Sunday, July 22, 2012

Classes and more

So I've now had two weeks of classes here at the University of Otago, and things are going pretty well!  I'm taking Introduction to Pacific Societies, Social Inequality in NZ, Freshwater Ecology, and Soils in the Environment.  The classes feel so different from the ones I'm used to at Bowdoin because they're much bigger (60-100 or so people) and no one seems to really participate or ask questions at all.  I am still really enjoying them though, and I think it will be nice to have a little bit of anonymity for a semester. :)  I'm enjoying all of the classes a lot, but I think Soils in the Environment has surprised me by being my favorite so far.  I'm also quite excited about Freshwater Ecology, as we have group research projects that we will be working on throughout the semester (which we sign up for tomorrow).  We're also doing a pretty cool project in Social Inequity where we have to take photos representing the different types of inequality and caption them with quotes from the readings.  Should be fun!

Since schoolwork hasn't picked up too much yet, I've still been finding time to explore Dunedin more.  Last Friday I went to the Jaffa Race on the final day of the Cadbury Festival with Ryan and two other Americans, Morgan and Claire.  It involves 50,000 Jaffas (orange-flavored chocolate balls that are quite popular here) bouncing down Baldwin St., the steepest street in the world.  We each bought a Jaffa, and even though none of us won, it was still a fun time.  It was just so weird to see so much chocolate flying down a hill...





We also celebrated the birthday of one of my flatmates, Jeroen, last Saturday.  We went out to this fun little Japanese restaurant, called Jizo.  And as he is a very colorful person, we decided to bake him a suitably colorful cake to celebrate!   





I just got back from a weekend trip to Queenstown with my flat mates.  It was really fun and I have lots of pictures to share, but I'll save that for later!

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