, I tried to. I managed to miss the parade, the best part! I was on the bus trying to meet Carl and Vegard, but I didn't know where I was supposed to get off, so I saw some girls with Norwegian flags and got off the bus. I asked them if I could tag along to get to the meeting place. Turned out they didn't know where they were going and once Carl texted me the location I had to lead us in the opposite direction to get us there as fast as we could. When I go there everyone was really dressed up, girls in dresses, guys in suits. Most important of all, they all had a Norwegian flag. After getting some pictures of my friends and seeing what it was all about I walked back to campus for studying and lectures. For dinner I went over to Øystein's flat and he made a Norwegian variation of meat balls and onion gravy, with a side of potatoes and carrots. For dessert I made riskrem (rice cream). We had Øystei...

The past 10 days has been pretty much hell for me due to an accumulation of due assignments, mid-term tests, field trip, and work. The Hydrology & Geomorphology field trip assignment was due last Friday (worth a massive 20% of my final mark). I pulled a half-all-nighter working on the assignment and turned it in before a full day of lectures. I had an ecology test that was difficult at one section referring to Maroi/European colonization of New Zealand. I know more about the colonization of New Zealand than my kiwi flatmates. I also had a field trip for Ecology on Saturday. A very stressful situation erupted when I had to try to find a replacement for me at work (during the last weekend of the sale). It was a situation that did not need to be as stressful as I had turned it into. I blame Kathmandu Ltd. for this. I felt more obligated to go to work than attend the field trip, which is totally backwards since this field trip determines if I pass the course or not. Not what I need to ...