Written 2023-08-08, Published 2023-08-10

Month 1

if anyone has any nice markdown editors lemme know...im using obsidian now

so, we're here now. it has been a month since i arrived in auckland, new zealand. classes have started, so let's maybe start with that?

education

there are so many little quirks of the uni here that i keep finding / discovering / getting screwed by. because i'm an exchange student, anytime i want to enroll in a class i basically have to apply for a 'concession' (waiver) from the uni for some prereq or my status as a 4th year student (another that's weird. nz students are basically guaranteed 3 years (which is only 24 classes for them) and only even do 4 years if they r in honours, which is treated as a post-grad thing). which meant i got totally dunked when i changed my classes the second week of add/drop, because the concession deadline closes a week before add/drop does???? bc fuck u?? so after some rockin' and rollin' with various admin departments i am now actually enrolled in those classes i want to take. i'm taking a couple of geog classes and a couple of population health classes, with 3/4 branding themselves as oddities to the standard teaching method here, being super interactive n stuff and i love them. overall feels a little easier mced-gilled but not too much so.

exploring

so. i haven't left the city of auckland yet. But! i have seen a lot of the city, for all this is worth. i've walked about 220 miles (about 350 km), taken ferries all around, ridden so many buses and trains (ohh i should do a transit stats recap), and trying to get out n around? i've found a cafe that i think has my favourite coffee (but medium vibes) called Red Rabbit Coffee, and met a guy from ottawa who was just finishing his working holiday. he was chillin and helped me get the allongé i desired. if you've seen this website, you may have seen volcanic, a lil dataset project that has given me a destination for my wanderings: the historic volcanoes of auckland. which has been fun, lot of hiking out to odd/non-traditional destinations in the city. it has been really good!

one of the first adventures i did was up to devonport, a village just north across the bay from the auckland CBD. it has gorgeous old volcanoes, lovely footpaths along the ocean, some lil beaches, but the views from Maungauika (North Head) were my favourite, though Takarunga (Mount Victoria) had this awesome metal topographic model of the broad auckland area. super cool map <3

transport

transit here is. something. mostly positive, i think, but wow montreal has spoiled me. i think that i expect decent bus service everywhere, even in a suburb, as a product of this: my baseline assumption is that wherever i am i could eventually get a bus home, which isn't the case here. buses stop running around 11pm on weekdays (same for trains, too), and night buses only operate on a handful of major lines on fridays and saturdays one-way out to the suburbs, not back from them. there are some big projects: auckland's rail network has only been recently (in the past 10 years) electrified, with a major project to create two new downtown stations and a central rail loop/link currently set to open in late 2024. On major routes, the double decker buses fucking rock! i love getting to watch out the top window so high above traffic. but this fails to account for how car-centric this city really is. there's some cycle infra, but it's a bit shit, and pedestrian priority is present is some areas (with raised crosswalks and wide sidewalks) it can reek of american suburbia when i am forced to walk in the green alongside a road. weird n funky stuff in this city, man, though getting to take the train to a rave (making some folks aghast) was a really fun occassion.

stats, for nerds

alice's reality corner

if feels weird to be so far from so many people. this is an odd birthday (oh yeah it was/is my birthday tomorrow/today/yesterday); with ones previous i felt like there was at least An Person or an event or something going on, it feels very weird to just. have a day, without anything particular funky or strange about it. i'm not sure i like it, i really enjoy the enchantment of a fun birthday / the excuse to break the habitual! i know our making of events 'n' celebrations is totally arbitrary, but i think. it should happen more. more celebrations. more made up excuses to escape the day-to-day and have a Wednesday be special or have too much fun on a Monday.

review

yep i sure am here (postive. my review is postive. i am excited for what the next four months hold and cannot wait to see what happens).

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