Carlson & Waitomo Caves!

Hello all,

I decided to take a packing break to update you all on life in New Zealand.

This week was dedicated to figuring out my internship at the Carlson school. The Carlson School is a school for kids with cerebral palsy. Here is the website if you would like to see it: http://www.carlson.school.nz/. One of the components of the program that I am on is that I do a 250 hour internship. The way the program is set up is that starting March 1st I will be interning four days a week and taking one class (Psychology of Personality) at the University of Auckland. On Monday our program director took another girl from the program and myself to our interview at the Carlson base school. We were met by the deputy principal who is great and the interview went very well. After the interview, we were given a tour of the school and got to meet some of the kids. They have various classrooms for children of different ages and abilities. The kids at the base school are those with the most severe needs and the focus is on helping them to develop life skills. It was great to be there and it seems like an incredible school. Another part of the Carlson school is the two satellite classrooms they offer. After talking with the deputy principal, it was decided that throughout the week our program director, the other girl and myself would tour the other two satellite schools and then meet back on Friday and decide where and in which classrooms we would be placed. On Thurdsay we went to the Waikowhai Intermediate School, which has one Carlson classroom, and on Friday we went to the Oranga Primary School, which has two Carlson classrooms. We then went back to the base school to decide where we would be placed. I absolutely loved the Oranga satellite class. The teachers and students all seemed really engaged and I truly enjoyed the environment there. Furthermore, I thought it would be interesting to see how the Carlson students are integrated into the mainstream Oranga school - apparently they do much social integration. So I am officially placed at the Oranga Carlson satellite classroom! I have a main class, but will be helping both classrooms out. I am the first BU participant to be at one of the Carlson satellite schools, but I think it will be a great learning experience and I can't wait to start! Along with figuring out our internships, the other girl placed at Carlson and I were trying to figure out transportation. Since we will be at the schools four times a week, we are trying to see if we can get bikes for the next few months. We tested it out on Thursday by riding to the three different schools and they are all very do-able (although riding to all of them on the same day was pretty difficult!). It was also just really great to ride around the city - we went pretty far out and I got a better sense of my surroundings and of Auckland in general. It was really nice. I haven't found a good bike store yet, but hopefully I'll find a way to ride to my internship soon! Or else, there are buses available.

This weekend a few of us decided to go to the WAITOMO CAVES! The caves are located a little over two hours south of Auckland. We drove up Friday and then did the caves on Saturday. I'll try to describe it all for you, or else here is the link to the website: http://www.waitomo.com/caving-adventure.aspx. We did the Black Abyss which is a 5 hour adventure in the Ruakuri Cave. We had tour tour guides and there were 7 of us in a group. We first put on full body wetsuits, water boots and helmets with lights. Then we piled in the van to go to the cave. We learned how to abseil (aka repelling) and then we each abseiled ourselves down into the cave one at a time. We abseiled down 37 m which transfers to about 100 ft! Naturally, I was so scared. But the top of the cave was not very deep and then I went through a really narrow part to get to the actually cave. I didn't really look down but instead was looking around at the magnificent cave. The way the abseiling worked was we had these devices on and were in control of our speed by feeding the rope through, but there was also one of the guides at the bottom acting as our safety in case we needed her to take over. After reaching the bottom, we all introduced ourselves and then went further into the cave for the Flying Fox. The Flying Fox is actually a zipline through part of the cave in the dark. It was really cool and when I got to the other side I could see the glow worms! There were glow worms all around the cave and they were absolutely beautiful. Apparently they are not so much worms as they are carnevourous maggots, but the light they give off is still pretty. After the flying fox we had a snack of delicious biscuits and hot chocolate. Then we were each given a tube and we had to jump into the water (I screamed really loud!). Then we paddled and pulled ourselves on a rope through the water and got to see some really cool parts of the caves and more glow worms. Then the guide tugged us back which was fun. We then got rid of our tubes and walked/swam through the water. We went to a waterfall where they set up a slide which was fun to go down. We saw a whale fossil which was I think around 3 million years old which was really cool. We were given another snack of chocolate and warm orange juice (kind of) which was excellent. Then when we were at the lowest point (about 60 m) we had to start climbing up to get out of the cave. We had to go through some pretty narrow passage ways which were fun and intense. Then we had to climb up 2 waterfalls to get out which was kind of scary but also really cool. Then on the way out the guide and I saw a frog which we took back outside. Then we walked through part of a rainforest to get back to the van. Back at the base we were given hot showers, tomato soup and bagels (yumm!). It was a really amazing experience and I felt so accomplished afterwards!

One of the guides took pictures of us while we were in the caves. I tried to put the pictures that I am in at the beginning, then the group and then the professional "post-card" pictures. Here's the link so just copy and paste: http://picasaweb.google.com/LSOL817/WaitomoCaves?feat=directlink

Back to Saturday: We then came back to Auckland and I went to the Auckland Zoo for Zoo Music. Zoo Music is a concert the zoo puts on every saturday night during the summer. The UniLodge where I live got free tickets to the concert last night (normally it's $30) and provided transportation. It was a lot of fun! I was able to see animals and listen to some cool New Zealand music by Anika Moa and Sola Rosa. There were SO many people there from New Zealand there which was nice to see.

Yesterday I studied for my geography exam. After being cooped up in the library for a while, I went over to the Auckland Domain to listen to some music while I studied. I had the exam today and let me just say that exams in New Zealand are SO different than exams in the US! The environment is much more intense. The exam was in a different room than we are normally in and you to wait outside to be "invited" in. Our normal lecturers did not administer the exam, but rather four different people who are specifically hired to give out exams. We had to bring our bags up to the front and we were not allowed to talk. We had to sit in every other seat and in every other row, and the exams were already on the desks. We apparently had to have our ID cards, which I didn't realize so after sitting down I had to get up and go get mine from my bag - only slightly embarrassing. Then we had the exam for two hours and there were only certains times that you were allowed to leave: between one hour and one hour 45 min. I finished after about 1 hour and 55 minutes and had to just wait for the last five minutes. The exam was not too bad, but I am just excited that it is OVER!! I am now done with summer school.

Now I just have to finish packing and I will be on my way to South Island! I am leaving for Christchurch tonight and will be traveling around the South Island until February 28th. I'll be sure to update about my adventures when I return. Hope you all have a great rest of February!!