Queenstown pt 2

If I haven't made it clear yet, Queenstown is an absolutely stunning place.

What an adventure!

Connor, my flatmate and Alexa, his girlfriend and I headed to Queenstown last Friday. Weather forecasts were against us predicting rain and snow all weekend, but that didn't stop us. After all the weather in NZ can change in one minute and you can experience four seasons in one day.

We drove there in the evening in pouring rain. Luckily Nomad backpackers hostel was nice and warm. Fergburger was the dinner destination, recommended to Alexa by a friend of hers. The burgers they serve are amazing! Watch any hamburger commercial for McD or Burger King and imagine there is a real burger like that - big and crispy, with lots of salad and grilled beef. I ordered one with lamb - yummy! (though I couldn't finish it)


Next morning Connor and Alexa were going to go bungy-jumping. I'm not crazy enough for that, so I decided to follow them and watch the horror instead. While getting their booking confirmed I read the ads and saw something called the world's highest swing - Nevi's Arc. Without knowing what to expect, whether to be afraid or not, I decided to go. Connor and Alexa were nervous, but not me, I was just going to go for a swing. A bus took us all to some remote location where adrenalin was in the air.





First we watched some people jump, and then it was Connor's turn. (I was still calm, just enjoying the views). It didn't even look like he hesitated, he just jumped with his hands out like a bird. I don't think I can grasp the overwhelming feeling of falling helplessly into a deep valley with an ice cold river. Many people dream about flying, and this is probably as close as you can come to flying without any support.

Alexa jumped after him, with the same determination and grace. They both looked very elegant in the air.

They were both very happy after the jump, so I guess bungy jumping is worth both the fear and the price (it is quite expensive).


Then it was my turn to get an adrenalin kick! I was not nervous at all, in fact I was very excited and happy. I decided to go first, because I haven't yet seen anyone do the Swing (and if I had I'm not sure I would have jumped) and I also chose to swing backward (avoiding to see the ground below).


The Swing is in a pretty deep valley. The arc is about 200 m, the rope is 120 m and since I was starting at one point I had to be dropped about 70 m, without any tension. One second I was there, hanging in my harness, smiling. And then someone pushed a button and I was falling handless into the valley. It was crazy!


And this is how happy I was afterwards (the guy behind me works there, he is not a scared customer):


I'll post more photos from Queenstown next time. It's such a beautiful place!

Live, love, learn, laugh

I have never spent as much studying in my entire life as I do now. The late nights at the library have become all nighters in the commerce building, because unlike the library it's open 24/7. At the same time I have never felt as stupid as I do almost every day now. In spite of all this, my time here has been absolutely awesome! The people I've met here are so cool and funny and really friendly. A part of me always wants to return home, but the other part secretly wishes this could last forever. Now it's not a secret anymore - I'm having a blast!

This weekend, Connor, Alexa and I are going to Queenstown. Can there be a better way to start off studying for the 4 coming exams? :)

Urban dictionary

"Julia - a name for girls. Most julia's are artistic, smart, romantic, beautiful and also very charming. Julia's can get whatever they want if they try. They can be very sexy so watch out! They are romantics and love old movies, art and books. they love old stuff! They usually aren't very athletic but if a julia is athletic she's kick butt! they have great fashion sense and usually look smokin'. A julia will most likely become a mother because they love kids. They are very successful in life and there is just something about them that draws people in. Also they are ah-mazing dancers!" //Urban Dictionary

It's crazy, but 70 % of that is actually a good description of me. I know there are some negative sides as well, but who cares when it all sounds like a shameless self-promotion. Copy-paste to my CL!

Btw: A photo from Andrew's awesome 21st party last Saturday. Credits to the photographer, whoever it was. Jane, Andrew and me are in the same economics classes.

Time

“You lose it all the time - the track of time." sings Anna Von Hausswolff. And I think she is right, I'm always tangled in time. This has become a big issue because for the past 6 weeks I've been working in a group project to organise an event. The project is about activating your leadership potential; the organisation behind it is AIESEC - the largest international student organisation.

Back to the event. We (Tony, Marijn, Sadia, Shuyi and I) decided to organise an event which deals with personal development, and specifically time management. Time is all we got. No matter what people do with their lives, no matter how smart or skilled they are - time is all we got. So we did a time management workshop. We went from being completely unaware of what time management is to being able to hold a whole workshop (with a little help from guest lectures). The event was a big success, about 50 people came, listened, took notes, participated in our planned activities and shared their own experiences with us. I'm so proud of this - how it went from a vague idea to this wonderful event. I have so much excess energy now, I can't sleep!

I have to admit I have learned a lot about time management by organising this event. Unfortunately I can't say I'm any good at managing my time, even now after 6 intensive weeks of preparations. It's not just about making lists, setting up goals and not getting distracted. You also have to realize it's a lot of hard work - especially when you need to change some of your habits. I'll get there, but first I have to find a motivating long term goal for where I want to be. Those of you who know me well, I might seem very determined and motivated already, but this is not the complete truth. In fact I have no idea where I want to go, what I want to do in life etc. I just know I love the combination of business and psychology. I need some time to sit down and think about the future. Note to self in my calendar: Saturday 15:00 - 18:00 Come up with life time goal.

The bad news is that time flies, the good news is that you're the pilot.

Busy bee

I will post more photos from Abel Tasman when I'm not as busy. I just don't know when that is.

Mt Robert - the first mountain I've ever climbed

Mt Robert is one of the mountains of Nelson Lakes National Park. It's 1421 m high (Wikipedia) and you can climb up all the way in about two hours (or even less if you are fit). I'm not sure Kiwis would say it's a real mountain, since they have way higher peaks here. In Sweden anything above 200 m above sea level is a mountain, in NZ it would be another hill.
However, mountain climbing looks easy, but since I'm not fit for any type of physically exhausting activity, yet, this was quite a challenge. But thanks to Eilidh, Dougal (her little brother) and their father I made it to the top :)

They have some funny names for other mountains in Nelson Lakes National Park. Imagine attempting to climb Mt Misery or Mt Hopeless...


Here are a couple photos from that day:










We also went for a short walk near the lake Rotoiti:


The water was quite cold and full of eels, but these crazy people just jumped in!



You may wonder why the eels were there. I'll explain the philosophy of the national parks in a few words for you.
- A national park is supposed to protect the nature, so no hunting, fishing, polluting, rubbish, dogs etc. are allowed
- They are free to visit for anyone, but if you happen to be a possum, rat or any other sort of introduced animal you are considered a pest. Nelson Lakes National Park is almost free from pests, which is good for the small population of the re-introduced kiwi birds living there
- You have to wash shoes and everything else that has been in contact with water where algae live, before you enter any clean water areas
- No fires are allowed in national parks
- You are not allowed to use anything else than a toilet cabin for you needs
- Don't feed the animals/birds in any national park

Drunk for the first time in New Zealand

I'm not joking! I'm on exchange, living in a city full of scarfies (totally decadent students) and the first time I get a little drunk is on a brewery tour. Yep, that's my student life here in a nut shell.

The Speights brewery tour was awesome. I learned a bit about how beer is made and why we say "Skål!" (cheers!) in Sweden.

The best part was when we all got to try six different beers. We walked around the taps in a circle holding two glasses each, trying to drink as much as possible in 15 minutes. Sweet as!


Apologies for the poor picture quality, my big camera stayed at home that night.

Btw, why are all the Blogger backgrounds so pathetically ugly???

So much to tell...

Haven't been updating this blog for a while, but that doesn't mean that there are no pictures to show, no story to tell. Actually I have tons of pictures and a lot of cool things to share! Brewery tour, Mt Robert & Nelson Lakes, Centre of NZ, epic Abel Tasman adventure and the most recent news - an earthquake. Stay tuned!

Suddenly it was there!

I couldn't miss this wonderful opportunity. Two rainbows just a couple hundred metres from me. I snapped the shots through my window.

Abel Tasman!

Photo from: http://www.lafessecacheedumonde.com/goodies_en.html

I Googled "Abel Tasman" and this picture came up. Now I'm expecting a lot - a beautiful national park and a lot of tanned naked men.

On Friday Eilidh are heading off to Nelson, stopping in Christchurch on the way. When we get to Nelson I'll make sure Eilidh shows me this paradise!

Morning fog

View from my window.

A normal Monday

8:00 - Woke up, took a shower
8:10 - Ate breakfast, breathing fumes in the cold kitchen
8:45 - Went to school with a backpack weighting way too much (laptop, books, lunch, glasses etc.)
9:00 - Tutorial in accounting, started with a 10 min quiz on this week's case
9:50 - Rushed to the next lecture in another building
10:00 - 2 hour lecture in another accounting paper, professor was going through exactly the same things as the book did (and I had just summarized the readings during the weekend)
11:50 - Ate lunch with Blake and Paula (fellow accounting students)
13:00 - Studied at the library with Paula
15:00 - Went to an econometrics lab, understood nothing, sat there through the next one and still had no idea what to do. Damn Eviews!
19:00 - Went to a meeting with my Activate project group, we brainstormed and decided we should do an event on time management
20:00 - Met Scott in the library and we tried to finish an assignment in microeconomic theory, but were too tired
22:30 - Went home, ate dinner, chatted with Eilidh about our trip to Nelson (mid-term break!)
23:30 - Fell asleep hugging my laptop

Cheers!

This is about as much daylight as I see every day

I know it's sad, but I spend all my free time at the library studying. It's open from 9 am to 11 pm, heated and offers good internet connections and cozy armchairs.

I'll try to keep the blog alive.

Perseids

Botanical garden

I went shopping the other day, and the way to the supermarket goes through Dunedin Botanical Garden. So here are some photos from my quick walk:

And I thought this would be easy...

When the university finally confirmed my enrolment for all 5 papers I thought this was going to be a nice and easy semester with a lot of free time to explore New Zealand. I was so wrong.

I have now reduced my workload to 4 papers and I still feel that I won’t be exploring anything other than what’s written in the bunch of thick (and expensive) books I’ve bought for this semester. Here I have to study all papers simultaneously and then have 4 exams within two weeks. That’s 100 % workload for an ambitious student (3 papers = 100 % for a less ambitious student). People pay for every paper they do, so there is no rush really and most do 3-4 papers per semester. And I thought I’d do 5, easily.

The difficulty of the papers here should be taken seriously. Some are really easy, while others feel overwhelmingly hard if not impossible. Students with good grades on their Bachelor degree can proceed and do an honours degree (one extra year). I wouldn’t say my grades are good in certain subjects; in fact they are really crappy. Yet I’m doing two papers for honours’ students and I find them arduous (just to use a nice word). I see them as big challenge because that makes me feel less stupid.

I would never have time to study 200 % and work part time as I did in Sweden. It’s not easier there, but the assessment is concentrated to exams and group projects. Here assessment is spread out as marmite on toast. It tastes salty, just like sweat and tears. I’ve had none of that yet, but I’m sure it will come sooner or later.

Now I’m going to find out what consumers really want in microeconomic theory.

Cheers!