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.