"Did you have lectures today Victoria" "...Noooo" "Do you have lectures everrr?"

Hello Hello!!
It seems as though my blogging pattern has taken on a weekly frequency- despite my best efforts to blog more, and thus include more details about my oh-so-thrilling life (*insert slight sarcastic tone here).


So I last left you all on Thursday the 8th of March. Hmmmm, well Friday I had another Maori studies class- we had the same lecturer as Wednesday, and though he zoomed through quite a bit of material, he managed to be engaging at the same time, so I quite enjoyed it. I had a dance jam again that day (big surprise to all of you, I'm sure) and several of us (Tali, Ahmed, Pique, Nan mie, and Tringe- please excuse the spelling of the names, because I'm not sure if they're all right) went to a food court to get some dinner after the jam. If you really want to know, I got butter chicken from a (loosely defined) Indian cuisine spot. I also got myself this unbelievably tasty smoothie from a place there, and the smoothie was called something along the lines of "The Caribbean". Mango, pineapple, frozen yogurt and coconut milk- sooooo gooooood. I think it was the coconut milk that made it so lovely. Anyways, moving on from the food fixation... I had the best intentions (don't all great stories start this way?..) of going to a salsa night that night, but I was super exhausted from dance, so I ended up chilling out with the other people on my floor. I think we had a movie night, but I can't actually remember that far back right now...


Saturday was going to be my study day- I was going to get things done....


Uh huh, right.


It was +20°C outside, and sunny, and beautiful- definitely not the recipe for a productive study day in my books. So, as you may have already guessed, I spent the day outside, in the sun, soaking up my Vitamin D. A group from my floor went into town, and we browsed some shops for a bit- not too long though, because I don't think any of us were really in the mood for it. Then we walked down by the waterfront and got some a-ma-zing gelato from a little cafe there. I think I got raspberry and chocolate- a combination I would highly recommend by the by.


And then, we went swimming in the harbour. When I say 'we', I should probably clarify that in our group of about ten people, 4 of us were brave enough to dare the chilly dip. There is a wooden plank that juts out over the harbour, and it was perfect for jumping off of, so Abi, Josh, Kent (with some persuasion) and I all went for a swim in the ocean. In the rather cold- but refreshing- ocean.


Bliss.


On our way back we stopped at the grocery store (called "New World" in case you wanted to know) and I bought a gluten free chocolate chip cookie which (after I heated it up in the microwave), was so yummy! I think the company is called "cookie time", but I'm not too sure...


Right-o. So now onto Saturday night... Which started off with drinks at Tali's again (methinks a pattern emerging, there is), where I met some of her extended fam jam (2 cousins- both female), and another friend of hers who is also female- this was quite nice, because the male to female ratio was much more balanced than it usually is- a pleasant change indeed. The first club we went to- Rain. A word of advice? Don't go to Rain. If no where else is open, and Rain is- just go home. Okay, honestly, it wasn't thattt bad, but the bouncers didn't like our group very much because we were break dancing on the floor where the non-existent bar patrons were supposedly walking (we were basically the only ones there), and they also made some reference to broken glass on the floor (though it was far too early in the night for that to be the case). Anywho, we didn't spend long there. Next stop? Boston. It was a pretty happening spot that night, but good fun, good fun. In case you're wondering, I did get out of my shell more that night and danced my heart out. Tali and I did our set (aka routine) that we'd been working on, but ah, it didn't go quite as well as it had during practice (I blame the combination of restrictive clothing, nerves and alcohol). Oh well, we're working on a different set now, so maybe this one will be better. Boston ended up getting too crowded, so where did we end up? The Big K. Blech. It seems that despite the general feelings of loathing towards that establishment, we always end up there. Well, it's not the place you're at, it's the people you're with that counts- and these people are all lovely, so it was a fantastic night.


Moving right along.. to Sunday.


Sunday was a recuperation day. We were all very tired, so our 'dance jam' was more of a "lie on the mat and talk" session than anything. I tried to Skype mi familia that morning, but the internet was being temperamental, so that didn't pan out as we'd hoped. This was a very low key, hang out, sort of day. That night we had another floor movie night and we watched the movie "Jennifer's Body". The only two people on our floor that had seen it swore up and down that it was a (and I quote) "funny movie". Well, we all like a good comedy, don't we?


Well, I learned a lesson that night- Google the film synopsis before taking people's words for it that a movie fits into the genre of 'comedy'. This movie (which I don't recommend watching, because it wasn't even very good) is about a girl who is best friends with one of the popular girls in her high school. They both go to a concert in their small town, and the popular girl (played by Megan Fox) gets abducted by the band. To make a long story short, Megan Fox turns into a zombie and starts eating the men in her town to survive. The main actress (Amanda Seyfried) is the only person who suspects her and tries to stop her, but fails (of course). I won't ruin the ending for you, in the rare chance you want to watch it after reading my 'rave reviews'. So, no, that movie was a poor attempt at horror, and far from being a comedy. Oh dear...


Monday- the other day of rest...


And here is where the title of this post comes in because, as you may or may not know, I do not have lectures on Mondays, so I basically am blessed with a 3-day weekend- making Monday the inevitable "do-all-the-things-I-was-supposed-to-do-this-weekend-but-didn't-get-done" day. One of the guys on the floor asked me about my classes (see title of post) and seemed slightly exacerbated that I never seem to be going to classes (this is entirely untrue, by the way, but it was kind of funny to hear his reaction). I spent the day studying, dancing, and doing some administration-type stuff for the upcoming week. That night "John Tucker Must Die" was on TV- yes, I like that movie, though please don't judge my taste in movies based on that alone.


Tuesday!
Quite the busy day- classes, dance (learning some new moves lately, so that's been pretty cool), and a tramping (aka hiking) club meeting that night. The tramping club here looks so awesome! They have organized trips almost every weekend and there is one this weekend, but I don't have all of the gear to go (and I only had two days notice to get ready for it). But I'm hoping I'll get to go on the next one. The membership fee was $20, but with that membership you get discounts at most of the camping-type stores in town, so that's pretty exciting.


Wednesday!!!
Pretty much the same story as Tuesday- classes and such, except that a few of us after the jam (Tali, Ahmed, Nan Mie and Tringe) went to a little cafe called "Enigma". They had really good gelato there as well- and I got a toasted sandwich with ham, cheese, tomato, and spinach on it. Mmmmm.
The remainder of the day was pretty tame- studying mostly. Some people in our common room (and therefore the rest of us by default) watched the movie "Step Brothers". If you like Will Ferrell, you will like this movie. Because I am not a fan, I can't say that I enjoyed it that much.


And last, but not least, Thursday!


Today was laundry day- which was much needed I should also add. Louise (another Canadian exchange student and I) went out for coffee this morning and got to catch up for a bit, which was really nice, because it was another beautiful sunny day here. I went to my tutorial that I thought was at 1, but it actually was from 12 until 1- boo. So I missed that one. Luckily it was only the first one, so I didn't miss too much. I had my religion and human biology class from 2 til 4. The professor for that class (or 'paper' as they say here) is a bit... bonkers. He often goes off on tangents and takes several minutes to answer questions that should take 20 seconds to answer. Despite all of this, however, he's a decent lecturer and the class went fairly well. I'm super tired today, so I only jammed for about half an hour before taking off. Tali is going to Australia this weekend and I am her "fish sitter". This basically entails feeding her two gold fish (White belly and Goldie) once a day until Sunday- exciting stuff, I know.


And tonight I was going to do some work for my Maori studies class, but the website wouldn't let me log onto the site, and told me that my account has been suspended. So I sent IT services an e-mail to get that sorted out. This means that I lost all motivation to get work done tonight, and instead, I'm writing an insanely long blog post.


I would like to post pictures here, but sadly my camera battery has run out and I haven't had time to charge it (and I keep forgetting to, which is probably more to the point). But I promise more pictures will be coming soon- and i might take a picture of my knees to show all of you the bumps and bruises I have acquired while learning how to break dance. It's quite a mottled purple sight, and I'll leave it at that.


Some exciting news though- the photographer that took the break dancing pictures I posted earlier might be taking some more pictures of our group next week if we can arrange it- so stay tuned for those as well!!


Well that's all folks!


xo