bethisincanada

I attended a workshop at work this afternoon. The premise was exciting and I was kinda looking forward to it. I even had to shuffle my day in order to fit it in. It was held in the most amazing boardroom. The table, lighting, colour, chairs and all over decor was amazing in that room! There are many conference rooms in the building but this was the flashest one I've seen in my life!

I was so excited for the first five minutes just drinking in the amazingness of the room and wondering how the presentation would go. There were only 3 of us and the person leading, so it looked promising. It was scheduled to go from 2pm till 4pm so I assumed we would get some catering in at around 3pm. We were even told that with the small group size, that it will end early.

After about 15 mins, I realised that I had very little interest in this workshop. It was about organisational structure and future services. I have only been in my position since Monday last week and could have done with a briefing beforehand! I could see that this may affect me but a lot of things I don't understand yet and I haven't met some of the key staff that were kept being referred to. It didn't help that the other two participants had been in their positions since the mid-90s. At first I was able to give some input but after the first half hour, I had very little to contribute.

3pm rolled around and there was no sign of tea or coffee. No sign of even a little biscuit. And there were no mints on the table. There were glasses on the table but no water! I got thirsty. I got hungry. My tummy began to rumble. My brain was expecting some nourishment. There was none. I started to trail off into my imagination. It went on... and on. Then, all of a sudden I was taken back to reality with "and Beth, how would you describe the situation to an overseas enquirer?"

Today was my 9th day in the job!

I looked up on the board and saw that they were still talking about what they had been talking about for seemingly ages. I gave an answer that was satisfactory but a bit broad for what was wanting. I gave some useful input in other areas but man, the last half hour certainly dragged!

No, it didn't end early but I certainly enjoyed my cuppa at 4.15.

I heard this many years ago and came across it again in a book today. With a moment of google's time, I have reproduced it here.


The version found written on the wall in Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta:


People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

New job is excellent. I am very lucky to have this job! It's been very refreshing and everyone has been very helpful. However, all the new names and procedures etc have made me quite tired. That and all the exercise I've been doing to (try to) get fit for my tramp in a couple of weeks. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed

Here is a run down of my Saturday afternoon:

-Flatmate has headache and gets in car to drive to pharmacy.
-Flatmate's car does not start.
-I'm still in pjs but I offer to drive her there in my car.
-On approaching my car, we discover it has been BROKEN INTO! Smashed glass everywhere!
-There's a business card of a policeman on the front passenger seat!
-Flatmate walks to pharmacy.
-I call police. They ask me my name, address, DOB, car registration/make/model/year/colour. They ask when it happened and where it happened, which window it was and if anything was stolen. I walk out to car with phone to answer those questions. They say someone will ring me back.
-I call insurance. They ask me my name, address, DOB, car registration/make/model/year/colour. They ask when it happened and where it happened, which window it was and if anything was stolen. They say someone will ring me back.
-Phone rings. Person: "Beth, are you ok? OMG your car!" Me: "who is this sorry?" Person: "Oh, it's flatmate's mother. Are you ok? Is she there?" Brief conversation ensues.
-Flatmate returns. I tell her to call her mother.
-I go to car to retrieve non-stolen items.
-I decide that I really should have shower and get dressed. Turn shower on.
-Phone rings. It's the police. They ask me my name, address, DOB, car registration/make/model/year/colour. They ask when it happened and where it happened, which window it was and if anything was stolen. They say they'll post me a form. I ask if I should clean up the glass. They say yes.
-I shower.
-Phone rings. It's the Insurance people. They ask me my name, address, DOB, car registration/make/model/year/colour. They ask when it happened and where it happened, which window it was and if anything was stolen. They say that glass repair people could clean all the glass up. They put me through to the glass repair people who...
-ask me my name, address, DOB, car registration/make/model/year/colour. They ask when it happened and where it happened and which window it was.
-They ask me to move my car off the road but flatmate's car is dead in the only off street park. The glass people offer to come round but need a special urgent authority from my insurance.
-I call back insurance. They ask me my name, address, DOB, car registration/make/model/year/colour. They ask when it happened and where it happened. The operator needs to speak to her manager. I'm put on hold for just about the entire length of Nature's Best Vols 1, 2 and 3. Good news at the end of it though. Manager has approved the urgent call out because car is at risk on road with glass missing.
-I call back glass repair people. I offer my name, address, DOB, car registration/make/model/year/colour. However, I spoke to this dude earlier and he remembered me! He said someone from my local branch will call me in the next half hour.
-Someone calls me within half an hour. They say that they'll be around in one to two hours.
-Knock at door. It's downstairs neighbours who inform me that there's a car on the street with glass smashed. Busy body neighbour from across the road comes marching down driveway to announce that it must have happened on Thursday night. I haven't used my car since Wednesday night. I put all at ease and say that someone is coming within one to two hours to clean it up and repair it.
-Sit down with a cuppa tea and a chocolate muffin and blog about wasted Saturday afternoon. Wait for repair men.

Do you ever get those times where you feel not quite yourself? The last few days have been like that for me. It began on my birthday last week. I had such a wonderful day and had fun celebrating so that wasn't bad or strange at all. I went to bed that night feeling very happy and loved, only to awaken 3 hours later feeling like I was about to die! I proceeded to the bathroom where I lost everything I ate on my birthday! Food poisoning! So I had to do the call of shame and call in sick at work the day after my birthday. I'd like to say it's coz I got really boozed and I was hungover but I'd only had a couple of drinks and that would not equate to half the night in the bathroom! My body recovered enough so that on Saturday I was able to meet some friends in the Botanical gardens for a birthday picnic but my body has not been able to cope with normal eating and digesting since Thursday. Thus, I do not feel myself. Ha ha, I normally LOVE eating, so to not enjoy it is very foreign to me!

The strangeness continued on Monday, when I got to work and learnt that my colleague's son was killed in an accident at the weekend. This colleague lost her mother a couple of months ago, so to loose her son (who I'm guessing was circa my age) is really tragic. I just can not comprehend her losses that she's had to bear in such a short space of time and I've been very troubled since hearing that news. Her absence has meant that I've had to change my work schedule this week, which I've been happy to do but has added to the strangeness.

Also on Monday, I was awarded a new job! I applied for another position at work, was interviewed last week and got it! This is great news for me but it's been tricky coz another work colleague applied for the job and started making plans as if she'd already got it. I don't quite know how to tell her that it was me that they chose for the role. This job is fixed-term till the end of January so that team and my team (they're from different business units) are working out just how it will work. At this stage it looks like someone will be able to stand in for me until the end of Jan but at that point, I will either have to go back to my old job, or resign. The new job could be extended further and has done so in the past (the last person was on it for 4 month contracts at a time and it kept getting extended and extended but this person finally resigned). So, I've got a few different options for the end of Jan. What I'd really love is some set plan but I'm very poor at making those and the choices at that time may have changed anyway.

So it's been very strange imagining that my day at work is very soon going to be without all the work friends who I know and love so well and instead will be with a group of people I don't know at all and doing work that I've never done before. But this is a great opportunity for me and the four month contract gives me a taste in a whole new area.

Now to get myself better so that I can really enjoy it!

Over the past little while I've been thinking seriously about long-term goals. It's something I've always struggled with and I've spent a lot of worry thinking about it. But over the past little while, I've been yearning to have something more concrete in place for the next few years. I made a bunch of plans when I was 20 and that took me through to 23. However, since being 23, I've been unable to make mid and long-term goals. My decision making abilities have gone away. It could be due to some lesion in my forebrain but I still consider myself an intelligent person in other areas. However, when it comes to goal setting, my IQ is quite reduced.

It probably didn't help that back in High School, teachers would say "you're bright, you'll go far." This is lovely but it's very vague. Other people have said to me "I hope all your dreams come true", which is also lovely but even more vague. What are my dreams? What did they mean when they said that? What does "going far" entail?

I can list several dreams but a lot of them are dependent on other things happening first. For example, I dream of owning a dog but I need to reside in a dog-friendly house to do that. My current flat would be terrible for a dog! Some things I want but probably can't have together. For example, I dream of having a strong career. However, if I had the opportunity to raise a family, I probably wouldn't work a 40+ hour week, which would diminish my chances (and ability) to succeed in a leadership role. And ofcourse, the ability to raise a family is dependant on someone fathering this family!

I'm not too concerned about marriage, kids and leadership roles at present. I am concerned about 2010. I have an opportunity to do a certain Masters degree which my current workplace will fund. They will also support me in other ways (extra tuition, resources, working hours around my study etc). The voice saying carpe diem in me is really keen to do this. However, another voice inside me questions if it's really what I want to do. I've already studied at tertiary level for five years. Do I really want to go back for another degree? There are plenty of other degrees that I would do before this one. The catch is, I would have to fund anything else myself and I'll already be in my mid-50s when I've paid back my first student loan! And do you know how expensive Masters degrees are these days???? In either case though, my chances of getting a greater income are increased with a specific qualification. My salary would go up about 28% with the qualification that work is offering. Then there would be opportunities for greater roles. My currant role is at a dead-end salary-wise. It will only increase with inflation.

But then... I go back to my core values which tell me that money doesn't equate to happiness and that the love of money is the root of all evil. I would hate to be 65 and look at all my money but think that my working life was boring as.

There are heaps of things that get me excited! I know what things interest me. But I've tried to get into those areas and have met many closed doors. I don't mind the area I'm in now, it's just that there are other things that excite me more! Maybe I can get into those areas by another path. I will need to investigate the possibility of that further I think.

One thing I do want in the near future, is further travel. I really enjoyed my exchange year in Canada and the weeks I had in the U.K. and Europe. Furthermore, I've also really enjoyed exploring a bit of Australia and parts of New Zealand that I had never been to or had not been to for a long time. You don't need to go to the other side of the world to have these adventures! But there is something to be said for travelling outside of your home country. Travel is something I want, but I want to be able to afford it. See how my decision making is twisted! I've just gone from wanting more money, to money not being important, to money being essential for what I want. Travel is a self-serving thing too isn't it? I want to do it for a real purpose, not just for my own gratification. I'd like to go overseas again but maybe for a stint using my skills to help people. But in order to do that, I would need some skills.

In conclusion, I'm struggling with 2010 plans. I then waffled about some stuff like Masters programmes and money and travel.

I still want more leave. I really really reeeeallly want a long holiday!

I had four days of annual leave and it was brilliant! Brilliant!!! I want more. Give it to me!

Go here:

http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=78

The landlord just came round with a GIANT television! He saw our little 14 inch telly in the lounge and thought it was too feral. Our shower broke this a.m so I asked him to come round and fix it. And he brought along this mammoth tv and a big-as stand for it to go on. If it was any bigger, we wouldn't be able to see our stunning view! To be honest, I'll probably spend more time watching that than this giant baby but it will be good for when we watch movies. Now for a DVD player...

One of the weird things about my indexing job is I'm asked to do newspapers from last year. There is quite a large backlog, so that is why I've been brought in to help. Yesterday I indexed an article on a Christchurch schoolgirl who had gone missing. Ofcourse it was Marie Davis. I also indexed an article on Derek Lovell, a Hamilton firefighter who was in critical condition in hospital. We know now that both these people died. It's really strange reading the newspaper and knowing what happens next. I know who did and didn't win medals in Beijing. I know who won the general election. I know how many people died in the Mangetepopo Canyon tragedy. It makes me wonder how the events and stories that are in our present lives will follow through.

And on another note about work, one of the bonuses of working for multiple teams (I think I'm up to four now!) is that you get to attend all the social gatherings from each team. Monday it was a pot-luck morning tea. Last week it was a catered do in the foyer. Today it was lunch at the pub. Coming up is a dinner out. Great times!

A friend of mine recently texted me and said that the White Witch has descended upon Wellington! I was a little upset. I thought that her boss or some other lady had been really mean to her.
"OMG, what happened?" I asked.
She replied "because it's always winter and never Christmas."

Clever analogy. It does feel like Narnia only a little worse coz there's no snow. But it is definately freezing and there is no Christmas. In fact, there's no public holiday for months. This feels never ending.

There is a newish lady at work who is from Tennessee. She is not at all loud and brassy as the stereotypical american image may conjure up. She is rather shy but has been so great to get to know. We've had hours of fun talking about english language differences around the world, particularly between North America and New Zealand. I could talk about this topic for a looooong time but I'll try and keep this brief to prevent your boredom.

One interesting thing she mentioned today was the way New Zealanders say "debut". We say it like "dayboo", which she found fascinating. I didn't know that was weird. I can't quite capture the way she said it in her accent but it was more like "daybiew". Ofcourse the word is French in origin so we are probably both bastardising it but I thought it was interesting.

A point I made to her was the way we say "horse-riding" but they say "horse-back riding". When a North American says that they went "horse-back riding", I always wonder what other part of the horse they thought about riding. "Horse-head riding" or "horse-leg riding" perhaps?

These are only two little differences that don't matter semantically but it's these little differences that give us such colour to our cultures. (And can be used for a laugh. And to tease people. Not that I would ever do that.)

There is a lack of affordable parking at my workplace so to get to work I either walk or take the bus. On my return home at the end of the day, I always take the bus because it is uphill and would take well over an hour. Here in Wellington, we have the most educated, highest salary earning, intelligent people in the country according to some sources. However, when a Wellingtonian steps on a bus, they turn into a MORON.

When you or I go to a pharmacist and they hand us our prescription, we don't say "thank-you pharmacist". And when we purchase our groceries, we don't say "thank-you check-out operator". And when the young lady takes our plates away at a restaurant, we don't say "thank-you waitress." However, when a Wellingtonian gets off a bus, they say "thank you driver!" Cringe! It's soooo offensive, I just don't know where to begin. But the ones who say this are actually the polite ones. Most people aren't so pleasant.

A bus driver has to navigate some terrible traffic, listen to calls on the radio and take monies off people when they purchase a ticket to ride on the bus. They are also monitoring the behaviour of a lot of passengers on board.

And they have to open and close the front and rear doors.

If a driver fails to open the rear doors at the exact moment that a passenger wishes to alight, you'll hear "BACK DOOR DRIVER!" This is never said in a pleasant tone. If the driver is juggling cash and doing other things that require their attention, they may take another moment to open the door. But by then, three or four other passengers will take on the cause of the alighting passenger and yell "DRIVER! The back door please! Oh for goodness sake driiiiiiver!!!!!!" How these "drivers" take it day after day I have no idea!

But it's not just manners that disturbs me. Getting on a bus obviously damages the visual perception. When a bus has all its seats occupied, people stand in the aisles. Sometimes the driver will let on a LOT of passengers and the aisles become full. There is room up the front but people want to stand further back. For example, two days ago, someone stood where I was standing. Did they not see me there? There was nowhere for me to go so I was squashed against the back of the driver's seat. Yesterday, I was near the rear doors and I'd wrapped myself around a pole in order for someone to stand adjacent to me. However, when another person wished to leave the bus, they had the audacity to say "EXCUSE ME!", as if I had somewhere to move to! Where this person wished me to move, I have no idea. Obviously they saw a vacant part of the bus that I could have gone into. A magic realm that turns people into vacant spaces perhaps? People frequently ask me to move when I'm standing in the aisles. I'll be squishing myself into the tinyest ball ever and practically draped across the laps of total strangers only to hear for a second or third time "EXCUSE ME!!".

Well, manners and visual perception aside, you'd think that since Wellington is full of these educated people in fabulous jobs that I'd be in for some scintillating conversation! Think again! I hear the most terrible conversations on the bus. People ringing up their "loved ones" on the phone to abuse them, middle aged people asking their elderly parents to do onerous tasks for them, people chatting to their spouses about what ingredients to buy for dinner, teenagers chatting about who's hot and who's not. I can actually feel the atrophy of my brain cells just listening to some of these conversations.

So I have given you dear READER (see what I did there) a long spiel about my bus experiences. However, I am telling you things of what happens inside a bus, which means that I too must have entered past those front doors into moron-hood as well. Which makes this post rather redundant.

"I think I'm pretty resilient now and that I'll be happy wherever I am as long as I'm having an adventurous life. But I think that's more of a state of mind thing that I still have to discover in NZ."

That's a quote from me from Sept 2005. I found it the other day and it's been sitting there in the back of my mind. I was getting irritable staying in the city so I invited a friend to go on a drive up the Kapiti Coast. However, just as I departed the house, I received this text message:
"Please don't come and pick me up. I just had to run to the bathroom to ........" Well you can imagine the rest!

So I decided to go for a drive anyway! It was mid-afternoon but I drove and drove and drove. I got to Otaki and still felt like driving. There was a pretty thing happening with the light over at the Coast. Since it was the winter solstice, I could tell that the sun would set quite early. But I drove on. Presently, I came to a sign pointing to Kuku beach. I'd never heard of it and thought "oh I'll do that when I have some time." And then I realised that I did have time because I wasn't going anywhere and wasn't meeting up with anyone. So I went down the country road to Kuku beach.

When I got there, I found a track to the beach. I walked along the short track and found myself alone on a beach. There was a wooden log on the beach so I parked myself down. I was at an estuary and I could hear the waves crashing against the sandbar a short distance from me. The water was very still and there were a lot of birds wading in the water. The sun was setting behind some clouds and casting golden sunbeams down onto the sea. To the south, I could see Kapiti Island and it was lit in a beautiful pink colour due to the setting sun. In the distance, I could see the South Island or some of the Marlborough Islands. It was such a beautiful scene and I was the only one present. I breathed in the air and revelled in the isolation. I began to unwind. However, I knew that to truly unwind I would need a long time there.

I only stayed for 10-15 mins because
a - I was alone on the beach and aware of all the murders in the media and thought if someone came along, there was no-one else around for aaaaaages and
b - I was freezing my ass.

When I got back to the car I could see the snow on the Tararua ranges. Brrrrr. Beautiful but chilly! I still felt like driving. I called my friend who lives near Palmerston North and wondered if we could meet for a drink but she had a busy schedule for the rest of the day. But I felt like driving some more. I drove to Palmerston North, had a hot chocolate at a McCafe, and then returned to Wellington, only stopping for a muffin at Paraparaumu.

Yes, it was a little weird but I'd promised myself that I'd leave Wellington during each month of this year. And next weekend I'm busy so that was my only opportunity. And it was great!!

Now I crave some REAL time off. Tempting to quit job and have time off but financial situation needs considering.

A friend and I asked each other to write a short story or poem. Here's my piece hahaha
Winter by Beth Wishart

The days get shorter, it's very dark
It's hard to get out of bed
I want to play in a National Park
And feel sunrays on my head.

It's hard to get my washing dry
It's dark already when I get home.
At least there's no chance my skin will fry
But I'm so cold, hear me moan.

It's so long ago since I felt hot,
Now all I do is shivver.
There's no adventure, I'm just a robot
Trying to survive the winter.

I think I could tolerate it if it would snow,
But there is none of that here,
I think that I'll just get up and go
And go to a new place somewhere.

Now I must go to slumber
This cold really isn't fun
I'm now just counting the number
Of days till I can have some sun.

The End.

As we draw close to the shortest day, I am growing a greater and greater desire to escape it all and go away on a loooong holiday. There is nothing wrong with my life per se, but I wish to have more time to enjoy life. I really wish that I had more time in my day. I know that my sister or any other parent would laugh at me for my desire for more free time but I'm just glad I did not enter parent-hood when I left uni. I did a science degree and lamented back then on how busy my timetable was. It's so laughable now! But it's been a few years since I graduated and I'm still adjusting to working full-time. You don't get the late afternoons to unwind and prepare for the evening. You don't get "the holidays" to look forward to. You're just left getting up ridiculously early and working for the majority of the day and a long journey home with only 20 days annual leave to look forward to. And you don't get to change what you do "next semester". Life is just one looooong semester until you change jobs. So all this makes me very frustrated.

I went to a film launch last week called Earth Whisperers/Papatuanuku. It was a documentary film about NZ wilderness and it discussed the spiritual connection that a lot of people feel between themselves and the land. I think your average Joe NZer would think that that sounds very hippy and weird. But I honestly believe that there are places on our planet (not in your smog ridden cities) that are soooo breathtakingly beautiful, it can't be anything other than spiritual. I crave getting out into these places but I'm left with going to my job, day after day, week after week.

I know that during "these recessionary times" I should be jumping for joy that I even have a job. And I've been unemployed and it certainly doesn't agree with me. Furthermore, when I was given notice to leave my flat in Jan last year, I was outraged. I didn't want change again. Whenever I travel, I enjoy it but after a while I crave settling down and establishing a routine. And with all my different flats over the years, it makes me want to settle down for a while. But I've just discussed how much I want to travel around and get into NZ wilderness. I seem to switch between wanting to be happy with what I DO have in life and wondering if there isn't something better out there. Should I really be satisfied if I can be pro-active in making my life better?

Sorry to be all pessimistic this evening. I'm taking 2 annual leave days in August so at least I have that to look forward to. And then there's Labour Day in October which is only four months away.

The news has been full of the David Bain trial. The jury found him not guilty but it doesn't mean that they found him innocent. Despite all the millions and millions that have been spent on deciphering the truth, we still don't know who did it, any more than we did in 1994. I keep mulling over the evidence seen on the tv, internet etc and I just can't work it out. The jury, who were the only ones who heard all the evidence can't convict him, so how does my mulling it over help anything? I'm sooooo frustrated! I just want to know!

In order to take my mind off the Bain case, I decided to think about other cases. BAD MOVE! This just made me more and more frustrated! I now put a few questions to you:

Who killed the Bain family?
Who killed Kirsty Bentley?
Where are Ben and Olivia?
Who killed Harvey and Jeanette Crewe?
What happened to Amelia Earhart?
What happened to that Air France flight over the Atlantic?

These questions are not likely to be fully answered in my lifetime. Does one get to find out the answers when they die? I've love for there to be some resolve while I still have a pulse! Man, I need a sudoku puzzle or something. At work this afternoon, I was indexing an article on a man who was to stand trial for a murder, but he was killed in a head-on collision before the trial. So another frustration can be inserted into my list. Did he really do it? His family thought not.

In some ways, I'd like the media to stop reporting these things. These people have nothing to do with me. It's not my problem. But by passively watching the media, I'm drawn in and taken on an emotional journey that I don't want to be on anymore. Please stop reporting murders!!

I'm going back to my L.M.Montgommery now. No mysteries for me!

I was daydreaming at work today about the Dunedin Botanic Gardens. I don't know why but I missed them! It got me thinking about some of my favourite places in the towns and cities I've lived in. I thought I'd share some of them with you.
I've googled an image from each place. Click on the link under the name to see it. Thanks to the people who took the images whoever you may be!

1. Dunedin Botanic Gardens, Dunedin
http://k41.pbase.com/u22/mscottnscp/large/10090556.DSCF0054.jpg
Walking through the gardens from my flat to uni was an enjoyable time of day for me. The change in altitude was certainly marked (and more noticeable on the walk home as that was the uphill direction!). During the spring time there is a bed of daffodils in the upper gardens and the rhododendrons and azaleas? bloom with such bright colours. It really is a sight to behold. Other notable aspects of the gardens are the croque-o-dile tearooms where I have shared many a happy occasion and the NZ native section where I used to go on runs and get fit! The peace in that area is beautiful.

2. Centennial Park, Timaru
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzlscant/images/BowkerGateway1940feb2008mt.jpg
The locals call it The Scenic Reserve but I liked to call it by the name that was over the arches at the entrance. Like the Dunedin Botanic Gardens, this area isn't all that far from anywhere in Timaru (although, is anywhere?). There is a fake lake in the centre which is a relaxing location to have a family picnic. Many summer meals were spent there with friends and family. It's also a great place to go biking and on random long afternoon walks.

3. The River Valley, Edmonton, Canada
http://image04.webshots.com/4/0/18/28/56901828LMLNed_fs.jpg
There's quite the theme here. These are all retreats in the middle of the city. This valley contained squirrels, chipmunks and woodpeckers so that made it v. interesting! The river would change drastically over the seasons from a fast, flowing river to a stationary, solid mass. The foliage on the leaves in the "fall" (get ready for a cheesy phrase) would be a symphony of colour which would change daily from reds to oranges to yellows.

4. Oriental Parade, Wellington
http://fangybunny.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/oriental-parade.jpg
There isn't much foliage or anything growing here (except for maybe the artificial sandbar imported from Golden Bay). However Oriental Parade affords a lovely view of downtown Wellington, the harbour and the surrounding hills. There is also Parade cafe, the gelato store Kaffee Eis and Freyberg pool. A great spot to go for a meander or to just sit with friends having a good catch up.

5. Saltwater Creek, Timaru
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_WPORwqYiWWE/SVQRENfv0RI/AAAAAAAAWr0/v-fwoy9gETk/timaru_23dec0+(7).JPG
Despite its location next to the landfill, this area feels very fresh and clean. It's apparent that a lot of volunteers have worked hard on this revegetation project. The river is very unassuming but a lot of NZ birds hang out here and you can walk right out to the sea which is v. cool.

6. St Clair beach, Dunedin
http://davidwallphoto.com/images/%7B2A0CC385-3DE3-46AA-9736-088BA7A5A88F%7D.JPG
Even during a violent storm, it's fun to drive down to St Clair and watch the waves crash up The Esplanade. In summer, its great to go for a swim either in the ocean or at the Salt Water Pools. There's now a lovely cafe on the esplanade to enjoy a hot beverage and enjoy the ocean views

7. Moeraki Boulders, Moeraki
http://www.travelimages.com/PictureOfTheWeek/6MoerakiSunrise.jpg
I've never lived in Moeraki but I've travelled between Timaru and Dunedin more times than I care to imagine and this is a great place to stop half way along the journey. There are large windows which display the great ocean view. It's great to relax and see the subtle changes of light in the sky and the sea. It's a very dynamic scene. The short walk to the boulders themselves is fun and again, a lot of people have worked hard revegetating the area.

Where are your favourite get-away spots?

1. Job!
I have a new half job! I'm working in my usual job in the mornings but in the afternoons I'm going to another building and working for another team in the same organisation. This job is "indexing" which sounds horrendously inane but is actually cool. (Well, I say this now!) I imagined indexing would be writing indexes for books; like writing a page number beside a word but indexing is actually reading articles and summarising them. So at the moment, I'm reading newspapers and searching for biographical articles and entering the main points into a database. This goes onto the Index New Zealand (INNZ) database, which is used by teachers, researchers and anyone curious. From there they can get the link to the original article. I don't know about you but I think that's kinda cool. Plus, getting paid to read the newspaper is pretty darn fine to me. Later on, I think I'll be joining the others in writing abstracts (summaries of 150 words or less) of every serial (ie, newspaper, magazine, journal) that gets published in NZ. Noice!

2. Things I like
Slow cookers, hot showers, having friends over for tea, movies, meeting friends after work for a drink, electric blankets, hot water bottles, watching the sunrise/sunset, facebook, chocolate, my car, dishwashers, pies, doggies, the internet, haivng an early night when you're so tired it hurts, packages in the mail, getting a new cool half-job, anticipated long weekends, coffee machines, friends writing you funny emails at work, getting all the chores done, warm winter woolies, eating three packets of chips all in one go and not having anyone scold you coz you're grown up and can eat three packets of chips all in one go if you want, my niece and nephew, catching the rare bus that drops me off right at the door of my work, a full glass of water when you're parched as, pay day, travelling, dressing up all fancy, writing lists like these.

3. My next flat will contain:
a dishwasher, door handles on all the doors, insulation, a heat pump and/or a fire, off-street parking, no gaps between the window pane and the wall, level floors, a washing machine accessible from inside the house, no poles in the kitchen, light shades, a nice oven, a well functioning fridge/freezer, nice carpet, nice curtains, no random crap left over from previous tennants, a proper wallpaper/paint job, a flat section and a bench that doesn't piss water all over the kitchen floor.
My flat isn't toooo bad though. It's cheap for Wellington standards and we have a STUNNING view. We have beautiful woodwork, leadlight windows and my room has fantastic storage and a window seat. And my bed, which is where I shall head now.

1. The new building is fantastic. I have NATURAL LIGHT which beats working 2 floors underground hands down. I'm also enjoying the COFFEE MACHINE and MICROWAVE and FRIDGE/FREEZER. I bought a whole lot of ice-cream and pies and stuck them in the freezer. I want to eat lots of rubbish to insulate my kidneys given how ridiculously cold it's gotten. ARgh, I'm getting ice-cream headache just from breathing. So yeah, work is going well in the new building. I'm also excited, (well excited in a relative sense. Can work ever make you excited?) because next week I'm working 20 hours a week for the team I'm currently working in and 20 hours for a NEW team doing NEW things and I'll get to use my BRAIN a bit more. I'm really looking forward to having a bit more variety in my working day. I don't know what I'm doing with my life yet but it will sure be useful to have some new experiences.

2. I had a couple of friends stay over last weekend. It was so much fun! We went out to Logan Brown for dinner which is one of the fanciest restaurants in Wellington and man, the taste SENSATIONS blew my mind. Eating just hasn't been the same all week after that. I love catching up with old friends too. I was sad when they left. So if you want to come and visit me, please do because I'd love to have you here. Unless you are some weirdo reading someone's livejournal that you don't even know.

3. I'm all of a sudden fascinated by the David Bain retrial. I remember all the media stuff from 15 years ago v. clearly even though I was a kid but over the years I'd forgotten all about it. When the retrial started, I wasn't overly interested and thought "It was soooo long ago, let's get over it." But now I'm so intrigued and I find myself looking forward to the news each night when I can learn what happened in court during the day. Did he do it? I dunno. That's what makes it so interesting. As soon as I convince myself he did it, another piece of evidence presents itself to make me question it all over again. Did he do it? Maybe we'll never know. I'm sure glad I'm not on that jury!

1. I've been to 3 gathering/pot-luck/party type thingies this weekend and I must say I like them because I like:
-people
-food
-warmth
and they are things that I don't have much of at home at the moment. So I've had a great weekend so far.

2. Got to finish work at noon on Friday coz we are changing buildings. So on Monday I go to a new office! It was great havine some TIME OFF! So me and a friend went shopping and then to the movies. Great!!!

3. Went to the opera last night. Man it was AWESOME! They had a green screen on the stage and a projector and white screen above it. So even though the opera was composed in the 19th century, they projected funny modern scenes onto it. And they had men wearing green suits come on stage and move the props round so it looked as though they props were moving on their own. Hilarious! And the singing was good too given that it was the opera and all. I'm hooked. I'm so gonna go again. Also going to go to the symphony orchestra again which I heard for free at Te Papa the other week.

Updates!
1. I've changed the layout and emoticon thingie on my journal. They say a change is as good as a rest.
2. My finger scan came back normal.
3. The jelly went mouldy.

My three points today are:

1. Mt Tongariro
2. Mt Ngauruhoe
3. Mt Ruapehu

I am FASCINATED by these mountains!!! Right in the middle of the North Island of New Zealand stand these three magestic and ACTIVE volcanoes! Mt Ngauruhoe is actually a vent of Mt Tongariro but it is so tall and perfectly conical and symmetrical that it gets its own name.

The reason I bring these fantastic mountains to your attention is over Easter weekend I did the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. I did it in January last year with about 11 people. Some of us came up from Wellington and some drove down from Auckland and we met in the middle and did the day tramp together. This time I did it with the two people that I spent with at Easter '06 and Easter '07. So it's kind of an annual thing for us to get together and go tramping.

Let me digress for a second. On Thursday night I drove up to Bulls and stayed with my old flatmate. It was a freeeeeezing night but when I arrived at her house, she had the fire cranking and a hot cuppa tea awaiting me. It was so lovely catching up that evening and when I came to bed, I found that the electric blanket had been on. Oh what bliss!!!!

The following day, we drove around the Manawatu and had coffee and ice-cream in various small towns. I then set off for Turangi where I was to meet the other two. Let me tell you now: The Desert Road is AWESOME. What a fantastic drive! These volcanoes are so stunning and the landscape there is nothing like the other parts of New Zealand. I'm definitely going to this part of the country again!

I met the other two near Turangi and we pitched our tent for the night. It was so cold that it hurt just to breathe! So I wore the following items to bed:
-2 pairs of wool socks
-long johns
-flanellette pyjama bottoms
-cotton track pants
-polartec long sleeved top
-merino t-shirt
-polyprop singlet
-long sleeved polyprop
-long cotton t-shirt
-wooly skivvy (with a high neck)
-merino jersey
-scarf
-possum fur and merino beanie
I also had two hot water bottles, my sleeping bag liner, down sleeping bag, a fleece blanket under me and a big wool blanket on top to top it all off. It was worth it. The freezing air refreshed me. It was just as well because when we awoke the next morning, we found that it had frosted over and that there were ice-chunks on the tent. We had to scrape the ice off our cars before we drove off. So we felt very staunch!

The alpine crossing was great. I really enjoyed the company of my friends and ofcourse the setting was majestic. If there wasn't water there, I would suggest that it is a portal to Mars because the landscape is so barren. There was a bit of snow at the higher altitudes and ofcourse a lot of steam venting out of the calderas. We didn't have enough day light to do any of the side summit trips to the top of Tongariro or Ngauruhoe but here's where I tell you that sooner rather than later I will take my two legs up to the summit of these mountains. One of my friends has climbed Mt Ruapehu and Mt Taranaki. Now that I know that you can do this (I thought it was too impossible but apparently not) I'm going to climb all these volcanoes. I can't stop thinking about it. I've got volcano brain!!!

So here's a little bullet-point list of "interesting" stuff about these mountains.

*Mt Tongariro is 1978m. Mt Ngauruhoe is 2291m and Mt Ruapehu is 2797m (the highest in the North Island).

*Tongariro National Park was the first National Park in NZ (1887) and the fourth in the world. It's a world heritage area for two reasons. First for its volcanic awesomeness and second for its Maori cultural and spiritual significance.

*Mt Ngauruhoe blew its top off in 1975. Not sure if this will work but here's a really interesting series of pictures of it exploding. Notice that there's only 30 secs between the first pic and the thrid! http://www.teara.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky/NaturalHazardsAndDisasters/HistoricVolcanicActivity/3/ENZ-Resources/Standard/4/1/en#breadcrumbtop Make sure you click on the three pictures on the bottom and don't hit the next button coz it comes up with a cartoon.

*If you were in NZ in the mid 1990's, you'll remember Ruapehu having a good go of it in 1995 and 1996.

*Mt Ngauruhoe was Mt Doom in Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings"

*Mt Tongariro has at least 12 vents. No wonder it confuses me! It's apparently a "Complex Volcano System"

*People used to swim in Ruapehu's crater lake. Now it's too acidic. And quite frankly stupid! http://www.teara.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky/NaturalHazardsAndDisasters/HistoricVolcanicActivity/6/ENZ-Resources/Standard/1/en#breadcrumbtop

*Hope you enjoyed reading this.

Each of my three points today will be about work.

1. The Office
On Friday night, a friend and I watched the entire first series of the BBC version of The Office. We laughed so much that she came round the following night and we watched the 2nd series! What hilarity! This show is brilliant. I remember it being on tv and I watched it every now and again but didn't see it in sequence so I never really followed the story lines or got to "know" the characters.

In one of the episodes, Tim (the guy we sort of sympathise and identify with) puts Gareth's (the weedy, ex-military guy that we think is a bit of a dweeb) stapler in some jelly. Gareth pulls the jelly out of his drawer and complains that it has been done "again" and everyone crowds round as he pulls out his stapler from the wobbly jelly. This had my in stitches! So on Saturday I purchased some jelly and a stapler! I made the jelly at a slightly thicker consistency and placed the stapler in it while it was still liquid. On Monday I took the jelly in a container to work and placed it in the fridge until the afternoon. Then I did a check and found that my friend's 2nd drawer was empty. I found a plate and transferred the 'stapler in the jelly' to the plate. My heart was racing a little bit I must admit. Can you imagine if I'd been caught at that moment? A couple of scenarios went through my mind.

Busy body lady: Beth! What are you doing? What's that you've got there? Is that a stapler in jelly?

or

Evil obese lady who does NOT appreciate jokes at the workplace: Excuse me Beth but that kind of thing is not acceptable here. I hope you are going to dispose of that immediately.

How would I explain my actions?? "Um... there was this tv programme on a few years ago and someone did this and I thought it would be really funny errr...." Unfortunately it didn't come to this. The jelly took a little coaxing but eventually there came a suction squelchy sound and it landed on the plate with the stapler still immersed inside. I quickly hid it in my friend's drawer, looking all around me (very guiltily)!

When my friend came up to her desk, I indicated that I had put a couple of problem files in her 2nd drawer and suggested she might want to look through it. She opened the door and burst out laughing! I called over another friend and it was so hilarious. Thankfully they all knew the episode! We decided we'll leave it in there for a wee while for a bit of a laugh!

2. Servicing
I've had my wee car since May last year. I noticed that it has not been serviced since Jan last year. Since I'm taking my car on a trip at Easter (next week! That's come up fast), I decided that it was high time I got it serviced. I looked up all kinds of things online and in the phone book like "garage" "car servicing" "servicing" etc but I couldn't find anything. (Turns out I needed to look up "automotive something-or-other" All that I could find were places that did paint jobs or panel beating. I was despondent so asked a colleague at work. She recommended that I speak to another colleague coz she lives in town too (most people at my workplace seem to come from the cities outside of Wellington). So I asked this 2nd colleague about what she does for her car servicings. She recommended a place which is quite a long way from where I live. At this point I noticed another colleague doing some filing and that her ears were pricked up. I looked at her in a way that invited her to join in on the conversation. She came over and raved about a place her husband had been to. She lives near me so it would have been in a convenient location. Suddenly another colleague approached. "My son's a car mechanic and he's got a great place in Petone." "What's this?" cried yet another colleague. Suddenly I found myself surrounded by a gaggle of people offering advice on where to get my car serviced. Who knew that it was such an interesting topic? I stood there, nodding at the appropriate times as each person shared their advice. Needless to say, I now have a number of options!

3. Puppet
I was in a meeting on Monday afternoon. We were discussing some problems when I had something to contribute. I explained a situation we currently struggled with and I could see my colleague next to me nodding in agreement. Then she started talking on top of me. But this wasn't just "her take" on it. She was mouthing out the the exact words I was saying, as I was saying them. I was perplexed so I stopped speaking. So did she. I began again. So did she! She was anticipating my next word and trying to say it as I was saying it. It was really, really hard trying to explain the process while this was going on! I know she's a little bit different but I consider her a friend. She wasn't trying to be malicious. It was sub-conscious behaviour on her part but I dare you to try and mimic what a close friend or family member is saying as they are saying it. It's quite a laugh!

1. Drive
I have become somewhat a Boring Person. This year I have generally been a lot less active outside my working hours. So this evening I decided to go for a random drive. I hopped in my car, cranked up the U2 and drove round the 'hood. Suddenly I had an urge to go to the ocean so I headed to Lyall Bay. I wound down the window and let the sea air fly through my hair. After I'd had enough driving, I pulled over to turn round to come back. And then I saw it! The South Island! Te Wai Pounamu! It was silhouetted against the last dusky orange hue of the sunset. I was surprised because I thought it was well into the night but there was still enough light to show me my home. Tapuaunuku looked so tall. Those Kaikoura mountains are quite stunning. Ahhhh lovely lovely.

2. Just a trim thanks
I have had a couple of comments lately about my hair. "Wow Beth, your hair is getting really long!" "Thanks," I've replied. So that's all fine but the thing is, a couple of weeks ago, I got my hair cut. How is it that when my hair has been made significantly shorter, people are commenting on its getting longer? *looks left and right*

3. Blog
This has been lovely writing in here again. For some reason, it's giving my more command of my life. I know that I don't have many readers but just re-telling the events of my day is enormously satisfying. I can also explain it the way I want to. For example, someone honked their horn at me while I was driving coz I had my lights on full-beam and didn't turn them down soon enough for them. Now I can get all ratty in here and you may sympathise with me. I know full well that there's probably someone else writing a blog entry about how annoying it is when people approach you with their lights on full and you can't see a thing but I feel more in the right about my reactions when I can blog about them.

1. Coming soon. Mutant baby
About a ten or twenty years ago, something happened to my right index finger. I might have jammed it in something or goodness knows what that made it go a bit wonky. It goes off to a slight angle and it's permanently swollen round one of the joints. It's not much of a problem but I noticed that I never really use it. It's ok to type with but when I need to put a lot of pressure on it, I get a shooting pain. Thus I never use it to key in a PIN or track the mouse on my laptop, or press down on it at all. My middle finger is used for those purposes. So I decided to Do Something About It. It resulted in being referred to an x-ray which I was quite excited about because my working day can be mind-numbingly dull and having an x-ray is something new!

So I went to the radiology place and had to sign a form to say that I wasn't pregnant. Then one of the staff asked me some questions including "Are you pregnant?" Finally, while I was waiting for the scan, I noticed a sign with a representation of a pregnant woman and a red circle with around it and a large red slash across it. So even if you couldn't read or understand spoken english, it was clear that one musn't have an x-ray if one is pregnant.

So you can imagine my surprise when I was invited into the x-ray room by a heavily pregnant lady! And yes, she performed the x-rays and was in the room the entire time. There was no protective booth for her to go in. And she wasn't wearing one of those anti-nuclear suits. Hmmmmmm. Oh well, if she ever misplaces her baby, at least it will be glow in the dark.


2. Home sweet home
I have had the same residence for an entire year. That is over 365 days of living in the same abode! This longest stay while I have kept this blog. I know that some people live in houses for over 40 years and for the first 10 years of my life I inhabited the same house. However, I can't even count the number of addresses I've had since I was 18 because I don't know what to and what not to include (there has been some stays of about a month but I had all my mail re-directed there). The place I'm in currently isn't the flashest place but the flatmates are really good and I'm happy here for now. I'm pleased to finally have some stability in my life because I felt all out of it for a while there especially in 2007.

3. Hey bro
My brother is coming to New Zild for a brief holiday and I'll see him in the flesh in no less (well actually a little less) than 2 weeks. Hurrah for moi.

1. I have had the pleasure of meeting a number of new people over the past two days. I enjoy meeting new people and talking to someone I've never talked to before. When we meet someone, we typically ask them questions like "so, what do you do?" Innocent enough but this question honestly makes me squirm. I'd rather talk about the life-cycle of a parasitic worm than discuss what I do for a living. Not that what I do is awful, I'm just not proud of what I do. I work for an excellent organisation and if I was into that field, I would be excited about what I do. However, I can't get overly excited by what I do because well, I'm just not that into it. I never was. If anything, I am more into it now than I was but it's just a job. I'm always actively on the look-out for something better which I hope is just around the corner. I dream of the day when I can meet a new person, look them in the eye, smile and say "Well Bob, I work for the ........... (insert awesome job here)" Then even if Bob doesn't really like/agree with that organisation, he would see the enthusiasm and excitement that I have for it and think "Wow, Beth's really into what she does. I think that's awesome."

Interestingly, I did a Treaty of Waitangi course last year (provided for my current place of employment) and learned that traditionally, Maori did not ask "What do you do?" but rather asked "Who are you?" Quite frankly, I prefer the latter. I'd love to talk about who I am that has no relation to what my job is.


2. What on earth happened to summer? Did it go up to the Northern Hemisphere or something? Brrrrr


3. This weekend, flatmate and I decided to drive to Greytown in the Wairarapa for lunch. We spent a good part of the afternoon there, which included us giving our patronage to the Schoc store. This is a fancy pancy chocolate store that do really weird flavoured chocolates for exorbitant prices. It was a worry that there weren't any prices on the small but gorgeous looking chocolates under the counter. I asked the lady behind the counter how much they were. "They average out to be about $2 each" she replied. Wow! That's expensive. But they looked sooooo goooooood. So I decided that I would buy two as a souvenir of our trip to Greytown. I made my selection (a passionfruit and a turkish delight) and the lady announced that that would be five dollars and ten cents I "errrrred" for a moment. And decided that just one chocolate would have been stupid. So I departed with $5.10 for two little incy wincy bites of chocolate. Sure it was nice but not that special. I'd rather have bought one of those extra large king size cadbury blocks for a similar price and had a good binge.

I keep forgetting my livejournal! This is v. irregular isn't it. Maybe if I write 3 things each week that will get me started again.


1. Books
I'm currently reading "How language works" by David Crystal. It's an interesting book and I've learnt a lot so far. I've been interested in languages and linguistics for a long time so it's nice to have a book explain some of the technical concepts plainly. Also, a lot of the material was covered in my psychology degree and since I'm not currently using much of that degree, it's nice to refresh my memory some of the things I "know". One thing about this book amuses me though. The third paragraph of the blurb on the back of the book says "...whether assessing the important of eyebrow flashes in conversation...". Excuse me? The important of eyebrow flashes? This is a non-fiction book on language housed in the National Library of New Zealand and it says "the important of eyebrow flashes" on the back cover. Oopsy!

I'm currently listening to Bill Bryson's "Notes from a big country" on audiobook. Man, I love Bill Bryson. I've read two of his other books and he is good value! He compares living in the United States with living in the UK. It really makes me want to go travelling! Well, duh! Everything makes me want to go travelling!

I've recently read "North and south" by Mrs Gaskell. If you like Jane Austen, go read it!


2. Flatting
One thing I've discovered in my six years of flatting is that sometimes stuff accumulates in your flat, without anyone owning it. For example, when I moved into my current flat in March last year, there was an ugly black, wooden cat silhouette above the door in the lounge. I thought that it was owned by one of the two current flatmates. But when one of them moved out in November last year and didn't take it with her, the remaining flatmate asked me if it was mine. Why I would own this tacky thing I don't know but I thought that maybe she owned it which is really just as insulting. So the tacky cat thing was happily removed. Since then, we've had this conversation over and over again but with other items around the house. Like the weird pot-plant in the bathroom, the 10-15 or so towels in the hall cupboard, the table with the nearly-broken leg (that has since broken. That's how we discovered its absence of ownership), the herbs and spices in the cupboard, most of the plates etc etc. I think this is one of those flats where one person moves out at a time and is replaced by another, thus allowing any crap to remain. Besides, we had to get up on a chair to remove the ugly cat. Why not leave it for the next person. They might even like it?

3. Wednesday
Every Wednesday, my friend at work and I have junk food for afternoon tea. We have accomplished this fantastic task every Wednesday (bar one) since about June last year. It was well established by July so we've been doing this a long time. Today I ate some health plus sea salt flavoured chips and a $1 packet of jube-y wine-gum thingies. What a great Wednesday! It always puts me in a great mood.

Wow, I haven't written in here this year yet. Three things
1. I'm applying for a job but have got stuck writing the cover letter. I shall go to bed and do it tomorrow since it's not due till Friday.
2. I'm going to a wedding on Saturday. I bought a new dress and can't wait to wear it. I also can't wait to catch up with people at the wedding.
3. I drove up to Otaki to have tea with an old flatmate last Saturday. I dropped my key outside my car. We'd been at dinner for ages when I noticed the key missing. We went back to the car (by which time it was dark) and searched around it. My old flatmate finally found it on the footpath a few metres away. I'd like to shout it out to the people of Otaki for not driving away in my car.

I feel like I was being too morose in my last entry. I'm multi-tasking right now: chatting with flatmate about overseas travel, watching 'The sound of music', wrapping Christmas presents and now blogging again. I had a fantastic Saturday last week too. The same flatmate and I went for a drive out to Cape Palliser and it was sooo amazing. The colour of the landscape out there was so strange. I felt like I was in a sci-fi world right here in NZ. The weather was great and we had a great time having a picnic by Lake Ferry and watching the seals at Cape Palliser. We climbed up the 250 steps to the lighthouse and the views over the sea were great.

I had a fantastic Sunday last week too. I think the evening was the highlight though. A group of us went to the botanical gardens for a picnic dinner and then we went for a drive up Tinakori Hill. We've all moved to Wellington within the last couple of years and none of us had been up there before. The views were breathtaking. I know I write that of a lot of places but it was just such a stunning evening and we could see the harbour and the South Island and the surrounding hills. To top off the evening we went to Strawberry Fare and had tiramisu, a selection of sorbets and the devils dreamcake. A yummy ending to a fantastic weekend.

And this week itself has been pretty good. I've lost count of the number of Christmas/end of year functions I've been to. I've eaten lots at all of them and had fun hanging out with friends. Ok, now I'm sounding super hyper-enthusiastic and now I shall go back to paying more attention to the movie.

This is a prelude to a Christmas letter. I fully intend to spam all my friends with a bulk email and call it a Christmas letter but I probably won't get round to it until Boxing Day.
I really want a cuppa but we don't have any tea in my flat because we've run out and we can't be bothered restocking coz we are all going away in a few days for the Christmas break.
I had to work for four hours today. I would have preferred to have slept in.
This isn't flowing v. well.
Anyway, the thing I want to write is.... Christmas is such a great time of year. I really do love it but it sometimes makes me feel funny. It's one of those reminders that another year has gone and you can look back on Christmas last year and it seems like only a couple of months ago. And then you realise that that was actually Christmas TWO years ago and that Christmas last year really was just a couple of months ago. It's another reminder that a full twelve months have gone by. What have you done with the year that's gone by? How have you progressed your life further? What are you doing next year to make your life progress further? Sometimes I feel like I have to compare myself with others (bad, bad, bad idea!) and I wonder whether I've done enough in the last year. I think that's why Christmas can be stressful for people. It's not just all the stress of trying to get everything done by Christmas but the stress of getting something worthwhile done by Christmas so that you can feel good about it.
I feel much, much better off than at Christmas last year but I still feel a bit strange. I am waaaaay happier being 25 than 24 but I still feel like I've been given extra time. It's hard to explain. I guess I didn't really imagine myself beyond 22 and I think "oh cool, I'm still here!" but I don't really feel compelled to have a vocation. I really think that maintaining friendships and being helpful to others is the most important thing. Ok, now I'm sounding all wishy-washy and I don't want to write what I don't mean. I think I'll have a snooze now.

I've been wanting to write a proper update for ages. However, everytime I've gone here, nothing has come to write. Here I am at work using my lunch break because I think I can finally write.

I want to write about a friend of mine.

Since this is a blog I'm not sure about using names but she's been mentioned in here before. This friend I met in 2002 at Hayward Hall in Dunedin. She was the first friend I met there and we instantly hit it off. She was likewise from Timaru but we hadn't met before. She was studying a lot of the same papers as me and we were lab partners in first year. Our friendship developed over the year and it was great to have someone from uni to hang out with when we both went back to our parents for the summer.

The following year I went flatting and she stayed in Hayward Hall. We still hung out a lot and when I needed a new flatmate for 2004, I invited her to join my flat. She readily accepted and I had one of the best flatting experiences I've had. It was great cooking with her and learning from her and watching her achieve in both her academic pursuits and in her extra-curricular activities! I have so much respect for what she achieved. I know that I could never do what she did!

We spent the '04/'05 new year's together and farewelled each other as I went to live in Canada for a year. I swapped flats with a girl and the girl who came and lived in my flat became best friends with my friend. So it was great for me when I returned because she knew quite a lot about the place I'd just been living in. I had a hunger for adventure when I returned and we went to many of the nooks and crannies around South Canterbury and Otago. I really treasure the knowledge about the NZ flora that she shared and we had many hours chatting away about anything and everything; all in the stunning scenery of mountains, oceans, lakes and bush. Ha ha one time when we were climbing Little Mt Peel we got hopelessly lost as we followed a river that quickly took us a long way from the track. But we conquered the mountain together (although I only got up there due to her generosity in sharing her water. It was a HOT day!).

In 2006 we lived in different flats but still caught up regularly to go on such adventures. She was planning a year in Edmonton to be a bridesmaid for her best friend. I was excited to have a kiwi friend live in the city where I'd lived.

Over the year that she lived in Canada, I enjoyed the lengthy emails from her. When she got back to NZ, I had moved to the North Island so in the year that she'd been back, we hadn't managed to catch up. However, we'd been planning a 2004 flat reunion with the other two now living in Auckland.

On 19 October, she was cycling home and was hit by a car and was killed.

My other 2004 flatmates joined me on a flight to Christchurch and we drove to Timaru for her funeral. Not the flat reunion we were planning. It was very helpful to be there and to pass my sympathy to her family. Now, as I go about my daily life, I think of her and all the fantastic times we shared together. I think of her family and how much they must be missing her. I think of my life ahead and how I won't be able to share it with her. I do ok mostly but then something will trigger something and I feel an empty kind of pain.

I know she would have coped with this better than I am. I know that she would want us all to continue with our lives and achieve great things like she did. I hope to not dwell on the sadness for too long and I think posting this will help. I know the emptiness will fill. It all just cements how important my friends and family are in my life.

And so life does go on. I've been writing for about 20 minutes and I need to have my lunch and get back to work. I will continue to treasure the people around me and cherish the moments I can share with friends and family.

I haven't written in here for a long time.

I had a massage at work today. A professional massage therapist comes in to work every Monday and we get a work discount and can have it in work time. Now I'm so relaxed I can barely keep my eyes open. I feel all mushy and sleepy. It's not even 7pm but I'm thinking of heading to bed so that my heavy body can sink into my soft mattress and my mind can float away.......

The Road Trip of Your Life

You see life as a journey to be shared with others. Kinship and sharing are very important to you. Your life is quite hectic. You try to slow down when you can, but it's not easy! You're willing to take a few risks in life. You may not take the road no one travels, but you're happy to take the road less traveled. You are able to find a fairly healthy balance between work and play. You work when you need to, but you never let yourself burn out. In another life, you could have been a great novelist. You have a knack for describing things in an interesting way.

Your Geek Profile:

Academic Geekiness: High Fashion Geekiness: Moderate Geekiness in Love: Low Internet Geekiness: Low Gamer Geekiness: None General Geekiness: None Movie Geekiness: None Music Geekiness: None SciFi Geekiness: None

You Are 50% Extrovert, 50% Introvert

You're a bit outgoing, a bit reserved Like most people, you enjoy being social But you also value the time you have alone You have struck a good balance!

We had a TWO and a half hour meeting at work today. Oh it was terrible! I would rather have done normal work or watched a lame, dragging movie. But no, I (kinda, not really) maintained vigilance for the entire two and a half hours. Did I tell you that it was TWO AND A HALF HOURS??? Not that I noticed it or anything ha ha!

Guys, this meeting was awful. The majority of it was someone presenting the results of a culture survey we participated in a couple of months ago. My science degree has taken away my faith in culture surveys. I saw so many flaws and limitations in the design and the questions were stupid! A lot of them contained phrases that could be interpreted in more than one way! Some were double negatives, which made it difficult to know which way a 'yes' answer would be interpreted. And I overheard people in the cafe saying that they just answered '3' to everything coz the survey was so stupid!

So we listened to the results and I noticed that there was no mention of variance, standard deviation or margin of error. Nor were there error bars on any of the graphs. Moreover, a difference of one at one end of the likert scale corresponded to a greater area on the graph than a difference of one at the other end of the likert scale. I feel like I could write all day about how stupid it was. But that was just the 2nd two hours of the meeting. The first half hour was a bunch of people getting flowers for being brilliant. I didn't know any of the flower receivers so it was dull. And the whole meeting went for 2 1/2 hours!!!!

Sorry, just thought I'd mention that again.

Now before you think I'm a 'glass half empty' person, I should tell you that as a reward for attending this meeting, we received a catered lunch! So I scoffed myself on pies, quiche, yummy sandwiches, fruit and a lemon meringue pie to die for! Plus there was fancy orange juice (the kind I like with all the pulp in) and tea and coffee. Mmmmmmmmmm it was amazing!

Right, the olympics are back on! GO NZ!!!

Someone stole $10 from my car! It was the weirdest thing driving today, thinking that someone random had been INSIDE my car and taken it. Thankfully they didn't take my awesome mixed tape!
I feel used.
And sad.

I'm enjoying having the Olympics on the telly. I like watching random sports and events that I would otherwise never have the opportunity or the inclination to watch. On Sunday I saw that the NZ soccer team was playing Brazil. I thought that this was a laugh (since when have we even qualified to play soccer at the Olympics?). But I decided to give it a go because I do like soccer. I played hockey at school and the rules are very similar which increases the enjoyment.

As I was watching Brazil beat us, I noticed that a lot of the players were quite good looking. Even the NZ players. I hate rugby players because they are so big and gross but soccer players are quite nice. After the game, I just went about my usual life but then on Monday morning I was traumatised.

I was checking grab-a-seat on the internet on Monday morning and decided to check our medal table in case we won a medal overnight. I saw on the Olympic webpage I was on, that there was a link to the NZ athletes. I looked up the "football" athletes and was horrified. My eyes scanned the page to see what year they were born in. They were all like 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 and even 1989! Ew, I was checking out children! I felt sick! I am a bad, evil person!

But then I realised that 1986 isn't too bad. If someone was born in 1986 then they'd be 22. Which isn't really that bad. I had it in my mind that people born in 1986 are just leaving high school but in actual fact, I have a couple of friends born in 1986. And some even younger and I view them like my friends born the same year as me. So, maybe it's not that bad afterall. Still, I'm upset at my discovery. I feel like I've missed my chances of doing something awesome if all our national representatives are born in the late '80s.

I was out and about in my wee car yesterday and it included going to a cafe in one of the outer suburbs with my flatmate. It was a nice relaxing time when somebody I "knew" walked in. I write knew in quotation marks because I don't really know him. He's a friend of a friend who I have met about twice. I saw him sit down with a group of people and I think he saw me. I didn't really know what to do so I pretended to ignore that he was there.

When flatmate and I were about to leave, I said to her "I have a bit of a conundrum. I kinda know that man over there but I don't really know him. I don't really want to snob him because I actually know him but I'd have nothing to say if I went over there other than "oh yeah, you're my friend's friend eh". She agreed that it was a dilemma. If I snobbed him, then I may see him in the future and it would make things more awkward. Or he may say to my friend that he saw me out and about and I chose to snob him. But going up to him would be a bit too much and it would be really full on.

The whole thing reminded me of something that happened a few years ago. I was doing an important assignment in one of the computer labs at university and got into my zone. Everything around me just disappeared and I was absorbed by the assignment. Suddenly, the person next to me said "how's it going Beth?" I turned and saw it was someone I went to the hall with in first year. He must have been sitting next to me for over an hour and then chosen to talk to me. He reminisced about all those times that we did lab reports together in first year and spoke of all the goss about our mutual acquaintances. It seemed quite full-on because I hadn't seen him in a few years but I didn't mind.

Then about a week or two later, I saw him in the street. He was crossing the street one way and I was going in the other. I decided that since we were "lab report buddies from first year" that I'd say hi. When we intersected I said "hello Bob*" (*Name has been changed to protect privacy). And he IGNORED me! I'm sure he saw me and chose to look the other way. It made me think about the snob-friend continuum. In what circumstances does one ignore a mere acquaintance and in what circumstances does one approach them and begin a conversation? It is something I'm still struggling with. I know for me, that some days I feel on top of the world and am more likely to approach someone I hardly know. Whereas if I'm feeling a bit stink, then I don't even want to bump into one of my best friends. I'll walk into a shop I'm not even interested in just to avoid them. However, having a reputation as a snob is not a desired thing.

So, yesterday my flatmate recommended that as we leave, I get the attention of mere acquaintance, smile and give a wee wave. I thought it was a good idea and I did just that. In response, I got a huge grin and a big hearty wave! Excellent. I think I'll take flatmate with me for all my awkward social situations. I wondered whether going up and saying hi wouldn't have been a bad idea, because he has just moved to Wellington and perhaps doesn't know many people. Anyway, I'm making a big deal of this but I wanted to vent about my confusion about the snob/friend thing. Blah.

Today at work I had to work with a newer member of staff and train her on a task. We did the small chit-chat thing and then this happened...

New colleague: so you're from the South Island?
Me: yes I am.
New colleague: Where abouts in the South Island?
Me (hating the idea of having to be from one place): errrrrrr ahhh, well Dunedin and Timaru.
New colleague: Oh I have an uncle in Dunedin but he's very old now.
Me: Yeah well I was born there and I went to university there.
New colleague (eyes widening): oh, so you're old enough to go to university! I thought you were much younger than that!

I'll take it.

Yay C4! I'm having a fun Saturday doing chores and chatting with flatmate and grazing on food and sipping cups of tea. All to the soundtrack of hot 80s hits!

I went anti-blog for a bit. I thought I was over it but it didn't last long. I've had conversations with two different friends in the last couple of days about blogging and I think it is a nice place to just vent/release/ramble.

But I don't want to vent right now. I want to share what I'm looking forward to! I decided that life is more fun when I have things to look forward to. A couple of years ago I got my whiteboard and wrote five or six events that I was looking forward to. Beside each event I wrote the number of sleeps until the event was to occur. Each morning I'd reduce the number beside each event by one. It made monotonous days easier because I knew great things were coming up! Back then I had things like: finishing dissertation, trip to Aus, graduating. (Why was a looking forward to graduating? The day itself was so much fun but since then I have grappled with what to do now)

Anyway, I have written 5 things for now.

46 sleeps until: Cheap car insurance. - This will occur because of a thing that will happen next month. I am ignoring that thing because it means I will be a quarter of a ... so yeah when that happens the car insurance people will think I'm suddenly reliable and reduce the amount they take from my bank account each month and also my excess.

48 sleeps until: Mini-break. - A friend and I are going on a plane to another island and hiring a car and having some FUN!

57 sleeps until: Daylight savings - Nothing improves my quality of life like an extra hour of sunlight in the evening. Also, around then, the number of minutes of daylight a day increases exponentially AND (hopefully) the temperature will increase too. That means no more shivvering, lower power bills, wearing skirts, getting washing dry and I could go on and on and on.

85 sleeps until: Twins' 1st birthday - I'm going up to Auckland for the occasion, as are Mum and Dad. It will be a nice family get together to celebrate Ella and Theo's first year of life. I can not wait to see them again. I loved them as soon as Heather said she was pregnant. It was odd coz I didn't even know their gender or what they would be like, yet I loved them. And it has been such a privilege to get to know them since they were born. They have unique personalities and are exceedingly gorgeous. And I haven't been to a first birthday party before. Well, maybe I went to my own but it didn't imprint on my conscious memory!

145 sleeps until: Christmas - I'm flying to Dunedin on Christmas eve (maybe I'm more looking forward to Christmas Eve. I like the anticipation of it more than the actual day!). It will be nice to be in Dunedin again and hopefully Heather et al will be there. Last year the average age of the people I sat at the Christmas dinner table with was 77. With me sitting there, it brought the average age down to 67. But we went to my Aunty and Uncle's in the arvo and some of my cousins were there. Anyway, I like the older people in my family and that was LAST year. I'm looking forward to Christmas THIS year. I like all the nice food and catching up with family and going to the Christmas eve service and singing carols by candlelight. There I go on Christmas Eve again.

So yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to! Nice, nice nice

These websites have given me hours of joy on these awful winter evenings.

http://www.die.net/earth/
Well maybe this one isn't really nice to look at in NZ in June. I think I'll enjoy it more Sept-Dec.

http://www.population.govt.nz/myth-busters/default.htm

http://www.walkz.co.nz/directory.htm
Again, this one isn't very good at this time of year. I was going to go to Pencarrow lighthouse today but there's a howling storm outside. It might be a movie day afterall. How boring! I'd rather be adventurous and create my own stories!

I have had two lucky things happen to me in quick succession.

First lucky thing: I visited a friend in Kelburn the weekend before last and drove home at about midnight. I noticed a few drunken youths down the road from where my car was parked and wondered what kind of shenanigans that they were up to. I quickly got in my car and drove off. On the way home, I discovered a crack in my windscreen. Ok, so that's not so lucky. I felt very sorry for myself. I thought of all the hassle trying to get ahold of the glass fixit people and then paying something ridiculous for the glass fixit people. Or else ignoring the problem and the crack growing until it crawls across my whole windscreen. I ignored it for a week but finally decided to ring my insurance on the off-chance I'd be covered. I spoke to a friendly person and discovered that I'd paid an extra $30 a year for fire, theft and windscreen damage. They said that they would arrange for it to be fixed and cover the cost! So yesterday I got a call from the glass fixit people and they invited me to take in my car today. I took it in before work and got a call at 9.45am to say that it was all fixed and that I could pick it up. So I went round after work and Bob's your uncle! One fixed windscreen. No hassle. No money withdrawn from my bank account :D

Second lucky thing: My friend from work is leaving at the end of the week. (Again, not so lucky). We used to go out for breakfast after a pay day every now and again but haven't done so for ages. We decided that we would definitely go out tomorrow. Then, an email went round this morning to say that our manager's manager has changed and that we were invited to a breakfast tomorrow morning at 8. All paid for and in work time! So now I get a sleep in and have my breakfast paid for. I feel like I'm having my cake and eating it too. Although it's breakfast so I may get toast or hash browns.

I hate winter! I'm really upset that I've had sheet on the line for about a week and it's not likely to be dry any day soon. I hate waking up in the dark, working underground and coming out in the pitch black. They say it's unsafe for people to walk by themselves at night but you can't even go anywhere if it's going to be as dark as midnight at 5.30pm. I'm sick of shivering and having high power bills and still being cold. I miss UV! I know I've complained about sunburn but I wouldn't mind 5 minutes of UV here and there. And just as I was lamenting to myself at how DARK it is ALL the time, my brother texts me and says that he's in St Petersburg. That's at 60deg north which would have lots and lots and lots of sunshine at this time of year. Or at least if there was some snow for a day and I could build a snowman.
But really winter is stupid. I can't wait till the shortest day. But even in a month's time it's not going to be much better. Remember back in the day when it was summer and you could go for a WALK after tea. Oh woe!
Excuse me while I lament for summer............

I have a car and a slow cooker. I drove to the supermarket at the weekend and bought cheap groceries and got them home without hauling bags up the hill with my feeble arms. And this a.m I prepared my tea in the slow cooker and when I got home a beautiful dinner was sitting there on the bench all smelling great and ready to eat. Yum.
I feel happier about hitting the big TWO-FIVE with such wonderful material possessions. I just do!

Apologies for the length of this post

I've had a few conversations recently about the life during and after a student exchange. One of my new flatmates has been on exchange to Belgium and one of my friends at work has lived in the UK for a year . So this has generated some thoughts in my brain about the incredible experience that is living far from home for a year and the challenges associated with living in New Zealand after such an experience.

It has been such a relief having these conversations. It's not just me that has generated these ideas which is nice. We like feeling that we're not going through things alone. It may also be because the three of us have reached a point in our lives where uni has ended and the path ahead is not obvious. We have all done post-grad at uni and are now working in libraries. Well wooopeee doo (please pick up on the sarcasm). The other two are now doing further study because degree #1 hasn't done anything and the world of work is not giving anything on a plate. So a lot of this may be produced from that situation as well as the post-exchange one. Although maybe we got ourselves in this position because we went on exchange. Or maybe the type of person who goes on exchange is not the sort to pick a clear career path?

My flatmate was still in high school when she had her experience, my friend had only just left school but I had lived away from home for three years. So I was already quite independent and had already changed significantly from high school days. And the places we went to were quite different too. Ofcourse each exchange is unique but there appear to be some common standard things.

When you first arrive at the exchange location, things are new and very, very exciting. There isn't much around that resembles your life last week at all. It's like your life up until now hasn't really happened and you've just been plonked at the age you are right there. There isn't much loneliness or homesickness at this point but you already notice that you can be different from the old you. In fact, the environment elicits different behaviour from you. This can be liberating, surprising and interesting.

Later, loneliness creeps its ugly head in. This loneliness can be heavy and dark. You miss having someone around that knew you a couple of months ago and you ask yourself over and over again “what am I doing here???” It doesn't help that the people around you know nothing or very little about New Zealand. We like to think of ourselves as being important on the world stage and it's very humbling to realise that nobody really gives. Things now are not so new and interesting and in fact, are a little annoying. Boredom can enter at times and when things don't go your way, it seems very hard. It doesn't help that the local people have got their lives set up and don't appear to need you as much as you need them.

Also, there's no-one around that is your friend's friend's friend; no-one whose Mum went to school with your aunty; no-one who lived on the same street as your friend's boyfriend like we seem to have in NZ. There's certainly more than six degrees of separation between you and the new people in your daily life.

But the darkness doesn't last for too long. There are a wealth of opportunities to see and do new and fun things. It doesn't matter if you stuff it up because no-one here will be in your life this time next year. No-one has any previous expectations of you either. So you go out and do all kinds of random things just because you can. Furthermore, you may never, ever be back in this place again so this is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to see it. And you don't want to waste the opportunity because you can catch up on sleep on the plane back home.

You seem to have the same conversation with people. Everybody picks up that you are a foreigner every time you open your mouth. You get asked if you're Australian, how long you've been in the country, what you're doing there, where you're living, how you're liking it, and in my case, how you're coping with the weather (Albertans appreciate that it's probably not currently -30degC in NZ).

Some of these drab conversations actually lead on to real friendships. The friendships you make on exchange are very rich and meaningful. You learn a lot about yourself through them and they are what makes an exchange. They provide all your understanding of the place you have temporarily moved to and they take on the role of friend and family while you are away. Being invited back to their homes or away on a trip is super special and you really get to connect with your host country.

By the end of the year, you really feel at home in the exchange location. You consider not returning to NZ but think that it's about time you gave Mum and Dad a hug. So you fly home. But you know that you could not only survive, but thrive in the new location. It is home. You have had to adapt yourself to the new environment and you quite like it. There are aspects to being a New Zealander that you've had to give up in order to fit in e.g. language, etiquette, diet. You know your way around the city like the back of your hand and if you need anything, you know where to go.

The prospect of returning home is scary. A lot of your NZ friends have moved on but a lot of them seem to be exactly the same. How will you be received on your return “home?”

The best thing about Alberta when I went there was how far it was from NZ. However, when it came to returning to NZ, that was the worst thing! Being indefinitely severed from your exchange friends is agony! Although the first little bit back in NZ is wonderful! You see your family and all those NZ brands/foods/shops we love. A lot of your NZ friends are excited to see you after the years absence but you can't really explain what it's like to be you now. Some people treat you like you are the same you before you left. That's not their fault but you feel different on the inside and they're not treating you like that. And slowly but surely, you turn into a New Zealander once more. Finding a milieu between the NZ you and the exchange you is an on-going project.

Some friendships need re-evaluating. Some people just don't fit in your life anymore. Some have drifted away but some people you realised were a bit toxic and you see that you need affirming, life-giving people in your life.

Even though life goes on in NZ, the excitement cannot and does not continue. No-one asks you where you're from anymore and you're back doing what you were doing before you left. Eventually, when you're really busy and stressed in something mundane, you remember that you spent a year in a foreign country... but it seems like a dream. You ask “did I really do that? Did all that really happen to me?” Some days it seems to have counted for nothing.

And so you're never really satisfied in NZ even though you enjoy hanging out with the family more regularly, eating fish'n'chips on the beach and listening to good ol' Jim Hickey tell you what's in store for your region tomorrow. You pine for further travel but can't seem to find a way to get there. For me, spending half a year travelling round NZ doing conservation projects and recreation with DoC gave me a lot of relief. But even now that seems like a distant memory. In some ways, going on exchange makes everything more boring because you know how exciting life can be. It really raises the bar but perhaps it raises it too high.

In spite of this, you would not change any of it for the world.

I've lived here in Wellington for about 9 months now I think; and I've discovered a few differences and peculiarities on life in Wellington. I wrote a list about living in Canada (I've just checked it was 18 Oct 2005) and now I think I can write one for Wellington.

Wellington is the 4th city I've lived in (do we count Timaru as a "city"?) and this is my personal take on it. No offense intended.

* A lot of people work in Wellington city but don't live here. Most of the people from my work come into work by the train from the Lower Hutt or Porirua line. Thus their lives are heavily dictated by the train timetable. You will hear them say "I'll either leave in 5 mins or in 35 mins" because they are thinking of their train departure times.
* When getting off a bus, one will say "thank you driver". I personally find this offensive. When the cleaner empties my bin at work, I don't say "thank you cleaner" or "thank you maid". What's wrong with getting off the bus and saying a simple "thank you."??
* Like Edmonton and apparently Auckland, if your parents live in Wellington and you live in Wellington, then you live with them. I still find this a bit odd but I think in cheaper places like Timaru and Dunedin, you can afford to live comfortably away from home. So if in Dunedin, you get to 20 and you haven't left home, the culture is that there's something wrong with you. A few of my friends have lived away and come back to living with their parents but a lot of Wellington people have never left home even though they are in their mid 20s. But hey, everyone does it so there's no stigma attached and it's sooooo expensive to live here that I would probably do the same. Maybe.
* It's expensive!!! I know there's been huge inflation in the past year but rent and food here is astronomically dear. Oh dear.
* There are quite a few fashion shops that look like designer-expensive-pay $200 for a singlet but it's got an "it" labe-type shops.
* One refers to their high school as 'college'. What the??? Does anywhere else in NZ do that? It's so odd to hear someone say "back in college'. At first I thought they were being American-tryhard-silly but there aren't many Blah-di-blah girls' high school / boys' high schools around that they've adopted college as their word for high school.
* A lot of the buses are trolley buses. They have two large poles sticking up from them and there are wires all round the city. The poles join up to the wires and they work off electricity. It's like an upside down tram.
* There are lots of windy, (that's windy like 'curvy', not 'gusty') narrow, hilly streets. I live on one of them.
* There's a uni here but it's not very prominent. There are no free taxis home from the supermarket. There are no student deals for the newspaper. No "student" areas. And when you go to town on a weekend, there are more public servants than students.
* Lots of people work for government departments. I'm meeting so many people that work for the ministry of education!! That one must be a big employer!
* There aren't a lot of supermarkets around. Lots of expensive New Worlds in town but not so much in the 'burbs.
* There's nowhere to explore east, west or south of the city. Unless you go on a plane or a boat or your imagination.
* It's vibrant :)
* Lots of people here who have studied at Otago. Lots of people here who have come from other places in NZ too which is good because it's not so conservative/stuck in their ways. Timaru was a bit hard to fit into at first coz everyone had lived there for ages. But here people seem really open to new people because a lot of people are new themselves. I'm actually feeling like a Wellington long-timer in some of my social circles.
* There's no K-mart.
* People don't fundraise with cheeserolls. Apparently it's a south island thing!
* It's true! In the north island, one pays for plastic shopping bags at Pak'n'Save.
*I'll probably think of more after I've posted this..

Wow, April already! I've been a busy bee each weekend since I last wrote. Here's a summary:

1-2 March - Tramping with Heather (from work) and Steve in the Tararuas. It was a v. hard tramp and we did it in the pouring rain. But 'twas a great sense of accomplishment.

8-9 March - My German friend Susi came to stay. I was her mentor with the international centre at Otago Uni in 2006 and it was fun catching up. We got up to fun and games in Welly-town. Even though our friendship picked up where it left off, it surprised me how long ago 2006 felt. Maybe I have moved on from uni days?

15 March - Went to the 3rd day of the 2nd cricket test between England and the Black Caps at the Basin Reserve with Claire and Ben. How much info did I just pack into that last sentence?
16 March - MOVED! That was a drama in itself. Phwoar, I could write novels but I"ll leave it to your imagination as to how difficult that all was.

20-24 March (Easter) - So 3 days after I moved, I went on a road trip to Auckland with some friends. We left straight after work on Thursday and drove to New Plymouth. Good Friday we went to Auckland. The others dropped me off at Heather and Tim's and I had nearly 2 days with my family. Ella and Theo are the cutest babies ever and I loved getting to know them. It was great seeing Heather too. I have an amazing sister! The others picked me up on Sunday arvo and we drove to Waihi beach. We stayed at my friends' friend's bach (as you do) but I had the time of my life there. It was right next to the beach and the bush. The weather was gorgeous and we had a swim. That night we played board games, read interesting books and played piano. Man I loved that bach! (Although as a Dunedin person I struggle with the term. Bachs will always be cribs to me!) All 7 of us seemed to get along as if we'd known each other for years so I'm left with happy memories. On Easter Monday, 5 of us drove all the way back to Wellington via Tauranga, Rotorua, Taupo, Napier, Hastings, Wairarapa and the Hutt. Phew!

27-30 March - And 3 days after that trip I flew to Dunedin to go to Steph and Blair's wedding. I caught up with Mum and Dad and also Grandad and Uncle Robert and Aunty Nadia. I ran/drove round catching with heaps of people and accomplished a lot of errands in town. And ofcourse I attended the wedding ceremony and reception. The ceremony was great and Steph and Blair looked great! At the reception I caught up with people I knew well and also not-so-well and had fun eating, dancing and having an overall great time. So an overall good break away.

5-6 April - My old flatmate Rosalie came up to Wellington and we had a catch-up with ex-Otago people, now working/studying in Wellington. Lots of fun and games.

I also enjoyed catching up with Mel who was in Canada with me in 2005 and meeting up with friends last Wednesday. I know I was feeling a bit funny a month ago but this lifestyle makes me realise just how good it is living in Wellington. Sure, I may not be in the best job in the world and it's mega expensive to live here. But I do enjoy going to work just to see everyone and I can't complain about the lifestyle I have here. (Ha ha I'm probably going to have some big disaster now that I've said that).

In other stuff, I've just completed an intensive 2 day treaty of Waitangi workshop. My brain is exploding with new information and thoughts and feelings. I don't know where to begin really. I'm quite surprised about some of the things done in the British Empire and I had no idea how important the Common Law thingie passed in the 1600s in England has such in impact in NZ, Australia and Canada. In Canada, I saw the state of the native people there and felt that the Maori have a better deal in NZ because of the treaty. But there are so many limitations to the treaty that I'm not sure that I'm proud of it at all. I'm also thinking about the concept of ownership and how much the UK framework has shaped who I am as person.

Right, so that's me. Hope you are having a happy day. How are you?

I think that I'm homesick.... but I don't know for where!!!

Could it be:
a) Timaru
Unlikely considering it's a sleepy town with not a lot of people my age there and not many opportunities to grow as a person. And my parents don't even live there anymore although I do have a few very great friends there.
b) Mum and Dad's in Dunedin.
Also unlikely because I've spent about 10 days of my life in that location. I've spent longer in a tent in Bannockburn when you think about it and I'm certainly not homesick for there.
c) Being at uni in Dunedin
Again unlikely because I was getting frustrated with that. I grew out of it really. Enjoyed it at the time I'm not into stagnating.
d) Edmonton Alberta Canada
Hardly. I spent the year being the foreign student. Had a blast but it was never really home.
e) location unspecified
Maybe? They say you can be homesick for a place you've never been to before. But I don't think I want to escape my life.

Maybe it's a combo of all these things. I want to go back to high school for a day and hang out with my great friends and not have much responsibility. I want the carefreeness and interestingness of my uni days with a touch of adventure from overseas. I want my family to be all together for a bit. I want to fit in.

I fit in here fine so I don't know what the problem is. Maybe it's because I've been feeling a bit under the weather for the past few days and I'd quite like life to simplify for a bit. That's alright isn't it.