SNOW

This week was the second week of my papers.  There has not been much change in them.  My maths class is still my least favorite but it is improving because we now have tutorials where we are in smaller groups and work on problems.  For the CHCH class we had some readings about caring.  This week are going to meet and discuss what caring is and why people sever (as in volunteer to help).  In my Psyc class we learned about nature vs. nurture.  We also had our first lab for this class.  In this lab we discussed how people automatically try to figure out someone personality when they first see them.  We also participated in a demonstration how people with positive personality traits end up friends with people who also have positive personality traits.   In my Geol paper we are learning about what causes earthquakes and how they are measured.  CHCH is a great place to be learning about earthquakes.

There have been a couple of small aftershocks since I have been here.  Friday morning around 5:30 AM there was a 5.1M earthquake about 40km away that woke me up. I woke up and was laying in bed thinking about if I should move and go under my desk but I did not because all I really wanted to do was go back to sleep.  It has been interesting hearing how different people reacted to that earthquake.  My Kiwi flat mates did not think too much of it, they were more annoyed that they were woken up by it.   One of my friends in one of my papers said that she got up and packed a bag in case she had to leave.  Another person I know thought about leaving and another one were rather freaked out because he lives on the sixth floor right next to the elevator and he could hear it banging against the wall.

This weekend was somewhat exciting.  Well Friday night was not so much; I fell asleep around 9:30.  On Saturday I went to the gym (they have group classes everyday at the gym that I have started going to) and then went grocery shopping.  I got some work done that afternoon.  That night the group of people I met at the orientation for international students, some of your flat mates, and I went out  for dinner.  We went to Hell’s pizza.  I had a good pizza that was ham, onion, garlic, and parmesan.  We then went to an Irish bar.  I had to show ID to get in but I was legally allowed in. On Sunday I did not get up to much.  I did some work and went to frisbee.  It was really cold and it started kind of raining.  It is now about 0C outside and kind of snowing.

 It is really exciting and we are all hoping that it will snow over night and stick so in the morning there will be snow on the ground.  It is weird that in July I am hoping for snow.  There are many things here that are different from the US but that is for another blog post. 

UPDATE: So it is now snowing outside and we all went outside and I was standing in the snow in my jandles.

 

Flat – The way flat is used often is to describe where you live so for me it is the floor I live on

Jandles – flip flops