It's Blog Time!

So a week of blissful silence, huh? Punctuated only by a movie about a long-ago event. Well, I'm Back, and I'm demanding to know your favourite icecream flavour. I tell you what, if I get more than a certain special number of votes in the next three days, then I will buy some icecream (the one with the most votes, of course) and bring it along to class. I won't tell you how many votes, however, cos then when the threshold is passed, you'll all stop voting and where's the fun in that?! I swear it takes all of two seconds, and its INTERACTIVE, and we ALL LOVE INTERACTIVE, don't we?!

The reason for my silence can be summed up in one word. Pitch. On Tuesday, we're pitching our ideas and, as some of us are not as organised as Nick (who'd finished his by last Friday so that he could take off on a trip!) we've spent our precious holiday Searching for a Story. The fantastic thing about this course is the way it constantly takes me out of my comfort zone. In the past few days I've been forced to LIVE outside it. I've interviewed a couple of scientists at the very top of their respective fields...negotiated the Dunedin bus system out to Port Chalmers (where I turned up uninvited and yarned to an old codger who lives in his boat)...drawn conversation out of tight-lipped fishermen who by no means want to talk about the politics and economics of their trade...survived a long roadtrip with Pip, battling gale-force nor'westers...all in Search of a Story.

So did I find one? After all that, yes, I did. Not up the Ida Valley, or at Carey's Bay on a fishing boat, but on the phone to one of New Zealand's foremost Lepidopterists. It's a tale worthy of being told - not only because it looks into the lives of some of New Zealand's more obscure fauna, but because it's framed around a process making history in our under-appreciated high country. Enough hints - I can't give it all away before Tuesday, can I?!

Off you toddle now. Move your mouse right, and up...that's it, a little further...and click on that button that says 'Vote'! Didn't do anything? That's cos you have to pick a flavour first, silly. The more people that follow your supreme example the more interesting the result will be...

And here's a shameless plug. After a hot, thirsty day in the Zoology Wagon, Pip and I arrived in Lawrence and found what is without a doubt the most generous icecream shop in all of Otago. For just $1.50 you can not only pick your flavour, but eat it (in extremely large quantities) too.