Well, I'm clearly horrible at blogging. Months have past since I've last updated, so now I am forced to briefly highlight what has happened. On a side note, I am currently typing this in the lab as I watch a rat run around with electrodes in its brain. I learned how to cross a river with the tramping club. I went on my first overnight backpacking trip with the tramping club to Lake Alabaster in the Fiordland. Mimi and Shelby and I bought a car--a 1993 Mitsubishi Galant named Smith. We also got car insurance, but it needs new tires, and I haven't driven it yet. I got a job (unpaid) working in a lab screwing electrodes into rat's brains and reading their minds. I went to my professor's house for a potluck and brought some vegetables. He lives by Mount Cargill. I went to Queenstown again, since Abbey was going down there to visit her boyfriend. She took me and Hannah and Linh down too, so gas would be cheaper. Hannah and Linh and I hiked up a mountain on Saturday, and I didn't bring enough food and water, and it was pretty warm out (at least compared to Dunedin), so I felt like I was going to collapse. Eventually I made it to the top. Hannah made it up first, then me, then Linh, who managed to fall asleep twice on the trek up with only 15 minutes to the top.

Dunedin is very cold. I can see my breath in my room. I sleep with multiple pairs of pants, socks, shirts, and sweatshirts on, inside of my sleeping bag with my comforter on top of that. I wake up and don't want to get out of bed or undress because it is so cold. In addition, the weather changes rapidly. Yesterday it was super-hot and sunny out, so I went home after lab to change out of my multiple pairs of pants and shirts, but by the time I had done that and showered and put on shorts, It was cloudy and cold again. Food is expensive. Electricity is expensive. I bought a ticket to Fiji for Winter Break. That was expensive too.