(amazing cat that showed up in our house the other day)

(dinner party with Julia's friends)

(marking heaps of papers)

(glorious day doing chores)

(odd shaped muffin)

Written Last Sunday:

Something must be said about student life at Victoria. Graduate and “first years” (freshman) alike are big drinkers, and since the drinking age is 18 in NZ, many students come to school well practiced in the art of binge drinking. Evidence of drinking culture is everywhere. For example, there is bar/eatery in the library exclusively for postgrads, and for the past two Fridays our professors have put some back with us mangy MA thesis students. It is in the library bar/postgraduate room where one can meet foxy PhD candidates and other glorious nerd babes. But mostly one goes for the cheap fries and beer with arguably the best views in town (180 degrees of Wellington). Conversation is usually pretty good.

Victoria’s student flyer/magazine thing titled, “Salient” often makes me blush. It’s very informative and very rude, I wouldn’t let anyone under 18 read it! In NZ people don’t care as much about being politically correct, or cursing, or moving in with your partner, or having kids before your married, or PETA (the organization that Pamela Anderson Lee Supports), or food preparation. According to a commercial that runes every 30 minutes or so, 500 kiwis suffer from food poisoning a day (tough lesson learn here with a lasagna that a fly decided to lay eggs in- what a bonanza, I guess it was just being a good Mom). BUT kiwis are passionate about conservation- Julia was just out and about the other day counting birds for the city.

At the moment I am grading 50 papers, averaging at about 4 pages each on “trouble spots” in South East Asia. I get paid $18 an hour “mark” the papers, and that’s money hard earned. Most bibliographies are an utter disaster.

Now I will mount an invisible soapbox- whenever you bring a guest to a dinner party you introduce them to everyone else, you don’t just drop them off and say, “have fun!” The same practice goes for quotes- you can’t just drop them into a paragraph without introducing them. Quotes, like people do not magically fit into new environments, they need a proper introduction. And what did books ever do to students to be so left out of bibliographies?! If books had feelings they would be hurt, due to the overall rejection of their perceived validity and use.

Stepping down now- off to clean the bathrooms, cook lasagna and go to church to see my friend, Huriana, get baptized.