In Which I Ponder Space and Spaces

Kia ora!

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the human, Nicole. It's six-month mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no 5’7”, born in Tucson Nicole has gone before!

And with that, if you can’t tell, my mini-theme for this blog entry is, of course, space. Last weekend I went out with the university Navigators (UC Navs) to Lake Lyndon, Castle Hill, and Cave Stream. While none of those categories really have anything to do with space, the reason I start out with said beginning is not only to please Amber, but also because one of the best conversations I had while at the UC Navs was while star gazing. But I jump ahead of myself!

After a fun week in Kaikoura, I decided to take things easy during the week. Last week was the first week of UCanDance, a dance club here at the university that teaches, for $3 NZD, the modern jive, merengue, and salsa two times a week. After a momentary pause (three seconds) as to the ethical dilemma of joining a dance group, I joined. And, by far, UCanDance has been one of the BEST times here at the university! I love the energy that comes with dancing, and getting to spend two and a half hours every week learning how to do something that’s both sexy and fun is amazing. Who else gets to learn to jive to a techno version of “Ghostbusters”? I always come back from dancing exhilarated and ready to conquer anything – and the best part is there are almost always more boys than girls (yay engineering schools!)!

Other clubs I’ve been to so far include the tramping club, which is great solely because there are weekend trips leaving every Friday or Saturday, and gear rental is exceedingly cheap. On Tuesdays I got to Bible study, where my group consists of other Americans and a Canadian student. The Bible study is with the Navigators, an international organization that aims for Christian fellowship, but also for integration of Christians with non-Christians, to lead by example. The group mission and the members are amazing, and I had a good time with them this weekend and this Tuesday!

Onto the big event: Lake Lyndon. We left for the lake on Friday night, and got there as a thick fog rolled in. Because the lodge has no electricity unless you bring a generator AND stoke the fire in the old fashioned metal stove, the place was quite cold for awhile, and most everyone stayed in the one warm common room, playing cards. A few activities were put on, including a hilarious game where several people were pulled out of the room, and someone came in dressed up in sheets with a large spoon and spatula in each hand. The people pulled out were then brought in one at a time and told to copy the costumed person’s every move. What the poor participant didn’t know that while they were making a fool of themselves, as they stood up, another person put a wet sponge on the chair behind them, so that when they sat down, the seat of their pants was soaked! There were several great reactions, and the entire group had a good laugh, including those who were pranked.

That night, several of us decided that we were going to hike up the nearby hills to watch the sunrise, and with a plan involving getting up at 6:20am, we all went to bed feeling confident we’d see the most spectacular sunrise we have yet to see in New Zealand. Oh foolish mortals were we!

So 6:20am rolls around, and we all start out in the dark in good spirits. As we hopped over a fence to get to the hill bottom, we realized that the grass got longer, and there were streams hidden in the long waves of plants. With such a large group, we had trouble staying together, and several times the group split because either people were going at different paces or one group foundered into a marshy area that the other group was trying to avoid. Talk about taking a fall for the team! The trip ended up with us in the middle of a gorse (scratchy, sharp native plants) patch. Pushing our tired selves just a BIT further, we got out of the gorse to watch the sunrise, or so we thought! We didn’t actually break the fog layer, and by the time we “watched” the fog getting lighter, the sun had risen already. Several of us went back down the mountain at that point, and got back in time for breakfast. Muesli never tasted so good!

Yet while the hike was an arduous journey, it was awe-inspiring to be up that high. You looked down, past the dark, scraggly gorse and at the red berries that covered the ground, and you realize just how small a human is in comparison with the earth. The expression “move mountains” usually doesn’t mean much to me, but once I’m on of a mountain, I realize how hard that feat actually is.

The rest of that day was spent in numerous adventures. Not only did I climb a mound of earth, but I went through Cave Stream, which is basically wading through an underground cavern, and explored beneath the earth. At the end of Cave Stream, some guys discovered the water was deep enough at the end to jump and slide off rocks, and after some initial trepidation, I slid and jumped from the natural slide at the end, and got thoroughly soaked. But that’s ok – polypropylene (thermal wear) saved me!

After that, we all went bouldering, which involves boulders and climbing. Again, standing a top a HUMONGOUS boulder, looking out at the landscape that the first Narnia movie was filmed in, and realizing that you could see for miles, you felt small and particularly vulnerable to gravity! Castle Hill, as the place is called, is one of the best parts of New Zealand I have been too so far, and just the sheer beauty and majesty of being surrounded by something that seems inconceivably large is something I have no words for.

That Saturday night, I sat outside in the cold with Dave, my climbing partner (who managed to bruise his rib discovering the dangerous way to get down off rocks, good going Dave!), and we star gazed for a long while. If you can count see more than 18 satellites and 8 shooting stars in a two hour time block, you let me know! But we had an amazing time, laying out on the lake shore, watching the Milky Way, Orion (which is upside down here and is called a pot), the Southern Cross, and the moon rise over the mountains. Space is indeed the thing that makes me feel small, once I sit still and watch as small dots fly over head and stars blink. God does some amazing things with creation, but the fact that we can SEE things all the way in space? It just blows my mind! And how small we are! Because as small as the dots in the sky are too us, our big planet is just as small to someone else.

The next day of break was more laid back. I learned how to play cricket, went swimming (or, more accurately, for a brief dip) in the lake, and then sun bathed, winning the title of whitest person there. I’m still trying to decide if that’s a good thing or not. After that, we drove home, where I got no homework done that night. Go me!

This week has been busy, as I’ve been having trouble concentrating on school work. There are so many things to do here, that sometimes school suddenly finds itself on the low end of the priority list, especially since there are fewer assignments to complete here at home. Thus, this week I attempted to catch up on essays. While I got reading done, the essays have yet to be started… I also found out I have a project due at the end of term for history, and thus had to choose a primary source to analyze. I was lucky to find exactly the source I wanted! It’s the memoir of Yashka, the Russian, female, general of the all-women fighting Battalion of Death, that fought on the Eastern Front in World War I. Can you say cool? Anything with Battalion of Death in it can’t be THAT boring!

I also hosted the flat dinner this month, whipping up chicken enchiladas and chicken tortilla soup with the usual flair: which is mild panic and silent swearing at frozen meat. While I ended up enlisting two flat mates to help, the dinner overall went well (thanks for the recipes mom!). Most of my flat mates had never had refried beans! That’s a sin, right? And several had never had enchiladas! It was a Twilight Zone experience. I never realized how Mexican food isn’t really that common outside of the Southwest.

Now, in my flat, ready to start an essay after I type this, I feel like an astronaut back from the International Space Station. I went to amazing places, my friends ate strange food, and now I’m back on terra firma, with a better appreciation for the scope and grandeur of the world. And as all people always ask astronauts about the bathroom, no, the toilet water doesn’t flush the other way around on this side of the world.

I hope that all of you enjoyed your spring breaks and are rested enough to continue on with school! Just eight weeks left! My own break is coming up in April, and it will be autumn here. It’s fun to watch the trees turning different colours. I can foresee leaf jumping in the near future. For now, though, I’ll keep my eyes on the frontier ahead, and be sure to report any tribbles and odd creatures and occurrences more regularly to you all! (Thanks, Kelsey, for reminding me to update!)


Cheers,
Nicole

Luke 8:22-25