I DON'T FEEL GOOD.

   I’m sick. It’s not fun. I’ve still had a very busy week though! Sunday I was feeling pretty good, so I went to Petone again. I didn’t get to go to the Settlers Museum while I was there last time. I’m glad I went back! It had a lot of cool info about early settlers and the natives in New Zealand. The museum itself was in an old bathing pavilion, so when you walk in, you go to the women’s or men’s side, each of which having different exhibits. Very neat!

Petone wharf: a workout just getting to the end.

   While in Petone, I also walked along the beach (again) and walked out on the looong wharf. It was freezing, and so windy! I am not ready for this Wellington winter! I took the bus home once it got dark out, and watched Lie to Me for the rest of the evening. Adam, I blame you.. I’m addicted! It’s such a good show!

   Monday was mundane. Tuesday was a great day though. I have my Topics in Environmental Science class and lab every Tuesday, and this week, we did a really cool, interactive physics of climate change lab. It wasn’t so much physics of climate change as it was cool physics tricks with a little bit of real lab experiments mixed in. The professor that taught our lab wasn’t affiliated with our class, so I don’t think he knew exactly what to teach us. It seems as though every class has a different lecturer! It can get pretty confusing.

A photo of different light bulbs through my prism glasses.

   The lab professor was so great though. He was a little crazy, but in a good way. He kept defining frequency as “wiggles per second,” and he gave us these cool diffracting glasses that turned white light into rainbows. It was somewhat relevant to what we were doing, so it’s all good. Besides all the learning we did, we also got to play around with the optics tricks and the physics swing. Some of the optics tricks we saw were how a ‘one-sided’ mirror works, how you can use mirrors to mess with our vision, and how they used to do special effects in movies with mirrors and lights and trickery. The physics swing was SO much fun, but it actually taught us a lot about wavelengths and momentum and all that fun stuff.

Casually swinging. Indoors. During physics lab.

   My day kept getting better – after the awesome lab, I had a professional photo shoot to attend! The international department here at Victoria sent out an email for models to update their advertising. I really wanted to do it since I’m so used to taking photos, not getting my photo taken. I also got paid a hefty sum, but that’s just bonus : ). The photo shoot was really fun. We walked around campus from noon-5 taking photos. It was a lot of sitting and waiting, because they would only use 2 or 3 of us at a time, and there were probably 8 or 9 models in total. There was a professional photographer there with his crew, and also a hair/makeup artist and wardrobe person. I got pampered sooo much.. it was fantastic! I had my hair and make up touched up every 10 minutes or so, I had coffee brought to me, and I got free cookies too! I could really get used to this…  The shoot was fun, and I should be hearing back about a follow up shoot pretty soon.

The first location. The walkway overlooks the city. It is so beautiful.

Behind the scenes!

   Wednesday was also pretty mundane, except for the fact that I ate pizza at every meal. Clearly I don’t care anymore. I got it for free Tuesday night at a seminar, and it was the easiest thing to do on my busy Wednesday. That probably didn’t help my sickness at all…

   Wednesday night, I took some cool photos for my photography class. I had to do ‘light drawings.’ Basically, I set the camera up on a 15-second exposure, had Hallie and Paul stand still, and ran around them with a torch, drawing. It was a lot of fun, and I got some pretty cool shots out of it!

So cliche... but so cool! 

Evil flatmates.

   Today, Thursday, was exhausting. I feel as if I spent the whole day staring at a computer screen! I walked over to the Te Aro campus early to work on some photo projects (2 hours of computer time). I also worked on my essay throughout the afternoon and evening (4 hours). I took a break from school work to go do more work on the Pipitea campus (2 hours). I had a seminar to attend for VILP – the Victoria International Leadership Programme. This seminar was about tourism and climate change, and was actually really interesting. I’d never really thought about the two as connected before, but they definitely are! While I wasn’t doing schoolwork, I was procrastinating (on facebook, maybe 0.5 hours) and I’ve also been blogging tonight (0.5 hours). My eyes feel like they are going to fall out. It might be the sickness to blame, although I’m sure the 9+ hours of screen-time had something to do with it.

   Pipitea campus, by the way, is the law/business campus. It's located inside the old government building, which is the largest wooden building in the southern hemisphere. I wandered around a bit. It's beautiful!

The Old Government Building, made out of local NZ timber!

   I know I mentioned VILP before, but I don’t think I really explained what it is. VILP is a special program at Victoria which an “academically-oriented extra-curricular program of seminars, speaker events and experiential activities relevant to international leadership, cross-cultural communication, global connectedness, and sustainability.” Since I’m only here for one trimester, I’m participating in the Tailored VILP, and I just finished it today with this seminar! Woohoo! I’ll get a Certificate of Participation for completing it.

   My illness seems to be just a cold, but it’s been getting worse over the week. My brain feels like pudding and my nose won’t stop running! I really hope I get better soon.. this is no fun!