Over a Month Now

Huh. So last time I updated, I didn’t end on a very positive note.  And that was… about ten days ago. Oops.

I didn’t mean to go this long without updating; I’ve spent every evening for the last week telling myself to just sit down and catch up. But after spending all day trying to make something out of our project, I couldn’t find the motivation to write about it some more. So I kept putting it off in favor of my renewed obsession with Pokemon (Fire Red). And now it’s been long enough that the days have blurred together.

So I’m combining ten posts into one.

-After talking around in more circles all day Tuesday and part of Wednesday, we finally settled on a way to implement the definition we had previously created. While it wasn’t perfect, our sponsors and advisors both reassured us that it didn’t have to be, because this is social science, and by nature it’s flawed. (Not a direct quote.) We decided to run a survey presenting people with a series of posts and asking them how they would respond to those posts, and how they would rank them in terms of the three aspects of our definition. With that settled, our collective stress level dropped significantly, and we there was no more talk about our project’s worth or achievability.

-Thursday and Friday were spent writing and designing our survey. We intended to spend all day Friday getting our weekly writing done, but the survey took precedence; our advisors were kind enough to give us an extention until Monday evening so we didn’t have to work over the weekend.

-That weekend (February 2-3) was Sevens weekend. The Sevens is an international rugby tournament that takes place in Wellington and is a Really Big Deal™. To celebrate, everyone wears costumes. You’re supposed to get together a group of seven people and all dress to match, but there were plenty of smaller groups and even individuals in costume. Our sponsors said we shouldn’t work this weekend, we should just go out and have fun. So I bought a hat and gloves, which turned a dress I brought into a costume, and went out with my classmates. We found a live band playing on the streets and danced and had a good time. The variety of costumes was impressive, but the quality was underwhelming compared to, say, some Realms garb I’ve seen. I had a lot of fun, but if I’m being perfectly honest, it made me rather homesick; there were too many people I wanted there to share it with me. I also regret to say I didn’t get any pictures. I’ll see if I can snag some that my classmates took.

-Monday was spent writing and revising. We stayed late, breaked for dinner and a meeting with our advisors, then resumed and worked until midnight to get it done. It was harrowing; large portions of work I had written were scrapped and entirely re-written by my teammates, which left me wondering why I’d bothered to write it in the first place. But that’s just the brutal nature of revision. I was feeling better after our dinner break, and we finished on a good note.

-Tuesday we shared our survey with our sponsors, received feedback, and modified it accordingly. It went up on the Te Papa website by that evening. That left the rest of the week to work on (more) writing and revision, and wait for data to come in.

-Wednesday was Waitangi Day, the New Zealand equivalent of Independence Day. The treaty of Waitangi was a document, signed in 1839,(?) that gave Maori residents the same rights as the European settlers in the eyes of the British empire. The waterfront with packed with people, featuring lots of stalls selling snacks and Maori souvenirs, as well as a stage where various performances went on all day. I was lame and spent most of the day at Te Papa. I did, however, go on an adventure with one of my classmates to get a scooter. They were on sale at a local store, and the rest of my team had got them the day before. Because who wouldn’t want to scoot to work every morning? Also, there was a tsunami watch. As with most natural disaster watches, it was anticlimactic.

-More writing Thursday and today. By this point, we are all infinitely more relaxed about the project. I know my stress is significantly lower than it was two weeks ago; not only do we have a plan, but that plan has been put in action, and there’s not much left for us to do but collect the data and write about it. Our project is succeeding. It really is.

-My purse never turned up. I followed up at the train station and with the police; no luck. But my mom was able to transfer some cash to me through Western Union, and my new debit card is in the mail. I can get on fine without the cell phone. The passport card can be replaced once I return to America; I don’t need to worry about it now. The only things that aren’t so easily replaced are the purse itself, a Christmas present from a few years ago that I never got to use as much as I wanted to, and a bead necklace that one of my friends made me.  But stuff happens, lessons are learned, and life goes on.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here over a month now. I miss home. I miss my friends and my family. I miss the Realms events and the SMAS meetings. I miss FNF and the CBF girls’ sleepover. I miss being there with Pep Band to cheer on the undefeated men’s basketball team. I even miss the snow that I hear you all are being bombarded with this weekend. And I miss hugs.

But I still love it here. I really do. Sometimes I feel like I don’t ever want to leave. Often I feel like when I leave, I don’t want it to be forever.

Well, I still have three weeks. I intend to make the most of it.