Bagles, Bagles, Bagles

So I am in fact quite behind on my blogging, I guess that's okay because most days aren't terribly noteworthy. It's mainly a lot of food, hanging around, and class time. I had around $176 cash that I just used the last of today, and I can say quite confidently that about 2/3 of that has gone to some sort of food that I bought. Just yesterday I spent $14 on milk, a little package of pancakes, and a case of ginger beer (similar to ginger ale but way better). Anyway, enough with the numbers. One exciting piece of news is that a cute little gray cat followed one of the boys home and has been living under the boys' house porch for the past couple days. They named it Leonidas and it's really cute. It has slightly snakelike eyes, and it's unsettling to come across it at night but it's adorable and very friendly. The staff have been trying to dissuade us from feeding it because the people who own the houses don't allow pets. We feed it a little bit anyway.

A couple days ago we had Outreach prep and they had us give our top 2 choices and the reason we chose those. Along with the Middle East, Singapore/Phillipines, and S.Korea/Japan options there was also a team that will stay in New Zealand and travel around there. Apparently the options they had discussed before were just to give us an idea. They gave us like 20 minutes since they wanted us to pray about it, and they said we could wander around downstairs or go to the Coffee Club or somewhere quiet if we wanted, so I headed down to the Countdown grocery store and bought a snack then sat in the hallway outside the classroom. I wrote down all the options and tried pulling them out of a pocket in my bag, and I kept getting Middle East and New Zealand. I put the Middle East as one of my options with the reason "I kept drawing it's name out", and for number 2 I decided to go with the Singapore/Phillipines option, with the reason "It's someplace I would like to go".  They told us that we may not get our first or even second option, but whatever, at least I didn't make it sound like I wanted to stay in New Zealand or something, so they at least would consider putting me in my choices.

I am really enjoying my small group  here. We meet every Thursday morning and we'll just hang out and get to know each other. This past Thursday we went to this bagel shop (I think the only one of it's kind in Tauranga) called Wholly Bagels. They had a pretty sweet deal where you could get a drink, a bagel, and cream cheese for $6 which is super cheap for New Zealand. I got the cinnamon raisin bagel with the honey, nuts, and raisin cream cheese and a chai tea latte.  They were quite good. Maddie had the idea of playing "friendship circle" which I guess is the name of the game where everyone writes down questions and puts them in the center and someone draws one and we go around and everyone answers it. It was a lot of fun; we had questions like "what's your love language", "have you ever had a near death experience", "what's your favorite movie" (that was mine) and "what's your favorite childhood memory". I think we're going to try to play friendship circle for every small group for at least part of it. I'm definately looking forward to it.

Oh, and I did finish My Sister's Keeper a week or so ago, and Jodi Piccoult can go kill herself. (I promise no spoilers). Honestly, if you're having trouble coming up with a good way to wrap things up in a story, then just ask someone for help. You don't have to do it all on your own. Especially when you come up with a shit ending. Granted, it was on where you couldn't really hate anyone of the characters for the outcome, but that just means I hate the author for it. Shoddy work, Jodi. Shoddy work.