Life in New Zealand's been "sweet as" ... but when is it not? We've been really busy lately with essays and tests, but it's nothing like Linfield (or any other school experience for that matter). We had our first Maori 100 test on Tuesday, and we actually studied pretty hard for it. Cross your fingers and hope we passed :) Actually, passing doesn't seem to be too difficult in any of my papers. The grading scale differs quite a bit from US grading scales. Normally, the "A range" is above 90%, but in NZ, the range normally starts with an A- being 85%! I haven't received any grades yet, so I'm not sure if that means that the teachers here grade harder ... but I thought it was really interesting!
I really enjoy our Maori class! The lectures get a bit tedious, but it's hard to get 20 year old college students to find pleasure in sitting in a lecture for 2 hours at a time anyway. We've learned about the Polynesian Migration and how the Maori culture relates to all the other Pacific Island cultures. We've learned about nga atua (Maori gods), which are unsurprisingly very similar to Hawaiian akua. We've learned a bit of language basics, and this week we had an oral test in which we had to recite our whakawhanaungatanga! Yes, its a mouthful :) It roughly translates to "introducing yourself," and if you're familiar with the Hawaiian culture, "introducing yourself" is defined by where you come from. So, we memorized our pepeha, our "tribal" history. All Maori came from iwi (tribes) and a pepeha is similar to a mo'oku'auhau. However, a pepeha can be, and mostly is, similar/identical among tribes. A mo'oku'auhau is a family genealogy specific to one person; I'm not sure what the equivalent concept is in Maori. However, in our whakawhanaungatanga, we included a bit of our genealogy.
We also learned a waiata (song), which we'll sing at our marae visit! After we get back from the teaching recess, we'll be welcomed to the marae here at uni. I'm excited :)
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