They say to me "Jesus!", for that is my name.

So an ATM ate my Wamu debit card about a week ago, and I've been in a frenzy trying to get access to my US bank again. Another debit card should arrive in a week, God willing. In the meantime, I have $30 in the bank, and $60 in my wallet, most of which was earned from tutoring Kiwis in various engineering classes. I should be able to survive until next Friday (April whatever) easily, but I want to go to Taupo and I may need to borrow money / tutor more / sell drugs or my body to make it happen. So I've been a little tense, and that's why I haven't been updating. But now things are looking okay, so now I'm updating.

I had work due this week. What the hell? Two papers and a test. God that Controls test was laughable. I still screwed up a problem, because I didn't study how to solve DEs. But since a B is like a 70, and a C is a 55, I think I'll be okay (although I need a B in Controls for it to count). And 55's to transfer my other papers? No problem.

I'm already bored of pubs - too many Americans from Railway. I went out Wednesday (after my test and the comedy club I describe a bit later) for no more than 20 minutes before becoming supremely bored. Same old covers, same old songs, same old American crap. I thought I came here to escape all of that, yet what do you know, I end up right next to that again. Heh. However, I did get the chance to go to a comedy club last night with some cool locals from my Controls class, so that was way tight. I mean, the jokes weren't that great (except for a Spanish dude named Jorge Jesus - he was such a pimp), but it was cool to just exist without any reminders of where I'm from. There is a neat bar called Forde's nearby though - I may start frequenting there. Once I get the money to drink, that is. I'm too used to house parties, I guess.

Something I should say though - a lot of Kiwis live at home since it's cheaper. They don't have the drive for independence and success and all that jazz American society is burdened by. It's why so many Uni students are like 28 and only are studying because they stopped sailing or playing rugby or got bored of being a skydiving instructor. The emphasis here is on "the good life", not "the successful life", and while it's definitely something I appreciate, I don't think it's something I could indulge in until later on. In any case, since those bastards all live in the suburbs, its difficult to actually hang out with them. And since nothing grows in the city, well, you can guess what's difficult to come by.

Our Arcadia group went to the Bay of Islands last weekend. Unfortunately, there was a cyclone nearby. I caught a sunrise off a cliffside, but it was quite cloudy. Regardless, Bland Bay betrays its name, with great scenery and stuff. I'm quite positive I'll go back, weather permitting. There were dolphins and stuff too, but I don't really recall it well because it was cloudy. It's funny how much hold the weather can have over one's mind. Maybe Socal spoiled me.

Hum, what else. I'm going canyoning down the Waitakere ranges on Sunday, April 2. I don't quite know what that entails, but it's sure to be an adventure. Other than that, I'll try and get on top of my work so I don't have to worry about it for a while. After that, try and survive until doing the Tongariro Crossing on Mt. Ruapehu, which is near Lake Taupo. It's a 17 km hike said to be one of the most gorgeous hikes in New Zealand, so I'm excited. Of course, I'll only go weather permitting. Clouds I don't mind, but raining sideways? Not without a yellow poncho and some chunky soup. Thanks, Ollie.

I'll update pictures later, as I'm doing this from the computer labs on campus.

- N

Wow, what a shitty day.

Yeah, I can't believe it, my first shitty day in New Zealand. This isn't to bitch about it, though. Davey's coming - that's going to be really awesome. I can't wait.

I went bungy jumping off the Auckland Harbour Bridge, which was pretty sweet. I loved every second of it, and got some sweet pictures. You can touch the water doing it - I wanted to get doused, but I only got to grace the water with my fingertips.

On Saturday I went to see the local rugby team the Auckland Blues take on the much better Brumbies and totally kicked ass. I painted my whole face blue and white and rooted for the home team, which won 26-15, and learned some rugby rules along the way. The fast breaks are the best - the crowd really gets into it.

And on Sunday we hiked a few miles up to Gray Lynn park to attend a free reggae concert by one of New Zealand's best bands, Fat Freddy's Drop. These guys are absolutely wicked. And they had a few guest emcee rappers who weren't that great, but there was this one female emcee that just blew everyone out of the water with her flow and rhymes. I was in love for a few minutes. Then she stopped and I snapped out of it.

Well, why is Monday so shitty? I'll spare you all the events (banks, hills, this, that), but I have a goddamn ankle sprain again. Same one as back in October. Fucking misstepped off a curb in a ditch. It may be just a mild twist or so, but it needs at least a week. And hiking up a 200 m hill to get to the doctors for some painkillers? Not looking fun.

Tuesday update: Hey I just got up and it's like 60% better already. Guess it was just a twist! Still have limited mobility (and pain), but even the blood rush doesn't really hurt.

Uploading pictures at the moment - if you can't see them, be patient and try later.

- N

More on beauty.

Beauty may just be a state of mind. I suppose people here wouldn't take much interest to the standard highway scene of rolling hills and peaceful Shire-like countryside. But if you're looking for it, you will see it, no matter what it is what you're looking at. I can feel it looking at the Auckland skyline, at Cathedral Cove, at the blank yet raging Tasman Sea, at the corner of Queen St and Victoria St, in class, walking to a bar, everywhere. I suppose the scenery here possesses conventional beauty, which is what we commonly understand to be beautiful. Is it beautiful because it is unusual for us to see such sights? If it was common, would it still be beautiful? If we repeatedly interacted with these places, would it no longer be beautiful? Surely we Americans find the rural life as beautiful as someone from the rural area viewing the grand city of New York for the first time.

Well, I don't claim to know the answer. But I'm usually right, so I'm confident in how I look at things. :P

On beauty.

Something to think about (may or may not be true, I don't know, but I thought of it):

"Something achieves beauty when the observer becomes so inundated with 'data' about that something that the observer is left unable to speak or think."

Of course, I mean 'data' to be literally anything, from "that mountain has snow on it" to "the sky is blue from Rayleigh scattering" to "damn those clouds are freaking huge". Anyways, that's that.

The Coromandel Peninsula is beyond words. I have redundant albums set up since Fotki is being jerks with their storage space (I had to delete and re-add all the albums); the other one is at Yahoo. I took as many pictures this weekend as I did my entire time here so far.

One could say that the trip was much like a short story, with its extremely long rising action (about 20 hours), short but profound climax (3 hours), and a quick falling action and conclusion (3 hours). Each time I took a picture I didn't think it could get any better, but of course each view continued to blow my mind more than the last. Here are some links.

http://public.fotki.com/masterN17
http://photos.yahoo.com/princeofdarknez

I left with 2 German postgrads (Evelyn and Claudia) and one South African postgrad (Daan) and we rented a car Friday morning and drove out on Highway 25. It goes north up the west coast of the peninsula (through Thames to Coromandel) and offers gorgeous and breathtaking views. (which is the first set of pictures) We then cut east to Whitiangi, passing some amazing north-facing beaches along the way. We went around Whitiangi to the east-facing beaches: Cook's Beach, Hahei Beach, and Hot Water Beach. We surveyed each of the three and picked Cook's Beach as a good place to sleep. So under the stars we slept, with no light pollution at all to distort our breathtaking view of the Southern Hemisphere sky. With the exceptions of the Milky Way, Orion, and the Southern Cross, everything was totally new.

We woke up at Cook's Beach around 4 am and drove 20 minutes to Hahei, where the entrance to Cathedral Cove lies. Parked, and walked about 45 minutes through some dense forestry and we arrived around 5:30 AM at Cathedral Cove. About 30 minutes later the sun began to rise.

Simply stunning.

We left around 10 AM, as the influx of tourists began to increase. As we walked away, we caught a daytime view of everything we missed at night.

Simply stunning.

We spent some time at Hot Water Beach's low tide (around 11 AM), when the water moves out far enough to access the hot springs directly underneath the beach. Simply stick your feet in the sand, work them down about six inches, and bam, hot water comes rushing up and scalds your feet. After a few burns, I worked out how much I needed to dig to keep my feet comfortably warm while the cold ocean water washed over the rest of my legs. I would call this the falling action, despite it being an exciting experience.

The conclusion? We followed Highway 25 down south to Tairua and ate, and then cut west on the 25A back to Auckland.

Today I went to Murawai, a west coast beach near Piha about 45 minutes away. It was the first beach I saw that resembled a California beach, the most distinctive characteristic being a full open view of the ocean, with no islands. It was good, but I was still too high off of Cathedral Cove to really get excited about it.

I still spend about an hour every day looking at my pictures. In fact, I may be doing that right now.

On a side note, I haven't been to my engineering class since Tuesday. It was the only day I went that week.

Lake Taupo (aka Mount Doom) on April 1st or 8th.
Until then, bungee jumping, rugby games, and the Bay of Islands.

- N

Jameel was here.

Morning after update: Looks like something was bothering Jameel again last night, but I have no idea what it was. He did want to say what's up to all you Mudders, and compliment you on being chill and generally tolerable. I don't know what he was on about, but I might as well preserve the compliments, eh? :D

So, on Saturday I went with the Americans to Devonport Beach, an amazing and beautiful little peninsula in the Auckland Bay region. The water was incredibly blue, the sky was blue and all sunshiney, and oh man, the low tide! I didn't get any pictures of the low tide, but you could walk 200 m out and still only be up to your ankles, and another 200 m and still be up to your knees. I do have some pics up at http://public.fotki.com/masterN17/

Oh yeah, Alex's birthday was on Saturday, so I taped a J inside a card that said "Jesus is coming, look busy" and a picture on the front that looks like the LOL JESUS comics where Jesus is knocking on the door (IT'S JESUS LOL). That night we introduced one of the Kiwis in our house (Jo, Alex's roommate, one of the 2 out of like 400) to beer pong and she was on fire. I had to play a couple of games to bear the pain of watching lesser people play. Needless to say, I was on fire. We couldn't find any regulation cups (we used taller and free-er coffee cups), so everyone who didn't do well is hereby vindicated. :D

Sunday was good too - I found some good (but a little expensive) Indian restaurants on Parnell St (where Jameel showed up on Wednesday). I also made some rockin' stir-fry with Mike, and have leftovers for another lunch. 2 meals for 10 bucks? I'll take it.

So anyways, I've already missed 2 out of 5 meetings of my Controls class, including one about two hours ago. I really need to start getting into academic shape so I can learn what's going on in that class. You know, be productive, make contacts, get things done, learn the material.

Haha, who am I kidding.

- N

Mudd pride.

So Mudders, you may complain about how people are lame and this and that, but you have no idea how lame it can get until you hang out with people outside Mudd. So even though the male:female ratio sucks, even though you have about twice as much work as anyone else, and even though you guys have to subvert the 21+ age system in the USA, Mudders still party harder than any of the people I've met here, locals and internationals included. Keep it up kids, you guys make me proud.

- J

Morning after update: I was worried Jameel might have made a fool of himself here, so I came here to check. Looks like he wasn't too much of an embarassment. Anyways, I'm transferring photos to X. There is apparently unlimited storage space, so i'm putting up the originals in their lots of pixels by lots of pixels majesty.

- N