After adjusting my schedule a good bit, I decided on four courses to take: a classical mechanics physics course, a contemporary political philosophy course, a philosophy course on logic and computability, and a geography course on global climate change. The physics course is quite interesting in my view, and the lecturer is very eccentric and bright. He often gets out of breath in class, and waves his stick around a lot trying to get us to visualize what he is talking about. It is a small class, with about 20 or so students, and I'm the only American in it as far as I know. The political philosophy course is about the same size, and it focuses on philosophical issues of social justice. We are talking about defining justice, justifying redistribution of wealth, and looking at various theories like libertarianism, marxism, liberalism, utilitarianism, and so on. The professor looks a bit like Austin Powers, and wears the same wacky pants every lecture. The course is cross-listed as a political science course, and most of the students are politics majors. Both of those courses are 300 level, which is the equivalent of 400 level in the US. My other two courses are 100 level, which means that they are really easy. The logic class has been pretty slow starting, but by the end of the semester it looks like we're going to be talking about some really interesting stuff. The geography class has been quite cool. We've been talking about the carbon cycle (how trees, the ocean, and the atmosphere absorb the carbon that is produced by human activity) as well as local issues of environmental change in New Zealand. Today we had a field trip up to the Banks Peninsula, which is a volcanic region just South of Christchurch.
As I said before, I got a car! I am sharing it with three others: Aaron (from UMD), and Kelley and Jess, who are also from the US and came through the same program. The car is a stick shift, so I've been learning how to drive a manual and drive on the left side of the road simultaneously. So far it has been pretty straightforward. The car cost just $550 New Zealand, which comes out to about $100 US for each of us. Its a diesel engine, and we are going to ascertain some diesel, which is both cheaper and less harmful for the environment. The picture to the left is of Jess and Kelley in front of the car, which we have named Monroe.
Since getting a bike, I've been able to explore alot more of Christchurch and the surrounding areas. It has also helped me get used to driving on the left-side of the road, because bikes are required to stay on the road in the cities. Biking is really encouraged here, so there are bike lanes on most of the larger roads in the city. The city is also very flat, which makes getting around very easy. Today I biked up to the Port Hills, which border the city and lead into the Banks Peninsula. I road along the ridge, and spotted the quaint little port town of Lyttelton and decided I had to go down there and grab a coffee. I locked my bike to a fence up top, and scrambled down the small mountain to Lyttelton and bummed around for a while. I decided I was too lazy to climb back up, and so took the bus home. The bus from Lyttelton is really cool, because it takes a tunnel through the mountain. My bike is currently locked up on top of a mountain, so tomorrow I'll go back and retrieve it before classes.I've found some cool student organizations at the university here. One of them rides down into the downtown area of Christchurch every morning, collects unused food from posh cafes, and takes it all to the City Mission, where it is eaten by the homeless and needy of Christchurch. Its a bit of a myth that New Zealand has no poor, they just aren't that visible. I've now down this once, and plan to do it each Wednesday. I've also found a yoga and meditation club, which I attended last week. Its not quite as cool as the meditation club at UMD (they don't have an awesome monk leading the meditations), but the people seem very cool, and it's very laid back. Another club is the "kakariki" club, which is the Maori word for "green". They do a broad range of environmental activities, including maintaining a community garden on campus. One can volunteer to help out in the garden, and in exchange get a share of fresh vegetables from the harvest. I haven't had a chance to volunteer yet, but I've checked out the garden and spoken with the members. Finally, there's the tramping club (tramping means backpacking). I went to the first meeting for this club, and there were over 100 people there. Its mostly international students, who want to see the rugged side of New Zealand while they are here. A few of my flat mates went on a trip with the club this weekend, and had a blast.
This weekend, I went out to Arthur's Pass National Park and did a 2 day solo hiking trip. Alot of people were going to the Wildfood's festival out on the West Coast, which is centered upon eating worms and other strange foods - mostly animals. As a vegetarian, I wasn't too interested in this, so I did the hike instead. The co-owners of the car (Aaron, Kelley, and Jess), were all headed out
there, so I had them drop me off in the mountains along the way. I climbed Avalanche Peak, which has great views of the surrounding peaks. The first photo is of Avanlanche Peak's neigbor Mt. Rolleston, from the summit. After summiting, I dropped down the other side of the mountain to a hut for the night. Most of the descent was along a big rock slide, which made me quite nervous. It took forever, but I finally made it all the way down to the hut. The second photo is of this. The hut was a primitive little structure, and housed 10 people for the night. It was full, and the people staying were from all over. There was myself, three other Americans, 
three Czech's, and four Kiwis. On the second day, the hike was along two sections of river, and I ran into two of the Kiwis and we hiked the last section together. They were two men in their 60's, and after we had been talking for a while, they asked how I was getting back to Christchurch. I told them I was probably just going to take the bus, two which they promptly offered me a lift. I accepted the offer, because the bus was $25. The third photo is of them as we were finishing the hike. The hike was not a loop, so we finished about 8km down the road from where they had left their car. In exchange for the free ride, I hitched back to Arthur's Pass V
illage, picked up there car while they and the other Americans waited at the end of the trail, and brought the car back to them. Their car was an automatic, so it was quite easy. One of the men, Tony, used to work in the geography department at the University of Canterbury, where I am going, and is now a sculptor. The other was retired. Surprisingly, on the two hour ride back to Christchurch, we never made it to American politics, which is rare with the Kiwis.Well, thats about all I can recall at the moment, but I'll have more updates soon!
