Mission to Victory Beach

How about I adjust the text to photo ratio for today's post?  Today's mini mission brought us to the Okia Reserve/Victory Beach.

For your viewing pleasure... my first pukeko!

Last month, I picked up some Christmas cards with cartoon pukekos swimming.  I had no idea that these are one of New Zealand's most recognized birds. I just liked that they were swimming and wanted to mail the cards to my old Salem State swim buddies.

The walk to Victory Beach took us past the Pyramids-a byproduct of an explosion that happened a long, long time ago.

Upon a closer look at Little Pyramid it's easy to see the similarity between these columnar stones and the ones which make up the Organ Pipes. There was a cave in Little Pyramid as well, but I assumed big hairy man-eating spiders were in there just waiting to pounce, so I skipped the exploration.

A Hooker's sea lion blocked this particular access point to Victory Beach.

No worries! We found a way.

So, it sounds weird that a bunch of dead crabs would be kind of cool, right?  I couldn't help getting a kick out of the little guys, though.  They had markings that looked like a smiley face!

For some reason, people that read my blog or look at my Facebook photos prefer my pictures of animals.  Well, penguins in particular.  Here's an Oyster Catcher... I guess most people would say it's not as cute as a penguin...probably because it doesn't waddle.

This last photo is kind of cool - these are the "footprints" of the sea lion in the photo above who was blocking the entry to the beach.

So, tomorrow I'm celebrating New Years Eve at a low-key party and then on New Years Day we (Chris, Daniel, Johanna and I) are off to Monowai!  We'll drive up the first day to camp at the start of the track. Then we'll hike for three solid days and head out on the fourth day.  Check back here in a week for the photos!

Science + Hooker Valley = PhD Fun. Part 2

There are two kinds of PhD research topics.

The first kind involves doing really cool stuff to collect data, but the rest of the research is either very boring or, and this seems to be the case more often than not, others may feign interest in the topic yet only vaguely understand why the research is being done.

Take my friend Rob, for example.  He likes things that explode - volcanoes to be exact.  This guy has been all over the map to do volcano-y research that, I think, involves some fancy pants math stuff.  But, I don't care what makes these things go kaboom - I'm interested in the pictures of the places he's visited to study the kaboom.

The other kind of research is like my own; collecting the data is as exciting as watching paint dry, but most people will understand and have an opinion on the results.

I've been to a handful of parties where no one cares that I sent out a few thousand questionnaires and then sat around for 3 months waiting for them to be returned, but people do care to hear that our results suggest this, this and this about predictors of weight gain/weight stability and they have a related personal story to share.

Well, it just so happens that my friend Mandy is one of those lucky ducks who gets to travel for her research.  She takes samples of water from various ponds (and has even had people from overseas send her water samples!) and then looks for things in them.

Last week, we went on a little road trip and she pointed out some of her ponds.

Here's one:

Mandy has to walk around the water and scoop up samples with a net.  Here's an example of what she takes back to the lab at the end of the day:

Just an hour from the Kettleholes was our destination - Mt. Cook (the highest mountain in New Zealand and called Aoraki a.k.a. "Could Piercer" by the Maori).

We could see Mt. Cook really well from a lookout on Lake Pukaki.

We wanted to get a closer look at Mt. Cook and so we took a walk on the Hooker Valley track (roughly 4k to the Hooker glacier).  Mandy loved the bridges that we crossed.

Getting closer...

We made it to the glacier!  There were giant chunks of ice floating in the lake, but I am a lump head and didn't take a video of them bobbing and rolling around.

I really recommend this track.  It was soooo cheesy easy to walk because it was pretty flat and it was very accessible.  Just be warned that in the summer it gets very busy.  With that said, I'd definitely do the ~ 2 hour walk again.  *hint, hint to friends and family*

Science + Hooker Valley = PhD Fun. Part 1

Recently, a friend asked me to come for a road trip.  Along the way she pointed out sites of interest and the ponds where she collects samples of water for her research (something about parasites???).

We stopped to see the fossilized scapula of a whale at this site:

Three cows guarded the entrance to see this whale scapula (ooooh! ahhhh!):

Next up, Elephant Rocks! This area is located in the Waitaki Valley and has really neat features that I hadn't seen yet, like the limestone formations that resemble elephants. *Note: that is a real, live sheep; not a rock that resembles a sheep.

We carried on to Mt. Cook after a quick look around at the Elephant Rocks and a pit stop for the best lemon slice in the entire world.  On the way back from our adventures in the Hooker Valley, we stopped to see Maori rock art.  There was a wee bit of graffiti, so I can't say for certain that this is definitely Maori-made, but let's all just smile and nod and say it is, m'kay?

Next up... pictures from Mandy's data collection ponds and our Hooker Valley hike!

Kiwi Christmas 2012

Last night will go down as one of the most memorable Christmas Eve's.

My friend Max invited all the orphans over for a traditional Christmas BBQ.  The picture above was taken from Max's deck at about 10pm when the last bit of sunlight was disappearing behind the mountains.  I kept my eye out on the harbor to look for dolphins, but they must have been chasing salmon somewhere else.

We spent hours chatting, eating, playing with the cutest 3-year-old boy, and even watched Finding Nemo (guess who picked that movie?).

To thank Max for his hospitality, he asked for me to entertain him and I obliged.  Max is French and so I like to practice the vocabulary that I remember from five years of French classes with him.  He gets a particular kick out of me saying things like, "La vache aime nager" and "One egg is un oeuf!"  (I just learned that there's a joke to that... "Why do the French make their omelets with one egg? Because 'one egg' is un oeuf!).  I even sang him a song that I was taught to learn French vocabulary for the weather.

I think the night wrapped up beautifully... we indulged in Max's glorious chocolate cake and Alia's cheesecake (that took her about 6 hours to make, but nonetheless came out as a gloppy, but delectable, mess).  Then we bid our adieu's after taking in the moonlight with La Vie en Rose in the background.

Merry Christmas!

You should study abroad in New Zealand

I met Caroline on our Snowcraft trip and this is her video.  Check it out and then make plans to travel to New Zealand!

The Spirit of Triathlon

Last night, we had great weather for a sprint distance triathlon in Macandrew Bay.  I was the runner for a relay team (usually, you'd peg me to be the swimmer, but a wetsuit was required and mine is back in NY).  I haven't been putting much effort into training, but I do get out for a run about 3 days each week and I try to make one run at least an hour long.  My mediocre training paid off, though.  I ran 3 miles in 23 minutes - a personal record!

To be honest, it helped that the course was flat as a pancake, I had someone to chase, and then got chased myself.  I heard Katie coming up behind me and I couldn't help yelling "Holy s---! Nice pace!" over my shoulder as she passed.  I was happy that I was holding a 7:20 min/mile pace, but I figured what the heck and tried staying on her tail.  I didn't stand a chance!  I didn't want to blow up on the first loop, so I quickly got back into my own rhythm.  On the way back from my first loop a little boy, about 7 years old, stopped playing on the side of the road and ran up beside me - he was sooo cute! He was grinning ear-to-ear and kept up with me without breaking a sweat.  Oh to be young and full of energy!  Soon he pulled ahead and was looking for me to keep up, but I wanted to be conservative until the last half of the second loop.  I gave him a high-five as soon as he got tired of being faster than me and quit running.

The race was put on by the Dunedin Triathlon Club.  Man, it felt good to be there.  I didn't realize that I missed sexy bikes, the smell of neoprene and Mamils that much!  The triathletes here are just as awesome as my tri family at home.  I joined the DTC in hopes that I'll be able to get motivated for a race next year.  There are some pretty big races like the Challenge Wanaka, Coast-to-Coast and Ironman New Zealand, so having training buddies would be great.   In the mean time, I'll train for the Three Peaks Mountain Race.  Those hills look brutal, but it'll be fun to get back into racing.

DOLPHINS!

O. M. G.  I missed the dolphins!!!!  Why? Oh, why?! Of all days to be in uber productive PhD mode! Yesterday, I joined a group of friends for a small trek to Heyward Point which had a pretty darn good view of the water. Why weren't the dolphins around then?!

*sigh*

So, maybe I didn't see dolphins yesterday (I'm not leaving New Zealand until I see some dolphins!), but I did see these cute sea lions:

It took roughly 45 minutes to reach our destination.  Initially, when we reached Heyward Point, it was really obnoxious that the sea gulls were screeching out of control:

But, we found out what the fuss was all about - these eggs:

Aside from the the local critters, this was an uneventful trip, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  Just a few more weeks and I'll be able to share photos from the Monowai trip!  In the meantime, I'm going to keep my eyes out for more dolphins here in the harbour:

Mt. Charles Mission

Oh weekends, how I adore thee!  On Saturday, Tim, Court, Daniel, Johanna, Anna and I set out to conquer Otago Peninsula's highest point at a whopping 408 vertical meters (1,339 feet).  We battled rain, wind gusts and telltale signs of sheep to reach the summit.  

December 1st officially marked the beginning of summer, so I have high hopes that the weather will cooperate in the future so that I can bring you some substantially more impressive photos. 

In the mean time, I'm happily taking advantage of holiday sales to acquire gear for a longer tramping trip to Lake Monowai at the end of the month.  This will be a 4-day trip, so fingers crossed Mother Nature is getting the rain out of her system now so that we'll stay nice and dry at the end of the month.

We walked uphill BOTH ways!

This past Saturday, I sat on my rump. All. Damn. Day.  What did I accomplish?  A read-through of one research article.  Pitiful! I was determined to make the most of Sunday by hiking to the Mt. Cargill summit.  I figured six hours of hills would be good for me.

Here's a view of Mt. Cargill from the Pineapple Track (it looks like a green pimple on the top of the hill):

I asked a friend if he wanted to come on a walk with me.. I mentioned that the summit was "just up a hill," and I made sure to leave out lots of details about how boring the first few hours would be and how long the uphill part lasted.  My trick worked.  Bryce thought it sounded like a good idea and agreed to join me for a nice outing.

Sunday turned out to be a little warmer than what we've become accustomed to and the hills to the summit seemed a little steeper and longer than what we've become accustomed to as well.  I'm pretty sure that I heard someone say, "This is tedious," no less than a dozen times... in the first hour.

Is that a cloud in the shape of a sheep?

The little blue blob in the middle is Otago Harbour.

We were troopers and eventually reached the summit (it really was two hours uphill to get there).  Once there, we snapped some photos, had some nibbles, and prepared to take the track down to Bethunes Gully.

Mandy gave me this book for my birthday. It's awesome!

Mt. Charles is wearing a cloud scarf.

As I was surveying the area for the start of the track, I noticed two police officers getting out of a patrol car and start walking towards us.  My first thought was Um, I can't think of anything we're doing wrong; I can honestly use the I-didn't-know-because-I'm-a-foreigner excuse for whatever they're about to tell us. (I may or may not have feigned ignorance in a similar situation not too long ago).  Surprisingly, after we exchanged greetings, one of the officers offered to take our picture for us.  Really?!  My jaw dropped in disbelief (because it was such a nice gesture, not because my first picture taken by a cop wasn't a mug shot).

Bryce is saying under his breath, "You promised there'd be one hill and no cops on this hike!"

Unfortunately, the track to Bethunes Gully was closed.  This meant we had to go back the way we came.  Hmph!  We made the most of the situation - at least the track to the Organ Pipes was accessible! 

The Pipes are columns of stone similar to the Giant's Causeway in Ireland.  

Truth be told, it wasn't a very exciting hike.  The view from the summit was pretty neat and scrambling across the Organ Pipes was fun, but driving a car to the carpark at the summit would have been much nicer.  The experience didn't have the bang-for-your-physical-exertion-buck that I hoped for.

Things got a little interesting on the way back to Abbey.  A chicken decided to plunk itself in the middle of the road and was not bothered when a car drove up to it and honked to get the bird to move.  Bryce decided to help by nudging the chicken...she was clearly not impressed and walked a safe distance to give us evil looks.

Well, I guess we know why this chicken crossed the road.

This weekend I hope to hop over to the other side of the harbor for a little jaunt up Mt. Charles.  Fingers are crossed for good weather!

Weight ("Mis")Management

I had an incredible weekend: the kind where it was so simple and so relaxing that I have hope it can happen again and again and again and...

The best part is that I've been able to start my Monday off with the most clarity that my mind has had in a very, very long time.  It's a great feeling to sit down at my computer and have a refreshed sense of being and wanting to really dig in to my research rather than just peck words into Google and hit "search" and calling it "work".

Today, I am reading an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for diabetes self-management therapist manual by Jennifer Gregg, Steven Hayes and Glenn Callaghan.  I only got a few paragraphs into the background before my mind started going off on tangents about why it's so damn difficult to control the behavior that affects our health.

So, being the visual person that I am, I started playing around with trying to put it into picture form.

Basically, I started thinking about the typical weight loss program.  The participant is told "Eat less. Exercise more."  Easy enough, right?  Ehhhh, well...  

What you see in this picture is that I made a rectangle and split it exactly in half.  On the left side, I plopped in two hexagons to represent the diet and exercise that an individual must focus on inorder to have the desired effect on their weight.  I had plenty of room to type a note to myself and have a representation of diet, exercise and the individual.  

But, then I wanted to see a more accurate picture of what a typical person is dealing with because it's unfair to assume that anyone can devote all of their attention to just trying to lose weight or maintain weight.  I didn't have enough room to squish in all those factors that influence our ability to manage weight... in fact, the circle that is labeled "individual" (ironically) is being pushed out of the picture!  

Oooooh!  Ahhhhh!!!

So, here's what I'm thinking:

As we look at factors influencing an individual's ability to manage weight, we see that when we look closer there are so many things that the individual gets crowded out!  *ACT/IE can help put the individual at center of their own life.  It gives them a point of view where they can handle things as they come rather than being overwhelmed.  Skills learned can help a person not only moment-by-moment, but also help them plan for the future.

Over the next few weeks, months, years I'll work hard to keep in mind that weight management isn't simple.  With that in mind, I need to help come up with a simple way to help people with a complicated issue.  Otherwise, it won't work.  Bariatric surgery, diet pills, and fad diets are "easy" solutions, but they come with nasty side effects.

I have a hunch that helping the individual learn to take a hot second to assess the present moment and act in a way that they nod to what they value is sooo crucial.  But, it's not enough.

It's tough to battle all those forces (on the right side of that picture above, plus all the ones that are missing) day after day after day by yourself.  It doesn't have to be/feel that way, though.  Social support is great.  Having a friend or family member that values healthy living can be great motivation to make decisions and carry them out so that the outcome leads to weight management (a.k.a. health maintenance/improvement). Yet, I don't think it's enough support for entire populations on a quest to be healthier.  I truly believe that we need to tackle the factors related to climbing obesity rates from many directions.  For example, making cheap, tasty foods less available (do you ever walk around and notice how readily available food is?!) or downsizing food packaging.

That last part, downsizing food packaging, has never been more obvious to me than now.  Living in New Zealand has been GREAT for observing differences between here and the United States.  The availability of foods in large packages is so much less common here.  I think that if the large package sizes of common foods (like peanut butter) were available in the large jars that we see at home then New Zealand's prevalence of obesity would match the U.S.

Now, ain't that food for thought?


*Acceptance and Commitment Therapy researchers have suggested that people avoid their overwhelming thoughts rather than accept them as thoughts.  When it comes to eating behavior, we may avoid our overwhelming thoughts/cope with these thoughts by eating.  In a culture where food is tasty, cheap and readily available it is no wonder how easily we can self-medicate with food; but, rather than overdosing and facing instant death, it's a slow process that leads to high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and all sorts of problems that we don't see until we're further down the road.  Deciding, now, what we value may help us change our course of behavior when we have thoughts that conflict with our values.  Cool stuff, eh?

Since August, I've strived very, very, very hard to be more productive.  I've been working on a manuscript to submit soon (I've been saying this since February!), the 3-year follow-up methods chapter of my thesis, an online biostatistics/epidemiology class, and the beginnings of the online intervention development.  It feels like my mind is constantly running and sometimes it just needs a break.  Luckily, there's a botanic garden just a hop, skip and a jump from where I live.  This past week I took a break from PhD life to just wander around.

There are several themed gardens and I spent most of my time around the rhododendrons.  There's actually an annual Rhododendron Festival here!

I'll probably spend more time here as the weather gets nicer.  There are roses out and about already; it's going to be beautiful there in no time!

Jean Kristeller, Ph.D "Mindfulness Based Eating"

Mindfulness-based eating... can it help with weight maintenance?  There's potential to incorporate bits of Dr. Kristeller's work into my intervention.  Cool, eh?

Mumford & Sons in Christchurch

Mandy, Peter and I headed for an uneventful 4 1/2 hour car ride to Christchurch - home of the insanely huge and devastating 2011 earthquake.  Our mission? Seeing Mumford & Sons in concert.  This was one helluva a show and hands down the best I've ever seen.  Their energy didn't stop!  It was incredible to dance and sing with these guys for hours.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting videos of the concert on here (probably because it's illegal and men in fancy black suits will show up at my flat to "suggest" that I take them down)... Look for them on Facebook! =)

Catlins Roadtrip

Last week, friends and I headed down to the Catlins for a mini road trip.  We spent the night at Tautuku Lodge.  This place was an awesome find!  For just $20/person, nine of us enjoyed each other's company in a heated cottage with hot showers and nice bunk beds.  This may not sound too exciting to most people, but I had visions of a basic DOC hut in my mind; so, this place was a palace compared to what I imagined.

Having a kitchen was a bonus!  It was such a nice feeling to make a meal with friends.  We made fajitas and drank copious amounts of hot beverages that night.

Who would have thought that some innocent looking silverware would be our evening's entertainment?  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a room full of grad students enjoyed hours of spoons. This poor card felt the brunt of a particularly fiesty fight for a spoon:

On Sunday the weather wasn't quite as craptastic, so we took advantage of the lack of precipitation and explored nearby beaches and forests.

Check out this paua shell I found!

Someone told us about this confidence course.  It was pretty cool to run around and climb on things - guess we still have a little kid in each of us still!  Here's a shot of Sam above my head:

Unfortunately, I'm cutting down on fun time to focus on typing, analyzing, writing.  Hopefully, in January I'll have pictures from a road trip to share.  

Something's Brewing

I've been up to something in the kitchen.  Yes, folks, I'm learning how to brew beer.  Recently, the Otago University Brewers Association formed and I was there to help them spend the grant money on things like pots, fermenters and bottle cappers.  We purchased most of our items at Dunedin's Malt House, but Tiff was an awesome brewing buddy and she went out of her way to pick elderflowers (flowers of the elderberry) for our pale ale. 

  

We met up at 4pm to buy the malts, hops and yeast.  After all the steeping, brewing, and sparging was done we had a nice wort to pour into the fermenters.  So, by 10pm-ish we had gone from this:

To this: 

All the action took place in a kitchen on campus.  Boy, did the Clubs and Societies building smell GREAT from steeping the malts!  I believe our pots are 24 liters each... that's going to be a fair amount of awesomeness (the girls' Elderflower English Pale Ale and the boys' Saku Porter) to split between the 5 of us who bought in on the first brew ($20/person).

As luck would have it, I was able to take advantage of an Emerson's brewery tour the very next day and THE owner, Richard Emerson, was the tour guide!

I asked him about sharing his pilsner recipe; he just smiled and said they use a very special kind of yeast.  You can't blame a girl for trying!  At least I know one of the ingredients. 

Richard Emerson was a great tour guide - he just oozes contagious passion for beer.  At the end of the tour we sampled: Pilsner, Bookbinder, Brewer's Reserve, London Porter and Dunkel (the banana flavor was unexpectedly tasty!).

I certainly appreciated the tour more now that I've started brewing myself.  I had all sorts of questions about how various things affected the taste of the beer, but you know what?  Asking an established brewer how "bad" it is to add yeast before the wort cools to the desired temperature is like asking an established surgeon related advise on frog dissection in a high school biology class.  I need to just enjoy the process of discovery for myself. M'mm, and what a fun process it will be!

Folks interested in brewing should check out The Beer Less Traveled blog (the writer is from my part of New York and is over here in New Zealand, too!) and The Beer Less Traveled Facebook page (lots of pictures!).  Cheers!