NEWS BRIEFS
Classes for the Weary
This past week, a three-day series of lectures was run by the Postgraduate Center called Surviving Your Thesis for primarily new PhD students. It was quite interesting over all. There were people who came to talk about careers, writing theses, researching techniques, ethics, the Kiwi culture, and just about everything else. And anything they missed will be covered next week by a similar series called the GradFest, which runs lectures Mon-Thur next week.
That all being said, much of what the speakers discussed regarded the sciences with only one other student there who was a College of Arts student. That was a bit disappointing and next week should be better in that regard since they have some Art-centric sessions. It was a bit surprising how little people seemed to know about ethics concerns with their science projects, even though almost everyone admitted that it will be an issue at some point. Another win for Arts: no test subjects, only reading and writing. Woot!
Learning French Is Not All Crème Brûlée
As a part of my thesis, I have to learn how to read French. I took a year of modern French back in 2008-9 but haven't touched the language since then. And, to be quite honest, that immersive environment from five years ago did little to prepare me for this. I have no class, now, no direction, no motivation except I need to learn the language. NEED! Yeah, with the ALL CAPS, I know. My thesis topic is about England and France in the late Middle Ages, and the bureaucracies of both countries were French at the time. My supervisor, thus, handed me a book entitled Les Temps de la guerre de Cent Ans by Boris Bove and told me I should just start reading it regularly. Like every day. And I've done that ever since. Each morning I grab the book and open my browser to Google Translate, and I start reading. Whenever I don't know what a word means (or, more likely, have forgotten), I look it up. Sometimes I have to type in entire sentences just to figure out what is being said. It's long and tedious, but it is slowly working. I began doing this at the beginning of October and haven't missed a day since except for two days while we were on vacation, and I read twice as much the following two days to make up for that. I don't read much, usually no more than two full text pages per day, but I'm catching on.
For those that think that this material can just be taught in a class, though, let me clarify some things for you. In cultural-emersion courses such as those that are taught at virtually all secondary and tertiary places of education, they focus on the present tense first, then the future tense because it's easy, and then the various forms of the past. They also teach simple everyday words, only adding abstract words later. None of this will prepare you for a history program, I guarantee you. If you want to read history books in modern French, you probably need to do four years of French and then some. The material I am reading right now is literally the end of the teaching spectrum for French courses, and it's my initiation. And it's hard. I've wanted to give up at least twice each week. Some sections of the book are also not nearly as interesting as others. That affects your reading ability as well.
The bottom line: learning to read history in another language is perhaps the true test of reading a language. It's not for the faint of heart.
This Is Halloween, This Is Halloween
New Zealand is not a Halloween-friendly country. People just don't seem to like it very much. Sure, some of the kids like the concept, but people just aren't game. There's no decorations around and few trick-or-treaters. Downtown is a bit more rowdy than usual, but that's not too surprising, especially since Halloween was on a Friday this year. We bought some candy ("lollies") for the kids but only ended up with one group, so we went over to Sam's and dropped off some for his two kids. They appreciated it greatly, though they already had had quite enough candy, to be honest. His daughter was bouncing off the walls!
We did manage to carve two pumpkins, butternut pumpkins since the traditional huge yellow type weren't available here. Kara bought some seeds to grow her own, though, so we have a chance. Next year may be different, but I doubt Halloween will be any more pronounced.
Do It Yourself Mexican Food
Mexican food is quite expensive in New Zealand, mostly because everything comes in from the US from Old El Paso brand. Refried beans are around $4.50/can, sauces taste like crap, salsas are very thick and need to be blended (and are also expansive). Only tortillas really maintain the same value, and that is just barely. There also is little variety. Thus we've been attempting, at least, to make some of our own Mexican food. Whole-grain flour tortillas are easy enough to make, though trying to make them roundish is really difficult. Salsa isn't too hard, though you have to use pre-sliced jalapeño peppers (until our home-grown peppers are edible). The refried beans seem to be the problem. We perfected a slow-cooker recipe a while back and tried it twice when we were at our first home stay. But since we got here, we haven't been able to replicate the results. The first batch hardly cooked despite sitting in the slow cooker for over 12 hours. We decided the beans were just too old. Today, though, we made our second batch and a similar thing happened. We ended up cooking the beans on the oven for nearly an hour until they finally were smooth enough to eat, though not nearly as smooth as our other batches. On reflection, we think our brand new slow cooker just doesn't get hot enough to properly cook the beans. We had hoped it was something else, but this has happened twice now and the results have been the same (different beans, too).
The lesson: budget wisely for your food and don't expect everything to be makable at home. Sometimes, the store is the best solution even if it seems to cost more. This is a sad truth, but one I think I'll have to accept. Or we need to buy a new slow cooker.
Niko Report
Niko has settled in to his new environs with the speed of a hungry cheetah. The very first day he started exploring every nook and cranny. He began almost immediately sleeping under the covers during the day, which he's never done before. When we got our new couch and lazy chairs, he moved into one of them, sleeping there most days now. But that doesn't mean he's not active. He loves the increased sunlight he gets here and also loves the hardwood. Most nights, he runs back and forth around the house, galloping like a freaking horse. Seriously, you'd think the place is haunted. And as soon as we go to bed, he hops on and sleeps...well, until he feels like waking us up at around 7:00 am most days. A bit earlier than our alarm, but better than 4:00 like the first few days we were here. In any case, he is doing well and he appreciates all the people who have asked about him.
DISCLAIMER
The Khagan Weekly is the unofficial news outlet for an American living in Christchurch, New Zealand. Anything he says can and may be used against him. His statements should be taken as factual, except when they are not. All rights reserved, except where prohibited...like in Russia. They prohibit everything there. Psh. Punks. Let's start a punt Putin day. That'd be fun.
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