Orientation and the like

Nalumon and I finished up our trip in Kaikora, a really pretty coastal town. Unfortunately the weather was really crappy while we were there, so we were unable to do the coastal walk out to the seal colony. But we explored best we could, made a couple seal friends, and then headed back to the hostel. We left for Picton the next day to catch our ferry and it was smooth sailing back across the cook strait.
I got back to school and recieved a schedule of orientation, turns out international exchange students don't do anything the first day but instead start on the 19th, not the 18th. So Nalumon and I explored wellington some more, went to the beach, and enjoyed ourselves before she left the next day and I started orientation. The orientation schedule had a lot of stupid sounding seminars that I planned on skipping to hang out with Nalumon in the morning, unfortunately they explained to us in the morning welcome that all seminars were mandatory, we had to be stamped in and out, and we couldn't enroll unless we had attended ALL seminars. yeesh. So I ran back to my house during "morning tea" (btw there was no tea, lying kiwis!) to explain to nalumon that I couldn't spend the last morning with her. She took it graciously, and I hurried back in time for a "how to succeed in your courses' seminar (psht as if I need help with THAT...ok maybe a tad). THere were a couple seminars along this thread, all with the same 'don't procrastinate' 'ask for help' 'tlak to your profs if you feel overwhelmed' etc theme. lame frosh.
Only positive of orientation was meeting two other girls from Queen's, they are super chill and sweet. One is a native kingstonian (i do seem to attract the locals...) named Kallan and the other is from Ottawa, Cynthia. Both are devs majors. That night there was a 'mix and mingle' at a mybar-esque bar downtown. pretty hilarious and awkward. Cynthia and I went (Kallan's passport is still in for her visa so she doesn't have acceptable id) and made two american friends, Mary and Quinn. Both are cool and we left the mix and mingle early to walk along the waterfront and we came across a free concert that we enjoyed for a little while before tracking down some ice cream and heading back up to bed (most of us had to figure our course schedules out for enrollment the next day). note to self: don't do course schedules when you are tired. Woke up the next morning for enrollment and realized that one of the courses I wanted to take was in second semester. Took me like 45 minutes to rework my schedule. Finally made it down to enrollment and the lines were HUGE. started the process at 10, didn't finish until 4 30, stood in lines for 99% of that time. I was super frustrated and aggrevated by the end of the day, needless to say, but the bright side is that everything worked out ok in the end. I had to talk to the undergrad dean to convince him that I was capable of taking 5 courses and yes i would drop one fi i started feeling overwhelmed. I got like 7 lectures after that from random uni administrative people about how outrageous my course load was and that they all disagreed with the dean for letting me take that many courses...whatevs you are all lazy kiwis, us canadians know how to get it done (haha i'm totally gonna eat my words, watch it be way too much for me...oh well).
The next day was the Cuba Street Carnival and so we all went down there and it was a madhouse but super fun. We spend time at the carnival and time at the beach, then wen thome and put on more night-approp wear and had some drinks before heading down for the parade at 9 pm. We couldn't see much and the parade was so random and wierd, but we stuck it out for a while before finding a bar and making some kiwi friends. Dance music in NZ is hilariously funny techno remixs and watching people 'dance' is just watching them flail around madly. very entertaining.
Last night Kallan, Cynthia, Danielle (another american), and I went to see 'He's Just Not That Into You', very cute and highly reccommend it as a easy going chick flick. Today we are getting some school shopping done before attempting to watch the oscars (which are on at 2 pm for us, no more staying up late) and then I am having dinner with Kiki and Alex Beam who are in town for the night. We are going to try to go to a restuarant called Floriditas that gets really good reviews (and was reccommended by lonely planet...aka the bible). So it'll be nice to have a good meal out!
Classes start on monday, so i'll be better able to gauge my semester stress levels then but so far here are the classes i ended up enrolling in:
Econ:
3rd year macro; business cycles and growth (boo but required)
law and economics (meh, whatevs, i need econ credits and they don't have many options)
Pols:
International Relations: Wealth and World Affairs (looks interesting and I met an argentinian guy who is in it with me who seems cool)
New Zealand in the World (same argentinian is in this one with me)
Politics of the Pacific post-1945 (the class I'll drop if it comes down to it..but it also looks interesting)