NOT A TYPICAL SATURDAY, BUT TYPICAL ENOUGH

My interactions with the outer world has been reduced to cyber space, where my greetings are restricted to an over-active finger that clicks “like”, “share”, “logout”. No conversations except the ones I have with myself, commenting and exclaiming out loud. Facebook it has to be for the budget-minded student for a while, I’m afraid.

If I haven’t mentioned this before, the skies above the north island are inherently temperamental. Being an island climate, grey clouds roll in and are held at bay by the warmer rays, which descend on the rolling hills of Palmerston North and beyond.

I experienced the morning market on Church and Albert today (Saturday) for the first time, where mostly Asian and Maori sellers showcase the green thumbs of the farmers. (Don't know yet where the vegetables come from.) Designed for early risers, it was not as busy when I strolled in around 11-ish. To get there, I decided to cross Victoria Park at the bottom of the bridge on Fitzherbert Avenue. Birds calling out to each other in the course of swooping from branch to branch, fluttering wings barely missing my alert ears, are a welcome sight compared to the cars zipping on the road. The sounds I heard were only those of wildlife. Civilization was a muffled cacophony in the distance. I sighted British elms, gum trees and wild cherries along the gravel road.

At the end of this brief traipse, I stepped out onto Cook Street, in the area where the Aquatic Centre sits, only to discover that I was at the other side of the Square, a fair distance from Church and Albert streets. Because I had completed rewrites of my literature review, I decided to view this errand as a half day off before I return to my desk and shave off unnecessary bits of my review.

The Mini-mart, which sells Indian spices, was along the way. So were several coffee shops. Unfortunately, after Victoria Garden the remaining distance of this route was pretty drab, offering little in the form of vegetation. Soon, I was engulfed again by a steady stream of asphalt, Pacific Island architecture, and oh yeah endless coffee shops.

At the end of the day, I look upon this day as my having discovered the must-dos, bucket list items that I had been putting off for weeks because of my preoccupation with the literature review (notice how I treat the litreview as a third peson so as not to get too emotionally involved with it). Oh, and I managed to sneak in a few hours at a café, where I nursed an Americano while perusing through magazine articles about artists, musicians, and actors. The orange-lemon infused water, a signature quencher for this particular café, did its job, the perfect partner to my parched throat.

I even borrowed a library book about the Kennedys from the City Library, where I used the card I applied for on Friday for the first time.

After a long six-hour nap at dusk, as I had stayed awake through the night, I was back to the grind again, slicing through my paragraphs and consolidating thoughts and themes to make my review more readable.

I’ve moved to the other side of campus to Moginie Village, another residential hall for mature, postgraduate students. I am still on top of the hill, but the sights are different. Instead of looking into my neighbours’ kitchen, bedroom, and living room, I now see birch trees when I open the shades from my bedroom. When I cook, I see birds, possums, and other trees I don’t recognize. When I take a short route towards the cherry trees fronting a cow paddock, I see sheep, some already sheared in preparation for the heart of the summer. A different sensation, indeed.