Because TI said I could

In honor of America's Birthday, I made my first flag cake

ever - to the grand confusion of Alice and Aaron. They were

like, "So is this really what you guys do in America, make things with flags all over it?" Me - "Umm yes, what's weird about that?" (While wearing my vertical blue and white striped jacket, and my horizontal blue and white stripe vest, with red boots. I meant to get a picture of me with the cake, but I was too busy eating it). One of my goals (see below) was to get over my

fear and general terribleness at baking. I never liked baking

because of the requirement for attention to detail, and I'm

not sure why I decided to overcome this while cooking in celsius

and grams, but I have finally realized you can improvise while

baking and it will still be edible, and mostly enjoyable. This

realisation was my own mini liberty - Happy July 4th

I stumbled upon this sign in Wellington the other day.

It says, "It's true you can't live here by chance, you have

to do and be, not simply watch or even describe. This

is the city of action. The World Headquarters of the Verb"

Its true it'd be hard to just bump into Wellington....but the

World Headquarters of Action?? I guess I need to get even

busier...

Wellington did not disappoint on race day and

provided a balmy 6 degrees with strong winds

and freezing rain.

Just so you know I am actually doing work here, here's

a picture of the mess I'm trying to make some sense of
Ahh the mecca of fashion, Paris, Texas, luckily they're having a sale
There's been a lot of talk about these bagels

but I finally made a batch myself
One of my goals - starting a

kids gardening club. Planting peas with the pre-schoolers
Another goal - exploring ins and outs of Wellington. This

is on a coastal walk that was in an article in the newspaper

called "Secret Wellington". I'm not sure how secret it is

anymore....
The snowy peaks of the South Island, on a clear

sunny day in Wellington
Hard at work, taking a sunset bike ride along the coast in Raglan

while on the road for meetings for my research. And the

helmet is right where it was growing up, hanging on my

handlebars....

Now while it took till I got to NZ to take this advice to heart...when I arrived I said, "You know TI, I CAN have whatever I like" (Mom - TI is a rapper and no I don't know him personally and he doesn't live in NZ). As I mark my halfway point here with the advent of July 3rd (or at least the halfway point of being paid by the Fulbright, who knows when I'm actually coming back), I decided it was a good time to reflect on what I've made out of the decision to live according to TI's wisdom while I'm here. In thinking about having whatever I like, I made a list of goals when I first arrived of both monthly goals, and full year goals. I've continued to update both lists on a monthly basis, and on the monthly goals I'm still at around an 80% success rate - well in New Zealand, an 80% is an A. While these lists will not appear on this blog, I will say that they all center around 'whatever I like' which also translates into working towards being whoever I would like. On July's list - learning the haka (finally! and just in time for seeing the All Blacks in a few weeks), and finally making bagels myself - check.

General updates -

Bad news - I think Katy Perry might be reading this blog, and just to spite me for thanking NZ for not having her around, she's all of a sudden all over the radio.

I've decided that I probably shouldn't be a car owner, except for my love of roadtrips and singing. First of all, my life is pretty cheap here (even with having whatever I like), and by far my biggest expenditure is petrol. Second, since owning my car I've gotten two speeding tickets, one by a real live cop(tried charming my way out of it, but he was having none of my feigned American ignorance), and one by a hidden camera (which I object to). Also just in the last three days (on my second big road trip), a huge rock flew up and majorly cracked my windshield, my gas tank door got stuck shut (trying to save me money on petrol maybe?), and I drove into a garage and flattened my antennae. Moral of the story - I'm going to have to find a really desperate tourist to sell this car to to make my money back on this. Or I'm really going to have to start sleeping in the back of it to save money on lodging....

Just returned from a quick trip to Auckland, Hamilton, and Rotorua for meetings on my research this week. I had high hopes for these meetings and finally really ramping things up (remember, the World Headquarters of Action), but unfortunately they were mostly frustrating (where were you on that one TI, hmmm?). In one of my meetings, a guy spent most of the hour and a half talking to me about the Hongi and other Maori customs - basically it made me feel like I was back to day one. The highlight of my trip - a deep soak in the sulphuric Polynesian Spa. I also managed to somehow meet a lot of people who were also 29. So apparently I have to go on roadtrips to meet people my age...talked about 30th birthday celebrations - one is planning to go tow-surfing, one a party with a band at a vineyard, jeez I need to come up with something good .....(starting to understand the world headquarters of action bit...)

I never tire of hearing - "Oh I love your accent", each time I look around figuring they CAN'T be referring to me, and then when I realize they are I can't stop grinning and chuckling. Only in New Zealand....

My grades from Semester One are in, drumroll please.....that's right, all As, see and you thought I wasn't working hard! I even got an A+ in Maori language, thanks to excelling at singing waiata

Top Chef DC just started in NZ!

I'll wrap up this post by just clarifying that there are some things I would like, for instance, dry towels to use after the shower when its freezing, after they've been hanging up for three days or a Wegmans sub; but I've realized there are some things out of TIs, and my own control.....