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.
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| 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.
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