Short update

It all of a sudden feels like home, and not really for any specific reason at all. I mean not that home-ey feeling you get when your with your real mom and dad who know everything about you and care for you without any judgement and just be there for you. But just sitting here right now it does not feel uncomfortable or new or awkward and I feel no homesickness. I don't wake up in the morning and go "where the hell am I?" anymore. I don't go in to school anymore going "well who the hell am I going to sit with at lunch?" I can talk and be normal with people now. Of course I still am the new kid and the american but I am no longer seen as just a random exchange student anymore. I still get the odd stare-down in the hallway from kids who have not seen me yet, and I definitely recognize stares on the bus sometimes but the people who used to do the staring have finally started talking to me I am not seen as a mysterious foreigner. I have definitely clarified (on several occasions... ok, almost every new conversation I have had) that americans are not how they appear in the movies, we do not have to go through medal detectors to get in to school, we all are not rich white people down on poor black people, we do not see drive-by's regularly on the street, I do not notice how skinny people are in NZ compared to the usa,  yes we do have fraternities and cafeterias  but the parties arent always as crazy as they appear on the movies and we do not always have food fights in our dinning areas, we DO say tomAto even if it sounds stupid to them (here it is tomoto as the saying goes), and the "NO WE DONT HAVE MEAT PIES IN AMERICA, we just put fruit in pastry... YES, I KNOW, ITS CRAZY!" --- but even though these are funny and sound quite stupid they actually think this based on TV. And that is why I find this experience so great along with finally feeling completely at home. I am able to live totally immersed in a new society in a place that I now feel at home in while learning about the world and gaining a better understanding of people and I am in return sharing my culture with the people who live here. I am debunking stereotypes and also proving them in some cases, and they are doing the same. I am never bored here and I find every interaction I have with people here very fun and interesting every time, whether it be a ten year old on the bus asking what lollies I eat in America or an adult that is sharing some history with me on a country they are very proud of. I am starting to feel like a kiwi.

Moonshine

Yesterday I probably did one of the most exhilarating and hardest things I have ever done. It was called the Moonshine, and the Moonshine was a 40k mountain bike race through the "hills" of Gore (I would have called them mountains). Well the Moonshine actually consisted of a 30k, 35k, and 40k mountain bike race as well as a 10k, 15k, and 30k running race. This race was pretty much decided on a whim when a friend at school asked me if I was doing the race. I had never even hear of it but asked my host family if i could do it and they said yes. My host dad had heard of it and knew it was pretty hard and tried to discourage me from doing the 40k which had the Cone Peak climb and the end. I was dead set on doing this race and I wanted it to be as challenging as possible because I have never been pushed to my limits physically in a race solely based on the terrain. Even with my host parents telling me it was really hard I thought to myself that it really couldnt be that bad and that I would actually try and race really well. I was in for a huge shocker...

The night before I had the run through with my host dad and a family friend who is amazing with bikes on what to do if something goes wrong. I learned how to take off the tires, change tires, check for loose debris hidden in tires, and break and re-fix the chain. I also had a go through of my backpack which would save me in the race. I had a whistle, gu (energy jells), chocolate bars, jelly beans (seemed unnecessary), tools for bike, a camelback, spare tires, and a caffeine tablet. All of a sudden the 40k bike race was starting to seem a little intimidating, but seriously this is around 25 miles and I have done 70 miles on a bike before, how could it be that bad? I just assumed my host dad thought I was really unathletic. 

After the debrief was done I had one of the most random things I've done here. A water polo match! It was really really fun and I met a lot of cool guys through it. I was talking with a swimmer at school and I told him I swam for 6 weeks when I was injured with running. He then told me I was on the water polo team. They dont even have practices lol. We lost the game but I got to play for the majority of the game and I did not even make a fool of myself.... ok I did a little bit but I never even heard the whistle blow so it doesnt count. I then came home and went to sleep thinking about a race that I had no idea what it would be like.

I woke up early, put on my biking clothes, got my backpack, had breakfast (toast with a poached egg and beans on top, so good), my host dad set up the bike, and then he took me an hour away to a town called Gore. My race started first and as we took off on the gravel road we immediately hit hills. I thought "wow this must be the hardest part and must be down hill for most of the way." Well we did hit a long fast downhill (which i did no take fast because I am not use to mountain biking or hard terrain) and then turned onto a paddock that raised up onto a very large hill. The path was grass going up a steep hill and it hit me that this is probably the most physically demanding part of the course. After grinding to the top of that it was a downhill of steep grassy and rocky path to which I had numerous close calls with falling. The race progressed and only got hillier, steeper, grassier, and rockier. I could not even use the downhills as breaks because I had to hold the bike so steady so as I did not fall off the faces of cliffs (werent exactly cliff cliffs but they were a hell of a drop off). When I was certain i must be at least over half way (no kilometer markers) a man told me I was only 10k in! My legs were already becoming useless with so much effort being placed on them. sometimes as we would go up the hills we would be going slower then I could walk it carrying my bike. But to walk is to be weak. I then sucked it up and prepared myself mentally for what I thought would be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.  

I crossed rivers carrying my bike over my head, speed down hills with mud pits at the bottom of them, but the most fun of all was just being able to look to the left or right of me and see the AMAZING scenery. It was incredibly beautiful. I could not see any houses, just mountains, hills, sheep, and fields. I was not racing for time anymore (even though my goal was to break 3:30 which my host dad said would be a really good time for me, and I wanted to prove that I could do really well) I was going just for the finish. As I reached around the 2/3 mark of the race I stuffed my face with the jelly beans and chocolate bars as I kept riding. They took my mind off the pain and became complete necessities for me. I seriously ravaged through my food. And as i furtherd myself into the race with the terrain getting harder and harder, I saw people beginning to walk more with their bike ahead of me. That was all i needed and I was off my bike pushing. Of course there were places earlier in the race where it was too steep and walking was necessary but these hills were just as steep as the hills that people were climbing at the beginning and now were walking here. Racers were starting to break down and I could feel myself starting to also. We made our way out on to a relatively flat gravel road where the bike races would split up. 30 and 35k riders striaght to the finish line, 40k riders do a u-turn up to Cone Peak. That was so gutting to see these riders go off to the finish line when I had to still do 5 more kilometers the hardest part of the race. Little did I know that I would not even be on my bike for the majority of it.

As I turned in the U-turn that took me out into a grassy field I looked up and saw a mountain and people just walking their bikes up to the top of it. Not one person was on their bike. My quads were completely done and I had to walk 2k up one of the steepest paths I have ever been on to the top of a mountain. It took 40 minutes to get to top with every single one of my muscles grinding to just get to the end get to the end get to the end. I passed many people going to the top, I think mostly because I am used to running and all of these people were cyclists. But now came the most exhilarating part. A straight down path to the bottom and finish line only 3ks away. I knew I was at the end and I knew what I had accomplished and to just be at the top of the peak and see the finish line so far away at the bottom was incredible. This down hill was not as steep and rocky as the previous ones and I could fly down going as fast as 60ks almost all the way to the finish. It was crazy and I was hooting and hollering all the way down. Maybe that sounds lame but I was on such an incredible high from the whole experience. I came across the finish line in 3 hours and 5 minutes with a huge smile on my face. 

 When I finished I was not even tired because I was so excited. My medal was a lanyard with a little Hokonui Whiskey bottle at the end of it (it is actually whiskey). It was completely amazing and now I find myself in love with mountain biking! 

To run barefoot at the end of the world

I am writing this before I go to bed so I can get the full story of my day as it is fresh in my memory. Its not a very long story though, but Ill try to catch my mindset that I had throughout the experience. Today at school there was supposed to be sports day, a major major school event in which all of the houses go head to head in a big athletics competition, but it was cancelled due to rain. Everyone at school was completely gutted, because as I have heard, its supposed to be the best day of the school year. All the houses paint up in there house color (my house is Pearce and the color black) and do crazy chants trying to intimidate the competition. You can enter in to all the events and if you qualify (I dont know how, maybe top 5?) you go to championship day a couple of weeks later.  This is where the really athletic compete to win major house points, and this is also where I plan on winning as many running races as I can. I talked to people here about how I run and they think I am fast and when they tell other kids I am fast they all assume at sprints. Now my whole house and House leaders (some teachers) all think I am going to dominate the sprinting events. They are in for a rude awakening. Anything under 400m I am pretty worthless at. But no matter because sports day is mostly about having fun (even though most take it very seriously and take it to heart if their house looses. as my house has never won the competition in all of the almost 100 years the school has been around, I am not to worried about doing poorly). So hopefully if there is no rain tomorrow it will be on.

O, my outfit for sports day is a pair of my shortest running splitter shorts, long black socks, and a black tie to tie around my head. I will also be completely painted in black. Hopefully it wont be cold, but its invercargill and I was cold today with it being 55-60 degreesish and people were complaining at school because they were so hot they were sweating.

School was so boring because everyone was expecting to be having a blast all day when it turned out to be just a regular school day. My geography class in particular was boring with the teacher having a picture of a mountain and a car on a screen and had us recap on which one was man-made or natural and why... for the third day and a row... Anyways the day was a bit brightened by my catering class in which we had a savory scone assessment (pronounced scON with the ending like the word on. I get laughed at whenever I say scOWN) and I got a pass. I also got to eat and share them at my bus stop. side note: i thought i would hate riding the bus but I really like the group of guys on it and there is never a dull moment and I always walk home from the bus happy.

When I got home I just lazed around and was tired from the boring day. When I was about to take a nap, my host mom walked in and said "your going to get fat you need to go run or bike or something." Completely offended... not, I got up and decided that a bike ride would be nice. So I put on some biking shoes that clip into the pedals and went off for a 6k ride to Oreti beach (which incidentally had a shard attack there that was all over the news with my host mom's cousin's daughter being "bitten in the bum"). The 6k took way longer than I thought because the head wind was SO powerful but I got there and had an amazing view. 

I was looking out over the end of the world. Invercargill is located on the southern tip of the southern island  to show you proof of how far south it is, Invercargill has been awarded with the recognition of having the most southern McDonalds (mackers) in the world. No one is ever on the beach which I think is crazy being from FL and the coast is stunning. Massive sand dunes, wide beach area due to far receding low tide, and long long stretches of sand.

I had a what-the-hell moment: I hid my bike in the sand dunes, took off my shoes and socks, tied my shirt around my head, and then just ran down the coast. The wind was so strong, the temperature was crisp, and the the wet sand was packed in hard. It was amazing running, and I just kept going and going.  I never run barefoot (which completely showed when I came home with tons of painful blisters) but I am going to have to do that more often. It was the first time I think it really sunk into me that I am really in New Zealand and living here. I was alone on a massive beach at the end of the world and I could just think to myself of all the things I came here for and all of what I want to accomplish. 

Then I came home and ate an ice cream bar and butterfinger and then watched South Park... the day was pretty much epic

Borland Lodge and random things

Borland Lodge was the camp that my year 13 class attended the second week of school. It was a blast! If it was my class back home and around the area that I used to live in the camp would not have been that fun because we did not really leave the area to explore or do any outdoor activities. The days were mostly spent in classes where we had our 100 guys class split up into groups where we would learn about being a leader and mentor. Not very exciting but I got to meet everyone from my class who I really like and I learned how to play rugby and cricket just by jumping in the sport while everyone was playing. When I was going up to bat for cricket I got the american joke "hey batter batter batter" with everyone laughing which made me nervous and when the bowl came and I hit it I got over excited and went back to baseball ways and ran forward and threw my cricket bat behind me to the complete joy of everyone in the feild. Your not supposed to do that. You are supposed to run with your cricket bat... I am so american. They laughed for about 20 minutes but it was ok because I hit the ball pretty good and I stayed up for awhile before getting out. You really do need to prove yourself here through some sort of sport or at least try or everyone thinks your lame. There is this one sort of hipster kid in the class who would fit perfectly in to my old high school but he is seen as very weird here and kind of an outcast.  We also got to swim in a river which was fun, but the best part by far was when we all got in a circle in the grass and had a tap out competition where one guy who wanted to fight would call out another guy in the circle of similar wait and then it would be on. Wasnt too serious or anything but we definitely had some entertaining fights!

Commercials here are very weird. I guess there must be a lot of car crashes because all the commercial are about driving too fast, intersections, and drunk drving and they all involve someone dying. They are very creepy.

I saw the Prime Minister of New Zealand 2 days ago at the small Invercargill airport when we were picking up my host sister. That was lucky.

Invercargill is a very small town and much of it is rural like the place I am living, but it is known for its indoor biking track called the Velodrome. Its a 250 meter track with high steep banked turns. I am definitely going to start cycling there when the championships over the weekends stop in March. Over this past weekend I saw 2 new zealand records broken by a guy by the name of eddie dawkins who my host family knows and has been to out house. It was crazy, everyone in the Velodrome went crazy since he is from southland, the province Invercargill is located in.

Food here is delicious consisting of a lot of food that suits cold weather and a hardy eater: meat pies, toasties (bread with cheese bacon, onion, tomato, pineapple, ham, or basically anything you want) minced meat and spaghetti, sheep, lolli cake (cake with some sort of candy), and other hardy dishes. I eat ice cream everyday here too, its awesome. There is this thing called a crunchy bar that I had today... glorious 

I had a track race 2 days ago where I ran the 1500m. It was kinda a joke since there were only like 30 people at the whole meet, but it was still pretty fun. I think I might take off running awhile though and try more touch rugby and cycling. O, I am also getting back in to tennis. I guess my school team is not very good and I now have a court in my backyard so why not. There is a match in Christchurch which I am pretty keen to do so ill practice so i can make it. I might even do some soccer because our school also sucks at that and they need some more players. My friend says I dont even need to come to practice i can just show up for games lol.

Tonight I have an AFS pot luck tea, so that should be fun. I have been so busy here there is not really anytime to feel homesick which can only be good, but I am sure the day will be inevitable. I will just think about how lucky I am to be here and that this is a crazy adventure that will change my life and I will also remember it for the rest of my life.

Everything is amazing so far and I know it will only get better!

I will try to make the next post about the people here and how they react to me being american.  

video post

first day of school

School

Ill do school first before i talk about Borland Lodge year 13 retreat because I am at school right now.

current location: southland boys high school library
time: fourth period (my free period) 1:21 pm

School is way different then i expected it to be from america. School works like this: there are five periods in a day with a tutor period inbetween 1st and 2nd and 4th and 5th(kinda like homeroom but you just read for about 15 minutes and its a few kids from each grade in there) and there is an interval break (its like morning tea here) inbetween 2nd and 3rd for about 20 minutes. lunch is between 3rd and 4th, so you can see that there is a significant break inbetween each period. very confusing my first day when no one told me this and all i had on my time table was 5 periods. all year 13 get a free period each day too, and the classes shift around each day so that ill have all of my five classes 4 times a week. if you took away all the breaks that we get here and lunch, we would get out at like 12. they seem a little unnecessary and completely SUCK if you dont know anyone... my first 2 days of school. Now its completely different now that i know the majority of my class, i now fnd school awesome. Also my first days i realized that you are allowed to just leave school for lunch or if you have a free period. now its great but the first days i just saw everyone from year 13 just walk right off campus and i was like well wtf am i going to be doing. And being the big lamo i am, i just went to the library and chilled. first 2 days like i said, not very good. we also have assemblies once a week on thursdays that take the place of our second tutor period. And another juge difference here is that there are no bells, none. ok well thats a little lie. they only have 2. one for when interval is over and... actually i think that might be the only one. teachers here just release you when the time is over.

my classes:
PE-fun
catering- awesome!
calculus-easy and i like it
geography- boring and easy, but i think itll get better
media studies- i really like it and its easy

all of my classes are very easy and have minimal work. it could just be because i am comparing it to my old school which i was taking 5 ap classes and it was very hard to keep up with sometimes. On the other hand I LOVE catering. you just get to go in there and the teacher (who is a really good chef) has up a recipe and all the ingredients and you just make the food. today we made savory scones with bacon onion and tomato. they were so good and i was pleased with my work. a very nice snack for interval. more people eat durring interval than they do at lunch it seems like. i have also been lucky enough to meet people that are able to drive me off campus for lunch which is fun.

side note- here you get a learners permit at 15 and when yout turn 16 you can get a restricted license which you can only drive by yourself. and if you get caught taking anyone then you get a major fine. people here take this very seriously. and it is at eith 16 1/2 or 17 which you get your full liscense. luckily everyone in year 13 is at least 17 so i have no problem.

Cussing is way more exceptable here. I here the f word, c word, and all the other ones so often here now that it just seems like regular language. even adults and at nice places, and teachers to students and students to teachers!! its just not a big deal at all.

there are houses here just like in harry potter. I am in pearce house which is traditionally known as the "shit house." there is a massive day here called sports day where all the houses i think there are 6 compete against eachother in a lot of athletic events. pearce has never won so i hope that changes. ok i got to go to my next class

Oh bugger

my new zealand dictionary---------

conversation= yarn

crappy conversation= shit yarn or sharn

awesome etc= sweet as

ae= what? or right?

moldy= maori

mackers= mcdonalds

bush= wilderness

tramp= long hike

college= high school

pissed= drunk

uni= university

bugger= i think is used in replacing something like damn it

suss= figure out

reckon= think

heaps= loads or lots

paddock= field

kiwi= new zealander

kiwi fruit= kiwi

american mustard= our regular mustard

chilly bin= cooler

bin= trash can

rubbish= trash

lou= toilet

biscuits= cookies

lollies= candy

knackered= tired

dunnies= toilets i think also

and there is way more where that came from but thats just off the top of my head

I have had a busy and awesome week! I went camping with my host family and 4 other families to Naseby and then went on a year 13 retreat to borland lodge. 

Naseby- With a population of only 100 permanent residents in central Otago, the small town is a mecca for the olympic sport curling and a great place to have a family camping trip. We went swimming and jumped off cliffs at the Blue Lakes, one of the most beautiful little lakes I have ever seen. We also stayed at these really cool cabins in the middle of the camp grounds. There i learned how to play touch rugby with all the kids and adjusted myself more to the kiwi culture. we listened to music, drank, (supervised of course) and as always had amazing food. the next day we woke up early and went for a 20 km mountain bike ride through the hills of naseby and saw some scenery that was sweet as. we then went for the craziest drive i have ever been on in my life. we 4-wheel-drove up a mountain on the bumbiest large rock and gravel road that was on the edge of the mountain face. we arrived at a place at the top that looked very barrent but had some crazy sand features blown about it. or maybe they were man made i dont really know. we climbed all around there and then had a picnic in a paddock full of sheep at the bottom of the mountain. wow wow wow thats all i can say about that. later that night was another awesome dinner but filled with competition. there was a family quiz off where each family asked five questions each without answering their own question and whoever got the most right won. i think we came in 3rd but it was heaps of fun. then there was a fear factor where the kids going from youngest to oldest had to choose a mystery shot and a food item. food items ranged from chocolate to a full kiwi fruit to a cracker with wasabi and peppers on it. the shots were coke alcohol or water. it was quite fun and then the kids got back at the adults by making our own mystery shots for them. they consisted of hard alcohol, milk, salt, water, strawberry grenedine, and i think maybe oil. the adults even played along and drank them.

then the next day came where we went to an indoor curling rink and got to play with everyone. it was so much fun and way better than i think anyone expected. but i had to leave early with my host parents to be back in time in invercargill for my year 13 leadership retreat. the only thing was that it was 3 hours away and i was not even able to stop back at the house for anything and was just dropped off at school to leave.

it was so awkward at first getting on the bus with 100 kids i did not know but this camp was by far the most important thing i have done here so far even if it wasnt the most fun ( it was really fun tho), however i am about to go to sleep cause i just got back from that retreat and i am exhausted so ill write about it in my next post.

the pics are of house and my first day of school because i forgot to post them and the others are of the camping trip to naseby.