Books

If you look down on the sidebar of this blog, you can see that I just added a link for my Shelfari page. Shelfari is a website where you can keep track of what you are reading, write reviews of books, and connect with other bookworms. I pretty much just use it a glorified list of things I have read in the last year or so. I had it in my head that I wanted to read 52 books this year, and I think I am well on pace to do it (it helps that I read a lot of children's fiction). Click through to see what I have been reading lately. Recommendations welcome!

Plans!

Yay! Today I finished my last day of tutoring for the semester. The day never seemed like it would end as we calculated the final grades for each of the 400+ students in the course. But, thankfully, we got it all done which means I am officially on holiday!

So here are my plans for my time off:
---Road Trip with Friends:
I am heading on a 4 day trip with some of friends from my building. We heading south to Rotorua, Lake Taupo, and Mt. Taranaki for tramping and sightseeing.

---Road Trip by Myself:
After that I will take a 12-day trip to the South Island where I will make my way from Christchurch, through the mountains, to the Franz Josef glacier, to Queenstown, and then back again. It will probably be cold and wet, and maybe even snowy! Expect some amazing pictures when I get back. It will also be a good time to recharge my batteries before my final semester.

---Read Books:
Here's what I have in the queue to read:
Emma by Jane Austen
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
Midwinter Nightingale by Joan Aiken
The Birth of America by William Polk
Beware of God by Shalom Auslander
By the way, book recommendations are always welcome!

Check back in mid-July for some sweet pics!

Some Highlights

---On Mother's Day, Christine, the regular leader for children's church, was away, so I was left in charge. We had no major mishaps and we didn't lose any of the kids, so I was quite pleased.

---My adviser asked me to come and talk to one of his classes. I spoke briefly about choosing a topic for my thesis, researching, and writing. I think I was a bit rambly, which shouldn't be too hard to imagine....

---A few weeks ago, I got together with some girlfriends to watch the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, which is fantastic, and also about five and a half hours long. I really didn't expect us to watch in all in one go, but after the first disc ended--right after Mr. Darcy proposes---we could NOT turn it off. And we had a ton of cookies, and tea, and Thai food making it the perfect girls' night.




---A friend of mind threw a murder mystery dinner and the theme happened to be set in Chicago in the 1920s. I ended being the resident historian and got to explain to the Kiwis about things like the Black Sox scandal, Al Capone, and Prohibition. It was a great night, except I was wrong in guessing whodunit.

---I recently finished reading Children of Men by P.D. James. It's a British novel that became the inspiration for a fantastic movie from a couple of years ago. Then, a couple of days later, I found that Children of Men would be showing on tv! So I told all my friends on my floor that we needed to watch. However, after about ten minutes I realized that probably it might not appeal to everyone, and when it ended, only one guy seemed to liked it. Everyone else seemed slightly confused. I always forget my love of bleak, dystopian futures is not necessarily the norm....

No Show, Just Tell

I tried to add some pictures to this blog, but for some reason it didn't work. Use your imagination.

I just finished reading a wonderful book called The City of Ember. It is already a new favorite. It's about a decaying city in a world where there is no sun, or moon , or stars, and the only light that exists comes from electric lamps. Intrigued??

Right now I am on spring break. We get two weeks off, but it's not a total vacation because I have essays and things due right when we are back in session. Pretty soon I will have to buckle down and read a book about the use of blackface in old musicals, write an essay proposal about the movie High Fidelity, and catch up on some other reading.

The last few weeks in children's church, I have taken up my guitar for one song during the singing time. It's been pretty fun and I think the kids really like it. Sometimes kids do the funniest stuff:
---I went over to a group of boys to wrangle them back to the group, and when I was close enough I realized they were playing Harry Potter and using coffee stirrers as wands.
---One little girl was quite wriggly during story time, but not really disrupting anyone, or so I thought. No one noticed until it was too late that she had taken of her shoes, stockings and underwear.
---One of the other leaders asked the kids to raise their hands if they like my American accent. Most of the kids raised their hands, but it made me wonder about the kids who didn't...

Current Playlist:
Sugarcane by Missy Higgins (Listen here: http://www.missyhiggins.com/)
Lies by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Stations by Denison Witmer
Rag and Bone by The White Stripes
The Park by Feist
The Funeral by Band of Horses
Yankee Go Home by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
I'm Sorry, But I'm Beginning to Hate Your Face by Eagle Seagull

Books Are Friends

In an effort to stuff my brain full of knowledge until it explodes, I've been reading many books of all types...

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
This is one of my favorite books ever. It is arguably Lewis' best work of fiction, and contains one of the most well-written female characters ever. In it he retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche, but it ends up being a allegory about how humans need to relate to God. We wear so many masks, and are often completely unaware of who and what we truly are. The books asks, how can we come to God until we have faces, until we own up to our true selves?

Miracles by C.S. Lewis
Definitely harder to read and understand but a great book that provides logical reasons to believe in the possibility of miracles. To me, the best chapter deals with the miracle of the Incarnation. If you don't think you can wade through the other chapters of philosophy, I would suggest just reading the Incarnation chapter--it's brilliant!

Emma by Jane Austen
I never read it before, and I'm about halfway through. So far, I don't like it as much as P&P or Mansfield Park, but it's still a fun read. I have to have something relatively light to read before bed.

Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen
I just started this one as well, but already I am really enjoying it. It's good soul reading. So far it has been talking about loneliness a chance for spiritual solitude and communion with God...

The Dance of Life: Spiritual Direction with Henri Nouwen edited by Michael Ford
This is basically a categorized book of quotes by Nouwen from a whole bunch of his books, so it's a super fast read, except that the ideas makes such an impact, I have to stop just to digest them.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling
Ok, I know it's not out yet, but I'm really looking forward to it! Only 82 days left!

The First Week: Part One

Welcome to my blog, friends and family! I wanted to get this up sooner, but I've been busy setting up my new life in Auckland...Hopefully, I can keep this pretty up to date with stories, pictures, and other ramblings as time goes on.

Here's what's been happening so far (I forgot a lot of it already, but luckily, I was documenting everything in my diary):

My plane took off from Los Angeles on Friday night and landed in Auckland at about 6am on Sunday morning. I was in the air for about 12 hours, I think...very confusing...(By the way, the host from The Amazing Race was on the plane with me..)



After landing, and customs, I was shuttled to a hostel about 15 minutes from campus since my housing wouldn't be ready until the next day. I basically had a day to kill. Mostly, I wanted to go to sleep, but it was only noon, and I wanted to get on NZ time as quickly as possible. I decided to try and find the campus since it was (allegedly) quite close and easy to find. If you know me at all, you know I was born without a sense of direction. So I walked around for a few hours and saw many things, but never found the campus (frustrating!). I probably should have been worried about getting horribly lost, and I did at a few points, but mostly I was just tired. I forced myself to stay up to 9pm before gladly going to bed. The last thing I did was write in my diary, "I can not believe I am in New Zealand."


Here is the view Auckland from my window at the hostel:





















The next day, I was determined to get into my apartment. I had decided that a hostel could be very fun if backpacking with a friend, but it's not very fun all alone with a lot of luggage.

The building I am living in is very international, and mostly undergrads. It is really close to campus which is great because I have to walk everywhere. My apartment has 5 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and living room. When I got there, two of my flatmates Michael (Russian, attending Georgetown U) and Tsetska (from Holland) were already moved in. Later, we were joined by Jesper from Sweden, and the fifth room is still unoccupied. A word about Michael: Within the first 5 minutes of talking to him he commented that I did not curse, and that led him to ask me what my "vices" are. (I thought that was kind of funny since I have decided to live vice free--no drinking, smoking, drugs--even as medicine, caffeine. At Biola, it was the caffeine that brought me notice, but here, I am a freak of nature!) But it was good, because it led to a discussion about my being a Christian and Michael being a non-practicing, mostly non-believing Jew. We'll see what discussions and events transpire as the semester goes on. One last thing about roommates, for now: they are all here for one semester, so I'll have the apartment to myself in July til the new batch of roommates come for second semester. Hmm...sounds like the perfect time to visit, eh?

Here's pics of my small room in the midst of unpacking (can you spot Clawdette, or Curious George?):





The next few days were consumed by the business of getting set up in my apartment, getting my schedule settled, finding my way around, attending orientation events, and reading. I had a lot of free time, so I would often take a book, walk to various parts of the campus, and then find a shady spot to the read. Also, a lot of the orientation was aimed at undergrads so I skipped whenever I felt like it, which was often.

The University of Auckland is right in the center of the city which is pretty much like any major city in the world. I have seen Dunkin' Donuts, Wendy's, Burger Kings, Borders Books, and several Starbucks. It's a far cry from the rural scenes promised in Lord of the Rings. Auckland reminds of Seattle or San Francisco with all of its hills and proximity to the ocean (look it up on a map if you don't know where it is--I am learning that Americans are an embarrassment when it comes to geography). The architecture is a mix between classic and modern buildings all jumbled together...The campus is the same way, and there are a few really pretty spots for reading or relaxing.
These are pics of Arthur Park--it's right in the middle of campus and I have been going there to read almost every day. It' still summer here, so the days are long and the weather is very nice. I was reading A Severe Mercy (by Sheldon VanAucken), and then Mansfield Park (by Jane Austen) and I loved them both.









This is the Student Commons Building--it's huge! There are a few restaurants, a doctor's office, a pharmacy, offices, computer lab, bookstore, and who knows what else. It's always a busy place in the middle of the day, and this picture is useless to convey the busy tempo that presides...



Other nice parts of campus:
I went in search of the chapel and found this quiet little corner that I liked...






When I did find the chapel, I noticed they have books on loan, and one was Blue Like Jazz (by Donald Miller) which I have been wanting to read for a while. Sadly, when I went to read it, I discovered that there was a horrible printing error and 20 pages were missing and another 50 were repeated out of order. Oh well..I think I pretty much got the gist of it anyway...

Random Sites in Auckland:






This is a fountain in the middle of a plaza in the heart of the city...




...and this is the anarchy symbol someone drew on it! It wasn't me, I promise!



An antique store had its door open and it was overflowing with amazing stuff!






This is Lisa, from Boston. We met at the airport and hung out for an afternoon..










That's all for now... More updates, and pictures to come!