Congratulations to J!

The big news in our lives is that J has accepted a new job, about which he is very excited! Starting on the 11th of September (4 years to the day from our arrival in NZ) he will start in his new role as Senior Advisor in the Biosecurity Response team. It will be his job to organize things when the government needs to respond to a biosecurity threat. This will include things like foreign insects eating apple crops or a pneumonia in cattle that came over from somewhere. This is particularly vital in such an isolated country with such unique flora and fauna.

He is still working for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), the branch of the government for which he has worked, in various roles, since we moved here. He feels good about working in this organization, and is looking forward to getting to know his new team.

He says that he is very excited for this job because it is an opportunity for him to step up and take on more responsibility, to take risks, and to make a name for himself. He feels that it is a step in the right direction towards long-term goals of my management or leadership roles. He also thinks that he will find the work more rewarding, which is awesome.

Those are the things that J wanted to share about his new job. You'll notice that he is much more succinct than I ever manage to be. We all have our strengths.

I just want to add that I am so proud of him, and that being hired for this position shows that other people are recognizing how amazing and brilliant he is. J works hard every day, and really deserves to reap the benefits of that, and I'm so glad that it's happening.

New Discoveries at Zealandia

As you will recall, J and I are lucky enough to live close to Zealandia, an amazing wildlife sanctuary. I love spending time there, especially to show visitors around. I love helping others learn about the incredible creatures and plants in NZ, and I also discover new things myself each time I go.

I have posted about Zealandia before, so you can click here if you'd like to see my post from May 2017, and click here to see the one from back in July 2016. I am thinking that this one will not overlap much with either of those, as I've included mainly new things, but hopefully it will be interesting even if I end up with some repetition.

This time, I went with my friend Belinda, who had come to visit from Whanganui and had never been to Zealandia. We had a lovely walk when she was here, and then I used my ticket, which is good for two days, to have a solitary stroll the next day after she'd gone home. Both were wonderful.

This, apparently, is what happens when a frond gets broken off of a mamaku (black tree fern) right where it joins to the trunk. It looked like sap, and so I was expecting a hard, sticky, somewhat crystalline substance, but I was wrong. It was like jelly, and was amazing to touch, because my finger glided around the globules and came away slightly wet, but not sticky. J informs me that this is because it's made of cellulose, and I'll believe him. It is still sap, just a very different kind than other trees have.

Just to give you some context, this is what mamaku (black tree ferns) look like. 

I also learned about this plant, called Tutu (Coriaria arborea). The sign at Zealandia, which I uncharacteristically took the time to read in its entirety, read as follows:

"Surely one of the more infamous plants in NZ, tutu is a native shrub that can grow to 8m. Every part of this tree, except for the juice of the swollen purple petals, contains the poison tutin. Many cases of stock death were recorded by early farmers - even circus elephants have fallen victim to this fatal poison. Honey derived from bees gathering honeydew produced by sap sucking insects feeding on tutu has accounted for many cases of poisoning amongst humans.

Despite its fearsome reputation tutu does have beneficial uses. Māori mashed the tender shoots into poultices for bruises, cuts and boils. They even made a refreshing drink from the juice of the petals. The fruits and seeds are favourites of birds and insects and unfortunately possums."

Interesting, right? 

I'm including this and the following picture to demonstrate how incredibly up close and personal the birds got while I was walking quietly by myself. You can see a Tīeke (Saddleback) in the shadows of this picture, and it was just a couple feet away from me. (There are better internet pictures in my other post, but I'm proud to have gotten one myself.)

 This Toutouwai (North Island Robin), which looks depressingly far away in this picture, was really very close to me, along with several of her buddies. (Again, better internet pictures in other posts.)

I may have raved about this before, but seriously, can you see how many pinecones are on this tree? So many! Sometimes you can barely see the branches themselves because they are so covered!

Lovely view out over the sanctuary. Have I mentioned that it is 225 hectares? That is almost a square mile, which didn't sound as impressive as I'd thought, but he assured me that it is massive. Anyway, it seems like its own world when you're in it, despite being just a few minutes from the city.

I love little bush tracks. I love chatting with friends as I enjoy being out in nature, and I love walking by myself and really taking in everything around me. I'm working on slowing down and being present in my life, and this is a great way for me to do this.

I don't know if I've shared this before, but I love spiderwebs. I find them strikingly beautiful and endlessly fascinating. My camera didn't feel the same way, and had to be wheedled into focusing on it instead of the background, but it was totally worth it.

Well, that's all for this visit, but I'm sure I'll make some more wonderful discoveries next time I go.

Certificate in Māori Language

Back in June, I completed my Level 4 certificate in te reo Māori (Māori language). As I shared a while back, it was an online course that started back in January. Several of my colleagues did it as well, and we all supported each other to varying degrees, but mostly worked independently at home. 

I found the course impressively resourced and useful for something that is completely free to all students. I got to listen to audio tracks of a native Māori speaker interacting with her whānau (family) throughout daily events, as well as retellings of well-known fairy tales is te reo Māori. The former were often helpful in building vocabulary and grammar, but frankly, not super interesting. The latter were endlessly entertaining to me, as I delighted in using a combination of my knowledge of the Māori language and my knowledge of these stories in order to piece together and puzzle out the language itself. None of the stories were translated into English, but I was always able to figure it all out. The coolest thing that came out of this is that I can now tell the story of Ngā Poaka e Toru (The Three Pigs) entirely in te reo Māori. I made puppets to go along with the story, and so I tell it and act it out. I used the version from the course as a foundation, but modified and rewrote parts of it so that all the phrases are much more concretely connected to what I can show with the puppets, so that the children can be building their understanding without the need for English translations. Unsurprisingly, the children are picking it up faster than I ever could, and last week they acted it out themselves, with me providing the narration and them saying the characters' lines, all in te reo Māori. Some of them asked for reminders of what to say, but many of them completely knew the lines already from me telling and retelling the story. It was amazing and rewarding to see.

I am also using an app that lets me make my own flashcards to study words and phrases. I want to drill them into my head so thoroughly that when the occasion presents itself to use them, I am ready and not wasting time searching through my memory trying to find the right words. I think it is working rather well, although I still need lots more work.

This week, I received my whakapūmau (certificate) in the mail, so it's all official.

I have done my best to translate it for you, with help from a Māori-English dictionary.

University of Raukawa

I will not fail.

Emma Leilani Mercier has completely the learning for the qualification of Poupou Huia te Reo on the 30th of June 2017.

Certified by the professor of Raukawa University.

The president addressed the assembly, and this certificate was awarded.

I'm feeling wonderful about the progress I have made, and about my increasing comfort with this language. I have just started the Level 5 certificate course, Poupou Huia te Reo - Te Hōkairangi. So far it seems like it is going to be very challenging, and therefore very stimulating and helpful in my drive to improve my Māori language. I am again feeling nervous about the time commitment, but I know that it will be worth it. 

Japanese Food-like Delights

In Wellington, if you're looking for the weird and wonderful, you can probably find it on Cuba Street. One day, while wandering down it looking for presents for J for his birthday, I went into this wonderful Japanese store that appears to specialize in "everything that the Japanese owners think is cool." Their tastes seem to overlap significantly with J's and mine, so we love browsing through. For this particular birthday, I'd elected to get J several small gifts instead of one bigger one, and so I was looking for things that were amusing (and hopefully consumable, as we don't like accumulating possessions), and I was not disappointed.

I found this cardboard box, containing what appeared to be candy versions of hamburgers, fries, and a drink. Being that J loves burgers and candy, I thought this might be a fun, silly treat for him.

First surprise: After being suitably enthusiastic about the candy, J opened it up, only to discover this. It now seemed clear that this present was far more for me than for J, as it involved mixing and stirring and assembling, which is super fun for me.

Second surprise: Instructions and labels exclusively in Japanese. The plot thickens. 

Trying to use the pictures, in combination with the colour and smell of the powders in the packets (and trying to avoid being concerned that the meat patty powder really smelled like beef), I assembled the component parts. This even included microwaving the fry dough before slicing it up, which I'm pretty sure means that this was real cooking. The soda powder also fizzed like real carbonation.

Once assembled, it looked like this. Turns out, I accidentally used the bun powder for the fries, and the fry powder for the buns. I was wondering why the fries rose so much in the microwave. Anyway, we laid aside our misgivings about what was actually in this stuff (the ingredients are also in Japanese, so we'll never know) and taste tested each bit. I would have sworn that the ketchup was real, and the "fries" tasted like bun, and the meat tasted like meat! The Japanese are pretty impressive!

Delighted with this experience, I went and bought two more, and first tried out this doughnut one.

Mine aren't as beautiful as the picture, but I believe that I correctly used all the packets, and they tasted pretty doughnut-y, so I'll call it a success. Plus, it was lots of fun!

I may have mentioned in the past that I'm a little bit obsessed with the deliciousness of sushi. That's not actually why I picked this one, however. The picture on the back shows making the red fish roe balls by dropping one liquid into another, and that sounded like the best fun yet. (Spoiler: it was.)

This is what the tray looked like with all the powders mixed, spread, kneaded, etc. I couldn't quite figure out the pictures for how much water to add to each one, but I got there eventually. You then sucked up the red liquid in the dropper (seen in the picture below full of soy sauce) and dropped it into the clear liquid, which hardened it into amazing little spheres. So cool!

Once assembled, my sushi liked like this. My best one yet, I think! 

The sushi, unlike the previous two, was not designed to taste like the real thing, but was rather a candy version. Which I think is best, really, when it comes to pretend raw fish. The fish roe was particularly delicious, still juicy inside. 

I haven't tried the other sets yet, so I will have to return to Cuba Street in the near future and select my next projects.