There’s a soft amount of pressure, being the first person on the Te Papa Tupu program to release their blog post. I don’t really know what people are expecting. A literary masterpiece. Something to rival William Shakespeare or Charles Dickens or Colleen Hoover (the three greatest writers of all time, unquestionably, uncontroversially).
Luckily for me – and perhaps, unluckily, for the blogging industry now unfortunate enough to welcome me as a member – I love waffling. So, this is going to be great! Maybe not a masterpiece. But entertaining, hopefully?
The program’s had a fun start. Actually, I don’t know if I should be calling it a program. Some call it an incubator, but that word gives me world-infesting-virus sort of vibes. We’re not brewing a bioweapon here. Seriously, I promise; my stipend is generous, but doesn’t cover the necessary materials/ingredients for a bioweapon.
There’s a lot of words that you could use to describe Te Papa Tupu. That’s kind of the thing with language, ay? Lots of words (although, you wouldn’t realise it if you read my first draft and counted me using ‘just’ seventy times a chapter). I think I’m looking forward to Te Papa Tupu for a lot of reasons, but the main one is it sounds fun. I get to create a whole project with a cool mentor (shout out Victor if you’re reading this (you should be reading this, bro, it’s your job)). I get to write a lot and there’s a sense that my words are actually going somewhere. And I get to buy new clothes with my stipend – uh, no, sorry, I mean invest heavily in my writing career. Yeah. That. Similar to most twenty-one year olds, I’m often thinking about the long-term future. Like, at least a solid three seconds ahead.
Anyway, I think I’ll refer to Te Papa Tupu as a haerenga. Not only is that a Māori word, which Huia and MLT will love, but it also sums up my feelings towards both the program and writing in general (after all, as sweet as this whole thing is, isn’t it also simply one step on my writing journey as a whole? Apparently. That’s what Eboni told us.).
The Wellington sessions were pretty cool. I’ve never been flown down anywhere before. I felt like a hot Instagram model being put on a flight to Miami by a superyacht owner. Only difference being my destination was a lot less sunny. That’s okay though. I actually quite like Wellington. I went there for the first time in January, and had a great time. I went there for the second time last week, and had an equally great time. That’s great time squared, if my maths is correct (it rarely is). Everyone there was really nice, and really welcoming to me. I hope everyone else also felt the good vibes.
Something that I’ve been trying to figure out is the times I want to write. One of the things about being in uni is that there isn’t a switch-off time, unlike when I’m working during the holidays. Don’t get me wrong, I get/take a lot of free time (probably more than my lecturers would prefer); my challenge is more creating some sort of stability and structure in the hurricane. Where to find the time to write? A lot of the other participants on Te Papa Tupu have husbands and kids and families. What a lot of people don’t know about me is I actually have four wives: the members of the Korean girl group Aespa. Imagine how tricky that is to manage!
Speaking of stability and structure, I feel like it’s time to drag this blog post back to something more concrete. Although, to be fair, my main idea for this was to introduce myself to you. And I haven’t really done that in the traditional way, providing you my CV in a thousand words and clever little anecdotes, but hopefully you’ve enjoyed my kōrero so far and learnt a bit about my writing energy. But I guess I should end this with a bit more of a formal introduction, before you join me on the rest of this journey.
I’m Anthony Pita, a fourth year uni student at Auckland, studying Psych and Law. I like playing soccer, losing in online chess, and hanging out with mates. And I really like writing. I’m really happy when I’m sitting at my laptop at night, a fizzy drink open to my left, K-pop music videos playing, creating a new world on my screen out of nothing. And I’m very grateful and looking forward to this haerenga.
