Earthquakes Are Not Cool

                After having been here for about 2 months now I’ve experienced over 10 earthquakes.  Actually more than that, but I’m only counting the ones I notice.  New Zealand is coincidentally directly on top of the Alpine fault (between the Pacific and Australian plates).  So basically it’s perfectly suited for earthquakes.  We even have a website dedicated to Christchurch earthquakes that gives us the magnitude and depth of each quake minutes after it happens.  Just the other day we had one of the biggest since I’ve been here, a 5.2, which apparently isn’t a big deal.  This didn’t stop my eyes from going all deer in the headlights and thinking I should get ready to evacuate.  It’s pretty scary, but apparently something I’ll get used to.  We had one during a meeting the other week and everyone just sort of paused for a minute then kept going as if nothing had happened.

                Other than earthquakes Christchurch is pretty cool.  It’s a very spread out city, so it’s a bit of a pain to get around, but everything you need is close enough and the people are great.  My favorite thing about the city is the free concerts.  Just about every weekend there’s a bar with a free band.  The downside is beer is ridiculously expensive here so you end up spending the same amount anyway.

                Sorry, I don’t have any quake related pictures, so here’s a picture of a kitten giving a fist bump:

Tumbledown Bay/Lake Tekapo

So I’ve been really bad about keeping up with this.  I always do something then think, oh, I should blog about this.  Then I don’t.  Instead I’ll just cram it all into one.

I went fishing for my own fish a few weeks ago at Tumbledown Bay.  Due to poor planning on my part we only brought two sets of waders for three people.  This didn’t turn out to be a big deal since you only need two people anyway.  My advisor (the one without waders) came up with a brilliant plan to trap from the edge of the stream which resulted with him in the stream.  After recovering from laughing my ass off, my other assistant (the one with waders) found himself in a part of the stream much deeper than he’d anticipated and his waders subsequently full of water.  I was the only one left dry at the end of our trip.  Nonetheless both of them drove me to a beach nearby where I got to see a few sea lions hanging out.  Pretty effing cute.  I didn’t want to scare them, so I didn’t get any good pictures, but here’s a picture of the bay from above (kinda pretty):

We also did some very kiwi stuff on the way back.  I tried a feijoa smoothie (better than it sounds), a meat pie (apparently a big staple food found at just about every bakery/coffee shop), and got stopped by a herd of sheep taking up the road (the best part):

Last weekend I was able to jump on a last minute trip to Lake Tekapo.  It’s a really cute town in the central South island with an observatory on top of one of the mountains.  So many great pictures…here’s the lake:

The famous dog statue:

One of my favorite parts, lots of rock sculptures:

And a picture from one of the telescopes at the observatory (it’s the moon):

I’ve also finished most of my proposal, moved, and booked a trip back home to learn a new assay (and go to a wedding).  It’s been a crazy few months, but I’m starting to feel more settled, and am ready to make some scientific breakthroughs (or just regular science…either way).

Fish Have Feelings Too

                For the past few weeks I’ve been working on getting settled, meeting people in the department, and working on my thesis proposal.  This week was the first time I got to get into the field and do some real hands on science (which is why I’m really here).  On Monday I went on a collection trip to a few streams up north with a couple others from the lab.  I got my own set of waders (only a small hole near the crotch), jumped in with nets, and spent a few hours fishing.  Overall we probably caught about 200 fish, pretty good haul.  Sorry, no embarrassing pictures of me in waders, but here’s a good one of the cuties we caught:

                The rest of this week has been spent stressing fish out.  I swear I’m in this field for the overall benefit of animals!  Stress is a really difficult thing to study, but we tried to do a small test to see if handling has any significant impact on sodium excretion (as a stress response).  It will be important to know for the rest of my research.  Hopefully you aren’t asleep yet...here, look at this!

                I also went to the beach a week or so ago.  I meant to write a post about it then, but forgot, so here are a few pictures from New Brighton.  It was a little too cold for swimming, but it was still a beautiful day, and it’s only a $2.30 bus ride from my place, boo-ya.

My First Tramp

                Translation: tramp = hike in New Zealand.  Imma tramp the shit outta this place!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to tag along on a field trip with the food web folks, so basically I got a free ride to a bunch of cool places.  The first stop was Castle Rock which is an area with a bunch of crazy rock formations (picture below).  Apparently part of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was filmed there.  It’s also a popular climbing area (Jimmy, you’d have loved it…we’ll go there when you visit).

We stopped at the University’s Cass Field Station for lunch.  It’s basically this beautiful cabin in the mountains where a bunch of freshwater ecology research goes down.  After lunch they did an electrofishing demo in one of the nearby streams.  I’ve done some electrofishing from a boat, but this was basically a Ghostbuster’s backpack with a metal rod.  It was good to see in action since I’ll probably be doing some of that myself at some point.

                Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ just came on.  Had to take a dance intermission.  Thought you should know.  Maybe do the same.

                After we shocked the hell out of a bunch of unsuspecting fish, we drove up to Aurthur’s Pass which is a National Park in the middle of the Southern Alps.  This is where we really went tramping.  Absolutely gorgeous.  That’s when I realized I’m really in New Zealand and it’s just as pretty as the internet says.  I’m a lucky girl.

I'm a PhD Candidate, No Big Deal

As of yesterday, I am officially enrolled as a PhD student at the University of Canterbury.  Yay!!  Now I need to get business cards that say ‘PhD candidate’ on them and hand them out to everyone I see.  I’m obviously joking, but it’s been done.  Apparently starting at the beginning of the month was a bad idea since scholarship pay-outs come at the end of the month, so I just missed mine.  Guess I’d better find a 7-11 to stand in front of.

It’s a bit hard to understand New Zealander’s at the moment.  It’s a thick accent and they have alternate words for just about everything.  Hopefully I catch on soon...they seem a bit annoyed when I ask them to repeat what they’re saying 3 times then shrug and say, yeah, I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re saying.

Of my five new roomates two are Indian, one is Afgani, one is Austrian, and the other is British (although she is apparently a New Zealander now cause she’s been living here for 3 years, duh).  No kiwis!  Two of them are also PhD students, just in different fields.  Unfortunately, they’re the type of PhD students who are decidedly right about everything strictly because they are PhD students.  Annoying.  Four out of the five are also boys, so the place was a MESS when I moved in.  Don't worry, I've gone on a thorough cleaning binge, so it’s much better.

Overall, it’s been a lot of fun getting settled and exploring the area.  I’m super stoked to get started on my thesis.  There are even possibilities of getting involved with other projects at the same time.  Antarctica?  Who knows…I’ll keep you posted.

Besos!

This Is Gonna Be A Little Awkward...

Ok, so thankfully I found a place to live.  My last night in the hotel was awful.  I had some drunk girl knock on my door asking for someone (couldn’t ever get the name) after which I’m pretty sure she went to the room above me and had sex with whomever she came to see…coulda done without that.

So now I have 5 roommates at the new place, but it’s close to the university and was better than my other options.  For example, I could have lived with a middle-aged man and his cat Bono (yes, named after the lead singer of the most over-rated band in history…I said it!), but he was a little too creepy for me.  Another place was this TINY room where the girl who was moving out had only stayed for 2 months.  It was on the corner of this really busy intersection so I asked about the noise level, to which she said “it’s not that bad, you just have to wear earplugs if you’re trying to sleep.”  Yeah, I can’t imagine why she didn’t make it the whole year.

Anyway, since I’ve moved in I’ve gone to the store a few times to get the basics, like linens and kitchen stuff.  It’s a lot of fun getting on the bus with like 6 bags full of shit (imagine pillows, a comforter, etc.) and trying to not hit anyone in the face.  They’re lucky I’m so graceful (the bleeding toe incident in my previous post doesn’t count).

I’m still getting used to the cars driving on the left side of the road; I keep looking to the right for oncoming traffic when I’m trying to cross the street and almost getting run over.  Pedestrian traffic apparently follows the same pattern, so I’ve also almost walked into about 100 people.  Just bought a bike too…this should be fun.

Also, the food is meh, but the wine is awesome.  Might just live off wine.

I'm In New Zealand!!

First of all, let me say moving to another country is a LOT of work.  Getting everything together for my visa took over a month (and a lot of money), moving, getting rid of half my wardrobe, selling my car, trying to consolidate everything I’ll need into four suitcases, and tying up a million loose ends.  It’s been a bit too crazy to try to keep up with this blog, but hopefully now that I’m here I can do better.

Warning: since it’s been so long I’ve got a lot to write about, so this is probably going to be one of my longest blogs.  Get psyched.

            So I had 10 days between my last day at work and my trip to Seattle.  I had to do everything mentioned above (as well as say goodbye to all my awesome friends/family).  I also had the fortune of tripping on my flip-flop going up the escalator at the Clarendon metro and cutting my toe open.  After I lost enough blood the metro manager called an ambulance and I got to go to the hospital again.  Yay!  Don’t worry, I’m fine.  Just an idiot.

            After I packed my life into four suitcases and said my goodbyes, I went to visit my Dad in Seattle.  I finally got to relax, went hiking at Snoqualmie, saw a few movies (21 Jump Street is definitely worth watching), and we took a short trip to Victoria on Vancouver Island.  Super cute town, and the food was AMAZING!  I probably gained 10 lbs on that trip.  But that’s ok, I learned today that I’ll be doing a lot of walking in New Zealand.

            I left on Sunday and travelled for about 24 hours total.  Turns out New Zealand is really far away.  I got in at 9 am, checked in, and went to go meet my advisor.  It was a gorgeous day, 70 and sunny.  He showed me around campus -- really pretty, but you can see all the earthquake damage.  A bunch of the buildings have been condemned so they have small temporary buildings set up.  I saw the fish lab where they have lots of cute fish swimming around just waiting for me to alter their environments and quantitate the impacts.  You can tell how excited they are.

            Hopefully I’ll find a place to live in the next few days.

Last Day at U.S. News

So it's my last day at U.S. News which made me realize I'd better start this blog I'd been talking about so folks who are interested can keep up with my exciting PhD program in New Zealand.  Let me start by saying I am not a writer, so low expectations people.  Everyone at U.S. News has been amazing.  It's a group of some of the nicest people I've ever met, ironically right in the middle of the fifth rudest city in America.  Thank you all for making it such an amazing work environment!

More to come, but here's something to keep you occupied till then: in honor of our education meetings