AK 07

Something to be aware of is the Auckland Festival which is happening over the next couple of weeks. It's an Arts Festival which means that it includes not just Art (as in painting, drawing etc) but the Arts - dance, music, drama. Sometimes these are called the Performing Arts.

Not only will the Sky Tower have fireworks this Thursday (8th) but it will be lit up by orange lights for the duration of the Festival. More fireworks can be seen for free in the Auckland Domain on Sat night (10th) when it gets dark. There's some music beforehand. Put on by French Groupe F, and looks like it will be very cool.

I'm particularly interested in the Festival because my daughter is involved in putting on an event there for young people. She is one of the Young Producers, who won a competition last year to be able to put on this concert. Ripped is a five hour event with all sorts of different bands and craft stalls, not to mention an air band competition. It would be great to see some of you there... Sat 17th March, Red Square, Downtown Auckland, near Britomart.

Pasifika

Talofa lava! Fakalofa lahi atu! Malo e lelei! Ni sa bula vinaka! Kia orana! These are all different greetings from Pacific Islands such as Samoa, Niue, Tonga, Fiji and the Cook Islands.

Auckland has the biggest population of Pacific Islanders in the world. Sometimes Kiwis call them PIs for short. They come from islands scattered all over the Pacific Ocean, but a lot of them now call New Zealand 'home'.

Pasifika is an annual festival held at Western Springs in summer. This year it is on the 9th and 10th of March. There is a concert on the Friday night and then during the Saturday you can walk round stalls and displays for each of the main island groups. It's free and there's loads of entertainment and Pacific island food and goods to buy. It starts at 10 in the morning and goes through until 5 pm.

Last year my husband and I strolled through a variety of different areas at Pasifika. We enjoyed some of the performances, but when we got to the Niuean area, my husband ended up being dragged up to dance with some of the Niuean women. He got given a lei, and his partner won the competition!

lei = necklace made of flowers as in the picture above

New year celebrations

Whoops! That was the sound of a Valentine's Day arrow whizzing past - I missed it. I guess I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day although I like the idea of being able to tell special people that you love them. My 15 yr old son informed me last Tuesday that since I was in a long-term stable relationship (25 years of being married!), I didn't really need to do anything in the roses or chocolate department!

And now it is Chinese New Year. Gong xi fa cai to all my Chinese students. I expect my pronunciation is shocking - and maybe this is the Cantonese version?

I learnt lots about Chinese New Year when I went to live in Brunei (see map if you have no idea where Brunei is). The date was just a few days after we arrived and we were still living in a hotel. One night we were woken out of our sleep by all the firecrackers being let off just under our window. I enjoyed seeing all the Chinese shops and homes decorated and visiting Chinese friends who always had delicious food and those lovely easy-to-peel oranges. And my kids liked the red envelopes with crisp dollar notes inside!

I actually have to confess that I don't know when other Asian countries celebrate New Year. Maybe you could add a comment below or on the podcast to let me know? And what special celebrations do you have? And if you are Chinese, is it difficult celebrating away from home?
I'm hoping to catch the lanterns and maybe a lion dance this weekend at the celebrations in Albert Park...

Listen to this on my souNZ English podcast.

Waitangi Day

Waitangi Day is a pretty low-key affair for most New Zealanders.

It is our national holiday, and commemorates the day that the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 between Maori and Pakeha. Well, really it was between the representatives of Queen Victoria and a large number of Maori chiefs.

How do we celebrate? Usually there are ceremonies at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands, which is where the treaty was actually signed. In the recent past, the ceremonies have sometimes been disturbed by political protest.

It's summer, so most Kiwis are glad of Waitangi day as a holiday, where they can relax at home, go sailing or go for a swim and maybe have a BBQ with friends.

Overseas this year, about 300 New Zealanders gathered on a beach in Los Angeles to make a huge 30 metre long silver fern in the sand. In Afghanistan, some NZ soldiers were digging a hangi so they could have some Maori-style food.

Vocab
a low-key affair - an event where not a lot of fuss is made
commemorates - is an official reminder of ...
silver fern - a NZ plant, sometimes used as a symbol for NZ eg. the Silver Ferns is our national netball team
a hangi - food that is cooked by being steamed in a hole in the ground

If you would like to listen to this, go to souNZ English.

We had friends from the UK come and stay with us for a few weeks over July and August. Prem and I were at school together years ago, and it was so much fun to catch up with each other and meet our families.

To see or not to see, that is the question!

My son Chris wants to go to the movies this weekend. Last night at dinner, we had a massive discussion about what movies he should be allowed to go to, and specifically whether Date Movie was a good movie to see on Saturday.

I argued that films like Date Movie(comedy, M rating) aren't really worth paying money to go and see. He felt that it was his decision as to what he went to. In the end I looked up several review sites on the Internet. One was full of reviewers' negative comments about the movie from the perspective of the comedy 'Crude, tasteless and cheap!' 'Worst movie of the year' etc. etc. Another gave explicit details of why it was rated as a PG (Parental Guidance required - but that was a rating for the States; here it is an M) mainly in terms of sexual reference. I decided in the end to give him the choice of whether he should see it or not - BUT, he had to read both review sites carefully before he made his decision.

Of course, he read both sites and promptly announced that he was going to the movie! Which is exactly what I expected him to do. But I felt that I'd made my point about the content and its value - or rather, lack of value! Since then, someone who has seen it has told me that it really is NOT worth going to, but I'm sure that Chris' friends are equally convinced that this is the best comedy they will have seen in a long time. It all depends on your perspective, I guess.

I am

Mountains, clouds, sea.
I like reading, music and playing the piano.
God is important to me.
I find satisfaction in achieving something difficult.
I can be angry when I see injustice.
But I try to improve a situation rather than get angry!
I love my family and my extended family.
I can be friendly when I meet someone new.
I feel good when I am relaxed and talking to friends.
This is me.
I am.

Our first night in Brunei

I remember very clearly the first night that we arrived in Brunei. We had flown from Bali, which was only a few hours away. However, it was a night flight so the children were feeling very tired when we arrived. It took a long time to get through immigration because we needed to get work visas. Finally we were able to collect all our luggage.

We thought someone was going to meet us but there was no one there. We didn’t know what to do. We sat there for a long time but no one came to collect us. After some discussion we rang up a hotel and they said they would send a driver to pick us up. A driver arrived in the end but he was from a different hotel! He took us through lots of dark streets until finally we got to the right hotel. I was so pleased that at last we could go to sleep.

Websites in English

I am interested in podcasting - getting messages sent to your ipod, mp3 player or computer. One site that might be useful for you is The daily idiom where several times a week a new idiom in English is discussed. It's also an audio file so you can practice your listening at the same time.

Other sites that I use a lot are
Google as my search engine
other sites for language teaching eg. journals
Sketch Engine for checking concordance programme for use of language

My ideal job

I would love to work for a publishing firm. There are different companies around that publish books, but I would like to work for one that publishes fiction or educational books. I like the idea of having to read books and make decisions about which ones should be published. I think it would also be interesting and rewarding to work with different authors and help them to edit their books before they are published. Another good thing about this job would be that the hours would be quite flexible, so that would suit having to look after my family at the moment. I could work at the time that my kids are at school.

Auckland

Auckland is a very green city. When I went overseas recently, I was really surprised when I came back and found how green Auckland was. I guess I had always thought that all cities were like that.

However, although the parks and gardens are lovely in Auckland, and especially here at Unitec, the traffic is a bad feature of this city. The public transport is not terribly reliable and the motorways quickly get jammed at rush hour. I try to avoid using the motorway at busy times.

I also love the fact that Auckland is so close to so many beaches. On the east coast, the beaches are flat with few waves, but on the west coast they are much more exciting, and the beaches have black sand! Muriwai is a great beach on the west coast, and a visit to the gannets (birds) is interesting at different times of the year when the birds are there.

While the photo at this site about Auckland isn't that great, the writing that goes with it will practice a lot of the vocab that we use when writing about cities. Have a look.

Where in NZ would you like to go?

A few years ago my family and I did a month's tour of the South Island. We had a wonderful time, but the one disappointment was that the day we were going to visit Glenorchy (near Queenstown) and do a tour, it poured with rain and the tour was cancelled. The reason that I really wanted to do this tour was because it took you into places where the Lord of the Rings movie was filmed, and I wanted to see some of the scenery. So I would like to go to the South Island do the Lord of the Rings tour. Tell me what you think about the tour.

Hahei

A few weeks ago, my husband and I went to Hahei for the weekend. It is a small place on the west coast of Coromandel The beach is a gorgeous stretch of long white sand. One morning we went for a walk to Cathedral Cove which is a very beautiful beach, and about an hours walk over the cliff. Another morning we went to Hot Water Beach where, if the tide is right, you can dig a hole in the sand, and sit in hot water from under the ground.

There are very few shops at Hahei, but there are several restaurants and we had two very delicious dinners there over the weekend. It was a lazy, relaxing time which we spent with some other couples and celebrated Mark's brother's birthday.

Almost lost!

I had a dreadful experience in Edinburgh about five years ago. We had had a month's holiday in England and were catching the plane to Singapore and then back to NZ. So we were coming home. We got to the airport early and my husband went to drop off the rental car. The children and I (with LOTS of luggage) went to check in, but we couldn't find the right check in counter. e had to walk from one end of the terminal to the other and on the way the wheels on our luggage trolley broke down. We had to find another trolley and move all our suitcases on to it.

When we finally got to the checkin desk, I couldn't find the bag with the tickets, our passports and all our money. I realised that I must have left it on the trolley. We ran back to the broken trolley but it was empty. I was very upset. I went back to the check in counter and my daughter was talking to someone. A lady had found my bag and was looking for me! I was so relieved. Now I am much more careful when I am travelling.

Mothers Day

The second Sunday in May is Mothers Day in NZ, although in other countries it is celebrated on different dates. It is a chance to appreciate how much our mums have given us over the years. People try to spend time on the day with their mothers and often give their mums a nice gift.

I visited my mother on Saturday night and gave her a present, as I knew I wouldn't see her on Sunday. Then on Mothers Day, we had my parents-in-law round to our place for lunch. We gave my mother-in-law a gift and enjoyed spending the time with them both.

Traditionally, children bring their mothers breakfast in bed. I stayed in bed especially, and my kids got up early, and brought me a lovely tray with a special breakfast of juice and pancakes. Fathers Day is the first Sunday in September. My husband says he is looking forward to getting his breakfast in bed!

Who am I?

My name is Karen Haines and I enjoy teaching at Unitec very much. I have been here now for more than five years, and have been teaching for more than twenty years in different places and also different subjects.

When I am not at work, my family takes up a lot of my time. My husband is Mark and he is also a teacher. We have three children – Roxanne, Christopher and Timothy. We enjoy going to the beach together and often go up to Muriwai on the West Coast. The children all learn different musical instruments and I enjoy playing piano with them. My husband sings and is in a band. We don’t spend much time watching TV, as there are too many other things to do.

Family

Family Aug 03
Originally uploaded by khaines.

This was taken about two years ago. Christopher and Tim have grown MUCH taller, and my hair is a little greyer!