I'm Still Here!

Dear Readers,

I have been pretty slack about writing good posts this year, but I have a whole list of excuses if you are interested :)

Of late, my reasons are primarily due to ticking some big things off the to-list:

- I turned in (and successfully passed!) the research papers I have been laboring over since July.

- I completed my research proposal for Master's study next year (will hopefully have formal acceptance soon, cross your fingers!)

- I finished my spring cleaning list (I do not recommend flooding the laundry room as part of this exercise...)

- We have made some solid progress on wedding planning, including confirming music to use (and musicians to play it for us!), what we're wearing, wedding bands and the reception menu. Next up: CAKE!

- I made a spice rack for the kitchen :)
We have very few drawers for storing things in the kitchen, and a lot of the cabinet space is taken up with other things so adequate spice storage has been a long time coming. Troway helped ensure there were no major bloopers, but I did enjoy have a mostly - done- myself project (picture below)

- We re-finished our kitchen table.
It was a $10 thrift store purchase that has been perfectly functional, but since we only have finished the job the first time around, it needed a bit of TLC to really look nice. So last Saturday afternoon was spent sanding and cleaning and staining. We are happy with the output :)

- I got my garden planted!
And some things I did not plant....including an extra tomato and either cucumbers or zucchini, it is too early to tell. If I am really lucky maybe one will be a pumpkin, since the slugs ate the pumpkin I planted...
We also have some lovely flowers blooming, which makes all the hard clean-up work worth it.

Hope all is well in your part of the world.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Grad School Part 3

Morena folks, an update on my ventures through academia as promised.

My mission for this term was to complete two independent research projects. I was allowed to choose any topic I wanted, provided it was reasonable and I could find an advisor to support. The projects also had to contrast each other to ensure a varied research experience. My chosen topics were education and four-hand piano music.

More specifically, my education project has been a comparative study of music education delivery in New Zealand and the United States, with a goal of determining the primary differences. There are some parallels, but a notable difference for sure. Through much exploration of school data and government policy documentation (which I highly recommend if you have trouble sleeping at night), I have deduced that the focus in the States is ensemble instruction such as band and choir. New Zealand opts to have workshop or taught courses focusing on a range of topics such as music genres or technology or group composition, etc. etc. etc. Students wishing to pursue ensemble experience do so as an extra-curricular activity.

My piano project has been looking at four-hand piano transcriptions of symphonic music in the nineteenth century, as a social and cultural phenomenon. The idea is that due to a lack of recording technology and concert availability, the average Jane/Joe found a reasonable looking piano arrangement of the music and played it themselves. I have stumbled on some fascinating literature along this route, which has prompted the beginnings of my research proposal for next year.

The interesting thing about these projects has been completing them as a remote student. My advisors kindly agreed to advise from afar so we have done a lot of emailing, supplemented by a few face-to-face meetings when I could make it up to Auckland. The challenge on my end has been maintaining structure and focus. There have been plenty of days it was a challenge to talk myself into picking up another book or article after a busy day at work, but one day at a time has gotten me mostly there.

We are now in week 10 of 12, so within two weeks time I will complete editing on the papers (one approximately 12,000 words and the other approximately 6,000 words) and do my final submission. This means I am free until March next year, yay!

Have a fab week!

Fitzroy Beach on Sunday when I enjoyed a walk

Grad School Part 2

Okay folks, part two as promised.

Part of my follow-up post acceptance was to tour campus and meet some faculty to make sure it would be a good fit and could work for what I needed and wanted to accomplish. After working with schools here, I was conscious that secondary school grading systems are vastly different from the A-F grading system used in the States. One of my top questions was what to expect in grading systems in order to mentally adjust so I could understand feedback from professors. I was pleased to be told the University uses an A, B, C, D system just like the US. Whew, I was thinking!

Well, classes begin, first assignments are completed, and subsequent grades are received. Not awful I was thinking at this point, but certainly not as well as I had hoped to do. However, I felt I had a reasonable idea of where I was at and could focus on improving for the next round of assignments. They came and went, and I was still feeling as if I should be doing better, but was unsure how to best focus improvement efforts. I therefore sought assistance from a professor who had been particularly transparent about her open-door policy.

When I explained that I was a bit disappointed in my grades and requested some constructive feedback for how I might improve for remaining assignments (as all course had only 3-4 assignments worth the total grade), she looked a bit confused and said advised that she did not feel I had hardly anything to improve on. I thought this was odd but moved on thinking I would simply have to put in more time reading, revising, etc.

When we reached about week 10 out of 12, I began looking at what was required for this term in order to be eligible to continue with the Master’s study next year. As a part of that, a minimum GPA was required. After a quick calculation on a 4.0 grading scale based on the grade percentages I had received thus far, I had a near melt-down when the figure I arrived at was notably below the required GPA.

I think it is reasonable to say that by this point I was feeling quite worn down and a bit stressed due to the high workload of 5 courses in addition to the number of hours I was working, as well as trying to finalize plans for our trip to America that was at that point only two weeks away. However, something just did not feel right so I decided to keep digging. Lo and behold, I stumbled on the University’s grading scale. Was that ever the find of a lifetime! I discovered that while I had been looking at percentages and thinking, from my American background, that I was receiving the equivalent of a C or a very low B, I was in fact receiving nearly all A grades. Turns out the, 80-100 % all falls within the A grade range. Relieved does not even begin to describe how I felt! But it did teach me to ask a few more questions before assuming that “the same system” is truly the same.

Part 3 I will share some details of how this term has gone J

Grad School part 1

About two years ago, I decided it was time to think about furthering my education. After much debating, researching, and one failed application, I settled on the University of Auckland to pursue a Master's in Music: Musicology degree. Getting a focus back to academic writing in order to complete the application requirements took some doing but I managed it, submitting things in the midst of the Mary Poppins show last year. Due to everything else going on at the same, once the application was in it became a bit of out-of-sight-out-of-mind. It was, consequently, a nice surprise when I got an acceptance letter from the University.

My acceptance was not yet to begin the Master's program, but I was advised if I spent this year completing a post-grad certificate in Musicology, I would then be eligible to begin the Master's work next year. The end result of much questioning was that I had to complete 5 lecture courses this year, plus two small research projects.

So.....off I go to Auckland! Five years ago when I moved to New Zealand I landed in Auckland and only lasted about 3 days before feeling I'd had enough of the big city and decided to head South to what would (at the time unknown to me) become my new home.
From the end of February until 31 May, I lived in Auckland and put myself through the mentally draining task of taking 5 university courses while working mostly full-time. The trade-off was the University agreed I could move back to New Plymouth to complete the research projects from home (yay!).

So....what was it like to go back to school in a foreign country as an adult?

Well. Where do I begin?

It was not so bad, in retrospect. But there were some curve balls, and I certainly felt out of my league in some ways.
First, I had to re-adjust to university speak, academic writing, and research practices. I have done it all before, but it had been awhile.
Second, figuring out how to get around campus, and who you needed to know, and where the best study spots were. This took a bit of doing, and I was thankful to make a good friend who was truly a blessing in keeping me sane and taking me under her wing to navigate school life.

I had thought that after living in New Zealand for so long, I would have figured out all the important slang/jargon/odd phrases, etc. But I quickly learned that university life in New Zealand has its own version of this. In fact, something I found most interesting was the implied understanding, or lack thereof, in professors' expectations depending on where they were from. I had one English professor, two Kiwi professors, and one American professors. I found when given assignments or feedback from the American professor, I knew exactly what was intended. I found with the others, it was not always so clear, and yet my Kiwi classmates were experiencing the opposite. I did find, however, that when it comes to presentations, I had that nailed, and rumour around campus has it that Americans students tend to excel in this area due to American university expectations (go us!).

More to come, but so you don't get bored I will give you this in stages :)
Check back in a few days for the curveball that caused me the most pain!

I Haven't Forgotten!

I know it has been ages since I posted anything. Partly this is due to a lack of motivation for making time. Partly it is due to busyness and indecisiveness in where to start with what to write!

Suffice it to say, a LOT has happened in the last few months. Some of what has transpired...

1. I survived a mind-numbingly heave course load of my first semester of tertiary education in New Zealand. Only 18 months to go on the Masters!

2. I met my beautiful new niece :)

3. Troway and I got engaged!

4. We also enjoy a lovely holiday for 2 weeks in June. 

5. We are planning our wedding for February in New Zealand. Roll on chaos as my family plans to descend on us in the summer!! 

6. I am juggling 2 research projects as phase 2 of the Master's degree study (one is a comparative study of New Zealand vs. US music education, the second is four-hand piano transcriptions of a Beethoven symphony in the early 1800s).

See below for highlights of the last few months, especially the visit home.

Pinnacle Mountain, where Troway proposed

Visit to the lake!

Little Rock distillery tour

Fun with the cousins :)

Old Mill in Little Rock

Go KC ROyals!

Liberty Memorial in KC

View of the city from the top

Our beautiful mountain with its winter hat on

Study Break at Eden Garden

When you decide to be an over achiever and work close to full-time while taking 5 classes in grad school at a university you are not familiar with, in  a foreign country (more on that later), well there just is nothing of this thing that people call spare time. "Denise is nuts" has probably crossed your mind a few times. But that is ok, because well I am making it work.

However, in the interest of maintaining some form of sanity, study breaks are a necessity. Public holidays are wonderful because there is no class, which for the graduate student translates to more study time! The most recent holiday we had was Anzac Day (a month ago, paper writing has taken priority over blog writing) which happened to fall on a Wednesday so it was a nice mid-week break to catch up on some things. But it was also a beautiful,warm and sunny day. So I got up early to be productive and decided my mental health break would be attending the mid-morning Anzac service that was only a few blocks from where I am living. It was a beautiful service, a lovely way to remember and be thankful for the sacrifice of those before us.

The only problem was that I realized when it was over that I was not yet ready to head back home and continue with academic productivity. So I went adventuring instead.
I stumbled on a lovely little place called Eden Garden, which is only a few minutes walk in the other direction from my temporary  home.

The garden was established in 1964, built at the site of an abandoned quarry. It is located on of the the city's forty volcanic cones and when operation as a quarry had provided stone for building the city. Also after it closed it became an overgrown mess and it was only when horticulturist Jack Clark was approached by the then owner that it had a chance of becoming something lovely.
It currently has a native New Zealand collection with bird life, waterfalls, views of the city from the high point, a Japanese and bromeliad collection, and a range of other annual flowerings. Of course like any good place to relax in New Zealand it also has a nice cafe :)

But I enjoyed an hour or so wandering the trails and enjoying a bit of recharging in nature.

Busy Days

Finding spare time when my brain is interested in yet another form of writing is not easy these days, with 5 classes that are all reading and writing intensive. This is my excuse for taking so long to post something else. I am sure you are all shaking your heads and thinking that yes I chose this, and I did and I am mostly enjoying the experience, but it quickly became apparent that leisure time for things like non-academic reading or blogging would become non-existent until 1 June. I am 16 days and 9 assignments away from the end of the term :)

But enough about that. A couple of weeks ago a friend was up in the city for the weekend so we enjoyed doing a bit of exploring. I did not get photos of everything, but we enjoyed a good early 20th century display at the Auckland art gallery and a WWII exhibit at the War Memorial Museum, both excellent places to visit if you are making a list. We also found a pretzel shop selling stuffed pretzels. After a low of indecisiveness we settled on a pretzel stuff with vanilla custard and mixed berries. It was as delicious as it sounds :)

Narrow city streets

I just liked the name of this place!

The Auckland Art Gallery

Hipster Hoot - one of many owls
painted by local arts to be auctioned off as
a fundraiser for the children's hospital

Street murals

Bit of city fashion

A lovely garden we stumbled on

Unsure who this guy is but he made me feel short!

Dunedin at Easter

I like Easter weekend in New Zealand because you get a four day weekend, since Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays. It’s a good opportunity for an adventure before winter sets in. We spent Easter weekend this year in Dunedin, one of the Southern-most cities in New Zealand. I had briefly visited there in 2014, but enjoyed a bit longer stay this time.

We started the weekend by attending one of Ed Sheeran’s concert, which was fabulous J We enjoyed kiwi-band Six60 who opened for him as much as we did Ed I believe, wonderful night of music.

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying long coffee breaks, massive burgers from a Chinese takeaway place, and roaming the city. 

Highlights were seeing the old European style architecture, marvelling at how people get up and down the hills once snow and ice set in for the winter, and touring an underground fort built in the 1880s due to fears of a Russian invasion, Fort Taiaroa. The fort was built with a disappearing gun that could be fired and then put back underground. I found it quite interesting that the guide said it took 6 hours to pressurize the gun so that it could be used, which made me question its usefulness in the event of a surprise attack. The fort was compact with the disappearing gun clearly the focal point. The location was beautiful, but due to its location at the point of a peninsula would be terribly unpleasant during cold winter months with no barriers to break the wind.

For more information: https://www.newzealand.com/int/plan/business/historic-fort-taiaroa/

There is never enough time to see everything but we particularly enjoyed the movie theatre with murals on the walls, the ‘Hard to Find’ bookshop, and the albatrosses that live near the underground fort.

'True Love' statue in Ashburton

Haka at the beginning of the concert

City bus!

Movie theater murals

Street art

Lovely coastal drive to the fort

View from the fort

Lighthouse near the fort

Sound the alarm!

The jail is the only original part of the fort still standing

Speaking of the wind...