So I've been maintaining a spreadsheet to keep track of every terrible thing the new administration is doing to unravel the values that America is founded on and that I hold dear. In the two weeks that Donald Trump has been president, his administration's actions, threats, and inaction amount to 105 specific instances in which he has made America Worse by undermining human rights (x18), a functioning government (17), truth (10), diplomacy (7), and economic prosperity (6), among other American ideals.
Now I've gotten that out of the way, I can tell you about how things are going in New Zealand.
The Sunday before last I spent the entire day on Facebook watching the Women's Marches unfold across the nation. I absolutely hate using Facebook, but I felt strongly that since I couldn't participate I should help out by being part of the audience and hearing the messages that everyone is trying to send. Now I have a minor addiction to social media, which is exacerbated by my feelings of isolation in New Zealand, and by a desire to remind myself that I have friends who are paying attention and feel just as horrible about the state of the US government as I do. Hopefully I'll find some kind of balance soon.
Fortunately, some of those feelings of loneliness are being assuaged by social changes at school and after school. Last week we got our tea room back from the construction workers who are removing the potential asbestos panels from our building. Now I can go eat lunch and hang out with other people! Then, this week, the All-In Swing and Blues dance classes started up again. I went and learned how to do balboa block, which felt oddly similar to blues for a swing dance. It's pretty exciting getting back into swing, and the frenetic, exhausting, almost masochistic energy that comes with it.
We also had several visitors at our flat. Last Wednesday, Sehui's old work friend, Carolina, came over with anchovies for John, because she thought he was from Spain. Fortunately, I was there to eat up all the anchovies with some crackers and cheese. On Saturday, John and Sehui invited their friend Juan Manuel over, and the four of us went out to dinner at a Chinese dumpling restaurant to observe the lunar new year. It turns out that NZ Chinese food is like US Chinese food, but there are no fortune cookies. Also, we had a dish called diced chicken that was cooked with peanuts and cucumber! We all went on a huge trek to Mt. Eden, then ordered a ride back to the flat. I had an excellent conversation with the driver, who told me all about the lava caves there are to explore in Auckland. So that's at the top of my bucket list now.
Last weekend was Auckland Anniversary Weekend, which sort of commemorates the founding of New Zealand but is only observed by a couple regions that are in the northern North Island. There was a ton of stuff going on: the Ports of Auckland opened up to visitors and had a concert with fireworks, there was a giant craft market, a Busker Festival (it was almost as annoying/cool as it sounds), a regatta, a Maritime Museum Carnival, and a Māori canoe and dance festival.
After the pōwhiri, there were three days of waka races, dozens of musical performances, and a kapa haka competition. I only managed to see one kapa haka by an urban Māori group, and it totally blew me away. Just like the cultural demonstration that I attended at the Waitangi Treaty grounds, I was brought to tears by the beauty of the songs, which all happened to be about the comfort that being able to speak your own language brings, and about the beauty and power of Māori women.
Other highlights: I ate whitebait fritter (like an omelette with lots of tiny fish cooked into it) on white bread, and hungi (steam baked sweet potato, taro, and chicken dish). I took a quick sail on a...creative recreation of a Polynesian voyaging vessel. Best of all, I had a go at paddling in a waka. After some drills on Māori paddling commands and waka protocols, our mixed crew of Māori and Pākehā manged to make a few laps of the marina without crashing into anything or making total fools of ourselves, so I call that a win!
In academic news: I had my first meeting with the advisors of the year, and I started to feel like we were closing in on a final research topic. Then someone remembered a recent PhD thesis that might have been almost exactly the entire project we'd been trying to do. So I read through that and it was a) really really bad, and b) not totally the same topic as I was thinking about. I went ahead and had some professional meetings to pick people's brains about the archaeology of Māori fishing and what collections there might be for me to look at. All of that was great. I've also spent a lot of time just reading background materials on overfishing, Māori archaeology, and Polynesian cuisine.
Last week I took myself out to Burger Burger, where the decor was so hipster and the burgers so good that I thought I must be in Portland. I think I'll be going there a lot when I'm missing the Northwest. This week I took myself out to the Gin Room, a super fancy cocktail lounge that I absolutely love. I got a gin and tonic with Sipsmith V.J.O.P. (very junipery over proof), which tasted a lot like juniper and made me desperately homesick for the pinyon and juniper pine forest in the Four Corners. So I think I'll go there when I'm missing all my friends at Canyon de Chelly.
Last thing of note, but definitely not the least: I bought my tickets to come home for a visit! I have to fly to Vancouver, B.C. for the Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meetings, but it turns out that all of the tickets to the area are hella expensive right now. So I opted to get a much cheaper flight to SFO and spend the weekend of March 24th in Marin. Then I'll catch a flight up to Portland, and carpool up to Vancouver with some of my best buds from PSU. After all that, Jess and I are going to spend a week or so together exploring Vancouver and Victoria, then my family is going to descend on Portland and we'll all hang out there for a while before I finally have to come back to Auckland at the end of April.
So. Freaking. Excited.
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