geekdom
i forgot to report that on my way back from hamilton, i stopped in this ho-dunk town called matamata. it doesn't have much, except its claim to fame as "hobbiton". in short, the farm peter jackson used as his set for hobbiton is located in/near matamata. and now for NZ$50, you can ride a van to this private farm and see what's left of the set. which isn't much, because some of it was torn down and the contract between the movie studio and the farm people stipulates they can't rebuild. also, because it's summer, everything is very dry and brown. so there we were, tramping in this brown field full of old and fresh sheep poop, sticking our heads out of wooden holes in the ground. and the tour guide was sooooo geeky. she could recount every shot that was taken, the camera angle and all that, and it wasn't that interesting. it felt like she was recounting every step that Jesus had taken. while trying not to laugh, i did enjoy myself, and it was something i had to do. incidentally, it is the only remaining set from the film. all the others were done digitally or were torn down or were erected on public land.

yesterday, we went out to motiti island for our second dive. the water was calmer, but i still got sick. we did two dives. i was with andrew, sigh, in the remedial class i think, because i was a dive behind everyone else because i was so sick the other day i couldn't do both dives. it is pretty funny trying to do these skills -- like a mask clear -- underwater whilst laughing and mooning over my instructor. i feel so ungraceful. but it's all good.

andrew also gets pretty bad motion sickness. on our second dive yesterday, he said he started to feel nauseous. so i was kind of asking him about how he ended up doing this as a profession and he said, well, it just happened. you kind of build up a tolerance for it. just like that, calm as anything. and how many dives has he done? over 1500. holy mother of god.

so enough about andrew. we are taking two days off of diving to do ropes so everyone can bond and build trust and all that. blah blah blah. i does mean i get to help facilitate on the ropes course, using my newly earned credentials.

and in other news, i found an asian food market in tauranga!! it's run by a very friendly woman named victoria, who's from the phillipines, and who has a daughter in nyc. the store is called the golden wok. whoo hoo!

i really should go. i hate to admit it, but i really don't want to go home and could see myself living here.

eek!