Hey All,

Although this will go to the bottom I wanted to apologize for being silent for a couple of days. I was actually doing some school work and studyding.

Wednesday morning was wet and rainy but I met Mary for Coffee at this cafe called Mojo off of Kent Terrace, only about 5 minutes away from the flat. We had coffee for an hour and discussed lots of NZ things. I had a delicious hot chocolate because 1. I don’t care for regular coffee or expresso (which is extremely popular here) and 2. Hot Chocolate is like a comfort drink. It was above average, nothing to write home about (hehe), and was served with little hard marshmellows.

I then proceeded to return my Movie from the night before Surrogate with Bruce Willis. Because I have recently seen the Matrix, my expectations were high. I found it to be rather short (Only like 80 mins) with a fairly compelling story and some rather good plot twists.

I then sat in class for the next two hours and emerged to a beautiful sunny day. Wellington reminds me a lot of Atlanta in the fact that you really never know how the day is going to turn out.

I proceeded to walk downmountain (seriously it is like a few hundred feet change in elevation) to the Pipitea campus and to find the correct room. Apparantly Victoria University occupies much of the upperfloors of the Railway Station.

I found the room after exploring the building and using the restroom (which had a cool view of the railway platforms). My tutorial was like nothing I had ever experienced before in my life and I wish I had acutally recorded it.

The tutor was foreign, Indian I think, and spoke pretty good english. She explained a little about herself and then covered some material from the lectures. We then were suppossed to break up into small groups and answer some questions from the book. Problem was there were only 3 books for the class of 20. (As an aside, lets be honests students aren’t going to lug our books to class unless it is reheally necessary)

So we asked her to write the questions on the board so everyone could know what questions to answer. She said that it would take too much time. However, not all groups had books and thus has no idea of the questions and after a few minutes she relented.

When it came time to answer the questions was the fun part. She would ask someone to answer the question they would then answer and she would want more answer immediately after. She kept going like this getting lots of answers from the first group and fewer as we went on. In between getting answers she would spought some random facts that were highly debateable. (For example one I wrote down was that all companies are only focusing on developing markets. I was like I’m pretty damn sure that is a terrible statement.) She finally got to our group and pretty much everything had been said. So our elected speaker (I really wasn’t about to do it) reiterated some points that had been made and brought up like 1 or 2 new ones. She responded by saying that those had already been said and that our group needed new answers. We informed her that everything relevant had been covered. She then proceeded to make some slight humours at that fact and then moved on to the next question.

We started the next questions and answered a very straightforward question with a sraightforward consise opinion. She then told our group that that wasn’t enough and then proceeded to the next group whilst still occassionally throwing out random facts and attempts at humour.

By this time I am cracking up. You may not be because I really think this was a had to be there moment, but it was hilarious as some students were trying to write the stuff she was saying down, while others just sat there in disbelief.

I was defnitely glad when that hour was over and then proceeded to the actual class. Class was fine and the lecturer did a good job of covering the topic.

During this class I received a text from Mary informing me that Ross’s (her husband) social volleyball team was short one person and wanted to know if I wanted to play.

I of course said yes and after class powerwalked home to pack and catch the 23 bus. I caught the bus and had a wonderful conversation with a woman who used to work in a zoo and arrived at their home.

There house has a view over Oriental Bay, right next to the Airport, and I watched the kite and wind surfers out in the Bay. They were absolutely amazing and the air they got was incredible!

I then went inside and we had dinner (lamb chops, potatoes, and green beans with ice cream for dessert). I absolutely love learning about the family unit in NZ and the differences b/w American families, but that is a topic for later.

I left with Ross at 7:15 for the gym. It had three courts and was located about 5 minutes from their house. We arrived and there were three games already going on (they have continues play for like 3 hrs) and we began to stretch and warm up.

I met the other people on the team, three were significantly older (40’s) while the other two were younger (late 20’s). You called your own fouls but did have a scorekeeper. I played fairly well, had a good run of serving, but was confused by their five man return. Essentially, they did not play a ten foot line rule and thus dropped 5 out of six player back for the return. It was very confusing as it was hard to tell which ones were who’s with that many people dropped.

In the states the most we (our group that plays together) is 4 and that is only when it is a really good server AND we have lost a few too many serves in a row.

Ross drove me home afterwords and I spent the rest of the evening studying and watched “Australia” with Kate Hudson. It was very good and a highly recommend it.

Cheers!