So big!
I understand there are thoughts that grown, white-collar, computer-nerd types are supposed to keep to themselves.
But gosh darned it, when full-on shuffle played Sleater-Kinney’s “One More Hour” at work this morning, I got just a little misty-eyed.
Sigh.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled indie-rock, fixie-riding, man-pri-wearing cultural brown-nosing.
Comments Off | New Zealand
For whatever reason, we’re perpetually on guard for the possibility that we’ve “been here too long.” That all of the zany foreign Kiwi-ness might have soaked into our daily lives and become the norm.
For the first year, I was acutely aware that the, er, currents of fashion seem to have blown with a great and confounding vigor through the young ladies of NZed. I’ve even been known to exclaim that young women between, say 14 and 24 shouldn’t be allowed to dress themselves.
As example of this, I would often cite our hapless local newspaper’s weekly food and style section, and the “What They’re Wearing” column. Every week, a local fashion leader, say a boutique owner or a shopgirl, is featured modeling what presumably she feels is her most fabulous outfit; showcasing both her fashion nous and her stores’ best items.
For months, “What They’re Wearing” was reliable, harmless weekly entertainment. A safe opportunity to laugh at the provincial locals and their crazy clothes.
Then, without much fuss, the young ladies started looking an awful lot like the girls at he grocery store, and walking around the universities, and you know, perhaps layering four different too-tight-here-too-loose-there technicolor petticoats really is normal walking-about clothing.
Have we really been here too long?
[apologies for the quality of the scanned newsprint...]
Last weekend, Anna and I enjoyed a bit of the rugby, with some help from my co-workers. In this case, Eng-uh-land (the guys in white) versus New Zealand, personified by our ever-strapping All Blacks.
As an outsider, I have to admit, I’m not 100% sure what happened. We sat on plastic seats for 90 minutes or so. There was some cheering and the occasional aerobic workout from a passing wave (known in countries which don’t have to sit next to Mexico as the Mexican Wave, natch). And some home runs were scored. Or points. Or tries, or whatever.
There was some of that hugging stuff:
and some of the lifting stuff, just like in figure skating.
Overall, a good time was had by all.
What I find interesting is that this was perhaps the pinnacle of the sporting year on the South Island (admittedly, the ABs will play South Africa in Dunedin in a couple of weeks). For true rugby fans, this is serious, kids-in-the-back-seat, drive-all-weekend fare. This is like (insert folksy sports story about that one time you and your cousin drove your dad’s Buick all the way down from rural New Hampshire to watch Larry Bird). And it’s held in a stadium with a capacity of 36,000 people (I think. they recently tore down half of the stadium to build a new, slightly bigger stand in anticipation of a Rugby World Cup which, it has come to light, can’t be bothered to visit this side of the Cook Strait). For reference, good old Camp Randall in Madison will hold 80,000 people. And that’s just one piddly college football team.
Oh? The score. I wasn’t paying attention.*
(Thanks to James, with the much better camera, for the pics)
Without much fanfair, my ten year college reunion passed me by this past weekend.
Where does the time go?