Sunday, August 7
Tonight was the first practice for the Te Puni choir. It wasn’t very organised, but we went through some scales and sang a song for warm-up. Most of the ‘practice’ was devoted to brainstorming ideas for the songs we are going to perform. We need two songs, one modern and one traditional. It will be interesting to see what songs we finally decide to perform, but I think it will also be fun.
Monday, August 8
Today was a pretty normal day, but I really enjoyed my linguistics lecture. Our lecturer was a Deaf man, and he signed to an interpreter (who happened to be his wife) who spoke into a microphone so we could hear her. I tried to see if there were any similarities between New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) and American Sign Language (ASL) since I was in the ASL club at Bates last year. However, the two signed languages are completely different. NZSL is based on British Sign Language while ASL is based on French Sign Language. We learned a few words, and I discovered that the sign for ‘paper’ in ASL is the same as the sign for ‘happy’ in NZSL. It was still a very interesting experience, and it made me excited for ASL club when I go back to Bates.
Tuesday, August 9 – Saturday, August 13
The rest of the week has not been too exciting. I had a linguistics assignment due Friday, so I worked on that. I chose to write about the apostrophe in English. I had to explain when the rules of using it were concrete and describe situations where the rules are more ambiguous. It was an interesting exercise. This coming week, I have a ‘take home test’ due in New Zealand literature. It is really an essay that is a close analysis of a poem we’ve learned about in lecture, so I’m not quite sure why it’s called a ‘test.’ I also have an essay due in children’s literature the day after the two-week holiday. I am hoping to get both essays done this week because Bev and I are going to be traveling around New Zealand during holiday, and I won’t have much time to work.
Unfortunately, I did not do anything super-fun this weekend that I could take pictures of or write about, but that will definitely change once holiday starts. I am excited to see Bev and to travel all around both the north and south islands.
