From the Soul, Ya'll

I don't have class until about 1 so I'm sitting in the computer lab browsing through my Rough Guide and it's getting me pretty pumped for trips coming up. The mountain I showed you is either called Mount Egmont or Mount Taranaki. I'm not sure because my book says that the actual mountain is Egmont and that the region is Taranaki, but I've heard everyone call it Mt. Taranaki, anyway, we're going to walk around it I guess and that should be cool.
Speaking of walking for no point, hiking here is called TRAMPING. New vocab for you. Tramping involves less prostitution than it sounds, and people are actually pretty hardcore about mountain scaling here.
I should point out that I am not a tramper; I am an afternoon stroller.
I'm bringing this up because last night I skyped the 'rents and was talking to them about how glad I am that I joined the Amnesty group because I think that being involved helps everything a lot. Most of the Americans, if they've joined clubs, seem to have gone for the Tramping Club which is a group of people who hike up mountains on the weekends (I didn't join this because my weekends have already been committed to shaking my tail feathers at the club). But what's funny is that after the first weekend of the tramping club about 85% of everyone dropped out because it was waaay too intense (apparently the leaders were tools as well). This led to the start of the "Gentle Tramping Club," a collection of Americans who essentially can't take the heat. We are planning to scale down the 3 day tramps to afternoon hikes and throw in a couple bottles of wine and a picnic maybe. I'm looking forward to our first outing in the near future.

I'm nervous about going to test drive a car this afternoon which I'm so nervous about because I didn't want my first time to drive a car on the left to not be in my car. I'm hoping I don't smash up someone else's vehicle or I guess I'll just have to buy it. But I'm torn because I think the 2 week break trip is going to be costly, so we'll see what happens, I can't spend too much.

Also, yesterday I bought All Blacks tickets, going to a game vs. Australia in September with my flatmates, I'm pretty excited about that. If I DO have a car by then, I think a southern style tailgate is in order.

Friday I have to go to see a hand specialist because of Charles Martin and my mediocre sporting skillz. The 4th of July cookout at Andrew's house 2 days before I left Texas included an impromptu football game, and I made (dropped) a catch which slammed into my ring finger on my left hand (important one AYE BRO!) <--(that's how boys in New Zealand talk), and I thought I just jammed it, but it's been 6 weeks and it's still crooked. My flatmates said that I should get it fixed or nobody will marry me ever because it's such a repulsively crooked finger. That's how they are. Anyway, I stopped in on the physical therapist on campus and he did some bendy tests on it and said that he thinks I have a torn tendon, and he made me an appointment with a specialist. Hope that goes well so that I don't have to look retarded anymore.

Also, I've been oddly obsessed with a rapper named Young Jeezy lately. I didn't know I had so much gangster in me.

Sorry that I don't post pictures much anymore, it's because I always feel like updating at school so I never have them, but I promise to catch you up on my pictures soon, pictures of creepy finger also promised.