#goforjenna

Whew! First day of lectures after flying to Dunedin! We got to speak to one of Josh's “bestest” friends in the entire world, Mark Falcous! It was cool seeing him in person after reading several readings by him prior to the start of the trip.  

During this lecture, we talked about how sport contributes to the national identity of any one country, but particularly in New Zealand. I found this topic most interesting! Prior to leaving, I read about the "browning" of New Zealand Rugby, and I found this topic most interesting. My dad and I spent about an hour discussing the reasons behind "white flight" in rugby and why this is occurring. This lecture divulged into this more extensively and how it is altering the sporting identities.

First we had to define Nationalism. We did an exercise that demonstrated the self-serving bias well. When Kiwi students in Dr. Falcous's class were asked what describes a New Zealander, they described many of the same positive qualities year after year. I remember doing a similar exercise in KNES287 where we defined what is meant to be American. In both instances, the students described some dominating traits for their own nation, but described the negative stereotypes of another country. Though both have positive and negative stereotypes, we seem to only want to acknowledge the positive ones.

After defining Nationalism, Falcous connected it to the value of sport in society. Pertaining to the native Māori people, there is a bicultural exclusivity in the sporting world. Because the Māori people  are generally build as larger and stronger (Grainger, Falcous, & Newman, 2012), middle class white males are choosing to play sports other than rugby, such as soccer. I mean, if there was someone up against me ready to tackle me at a moment's notice, I too would choose a sport in which I was more evenly matched. There is a struggle getting the appropriate participation from minority Tangata Whenua in any sport. Too little participation results in the worry that there is no cohesion of one singular nationalism, but too much participation results in the worry that a popular sport like rugby will be superseded by a sport where middle class Pākehā can still thrive. In this sense, sporting nationalism is more dividing.

I thought of a few similarities between the sporting culture in the United States and New Zealand. Men who do not play the most popular sport are sport are perceived as weaker and incapable of the bravo required for the other sport. Soccer players in both the United States and New Zealand are degraded with names such as "grass fairies" (U.S) and "poofters" (NZ) for not playing as tough a sport as American football/rugby. Also, there is some concern that sports that the Pākehā excel at will become more important than Māori popular sport rugby. I immediately thought of the NBA in the United States. Over the past few years, professional basketball has experienced its own sort of "white flight" with its active players. Although the demographic of its players has changed, the sport has remained relatively popular in amongst the nation. Still more popular that the New Zealand Breakers! As Dr. Falcous and I talked about at the end of the lecture, there may be many similarities between the inclusivity of different races with U.S. professional basketball and the fears of soccer dominance in New Zealand.

Sorry this one was much longer than the others, I just started writing and couldn't stop! I must like this topic.

Wow, I seriously cannot believe I am flying home right now!! It feels like I just moved all of my stuff into the Aukland apartments, yet at the same time, I also feel that actually was eons ago. After everything we have been through, I cannot believe these people that I call my abroad family will no longer be just a few doors down ( or one really loud scream away) after few short 30 hours of transportation (lucky us). This entire experience was eye opening!

Before this trip, I had started to get the "travel bug" back in Maryland. I felt like I had seen all that Maryland had to offer, whether it be the Eastern shore, the mountains closer to where I live, or the farmlands in between, I was ready to go. Now that I actually have gone, not only do I feel the itch to explore many other places (maybe Australia or Europe next?), but also explore Maryland more in depth. Sometimes I would be walking on a street in a certain downtown New Zealand city and think to myself hey, this looks just like a street in Annapolis or wow this is a more extravagant view of Deep Creek Lake. Then I would remember that I'm actually all the way across the world and this is not Maryland.

Kiwis have a lot of slang, and were very open to us asking about it. There are so many sayings I am bringing back with me so beware!!!!

Chur chur - basically cool cool or yeah we are straight

Cheers- literally anything and everything in conversation

Dodgey - sketchy, as in, stay away from those streets they are a bid dodgey

Rubbish - trash (I just think that is a much nicer word)

Uni - college ("I go to uni in the states)

Sweet As - how awesome

Choice - idk really but basically we yelled it at our enemies during touch rugby

 This trip has taught me so many lessons about myself, and who I would like to be a person.

One, I'm a rosé kind of gal. It's perfectly sweet and not dry like the other wines I tasted (sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, other various wines I cannot remember). 

Two, if I'm coerced into drinking a beer, a nice pilsner will suffice (thank you Speights for opening my eyes to beer I can maybe drink). 

Three, there is not one right way guide a nation and its people. Though both the United States and New Zealand are developed countries, their way of running the nation is quite different. New Zealand is less capitalistically driven, and therefore competition between people is less severe. In my personal opinion, there is less of a desire to climb to the top of to make the most money and more a search for pleasures within happiness. 

Four, there is never a time when eating ice cream is not acceptable, whether it be at 2 am after a fun night of festivities, immediately after eating a different dessert, even a different flavor of ice cream. Lucky for me this happened at least three times on this trip. I feel like this may have been equally a tour of New Zealand gelato as it was about the country's sport culture. 

Five, when Kiwis say it is a simple, five-minute walk, they really mean about 45 minutes. This occurred several times even in multiple cities. This leads me to assume they must be extremely fast walkers/runners even though they walk normal whenever I see them.

And finally, the best times are the unplanned times. Though the times scheduled on our itinerary were extremely memorable and valuable, finding our own little nooks and crannies was so rewarding. My traveling buddy Abby and I found so many cute shops just by the amount of walking we did. Spontaneous trips to go "urban hiking" or look for the only cake shop in Dunedin open at 7 pm made me feel less like a tourist just visiting the city and more similar to a true Kiwi. These are the experiences I will forever hold dear.  ~ prepare for the cliché statement ~ It's not about the destination, but more the journey.