Greetings

My Graceway Christmas Eve candle has kept us in a twirl all day...

May Hope, Faith, Love, Joy and Peace be yours.

Just Ribena...

Was greatly amused to see this article in today's herald, in light of this:

If it looks a little dated, that's because it was filmed back in 2004 in my classroom, when the girls were in year 10. The wheels of justice turn slowly, it seems. At least a year ago, one of them showed me some mail from the commerce commission, indicating that this court case was in the pipeline.

A critical note - the old "christmas tree" uniform is shown here - we have a new one now, much much more sleek. One of these girls has been elected head girl for 2007.

NZ Downunder

These 2 photos show NZ in the background of the Discovery astronauts on their 3rd spacewalk for the current mission to the Space Station.
The gap between the north and the south island:

And (?) Otago Peninsula

According to the article:

With the Land of the Long White Cloud 400 kilometres below them, American Robert Curbeam, and Swede Christer Fuglesang fix a damaged solar array. The accordian-like 34-metre array is supposed to fold up into a box when it is retracted.

oop nawth

I went for my first trip on a glass bottom boat today. It was fab.


















We were treated to a pair of whales diving - a mother and her calf.















Quintessential NZ summer.


















And then the reptile park. This gecko was irresistible!

wrapped up

...is what the term is. Well and truly. Speechifying done, dinners eaten, farewells over. I spoke briefly once today - farewelling someone who I think will be happier checking out the green grass elsewhere. One of those "determined to only say positive things" occasions. It was brief.

On the other hand, a couple of staff who have been teaching for many many years retired. One of these I can remember (hearing of) from my own school days - he taught at the "other" school in the town where I grew up, and he remembers you well, Helebabes!!!!!

I enjoyed most of the speeches, and we had some fab songs as well. Speaking of - one of our leaving staff composed a brilliant NZ summer/Christmas song a couple of weeks ago, which had it's world premiere at the junior prizegivings yesterday, and another outing at the staff dinner today. I hope he records it soon, I'd quite like to have it.

There's still need to wrap up a bit of paperwork before I can close the office door for the holidays, but I hope to be out of there by mid next week.

I was feeling a bit maudlin by the end of today, so a general blowing away of the cobwebs was in order - a plan was hatched, and a beach was targeted. A brisk and lengthy walk ensued, and the net result was a far more positive frame of mind all round. (Thankfully!)

Afterburn

Watched the shuttle go up, live on CNN & Fox (yes, I annoyed the cat by flicking between them). I've never actually watched it right through before, until the rockets separate, and it goes into orbit. Wow! It was a night liftoff, so was very impressive.

I was silly enough to sit on the front porch this morning chatting on the phone. Doh. I did it because it was warmer out than in. Far warmer than I realised - I didn't notice I had burnt until about 4pm, when it announced itself VERY loudly. I have very very silly looking hot red patches on the left side of my knees and forearms. Grrr.

all change

Feeling veeeery pleased tonight. For some time I've been considering selling off my sofa-bed as when extended it really was too large for the spare room. It is the most wonderfully comfy sofa to sit on, but this wasn't enough to convince me to keep it. The plan was to find a single divan bed with drawers to replace it with. So, I checked out trademe last weekend, and bid on a terrific bed and won it. Next task was to get quit of the sofabed, and in a fortunate turn of msn conversation with a friend that was rapidly accomplished. He's having visitors from England, and his current sofa was allegedly horrible.

So today was the big day - I hired the covered trailer, and an expedition was planned to Pukekohe to retrieve the bed. On waking I was only mildly concerned to see that it was absolutely HOSING down. It turned out to be one of those days when the weather changed frequently, and there was a fair amount of heat in the sun when it was out. We achieved acquiring the bed fine, and then the performance of getting the sofa-bed OUT began. Short version: It was tricky but we did it. The new secondhand bed is now installed and made up - fits perfectly in the available space, and further adventures were had installing the sofabed in it's new home. The door there was narrower, bizarrely.

Thanks to Lynda (tow-bar-car & muscle) and Graham (muscle and new owner) for all the effort and time :) Muchas appreciated.

early

I seem to be running early this morning - dunno how that happened - maybe cos I woke just before the alarm (as distinct from 2 hrs before the alarm, grrr, which is a more frequent occurence) and actually got up, rather than waiting for the news to wash over me. I've been crunching my way through appraisal interviews this week - never an easy task, and have had to mediate in another couple of touchy situations. I seem to be getting better at dealing with the tricky stuff, but it doesn't come naturally! If I've been able to stop a resignation from occuring (which remains to be seen) I'll be happier.

We had a huge turnover of deans and assistant deans recently, so when new appointments were made this week and 3 of my department were appointed to positions, suddenly a whole new crisis arose - we were already pretty thin in some areas of the timetable, but physics in particular is now stretched to it's limits!

So, this morning ties up my own appraisal - except my appraiser had lost all my papers when we last met on Wednesday, and I have one more tricky one to do myself. Yay to have that all out of the way a week before the end of term!

Challenge

On Saturday my brother didn't finish the Kepler, although he did start. This is significant because he was one of the last 2 who had managed 18 consecutive years since the race began. He had surgery on a knee back in September, and it wasn't well enough mended to allow him to get very far. I was impressed at him turning back - in some of those previous 18 years he's finished the run on some pretty shabby body parts, so it must've been really bad! One look at the course profile is enough for me to think he was insane even contemplating it. Never mind - in his words, he's still world famous in Te Anau! Three of the "originals" started last year, but one dropped out partway through. It means there's now only one guy to have completed 19 in a row, and 3 of them (according to Alan, even though the article says 2)who have completed 18 - 2 guys who didn't run/complete last year did manage to finish this Saturday.

His 2 children also ran, both doing really well for their first outing on the Challenge.

Difficult people

Last week I went on a brilliant course - highly recommended - it is my understanding that gradually all our middle managers will do it. Part of it was learning how to deal with "difficult people". One of the tasks was was examining each of the "types" and thinking about an example of a time when I was that "difficult person" getting under someone else's skin - really helpful stuff. It was a great day for collegiality, too, as 4 of us did it together.

That was followed up by a visit to the Wine Science department of the University - an outing for Chemistry teachers. I had a good chance to chat with the lead scientist, and to explore some options for the future.

Sometimes you can't make it on your own

WOW!!!!
That was pretty much the effect of the U2 concert. I was still buzzing pretty much all week. It was fantastic - so many many highlights. I loved the screens and the effects. The music, of course. Bono & t'Edge. The kite - oh that was special. (now on sale on Trademe)


The special ways they catered for the NZ crowd - Bono coming out with the Warriors flag stitched to his jacket (at their home stadium) the kowhaiwhai patterns on the screens, the NZ references in songs, the flag, Tana Umaga and Helen Clark. It was all just amazing. A huge mix of emotions and the excitement was definately firing on all cylinders!

I was rapt with our seats, and the fact that though it had been raining heavily, we managed to set off in the dry (thanks Graham for the parking), and although it rained again later, we were under the shelter of the west stand by then. It probably took about 40 mins to walk back to the car, wheras I read that some people waited for up to an hour and a half for buses back to the central city.

Set list here - yes, of course they played One Tree Hill - well documented now. This clip is about 6mins long:


138 photos here (not mine - some lucky guy who seems to follow the band around the world!)

Here's what other people thought of the Friday night:
Steve - who started the night with a backstage tour courtesy of Jan - such excited texts!!! He has a great photo of the kowhaiwhai during One Tree Hill
Rachel
Paul - who stayed at the same hotel as the band
Russell Baillie (NZ Herald)
and Russell again like me, still buzzing several days later.

The following night I could hear the concert from my place - sometimes well enough to sing along! Some different songs, and they saved One Tree Hill for the final encore. I could clearly see the moon, too from my place, and by the time they played the song it would certainly have been over the hill.

Secret Friend/

/Secret Santa/Angels & Mortals/Psychotic supporter

Whatever you know it as, we're doing it at work this week. My secret friend is spoiling me rotten. I think I've almost worked out who it is, but I could still be surprised. Today I received a new coffee mug. Not just any old mug, but a heat activated All Blacks one. Now before you start worrying what gets revealed when it gets hot I'll put you out of your misery and tell you that it develops a very nice bright silver fern. When it cools again the fern goes back to grey. This is particularly good, as last week someone broke my previous mug, and left it, in pieces, on the bench, without so much as an apology. I received that mug as a gift on January 26th 1991, and while it was never my favourite, it was memorable for a number of reasons. Fie to the nasty unconfessed mug-breaker.

I've been enjoying spoiling my friend-ee. Today he may have received (courier-willing) some freshly roasted and ground-ready-for-plunger coffee.

Meanwhile, our erstwhile captain is elected rugby player of the year by his peers. You can't be player of the year AND a cheat. Not when it's friend AND foe that are voting.

"To ensure against bias and prejudice, players are not eligible to vote for a player in their own national squad. They must vote for players from another country."

So take that, you whinging Northerners.

oh.. and in case you were wondering? One more sleep!

Which reminds me. Today we had a special keepsake section in the Herald. By the time I got to work it had vanished - all I wanted to see was a photo of a friend, from Herald coverage of a U2 visit years ago - looking, according to his wife, much younger. Smirk. I sent a very pointy email to all-staff suggesting the selfish baggage might like to go and buy their own keepsake instead of stealing the one that belonged to all of us, but no, it didn't reappear. Grrr. (I bet it was the same person as the mug-breaker - surely we can't have 2 scumbags on staff?)

2

more sleeps!!!!!!!!!

5 more sleeps.......

I'm keeping an eye on the set-list each night in Oz, and there's only very small variation. Wonder if they'll do "One Tree Hill" here in Auckland - specially since it's lost it's tree since they were last here.

Sculpted

Last weekend there was a sculpture exhibition on the north shore. In spite of having been quite ill during the week before, I decided that an outing was in order, and so along I went. It was fab, and I was caught being arty-farty.






The being ill thing caught up on me though - by the time we'd been right round, I felt totally shattered and it took all the rest of the weekend and till about Tuesday to recover!

One of the sculptures particularly caught my eye - a pair of tui, in bronze. I didn't realise at the time that it was by Paul Dibble, who created the Southern Stand NZ Memorial in London, also opened last weekend. I didn't get up to watch the dedication "live", but did enjoy the edited highlights on tv the following morning.

Sweet sweet scent

I can't remember the last time my Gardenia flowered. I've had it about 7 or 8 years, and it did well in the first 2 or 3, but for the last few it gets to a certain point in spring, when all the leaves turn yellow and drop off, along with the buds. This year I hunted down some advice on the internet, and the result was I fed it with Epsom salts a few times once the yellowing was evident. It worked! Right now it has 22 blooms out, with more than twice that still to come. The best bit is the amaaaaaaazing scent. It's just heavenly.

Still alive

yeah...
Dearie me - that month and a bit went fast!
Condensed version - traded in my car for another newer one, went away for a weekend in the holidays, which was jolly nice too, had a cold and am brewing another one, dammit, we got a new principal, I appointed my replacement (assisant HOD) though he won't start till next year - meanwhile we feel very shortstaffed at the top end of my faculty, yet to appoint the other half of my replacement (in charge of chemistry), had a friend to stay for a week on her return from 17 months in England, and I'm sure there's been more than that, but it's kept me busy!!

Thanks for the emails wondering about my continued existence.
Hugs to Rose who's lost a daughter in that time.

no show without punch...

I had a great day on Friday, celebrating my graduation with a Graduate Diploma in Education Technology, at last. It was an early start due to the extremely inconvenient hours kept by the academic dress hire place - why on earth they think normal people with jobs would be able to get there before 3pm each day beats me. Still, we picked up the gear, including trying to get a trencher that was small enough to stay on, with the assistant insisting the one I ended up with was fine (it wasn't - it fell off twice).

The ceremony itself wasn't as pompous and ceremonial as my last Grad, but then that's not a huge surprise. I ended up rather enjoying it. Lunch was at a favourite cafe that used to be a Friday night regular, till they stopped opening in the evenings. It's been ages since we were there, so it was really gratifying that the owner still remembers us.

Stopped off at Mission Bay on the way home to attempt some photos, here's a couple of decent ones that Lynda took:

Although I'm now on holiday, I'm still not sleeping well - hopefully that'll sort itself in the next couple of weeks. On the other hand, when I wake at 5.30am, or whatever revolting time it was this morning, I get to hear the dawn chorus, and smell all the yummy spring morning smells, so that's nice!

Pittosporum

I'm just loving the early evenings at the moment. It could be because I've been home before dark every night this week, or because it's not been raining, or that spring really feels like it's in the air at last, but mostly, I think, because of the sweetness in the air, contributed largely by the flowering pittosporum trees lining my boundary at this time of year.

ISS & Atlantis

I've just been outside for the best viewing of the International Space Station being chased through the skies by the shuttle Atlantis! Both were really bright, and although I got out there a bit early, and was beginning to wonder if I'd missed them, once they popped up on my horizon I was in no doubt. So bright tonight (the lower the magnitude number, the brighter they appear), and way up high in the sky, not grovelling along the horizon, like last night, when they vanished behind the trees.
Such an amazing contrast - moving past Jupiter and through the claws of Scorpius. It still blows my mind how it's possible.



Very rewarding today - I've just started astronomy with my extension class, and we were in the computer pod doing some research. I'd talked last week about going out shuttle/ISS spotting, and issued them with a star chart and viewing times. I've created a whole bunch of astro-geeks - they've all been out shuttlegazing over the weekend, and were comparing notes on how bright they were and how cool and how amazing.

Counting down

to 2 events
Graduation, this Friday. I haven't been to a grad ceremony since my Teachers' College graduation, so it'll be interesting to see how things have or haven't changed since then. Yay for a contract that recognises significant events, and allows for a day off to celebrate. It's funny how quickly I've forgotten all the stress and agony of getting assignments and projects finished. And no, that doesn't mean I'm ready to take something new on.

68 days till U2 - sadly the contract doesn't allow for a day off for that!

Arrr!

A Very Satisfying Weekend, where, unlike the last two, I didn't spend it all on work. In fact, I even got out in the sun, which was an excellent change!

Yesterday I spent a bit of time in the garden, mowing the lawn and clipping back the unruly climbing roses - managing of course to get my hands full of thorns. All because I wouldn't walk 10m to the garage for my gloves. How silly! I noted that several of my fairy circle of lights round the edge of the garden are all mud-splattered, which demonstrates how much and how hard it's rained. (and I'd forgotten that till just now, again, so I still haven't cleaned them)

This morning I spent over 2 hours on the phone with Mum, which meant the battery in the cordless was completely flat in the end. She's so cheesy - I don't know how long since I've phoned her (over a month) and she still went "hi Larraine" when she picked it up. She just knew! And she assured me she doesn't do that every time the phone goes! Later I went to the Home Show, which was mostly full of stuff for people who own (large) homes, but still had some entertainment value for the likes of me. Like the guy who demonstrated the amazing (synthetic) chamois cloths that soak up ALL that liquid. And the other guys who sold can openers. They don't sound that exciting (or interesting) but they sure amused us! My friend bought the coolest multitool,
while I thought this lighter was just what I needed for all those candles (and bunsen burners)


Meanwhile, This coming Tuesday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. See here and here. These things are always more fun when a bunch of people get into it, and I'm pleased that I know enough people who will join in the zaniness and have a laugh on the day. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up, but I'm sure a couple of my classes will keep me "ho ho ho-ing" and "ahoy me hearty-ing" for at least, oh, 10 minutes. It's all good clean fun.

Cars are not anthropomorphic,

yet they seem to be so competitive, and not in the Michael Schumaker sense. My friend and I have similar models of car, only hers is a couple of years newer, and the flashier sport version. Over the last year or so, they've both been competing for attention, and there's been a seemingly endless catalogue of trouble. Her radiator cooked her engine, so mine felt it had to go out in sympathy. My alternator belt had a hissy fit, her car came back with a cam belt replacement. My automatic transmission died, causing a nasty hit in the wallet, and then today her car stopped dead. We hope the AA man is right, that it's a problem with the ignition rather than the transmission, as that sounds less expensive, but tomorrow will tell. Is it any wonder that in the next batch of holidays I'll be glad that I have time to go car hunting!

Marking time

I'm pretty whacked at the mo - we've had exams, and that's theoretically a time when you have a bit of time for a breather, but no - I haven't found that to be the case at all in the last couple of weeks. There have been so many administration/management/discipline things I've had to do that my own marking hasn't had a look-in, so I've spent the whole weekend on it. In fact, I've been in to work, as it's the only time I get "my" office to myself. The rest of the time it's like Grand Central Station, as it's less office and more technician prep room. Anyway, it's light and bright and I've been able to spread all the papers out and make really good progress. It's a terribly tedious way to spend time, though, and very isolationalist. And it really really doesn't give me much to write about!

I had to take a couple of books back to the library without having a chance to read them this week. I'd reached the "renewal" limit, and if I kept them any longer I was going to get fined. So disappointing. I'll keep an eye out for them another time. And that's about as exciting as it gets, this week.

Well, since I wrote that earlier, I've found myself reading the same sentence answer over and over for about 5 minutes, and decided it's definately time to stop. I'm so glad we only do one set of mock exams these days instead of the two we used to do!

Enz of an Era - x2

Priceless music video

Well worth waiting patiently for it to download:)

The band is OK Go.

Walkies

This is the map of the walk I plan to do! Today was very nice. The body clock woke me at weekday time, annoyingly, but at least it meant I got the washing done before heading out to watch the under 69kg rugby team from my school play in the Final for their grade against my old school. Twas very pleasant (our team lost :( ) except for one particularly yobbo father who began abusing the ref. Doesn't matter which team he belonged to, he only embarrassed himself, with his poor example of unsportsmanship. Dearie me, but I found myself telling him so, too. Oof!

This was all followed by a veery pleasant lunch and walk to the edge of the reserve. The clouds looked very menacing, so we decided to investigate another time. A very wise choice as it turned out - got home in the knickers of time!

Am I mad???

Barking! Why? This week I've accepted the Head of Faculty position. Scary but exciting is how I see it. 2 years ago it was all too much, but I feel like enough has changed now for it to be within my capabilities. The decision didn't come lightly - and was certainly assisted by some quite consistent encouragement from the ex-HOF: that I had more than enough of what was required to take it on. His confidence in my strengths, in spite of being well versed in my weaknesses, meant a lot. It also made me realise that what I really didn't want was to have to train yet another boss - I wanted it myself. And (so far at least) it's a comfortable fit, rather than a burden.

Meanwhile, yesterday we farewelled our principal. He's off to be somebody big and important in Wellington, and hopefully to iron out some of the wrinkles that still exist in our qualifications system. I'll always remember him as the man who had enough vision (and more confidence!!!) to create a better (promotion) position for me, because he felt that I was underselling myself in the original job I'd applied for. I still had to compete for it, but I was up for the challenge then, as I guess I'm up for it again now! He has been a "change agent" in our school, and some people have loved him and others have left. I'm sorry to see him go.

Smug

Got notified tonight that our students have won 2 of the categories in the regional science fair - in both cases for the 3rd year running. Take THAT you other schools!!!
Hat tricks R us!

edit... Turned out that one of those "first's" was actually a 2nd (well 2 of ours were 2=) so I shouldn't be quite so smug. That pair did pick up "best year 13 innovation, invention or investigation" for their respective projects, too.

Meanwhile, in spite of a few teary patches around the place (heh! not all mine, either, I might add) on Monday, the week just flashed by. The tension seemed to build to a peak about Thursday, but then it was all downhill again after that. Helped, I'm sure, by some de-stressing activities that are just too silly to write about, let alone post the pictures!

tonight...

I read this essay, in the book published by Gordon Atkinson based on his blog "reallivepreacher.com".
While the subject of the story wasn't applicable to me, some of the emotions in it resonated. This bit here reached out and grabbed me:

They tried to hold Mr. Grief at bay, but this was his hour. Denial worked pretty well, some days. Bargaining never did much for them, though some people swear by it. Anger was like heroin – a quick, powerful fix, but anger takes energy and Mr. Grief was patient. In the end, he swept onto the dance floor with a triumphant flourish, and ate them all to pieces.

Excellent essay, great book. Recommended.

Deja vu

..Well, that's what it felt like, standing in the staffroom farewelling yet another Head of Faculty. Abandoned again! By some extreme miracle, I managed not to tremble and snuffle my way through it, but instead was actually quite calm and measured and it went really well. Not that there weren't tears! On my own early in the day, when I was sitting contemplating what on earth I was going to write in my card, and then again, right at the end, when we finally went our separate ways. Oh I do a fine line in blub!

In my speech I said that he had enlivened, enthused and entertained us. So true. He's been hugely important in my personal and professional development in the last year or so - his ability to read where I'm at, and his perception in being able to say just the right thing - to push me a little harder when I'm less confident about taking the next step, or to reign me in if I'm over the top. His confidence in my ability to do a good job has meant a lot, and we've been a darn good team. I wasn't able to really put a name to it, but on the way home my friend said it's cos he has a high EQ, and by golly she's nailed it! That, and a hugely professional demeanor, combined with a bigger still sense of humour. It's not going to be the same without him at all! I'm not the only one who thinks so! Only yesterday morning he had me in such fits of laughter that I nearly vomited! Gift of the Blarney indeed!

So, come Monday the buck stops back with me again. And we await the appointment of a new Head of Faculty. It's really unsettling for staff, this interim period, and I was also really sad telling my year 12's that I had to consequently abandon them to another teacher, in order to resolve my workload. They were sooooo sweet, and it nearly sent me off into tears again! They've been SUCH a great bunch.

A couple of links:
This one combines how your Empathy Quotient and Systemising Quotient work together. Allegedly I have a balanced brain.
The one below alleges I've an average EQ....

Your EQ is 107

50 or less: Thanks for answering honestly. Now get yourself a shrink, quick! 51-70: When it comes to understanding human emotions, you'd have better luck understanding Chinese. 71-90: You've got more emotional intelligence than the average frat boy. Barely. 91-110: You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that. 111-130: You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt. 131-150: You are remarkable when it comes to relating with others. Only the biggest losers get under your skin. 150+: Two possibilities - you've either out "Dr. Phil-ed" Dr. Phil... or you're a dirty liar.

What's Your EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient)?

Sleepy...

I went to 2 lectures yesterday, by the 2006 Rutherford Memorial Lecturer, Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse. At the first, he described what he considered to be the 5 most significant discoveries in biology (see here for more details of both). The other big attraction was the award of a UNESCO scholarship to one of my ex-students from last year. The second lecture was titled "Milton and Darwin - 2 views of creation". I'd like to say I was gripped and attentive, but as soon as he started reading Milton, I was gone. I hope my friend didn't let me snore. I believe he was very interesting, but I think my focus gene got exhausted earlier in the afternoon. Besides, it was nice and warm in the Cathedral. Oh, and the sound system was less than helpful - I found it very hard to hear clearly.



and meanwhile: "Andrew Greig, a New Zealand airforce officer who was due to move to a post which was bombed in southern Lebanon, escaped the attack because his journey there was delayed.

The Defence Force says Squadron Leader Greig has taken up a new military observer's role in Israel, but is giving no details."

Peace be with you and yours, Andy.

Way, way, way too close for comfort....

Hang in there, Andy...

Safe...

Really good to see Bron on tv tonight - press play to see the video, it won't start automatically:

Oops!

I just found I had a strange setting on the comments.....
Sorry folks! Fixed it now, so they'll show up! I deleted the ones that you tried to do twice.

The new one...

It's growing on me, slowly....
Saw it twice tonight, as the pub got too crowded for comfort, so we went and found dessert somewhere else, before going home to watch the delayed coverage.
Graham Henry sure is ringing the changes, and a fairly safe win in the end.

Thoughts & prayers are with Andy, having had to say goodbye to Bron and the boys, who got on a boat for Cyprus today, while he remains in Tyre.

Woohoo!!!!!

"U2 and tour promoters The Next Adventure (TNA) today announced new shows for those previously postponed on U2`s Vertigo Tour.
Auckland - Ericsson Stadium - (Old Date) Friday, March 17th/06 - (New Date) Friday, November 24/06"

Today...

And my car got it's WOF. Well, almost. Except for the thing that it failed on, but it's minor, and quick to fix, (I hope). I thought I'd have to get tires, or even that there'd be something else wrong, but maybe even the car is still getting over the automatic transmission transplant from a month ago. Yay!

Stupiderati

I like new words. An example of people who fit into this new category
are students who spend wet lunchtimes getting intentionally wetter and
colder. Frequently these students are also unpleasant to deal with.

Circles.

So, here we go again. Announced this morning, officially, the news that the "new" (as of beginning of 2005) HOD is on his way, although I've known now for at least a month. Sigh. He'll be gone in "24 more school days" he informed me this afternoon. And yep, I'll be back in the hot-seat short-term. Somehow, though, it doesn't seem so bad. I'm 2 years wiser than at this point last time and some of the things that made it so difficult and stressful previously are no longer issues. None of which, of course, alleviates the grief I feel at the thought of losing this brilliant friend from my daily life. I've been the leaver, previously, and I don't think I like being at this end. Compared to this loss, the news that our principal is also on his bike was reeeally small biscuits.

Meanwhile, time appears to have flown by again. The speed cam referred to below as the most prolific in the country has been replaced by the most humungous new mall. Well, on the other side of the road, and now there's a new set of traffic lights or 3, everyone's slowed right down. Such are the days of our lives.

Had a significant birthday event pass in the interim since last post - Mum turned 80. Yikes! She travelled up on the train with a caregiver, and I got a day's leave to spend with her on the big day. We had a brilliant week, and I was really sad when she went home. I've been down there again since then (since time has, allegedly, picked up it's mat and run), and got the chance to visit the Constable exhibition at Te Papa while I was in the vicinity. Here's a link to the same exhib, with audio, from its last location in Canberra. I was a bit cheesed off to find some of my fave huge pix from the National Gallery in London weren't there, but discovered they were actually at another huge exhibition at the Tate. Ah well. They don't look like ANYTHING much in their small, chocolate-box form.

Nuff rambling for now. My cell-phone is broken. It feels like I've lost a limb. Today I heard it's not irrefixable, yay, so in a couple of days hopefully I'll be able to pick it up, and this time I promise I'll make a backup of all the info stored on there that I was in dread of having lost for all time. Arrrgh!

Finished at last!

Yay! This morning I completed the last assignment for the last paper for the post grad diploma I've been working towards for the last far-too-many years. I'm really really grateful to my tutor, who has allowed me quite a lot of flexibility to get this last research project completed. But now it's done, and I'm glad. I could have given up, many times, but when it got to being just one paper to go, I was too stubborn to let go. I had no real choices in the end. I've actually been enrolled for this paper three times, paid twice (got it deferred once, and then failed to complete). It was getting towards the point where there would be no more flexibility at all, and I totally didn't want to pay another $600 to repeat it. (I already have a significant fine from the library, as my enrolment lapsed in April and I wouldn't be able to renew my books) This is the last year the course will be offered, and so if I didn't complete it, I was nearly out of time. I'm just SO pleased.
I sat, with the assessment schedule in one hand and the keyboard in the other, checking all the way that I'd done "just" enough to pass. My standards, once again, are just too high. I got an A. Yay for that too.
Happy happy happy.

Away again..

...This time with 42 students, visiting the big pulp (quote: "the bleached wood pulp is 99% water before it's dried and packed")and paper mill (supplies all of NZ's newsprint and 80% of Aussie's), and a geothermal reserve, where we were able to do lots of exciting chemistry thingy things. It was still the holidays, and I'm just impressed that so many students were keen to come. It rained, pretty solidly, in the morning of the day at the reserve, but cleared up fab later on. Sadly, other people in the region had worse days than us, and floods struck yet again. Speaking of struck. There was some thunder and lightning while we had the umbrellas up, and my colleague got a tiny shock.
Most of my photos were duds, at the reserve, because the camera focussed on the steam rather than the people. And there was a lot of steam!

One whole quarter

..has passed, without a post. During this time I've pondered if I want to keep blogging. It's kinda cathartic and kinda pointless at the same time. Still, here I am again. Anzac Day tomorrow - hard to believe it's been a whole year since the last one. I won't be getting up for the dawn service tomorrow. The weather this year is so different. It's supposed to be Autumn, and we're still having hot humid days and nights.

I've just been for a jaunt down country and back. Twice. All in the aid of getting my mum here for a visit. Flew down drove back, then the same in reverse. Yesterday was exciting - got to the airport and had just checked my case through, (and made it to the loos - Murphy's Law strikes again) when sirens started and the speaker systems all instructed us to evacuate the terminal. Half an hour later, after 3 fire engines had been and gone, we were allowed back. It seems a fire alarm had set off a sprinkler system. Or something. So, eventually got on the plane, an hour late.

Got home, and all was great, I thought, until the non-english speaking neighbours came out and managed to communicate that their power had gone off at about 4pm (just as well it was the same day, as I'd been away 2 nights!), and since the meter board is in my garage, they'd been hanging out for me to get home. I called the faults people for them, and half an hour later the workman was up on a ladder fixing the fuse. Hey presto, their lights all came back on, and they went inside to turn the oven on again. At the same instant, the workman managed to put his ladder through the upstairs window of flat one, and the fuse blew for a second time, and they were back to square one. All terribly exciting, and the last thing anyone needed on a windy wet night. So, workman went back up the ladder, and the instruction was passed on not to use the oven. Their landlady has replaced the stove today, so hopefully it won't happen again. Funny thing is... we've lived next door to each other for 3 years, and never really had any conversation till the last 2 weeks. Lots of smiling and nodding, but finally, as a result of this, I've managed to get their names!

non-speedy gonzales

Have I received mail from a speed camera? Oh yes. On the first day of a new job (where I had the "company" van, and had done for some weeks before starting - some service organisations are kind like that) I received my first. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that the fine went to head office, where the van was registered, before eventually making it's way to me. I think I've had 2 since then. I can only remember the details of one.
Meanwhile, I copied this quote from the Herald a couple of weeks back:

" The 10 busiest speed camera sites in the country churned out almost 60,000 fines in the past financial year, but police say the number is falling as motorists heed the call to slow down."

Why is this interesting? Well, just look at the following map, which shows the locations of 2 of these top 10. X marks the spot where I live (ish). Neither of these cameras has ever sent me mail. Not that I feel particularly deprived by this.

catching up on technology

Second go at this post... serves me right for not saving a draft.

I love Trade Me. No, I didn't win the funeral, I didn't even bid on it! I did, however, sell my old fridge within hours of listing it, but I made up for it by buying an mp3 player. It arrived today, and I really think the instruction booklet was translated on babelfish. Truly - no-one's english could be THAT bad??? Just as well the intuition works well.

It's just in time for my new-found interest - podcasts. Yeah, I know the rest of the world has been onto them for some time, but now the technology and the bandwith match. So, first stop was the Ricky Gervais show, which I appear to have missed the first 3 episodes of - ah well... Followed by podbible, though "my" chapters don't look to be coming up anytime soon on either of the podcasts there. I saw an article about the fantastic site Yahoo! have set up, and found loooooaaaaads of interesting stuff! I recognised it was easily time to stop! There's only so many feeds you can ever get round to checking out! And it's not like I have time this week anyway!

Oh yeah...

And the cat travelled ok as well. Apart from the bit where we got to Mum's retirement village at 11pm, and she went AWOL at that point. Took 1/2 an hour, food and being very tricksy to retrieve her. The cattery was half the price of up here, and really nice.

Wedding

... Came back from down south just in time for Kelli & Randall's wedding. What a gorgeous spot: