Weird and wonderful adventures in Kiwi-land

… you can always tell that I do not want to do any actual work when my blog gets updated on a regular basis 😉 Here I am pretending to work while watching the Olympics once again – and what’s up with none of the 4 (four!) Kiwi channels and Internet live streams covering the equestrian Eventing finals? This is important, people! Have to fall back on stupid ARD Live Ticker, whose authors don’t bother to divulge ANY information whatsoever (they probably don’t need to because I reckon it is on live on at least two channels there). *sigh*

Anyway, for lack of broadcasts of stuff I am really interested in, and instead of going to bed at 1.20 in the morning, I have been sucked into watching the women’s hockey game – Germany playing New Zealand! So now I am facing a dilemma – who do I cheer for? Hmmmmm….. At least I can finally say that I reliably recognise the NZ National Anthem! Next step: learning the words – English and Maori…

OK, interesting (albeit slightly useless) factoid of the day – did you (people in Germany) know that that annoying blasted Schnappi song (you know the one – Schni-Schna-Schnappi) not only topped the German charts for several weeks, it was also in the top 10 in like 5 or 6 more countries, including New Zealand? Gary asked me about it the other day and I sent him the YouTube link, not thinking anything of it. Imagine my surprise when, a day or so later, I was greeted by a raucous chorus of “Schni-Schna-Schnappi”, sung by all but one Niemi (and, judging by the level of proficiency they displayed with the German lyrics, one would think that they had listened to that thing all day!) What is more, Ginny learned at school today that some of her friends actually knew about Schnappi – I commented that this was just too weird for words and very surreal. Amid hysterical giggling, this was then converted into “very cereal”, and I love that expression so much I might just make it my new catch-all for bizarre events!

Aaaanyway – once again I have proudly shared a bit of German culture with the world, although I think this may be one of the most enthusiastic reception Schnappi has had in a while! There are even little Schnappis being drawn by hand and lovingly coloured in! Pray the Niemis don’t learn about Schnappi’s successor, the Lama from Yokohama, also complete with song and dance….. (wait – Fa you aren’t reading this, are you? 😉 )

Hello folks!

I have been told that I seriously need to update this blog more often. OK then – you asked for it! It follows that since there are many days where nothing particularly exciting happens, I might just have to regale you with quite mundane insights into my life 😉 At least this will tell me who actually reads the blog 😛

So, today was a wonderfully lazy day. Gary, Hank and I stayed up to “watch” (or rather, “listen to” = sleeping through) the Olympics Opening Ceremony (NZ is 4 hours ahead of China, so it started at midnight) and did not get much sleep. Obviously, this meant that today had to be spent lounging around on the couch, taking naps, eating and watching the Olympics! It is quite different to watch such an event in another country – obviously, there is plenty of coverage of every sport that New Zealand is in. Luckily for me though, a) there are not that many Kiwis, so TV One has to show other stuff, too, to make up the time and b) some of the sports I am interested in are those events in which Kiwis AND Germans are favoured to win! That puts me in a difficult position, though – who to cheer for? For Equestrian events, I have “decided” that New Zealand could win the 3 Day Eventing and Germany could win Showjumping and Dressage. That’s fair, right? Another quirky side effect is that there are sports on TV that you normally wouldn’t watch (such as Handball – right, Gary? *grin*)

Now if only that pesky dissertation would play along and write itself……

… I am probably going to screeeeeeeeeam. So, once and for all, NOPE, I am still not done with my dissertation. The problem was that I severely misjudged the scope, ending up with too much material and struggling to find a working structure. So after a brainstorming session with Fa (thanx again! Life saver!), I totally reworked my dissertation. I am on the right track now, but still have to put some serious work into it. So while pretty much everybody else has finished and gone on to find jobs, here I still am in Dunedin, dragging myself into the “Dungeon of Doom” (aka MBA building) every day. *sigh*

To make matters worse, the weather has been really horrible over the past few weeks – rain, interspersed with more rain, some hail thrown in for good measure, and oh, don’t forget about the wind! Grrrrr. Quite a difference to July in Germany! Oh well, at least we can console ourselves that we are heading towards spring (in fact, some of the cherry trees on campus have decided to go all out already, blooming like they mean business, and the resident Tui is back in its tree next to the university!).

I have moved out of my uni flat and am currently living my adopted American family, the Niemis. Right now, we are camped out in the living room waiting for the Olympic Games opening ceremony to start – I’m very excited! Will have to cheer three teams now – New Zealand, Germany and the US… So, all in all, life’s still good on this side of the world!

… so I could not sleep the other night and started going through my photos, intending to delete all those that are slightly blurry or unfocussed, poorly lit or just one of about 20 that look the same, and I realised once again just how lucky I am and how many amazing things I have seen and experienced in my life so far. Just one example were the 200 or so pictures of dolphins I had – yes, I did take the one in the current header! In addition to that, there were so many pics of places and especially people that reminded me of truly memorable moments… you know who you are!

Hello everybody,

so this is just a letting-people-know-what-I’ve-been-up-to post. Since my last post, I have been to Germany and visited my family and some friends (could not make it everywhere I wanted to go – sorry again, Lincoln Chicks!). It was really nice to be back and very relaxing – although it was weird to realise that not that much had changed – for whatever reason, I had anticipated that things would be quite different! One thing that was different, however, is that apparently every other person I know in Germany has either had a baby or is going to very soon! Congratulations again, Raika & Volker, Susanne & Stephan, Steffi & Steffen, Micha & Hannes, Nadja & Walter (any I’ve missed?) Don’t people have anything else to do? *grin* Anyway, I had a really great trip!

The flight back was hampered by the odd problem – planes not leaving on time, causing me to miss my connection in Heathrow. I ended up spending the night in Duesseldorf (Sheraton – nice!) and going through Bangkok instead of Singapore. Word of the wise – Thai Airways is very nice indeed, Lufthansa – not so much! 13 hours without being able to watch any movies, because a) they did not have screens in every seat and b) the only overhead screen in my line of vision was in first class – and of course they kept closing the curtains! Moreover, the guy in the seat next to me was a frequent flyer, and so the flight attentdants kept coming over and fussing over him, offering him drinks and everything – and completely ignoring me! Plus the food was kind of bland, and because I was asleep, I missed out on breakfast. Sigh…. But the second leg of the flight, from Bangkok to Auckland, on Thai Airways, more than compensated for that. Excellent food, flight attendants who came by every few minutes with drinks, fruit and snacks, AND in-seat on-demand entertainment! I caught up on some of the movies that I had meant to see but missed (and some I’d never heard of before). I finally made it to Auckland only about 24 hours later than scheduled and stayed for a few days to talk to some companies about job opportunities.

Still, as awesome as the trip home was, I am also happy to be back!

Hey everybody,

words cannot express how sorry I am that I did not update in, like, forever! (oh, look at that – words DID express how sorry I am! *grin*) – seriously, baaaad, baaaad blogger! My only defense, once again, is stress, but that is not a very good one. Aaaaaaaaaaanyway, on to my news: I am still working on my MBA dissertation (despite the gentle and not-so-gentle hints from several friends that they thought I’d be done by now – well, so did I!), but the end is in sight (determined by a deadline rather than the state of completion).

So what did I think you should have seen coming? Well, the fact that I just love it here too much and can’t imagine leaving quite yet, so I am currently looking for jobs in New Zealand (first rounds of interviews this week). So to all of you who SWORE they’d come over, you will still have the chance ;-). Unfortunately, there are not many suitable jobs in my beloved Otago, so I will have to move to either Wellington or Auckland, which sucks because I can’t take my bestest friends from Dunedin with me (yet, evil plan lurking!).

On a related topic, I will be coming to Germany for a visit (and taking care of all of that looooovely bureaucratic red tape!) between 11th June and 7th July, so start planning all those barbecues & parties! On my way out, I will have a layover in Heathrow (gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasp – British Airways! Terminal 5!) 🙂 We’ll see. Maybe some of you people in the UK can’t think of a better way to spend 4 hours than to hang out with me at the airport? I would love to see all of you!

Talk to you soon (promise, cross my heart!)

Sorry to everybody in my immediate vicinity, because I have already told you about this, but believe it or not, our beautiful (if remote and a little sleepy) Dunedin is buzzing with Hollywood glamour these days! They are filming part of the latest X-Men movie right here! (actually, it’s a prequel called Wolverine) What this means is that one of my favourite actors, Hugh Jackman, is staying in Dunedin for a few months (and it would seem that almost EVERYBODY runs into him on a regular basis, on the street, at the cinema, at the gym, at the supermarket etc., except, of course, for ME – where are you, Hugh?!). Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts are also around. As far as I know, filming takes place in a disused lumber mill on the outskirts of Dunedin – knowing my luck, the only time I see any of it will be in cinemas *sigh*. But it’s still cool to know that Dunedin is about to be famous 😉 – of course, I went and added it as a filming location on IMDB, because I am nerdy that way. (Hah! and IMDB knows nothing – they still list Liev Schreiber only as “rumoured” to be attached to the movie – why else would he be here?)

Remember our Live Case Study we did in late last year, for the café and restaurant with the yummiest food ever, the Lemon Tree Café in Lawrence? As one part of our project, we developed a website for them, and it has just gone live:

http://www.lemontreecafe.co.nz

I am very proud of it (and it is a little scary that something we built is actually a real-live thing now!), so have a look and tell me what you think. Also, if you are in or around Lawrence, do take the time to have lunch or cake/coffee there, you won’t regret it!

Rachel and the other Turners were going to Steward Island today and dropped me off in Invercargill to catch my plane to the North Island. Thanks to a very helpful lady in Invercargill, I did NOT leave my camera on the street outside the airport and actually managed to get my heavy-as bag and myself to my destination, Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands (only 7 hours and 3 plane rides later!). The Niemis picked me up in the Niemi-Mobile at the airport (which might trump Sligo airport for the smallest airport building I have seen so far – the “baggage claim” was a big sign on an outside wall of the building, pointing downwards, where the baggage handlers were placing the bags after carrying them in from the plane)

The place we stayed at was just outside of Kerikeri, a wildlife habitat/reserve on Aroha Island, a tiiiiiiiiiiiiny peninsula. It is run as a very small campground to raise funds for the conservation efforts, and we were the only people there. So we found a spot to put up our tents right near the water and had a fun couple of days exploring the island, watching crickets and birds, digging up clams for dinner and hanging about. Ooooh, and I saw a Kiwi! A real-life wild Kiwi! We had been told that there were Kiwis on the Island, and also when to go look for them (around midnight) and how to behave (be quiet and put a piece of red plastic over your torch). Gary, Hank & Ginny had tried just before 10, but no luck. I woke up around 11.45 and decided to give it a try, and lo and behold, there was a Kiwi sitting on the footpath just a few metres from my tent! As soon as my sleepy brain had processed the thought that the lump actually WAS a Kiwi, it was already making a hasty retreat into the bushes, but I could more glimpses of it as it made its clumsy noisy way to safety.  Very cool!