nervous energy and holiday lists

We arrived home a couple of hours ago, and I’m still all antsy. This happens to me every time I come back from holiday, but today it’s really bad. I’ve laundered, opened my mail (and seen the grade on my second assignment - a B minus, but it was the first report I'd ever written), unpacked and read most of my e-mail. But I’m still all un-relaxed and in need of, say, an hour’s walk up a steep hill, before I can feel calm.

With this much nervous energy, by rights I should be thin.

Then I found that I couldn't get into Blogger, so that avenue for release was out. And a moment later, I found that the computer had been re-infected, possibly by Bloodhound again. So that gave me something else to gnash my teeth about.

Holiday Lists
Most impressive accommodation: The Scarborough Lodge in Hanmer. Located just up the road from the famous hot springs, it’s one of only two which have been built on the front lawn of the home of a nice Dutch lady. Nice décor, plenty of air-conditioning/heating, nice bathroom, nice semi-private outdoor area.

Just as impressive was the Chateau Blanc Suites in Christchurch. For our money we got free Internet (one a single PC, shared by all the guests), a suite of well-decorated rooms, free transport daily to the supermarket, friendly service and a bottomless fruit bowl. Have I mentioned free Internet?

Best Highlights:
*The commentary on the TranzAlpine train ride. It was witty, full of personality, and even informative.
*The coach ride from Greymouth to Nelson. Great views.
*The ice room at the Antarctic Centre. The temperature was wound down to minus 15 Celcius, we were supplied with thick jackets and rubber booties, and the snow was real. There were even a wind-chill machine and scheduled storms.
*The weather in Christchurch. I couldn't believe how warm and sunny it was, considering it was mid-Winter.
*Watching the whales at Kaikoura.

Things I wish we'd done:
*Gone out for a seafood dinner at Kaikoura. This place is known for its crayfish and other yummy goodies.
*We weren't organised enough to, but we should've booked ourselves a caving trip while in Greymouth.

Things which probably no-one else while find interesting:
*I managed to find the local library at every pit-stop.
*The boy found his max-egg limit.
*I am probably too old to stay at backpacker places. The comfort levels of each hotel we stayed at was of surprising importance to me.
*I can't totally relax during a holiday if I'm spending time on the Internet reading library discussion lists and checking out the library vacancies.

The Abel Tassie

Yesterday we went to the Abel Tasman National Park, to do a four-hour portion of the track. It's a good way to see some of the park without committing yourself to serious tramping work. As it was, after four hours I was really quite ready to get back on the coach to Nelson city. First we took a coach to Kaiteriteri, then a boat to Torrent Bay. We walked from there to Marahou, where we caught the coach back to the city.

I'd briefly agonised over whether to take my seasickness capsules before the boat ride, knowing that last time I took them I was bitterly unwell for an hour. But I did take them, after eating some toast, and it was okay.

There were some really cool views over golden sand beaches - just like you'd expect a sub-tropical island to look like.

The last half hour was the hardest though, because 1) we were so very close to the end of the walk but not quite, and 2) because my mobile phone went off and I didn't get to the phone in time to answer the call, then found out I didn't have enough phone credit to check the recorded message. Wondering who'd called is really effective in making me anxious!

It turned out that we finished the walk an hour early; if I'd known I would have pushed for some detours. Oh well.

Today is the last day of my holiday; tomorrow morning we fly back home and I'll spend some of that time doing laundry and airing the house out.

Funnily enough, we haven't managed to have dinner out in the entire time, but we've eaten breakfast/brunch out most days.

Greymouth - Nelson

The bus ride from Greymouth to Nelson has to be one of the highlights of any trip around the South Island. There were amazing views of the coast, with its wild swells and offshore rock formations (reminding me of the Twelve Apostles off the coast of Victoria, Australia).

We stopped at the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks for a look-see, which was pretty neat. I've been there once before, when I was the sole Kiwi on board the West Coast Express bus, so it was a bit of a trip down memory lane for me. For the boy, it was a first timer. The rocks are like a stack of pancakes, as you'd expect from their name. (There's a Cantonese sweet which is similar-looking; its made out of a stack of thin steamed cake layers, and looks less appealing than it tastes.)

Along the way we also passed through several defunct coal-mining towns which used to contain numerous dance halls and hotels (bringing to mind all the Western movies I've ever seen) and now consist of a few farms and a pub (of course).

We're gonna have to come back this way one day, and do the caving and rafting trips. Perhaps in the summer, so we can also do some kayaking around the Sounds (I've been assured its no fun at all kayaking in cold weather unless your're both experienced and enjoy being cold).

I think last night I slept in the softest, horriblest bed ever. It would sink without any resistance whatsoever, and whenever I turned over I rolled into the slumbering boy. I hope it doesn't result in my taking the other bed in the room.

Fog

Last night the fog rolled in and covered Greymouth. From our balcony, it looked really neat with all the town lights glowing faintly under it all. The fog has blown in again this morning, turning what was a warm-ish, sunny start to the day, into an icy-cold, foggy day. That's okay, because we're leaving this afternoon, to go back to sunny Nelson. In the meantime, we've been to the Warehouse (there's one in every town or city, like the ubiquitous McDonalds) to shop for cheap clothes, and now we're lounging about in a trendy/grungy cafe with cheap Internet facilities. This cafe must be okay if they hire out art film videos, eh?

After a bout of introspection, I've worked out the guts of the difference between the way I holiday and the way my boy holidays - I relax by doing stuff and he relaxes by doing nothing. I've already started to get used to periods of doing nothing, and I did manage to get him out for a walk in the bush so I suppose he's getting used to doing something.

A sunny afternoon in Greymouth

We arrived at Greymouth this afternoon, via the Tranz Alpine train. As promised, the views were very pretty; if there hadn't been so much low cloud around the mountains, they would've been stunning. I supposed it's a characteristic of mountains, especially those of the snowclad variety. It's a bit like Milford Sound in that way - all the postcard shots were taken on sunny days, but these places get rain about 300 days of the year...

What I wasn't expecting was that it would be fine in Greymouth. This is the West Coast of New Zealand after all, known for it's humoungous precipitation. We're lucky I guess. We went for a bit of a walk, but had to turn back after twenty minutes because the boy had put on his dress boots instead of his hiking boots. Never mind, we both got warm and sweaty and saw some of that lovely temperate rain forest along the way.

It already feels as though our holiday is ending, even though there're about five more days before we head back over the Strait. Maybe because after today, we go back north.

A great Asian stereotype to be

woohoo! you're a F.O.B...Fly Oriental Being! you're
cool, fashionable, you keep it real, and you
have non-asian friends as well as asian ones.
you set a great example for all the other girls
out there.


What's your Asian Stereotype? (girls)
brought to you by Quizilla


I found this at No Milk Please (see the link down on the right somewhere).

alarming the other hotel guests

We've been moved down the hall into another hotel suite, because we'd decided to stay a couple of nights more than we'd booked for. The 'new' suite is nicer in some ways because the bedroom and bathroom aren't connected to the lounge, or each other, except via a little foyer. In other words, it's mostly set out like a normal house (but smaller). But we've found two disadvantages of the new place - 1) it doesn't have a hotplate, so we have to use the microwave oven or grill oven; 2) the overhead extractor fan doesn't work very well.

There we were, cooking our strips of pork in the grill oven and watching television in the meantime, when the smoke alarm went off. We searched in vain for that little button which turns off the horrible sharp, piercing sound. I rang reception, who took so long to answer that the boy decided to run downstairs and ask them in person, 'How the hell do you turn off the smoke alarm?!'.

When reception picked up the phone, they asked whether we were causing the smoke alarms to go off in every single suite on the first floor. On the defensive, I told them we probably were, but assured them we'd detected no smoke. They turned off the alarm, and the boy returned, suffering from the effects of having hotel guest open their door and stare at him anxiously, ear-splitting wails in the background.

How an American breakfast can take up your day

I'm getting so used to having the heater on full blast in the hotel room, I fear that when we're home again I'm going to freeze like the proverbial brass monkey. We only have a singe 7-fin oil column heater at home you see, which is used to heat the whole lounge (well it attempts to, anyway). While we've been on holiday, we've taken advantage of the fact that we can use as much heating and as many tea bags, towels and little shampoo sachets as we like. It's very easy to get used to.

I was up relatively early this morning, so I went for a walk while waiting for the boy to finish his slumber. Faced with deciding between a walk around the large and green Hagley Park, or a boyfriend-free trip around the clothes shops, I chose the latter. Green-ness, I can get when he wakes up.

There is a breakfast restaurant nearby, called Drexels, which specialises in American-style breakfasts i.e. pancakes, waffles, everything with eggs and in huge portions. So we went there for a very late breakfast - I think it was after 1pm by the time we sat down and ordered. Unfortunately for the boy, he isn't used to eating eggs these days (due to my allergy to them); he's been having eggy breakfasts every day since we went away, and today he paid for it. While we were in the Information Centre arranging our travel and accomodation for the next few days, he had to rush to the nearest public rest room and hasn't been particularly energetic since. The promised stroll through the shops turned into a quick sprint to the comic shop (he must've spotted it on our first day - funny the things that imprint on our minds, eh?) and back to the hotel. I sent him off 'home' without me, which meant I was free to return to the Christchurch Art Gallery. I do like the place, it's so full of art.

p.s. I wonder whether he thinks I'm a bit of a control-freak, wanting to book the train, bus and accomodation already rather than just taking it day by day. I just see such organisation as getting all the questions asked and answered at one time, rather than having to do it every day.

Christchurch, city of white folks

Isn't it great to have complementary Internet at one's place of accomodation?

Christchurch is supposed to be New Zealands' most English city. There is a River Avon, several stone buildings which are Oxford University-looking (most of which were designed by the same architect, which makes it risky to use one as an orientation landmark), and a population which is mostly white. In fact, a few Asian students were beaten up in Christchurch a little while back, so I'm glad I'm here with a tall, scary, protective guy.

The place is quite pleasant; there are large green areas really close to the city centre. The Arts Centre is fun, too - though more slick than it was when I visited it years ago. There are artist's workshops where you can watch them paint, carve bone, turn wood or whatever. The new art gallery is good; the building is one of those arty farty designs which make traditionalists shudder. I thought it was like being in a grown-up version of Te Papa (NZ's national museum which has gone out of it's way to appeal to kids - at the expense of being interesting to adults).

We rounded off our day with a visit to the cinema. Shrek 2 in fact. I really enjoyed it; Puss in Boots is disarmingly cute when he needs to be, the bad fairy godmother is so obviously Jennifer Saunders and donkey is still amazingly expressive for a computer-generated cartoon animal. And the ending was quite satisfactory too.

Kaikoura - Christchurch

Okay, I lied about not posting for another two weeks. We've just arrived in Christchurceh, and saw this Internet cafe so..y'know.

The one bad thing in this holiday was yesterday morning, in Kaikoura. We'd booked ourselves on a whale-watching boat ride, and because I have gotten extremely sea-sick on past boat rides, I'd taken a couple of locally brewed seasickness capsules. I don't remember being advised to take them with food, but now I'm sure that I should have. From the time I took the capsules, right up until I got on the boat, I felt really queasy.

Seasickness is the closest thing to wanting to die, that I know.

I even threw up a couple of times while waiting to board. I contemplated not going on the boat after all, but went ahead with it because the boy said that if I didn't go he wouldn't either. Fortunately, the nausea cleared up soon after we boarded the boat. I still kept my sights on the horizon most of the time, but I was well enough to enjoy seeing two sperm whales (when they dive you see their tails flip up, just like on the postcards), a pod of Dusky dolphins (leaping about playfully as you'd expect) and various sea birds.

I felt sorry for the people who hadn't had the foresight to ingest pre-trip drugs; they spent the whole three hours hunched over in their seats and probably didn't see past their vomit bags. Even the boy threw up once, so it must've been moderately rough.

Yesterday we were at Hanmer Springs. We got ourselves a really lovely place to stay, with a spa bath, so we could have a dip before bedtime. Of course, we had a dip in the mineral pools too, though the only advantage these pools have over the hot pools near Taupo is the gorgeous alpine view.

Nelson - First day of the holidays and I'm already impatient

I'm the kind of person who, when she goes on holiday, wants to suss the place out as soon as she gets there. I like to find out what there is to do, where everything is, and where I can go next. I like to have an idea of what I'll do today, tomorrow and the next day. I'm not inflexible; I'm open to changing my plans if and when something more interesting comes to my attention.

The boy, however, is much more relaxed and unorganised that this. He likes to sleep in, take his time waking up, and ease into the day. If that means missing out on events that only happen early in the morning, so be it. It it means not having enough time to see much, so what.

I knew this might happen, so I'm not surprised. I'm determined though to change our difference in styles over the next two weeks. I don't want to look back on this holiday as a time when I wanted to do lots and didn't get to. Over the time we've been together, I think I've already moved a little to his way of doing things; it's high time he did a bit of changing too!

I've found a great little bakery for rolls, croissants and pies; it's the Tasty Tucker bakery, right next door to this Internet cafe. Strangely, I didn't come across any McDonalds on my morning walkabout. This is surely a very good sign.

OK just this one last post before we leave town...

I found an interesting little write-up about the Angel series, which I found on Whedonesque. He talks about how the show is so much darker than BtVS, and how the development of Wesley mirrors that.

Oh yeah, I got my very first computer virus yesterday. It was Bloodhound.Exploit.10, which is very annoying because whenever I started up the Internet Browser, the page which loaded was some dumb advertising thing with silly porno popups. I got rid of it, only to get it again today. I'm wondering whether one of the list-serv e-mails I get regularly, is re-infecting the computer every time I open one up to read.

positivity

I'm just starting to relax, though I still have this afternoon and tomorrow to get through before I'm off work for two whole, lovely weeks. It looks like the roster will be in my favour when I get back, too; I only do one evening every two weeks, and on the week I don't do evening, I man the branch library which means I get to go home at 4.30 instead of 5.30. So that's quite cool.

I just spent the last ten minutes reading a 'new librarians' discussion thread, in which most postings were about MLIS graduates who were having lots of trouble getting jobs (some of them entry-level). It kinda makes me feel good about my own work situation - even if I end up staying at this place until I graduate, at least I'll have four years of experience in display management, reference, bus-driving, web content management and generally being nice to people 'cos that's in my job description.

And its nice to be able to tick off things on my list-to-do. I guess thats because I have a 'completion' leadership style...

Oh yeah - this will most likely be my last post until I get back, on July 4th. I will be cruising for Internet cafes, but don't hold your breath. Just come back for the next update.

Whacked. And worried.

That I am.
I had to make up two hours at work, due to the 'emergency' described in the previous post, so I worked through my lunch break. I managed to remove and replace two displays though, so it was probably worth it. My list of things-to-do, before I can relax and holiday, has shortened considerably.

A while back, I e-mailed a Letter to the Editor, to the editor of a Library and Information magazine. The subject was the issue of crap pay in librarianship. I was admittedly feeling a little cynical at the time, but I did try to keep everything seemly. Once I'd sent it, I got a little nervous; I'd mentioned something about potential librarians leaving due to pitiful salaries, and may look as though I'm intending to do just that. So I asked the editor if it would be possible to omit my name. She said she'd omit my surname.

Well, that magazine arrived in the post today, and I was thoroughly disappointed to find that, not only had the editor not stepped in with a red pen and moderated the letter, but she'd printed my full name under it. I only hope no-one takes the letter the wrong way.

a morning of absurdity

For the last few days, we've been careful not to set the security alarm on before we leave to go to work in the morning. It was because I hadn't gotten around to giving the builder a PIN to get in the door without setting off the alarm.

Well, yesterday the builder finished building our fence (and a wonderful job it was too), and he rang to say he'd be in today to pick up the cheque.

If only I'd remembered to remind my boyfriend...

This morning, half an hour after I'd got to work, I received a call from the alarm monitoring company. Apparently someone had set the alarm off. It didn't take much brain to work out that the boy had set the alarm on before leaving the house, and the builder had triggered it off in his attempt to get in the house to retrieve his well-deserved payment. So I rang the boy, who hadn't yet arrived at work; he was pretty annoyed, but agreed to turn back and let the poor man in the house (or at least check that no-one was trying to break in).

Thirty minutes later, my brand-new mobile phone was ringing hot. It was the boy. The builder had flown, probably in panic 'cos the alarm had gone off. The boy had broken his key in the front door keyhole, possibly through brute force resulting from extreme feelings of annoyance. This is the new spare key which was only 2-weeks old. He'd managed to get the remnants out of the lock, but now had no way of locking the front door (its a deadlock) - he couldn't leave the house. He was all stressed out, with the prospect of tons to do at work and no possibility of getting to his office to do it.

There was no way around it. I would have to drive all the way back home (30 mins on the motorway and 15 mins in inner-city traffic), just to lock the front door and enable him to get to work.

Now, one round trip each day is bad enough to make me go all tight around the upper back and shoulders. Two round trips in one day, plus no lunch hour because I now had two hours to make up at work, is not a nice way to start the day.

I can feel a hassle-attack coming on...

With only 3 1/2 more days of work, including two half-days driving the bus, I'm feeling sooo busy. Before the end of Friday (about 4 half-days), and between desk duty periods of up to 1 1/2 hours at a time, I have to:

1. Take down a messy Arbor Day display (one staple at a time), and replace it with one about Matariki (Maori New Year)
2. Organise for someone to put up a Genealogy display on Monday
3. Remove a D-Day Anniversary display and try to avoid volunteering myself to put up a Montana Book Awards display
4. Collect all the library stats for children's desk, the branch library, the mobile library, the phone log and the information desk
5. Familiarise myself with the my new Monday night mobile library route, which starts the day I get back from holiday
6. Find various Large Print books for twenty well-read old folks who have nothing to do but read all day
7. Find some books on traditional Fijian houses for a kid's school project
8. Tell the unofficial children's librarian about some Library Week stuff I've volunteered her to do
9. And call five celebrities before breakfast

Actually, the last one's isn't quite true. I have to call two celebrities before they lose interest in participating in Library Week activities.

And then there's the non-work stuff I have to do before I go away, like:
1. call alarm monitoring place to tell them my new mobile number
2. call my brother to remind him to collect our mail while we're away
3. call my mother, 'cos she'll worry if I don't
4. return all my library books
5. make a packing list
6. pack
7. go to the gym twice
8. pay the builder

I have a poster of Munch's Scream beside my computer. I can sort of relate to that...

No more Assignment

Finally, finally, I have done with and finished with my assignment. It's taken me about six hours just to get the referencing to my satisfaction and for a final proof-reading. I'm not going to look at it anymore, even though I won't hand it in for another hour. I feel reasonably good about it, but I can't say it was easy (or exciting, for that matter).

The boy's birthday was low-key. We went out for Peking duck, then came home where he played computer games and I worked on the assignment. The we watched part II of I, Claudius (where Caligula kills Uncle Tiberius to claim emperorship, marries his own sister and ingests her unborn child) while he gave me a back rub.

Meanwhile, have fun looking at the Four Word Film Review, which I found at the Gateshead Library Weblog.

Just a few disconnected points...

It's very disconcerting, when one is sitting on the toilet, to hear loud grunting just on the other side of the wall.

It's the boy's birthday today. I'm getting him a tattoo. My assignment is due tomorrow, but of course finishing it tonight is out of the question. Just as well I"m working on Saturday, because that means I have a few hours off tomorrow morning to finish the report.

I'm in charge of the displays at the library - booking of space, that is. Apparently someone took a booking for this week (a month ago?) and didn't bother telling me, except to write it down on a portion of wall-planner which I never look at anyway. I've got a double-booking and I'm stressing.

We rented out I Claudius parts 3 and 4. That's five hours of DVD to watch before the weekend. Thank goodness I'm in the middle of a study break.

Only five days to go till we go on holiday!

The end of Angel

We watched the final episode last night. It was a good way to finish really, with Angel, Ilyria, Spike and Gunn in a last-gasp fight against a mob of ugly, hooting demons. I was a bit disturbed about Lorne killing Lindsay though; the latter may have been an evil dude, but Lorne's a singer not a fighter.

It really does feel as though the show's had been canned came all-of-a-sudden (and just as it was turning out to be good and dark). There's a flurry of loose-end-tying in the last four or five episodes, so even though I didnt know what season we were watching it became quite obvious it was heading towards a final.

I'm going to have to re-watch them all, I think.

A love affair with...stationery?

This might sound weird, but I really like those little spiral-bound, hard-back journals that you see in the stationery shops. They're about A5 size, usually have lovely designs on the covers, and the pages are lined but otherwise empty. I remember when I was a kid, I loved books like this even though there was nothing in them to read. Maybe it's the possibility of creating a great written moment that it represents. Maybe I'm just a little strange. But I know I'm not on my own, because I mentioned it once to a fellow library school student (an archivist), and he did that nodding-in-recognition thing.

A bit of fresh air and exercise

The new fence is looking good, with just one section to go plus a 'cap' (the bit that goes on top to give it a finished look). There has been a large pile of dirt outside my front door for the last few days, due to the builder digging holes and putting posts in; I'd decided we could dispose of the dirt by transferring it to the back yard (thereby filling in the big dip that's been there ever since a plumber dug it up to fix the sewer pipe of a house two doors up).

Because we're going away next weekend, I realised we'd have to get moving on this task, or have a big pile of dirt/mud/concrete remnants outside my front door for at least the next four weeks. So I had to interrupt my Saturday morning activity of reading the paper in the sun and looking at the job ads, in order to shift dirt.

We don't have a shovel, and we don't have a wheelbarrow.

I started out with a plastic dust pan and a plastic bucket; after five or six trips though, I could imagine how someone watching would utterly crack up with the silliness and inefficiency of my methods. So I borrowed my sister-in-law's shovel and got another bucket. By this time, the boy was up and only slightly hung over; he took on the role of transporting the buckets. It still took about two hours in all, and by the end of it my boots were so caked in mud I was probably wearing a significant portion of the dirt pile.

But it's not over. Tomorrow we're going to put the concrete bits around the dirt bed we've created, so that it looks as though we have a bordered vege garden-in-waiting rather than a shallow grave.

Till my holidays

one more week to go...one more week to go... one more week to go...

The new fence is looking really good. I just have to buy a new mailbox now, because the one I bought six months ago won't fit the new fence. At five feet high, it's almost high enough to stop anyone my height from peeking in - unless they really want to. I suppose the main thing is that it'll stop rubbish from blowing over into my front lawn, and into the porch (which is cleverly designed to trap any in-blown rubbish, leaving the front doorway very un-auspiciously untidy).

The boy is out tonight getting plastered with his friends and workmates, so I suppose I'll make use of the free time to finish my assignment.

Time for cake I think.

personality profiles

This morning the whole library team (minus the team leaders) attended a Team Development course, which just finished an hour ago. I was surprised when the course leader took out a pile of paper and told us they were our personality profiles. These must have been gleaned from our answers to a questionnaire which we'd filled in a couple of weeks ago; I thought they were only supposed to show what we, as a team, thought of our performance.

We each had a graph showing how we scored in leadership styles like:

Complete - likes to get things done, and on time
Coordinate - delegates
Direct - authoritative (bossy?)
Evaluate - analytical
Explore - searches out information and ideas from lots of places
Harmonise - likes to keep everyone happy
Implement - good at getting started on tasks
Innovate - creative, ideas person

Anyway, I scored high on Evaluate (no surprise, since I have a science degree and used to be a computer programmer), Complete (I do like to get things done), Harmonise ('cos I'm so nice and sweet) and Direct (this was the big surprise - I don't see myself as the order-giving type).

Sadly, Innovate was my worst score, confirming my fears that I would never have made it as an artist or designer. It also makes me wonder whether my ideal occupation might have been 'accountant'...

a mid-life crisis or something

The boy is turning 35 next Monday, and I think its making him a little depressed. I keep telling him he'll always be my toyboy, but that doesn't seem to work. So he's going out for a boy's night out tomorrow evening, leaving me at home to cough my guts out, surf the 'Net, work on my assignment (which is due next Tuesday), and possibly watch Zoolander again.

He seems restless, though fortunately he's made no mention of shiny red convertibles or dressing like a teenager.

He did threaten to move us to Silicon Valley and get a top job at Microsoft, though. While I'd miss my friends and family, I'd probably get over it if I get to be a lady of leisure...

bad biscuits

I've decided it's safe after all, to eat the biscuits provided by one of our Mobile Library customers, a nursing home.

It's something they do just to be nice; the bus turns up just before afternoon tea time and a woman brings a tray of tea, coffee and biscuits.

The first time I did this bus run, I drank some tea and ate one of their homemade cookies. This resulted in a careful, yet brisk, walk to the toilets at the next stop. I thought it was a coincidence, or perhaps that something I'd had at lunch had been a bit off. The other library staff member who was doing the bus run with me was dieting, so she hadn't been eating their biscuits for weeks - she was fine.

Then it happened again the following week and I knew something was up. I stopped eating the biscuits, and stuck to the tea. Once I stopped eating their biscuits, I stopped having to mince sheepishly to the toilets at the medical clinic an hour later. I checked it out with another workmate. She warned me not to touch their biscuits.

Then something happened a few weeks ago which made me rethink the whole bad-biscuit thing. I had a work-experience schoolgirl on board for the afternoon. I forgot to warn her about the biscuits. She ate two of their Mallowpuffs (that's a big marshmallow on a biscuit, covered in chocolate). I watched her really carefully, waiting for a change of complexion or a desperate urge to get off the bus....but no. Nothing happened to her at all. So I had one. And I was fine.

Since then I've been scoffing their afternoon tea biscuits without physical discomfort. Perhaps it was only the homemade ones and the stale ones. So it's safe after all...I think.

(Update on my cold - like you really wanted to know - I'm a little tired of sounding like a drowned man when I talk.)

Holidays

We decided to spend out time off in Nelson, so I've had a first time go at booking flights on the Internet. It wasn't so bad, and hasn't hurt yet (wait till the credit card bill comes in).

My cold is still thriving - every time I cough I have to quickly and surreptitiously check out my clothes in case something has landed on them. Its going to be one of those long-lasting ones, I think. But I still have a couple of weeks to get better so thats good.

Oh.. and I still have to book us a room for at least the first two nights...the boy says that homestays and bed'n'breakfasts are out because the rooms won't be sufficiently sound-proofed :-)

Goodbye to smoky kitchen

Finally, my builder friend has gotten around to rebuilding my fence. He's also going to put a hole in my kitchen wall so that we can install the extractor fan. The old blown-down fence was an eyesore, but at least it wasn't literally an eyesore.

Whenever the boy used the overn (roasted kumera - yum), the whole kitchen would fill up with smoke. Pretty soon, we'd have to get the kitchen door open to let the smoke out, which led to the adjoining lounge going icy cold.

My builder friend is an interesting guy. A builder most of his life, one day he decided to take singing lessons. Now he's an amateur singer and actor, and a photographer as well.

I call it a Chinese work ethic

I've had a cold all weekend. Its not surprising, because a) it was a long weekend, b) it was beautiful weather all weekend and c) it's coming up towards my two-week holiday.

I was in a quandary over whether to ring in sick this morning, or brave it out like the thoroughly reliable and conscientious little worker I am. I didn't want to cough and splutter over the customers. I didn't want to have to lift crates of books with a fever. But I didn't want to miss the very last (morning) class of the trimester, nor take a sick day only about three weeks after the last time I did it (although that was only a half day, and I took that time to take my mum to the doc).

Against the boy's protests, I got dressed for work and got in the car.

I rang in sick during the mid-class break, managed to contribute to the discussions without spluttering over anyone, and came straight home.

But now I feel guilty, because I've started to feel a whole lot better. This might be because I'm just quietly sitting around, mostly outside in the sun. But the fact that I feel okay now, but am taking a sick day, makes me feel a bit of a fraud. Maybe I have to make myself hoarse for tomorrow, so the workmate's will be convinced...

Its been an Angel weekend

Due to the normally inconvenient combination of me having a cold and it being a long weekend (Queens Birthday, that is), I was able to get through the Twin Peaks DVD (the pilot and episode one) in plenty of time to get into our newest batch of Angel episodes. I don't even know for sure which season we're on to now - Four, maybe?

Anyway, the two favourite episodes so far:
1. Spike becomes fully corporeal again. We find out more of why he and Spike hate each other so much (its a father/son kind of thing). Both realise that either one of them could be the champion mentioned in the Shan Shu prophesy, in which it is predicted that a vampire with a soul saves the world from an apocolypse and is given life as reward. Angel and Spike have a big fight, and Spike wins (more of the father/son thing). Now Angel has something else to brood about...

I like how this episode really brings the Spike vs. Angel rivalry to the fore. In a way, Spike really is a better person than Angel; firstly, because he was capable of feeling love even before he got his soul;secondly because when he does 'good' things it isn't because he wants salvation. On the other hand, I feel sorry for Angel because he really is cursed by his soul, and besides he never tried to rape Buffy.

2. A young woman with super-human strength and a large cleaver (this is not a typo and I didn't mean 'cleavage') escapes from a mental institution. She turns out to be a Slayer, one of the ones 'created' following Buffy and Willow's trick in the very last episode of Buffy (in which all potential Slayers become actual Slayers - I wonder if I can keep capitalising the 'S' in Slayer if there are lots of them?). I was overjoyed at the presence of a Slayer in Angel, albeit a mentally unhinged one. Geeky Andrew, along with small contingent of Slayers, has been sent by Buffy to claim psycho Slayer as their own. Angel realises that even Buffy doesnt trust him any more now that he's working for Wolfram and Hart.

I think it would be great to have more of a Slayer presence on the show; now that the Angel gang are corporate grey-area good guys, it might play out like a Buffy vs. The Initiative scenario (without the mad scientist). Plus it'd be good to have a powerful female on board.

Interesting that Fred is now not only a theoretical physicist, she's also a coroner. Like the Professor in Gilligian's Island, she's the architypal (and higly unlikely) super-polymath - hey, just because a person's really brainy and good at one thing doesnt mean she's good at everything else you know. It's not like they don't have the staff, is it? Surely such a big firm would have it's own supply of specialists, right? I was a little disappointed with this turn of events.

And now for something completely different...we've actually had sunny weather most of this weekend. Bitingly cold, yes. But sunny.

I'm in the mobile phone club

After all these years, I now own my own mobile phone. I did have one in a previous job, but it was for after-hours support so it certainly didn't have pleasant associations for me. But I decided it would be nice to have one. Why? Because I don't have my own phone at work, and I'm never at my desk anyway - so it's really hard for friends and family to contact me. Because without one it's virtually impossible to have a private conversation during work hours.

Another reason I didn't get one before now was the imagined cost of buying and using one, too. But the boy bought one for me, because I'd mentioned several times in the last week. And now I have a teeny tiny Motorola and twenty five dollars of Prepaid talk time. I wonder how long that's going to last me.

'Classics', it is not

We went to see Troy last night, though not out of any genuine desire to see the film (not even the promise of shirtless Brad was sufficient could do that). It was a social thing, to catch up with a couple of old friends. I do sometimes miss those days when the gang would meet up most weekends for dinner, movie and coffee - mind you, in those days I usually chose the movie and it was usually an arty film rather than a Hollywood film.

Anyway, I haven't read The Iliad, The Eniad, nor The Odyssey, so I wasn't in a position to do any comparisons between the movie and the text it is supposed to be based on. I did know, via the newspapers, that the movie was devoid of actual divine beings. They also informed me that Achilles had been transformed from a man deeply in love with another man, to a ladies man. I also knew that the time scale was drastically compressed. So I tried to view it as just a story (although I would've liked to see Cassandra, the prophetess whose curse was that no-one would ever believe her, in there somewhere).

I found it a really frustrating story. When the Trojan priestess fell in love with Achilles, I wanted to yell at her for siding with the very guy who was instrumental in the ruin of her city state (yeah yeah, he saved her life). I wanted to shake Achilles and tell him to make his bloody mind up - fight on Agamamnon's side, or don't, but just stop being so damned fickle. I wanted to kick Helen and Paris in the shins for their extreme lack of foresight in running off together. I wanted to slap Priam for putting his belief in the astrologer and his bird signs, instead of the recommendations of a highly experienced and successful general (Hector, his eldest son).

Sometimes it felt like I was watching a tribute to the Lord of the Rings movies; this was during all the cast-of-thousands scenes of soldiers marching in formation with high volume stomping.

The best things about Troy? One is the that the film makers managed to avoid using any Matrix-style special effects in the fight scenes (makes a nice change). The other is the fight scene between Hector and Achilles.

It wasn't a bad movie, but it didn't have the hero-overcomes-all feelgood resonance of Gladiator (which I didn't love), its closest comparison.

Good names for girls

Unless my brother has not been keeping me up-to-date with family news, my new-born niece still has no name.

The boy reckons that Morgan would be a good name. He's a pagan and well-read in the old English beliefs, so it didn't surprise me; to me, Morgan was the sorceress who succeeded in defeating King Arthur. Outside of the Arthuric legends, she was probably an extremely powerful woman - perhaps a demigod. For some reason, when I try to picture her I get images of Medea (also an extremely powerful sorceress of divine parentage). A good name, I think.

I also think Josephine would be a good name. It's because her brother is called Benjaman, which is also an old-fashioned, multi-syllabic name. But I didn't choose it because of any association with historic or mythic Josephines (the only one I can think of is Napoleon's lover, and she doesn't sound like a particularly strong character); maybe it's because there aren't any negative associations - with me anyway.

Wickedness in Rome, weirdness in small-town America and vampires in LA

I have a bit of an entertainment overload going on this week; last Sunday we got out Parts I and II of that ultra-fab BBC tv series from the Eighties, I, Claudius, plus Parts I and II of Twin Peaks (of which I saw only the pilot, which I loved).

I've only just finished watching the I, Claudius (based on the book by Robert Graves) episodes, which culminate in the death of the cunning and evil Livia - she who poisoned most of her family in order to ensure her son's rise to the position of Caesar. It was so very cool to watch when it first aired (I can't even remember how old I must have been - young), and just as cool to watch it again now. Those Romans sure were nasty folk.

Anyway, the boy came home tonight with the recordings of the rest of the Angel series, which had been screening on TV4 before it was rudely pulled from air (the tv channel, that is). So, not only do I have to watch several hours of Twin Peaks before the DVDs are due back at the video shop on Sunday (that gives me only two days because we're going out to see that Brad extravaganza, Troy, tomorrow evening); I also have to (really, really, have to) watch the Angel episodes because..well..because I'm a fan and I want to know what happens.

This is making it very hard for me to find time to study and do my assignment.

All hyped up

When I arrived at work this morning, I thought 'hmm, M had better get his '60th Anniversary of D-Day' display up. It's already 2 days off schedule'. I also thought that my boss had better get her A into G regarding her display for Arbor Day/World Environment Day. Ten minutes later, I'd somehow agreed to do put up both displays for them.

I was supposed to be on desk duty from 10-11, then spend the next hour selecting a ton of books for the mobile library customers (each with their very own taste in literature).

Instead I spent both hours:
-picking staples out of two display boards with a dinner knife
-staple-gunning a stack of photos, maps, flags and D-Day stuff onto a curved, overly-hard display board (plus a display of large and unwieldy books on the subject)
-sorting through a dozen posters, photos, and Maori-language leaflets for the Arbor Day display
-creating a last minute banner for the latter, and printing off some explanatory text which I plagiarised from the Department of Conservation website (sorry DoC, I will add a citation when I can get around to it)

I was all hyped up, so much so that even my bladder was getting into the swing of things (provoking severe anxiety about a possible UTI - not very convenient when I'm due to be on the toilet-less bus all afternoon).

By the time I took an early lunch break, that feeling of urgency was mingled with those low-blood-sugar shakes I get whenever I let myself get too hungry. Six heated up won tons later, my stomach was full but I still felt all hyper. So instead of doing some study, or surfing the 'Net, I did some more work.

The afternoon bus round was much more relaxing, but by the time I'd got to the gym...My fifteen minutes of warm-up on the stationery bike was more like a long sprint.

Now, finally, at 9.37pm and after several minutes of frantic typing, I think I'm almost relaxed. I just have to do an hour of study first.

Cheap DVD players

We've had a few instances at the library where the patron returns a brand-new DVD (say, Finding Nemo or Pirates of the Caribbean), claiming that the product (which he paid five bucks to rent) won't play on his perfectly functioning DVD-player.

Well I know from experience that it's probably because his player is a cheap'n'nasty. We used to have a cheapie one at home, and encountered the same problem - always only with the brand new DVDs. The boy always fixed it by spitting on the DVD and rubbing on it with a bit of cloth (whatever he was wearing at the time). Now that he's splashed out on a more expensive Sanyo, we don't get this problem at all.

Well, I wasn't going to tell today's complainant to spit on the library's DVDs - who knows what abrasive fabrics he'll be wearing when the occasion arises - but I did try to find out whether he was the owner of an el cheapo DVD player. Perhaps he was just proud, or maybe he really does have a 'good' player, but he wouldn't own up to having a cheap'n'nasty.

So the result was that I'm taking two copies of Pirates home to try them out on the DVD player at home. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that his copy was a replacement copy; he'd already found the previous one faulty in exactly the same way.

What a pity it wasn't a movie that we haven't already got a copy of. I wouldn't mind seeing The Office again, and the boy refuses to buy it on DVD because watching it makes him squirm and stress. He reckons its too real to be funny!

sunset

Driving from the main library to the branch early this evening, I encountered an absolutely gorgeous sunset. The sky was still a vivid azure blue, and the feathery clouds were all orangey, yellow and pink, with purpley bits. Just before I turned off into a different direction, the sky and clouds were offset by the dark hills directly in front, and all I could think was - wow.

I thought all the best sunsets were caused by air pollution.

The ex-wife

We decided that we want to go to New York for my holidays, because the boy wants to see his daughter and I want to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art (amongst other things). It'll be expensive due to the exchange rate, and slightly risky due to the possibility of being hijacked and crashed into a tall building (or similar), but it'd be damn exciting. And it's summer over there too.

There is one small obstacle. The boy's ex, and the mother of his daughter, objects hideously to my presence in her city. This is because he and I got together really soon after the two of them split up, and she therefore has lots of bitter and twisty feelings about me. Other than that, it seems to me that she's being utterly unreasonable. He is the litle girl's father, after all, and it isn't even as though I was planning on visiting her with him. I was expecting to be wandering around a museum, art gallery or department store while he and his daughter get re-aquainted. And that pisses me off a little, that she can make such a fuss and he'll actually take notice of what she wants even when it makes no sense.

the year ahead

I had my performance review this morning. I'd already had a look at what my boss had written down about my work, and I'd interpreted them as criticisms i.e. things I wasn't doing enough of. During the actual meeting, it turned out that some of those things weren't criticisms at all but were in fact praise for what I was already doing right.

So for the next 12 months I can look forward to an increase in systems-type work, which means looking after the website, the iPac computers etc. This is fine by me, I'm reasonably au fait with that kind of thing and it's useful experience if I want to be a systems librarian or web content manager.

I realised last night that I have only two more weeks to complete my assignement, a report on whether it would be a good idea to have a professional association for information managers of all disciplines e.g. archivists, librarians etc. It's not a subject particulary close to my heart, but if I can produce something which is readable and useful then maybe I can be proud of my writing ability :-)

That documentary on David Lynch

I was watching Pretty as a picture last night, the doco on Lynch. I was a bit disappointed at how boring it was. The highlights were the excerpts from his very early short films, Eraserhead (still my favourite), Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and Lost Highway (the most recent of his films which was mentioned in the documentary). Other than that, the only interesting bit was the sight of Lynch looking like a cross between a rockabilly musician and a member of The Cure.

Maybe if Lynch had directed a documentary about himself it would have been much more fun to watch.

It has, however, reminded me that I would really like to rent the videos/DVDs of the Twin Peaks series. Back in the 90's, I only managed to see the very weird and wonderful pilot movie (on video); I hadn't been able to receive the channel which screened the series and never got around to getting someone to tape it for me. Or maybe I can get the boy to buy the DVDs for an early birthday prezzie...

How to spot a clucky woman

We went over to my brother's place today - my mother, my boy and I - to see my brand new niece. She's only two days old, and really quite tiny. She was sleeping at the time, and her face went through all sorts of grimaces and smiles (she smiled when my mother placed a red envelope, containing lucky money, on her chest - the boy said it was the Cantonese half that smiled).

My niece still hasn't got an English name, although my mother has already received a list of possible Chinese names. The problem is this - the actual names are written in Chinese, and these are translated into English meanings, but none of us can read Chinese well enough to know how to pronounce them. So we have to find someone who can read the names while I try to get the sounds down in English.

I quite like the name Isabel, myself.

Afterwards, the boy and I went into town for a spot of 'bimbling' (this is apparently an English word which means rambling about town with no particular purpose). I tried to look for a copy of The Golden Bough, which was recommended to me by a library customer interested in folklore and mythology. It wasn't to be found though, so I satisfied myself with a copy of Philip Pullman's Northern Lights. I couldn't help noticing the various babies and toddlers with their bimbling parents; I am definitely getting clucky.

Work whines

In three weeks time, I will be on the verge of my holiday. And in less than two weeks time, A will be back from her world trip which means that I will no longer be on the library bus four days out of five. This is significant for two reasons:

1. I will be able to dress in clothes and footwear which are quite impractical for doing the bus run. I'll be able to wear my flashy boots, and skirts even. It must be the Trinny and Susannah influence.

2. After A gets back, I will not have to do the Thursday morning bus run any more (unless the roster changes, which it might). This means that lust-lorn Mr M will not be able to gaze at me (his object of lust) any more. Whew!

I'm getting my first performance review on Monday. I really really hate performance reviews. No matter how many positive comments are in there about my work, there's always something in there which I can improve on. This is no doubt par for the course for most employees. I, however, am a bit sensitive with criticism, even when it is wholly constructive. That's just one of those personal foibles of mine (I just love that word, foible).

I can see already that I'll get one of those remarks about how I should be more proactive. I know I can be proactive; just that many tasks are too uninteresting to me, for me to be proactive about. I was the one who thought of creating a bookmark for newcomers to chicklit, after all. Too bad no-one liked my idea of celebrating Library Week by coming to work a la librarian (hair in a bun, granny glasses, tweed skirts - even the guys).

Dressing like a librarian

I was watching Extreme Makeover last night (as you do), and one of the candidates was a young librarian in Colorado. She had lots of fat sucked from her cheeks, one eye de-drooped, lasik eye surgury to correct her vision, liposuction on her tummy and something done to her face to fix her acne.

She also dressed kind of frumpily, in the most boring trousers-and-shirt combos imaginable. Apologetically, she said she dressed like a librarian. I choked a little, thinking that Well-dressed Librarian wouldn't be very kind to her for saying that. So the rest of her makeover consisted of makeup (which she never wore), a haircut (to chop off the hair which was hiding the acne) and a bit of What Not To Wear-style dressing i.e. femininity-plus by way of dresses and heels.
In the end, I think she was just dressing like a normal person.

Boy, was there a lot of fat in her cheeks.

Libraries - the good, the funny and the dodgy

I'm in a pleasant mood today. I've decided that I have made the right choice in doing what I'm doing. I just have to be patient and remember what it's all about, and stop eating cake and sweets all the time (it's probably what's making me tired all the time).

Library humour - here's an article about the new alphabet, which is a chortle-inducing exercise in political correctness. Brought to you by the Warrior Librarian.

I have an admirer. Mr M is a regular patron of the library bus; he was ever so concerned one Thursday morning when my shift was taken over due to my being sick (actually I had to take my mum to the doctor). Next time I saw him, he was all smiles and put his hand on my wrist as he told me he hoped I was feeling better. This morning, Mr M asked me whether I live in the area - his disapointment was visible when the answer was 'no'. He admitted he was hoping to come and visit me. I told him that my boyfriend would not appreciate the competition.

Oh, did I forget to mention that Mr M is seventy years old, has never been married and currently works part-time as a caretaker at a local primary school? Anyway...

'What about A**? She's married but she's more your age', I suggested. Apparently A** is too old for him (she's in her forties I think).

It was all very sweet until, just before he left, he boldly said that I 'excite' him...

a creative burst

With so much time being spent driving the library bus, I haven't had much chance to do anything creative or interesting. This morning I did get to spend a couple of hours doing something fun. I was getting stuff for a display on the Maori New Year, which is called Matariki. It's at the first new moon after the first sighting of The Pleiades, which is 18th of June this year. I went to the observatory on the way to work, and chatted to a really nice young guy about his posters, then went to work and looked Matariki up on the Internet for more ideas and information. Display work and reference work are definitely the highlights of my job. If they were all I had to do I think I'd be almost totally happy with my job (except for the long commute and the low pay).

Last night my boy and I had a long discussion about my ever-changing attitude to my career choice. He played devils advocate to my defense over why I don't have to be a library assistant in a public library to in order to become an information professional. I said there are lots of careers which are information-related. He said well, everything is information-related, so it's a meaningless description of a career. He was probably right.

It's time for one of those positive-thinking lists

Because I've been a bit down lately, I'm compiling a list of things I should be thankful for or happy about:

1. I'm about to get a niece
2. I have two weeks holiday coming up
3. My gym workouts are working, and I can now where sleeveless tops without shame (except it's now verging on Winter)
4. I can wear full-length boots and they look damn good
5. I'm an A-student (though there's been only one assignment thus far)
6. My boyfriend is still yummy and still claims he'd drink my bathwater
7. My ears are clean and wax-free
8. I'm confident that I can get a better, and better-paid, job if I want to.
9. My mother hasn't asked to live with me yet, and it's my brother's duty anyway
10. I've got new friends (as well as the old ones)

Better stop there, before the gods come and take me away. (Umm..that's supposed to be the reason why Chinese parents don't ever praise their children in front of them; in case the gods punish the parents for their pride by kidnapping the offspring. Either that or I really can't make 'em happy.)

When the aftermath is worse than the math

I had a bit of a cry last night – I won’t go into details – and I’m still suffering from it now. This morning, the eyes were still a bit puffy (having bee-stung lips may look sexy, but bee-stung eyes are not). Now it’s the following evening, and I still have the headache and the burning in the eyes. It’s as though my eyes are allergic to tears, or something.

Boring movies

We watched the second Charlie's Angels vid last night. I thought the first one was dumb. But for the sequal I decided to approach it as a silly movie. I'd been talking to one of my classmates about film reviewing according to genre, and Charlie's Angels should be viewed as a silly movie rather than an intelligent one.

Unfortunately, this didn't help me to enjoy the movie any more than before. It was obviously supposed to be over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek, but I thought it went too far. The Angels were like a trio of Lara Crofts - they were two dimensional and you didn't have to care who won the fights because you knew that they weren't going to die (or even get their hair mussed).

The second movie we got from the video shop is more promising; it's a documentary on David Lynch.

A veritable maze

I went to visit my sister-in-law this afternoon, who's pregnant and due to be induced in a couple of days.  The hospital is quite close to my house, so it was a matter of minutes to get to the closest entrance.  Getting the rest of the way to her ward however, was another matter.

 

There are several tower blocks, all connected by corridors (or tunnels); each has multiple entrances, and the interior of each is, well, clinical.  Identically pale plaster walls, pale lino floors; floors which are lettered rather than numbered; arrows which point to a promising location, only to mysteriously lead one to a large sign which says 'Unauthorised persons prohibited'.

 

The hospital interior would be an excellent site for an orienteering competition.  For people like me, who cannot read maps and have no sense of direction, it's an anxiety-inducing exercise.  I started to wonder whether it was possible for someone to live at the hospital without anyone ever finding them.

 

Luckily, I'm not averse to asking for directions.  After the third ask, I was able to find my way to the tunnel which connects to the right tower block, get to the right floor, the right ward, and the right cubicle.  She wasn't there.  She caught my eye from the tv lounge, and my journey was over.  My sister-in-law was pleased to see me and my pile of glossy magazines, though they weren't going to give her quite as much pleasure as the one in her hand - a Woman's Idea (or something), the cover of which featured a picture of a starlet in full pregancy-mode puffiness.  It's true - we females do enjoy seeing celebrity beauties at their physical worst.

Bloody bank fees

I didn't really appreciate the perks of working in a bank until after I left my bank job. Since then, I'm become ultra-aware of the humungous amounts of money bank customers are being charged, for the privilege of leaving their money with someone who gets to use it to make even more money. I was only two measly days late with paying my credit card bill (in full). Two measly days, and I got charged about twenty bucks interest.

And another thing - banks use lousy grammer. I saw a poster advertising some bank, and it read 'Pay less fees'. Surely it should be 'Pay smaller fees' or 'Pay fewer fees'? Besides, I think it's aimed at the under-30s, so perhaps it should be in 'txt' anyway.

a common personality

I was flicking through a book based on Myers-Briggs personality types, and it seems that I am an ESFJ. This means I'm a nice, caring person who likes to organise things in advance and get things done. No surprises that there are heaps more female ESFJs than male.

How boring. I don't mind being extroverted, but I'd rather be flighty and exciting than reliable and organised. People I know who are the former get to lead interesting lives and be able to manipulate people into doing their dirty work for them. I do dirty work because it has to be done.

It must be time for an extreme personality make-over.

photoblogging and sleep-talking

Hmm..I just had a go at the new free photoblogging facility. I had to download Hello first, and then I wasn't too sure how to use it. But second time lucky, eh?

I never realised I talked in my sleep. I know my brother does; I remember when we were kids sharing a bedroom he used to talk in his sleep. Last night I apparently had a whole conversation with my boy while we were both in bed and I was fast asleep. Actually, I do remember trying to say 'the books are at Central' a couple of times before vaguely realising I was asleep, and then letting myself doze off again.

So it seems I'm still dreaming of work.

OOh - my mum phoned up tonight to tell me that my heavily pregnant sister-in-law is in hospital and they're going to induce the birth on Monday. I'm going to have a niece! I hope that doesn't stuff up my plans to go on holiday in four week's time.

Let's try that again. 

Here's a life drawing I did way back. 

Holidays

I managed to get two weeks holiday for mid-June until early July, which falls right in the middle of the study break between trimesters one and two. It's also one week after one of my work mates gets back from her enviably long world trip (six weeks, but it feels longer - to me anyway). That way there'll still be 3 bus-driving library people, and my boss won't have any worries about who'll do my bus run while I'm away.

So now we just have to work out how to spend this precious non-work time. I thought it would be a good opportunity to show my boy the South Island. He thinks it would be a great time to go to New York to see his daughter from his previous relationship. I have no problems with him seeing his daughter, especially in New York; I've always wanted to visit there and see all the museums and art galleries. However, since there's still more or less a war on between the US and Iraq (and possibly other anti-US groups), I'm not sure it's a good idea to be in the States - especially on a plane. Perhaps the air fares will be a little lower, if everyone has the same worry. Perhaps any discounting will be offset by increases in travel insurance and security-related surcharges.

Do you think we should take the chance and go to New York? Or stay in New Zealand?

Having a 'senior' moment

My friends and I used to joke about having 'blonde' moments, but perhaps it's a little more appropriate now to be joking about having 'senior' moments. At my age, even natural blondes would have darkened to dirty blonde.

This morning I arrived, with the library bus, at the first stop. It's a long stop, from 9.30am till 10.40am. As soon as the door opened, I was inundated with a class full of young kids (plus a few brave adults). Once they'd left, I had a quick look at the time (it was 9.45), then a look at the timetable, to check how long I had there. I saw 10.40am, yet for some reason my brain told me the bus had to leave at 9.40am. Silly me rushed all the loose returned books onto empty shelves and the bus roared into action. I'd gone several blocks before my brain actually started working and told me that that had been a suspiciously short stop.

So it's true what I read somewhere about how we process the information we read. Apparently, when we read something we believe it and then analyse it. And the faster we take in information, the worse it is. I must slow down my reading.

Asian woman driver fulfills stereotype

That's me, though it only happened once - today (normally I drive as well as everyone thinks they drive). Every Wednesday afternoon around 3pm, I take the library bus to the parking lot of the New World supermarket. There are four car parks there which are designated for the library bus, and this is marked by a small, high sign posted on an adjacent pole.

Usually the designated space is occupied, and usually by only one car; this is obviously enough to make it impossible for me to park the bus there, and I end up stopping alongside a fence at the far end of the parking lot. (This is when I get out the pink slip advising the driver that he should just leave the damn space for the community service which his rates have paid for, and put it on his windscreen).

A couple of weeks ago, I thought I would get my second-ever opportunity to park in the proper place. But just as I swerved around to get there, a shopper swooped in and took one of those four parks. I decided it was too much trouble to stop the bus right where I was (and maybe hold up traffic) to tell the driver to leave; so I simply parked at the usual back-up place.

Well, this afternoon I was really excited to discover another one of those opportunities. The whole four spaces where completely vacant. And in the excitement, I didn't quite swerve around enough to allow me to position the bus in the right place. I ended up backing up, driving forward onto the kerb, backing out again, driving forward onto the kerb, etc. I must've beeen shifting backwards and forwards for five or six minutes. I found it funny, but only because I could laugh about it with the workmate doing the shift with me. If I'd been on my own I would've been really embarrassed, especially because a bunch of supermarket boys were having their coffee break and watching, just a few feet away.

Just so you know, I got the bus there in the end.

Shakespearean insults galore

Yes, that's right, thou currish pox-marked mumble-news! I had this program on my work computer once upon a time; now you can get it on-line.

Relief all 'round and rewarding reads

I got home last night and fetched my marked assignment from the mail box, opened it and....I got an 'A'! It was really hard trying to guess how well it'd gone, since this is the first post-grad thing I've ever done. Phew! Nice to know I'm up there with the smart dudes.

I've just started reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, on my boy's recommendation. I haven't had much luck with his recommendations - I was bored with Clive Barker's Neverwhere, and thought H.P. Lovecraft was a little hard going style-wise. But because I so thoroughly enjoyed the Garth Nix books, then Gaiman gets a go. Even though I didn't get into Gaiman's Stardust. So far, its quite intriguing; freshly-released ex-con Shadow finds on his first day out that his wife has died and that the friend who's promised him a job has also died. Then he's told that they died together. All this information is being conveyed to him by a mysterious Mr Wednesday (how bizarre - I just finished reading a book called Mr Monday) who seems to know where Shadow's going to be before Shadow would possibly know himself. I think this might be a goodie.

Kids are crafty

Kids at the library are starting to take advantage of the fact that they can get up to five free photocopies from reference material, as well as free info printed off the Internet (printed by whoever's on the Desk, that is).

They used to just ask for books about Einstein, the history of muffins, rabbits, or whatever, then pay 20c per photocopy. Now they ask for Internet pictures, or pictures in reference books only. Show 'em a lending copy of a book with fabulous pictures, and they just don't want to know. Kids of today, eh?

Assignments

Our first assignments for my course have been marked, and were available to be picked up today. By the time I'd got there to pick mine up, I'd already heard that one classmate had gotten a C, and another an A-. Apparently mine has been posted to me, because the school had enrolled me as a distance student. Which means two things:
1. I won't find out my grade until 9pm tonight (because I'm working late), and
2. I've probably paid the higher fees, if I'm down as a distance student. It also means that I could've gotten library materials posted to me for no extra charge.

joy

I just found out my blog is listed on Tiny Little Librarian's blogroll. That's like getting myself mentioned on tv or something. Wow.

van Helsing not tongue-in-cheeky enough

My boy and I went to see a matinee screening of van Helsing yesterday - I thought it would be a bit of a laugh, in the vein of The Mummy and he generally just likes to go and see crap movies(!).

Well, it wasn't that much in the vein of The Mummy, because it didn't have enough tongue-in-cheekiness about it. Okay, there's a bit very near the end, when the hero holds the limp heroine (played by Kate Beckinsale in yet another vampire movie role) and it all looks so Mills and Boon. And van Helsing the man does look a bit Fabio at times - when he's about to change into a monster he rips his shirt off beforehand. They do that thing where the hero's travels are illustrated by a little black line running through a big map, that's camp I suppose. Dracula's brides are very B-movie - all blondeness and bustiness and inappropriately clothed for the Romanian climate. Some of the back-drops look a bit cartoon-y, but that might also be a subtle nod to 50's cinema.

Other than that, the special effects are pretty good, as you'd expect; Dracula looks like an evil Doctor Kovac (the spunky Eastern European staff member of ER); there's Mr Hyde who looks like a less-cute Shrek; a naughty Friar who's a medieval Q (of the Bond movies), and of course a feisty heroine who can leap and fight despite wearing a very tight corset over a little top which makes her look like her boobies are hanging out.

Could Troy be any worse, I wonder?

Rave for Raybon

I didn't get around to reading Raybon Kan's new book, which I bought yesterday, because we spent most of last night on Buffy-related activities. This means that we watched about six episodes from the first series, followed by an attempt to play the Buffy board game which my boy bought yesterday. He's a game freak and I'm almost allergic to them, so no surprises that his Evil (represented by the Master) won against my Scooby gang by turning Buffy into a vamp.

But I did get to start reading 'An Asian at my table' over toast this morning, and ... its a rave. I so wish I could write like him.

Memorable quote #1:
On the Dalai Lama's visit to NZ,
"His main message seeems to be that anger and fear should be rejected. 'Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate - hate leads to the Dark Side.' No, that was Yoda. But is he just Yoda without the light sabre? Perhaps Kundun should have been called Dalai Lama Episode 14: Attack of the Chinese."

Memorable quote #2:
On the public's perception that there are too many Asian immigrants in NZ, and one writer's view that Asian immigrants don't try to assimilate,
"...nobody ever went to another person's country aiming to assimilate. I think anyone with any kind of dignity holds things dear: language, cultural rituals, photographs. Would you ask Kiwis who live abroad to stop supporting the All Blacks?"

Memorable quote #3:
On asthma,
"How can you possibly be at one with the universe when you're incompatible with air? When I see a green meadow, I don't see a place for lovers to run. I see a meadow of mass destruction."

Lost for words. Or something

Dang! I'm supposed to do a 2500-word report for my course, on whether or not its a good a idea to have a professional association for all information professionals (librarian's, archivists, records managers etc) - the pros'n'cons and all that.

I typed in everything I could think of and everything I had notes on. My word count is - 756.

You say poe-tay-toe, I say poe-tar-toe...

We went shopping today, and it's reminded me of the wild difference in our views on money:

Me - take sandwiches to work, eat leftovers, don't pay for parking if at all possible, try to save $20 per pay
He - takes sandwiches to work but only if I made them for him, deliberately avoids collecting loyalty card points, pays for parking because its easier, doesn't have a savings account

My idea of a big buy - a book (because I should wait for it to be available at the library), clothes unless they are on sale or bought from an el cheapo shop.
His idea of a big buy - I hate to think. This guy bought the Buffy the Vampire Slayer board game, on a whim, for over 100 bucks. Just because.

They say that financial disagreements are a major cause of relationship breakup. I reckon we're simply complementary.

The book I bought today was Raybon Kan's, 'An Asian at my table'. If you haven't lived in NZ, you won't know who Raybon is. This strangely named fellow is the Chinese New Zealander's answer to...um... Woody Allen. I mean, he's a comedian. (As far as I know, Raybon has no adopted kids, let alone a wife who used to be one.) He's the only Chinese comedian I know of, and I like him best when he talks about the Chinese experience. Also, he just has great titles for his stand-up shows (for example, the book title which is a piss-take of the world-famous-in-New-Zealand autobiography by Janet Frame, An Angel at my table).

My boy happily spent over an hour unpacking the Slayer game (he hopes that my being a Buffy fan will cause me to overcome my natural aversion to games), and didn't even try to rope me in for a warm-up game.

More Buffy stuff to add to the collection

It's called Slayerblog, and you can compare her views on various Angel episodes to your own...

It's certainly a time for blockbuster, epic Hollywood movies

Our hopes of seeing 'Van Helsing' last weekend were dashed, and the consolation prize (buying a discounted copy of 'Altered States') turned out to be a booby prize (interesting concept is over-stretched and becomes both incomprehensible and boring). 'Troy' might be the next movie we try to see. No doubt it'll be sold out in it's first weekend too, after all Brad's gotten pretty muscley for his role. And Orlando gets to be the lover-boy. I want to know how the Trojan-horse thing looks, and whether Helen gets to show that she's got goddess in her genes.

I think it might be time to put my old self-image, as a film-snob, to rest...

And people ask us library staff what we read in our spare time...

Gossip mags, mostly. Four newish ones arrived on the staffroom table this morning, curtesy of one of the cataloguers. My lunchtime was originally earmarked for a period of stolid study. It was instead given over to exclamations over: how Kirsty Alley has got, how thin Sophie Dahl is now and how envious we are of Salma Hayek, who is 37, doesn't exercise, eats what she likes and looks like a goddess.

like a petulant child

I so hate being told off, especially when it was completely called for. Like today, when I had an emergency and called work to say I wouldn’t be in for the morning at least. I was supposed to take the bus out this morning, and it was a full-on day event-wise, so my call was disruptive to say the least. Apparently there were fights, missed meetings and messed schedules – maybe even swear words. I did have a good excuse, really. But yeah, I did mess up by not telling them earlier in the day; maybe if I had they would have been able to sort something out more tidily (less arguing, postponed meetings and rearranged schedules).

So when this morning’s mobile librarian replacement confronted me to tell me what I did wrong, I felt like I was a bad person. She was right and I was wrong, but I couldn’t take the criticism on the chin. It might have something to do with fear of failure, averse-ness to risk-taking and occasional defensiveness. I blame my mother, of course.

Why I'd make a hopeless hostage negotiator

We don't get that many 'incidents' at the library, and - until yesterday - had never been involved in one personally.

That afternoon, I did the library bus thing, doing the rounds of the retirement villages and rest homes. I took with me a young assistant, a school girl doing work experience.

Our third stop was outside a rest home; the residents are mainly retired nuns and priests, and of course non-residents come on board and get all social. It gets quite busy because there are lots of customers and many of them need a hand with the steps and the books.

A young-ish, scruffy-looking guy, reeking of alcohol and loud of voice, came on board and told us he wanted a card. I got my assistant to hand him a registration form and tell him we had to see proof of ID and proof of address. He went home to get his IDs. He came back with 3 ID cars, but none of them included a proof of address. I told him so, but he just grizzled and complaints from him. The customers made disapproving noises. After more grizzling, he announced that he was a member of the library. So why was he asking for a new membership? Oh - he just wanted a replacement card. So I told him we could give him a replacement card for $2. Suprisingly, he continued to grizzle, complaining that he had 3 IDs and should be allowed to take out books. Confusion took over, and I binned his registration form and tended to the soberer customers.

Anyway, time came for us to drive to the next stop and he wouldn't leave. He stalked around the bus, looking at books. We called the police. The police came. We removed a library book from his hand. He left the bus.

The crux of the story is, even though he was a bit drunk, I probably could have handled it better so that he'd either get what he wanted or leave peacefully. I think some of my call-centre ex-workmates could have done it, they get complaining customers all the time. I let myself get offended and ended up getting the police involved.

slave driver wanted

During the winter, the branch library is staffed by two people during the evenings - that's me and Sue. It's quite a nice change to be working with just one other person, and because I'm an Information person and she's a Circulation person I get to be the shift leader. I've come to realise that she's been expecting - no, wanting - me to keep her busy. At first, when she mentioned how busy other shift leaders kept her, I thought she was complaining. I actually quite like the quiet periods because that's when I get to surf the Internet (to look for potential links for the library web site of course) and check out the book and magazine collections. But last night we were both busy; culling books for rotation back to the central library,looking for missing books, serving customers etc. She was pretty happy about it, too. So it looks as though I'm going to be a real taskmaster. This morning, Sue told me I was a slave driver - I took it as a complement.

squeamish me

I've just been watching 'Cold Case', and there was a scene right near the end where a gang of white trash rape a young black woman in her own kitchen. I had to switch channels for a few minutes. I reacted the same way during a scene in Peter Greenaway's 'The baby of Macon' (I didn't see the whole movie, just a few scenes in an interview with Greenaway), in which a girl is raped by an endless line of soldiers as a form of punishment (long story).

Rape scenes just really upset me, though not because of any personal experience with it on my part. I just empathise with the victim and feel really bad. Murder scenes don't have the same effect, even torture scenes (unless they are sexual). I wonder why that is. Is it because, as a female, I'm highly aware of my vulnerability to an attack of this kind - one which most males would never feel threatened with?

not a great pretender

I googled my blog URL, and found myself in a list of Buffy-related sites. It made me feel slightly guilty, because even though I really am a Buffy fan I don't blog much about it. So to make up for it here's a link to a NZ site on Emma Caulfield, who plays Anya (ex-revenge demon, then second-time revenge demon).

who'd want to read about gangs?

A guy came by the Information Desk wanting to find a book called 'Staunch', about gangs. I found it for him, and almost asked him whether he was wanting to join one. He didn't look like the studious type. About twenty minutes later, a woman came to the desk asking for books on gangs. Hmmm.. I found the other three books we had on gangs, and she took them all. It turned out that she and the guy were together. They looked through those books as though they were looking for family members in a school journal. I wouldn't want to make assumptions, it's so un-librarian-like isn't it?

The Locals

'The Locals' is a NZ-made movie which I've been wanting to see ever since it's cinema release. Finally, I got the DVD from the video shop. We were pretty impressed with this thriller, since it was neither embarrassingly parochial nor try-hard Hollywood-style. It was slick, clever and had a plot twist which even my boy didn't figure out until the end. It's about two city lads who've taken off to the country for the weekend, get lost, get their car stuck, witness a murder and become fugitives chased by the murderer and his posse.

We followed this up with Charlie Kaufman's 'Human Nature', which was really weird in a silly and endearing sort of way. I didn't recognise Miranda Otto as the pseudo-French lab assistant until I saw her name in the credits! Quite a nice play on the whole noble-savage/Pygmalion/back-to-Nature theme, with some connections to Being John Malkovich's Cameron Diaz character.

Ear wax begone!

It's been a couple of months since I was told by a doctor (not my usual one) that my ears were 95% and 90% full of wax, respectively. I didn't feel deaf, though occasionally I'd mishear someone so badly they got all exasperated and impatient with me. Being a nice girl who doesn't like to annoy people, I decided I'd better make an appointment to get them syringed.

That was two weeks ago. I started using that wax-dissolving stuff for a few days, then rang the clinic to make an appointment for the Saturday. Unfortunately, I couldn't get an appointment for that day. It had to be a Saturday, since during the week I work in another city, so I’d have to wait for the following Saturday. This meant I had another week and a half of using the wax-dissolving stuff in my ears. You see, that stuff fills up my ear cavities and makes me even deafer.

The day came for the syringing, and lo and behold their syringe gun was out of order. I must have looked really disappointed, because the doctor took pity on me and spent the next hour patiently scraping my ears and syringing them with a 50 ml (normal) syringe. My God, those bits of wax were ugly. And big.

And suddenly I could hear everything, from the squawks of the kiddies in the waiting room several doors down to the slight squeak of the nurse’s shoes on the floor.

Apparently, my ears produce far more wax than normal and I should get them cleaned out 2-4 times a year. How come no doctor has ever told me this before???

How to be practical on Mother's Day

When I was growing up, I used to try really hard to get my mum nice presents.

One time, I bought her a pretty set of candlesticks and a candlestick holder. A Chinese friend told me that giving Mum candlesticks would be a really bad idea because they symbolise mortality and death (or something like that).

Another time, I spent all my pocket money on a tiny pair of earrings - all I could afford, but the best I could afford. When she opened up the package and saw them, Mum told me straight out that they weren't very nice. A few days later, when she was out shopping with me, she took them to a second hand shop and sold them for five dollars.

Once I started working, I was able to get her more expensive presents. One Christmas, I bought her a hundred-dollar bathrobe. It was soft, red (her favourite colour I thought) and luxurious. It hung in the wardrobe, unused. At least she didn't trash it.

Then I caught on to buying her food items. She loves oysters, so if the gift-giving occasion coincided with the Bluff oyster season, my brother and I would go halves on three-dozen oysters. Success.

I've gotten more practical as I've gotten older (horror of horrors, I am turning into my mother). In the last few years, I've given her either money or hair-care products (which she has specified). And she's perfectly happy.

From too little exposure to too much?

Now that I'm not only a library worker, but also a library student, I have joined the national library and information association. The other day I received the latest issue of their monthly magazine in the mail, and when I got to page 26 I saw they'd published a list of the association's newest members.

Eager to see my name in print (it doesn't happen very often), I scanned the list for my name.
I saw ...my surname...and the name of my hometown beside it...but someone had put my first name down as 'Vanya'.

I immediately sent off an e-mail to the editor, to let her know of the mistake. I also added at the end some small remark about the poor library-assistant salaries being a bone of contention for librarian-wannabees like me.

Now it looks like I've sort of committed myself to writing a proper Letter to the Editor on the subject. How do I do this honestly, without pissing off anyone in the industry i.e. workmates and employers, both current and potential?

Talking till I lost my voice

Lately, my boy and I have been having long, philosophical conversations; for no apparent reason. Last night, the DVD player stopped working, so we left the television on and talked continuously for at least an hour. I lost my voice, and even today I'm still a little hoarse.

I said something about something I'd read in Philosophy Now; how, if you're a relativist (who believes that if you believe it, then it is true), then you have to accept that the opposite is also true i.e. objectivsm - that things are either true or not, which is a logical fallacy (I think. It doesn't make logical sense, anyway).

So that turned into a discussion on religion. My boy said I should read 'American Gods', by Neil Gaimon - something about what divine beings do when people stop believing in them.

He said he disapproved of the fact that Asian immigrants tend to be under-represented in the military forces of their respective adopted countries. I said that if you get shat on as soon as you set foot on a new country, then you sure as hell aren't going to volunteer to die for it (this is true for Chinese, at least). Though there is also a cultural thing, at least with Chinese, where one's highest priority is to one's family - not to oneself, nor one's country).

The fact that my voice suffered so much must mean that my natural state is one of near-silence, or perhaps the need for a free-flowing supply of alcohol when discussing world stuff.

Rocking, rolling, riding...

It's a bit blustery today, and it makes the library bus rock. When it's stopped, and I'm waiting for the customers to show up, I take out 'Mr Monday' to read. But I get motion-sickness. Whenever the wind rocks the bus I have to quickly look away from the book and out the window, focussing my eyes on the bags of rubbish rolling up and down the street with the wind. Exciting stuff.

People who see Dead people

I've finished Garth Nix's 'Abhorsen' and I have to say it's such a triffic book.

Looking back over the whole trilogy, 'Sabriel' is a bit of a taster; it introduces the world and it's creatures, the magic and it's laws.

'Lirael' and 'Abhorsen' are one story broken over two books (a bit of a bummer if you can only find one of them).

'Lirael' was great because it introduced some great new characters; the heroine of the title, who should be a seer but can't; Sam, the son of the Abhorsen (the person who makes sure people stay dead, among other things), who seems unable to rise to his inherited position of Abhorsen-in-waiting; and the Disreputable Dog, a primordial magic creature who looks, acts and woofs like a dog.

In 'Abhorsen', the world is about to be destroyed, Lirael and Sam discover their true roles in life, we find out what the Disreputable Dog really is, and Mogget (an evil magic creature who has been enslaved to serve the Abhorsen, in the shape of a white cat) redeems himself.

The characters are so much more three-dimensional by the third novel. The Dead are more yucky, the good guys are more interesting and the evil ones are more scary. The trips into Death are fascinating (this Nix guy is amazinly imaginative!). Mogget does a 'Spike' - after having been a cat for thousands of years, he's come to like the world exactly as it is.

Other good things about the trilogy - his female characters are really strong (and no armoured-bikini in sight, but that might be because it's teen fiction) and their names are easy to pronounce (no strange hyphenated ones).

I'm hooked. I'm now reading 'Mister Monday', from his children's fantasy series 'The Keys to the Kingdom'.

Customer Service will be the death of me

Every Tuesday evening I 'man' our sole branch of the library, and I've been doing this since March. In the last few Tuesdays, I've noticed a particular customer who does little annoying things which bug me enough to comment about her.

Several Tuesdays ago, the woman came in with a pile of returned books. After checking them all in, there was still one book which hadn't come back and was overdue. She asked for it to be renewed for another three weeks. 'Fine', I said, 'but you'll still have to pay the overdue fee though'. However, I was prompted by the computer software, that it had already been renewed more than the limit (which is twice). I told her I could override it for her, but that she'd have to make sure she brought the book back by the new due date. Right after I renewed the book, I noticed that it had been renewed a total of four times already. 'Cheeky cow', I thought to myself. I put a note on her record that the book was definitely not to be renewed again.

Two Tuesdays ago, the same woman came back. She arrived with about fifteen books, just a couple of minutes before we were about to close the library for the evening. 'We're just closing', I said, trying not to sound pissed off. The woman stood there for another few minutes, looking at the shelves, before giving me the returns. Then she proceeded to contest an overdue fine for two Bestseller books. Bestsellers have large silver stickers on them, not only identifying them as such but also specifying the two-week lending period. You can't miss it. 'But the lady at the Issues desk told me I could have them for three weeks!' she exclaimed. I didn't waive the fine, but I just wanted to close up shop so I let it go.

Last night she came back, at a respectable time this time. She still contested the overdue fine on the Bestsellers. I waived it but warned her that I wouldn't believe her next time. I overcame the urge to get grumpy, mindful of what happens when you keep bottling up your anger.

Taking the scenic route home is turning out to be a mood-lifter

Last night, for the first time, I decided to take an indirect route home. I figured it would only add 5-10 minutes to my homeward journey and (for a change) the car wouldn't be idling for much of it.

So I was really pleased when I found that it didn't take any longer than when I take the direct route - the one with all the bottlenecks. I was so happy that I breezed through my gym session and wasn't grumpy at all. It's now mid-afternoon on the following day, and I'm still not grumpy. This is a big thing for me; grumpiness has been dogging me for months.

I was all happy and positive and chatty this morning at my class, too, and no longer felt negative about my career choice. I'll still be watching the job ads, but without that sense of desperation.

Being a Libra, I'm supposed to expect swings of mood and opinion - up until now I thought it was only my opinions which were subject to the see-saw movement; now I realise that's not all.

The two-year itch

As I wrote in one of my previous posts, I seem to get terribly interested in something for about two years, then go right off it. This has happened with my interests in yoga, karate, music, painting (well, it was getting that way before I became too busy anyway) etc. I fear that it may be happening with my career obsession too. I have only been in the business for less than a year, but I was quite interested in it for about a year before that - so that counts as a two-year thing.

I'm getting a bit sick of always being tired, doing the mindless tasks like photocopying, spending ages in traffic, having very little dosh to spend...

I'm starting to long for those (relatively) halcyon days when I was a 'suit', and was free to lunch with my friends, buy nice clothes, plan holidays, watch tv in the evenings and say bad things about technocretins.

I saw an ad in the paper in the weekend, for an information analyst. It sounded to me like a compromise between the seriousness of library work and the relatively easy hours of a government job. The pay would be better, even at the lowest grade. It's in town, so I'd be a short bus ride from home - thus saving at least half an hour of travel time per day. But it'd still be about finding information for people, helping them, perhaps even interepreting information for them. Perhaps the whole library thing isn't worth it for me, when I can get something similar without tears (not that it makes me cry).

28 Days Later

We just saw this movie on DVD. It's got shades of Resident Evil (people get infected and turn into red-eyed, ravenous zombies-things) and Lord of the Flies (except the boys are army men, have weapons and want women).

Don't read on if you haven't watched it yet and plan to...

It gets off to a slow start, with a mild-mannered bicycle courier named Jim waking up in hospital to find place deserted. He's taken in by a man and a woman (Selena); eventually it's him and Selena and a middle-aged guy and his teen daughter Hannah. Things become a little more exciting once the heroes meet up with the army boys (the ones with the weapons and the hormones).

It turns out that the army boys have been trying to lure women to their fortress (something about the men not being able to see any future unless they can impregnate someone).

It's pretty bloodthirsty, with plenty of machete-ing and bloody vomit. Jim the nice-guy ends up saving the females from rape - ironically, the way he kills all the bad guys makes him look as depraved as the zombies. Thank goodness it doesn't make his eyes go all bloodshot, or Selina would have machete-d him in mistaken self-defense.

Not a bad movie, but not worth the overnight rental.

Death of the traditional single-income family?

A woman wrote an open letter to our Prime Minister, describing her difficulty in making ends meet; she's got four kids, a medium-sized student loan and her husband (a teacher) earns a little more than the average NZ salary. Apparently their debt is growing by the month, even though they don't buy luxuries and moved to Waihi just so they could have a small mortgage. At first, her story made me feel sympathetic, because she's saying that there are plenty of tax breaks for the poor (and lots of ways for the rich to avoid paying taxes) but not much for the middle-class income-earners.

But then I thought - why on earth did she have kids right after finishing her degree and before she had a chance to save up any money? Why did she go on to have four of them?

Life is certainly more expensive than it would've been in the Sixties. However, perhaps this is because it is so much easier to spend your money these days. Few people make their own clothes or grow their own veges; lots more people have computers, internet accounts, mobile phones and overseas holidays. It's not necessarily cheaper to make your own clothes or grow your own produce, but it must be cheaper to make your meals from scratch than it is to buy takeaways, right?


And another thing - the newspaper article ran statistics on the percentage of families where the male is the sole bread-winner (the 'traditional' model), but there's no mention of families where the woman is the sole bread-winner...