Evil and mean.
Yeah.

My computer still isn’t fixed, so I am writing this on a friends’ computer. That is why some things are disjointed. Yes… they’re not disjointed because I’m not that great at typing. It’s all to do with the lack of the computer…

This week has been interesting, as has every week since I have been here. You know what I was up to before Wednesday, but that day was boring and you don’t want to hear about that, so I’ll start with Thursday.
On Thursday I played my first game of soccer for real. I can’t quite remember the score now – it wasn’t important – but lets just say my team played much better in the second half than the first. I was also quite embarrassed – a cry went up before the game ‘They have too many guys on their team!’
Nope, sorry other team. We had three guys and three girls. One of the girls just happened to have short hair. Moving right along.

Friday was the day of the EAP fair, and I had a paying job to do! So I skipped out on a class, showed up very early and started to help out. I was cheerful, I spoke to people about New Zealand, and I did all sorts of random work to do with checking people in and out of the hall in which it was being held. I was there nine hours. Myself and another New Zealander even gave a short rendition of ‘God Defend New Zealand’ for a crowd of students who wanted to go to Australia. After the nine hours I and another bloke (an Italian named Tom) went back to the office to collect our pay. It turns out that since we don’t have a social security number we might not be. This is silly – they advertised among the international students for the fair. If they can’t pay us, then why ask us?

The saga of the computer is this – it has stopped charging. I rang up a call centre in India who were quite keen for me to be someone else’s problem. After several frustrations, I managed to get a name and an address for a repair company in Emeryville, which isn’t that far away from Berkeley. It’s a mission to get around by public transport here.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to find this place. Firstly I couldn’t find anyone to go with me, and then my friend asked me if I wanted to go with her to San Francisco. How can I refuse that type of thing? SF is great – it’s a fantastic place.

I went to an American restaurant, which can be quite stressful. I had no idea what I should be ordering (neither did the Americans I was with however, so I felt better.) so in the end I got Turkey. It tastes nothing like chicken! It makes you really sleepy.
I got ranch dressing on my salad. Ranch dressing on a salad defeats the point of a salad. It’s very nice, but it’s really heavy, so go easy on the stuff if you’re offered it in the States. The food they serve is in massive quantities as well, so if you can don’t finish and get a little plastic doggie bag. It’s not considered bad or rude at all (although I still have problems with it – cultural programming is hard to break). I also went to Union Square to a “Candy Shop” that sold mostly chocolate. I had ‘peanut brittle’ which was absolutely fantastic (don’t eat too much of it though because you’ll be huge) and some chocolate in a bar. The chocolate wasn’t very good, but they tried very hard.
New Zealand chocolate is a hard act to follow I suppose.

Time for more of Margaret’s Random Friends:

One guy in my house is a computer genius, (Austin is his namo) who kinda looks a little Australian around the edges. His father is a rocket scientist for NASA and his mother is a consultant for Nuclear Power Plants. This probably gives you a wee hint as to where his interests lie, yes? He has short brown hair, which you hardly ever see because he’s always wearing a floppy hat with the two sides done up, and you won’t see him without his IBM workstation because apparently it kinda attaches to his arms. The tie-dry shirt, the tramping shorts and the hiking boots complete the picture of what he wears every day. Building robots since you were three does that to a person I’m told.

There is also this girl who is very patriotically Mexican and American at the same time, and she lives downstairs in the Library Suite. (Dyana.) She is short (ish), speaks Mexican Spanish (which is ruddy cool) and wants Obama (the African-American running for the democratic vote) to win the presidential campaign. Being in the library suite must be tough sometimes – everyone hangs out in the common area till really late, but I’ve never heard her complain, which is either very self-sacrificing, or she can sleep through a hurricane. She comes from Merced (which looks very nice in the photos, but most everything does) and I have no idea where that is, so I normally just guess on a map.

Cheers team

Margie

Ps. Flowing tresses.

written by  Crosswood on September 30, 2007 from Berkeley, United States
from the travel blog: New Zealand Student, American University.
Send a Compliment

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Make im teac you ow to build a super robot! one tat can eard seep over ills in New Zealand. Bet e can't! Did you get rigt in tier faces and be like "I'm a girl you blind looneys!" You totally sould ave, ten tey are t embarrassed ones. Bah they were probably oh my GOSH MY H KEY AS RANDOMLY RETURNED! HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHH

Tis makes me appy oh, it only works now if i get it at a certain angle. Unfortunate.

written by  Rebecca Harris on October 1, 2007

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I asked him about it, and he said that wasn't really his speciallty, but he can make a robot that will play robot sports for you if you feed him enough. You can't feed him enough though - he's like a bottomless sack on legs.

written by  Crosswood on October 5, 2007

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Obama does seem lyk a preti good candidate. As 4 the whol male thing well...u du hav short hair. Mayb u shud wear titer tops? haha ok I know u well enough to know u wont do that but just go in2 a hairdressers over ther and say...my hair is short but I stil want 2 luk lyk a girl. U dont evn hav 2 mention bein in the rmy. Im sur they hav student discount instead ov military discount (and say ur tryin 2 grow it). Problm solved :) Hows things? Im bak from aussi and will write an email soon. Wats the address I can send a letter 2? Evry1 lyks mail! XXX

written by  Annabel on October 7, 2007

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