And Other Names for Bell Peppers

16 September: On Tuesday I met with my own personal librarian, Dave. Okay, so he's not mine, but he is specifically tasked with working with history majors and the like, so he's sort of mine. Anyway, it was kind of fun. We chatted about a whole slew of random things since the library really isn't that difficult to navigate. Kara was researching during this time, and I joined her after. We're settling in quite well to our office space, though I'm still a bit lost regarding what I should be doing. Kara's project's straight forward, but I'm just drifting until I figure out what I should be researching. We have proposals due at the end of February and these things are a bit dense, so that's my current goal. After that, it's not so hard.

Oh look. Acrobat Reader wants to update. Sure. Why not? Feel free to interrupt me anytime, Adobe.


Anywho, when we got home, our homestay lady chewed us out a bit for using the heater during the daytime. Now mind you, it was about 50˚ inside the house in the morning and it was windy and raining outside. Most importantly, we were still there. She was not. We're paying a bunch of money each week to stay here and she gets mad at us for wanting the temperature to be comfortable. Welcome to New Zealand, people, where everyone prefers antarctic weather. Things have been quite tense ever since, especially since we had to go and get our own dinner too, since she decided to leave us a message on her answering machine rather than calling one of our cell phones. Because that makes sense. Tuesday ended badly.

17 September: Wednesday became our first day of practiced avoidance. We slept in until everybody left, then watched the finale of Hell on Wheels. Afterwards, we went to a lecture by a history MA student who was focusing on prison reform in colonial India. It was quite interesting.

Oh Acrobat Pro, you want to update now too? Sure, no problem. I'm just trying to write here!

The rest of the afternoon we stayed in our offices. I wrote an abstract for an application to speak at the ANZAMEMS conference in Brisbane next summer. Either way I'm going, so the issue now is am I speaking. The whole conference is a week long and kind of a big deal in the Southern Hemisphere. In the evening, we had some Chinese chicken thing, which was okay except I had to filter out the mushrooms and capsicum (see below). Then we finished season one of Bates Motel, which was fun.

Ambrose enjoying some brushing.

Cherry blossoms after a very windy afternoon.

18 September: Thursday was a strict work day. We went to the school right after lunch and worked for about four hours straight. I finished my application after some rewrites suggested by my supervisor, and then moved on to researching again. At the very end of the time, I finally discovered some good material for research, but I ran out of time so it'll have to wait until Friday. The good news was that I finished the first major section of my Santa Cruz Trains book! That's right, makin' progress baby! Kara just finished editing the last page so tomorrow is going to be an intensive editing day. We also have a house to visit, if everything goes right.

There is one major Mexican food chain in New Zealand, and it is really new. It's called Pepe's Mexican Grill and they are more FreshMex than traditional. We tried them and were not overly impressed. A lot of rice (with lime!) and the beans were simple pinto rather than refried. For the cheese, they put this sour cream/spice/cheese sauce on rather than shredded cheese. Overall, we determined that not only have I been making tastier Mexican food, but I can make it for about a third of the price. Yeah, we're totally opening up a Mexican restaurant here when we're done with our degrees. We'll call it PhD Taqueria.

Intersting Facts:

• Bell peppers are extremely common ingredients here in food. The people literally stick them in every food item. Yet the Kiwis do not call them bell peppers; indeed, apparently most of the non-American, non-Canadian, and non-British English-speaking populations don't call them that. To the rest of the world, bell peppers are called "capsicum" which is its scientific name. And now you know!