Enrolment Finalised.... At last!
Finally, three days out from actually starting university it seems as though my enrolment has been confirmed. It's nice to see that the university is incredibly well organised - or not! But I guess at least I can relax that it all is going to happen, and that I should be starting to organise myself for lectures and possibly find out a few of the readings which I will need to do. All the new postgraduate geography students have a big meeting on Monday morning which should hopefully clear up any further issues that I'm going to have, such as the nature of the tutoring jobs. Over the last week I've begun to wonder whether it is the best decision to do tutoring rather than McDonald's - as with McDonald's I would be able to have a bit more flexibility in my hours as well as being able to pump up my hours during the university holidays when I obviously wouldn't have any work tutoring. On the other side, I would imagine that tutoring would offer me a much better hourly rate which means that I wouldn't have to work so many hours for the money that I'm able to earn (only $130 a week before tax while I'm on the student allowance), plus tutoring is going to be a more interesting job I would imagine. I guess that come Monday I'll just have to see what kind of package the tutoring job is, how many hours a week I would be working, what the pay rate is etc. etc. and then I'll make a decision. I guess on the positive side I know that McDonald's needs me so I'm definitely not going to be left with nothing.

It seems that almost every day now we seem to get some more 'baby stuff' from one place or another. Sometimes I think that we probably now have enough things even if we were having twins! This is obviously a good thing, as I would not want to be in the opposite position struggling to find a bassinet etc. but it's just a little bit of a problem to try and find somewhere for it all to go. We've managed to fill up a reasonably large one bedroom flat very very quickly, further making me wonder how we ever squished most of the stuff into one little bedroom before. The baby seems to be moving into a better birthing position than it was a week or so ago, with its back facing outwards rather than up against Nats' back - which is a very very good thing as it makes the whole labour and birthing process a lot easier (theoretically at least). All of this could really only be a week or two away now, which is a rather scary thought, although at least we can say that we're fairly well prepared for it all.

I'm going to the one-day cricket match between New Zealand and South Africa tomorrow, weather permitting. I would be rather annoyed if it does rain tomorrow, as I've swapped about 6 different shifts at work around so that I could have tomorrow off and be able to go to the rain. It would just be my luck for it to rain the whole day... but I guess on the bright side I seem to remember saying the same things last year the day before I went to the match against India as the weather forecast was terrible, but the rain managed to stay away for the day. Here's hoping the weather gods smile upon me tomorrow.

The end of an era
And so my last week working fulltime at McDonald's begins.... the place is in a bit of chaos at the moment because lots of the staff are in similar situations to me and will be heading back to university either this week or next which is causing more than a few headaches for the senior managers. I guess that in some ways I just shouldn't bother worrying about it all, I won't exactly be there most of the time, but after so long at a place I do have a strong sense of attachment to my store. I want things to improve, sales to finally build up a little bit, the place to get itself together like it's beginning to do. Queen St McDonald's is the flagship restaurant for McDonald's New Zealand and it is pretty cool working in such a place - it's just going to be rather odd either only coming in for one shift a week or not working there at all. I imagine that over time people will disappear to be replaced by new staff and eventually I'll only know a couple of the staff working there. That's the way it is for a place like McDonald's, with such a high staff turnover you really see the whole place completely change face within 6 months.

I'm still trying to organise my student allowance, university enrolment etc. Tomorrow I will be sending off the information which I was first told wouldn't be needed, but then subsequently told that I had to give them so that they could further process my allowance. I guess I just don't understand the point of me having to get my boss to sign a piece of paper saying that I'll be only working a few hours while studying. Surely they can just liase with Inland Revenue and find out exactly how much I'm earning each week? But that would be too smart for a government agency, instead they spend about $5 on the paperwork of sending me a letter saying they need more information, a return envelope and all the associated processing. I guess the scary side to it all is that this time next week I would have finished my first day as a postgraduate student - I will have had one of my four lecturs, hopefully sorted out the tutoring stuff FOR GOOD and have some idea about how my university year is going to pan out. Auckland University has changed a bit since I was last there in 2002, a big new student amenities block has been built which is very flash and full of brilliant study space. I can see myself spending quite a lot of time there researching my inevitable flood of essays. It will be odd returning to the library, walking through the quad, even sitting in a lecture for the first time in ages when it used to be such a normal and common thing to do. I even remember my last lecture, silently screaming "yes.... and that's the last lecture of my degree!!"

Furthermore, it's on the cards that at any time really over the next month and a half I'm going to become a father! It's great to hear some words of encouragement from the few people who read this page and I do promise that I will attempt to post any news related to Nats going into labour etc. as soon as I am able to. It's odd thinking about how back in June 2002 I was announcing the birth of Nats' cousin Alexandra on this site, and that in only a few weeks I'll be announcing the birth of my own child.

Ugh.... get your act together uni
Typically my optimism regarding getting everything for unversity sorted out was misplaced. Each day this week I waited for mail confimation of my enrolment, and waited, and waited. Finally on Thursday I gave up and called the graduate advisor to find out what had happened, he wasn't there so I only caught up with him today. It seems that everything should have been sent out on Wednesday, although if that was the case for me then I should have received it all by now. So he's sending out another copy of everything on Monday. Yay, more delays. And then Studylink (the people supposed to be paying my student allowance) decided to send me a letter saying that they needed confimation of my employment status as of the start of university - never mind the fact that the university hasn't even sorted out its tutoring so I don't know what my employment status even is!!!! I don't know how much I'll be earning, how many hours I'll be working or any of that, yet with the processing times of any kind of benefit I really need to give them all the information NOW or there'll be no money at all once I start university. As a stop gap (who knows how long it will take for the tutoring to sort itself out) I asked my McDonald's boss to keep me on the schedules for one shift a week for now until I get back to her that I can't do it anymore. Funnily enough McDonald's is the only organisation that seems to have its shit organised at the moment, so at least for now I'm not leaving the place, just cutting down my hours big time.

Nats has started to have her first painful contractions this week, which got her a bit worried that the baby was going to come in the next week or two while she needs to be at least 37 weeks to give birth the way she wants so - which is just over a couple of weeks away. So we're all yelling at the baby to just hold on a little bit. I guess the fact that everything's potentially only two weeks away makes it really start to feel like it's all real. We went shopping today and bought a few more baby clothes, so it really seems like we are well prepared for the little squirt to make its way into the world.... although those are probably "famous last words" and I'll be writing here in a few weeks about how I really wasn't that well prepared, couldn't have been that well prepared, it's totally different to what I imagined. I guess that I'm just really excited at the moment, the shock of the whole situation has finally passed and I'm just looking forward to it all.

Another February
We had our last antenatal class last night. The six weeks of classes have been pretty useful, although the main thing that I've probably learned is how much I already know compared to most people out there. Even through reading just a couple of books and talking to Nats about things I had probably learned most of the stuff that they tell you about during the antenatal classes. It was also nice to meet a few other people in the same situation, even though they were all quite a bit older than us.

I was thinking earlier today that this is the 5th February I've worked at McDonald's - and I was trying to remember something from each of these years. Back in February 2000 I was still pretty new to the game, and remember being pretty frustrated that it was taking me ages to learn how to do everything, the managers were pretty grumpy towards me because I was slow. The next year I didn't really work at McDonald's much as I was in Australia for most of February, although I remember working in those holdiays like mad so that I would be able to save up enough money. Those Christmas holidays were probably the highlight of my time at St. Luke's McDonald's as I was still learning things so the job was reasonably interesting, but I was good enough not to feel like I was slowing everyone else down. By the time February 2002 came around a lot had changed in my life, and I was working at another store, Pt. Chevalier. Working at Pt. Chev was kind of odd as it was a totally new store which meant that nobody really knew each other that well - as we were all either pretty new or had been plucked from a variety of different stores. At first it was really awkward, working with a bunch of strangers after knowing just about everyone at my previous store, but eventually it turned out OK as we got to know each other, and the fact that people didn't remember when I was new at McDonald's meant that I got given a lot more responsiblities as I was now one of the more senior crew in the store. Then this time last year I was at yet another store, my current Queen St which had just been through the drastic change of a new restaurant manager and a new #2. It was a really chaotic time, as we were continually running out of stock and other stuff while the new bosses sorted their stuff out. I know that during February last year I was seriously thinking about getting a different job because I knew I had a year of fulltime work ahead of me and I didn't really want to spend that as a crew person at such a chaotic store. I guess the fact that we did manage to sort everything out reasonably quickly, and that I got promoted not too long after that to management kept me in the 'system' over the last year. I suppose I will look back at February 2004 as the end of an era, the last month that I worked fulltime at McDonald's before going back to university, probably the last full month of my life before there's a new member to our family. After four years I think that I want to make sure that I enjoy my last couple of weeks at McD's. And I must remember to take a spare set of clothes on my last day just in case people decide to give me a going away present traditional McDonald's style.

Organisation Perhaps?
Things seem to be sorting themselves out, my Student Allowance is set to come through while my enrolment should be all sorted out, although given the fact that I've thought this was the case at least three times in the past and there has turned out to be a problem I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch. It's become odd being at work knowing that I'm not going to be doing this anymore in less than two weeks. I've worked for McDonald's for over four years now - fulltime for the last year and a half - so it is going to be strange leaving the place. I do want to continue my employment there during the university holidays while I can't do my tutoring work to keep some income coming in, but it's really not going to be the same as working there fulltime. Oddly enough, even though the place drives me mad from time to time I'm going to miss it, going to miss the people and going to miss the chaos of a busy lunch rush.

We've now been living in our new place for two weeks, and in some ways it seems like forever. Going back to Natalie's grandmother's is odd, you feel like this is sort of home but not really, a kind of similar way to what I feel going back to my parents' place. I wonder if this is how everyone always feels about a place when they move out of it, most people would know it much better than I do as I've only lived in three places in my whole life. And of course we're not going to be living here forever, so one day we'll be driving past the road we're living on saying "hey.... I used to live down there". There is still lots of things in boxes that need to be sorted out - although a lot of it is just the random stuff that seemed to clog our old room so maybe it's for the best that it stays in the boxes as long as possible!

I was walking home from the bus stop today letting my mind drift (as it usually does after a long day at work) and I realised that I don't really seem to believe that I'm going back to university soon or that I am really going to be a father in the next month or two. Maybe these things aren't the kind of changes that you can mentally prepare yourself for, does imagining the baby in the lounge really make it any more real? Does imagining myself sitting in a lecture theatre two weeks from today really make it sink in that I'm not going to be slaving away at McD's for another year? It's hard to really say whether I'm prepared for these changes which are sneaking up on me faster than I care to think about... I wonder whether I will be able to cope, will I be able to be a good father? Will I be able to write a decent essay after a year and a half of not writing one? But at the same time it's all deeply exciting, briefly watching an episode of The West Wing a couple of days ago there was a father saying hi to his newborn twins, and although Nats isn't having twins there's still the same feeling that wow this is going to be me in around a month. I'm going to have a cute little baby who I've helped create, who I'm going to love, who I'm going to play a major role in shaping them as a person. Someone who I can play beach cricket with just as my father played beach cricket with me, someone who I'll take off to their first day of school, who I can read stories to, help teach them to read and write.... it's all very very exciting!

Salads Plus
My entries into this page seem to be drying up as of late. I guess most of the time I just don't have the motivation to write - there's either something else which I need to do or my mind seems full of things that I don't particularly wish to write about. I've had a pretty quiet last couple of days, which I think has been pretty good, a chance to just blob out and get myself ready for the madness of the next few months. Tomorrow's going to be the start of things, as I plan to sort out university things as well as my student allowance. Once that's all done I should have a lot less stress that it just isn't going to happen, which is a good thing. It seems as though I'm putting off everything at the moment which is not a good thing, as I really should be sorting everything out so that once university starts and once the baby arrives we're not going to be in a massive panic - so hopefully after tomorrow there will be a few less things to worry about.

I also have work tomorrow, which should be quite interesting as McDonald's launched its new "Salads Plus" menu today, which is supposed to be a sort of health-conscious alternative to the traditional Big Mac and fries. I was sort-of involved with the development of the new items when I was helping out at Head Office last year, so I do sort of hope that it works out well and that I can say I was involved with it all. I can already boast that they're my hands on all the posters showing people how to make the new items - YAY! But on a more serious note it does seem like a step in the right direction for McDonald's who seem to have been a bit behind the times lately.

According to our midwife Nats is about three weeks ahead of normal in where the baby is, which is a good thing although doesn't necessarily mean that she's going to give birth three weeks early. On the good side, the baby's head is well engaged in Nats' pelvis so it's very unlikely we'll have to worry about a breech baby; but on the not-so-good side it seems as though the baby has turned around to face outwards which means it's back is up against Nats' back which is not the ideal birthing position. The midwife is fairly confident that it will twist around, although Nats needs to encourage it to move by sitting in all sorts of awkward positions. I guess we just have to wait and hope that it twists around.

Chaos....
Life is still rather chaotic - it seems that there just aren't enough hours in the day at the moment, between sleeping working, trying to have some relaxing time, having dinner, doing it all over again etc. etc. It's all rather odd as it seems as though I had heaps of spare time while we were living with Nats' grandmother and it's all just disappeared. Maybe it's because I seem to be sleeping like a rock at the moment which means that I'm only waking up just in time to disappear off to work and then by the time I get home I'm so tired I just want to crash on the computer and basically just get off my feet. I guess that things will eventually sort themselves out - there's just a lot of stuff regarding university and student allowances which I really need to get sorted ASAP and don't really seem to have the chance to do at the moment.

My cousin Anson and his wife Jill had their baby in the last couple of days - which is pretty cool and rather odd when you think about it. Since my sister was born in 1985 there had been no additions to my (reasonably) immediate family in 18 years and now there are going to be two additions to the family within a couple of months. I guess that moving into our new place, which is going to be the home we're going to be in when the baby is born has made that day seem a little bit closer. I'm actually envisaging where we're going to put all the baby stuff and what it's going to be like once it's born. All in all it's a bit scary, listening to the midwife who takes our antenatal classes saying that babies generally like to feed for around an hour at a time every three hours or so.... geez so you spend a third of your life feeding the little thing??? Poor Nats!

It's so nice to be able to spread our stuff throughout this whole flat rather than cramming it all into the one bedroom which is what we were always doing before. We can actually say "let's leave that area free of anything, to just give us some space" rather than the good old "where are we going to fit this???" With all my working over the last week I haven't really maanged to get stuck into the organisation of everything that much - although hopefully over the upcoming weekend we will be able to sort out all our clothes into the drawers and wardrobe, as at the moment they're just anywhere in the dressing table or somewhere in one of the boxes in the dining room. We're also quite aware that as of this Sunday Nats is 33 weeks pregnant and it isn't unheard of for the baby to decide that it wants to come sometime during the next couple of weeks and it would be a bit of a disaster for all of that to happen before we've even organised the house, as I get the feeling once the baby is born everything else is going to have to take a back seat for a while. I do miss our old place, miss all the people there and miss the security of not having to feel responsible for the place, but I guess that's all part of growing up and the positives are definitely outweighing the negatives at the moment.

Moving...
It's been a rather chaotic couple of days, but in the end we have moved into our new place. Yesterday was a very long day, as we managed to move (in many different trips) all our stuff from Natalie's grandmother's to our new place. Fortunately they're only about a 5-10 minute drive away from each other, and we had three cars at various stages to help with the shifting - but it still took about five or six trips. The most challenging things to shift was obviously the furniture which ended up being tied to the roof-racks of the cars - and especially the bed. The weather was a royal pain in the ass, as in the middle of one of our trips (just had to be the one when we're hauling the mattress up there) the heavens open up and it absolutely pelts down! Five minutes later we're soaked, the mattress and the computer desk which was on top of it are soaked and it seems like the whole thing is turning into a disaster. Fortunately we managed to dry our the mattress through using lots of heaters and dehumidifiers, but it was a bit of a mission. Then on our next trip up here the rain is even heavier and as we're just getting inside Nats slipped outside and slammed into the glass ranch-sliders. Luckily she didn't go through them, but still ended up feeling rather battered and bruised. But eventually we got there, spending most of yesterday evening and today trying to organise the ten zillion boxes of 'stuff' that we brought up with us.

It's very odd living in a new place. I guess it will take time to realise that this is our new 'home' and not just another place that we're staying at for a little while. It's funny how I always have one particular 'home' in my head which may or may not in fact be the place you're living at. I know when I moved from living with my parents to living with Nats - which was a rather drawn out and gradual process - it took a long time for me to really adjust to this new place being 'home'. But now, about two years since all of that, it really was feeling like home and how I have to get used to thinking of another place as home. I'm sure that over the next couple of weeks I'll be down at her grandmother's and probably wander into the bedroom expecting everything to be the same as it always was - before suddenly realising that in fact I'm in an empty room and that all of our stuff is at our new place.


University seems to be continually screwing me around with my enrolment - firstly when I went in last week I found out that one of the papers that I had been enrolled in had been cancelled and that the replacement paper I had as my backup plan had also been cancelled. Then today I get a message that it seems as though another paper isn't going to be offered this year. To be honest there aren't many papers left that I have the slightest interest in doing that I'm not taking already so I really don't have a clue what I'm going to do about all that. Whether or not I'm going to get a job as a tutor also seems to be up in the air, although I'm constantly reminded that I would be near the top of the list. But does this mean I can tell McDonald's that I'm definitely not going to be able to work unless it's the holidays or that I will be able to work one shift a week or what? I don't have a clue what the pay rate is (although everyone says it's pretty good), what hours I would need to do and what sort of training would be required. I suppose that I just need to get everything sorted that I can do something about and just hope that everyone else gets a move on so that I can safely feel as though everything's set up for March and that there aren't going to be millions of last second stresses.

Getting Ready to Shift
Life has been fairly uneventful over the past few days. We've organised some of the shifting for Saturday, but it's going to be a big mission as I mentioned before getting all the furniture and our stuff to our new place. In some ways it's really scary - all these familiar locations that I've gotten really used to over the past two years are going to disappear. I guess that it's also exciting to be able to have our own place for the first time - to be able to jump on the net whenever we like and stuff like that. Although on the other side we'll have to do all the dishes, washing etc. etc...

Work has been really quiet lately, with a long weekend it seems as though everyone decided to take a holiday out of Auckland which did actually give everyone at work a chance to catch up on a lot of things taht needed to be done. It seems as though my boss is showing a little more faith in me now, as I ran a couple of good shifts over the weekend and hopefully proved to her that I am a capable manager. In any case it seems as though I'm probably only going to be there for another month, until I'm back at university and starting on my new tutoring job. Obviously I don't want to be over-confident as nothing has been finalised yet, but I have been told that I would be near the top of the list and hopefully that means that I'll be able to do a job that's somewhat intellectually stimulating and also something that pays a lot better. However, I don't want to burn my bridges (as they say) as it would be good to work for McDonald's during the holidays as the tutoring job would obviously be put on hold. But I guess that's up to the powers-to-be, although there is a precedent for allowing things of that kind, as one of the managers currently working went to Otago University and would work during the summer holidays each year before going back to Dunedin.

I guess at the moment it's as though we're finally getting around to doing stuff that we've known about for ages but have put off a bit. I'm going to finally sort out unviersity tomorrow, as it seems I might be better off starting with a Postgraduate Diploma of Arts this year and then doing a Masters next year which would be the same amount of work, but give me the insurance that if something does happen (such as getting the best job offer or something else that makes me unable to go to university next year) I won't be left with nothing to show for this year's work. Obviously we're shifting, and also finalising our finances for this year once I'm no longer working fulltime. Hopefully by the end of the week we're going to be able to settle into what is almost another stage of our lives, or at least be a bit more ready for all the changes that are going to happen over the next couple of months.

Long Time No Post - Stupid Telecom!
I partly have a good excuse for not posting in five days as our phone lines got disconnected for a couple of days so we had to live without the internet (horror of horrors!) In this time we've been mainly concentrating on getting things sorted for next Saturday, which is "move out" day. Packing up the insane amount of stuff that we have crammed into our room into zillions of boxes which have now completely taken over our room shows us how much of a mission it's going to be. But I guess on the positive side we have volunteers to help us coming out of our ears - and we're going to need them not only to shift everything but also when it comes to organising it all at the other end and cleaning up at this end. I guess on the positive side we don't have to take everything we can always come back here at a later date to collect anything we just don't have room for at the moment. But anyway, it's all looking rather exciting and interesting - only thing now is that I have to swap my shift that I'm scheduled to do on Saturday, although considering I did ask for the day off like two weeks ago...

Work is still a little crazy, although things seem to be settling down a little bit after all the changes which seem to have been happening lately with our new consultant. It appears as though finally the bosses have got the right idea - that we really need to invest and get things sorted at Queen St. So we've been told if we need to add extra people on then that's OK, if something needs fixing then FIX IT etc. etc. Considering that Queen St. is the second oldest McDonald's in New Zealand and you get the feeling that a lot of things haven't been replaced since the place opened it's no wonder the place is falling apart just a little.

I guess one of the advantages aobut working in the city is that you do get to meet some pretty cool people. I remember last year spotting Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh when they came into our store the day before one of their ODIs in Auckland. And then this year I was serving on front counter when I figured that my customer looked rather familiar. Indeed it turned out to be Pakistani cricketer Abdur Razzaq who had nearly singlehandedly beaten New Zealand the night before, and he was in the restaurant with wicketkeeper Moin Khan. I had a quick chat with both of them, said that I remembered a couple of times that I had seen them play quite a while ago which they seemed to remember fondly. I also got both of their autographs which was pretty cool.

Woohoo... A Place To Live!
Well it appears that we have indeed found ourselves a place to live: a very nice one actually and at a very reasonable price. Funnily enough after all the searching through websites, newspapers and the like it came from someone who Natalie's auntie knows just mentioned in passing that she was going to have to rent a flat she had. Luckliy she pounced and let her know that we were looking for a place to live and, as they say, the rest is history. It's fairly close to where we are now, which is good so that Nats' family isn't too far away, plus we're reasonably close to the wharf so I could catch a ferry into the city when I'm back at university which would be pretty cool. For what it is, the price is incredibly reasonable which is great, as we really don't have any money to spare at the moment and will probably be in a bit of a financial mess until the baby is born and the benefits we'll be entitled to are sorted out. But we could be doing a lot worse... and I don't think that we're going to get much better. So it's kind of exciting (although a little daunting with the extra bills) that we're going to end up having a place of our own in the not-so-distant future.

Finally I had another good driving lesson today, although since it's been about a month since I last got stuck into it I was rather rusty. Hopefully over the next month I can really get things sussed out so that I can sit my restricted license test either before the baby is born, or shortly afterwards. But I guess that it's all down to practice, and I need to get a lot more of that as the gap during the last month has definitely put me back a bit.

Back To Normality
Haven't really had particularly much to say lately - hence the lack of posts. Life is returning to 'normal' after my holidays which is a little bit sad. But meanwhile there is the excitement (fear) that lots is going to change in the not-so-distant future. The university hasn't sent me anything to confirm my enrolment which is a little odd, although maybe they're waiting for me while I also haven't heard back about any tutoring job which I really do need to know about so that I have some idea about what my finances are going to be come March. Once I've figured that out I'll be able to sort out my Student Allowance and work out whether I'm actually going to be working at McDonalds still once I am back at university or not. So at the moment it seems like everything's just waiting, which is making me a little bit nervous as I would like it all to just be sorted out so that I wouldn't have to worry about something not working. maybe I need to get my ass into gear and make some more enquiries about the status of my enrolment/tutoring job and figure out the student allowance stuff even though I'm not yet sure of my income situation come March. I know that I'll feel a lot better once it's all sorted.

For some reason work has been really really busy this week. I guess it's probably a combination of lots of people coming back to work while we've still got heaps of tourists in the city as it's the middle of summer and every second German seems to be here. I suppose it's a good thing as the place always 'works' better when you've got lots of people on and it's nice and steady all day. Time goes a bit faster too and it gives me the chance to work some extra hours in an attempt to sort out our money issues (a never-ending problem).

Stoopid McDonald's
Work still sucks (surprsingly enough). Mainly due to my boss who had seemed to be getting better before I took my holiday, but has now digressed into her yelling at everyone, giving absolutely no positive feedback at all etc. etc. I sometimes wonder where it all comes from, whether she has very low self-confidence so she needs to feel better about herself by putting everyone else down and screaming at everyone or whether she's just trying to impress the people above her by appearing 'tough'. One way or another I really don't think that it's working as since she's taken over as restaurant manager sales have continued to decrease and quality standards are probably lower than they were under the previous boss. Oh well, as I'm only there for another month and a half fulltime I really shouldn't give too much of a damn.

Today we had a 'baby' day, as we went to both the midwife and to our first antenatal class. It was pretty cool at the midwife's as she showed me how to determine what part of the baby is where by pressing on Nats' stomach. It was really cool to feel the whole baby move as I wriggled my hand. Then in the evening we headed off to our first antenatal class, which was interesting but did repeat a lot of things that Nats and myself already knew. But I guess it's good getting the reassurance that we do know what we're doing and that we are doing things pretty well. We also paid off the rest of the lay-buy on our car seat which is pretty stylee looking and super-padded.

Back To Work - Woo Bloody Hoo!
Oh yay, I am just so happy to be back at work. Unfortunately the last couple of days at McDonald's have reminded me of all the reasons I don't particularly enjoy working there: the hypocrisy of everyone, the way half the store's on a mega power trip and the other half are grumpy about it.... Anyway, it's actually been quite busy over the last couple of days which is a little odd as it's normally pretty dead around this time of the year but I guess all the tourists and families which are in Auckland city must want McDonald's for lunch. I guess on the bright side there's only another couple of months to go before I'm back at university so I won't be stuck there fulltime forever which is an almighty relief.

We've been househunting lately, looking for a good place to rent once we move out of our current location. It's all rather frustrating and depressing as the nice, cheap places have rooms which are just too small for our stuff while the place with a nice big room which is in the perfect location is just outside our financial reach. It sucks when you can just picture yourself living in a place, walking to work/university but you realise that living there and paying all of that every week is eventually going to screw you over very bad indeed. Why can't things just work out from time to time?

The End Is Nigh
The last day of my holidays today, as tomorrow it's back to big bad work. However I'm actually not really dreading it, as it's been quite a decent break and it will be good to see everyone again for the first time in a while - and also I have the knowledge that it's only going to be for two months before I go back to university and that I'm not going to be stuck there for a whole year. Hopefully it's going to be a pretty fun couple of months at work while I (hopefully) finalise a tutoring job to supplement my student allowance. Once that's done I may end up kissing goodbye to McDonald's after four years there, which has turned out to be quite a bit longer than I anticipated.

We started our house-hunting search today, as once the baby is born we're going to have to find another place to live because where we are now is just not going to be big enough. I think that it's going to be a bit of a mission finding the perfect place, but as there's no enormous hurry (yet) we should have the opportunity to find a fairly good residence. Funnily enough since the last time we had a bit of a look around (two or three months ago) the market has seemed to improve for renters as there seems to be much more available at a reasonable price. Or maybe we're just looking at a good time of the year...

Time Perceptions
Some people say that your holidays always disappear so damn quickly you find yourself back at school/work never having seemed to have had a break at all. Funnily enough the opposite has always seemed to be the case for me, even from when I was little and my 6 week Christmas holidays from school seemed like a lifetime. There was always the trip to some new mysterious part of New Zealand, the yearly drive down to Thames to see my grandmother for Christmas and her birthday (December 31st), as well as lots of chicken, Christmas pudding, fruit mince pies and beach/backyard cricket. Summer holidays were the highlight of my year, not to be tucked away inside while it rained or wrapped up in how many layers because I was freezing cold. Over the years I guess the novelty has gone, there aren't really any more trips to new parts of New Zealand (because I've been just about everywhere), and my grandmother died a few years ago so we don't go to Thames anymore; but they still define one year from the next and seem to put last year in the past, if that makes any sense. I guess it's because so much seems to be happening over this period of time - for example my life changed rather drastically over the summer holidays of 2001/2002 as I moved out of home, changed job locations and further developed a serious relationship with Nats. Then over the holidays at the start of last year the whole of 2002 no longer seemed to have passed in a blur, the start of that year did seem a long time ago when a couple of months before it seemed as though March-November had zipped by without me even noticing it. To bring things up to date, I feel similarly this year - although it's only been two weeks since I was last at work it seems like a long time ago, university now seems to have snuck up on me out of nowhere to be only two months away, and scariest of all Nats' due date is now less than three months away.

I know at the end of last year I found myself almost begging for a pattern in my life, after university was finished everything seemed so disorganised and crazy I wanted some idea of what was going to happen every day. Not surprisingly, I got my wish with the predictability of McDonald's, which did dominate my life last year (at least up until August when I found out I was going to be a father). Funnily enough a year later I have no real desire for pattern, no real need to know what's going to happen and doing the same thing day in day out bores me to death. Maybe that's a result of too much "oh... I worked today, it was basically the same as yesterday, which was the same as the day before... etc. etc." But then again uncertaincies like university and the baby do scare me when I think about them, so I don't really know what to do.

Looking back at my January 2003 Page I was rather optimistic about this year. It was going to be a year for me to have a bit of fun - to earn some money and maybe even go on a holiday with Nats to Australia, but basically make my life as stress-free as possible. Funnily enough 2003 really turned out to be the year when I took on some big responsibilities and grew up a lot once again. Through buying a car and soon becoming a father I have realised that these are the things that big people do, and that I couldn't hide behind the fact that "I'm only young" anymore. That's not to say that it's been a bad year at all, in fact I've probably had less sad and unhappy moments than any of the previous two or three years, but at the end of 2003 I find myself a little daunted about where I am in my life and starting to realised that 2004 is going to be a very very busy and very very tricky year in the life of Joshua. That's not to say that I'm not looking forward to it, doing an MA in Geography has been my dream for years, and looking at various babies knowing that soon enough I'm going to have one of my own does give me an unprecedented feeling of excitement. I guess I just have to realise that I'm in the real world now: the big bad scary world that everyone's parents always warned them about complete with bills, rent, essays, crying babies and the rest of it.

Summer Rocks
This has to be my favourite time of the year. Everyone's on holiday, the weather is fantastic and you're just starting off a brand new year. Too many times in the past I've found myself wallowing at home missing out on all the good weather, only to regret it in the middle of winter when it rains on 20 days in July and gets dark at 5pm. But not today! This morning I felt determined to not let another glorious day go to waste (and I mean glorious... not a cloud in the sky and 26 degrees), so we packed up our lunch and a whole heap of other stuff and went out to Bethels Beach - which is about 45 minutes west of Auckland. It was a really great day, had a swim in the surf for the first time in about two years and built a couple of rather impressive sand castles until our big tunnel collapsed. It was nice just to be out there, enjoying the summer although we did end up a little sunburnt at the end of the day - and also to share it with Natalie's sisters and cousins who don't seem to get to the beach particularly often. Also, with a baby due in a couple of months I get the feeling that we have to make the most of this going out thing, as life is going to change rather drastically soon.

Isn't it odd how you are always so wiped out and tired after being to the beach? Maybe it's all that fresh air that you're surrounded by or all the effort it takes not to be bowled over by the huge west coast waves - but for one reason or another whenever you get back from the beach it always seems that your best friend is now the couch or the bed for the rest of the night. I have also noticed how much I seem to sleep when on holiday - especially when I went to the Gold Coast in Australia a couple of years ago I found myself easily sleeping 12 hours a day but feeling like I really needed it. Maybe it's that whole being somewhere else to normal that just takes it out or you, or possibly the fact that when you are on holiday in a new place you try to cram as much into your available time as possible.

Welcome to 2004... may I take your order please?
Welcome to 2004 and a Happy New Year everyone! It's been a while since my last update, and over the past week I've had a pretty relaxing time which has been good. We went up to Mangawhai Heads for a few days which was nice, and then we came back to Auckland yesterday so that we could go out for New Year's. It's funny how the New Year's Eves over the past few years have varied: from going to the Auckland Domain at the start of 2000 with just about everyone else in the city, sitting at home in 2001 because I started work at 7am the next morning, out west with Natalie listening to the radio countdown at the start of 2002, and then at James' place on the computer until at about 2 minutes past we actually realised that it had passed midnight last year. It's strange to think that between these five events (including last night) so much has happened in my life - everyone always says that New Year's is just another day but everything's always filed away as being part of one year or another so in many ways it's quite a big part of our lives to shift from 2003 to 2004.

So last night we went into Auckland City. I had never actually been into the city on New Year's Eve before - and had always been curious to see how many people were in the city and what kind of entertainment they would have. So after picking up Ella we headed into the city wondering where the hell we would find a parking place at 10am on New Year's Eve. Just in case we were lucky we tried a parking place right next to Aotea Square, and through a piece of excellent fortune a car was just pulling out, and then they wound down their window and passed Natalie their parking receipt which meant that we had free parking until 6am in the morning about 100m from where we wanted to be. This had to be a good sign!

So we headed into Aotea Square with a few thousand other people, and listened to some good old New Zealand music (Carling Binding, Decepticonz and Mareko) which was pretty good, although their sound guru seemed to be half asleep as there was problem after problem. Eventually there wasn't even really a countdown at midnight as all the people on stage seemed totally oblivious to what was going on. After that there were a few fireworks off the Sky Tower and we decided to head down Queen St to find a decent bar. About 20 minutes later we managed to get out of Aotea Square as everyone else had the same idea of leaving at the same time. So then thousands of people were wandering with us down Queen St until we came to McDonald's (the store I work at) where I popped in to say hi to everyone (I haven't worked there for almost two weeks as I've been on holiday). They were rather busy so we headed on down the the Viaduct where we visited a rather busy bar before heading back to McDonald's for some food and eventually we came home. I slept until almost 2pm this afternoon which was also very good.

I have had a slightly disturbing recurring dream over the past couple of weeks, which probably is showing my worries about returning to university after a year's break (not that I really feel that worried...). But anyway in these three dreams I have felt as though I was going back to university to start my Masters Degree - except it always seems as though I am back at school with other students and teachers from school doing school subjects. And then I get all stressed out because I can't do any of the work (anyone would struggle to do calculus after a 4 year break), or stressed that I've missed all these classes, or stressed out that I've got too many essays or exams or tests or whatever coming up and I can't get it all done. I assume that this is just my subconscious letting me know that I am going back to university and that I'll need to get used to all of its associated stresses. But the strange thing is that I'm not really stressed about university at the moment, although I guess that's a result of not really thinking about it all that much and at the same time being excited about the fact that it is a far more constructive use of my life than being at McDonald's. And even though McDonald's isn't particularly challenging or constructive, it's easy and comforting in the fact that I know what I'm doing and not too much is going to happen that I can't deal with. So maybe as university draws closer (although I have to finish off my enrolment first - useless nDeva) I will become a little more tense about it all, but at the moment it seems to be confined to my subconscious and the weirdness which are my dreams.

Merry Xmas!
Merry Christmas for yesterday everyone! I had a pretty busy day, going over to my parents' place for lunch; then dropping my Nana off before coming home for dinner with all of Natalie's family. It was a pretty good day all-in-all, there's always something a little bit special and magical about Christmas Day even if you're not a little kid anymore. Everyone tries to be really nice to each other and you get to see all of the family and share presents which is always fun.

Now that Christmas is all over we all look forward to the New Year. I guess that I'll be pretty reflective over what's been a rather interesting year in my life over the next few days - while also looking forward to 2004. It's funny how this year will be remembered as 'the year I found out Nats was pregnant', in that an entire year can really be remembered by one event, by one night. Obviously a lot else has happened this year, as it's been the first year since 1986 where I haven't been at school or university. Working fulltime has been an interesting experience, although I am glad that I'm not going to do another year of Maccas fulltime and I am looking forward to going back to university next year.

We're likly to be going away sometime during the next two or three days up to Mangawhai Heads with my parents. It's always nice to get down to the beach during the summer months, as it remind me a lot of when I was younger (I pretty much grew up on a beach somewhere near Auckland). But we should be back in time for New Year's, so that we can party hard on New Year's Eve (ha ha ha....)

2 Days 'Till Christmas
Two days until Christmas. It's always about this time of the year that I wish I was younger, wish that Christmas was still that really exciting day that you looked forward to for months and couldn't sleep the night before because of all the excitement. The fun of leaving biscuits for Santa, and waking up with a pillow-case full of exciting presents in the morning. I remember one year waking up early and running my hands over all my presents trying to work out what they were while waiting for my sister and the rest of the family to wake up so that we could unwrap them all. I guess the fun thing about Christmas now is having the whole family together, and because it's so close to New Year's realising that another year has passed (although I don't really know if that's particularly much fun!) and looking back at what's happened since last year.

Tomorrow it will be a year since my laptop arrived, which is pretty amazing considering now it seems like I've had it forever. In some ways it's the biggest and most expensive Christmas present that I've ever got (although I did buy it for myself), and I can see that it's going to be one that I have got a hell of a lot of use out of. Although it's slightly depressing looking at computer catalouges these days and seeing computers twice as good which are cheaper than what I paid for this, I have to look at what I've got out of having my own computer for the first time in my life. Next year having a laptop (as opposed to a desktop) will become incredibly useful as I plan to use it for studying throughout my masters degree. Hopefully it will make studying and taking lecture notes a lot easier, as in the past I have got rather sore hands from writing a lot, which doesn't seem to happen nearly as quickly when I am typing. As my typing speed is also 'reasonably' fast, I might be able to keep up with what the lecturer is saying better than I am able just writing it all down. Also, having all my notes organised on a computer rather than a pile of papers is undoubtably going to reduce the chances of 'where the hell did those lecture notes go' happening.

Two days into my holidays, yesterday I felt really tetchy like I needed to do something but wasn't sure what it was. I guess everyone has those days when they feel stressed out but have no idea why. I eventually relaxed myself by watching a mind-numbing DVD (Mars Attacks), and then woke up this morning with the feeling that I needed to achieve something today, needed to be busy and complete something to make that day seem worthwhile. Almost the opposite to feeling lazy, which is rather odd for me as I normally put off doing stuff like that in favour of wasting away time reading or surfing the net. But instead I attempted to tidy our room, which was getting to that point where you just about couldn't see the other side of the room for all the 'stuff' in the way. A few hours later there's still a lot of random stuff that needs to find a home, but I've rediscovered the floor and it's a lot less stressful (funny how messy rooms always stress you out, and that feeling of relief when you've done a really good tidy-up is so strong).