Letter to Students 03 May 2009

Dear Reader

It is late on Sunday evening, and there is a half moon shining brightly in the sky.  I have just come inside from sitting on the deck, having looked out over the garden to a shimmering harbour, and marveling at how blessed I am to be living in such a special part of the world.  All is calm, and there is not a breath of wind outside.  We have had such a wonderful autumn, and it is hard to believe that May has heralded the start of winter, so warm and sunny are the days leading up to the beginning of the chilly season.

Today, I awoke to sunshine, and I had breakfast of bacon and eggs with Han on the verandah of our cottage.  I felt very at peace, having experienced a wave of emotions this past week, and indeed all of April.  Last Monday, I experienced my first headache in many years, and lay in my office with the curtains drawn, wanting to retreat from the problems that beset me.  However, Suny rang from Hawea and advised me to have a massage to soothe my aching body and restore equilibrium to my tortured mind. This I did, and how much better I felt.  I returned to work feeling empowered, and able to tackle the week ahead.

Do you ever have times when you feel that life is just a little bit too much to handle, even though you know that most of your life is wonderful?  I am going through this torment at the moment, although I know that I am so extremely lucky with the life I have. I won’t bore you with the details, as I know everyone goes through tough times, but suffice it to say, I look forward to happier times ahead!  However, there is always a silver lining, and I feel extremely blessed to have supportive friends and family in times of need.

I hate to wallow in self pity, and feel it is pathetic to even indulge in self pity when so many people throughout the world suffer the consequences of senseless war, poverty, and natural disasters.  I am keeping myself busy with my usual activities, and I am seeing more of my friends of late.  On Friday night, I helped to host a farewell party for the Japanese curling team, who were in Dunedin for the International curling competition, and they enjoyed the sushi, the savouries, the sauvignon blanc, and the shiraz the DunedinOtaru Sister City Society shared with them.  I am the President of the Society, and I was so pleased that we were able to host the Japanese team who came to enjoy the hospitality of the south.  Although they didn’t win, they enjoyed the camaraderie of their fellow curlers from twelve different countries, and the hospitality which we showered on them.  I went to the opening ceremony last Sunday, and was a little embarrassed that the venue was not quite ready for them.  The ice was superb, but the reception area still wasn’t finished, and the chipboard floor had not been covered with carpet, and the tables were not covered with table cloths.  For me, I would have wanted to decorate the space with plants, and made the venue more inviting. However, the curlers said that so long as the ice was good, and there was sufficient beer, they were more than happy.  I was pleased that they were more than satisfied!  Dunedin has such a small curling association, and it was a real coup for them to be able to host such a prestigious event.  Although they had secured funding to host the event, there was obviously not enough in the budget to be able to afford the finishing touches to the venue.  Dunedin is now going to overextend its budget by having a $200 million stadium, but can not afford to help enterprising curlers with their international competition. I feel this is wrong, but then I am only in the majority of Dunedin ratepayers who see their opposition to the stadium ignored!  It has been one of the biggest debates in Dunedin history, but the views of the majority have been ignored.  Let’s hope that the minority is correct and the stadium is the winning card they profess it will be for the city.

Today, I spent a very special lunchtime in MacandrewBay at the home of Moya, one of our highly qualified teachers, who had invited us to her beautiful home to farewell one of my close Japanese friends who is returning to Japan on her retirement from eight years working at the University of Otago as a cancer researcher.  Ayako and I had travelled back to Japan last year for two weeks, and it was such a memorable journey for the two of us.  Ayako introduced me to many of her friends, and I loved being immersed in the culture I so love.  It wasn’t the places that I remember, but the fascinating people I met. Of course, the food was fabulous, and it all added to the richness of the experience. The lunch today was also special for the people I was with, and with two other Japanese women, we enjoyed stimulating conversation and amazing food.  I love such gatherings where the conversation flows, and time passes very quickly. 

Yesterday, I helped Han with the lawns which needed to be cut before the winter sets in. This is the time when we put the garden to sleep, and look forward to the coming of spring when bulbs peep through the ground to welcome the warmth of the new season.  Spring brings such promise of new life, and I relish the changing of the seasons.  Winter in Dunedin often brings frosty mornings which break into crisp, clear days, and let’s hope we have bright, sunny days this winter.  Last year, we had a lot of inclement, wet, dull days which made the winter seem very long, and many people suffered from depression due to a lack of sunshine.  I hope this isn’t the case this year.  I was lucky to spend much of the winter in China and Japan, but I felt so sorry for those left behind here.  How do you cope with the winter?  So many houses are not well insulated, and the cold really gets into your bones.  We had heat pumps installed last year, and they made such a difference to the way we handled the frosty mornings.  It is so important to feel warm in winter, and we are one of the few countries that does not have their houses sufficiently insulated to cope with the cold.  How warm is your home? I know that many of the student flats are like fridges in winter, and students spend their time in their sleeping bags as they study at their desks!  I read a fascinating description by a Korean student, who lived in Auckland, and he said he had never felt as cold as in the winter he spent there.  Although temperatures are colder in Korea, at least the houses are heated well, and you are able to cope much better than here! The World Health Organisation stipulates that houses should never be colder than 15 degrees Celsius, but so many Dunedin houses do not meet this requirement!

On Thursday night, I was invited by my second daughter, Nicky, to a fundraiser for the MacandrewBay toy library, and we joined many other women at the Macandrew Bay Hall where many women were selling their wares. Nicky was keen to support the toy library as she has used it ever since the children were little.  In the same way as one borrows books, there are toys which one can have for the children for a week or two.  This is a great way to keep the children amused for no cost, and there is always a wonderful variety of toys to choose from. Do you have such a facility in your country? We spent a couple of hours talking to friends who were also at the fundraiser, and enjoyed a delicious supper at the end of the evening. 

I can’t believe how quickly time is passing and it was the week before last that I went to Cambridge in the NorthIsland, not England, for the New ZealandSisterCity Conference.  There was an impressive lineup of inspiring speakers, and I came back feeling empowered. All the speakers were champions in their own right, and although the speakers were not directly involved with the SisterCity movement, they gave all the delegates a fabulous insight into what made them successful.  It is sometimes important to just take time out to listen to those who have had great success and try to take a leaf out of their book.  Next year, Dunedin is hosting the same conference, and I am on the organizing committee. I think we will have speakers that relate more to the SisterCity philosophy, but that is not taking anything away from this particular conference.  It was still worth the time and money to go, and I know I gained a lot from it.  I stayed with Han’s youngest brother and his wife, and it was good to get to know their three children whom I hadn’t seen in six years.  Han and Gary look so alike, and in some ways their personalities are similar.  However, Gary was born in New Zealand, and so has not suffered from the same displacement feelings which Han endured from having been uprooted at the age of nine when he came to New Zealand from Holland as a young immigrant. Consequently, Gary is far more easygoing than his oldest brother, but he was also the youngest child being thirteen years younger than Han, and therefore did not have the huge expectation placed on him which seems to happen to the oldest child! I loved being with the family on their five acre property, and was very sorry to say goodbye to them. Gary has no relatives living close by, and I hope our family can spend some quality holiday time with them in the coming years. It is just a pity they live so far away. Cambridge is situated in a beautiful part of New Zealand, and like its namesake, is very English with lots of huge English trees which were planted by the first English settlers.  You do not see many Maori on the streets, which is unusual for the NorthIsland. It is famous for its horseracing, and horse breeding, and you can tell that it is a wealthy part of the country. There are not many people unemployed in the town, although no doubt the world wide recession is hitting them hard as well.  We visited one horse stud which said that the recession had hit them hard, and with massive overheads, you would need to make sure that there were buyers for your expensive livestock!  Although horseracing is not my cup of tea, it is obviously a huge industry in New Zealand.  One of the breeders was saying that New Zealand makes as much money out of horse breeding as it does out of wine, but we don’t hear about it in the same way.  I must admit that I enjoy drinking wine more than betting on horses, but it is all a matter of taste after all. Which do you prefer? Perhaps, neither, and that is probably the best answer.  You will certainly save money if that is the case!

It is now time to go to sleep, and I hope you have had a good weekend, and are looking forward to the week ahead.  If you are feeling a little fragile, for whatever reason, know that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, even though it may seem a faint light at the moment.  Believe in the power of positive thought, and all will be well. I look forward to seeing you soon.

Love

Sharron