today i was thinking about the long and strange journey my tiny travel size vaseline has endured. although i peeled off the labels a year ago, i assume that it was made in china or somewhere else in asia. from there it must have flown or swam across this world to land in a morganton walmart where josh's mom bought it for him. that little vaseline then moved to 112a ashley forest during junior year of college and during the ransacking of josh's things that ensued the moment he left for study abroad, the vaseline came to be in my care. i took the vaseline to ghana for five months and then moved it to another home at 503b in carrboro. in august once our lease was up, the vaseline had a reuniting trip to my parent's house and then was packed to move to new zealand. the vaseline likes new zealand, perhaps because it has returned to the eastern hemisphere. what a huge and somehow so small and wonderful world we live in for my vaseline to have so much international travel.

a few days ago, malcolm, lindsay, robin and i were at the gym (the gym?!) and i bumped into a friend we had met a few nights previous named jared. in that instant, it hit me that whoa - i am starting to have a life in new zealand. friends, a (temporary) gym membership, soon a car, pets, chores, and people that i run into. it's such a safe feeling the moment that it begins to feel like i am living in a place. because then it is home and home doesn't know how to be scary.

since new zealand is familiar in many ways (we rented two julia roberts movies from blockbuster a few days ago) but also has new joys to show me, it feels very much like an unexplored home and one that i will continue to enjoy experiencing. it has yet to be scary or so unfamiliar that it jarring, which is certainly a nice break from my past few abroad experiences. luckily, new zealand has so much to offer, as does every place, that i can't imagine it ever becoming my fully explored home. there is always more to learn.

yesterday we WWOOFers helped ron, an 82 year old on the farm, build a fence on the top hill of gilly and greg's farm. the outskirts of auckland are built out of sprouting hill on top of hill, so that when we are driving even a mile away my ears often pop! what was so amazing being on the tippy top of gilly and greg's part of this world was what music i could hear from the top! there was the gameboy-laser sounds of 100 meters of stretched out fence wire and the air whipping so hard that my earlobes kept to the beat of the wind and the intermittent lawn mower of a near-by farm that was only part of the symphony when the wind allowed it. i felt alone in my hilltop music, but was surrounded by friends and animals. i think this was the first time that i heard hilltop music. i remember being on a beach in ghana and realizing that diving through waves sounds like 100 people bowling at once and i remember hearing my chinese students argue sounds like drunk, violent parrots. new sounds are always something that i don't pay enough attention to, but my friend mike from ghana was the one who taught me to listen to the everyday outside music. now i try to hear it always.

per usual, day five of gilly and greg's house is just phenomenal. every night i sleep so well and every day i live so well. it is the epitome of the life i want to have right now. i could not be more thankful than i am at every moment of this life. so far, new zealand has given me no reason to believe that anything will go wrong. i am sure that at some point it will, but why not take a page from mr. obama's book and let hope be the force that is running out ahead of my life paving the way for my days to follow? it seems like a pleasant way to think.

jack nickleson (sp?) is being a freakball in One Flew Over the Coocoo's (again, sp?) Nest, and i like watching freakballs from the outside of a television screen, so i am going to go watch. let's all be happy until something tells us not to be, don't you think?

love,
maggie