Week 36- We are Groot

We had our next guest to stay on Monday when my friend Florian, a German who I had met in the South Island, came to stay. I was up early to finish my assignment and go to class before Florian arrived. Unfortunately, I to go back to university for a lab. We were looking at control systems and then at the end of the lab I got to ride on a Segway. It was a bizarre sensation as it does the balancing for you. When I first got on and tried to balance for myself it was jolting backwards and forwards and I looked extremely uncoordinated. Once I got going, it was great fun. Harry made it for dinner this week and Marlene cooked us all chilli before we made an apple crumble together. It was absolutely delicious.

I got through my classes on Tuesday morning, and Florian decided to come and sit in on my fluids lecture. The poor guy. I had to finish a second assignment on direct reduction iron making before my day took a turn for the better. I was back coaching. The school I coached last year, St. Peter’s College, was having their trials and I went down to take the session and highlight some players. I’m excited to have this challenge again. I headed to frisbee training before going home. Florian was staying another night but he was at a concert that evening so we didn’t really get to hang out.

Florian departed early on Wednesday morning to go to Rotorua and I went to the physio. I had been feeling sore so I felt much better after the appointment. We had vegan lunch again, it has become our ritual on a Wednesday and then after I have eaten I get my lunchbox filled with curry and it feeds me for the next four meals too! In the afternoon I did a bit of a spring/autumn clean in the flat though you still probably wouldn’t be able to tell. As part of the Auckland arts festival there was a show on that evening called drums of fire. It was an hour long drumming display, going through the streets of Auckland, by drummers from Spain. The whole spectacle was incredible. The stamina of these guys to just keep drumming, and so loud too, all the while acting as part of the performance. They were hitting the drums so hard that one of them broke his drum stick (I know because I found it on the ground and brought it home). I’ve included a link to some of the video at the bottom. After, we got free hotdogs but I got sprayed with mustard for my troubles. We have also turned the flat into somewhat of a hostel as we had a friend of Ulysse’s staying for a couple of nights too.

I tried to get the last of my work done on Thursday morning before I went to see one of my professors, Dr Karl Stoll, about a potential winter project. He told me about a couple of projects to do with drones and gave me some material to read. It sounds pretty interesting. I had wanted to work with my Mechanics of Solids lecturer in the Centre for Advance Composite Materials but he, rather selfishly, has decided to have a child during that period instead! We will see what I decide to do. I quickly packed for the airport as I was flying down to Wellington later that day for the NZ Ultimate Frisbee Nationals. I saw Jack at the airport, he was flying with Air New Zealand and I was flying with Jetstar but we were both due to fly at 16:00. As it happened, my plane landed first. I manage to get a lift from the airport into town, bought some food and then caught the bus to our accommodation (mostly due to the rain and not wanting to hitchhike in that weather). I was the first there so I got all the keys, made dinner and waited for everyone else. We were staying at ‘top 10 holiday park’ and by chance I picked the only room that had a kitchen, so it became the social room. Rory, who was in my room, managed to miss his flight down so arrived pretty late.

Friday was the first day of the tournament and we had four games. Sadly, I was still unable to play so spent the weekend working on the side line and generally being a good teammate. We cruised through our first three games, beating Dogmatix 15-1, Hammertron 15-6 and WildCats Upsilon 15-8 before we played our final game of the day against the other team in our club (I was part of Groot and the other team is Rocket, these are x and y teams rather than a and b). It was a really good game with swings either side of half. Both teams had runs with Rocket’s run coming at the right time to clinch victory. We got food at the supermarket and then I chilled at the accommodation with Cooper and Rory. We were joined by Ryan and Lok in our room which meant someone had to share the double bed. We flipped a coin and despite having my choice of bed in any of the rooms when I first arrived, I ended up sharing.

Saturday ended up being an easier day as we beat Exiles in our last group game and Wildcats Epsilon in our quarterfinal, both handily enough. We got Indian take away for dinner and played some ping pong in the evening. Cooper and Rory were frustratingly good. We checked out on Sunday morning to play our semi-final at 11:00 against Dogma, a team from Christchurch. It was a really tight game where we traded most of the match to get to 12-12 and then we were broken twice to lose the game 14-12. Understandably, there was much disappointment but we regrouped well to go and beat Wildcats 15-12 to take third place. Rocket managed to make it to the final so we were able to support them. Sadly, Dogma won and to top it off, Jack managed to dislocate his shoulder (again). I got dropped into Wellington and I chilled with Cooper for an hour, taking in the sights, sounds and smells of the street festival. It’s a fun city. Cooper hired a car to drive back to Auckland and he went on a road trip with Jack to do so. I, on the other hand, was taking the bus. I got on the bus at 18:50, into a cramped seat with quite an annoying driver. Thankfully I was able to get two seats as I actually couldn’t sit in one. I read my book while I could (the driver turned the reading lights off at 23:30) before trying to ignore the smell of Macdonalds from the food stop and falling asleep. I woke many times during the night, often to find I had no feeling in my left foot! At about 04:30 the driver turned the lights on again and by 06:50 I left the bus in Auckland- 12 hours later.

You can see the video from the drums of fire display here.