Need to make a change I can embrace

I did manage two hours' sleep shortly after my last post, and felt surprisingly awake on Saturday. The Beatles cover concert wasn't bad at all. OK, the band (who we could hardly see because there was a tree in the way) seemed to lack energy at times, but heck it was free. The audience was younger than I expected, but when you think about it the weather was excellent, it didn't cost anything, and most importantly you could bring as much alcohol as you wanted. They finished with Hey Jude which I think would be my favourite Beatles song.

On Sunday I caught up with a woman from the autism group. We had a coffee and a long chat. Unusually for someone at the group, she's in a long-term relationship. When I talked about work she knew exactly where I was coming from (and that's unusual anywhere). She's had serious problems with depression and is on the maximum dose of Efexor and that's not all. She's also carrying a lot of excess weight. In fact her dream is to design clothes, that aren't tents and don't cost a fortune, for larger women.

Monday was a very fine day and after work I sat out on the waterfront. Two stingrays swam by, one of which was practically man-sized. It was an amazing sight; the last time I saw anything like that was at Kelly Tarlton's a long time ago. I then attended the first autism group of the year. I mentioned work, of course, and got all kinds of job ideas from bars to libraries.

Looking back over work-related blog posts from 2009 and 2012 (it's amazing how much I've forgotten), my latest experience is giving me a real sense of déjà vu. I absolutely have to leave the world of big faceless insurance companies, or else it'll be déjà vu all over again in my next job. It never ceases to amaze me that some of my colleagues don't just tolerate the environment, where everything you do is monitored at all times, they seem to enjoy it. I can sort of understand it with the younger ones, for whom privacy is a foreign concept (and I think you're naturally more competitive at that age), but when people get into their forties and fifties and are still driven by targets and KPIs that have been foisted upon them by some authority figure, I'm completely baffled.
On Thursday the global CEO sent us all a 32-meg email, which was nice because we have a whopping 150 meg of storage and can't send anything over three meg ourselves. The email outlined a three-point plan for us all to follow. First, put our customers at the centre of everything. Fair enough. Second, adapt to change faster. Embrace change. That's always a tough one for me. The last one though was like someone had Googled "corporate bullshit" and tried to cram as many buzzwords in one sentence as possible; I had no idea what it meant.
I am looking for jobs now but it's very hard to know what I should be applying for.

It's been a very hot Australian Open so far. Inhumanely so. It's not fun for anyone. The extreme heat policy doesn't really work, and I wonder whether it'll take loss of life for them to change anything. The temperature has since plummeted but it's pretty muggy out there now. It's interesting listening to the commentators. Today they were talking about the demise of serve-and-volley. In 2001 Roger Federer beat Pete Sampras at Wimbledon (7-5 in the fifth set - I remember it) by coming in on almost every serve, and of course Sampras did the same. Now they're saying racket technology would make that style of play almost impossible, which is a shame. The tournament website has something called Slam Tracker, an analysis section run by IBM. You click on a match and it brings up three options. One of the options is entitled "momentum" and it's almost totally meaningless. A much better idea would be to show the estimated probability of a player winning the match given the current situation. It would be easy to understand and show the relative importance of each point, which I think people would find interesting. The second option is called "social sentiment" and shows a graph of the number of positive tweets each player has received. My first thought to that is, who cares? My second thought is, how do they know? Do they search for key words in tweets so they can tell whether they're positive or negative? What if you describe a player as "amazingly crap"? It's all a mystery to me - I wouldn't know a hashtag if it walloped me on the nose. The third option just shows the stats, and that's the only bit worth looking at.

15UP - yes it's the one I invented

Wordament

People aren't buying the app, and that's hardly surprising because there isn't much to entice people to buy. There's so much you could do to make it really good, but the current developers aren't capable of making the (extensive) necessary changes. It's frustrating when you see what other apps have done. I was recently introduced to Wordament, a Boggle-style game involving a 4x4 grid of letters. You have to connect the letters together (diagonally is OK) to make as many words as you can in two minutes, but that's most definitely not all. Everybody plays the same game at the same time, and at the end of the game you can see how you stack up against the rest of the world. The games aren't all a simple find-as-many-words-as-you-can: sometimes there are themes or multiple letters on one space or some other variation, and that all adds considerable variety. The hardest variant is the one where you get a hefty bonus for making a certain long word, which is difficult to find when you're trying to make other words as well. My only gripe would be the arbitrary distinction between "common" and "obscure" words: some of the "common" words (which can give you more points) actually seem quite obscure, and vice-versa. Because I don't have a Facebook presence or an iPhone, I can only play as a guest, but that's fine by me. I'd give Wordament 4 stars.

Possibilities

So the Christmas party came and went. It wasn't that bad. I was very glad I missed the events of the afternoon, pictures of which formed a never-ending slide show. The food was good. I drank enough to look like I was almost participating, but not enough to put me out of commission for the next day (which, I'm guessing, is less than it once was). One of my older colleagues impressed me as she told me about her vinyl collection (5000 records). The event didn't finish till midnight and some people would have carried on at some establishment (The Establishment?) on Courtenay Place, but I sloped off at about nine. The chances are (70%?) I won't be attending next year's party.

I got an email on Friday that made me a bit more optimistic about 2014. It wouldn't take much (just one or two lowish-probability events that appear to be outside my influence!) for things get much better, and for all kinds of possibilities to open up, and break the cycle of impossibility that I've found myself in.

On Thursday night another British guy took a look at my flat. He'd seen the Pak 'n' Save ad, not the TradeMe one; the demographics of the two would be slightly different. He'd be a bit older than the other guy, maybe my kind of age. He worked as a tree surgeon and was still in his work clothes. I'd be more than happy for him to move in, but it seemed he needed somewhere a bit sooner than I could offer. I feel a bit funny showing people around (although it was easier with him than the younger bloke). Why has he got this much space to himself? Did his wife leave him and take the kids with her?

Mum and Dad will be spending Christmas with me. They're staying from the 22nd (next Sunday) to the 28th. I'm looking forward to it. My cousin wants us to go over to their place but my parents aren't that keen, and neither am I. We want to keep things as low-key as possible, especially after last year when things got high-key rather quickly.

I played a lot of MGMT on my week off. Yesterday I heard a song by Elton John on the radio called Grey Seal - luckily it was on the Sound and I was able to search their playlist and find it. I'd only ever heard it a couple of times before. Great song, even though I'm not sure what the lyrics mean. I must check out more of his stuff.


I didn't go to the cricket but I snapped this picture of the scoreboard on Friday - the third, and as it happened, last day of NZ's win over the West Indies. It doesn't make happy reading for the Windies - you can see that their last four batsmen were all bowled for a duck in the first innings, and they were forced to follow on. I note that they had both a Samuels and a Sammy on the team - there must be some joke there about playing it again.

Tomorrow the autism group have their Christmas party. Plenty of new faces have appeared this year, and some have gone too. The only male facilitator we had - the one whose football team reached the semi-finals of the Chatham Cup - left because he was too busy. That's a shame - he was a thoroughly nice bloke, and he provided some balance to the other facilitators.

Voting and vexation

On Thursday a yellow sign was put up right outside my flat, i.e. inside the apartment building. That's great. I expected a sign on the exterior (we got that a week earlier), but not inside as well. What's next? I'll have to put one on my loo door? You wouldn't want to be caught short when the big one hits so anyone who uses my loo needs to be made aware of the risk. From the council's point of view our apartment block is two separate buildings (a "safe" one and a dodgy one), even though they're joined together. I'm just inside the unsafe part, so this new sticker tells everyone they're now entering the dodgy area. There are two other yellow signs on upper floors that carry the same message.

I'd only just seen the sticker when we had an emergency body corporate meeting - it lasted two and a half hours and things got pretty heated. They're painting the outside of our building and they've found a lot of corrosion in the steel panels of the roof. Water is already leaking into one or two apartments (not mine - yet). We had the meeting to vote on how to proceed. For me it was an easy decision: we've got the scaffolding up so we should do it now. I don't want to fork out this extra money, but leaving it till later, when it might cost twice as much, would be crazy. They needed a 75% vote to allow the work to go ahead, but the townhouse owners banded together and voted no (they're up in arms over shelling out all the money for their leaky buildings and don't want to pay for work on the main apartment block, not that they would really have to anyway) to give a 16-7 tally. The townhouse owners wouldn't benefit at all by stopping the work; they were just trying to score a political point. Someone compared them to the Tea Party in America. Eventually two of them changed their mind, two more people arrived (they voted yes), and with a 20-5 vote the work was allowed to go ahead. I think it'll cost me about $3000 (on top of my normal body corp levy). People pointed out that this is just the entrée before we deal with the seismic strengthening.

This home ownership lark isn't at all what it's cracked up to be. Paying for the roof repairs is just one of those things, but as for the earthquake reinforcements, who knows what that might cost, and in the meantime I'm stuck here with no possibility of selling. There really isn't enough money coming in; the sudden drop in value only adds insult to injury. I'm beginning to wish I'd stuck with online poker. I knew the rules and could calculate the odds; with this apartment someone slipped a couple of jokers into the deck when I wasn't looking.

While my boss was out of the office for a couple of hours, one of my quieter colleagues commented on how much more relaxed the atmosphere was. Too right. With my boss, it's go go go, all the time, and all information about anybody in the office (including her) is public property. I'm always thinking, jeez, I didn't need to know that. (I didn't have to guess her weight at all; she volunteered that information.) In other work news, the woman who was controversially fired in June for fiddling her stats, recently got unfired. She took it further, won her case, and got another three months' pay. Good on her I say.

I did vote in the local elections. I never bothered when I lived in Auckland. I see that Celia Wade-Brown was re-elected as mayor. I didn't put a 1 beside her name, nor her main rival John Morrison. My council vote was mostly driven by self-interest (my earthquake predicament) and I note with some horror that none of the names I put any sort of number beside got elected. I like the randomised ballot papers we had in Wellington, which meant the Abbotts and Adamses didn't get an unfair advantage.

Last week I read an article in the Guardian about Britain's failings in literacy in numeracy, compared with other OECD nations. I enjoyed this comment about the obsession with targets in education:

I just can't understand it. Labour gave schools targets, masses of new procedures to follow to record target completion, policies, procedures to follow to record policy adherence, procedures to record policy targets, procedures to ensure that targets were within policy, policies to ensure that procedures recorded targets, and above all targets to ensure that recording of targets and the policies to follow procedures were on target.
I suppose they could have thrown in a bit more teaching, but surely with these many targets, policies and procedures the children should have pretty much educated themselves?

I also read an article about Britain's booming new-car market. It's nuts if you ask me, and great news for people like my brother who can grab bargains by buying perfectly good second-hand cars.

Here and here you will find (and hopefully enjoy) some music from the band with probably the best name ever. They're called Tim and Sam's Tim and the Sam Band with Tim and Sam. Or TASTATSBWTAS for short. Or just Tim and Sam (incidentally there is a Tim in the band but no Sam). They're either from north Wales or Manchester, maybe both. I'd never heard of them until last week, but with a name like that there was a fair chance I'd like them.

That band name (lots of short words) made me think up a quiz question about a song title. Which hit song has 10 words in its title but only 15 letters? It's from the seventies and reached number one in NZ.

The too-hard (food) basket

After two good days (by my standards) at work, I crashed again on Friday. No energy at all. I also had a lot of sinus pain. At least it was Friday. Finding out that next Friday night's six-monthly awards dinner/party will be held on a moving boat didn't help either. The desirability to me of any work event is dictated by how easy it is to escape. Plus I've signed up for quite a hard tramp, starting early on Saturday, and the last thing I need is a hangover.

I'm skeptical about this paleo diet which I haven't yet started. My "different" doctor had these five words to say about it: "It will change your life." Well yes, not being able to eat such basic foods as grain or even most types of potato is life-changing. What makes it so hard for me is the very reason my doctor suggested I follow the diet: my depression, which makes everything take longer, which means I can't afford to spend extra time on food preparation (which might mean I'm half an hour late for work). Also how am I supposed to explain the reasons for my diet to other people? It's very strict, and even if you've followed the rules to the letter for 29 days out of 30, you're deemed to have failed. I don't understand this: we're not talking about smoking here. Still, I haven't dismissed the idea entirely, and I plan to make a start next weekend (this will mean my 30 days include five weekends; it's much easier for me to control my diet when I'm not going to work).

On Friday's Millionaire Hot Seat (yes I watched that rubbish again), one contestant mentioned an autistic relative, saying that autism "is a disease with no cure". He wouldn't win any prizes for political correctness with that comment. Although to be fair, if you think about where the word "disease" comes from, autism makes life hard enough to certainly be a dis-ease. This morning's Attitude programme was devoted to Jimmy, a 22-year-old member of the Auckland group who I briefly met last week. You can instantly tell that he's on the spectrum. His big passion is films, and (all credit to him) he was keen to find work. He got a voluntary job at the Auckland Film Festival, ushering people to their seats in his typically brusque style. "Today I want you to smile," he was told. He then repeatedly got lost as he delivered flyers to shops and cafés. Jimmy's 18-year-old brother also has Asperger's; their mother said it was hard talking about her sons and having to explain everything. Their dad seemed quite outgoing and had a very good sense of humour.

It's that abrupt way of talking that I find most off-putting when I meet people on the spectrum. Tom was like that when I first got to know him. It was almost like talking to a robot. He's improved a lot in the last few months.

Yesterday I met Phil at the Café Breton in town. He was staying in Wellington for the weekend. I didn't mention that I was in Auckland last weekend (he might have thought I didn't care about him); he told me all about the big storm which I pretended not to know much about. The café was run by people from Brittany (hence the name) and I ordered my crêpe in French. It was close to the TSB Arena where the WOW (World of WearableArt) show was happening. It's the second-largest event in Wellington's calendar. There were crowds of people, mostly women in their late forties or older. That's a very different demographic to the one attracted to Wellington's biggest annual event. Phil talked about his struggle to buy property in the crazy Auckland market. He recently went to an auction for a place numbered 44 (that's "double death" in Chinese so he thought he might have stood a chance) but the bids got so high that he didn't even stay till the end. It sounded like my experiences in 2009, with an added $150,000 or so. As I sat at a café in central Auckland last weekend, I saw someone poring over the Chinese version of the Property Press (I didn't know that existed) and making phone calls. It's time they put a stop to foreign property ownership in NZ. Imagine a Kiwi trying to buy a place in Beijing or Shanghai.

Last Sunday's warm weather in Auckland took me by surprise after the storm we'd had hours earlier. I had a sinking feeling after talking to Mandy who updated me on various gossip from our ex-colleagues. She said she has no desire to keep in touch with them either, but feels obliged to from a professional perspective. I'm so glad I'm out of all of that. When she got back to her study I walked along Takapuna Beach, as I did most lunchtimes for about three years. I bumped into a woman who I used to see on the bus when I lived in Bayswater in 2004 (she had an intellectual disability and had supported employment) - I don't think she recognised me.

Judith Collins wants to revamp NZ's antiquated and horribly inefficient judicial system. About bloody time. Judges and lawyers do very nicely out of the current system.

I thought I heard on the radio yesterday that it was the tenth anniversary of Johnny Cash's death. This was actually a couple of weeks ago, not that it really matters. Here's the video of Hurt, which he did shortly before he died. It's hard to watch without getting a bit choked up.

It's no choke

I'm back in Wellington now. I'll hopefully talk about Auckland in my next post.

So after this morning's race it's now 8-6, and the horribly overused word "choke" is rearing its ugly head. But to liken this turn of events to Greg Norman's collapse in the 1996 Masters is comparing apples with oranges. After each race they can make adjustments to the boat and personnel. Given the sort of money Oracle have at their disposal, things can change dramatically. The scheduling continues to defy common sense - the first race was postponed just long enough that a second race couldn't take place.

Check out this song (and video) from Mumford & Sons. I'm not sure I "get" the video (none of the people in it are band members) but I really like the song. I think it's brilliant that they've done so well - in 2013 it's an unlikely success story.

Is this for real?

Work. Oh god. It's happening again. For a while I go along merrily (well, not exactly, but I sort of chug along in third gear) and then, bam, all of a sudden I plummet off a cliff. I took Tuesday afternoon off sick. Just before I left I drafted an email to my new boss saying that these latest changes aren't going to work for me. It seemed a better option than pretending everything was fine - I haven't had much luck with that strategy in the past. I sent the email when I got to work this morning. Despite my best efforts I didn't get much done today. I had all the usual physical symptoms. It took me an age to do anything, and I promptly forgot whatever I'd just done. We have a system where - bizarrely - you have to type gibberish at a certain point, and I must have stared at the "jsrttrsjtsr" (or whatever it was) for several minutes without even realising it. I looked at the vacant bank of desks behind me - heck, soon there are bound to be people sitting there, and then it really will be game over. I remembered ducking to avoid a flying pigeon as I was walking down the street - I know the event happened in the last few days, but I don't know if it was real or whether I dreamt it. I think it was real - I'd say I'm 70-80% sure. I improved a bit in the last hour of the day, probably because I knew it was the last hour, and have felt better since I got home.

Canterbury has been hit hard by the storms. My parents' power was out from 5pm yesterday until 6:30 this evening. They can cope with a power outage quite well. They've got gas and have a steady supply of water from the stream. Their biggest worry was all the meat in the freezer - probably half a cow at least.

It's official - a copy of the yellow sticker arrived in my letter box on Monday. Another copy will soon be attached to the building.

On Monday I heard this song emanating from Cosmic on Cuba Street. It's by Fever Ray, a Swedish artist I hadn't heard of before. I managed to catch just enough lyrics to jot them down and Google them when I got home. It's a pretty good song on YouTube but much better coming from proper speakers. I've started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (although I haven't read any this week) - with that and Fever Ray, I'd quite like to go to Sweden.

Rafael Nadal's serious purple patch has taken a lot of people by surprise. I've heard suggestions that he might be juiced up. He's now won 13 grand slams, just one behind Sampras and four behind Federer. It's incredible that 30 of the last 42 majors have been won by just two men (Djokovic has bagged half of the remaining dozen). Serena Williams, like Federer, now has 17 slams, but unlike Federer I can see her adding another three or four to that tally.

After badminton on Sunday we went for a short walk. It was a stunning day (quite the opposite of today) and I took this photo:

Six point oh no

At 2:30 on Friday we all got under our desks as the latest "big one" shook the building. Despite being a 6.6, a tick above last month's big shake, it didn't feel quite as violent. What really got me this time was the look of terror on some people's faces. They looked, dare I say, shaken up. So that was work over for the week, although we had to wait for the all-clear before we could go home. It's at times like these that I'm grateful I can just walk home; the roads were gridlocked as people wanted to get the hell out of the city on a Friday afternoon. I had a look around my flat when I got home; there were no additions to last month's plaster cracks. I spoke to one of the other owners - we agreed that for a building that's supposed to be as dodgy as hell, it's come out of these two big shakes remarkably well. That nine-storey lift shaft on Lukes Lane, which will hopefully come down soon, has become a symbol of Wellington's earthquake risk. This time the small town of Seddon really felt the full force of the quake - I was reading about a couple who had moved there to get away from Christchurch.

The size of the subsequent aftershocks has taken me by surprise. We got a 6.0 as I was ordering fish and chips. Fish Fins in Newtown were still open - I'd been looking forward to that all week. "Would you like lemon salt and pepper?" Yes please ... uh oh ... holy shit ... are you OK? I had visions of vats of hot oil toppling over - at least the hospital isn't far away. We've had a bunch of fives and high fours, some of which have woken me up, and I haven't really wanted to go to sleep in the first place. My body clock is way out of whack right now.

Mum and Dad have used the shakes as an excuse to ring me almost hourly. They're driving up this way soon to take four paintings to a watercolour exhibition. I'll be seeing them on the 30th - I think they'll be staying here for six nights. Yesterday Dad and I had (another) argument about home ownership. I'm beginning to regret going anywhere near the property market.

I spent ages last night trying to watch 56 Up without my making my computer terminally ill with viruses. It was showing at the film festival but my brother was here, it was his birthday, the weather was good, and it simply wasn't going to happen. I eventually found it online, complete with Chinese subtitles, and watched all three parts. I last saw the series in 1998 (42 Up as it was then) and what an experiment it has been - effectively a real-life soap opera that only airs once every seven years. Neil was the most interesting of the lot, and the one I could relate to the most, but all the participants were fascinating in their own ways and I found all of them likeable (except perhaps Pete who seemed a bit conceited to me, and only participated this time to promote his band). Many of them shared a dislike for the programme ("people think they know everything about me") and I can hardly blame them - there is something eerie about it. But those same people also felt morally obliged to take part, and I suppose it helps if you get paid for it. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that all fourteen participants (ten of whom are blokes) are still alive - you'd have got long odds on that in 1964.

I'm about to watch some folk music at the Museum of City and Sea with some people from Meetup.com. Update: The music was good and it helped me relax a bit. The bloke who played the Irish songs had been to Kerrytown where my grandfather was brought up. On the way back I took a picture of the offending lift shaft, complete with bouncers.

It drives me mad

I don't mind driving. In fact it can be quite pleasurable being in my own little bubble, listening to some music. Years ago when I lived in Auckland, and petrol prices were less of a concern, I'd often go for a long drive up north at the weekend. On my own. And that's the thing. As soon as I have passengers, driving becomes scary as all hell. What little sense of direction I have flies out the window and I become hyper-aware of every gear change and lane change. Will she think I'm too cautious? Too reckless? Too goddamn incompetent? I look in the rear-view mirror to see the expression on her face. If I'm by myself nobody's going to know if I've taken a wrong turn so the prospect doesn't bother me. I can relax, which means I can concentrate on the road. But when I've got passengers that all changes to the point where my judgement is impaired and I'm probably a danger to other road users. With certain people (like my parents, or someone like Martin who doesn't drive yet) it's not so bad, but with most people I can feel the pressure ratcheting up about ten notches. And that's what I felt yesterday as I took people the short distance to Happy Valley Road for the start of our tramp at Te Kopahou Reserve.

Instead of marvelling at the scenery I spent the first two hours of the tramp wondering if I can somehow get over this fear of driving with other people. It isn't completely irrational (if I had to guess, I'd say I'm five times more likely to have an accident in a car full of people than on my own). It's just as well we had the tramp yesterday and not today - it's seriously nasty out there now. Yesterday there wasn't much wind and only a light shower, but the low cloud made things very atmospheric. We started off on the Tip Track (so called because it overlooks the landfill site), walking past that slightly ridiculous castle. We then passed what looks like a giant football (made up of pentagonal and hexagonal panels) and is actually a radar station that keeps track of planes. That's what they tell us anyway. Next week we'll probably find out that it's used by GCSB for something more sinister. I struggle to remember much after that. There were some impressive views for sure (when the cloud didn't restrict them), but I was feeling a bit down and having a hard time taking much in. Some of the tracks were fairly steep but overall the trip was just at the right level for me. Today I was feeling the benefits of all that exertion without being put completely out of commission.

After the tramp I had a nice hot shower and popped over to my cousin's for dinner. She had a friend over; we listened to my cousin rehearse a presentation about patents and trade marks that she was due to make tomorrow for the University of the Third Age in Timaru. The talk lasted an hour but it was interesting; she'd made a good job of cutting out the legalese. Today's ghastly weather meant that all planes (and ferries) have been grounded in Wellington and her talk has been postponed till October. I braved the elements enough to make it to the market, then braved Julie this afternoon. She's a bit more positive now that's she's got a new doctor.

The driving-with-passengers-is-scary thing is really just a manifestation of my general doing-anything-with-anybody-is-scary thing. I wish there was a cure. Perhaps doing it more often would help. Maybe a flatmate would help; the extra income certainly wouldn't do me any harm.

The Phoenix Foundation are a very good band from Wellington. I had no idea they'd hit the big time in the UK, but a year ago Buffalo got some serious airplay on BBC 6 Music. I wonder why that particular song was "the one". That station nearly closed down; when I was over there in 2010 there was a big campaign to save it. I notice Cerys Matthews is hosting a programme right now. She's Welsh and was lead singer of Catatonia in the late nineties. She couldn't really sing but I liked the band anyway and have two of their albums.

Collecting

I stood in the cold on Lambton Quay for an hour and a half on Wednesday evening, trying to raise money for Autism NZ. There was plenty of foot traffic but the weather didn't help; people just wanted to get home. It was also hard to get noticed, unlike last year when we put up a stand at the entrance to New World. To my surprise two blokes each gave $20. I was the next biggest donor (a $10 note and a bunch of small change) but of the thousands of others who walked past me, only ten or so donated. If everyone had given just a dollar, what a difference it would have made. It can't help that so many people live cashless lives. I stood next to a bus stop for some of the time; bugger those Snapper cards.

I can't remember anything of Thursday except that after work I walked past a café that I hadn't really noticed before on the corner of Dixon Street and Courtenay Place. It has lots of old shabby furniture. I heard the latter half of what seemed like an amazing song blaring out of the speaker. The only lyrics I caught were "Jump On My Shoulders" which happens to be the title of the song. I Googled those lyrics after going to the gym. When I listened to the song (by a band called Awolnation) on YouTube it no longer seemed amazing, just reasonably good. I must download the Shazam app (which can identify songs as they're played) when I ... um ... get back to using my smart phone instead of my dumb one.

Last night I saw the Great Gatsby at the Embassy with the work social club. It's good for me when the social club organises a movie because I can participate without having to be very social. I read the book in 2009 and I can see why it's viewed as the great American novel. I didn't realise that F. Scott Fitzgerald was so damn young when he wrote it. The movie wasn't bad either but I preferred the book and I felt the movie was half an hour too long (one of my colleagues said two hours too long). They could have cut back a bit on Gatsby's use of "old sport". Visually it was quite spectacular though. After the film a few people, including my boss, wanted to extend their night out but it was an easy decision for me to go home.

I listened to bits (when I wasn't asleep) of last night's gripping semi-final between Nadal and Djokovic. The other three grand slams have produced all manner of great men's matches in recent times but this time it was Roland Garros's turn to come up with a real classic. It wasn't just the quality of play and closeness of the match, but the significance of the outcome. Luckily I woke up in time for the fifth set. During the most dramatic game of that set, which saw Djokovic broken for 4-4, the commentators did justice to the historical significance of it all. The crucial moment was perhaps when Djokovic touched the net to hand Nadal a break point in that vital eighth game, but it's easy to single out individual moments. Had Nadal served out the match at 6-5 in the fourth set, all those "crucial turning points" in the fifth would never have happened. With a staggering record at Roland-Garros (58 wins and only one loss), Nadal must be a fairly heavy favourite to win a record eighth title.

Auckland report

I'm trying to sell my old washing machine on Trade Me. Someone just came round to look at it. I wish I'd chucked in a few complimentary shirts. I counted all my shirts - I've got seventeen. Holy hell. Nobody needs that many shirts. I certainly don't.

Selling stuff on Trade Me isn't that easy. I was put off in 2009 when I sold some of Julie's furniture items on there. One of the buyers (who was Chinese) was angry because the table wasn't real mahogany and he retaliated by stealing Julie's dog. The police were brought in and she got her dog back. This time I haven't had any such dramas (yet) but trying to communicate with people before they buy can cause difficulties. Trade Me don't let you give out your phone number, so people resort to writing their number in words. Last night I wondered, do I put "oh" or "zero"? Before I came to New Zealand I'd have read a number like 364-0077 as "three six four double-oh double-seven" without even thinking about it. In fact I still do, but I hear a lot of people (mostly younger ones) saying "... zero zero seven seven". It sounded really strange the first time I heard it, and still sounds a bit clumsy now, though I don't know why. As for "nought", which you'd hear in the UK in a variety of situations (but not phone numbers or temperatures), well I rarely hear that in NZ.

I got back from Auckland on Sunday night. The North Island's remarkable run of dry weather came to a screeching halt that morning – I got well and truly soaked as I attempted to get some kind of breakfast. At 10am I checked out of my motel, walked the short distance to Remuera train station, put $3.40 in the machine and it spat out a ticket. I waited under cover for my train into town. Being Sunday I realised it might be a while until the next train so I had a look at the timetable but couldn’t see any times anywhere. This was weird, but being Auckland public transport I didn’t think much of it. Then I had another look and saw a big “NO TRAINS TODAY” sign in place of the usual timetable. So why do you sell me a bloody train ticket? They had a replacement bus around the corner. My train ticket was still valid, thankfully, but I’m not a big fan of Auckland Transport. On Friday I tried to buy a day pass but you couldn’t do so via the machine and there were no staff around so I bought a seven-buck single ticket to Papakura to see Bazza. He suggested I make a ticketless return, which is what I did, and nobody checked.

Bazza hasn't changed much. He’s made a fine job of his small section with a pleasant selection of flowers and fruit trees, but the inside isn't somewhere I'd want to stay for long. His large flat-screen TV is clearly the focal point of his lounge - he probably watches six hours of telly a day, mainly Sky Sports and the History Channel. We watched the cricket while I was there; he talked pretty much the whole time. He offered me some leftover sushi. I ate it but was unsure of its age. "Did you buy that yesterday?" I asked. "Today." Look Bazza, if you're going to lie, you could at least lie plausibly. I then needed the loo. The sit-down sort. He has carpet wedged in such a way that the loo door is permanently open. I guess he rarely has anyone over so it hardly ever matters. If I was really determined I could perhaps have repositioned the carpet to facilitate door closure, but I took my chance on a numéro deux en plein air. There's a TV ad with the slogan "what does your loo say about you?" In Bazza's case it's quite a lot. On top of the loo were a dozen or so loo rolls, all of the ultra-budget variety, and many of them half-finished. He had a similar habit with toothpaste: there were part-used tubes everywhere. For all his unusual habits, it was good to catch up with someone I got to know over seven years and many tennis matches. I even invited him to stay with me in Wellington.

On Saturday morning I met my aunt, uncle (Mum's youngest brother) and 16-year-old cousin who is now six feet tall, towering above his dad. The two blokes had just done a bike time trial; my cousin was clad in Lycra. Although I don't have a lot in common with my aunt and uncle (he worked at the same company as me for a while in Auckland), they seemed more relaxed than they used to be. It was nice to see them again.

I then met one of the facilitators for lunch (she picked me up in her Smart car which you don't see too many of in NZ) and then it was on to the monthly autism group. An excellent meeting I thought. I counted 23 in attendance. To begin the session we sat in a circle to talk in turn about a topic. This month's topic was music: we had to talk about our favourite singer or band. The bloke next to me started. I couldn't think of what to say: I like all kinds of music but don't have a favourite as such. Luckily they went round in the opposite direction to me, meaning I would go last. I got my iPod out for inspiration and only got as far as B in the list before choosing Bob Marley. Nobody else picked him or the reggae genre so I was OK with that. One bloke attempted to play a CD of his favourite thrash metal band; a facilitator had to be unusually assertive to stop him. When I talked about Bob Marley I lamented the commercialisation of his music and culture. His face is everywhere these days and unfortunately seems to say "I smoke marijuana; here's someone legendary who smoked marijuana" and not much else. For the second half of the session we chatted in small groups, or just sat around if we wanted to. Being able to talk in small groups is important because, guess what, lots of people on the spectrum don't like talking in big groups. There are no small groups at the sessions in Wellington, and that inevitably means two or three people dominate the big group. That's something I'd like to change. One way in which the Wellington group is better (whether by luck or judgement I'm not sure) is that its gender ratio is far more balanced. In Auckland there are hardly any women outside the facilitators; those who do attend feel intimidated by the sheer numbers of men and stop going.

On Sunday, the wet day, I met the woman who used to facilitate at the Wellington autism group and is also notable for being the only person on the planet who I know still reads my blog. I also met her husband who I hadn't seen since they lived down here; he's got a really good job which has improved their well-being considerably. She and I had a really good chat about all manner of things. I really didn't envy her when she told me stories about her son which could best be described as "oh dear". She made me think about my brother. I'm very proud of him and have supported him through all his difficulties with his relationship. Maybe my parents and I have been too supportive. I hope not.

It was good to get away but I was happy to get back. I've got stuff to sort out (hopefully) with my puzzles. By the way my washing machine sold while I wrote this post. The auction ended, it fell short of its reserve, but I made a fixed-price offer of $170 and someone quickly snapped it up.

Baffling

Oh no, not again. That was my immediate thought when I turned on the radio to catch the news yesterday morning. Yet another school shooting. Twenty-eight dead: twelve girls and eight boys, all aged six or seven; six female staff at the school; the shooter's mother and finally himself. But for the quick thinking of the school staff there would have been more fatalities. Unfortunately this will keep on happening again and again unless America does something about its gun laws. Fat chance of that. Americans are as horrified as the rest of us when children are killed in this way, but few of them want to do anything about it. I find that utterly baffling. (I just heard on the news that there are 89 firearms per 100 Americans.)

On a lighter note we had our office Christmas party on Friday. It took place on the waterfront and started at noon. It was OK for the first couple of hours while the food was out - I've come to realise that I max out at around the two-hour mark when it comes to socialising - but I became more uncomfortable as time wore on. A lot of the talking I did (which wasn't much) was with a woman of nearly seventy - for some reason the bigger the age gap the less social pressure I feel. At half-three I was itching to leave - I was just sitting around staring into space. I was thankful to be babysitting for my cousin in the evening - that gave me a good excuse not to drink much and to leave early. I managed to escape on the dot of four. I went over to my cousin's place just after six and stayed until she and her husband got home at 11:15.

Yesterday the anxiety and depression group had a meet-up at Mac's Brewery, again on the waterfront. Only four of us showed up including a bloke from Wales, of about my age, who had only been in the country two months. He seemed a really nice, easy-going bloke, but nowhere near anxious or depressed enough to be part of the group. He talked about a recent date he went on, and the various extreme sports (which NZ is famous for of course) that he'd already tried. I almost think any prospective member should have to fill in a questionnaire if they want to join, with eligibility restricted to people who score above a certain level based on how they answered the questions. Been on a date in the last month? Lose ten points. The last week? Lose fifty. In this guy's defence, I'm pretty sure he had suffered from mental health problems in the past, and as he's new to NZ I could hardly blame him for joining groups as a way of meeting people. We had some really interesting conversation to begin with, but at the two-hour point (again) I started to struggle. When we parted company after 3½ hours I was in a worse mental state that when I arrived. I think it was the realisation that while many people find social situations hard, for most of them it's a temporary problem and only certain situations. For me it's permanent and virtually all situations. And there's the relationship thing - no matter how depressed people are, they still somehow have meaningful relationships. But I don't.

On the radio this morning they talked about "Mad Pride", a relatively new movement of mental health patients, along the lines of Black Pride or Gay Pride. The use of the term "mad" here is interesting because it's a word with many meanings: "fanatical", "angry", "foolish" and "insane" to name just four. Then there are a few compounds like "madcap" which I think of as being a wonderfully British word like "barmy" or "bonkers". I guess it's the "insane" sense of "mad" that's being used by the Mad Pride movement, perhaps with a tinge of anger, and because "mad" in that sense is a pejorative term it's only people who are "mad" who can get away with using it, a bit like what we've seen with "queer". The radio programme continued by interviewing some members of Sendam, who are mainly a drumming band based in Wellington, made up of mental health patients. The name is almost "madness" backwards - if they'd kept the double S you'd have pretty much got a cross between a Korean car and a viral pop song from the same country. They band were accepting donations so I gave them $15.

Talking of relationships, I asked Tracy if she wanted to see The Intouchables at the Penthouse. She said yes - probably one evening this week although I don't yet know which. Do I treat this as a date? Although we have similar interests our personalities are maybe too far apart, but you never know I suppose.

A bloke who sat not too far from me got fired last Wednesday. There in the morning, gone by lunchtime. It was for serious misconduct, though I have no idea what. I don't keep up with all the office gossip. From what I could tell he was good at his job. My boss and his boss are are in the process of grading and "calibrating" us based on our performance. As we found out last week, the percentage of employees who gets each of the grades is fixed. This raised one or two eyebrows in our team: "So even if we've all done a really good job, some of us will still get the low grades?" Yes, my boss said, saying that he didn't make the rules. I then piped up, saying that at least there's a flip-side: even if we've all been rubbish, some of us will still get the top grades. One of my colleagues likened the system to a school exam; working for a large company feels a lot like school to me. When I arrived at the company to start my actuarial role, I was given an HR pamphlet outlining various grades; it mentioned a literal decimation policy of "managing out" the bottom 10% of employees. As soon as I read that I thought, oh shit, that'll be me. In my current role, despite all the talk of grades last week, I really couldn't give two hoots what grade I get.

This afternoon I went to play poker with Martin at the Realm in Hataitai. Only it wasn't on. Their regular Sunday tournaments ended last weekend. We played a few games of pool instead on their free but ramshackle pool table. They've still got a tournament on Tuesday night and we've agreed to play then, so I'll need to rearrange my other commitments (I normally see Julie on a Tuesday).

It's been quite a hot day today. A couple of times lately I've been caught out, forgetting that Wellington does get sun occasionally and that it does burn just like anywhere else. I've still done precisely zero Christmas shopping. I plan to squeeze it all into a couple of hours next Saturday. What on earth do I get my brother?

I recently discovered the Icelandic group Of Monsters and Men after hearing this song which a bank used for one of their adverts. I think they're great.

September and the smell of spring

September is one of my favourite months. In the UK we would sometimes have an Indian summer (and boy could they do with one over there now) while enjoying the plums, apples and berry fruit. Here the smell of spring is in the air. In Septembers past the milder weather would give me the urge to step onto the tennis court. I clearly remember that feeling from September 2005 when I studied for two actuarial exams while listening to US Open tennis coverage on the internet. That remains one of my favourite grand slams (perhaps because Agassi made the final at the age of 35) even though I didn't see any of it. I worked hard for those exams and passed them both. After the exams I took a few days off work and went down to Dunedin with my parents. I remember Coldplay's excellent X&Y album came out at that time. I also voted in a general election for the first time (I was quite excited by this for a number of reasons - I was intrigued by the vagaries of MMP, the election would be close, I had to cast a special out-of-electorate vote, and most importantly I was still naive enough to think it might make a difference to my life who won).

Seven Septembers on, things have changed a bit. I'm no longer playing tennis, or even watching or listening to it, and I've knocked actuarial work (I hope) firmly on the head. Last night I saw my cousin and her family for the first time in five weeks. Today I met up with a few people from the depression group; I had a coffee and a beer at Mac's Brewery, then we spent an hour at the Museum of City and Sea.

I've felt two earthquakes this weekend. Yesterday afternoon's shake (a deep-focus 5.5 centred close to Rotorua) lasted a couple of seconds while the jolt at 4:10 this morning (a 4.0, much shallower and closer to Wellington) lasted only a split second - I probably wouldn't have felt it if I hadn't just woken from a weird dream.

Mum and Dad have just got back from their Baltic cruise, where they stopped off at such weird and wonderful places as St Petersburg, Tallinn and Helsinki. They'll soon be flying to Split, where they invented a popular banana and ice cream dessert as well as that manoeuvre gymnasts do where they have their legs wide apart.

Punching above your weight

Tonight there's a programme on Prime about Paul Simon's Graceland. It's one of my favourite albums so I mustn't miss it.

The Olympics are finally over. To sum them up in two words: bloody great. I wish I could have caught the closing ceremony - I've seen a clip of it involving the Beatles' I Am the Walrus. What a song.

One phrase I hear a lot in New Zealand is "punching above our weight". Which countries did that in the Olympics? Whose performances were the most impressive when you take population into account? It's not as easy to measure as you think. Just dividing medals by population is misleading; it's much easier for a smaller nation to vastly outperform its expected medal quota than a larger nation. To see what I mean, imagine tossing 100 coins. Getting 60 heads is unusual but by no means impossible: you'll get 60 or more heads about 3% of the time. But if you toss 1000 coins, getting 600 or more heads is ridiculously unlikely. In fact getting 530 or more heads from 1000 coins is just as impressive as 60+ from 100 (they both have a probability of about 3%).

I tried to use that principle to obtain a ranking of countries' performances at the Games relative to their expected medal haul given their populations. I also employed the 4-2-1 points system (four points for gold, two for silver, one for bronze). There were 302 gold, 304 silver and 356 bronze medals awarded in total. That works out to be 2172 points. Each country's "expected haul" is their share of the 2172 total as a fraction of the world population. For instance China has 19.16% of the world's population so you could expect it to receive 19.16% of the points, i.e. 416. In fact China "only" received 228 points.

I realise there are all kinds of flaws to my method. I had to tweak the parameters a bit, and at any rate the allocation of medals is hardly random. Then most events limit the number of athletes per country (in some cases to just one) so even a theoretical supreme sporting nation wouldn't take home all the medals.

For all their flaws, these are the two tables I came up with. First, the twenty best performing countries:
1. Grenada
2. Jamaica
3. New Zealand
4. Hungary
5. Bahamas
6. Great Britain
7. Australia
8. Trinidad & Tobago
9. Netherlands
10. Croatia
11. Cuba
12. Denmark
13. Belarus
14. Lithuania
15. Slovenia
16. Czech Republic
17. Kazakhstan
18. Russia
19. Georgia
20. South Korea

And now the ten worst performers:
1. India
2. Pakistan
3. Nigeria
4. Bangladesh
5. Indonesia
6. Philippines
7. Vietnam
8. Congo
9. Myanmar (Burma if you prefer)
10. China (yes, number two on the actual medal table).

Seven of those countries on the "worst" list didn't win a single medal. Obviously they all have substantial populations. India's 1210 million people managed two silver and four bronze, while Indonesia (238 million) got one silver and one bronze. Pakistan (180 million) were the biggest population of those who scored "nul points". At the other end, New Zealand (4.4 million) clearly did punch above their weight; Usain Bolt led the Jamaican charge on the track (their population is 2.7 million); Grenada's solitary medal was gold in the men's 400m and with a population of only 105,000 that was enough for top spot.

Auckland: taking the plunge

I had a good long weekend in Auckland. It wasn't exciting but that was hardly the point. Actually, when I think about it, there was some excitement on Friday night. I arrived at the All Seasons Hotel in the city at about 10:30 that night. My room was on the 15th floor of 18. On the stroke of midnight, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I got a knock on the door. It was the police. Someone had jumped (or fallen) from the floor above; I hadn't seen or heard anything so I wasn't much help to the cops. Remarkably, as I later found out, the man survived after landing on the corrugated iron roof of a four-storey building.

The next morning I woke up to read about the shooting in Denver - the so-called Batman massacre. Yet another mass shooting in America. Sadly, unless they amend the Second Amendment, there will be many more.

I caught up with Richard on Saturday; we attended the autism group along with about thirty others. It was good to see some of the old faces again as well as a few new ones. The specialist subject for July was "memorabilia". I talked very briefly about my great-grandfather's writing desk which I recently inherited. Of course for some people at the group "briefly" is an alien concept. One guy always had a habit of talking at serious length no matter what the topic; he didn't disappoint this time.

My hotel wasn't far from Skycity; that evening I wandered into the casino. The bloke from the depression group had planned to fly up and play poker so I thought I might meet him there. In the end he gave it a miss but I hung around there anyway, not putting a brass razoo on any table or in any slot machine but just watching. There's something eerily fascinating about the place. From a balcony I watched a popular game involving three dice that I hadn't seen before. The dice are placed in a kind of bell and shaken up by some Shake-o-Mat machine while people bet on an array of combinations and totals. Shake-o-Mat stops, the dice man announces "two double-five" say, he presses some buttons and the winning sections of the table (in this case "even", "big", "12" and a few others) light up. I tried to calculate the casino's edge on the various bets and saw a pattern: the bets that offer the prospect of a big win tend to give the house the biggest edge. This makes sense from the punter's perspective - he turns up with $100 for a night out and some excitement, and who knows, maybe he'll get lucky and leave with $500 or $1000; he's happy to pay a bit extra for that possibility. Taken a step further, people play Lotto because they might win life-changing amounts even though they face an "edge" of maybe 40-50%.

Sunday was a horribly wet day. I met up with the Wellington autism group's previous facilitator (she moved to Auckland six months ago); we had lunch and an interesting chat at one of the bars around Britomart. Her time in Wellington was quite a stressful one; she seems more relaxed now. I haven't got as much out of the Wellington group since she left.

That evening I had dinner at Richard's flat, a ten-minute walk from Mt Eden village. He made a tasty soup and mostly we just chatted. I'd really like him to come down this way - I offered to pay for his flight.

My hotel was just opposite the place where I worked on the earthquake claims, and I half-wished I was still working there. Sure enough as I checked out on Monday I bumped into my old boss who was on a fag break. We didn't have much of a chat - he didn't seem in the mood for it.
Later that day I caught up with Mandy, my former work colleague. She bought a property a couple of months ago. She's in a relationship with a manager at work; they must have a lot of disposable income between them. When we worked together we found solidarity in our dissatisfaction with work, but while mine was with that whole working environment, hers was specific to the company. She's since found her niche I think.

I met Richard once more before catching the 7pm plane. I took yesterday off work. In the morning I took my car into VTNZ. Some of the faults they picked up at the other place have been replaced by new ones. I might simply have to bite the bullet and pay for the repairs: not having wheels is a bigger inconvenience than I imagined.

On Friday I've got an appointment with Massey - an initial consultation before possibly getting CBT. In an attempt to make up the time I stayed late at work today (smashing my PB for the number of letters sent out on one day) and will do the same tomorrow (apart from the PB bit).

Talking of PBs, the London Olympics is almost upon us. I'll tune in for the opening ceremony - I hope that, and the rest of the games, are a resounding success. My favourite Olympics so far would be Barcelona. Perhaps that's because I was only twelve so I followed it all enthusiastically. Even now I remember who won Britain's five gold medals. (I also remember who won Britain's only gold in the following games in Atlanta. I find it laughable that the Aussies fear they might only win a dozen golds this time around.)

Here's another great song by Amadou & Mariam. Knowing a bit of French helps I guess, but it's far from mandatory.

In other news, my five-month-plus cold (which never really went away) is back :(

Bombshell

On Tuesday I got a letter from the council: "Your apartment building has been identified as potentially earthquake prone. The IEP (Initial Evaluation Process) for the building has been assessed with a score of less than 34." In fact it scored just 21, i.e. it only meets 21% of current standards, whatever that actually means. What it means for me is that I could be faced with a massive bill and an unsellable apartment (except at a knock-down price) until the strengthening works are carried out, if they are deemed necessary (I'll find out in December whether the building is an official earthquake risk).

Obviously I wasn't a happy bunny when I got this news. I thought I'd done my homework before I bought this place - the council told me it would be exempt from any assessment because the apartments were built in 1996-97, well after the 1976 cut-off. But now they say that the original building was constructed in about 1960 and was extended, converted into apartments and strengthened (inadequately in their view) in the nineties. The LIM (which I paid for last December) even says: "Year first constructed - 1990-1999". I emailed the chairman of the body corp committee who seemed as shocked as me. He thought I might have a valid claim with the council. To be honest when I bought this flat I was more concerned about the cost of strengthening work, which I might be faced with now, than the actual earthquake. Let's face it, if the fault line that runs through Wellington ruptures and we get a massive quake, heaps of houses and flats here will be toast. If you were really worried about earthquakes you wouldn't live in Wellington.

Tuesday and Wednesday weren't my best days (mental health-wise) but I improved towards the end of the week. Yesterday is a day I'd like to forget however. The atrocious weather made it a good day for online poker but I suffered my worst ever one-day loss (just over US$200). That didn't put me in the best of moods for a night out with Giuseppe at the Southern Cross (an enormous bar only a few minutes walk away, but as I'd never walked past it I never knew it was there). He brought two female friends along, and we listened to some music put on by the Alliance Française (which I used to be a member of); to be honest most of the music washed over me and I was glad we only stayed there two hours which seems to be my limit. Last night I almost wished I was back in Auckland, despite my misgivings about the place. At least I knew people who I felt comfortable around. And I wouldn't have bought an earthquake-prone building had I stayed there: they don't have many earthquakes and I couldn't have afforded a property anyway.

Talking of French music, at the waterfront market today two French blokes (with an accordion and a guitar) were playing this song by La Rue Ketanou (I preferred their version of it to the YouTube one).

Mum and Dad are currently in Turkey, on an organised two-week tour. I didn't think that would be their cup of tea, least of all Dad's, but they're enjoying it even if they're finding it a bit hot. They've emailed me using a Turkish keyboard which (like their alphabet) contains two I's, one with a dot and one without. İ don't thınk they quıte knew whıch İ to use where, so theır emaıl came out lookıng a lıttle weırd.

Diversions

Last weekend I discovered Amadou & Mariam, the blind musical duo from Mali. Listen to this amazing song; I found it really uplifting. I'd like to get my hands on their latest album but haven't found it in any shops yet.

After work today I popped into Arty Bees, the bookshop on Manners Street that's open till at least nine every day (ten on Fridays and Saturdays). I'm guessing the name "Arty Bees" comes from the letters RTB, but I might be wrong about that. They had what sounded like French sixties music playing - I wanted to know who it was. I thought I'd try and catch some of the lyrics and Google them when I got home, but then I hit on the radical idea of actually asking the woman behind the counter. Talking to a real person to find out information, I know. It turned out it was Jacques Dutronc. Anyway I read the first couple of chapters of Bad Science before going to the depression group, which wasn't much of a group (just two of us) but at least I went, unlike last week when I simply couldn't face all that talk of dating.

The last book I read was Janet Frame's Intensive Care. My own mental state was sometimes fragile as I read the book; the plot didn't help my mood that much. Interestingly (and unexpectedly) the subject of autism was touched upon with the appearance of the likeable (for me) Milly Galbraith.

Quality time

They've just got rid of the right-hand give-way rule on our roads. Or was it the left-hand rule? I don't think I'll miss it.

Dad left this morning. I'm lucky I'm able to talk to him so easily (unlike Dad with his father). He's interested in just about every subject under the sun, so at times we had some pretty in-depth conversations. Immigration. Interstellar travel. Italy. Insurance scams. Islam. And that's only the I's.

He loved giving me advice on what to do with the inside of my flat. Like a lot of things of late, I've been struggling to care. When I came home from work one evening he was studying a colour chart full of greens and yellows, each shade given some ridiculous Kiwified name. I'd had a lot of sinus pain that day. My head was full of Aotea Quay Yellow gunge. Fortunately the pain has since died down even if the gunge is still there.

Saturday wasn't a great day. I'd agreed to see the extremely popular Wellington Ukulele Orchestra with Rose that evening, but first Dad and I browsed some furniture and bed shops in Thorndon. Something about all that very nice but hopelessly unaffordable furniture brought out some quite negative feelings in me. Eventually we found a bed shop whose prices weren't ridiculous and I'll be having a bed delivered tomorrow lunchtime.

I felt very anxious that entire evening. The last time I met Rose I was surprised by just how much we had in common; on Saturday I was sure all those similarities were a mirage. She's a culture vulture who goes out fairly often; I live in a cultural black hole. We had a curry before the show, then on to the San Francisco Bath House. I had no idea what the venue would be like but it turned out to be a bar; there were simply far too many people for my liking. Rose and I turned up just after eight; a supporting guitarist came on at around 8:45; by the time the ukulele people came on stage it was almost 9:30. They were extremely good but all that standing and shoving and being shoved and sweating profusely meant I'd lost interest long before they finished, which was close to midnight. Rose wanted to get to the front so she could see. I didn't envy her one bit standing in high heels for four hours, but she happily danced to the strains of the ukuleles. The band was a motley bunch; just about every hairstyle was represented. The ukuleles themselves were almost incidental - it was really all about the humour, the banter, or as they'd say in Ireland the craic. Mum and Dad had seen them in Geraldine, which was one of the stops on their nationwide tour (that must have been quite a coup for a town of that size). The group tailor their performances to their audience; according to Dad their humour in Geraldine was less, er, anatomical than in Wellington.

In short, Saturday evening wasn't an enjoyable one for me, but these days I can't enjoy any more than I can fly. For that reason (mostly) I really want to come off my Efexor. I've heard horror stories about this so I plan to come off it slowly, 37.5 mg every ten days, then even more slowly when I get to 75 mg. To do this I'll need to get hold of the low-denomination pills. I'm fed up of bouncing around between various mental health services like I'm in some giant pinball machine, and never getting anywhere. It's about time I regained some control.

I saw the psychiatrist last Tuesday. She wasn't bad but I don't think she was the right person for me. She's an ADHD specialist and could tell very quickly that I didn't have ADHD. In fact I wish I could have an injection of the H bit.

Anxiety is still an issue in my latest role but it's no longer crippling. I certainly still have days when my output is reduced, but not to zero like in my old job. I have no idea what the future holds for me - any long-term solutions probably lie outside the corporate world.

Sickie

After my near-meltdown at work yesterday, I decided to take today off. I'll get as much work done by being at home as I would at work. Hopefully with my batteries recharged I'll be better tomorrow and I'll go in. It gives you some idea of my struggles at work that I can increase my overall productivity by calling in sick. It's only my second sick day in nine months so I should be fine.

On Saturday I had dinner at my cousin's place. I wasn't feeling wonderful but I instantly felt better when the three boys greeted me at the door. Tim, the middle one, fired his water pistol and wanted me to have a go. He informed me that they did have three water pistols but one was broken. I promptly broke both the other two in the space of two minutes! Oh dear! I felt pretty bad about that and bought Tim a slightly less breakable water pistol from Farmers on Sunday. I'll give it to him the next time I see him. A whole industry of water guns, potato guns, dart guns and you-name-it guns has suddenly sprung up, judging by the arsenal on display at Farmers.

My cousin came up with a wonderful idea for a business opportunity that could, who knows, extricate me from my current job. I'd be perfectly capable of doing all the donkey work but unfortunately I've got the business acumen of a woodlouse. I'm still positive about giving it a go. My cousin told me not to worry about my job - "you know it's hard for them to sack you" - but that's hardly the point. Being bad at, and totally uninspired by, my job doesn't help my self-esteem. It'll make me more depressed, my performance at work even worse, and my struggles to hang on to my job even more desperate. And if I start shouting and swearing and chucking things around the office I'll become decidedly more sackable. This is just the situation I was in three years ago.

I suggested that I see the Muppets at the cinema with the boys this weekend, but of course I'm off to Auckland this weekend, so I'm a muppet for suggesting it.

Last Wednesday I met up with Danielle from the autism group. She's very shy, even by my standards. We had dinner at the Moroccan restaurant next to Taste of India on Cambridge Terrace, and then went to the tramping club. There are in fact two tramping clubs that meet in the same building. The one that I'll be joining is the Wellington Tramping Club, not the Tararua one that lost a member two weeks ago. I'll be going on an easyish (I hope!) day trip at the end of the month. They had a map of the Tararua ranges on the wall - it really is a completely different world from the urban one I live in and all very intriguing. From that point of view, as well as all the exercise I'll get and new faces I'll meet, I'm looking forward to it. I'll be a bit apprehensive too though.

Danielle washes dishes to earn some money. It's not a great job but it's a job, which I know (speaking from experience) is really important. That's what is so sad about the gradual loss of checkout operators and airport check-in desk people. I had three dishwashing jobs from 1996 to '99. My first was at a 1000-year-old pub. It was very busy on a Saturday night and I always stank of fish when I got home. I was happy to do the job even if the social aspect to it wasn't a lot of fun. The pub had a massive electrical fire in '97 although I wasn't working there that particular evening.

Danielle will be 26 tomorrow. I'd like to get to know her a bit better. We'll be going to the tramping club again tomorrow night.

On Sunday I bought this album from Kiwi band Steriogram for three bucks (!), for the cover as much as anything else. The album was released in 2010 but the cover reminds me of their (amazingly brilliant if you ask me) Walkie Talkie Man video which came out about the time I arrived in NZ.

It's great that you can use the Basin Reserve as a park when there are no matches going on. You can't use the bit that people play on of course, but on a sunny afternoon like we had today, it's very nice to just sit on the freshly-mown grass bank and read a book.

Performers

Geraldine Cinema changed hands 18 months ago and it no longer seems to show the best movies. The flip side of this is that live bands now play there. Last night I saw the Shot Band with my parents. The band hail from Wellington, just like many of New Zealand's best singers and musicians. They were joined by some local acts including a young woman of about twenty who sang in a dark, almost medieval style. It was a good evening's entertainment, exceeding my expectations, and if anything the dilapidated old cinema added to the ambience. At just $15 each, it was exceptional value.

Last week we watched the Royal Variety Performance on telly. A real stand-out performer for me was Sam Wills, a mime artist known as The Boy With Tape On His Face. His act was simple but very clever at the same time, and showed me how some blokes of my age make a living. Not everyone applies on Seek for the privilege of pumping out pointless pieces of paper. I Googled him and was surprised to find that he was a Kiwi. Not only that but his performing career began in Timaru, just like Hayley Westenra who was also a Royal Variety performer. I know who I would rather see. The subject of Miss Westenra came up at work recently; we all agreed on one thing: none of us could stand her.

A few hours from now another year will have slipped by. I get on quite well with the head of our department at work but he's very much a product of last century. He's never quite sure what to call years in the modern era. He normally comes out with "two-eleven"; I can tell he longs for the simplicity of "eighty-two".

Two-eleven, or twenty-eleven as I call it, hasn't been a bad year but it took an unexpected path for me which was at times very stressful. My decision to take the Wellington job was without a doubt the toughest decision I've made in my life. For the first time ever I drew up a list of pros and cons of staying and going, assigning weights to the outcomes. It was a close race which staying won with a score of exactly nil. So I literally couldn't win. I recently learnt a new word - zugzwang - which describes a situation in chess where every possible move puts you in a hole, so to speak. My decision was a zugzwang - I was choosing between two undesirable options; I'd rather have stayed where I was. While waiting for my offer (or not), I had another interview with a company called One Path, aptly named because after ten minutes of the interview there was only one path I was interested in and it was marked Exit. In the end it was probably the possibility of regret (if I didn't take the job) that swayed my last-minute decision to accept.

My first six weeks or so in Wellington were tough. I was in a strange town where I didn't know anybody (I still don't really), in a job I basically didn't want. I was depressed so I saw the doctor who nearly doubled my Efexor intake. Things improved, but whether it was the drugs or just getting used to my new home I don't know. A real turning point was the trip I made to Auckland in July. It was great to catch up with Richard and some of the others at the autism group but I found Auckland a depressing place and was glad to get back.

I don't plan to be in my job twelve months from now but plans rarely work out. Getting up in the morning with precisely zero chance of doing anything meaningful in the coming day gets to me after a while. If my job wasn't supposed to have any meaning in the first place, I could handle that a lot better, but the fact that it's built up to be something of vital importance, and I just don't see it, makes me think there's even wrong with me than I originally thought. The whole corporate thing will always be a struggle for me. When it comes down to it, I've never been a team player, and the bigger the team the more difficult it becomes. I feel a sense of guilt when I compare myself to a teacher or a mental health worker or even an artist, who gives something to the world almost on a daily basis.

I'd love to feel that I was good at my job. I did get that feeling in my earthquake work. That boost to my self-esteem meant that I cared what I looked like when I left home in the mornings. I tried to look like me. In my current job I just try to look vaguely presentable, putting on the first shirt that I can find.

A year ago I'd never have imagined I'd be a property owner. I'm very glad I did it - I think my purchase was a sensible one - but I'm not excited about it as perhaps I should be. That word has been used by various relatives in the past week: "How exciting!", "You must be so excited to have bought a house!" But really I'm not. I'm relieved, I think I've made a good financial decision, and it will be "nice" to have my own space, but that's about it. It does bother me that excitement is an emotion largely consigned to the past. Is it the job or the drugs, or both?

Tonight we'll be going to the Caroline Bay Carnival for New Year's Eve. I'll probably be forced to sit through a concert with music from Barry Manilow or Daniel O'Donnell before throwing a few dollars at the chocolate wheel.

Unconditional

Today is the longest day. It's also the day my purchase went unconditional. There were no surprises in either the LIM or the builder's report, so I gave my solicitor the go-ahead. Tomorrow I'll hand over $35,000 as the initial deposit. I'll be able to move in on the 43rd day from today, which by my calculations is 2nd February. I guess I should be over the moon, but it still feels like a leap into the unknown.

I popped into Moore Wilson's for the first time last night. It's what you might call a "high-decile" supermarket which is why I'd never shopped there before. But the range of meats and cheeses on show there (that was the only section I visited) was mouth-watering - it felt like I was in Parma again. I bought a variety of cheeses as a Christmas present.

Every Tuesday I have a catch-up with my boss. He didn't mention exams this week, and I sure as hell wasn't going to. Maybe if I don't talk about them they'll go away.

The (staged?) outpouring of grief shown on TV following the "dear leader" Kim Jong Il's death would be laughable if it wasn't so scary. Millions are starving to death in that nuclear basket case.

I've never been able to solve the Rubik's cube. At least two of my cousins can. At the weekend I was at my cousin's house, getting nowhere with her cube. After half an hour I'd completed one side. I asked my cousin if she could finish it off, but what I'd done was no good because the colours of the edges weren't lined up. C'mon! That took me half an hour! She did solve it from my position but she prefers to start with white, not the blue that I started with.

Here's a flashback to 1992. Anyone remember Tasmin Archer's Sleeping Satellite? Great song, with quite deep and meaningful lyrics.

My next post will be from Geraldine.