Happy Birthday Jan! My big sister (I call her that because she is older, even if shorter than me) is now 25. How exciting. This is one time of the year I really wish I could be home in Alaska. The equinox is knocking on the door, the days are longer, the sun is brighter, and the skiing is brilliant. I hope that all the folks back home are enjoying it. Meanwhile here in New Zealand life is quite good as well. The summer has been wonderful—sunny and warm, and seemed to last for a good long time. Even this week in Auckland I was walking around in shorts and a t-shirt. It has been very dry too, which I appreciate, but is making it hard on many farms I hear.
The past month has been spent at the university, working hard on my thesis nearly every day. I'm happy to report that I am nearly done with all the spatial analysis and simply need to wrap up the last bit with transportation modeling before I write everything up and turn it this June/July. My most recent work has focused on network analysis looking at accessibility to certain infrastructure points including welfare centres, wharves, train stations, and bus stops. I've also been volunteering my time as an “iSpace Mate” helping the new international students acquaint themselves with Auckland and the university. The uni international office has been hosting social events, barbecues, and lectures repeatedly since mid-February. One of my favorite events though was put on by Auckland City, when some friends and I went to see a free, public, open-air screening of the kiwi-classic film “Goodbye Pork Pie.” It was great and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. This semester, we have three new Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars at UoA. I have made a point of inviting them to events and providing them some suggestions. One of the new scholars, Chris Vera, completed the New Zealand Iron Man two weeks ago! I loaned him my car and even traveled down to Taupo to cheer him on during the day-long endurance fest. It was quite motivating to see so many people battle it out for so long. Chris finished in ~13:30, which in my opinion, is not a bad showing for a first time participant.
The canoe club has also been quite active recently. In addition to our “church runs” of the Wairoa River, which dam releases every Sunday, we have been organizing many social events. For instance on the 27th of February I went to play paintball for the first time in my life! It was great fun and my military training did pay off. Not only did I have decent ambush tactics, but quickly learned that conservation of resources (in this case ammunition) was paramount. Our side, the black team, came out on top capturing the green flag twice, while defending our base relentlessly. A personal favorite was when I sniped a unsuspecting person crouching behind long grass from decent range with a single shot. That said, in general paintball guns are not terribly accurate. Last weekend, the canoe club organized the FulJames event. It is easily the largest of the year attracting nearly a hundred “punters” or first time canoeists. To make things easier for the instructors, we hired sit-on-top kayaks, so that the punters could self-rescue. That said, it was quite the challenge trying to guide six of them down the easy class II rapids of the Waikato River and the grand finale “FulJames” rapid at the end. I estimate he claimed greater than 50% casualties, yet 100% smiles. Sometimes it's the swimmers that end up having the most fun! To test this claim, some friends and I tried surfing the rapid in the sit-on-tops, with at times astounding success (Claude and Paul each managed 30 seconds or more of “hang time” on the play wave).
Over the past month, I have also been very active giving presentations to Rotary clubs. Now that much of my analysis is completed, I can ooohhh and aaahhh Rotarians with my cool maps. I also speak on the history of Alaska and the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship program. At one point I have three evening presentations scheduled back-to-back! The Rotarians are all very kind and often have intriguing or even humerous questions to ask. One Pukekohe (a small town in the far south of the Auckland region) Rotarian wondered, “if a new eruption happens in Auckland, could Pukekohe become the center of the new supercity?” I could think of no better response than, “Do you really want to be?” The situation is somewhat analogous to Eagle River and Anchorage I have found.
I'm now back on the South Island, this time for research. The Natural Hazards Research Center at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch extended me an invitation to come down here to work on my transportation modeling with their TransCAD software, an invitation I could not refuse for two reasons: 1)TransCAD outperforms ArcGIS in travel time estimations and 2) I love the South Island! Who knows I may even have time to get up to a little fun here on the weekends! Finishing my thesis still remains my top priority however, and at the moment things are looking really good.
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