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Arrival in New Zealand, Melomys Campaign
Feb. 10th, 2020 11:04 pmHave crossed The Ditch once again to visit bonnie New Zealand for two conferences, one on each island of course. Sunday was almost a complete write-off as a result as I spent most of it in the air, first from Melbourne to Christchurch, then Christchurch to Dunedin in a little twin-prop.
As is my wont, and as is provided by Air New Zealand, I smashed my way through several episodes of Family Guy, which suits my somewhat dank and edgy humour. Arriving late in the afternoon I made to the Stafford Gables hostel, which is providing me a 2m by 3m enclosed balcony for $160NZD per night. The building itself is reasonably well-located and has some old-school charm (and is almost clean), but I rather wish I had the chance to read the reviews beforehand. This is, seriously, the worst value-for-money of any place I have ever stayed in, and that even includes the bed under a stairwell in a dodgy hotel in Malaysia that came with free bed bugs.
Anyway, I made a hasty exit to visit the Knox Church to hear their informal service. I've been on their mailing list for years but had never attended. Dunedin was settled by liberal Scottish Presbyterians and they've continued that tradition, with a discussion about the hidden message of the power dynamics evident in Paul's letters to the Corinthians. I had a good chat with members of the congregation afterward. Today, still in pre-conference mode, visited Otago University, paid my fees, and had a good meeting with my supervisor about my MHed thesis. Otago shows a much greater concern with education and learning to what I'm experiencing elsewhere, and is really quite a high-quality institution as a result. Worked as best I could during the day and in the evening marched for an hour out of town (and navigating my way around the hordes of Queen fans seeing them perform at the local stadium) to my secret South Pacific base to meet with the new tenants.
Project Melomys continues with just over a week to go to the official petition launch. The main thing this week to organise is people at the various memorial services, all of which will inevitably be quite small but worthwhile. There's currently about a half-dozen sites lined up, which isn't too bad really. It is well below what I would prefer of course, but that would require at least a couple of people working full-time on the campaign, and that is not a resource that I have available. Still, it is but a start and the Melomys will have their first remembrance, and a wider institutional change will be initiated - and frankly, in the world of politics, you need to target institutions.
As is my wont, and as is provided by Air New Zealand, I smashed my way through several episodes of Family Guy, which suits my somewhat dank and edgy humour. Arriving late in the afternoon I made to the Stafford Gables hostel, which is providing me a 2m by 3m enclosed balcony for $160NZD per night. The building itself is reasonably well-located and has some old-school charm (and is almost clean), but I rather wish I had the chance to read the reviews beforehand. This is, seriously, the worst value-for-money of any place I have ever stayed in, and that even includes the bed under a stairwell in a dodgy hotel in Malaysia that came with free bed bugs.
Anyway, I made a hasty exit to visit the Knox Church to hear their informal service. I've been on their mailing list for years but had never attended. Dunedin was settled by liberal Scottish Presbyterians and they've continued that tradition, with a discussion about the hidden message of the power dynamics evident in Paul's letters to the Corinthians. I had a good chat with members of the congregation afterward. Today, still in pre-conference mode, visited Otago University, paid my fees, and had a good meeting with my supervisor about my MHed thesis. Otago shows a much greater concern with education and learning to what I'm experiencing elsewhere, and is really quite a high-quality institution as a result. Worked as best I could during the day and in the evening marched for an hour out of town (and navigating my way around the hordes of Queen fans seeing them perform at the local stadium) to my secret South Pacific base to meet with the new tenants.
Project Melomys continues with just over a week to go to the official petition launch. The main thing this week to organise is people at the various memorial services, all of which will inevitably be quite small but worthwhile. There's currently about a half-dozen sites lined up, which isn't too bad really. It is well below what I would prefer of course, but that would require at least a couple of people working full-time on the campaign, and that is not a resource that I have available. Still, it is but a start and the Melomys will have their first remembrance, and a wider institutional change will be initiated - and frankly, in the world of politics, you need to target institutions.
