Classes
I don’t think I’ve mentioned classes yet, so I thought I’d take a moment here.
1. Developmental and Cell Biology – So the labs for this class have been awesome. In the first lab we created life! We combined sea urchin eggs and sperm to create zygotes! Unfortunately, mine only reached the prism stage, before they all died 🙁 The next lab and this last lab involved growing cell cultures. This was neat as we were using human leukemia cells, which is something I have never worked with before. In this latest lab we manipulated cell differentiation by adding different agents to the cultures.
The lectures have also been a lot of fun as our professor is very into interactive learning. In one class she handed out different colored balloons to the class and had everyone blow them up. Then those with red balloon were to pop them, demonstrating cell death by
necrosis, while those with yellow balloons slowly let the air out to demonstrate apoptotic cell death. Another demonstration involved a hairy puppet as a neuron (the hair were the dendrites) and a tape measure in order to demonstrate axon growth.
2. Mathematical Logic – I have less to say about this class, but it’s been very interesting so far. We’ve been looking at the symbolic languages in logic, which are new to me. Syllogisms were also quite fun. For example, consider the following:
All animals are mobile
Unicorns are animals.
Therefore, some unicorns are mobile.
It seems true at first glance, right. And if you’d asked Aristotle, he’d have said it was true. But actually, by modern standards it’s false because there is no such thing as unicorns. So ha! Tricky right?
3. Maori Culture and Society – These lectures have been a blast as the lecturer has been amazing at painting a story. In addition we went on a visit to the marae, which is the Maori cultural/relgious meeting house. There we underwent a powhiri, which is their welcoming ceremony and had a tour of the facilities. The house itself is beautiful, filled with intricate carvings of the Maori ancestors.
The Fruit Market
As I’ve mentioned before, every Sunday here in Wellington there is an outdoor fruit market. It’s definitely the deal on produce so I’ve been going practically every weekend. There are several markets, but my favorite is by the harbor near Oriental Bay. I thought I’d share some photographs with you.
This last picture is of some mystery fruit I saw at the market one Sunday. As you can see from the broken one, the inside appears to be red. I really have no idea what these are. As I was looking at them, two older kiwi women shopping nearby also appeared to be examining them so I asked them what the fruit were. One of the women said that she had no idea and that the Wellington market was the only place she had ever seen them before. So, if you know the identity of the mystery fruit, please comment and let me know. Next time, I will definitely ask the people running the stand!
After looking at all this awesome fruit, I stopped for lunch at one of the stands. They had amazing lamb wraps!
Cooking
I’ve had several cooking adventures since arriving in NZ. I don’t have a meal plan here so I have to cook my own meals. After several nights of spaghetti and meatballs or chicken stir fry I’d exhausted the majority of my recipes so naturally I called home. The following is a picture of my grandmother’s noodle kugel, which I reproduced despite the lack of broad egg noodles in Wellington!
In other adventures I decorated a pavlova with my international buddy, Kezia. She is from Malaysia, but has been living in New Zealand for several years. After pavlova decoration, there was an international student welcome. This was mostly a social event where I was able to meet lots of people.
Pavlova is a New Zealand desert. It sort of looks like angel food cake at first glance, but it definitely isn’t. It is wetter and sweeter and lighter all at the same time! Someone told me that is is mostly sugar and egg whites, not baked, but chilled together and covered in cream. The one my group decorated is a bit haphazard, but ours all the same. (The sprinkles may have melted a bit 🙂
And Lastly…
For those of you who may want to see a picture of me, here is Andrea and I. Andrea is my neighbor from Mexico City. Also, my dress was bought right here in Wellington. I’ve definitely noticed that Wellington has its own unique style…but more on this later as I am somewhat oblivious of most fashion in general and so it will take a bit more observation before I have much to say…
Location: Oriental Bay, Wellington, NZ
But we also did climbs that were a little more difficult and so for safety used ropes and harnesses.
One of the girls contemplates crossing between boulders.
On the walk back I saw a seal lying on the beach. I almost walked past it as it was camouflaged by the sand.
The seaweed was also very different from anything I’ve ever seen at home. It looked more like huge octopus tentacle, all sprouting from a base stuck onto a rock, and as the tide came in and out the long limbs moved in the water, almost as though they were conscious.
