Days 60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68- Slacking off

So, you’ve read this far? You still want more, do you? You haven’t had enough? Alright, fine. I’ll give you even more. I’ll write until your eyelids close, until your head begins to dip, until you are fast asleep, drooling all over that fancy keyboard of yours. How will I accomplish this? I’ll cram 8 days into one post, of course.

Seriously though, I do actually have some stuff to write about. On return, I found that our rooms had been bombed for bedbugs. Right before we left for break, there was a small outbreak in our pod, but it got chemically treated. As a result, all of my food, electronics and clothes were in separate plastic bags on my bed, and my room had never looked cleaner.
Tuesday we had no class, as it was Kingitanga day, the Maori King’s birthday. This gave me a day to recover from my trip, get sorted, and ready for class. I had already missed a lecture by returning on Monday, but it’s only biochemistry. No big deal, right? Wrong.
Turns out that after a half semester, the professor for our biochemistry class switches. Out old lecturer, the dry yet incredibly humorous (unintentionally) professor who has spent his life researching honey, was gone. I missed him- I had gotten used to his teaching style and wit, and if anyone knows me, I freak out the first part of each semester as I try to determine the teaching style and grading style of each professor I have. Now, as the professors switch, I lose that inherent familiarity, and it makes me uncomfortable. Walking into class on Wednesday gave me a taste of what I was in for. Enter power points, overhead slides, whiteboard drawings, notes, printed lectures, lecture books, and of course, the textbook. Unlike the first part of the semester, this would require nightly revision and hours in the library. Luckily, I have the time and the willpower. After all, metabolic pathways won’t learn themselves, will they? No, they won’t. Metabolic pathways are lazy as.
Thursday was a day for developing photography ideas. I turned in (frantically) my first project before leaving for south island. Now, on return, I had to begin brainstorming for project 2. I decided I wanted to take a certain direction with this second photographic process. I wanted to shoot people- not with guns, but with a camera. I have never been good at capturing people in photography- those of you close to me, or those of you who have ever posed in front of my lens know this. I decided that here, now, is the perfect time to develop that skill. I know where I need improvement- in creative thought and in assertion of that thought. I want to be able to tell people exactly how and where to pose, why to make a certain face or turn their head. I want to tell them when they’ve got it right and when they’ve got it wrong. I want to be able to control the frame as I can with a still life, with a sunset or a landscape. I want to turn people into a medium I can control. I personally find it the most difficult subject to take, but the most important. People are emotion- they are what we connect to as fellow human beings, and thus I think they give us the strongest weapon we can have as photographers. They allow us to connect with the soul of our audience, through laughter, tears, pain, strength, wit, creativity, and energy. We can portray in one photograph the entire span of human emotion. While a picture of a flower or a waterfall can portray majesty, beauty or even awe, it seems to fall short. These photos have a place, of course. It’s just that I feel my house has become too small. I have become to comfortable doing what I do, and I want to step out. I want to get uncomfortable and grow, and let my work grow. So, as you can see, I am pretty passionate about this new project of mine. The question is, where do I get the models? I have the ideas- pieces about the circular nature of life, about religion, science, drugs, cancer, death, life, joy, wit, communism, and a few that are just meant to make you think ‘what the hell?’ yeah, a few of my ideas I created just to mess with my audience. Whether those particular pieces become reality though, the next few weeks will tell.

Wednesday and Thursday were fairly uneventful. Friday likewise was uneventful. The past week I have been hit by a serious of lethargic, rainy, depressing days. They were long yet gulped up in an instant at the same time. My desire to do everything, anything, faded. This occasionally happens to me- I will get in a funk, and become unproductive. Luckily, not much was breathing down my neck, so there weren’t bad side effects. Every time I get in a rut like this, something different pulls me out. Sometimes it is friends, or a book, or music. This time it was work. Sometimes, after a few weeks of vacation, nothing feels better than pulling out that biology book and getting to work. It feels good to get the hands dirty, to tell someone ‘sorry, but I can’t hang out- I have to study’. Call me a nerd, but it makes me feel busy and important, and that completely counteracts and neutralizes any feeling of inadequacy or lethargy I accumulate.

Saturday was ANZAC day. ANZAC stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corps. The day commemorates the day the soldiers sent to war during WWI (in 1915) landed at Gallipoli. The day is marked by dawn services across the country (and Australia too). It is like our independence day, but more solemn. There are no cheers or drinking or baseball games. There are salutes, and ‘The Last Post’ is heard echoing through the cemeteries where those soldiers still lie. Stores by law cannot open before 1 pm. I did not take part in any ceremonies or watch any parades. I was in a funk, remember?

Saturday night a bunch of us got together to cook a dinner for Kristen’s birthday, which was over the break (we were in the car all day, probably the most boring day of the trip). To be honest, we decided to do cooking because I missed it. Even being away from a kitchen for a week was getting to me. I fear I may have caught the cooking bug. I guess there are worse hobbies to have, right? After dinner (which took several hours to cook) we went out on the town and danced for hours. We called it a night at 1 am (early nights here, remember?) and went to sleep.

Now I guess I’ll go into something I figure I should write about: the Swine Flu. Now, if you want to stop reading now, that’s fine- I am writing this so that I’ll have a record of this thing if it ever does seem to get out of control. I wish I had written on my first reactions after 9/11, Katrina, the Tsunami, the Washington snipers, and other events I feel have shaped our world in the short time I’ve been on it. If I write about this and it blows over and is forgotten in 3 years, that’s fine with me- no electrons wasted. If, however, this does become a longer hitting news piece, I’ll want to remember how I felt about it now while it was still pretty small. Either way, here goes.
Saturday is when I first heard about this thing. My friend Dylan came up to me and told me about some flu that was spreading from Mexico to America, killing people. I looked it up, and saw no real cause for alarm, but it was still peculiar. It had gotten into the US by this point, April 25. I kept it in the back of my mind.
All throughout Sunday the news began to spread. There were more possible cases of flu in the US, even more in Mexico with the death toll climbing. It started to look like it may be something more than just some media hype. I think it was Sunday that the UK got its first unconfirmed case, meaning it might have slipped over the Atlantic. Well, on Sunday it slipped over the Pacific too- it got to New Zealand. What a peculiar feeling- to see this virus go from my home country all the way to New Zealand, on the other side of the world. It made breaking news here, and friends of mine went to school near or at the school that was infected. People here started to freak out that there might be spreading here in NZ and in the Waikato region, but it didn’t seem that big a deal to me. No deaths or serious complications in people outside of Mexico. Even if it spreads, it seems to me like it will be pretty mild. Maybe that is me being naïve, but I just don’t see that much reason for alarm.
Monday, 2 days ago. Over a dozen countries might have the virus, including Australia, NZ, parts of Europe, America, Canada, and Central/South America. This really began to pique my interest. I began to follow the story closely, and see the infections map pop up over the web. A Newspaper article for the day listed the flu as its main headline, saying Waikato region was going on alert.
Tuesday, yesterday: The main headline reads that 2 people coming back from Auckland have entered Waikato and may be infected. I still can’t believe how quickly this thing has traveled. The idea that this virus, hitting news less than a week ago, may have already made it to my area? In NZ? Luckily, later tests confirm that these 2 do not have the virus. We are flu free for now. The US is not as lucky though- already by this point over a dozen states may have the virus: at least 4 or 5 have it confirmed. Canada has several provinces with confirmed infections. It’s all people are talking about at dinner. Still, I think the media are hyping it up, but they are doing a good job- I am staying interested.
Wednesday: today. Looking up on the internet, I see over 30 countries with possible infections, including 9 confirmed. NZ is now one of these, along with Mexico, US, Canada, UK, Israel, Germany, Spain, and a few others. Most of Europe has possible cases, as does most of South America. The spreading of this thing is starting to get a bit… surprising. It really shows how quickly the world moves its human cargo. Look up a time scale map if you are keen. You will see how quickly these cases pop up. It looks nice and impressive, almost like a coloring book being filled in. The thing that has to be kept in mind is that if a single case in Russia is suspected, all of a sudden a sixth of the world’s landmass turns orange for ‘possible case’. In reality, of the over 200 million people in the country, one person has minor flu symptoms. While these maps are cool, they seem to be a tool for… unsubstantiated drama. They blow this thing out of proportion a bit.
Tonight we had a compulsory swine flu meeting. One of my friends wasn’t there. I later found out that he went to take his friend to the hospital, for flu symptoms. I have heard nothing else except they are both fine, but it leads me to wonder how easy it would be for the flu to get here. Anyway, for anyone that cares, everyone here is fine. I am fine. I see North Carolina may have some cases, New Jersey and New York definitely have some. I’ll be monitoring the progress of this over the next few days, and will probably be writing about it some. I hope nobody minds too much.