It’s the end of the semester and it’s the end of of my professional life as a teacher- for now at least. Some final thoughts on what its like to be a teacher in Thailand. Included are the traditional class photographs I take at the end of the semester and a view of where I worked!

You may think this is repetitive, another post about monkeys and all, but I assure you this is none like the last. Ham the Chimp was the first primate to ever go into space and needless to say became pretty famous for it. My students will fill you in on the rest.

In an ongoing battle to come out as the tough guy, my students are most certainly undermining me by taking advantage of the fact I can’t understand what the hell they are saying to each other. What did I ever get myself into.

Here’s another post about a tramp (hike) that I did here in NZ. With just over a week left in this beutiful country, a few of us decided we better make the best of it and go on an adventure. Rich, as you can see, was totally into the idea.

So we started of on what would seem like a regular hike through the woods. Of course when we started going downhill we realized there would only one way to get back. Going uphill of course.

Cate is great at posing for pictures…really.So we made it to the bottom of the trail and was faced with two options. Continue on forward, or loop back around via the stream track. We picked the stream caused it looked way more exciting than anything else.

It soon became obvious what it was called the stream track, because we ended up having to cross the stream about 13 times, and at times it came way past our ankles. If you’ve ever seen the movie Anaconda (not recommended) than that’s what it was like.

At one of these big pools I may have jokingly mentioned the desire to go swimming. With me saying this Cate, Rich, and Lynn were quick to press the matter. While I was a little afraid the water may have been infested with some vicious bacteria that would eat me from the inside out, I gave in. Turns out I’m a sucker for peer pressure.

The water was cold. And when I was happy with just jumping in once, Rich insisted I jump in again cause he missed the photo. So I did. Then he missed it again. So I jumped again. Then he missed it again. So I jumped again. Then he missed it again. By this point, my skin was burning because the water was so cold. I did not jump again.

Either way, we continued on the stream which ended at a nice water fall. After cheking it out for a bit we climbed back up to the main trail to get back to the car, with our shoes soaked but heads held high. The signs had said on advanced trampers should hike this trail. We now consider us advanced.

Today you are going to learn the art of the “Tim Tam Slam” as demonstrated by our in-house Tim Tam guru and model, Cate.

You may be sitting there thinking “What is a Tim Tam Slam, Nick?” Well, to put it simply, its a 1″x2″ piece of Joy. It’s like anything that was good in world suddenly exploded in your mouth in edible fashion. Plainly put- IT…IS…YUMMY! Directions are as follow:

4. Now take one bitten corner and dip it in to the milk or hot coco. Take your mouth and apply it to the other bitten corner and apply your mouth. Now suck. Once you feel the liquid touch your lips then stop. Now take the whole Tim Tam and plop it in your mouth. Take too long and you’ll fins yourself in a messy situation of melting chocolate.

5. Try not to die from the orgasmic blast of chocolaty deliciousness in your mouth so you can do another!

Also, you’ll probably have to do serious research to find somewhere that sells these back in the U.S. They’re aren’t exactly sold there as far as I know, although I’ll be bringing back some packages. This Wikipedia article also has some alternative ideas. So gimmie a call when I get back and we’ll give it a go.

With about 3 or so weeks left in NZ we seem to be searching for those little things that we have left to do around Auckland. Things that have been on our lists, but haven’t gotten around to yet. Well a few days ago, we did just that. We went and checked out One Tree Hill. Yes I know there is an obnoxious show named after it.

Cate felt she could climb the hill instead of taking the “Sheep Path.”

Technically this annoying, One Tree Hill, a show that involves a bunch of angsty young persons with boatloads of melodrama is named after a U2 song on the album “Joshua Tree.” One Tree Hill (the song) refers to the volcanic peek, One Tree Hill, here in Auckland. The song was released exclusively here in New Zealand, which I thought to be pretty cool.

Sheep

More Sheep

Everyone

Funny thing about One Tree Hill however…..there’s no actual tree there anymore. And while I originally planned to write out the story and reason behind it, it turns out to be quite a long story to retype. Thus, I highly encourage you to read the Wikipedia version, which is full of Boy Scout jamborees, angry activists, amongst other things. It’s not too long.

We hiked up the hill to the top where you can see a tree stump of where it was. Oh yeah, and there’s a big Obelisk there commemorating someone. The park (which is sacred ground to the Maori people) also had sheep and cows wandering freely. We tried to get up close to some, but they usually manage to scamper off.

I presume this is the “Tree.” Maybe it should be renamed “One Stump Hill”. Or just “Stumpy Hill.“

Sheep?!!

My friend and fellow Pinhole Adventure photographer, Kevin, has been working on a photo study of the Maori culture and its influence on urban life around Auckland and New Zealand. He’s an extremely talented photographer, so I suggest you check out his stuff. Just Click Here. The link will also be posted under the “Cool Links” for clicking in the future. Be sure to look through them all!

So last night a bunch of us decided to head to the Sky Tower in Auckland here for some dinner. As the defining icon in Auckland’s skyline it stands at 328m (1,076ft). It’s known as the highest freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere.

We rode up to the observation level on possibly the fastest elevator (‘lift’ is what they call them here) I’ve ever ridden. I had to pop my ears at least 5 times on the journey up.

We looked out over Auckland and the harbor as the sun was setting, then made our way up another level to “Orbit” for our 5:30 reservations. We quickly realized why it was called “Orbit” beside it being a snazzy, hip name for a restaurant. The restaurant in fact did orbit around the center of the tower, meaning it MOVED…very slowly. So luckily we got a constantly changing views of the night city scape as we ate.

The restaurant was also pretty classy. Way to classy for a bunch of cheap and poor college kids. The minimum amount to spend for dinner was $30. Way more than I ever would. But there was justification. To go up the Sky Tower just to look out is $18. So I might as well pay the extra $12 for a really nice dinner, as I was planning to go up the tower at some point before I left NZ.
So once we spent our minimum (which pretty much included the main dish and a beverage) and ate dinner we descended back to earth. Certainly an experience to dine so high up, but with a price tag of $30, it’ll be awhile before I do that again.

Well, my week of misery has passed and I’m done with my paper and presentation. As a new resolution, I decided I’m going to be more diligent in my posting. However, with little over a month left here in New Zealand, my funds for big trips to write about are beginning to run dry.

So what I think I’ll try to do is post my day’s events. This might include interesting articles I’ve read or other strange occurrences. It most also might be a post on how nothing very exciting happened at all. Believe it or not, those do days do occasionally occur in New Zealand. I’ve got a few ideas on my mind. So if There and Back Again starts become more of a personal journal, don’t freak out.

Continuing on, you may be wondering why I’m apologizing to my mom. Well if you look at the photo below, I think you’ll figure it out.What led to this was an interesting psychological debate I had with myself over whether I should go through with it or not. I had toyed with the idea of getting an earring for a long time. And if I remember it had more to do with boredom than anything, as if one day I looked in the mirror and said “that might be fun.” Well at one point I think it was brought up somehow over dinner that I was going to get an earring in NZ. I got a nice gasp from my Mom and an estranged look from my Dad. After explaining my thought process, I got a laugh from both. I don’t know if this was because they thought I was being absurd or they didn’t think I was going to go through with it. Probably both.

Admittedly, as I’ve been here my desire to get an earring kind of fell off, although I kept in on my list of things to do. What I think what really made me do it was this: my brothers more or less said they would make fun of me if I got one. They also said they’d make fun of me if I said I’d get one, then didn’t. I figured it be best I get one and not go back on my word, rather than the other. And in the 12 hours I’ve had it I’ve received both flak and compliments on it, so I think I can handle anything my family throws at me. I mean, deep down they love me anyway, right?

It’ll be interesting to see what they think about the tattoo I got.

JUST KIDDING!!!!!!