My Intestimony

A neat picture at Allan's Beach after some drizzle.

Four days with the stomach flu away from home may have me down, but I'm not out.  All I can say is that I'm thankful that I'm not 20 meters down the hall from a locked dormitory bathroom.  I've gotta hand it to what ever bug this was, it was a formidable match for my immune system.  For a while there I wasn't sure I was going to make it.  Every stabbing stomach convulsion took another big hit on my morale as I started to wonder if it was, in fact, just a bug.  Bugs, to me, were day long endeavors maybe with the sniffles or a bit of a sore throat.  If those are bugs this was a mutant tarantula.  I was still in pretty poor shape as I nestled into bed last night but with the help of some "gastrosoothe" the urgent care doctor gave me that night, I managed to sleep through the night.  Things were still pretty miserable this morning and then around 3 pm the tide turned.  I got out of bed, took a shower, and put on jeans for the first time since Monday.  I was a new man. Sitting up was finally bearable and I could change positions or get up and get things across the room with incredible ease.  At dinner,  I ate some potatoes and after letting that settle even moved on to the lemon and herb chicken roast my flatmate made.  I still am debating whether that was a good idea or not but I was just feeling so good at the time, and that chicken smelled soooo darn tasty.  I'm confident that I have crossed to the other side but I haven't stopped being grateful for the better health I'm feeling now (although only at probably 75%) just in case the "mutant tarantula" virus decides to come back and humble me again.  Every time I finally get over an illness, I seem to be saying, "I will never take health for granted again." But eventually, it just becomes a part of my everyday life and my concern turns to never getting quite enough sleep, or the 2,000 word paper staring me in the eye, or why the heck my computer isn't cooperating as well as I would like it to.  I can't imagine people living with diseases for numerous years or a life time.   From now on, I will pray more for people with poor health. It sure makes living a whole lot more difficult. Especially once you have to pay for it.  And now, it is time for me to try to sleep despite a very loud British accent version of Hey-Ya being sung in the flat next door.  Thanks again for reading.  Sending love your way.  

Consider this the last post before I submerge my self in the academic deep end for the next 5 days.   There hasn't been much work until now and maybe I should have stuck to my plan of working ahead better, but now I have essays due Tuesday and Thursday with a participation in online discussion sandwiched in between.  But then, it's off to Christchurch and then Australia for a week and a half.  We'll be touring the state of Victoria which includes (but is not limited to) Melbourne, the Grampians, and Great Ocean Road.  If I were looking ahead that far right now I'm sure I'd be excited but until then its like the cookie in the cookie jar that's up on the counter without a stepping stool in sight with an adult who doesn't want you to spoil your dinner standing in front of you.  Wish me luck on the papers, they should be very interesting, just time consuming.  I hope you North Americans and Europeans are enjoying spring and I hope you Colombians are enjoying your wet season.  Love to you all.

Shining, Shimmering, Splendor

     When I left this blog I was about to get 3 hours of sleep and then embark on a journey to Mt. Cook.  We got out of Dunedin at 4:16 a.m. and after taking a shortcut and making a wrong turn, got in the front of the line for reservations at the Mueller Hut at 7:40.  About 30 to 40 minutes ahead of schedule.   I attribute our obtaining the tickets to my Kiwi Host Dan's beastly driving and short cut sniffing skills along with the roads being completely clear at the ungodly hour.  The spectacular sunrise as we barreled through the straight valley roads was a good omen for things to come throughout the weekend.  We couldn't have had better weather if we had gone in the middle of summer.

  A fresh thick blanket of snow earlier in the week provided for surreal scenes and made our hike seem more adventurous.   It was one of the more challenging if not the most continuously challenging hikes I have ever done (4 hours practically straight up) but I loved every minute of the leg burning and heavy breathing.  We took time to swim in a small alpine pond, have lunch, and ambush the trailing members of our crew with snowballs.   The sunset cast a soft fuchsia glow on the towering Mount Cook.  Sunrise the next morning was nothing short of spiritually awe inspiring.  On top of Mount Olivier, the 360 degrees of splendor absolutely swallowed me up and cannot be described in any other way than poetic.  Sunlight beamed off of the snowy tops and ran down the mountain like a magnificent golden liquid as the sun rose higher above the horizon.  All of this came about on a last minute decision on Friday night to scrap the weekend plans and work and hit the road.  What a good decision.

     Now it's Tuesday and I've gotten a good start finally on my research papers.  I'll probably post my ethics one here when I'm finished, which will hopefully be less than a week from now if I plan to turn it in on-time.  I had planned on posting about the disgusting feeling I have right now after getting this Hare Krishna $3 lunch and then drinking a mountain dew earlier today; luckily I remembered about this weekend.  My digestive system still would thank you for your thoughts and well wishes, though.  Love to you all. 

Happy Birthday to Me!

 My birthday week has been a good one.  One half teens, one half twenties and an all around good week.  In the waning minutes of my teenage years I found myself wanting to do something involving poor judgement and lack of foresight.  When else in my life will I be able to make bad decisions and just blame it on the age range I fall into?  When you're a teenager, people expect you to mess up.  When you're 20, you know better.  Unfortunately the worst judgement I could muster was kicking a football over the fence on accident.  Then I felt bad about it so I went and brought it back.  And just like that my teenage years were over and I have now moved on the the roaring 20's.   I think this is the decade where you're supposed to figure your life out. Although the teens was the decade where I was supposed to reach 5' 8", so we can't hold on to expectations too much.  I definitely feel younger and less mature than what I always perceived 20 year olds to be when I was little.  I remember visiting Justin at UNL when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and thinking how old 20 was and what I would be like when I was 20.   Turns out bathroom jokes are still funny, I'm still extremely ticklish, and I still like to play outside.  I'm not in a hurry for those to change.  So goodbye 13 through 19, you've treated me well and your fun will be tough to beat. Hopefully the 20's will give you a run for your money.  Especially since you had none haha. I crack myself up.

Speaking of playing outside, we are planning to go to the Mount Cook area in about 3.5 hours.  Mt. Cook, or Aoraki as it's named in Maori, is the tallest mountain in NZ, reaching above 9,000 ft.  We'll only get to about half that elevation I think but we'll still run into snow about half way up our intended trail.  The overnight low at the hut will be in the upper twenties so I'll be wearing lots of layers to bed.  Should be a great weekend.  With that, I'm off to bed, finally.  Thanks for reading. Love to you all.

If only I could find my cellphone this quickly...

Botanic Gardens last week

I was in the Library again today, to stick with the recent trend of academic productivity, and was so moved by the preciseness that the books related to the subject I wanted that I decided to post about it.  It all started with a later than usual flat shop for the coming week.  Nothing can kill evening productivity like a late dinner so time was of the essence.  Usually I come home from Uni around 5:30 or 6 and then just kind of putts around until dinner and then get going after I'm full and happy.  Last night we didn't eat till 8:30 so there was quite a bit of puttsing and then I decided to increase my knowledge of New Zealand culture and cinematography by watching the second Lord of the Rings film.  Not exactly productive.  We started the drive home from the Pak n' Save around 7 and I got my first manual transmission, left side of the road driving experience.  Yes, the stick shifting is done with the left hand.  It was a little weird but it must feel great for a left hander to come here and finally have something geared towards them (no pun intended).  I felt like I was in drivers ed again as I cautiously spotted where I wanted to go on each turn and drove 5 mph under the speed limit.  You wouldn't think simply flipping everything to the opposite side would mess with you that much but it really takes a lot of concentration at first.  Staying on the correct side of the road comes quickly when your life is on the line, however.  Anyway,  back home, after a not too late dinner, I made my way through the fresh Dunedin night to the library to begin research on my paper about Africa.  I have decided that I want to do my paper on the problems of rapid city growth in Africa and how the effects of those problems might be alleviated.  I also had decided that I would try to focus specifically on the rural-urban interactions because the degree of urbanization tends to depend on what's going on or going wrong in the rural areas.   I walked for about 5 minutes through the florescent lit aisles of the Central Library before finding the Mother Lode.   In almost no time I was thumbing through a book titled "Rural-Urban Interactions in the Developing World."   How good is that?!   Needless to say, I'm quite excited about the recent acquisition and plan to get (as they say here) stuck into the reading tomorrow.   With that, expect a special edition Birthday post from me again tomorrow and wish me sweet dreams.  Love ya.

Swing on a vine over a stream? Check.

Greetings from a well rested blogger on a rainy Monday afternoon.   I was graced with an extra hour of sleep this weekend as New Zealand fell back out of daylight savings time.  For those of you in the central time zone, just subtract 7 hours from your current time and add a day to find out what time it is here.  Classes are going well.  I ended up dropping the Physical Geography course but still managed to get in touch with the subject by climbing Signal Hill in the time allotment the class normally occupied.   One of the coolest things about Dunedin is how quickly you can get out of town and into nature.  And not like the dirty Papio Creek or Lake Laverne nature at home, clean, fresh nature like forests, streams, and mountains.  From my flat, it's a 15 minute walk to the city center and about a 30 minute walk in the other direction to be surrounded by sheep pastures, huge rolling hills, and the occasional towering gum tree forest.  I fulfilled yet another life goal by swinging on a vine over a stream on our way back down from Signal Hill.  Yes, a vine.  Tarzan style.  Except I was a little better dressed.   Nevertheless, despite not going anywhere extreme, it was a very solid weekend.  I finished it off by playing this Israeli card game with some friends and participating in a club that does the Japanese war drumming called Taiko.

    This morning I began serious work on my essay for my God and Ethics class.  My topic may be whether it is a fair statement to say that Christian ethics are not based on a set of rules but rather the drama of salvation as outlined in the Bible.  I'm always amazed in college libraries, of the the amount of quality material on any subject you are looking for.  Hopefully my my research on developing countries in Africa for another essay goes equally as well.  A tall order considering the sleepy post lunch syndrome that I feel settling in, now.  With that, enjoy the pictures of the Eucalypti and  me achieving my life goals!
Love, Daniel