Well, it’s a typical Tuesday night in flat O119 – we’re all in the living room with mugs of tea, too many Cadbury bars, and a movie from The Hub.  I’m also studying for Māori – we have our oral exam in two weeks and I have to recite my entire mihimihi (the traditional way to formally introduce yourself in Māori) from memory.  It’s sort of difficult having to write my mihimihi as a pākeha because I don’t actually have a river or a tribe or all the things we have to talk about.  Philly’s pretty chill about it, though – he told me to just say my car when I talk about the canoe that brought my ancestors to New Zealand (which obviously didn’t happen).  I totally bonded with a girl in my tutorial today when we were talking about this, because she asked if she could say her car’s name, Big Red, and then I said I have a Subaru Forester, and then she said that Big Red IS a Subaru Forester, so I told her that mine’s name is Perry… and it was super exciting and we’ll probably set up a playdate for the babies when we’re back in the States.

I have another three-week break next month between the end of classes and the beginning of finals, so I’m going to have a little more time to travel, and I booked a lot of things for that yesterday.  Montana and I are going to Australia for about a week and a half, and then Chelsea and I are going to Dunedin for a couple days to see the All Blacks game!!  They’re NZ’s national rugby team and everyone is completely obsessed with them here.  I reeeeally wanted to see them play while I was here but I didn’t think I’d get to.  First of all, they’re amazing, and second of all, they’re famous for doing the haka (Māori battle dance – YouTube it) before games, which is really cool and intimidating if you’re the other team.  It’s weird… I’m really excited about all that, but also sad because I’ll only have a week or two left here at that point.  That’s weird to even think about.  I’m so settled in here: I’m used to the grocery store, I have my favorite coffee spots and loyalty cards, and I haven’t looked at the metro map in months.  I wonder what I won’t be used to at home when I go back… for one thing, I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that I’ll most likely get hit by a car the second I try to cross the street since I’m so used to looking right now.

Well, let’s not dwell on that.  Here’s an interesting something: after much careful observation, I have concluded that my original perception was correct and that my environmental psych prof does in fact say “Excedrin” instead of “etcetera.”  It is even more hilarious than it sounds.  I thought I misheard him the first time, but no, he really says that.  As in: “Ineffective building design can cause unused space, wasted resources, confusion, Excedrin, Excedrin, Excedrin.”  Yep, folks, this is fo’ real.

Well, that’s all I got, but I don’t really know how I’d top that anyway.  A belated Happy Mum’s Day, as the Kiwis say, to all the mums out there (I told my mum on the actual day, don’t worry)!

EDIT:  I began three of those paragraphs with “well.”  Oh well.