The Khagan Fortnightly: Misreading French Since 2014 (2:8 – 04/05/2015)

NEWS BRIEFS
The Outoftowners
We were privileged this past week to receive a visit from my old friend Nicole and her partner Neil. I met Nicole back in Fall 2004 in Swansea, Wales when I studied abroad for a semester. The two of us became fast friends and despite having a relatively large group of Americans and British friends while living over there, Nicole is the only one of them that I've remained in regular contact with. She and Neil were in town to carpool to Queenstown with Neil's sister, who is a dairy farmer near Christchurch. This is a good fact, because that means the two of them are likely to visit again before we leave and Kara and I both enjoy their company quite a lot. The four of us are peas in the same proverbial pod.

After giving them the grand tour of Christchurch (i.e., showing them the crater that is downtown) and chatting for a while at our place, I went with both of them to Neil's sister's dairy farm where I got to see how cows get milked industrially first-hand. It was crazy! The cows are on a 50-cow carousel spinning around as they get milked. And they like it; they really like it. I guess we've bread cow to have such large utters now that they are literally stomping their hooves in anticipation of being milked. They knew that they're doing from start to finish, with the workers hardly having to do anything more than attaching the milking device and removing it. Each cow gets milked twice a day, 12 hours apart, and only sits on the carousel for about 15 minutes or so. It was an amazingly efficiently operation. The cows here are also pretty much all grass-fed, free range cattle. Apparently the cattle are just as efficient as in the US, but live much happier lives.

Time Twisting
I hate daylight savings time, it just is such a joke. I know farmers like to have light when they wake up, or something like that, but most of us aren't farmers and having to adjust all of our schedules for them is really a pain. Granted, I like the bonus hour I got last night with the end of daylight savings time, but I'll just have to give up an hour in six months. The trade-off isn't worth it. That being said, Autumn and Winter here are very strange. In the Northern Hemisphere, Fall comes with Halloween and Thanksgiving (at least in the US), and Winter is heralded in with Christmas and New Years. There's literally none of that here. I guess Easter is the equivalent of Christmas, but the anticipation for it is a lot less and its migratory nature on the calendar makes it just harder to get excited about. In any case, that's at the start of the season, too. In Fall. Winter in New Zealand literally has no major holidays, nothing to get excited about. And the lack of insulated houses is already making ours feel colder. Throw on top of that New Zealand Standard Time, with its sunset at 6:00pm and sunrise at 6:00am and you have a relatively dark existence. Until yesterday, our evenings were light and enjoyable, but tonight just feels like it's going on forever. The darkness came so suddenly, and I really don't like it. Granted, this is the time it should be according to the late Pope Gregory and his calendar,  but if we stuck to the same time year-round, we could acclimate to this sudden darkness, not just get pitched into it. Blarg.

REGULARS
Burning Bacon
Cooking has gone somewhat to the wayside lately but I have been refining my sourdough and putting my jalapeños to use. The sourdough bread is becoming slowly better as the sour flavour comes out, but it's taking its sweet time. I'm not sure why it is taking so long, but at least I have the cooking end of things down pat. I've been using the bread machine, since it is insulated, to help the bread rise, while I can also use its mixing function to stir in new amounts of flour and water occasionally. While bread isn't the healthiest thing in the world, at least sourdough rises by eating its own gluten sugars, which means it is relatively sugar free.

Over the past two weeks, we've also made two batches of jalapeño hot sauces. The first batch was with green peppers and it is very much in the style of most taquerias, although it is slightly on the hot side. My red pepper blend, though, puts the other batch to shame. It is HOT, too hot, really. I dillute it with the other sauce when I use it, but man it's just fire. Because it was made exclusively with red peppers and a few sweet tomatoes (small ones), it has a slightly sweet taste to it, making it taste a bit like Tabasco sauce or Tapatillo, neither of which I like much. Fortunately it's so hot that you can hardly taste the old flavour anymore. I still have a whole bag of mixed peppers and we have a few more traditional chilis growing in the garden, all of which we want to use to make a hopefully milder salsa.

Lastly, I harvested the seeds from four (mostly three) sunflowers this afternoon, washed them, boiled them in salt water, and plan to roast them tomorrow. I'm not sure how they'll turn out, but Kara will eat them on our trip to the North Island if they are edible. None of the seeds look like the sunflower seeds in America, but Kara tried one and said it tastes pretty much the same (i.e., fibery). Fingers crossed that the seeds will be edible.

Ups & Downs
Another two weeks, another lack of hiking anywhere interesting. We drove around a lot, though, with Nicole and Neil. We finally visited the Christchurch Cathedral, which though in the middle of town is surprisingly difficult to get to. It looks awful still—much of it collapsed in the 2010-2011 earthquakes. We drove to Sumner afterwards and then up Summit Road to the top where we hiked to an overlook of Lyttleton Bay. Surprisingly, on the south bank, nearly completely isolated from the rest of the world, a whole little town was flourishing with a small craft harbour just near the mouth of the bay. So crazy. It must take those people 45 minutes to an hour just to get to Lyttleton and another 20 minutes to get to the nearest decent grocery store. Some people really like their isolation, I guess. Other than that and a short walk around the dairy farm, the weeks have been pretty dry with hiking. During our North Island trip, we are going to regret that fact very much as our feet collapse beneath us. Ugh.

Thesis Shmeshish
Most of my time the past two weeks has been spent working on my thesis. I have a chapter due on May 1st which, to be fair, is still a month away, but I will be gone for two weeks of that month, beginning on Tuesday. I got all my book reading done for it but I have a number more articles to read. I've already written a 5,000-word draft of the chapter, but there are no quotes or citations in it yet and I suspect that large portions will have to be re-written before the end. During our trip, we both plan to work in the evenings when possible, despite wanting to check out the towns. Fortunately, for our sakes, the smaller towns along the way close down at night, and with daylight savings time now over, darkness may also convince us to not bother with going out at night. We'll see. We are in Auckland for three full days, though, and one of those days is designated for studying-only (within reason). It doesn't make for an ideal vacation, but I have to prove to my supervisor that I am capable of writing a thesis chapter. Hopefully this one does it. I have far more sources than I need and I also have quite a few primary sources, all in Modern French, Middle French, or Church Latin, so that's got to help me out some. We won't know, though, until it's submitted and assessed.

The Kiwi Way
Public holidays in New Zealand are a strange phenomena that cannot be explained by religion or logic. Easter, the pinnacle of the Christian holidays, wins the award for strangest of them all. First off,  Easter is a big deal here, at least in regards to marketing. The United States has Easter egg hunts and candy and whatnot, but not like the Kiwis do. When you walk into the department store here, you get bombarded with giant chocolate easter eggs. They are everywhere. Large displays in the middle of the store and little bits here and there. And they have shark eggs, and dinosaur eggs, and Star Wars eggs, and, of course, Biggy Piggy eggs. Yum. Second, Good Friday is a public holiday. A mandatory public holiday. Only essential businesses are open, nothing else. Fair enough, except that New Zealand is one of the most secular states in the world with fewer than 48% of the residents being Christian divided between all denominations including Mormons. Saturday is, naturally, a normal business day, at least as far as Saturdays go. Easter Sunday itself, meanwhile, is sort of a holiday, but mostly in that Sunday-is-always-a-holiday kind of way. As a business holiday, Easter is celebrated on Monday (Easter Monday), which is another mandatory public holiday. See reasons why this is stupid above. Lastly, Tuesday is celebrated by some businesses as the increasingly silly Easter Tuesday, a holiday with literally no function other than to give people yet another day off for a religious celebration they don't celebrate. It mostly is for schools, probably so kids can return home from a long weekend or something. Woo!

DISCLAIMER
The Khagan Weekly Fortnightly 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 China. In fact, if you are reading this in China, you are a bad Han! Blogger is blocked in China, don't you know? They have censors watching you right now. Democracy! Capitalism! USA! USA! Well, you must be using a proxy server, so right on! Go free speech!

The Khagan Fortnightly: Unconsciously Elected Since 2014 (2:7 – 03/22/2015)

NEWS BRIEFS
How to Be Elected Club Exec
In an interesting twist, two weeks ago I became an exec of UC HistSoc. I'm not quite sure how this happened: I was minding my own business one day when BOOM, I got an invite to the exec Facebook page. Yeah, that's how things apparently work these days. I went to the first exec meeting where I became co-marketing rep with Ruth Larsen, an MA student that shares the same room with Kara and I. I also was elected bank rep since I'll be at the school the longest (the rest of them are all MA students). Very strange and sudden. To be fair, Kara's a member of two exec boards and is a consultant for a third. We tried to have our first event last week, but we're still having to go through hoops to reactivate the club for 2015, so we're hoping this week will be different. Fingers crossed!

Selling From Down Under
In other news, my book, Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains, is selling relatively well for only having a single venue currently. In better news, there will be 12 copies available at the Bruce MacGregor talk on March 26th, which should really boost my publicity. I've already found a few small errors in it—nothing major, fortunately—but I'm still waiting for reviews to come in. I'm not even sure if people have received their copies yet.

Kara threw a book release party for me on St. Patty's Day, which was nice. We ended up staying really late with mostly other history MAs from our room and the adjacent one. But it was nice chatting about things that weren't only about our supervisors (though that certainly came up). Alcohol wasn't even needed because we were all drunk on the cake and rice krispy treats Kara made for us, as well as pizza, juice, and other tasty things.

REGULARS
Burning Bacon
Kara finally finished her baking class and we've returned to good old fashioned December diets. Perhaps we've been having too many carbohydrates, but fortunately I haven't gained any more weight this year. In fact, I've been pretty stable for the past three months, which is great considering it's the lowest weight I've been for years.

I have been having much better luck in making my own sourdough. After getting the San Francisco sourdough starter smuggled into the country, it took a few batches to get things tasting...sour. It still isn't there quite yet, but it is getting closer. Things like this take time. One thing that is awesome, though, is that I discovered a recipe that uses a bread machine to do all the work for me. The loaves don't come out as perty, but they taste just the same and the slices of bread are much bigger and more even. It still takes around 24 hours to get a loaf done, though, so patience is a virtue. My refried beans recipe is now consistently coming out tasting the same, too, so we look forward to that each week. Next week, when we have some friends from the US visiting us, we are going to try making our own tortillas again with the tortilla press. Hopefully they come out better than last time.

Ups & Downs
Hiking has not been a huge priority lately, partially because of the increasingly cold and wet whether and partially because we just don't have the time. That being said, we have wondered all over our local neighbourhood and discovered a few strange things. First, corner markets—dairies, they call them here—are everywhere. We have five dairies within a three block radius that we know of, not counting the BP petrol station market or the various other markets across from it. And all dairies sell the same thing: milk, butter, junk food, soda and energy drinks, cigarettes, and newspapers. They're like pint-sized 7-11s but they're everywhere! They're not even owned by a single company. It's very strange. They also sell dairy products for much cheaper than the stores (at least 10% less if not more).

Second, there are literally no houses beside the Avon River. It is freaky. When the earthquake hit, all the homes along the river sank and were declared too dangerous to live in. Over past four years, each and every one has been levelled so that many of the lots don't even look like they've been recently lived in except for the barrier plants. It's freaky! The couple of lots that do have homes still on them are literally falling to pieces. The earthquake definitely did a lot of damage to this area, but Avonside especially got it bad.

Thesis Shmeshish
After a less-than-inspiring meeting with my supervisor and a more inspiring meeting with another random lecturer from a completely different department, I finally decided to reboot my thesis entirely. Same topic, but the chapters have been utterly reorganised and now I have a ton more of them, which is not exactly a good or a bad thing, it's just a new nuisance to contend with. My supervisor has been strict, though polite, but there is definitely tension building there. I've decided to deal with it by largely ignoring him unless I can't avoid it. Many people have recommended I take this approach, which works just fine for me. Others have also been helpful in fleshing out the character and nature of my supervisor so that I can anticipate his actions and opinions better. Hopefully things will resolve themselves in the future, but I also kind of hope another medievalist appears that I can switch to. Personality clashes really aren't my thing.

The Kiwi Way
Generally speaking, Americans like to keep control over their cats and dogs. There are reasons for this, and not all of them are entirely logical. Take cats, for example, they like to do their own thing and don't like to be restricted. Therefore, New Zealanders let them do their thing—outside, inside, whatever. There's not really any such thing as an indoor cat here. Dogs, on the other hand, have to be more restricted because they're, well, dumber. That being said, when people take their dogs for a walk, there's a very good chance those dogs will be running free. Dogs here just seem to be more loyal in general; they don't run away when unleashed and they don't even stray to far from their owners. They obey commands and return when called. I don't know if it is just how dogs are raised here or if it's an inherent trust relationship that develops with a dog. In any case, it's very different from the US. To get back to the cat issue, because cats are indoor/outdoor creatures, people don't really understand people like Kara and I, who imprison our cat because he's naughty. When people are over, we have to be on our guard to make sure the cat stays in. And we don't like letting people, even our landlords, in when we're gone because we fear that they will forget to close the door. It's a strange reality but one we have to live with because we chose to have an indoor cat. Indoor cats are a fairly normal concept in the US, but here, it is extremely unusual and people don't seem to get it.

DISCLAIMER
The Khagan Weekly Fortnightly 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 China. In fact, if you are reading this in China, you are a bad Han! Blogger is blocked in China, don't you know? They have censors watching you right now. Democracy! Capitalism! USA! USA! Well, you must be using a proxy server, so right on! Go free speech!

The Khagan Fortnightly: Studying Hard Since 2014 (2:6, 03/08/2015)

NEWS BRIEFS
Feminism 101
It was a cheeky Sunday and the ladyfolk were out in force. Perhaps it was because it was International Women's Day or perhaps it was because there was a panel of feminists in Sydney via livestream and right in front of me. Who knows. Anyway, for International Women's Day, the University of Canterbury in cooperation with the Sydney Opera House lives-streamed a panel of six relatively well-known feminists who were discussing the current third wave feminist movement. It was quite an enlightening discussion that had some high points, though the conclusions were all disappointingly low, especially considering the great steps back the United States has taken in the past few years regarding women's rights. Far from passing the ERA, women in America today are fighting simply for equal pay, access to free or cheap childcare services, and reproductive freedom. All of these issues should have been dealt with in the 1960s and 1970s, but they are still on the agenda today and becoming surprisingly relevant again. The streaming was about an hour followed by another hour discussion with a local panel of feminists speaking on site. Included in the mix of panelists was a Maori, an African-American, an American video game designer, a journalist, a Mormon, the FemSoc president, an Australian aborigine, a transexual woman, two Canterbury lecturers, and the elderly Germaine Greer. It was an interesting mix, though it lacked any Asians, Muslims, or truly darker-hued people, thereby slanting the debate decidedly toward the white, middle class women debate, which was remarked upon only barely. Interesting times all around, and Kara is now raring to become more politically active in feminist circles.

A Book! A Book
In more exciting news, Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains should be available for purchase by the middle of the month and best of all, it will be a print book! Check out my press release here. It took four days to get the indexing done, which surprised both Kara and I, and then another three days before the book got approved for the proof copy. And it was a good think it didn't get approved, too, because I had the page numbers at the beginning all over the place. I'm not sure what happened there. It's all fixed up now, though, so stay tuned and watch my Santa Cruz Trains blogs for an announcement regarding the book's release. It should hopefully be by the end of the week.

The Internationals
On February 27th, we had our second dinner with Operation Friendship. For those who forgot or didn't read back in December, the group is composed of elderly locals who cook dinner for local international students once a month (except January). They are a Christian group, but they are very respectful of the fact that virtually all of the attending students are either Hindu or Muslim. Thus it is a very eclectic group. Not surprisingly, most of the Canterbury students are some type of engineering major, since that's the biggest program at the school, but there are a number of other majors represented as well. One of the members, Stephen, befriended us at our first meeting and we went to a coffee shop with him the following day. Kara did most of the talking, and he was very interested in American politics. Stephen is Indian by birth but has lived in New Zealand most of his life and also has worked in the Silicon Valley, so he's been around very different cultures and had some interesting life experiences. He is going to be moving over there shortly, so we won't be able to keep him as a close friend, but it's been nice to have somebody our age to chat with who knows something about American politics.

New Neighbours
Speaking of new people, in the days immediately before and after school started up for the year, Sue, the College of Arts administrative assistant, decided that the master's students room was all full but that the PhD room could use some more souls in it. Suddenly, people were being added on a daily basis, with four added in one day! Our quiet room of about a dozen students, most of whom were rarely there has now become a nearly-full room of 20ish students, most of whom are history master's students, which makes me happy. Granted, my side of the room is quieter and less populated than Kara's side, but it still is nice. The only complaint I have (and I'm guilty of this too) is that with all the students now in there, it sometimes gets noisy, which makes it harder to work. The master's students are younger than the rest of us and they all know each other, so that's a rather strange switch from before where only a few of us knew each other, and none very well. Regardless, having more people around has been great for networking. Kara got a job out of it as an engineering English tutor, and I am now on the executive committee for a reborn HistSoc (History Society/club). Yay?

REGULARS
Burning Bacon: Cooking for Kara
For the past month, Kara has been taking an almost exclusively-Asian cooking class. Her food has not been great, but her preparation of it has been perfect. That being said, we've been just kind of doing our own things lately for food and it has mostly worked out. I perhaps am eating a few more carbs than before, but I am also eating more meat, which is good. Fish is popular here, like in England, so I've been having that, while also indulging in the occasional hot dog (the only brand that does not include lamb meat...eck!). My sourdough utterly failed last week because I was impatient but this weekend I created a new batch using the bread machine to mix and cook it and it came out excellent—it's the first batch that actually tastes like San Francisco sourdough, which is awesome. I've learned a few things about breadmaking over the past few weeks and I'm putting those skills to work. We've also perfected my refried (though not fried at all) beans recipe. The only thing we've mostly given up on is making our own tortillas. They simply don't come out very good. They're too thick and too dry and it is too difficult to remove them from the tortilla press. Plus, they're too small for either of us except when we make enchiladas. I probably should try to make them again soon but I've just been too busy with other stuff.

As an aside, even though it is becoming autumn in the next few weeks, our garden is still going strong. We have about a dozen ears of corn almost ready for picking. A cucumber just sprouted and should be ready to eat in a week or so. We have so many zucchinis that we don't know what to do with them all. It's crazy how well they've grown, actually. We also have a whole bed of carrots with their heads sticking out of the ground. My peppers have finally begun to turn red and we have so many that we don't know what to do with them. Kara may begin taking some of these things to her tutorials for the students just to get rid of them. Four sunflowers are on the way out and we're going to hang them out for seeds once they've wilted a bit more. And coming soon should be a large tomato crop and a few pumpkins, if we're lucky, though Halloween is a bit too far away to enjoy those in their appropriate context.

Ups & Downs: Going Nowhere
Going out to hike has been a bit of a challenge these past two weeks. Last week was indexing...all day...both days... This week we had to catch up on other stuff plus it decided to rain yesterday, so we just haven't had time. On Monday, though, I resumed exercising on our $4 stationary bike that we picked up at a garage sale in November. I actually prefer bikes and treadmills to going outside most days because no sunscreen is required and I can watch my shows. I just finished part one of season one of Outlander and I'll be moving on to Video Game High School for the next week or so. I also watched the very first episode of Pokémon today and regret to say that it was not as bad as I expected and it was in many respects rather cute. .:.sigh.:. I'm downloading the full 80-episode season now (head lowered in shame).

Thesis Shmeshish: How Not to Write a Thesis in One Step
I got back the first draft of the first chapter of my thesis at the beginning of last week and was disappointed to discover my adviser did not like it much at all, except for the style of writing. Most of his points were valid but we differ on a number of issues that will have to be resolved in our meeting this coming Tuesday. Unfortunately, one of the issues will not get resolved and that is my general feeling that he does not have enough time to aid and guide me in my thesis and that I have no one else to turn to. This has been a growing issue but it is at a peak right now. I should have my secondary supervisor approved by the end of the month, but until then, all she knows of me is what my adviser has said, and I don't entirely trust what he has said. It's some serious issues that need mending soon. Fortunately, I've reassessed aspects of my thesis and feel it is on a better track now, although I'm not entirely certain where I want to go with it, which is a major problem. I'm realizing that I am part of a school of thought that things information is good for information's sake, and were I writing a dissertation, that may work, but a "thesis" is by its very nature an object that is trying to prove a point. I don't really know what my point is and I don't know if I really want to make one, so this is something else that we need to decide upon.

The Kiwi Way: Europeans at Heart
Finally, I bring us back to the Kiwi. Kiwis are Europeans. This is something I've come to realize completely. While there is a strong infusion of Maori culture that underlies much of Kiwi life, Kiwis in general relate more with the British than they do with the Tahitian. Kara and I began notetaking two weeks ago for two LAWS classes (yeah, plural, weird) and they have taught us a lot about New Zealand laws and legal practices. The most interesting is that the Parliament in New Zealand is absolute. Nobody can question it, nobody can override it, and there is no judicial review. There also is no written constitution. Laws can be made and unmade by any government, and old laws can be intentionally or unintentionally replaced by new laws. The government here is based on a snapshot of the United Kingdom common law from 1840, with diversions thereafter, but aspects of British law after 1840 can and are often still considered in legal decisions. In other words, government here is a jumble of British and local laws. Stranger, still, is the fact that the Treaty of Waitangi, made with the Maori tribes of the North Island, is not technically a binding legal document—in fact, it doesn't have an status on its own in law. It is referred to heavily by other laws, but the treaty itself has no legal status, which is amazing considering how important it is to understanding British-Maori relations.

DISCLAIMER
The Khagan Weekly Fortnightly 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 China. In fact, if you are reading this in China, you are a bad Han! Blogger is blocked in China, don't you know? They have censors watching you right now. Democracy! Capitalism! USA! USA! Well, you must be using a proxy server, so right on! Go free speech!

The Khagan Fortnightly: Wishing I Were Asleep Since 2014 (2:5, 02/22/2015)

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.

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.

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.

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.

DISCLAIMER
The Khagan Weekly Fortnightly 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 China. In fact, if you are reading this in China, you are a bad Han! Blogger is blocked in China, don't you know? They have censors watching you right now. Democracy! Capitalism! USA! USA! Well, you must be using a proxy server, so right on! Go free speech!

The Khagan Fortnightly: Forgetful Since 2014 (2:4, 02/08/2015)

UPDATE!
Change of Frequency
Well, Kara and I have been in Christchurch for over five months now and I've decided to reduce the frequency of these blogs accordingly. Our routine has become fairly standard with only some minor deviations that are not overly interesting, so I think a bi-weekly (fortnightly) periodical will suffice for the time being. Please direct your complains and concerns to my manager, Niko T. Cat, Jr. He will surely forward them on once he's eaten the edges and forgotten about them completely.

NEWS BRIEFS
Sparks!
We've been going every Sunday to a free concert series hosted by the City at the large downtown Hagley Park. It's been fun and has given a bit of much-needed relaxation time. We've seen bagpiper bands, synchronous dames, classic rock cover bands, and a Maori group. But the coolest by far  was the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra's performance during Sparks. They played for two hours straight, generally covering famous film tunes. Still, it was very fun. It ended with a fireworks show to the theme song to Superman, which was fun. What wasn't quite as fun was the fact that it was heavily sprinkling most of the time and was quite cold for it being the middle of summer here. Also, about 1/4 of the way through the Superman theme, the fireworks stopped. Apparently there was some technical problem. After the song was done and after a brief delay, the fireworks resumed. The orchestra only jumped in near the end, but the spirit was there at least. This is the third fireworks show we've seen while here (Guy Fawkes Day, New Years Eve, Sparks), and there is another one in a few weeks. Seriously, these people need to spend less money on fireworks and more on repairing the city!

Goodbye, Sweet Roommate!
Well, we lost our first and only roommate yesterday. Sam the Kiwi hasn't been doing well in Christchurch due to a bad job market and high costs and so he's decided to return to Wellington, where he worked for decades in the 1990s and 2000s. He was our first friend here and we're sad to see him go. He is a major boardgamer, which has been nice because he's always up for a game. We borrowed two of his games before he left and plan to return them to him whenever we visit Wellington (lookin' like April). We took him out to dinner last Monday to have one last outing before he goes. Then last Saturday, we had an all-day game day with him and a bunch of others. Kara and I played Eldritch Horror—it's conclusion was notably less than satisfactory—and then we played to games of CamelUp before leaving. We were there for six hours. CamelUp took no more than an hour in total to play. Do the math regarding the length of the other game. Yeah. And we lost. yay... :-( 

REGULARS
Burning Bacon: Sourdough Gone Right
So apparently I've been doing sourdough all wrong. I finally had my parents smuggle in some San Francisco sourdough starter for me to use as a base, and it has gone splendidly since then. Right after I got it, I did one loaf of bread and it came out at least five times as good as my local loaves. Part of the reason for the success, though, is the manual that came with the starter, which teaches me right proper how to make a loaf in any condition. The next week, I made four smaller loaves, but the batch was twice the size. These ones I spiced with garlic and other spices and they came out great. Next, we move on to trying the loaves with spelt flour, which has much lower gluten content and is, therefore, better for you. I'm also excited to try the local sourdough yeast again now that I know what I did wrong last time. And finally, there is a recipe for making the sourdough bread in a bread machine, which would probably make the whole process about a million times easier...I may be too optimistic on that account. 

I also have been harvesting my jalapeños lately and have a whole jar of pickled peppers now. The bush, meanwhile, has like a dozen more peppers and they've been getting bigger than before before turning red. In fact, they aren't turning red at all. Red peppers are supposed to be hotter, but since they're all mixed, I don't know. I haven't actually used any of my peppers yet because we made a big batch of refried beans and froze them a while back, but I suspect we'll be making some more in a week or so, so we'll see how good these peppers are. Yum!

Ups & Downs: Hiking the Port Hills
The port hills, which is the remnant wall of the Lyttleton Volcano, has numerous hiking zones on its sides and many state parks accessible to the public. A while back, we went on one such hike toward the Summit. My knee went out near the top, though, and we never got there. Two weeks ago, we tried a different route to the top, through barren brown grassland and a steep switchbacked track, and made it, exhausted, to the top at Summit Road. From there, we were able to see all of Christchurch and Lyttleton Harbour, which was really cool. The hike down was terrible, but my leg didn't go out.

Last week on Tuesday, we went to a different, more remote part of the Port Hills called Kennedys Bush. There was an old slate and aggregate quarry at this site and a hiking trail that wrapped above and around it. The history placards made the entire journey much easier and the hike took less than an hour. Still, it was a nice day with scattered sunlight. The wind was fierce and clouds blocked the Southern Alps, unfortunately, but the view of Christchurch from the hills was beautiful. It was also cool to look over the edge of the quarry from the top. It was active as recently as twenty years ago, but was quickly converted to a park afterwards. We probably won't go back to the place but it was a fun little trip. We know of a few other Port Hills walks to try before we get tired of them and have to look for more adventurous nearby hiking areas. The next one will probably take us to the former gun batteries above Taylor's Mistake. That one should remind us well of the Cabrillo National Monument relics left behind from World War II.

The Kiwi Way: On Less Interesting Holidays
New Zealand lacks many of the creative holidays that Americans celebrate, but there are a few that replace them. One in particular was just celebrated last Friday called Waitangi Day. It is kind of the equivalent to New Zealand's independence day, but with a very strange history to it and a lack of patriotic celebration. Here's the back story. In 1840, a treaty was signed between the Maori of the North Island and the British settlers (virtually no Europeans were on the South Island yet). This was kind of unprecedented because it gave the Maori more powers than the British gave to most other indigenous groups. Its effects are still felt quite frequently today in many different areas of society. The holiday, therefore, recognises the signing of this treaty. But it didn't really bring peace and it didn't bring happiness. The Maori was classified as second-class citizens after it was signed and the British got free rein over much of New Zealand. Nowadays, the Maori use the treaty to stop construction projects, force dual language recognition of various things such as national parks, and halt the use of natural marine resources which the British did not anticipate in 1840 (like oil!). Thus nobody really likes the treaty on either side, and the day really isn't a celebration except for the businesses that decide to have sales during the weekend after the day. It's a very different feeling than with the US Independence Day, where patriotism is all played out—here, Waitangi Day is a solemn reminder of the divides that still exist between both ethnic groups and perceptions of New Zealand.

Thesis Shmeshish: The Great Paper Rush
The last two weeks have been hectic, and I mean that quite literally. Two weeks ago was my writing week for the first chapter of my thesis, and it was a long and tough slog. I worked through the weekend. Kara had a similar project so neither of us took a day off until Tuesday. I had a ton of writing to do. The final first chapter clocked in at around 15,200 words, which is a sixth of my entire thesis. Granted it still is lacking many sources and needs massive clean-up, but my due date was February 1st and I made it, so I'm happy on that account at least.

Simultaneous with the thesis writing was formatting for my train book. This took my evenings and late night for the first week; the second week I moved it into the day and forewent my thesis since my next deadline isn't until May. Formatting has taken a ton of time, with all the photos having to be Photoshopped for cleanliness and brightness, and captions have to be written. Plus little things keep coming up within the articles that require further work, such as missing citations, new information that needs to be added, and strange formatting errors. I've also had to add a few more custom maps to the mix, which just adds to the mess. I will certainly be happy when this book is off my plate. As it is, I just finished the third section (minus four photographs) and am ready to start the fourth. Fortunately the fifth and last section is smaller than the rest and shouldn't take more than a few days to finish.

DISCLAIMER
The Khagan Weekly Fortnightly 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 China. In fact, if you are reading this in China, you are a bad Han! Blogger is blocked in China, don't you know? They have censors watching you right now. Democracy! Capitalism! USA! USA! Well, you must be using a proxy server, so right on! Go free speech!