He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

Now I know why they say this in the song, Down Under, because vegemite is disgusting. Well actually in New Zealand they have Marmite which is almost the exact thing, but whatever they taste like the saltiest smoothe spread you have ever had. They in no way compare to our peanut butter that I was told to believe in the States. I made the mistake of thinking vegemite was a chocolate spread at my host sister's flat, smearing tons of the stuff on a piece of toast, which in turn made me gag and spit the vile thing into the sink. I guess you are supposed to eat it on toast with a lot of butter and the thinnest spread of the stuff.

Ok I have not written in here in awhile (with good reason) but a TON of stuff has happened so I am going to try and get through 2 today.

A few weeks ago I had been awarded with a part in a short play because I was sitting closest to my drama teacher at the time when the other guy managed to not show up. So anyway, BAM I am in a competition called Sheila Win. Our play was taken out of Hamlet and we did a modern interpretation of it, wearing actual gear worn in WW2. I played the messanger and had a couple of lines to memorize and we had about zero practices before the actual competion. I should also mention that the winners of the competion win a free trip to Christchurch for five days for a bigger Shakespeare competition. Shakespeare is really not my thing at all but I really wanted to win this trip because my school won last year and they had a blast there. So with our gear all set and our lines memorized we went to the show at Center Stage in Invercargill. It was actually very nerve wracking because our play was meant to be serious and I am not the most serious guy, and it wasn't until we got right on stage that I realized how many fighting scenes we had...

The play started off good, and then my part came on. How stupid I must have looked up there! I completely forget sometimes that I have a different accent then other people and that not everyone knows I am from America. First line: "Gracious my Lord, I should report that which I say I saw." Confused faces in the crowd I'm sure thinking to themselves "what the hell kinda accent is this guy trying to put on???" Well anyways I am then strangled by the main character and shoved to the ground on stage. Then another guy comes out and the main charater strangles him to death. then another guy comes out and they fight again, pause, then again, pause, and then that guy kills the main character. The play is only 11 minutes long and as you can see the last five minutes were a constant barely-rehearsed fighting scene. Bound to look stupid on stage with high school kids trying to be serious and constantly fighting. I also forgot to mention that at the end I was a scavenger and had to take all the gear off the dead main character including his shirt (that happened to be a tight long sleeve one that took at least 20 awkward seconds to rip off) I believe that our very serious take on the play somehow came out looking somewhere between funny, awkward, and bleak. Well thats over with and needless to say we did not win. However, another team from our school did, so thats good. They were 3 guys that were also in our play but did another funny one on there own that was very impressive. I do have to say though, that all in all it was a very good time and I am SO glad I did it. I mean come on, how random to do this in New Zealand. Who knows maybe I will still be able to go to Wellington anyways with those guys as, I dont know, stage manager?



I am trying to remember other stuff I did before the play, but it was mostly sports practices and getting more acquainted with New Zealand and the people here. I can honestly say I feel more like I live here now than a tourist. Especially in Invercargill, it just feels like home, and since I have been doing sports, getting involved in school, doing lame shakespeare things, doing school production, and other stuff, people here see me more than just a random exchange student. This makes me very happy as this is the exact thing I would like to achieve.