Whanganui river
Guyton Ingestre Street
My second home, the Computer Graphic Design Department. Some funky piece of architecture eh?
In New Zealand, even the toothpaste is antinuclear. Suits me sir.
A brilliant piece of local ephemeral typography
In Wanganui there are like a kazillion churches and zero mosks.
NZ cuisine is... interesting, to say the leastKiwinglish
As I told Ryan, not necessarily 100% [one hundred pircint] seriously, my principal objective here is to pick up an exotic accent. My plan was to post a pronounciation sample every now and then to follow my progress but I still haven't gotten too far. My tongue keeps fumbling and the accent varies from Scottish-ish to Yank depending on who I talk to. The Kiwi accent is just lunatic — I would've preferred a Scottish one, (I was reminded by the incomprehensible girl sitting next to me in the airplane to Bankok) or an Irish one maybe (an industrial designer at the school likewise).Anyway here's a brief intro to pronouncing things the Kiwi way.
- Seven = Syven
- Fish & chips = Fush & chups
- Me = May
- Deaf = Diff
- Question = Christian ("Are there any Christians?")
- Yeah = Yie
- No = Nay / Nor
- Pet = Pit
- Card = Cat
- Cat = Kit
- Pet = Pit
- Pen = Pin
- Pig = Peg
- Track = Trek
- Back = Beck
- Four = Fuar
- Go = Guy
- Airing = Earring
- Setting = Sittings
- Breakfast = Bikfryst
Subterranean Homesick Alien Blues
I've a major academic culture shock. Here goes: These people when presenting their work and ideas well first off they all have like 2 ideas each on average; secondly their visualisations & scamps — if any — come in thumbnail size; furthermore they don't stand up to present their thumbnails but sit still; fourth, the sketches aren't placed anywhere, just quickly browsed through and everyone goes like "I liked the one, uh, can't remember what it was, but you know what I mean right."I'm not saying it's all bad, it's just different from UIAH. I guess this is what comes from having no time for or emphasis on concept hatching. Struggling with this plus my 9-day flu that's now thankfully dealt with I was overwhelmed with this desperate homesickness and depression. I miss a lap to curl into. I miss the trams of Helsinki. I miss home. I miss green politics. And B-class movie nights with friends.
I was having a taste of a 25-year-old fucking expensive port with some Australians. One of them told a donkey joke and said, "You get as much as you put in." I retreated back to my chamber & listened to Chris Clark – Bricks. Music helps. Music and people.
Then again one day I was howling with laughter watching Sponge Bob with Meghan and Jasmine (except that Jasmine didn't find it funny and changed the channel because we did). I clearly need to watch more cartoons.
Footnotes maybe:
- The Malesians just love my blonde hair.
- I'm having dreams about the whole NZ business having been a dream. In them I'm back in Finland and happy about it.
- It gets so cold at nights I had to wear a cap once. Now I do have a heater in my room though.
- I'm planning on renting an apartment sooner or later. The flats are unfurnished but getting a set of furniture from the Salvation Army and other second hand shops wouldn't turn out too expensive perhaps.
5 comments:
I had some sort of academic culture shock too going to Finland. Makes complete sense. We're all sort of raised to be able to deal with our system, so anything else seems funky.
Thanks for the pronunciation guide though. You're likely picking up more than you notice. ;)
Does no one have blonde hair there? :o
It's funky for sure. The challenging part is not thinking that "my way" is superior to the one used here. Takes a while to see both sides I guess. It's been encouranging to notice, though, that what I've already learned and know and can pays off even after a complete methodological redo.
Some have lighter hair yep but Scandinavian blonde no-one.
Después de un tiempo, el shock cultural se hace adictivo...
Vivir sin abrazos es quizás lo más difícil de todo. Pero no te desesperes :) Después de todo estás rodeado de bonitos paisajes.
Hey, I miss you too. Your ability to laugh; to comfort and support; to be oh-so-righteously indignant about all sorts of funny things; your _outspokenly_ permanent anxiety about not doing enough and being enough that is so easy to empathize with. And, above all, your sincereness.
And thank goodness for that. Because "missing something" is a good thing. And we're not only talking about the great Israeli liberator missiles, God bless them all, accidentally failing to kill and mutilate piles of human beings (who _obviously_ will scream out loud "oh this will certainly _teach me a lesson_ about being a citizen of an Evil Terrorist State" with their final dying breath).
What I'm getting is that, as far as alternatives go, missing your friends and whatever you consider your home country is comes out cream of the crop. I mean, let's look at what else we've got in the emotional basket with regards to things 17 000 kilometers away. Not giving a damn? Not wanting to think about it? Snorting out "god riddance!" when ever asked about it? Now _those_ sure sound like luxurious feelings, compared to what is essentially "liking or loving something, with a nostalgic edge to spice it up", eh?
So, missing things that are far away is a good thing -- whether it be world peace and justice, the cute guy you see every now and then, or your cold home country where tourists go out looking for the reindeer since those are obviously the best company around for any small talk you're going to get during the nearest decade. Longing for things is what drives us on. For instance, the thought that there's always some insight you can grasp about what goes on in other people's minds, and longing for that insight, is what ultimately makes all human relationships _go tick_. Lose that, and the game is over.
To balance it up, the feelings you distantly remember having when for a while there _were_ no barriers between you and the people around you are the best nostalgy money can't buy. Those are things to cherish for years to come, and rightly so.
But if there's one good thing coming out of the bloody romantic themes in every bloody film and story written since the 19th century, it's pointing out this: missing things far away only complements longing for things that are right next to you, and saying it aloud, and doing something about it. It's a highly unnatural thing for people not to long for, say, understanding people who are up close. And yet, almost all of the time, we're simply afraid to say so. (Of course, this is the only way it can be. Understanding and empathizing without sacrifice, without risk of failure and embarrassment, is _very much_ like love without commitment and respect. But this is another story.)
The point being? Find new people, new moments, new places, new things to do you can miss later on, while sticking to the old ones. That's as close to the best preventive mental health care out there as you can get. That's safety. I look forward to you coming back and missing New Zealand.
Thanks for your warm and beautiful words, they wrap around me like a hug.
I should probably give another go on trying to describe these sentiments on longing so I'll scribble down something along the lines of a response on my next post.
Oh and there is one other blonde boy at the school!
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