Job Status and Last of Wellington Pictures

I feel the need to follow up on my complaints from my last post, and to reassure any of you who are worried that I really am okay. Everyone has days when things seem like too much, and although I am facing some of those, I know that everything will work out for the best.

I had my meeting with the Kindergarten Association, and am hired on as an "unqualified" reliever. I cannot be "qualified" until the Teacher's Council finishes my application, which will be up to six weeks from now. The unfortunate part about this is that the Kindergarten Association always calls its qualified relievers first, and apparently they have lots of those right now, so it is unlikely that an unqualified teacher would get called in. After receiving this information, I decided to get on the reliever list at a few other centres, and have already done so at three. I will be visiting a fourth tomorrow, and then one more next week. I would have thought that five early learning centres, plus the ten kindergartens that the Kindergarten Association coordinates, would be too many, but I have been told at each centre that they won't be needing relievers very much in the near future. So I'm just spreading out a bit. I am still just a little dubious as to how all of this is going to work out, but I'm glad to be officially on the lists, and the idea that I could be called in to teach is nice.

Okay, back to Wellington. I have some pictures from the Te Papa Museum, which is a very exciting place, full of interesting displays, interactive exhibits, and a great deal of variety. I know that pictures of a museum seem weird, but since when has that prevented me from sharing? So here goes.

This is one of the main attractions at Te Papa. It is the biggest and most complete Colossal Squid on display anywhere. It was caught near Antarctica, examined by scientists, and then transported here. I was actually a bit disappointed, as it seemed smaller than I imagined, but it apparently shrank in the preservation process, and it was still twice as long as me. To give you a bit of scale, it's eyes are the biggest of any known creature - the size of a soccer ball!

The goat-ish animal on top of the mountain is a Chamois, which came to NZ in 1907 as a gift from the Austrian Emperor. They have spread over the South Island, and are now hunted freely, to restrict their impact on native species. The birds in the lower left corner are native Takahē, which are flightless birds that almost went extinct when Europeans came to NZ, but are making a recovery.

This picture is part of the absolutely fantastic earthquake exhibit at Te Papa. The red line shows the division between two tectonic plates, and quite clearly demonstrates why there are so many earthquakes here. Doesn't look like a very safe place to be, does it?

This is the Māori god Rūaumoko, who controls earthquakes and volcanos. You can see a lightening bolt coming out of one eye, indicating that he also controls storms. It is hard to see in this picture, but he has pieces of earth in his eye and mouth, to show his control over earth and its movement.

This picture shows that some wētā (insects) from NZ weigh as much as three mice! I don't know why I find that so fascinating, but I absolutely do. I want to see one in real life now.

This is a tuatara eating a wētā. Tuatara are native to NZ, and (as is true of almost all native species here) is found no where else in the world. They are very important little lizards, because they are the only existing members of the Order Sphenodontia. Apparently, there were lots of species in that Order, back when there were dinosaurs, but all the others have died out, leaving only the tuatara. I think that's pretty neat.

This is a moa. I confess that until I went to Te Papa, I thought that moas were made up creatures that only existed in J's video games. Wrong. They are extinct now, but they lived in NZ not all that long ago. I am amazed by how much like look like huge kiwis. Amazingly, though, moas actually had no wings at all, not even the little ones that other flightless birds have. The bird that is attacking this one is the Haast's Eagle, which was its only natural predator. Unfortunately, the moas were overhunted and lost a lot of their habitat when Māori people came, and they became extinct in 1400 A.D.

This is a traditional Māori whare (building). I was not allowed to take pictures of the inside, but it was beautiful, full of carvings of people and gods, with paua shells inlaid, and amazing detail.

That's it for the museum. There is so very much information in there, and so very many things to see, that I could post pictures and stories forever, but I will restrain myself. I have just a few more pictures before letting go of Wellington and moving on to other things.

This is J's new umbrella. Do you like it? There were several very cool sculptures/fun things downtown, and J and I had fun finding them as we walked around looking for a place to eat on our last night.

I took this picture out the window of the bus on the way to Palmerston North. (By the way, I took the bus because Lionel decided to stay for the weekend and tour Wellington, and J didn't have room in his car until he dropped his colleague off in Palmerston North.) Anyway, I think that the land mass is Kapiti Island, which is apparently beautiful, and to which we will be going some day. What it made me think of this time, however, is the Māori name for NZ - Aotearoa, which means "the land of the long, white cloud." According to Māori legend, a man named Kupe was the first person to ever come to NZ. He sailed here with his wife (who, being a woman, doesn't count as the first person who ever came here). When she first saw NZ, she yelled, "He ao! He ao!" ("A cloud! A cloud!") It turned out that the cloud was floating low over the land, much like in this picture, and that's where the name originated. (There are other versions of the story, but I like this one best, and you can see how it could be true.)