I attempted to continue with my enrolment for university earlier today, but kind of faltered when everything I read seemed to contradict each other. According to the 2004 Geography Handbook one particular paper which I'm quite interested in doing is apparentely not offered next year, although when I went to enrol in the university's online enrolment system it was actually available. This has left me rather confused and in a bit of a quandry as I don't particularly want to enrol in a paper which might not exist while at the same time I don't want to discount that paper which could be very interesting and useful if it's actually available. As a result of this mess I'll probably have to go all the way into the university at some stage next week to talk to the geography department and sort it all out. Fun.

Work has felt rather different the last couple of days, I guess as a result of having a five day break from the place for the first time in ages. I guess it has been refreshing in many ways, as everything doesn't seem quite so tedious. On the other hand it's possibly because the whole place is a little excited because of the upcoming Santa Parade this Sunday. Extra stock has been ordered which packs out all the store rooms, millions of technical experts have been coming in and out of the place checking that all the equipment is working well while also sorting out our new hand-held order taking system which should speed things up a little bit when the shit hits the fan on Sunday.

Back at my normal work today for the first time in five days (four away, and then yesterday at Head Office), which was a fairly substantial break from it all. Work is going into Christmas overdrive with all the decorations being put up, and the whole store getting prepared for the Santa Parade this coming Sunday. Now I wrote about working Santa Parade last year, which turned out to be a pretty cool day as just about the whole store works all together as we are so incredibly busy. Bring thousands of children into the city around lunch-time and we all know what the result is going to be, lots of them wanting to go to bloody McDonald's for lunch. I think that we're pretty well organised for it all this year - my various notes regarding what equipment needs to be fixed and what extra equipment we are going to need seem to have got through and the place is starting to pull together to what it's going to need to be in order for us to cope when all hell breaks loose at about 11:30am on Sunday morning.

I seemed to be really really tired today, possibly because the couple of days since we got back from Mangawhai Heads we haven't really slept well at all. There's nothing worse than lying awake in bed for an hour in the middle of the night knowing that every minute you spend awake is going to make you feel worse come the morning, luckily I haven't been kept awake for that long although I have been waking up in the night quite a bit lately which is breaking my very good pattern of sleeping right through the night uninterrupted.

All this Santa Parade preparation at work is really making me take notice that Christmas isn't really that far away now, and that we're almost in December. Which of course means that 2003 is nearly finished! This has been a very different year for me from those in the past, working fulltime instead of going to school or uni - it's also been a year of great change (like finding out I'm going to be a father!). I don't really know how I'll look back at this year, I know that it's been less stressful than last year in many ways which is definitely a good thing and I know that I've matured a lot this year (kinda had to!) Obviously with the huge changes in my life coming in the next few months 2003 could be seen as the year that changed everything, but that seems to be the pattern of my life: one year lots changes, then in the next I deal with those changes, then lots more changes and I go through the same cycle. I don't know whether that's a good omen for next year or not, as 2004 looks very exciting and also very scary at the same time.

We had around four days up north at Mangawhai Heads, which was pretty cool and a nice break from everything. Yet throughout the weekend something didn't quite seem right, Nats noticed it too that we just felt odd. Maybe it was the fact that the weather was pretty crappy the whole time so we never got a chance to go down to the beach, so in some ways it didn't even feel like we were at the beach. Maybe it was the fact that so much has changed in our lives since we were last there, remembering that it was just a couple of days before Nats found out that she was pregnant, and even then we were starting to realise that something was definitely going on. I can't really say for sure, but I know that it felt very different from all the other times that I've been to Mangawhai Heads, almost like we weren't there but somewhere else altogether. I guess that things will probably be a bit more normal next time we go up there, as it will be the middle of summer and hopefully the weather will be good enough for me to go have a swim for the first time in years, and my family will be there which will be more normal for me. I don't think it was a bad thing, just felt odd the whole weekend.

We spent most of the time watching a whole heap of DVDs which was good. I finally got around to watching Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, which I had been meaning to see for the last year and a half since it came out, and many others. It's strange that the only time I ever seem to watch DVDs on my laptop is when we're at Mangawhai Heads - not simply because we have a DVD player here in Auckland as we took up a PS2 which can play DVDs - I just simply only ever watch them on my laptop when I'm not in Auckland.

I need to get my ass into gear and sort out my papers for next year's university. The timetables are pretty simple - basically from Monday to Thursday I have one 2 hour lecture a day. In the second semester It's looking fairly cruisy as I only have 2 days of classes a week. However, I'm not deceiving myself into believing that next year will be anything other than an enormous challenge - I've heard a lot of people say that postgraduate geography has an enormous workload and that you spend most of your life reading text books and journal articles. Sadly, quite a few of the papers which I was really interested in doing that were offered this year are not being offered next year - which has cut down my options rather a lot. But there are still plenty of option - compared to the 2 stage one geo papers, and the 4 stage two papers there are something like 25 postgrad papers. So there's something out there for everyone, and probably some rather small classes which will be good for discussions and so on... I am looking forward to next year, even though it does scare me a lot, working fulltime at McDonald's is beginning to drive me a little mad.

It's been a reasonably good week, my boss at work hasn't been on my back the whole time which has been good. In fact it seems as though she has a new found respect for me, which may or may not be short-lived before she has another bad day and snaps at me for something. But at least it's not going to be for a while...

.. Because we're going away for four days! Thanks to a little bit of luck with my schedules, and a little bit of sneaky swaps I've managed to get myself a whole four days off in a row starting tomorrow. So we're going up to Mangawhai Heads which should be a nice escape from everything, with the plan of watching as many DVDs as humanly possible in the four days (we have about 12 to see). Hopefully the weather will be friendly so that we can go down to the beach a couple of times - but by in large Mangawhai Heads is just a chance to get away from it all for a while, and as me and Nats have never gone up there just by ourselves before it should be pretty cool.

I've done some more driving since last weekend, having a couple of good drives on Wednesday which has further increased my confidence, although I still make quite a few mistakes and have been lucky not to drive into anyone a couple of times things are definitely getting better. Hopefully over the next couple of months I'll be able to have qutie a few good drives, and really get myself ready to sit my license test in the New Year.

The graveyard shift on Saturday night went fairly smoothly, the All Blacks lost (fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck... etc. etc.) so we didn't get as busy as we thought we might. In some ways I like doing graveyard shifts as it's a way more relaxed atmosphere than normal and it's something a little bit different, but on the other hand it totally screws up your sleeping patterns (didn't get to sleep until about 8am Sunday morning, 22 hours after I had woken up), and is a kind of anti-social time to be working.

I had a good drive yesterday, probably going further than ever before and with a lot more confidence. I feel that with a bit more practice I should be able to do normal stuff quite easily, and then spend most of my time learning the more complicated and technical stuff like reversing, parallel parking etc. I still need to work on a lot, figuring out how to combat my blind spots and making sure that I remember to do everything that is needed.

I've spent that last day and a bit reading a really interesting book, Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" which attempts to answer all the millions of crazy questions that I've always wondered about such as "if the universe has an edge, what's beyond that?" and "if the big bang happened 13 billion years ago, what happened before then?" I guess the one thing that I really have learned from the book is how little we know about some things (and how difficult it can be to find out about them), but also how amazing the path has been to create the knowledge base that humanity has today. How accidental discoveries have led to some of the most important breakthroughs in human history, and how some extraordinary thinkers came up with ideas that seemed ridiculous at the time, but have ended up as proven facts (it is believed that Einstien's theory of relativity, for example, was so 'out there' and groundbreaking that if he hadn't thought up of it then we still wouldn't have thought of it nearly 100 years later). It's got a few parts that aren't particularly interesting to me, such as how modern chemistry started, and the author tends to linger on the lives of those people who came up with the ideas more than attmepting to answer some of the questions he has set himself, but by in large it's a very different book to most and manages to be a physics, chemistry, geology, cosmology, biology, history and just about every other field of study textbook in one.

We went to Big Boys Toys today, which turned out to be really similar to how it was last year with not too much interesting new stuff. I mean it was pretty cool to check out the 42" plasma screen TVs and their $15,000 surround sound systems - but it's all a bit dreamlandish which sort of frustrates and annoys me as I get the feeling that I'll never have enough money for something cool like this or that. I'm also not really a car person, which kinda rendered about half the whole thing useless, but i guess there are worse ways to spend a Saturday and there were a few interesting things.

I'm working graveyard shift tonight which should be a whole lot of fun as the All Blacks are playing their World Cup semifinal tonight. This means that should we beat Australia everyone will go out on the piss to celebrate and then come into Maccas at 4am in the morning with the munchies - or should we lose everyone will try to drown their sorrows. Either way I think that it's going to be a pretty busy night, which is probably a good thing as it means that time will go quickly and hopefully I won't end up too tired - although as I haven't slept since I woke up at about 10am this morning I'll probably be pretty shattered by 7am tomorrow morning.

I managed to cull about half of my blogrolling links, which ended up taking a hell of a long time as I would find a site which I hadn't been to in ages or in fact had never been to before (found it linked from another site) and then ended up reading a whole heap on this totally new site. In the end (about three days later), it's been quite a useful process as I have a more up-to-date list that I'm more likely to look at.

I've been going through my blogrolling links to fish out the ones that have either disappeared or haven't been updated forever, those which I really don't want to read anymore, and to find out those which should be kept. It's actually been pretty cool, reading quite a few sites that I hadn't been to for about a year and seeing that they're still up and running and that quite often the person has changed a lot (or is still exactly the same). I've changed my tastes for reading other sites over the past year, as now I really have no interest whatsoever in the 'newsy blogs' - that's what the NZ Herald website is for, instead I'm more interested in the more personalised sites, even those of people who I know (perhaps only just know) in person. It's pretty cool being able to see another side of a person who you don't really know that much about, to find out things that you would only ever discover after a hellishly long conversation or those that you would never find out. I guess that last year I had just discovered 'weblogs', and anything out there I could find was something exciting and new - while a year later I really just can't be arsed reading something that doesn't interest me.

Work was pretty boring this evening, although I did have another conversation with a shift manager about how terrible our restaurant manager is. He was getting so fed up by the general lack of respect, and the atmosphere of distrust and anger which is going through the store at the moment that he had planned to talk with one of the really high up people at Head Office about it. He also told me that apparentely at the last store our restaurant manager worked out all the shift managers got so fed up at one point that they almost walked out, forcing my boss to apologise to all of them (I am not sure of the whole story). I think that we've both given her ample opportunities to win our respect, and to show us that she's got the goods to be a good store manager for us but it just hasn't happened and at every turn she's just proven that she's not going to help any of us and she's not a person that we would want to 'come to' if there were any problems - instead she's someone who I'm almost trying to avoid as much as possible because there only ever seems to be shouting and screaming when she's around.

The ultrasound on Monday was pretty cool, our baby has grown HEAPS which meant that instead of searching for any part of the baby, and only really being able to tell the outline, this time we could clearly make out hands and feet, as well as get a good look at the heart and all sorts of other parts. We weren't able to determine whether it's a boy or girl because its legs were in the wrong spot and the cord was dangling in the way. So I guess that we'll just have to wait and see in that respect. We have some more photos from the ultrasound which I could upload at some stage when I get around to scanning them.

As you have noticed, my plans to switch this site from its current location to a proper domain name have been delayed for the time being. The reason behind this is purely financial - I have shit all money at the moment (it's very depressing saying this as I only got paid this morning), and there seem to be a million other more important things to spend my hard-earned money on. I guess that eventually I'll have some money to spare, and I'll be able to get it all up and running - I've basically got the whole site ready to go - I just need to update this latest page with my most recent updates and then upload the whole thing to the net.

Although working in the evenings does have its disadvantages, it seems that lately my life hasn't been revolving around work as much as it has been at various stages over the past couple of months. I think that having some time to spare in the morning is helping that, along with the fact that in some respects I just can't be stuffed with work anymore. If my boss wants to be bitchy all the time then I don't see why I should be trying my hardest to help her out, sure I want to keep the job and not let any other managers down, I just have absolutely no incentive to go the extra mile anymore. Funnily enough I get the feeling that most of the other shift managers feel very similar to me at the moment, so eventually something is going to snap I think... which will probably be rather amusing.

I had a rather interesting day of work today, although it proved to be rather long and tiring. Instead of working as normal, I was helping out a couple of people from Head Office to set up a sort of exhibition showing new technological developments in McDonald's over the past year to all the franchisees from around the country. This meant a lot of shifting computers, screens and LOTS of cords from the Head Office to the Sheraton Hotel and then setting it all up on tables at the Sheraton. Although it was quite interesting at times, such as when I was hooking all the computers and new register systems up, and then figuring out how they all work a little more than I currently know. But in between that there were long periods of having shit all to do, and lots of shifting tables which was pretty boring. But I guess it beats a stressful day at work...

Tomorrow we're going to get Nats' second ultrasound which should be pretty cool. The last time we went to get an ultrasound it was the first time I had seen our baby, and it will be interesting to see how much it has grown. Nats is starting to look pregnant over the last couple of weeks - so the changes should be pretty noticable. As I can't feel the baby kicking (yet), while she can, it's good to be able to see the ultrasounds and they'll make it a bit more 'real'.

I've been working during the evening lately, which has kind of limited my internet opportunities hence the lack of recent updates. It's been a fairly non-eventful week, work has been busy and tiring while outside of work life has been rather depressing although I don't really feel like going into all the details. On the bright side I can look forward to the weekend after next off work, and we're planning to go away to Mangawhai Heads which will be really good.

I have started on my driving lessons, in an effort to get my licence before Nats gets too pregnant to drive. I think that I did pretty well, coping with quite a few fairly busy main roads and a couple of tricky intersections while making only a couple of mistakes. I also drove on the motorway for the first time (if only for a little bit), which was pretty easy as I never had to change lanes or do anything as I went over the Harbour Bridge. Hopefully I'll be able to fit as many lessons as possible in over the next few months so that I get better and better - the thing that I really need to work on is making sure that when I concentrate on one thing such as changing gear I don't forget about everything else such as steering! And I also need to stop panicking as soon as something slightly goes wrong, as start learning how to recover and sort things out straight away. But I guess it all just comes with practice - just everyone else on Auckland's roads had better watch out in the meanwhile!

Back to work today, which went fairly horribly as my boss was in a real bitchy mood which meant that everyone copped a bit. I had a feeling in the middle of it that I wasn't sure whether I could stand another five months of this - when she's around I find that I have to be so bloody careful to do absolutely everything 100% otherwise she's going to scream at me, I tell you it's not good for my stress levels. Funnily enough, going to Head Office tomorrow, which is where I really should be worried about doing everything 100% but now looks like the easy part of the week. I know a lot of the people there, and by in large they are just keen to try to teach you more stuff rather than scream at every tiny little mistake you make. I've been learning a bit more about how to programme some of the equipment lately - which has been useful as I've been able to fix a few things which annoyed me in the past.

I had a strange dream last night, one which I don't really remember anything from - I just know that when I woke up I felt really sad and upset. Not because anything had happened in the dream which was unusual and terrible, but one that seemed to reveal the not-so-great aspects of my life. I always trust my dreams to the extent where they can reveal what you actually 'feel' about something, and as I've always been the sort of person who finds it hard to actually discover what they're 'really' feeling, dreams can be quite useful and revealing as they are a good link to your subconscious. I guess that was what upset me, whatever was going on in my dream was telling me something that I probably don't want to know.

Nats and I went up to the Whangaparoa Peninsula today to meet Donna, a person I knew back in my chat days and have been talking to quite a bit lately as she had a baby about a month ago. It was pretty cool meeting her, talking about the 'good ol days' of chat, and wondering if she still talked to any of our old friends. It was also pretty cool to meet her baby girl Morghan - although she was rather sleepy and crabby as young babies often are. It was a little scary to think that in less than five months I'm probably going to have one of these of my own, when it starts crying you can't just say "here.... go back to your parents" because that's what other people will be saying.

After that we had a midwife's appointment at the hospital, which confirmed that everything is going pretty well and that the baby is growing just as it should. It's kind of scary to think that next week Nats will be halfway through her pregnancy - 19 weeks doesn't really seem that long ago, and in that time again I'm going to be a father. Scary.

Probably sometime next week this page will shift onto a proper domain name. All my HTML fiddling has been completed (although it's now out of date because I've created my October page). I know that there will probably be heaps of problems when things first go across, and I'll probably spend a couple of long nights sorting out all the mistakes, but at least eventually I'll have a lot more power over what happens to my site. I've already envisaged a few changes, including the addition of a baby page which should be pretty cool.

The last few days have been fairly hectic, work has become really really busy and we've been left a bit short-staffed a few times which has made things rather interesting and tiring. I've also got a bit of a day-on, day-off schedule at the moment which is slightly annoying as you can't really get into a pattern of work, nor enjoy a half-decent length break. We spent most of yesterday sleeping, which was really good as for some reason I felt incredibly sleepy on Saturday morning even though I had a pretty good sleep, maybe it was just my body saying "geez, that was a busy week, let me relax for a while".

I seem to be having quite a few dreams about going back to university at the moment. Sometimes I figure out that I'm doing stage three papers that I don't need to be doing, or I realise that I should have been going to lectures for the past few weeks but forgot about it and have been working instead. They're kind of weird, probably an indication that my subconscious knows that university is something that is sneaking up on me, and that there are a lot of things I need to sort out regarding uni, but can't really do them quite yet. It will be nice once I've sorted out my enrolment, and made it seem 'real' instead of something that it just going to happen quite a long time in the future.