September 15, 2013

So I came in from being out the other day and I was greeted with all kinds of these weird remarks that I didn’t know what they meant. And I was like what are you guys saying? And they were all like well what are you saying? Well needless to say the students here in my program at the convent found my blog. I mean I didn’t say anything mean but I did feel bad because some of them seemed up set but I mean I was filtering so I guess I shouldn’t be too embarrassed  but I was. So more filtering I suppose so people don’t get offended.

                Well this week not much has happened just having class. Class goes from 9 to 12 and then we have the afternoon off and then we have class again from 7 to 9 Monday through Friday. And each week we have a different professor. So professor A comes in week one then professor B comes in week two then professor C comes in week three then professor A comes in for week four then professor B comes in week five. Then professor C comes in week six. So that is how class works in a nutshell.

                Anyway I love sugar. Any form of sugar, syrup, granular, candy, marshmallow, fluff, and brown sugar. Well here I am having a real problem, I don’t feel like im getting my daily doses of needed sugar, but I had to refill the sugar bowl on the tea counter and had to go find the sugar. Well I found a HUGE 55 gallon trashcan in the kitchen, full. Of sugar. It was like heaven in a trashcan. I was so happy. Also there is a huge white Rubbermaid container at the tea station and I hadn’t opened it till this week. Its full of caramelized honey. I was so happy when found these,

                More in the department of food. Tim tams are a two rectangular chocolate cookies on top of each other and dipped in fudge chocolate. They are great so good. I don’t know why I have never had them bc I guess they sell them at target? But they are great. So we did the Tim Tam slam and that happens when you eat each end of the cookie and put one end in hot chocolate then suck the hot coco up into the Oreo and quickly put it in your mouth. Its great. Im salivating just thinking about it.

The Race:

so Kelsey (from messiah sophomore) and Allie (assistant program director) were in a 10k road race here in kiakoura. Well this is quite an event with tons of people. Well like Lincoln a lot of people. definitely not as big as Bangor. So those two are pretty quiet people so us guys (rob steve and i) decided to dress up and embarrass them. We went to the thrift shop, which is actually the dump and filled out bag of terrible clothes for 4 dollars. We didn’t have time to wash them first so we got these shorts that they call “stubbies” here and are wicked short. Shorter than regular short shorts that are high-waisted and look real bad. Wicked bad. And we had hats and tanks, we looked real bad. Theres a pic on facebook if you feel like checking out my upper thigh. Then we were wicked loud cheering on every person as they came into the finish line “lets go red, run red” you know all the good chants.

                Then we were leaving on our bikes and we had one bike with a trailer on the back to carry all our laundry cause we had to go to the laundry mat so were going along biking and still cheering on all the people we are passing and there are still crowds of people in the streets cheering on still finishing runners. Rob lost his hat. He dropped it off the bike onto the ground. Then he came to a complete stop and I was right behind him. So I had to break wicked quick and of course because we are in a different country we are biking on the opposite side of the road and that means the brakes are on the opposite side of the bike. Well I hit the front brakes and went right over the handle bars. Right over. I was so pissed. There were so many people there I was dressed like a loser and then I went right over the front of my bike and it went sliding off the road down the 6 foot ditch. Yup its cool im American.

Storm:

                We had a wicked bad storm that was so windy. Its called a north westerly and blew in at night and rattled our windows so much, and because we are in a 100 year old building the wind pretty much blew through it and it was creepy and the doors were all rattling and slamming. But old Agatha the nun outside my window held strong through the storm. Sadly. Any way the storm lasted about 2 days. At times it was pitch black out at like 3 in the afternoon with rain pelting down and wind gust of no joke up to 85 miles per hour. Windows rattling soooo much. And we lost power for a lil while.

Garden Walk:

                Well Sandy and Kevin Topp gave Leah and I free tickets to the kiakoura garden walk on Sunday afternoon. So I was wicked excited we saw 5 gardens with some pretty cool plants and landscapes. But one house had all these raised gardens and bonsai trees in pots it was wicked cool, but the house was awesome, glass balcony swanky windows and it sat right on top of a hill that went down to south bay and then on the other side of the house a picture perfect view of the mountain range. So if I could pick a house I would live there. But it did have a 8 foot high black fence all the way around it? So it kind of blocked the view but then they put windows in the fence? Its kind of weird but if it didn’t have the fence it would be awesome. We were so sophisticated going out on a garden walk, and I was 1 of 7 men that I saw all afternoon. Then there was a luncheon downtown at the church for all the people after. It was again all gray hair elderly women. But it was wicket funny and I we got a cuppa tee and a wee plate with like 5 tini tini pieces of hobbit food on them. Small sandwiches and mini cookies as well as a tini tini cube of seeds that were stuck together. Im not sure if we were supposed to eat it because it tasted just like birdfood. But then we came back and rob and Steve were not at the nun house so I asked where they were but no one knew. So then me and Leah went to walk around the yard and found the dead hedge hog that lisa had told us was in the drive way so we were like wow a dead hedgehog! (last week we saw a live one and picked it up and played with it) I think Lisa hit it the night before because she was riding in circles really fast around the driveway trying to be funny. Which she is wicked funny. So naturally me and Leah decided to pick it up and put it in Steve my roommates bed. And it smelt so bad. Like 7 days dead bad!  So Steve has 6 bottles of cologne (man perfume for pansies) so we put so much on it so it wouldn’t smell as bad when we put it in his bed. Well this was at around 4 oclock so it was in his bed for a real long time, but leah was nice and put a piece of newspaper under it so it would be as bad. Well I went to bed around 11 and steve and rob came into go to bed around 1 and were wicked loud so those of you that know me know that I love my 10-12 hrs of uninterrupted sleep. I naturally told them to shut up then he found the dead hedgehog and I remembered about it and watched the events unfold. Needless to say I played it off like I didn’t do anything but they wouldn’t touch it so I had to pick it up barehanded and throw it out of our 2cnd story balcony…. Well right outside our window is another building called the chocolate house. So the hedgehog bounced off the roof onto the porch roof where it remained until the next day when me and steve had to climb up and get the stupid thing and burry it. It was pretty bloated and stunk. I think I got the short end of the stick because I had to sleep with a dead hedgehog in our room and then I had to be the one to throw it out then I had to go get it again then burry it. After a very tense day of dodging accusation of who did it (I wasn’t even on their radar) we fessed up at supper and then the flip flops we used to pick up the hedgehog were Lisa’s and she was wicked funny about it. So that’s all I have to say about that. You know what they say payback is a B.

 

 

Character development:

Emma (the cook), loves spiders and will kill anyone who would harm them. That is what she told us. And its true. Anyway I tried to kill a spider at supper time and let me tell you she lost it. She came at me with her mug over her head. And angry face on. And im telling you she dumped her mug of water all over me then as I continued to kill the spider she tried to mug me! She tried to hit me with the mug then proceeded with the Amish tradition and shunned me for the rest of the day.

Leah, well leah and I got to go on a garden walk together! She is a long lost romantic, last week I caught her reading the weddings insert in the newspaper. She is a cow farmer in Washington and has 1000 head of cows to keep track of. Shes got a head full of curls

Drew, he is a little guy who lives just north of lover’s lane. Hes a 17 year old kiwi and wicked funny. Like Lisa he is sarcastic and quick with his wit. He has come over to the convent a couple times and both time we had to watch a movie for class and the movies were so bad I felt bad for him. He surfs snowboards works at the marina and works on cars.

Courtney, (program director) had a birthday and told us about her obsession with this skater guy from Canada when she was younger. But then proceeded to tell us his house caught on fire last year and he had twins and his wifes name and she dances in rowanda?? Then she said she got kicked off an elevator he was on when she was younger. And lied to get into a back stage party where he was… she has a twin sister and they were both obsessed. the guy even had a name for them because he saw them so many times they were “The Hamalton twins”…. Pretty funny stuff

New Zealand fun facts:

Driving down the street you will find half the trucks have these snorkel things on them. They are so the trucks can ford rivers. They go all the way to the top of the roof of the truck. When we went to the tops farm we had to drive over 3 different spots of water with our ghetto vans.

Over here they don’t really build bridges or bug culvers in like they do on dirt roads in Maine. Instead you just drive over them and hope its not too deep. Fingers crossed most of the time.

Birthday parties are over the top here just like at the Richard’s household. We celebrated Courtney (program director) birthday today it was a Curt Browning male figure skater themed party. It was pretty extravagant and we put Agatha (the 300lb nun statue) in the pool and pretended to skate around it and had to do our routine to impress Courtney. Yes we dressed in spandex and threw roses and pretended to do our twirling. I was pretty good but had a hard fall but I got back up to woo Courtney. Kristin (bird fanatic CCSP employee) planned it all and took some funny pictures.