Monday: I came home early after school today and had a lot of time to do my homework and went over some new vocabulary.
Tuesday: Today I phoned the Emirates Airlines for the second time. They hadn’t heard back yet from Zurich, whether I’m able to change my ticket to a higher class, which would be required to fly back to Switzerland later than I had intended originally. Once again they promised to call me back as soon as they have a reply from Zurich.
Wednesday: Yoga class this afternoon was a bit easier than the week before. This week I didn’t feel terrible afterwards, actually I felt even a little better than before. Arriving at my home-stay I found a parcel from Switzerland waiting for me. Mum had sent it for my birthday and it seems that it had been faster than she expected, though my birthday was ten days away. I sent her an E-mail to ask if I could open it now to store the cheese in the fridge. I had asked her for cheese and I was sure there was some of it inside because of the letter from customs. After tea Ingrid form the church’s youth group picked me up and I joined the party to discuss a section of the Bible. In the car I had a heartfelt discussion with Ingrid about our different beliefs. Not only good practice for my English, but also an interesting exchange of points of views.
Thursday: I went home straight after school, without even going to salsa class. I cooked myself some pasta and was ready to leave for Blenheim at quarter past four. As things turned out, I needn’t have rushed, because Adrian, a friend from the Brass Band, was late. He had to wait for Nathan, another member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force Band. Right, I forgot to tell you: The reason I was heading to Blenheim was the RNZAF-Band rehearsal. If you are a frequent reader of my blog you probably know that I was invited to the Band by Hannah at the brass band competition weekend. Because Adrian was in the Band as well, it wasn’t hard to get there, since he could give me a lift. It was a long way for what was not even two hours of practice all the same. Back home at nine o’clock I still had to do my homework!
Friday: This afternoon I had to be at the Visitors Centre, a five minute walk from school, at three o’clock. Jude was going to pick me up and we went to Ashley’s school, where the midwinter Christmas dinner took place this evening. Jude was kind of organiser of the event and I was helping her together with Ashley prepare for the event. We arranged about 50 chairs for the number of people anticipated and decked the hall with garlands and a Christmas tree. But because it’s a school there were also a lot of pictures of New Zealand and other information for me to look at. During dinner I had several interesting conversations and thanks to the fact that everybody prepared and brought something, an incredible variety of food. I was so full that I had to wait a bit before dessert. Naturally there was the same big choice and I had to try a bit of everything. When we finally came home, I found another letter waiting for me. It was from my godfather Christoph Baur who enclosed a bar of chocolate and all the best wishes for my birthday.
Saturday: In the morning I went to town to take a DVD back to where I had rented it. After that I went exploring the city a bit more. I went to the Saturday Market which is held in a car park and visited the Anglican Church, the town’s landmark. Close to the church I found the Jens Hansen gold and silversmith, where the original “Lord Of The Rings” ring had been made. Now I almost had to hurry to get home, because I was going to a paintball match in the afternoon. Once again Ingrid picked me up and finally there were about 40 people from Nelson, divided into two teams enjoying the fight with colour bullets in the Happy Valley. Unfortunately the games, which were “capture the flag” and “blow up the opponent’s base”, took longer than expected and in the end it was too late to go with my home-stay family to Ralph’s daughter’s place for dinner. So I just had a barbeque with some of the people from church. Home alone, I enjoyed watching a movie and having my peace and quiet.
Sunday: It was the first really bad day in terms of weather since I had arrived in New Zealand. A storm had been blowing all night and the severe rain went on all morning. But that didn’t matter, because I was learning and watching movies and because of the weather I had no reason to do anything else.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Seventh Week
Monday: This week we’re going to have another teacher for the afternoon classes. But our new teacher Helen was not at school today, so Clare took the lessons today. We spoke about alternative medicine and had to choose one subject to talk about in class.
Tuesday: Today I head a presentation about applied kinesiology, the topic I’d chosen yesterday. I liked that and think I could learn a lot by doing a presentation about it.
Wednesday: After this Yoga-Class I was very exhausted. Perhaps it was a bit too much for me, or I just pushed my self too hard. Anyway, I can work on my flexibility, but as Catherine said: I shouldn’t exaggerate but feel better after class!
Thursday: We were playing new pieces again in today’s rehearsal. Amongst others, Joe chose a piece including a lot of different Swiss folk songs. I felt privileged that he chose this composition also because of me.
Friday: James, the owner of the school, told us today, that Diana, who had been working in the English Centre for eleven years, had been fired! This lead to a lot of discussions and speculations in class and at lunchtime Charly, Charles, Michel and I went to James to ask him about the matter. But the only thing he could say was that the relationship between employer and employee is confidential and that all the services provided by the school before will last. Encouraged by Michel, I discussed with my morning-class teacher, Ali, about my situation in class. Although I am in the highest level of normal English classes, I feel I could be a bit more challenged. Ali promised to look for a solution for my problem, and by the way it wasn’t the first time we had talked about that. In the evening I went to Catherine’s house to the second social Salsa dancing, this time organised by the salsa-teacher herself and again with lots of people. A good occasion to talk and have fun with a lot of Kiwis and some other students!
Saturday: At 10 o’clock, the bone carving workshop started. Stephan, originally from Germany, helped us to create our own, personal bone-carving. This was a really interesting thing to do. First we started to draw our ideas for a bone carving and naturally we had help from Stephan and he also gave us a book with the traditional Maori-Carvings and their meanings. After that, Stephan gave us a bone (from the leg of a cow) and we had to draw our idea onto the bone. Stephan lead us step by step trough the creation of a bone carving. After five hours of work, sawing, milling, grinding, sanding and polishing, I finally realised my personal idea of a bone carving. The idea of these pieces of jewellery is, to wear them ourselves and give them away as a present one day. The person getting the present should never forget us, and because we wore them ourselves, we also give them a part of our personality. The whole workshop and environment, together with this traditional background, let me feel like being in a spiritual place. And my bone is not only a machined piece of cow, but a very personal object.
Sunday: This morning I wanted to go biking and exploring the Nelson area, but then I decided to go to church with my host family. It was a very special worship practice, a little boy with cancer in his spine was healed by the community and a guy in the late forties was baptised. After the worship I was talking to a lady who will go on a trip to Europe, She told me, that she will amongst other countries also visit Switzerland. I told Jude in the morning that I wanted to go to Cable Bay, and after the worship, she offered to drive me there. I wasn’t prepared at all, but I spontaneously decided to walk from Cable Bay to the Glen. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me either, so I can’t give you a visual impression of the beautiful landscapes I saw. But I can promise you: It was worth it! Though I had bad shoes for walking. The way was almost never flat, and climbing hills with shoes which have absolutely no profile was a bit hard, and especially the wet meadows were extremely slippery. And near the end I lost my way. That’s why I had to descend a very steep hill with a lot of prickly bushes. But I finally arrived in the Glen after only one hour and fifty minutes, even though the walk is supposed to be three hours (That's what's written on the panel). Now I had to find a way to go back to Nelson. I tried it with hitch-hiking and before I left the little hamlet, a lady stopped and offered to give me a lift. Although she said she was a bit sleepy and wouldn’t talk much, we talked all the way to Nelson and I found out, that she’s originally from Canada and had been an English teacher at Nelson English Centre for a short time a couple of years ago.
Tuesday: Today I head a presentation about applied kinesiology, the topic I’d chosen yesterday. I liked that and think I could learn a lot by doing a presentation about it.
Wednesday: After this Yoga-Class I was very exhausted. Perhaps it was a bit too much for me, or I just pushed my self too hard. Anyway, I can work on my flexibility, but as Catherine said: I shouldn’t exaggerate but feel better after class!
Thursday: We were playing new pieces again in today’s rehearsal. Amongst others, Joe chose a piece including a lot of different Swiss folk songs. I felt privileged that he chose this composition also because of me.
Friday: James, the owner of the school, told us today, that Diana, who had been working in the English Centre for eleven years, had been fired! This lead to a lot of discussions and speculations in class and at lunchtime Charly, Charles, Michel and I went to James to ask him about the matter. But the only thing he could say was that the relationship between employer and employee is confidential and that all the services provided by the school before will last. Encouraged by Michel, I discussed with my morning-class teacher, Ali, about my situation in class. Although I am in the highest level of normal English classes, I feel I could be a bit more challenged. Ali promised to look for a solution for my problem, and by the way it wasn’t the first time we had talked about that. In the evening I went to Catherine’s house to the second social Salsa dancing, this time organised by the salsa-teacher herself and again with lots of people. A good occasion to talk and have fun with a lot of Kiwis and some other students!
Saturday: At 10 o’clock, the bone carving workshop started. Stephan, originally from Germany, helped us to create our own, personal bone-carving. This was a really interesting thing to do. First we started to draw our ideas for a bone carving and naturally we had help from Stephan and he also gave us a book with the traditional Maori-Carvings and their meanings. After that, Stephan gave us a bone (from the leg of a cow) and we had to draw our idea onto the bone. Stephan lead us step by step trough the creation of a bone carving. After five hours of work, sawing, milling, grinding, sanding and polishing, I finally realised my personal idea of a bone carving. The idea of these pieces of jewellery is, to wear them ourselves and give them away as a present one day. The person getting the present should never forget us, and because we wore them ourselves, we also give them a part of our personality. The whole workshop and environment, together with this traditional background, let me feel like being in a spiritual place. And my bone is not only a machined piece of cow, but a very personal object.
Sunday: This morning I wanted to go biking and exploring the Nelson area, but then I decided to go to church with my host family. It was a very special worship practice, a little boy with cancer in his spine was healed by the community and a guy in the late forties was baptised. After the worship I was talking to a lady who will go on a trip to Europe, She told me, that she will amongst other countries also visit Switzerland. I told Jude in the morning that I wanted to go to Cable Bay, and after the worship, she offered to drive me there. I wasn’t prepared at all, but I spontaneously decided to walk from Cable Bay to the Glen. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me either, so I can’t give you a visual impression of the beautiful landscapes I saw. But I can promise you: It was worth it! Though I had bad shoes for walking. The way was almost never flat, and climbing hills with shoes which have absolutely no profile was a bit hard, and especially the wet meadows were extremely slippery. And near the end I lost my way. That’s why I had to descend a very steep hill with a lot of prickly bushes. But I finally arrived in the Glen after only one hour and fifty minutes, even though the walk is supposed to be three hours (That's what's written on the panel). Now I had to find a way to go back to Nelson. I tried it with hitch-hiking and before I left the little hamlet, a lady stopped and offered to give me a lift. Although she said she was a bit sleepy and wouldn’t talk much, we talked all the way to Nelson and I found out, that she’s originally from Canada and had been an English teacher at Nelson English Centre for a short time a couple of years ago.
Sixth Week
Tuesday: It was pretty hard to come back to class after this long, adventurous weekend, but I did my best to go forward in my learning process. Our teacher this morning was Dillwyn, because Ali was sick. In the afternoon class there were only Charles and me this week. This was a great opportunity, the lessons were pretty intensive.
Wednesday: Instead of Yoga, I went to a self-defence course. I could participate in a workshop for teachers, because there weren’t enough teachers. We were introduced to some techniques to defend ourselves from an attacker and also talked about the right behaviour that you shouldn’t even be attacked. The discussion at the end about the content of the self defence course for students, which will take place in two weeks, was pretty interesting and a great opportunity for me to speak English. One of the instructors was a guy from Switzerland, what a coincidence, so we talked about Swiss and New Zealand Ski fields. Well I’m looking forward to going skiing!
Thursday: Today I indeed went to the Salsa lesson after school, but I didn’t even try to go dancing in the evening, because I expected it to be the same as the last weeks: Nobody from school would be present. And Catherine, our Salsa teacher, announced a social salsa night at her home for the next Friday, so I’ll probably have some practice then.
Friday: This afternoon I heard three Koreans, Kelly, Moogan and Roopie talking about a trip to Golden Bay. As I asked them if I could join them, they agreed and so I decided not to go to the tree planting activity on Saturday, which for I already subscribed. We went to a car hire company to book a car for the weekend and then we agreed that the others would pick me up at about half past nine Saturday morning.
Saturday: The first thing we did on our trip was going to Richmond to the shopping mall to buy all the food we would need at the weekend. Then we went to Marahau in Abel Tasman National Park. We went to the backpackers and could get a four-bed room in the separated hostel-house. After booking a boat-trip to Anchorage Bay, we cooked lunch in the hostel’s kitchen. Well I probably should say the Koreans cooked lunch, because they thought I couldn’t help them cooking Korean-style. So while they cooked, I was using the Internet. I not only checked my email and read some news, but also talked to Michael in the United States over Skype. After that I had to hurry up, to eat something before our excursion started at half past one. What a strange way to start a boat-trip: We were sitting in the boat and our Captain drove the boat with a tractor to the beach. There he put the boat into the water and was driving us through the beautiful landscape to Anchorage Bay. On the way I took a lot of pictures and I hope I can put them online soon. There was a French couple with us in the boat, but they were going further than Anchorage Bay. After taking a lot of pictures at the beach, we started our trek back to Marahau. They told us it would take about three and a half or four hours to get there. The landscape was simply stunning and the beautiful weather did the rest for a perfect trip. Unfortunately Moogan didn’t bring any shoes. He thought he would be Kiwi enough to walk without shoes, but after some hours his feet were sore. But what could he do? Just go on walking and hope to be back soon. But walking went on and on, and it was already getting dark when we saw Marahau across an enormous beach. We decided to cross the low-tide beach to get home faster, and that was a real adventure, because there were a lot of streams of water flowing into the sea and the sand was often wet and plashy. A few hours before, there must have been water. As we arrived at the other side of the beach, we felt a little lost, no one had an idea were to go now. So we decided to ask somebody in a house near the beach. We found out, that we were only a few hundred meters away from the Water Taxi car park. But what can you do if you have never been in a place and it’s almost dark? Back home we were all kind of exhausted. I had to take a breath first and drunk a beer. Fortunately there was nobody else in the house, so we had the place to ourselves. And in the oven, some pieces of wood were burning and heating up all the living room and the kitchen to an pleasant nice and warm temperature. Just the ideal thing after a long walk which turned out to be pretty cold in the end. After a shower I could savour a Korean-style dinner and I really appreciated it that I was served with everything without doing anything. For me very special was that you don’t have your own plate, you share plates with everybody. Also, you have no knife (in Korea it would mean that you would want to kill somebody, if you had a knife at the table). So all the food is prepared in little pieces and you can put them, as well as rice, onto a leave of salad, before you roll and eat it. I enjoyed it that much, that I once again pigged out. Also, the wine we bought was very good and did a great job for the mood. We were all just happy and played Scrabble together. I was completely surprised, how many words we could create. You can see the result on the picture! With the intention to stand up early on Sunday to have a lot of time to explore Golden Bay, we went to bed pretty early.
Sunday: Originally we wanted to get up at seven o’clock. But Kelly and Roopie were too tired. While Mogan and me were looking for a good place to admire the sunrise, they were still sleeping. Mogan expected them to have prepared breakfast when we got back home, but they were still in bed. That’s why we finally left Maharau only at twenty past nine. Today I had my first driving experience in New Zealand. I felt confident enough to drive on the left side pretty soon and enjoyed it to drive over the Takaka Hill, which is a little pass. We went to Farewell Spit first, where we looked at the long trace of land with beaches on both sides. Unfortunately the beach we walked along wasn’t very clean and it naturally would have taken too long to walk the whole 24 km of the beach. Kelly and Mogan returned to the car park pretty soon, whilst Roopie and I scrambled on a hill, where we had an even better view. After this, I wanted to see the lighthouse near Cape Farewell. But we only went to the Cape Farewell, the northern most point on the South Island of New Zealand. I wanted to walk to the lighthouse and saw three guys trying to surf in the water, which must have been very cold. After another ten minutes walk, I decided not to go to the lighthouse because it was still too far away and I didn’t want the others to wait. Now I gave the car keys to Mogan who took over the driving. We were looking for a mountain Kelly heard about, from which you can see all the Abel Tasman and Golden Bay region. But after driving ages on a small rumbling dirt track, we still couldn’t find it and decided to drive back to Nelson. I was very anxious when Mogan drove over the Takaka Hill. He seemed to have only a little experience and went to the opposite lane in tight curves for several times. It was really scaring, but how could I tell him, that another person should drive. Well I just hoped that everything will be fine and fortunately there was never a car coming the opposite way at the wrong moment. And while filling up the tank in Motueka, I talked to Roopie that he should drive the last kilometres. Back in Nelson at about seven o’clock I went to the English Centre to watch the Swiss football team playing against the Czech Republik. I could only watch the last forty minutes and unfortunately the Swiss team lost their first game of the European Championship. I had to walk back home and finally got home at about nine o’clock.
Wednesday: Instead of Yoga, I went to a self-defence course. I could participate in a workshop for teachers, because there weren’t enough teachers. We were introduced to some techniques to defend ourselves from an attacker and also talked about the right behaviour that you shouldn’t even be attacked. The discussion at the end about the content of the self defence course for students, which will take place in two weeks, was pretty interesting and a great opportunity for me to speak English. One of the instructors was a guy from Switzerland, what a coincidence, so we talked about Swiss and New Zealand Ski fields. Well I’m looking forward to going skiing!
Thursday: Today I indeed went to the Salsa lesson after school, but I didn’t even try to go dancing in the evening, because I expected it to be the same as the last weeks: Nobody from school would be present. And Catherine, our Salsa teacher, announced a social salsa night at her home for the next Friday, so I’ll probably have some practice then.
Friday: This afternoon I heard three Koreans, Kelly, Moogan and Roopie talking about a trip to Golden Bay. As I asked them if I could join them, they agreed and so I decided not to go to the tree planting activity on Saturday, which for I already subscribed. We went to a car hire company to book a car for the weekend and then we agreed that the others would pick me up at about half past nine Saturday morning.
Saturday: The first thing we did on our trip was going to Richmond to the shopping mall to buy all the food we would need at the weekend. Then we went to Marahau in Abel Tasman National Park. We went to the backpackers and could get a four-bed room in the separated hostel-house. After booking a boat-trip to Anchorage Bay, we cooked lunch in the hostel’s kitchen. Well I probably should say the Koreans cooked lunch, because they thought I couldn’t help them cooking Korean-style. So while they cooked, I was using the Internet. I not only checked my email and read some news, but also talked to Michael in the United States over Skype. After that I had to hurry up, to eat something before our excursion started at half past one. What a strange way to start a boat-trip: We were sitting in the boat and our Captain drove the boat with a tractor to the beach. There he put the boat into the water and was driving us through the beautiful landscape to Anchorage Bay. On the way I took a lot of pictures and I hope I can put them online soon. There was a French couple with us in the boat, but they were going further than Anchorage Bay. After taking a lot of pictures at the beach, we started our trek back to Marahau. They told us it would take about three and a half or four hours to get there. The landscape was simply stunning and the beautiful weather did the rest for a perfect trip. Unfortunately Moogan didn’t bring any shoes. He thought he would be Kiwi enough to walk without shoes, but after some hours his feet were sore. But what could he do? Just go on walking and hope to be back soon. But walking went on and on, and it was already getting dark when we saw Marahau across an enormous beach. We decided to cross the low-tide beach to get home faster, and that was a real adventure, because there were a lot of streams of water flowing into the sea and the sand was often wet and plashy. A few hours before, there must have been water. As we arrived at the other side of the beach, we felt a little lost, no one had an idea were to go now. So we decided to ask somebody in a house near the beach. We found out, that we were only a few hundred meters away from the Water Taxi car park. But what can you do if you have never been in a place and it’s almost dark? Back home we were all kind of exhausted. I had to take a breath first and drunk a beer. Fortunately there was nobody else in the house, so we had the place to ourselves. And in the oven, some pieces of wood were burning and heating up all the living room and the kitchen to an pleasant nice and warm temperature. Just the ideal thing after a long walk which turned out to be pretty cold in the end. After a shower I could savour a Korean-style dinner and I really appreciated it that I was served with everything without doing anything. For me very special was that you don’t have your own plate, you share plates with everybody. Also, you have no knife (in Korea it would mean that you would want to kill somebody, if you had a knife at the table). So all the food is prepared in little pieces and you can put them, as well as rice, onto a leave of salad, before you roll and eat it. I enjoyed it that much, that I once again pigged out. Also, the wine we bought was very good and did a great job for the mood. We were all just happy and played Scrabble together. I was completely surprised, how many words we could create. You can see the result on the picture! With the intention to stand up early on Sunday to have a lot of time to explore Golden Bay, we went to bed pretty early.
 |
| 6. Week |
Sunday: Originally we wanted to get up at seven o’clock. But Kelly and Roopie were too tired. While Mogan and me were looking for a good place to admire the sunrise, they were still sleeping. Mogan expected them to have prepared breakfast when we got back home, but they were still in bed. That’s why we finally left Maharau only at twenty past nine. Today I had my first driving experience in New Zealand. I felt confident enough to drive on the left side pretty soon and enjoyed it to drive over the Takaka Hill, which is a little pass. We went to Farewell Spit first, where we looked at the long trace of land with beaches on both sides. Unfortunately the beach we walked along wasn’t very clean and it naturally would have taken too long to walk the whole 24 km of the beach. Kelly and Mogan returned to the car park pretty soon, whilst Roopie and I scrambled on a hill, where we had an even better view. After this, I wanted to see the lighthouse near Cape Farewell. But we only went to the Cape Farewell, the northern most point on the South Island of New Zealand. I wanted to walk to the lighthouse and saw three guys trying to surf in the water, which must have been very cold. After another ten minutes walk, I decided not to go to the lighthouse because it was still too far away and I didn’t want the others to wait. Now I gave the car keys to Mogan who took over the driving. We were looking for a mountain Kelly heard about, from which you can see all the Abel Tasman and Golden Bay region. But after driving ages on a small rumbling dirt track, we still couldn’t find it and decided to drive back to Nelson. I was very anxious when Mogan drove over the Takaka Hill. He seemed to have only a little experience and went to the opposite lane in tight curves for several times. It was really scaring, but how could I tell him, that another person should drive. Well I just hoped that everything will be fine and fortunately there was never a car coming the opposite way at the wrong moment. And while filling up the tank in Motueka, I talked to Roopie that he should drive the last kilometres. Back in Nelson at about seven o’clock I went to the English Centre to watch the Swiss football team playing against the Czech Republik. I could only watch the last forty minutes and unfortunately the Swiss team lost their first game of the European Championship. I had to walk back home and finally got home at about nine o’clock.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
MP3's from the contest
Everybody who's interested in the music we played at the entertainment contest, the recording is now online here! Enjoy... I hope the test piece and hymn will be soon online as well!
Monday, June 2, 2008
Fifth Week
Monday: This week we had a different teacher for the morning classes. Because Ali was busy with the German high-school students, Roshaan was teaching us this week. Roshaan is a Kiwi, who was one of five hundred students at university and when she finished studies there were only something more than eighty jobs for teachers in New Zealand, so she went to Australia and worked as an English teacher for foreign students. That’s how she got into the language courses business.
Tuesday: Today five teachers were ill. Adding the two who were busy with the german students, seven teachers weren’t available. That’s why James, who owns the language school, taught our afternoon class, which was the pre- and upper-intermediate class put together. But we had a lot of fun discussing all possibilities, how we could get rid of the fear of flying. (In fact we discussed a number of horrible stories from an American newspaper article and some horrible experience added by James :-))
Wednesday: There were only few people in the Yoga Class. Mayumi said she would come, but she didn't and Catherine already thought about cancelling the class, but finally we just practiced for a shorter time. It was very exhausting again. But in a way I was more relaxed after it. I could just feel all the muscles which I didn’t even know they existed. But funnily enough Mayumi was still at school when I checked my E-mail after class. I went to the English conversation for foreigners with Mayumi, which is organised by a church-community. There were only few people: Mayumi, an elderly guy from Germany, a guy from Arabia, three elderly people from the church and me. After a little conversation I walked my bike home, because it was dark already.
Thursday: Today I brought my Tenor Horn to class and had to play something for my teacher Roshaan. I brought it today because I was going to have a brass tuiton with Liz from the brass band. Unfortunately there were only very few students in the salsa-class and my former dance-partner Mayumi wasn’t there either. That’s why we finished class after only 45 minutes. This was the first Thursday I had no band practice, but instead of that I gave Liz some brass tuition in the band room after school . We were discussing and playing for a bit more than one hour, and Liz dropped me off at home after that. No band practise meant that I could go to the pub early, and I was there at quarter past eight already. But unfortunately there was nobody else from school yet. Some when during the week, Mayumi and me had decided to go dancing on Thursday, but she wasn’t at the Little Rock either. So I played snooker with a guy from Germany, until my colleagues came. After some other snooker games, I always lost and had a headache, I said goodbye to John, who was going back to Taiwan on Friday morning and went on my way back home. The evening had been a little bit frustrating for me and I felt terrible. I was sad and felt alone.
Friday: Before the first school lesson, I talked to my sister in Cambridge over Skype. It was great, even though we had only a couple of minutes to talk together. Today, Roshaan wasn’t at school and somebody else taught us. He seemed to be very serious, but we learned a lot. I could also enjoy myself, especially when we played a game just before lunchtime. In the afternoon I wanted to update my blog and plan my trip and do some other stuff. But then I saw that one of my best friends, Michael, who is in Los Angeles at the moment, was online in Skype and I started to talk to him for about one hour. (Half an hour of it was in English). That made me feel very happy and I didn’t feel alone anymore.
Saturday: This morning I had to do my laundry on my own. But the day started with baking a cake. When I got up at half past eight, I got my recipe from the cupboard and made a chocolate cake. After putting it in the oven, I finally started to put all my sheets from school in a ring folder. Now I vacuumed the first floor of our house to help Ralph cleaning the house. I could now take my cake out of the oven and apart from little burnings at the edges it was perfect. Next activity: Washing my clothes. But it was much easier than I expected. Ralph showed me how to set all the buttons and then I just had to put all my clothes in, start the machine and wait. After putting my clothes out on the clothesline I cycled to the Nelson English Centre, where four girls and me were being picked up for horse riding at Stonehurst Farm. We were out for a two and a half our ride and after a bit more than one hour we picknicked at a little bach up a valley.
When I got back home I just had the time to get a shower and put my cake on a plate, prepared to be served. Shortly after six o’clock the first guests arrived for the international dinner party, which Jude and Ralph allocated her house for. Approximately 50 people from Japan, Korea, Philippines, Germany, Ireland and naturally New Zealand came to our house sharing food and talking. I was the only Swiss person at the party. Unfortunately people from school I invited couldn’t come, but there were other students from the Nelson English Centre who heard about the dinner party from elsewhere. But all these people had left by 9 o’clock so I could watch a movie before going to bed.
Sunday: This morning I slept until Ralph woke me up to tell me, that we would leave home at about eleven o’clock to get the boat at his workplace and take it to Havelock. Here we put the boat into the water and waited for Jude, Ashley and Nathan, who is a friend of Ashley, to drive to Wakatahuri (Maori for upturned canoe) where Jude and Ralph own a little holiday house. After this one and a half hour boat trip, on which we even saw a group of dolphins, Jude showed me to my room in the bach. I prepared my bed with heaps of blankets, because the house was neither insulated nor heated. After a short walk to a beach near the house it was already getting dark, so I spent my time playing a card game with Ashley and Nathan. After dinner, Jude and Ralph played as well. Having no electricity apart from two car-batteries powered by sun-collectors on the roof of the bach made the atmosphere very special. We only used as little electricity as possible and went to bed early. During the night I could hear a lot of different animals. Jude had told me there would be penguins and opossums near the house and I would probably be able to hear them during the night. But I could sleep very well, despite a cold, unheated house and animal noises.
Monday: After breakfast I went fishing with Ashley and Nathan. We were just standing on the wharf and after a little while I caught my first fish, a tiny little spotty. Some minutes later I had more luck and caught an about twenty-five centimetre long spotty, which I put into the water-filled bin, still alive. Now, Nathan, Ashley and me walked up the hill, followed by Jade, the dog. As we reached the top of the hill, Jade had disappeared. We were shouting her name several times and finally found out that she went back to the bach. Back home it was time for lunch. With our full stomachs we were trying to go fishing with a little boat, a dingy, but the wind was blowing to hard, so we couldn’t even reach the buoy where we intended to attach the boat while fishing. So we got back to the house and after short we had to prepare our luggage to go back home. This time the boat-trip was rougher, because of the wind, but we reached Havelock savely. Back home I ate KFC fast-food, something like Burger King or Mc Donalds, for the first time. Now I had time to write my diary and watch TV at the same time. Hmm, but why wasn’t I at school today? Well I just forgot to tell you, that New Zealand is celebrating the Queens Birthday today, which is a national holiday.
Tuesday: Today five teachers were ill. Adding the two who were busy with the german students, seven teachers weren’t available. That’s why James, who owns the language school, taught our afternoon class, which was the pre- and upper-intermediate class put together. But we had a lot of fun discussing all possibilities, how we could get rid of the fear of flying. (In fact we discussed a number of horrible stories from an American newspaper article and some horrible experience added by James :-))
Wednesday: There were only few people in the Yoga Class. Mayumi said she would come, but she didn't and Catherine already thought about cancelling the class, but finally we just practiced for a shorter time. It was very exhausting again. But in a way I was more relaxed after it. I could just feel all the muscles which I didn’t even know they existed. But funnily enough Mayumi was still at school when I checked my E-mail after class. I went to the English conversation for foreigners with Mayumi, which is organised by a church-community. There were only few people: Mayumi, an elderly guy from Germany, a guy from Arabia, three elderly people from the church and me. After a little conversation I walked my bike home, because it was dark already.
Thursday: Today I brought my Tenor Horn to class and had to play something for my teacher Roshaan. I brought it today because I was going to have a brass tuiton with Liz from the brass band. Unfortunately there were only very few students in the salsa-class and my former dance-partner Mayumi wasn’t there either. That’s why we finished class after only 45 minutes. This was the first Thursday I had no band practice, but instead of that I gave Liz some brass tuition in the band room after school . We were discussing and playing for a bit more than one hour, and Liz dropped me off at home after that. No band practise meant that I could go to the pub early, and I was there at quarter past eight already. But unfortunately there was nobody else from school yet. Some when during the week, Mayumi and me had decided to go dancing on Thursday, but she wasn’t at the Little Rock either. So I played snooker with a guy from Germany, until my colleagues came. After some other snooker games, I always lost and had a headache, I said goodbye to John, who was going back to Taiwan on Friday morning and went on my way back home. The evening had been a little bit frustrating for me and I felt terrible. I was sad and felt alone.
Friday: Before the first school lesson, I talked to my sister in Cambridge over Skype. It was great, even though we had only a couple of minutes to talk together. Today, Roshaan wasn’t at school and somebody else taught us. He seemed to be very serious, but we learned a lot. I could also enjoy myself, especially when we played a game just before lunchtime. In the afternoon I wanted to update my blog and plan my trip and do some other stuff. But then I saw that one of my best friends, Michael, who is in Los Angeles at the moment, was online in Skype and I started to talk to him for about one hour. (Half an hour of it was in English). That made me feel very happy and I didn’t feel alone anymore.
Saturday: This morning I had to do my laundry on my own. But the day started with baking a cake. When I got up at half past eight, I got my recipe from the cupboard and made a chocolate cake. After putting it in the oven, I finally started to put all my sheets from school in a ring folder. Now I vacuumed the first floor of our house to help Ralph cleaning the house. I could now take my cake out of the oven and apart from little burnings at the edges it was perfect. Next activity: Washing my clothes. But it was much easier than I expected. Ralph showed me how to set all the buttons and then I just had to put all my clothes in, start the machine and wait. After putting my clothes out on the clothesline I cycled to the Nelson English Centre, where four girls and me were being picked up for horse riding at Stonehurst Farm. We were out for a two and a half our ride and after a bit more than one hour we picknicked at a little bach up a valley.
 |
| 5. Week |
When I got back home I just had the time to get a shower and put my cake on a plate, prepared to be served. Shortly after six o’clock the first guests arrived for the international dinner party, which Jude and Ralph allocated her house for. Approximately 50 people from Japan, Korea, Philippines, Germany, Ireland and naturally New Zealand came to our house sharing food and talking. I was the only Swiss person at the party. Unfortunately people from school I invited couldn’t come, but there were other students from the Nelson English Centre who heard about the dinner party from elsewhere. But all these people had left by 9 o’clock so I could watch a movie before going to bed.
Sunday: This morning I slept until Ralph woke me up to tell me, that we would leave home at about eleven o’clock to get the boat at his workplace and take it to Havelock. Here we put the boat into the water and waited for Jude, Ashley and Nathan, who is a friend of Ashley, to drive to Wakatahuri (Maori for upturned canoe) where Jude and Ralph own a little holiday house. After this one and a half hour boat trip, on which we even saw a group of dolphins, Jude showed me to my room in the bach. I prepared my bed with heaps of blankets, because the house was neither insulated nor heated. After a short walk to a beach near the house it was already getting dark, so I spent my time playing a card game with Ashley and Nathan. After dinner, Jude and Ralph played as well. Having no electricity apart from two car-batteries powered by sun-collectors on the roof of the bach made the atmosphere very special. We only used as little electricity as possible and went to bed early. During the night I could hear a lot of different animals. Jude had told me there would be penguins and opossums near the house and I would probably be able to hear them during the night. But I could sleep very well, despite a cold, unheated house and animal noises.
Monday: After breakfast I went fishing with Ashley and Nathan. We were just standing on the wharf and after a little while I caught my first fish, a tiny little spotty. Some minutes later I had more luck and caught an about twenty-five centimetre long spotty, which I put into the water-filled bin, still alive. Now, Nathan, Ashley and me walked up the hill, followed by Jade, the dog. As we reached the top of the hill, Jade had disappeared. We were shouting her name several times and finally found out that she went back to the bach. Back home it was time for lunch. With our full stomachs we were trying to go fishing with a little boat, a dingy, but the wind was blowing to hard, so we couldn’t even reach the buoy where we intended to attach the boat while fishing. So we got back to the house and after short we had to prepare our luggage to go back home. This time the boat-trip was rougher, because of the wind, but we reached Havelock savely. Back home I ate KFC fast-food, something like Burger King or Mc Donalds, for the first time. Now I had time to write my diary and watch TV at the same time. Hmm, but why wasn’t I at school today? Well I just forgot to tell you, that New Zealand is celebrating the Queens Birthday today, which is a national holiday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
