Slide Show 3

Welcome to Enzed, where left is right!

This is the account of all the things uniquely New Zealand that I have observed. Now I know that some of these things are found in other countries, but not America. Of course the first thing is that the toilet flushes in the opposite direction. I am here to tell you all that this really is the case! It is so weird to see the water start to spin and think, wait a second!
But wait, that’s not all folks! Not only does the toilet flush in the opposite direction, you also have choices when you flush! I am not joking you. There are two buttons on the top of every toilet that lets you choose if you want to do a half-flush or a full-flush! Supposedly this is for when you are going number one or number two, but it is seriously the weirdest thing you have seen in your life! I remember when I first saw a toilet here I was worried that one was the flush down button and one was the up button, and no one ever wants the toilet to come back up! Being the proper American that I am, I always chose the right button, which happens to be the full-flush. Which is also probably why it took three weeks for me to figure it out!
As most of you probably know cars drive on the left side of the road in this country. What many of you may not know is that I don’t know how to drive a manual transmission. Because my family lives so far outside of town they have a wee little car for students to drive on rainy days. When my kiwi-dad found out that I didn’t know how to drive a stick he was determined to teach me (mostly because he didn’t want to have to drive me everywhere!). So I’m sure you can all imagine me sitting in a very small car on a little dirt road with the prospect of driving. I will now quote my exact words as I prepared to turn the car on for the first time, “I am sitting on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, driving a stick shift. This has PROBLEM written all over it!” Oh yeah, and did I mention that the stick shift was on the left? I had about a thirty-minute lesson before Mark (my kiwi-dad) decided it would be easier to drive me everywhere. That is the last time I have gotten into a car on the driver’s side!
Another thing New Zealanders have done to mess with their American visitors is change the place of the door handles. Instead of door handles being waist high they are actually up to about your chin. So when I first got here I was constantly grabbing at air when I tried to open the doors, and actually ran into a few of them as well! Eventually I got used to it though and started reaching up to open the door. Well my family apparently likes to mess with me. Because, when I moved into the smaller room after my roommate moved out I discovered that the only door in the entire house that has lower handles is the one that goes into my room! So of course I have rewired my brain to open doors higher up, and every morning when I am still half-asleep and not thinking I reach up to open my door and run headlong into it instead! No wonder I am starting to become a morning person, there are painful consequences if you don’t wake up fully conscious!
Finally, there are two things that I am convinced America does better. Actually there are lots of things, but two that are absolutely no question. The first is line-drying your clothes. Now I know that there are still people that do this in America, but my family has never line-dried anything. It is great for your clothes because they last longer and never shrink, but can I tell you that I will never underestimate the luxuriousness of fabric softener again! One of the things I am looking forward to coming home most is having soft, warm, and deliciously smelling clothes from the dryer. Long live mechanically drying clothes! The next thing is having only one tap on sinks. You know how in the old days there was always a hot tap and a cold tap, but they were always hooked to the same pipe so you could adjust the two of them to eventually find warm or luke-warm? We have perfected this process even more by reducing the sinks down to only one tap in almost all houses. Now you just have to turn the knob until the water comes out just right. Well, lets just say that New Zealand isn’t a little behind the times, they are in the last century behind the times! Now you may think I am joking about this, but I swear that every word is true. They have TWO taps and TWO pipes for the water to come out of. You have a hot pipe and cold pipe. Which means when you are washing your face you have the options of scalding hot, or freezing cold. When you are washing your hands you can either burn them off or freeze them off. It is seriously the most annoying and idiotic system I have ever seen in my entire life. LONG LIVE WARM WATER!

Wait a second. Haven’t I seen that outfit before?

Just in case some of you were thinking that you have seen some of the outfits that I am wearing in pictures a few times I wanted to set the record straight. When I came to New Zealand I knew that I had three and a half months and only two 50 pound bags to get me through that time. Unfortunately I also had to bring my backpacking bag, hiking boots, tennis shoes, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, headlamp, laptop, tripod, camcorder, Scuba goggles, fins, snorkel, and booties, plus a whole bunch of books. As you can imagine this left me with very little weight for non-essentials ie: clothes! I brought with me exactly two exercise shorts, two exercise pants, three t-shirts, one pair of nice shorts, and two semi-nice long-sleeved shirts. That is it. For three and a half months. My mom has sent me a couple of new shirts and I bought a pair of jeans while I was here, but still I could fit every article of clothing I have into two drawers if I had to! So for all of you wondering why I lack a total sense of style and why I wear the same thing over and over and over again now you know!

The Story of Becks

This is the account of the general thoughts and feelings that I have about New Zealand. First off, ‘Becks.’ As you all know my real name is Rebecca, but I go by Becky. Apparently Becky is a very uncommon name here. When people say my name, Becky, it comes out sounding like biky or something like that. So when I started telling people my name, they tried Becky a few times, but as they got to know me they started calling me Becks. Not Becky, not Beck, but Becks! This may seem inconsequential, but the funny thing is that EVERYONE does it! Almost every single New Zealander that I have met while living here now calls me Becks! Personally I think it is a wonderful new nick-name and it makes me laugh every time I hear it. I even got a few thank you cards from the kids that I have worked with here and they always start the card “Dear Becks,” what a great life I have!
So the next story I have has to do with my new name. I coach a softball team here, which my little sister Sophie plays on. They don’t have baseball at all in this country and softball is still relatively unpopular. However, because they don’t have baseball, softball is a coed sport here. So I coach about eleven kids, nine boys and two girls! My softball team name is the leopards, and to say the least, the struggle a little bit! Unfortunately the coaches of the other teams are really serious, whereas we just like to play for fun. The first game I went to I was putting up my chair to watch Sophie play when Sharon, the head coach, says you’re Becks right? Uhhh…yeah that’s me. Well get up here and run these kids through warm-ups! I looked over at my Kiwi-mum Vicki accusingly (that tattle-tale had told the coach I was a softball player!) and hopped up. I have been coach ever since! When I first started to coach I could tell that there were a few who really did want to learn the sport and get better. One of these kids was Jake, with his very supportive mum Andrea. Andrea and Jake started coming by the house every week for private lessons outside of practice and games. I finally convinced Jake that he was a natural catcher and away he went! It was so fun to see him implementing the skills and drills that I had been coaching him through. I really think that I might have found my calling! At the end of the season, which was about two weeks ago, I came home from my rock-climbing trip to find an oddly-shaped card with ‘Becks’ written on the outside waiting for me. Inside it said, “To Becks, Thank you for coaching me at softball. I have enjoyed our lessons and I have learn’t a lot about being a catcher. From Jake.” The card was enough to have me grinning from ear to ear, but inside the card was a little black velvet bag. Inside the bag was a beautiful jade fish-hook necklace. Now New Zealand is famous for Jade, it is the only place in the world that you can find this particular type of greenstone. Consequentially, being a tourist and all, I also happen to know how much jade costs, especially a large pendant like the one they gave me. I was absolutely floored. I seriously think I sat there with my mouth hanging open for a good ten minutes! The Maori have a superstition about jade, that it is very unlucky to buy jade for yourself. Of course, all of us BYU kids didn’t really have a choice, we had to buy it for ourselves. I had actually decided not to buy myself any jade, mostly because of the cost. So not only was I actually given my very first piece of jade, but it was also given to me by a real Kiwi. I have truly met some of the most amazing people here. They are all so generous and accepting. I have truly been so blessed to come here and have the experiences that I have. It is humbling to be here and see the simple way that people live. It is also inspiring to see how quickly a stranger will give you the shirt off his back if it meant that it would make your life a little easier, even if that were the only shirt he had. I think we could all learn a lot about the Kiwi way of life.

Apologies, Sorries, many pardons, the works.

So here is the story my amazing family and friends. As you may have noticed my blog has been slcking a bit. Around the 11th of February I got really sick. Nothing serious, but enough to keep me from doing anything but sleep for a couple of days. This, as you may have guessed, included my blog. When I finally did feel better I still couldn't get up the energy to update my blog. Well as the days piled up, my blog remained neglected, and for that I am sorry. In looking back at my blog, however, I think this may turn into a positive thing. Instead of giving a day-by-day account I am only going to write about the big and exciting events. This will save all of you from having to sift through the mundane, and save me from the guilt of not updating everyday. I will go back and write about some of the cooler things that I have been doing, such as bungee jumping, sledging, jetboating, hiking the Routeburn, and learning to surf and kayak. Look out for the updates, they WILL be coming. I'm sorry again for the slacking off on my part and hope you all enjoy the blog even more now.
PS: I included the few days that I already had written down, the only real important thing from them is that I lost my roommate.

Day Thirty February 10, 2008 Sunday

This morning we woke up early and got ready for church. Taylor decided to come with me to church because she didn’t want to help with the ‘surf to city’ race that is going on this morning. We had to leave about a half an hour early so that we could get to the church before the race started. I think Taylor liked church, she certainly like Marcie who is a loud kind of crazy girl from our group! We did end up watching a movie in Sunday school though, so that was kind of lame. It was still a fun day at church though. Vicki picked us up after church and we came home for a little lunch. After lunch we decided to all go to the beach. The surf was good, but the waves weren’t very strong. I was only in the water for about 40 minutes because I felt like playing on the sand. While I was playing on the sand I started feeling a bit off, and not in a good way at all. We went to get ice cream cones after the beach and I ended up getting one against my better judgment. I laid down when we got home and took a short nap, but by the time tea came around I really wasn’t feeling well at all. I did make it to tea, but apparently my face was showing the sick feelings as well, because Vicki told me to head to bed after I didn’t eat very much dinner.

Day Twenty-Nine February 9, 2008 Saturday

This morning I woke up semi-early to go to Sophie’s softball game at ten. We got there fairly early so that Sophie could warm up with her team. Apparently word got around that I was a softball player, because I wasn’t in my chair five minutes before the coach turned the team over to me and had me running drills! It was seriously so much fun, I think I have found my calling! It was a little weird working with boys, because they don’t have baseball here. The game went well, my little team needs a whole lot of work, but they are cute. We ended up losing 16-10, which considering the other team was coached by a Bobby Cox wannabe, I thought we did really well! After softball we headed home to have some lunch. I worked with the girls to get my room switched over to the smaller room. I really like this new room, it is done in all purple and is really sunny. It is about half the size of the other room, so I don’t feel so lonely. While we were switching Jen got her two little girls ready to leave, they are going up to Auckland for a few days before they head back home to Port Douglas in Australia. It was a bummer to see them go, I really liked Jen, we had a lot in common, but we are facebook friends, so hopefully we will keep in touch. By the time we finally got the rooms totally switched around it was time for tea. No one is feeling very well so we are all going to bed pretty early.

Day Twenty-Eight February 8, 2008 Friday

Today was a fairly boring and basic day, sorry! I woke up early and biked to school, getting there a bit before nine. We had a quick service meeting to discuss times and locations for us to get our hours done. I have pretty much all of my hours already scheduled, so I really am not too worried about it. I went upstairs again to read and read my book for class for about four straight hours. At one I went to class and enjoyed my lesson very much. This family life class I am in is very nice and I think it will be a very good class. After class I answered a few e-mails and headed home early because it started to look like rain. When I got home I helped Jen a bit with the girls and we all ate tea. After tea we all hung around and did this and that. Around 8:30 I decided it was about time I introduced Jen to Music and Lyrics. She went crazy for it! I love introducing great movies to people who have never seen them before! After the movie we all went to bed, I am completely zonked!

Day Twenty-Seven February 7, 2008 Thursday

Today I woke up feeling much better. Erin and I slept in again as we didn’t have class until one, and got to campus around 11:30. We went to talk to Ken the program director for SIT to see what he said about Erin and the cat situation. When he finally met with us he told us that Erin was moving into the city today and I would be on my own in Otatara. At first I was a bit trepidatious at this idea, Otatara is a long ways away from the city and I will be living on my own, which is technically against BYU rules. I went upstairs our school to the computer lab to think and finish my homework reading assignment. As I was reading it dawned on me: I have lived in the city my whole life, and probably will for a good majority of the rest of it. I will never have the opportunity to live on a farm in New Zealand with a family I already know I love aver again in my entire life. There is no way that I could think of moving. The thought is just ridiculous. Will I get lonely? Probably. But the alternative is something I know I will regret. Now at least I don’t have to share my family! After school Erin said she was going out to the house to get her stuff. I really didn’t want to be there when she packed everything up, so I hung around town a bit looking at all the different shops. I finally decided to head home around at around five and began the first of many solo bike rides home. When I got home I had a bit of a welcoming party at the gate, Taylor was there and Jen with her two girls. As soon as I walked into the gate Taylor gave me a big hug and asked if I was ok. I had prepared myself to ask her if she was ok! I came into my room and put my stuff down and Vicki came in and gave me a big hug and asked me if I was ok as well. Well you all know me, I’m always fine until someone asks me if I am ok, just ask my dad! I tried really hard to hold the tears in though and only a couple squeezed out. Vicki told me that she and Mark would not be offended at all if I decided to move, and that it was easy for Erin to just leave, but it would be a lot harder for me to be here on my own, and that whatever I decided would be just fine. Have I mentioned that I really do love this family? We all had a bit of tea together and I watched the Biggest Loser with everyone and then went to bed to do a little reading. This room feels really empty, I’m glad that Vicki asked if she could move the girls into the big room and put me in the small room, it will be a lot better.

Day Twenty-Six February 6, 2008 Wednesday

Happy Waitangi Day! Today is the day New Zealand signed a treaty about land and ownership rights. Supposedly they try to make it New Zealand day, so basically our fourth of July on a much smaller scale. All of this translates into: NO SCHOOL! YAY! I woke up this morning around eleven, I am feeling quite a bit better, but still not a hundred percent. Erin threw up this morning at around 3:00 am, which was just shortly after Vicki. I guess what I had really was a flu bug, because it seems to be making its way through the household. Erin and I were driven into town this morning to save ourselves the exertion of biking because we have been so recently ill. We met up with a bunch of the girls around 12:30. We walked a bit into Queens Park and plopped down on a nice bit of grass somewhere in the middle about. I was finally able to eat a bit, but not very much. Most of the kids decided to play a rousing game of 500, but a select few, myself included, decided to read under one of the many beautiful trees. This sitting and reading went on for quite some time, and around three I ended up finishing my book, The Kite Runner. It was good, different from what I expected, but good nonetheless. Gina, Vicki’s mum, picked us up from the park around four and took us home. We ended up eating a nice spot of tea and just hanging around the house watching a spot of tv and getting to bed at a decent hour. Since the whole house is a bit off the weather it was a relief to get to bed and call it a day.

Day Twenty-Five February 5, 2008 Tuesday

I was sick today, really, really sick. Either I have a touch of the flu or that kiwi I ate last night really was as funky as it tasted. Anyway, there isn’t too much to report for today as a result. I threw up from about 3 to 6 am. I called my advisor Mark and told him I wouldn’t be able to come to school, sending Erin with the same message for my teacher. When Erin left at eight I was finally able to get a little sleep, although it was pretty restless. I got a package from my Dad today, which made me so happy I nearly cried, but I didn’t get the energy to open it for about four hours after I got it. At around 2:30 I gave my sister a call because I had promised to call her the day before but couldn’t due to the barbeque. After I talked to Maria I also called my mom to see how she was doing, because when you are sick sometimes you just need to talk to your mom! After I finished talking to her I decided to see if getting some sunlight and human interaction would help. I went out into the living room and watched a movie on the couch. Unfortunately, after about three hours this caused me to have a blinding headache on top of my achey joints and nauseous stomach. I went back to my room and took some advil and pepto pills that I brought with me and fell asleep again. Now it is eleven o’clock and I just woke up. I am feeling loads better, but still not 100%. The good new is that I haven’t thrown up for about 17 hours and was able to keep four crackers and two dry pieces of toast down. I think that I will be alright by midday tomorrow, at least I hope so. Sorry this was a boring update, but I guess we always have some of the bad mixed in with the good. Also, some people have asked if there will be any more adventures now that school has started. The short answer is yes, but probably only every other weekend or so. The long answer is yes, because every single day feels like an adventure, even with the constancy of school I never really know what I am going to get!

Day Twenty-Four February 4, 2008 Monday

Erin and I woke up early today to get to school. We met John Kappa today, who will be the instructor for our rec classes. He seems really cool, but of course we only had to be there for like two hours! So after school we didn’t have anything to do. We kind of bummed around a bit and checked out the local fanfare. We talked to Ken about Erin’s cat allergy situation again, hopefully they will figure it out soon, I hate being in limbo. Finally it was 5:30, which was the time Chase’s birthday bbq started. It was pretty fun and the food was really good. We ended up playing a bunch of totally ridiculous games that made us all look ridiculous but were way fun. After the bbq Erin and I hopped on our bikes and headed home. We stopped at a park on the way home and played around on the spider-web, zip line, and giant swing for a while. When we got home I was totally zonked and had a bit of a stomachache, I think I ate something funky. So I’m off to bed so that hopefully I will feel better.