Am I still a party girl?

March the 4th, 7:55PM

Dear friend,

Indeed, it has been a while. I was caught up in the moment, you know.

Anyway, my residence has a lot of activities. On the first day of O-week ("Orientation week"), which was on the 24th of Feb., we had a meet-up in the common room of our floor (un foyer if you rather). We introduced ourselves and, especially, our Residence Advisor. She is a girl but her name is a male name in french, strange right? However, on thursday we had a "sponge war" which was composed of different games: a NZ version of Salade, a water battle, etc. Then the next day I went to my very first NZ party. I did not stay long to be honest, it is still all new to me. The bar we went to, was having a jungle party but I, unfortunately, did not have anything related to the theme. The drinks, however, were quite cheap and there was a dance floor. I had a lot of fun. On the following Sunday, I took part of the annual Residence photo!! and for the very first time in YEARS: I wore a skirt in public. Not that you can see it though, as I am sitting. Besides, we were, like, over 200 people so...

Yesterday was my first day at the uni. I had only two classes: Asian Film Study and Chinese. While, today, I had four: Linguistics, Poilitics and Media, Chinese and Maori. The latter was particularly interesting. We are in a Maori house called Marae and we have to take our shoes off before entering and we sit on the floor like kids. How odd! I freakin' loved it. At the beginning of each class, the teacher will say a 'prayer' in Maori and we all have to close our eyes and remain quiet. This is paticularly funny to me because I did not know. So, when he started praying I had my eyes opened for at least half of the prayer. I hope noone saw it. I didn't mean to be disrespectful...I just didn't know. I hope someday I could do the Hongi which is the Maori greeting: your put your forehead on the other person's and you let your nose touch the other person's.

I have to go.

Yours faithfully.

Comments

[Fabienne]

Coucou Yaël, merci pour toutes ces informations. Tu dois être complètement dépaysée, mais n'est-ce pas le sel du séjour à l'étranger !!

Je vais m'entraîner avec Philippe à faire le Maori greeting... cela a l'air sympa !!