Tuesday, February 26, 2008

A Little About Classes

After almost a full week of classes, I thought I would write a little bit to let you guys know what I'm taking and perhaps discuss how tertiary school in NZ differs from the US and A.

Courses are called "papers" here, and I am enrolled in four different papers: Environmental Management (Geography 397), Introduction to Land Administration and Planning (Surveying 114), ANZAC and Its Legacy (History 224), and Introduction to Formal Logic (Philosophy 222). I'll discuss each a little bit.

I decided to take Environmental Management after dropping Maori Studies, which was seeming like a destined-to-be-a-joke class. I also realized I was taking zero major classes here, so I thought I would contribute to my GEOG major at Midd by doing a little work here. The class is taught by a Professor who specializes in coastal geomorphology and European invasive species. He spent a large amount of time in the late 80s and early 90s writing the Resource Management Act of 1991, which basically redefined New Zealand's environmental protection laws, some of which dated from before 1910. It created some new agencies while dissolving the old bureaucracy, and overall represented an important shift in NZ's enviro-policy.

The course centers around a few aspects of EnvMan, especially how policy is created, considered, and implemented. With first-hand knowledge of the legal proceedings behind the RMA 1991, it seems the professor is well-equipped to discuss the subject extensively. The class is also made up of older students, which is quite nice compared to my first-year Surveying paper. The students seem for the most part engaged and focused, as one would expect in an upper-level paper.

Introduction to Land Administration and Plannign is a Surveying class that I decided to take due to my interest in the workings of land laws and how land is allocated throughout the world. I have a working knowledge of his this works in Vermont, but even from VT to NY there is a huge difference in how things are set up legally. Thus, examining NZ's law structure sounded enticing and a good way to find out a few things about the country's inner political workings. I walked into the lecture room on the first day of class to see 170 freshers looking down at the professor, and I was instantly reminded that I was no longer at my 'Small East Coast Liberal Arts School,' and that these students had no idea what the difference was between my "Uni" experience and theirs.

The first day of class, the professor started off by stressing that his portion of the class (the first six weeks) would be devoted to teaching us all how to write well for Uni. I was a little confused before I realized two things: this was a freshman class, and we all needed help as freshmen, but also that there are no entrance requirements for New Zealand Universities, so this was not a 'competetive' class to get into, and the level of academic rigor and New Zealand secondary schools was nowhere near the competetive nature of the USA education system.

I think it'll be pretty straightforward judging that our first assignment is a one-page essay about "how the law affects us personally."

The history class about ANZAC refers to the Australian and New Zealand forces that fought on the side of the allies in World War I. This is a big part of New Zealand history as they had a massive number of young men volunteer and pass away in Europe, fighting a war 20,000 kilometers away. It was a strong reminder of NZ's ties to the United Kingdom, and deeply affected this small island country. The paper covers the effects on New Zealand as well as the effects and situation in other Commonwealth countries such as South Africa, Canada, and Australia.

The Philosophy class is about Formal Logic, which is basically relating prepositions and conclusions with lots of complicated little symbols. Pretty fun, haven't made my judgement yet.

In all, it is really strange to be at a huge school, where between classes you can look around and see a thousand people bustling. 170-seat lectures are commonplace, every class has either two instructors or a TA. Students sport mullets and horrible facial hair, yet everyone is also remarkably attentive considering they spent the last ten days staring a the bottom of a beer bottle. So far, good on ya mate! for being a student and populating this great school.

That's all for now, I'll concoct some plans for the weekend, and get back to you.

Sam

Sunday, February 24, 2008

The Week's Events

Well, I'm looking at my watch and feeling that it's time to update on some of my recent activities. After our arrival home from Wanaka on Sunday we realized that the city was a completely different place from the quiet college semi-city we had left. The students had arrived. 20,000 undergraduate students arrive each year at Otago, and a huge number of those are "freshers."

The freshman or first years arrive for what is commonly called O-Week, Orientation week, which is an orgiastic festival of alcohol, debauch and free stuff. All the bars have specials, there's plenty of live music, and about 500,000 bottles are broken in the streets every night. It provides quite an interesting backdrop to our first few weeks in New Zealand, but luckily I was able to get away from the city a few times this week, which is the real subject of this blog.

On Monday and Tuesday I did errands and puttered around the city, going to Long Beach Tuesday for an afternoon in the sun. Long Beach is north of Port Chalmers, Northeast of Dunedin, and is a fine white-sand beach backed by large cliffs that screamed to be climbed. I am lucky enough to have friends here with plenty of climbing gear, so we have been able to do some sweet things. This album of Long Beach includes photos of the first day we were there as well as a few at the end from Evan Mikkelson's camera of Evan, Bart DiFiore, and myself climbing a crack at Long Beach. Pretty exciting but I was unable to get past the overhanging ledge crux. Bart and Evan both passed it and continued the 25m to the top of the route. Evan also is shown completing a side-section of the route that was rated two points higher, where he had to basically transfer from right to left with both his hands on a nonexistent hold above the ledge. All in all, some excellent climbing on that route, another that we all topped, and in an amazing bouldering cave.

On Wednesday, the International Office took all the recently-arrived International Students on the Taieri Gorge Railway, which is a scenic old-style railway leaving from Dunedin and passing through the aforementioned Gorge, a river valley with no roads that is only traversed by a railroad track. There were some incredible images along the way, and I enjoyed meeting and hanging with numerous international students (mostly Americans actually).

Evan and Rich and myself took a little side trip when we had about an hour break at the end of the Gorge. We trekked over some scrubby pastures, jumped a couple of fences, and scrambled down a gully to try to get close to the water. It was packed with stones and scrub brush, but we moved down towards the gully with relative ease. Rounding the edge of the bluff, we saw that it was much farther than we had realized, and turned up towards the top again. We walked north towards the rest of the students, and attempted to race down an open area to the river, but heard the train's whistle and headed back. The train went back down the same tracks, which provided an interesting reverse view of the Gorge. We stopped halfway down for a free BBQ, with lamb steaks, burgers, and ham steaks, all of which were delicious. The return to Dunedin was highlighted by a setting sun and views of the valley and city shutting down for the night.

On Friday, Rich and I decided that a trip was in order, with Danny Wasserman, from Colby, and Evan Mikkelson, another Midd Kid. We wanted to go to Aoraki/Mt. Cook but were worried about bad weather, so we went South to the Catlins Forest Park, a National Park south of Dunedin about 2 hours. The Catlins is not as "extreme" as Wanaka was, but beautiful nonetheless. We got to the area around 4 PM, stopped at the visitor center in Owaka, and planned out our evening. We drove quickly out to Nugget Point, where we hoped to see seals and penguins frolicking in the cold seas. The walk out to the lighthouse skirted a steep hillside, ending at a lighthouse that was built in the mid-18th Century. It had a full-time keeper until 1989, which would have been a fairly ridiculous job. We saw a good amount of wildlife, but not in the quantities we had hoped.

After Nugget Point, we headed to Purakaunui Falls, which is a twenty-foot high multi-level waterfall a ten minute walk from the road. The falls were wonderful, and there are some pictures HERE. After our fill of waterfalls, we went to Parakaunui Bay, towards the coast from the falls, where there is a $6 DOC campground. We quickly set up the tents, locked our bags in the car, and went for a jaunt up the nearby bluffs, hoping for a good view of the ocean before either weather or darkness set in. We hiked upwards through steep sheep-encrusted meadows, scattering ewes before us. All the sheep banded together and left the paddock we were walking through in long white lines, clearly visible from up above. It felt a little like watching wild migrations on Planet Earth, and we felt a little remorse at their terror before realizing that we were far more pleasant visitors than the barking sheepdogs they were accustomed to.

The views from the top of the ridge were well worth it, and we sat on the edge of a three-hundred-foot cliff overlooking the majestic Pacific. We decided to head back in the interest of hunger, and cruised down the hillside we had labored up half an hour earlier. Dinner was cooked by headlamp, but we began by eating fresh local blue cheese with apple slices, which was pretty amazing.

In the morning, after a nice sleep, we drove away at 7:30 to head to the Catlins River Walk, a 8-10 hour flat walk along the Catlins River, with numerous swing bridge crossings and rainforest surroundings. It turned into a nice day, and the long walk was good to stretch the muscles and enjoy the serenity of the forest. We were planning to stay out that night and camp at the trailhead, but realized that there wasn't as much to do in the Catlins as we had hoped, so we headed back towards Dunedin, with a short stop at an abandoned railway tunnel through a hill outside of Owaka. Arriving home in the city felt great, as did sleeping in my own bed after a string of five nights where I either camped out or went to bed too late and a little intoxicated. A sober, sane sleep was what we all needed.

We hiked up Mt. Cargill again on Sunday with the Otago Tramping Club, where they treated us to a free bbq and keg at the bottom of the hike. Classes started today (Monday), and maybe after I've had one of each class I will write a little update about that.

All for now,

Sam

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Cascade Saddle / Wanaka

Hello friends,

Photos at Picasa

It's Wednesday AM so I figured I might as well update you all to what I was up to this weekend.

On Friday, Cully, Rich and I left Dunedin around 8 pm and arrived in Wanaka at midnight. We camped overnight at a riverside spot, and then left early in the morning to drive to Mt. Aspiring National Park, 55km west of Wanaka. We planned the night before to hike and camp at the Cascade Saddle, part of a tramp from the Mt. Aspiring area West to the Rees-Dart track in the Glenorchy area.

The day started off a little cloudy, but quickly cleared to reveal a deep blue sky above the majestic scenery that surrounded us. We hiked for two hours along the floor of a river valley before arriving at Aspiring Hut, maintained and owned by the New Zealand Alpine Club. After lunch at the hut, we began our ascent up the side of Cascade Saddle towards the "Pylon" the high point of our hike at 1800 meters. From the hut, at an elevation of around 400 meters, to the pylon was a distance of only around four kilometers, incredibly steep. We struggled our way up the sheer side of the valley until we arrived at the pylon, far above treeline, to find 360 degree panoramic vistas of mountains, glaciers, alpine meadows, snowfields, and especially the glorious Mt. Aspiring, first climbed in 1909.

We then descended about three hundred meters to a river valley where we refilled out water bottles and then continued on a few km further to our campsite. We were intending to camp at the base of the Saddle, just above the glacial bench, but decided that staying up high would both save us time in the morning for the hike back, and provide finer views. Thus, we camped at the edge of the Cascade Saddle, which proved to be a kilometer-wide 180 degree cirque of thousand-foot sheer cliffs. We were camped about fifty feet from the precipice and as the sky grew dark, winds sprang up that felt as though they would hurl us to the abyss below at any moment. Luckily Mountain Hardwear and Nemo Equipment felt that stakes would be a good inclusion with their tents, so we were able to keep ourselves firmly grounded.

The hike back in the morning began at 5:45 am with the camp breakdown, followed by a relentless descent into the valley below, made more treacherous by both the extreme angle, but also exposure to winds and the added burden of heavy packs unbalancing our strides.

Arriving at the car around 1pm, we decided to search Wanaka for as much food as we possibly could, so we got some delicious Indian food and then walked the town observing the height of summer in this lakeside pseudo-resort town. We returned to Dunedin that night around 8pm.

More to follow about the next day and our trip to Long Beach, 30k up the coast from Dunedin.

Again, photos of that trip are up at http://picasaweb.google.com/samlibby/

Cheers!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Week 1 in Dunedin

Tomorrow will be a week since I arrived, and quite a week it has been. I spent most of Sunday and Monday walking all around the city, there's a beautiful botanical garden behind my house that stretches for hundreds of acres up North, and there is also a sporting pitch to the East.

I've been really busy with lots of errands and registering for classes and buying a car! (1987 Mitsubishi). This afternoon Cully, Rich, a bunch of other guys and I are going to Wanaka to camp for the weekend and to some hiking.

I honestly haven't had a spare second in a few days, so I apologize for the brevity of this post, but I will write more soon. Back Monday!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Photos!

I've decided to upload all my photos to Picasa, a Google service, so they you can all see them. I'll be organizing them into folders based on different trips or themes, so enjoy! I've just started, so I made an album of California, which is about 1/2 the Getty Villa and 1/2 Justin's beautiful house.

Sam's Photos

Bookmark it!

Saturday, February 9, 2008

California and New Zealand Arrival

Hello all, I've arrived!

Monday morning I left VT on a flight to California, where I arrived at 2pm into the care of my good friend Justin. I was to spend two and a half days in Pasadena and Los Angeles, California.

On Monday, we went to the Getty Villa, which is a beautiful estate that was built to house the Getty Foundation's antiquity collections (Greek and Roman sculpture, bronzes, mosaics, and jewelry).

The Getty is, quite simply, amazing. The new building was modeled from a traditional Roman villa, and the result is breathtaking.




I read about the Getty recently in a New Yorker article about Marion True, the former Getty head who entered into controversy over her policies towards antiquity acquisition. The Getty Villa showcases the truly extensive collection of Greek and Roman art and lifestyle pieces.

I also at at In-n-Out Burger, which met all my expectations of a famous California hamburger.

I spent the other day and a half mostly relaxing in Justin's backyard, which was a sunny and temperate contrast to the Vermont I had left.

My flight went from LAX-San Francisco-Sydney-Christchurch, and took about 24 hours total.

I stayed in Christchurch with Darrel and Josie, some friends of the family. Josie's parents live in VT and she and Darrel (A New Zealander) lived in VT as well for about five years. I spent the night with them, and in the morning we went to the Christchurch Art Gallery (museum) before I caught my bus. The gallery was focused on New Zealand art and had a few special exhibits. Below is one of the finer pieces that I saw there, which is made of metal, with the shadow created by a light shining from above.

INSERT PHOTO

With that, I was on the bus to Dunedin, where I arrived at 8pm! More on that in the next entry.