NEWS BRIEFS
One Book Down, Index to Go
As of today, my book Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains is 100% done and formatted. All that is left to do is the indexing, which will not be a fun task, but shouldn't be too difficult thanks to the power of searchable PDFs. Still, it will take precious time that I barely have. If everything goes alright, the book will be available on February 26th, as I have intended since the start. Making that date has been darn near impossible, but somehow I pulled it off. I am still awaiting a few things from the SLV Museum, primarily a few photographs for the last two sections, but I'm uncertain if those images are forthcoming. It will be a loss to the book, but I'm more worried about the blank page it will leave in the middle of the fifth section. More news should be coming out at the end of the week on this subject, so check my Facebook wall and other Santa Cruz Trains outlets for information.
One Book Down, Index to Go
As of today, my book Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains is 100% done and formatted. All that is left to do is the indexing, which will not be a fun task, but shouldn't be too difficult thanks to the power of searchable PDFs. Still, it will take precious time that I barely have. If everything goes alright, the book will be available on February 26th, as I have intended since the start. Making that date has been darn near impossible, but somehow I pulled it off. I am still awaiting a few things from the SLV Museum, primarily a few photographs for the last two sections, but I'm uncertain if those images are forthcoming. It will be a loss to the book, but I'm more worried about the blank page it will leave in the middle of the fifth section. More news should be coming out at the end of the week on this subject, so check my Facebook wall and other Santa Cruz Trains outlets for information.
MacBeth!!!
Last week we attempted to see two plays that were being put on by the city. The first play, unfortunately, got rained out despite the fact that the rain let up within 15 minutes of the show time. Since it was outside and staged on a grassy field, I imagine it wouldn't have been that enjoyable. It was Peter Pan and was understandably geared toward the younger crowd anyway. Still, we were a bit bummed.
Two days later, though, we got to see MacBeth, Shakespeare's origin story for the Stuart family. Yeah, I went there. It was a much reduced version of the play, only lasting 1:45, but it was fun. The set was on a knoll across a small creek and another knoll, upon which we all sat. It was a fun little arrangement, although Kara and my backs were not liking the situation a bit later in the evening. It almost rained, but after just a few drops it cleared up enough for the play to complete without interruption. It was in many ways the last event of the summer here. School starts on Monday at the Uni and everything is returning to the normal patterns of life. While summer is still another month long, like in the US it ends early.
A New Year...to Some
On Tuesday we celebrated Chinese New Years with a friend from our post-graduate office and his girlfriend. They made eight (EIGHT!) different dishes for us, all unique to China. We hadn't heard of most of them, though a few seemed familiar. The food was quite good and even I, who don't generally like Chinese food, found something to like among the dishes. Oddly the spiced pork bits were probably my favourite, despite there being two chicken dishes on the table. We stayed at his place until 10:00pm, mostly discussing China and the US, their differences and similarities. It was pretty fun. Chinese New Years is like Christmas to the Chinese, so it was fun experiencing this with some native Chinese for once.
REGULARS
Burning Bacon: Blueberries Were Meant for Picking
Some fruits have thorns, others are notoriously difficult to pick and require cutters, and then there are blueberries. No fruit is more easy to pick than blueberries: they just fall off without a fight. On Saturday, Kara and I went to a local blueberry farm where we filled up buckets of blueberries at a cost of $14/kg. It was a good deal and didn't require that much work. The weather was kinda crappy, but since it wasn't raining, it meant we could peacefully pick without much fear of a sunburn. We got a ton of berries, almost 2kg worth. The orchard where they were growing had very few spiders or other bugs, so it was a fairly risk-free exercise. Although we were warned that one of the species of blueberries was already picked over, I filled half my bucket with that one type. There were some large suckers hiding deep in the bushes, but the lack of thorns or bugs meant I could reach as far in as I needed to to pull them out. It was a quite different experience from blackberry picking, where the fear of hitting thorns is constant and painful.
Ups & Downs: Block Walk
Sadly we did not find time over the past two weeks to go on any formal hike. We definitely tried, but we were just too busy. The weather wasn't really cooperating either. What we did accomplish was a 0.8 mile walk roundtrip to a local park. This might not seem like much but the park was actually surprisingly cute. It is tucked away on a few parcels of land that were converted into a crown park a long while back, I imagine. It is only accessible via two narrow paths beside homes, but the park itself is surprisingly large with a playground, gazebo for weddings, and even a small kiddy pool (less than a foot deep). It was surrounded by some poorly-maintained gardens and benches. It was nothing great, but its quaintness tucked away in the middle of a bustling neighbourhood was somehow reassuring. We'll probably go back and read there sometime, unless the kids are too noisy. Construction near the park makes it so enjoying the park is probably a weekend-only option.
Sadly we did not find time over the past two weeks to go on any formal hike. We definitely tried, but we were just too busy. The weather wasn't really cooperating either. What we did accomplish was a 0.8 mile walk roundtrip to a local park. This might not seem like much but the park was actually surprisingly cute. It is tucked away on a few parcels of land that were converted into a crown park a long while back, I imagine. It is only accessible via two narrow paths beside homes, but the park itself is surprisingly large with a playground, gazebo for weddings, and even a small kiddy pool (less than a foot deep). It was surrounded by some poorly-maintained gardens and benches. It was nothing great, but its quaintness tucked away in the middle of a bustling neighbourhood was somehow reassuring. We'll probably go back and read there sometime, unless the kids are too noisy. Construction near the park makes it so enjoying the park is probably a weekend-only option.
The Kiwi Way: The Anti-Australia
One thing that is quite strange about New Zealand, placing it at direct odds with Australia, is the utter lack of poisonous or deadly creatures here. They just don't have them. Period. I've asked a number of Kiwi what they believe the most dangerous insect is here, and most couldn't give me an answer. Sand flies, which are a type of biting gnat, are quite annoying and can leave infected wounds for weeks (I still have some from Queenstown) are probably the most dangerous thing on the island. They have bees which can sting, but their largest variety are the most pacifistic things ever. If you've see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the big bees that are in Beorn's house near the beginning of the film are about right for the bees here: large but certainly not in charge. I'm not even sure if they have stingers. There are no poisonous species of anything here, from what I can tell. No frogs, no insects, no spiders or scorpions, and no snakes. In fact, New Zealand customs authority works extremely diligently to keep foreign animals out of the country, even though the British brought dozens of species into the country in the 1800s. Thus fear not if you visit. Australia: well that's a completely different story.
One thing that is quite strange about New Zealand, placing it at direct odds with Australia, is the utter lack of poisonous or deadly creatures here. They just don't have them. Period. I've asked a number of Kiwi what they believe the most dangerous insect is here, and most couldn't give me an answer. Sand flies, which are a type of biting gnat, are quite annoying and can leave infected wounds for weeks (I still have some from Queenstown) are probably the most dangerous thing on the island. They have bees which can sting, but their largest variety are the most pacifistic things ever. If you've see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the big bees that are in Beorn's house near the beginning of the film are about right for the bees here: large but certainly not in charge. I'm not even sure if they have stingers. There are no poisonous species of anything here, from what I can tell. No frogs, no insects, no spiders or scorpions, and no snakes. In fact, New Zealand customs authority works extremely diligently to keep foreign animals out of the country, even though the British brought dozens of species into the country in the 1800s. Thus fear not if you visit. Australia: well that's a completely different story.
Thesis Shmeshish: Sudden Proposals
After getting my first chapter done, I was prepared to spend the next few weeks reading peacefully, taking notes, and writing my next chapter. Unfortunately, bureaucracy stepped in. There is a requirement that ever 6 months a progress report is completed and filed. While the report is mandated by the school, the details of it are created by the department. Well, my department likes to be extremely pesky about things and decided to completely write new requirements for this year. I have to summarise my entire thesis into two double-spaced pages with citations and references, a timeline, and other details. It is basically an impossible task. Fortunately, they gave me an extension...the problem is I don't want an extension, I want to get the thing in on time and out of mind. But my supervisor is insisting on reading it first and providing comments, and the department head also has to read through it and comment. And since everyone's busy right now since the semester just started, I'm expecting this whole thing to take a month at least. It really is inefficient and does nothing at all. There is no grade attached to it, the post-graduate office doesn't need the 2-page proposal, and the department is going to just throw it away after approving it. It really is a huge waste of time. Welcome to academic bureaucracy, I guess.
After getting my first chapter done, I was prepared to spend the next few weeks reading peacefully, taking notes, and writing my next chapter. Unfortunately, bureaucracy stepped in. There is a requirement that ever 6 months a progress report is completed and filed. While the report is mandated by the school, the details of it are created by the department. Well, my department likes to be extremely pesky about things and decided to completely write new requirements for this year. I have to summarise my entire thesis into two double-spaced pages with citations and references, a timeline, and other details. It is basically an impossible task. Fortunately, they gave me an extension...the problem is I don't want an extension, I want to get the thing in on time and out of mind. But my supervisor is insisting on reading it first and providing comments, and the department head also has to read through it and comment. And since everyone's busy right now since the semester just started, I'm expecting this whole thing to take a month at least. It really is inefficient and does nothing at all. There is no grade attached to it, the post-graduate office doesn't need the 2-page proposal, and the department is going to just throw it away after approving it. It really is a huge waste of time. Welcome to academic bureaucracy, I guess.
DISCLAIMER
The Khagan
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