Formalities Take 2

Well last weekend was our second formal dinner, and this is the battle report.



Having a pretty hectic school and placement schedule I was BUSY on Sunday, and barely noticed as dinner time crept up on me. Managing to shower and get dressed up formally in record time I arrived at the dinner hall to find that my usual peeps were already there.



From leftish to rightish is Peter, Owain, Clare, Rhonwyn, and the German (aka Andy). Though you can't quite see him Shaleen is just behind Owain, and his night was to set the tone for the whole evening. As a vegetarian Shaleen of course couldn't join us in enjoying the Steak that was served. However one would think for the formal dinner that some effort would be put into making an at least acceptable alternate course.



I wish I'd thought to take a picture (but my camera batteries were dying) of his meal. He was presented with a craved out pumpkin full of mushrooms. Seriously it looked as though someone had prepped a mini jack o lantern and then just throw a spoonful of roast mushrooms in it. The pumpkin alone barely looked like it has been cooked (if it was at all), but we were informed they put mushrooms in EVERY vegetarian meal, and pool Shaleen was sick of eating them.

Andy suffered from a tilted reality all night due to my forgetting to reformat this picture before I posted it. He is still in rehab for world axis reorientation.

Peter on the other hand was looking rather smart in his suit jacket. Man I'd look that happy if I had a coat like that one. This was by far the highlight of the evening. Yeah Peter's jacket.
Detracting from the fun somewhat was that I was not the only one of our group to cut their dressing up to the last second. Thus when they arrived to get tables the ONLY ones available were in the front row. As you can see (enhanced further by Owain's expression) we were painfully close to the speech makers.

Man oh man. I could rant about the post dinner "show" for hours. Of all the times they pick to schedule a bloody congratulate the management and running council, they go with the build up to finals. All normal uni students have exams starting next week, and us teachers in training are all in the middle of very stressful assignment due dates and placements.

What does headmaster Bruce and his keepers seen seated behind him decide. To have 2 hours of speeches and music performances after a hour and half meal. BEEPing BEEPers BEEP is all I have to say! Attendance was manditory too I point out...

Fortunately due to my ADD like tendencies I was able to make entertainment for myself during this boring process. Though you're probably thinking this picture was taken at some point before the speeches I tell you now you think wrong! My camera was snatched to take this photo about an hour and some into the speeches. Just figured I'd give some protest to hearing yet another speech about how "Salmond is a great place to achieve at school and life" despite the fact they were keeping us all from being able to do so to hear their own BLEEPing voices...



Now fortunately I was able to get my homework done. Unfortunately I had to sacrifice sleep to do it, and with my current dodgy state of health (I've been sick twice this month) it was NOT appreciated. Right before finals who ever heard of holding students till nearly 10pm!?!



The conclusion is that my hall spirit is at an all time low. Even lower then when they signed me up for debate against my will, and conned me into doing that a month ago (once I get the video I'll have a post for that).



Anyways I sign off for now. Back to my health unit and next weeks lessons...

Internet Stuff

Well the battle of life goes on. My primary big bad as of late is still skool, and the trails and tribulations that it brings.

Tomorrow I teach my first major lesson in my placement classroom. It is on how the Moon's face changes due to it's orbiting the Earth. Keep you posted on how that goes.

Other then that not too much to report. So instead I'm combining a bunch of stuff into something resembling a post (problem with sticking to the books and assignments, not much worthy of blogging comes up).

First off for all you facebook users out there I am now it. HOWEVER due to my busy schedule, and my minor none conformity tendencies I am not an active user. I will not be searching out or requesting any friends. Rather I'm enjoying using the site on a passive filter feeding basis. Meaning that I'll accept ppl and talk to them only if I get tagged. It's a little experiment I've been doing for the last 3 weeks, and it's been quite successful.

The end of this post is just some fun videos I found on youtube, and are funny enough I think to warrant posting them. What in lue of my having anything funny going on in my actual life!




Been having a superhero withdrawal lately, and this video hit the spot. That and I have loved this song for a long time



An inspiring little animation clip that is all too appropriate being down here (even though I still haven't seen a Kiwi). Reminds me that we all must make our own lot in life, and build our dreams.



Lastly as the summer season just started in Drum and the Museum is going it without me I'm missing that whole scene. In particular the crew. So as Peter's the only with a video on youtube that I know of I've posted it cause it's funny too...

Hopefully I'll have something noteworthy of posting soon.

Think On Happy Thoughts

So here I sit trying to get into a paper that I really don't want to have to do. It is my only one of the whole program, but I still don't want to do it of course. Now fret not. This will be a quick sweet blog distraction. I do actually need to warm up writing wise anyway...

To help me with this back home a one off favour has paid off in morale dividends like gold!


So Mike, here he is the lovable scamp, as you should know has been working for Marvel comics the last few years. Well the ultimate (not the comic series mind you) convention hit Cowtown a couple weeks back, and of course naturally I wasn't there. It had everyone from actresses from my fav show (firefly), to the creators of my second fav show (the DC animated series), and lastly my fav comic writer of all time Gail Simone.

Now Mike was invited by the convention to be a GUEST. Yeah that's right I'm friends with someone famous! Anyways in between manning a table of his own he managed to sneak around and talk to some of the celebs kicking around.

Including Gail. Now he grabbed her autograph on a few notable books, but they were all his copies (mine are all in storage back home). He did send me this pic though. Now you'll note the small thing she's holding in front of her face. I recognized it immediately as a figurine of my favorite lame super-villain Rhino from the battle game me and Mike play.

Making my day, and causing a slight scream of delight (sadly not kidding about that), Mike informed me that is MY Rhino Gail is pretend kissing. Oh yeah in your face losers! My Rhino!

So thanks to mike for making my otherwise blah day a bit better!

Now onto the paper. Shudder

Having a Ball...

This past weekend saw the big social event of Salmond come and go. The annual ball was well, a ball!

The night was a simple enough ordeal. Dress up real nice, enjoy a very elegant meal at the hall, and then get driven out to the only castle in New Zealand and enjoy a dance. This years theme was casino royale meaning we had some pretty high roller looking dudes and dudets about.

For myself I wore my some of my teacher threads, a tie, and just to shake things up a sports jacket from the 70's (was supposed to be 20-30s look, but hey past is past I say). Now the jacket was a miserable worn down thing, but the only alright looking one I could find for less then $10. The shame I have a brilliant one me and Bond found in Drum for $3 in 04 that would have done the trick and not looked shabby.

Fortunately the addition of the tie and more to the point my shades gave the outfit a real hit man look. So I fit the theme. Just not quite in the same approach one would expect. With a room full of Bond look alikes (that is James not the aforementioned Peter variety of Bond) though I was pretty much dead meat by the end of the night had this been a movie. Phew one time that life not being what I imagine it being like is a good thing!

The tie was the only other funny story. Me and Andy spent a good 30 minutes trying to figure out how to do the damn things properly. Needless to say we eventually tracked down someone who could assist us.

The terrible three who ran amok the whole night. (Owain and Andy for the record)

Beware of pretty faces that you find. (Andy and Charm)

Before the quality of my jacket was apparent me and Andy had been planning on classing it up a notch or two. We found these monocles rather cheap at a costume shop. Sadly they were impossible to actually keep up on your eye.

On the bus to the castle. You'll notice the rather sinister figure in the left hand corner. That's my neighbor at the hall Clare. I always joke with her that she is "Lady Death" due to her evil cackle. This picture seems to support what I thought was just a joke...

Anyways I'm a meat head and didn't take a lot of pictures that night. Though I had my camera I had a bit too much fun dancing and milling about to waste time standing around taking pictures.

In summary the ball was awesome. Definitely the best Salmond run event thus far. Hopefully more of its caliber are in the works.

Back to Skool...

Back into the full swing of things now for 2 weeks. Not too much to report.

We've been in lectures at college since the break, and as of such nothing very interesting to relay other then topical material related to these classes (which would probably be a bore, or take me a long time to type up... I just don't have that kinda time).

We're back on placement in kids classrooms next week. I'm in a year 7-8 class that my fellow Canadians were in last placement set. I hear nothing but good things. So here's hoping for a good tour.

Besides that I've come down with a fairly full on chest cold earlier this week, and missed yesterday's lectures as a result. I'm feeling a little bit better today, but may pick up the prescription I got yesterday from the doctor, and snuff off this bug for sure.

On the Road Again

With phase one of the vacation done (whale watching and such) our expedition fell back to Dunedin to regroup. In this period we sadly lost Andrew as a travel companion as he went on to do a biking trail. This left me and Shannon on our own.

The plan initially was to go and hit Stewart Island a very recommended and popular vacation destination to the immediate South of the South Island. Due to extremely bad weather we feared that it would be a wasted trip however so we came up with an alternate route.

As we proceeded South from Dunedin on the second leg of our holiday the weather increasingly got dreadful. Only halfway to our initial goal we were getting hit with the worst rain I've yet seen in New Zealand. The decision was made to veer West and check out another very famous section of the Down Under...

Initial Route

Now to get to Stewart Island you have to proceed to the Southern most "city" in New Zealand Invecargil. Thus far in all my journeys it has to be the most boring of NZ roads and areas in the lines of terrain and scenery. Nothing more then rolling hills and Sheep paddocks. For kms and kms though! No break. This shot was taken towards AFTER we'd veered West, and still there were millions of sheep everywhere, but off on the horizon hope of better views towered!

Southland

As we drove further West into the Southland section of New Zealand (the unofficial Provinces of New Zealand. Dunedin is located in the Otago section) the scenery began to get much more enthralling. For the rest of the trip it was good times, and excellent sights and sites seen.

This is among the only rivers we saw (you'll note the 2 tiny SUVs upstream for size ref). Now before you think New Zealand has no fresh water systems the key word there was river. In our journey we crossed, passed, saw some thousand Creeks. They sure know how to name creeks down here. Among my favs were Baghdad, Siberia, Fiery, Monkey, Lost, So Big, and Unnamed Creeks.

As we entered the South Alps Mountain range little did we realize we won't leave it till close to the end of the whole trip.

Te Anau

The big centre for this region was a small town called Te Anua. Located off this lovely like bearing the same name as the town we would spend some quality time here. In addition to the tour below from Te Anua we also spent the night. Waking up in the morning we were invited to breakfast by an amazing elderly couple out of the blue which made this town something of a highlight in the trip. Helping it with this distinction was taking a tour to the...

Glow Worm Caves

Now when we got to Te Anau initially we had no idea of it's possessing one of 3 Glowworm Caves, but when we did we were signed onto a tour 10 minutes later! This was the one one on the South Island, and as of such a real treat (we'd have had to wait till the next break to see the North ones). Now sadly no pictures are allowed in the cave to protect the light sensitive worms (technically maggots). This is a simulation I threw together in my 3D program, but I'm told it is very accurate.

Fjordland

Next we entered our main objective for the trip. Fjordland National Park. A UNESCO world heritage site, and at present among my fav places of all time. The first interesting thing to see (about 20 min after you pass the Welcome to Fjordland sign) was the Mirror Lakes. Wonder how they got that name?

This was the initial terrain of Fjordland which was more then a little awe inspiring. However it just kept getting better and better. For once we reached our goal things got better

Milford

Pulling into the area of our main visiting objective we were greeted by this lost world. If I ever make it as a film director this is where I'm filming my Dinosaur movie...

What can I say. If a Dino was still alive this could be it's home... Which leads to a funny story we learned while in this area. Though there are no legends of Dinosaurs wandering this area unexplained there are myths of Moose. Yeah you read that right Moose.

Now it turns out there is a legacy to this, but when we first heard it I laughed. Turns out like so many other mammals around here Moose were imported and introduced in the 1900's. From Canada no less. Now for many years they were hunted and caught. However the last one was successfully shot in 1952. Apart from one blurry photo in the 70's none has been seen alive since. However there are rampant rumours that they still dwell in these woods. A clump of hair found last year underwent DNA testing which was that of Moose rather then Deer... So who knows?

Sadly we didn't see one.

As you can probably tell this picture was taken at sunset. We were about half an hour out from our destination at this time. By the time we got there it was dark, and thus we could only make out the silhouettes of the area. Let me tell you when we woke up it was quite the pleasant surprise!

Milford Sound

This picture was taken about 1 minute after I woke up. I knew I loved Milford Sound already!

Now the kicker is some people just drive up here like we did. Get out of the car take this picture (and maybe a few others), and then get back in their car and drive back the way they came (there is only ONE road into this area so it is a repeat of everything till you get back to Te Anau). This should be a criminal offense!

There are 4 companies offering boat ride tours that take you down the Sound (technically it's a Fjord, but the inappropriate name of sound stuck) all the way to where it connects with the sea for only $80. So guess what we did?

Boat Ride

So rather then have to type something for all these amazing shots I'll let you fill in your own caption

Okay so with sights like these for 2ish hours you'd think the good times would have to come to an end. Well no not true. As an extra to the boat ride you could pay a little extra and check out the under water observatory...

Under the Sea

So the observatory is basically a reverse aquarium. Instead of putting the fish into tanks, you put the people into a air filled tank and submerge it 20 metres underwater.

The big attraction of this is the Black Coral. Now this is it, and despite it's name it is in fact supposed to be this amazing white frosty color. The name Black derives from this stuff when it is found dead, and typically throughout the rest of the world that's the only state you'll typically see it in...

The thing is that Black Coral normal only occurs at a depth of 200 meters or deeper. Except at Milford Sound. The amount of rain they get here coupled with a naturally tidal barrier at the mouth of the Sound results in a thick layer of fresh water on the surface (as salt water doesn't mix with fresh unless stirred). This causes a unique light filtering effect and essentially fools deep water species like the Black Coral into coming far too close to the surface (yet they do survive).

Result a unique underwater experience. Now sadly we missed out on the big event of the week. Apparently the day before they had some bottle nose dolphins popped by the underwater section. NOOOOOOOOOOO

Well after spending 45 min down in the Octopus' garden we returned to shore, and pushed on with our trip.

Wanaka

Our last stop was in the town of Wanaka. Now in Central Otago we are in the land of Rohan from Lord of the Rings (as they filmed all those parts in this very area). Spending the night we needed something to kill the evening before our big morning event. So we hit the local Movie Theatre. Which turned out to be quite the exciting venture.

The Paradisio theatre turns out to be country-wide famous. Character is the best way to describe this place. It is setup the way that you'd turn a big room in your house into a theatre. Nothing but recliners and couches to sit on. We watched Blood Diamond. Not the happiest picture ever made, but definitely the best I've seen this year (in fairness I've only seen Pursuit of Happyiness in theatres thus far).

Puzzle World

Last stop was Puzzle World located in Wanaka. I had a interesting welcome when we got there...

Full of fun puzzles, optical illusions, and a giant maze it was an hour worth of amazement for all concerned. Well up until a point...

The End of the Trip

It's funny turns out I caught the moment where the trip, and more importantly the stop at Puzzle World went from fun to NOT fun. Here we see Shannon happy and care free in the "Slanted Room" which to us looks like it does in this pick.

Well in between this photo and the one below Shannon turned around and saw the swing just behind her there to the left. Seeing that...

She suddenly felt quite nauseous, and was for the rest of the day not happy anymore. In fairness this was the actual angle and state of the room we were in. Sadly our bodies didn't register it.

So I drove poor Shannon home where another few days were enjoyed in our break before we had to return to school.

That however is a different story.

The BIG 100th Post... About a Road Trip of Something

I couldn't have planned a better crazy subject for my 100th post if I wanted to. This was seriously a HUGE coincidence! I was going to hold off on this post till it was going to be my 100th, but looking at the counter in blogger I was dumbfound to find that I was at 99...

What are the odds I ask?

Why the hoopla though? Well not only is it my 100th post, but it co insides with my first major departure from Dunedin since my arrival in New Zealand 3 months ago (and 7 days).

Okay so the breakdown of the break thus far has been hitting many of the interesting points of the middle of the South Island. These include, but not restricted to, Christchurch (largest city of the South Island), Hanmer Springs (home of a pretty cool hot tub. Get the pun there), and Kiakoura (the top of my must see list).




Now rather then a boring LONG post which I'd have to take the time to write and you read I'm going to save us all some time and effort. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words. In which case here is my thesis of the break so far.


The Drive

During the first night a friendly debate broke as to the exact length of the lines on the pavement of the highway. I guessed they'd be about 2 metres where Andrew swore they were more on the order of 15 feet. Stopping the car for a break we proceeded to use ourselves as measuring tapes. As you can see Andrew won.

Part way through Shannon grew tired of driving the car her flatmate was extremely generous enough to lend us. That meant I got to take over and drive for the first time on the wrong side of the road. I'm glad and happy to report between the both of us driving no damage came to us or the car.

The Sights

Not much to say here other then some very nice scenery to be had around New Zealand. Letting these pics do the talking at a 1000 words per shot. With them I'll hopefully make the minimal accepted length.

Explorers and Exploration

We hit the supposed hot spot for New Zealand fossils. Now granted this was merely the claim of a tourism book we picked up, and it was only a one paragraph disclaimer. No where was anywhere marked as to look so we pulled off toward a beach in the area, and I decided we should stop here to check out this outcrop first. I indeed found a fossil...

Sadly not much to write home about (yet here I am doing it!). I found this and about 9 more of these snail shells. If I had to guess rather recent Pliocene. The whole area was a very soft mudstone strata, and not looking so ideal for major fossil preservation. Guess not everywhere can have Albertosaur Teeth and Hadrosaur bonebeds.

Despite this lack of big impressive things to find Shannon got right into the spirit of searching. As Dr. Dylke (my new nickname from this attempted fossil hunt) I decreed Shannon the Jr. Geologist and Naturalist of the day award. Here she is displaying her trophies of the day. Some rocks that contained some calm fossils and a modern bone (Andrew reckoned a whole seal. I think he might have been off in the percentage of the remains, but I agree in his overall identification).

Speaking of Andrew he had a lot of fun playing around with some of the limestone erratics around the beach on the mudstone of the hills.

Elsewhere we stopped off to check out a seal "colony". After a whole 2 hours searching I was able to find 3 seals in total. The kicker was they were all right by the car (where we hiked some 5 km around the area looking for them). It wasn't a bust though. Andrew had yet to see a New Zealand Fur Seal (that alone any seal) in the wild or alive. Here he is posed in front of it (it's right to the left of him. Part of the reason they were hard to find I think was they blended in with these rocks so perfectly).

We also stopped to check out the famous boulders north of Dunedin on the way home. Sadly they didn't live up to the size one images when hearing about them. However they were very cool being completely spherical. Andrew had fun trying to leap them in a single bound.

I owe you a video here

Examples of Andrew's death defying leaps across the boulders

The Highlight

Hopefully the name on the building says enough cause I mean please! That's hardly 1000 words.

Shannon decided she had to look her best in front of the whales and thus put on her gum boots just for the occasion.




Now as if these pics weren't doing me enough to get this entry to the size of novel how do moving pictures effect word count. Watching this you'll get an idea of why this was my favourite stop of the trip.

The luckiest bum in the world right here.

What rogues gallery line up of photos then those taken with a whale

Andrew the whale is behind you!

Was cool to see the Albatross actually in the "wild". They spend 80% of their lives at the see coming to shore only to breed. Having seen the 20% end of this time allocation it was sweet as to see them doing what they do best. These were a different species then we have nesting in Dunedin mind you.

The main whale himself (in this case indeed a male) a Sperm Whale. My childhood favourite. This may look like an artsy shoot, but was not intentionally. It was my attempt to take a pic without looking through the view finder. I say it worked out well considering that.

As though seeing my favourite whale in one day wasn't enough the pod of some 100-200 of my favourite Dolphins in the same go definitely pushed it up there. Now granted technically my fav Dolphin is the Pacific White Sided Dolphin, but the Dusky is simply the Southern (and Atlantic) equivalent. They just have a slightly different stripe pattern then the Pacific so in my book they count!

Though not as "nerdy" into Whales or Dolphins as me, Andrew and Shannon still had an awesome time. I even caught it on camera. Shannon contently watching the dozen Dolphins that played off the bow of our boat.

Well that's the end of this my 100th blog entry. Sure there is a lot left unsaid of this trip, but hey aren't you tired after reading this HUGE entry. I mean that must have been some half a million words counting the movies. I sure know I'm tired after writing it!