Roots Can Fly

During my last visit back to the States, I finally managed to go through some of the family china that my mom has been keeping for me in her cupboard.  There's a full dinner set of my great-grandmother's that I have always loved.  The problem, of course, is moving a full dinner set of antique china from Arizona to New Zealand.  It's fragile, and it's surprisingly heavy -- they don't make things like this anymore!  A full dinner plate weighs almost one pound!  In the end, I just sorted through this dinner set, made an inventory of what's there, and wrote a list of the pieces I'd like to claim as mine.  Then I put it all back in the cupboard. Getting it all over here seemed like an insurmountable task at the moment.  I'll get there though, I do have a bit of a plan now.  It involves packaging and mailing some and hand-carrying some on my next trip.

For now, however, I did bring a different set of plates back. These ones are a gorgeous pattern called Singapore Bird.  They were a wedding gift to my mom and dad, a gift from my grandmother's friends.  It's not a full dinner set but more like a dessert set.  There's medium sized plates and tea cups and saucers. I brought the plates... and one tea cup.  The weight of just that was more than the allowable weight of a carry-on on Air New Zealand.

Happy New Year!

 

Only in the Southern Hemisphere can I write a blog post about Christmas/New Years and making a pie from freshly picked cherries!  

It’s been an awfully long time since I wrote a new blog entry about anything at all -- and my excuse is not a novel one.  Things have been busy!  We’ve moved into a new house in Dunedin (photos to come) and we absolutely love it.  We bought a new (to us) car – a simple 2002 Toyota and my absolute thrilled excitement about it is justifiable when I explain that my previous car was a 1989 Toyota that we paid $200 for! I’ve been studying and working and these things are going well…  My mom has come and gone – she came for 3 weeks to experience the oddities of Christmas in mid-summer.  And last but surely not least, I was recently diagnosed with a health condition that requires some managing.  I won’t write about it right here right now, but it has been a significant experience.  

What do all these things have in common?  They have all greatly impacted and primarily advanced how “at home” I feel in New Zealand.  Indeed this last year, overall, my 5^th in New Zealand, has been some sort of a turning point in feeling more peacefully settled in this country.  More on some of these things later…  But for now, a couple of little things.  This year, I got to make Christmas sugar cookies with my mom just like the old days, but with some New Zealand flare.

And, on my way home from my in-laws at the end of a lovely Christmas Day, I realized that it didn’t feel quite like Christmas was complete yet – because I hadn’t been to the beach!!!  Goodness, I am turning a little bit more Kiwi afterall.  

So on the way home, I made a quick detour and felt much better.

And what did I do on New Year’s Day?  Well I went for a long, hot tramp (hike). 

 And on January 2^nd I picked gorgeous, fresh cherries straight off their abundantly covered trees at an orchard in Cromwell.  And on January 3^rd, I made a delicious cherry pie.   

Now that’s a good start to a new year in mid-summer that I could turn into a tradition and get very used to!  

 

 And Happy New Year!     

My Kitchen Aid, a Chocolate Cake and James' Birthday

At one point, a Kitchen Aid symbolized everything I thought I'd miss and sacrifice by migrating across the world. 

The frosting, almost done.

I never owned a Kitchen Aid back in the States, nor did my mom have one in the house when I grew up.  But at some point I began to covet a Kitchen Aid. I knew that one day, when I had a lifestyle that didn't involve fitting everything into a backpack on a regular basis, I would get one and bake beautiful goodies in the kitchen with flair.  Just like Martha, I would effortlessly create baked goods that were at once delicious and pretty.

Over the years, I have learned a lot about cooking and baking and do enjoy doing it.  Semi-settled into our Dunedin, New Zealand home, now with far more than I could fit in a backpack, I started looking for a Kitchen Aid. They didn't seem to be available in New Zealand at all, but then I did find some. For the bargain basement price of about $1000.  Just $850 on sale!!! I thought about bringing one back from America (where they are about $250) but they, 1-weigh a ton and 2-can't be plugged in here.  Over time, I became a bit devastated about the stupid Kitchen Aid. I quietly, steadily over-reacted, internalizing this as a sign that my life was never going to look quite like I imagined; it was going to be different in a million little ways just like this -- and sometimes it's the little things that seem to matter so much.

Ode to a Warm House (and Soup)

Not until moving to NZ did I realize that "home-heating" could be such a robust,varied and complex conversation topic.  Sometimes I like to see how many minutes pass before my husband mentions 'heat pumps' in a new conversation with a third party.  It's never long.  And then if you throw in things like insulation, underfloor heating, solar panels and double-glazed (double-paned) windows - well there's hours of conversation in that!  Not to mention the wonders of thermal curtains, electric blankets, wet-backs (a fire that heats your hot water tank while warming your house) and debating the warmth that comes from a wood-burning vs coal-burning stove.  And don't forget! - there's different TYPES of insulation, different ways to install and mount your heat pump, and dehumidifiers come with all sorts of options too. And that's not even mentioning the huge array of space heaters you can plug in and turn on. Get the picture? 'Cause that's just the very beginning. Home-heating is discussed at great length and in great detail here in NZ.  And though I myself can't get too excited about the topic, I decided to make a blog posting in honor of my warm house - and my husband who did most of the work to get it this way - because I'm generally pretty warm and toasty as we enter winter - and that, I've learned - is not to be taken for granted in NZ. Otherwise, they wouldn't talk about home-heating so much. So here you go James, a blog entry for you, about our home-heating. My take on it will undoubtedly involve more soup and less variables of technological efficiency than yours.

Our main source of heat is this fire. It's such a lovely, toasty, atmospheric sort of heat. Takes a bit to get it going, but it is nice.  Though I questioned James' sanity as he jack-hammered through our cement foundation, I now say it was genius.  He installed a little fan under the fire that essentially propels warmed, fresh air out into the room.  It's fantastic!

They Really Need Some Mega-Fauna Here




Near Lake Pukaki en route from Mt. Cook National Park

 I struggle a little bit with reading retension at times.  If I'm not careful and deliberate, all the reading that I do just doesn't stick in my brain. This can be a problem for a PhD student.  So I have all sorts of tricks. I highlight, take notes in the margins, type up notes, and periodically summarize readings on a particular topic. It's incredibly time-consuming; but I seem to get there in the end. After a bit of internet research several months ago, I added a few new tricks to my routine. When approaching a new reading, I write down 5 terms I know will be in the reading. I read the title, all subtitles and then the conclusion first. Prior to reading the article, I write 3 sentences reflecting what I already know on this topic.

This last one is based on the idea that, as humans, we remember and make sense of new information by comparing it or adjoining it to something we already know. We all do this all the time. But, migrants in particular, vigorously engage in this process, especially in the early months or years in a new country. We've all done it and certainly heard others do it - for example, chipping in to a conversation with the phrase, "Well, where I come from, it's common to..."  Migrant research shows that a continual, subtle comparison between 2 places lasts for an immigrant's entire life. It's how migrants create continuity - across oceans, over time and between what would otherwise feel like disparate lives and selves.

Dunedin Does Its Part

While Christchurch continues to grapple with liquefaction, aftershocks and a rising death toll, many people here in Dunedin are searching for what they can do.  There is almost a desperation in the air, as people long to do something. 

Perhaps that's why today's collection of bagged lunches has been such a huge success. 

University of Canterbury based Student Volunteer Army received a fair amount of media attention after they formed and mobilized themselves, largely via Facebook, after the September quake. (Yet again, behold the power of social media!)  They have mobilized again and thousands of student volunteers are expected to respond to calls for non-emergency assistance around the quake zone. I checked out their website and it is strikingly simple in this day of hyped up media everything. It is strictly functional. Either register that you need non-emergency help. Or that you are available to help.  Follow their updates on Facebook.

A message requesting bagged, non-perishable lunches for the Student Volunteer Army went out to Dunedin yesterday. The goal: to collect 10,000 lunches.  With two hours of collection left today, I believe they now have over 14,000 lunches. 

We Like to Make Stuff

Stuff is expensive in NZ.  Well, a lot of stuff.  Relatively speaking.  I didn't know it until I moved here, but growing up in America, I was used to cheap stuff. When that's what you are used to, it's quite the adjustment to move somewhere where stuff is not so cheap.  Take books for example. A standard paperback, a new best seller, is about $30.00.  A Gore-Tex raincoat?  About $700.  A DeWalt Battery Drill? $400.  James says in the states that drill is about $100 at Home Depot.  A can of black beans?  $3.50 here in Aotearoa.

I've started making toasted granola to replace the crunchy granola bars I used to buy  in the states. 

Every American expat I know orders things on line to be sent over, or has a running list as long as his or her arm of stuff to get on the next trip back or to have some unsuspecting visitor bring over with them.

New Traditions

I think migrants engage in a conscious process of deciding which old traditions to purposefully carry on, which to abandon (willingly or reluctantly) and which host country traditions to adopt.

And sometimes, you just make up something new.

 

This holiday season has been a conglomeration of all these strategies.

So this entry backtracks to Thanksgiving. Actually, for a moment, I’ll jump back to Thanksgiving 2006 when several of our American friends and family were gathered in NZ for our upcoming wedding.  With no means to create a proper Thanksgiving dinner, all the American guests ordered Indian take-out, sat around a picnic table, and toasted this unorthodox celebration. 

This is a precious memory to me and to all, so I’ve heard, who were there.

But I’ve also wanted to integrate a traditional Thanksgiving dinner into my NZ life. It’s my favorite holiday and as America’s newest citizen, James has embraced Thanksgiving like nobody’s business as well.  But we’ve never pulled it off here in NZ and this year I began to get awfully discouraged – some traditions just aren’t transferable, even with considerable, conscious effort. 

This year, I planned to go all out - 3 Americans would be visiting! But late November is early summer here. A really busy time for everyone. Our 3 friends were travelling around NZ, James was climbing Mt. Cook and I was home alone.  Locally, it’s an ordinary work day – Thursday is not a day for cooking and gathering and “Black Friday” is not a day for recovering and shopping.  And even if I had remembered to collect my family’s recipes, I realized half the ingredients aren’t available here. (Cheese Whiz! What’s Thanksgiving without Cheese Whiz!?!  If you aren’t with me on that one, how about cranberry sauce? Pumpkin pie? Turkey? Getting the picture?) 

James with his favorite Thanksgiving dish.

Let the Pictures Do the Talking

My last few posts haven't involved any photographs.  And who doesn't love photos?  I do. So this entry uses several recent photos to depict a bit of my life here in New Zealand. Some of the pictures I took deliberately with this project in mind.  For others, I realized after taking them, that they say a lot...

So here it goes.

I get to enjoy this view, from the Staff Club at the U of Otago, several times a week.  It's a quintessential Dunedin, NZ view. The oldest buildings on "campus" (a word that I rarely hear NZ'ers use but am seemingly unable to delete from my vocabulary!) are local icons, the green hills are good representatives of the landscape and the "tussocks" (the plants on the deck) are common both in the wild hills and in urban landscaping. Sun makes sitting outside the club particularly enticing and I realized it is one of my favorite spots in all of Dunedin.

The Other Four Senses

It certainly is getting closer to the time when I must look forward, not back; the time when I think about where I’m going instead of where I’m leaving. So I’ll wrap up my little project of observing Alaska through all five senses. After last week’s entry on sight, here’s a quick look a life in Juneau with the other four senses.


Taste

Costco was already in Juneau when I moved here and I basically had no qualms about shopping there. But many long-time locals will tell you that in spite of the high cost of food and goods in Alaska they initially boycotted the giant cement block when it first infected the town. But eventually Costco’s prices won over many locals and their relatively unblemished tomatoes won over the rest. After all, anything other than the most strict subsistence life in Alaska largely requires importing food. A lot of food. From far away. That food arrives primarily by a multi-day barge trip and the produce shows it. I’ve received many-a-voice mail message sharing which store has just-ripe avocados or fresh, crisp apples; that’s treasured information.