I'll try and make this quick. I still have tricky days, and although the new job is far more interesting than the old one, it's amazing how much the change in job hasn't solved. Although this week I've had a chat to someone who has given me an idea (or rather the impetus to pursue an idea).
I'd like to go away. Properly away. It's four years since I last did that. I'm considering going to New Caledonia, although I'll need to wait till I have enough leave. I have been there before - in December 1986 - and can't remember much about it other than the searing heat. That was on the way to New Zealand - an incredible journey for a small kid. Our UTA jumbo jet had a name - "Big Boss" - and we stopped in Bahrain, Muscat, Colombo, Singapore and Jakarta at some point on either the outward or return trip. In those days you had to refuel much more often. I remember looking out the window of the plane to the Australian desert that never seemed to end. Occasionally you'd see a road, a car, some sign of life. Anyway, Phil has been giving me advice on what to see (and how and when) if I do go to New Caledonia.
Last weekend Kevin went to see his parents (or "folks") in Masterton so I decided to invite Tom, Rhiannon and her boyfriend over on Saturday. Not a bad evening (lots of good food), but I couldn't totally relax. Too much talk of computer games and Game of Thrones-type TV series. Apparently I'm unusual in ever going to the cinema by myself. I don't logically get why going to the cinema alone is any weirder than going to McDonald's alone. On Sunday I walked up Mount Vic and went to my cousin's place for dinner.
Work is fine. On Tuesday I went on a traffic control course at the Brooklyn tip, even though most of it wasn't relevant to me. A lot of the people on the course were in their early twenties, and their attitude to the course made for an "interesting" day. In my lunch break I finally figured out how to set the clock in my car - it only took me just short of four years (I'd got used to adding or subtracting the right number of hours and minutes but it had recently started to annoy me) - and I don't even know which buttons I pressed. Talking of clocks, at 1pm today, quite by accident, I saw the animated clock in the Old Bank Arcade do its thing. I had no idea what would happen, and I was quite impressed.
On Saturday I'm going on a difficult tramp (for me) in the Tararuas - it's scheduled to take ten hours and at this point I'm wondering how I'll survive. If I do make it I'll put up some photos in my next post.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Antipodes
This was always going to be a tricky time. Finish my old job, start my new one, and in between a four-day weekend stuck with Kevin. He was going to spend the long weekend with his family in Masterton, but as soon as he knew his sister would be there he decided to stay here. They don't get on at all.
My (very soggy) last few days in life insurance crept up on me quickly. I got more attention on my last day than at any time in the previous three years. They had an afternoon tea for me and drinks afterwards, although not for my benefit. There was a sense of relief but also some sadness - I'll certainly miss my immediate colleague, and we'll try to meet up for lunch from time to time.
Easter can be a lonely time for me, and having a flatmate (or this flatmate at least) makes me feel even more lonely. I'm sure a lot of it is just me, although the TV drives me nuts. In the morning, in the hours between when I get up and when he does, I get a welcome break from it, but the rest of the time it completely takes over. Last night I finally asserted myself when I had music playing and Kevin wanted the TV on.
All sorts of weird and wonderful subjects and questions came up at Rhiannon's place last weekend. One of them was "Where in the world is directly opposite Wellington?" The Map Tunnelling Tool has your answer. It happens to be a town called Alaejos in Spain. I can even see what street in Alaejos is directly opposite (or below) my street. It's fairly unusual that you'll find land on the other side of the earth, and even less likely that you'll find inhabited land. (Tunnel down from Auckland instead and you'll come out at Setenil de las Bodegas in southern Spain.)
I've spent a fair chunk of this weekend wishing I was in Alaejos. Yesterday I drove along the coast to Eastbourne (the car is great - it's my own space), stopping at a few places along the way. Even Petone, which has a long and quite interesting high street with lots of places to drink, gamble and eat fatty food. I've managed to get a few chores done this weekend, which has so far turned out to be less wet than predicted. Last week was a shocker. There was a lunar eclipse last Tuesday but the cloud cover made it impossible to see.
Today is my 34th birthday. I'm getting old. On my seventh birthday I asked Grandma whether she wished she was still seven. "No, but I wish I was seventeen." When I was 17, half a lifetime ago now, I wished I was seven. I think I still do. It's the second time my birthday has fallen on Easter Sunday (my 23rd did too). So will my 45th if I get that far. As well as being Joe Bennett's and Adolf Hitler's birthdays, it's world pot-smoking day.
The next time I write (whenever that is - it's harder now) I expect I'll have started my new job. I'm naturally nervous - it's an opportunity and I don't want to waste it.
My (very soggy) last few days in life insurance crept up on me quickly. I got more attention on my last day than at any time in the previous three years. They had an afternoon tea for me and drinks afterwards, although not for my benefit. There was a sense of relief but also some sadness - I'll certainly miss my immediate colleague, and we'll try to meet up for lunch from time to time.
Easter can be a lonely time for me, and having a flatmate (or this flatmate at least) makes me feel even more lonely. I'm sure a lot of it is just me, although the TV drives me nuts. In the morning, in the hours between when I get up and when he does, I get a welcome break from it, but the rest of the time it completely takes over. Last night I finally asserted myself when I had music playing and Kevin wanted the TV on.
All sorts of weird and wonderful subjects and questions came up at Rhiannon's place last weekend. One of them was "Where in the world is directly opposite Wellington?" The Map Tunnelling Tool has your answer. It happens to be a town called Alaejos in Spain. I can even see what street in Alaejos is directly opposite (or below) my street. It's fairly unusual that you'll find land on the other side of the earth, and even less likely that you'll find inhabited land. (Tunnel down from Auckland instead and you'll come out at Setenil de las Bodegas in southern Spain.)
I've spent a fair chunk of this weekend wishing I was in Alaejos. Yesterday I drove along the coast to Eastbourne (the car is great - it's my own space), stopping at a few places along the way. Even Petone, which has a long and quite interesting high street with lots of places to drink, gamble and eat fatty food. I've managed to get a few chores done this weekend, which has so far turned out to be less wet than predicted. Last week was a shocker. There was a lunar eclipse last Tuesday but the cloud cover made it impossible to see.
Today is my 34th birthday. I'm getting old. On my seventh birthday I asked Grandma whether she wished she was still seven. "No, but I wish I was seventeen." When I was 17, half a lifetime ago now, I wished I was seven. I think I still do. It's the second time my birthday has fallen on Easter Sunday (my 23rd did too). So will my 45th if I get that far. As well as being Joe Bennett's and Adolf Hitler's birthdays, it's world pot-smoking day.
The next time I write (whenever that is - it's harder now) I expect I'll have started my new job. I'm naturally nervous - it's an opportunity and I don't want to waste it.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Flights and frights
There never seems to be any news at this time of year. I'd almost given up watching the so-called news on TV (of which very little was news at all) but on Wednesday I tuned in just in case. Oh boy. It was hell on earth. The reported death toll from the Haiti Earthquake varies widely, but it looks like being somewhere between the population of Cambridge (the one I was born in, not the one in the Waikato) and the population of Wellington. An enormous number. And most of those who survived have a very bleak future ahead of them.
The better news from my end is that I've booked a holiday. I'll be flying to the UK in early May and will spend twelve days in Thailand when I come back. I get back into Auckland towards the end of June. I was very pleased with my fare which came to $2400. I've got definite plans to go to Italy (I'm going on an intensive Italian course next week) and I'll maybe even spend some time in France if I can fit it in. I'll also want to see my grandmother, who isn't getting any younger, and my brother who I've only seen once, briefly, in the last six years.
With those six or seven weeks blacked out in my calendar, I can now set about finding some temporary or contract work. I phoned four recruitment agencies this morning. No luck yet but I'll keep trying. My best bet might still be Andy's place of work; the last time we spoke he seemed reasonably optimistic about a temporary assignment there.
We had the the first men's group of the year on Tuesday. As is often the case, Brendan dominated the first part of the session with his obsessive anger over a job he had more than ten years ago. He has a problem here and somebody really needs to talk to him (maybe me); it disrupts the meeting and doesn't do him any good either. We then watched the first two-thirds of Shirley Valentine which has so far (in my opinion) been a bloody good movie.
Talking of movies, I went with Julie on Wednesday to see an Italian film called Mid-August Lunch, a translation from its italian title Pranzo di Ferragosto. It was a bit like some of those French films I've seen, where not a lot happens but not a lot needs to. It did make me want to go to Italy, and I was able to pick out a surprising amount of Italian without looking at the subtitles.
On Saturday we had the monthly Autism NZ meeting which was fascinating as always. I had a long chat to a woman of around forty whose daughter had Asperger's and we'll be meeting up for dinner next weekend. I'm still toying with the idea of getting a diagnosis myself. When I was small my parents didn't want me officially diagnosed, even though the doctor said I was perhaps mildly autistic, mainly due to the stigma and lack of knowledge of the condition back then.
Yesterday I felt down and don't exactly know why. I put on my relaxation CD and did 750 pulls on Bazza's exercise machine, and that helped a bit. Maybe I was worried about finding work, or perhaps it was because of my poker bankroll which has been heading due south since that royal flush. I've also had two panic attacks in the past week. I still find them frightening, though now that I know what they are, they seem to subside after a couple of minutes.
Somebody commented on my last blog post. This was exciting for me because I average something like 0.0274 of a comment per post. There was one snag however - it was written in Chinese. Luckily you can go into Babel Fish and get a deadly accurate translation, even for languages that don't use the Roman alphabet. The message, in English, is "The semblance with the fact itself symbol, the common people actually easily is often not deceived by the incrustation." It's always been a major concern of mine that ordinary people aren't fooled by incrustations, so on reading that message I breathed one heck of a sigh of relief.
The better news from my end is that I've booked a holiday. I'll be flying to the UK in early May and will spend twelve days in Thailand when I come back. I get back into Auckland towards the end of June. I was very pleased with my fare which came to $2400. I've got definite plans to go to Italy (I'm going on an intensive Italian course next week) and I'll maybe even spend some time in France if I can fit it in. I'll also want to see my grandmother, who isn't getting any younger, and my brother who I've only seen once, briefly, in the last six years.
With those six or seven weeks blacked out in my calendar, I can now set about finding some temporary or contract work. I phoned four recruitment agencies this morning. No luck yet but I'll keep trying. My best bet might still be Andy's place of work; the last time we spoke he seemed reasonably optimistic about a temporary assignment there.
We had the the first men's group of the year on Tuesday. As is often the case, Brendan dominated the first part of the session with his obsessive anger over a job he had more than ten years ago. He has a problem here and somebody really needs to talk to him (maybe me); it disrupts the meeting and doesn't do him any good either. We then watched the first two-thirds of Shirley Valentine which has so far (in my opinion) been a bloody good movie.
Talking of movies, I went with Julie on Wednesday to see an Italian film called Mid-August Lunch, a translation from its italian title Pranzo di Ferragosto. It was a bit like some of those French films I've seen, where not a lot happens but not a lot needs to. It did make me want to go to Italy, and I was able to pick out a surprising amount of Italian without looking at the subtitles.
On Saturday we had the monthly Autism NZ meeting which was fascinating as always. I had a long chat to a woman of around forty whose daughter had Asperger's and we'll be meeting up for dinner next weekend. I'm still toying with the idea of getting a diagnosis myself. When I was small my parents didn't want me officially diagnosed, even though the doctor said I was perhaps mildly autistic, mainly due to the stigma and lack of knowledge of the condition back then.
Yesterday I felt down and don't exactly know why. I put on my relaxation CD and did 750 pulls on Bazza's exercise machine, and that helped a bit. Maybe I was worried about finding work, or perhaps it was because of my poker bankroll which has been heading due south since that royal flush. I've also had two panic attacks in the past week. I still find them frightening, though now that I know what they are, they seem to subside after a couple of minutes.
Somebody commented on my last blog post. This was exciting for me because I average something like 0.0274 of a comment per post. There was one snag however - it was written in Chinese. Luckily you can go into Babel Fish and get a deadly accurate translation, even for languages that don't use the Roman alphabet. The message, in English, is "The semblance with the fact itself symbol, the common people actually easily is often not deceived by the incrustation." It's always been a major concern of mine that ordinary people aren't fooled by incrustations, so on reading that message I breathed one heck of a sigh of relief.
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