Measuring up (or not)

My work week had been running fairly smoothly until half-twelve today. My boss wanted to see me after lunch. What for? What have I done wrong? I went through all the possibilities over lunch: the silent-but-deadly fart I let off the week before last; blowing my nose like a trumpet every now and then; the day I was ten minutes late when everyone was snowed under with work due to the system failure. Of course I tried to rationalise: there was probably a 70% chance that I'd done nothing wrong at all.

I got back after lunch; my boss kept me in suspense till half-two. I had done something wrong. "Is everything OK? Your performance has dipped today and I just wanted to see that nothing was wrong." Oh. That was strange; I was sure it had improved. "We've had two other people doing the same task this morning to try and help clear the backlog caused by the system crash. They've both done twice as much as you." Aah, so you're comparing me against them, not against my previous performances. "Yes, you see we've got all kinds of charts and graphs, but this was the first time I could really gauge your performance. But no need to get stressed about it. It's best you're making sure you're doing it right."

And that was the end of our very short meeting. What he said was a bit like saying "you smell really bad but there's no need to worry about it." Bugger the system crash. Bugger those two Energizer bunnies, both aged twenty-not-much, whom I was suddenly in competition with. Bugger my depression. And bugger generally, because what can I do to become twice as fast? Even on a really good day, I spend a good portion of it trying to remember what I clicked on last, re-opening envelopes to make sure all the correct forms are enclosed, and re-printing letters or forms that I'd put on the wrong letterhead. I catch a lot of my own mistakes (and probably miss a few too). I put about as much paper in the recycling bins as in the customers' envelopes.

All kinds of charts and graphs. You're telling me. There are large monitors mounted on the walls of the office showing how many calls are waiting, for how long, and a service score that goes up and down accordingly. The scores are broken down person-by-person; I also see colours that keep changing but I don't know what they mean. I hear the Quality team talk about black lists, grey lists and red lists. My boss sometimes brings up a screen showing a large pie chart. On my screen a little red square appears next to some of my tasks to indicate poor performance. I asked about this - apparently it wasn't my fault and I didn't need to worry about it. Sometimes the square is yellow. Once or twice I might even have seen a green square. While we don't clock on and clock off in the old-fashioned way, all our entry and exit times are recorded on our swipe cards and secretly stored somewhere.

Is there anything else you'd like to measure while you're at it? Does all this measuring and target-setting really achieve anything? All targets tend to do is incentivise people to cut corners in order to meet the target. You want me to send 100 letters a day instead of 50? Sure thing. But when Mr So-and-so gets asked for his smear test results, don't blame me. One example of this is the National government's target of 65% of students achieving Level 2 NCEA English. It's currently around 50%. That's an easy (and totally meaningless) target to reach. Just lower the pass mark until 65% pass, and voilà! How about a target of "teach our kids to read and write"?

Last night I attended a depression group which I found on Meetup.com. Four blokes turned up, including me, at a totally unswanky Asian eatery on Cuba St. We mainly just talked about our difficulties in meeting people in Wellington ("it's cliquey" being one problem mentioned), then one of the guys whipped out a pack of cards and we played Last Card. There must be as many variations of that as there are cards in the deck. One of the blokes (six foot five and with the sort of long hair I wish could have) plays online poker so we had something in common straight away.

On Saturday I'll be making an early start for my second tramp - the Akatarawa Surprise (in other words I've got no idea what I'm letting myself in for). Danielle will be coming - haven't seen her for ages. Let's hope my health and the weather play ball.

Adios Auckland

The truck has been and gone (my "about 10" boxes of stuff ended up being 26) and in the morning I'll be gone too. My last day in Auckland has been a glorious one weather-wise. The last three days have been quite exhausting - hell, the whole process has been so drawn-out - and it'll feel good to finally be on my way. Tonight I grabbed a pizza from Delissimo's - a slightly tacky burger and pizza joint in Devonport. It was the first time I'd been there since it opened a year ago - the foot-high Comic Sans sign outside had always put me off. "How spicy would you like the pizza?" "You know, fairly spicy." Big mistake.

I attended the men's group for the last time on Wednesday. Another positive addition to my life that I'll have to do without. Yesterday I met up with Andy, who runs the group and has become a good friend over the last two years. I'll admit I hardly oozed positive vibes when we discussed my move.

Now, in spite of everything, I promise to be more positive. This could be the best thing I ever do.

The current state of the job market

I snapped this job ad (at least I think that's what it is) outside a shop selling Kiwiana in Queen Street. If this ad is anything to go by, I might struggle to find work when my temp job finishes. New Zealand has two official written languages, and this sure as hell ain't one of them. To add insult to injury, they put a bloody kiwi on it!

I played tennis tonight (it was club night). I found the whole experience painful and couldn't get home fast enough.

My depression has come back in the last few days. Any meaning, any certainty that we all need in our lives to stop us from going mad, has been missing from my life. At work on Friday they gave everyone who'd worked on the earthquake (including me) a free massage. Not a full body one by the way! I took up the offer but could have done with something longer and more vigorous. I should say that work has been the one thing keeping my head above water. Just.

I still go to the men's depression group once a fortnight. It's good for me (and everyone else there I'm sure). My only criticism is that Brendan tends to dominate proceedings; I emailed Andy today with a suggestion on how to stop him from taking over. In the second half of last week's session we watched a dreadful movie - that was fine by me because I was about to nod off.

I watched with disbelief on Friday night as a giant wall of water swept everything in its path, wiping whole towns off the map. Many thousands have lost their lives. It was some relief to see a scientist on TV tonight play down the risks of nuclear Armageddon. The earthquake registered a colossal nine but after the Christchurch event we can all get our heads around big earthquakes. The tsunami was mind-blowing stuff but we get warnings of tsunamis in New Zealand and know what they're about. Mention nukes though and you're entering a whole new sphere: Seriously Scary Shit.

I don't normally listen to National Radio but have done since the Christchurch quake. On the way back from tennis I heard this song (called Son Mystère and sung in French) by a band from Berlin called 17 Hippies. I presumed they were new but have actually been around since '95. Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5wMh2pVYHc

Jobless again

I played tennis on Tuesday night in what they call a Business House competition. Because one of the earlier weeks was rained off, we played six mini-matches instead of four. By the end of the evening I'd reached the "sod it" stage. If I hadn't known in advance we'd be playing so many games (and many people didn't) I don't know how I would have coped. From memory I won the first match I played, drew the last, and lost all the rest. I've got interclub tonight and another Business House tennis-a-thon tomorrow night.

On the subject of sport, I scanned the football results on Wednesday and this one caught my eye: Leyton Orient 8 Droylsden 2 - after extra time! This was from an FA Cup second-round replay (they had drawn 1-1 in their first meeting at Droylsden). Orient were 2-0 down at one stage, and were still a goal behind when they scrambled an 89th-minute equaliser to keep them in the competition. Then came a crazy half-hour which must have produced some kind of record. The scorer of the equaliser struck twice more in extra time and there was another hat-trick scored entirely in extra time. Both sides finished the match with nine men and the Droylsden manager was also banished from the dug-out! So there is some magic left in the FA Cup after all. From what I could tell, the referee saw pity on Droylsden by blowing for full-time after 119 minutes - with all those stoppages for bookings and sendings-off (and of course goals) there should have been enough added time for Orient to hit double figures. Until last week I had no idea where Droylsden was (apparently it's in Manchester). Its football team (who play in the sixth division and are nicknamed the Bloods of all things) are no strangers to, well, strange Cup ties.

Friday was my last day at work. It was good while it lasted. I had a pretty much stress-free run of three months, which was considerably longer than I expected. I left my details with my boss should he ever need somebody again. I got on well with him, even though our personalities were quite different. I'll miss the F-bombs and his mispronunciations which at first I thought were deliberate. Apparently he drives a Missabitsi. He'd ask me about a claim for a property on Bethlehem Road. You mean Blenheim Road? At least you always knew where you stood with him. It was nice just to have a job that wasn't dressed up into this big frothy career, but now I face the unenviable task of finding work again.

On Friday night I went to a Christmas party put on by my mental health service. It was a bit of an eye-opener - some people I saw clearly weren't in a good way at all. Some of them must have a hard time looking after themselves - while I was in the queue for dessert there was a distinct whiff of pee. The food was reasonable but by the time I got there (almost seven - it started at four) the main course could have done with a quick zap in the microwave. I thought the highlight of the evening was the band, who did a very good job considering they had hardly practised. The organisation is fortunate to have a number of talented musicians in its midst. It was good to meet up with some people from the men's group who for one reason or another no longer attend.


I rang my gran when I got back from the party. I struggled to make any sense of her, although it was clear that she wasn't happy. At least she picked up the phone this time; she has her own phone in her room but hasn't been picking it up of late - either she's forgotten how to use it or just doesn't want to talk. In future I'll try and ring her in the morning (her evening) when she tends to be better.

On Saturday I met up in a café on K' Road with Richard and another regular of the Asperger's group (a female) to talk about the possibility of flatting. I think the arrangement could work very well. My only issue is having to leave the Shore where I've spent the best part of seven years. If the plan goes ahead, the most likely suburb we'll end up in at this stage is Onehunga, a place I don't know at all. I intend to spend some time there on Wednesday to get a feel for the place.

Yesterday the Asperger's group met up for our second picnic in Cornwall Park. Good weather for it - in fact a little too warm if anything. There was a big turnout - there must have been close on twenty. Some of them set up a game of cricket (one of the members of the group is a big fan of the game) and I joined in half-way through (after a bit of a doze - it was that kind of weather). My batting was OK but my bowling was pretty shocking! It was a good afternoon which Richard (who else?) organised. He's also holding a Christmas dinner - a great idea because a lot of them don't have families and must feel quite alone over the festive period.

Tennis tonight then. Hope I don't break anything this time.

One fine day

Wednesday's early morning turbo badugi tournament lived up to its name: I never got above my starting stack (of just 1000) and was out in double-quick time. As it happened, I couldn't have made it to the tournament proper anyway. The WINZ meeting or "seminar" was useful - everyone was told to be a lot more persistent, and not to take no for an answer. Only seven or eight people attended, but the whole gamut of jobless life was on show, from a highly switched-on computer programmer to someone straight out of The League of Gentlemen.

I got back to my car after the meeting to find a thin piece of paper stuck to the windscreen. I instantly knew what it was, but couldn't think why it was there. Then I looked at my registration sticker. August 21st. Everybody's birthday seems to fall on that date so how I could I forget? This year I've been very careful to save the odd dollar here and there, and then bam! - I forget something important and it sets me back hundreds. In this case $200. I went to Takapuna Post Office who gave me the bizarre news that I wasn't the legal owner of the car, and that it was registered until November 21st. I'd signed all the change of ownership papers when I bought the car, but for some reason the change has since been reversed. The post office lady spent twenty minutes on the phone to Land Transport, after which I was reinstated as the legal owner and given a new updated registration sticker without having to pay anything. In short, I might get lucky here and get off the fine. That would be quite a result. I've sent the council a letter and will see what happens.

After all that messing around, I attended the WRAP course (for what I imagine will be the last time unfortunately), helped (I hope) the Browns Bay boy with his maths, and went to the men's group where we chatted and watched the first half of Flawless which was very good I thought.

Quite a bit (by my standards) has happened since Wednesday; I'll save that for my next post.

A good face for radio

Wednesday was a crappy day. It was the most depressed I'd been in ages; at one stage I let out a loud yell in my (thankfully empty) street. It was more of a roar than a yell actually. That afternoon I'd met up with some agency-type person at a café on Ponsonby Road. In a rather uncomfortable semi-interview, he told me two things I already knew. Firstly I'm unlikely to succeed in a large corporation because I don't have the right personality type. Secondly my lack of outward self-confidence puts a severe dent in my chances of getting through an interview unless it's over the phone: apparently I have good mannerisms and facial expressions for phone interviews, just like some people are said to have a good face for radio. This bloke had a fair few contacts in the corporate world and suggested I join the business networking site Linked In. He said he'd become a world kickboxing champion after being badly bullied at school (a quick Google search confirmed that he indeed was an ace kickboxer). I presume he told me this by way of encouragement but, the way I was feeling, it had the exact opposite effect. The men's group that evening, where we watched the end of the Australian film Crush, came at a very good time.

On Friday I had an appointment at a recruitment agency in the city. There was a queue of about a hundred people outside the Queen Street Vodafone store, presumably itching to get their hands on the latest iWhatsit. I was at the agency all afternoon and got tested up to the eyeballs. Which shape comes next? Which of the following words means the same as 'random'? Which of these numbers is the odd one out? Well you can make any of them the odd one out if you really want to, but I suppose figuring out what it expected of you is a skill in itself. Then came some typing tests and, finally, tests on Word and Excel. These were the most stressful of the lot; it's amazing how many functions in Word and Excel I've never used. A lot of the time I'd be thinking, is it under Format or Tools or View or what? Unlike in real life where you can work it out eventually, click on the wrong menu and a box would appear: "Incorrect Answer!" It might as well also have said "Ha ha ha!" I needn't have worried though. I had more than enough points in all the tests to be eligible for some temporary work, and if I hassle them enough times over the coming weeks, who knows? When I got back to Devonport I bumped into the younger brother of one of my old colleagues at work. He knew I no longer worked there and asked me where I was working now. When I told him he was incredulous. "What do you mean, you're not working?!" There was a certain irony to this. According to his big sister at least, he's never been particularly fond of work. In fact he used to go to Australia to play a bunch of poker tournaments. I didn't think to ask him whether he still does.

I spoke to Richard last night. The first six weeks of his job involve role-plays and various forms of team bonding. Not my idea of fun at all, and I don't think it's his particularly either. I might pop over and see him again some time this week.

I had a successful day on the badugi tables yesterday. Playing exclusively at the lowest level I made $63. My plan is to take a few weeks off when my bankroll hits $2000 (I've got more important things to do), and then play some bigger games on my return. After yesterday's effort I'm tantalisingly close to the magic milestone, just eight dollars short.

Wow!

Tuesday. What a day. At 9am I fired up the SCOOP badugi tournament, not really expecting much. I was sure I'd played significantly more badugi than most of the field, and I rated my chances of some kind of payout at just about even, but making the serious money was such a remote possibility I had hardly considered it.

I didn't start well. In the first hour I won just one pot. During the first break I brought my washing in and then got back to business. Or so I thought. Dammit, I've lost my internet connection. Unplug, plug, unplug, plug. Still no reading, captain. I ring Vodafone. I'm on hold for ages. Stop it with the dance music at this time of the morning, would you? I finally get through to a bloke who was nice enough but clearly not based in New Zealand. "Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?" "Yes, five times." I was told to type in various passwords and codes, then he noticed his switchboard was red hot. There was an Auckland-wide outage; he gave me a two-hour timeframe. Oh well. A quick back-of-an-envelope calculation told me I'd be blinded out of the tournament in almost exactly two hours.

I wasn't too disappointed. I hadn't invested much time or money in the tournament and I had plenty of other stuff to be getting on with. I left my computer on just in case; having worked in a large company I knew that "two hours" can be anywhere from a minute to some time next Tuesday.

When my connection miraculously sprung back to life - I was out for forty minutes - I still had nearly 80% of my initial 5000 chips. Things didn't improve much after that though, and I thought there can't be many tournaments where you can win just one pot in more than two hours of play and still show signs of life. In the third hour, with half my original stack left, I made a six badugi to virtually double up against a fellow short stack who I could tell had simply had enough of this badugi shit. I kept hanging in there but in the fourth hour, with half the 2408-player field remaining, I got involved with a couple of marginal hands and my stack was crippled. I was then dealt a one-card draw to a rough eight and had no real choice but to commit. I was three-bet by a monster draw and my tournament life hung by a thread. On the second draw I hit the two of diamonds to make 872A, my opponent missed, and I survived. I was about a 35/65 underdog on that hand. Two out of three times I would have exited right there.

I capitalised on my good fortune to build my stack up to 31,000 only to become one of the short stacks again as the money approached. When the bubble burst with 440 players left I was down to 11,000. Then something funny, but totally understandable when I think about it, happened. People started dropping like flies. You see, the payout structure was totally wack. Paying 440 is too many. Most of these people would only get their money back, plus a tiny bit more, and what's the point of that? And even as players were eliminated, the payouts hardly went up at all; 200th only paid slightly more than 400th, while even 100th was only enough to double your money. So it was hardly surprising that many of the short stacks said "sod this" and loosened up their play. Hence I decided to do the exact opposite. I haven't got a lot of chips here, but if I can just wait for a good hand and let everyone else knock each other out, who knows?

This strategy seemed to work. I played straightforwardly, betting aggressively with my good three-cards and staying out of the way with anything dodgy. With eighty or so left I hit the tournament lead and, almost in disbelief, took a screen shot of the lobby. At the ten-hour mark I realised I had a number of advantages over much of the field:
1. Yes I've been playing for ten hours and I'm getting a little tired, but think of all the poor sods in the States downing cans of Red Bull to avoid falling asleep at the wheel, or rather the screen. In contrast it's 7pm here and I'm still very much awake.
2. I've taken - and studied for - a lot of exams in my time, so concentrating on one thing for ten hours or more in a day is not a foreign concept to me.
3. I'm playing only this tournament. There were big Omaha tournaments going on at the same time. The very thought of playing simultaneous badugi and Omaha sounds like a nightmare. And of course people will be playing cash games and surfing the net and heaven knows what else.

I never thought seriously about the money until we were down to two tables, or to be more specific, eleven players. By this stage I was guaranteed a couple of hundred, but man were there eleven of us for a long time. And my stack was dwindling. Reaching the final eight would mean an extra hundred or so, while seventh paid over twice what eighth did! I wondered what was so special about seventh. As I said, the payouts were all wack. In fairly dire chip poo, I then won two big hands. On the first of these I committed with 43A while my opponent, who had tried to push me off my hand, had complete junk. I won the second as my six badugi went up against a seven.

As we hit the much-needed 15-minute break at the twelve-hour mark, I was chip leader with five players left. I glanced at those prizes again. What's fourth? Whoa. What's third? Oh man. I took a walk around the block in a bit of a daze. On my return we were soon down to three. Many more hands become playable three-handed, so I had to keep telling myself not to just click fold all the time. When we got heads-up I was at a slight chip disadvantage. Also I’d played very little heads-up badugi so I was flying by the seat of my pants. What should I three-bet with pre-draw? Three-card sixes? Smooth sevens? Nine badugis are monsters now, right? My opponent then wanted to make a deal. He was talking chip equity numbers and I had no real idea if I was being screwed over or not. In hindsight perhaps I was (at the time I was behind in chips by nearly two to one) but some PokerStars guru was on hand and everything seemed above board. I felt I had very little bargaining power as I’d never been anywhere near that situation before, and heck, win or lose the resulting payout would be beyond my wildest dreams (I later found out that my foe had taken home four figures a few times before). I took over the chip lead and on a couple of occasions I was a massive favourite to win, but after going head-to-head for more than an hour I’d had my chips. Second place for a whopping payout of US$4758. I was stunned.

Despite the previous day winning more than enough to pay for my next car (and the insurance for it!), yesterday was just a normal day, though I was very tired from Tuesday’s 14-hour-plus marathon. I talked at length with my counsellor about my relationship with Mum. Last night I attended the men’s depression group for the first time in ages (and also the last time in ages). I’d thought about buying drinks for everyone as a gesture, or perhaps going across the road to Hell Pizza (which, as the player who beat me was called Hellhound, would have been appropriate). In the end, as Andy suggested, I just got a few nibbles. We chatted about life, one of the blokes read out part of a play he had written, and I even talked about my gambling exploits with a “don’t try this at home” disclaimer.

Yesterday I spent some time just sitting out in the garden; it was a glorious autumn day. I realised one thing: whatever my next job is, I don’t want it to involve staring at a screen for 14 hours a day. I want to see some sunshine, some people, some life. I haven’t done enough of that lately. Tomorrow I’ll be seeing the careers advisor again.

The results of Britain’s general election will come in tomorrow. It will be a very tight race. If I was still in my old job I’d follow it on the internet at work, but I’m not sure if I will tomorrow. I’m hoping for a hung parliament and the Lib Dems to gain some influence, though I’m not sure it will really make much difference whatever happens.

It’s not long till I’ll be on the plane and I’ve still got so much to do before then. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write a quick post giving some idea of my itinerary over the next six or seven weeks. One thing’s for sure: poker will be off the radar.

Sorry Mum, still no news

Man do I miss my car. I'm quite exhausted from all this bussing and walking. Yesterday I saw my counsellor in Albany (how many buses did I take in total? Five?) for some Gestalt therapy which is a new one on me. Basically I pretended to be myself at the age of ten or eleven talking about my lack of friends, then I took on the role of an adult talking to this young boy. Our session was taped.

I managed to upset my mum on Sunday night. She said to me, "had a busy day? No." I told her to please stop saying that. She's been doing this for some time, asking me if I've done something and then saying "no" immediately afterwards. "Did you apply for that job? No." "Did you phone Dave? No." She always fears the worst for me, expects the worst. "I don't know what you'll do when you get back from the UK. I doubt you'll get a job, and you'll be paying all that money in rent. And don't go out and buy another car because it'll only get nicked again..." Dad is just as pessimistic but at least I can have a reasoned argument with him. With Mum, I'd obviously upset her and I felt very bad about this, but it was no use trying to rectify the situation. She just totally shut down. A lot of the problem here is that my parents phone me every day. I know it's because they love me and worry about me, but I find these daily 9pm phone calls put unnecessary pressure on me. Usually nothing of note has happened since the last time we spoke and I feel guilty about that. I suggested to Mum that maybe every day is a bit much, to which she replied, "well I won't ring then if you don't want to talk to me." Oh dear. I do want to talk to her, just perhaps not every day.

My interclub tennis was all over in double-quick time last night. We won our doubles 6-3 6-0 but then I got thrashed 6-1 6-2 in my singles. An unusual pair of results for me: I prefer singles and generally fare much better at it than doubles. My singles opponent was very much a confidence player; last time we played I won a tight first set, after which his confidence was shot and he effectively threw in the towel. This time it was the exact opposite. I had love-40 on his serve in the first game but couldn't take any of those break points. In the second game I had yet more chances but they too went begging. Soon his confidence was sky-high and I was powerless to do anything. The type of shot I played had little bearing on the outcome of the point, so in the end my tactic was to take the pace off the ball and just get everything back. This resulted in some long rallies and multiple deuce games but I invariably came off second best. Knowing his temperament was fragile I never gave up until the last point, though the killer blow for me came in the penultimate game. At 2-4 and deuce, after trading groundstrokes, I hit a lob onto his baseline which he retrieved; his next shot was a clean winner. When it was all over I walked home, grabbing easily the spiciest pizza I've ever had on the way back.

In today's badugi session I picked up right where I left off from last night's tennis. I play 300-hand sessions, give or take a few, but I have a "mercy rule" whereby I quit when I get down $20. Today I invoked that rule after just 140 hands. It was carnage. I won only seven hands, three of those pre-draw and just two at showdown. After taking that kind of hammering I don't feel I can play my best, hence the mercy rule.

I had a very enjoyable, if slightly tricky, Italian lesson today. If I didn't already know some French (which has proved very useful) I might have been all at sea. After the lesson I had the pleasure of riding in a Fiat Bambina.

Tonight we had the men's group. We had a new bloke there who writes stories; tonight we acted one of those out. I'm always envious of anyone who can write anything.

Random ramblings

For some reason last week at work was a more tolerable one than usual. Maybe it's because my desk is now just 200 metres from the loo instead of 300, or perhaps it's because I now have a fellow pom in my team, even if he does use phrases like "unravelling a can of worms" and "light at the end of the rainbow" in meetings. However, one better-than-average week doesn't change the fact that I need to get out of there, and to that end I've applied for a contracting role, working in procurement. You needed to be good with Excel, in particular Pivot Tables and VLOOKUPs. While I wouldn't say I was an expert I think I'd be plenty good enough, and there would be real advantages for me if I wasn't attached to any one company.

On Thursday I went to a mental health awareness concert at the King's Arms in Newton with three other blokes from our group. A real eclectic mix, you might say. I loved the venue and it seems they have well known bands there on a regular basis, so I should keep my eyes open. One of the less well known bands I saw was called Bipolar Bass. Personally I think The Bipolar Bears would have made for a better name.

I had an interesting session with the psychologist on Tuesday. We discussed my self-inflicted injury during last weekend's tennis match. Occasionally I just lose it. Fortunately (so far at least) I've only ever lost it with myself, but I hope in future I can think my way out of reacting in that way. I'm confident I can make the change, but because everything happens in a split second it won't be easy. Later that evening I played pool with the men's group; this made a nice change from our usual meetings even if I am utterly crap at pool.

Many of my colleagues had their exams this week. Some others, those outside our team, asked me which exam I was doing. Finding an explanation for why I wasn't doing one (or more) this time wasn't easy, but a lot better than going through the motions of sitting an exam.

Last night I tried playing two freerolls simultaneously. Despite the odd misclick or panic-induced misjudgement the experience was largely successful. I finished 161st in the single draw, just inside the top 5%, while in the badugi I qualified in 48th place, surviving an all-in with a jack.

Rugby sevens and golf will both be included in the 2016 Olympics, which we learnt just this week will be held in Rio de Janeiro. Rugby sevens will be a great addition to the Games (and could well increase the Kiwi medal tally), but golf? What were they thinking? Golf already has its four majors every year, so at best an Olympic gold medal will become the fifth most cherished prize in the sport, some way down the pecking order from your Claret Jug and Green Jacket. Surely an Olympic gold medal should represent the pinnacle of a sport, the number one event in the calendar. Not the number five. For that reason alone, neither golf nor tennis should be there.

To continue the sporting "what the …?" theme, in less than seven hours from now New Zealand are playing their most important football match since 1982, but you wouldn't know it. The All Whites are about to take on Bahrain in the first leg of their World Cup qualifying play-off, but the sports headlines are dominated by rugby, cricket, league, motorsport, rugby, netball and rugby. I just don't get it.

Tomorrow I've got more interclub tennis. Who knows, we might even win a match point.

Seven and hell

My work days aren’t getting any more fulfilling; last Wednesday was a perfect example. My recollections of that day are already hazy – I’m really struggling with my short-term memory– so I’ll describe it now before it vanishes from my mind altogether. On my way to work I always listen to Radio Hauraki for some amusement ahead of another meaningless day in the office. This time I decide that if Rock the Casbah is playing when I start the engine, I’m staying at home. Dammit, it’s AC/DC. Hell’s Bells. Again. Now is it just me or has Hauraki suddenly become AC/DC FM? I get to work, sit down at my desk and realise how much I need to visit the dry cleaners. I’ve got this task which has a three-letter acronym and a 5pm deadline, but I’m clueless as to what I need to do. The previous week I produced some numbers but they were all wrong and I have to run those database queries again and I can’t even remember which database it was, let alone where on the system it was saved or what queries I ran, and I’m far too embarrassed to ask Brian again. It was bad enough the first time. A magnitude-eight earthquake has hit Samoa and a tsunami is rapidly heading our way. People are browsing Stuff or the Herald for the latest updates. The idea of being swept away by a gigantic wave suddenly seems quite appealing. Maybe I could pop out for an hour – nobody will notice – and watch proceedings from North Head. But I stay at my desk; from a New Zealand perspective the tsunami was quite an anticlimax. At around 3pm I get a sudden light bulb moment. It’s that database! Man, I’ve been racking my brains for six hours here. By the time I twig that the database output needs to go into the infamous reverse blackjack spreadsheet, it’s five o’clock. I stick around for another half-hour, because I’ll have some time to make up after seeing Andy tomorrow, but really I’m only there for show.

On Thursday Andy asked me how much, on a scale of nought to ten, I want to change jobs. I was getting pretty desperate by this stage so I scored it an eight. Friday was a better day, probably only because it was Friday. That night I had my best freeroll result yet, finishing 12th in a single draw tournament. In the end I was simply too tired to carry on, not that it mattered as the top 56 all got tickets to the next round. That’s the second time I’ve qualified in ten attempts at deuce-to-seven. My record in badugi is four out of ten.

Every time I step onto the tennis court I seem to find innovative ways to lose. Saturday was no different. In the men’s match we didn’t know what hit us. We lost the first nine games before salvaging some pride, eventually succumbing 6-0 6-3. But it was the mixed match where everything really kicked off. Down 4-6 2-4, I was playing abysmally and getting sensory overload from all the people and flying fuzzy yellow round objects. In contrast my partner was playing well and I was letting her down. Badly. I struck my head with the frame of my racket – just writing about that makes me wince. I didn’t want to hang around long on the court so I employed high-risk tactics, which to my surprise, paid off. Before long we’d reeled off four straight games to level the match, even breaking the opposing bloke’s seemingly impenetrable serve. We again found ourselves on the ropes in the third set, but again we fought back, and nudged in front for the first time at 6-5. At 30-all I retrieved a smash almost from the back fence. We won that point and surely that would be the killer blow. But no. Seven match points – seven! – came and went in that game. The ensuing tie-break, which we lost 7-3, had an air of inevitability about it. The only consolation is that, despite having so many match points, we were rarely ahead and never by much. Unlike Jana Novotna in this match at the French Open.

I spent a sizeable chunk of the weekend on my puzzles. There are so many things consider. Judging by the controversy that multiple-solution Sudoku puzzles generated in 2005, people like unique solutions. But how do I ensure my puzzles have a single solution? If I had the computer programming know-how it would be dead easy to do, but I don’t so I have to painstakingly go through all the logical steps by hand, and even then I can only be about 98% sure. Then there’s the presentation to think about. I had to change one of my font choices because the threes looked too much like eights. I’m sure that next time – if there is a next time – I’ll have all of this down to a fine art, and for all the hassle involved it sure beats being in the office.

Tomorrow night I’ll be seeing the psychologist and going to the men’s group shortly after. I think we’ve got some games of pool planned. Last time we watched the classic Kiwi film Goodbye Pork Pie from around the time I was born. Watching that movie gave me a sudden urge to buy a car from that era, probably a Datsun.

Out of alignment

I've already totally forgotten what happened at work on Monday and Tuesday, mostly because not much happened, but partly because I was depressed. Spells of depression are often wiped from my memory.

I really enjoyed Monday night's Italian class. Matteo is a great teacher; he makes learning Italian fun while still making sure we get it right. My knowledge of French has been useful for learning Italian grammar, especially irregular verbs, though no amount of French would have helped with the verb scegliere. You've got G's and L's swapping places, and it's hard to pronounce the various forms of the verb without your tongue ending up in knots.

Yesterday I rang up two of those job agencies. I had no luck with the first one - he told me not to move under any circumstances in the current job market; when I got off the phone I wanted to scream because I worry I might have a mental breakdown if I stay in my job much longer. My prospects weren't so bleak with the other agency, but even if I did miraculously find a job through them, it would probably be with a company not dissimilar to where I am now, so I don't know what that would solve.

Last night we had a record turnout at the men's group. Nine of us were there including two blokes I hadn't met before. There was one other chap who I hadn't seen for a while; I'd been wondering what had happened to him so it was particularly pleasing to see him there.

Today I spent pretty much all morning in a meeting. I found myself drowning in a sea of corporate buzzwords and acronyms. "Just as an FYI, alignment with our core business objectives will be key in determining your KPIs for FY10". Personal freedom is important to me, so I can't say I enjoyed hearing that word "alignment" repeated over and over.

Tomorrow I've got my meeting with Andy to look forward to, and I'll be going down south to see Mum and Dad in just ten days. I should mention that I opted for the half-measure after all, and am now on 187.5 of Efexor, or a browny and a grey-and-pinky if you prefer.

Missing the target

Yesterday I found myself in another sticky situation at work - I had my appraisal report. As expected, I scored "below target" for a number of my objectives. With the country's economic report card looking as unhealthy as my personal one, I won't be getting a nice big fat bonus this time around. But that was the least of my worries. My boss didn't come down on me like a ton of bricks (I don't know why I thought she might - she's a good person) and she had no real problems with my decision to take a break from the next exam session.

Last night I went to the men's group where we watched the first half of Eagle Eye, an action thriller. I thought it was a decent movie but I wondered how appropriate it was for people with mental health problems. Apart from that, the week has so far been fairly uneventful. I went to the French club on Sunday and the boot camp tennis on Monday. Though Wimbledon is on poor man's TV this year, the coverage is woefully inadequate so I've seen hardly any of it. We're now down to just four women and eight men; I'm picking Serena to beat her sister in three sets in the women's final, while Federer is my pick to make it six Wimbledon titles with a four-set win over Andy Murray in the men's final. Those picks are based purely on gut instinct because I've unfortunately had nothing else to go on.

Overwhelmed

I feel pretty hopeless right now. Thinking about finding jobs, houses and friends is just getting too much. I've had little enthusiasm for anything this weekend.

I did have a look at a couple of open homes though. One of them was too dark, and therefore a non-starter, but the other one might be a possibility. The ad for this place contained the word "fabulous" ten times, and it'll be up for auction in just under two weeks. Getting any useful information about the place from the agent was like getting blood out of a stone. There are 4.3 million people living in New Zealand, of whom 1.7 million seem to be real estate agents. And they're all the bloody same. When trying to get at least some vague idea of a price range, I was informed that the vendors were "genuine" sellers and I was looking at a "genuine" house. That was really helpful, because for a minute there I thought I was staring at a holographic image, and that the sale of the property was just one big hoax.

Last Tuesday I went to the men's group again. Andy definitely impressed me with his guitar playing, and what's more, he's written dozens of his own songs. It must be amazing to have such talents. One of the other blokes also brought out his guitar, and he could certainly play too.
On the subject of music, I just bought two albums off TradeMe: The Sophtware Slump by Grandaddy and Levelling the Land by the Levellers. The Grandaddy album has similarities to Radiohead's OK Computer and to be honest I found some of it a bit too weird, though I really like the very first track (weighing in at nearly nine minutes it's a real epic) while Jed the Humanoid is the saddest song about an alcoholic robot you'll ever hear. I first bought the Levellers album about half my lifetime ago (well I didn't buy it, I borrowed it from the library and then copied it) but my copy has long since vanished. I love the whole album from beginning to end, though my favourite tracks would be One Way, The Boatman and Far From Home. The Levellers are wonderfully British somehow, and the message "be yourself" resonates strongly with me. I mustn't forget though that the album came out in 1991 when being yourself in the UK was still an option - I feel there has been a marked trend towards conformity since then.

The highlight of my work week was probably Tuesday when I made $80 on iPredict during my tea break. I'm strangely optimistic that the coming week will be better.

Goal!!!

The exam wasn't great, but heck, I wasn't expecting greatness. The questions were wordy and required equally wordy responses; this meant I could always slap down some kind of answer, but I was far too wishy-washy and kept repeating myself. Often a question would be split into four or five parts and I would write much the same thing for part "e" as I did for "b" and "c" and "d". I'm not holding out much hope for results day (which is still seven weeks away) but the most important aspect of the exam is that it's over and I can now get on with sorting my life out.

My life would be much more sorted if I could just have a bit more meaningful human contact. Hell, some days I could benefit from any contact, human or otherwise. To help achieve this I'm hoping to buy a house and get a flatmate, so on Sunday I went with Julie - my real estate guru - to look at three places in Birkenhead. I love the bush of Birkenhead - it's so quiet and peaceful there - but I have to make sure I don't end up in a cold, dark, dank hole. Two of the houses were non-starters for this very reason, but the other place was wonderful if just a tad too big for me (it's got four bedrooms and two bathrooms and sits on a quarter-acre). It's up for auction this Sunday - the chances are it'll go for something well above my price range but I'll pop along anyway; my only hope is that it doesn't go at all. It's funny how being a bit of a loner has almost worked to my advantage in trying to enter the property market. I never piss my money away on a night with my mates, nor devour it at über-cool restaurants in the city. And I can put my exam passes - each one of which generates a pay rise - down to single-mindedness rather than intelligence or enthusiasm for the subject. I'm hardly coining it in my job, and it does drive me up the wall, but I have managed to squirrel away a significant deposit in the last five years.

Last night I went to the men's group, only it wasn't much of a group - just three of us were there: Andy, Brendan and myself. We ended up watching Youtube videos including one of Dylan Moran who is a brilliant comedian. He'll be performing in Auckland on Friday - alas the tickets are sold out; I never find out about theses things until it's too late.

I miss being in the UK at this time of year, mainly because of the amount of sporting drama the likes of which you just don't get over here. Both my favourite football teams - Birmingham City and Peterborough United - have just won promotion by finishing second in their respective divisions. Though football has become bastardised in recent years, the system of promotion and relegation never ceases to produce edge-of-the-seat excitement. In 1999 the Carlisle goalkeeper - Jimmy Glass if my memory serves me correctly - scored a 95th-minute winner to keep his side in the Football League, sparking a mass pitch invasion. No amount of rugby or league comes close to that for my money.
And then there's the snooker, which might not even be a sport at all. My grandmother has been filling me in on the latest action from the Crucible (which has just finished), making me homesick. Many a time I'd be glued to the telly till late at night watching coloured balls being struck into holes, or even long drawn-out but utterly captivating safety exchanges. Matches would last hours, even days, and would regularly go to the deciding frame. And when I try to explain any of this to Kiwis, they don't seem to get it at all.

If anyone cares (I doubt it), I spent three years of my four-year degree in Birmingham (the third year was spent in Lyon, France). Part of me wishes I'd stayed there after graduating in 2002. That final year was the only sustained period of time when I've felt good about myself, so Birmingham always brings back happy memories for me. I then had to find one of them job thingies so I shifted back to Mum and Dad's and promptly got depressed again. I finally moved to Peterborough where I got a job making maps - it didn't seem a great job at the time, mostly because the pay was so low, but it sure seems a lot better now. As regards the football, well Birmingham has two professional clubs, Birmingham City (aka Blues) and Aston Villa. I plumped for Blues because they were less fashionable and less successful. Peterborough (nicknamed the Posh - heaven knows why) had always been one of my local clubs growing up anyway. Football was hardly in my blood so I felt I could support whoever I wanted, even multiple teams. I should point out that I never ever enjoyed playing the game. At school I was always last picked, and I used to stand there in defence, talking to two other hopeless players (but not quite as bad as me) about the previous night's episode of Red Dwarf, while my nuts froze. Man was it cold. To be honest I never really "got" team sports, full stop.

I've been writing this post at work; it was the most constructive thing I could think of doing before my lunch break. I haven't been silly enough to post it at work; I'll leave that till I get home. In the meantime I'll have to listen to two of my younger colleagues rabbiting on about the incompetence of some of the people in our customer services team. They don't seem to realise that the customer services people are poorly paid and are probably only here because they need the money to feed their kids, not because they're planning on pursuing a career in the industry. I've also got a meeting with my boss - these encounters are no longer daily - but apart from that I'll be counting down the four hours and seven minutes until I can go home.

Swine flew

I've got my latest actuarial exam on Monday morning. It won't be easy but I'm ultra-prepared for anything the examiner might throw at me. All topics covered in minute detail. All formulae committed to memory. All past exam papers attempted. All pigs taxiing on the runway, ready to fly. And with the amount of coverage swine flu has received in the past week, I'm beginning to think that maybe pigs can fly. Over half the emails I got at work this week were related to the virus.

On Thursday I met up with Brendan from the men's group. He's certainly an interesting bloke - he must have one of Auckland's biggest calculator collections. The weather today has been shocking - I even managed to get some study done though I fear it might be about two months too late. Tomorrow is forecast to be fine so I'll go to Birkenhead to look at an open home for the first time ever. I'll see if I can bring Julie along - she actually seems to enjoy this real estate business.

As you've probably gathered, I'm not overly confident about Monday's exam, so my next post is likely to be of the "mortem" variety.

No news...

...which I guess is good news. I went to the inaugural fortnightly "men's group" meeting, chaired by Andy, on Tuesday night. Being the corporate zombie that I currently am, I only come into contact with a very small subset of society, but on Tuesday night the whole gamut of male Kiwi society was on show. I could write a blog post on that meeting alone - there's more than enough material for that - but I won't. On Thursday I met up with Andy again, this time for my one-on-one (though I was joined by a psychologist for some of the time - I thought she was very good).

Apart from that, it's been a very nondescript week. My exam is on 4th May and I'll be glad when it's over.