About those pictures…

So I’d be uploading a lot of pictures here, but since we pay by the megabyte, we can’t even turn on website pictures without paying about 2 dollars a picture. I’ve been taking a decent amount though (as much as I can, but the weather has been either foggy or rainy for a good portion of the past two weeks), and hopefully I’ll be able to bring my laptop into an internet cafe on friday when we go to town and upload them. That or find people who wanna split the cost for the hot spring’s wireless with me..

 Anyways, the biggest thing I’ve been praying about lately is whether or not to switch over to the Surfing DTS. Theres only four people in it, so anyone who wants to can do it for free. I know I came here for music, but the only real difference between the two is that instead of staying in the “GAP” (that’s where everyone hangs out and plays music during the week) on the weekends, I’d be able to go camp out on beaches, and get to actually see some of New Zealand. They would definitely both have their perks, but I feel like all my free time is spent playing music with people anyways, so recording a cd and whatnot would be kind of gimmicky. Also, two of my best friends here are in the surfing one.. But I dunno.. Like I said, I’m praying about it, and unfortunately Josh (the school leader (who also leads the music school)) won’t really tell us anything about what the music and worship part is going to entail, so I sorta want to see for myself before I make any decisions, because there’s no switching back.

Umm, other than that, the people here are all really cool. I’ve actually made a lot of friends, and met some super talented people. My friends Nick and Jessi are teaching me how to play the drums, and my roommate Jay is teaching me guitar for English lessons (he’s from South Korea).

I like it here a lot, but feel like I’m in prison sometimes. We have a decent amount of freedom, but it kind of sucks being on house arrest in such a pretty place. Jeshie, a new staffer who just got here the day before yesterday is staffing on the surfing dts, and his parents are staying here so they have a car that he said we could take out to beaches during the week on days that we don’t have anything going on at night, and either camp there or just come back by bedtime. So that’s another thing that’s making me want to switch over. I see myself getting cabin fever if I can’t at least explore a little… PLUS THEN YOU’LL GET TO SEE COOLER PICTURES!

So for the the first half of last week instead of doing lectures, we each shared our life stories, and they had to be around 15 minutes long. That was suuuuper fun… But it was a good way to get to really know people, and it bonded us all a lot quicker. The people here are all basically my age.. Actually.. I think I’m the second or third oldest guy here, which is kinda weird. There’s a lot of 18-19 year olds, and a 17 year old. And the girls are all basically 20-24.

Hmm I dunno what else.. We started work duties today, and I get to clean the “A-frame” toilets twice a day this week. (That’s the main building that we eat and have lectures in. It looks like an A, hence the name.)

….And I haven’t done that yet sooo I should probably do it now.

I love you guys.

It’s All Green To Me

So I’m finally getting a chance to write a new entry. Today is basically our first free day since I got here, and that’s only if you decided not to go to church. It’s been really hectic, but it’s actually pretty fun.

 So now I get to have some writers block…

Well first off, New Zealand is awesome. At first I wasn’t too sure about it when we were in Auckland because it was all just city, but once we headed out to Matamata (2 hours away) I quickly realized how wrong my initial asumption of how wrong I was about this place.. was. …If that makes any sense. It’s gorgeous here. We’ve had a LOT of rain this past week too, which has helped it get prettier, because apparently they were in a 6 month drought up until the day after I got here, and everything was golden brown. Now I feel like I’m in a rainforest.

But yeah, our days are pretty packed. Breakfast at 7:30, worship and lectures at 9 till 12:30, lunch at 12:30, lectures from 2-5:30, dinner at 5:30, then lectures from 7:30-whenever. It isn’t completely consistent every day– Wednesday and Thursday nights we have off, and I think occasionally we won’t have an afternoon session, but our first week has also been a lighter load than the rest of the DTS. Work duties, one-on-one’s, a couple other things start tomorrow.

We have a different person come in and speak each week, and our first lecturer wasn’t the most interesting guy. I think we all had trouble staying awake through his talks. He barely whispered, was incredibly repetitive, and made me feel like I was in sunday school again… Except a sp-ed version. We were warned about him, and the other speakers are supposed to be more exciting, but that’s basically the only qualm I’ve had so far.

Umm, but yeah… one of the staffers just told me that someone called for me and is calling back in ten minutes so I have to go hang out in the phone booth, which is sweet, so you can blame whoever that was for me ending this right here… (dad)

 I love you guys, and obviously miss you.