General mooching, and job stuff

This week I have been:

• cleaning the house I moved into, and generally bringing it up to 'girl standards'. It's kinda old, but cool. It's pretty big, and like all the houses in Wellington, built on the side of a big hill so that half of it is supported underneath. Particularly I like seeing the garages that are built on platforms sticking out over the edge of hillsides. I'm sure they are safe and all, but they look odd.
• looking for jobs and sending my CV to agencies and calling them to hassle. I now have two meetings with agencies for Monday, so Smart Ruth will have to resurrected from the depths of the cupboard
• reading Harry Potter :) I know, not exactly a break from the norm, but I was very pleased to discover that Jamie has all seven volumes. I am r-reading no 7 at the moment as it's just SO good
• sorting out car-related things - you have to have the MOT equivalent done every six months here, and pleasingly it is called a WOF (Warrant of Fitness)
• enjoying pottering in my local 'hood called Northland. I poked my nose into the Church (open every day, how ashamed I was that even in this teeny tiny place they manage to keep it open all the time, whereas so many of our Churches are just shut and figuratively say 'go away'), noted that we have public toilets (no Councils making trouble for villages keeping facilities open here...), and bought a few items (yes, it included ice-cream!) from the rather well-stocked dairy
• looking forward to the world cinema festival happening starting in March - 'Tell no one' is a French film I've wanted to see for a bit, and it's on on my birthday (yay!).

Tonight I'm hanging out with my housemate (the only one until the other one moves in next week) as he's off to Oz (the emerald city) for a week from Sunday.

Thought it was high time

The longer it takes you to write your first blog, the more you want to put it off. That's how I feel anyway. I have no idea where to start or what to say.

I am curently in an internet cafe in Courtenay Place, Wellington. I am growing to like Wellington a lot, and to understand it's layout a little better. I still get supidly lost, though less lost in the car where I can go much further in a lost direction!

I am looking for a job and a flat/house share. Not in that order. I have seen a possibility today, which I really liked,m but I'm not sure it is in my best interests to take it. I'll say more if I end up taking it!

I've been doing a variety of pottering/getting to know the city, trips in my new Honda Accord (thanks Jen and Andy, it is doing really well), proactive searching for places to live/jobs, and random walks. The thing about Wellington is, apart from the very centre of town, it is basically a series of heart-attack inducing hills. I mean it. They are madly madly steep, and people just walk up them, even cycle up them. Ihave surprised myself already with how I've coped (dare I say even enjoyed?) a few of the hills and the views they afford.

I had a wonderful mini-break with Annabel over the weekend, in and around the Queen Charlotte Sound and Endeavor Inlet. Memorably, we stayed in a home-stay with a redoubtable old lady - to get to her house you left your car in a car park, walked down a road/hill, across a beach, through some bush and up the other side. The views were good by the time you made it though! We even walked a bit of the track one day...

hmm, ha, ha, um

This time tommorow I'll be, well, somewhere. Horribly confusing going back (or forwards? - feel free to think about this for hours too) in time and changing zones, and then missing an entire day, so forgive me if I just close my eyes and set my phone for the final destination time!

Air NZ have assured me that in the two hours of landing and processing in LA I will not have to pick up my bags or do much else than shuffle in a queue, try not to say the word 'bomb' or be sarcastic to immigration people, and sit in the transit lounge, so I'm hoping it will be much less stressful than last time :)

Most things are done. I seem to be taking hardly anything at all: one mostly full rucksack and some hand luggage. Karen is mildly disapproving at such a lack of stuff but can't seem to pinpoint exactly what I'm missing! I'll be buying a few things out there initially of course, and luckily it is summer so I didn't need loads of bulky jumpers.

I've applied for a job with Waitakere City Council (Auckland area) which sounds amazing. It is community development in a part of the city area and seems perfect for me. Fingers crossed for an interview please!

I feel I should be writing some sort of reflective peice about my ambitions and hopes for the year ahead, but I've never been great at that. I just want to have a good time, meet people, and be of use. I want to have a real life.

I'll miss everyone a lot, but we are very lucky to have so much communication available - please use it!