It's alll new...

Well…

…

…I’m puffed. (aka: exhausted)

First week is almost over. I’m not sure if I’m more emotionally, mentally, or physically tired, but what I do know is that I’m terrified of feeling this way before the “real” work has even begun.

The constant processing of new sights, sounds, information, and accents has turned my brain into a mushy pound of incoherent thoughts by the time I return home every evening. This isn’t an inherently a negative experience, though. In fact I’ve been almost enjoying the daily bombardment of school-related information to process, and new peoples names to remember, and kiwi words to decipher. It’s such an intense change from my little cocoon of Ucluelet. I’m doing my best to embrace it, and have been doing a fairly good job, if you ask me. (If you ask Steven you may get a different answer. Unfortunately the old adage that those we love the most get the worst of us has proven true over the last few days. With my “happy kait” face plastered on all day at school I have to admit I’m tired of smiling by the time I get home). Speaking of Steven, though, he has been nothing but supportive and helpful as I’ve surfed through this first week. He’s even done the dishes every day, and made the bed in the mornings. What a fantastic stay-at-home husband he is!! I am blessed, and do work to not take it for granted. I love being able to save up funny stories of kiwi slang and other new things I’m experiencing to share with him…I almost laughed out loud the first time I heard someone call flipflop sandals “jandles”, until I realized that if I did the joke would soon become about the Canadian who doesn’t understand kiwi, so I kept my mouth shut and laughed later with my oh-so-lovely Canadian husband.

As far as the course itself goes, it’s so varied and involves so much, and we’ve had such a brief overview of it all, that its really hard to comment. There are 60-odd of us ladies from all over New Zealand (and beyond in my case), ranging in ages from 16 to mid-50’s, all here in Dunedin for this first orientation week. After tomorrow all but 20 are leaving the city and going back to their various hometowns to complete the rest of the course. It’s set up in a way that most of it is done online through live tutorials with instructors and other students. We will also meet once a week with our Student Practice Facilitators in a small group to go over the more hands-on aspects of learning and to debrief about our casework. It’s really a nice design for those who want to study full-time without committing to physically going to class every day.

 Tomorrow we will get detailed course descriptions and a better overview of the specifics, so I’ll know more about what day-to-day life will look like after that.

The most interesting part of this week was an overnight camp we all went on for Tuesday and Wednesday. We were bused 20 minutes outside of town and stayed in a cute little scouts camp with cabins and huge beautiful lawns and forest all around. It was a great way to get to know the other girls and staff of the program, and we spent the days doing various team-building and communication-enhancing activities and games…All interspersed with plenty of “tea times” (a kiwis excuse for eating cake any time of day, I’ve decided) and visiting. It really felt like being at summer camp again! We went on a “bush tromp” on Wednesday afternoon, 5km up a hill and through the forest surrounding the camp. It was beautiful, and I was surprised at how similar much of the foliage was to what we have in Canada. Besides the various types of brightly colored mushrooms, some weirdly huge fern-type plants, and the lack of giant trees, things pretty much looked the same. I appreciated the familiarity, and the fact that you can tromp through any bush or wilderness here without the fear of anything poisonous or dangerous. No undomesticated land-mammals around here, and you have to go as far as Aussie to find any poisonous spiders or snakes.

Stevens making me supper now, and I’m sitting here sipping my cup of wine (we have yet to invest in proper wine glasses) and contemplating what I’ve gotten myself into. Oh, and now that I’m thinking about it, I do recommend a trip to NZ if for no other reason than to drink the wine. It’s FANTASTIC, and cheap. Double plus;)

Love you all, and miss your smiling faces. Kiss my dog for me when you see him! xo

Purple Potatoes!! Delicious.

Scout camp!

Slathering the sunscreen

Games..

New friends! Sarah, Neice, and Jackie

Giant monster ferns..

No jandals for me..