Modeling

I model about once a week for "food funds". Here are some fun images a student sent me, how sweet!

Other People's Summers

(We won indoor soccer!)

Spring is in the air. The plum trees blossomed on Monday night! It’s good to see that things are changing.

This winter has been pretty long and cold in the Te Aro Valley, double winter from Santa Barbara- not that Santa Barbara has much of a winter.

Here are a few images from other people’s summers, miss you Northern Hemisphere! Please send photos to add to the randomness

Wellington District Map

(I live in Aro Valley)

Life is rolling along in New Zealand. Images of the Northern Hemisphere, warm and full of weddings makes me miss home. Life is lonely, but productive. And if I just hold out six more months I’ll have a chunky thesis.

At the moment I am working on creating logistic regressions that considers spatial effects on SWB. Really, it’s all too exciting! In mid September I will be giving a presentation on my research, which feels a little over half way done. Power Points are so 2000, thinking is not linear! Prezi presentations are the future of story telling- I’ll up load my presentation Sep 16^th.

Friends

This is my office mate and friend, Louise! We are at a show, grooving.

Clean Clothes

Sometimes taking care of ourselves is hard.

We just all have our moments, and if we choose to love something, and share it- then we can be great.

Hopefully you don't love hurting people, that would be bad.

Tiger Suit

Downtown Wellington there is a tiger suit in the window of the Adidas shop. Most people walk by it at least once a week. We are all discussing the advantages and disadvantages of owning this amazing suit. No one can deny its charm, and the fact that it will remain in the window for a long, long time.

Yes, that is a wing on the shoe.

Social Life

(circle building)

(Kania dancing)

All of a sudden a healthy social life has emerged from graduate school, church, and SB connections. This week I shared pies with a buddy while walking on the beach, strolled Cuba St. with the child of a friend, enjoyed some shows with a rather shy musician down on Countnay Place and ate very good food made by a very good cook. I have adapted to texting- the choice communication of kiwi’s. It’s annoying to type everything out, but making 1 phone call costs a $1.50 and each minute is something around $1- ridiculous!

Winter Washing

(lemon and honey from Julia's garden- the taste of Aro!)

(where we sit for breakfast, dinner, and good conversation)

(big wash day!)

(reading nook)

(drying socks in the window sill)

Sunday was a big wash day. While enjoying the rare afternoon sun I tried to think of things that make me happy in the winter:

Folded clothes, looking through Julia’s photography books, clean sheets, interesting reading material, listening to the news with a cuppa, art projects, fresh flowers, fresh clothes, making plans to contact family and friends back home, making plans to visit with friends here, flipping through South Pacific Lonely Planet guide, wondering around libraries, window shopping, blogging.

We all do dumb things. I did something very dumb this winter. After I got back from the conference in Christchurch, smack in middle of winter I choose to read all the suicide case study books available in Wellington, looking for qualitative research and social patterns. It was terrible- the teenage suicide testimonies left me in a strange haze, don’t think I’ve fully recovered from them. The subject matter is terribly sad. Thankfully winter in starting to wane.

The sun sticks in the sky a little longer.

To be a healthy person we all have our little tricks to cheer. These are important tricks that keep us strong mentally (which is just as important as physically!). Reading brings me happiness, so does being warm. I have taken many baths while reading in the tub this winter!

Here the books I skimmed, worked over and read in the past two months:

Brenda Ueland- If You Want To Write (inspiration for a teacher and author)

Nada Awar Jarrrar- Dreams of Water (Characters revolve around Lebanese war)

Banana Yoshimoto- Short Stories and Novels (I’ve read most of them, simple, Japanese)

Lonely Planet South Pacific & Micronesia (just to make myself feel warm)

William McDonough- Cradle to Cradle

Paul Farmers Life- Mountains Beyond Mountains (Great for my tutorial on development geographies)

Jeanette Stance- Green Tea: Haiku & Other Poetry (her mothers poetry is on the bottle in the photograph)

Sophie Dahl- The Man With the Dancing Eyes (dumb)

Richard L. Morrill- The Spatial Organization of Society

Alan C. Acock (hehe)- A Gentle Introduction to Stata (Logistic Regression!)

Clark and Randel- Statistics (Believe it or not, I was asked to tutor someone in stats, oh dear)

Ron Savage- Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture (Great Reference for youth studies)

Anna Cypra Oiver- Assembling My Father (Suicide studies)

Lorraine Moir- Breaking the Silence: New Zealanders Talk about Suicide (Suicide studies)

Carla Fine- No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving Suicide of a Loved One (Suicide studies)

Bronwyn Donaghy- Leaving Early (Teenage suicide study)

Susan Rose Blaunder- How I stayed alive when my brain was trying to kill me: one person's guide to suicide prevention (Mental illness/suicidal behavior study)

Newtown

(Newtown crowd, Urban pirate to the right)

(open mic host- Fraser)

(lots of hair)

The Newtown crowd (where Bret from flight of the conchords grew up) is the free spirited part of the city. Amazing vegan meals, lots of dreads, and strong international community seem to float by here. This past Thursday a friend from my happiness class and I grooved on down to Newtown, backpacks in tow, to support her flatmate at open mic night. What a treasure the night turned out to be! A few crowd members were very high, which made for some nice counter fit enlightened conversation.

“Soooo, what are you expeeecting tonight….want to play a thumb war? ”

The performers were just as entertaining. One man without teeth, who looked very much like an urban pirate, recited poems written on paper airplanes, shooting them into the crowd! An extremely tall young man read an original short story about strange happenings on roller skates. And about 5 dudes with absurd amounts of hair sang songs about chicks they wanted to please.

Newtown is California counter culture, down under style. If you are looking for interesting conversation, long heavily patterned skirts, lots of hair, chai tea, college drop outs and Indian food, head over to Newtown.

I really do attend a class on quantifying happiness. We discuss general happiness theory and learn how to use a statistical software program called Stata to test our happiness hypotheses.