Fed Up

Kia Ora! So my life here is becoming very routine now I'm in my sixth week of uni. Get up, go to class, do some work, hang out with Mary, Nicole, and Jess, get pizza on Mondays, gelato and crepes on Wednesday, and then wherever the weekend take us. We never made it to Zealandia last weekend. We went downtown to grab some lunch, and it had been drizzling which was fine. We all had raincoats. Shout out to Mom and Dad for buying me one. I would be a drowned rat without it. But then it started pouring, and we decided it just wasn't worth going to in a downpour. We planned on going this weekend instead, but that never happened either. Hopefully we'll get there someday. Our plan this weekend was to go to the rugby game, which I was super excited about. I don't know much about rugby except for going to a few games my freshman year, but it is a huge sport here, and I haven't been to a sporting event since KSU's last football game. Of course we didn't know that the Hurricane's, Wellington's rugby team, has two home stadiums. One is here in Wellington, and the other is up in Napier, which is about four hours away. This weekend's was of course in Napier.

Friday consisted of Nicole, Mary, and Jess coming over to my place to watch Glee with me and then to watch Tangled. Of course everyone brought over a package of TimTams, and we had a TimTam party after the movie. Everyone  but Nicole had yet to try a TimTam slam. This consists of biting off the opposite corners of the cookie, sticking it in the beverage of choice (we chose milk), and sucking it up through the cookie like a straw. When the liquid hits your mouth you shove the rest of the cookie in your mouth all at once. Its like you let an Oreo sit in milk for a little bit. Amazing. Mary had some difficulties. For some reason, she couldn't get any milk to come up. After quite some time, she finally got it. This was all videoed by the way. I then had some problems when I tried to do another one but didn't have much milk in my glass. I tilted the glass too far, and the milk came pouring out between the glass and the cookie.

Anyways, Friday was an absolute blast. Laughing is inevitable when we're together, and we don't do much else. Saturday, I had to get some work done, but then we took ourselves out to dinner to make up for the rugby game. We've been hearing mixed reviews about this place called The Flying Burrito Brothers. We decided to try it because we'll never know for ourselves if we don't. We had a forty-five minute wait, so we sat at the bar and let the bartender make us fun drinks. Special of the night was a Sea Breeze margarita. The bartender let us try a sample. It was good enough for us to order a pitcher. I probably should have had a snack before because I was drunk through dinner. Oh well. It made for a better night. Dinner was good, but not like the Mexican food back in the States. Probably because there are no Mexicans here. And it was way to pricey for what we ordered, but again, oh well. We then headed back to Mary and Jess' to watch Despicable Me where we collapsed into a fit of giggle all over again.

So frankly I am just fed up with studio. The other papers really aren't too bad, but I just can't stand studio anymore. I knew it was going to be different. Not all schools are alike, and I don't think there are many programs like K-State's, but I'm actually missing studio at home. Weird, I know. That phrase will probably haunt me forever. To start off, probably around the second week of uni, I noticed that a good half of the class was missing. That's weird, I thought. At home, you don't miss studio. There are a few select people who will miss once in a while, but overall everyone goes to class. It is looked down upon if you don't go, and considering the program I'm in, you just don't miss. So I asked one of the guys if this was normal, and he said no. So I thought it was maybe a one time thing. Wrong. A good quarter of the class is missing everyday. How is that possible? It's studio for Christ's sake! And you're an architecture major! Maybe the professors care, and they just don't vocalize it. I don't know. So I decided to skip today. When in Rome right? The only time I have ever skipped out on studio at home is when I left for Thanksgiving early.



Then there's the problem with how the studios are set up. They have computers provided by the school for students to use, but of course these are shared computers, and no one gets their own. Unless of course they have a laptop of their own. However, during my studio time, there is another paper using almost all of the computers. So when it comes time for the professors to come around and talk to everyone about what they're doing (this doesn't happen very often, which is super weird since this happens everyday of studio at home) I usually don't have a computer to show them what I've been working on. Plus, I can't work on anything anyways during this time. Actually, most of the time we don't get any time to work on stuff during studio. However, if we do have something on the computer to show them, they have a portable computer with a large screen that you can pull your stuff up on. However, this still doesn't allow me to get any work done. It is super frustrating. I just miss having my own space. I'm really grateful that they provide students with computers, but I just work so much better when I have my little square to work in with my computer and all my stuff lying around all over the place.

The good thing about studio is that I haven't had much work up until now, which is of course very strange. However, it helps that I'm not taking the full landscape course load. Plus, I'm used to working on a studio project and construction project, along with some work for a few other classes. Its been nice having time at night to do as I please.

Colour, Pattern, & Light got a bit better this week. I missed Tuesday's class because my eye was burning and watering. I headed to the student health center to get it checked out. I had Conjunctivitis, some sort of eye infection. The doc gave me a prescription, but of course the two pharmacies in town that will give you the prescription for free through school's insurance were nowhere near by, but I walked there right away because I couldn't take it anymore. They called a pharmacist here a chemist. Of course I had to wear my glasses and no make up for the next few days. Not a huge deal, but I hate having to wear my glasses. My depth perception gets weird, and I get nervous to walk down stairs. Plus,of course the sun chose these days to come out and play. Not cool. But I'm  back in my contacts and life is good. Anyways,back to colour, pattern, & light. We have an assignment where we choose a context from her list and transform it into whatever we choose, but we have to be conscious of the objects we choose and what we're portraying. Lighting is the key factor in this assignment. Check it out

One last thing. I was at this little market just down the hill, and there were these hot dog like sausage things. I considered buying them, and then I saw the cheese filled ones, and that talked me into getting them. So last night, I was making some potato wedges, and I threw the sausage in the oven when the wedges were done, but I was too impatient, so I took it out and threw it in the microwave. I've never seen such a disgusting looking sausage before. It was pale and looked like shriveled up skin. I overlooked this fact and took a bite. It was disgusting. I took a second bite just to make sure, and then promptly threw it and the rest of the package away. Looks like I won't be having a hot dog until the 4th of July. Oh well. It will make it that much better. Until next time...

Kia Ora,
Laura