Days 69-82: My apologies

When I began this blog, I promised myself (and a few of you) I would update every day, to imitate the valorous ones who had done so before me. Well, as can be seen, I have failed in that promise. I would like to make excuses, and say that my internet has been down, that I have been too busy, or that I have had nothing to write about, but those all would be lies. The truth is, no matter what I do, sometimes I just don’t feel like sitting down and writing about it after a long day. Let me tell you, the days here are long. I often (especially when traveling) look back at the end of the day and wonder if what happened in the morning really was the same day. Here I will make a rather pitiful (though full hearted) attempt to remember the important features of the past 2 weeks. Here goes nothing…

My last post was on the 30th of April. On the weekend (the 2nd and 3rd of May) I began training to become an SSI certified rescue diver. The training involved an all day pool session on Saturday, with a trip to a lake in the Rotorua region on Sunday. We worked on rescuing panicked divers, unconscious divers, and tired divers. We learned to improvise on the fly, how to take control of a situation, and various other useful skills. The lake itself was freezing- the water was in the upper 50’s (think winter swimming in Wilmington) and we were in it for several hours. The wetsuits were absolutely necessary- without them, we all would have become hypothermic and died, and that would probably reflect badly on the instructor. After working out some skills at the lake, the instructor threw some surprises our way. First, while we were eating lunch on the shore, 2 of our team slipped off, got on gear, and jumped in the water. They swam out and began to ‘panic’. All of a sudden we had a group of inexperienced rescuers without gear on who had to go get these two before they passed out or drowned. I was the first one to be ready: and when I mean ready, I mean I had on fins and a woefully inadequate half of an under layer wetsuit on. I swam out in the freezing cold water with almost no gear, calmed diver number one, and began to tow her back. I got switched out to a properly equipped diver, and got up to help bring them to shore. This was the easy task we had to do (and this wasn’t just me acting, this was the entire team). Later on, we went out for paired dives with our buddies. Surfacing, we saw a panicked diver in the distance- her mask was on her forehead (a big no no) and she was flailing about. Again, me and my partner got to her first (as we were the first to surface) and found out her dive buddy was missing. Let me just say that the visibility of this lake was about 6 feet- any further and everything became murk. To find an unconscious diver underwater, with no visibility in an area a hundred meters or more on each side is HARD, let me tell you. Eventually after towing the first diver back to shore and calling an ambulance to treat her for shock, I stood on shore and looked for bubbles, the only way you can really find a diver instead of finding a body. Eventually we found the bubble stream and brought the diver to the surface, at which point she stopped breathing. We had to tow her to shore while giving rescue breaths, bring her up to dry land, and administer oxygen. We had ‘saved’ her- but it was a sobering experience that truly gave us an appreciation for how much could go wrong so quickly.
Our dive group was quite diverse, and included members from NZ, USA, France and Germany. I found the course (which isn’t finished yet) quite useful- I actually feel that I was unsafe diving before having started it, and I am sure that I will feel even more safe and secure underwater than before. In fact, I think my next step will be to be oxygen certified, so that if someone needs it I’ll be able to administer it without blowing everyone up.
After this tiring weekend was a week full of class. I had to turn in one paper, but not much else happened. On Thursday (day 75) a bunch of us hung out and had a few drinks at a friend’s flat- it was a nice relaxing night in the midst of stressing about photography and chemistry. This was only the beginning of a very good weekend.
Friday me and a few friends watched two very good films. The first was a German film called The Lives of Others, about East Germany in the 1980’s. It was an absolutely mesmerizing film- it was exceptionally long, but good. It took us over an hour to prepare for the film, because the dvd player would not work correctly. We tried to sort it out for 20 mintues, then failed. We eventually decided to play it through a computer onto the TV, so 45 minutes, 3 laptops, a VGA cable and very damaged speakers later, we had the movie running- on half of the screen. After we got it sorted and ate a snack, we watched The Boondock Saints, my favorite film. This viewing marked the 19th time I had seen the film, and I still will gladly see it 19 times more. The scary bit about it, though, is that now I can recite pretty much the entire movie by heart. It is so incredibly good.
Saturday, I did quite a few things. I used the early afternoon doing a photoshoot for my photography class, developing some ideas. The first half of the afternoon actually was spent developing my ideas, as I spent 2 hours with my models doing shots and then subsequently finding that I had no film in my camera- how I missed this crucial step can only be explained by my absentmindedness. I ran back, reshot the poses, and got even better shots than I anticipated. Once again, I am excited to work in photography. Saturday, I had promised I would go out with some people who live on my floor (they went out Thursday and were disappointed I was not going out with them then). We went to a local club called the Outback, which is split into two different parts. They had rented out half of the venue, which was awesome. We stayed late into the night, and it sure was interesting. I went in knowing only one or two people, and left after being initiated into about 3 families. By the end, several people I had talked to for hours (about everything from fireworks to evolution’s role in religion) had started calling me their brother, and introducing me to more people as such. It was fun because it was a true experience for me- I was the only non New Zealander there that I could tell (until later in the night at least), and I really feel like I connected with several people on several levels. It was the highlight of the weekend.
On Sunday, about 25 people from Student Village went to Waihi beach and a nearby gorge for Mother’s day. It was something I decided to do because, among other reasons, I needed to be around people and occupied on that day. We drove in a very bumpy route, and stopped at a gorge that used to be host to gold mines. We walked through the completely black tunnels, with nothing to light our way. My geologist friend marveled at the mineral deposits in the rocks (there were geodes sticking out the side of the rock walls that you could take out if you had the right tools). In the middle of the gorge was a flowing river, deep at some points with pits from erosion, littered with rapids and boulders. It was a refreshing scene.
After this we went to Waihi beach. After a non-wetsuit swim in 59 degree water, we went along looking for shells. The sheer abundance and diversity boggles the mind- back home, people will be walking early at the morning to get shells that here would be so subpar you wouldn’t even give them a second glance. Here, if you pick up a shell and it isn’t perfect, you can just toss it away- there are 200 more literally within an arm’s length that will suit you just fine. I have been coming back from every beach trip with shells, every inland trip with rocks. This can’t be healthy. On the beach we also caught dinner- Pipi, a type of burrowing bivalve. We gathered a few dozen and later cooked them up. After the beach, we went to some local hot pools- for 7 bucks, you could go into a series of pools of varying degrees of temperature that got their water from a geothermically active spring 200 meters below. It was quite the day- I was so relaxed on the way home that I just fell straight asleep. To finish off the weekend, I caught up with a few friends and watched a series called ‘Black Books’, a British comedy. I don’t watch TV anymore- I find that it takes away time I could better use to things that aren’t as passive- but this show is hilarious. The humor is so incredibly dry (my style) that I was in stitches for 3 hours. I highly recommend it.
Monday was full of work, a ‘top secret’ project, and a few bits and pieces, including *gasp* lecture. I have a test next Monday that promises to be a killer, so I guess I have some work to do.