Hello Baby
Now Playing: Seal - Love's Divine
The day Amalia was born was a really crazy day. Nats had gone into labour on the Saturday, we had made it to Birthcare by about 3am Sunday morning, everything was going really well until the midwife tried to rush things, and Amalia was eventually born via emergency c-section at 8:13pm Sunday night. Click here for a more detailed story about those couple of days. I guess one of the sad things about Amalia's birth being like that was that we almost lost the enormity of the situation, the moment that was always meant to be one of the best of our lives. For me, that moment didn't really happen until about 5am the next morning.

I stayed in the hospital room with Nats and Amalia that first night, sleeping on a very uncomfortable makeshift matress layed on the floor. However, I was so tired that I could have been sleeping on nails and it wouldn't have mattered. I remember waking up a few times during the night to pass Amalia to Nats, or to get her a drink of water or something like that. At about 5am (I think) Amalia had well and truly woken up, Nats was really really really exhausted and needed me to take her for a while so that she could at least try to get some sleep. This was the first time that it had really just been me and Amalia, so I took her for a walk around the maternity ward at the hospital. It was pretty quiet and dark, as they dim all the lights at night to make it easier for people to sleep in their rooms. I wandered around a few times, carrying her crossways on my chest so that her head could be close to the sound of my heartbeat, and to make it as unlikely as possible that I would drop her. After a while I needed a bit of a break from walking, so I went into the TV room which was even darker than the hallways, yet still had a bit of light to sit down on one of the couches. Then I turned Amalia around so that she was resting on my knees, facing towards me. She opened her eyes, and seemed to really look at me for the first time. It also seemed to me like the moment when I could finally put aside all the drama of the previous 36 hours and really take in this beautiful little girl. I quietly whispered "hello little girl" to her, realising that this was really the moment that I'd been waiting for, making a real connection with her, and being able to take a minute to just sit there and be amazed by what we had created.

It was an amazing moment. One that I'll never forget for the rest of my life.

Amalia lying on my sister Ella's lap... about 2 days old I think.

Back to normality?
Now Playing: New Radicals - You Get What You Give
Tomorrow I'm back to university "proper" for the first time in a week. Although I did go in on Tuesday it was still a holiday, which meant that basically nobody was around so it really didn't quite feel like actualy university. It also gives me the opportunity of a commiment free day in which I can really get stuck into the next step of my thesis. Hopefully this will be a tad more interesting than my general copying of important legislative documents, and allow me to pick and choose what is important and necessary for once. I might even make it into the general library for the first time this year.

In 'stunning' contrast, today was incredibly boringly predictable. Wednesday is my day of working at McDonald's head office, which is a pretty easy way of making money (though not quite as easy as geography tutoring). However, for one reason or another everything seemed to go wrong today. The head office person who supervises us hadn't ordered in any frozen stock, which meant that we had to quickly grab some from other stores on our way to the head office. However, of course this turned out to be not nearly enough and after a while we were running off a greatly reduced menu, which isn't REALLY a big big problem as the whole set up is pretty informal anyway, it was just a bit of a pain in the ass and hopefully will teach everyone in the future that it is a good idea to make sure that we have enough frozen stock before each Wednesday.

After work I went supermarket shopping, and unsurprisingly enough spent far too much money. Why does that always happen?

Blogs
Now Playing: U2 - One
I guess one of the saddest parts of me losing touch with updating my page throughout last year was also how I lost track of the blogs which I used to keep up to date on. There is, of course, a very comprehensive list down the left hand side of this page about the various blogs that I used to visit - some frequently, others more infrequently, and some I probably only ever went to once, thought it was interesting enough to add to my blogrolling list but then forgot to revisit. Blogjam, Lost in the Wilderness, Mind on the Milk Carton, Random Redheads and Little Yellow Different always stood above the rest to me, and always left me with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I have often been inspired by these blogs to write about interesting and exciting aspects of my life, yet on the other hand I've been left so incredibly jealous of these talented people. To me, my site has never compared to the interesting, witty and really really awesome standard of writing on these sites, about an incredibly wide range of topics, from someone's dreams to memoirs of a childhood, to other more standard blogs. I generally hit the "post" button disappointed at what I had written, knowing that it was really quite boring and pathetic compared to what these other people would constantly write about. But then, in and odd way I have snce found by reading through old entries that while my past blog entries were often mediocre alone, when put together it forms a fascinating tale of my life over an extended period of time. I guess in a way I was clever not to try and copy these other sites too much, as my style gave my site its distinctiveness, which is really what you want your blog to have. With so many out there, it is crucial to come up with some sort of distinct story that you're telling. Ironcially enough, when I probably had the most interesting story to tell, during last year when Amalia was growing and changing the fastest I didn't update, when I was going through the emotional turmoil of a relationship breakup I didn't let all my feelings out in an environment like this (although perhaps in hindsight that's a good thing, as things could have got rather messy). All we really have to look forward to this year is lots of "Oh my god, I'm soooo far behind in my thesis", with hopefully a really interesting three week intermission towards the end of June and the start of July, when I go to Canada and the U.S. for three weeks. I just hope that I can get access to computer there to update this.

I guess.... all in all what I'm trying to say is sorry if this page is boring, and doesn't live up to the standards of the other ones that I've mentioned. But maybe that's not really a problem, and I've always had the opinion that this site is for me more than for anyone else. I'm the one who's most likely to find it useful in future years to have a browse back through this page and see what I was up to back in those days. Enjoy my mediocrity!

McDonald's Deli Choices
You've got to love Google. For some reason, by brief mention about the upcoming "Deli Choices" menu at McDonald's resulted in google listing me as either the first or second listed site in a search for that exact phrase. Now this is potentially quite exciting, as the product range hasn't even been launched in New Zealand yet (well, not for another week), and I also don't even know how to make any of it yet (although I'm getting my first real training class tomorrow). Does that mean that once the product is launched, with the inevitable slew of television, radio, bus and billboard advertisements that my site is going to be inundated with hundreds and hundreds of hits? Hmmmm.... well actually I think that scenario is quite unlikely as (thankfully) not that many people really care about McDonald's enough to actually do a google search about it's new menu. In either case, it just makes me wonder why this site ended up above a whole heap of more 'official' looking information tidbits about Deli Choices from around the world.

Anyway, McDonald's screwed me over once again today. I was "supposed" to be helping out at Head Office with some sort of photo-shoot. The kind of day when 90% of the time you stand around doing nothing yet still getting paid for it, although typically a message wasn't passed on that it had been cancelled, which of course we only found out about by the time we were at the Head Office. Oh well, I guess on the upside it meant a bit extra time at university studying, which is really what I need to be doing at the moment. I've finally finished taking notes out of the two main planning documents which will be the base of what I'm reviewing - and hopefully this will mean in the future that I can browse through a wider range of resources, which is much more interesting than rewording almost an entire growth strategy.

Happy Due Date
Now Playing: Keane - Bedshaped
Theoretically this time last year Amalia 'should' have been born. Although babies hardly ever come on their due dates, we really thought that she might as on the evening of the 27th Nats began to feel a few contractions and we actually ended up at Birthcare all ready to go. However, Amalia was obviously fairly comfortable where she was, and things came to a halt, and we actually ended up having to wait another two weeks!

I went over to my parents' place today, which was good as it gave Nats a bit of a break from things and also gave my family a chance to see Amalia. My Dad was at the cricket, which was tempting to go to, but the weather was really shocking so my plan of just watching it on TV turned out to be best as the players kept going on and off, on and off. Amalia had an amazing amount of energy, and she just kept on walking and running around the place, eventually wearing everyone out as we chased after her to make sure she wasn't getting into anything. It seems amazing the amount of energy that little kids seem to have, although I guess it's a good thing as hopefully she'll have a good sleep tonight.

Ugh. This is now four days in a row when I haven't done anything for university and I really feel bad about it now. I guess that on the one hand it is the easter break, and I guess everyone deserves a break, but on the other hand thesis year means no holidays, and what I don't do now I'll just have to do later. I guess at least over the past few days I've been thinking about my topic, and what I need to be doing next, so perhaps it hasn't been a complete loss. I just keep getting the feeling that what I need to do is almost overwhelming, and that while I do have good evidence that I've got quite a lot done so far, on the other hand it just seems to disappear in comparison to what is left to be done. I guess I just need to have the attitude of continuing to just chip away at it bit by bit, and that if I can do that well I will eventually get there. There's just a hell of a lot of work left for me to do!

Easter Sunday
Now Playing: David Gray - Please Forgive Me
In a funny way, Amalia was born this day last year, in that it was Easter Sunday. However, as Easter comes later this year she's still two weeks away from her first birthday. What do you do for a first birthday? While they're too little to ever remember what happened, it seems like an incredibly special birthday, and something that you really want to be memorable.

No easter eggs for me today. :( But I guess that's not particularly surprising. I remember a few years ago I got a 1 kg easter egg, which is lots and lots and lots of chocolate. That took me about a week to eat, as I kept telling myself that I shouldn't eat too much in one go or I'd make myself sick. Funny how addicitive and "moreish" easter egg chocolate is.

Anyways, I might be going to the cricket again tomorrow. My dad is certainly making the most of the free tickets he's got for the whole test, as he went today as well as yesterday. It's quite an interesting match, as although Australia are on top (surprise surprise), whenever things seem as though they are going to get away from us, we pull them back. It also might be interesting to go tomorrow as Adam Gilchrist is due to come in soon, and as of late he's been in the most scintillating form ever. It is a slight quandry when an Australian player is playing really really well, you feel bad because we're getting destroyed but at the same time you have to admire the skill and quality of the cricket you're watching. I remember back in about 1994 Sachin Tendulkar played an utterly incredible innings at Eden Park to totally destroy us, and it was the only time I can ever recall there being silence when he got out. No big cheer for the wicket, as everyone was just admiring the incredible innings they were watching. I don't think that would ever happen if an Australian batsmen was playing though.... HA!

The Future.....
Now Playing: Ace of Bass - All That She Wants
The "exciting" aspect of moving again (and all the packing that shall need to be done in the next three weeks), is that chances are in less than a year once again the same process will be happening again. At the moment my living situation is rather odd, and rather messy in many ways - living with Amalia, Nats and her boyfriend Pierre. On the upside it means that I still get to see Amalia every day, which wouldn't be possible if I wasn't living here. Clearly there are the obvious downsides, but I'm getting more and more used to the situation.

However, this is obviously a short-term solution to my living situation. Eventually I'll be moving out and finding a place on my own and we'll have to sort out something in regards to Amalia which can work for all of us. Inevitably this will mean that I see Amalia much more infrequently than I do at the moment, which is definitely not something I look forward to as I miss her at the moment if I don't see her during the day. Clearly this is something that I will just have to eventually come to terms with, in the long term I'm likely to start another family and how Amalia's going to fit into all that remains to be seen. I just hope that what we have now, which is a really really good relationship can stay that way, and that I can see her for an amount of time which seems acceptable to both her and me.

It is a worry though. Even though the past six months have been very challenging living in my current circumstances, I'm reminded by so many little things all the time why I'm so glad I've stayed here. I've seen her take her first steps, I've listened to her start to talk and I've watched every single little step she's taken from being a baby to the little girl she is now. This experience is something that is definitely one of the most amazing things that I've ever seen, and in many ways has made the past year the most rewarding in my entire life. How I'm going to live without seeing her so frequently is not going to be easy, and I just hope that whatever agreement I do end up making with Nats regarding her care. I really love being a father, and I feel that it's made me a much better person, and I think that I am a good father to her. Which once again, makes me very proud.

The Weather Gods
Now Playing: DJ Sammy - The Boys of Summer
Wow. For once the weather gods smiled on us. I woke up this morning to the sound of rain and really didn't think that there would be a chance for any cricket today. During the next couple of hours, it went from nice and sunny to raining and back about three or four times. I wasn't particularly optimistic about getting to see any cricket as going to days when you're on-off-on-off is incredibly annoying.

But anyway, by about 10am it seemed as though the weather was getting better and not worse, so I figured I might as well give it a shot. Things are meant to be worse tomorrow anyway, so perhaps this was my best opportunity to see some cricket, as this is the last match in Auckland until the end of the year. By the time I got to Eden Park New Zealand had made an unsurprisingly bad start. To play against Australia with two very inexperienced opening batsmen is just asking for trouble, but things weren't too bad. And then funnily enough, for the next four hours we didn't lose a wicket at all, true the run scoring was quite slow but against Australia that's always going to happen. I got to see Shane Warne bowl for perhaps the last time in New Zealand, as well as Glenn McGrath being typically stingy with giving away any runs. Towards the end of the day we lost a few wickets which was a shame, but I guess things could have been worse throughout the day so we did OK. It was very different to being there for the one day international, and although obviously the play wasn't quite so exciting, there were the mini-battles and the tactical sides of things which made for an interesting day's play. I just hope that New Zealand can keep things going tomorrow and not do the normal fall over easily trick they've got very adept at recently.

Cricket and Weather... a bad combination
Now Playing: Evermore - It's Too Late
I'm meant to be going to the cricket in the morning (I guess I can't really say tomorrow as it is past midnight), but of course Auckland's weather is likely to have something to say about that. From about last Saturday until Wednesday were the sunniest five days you'll ever see in Auckland at this time of the year. It was hot! It felt like summer, with cloudless skies and only a gentle breeze blowing it could have very easily been early January. Everything looked good for a nice sunny easter, I had some free tickets coming up for the Auckland test match between Australia and New Zealand, and there was the chance that I might go to more than just the one day - the first time I've done that for a very long time.

However, yesterday (Friday!) was an incredibly crazy day weather wise. We had tornados in parts of the country, with enormous downpours in other areas. Last night there was an insane thunder storm in which one roll of thunder seemed to eminate from very very near by as the sound alone shook our house quite alarmingly. So who knows what the morning will bring... I guess if there are more thunder storms then at least it might be a bit more interesting than overcast showers, which promise some relief, then just bring more showers when you think that they've cleared.

Thunderstorms can look quite cool anyway. I remember back in November 2002 (I think) witnessing an absolutely incredible thunderstorm from the window of where I used to live at Natalie's grandmother's place. There must have been close to 50 strikes of lightning, some making a clean hit on Auckland's Sky Tower, being followed up by some impressive rolls of thunder. I guess the geographer in me marvels at this aspect of nature, to create something that seems very very bizarre, and enormously powerful. It also teaches people very quickly about the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound!

I command it to not rain in the morning!

Stuffs
Now Playing: Hoobastank - The Reason
I first created an angelfire page back in about 1998 I think. At that stage I'd hardly used the internet much at all, and didn't really have a clue what I was doing, but it was a novelty. I guess the whole internet was a novelty back then - I hadn't even heard of broadband, and search engines were like the coolest things ever.

I think it was possibly my friend James who pointed me in the direction of angelfire as place to create my site. I had attempted to create a Geocities page, but their web-addresses were so incredibly long I very quickly forgot it. My first attempt sucked, but that wasn't particularly surprising after I'd accidentally changed the site over to "advanced editor", which didn't turn out to be more options, but no options (pure HTML). So after a while I abandoned that site, and created a significantly better one. I think that the one lesson I quickly learned from creating webpages, was that nothing is ever finished and that you need to be an anally retentive perfectionist if you ever want to actually create something you're proud of.

My second site was pretty slow to take off. I played around with the format a lot at the end of 2000, and the start of 2001 as well as putting a few of my university essays on the net. I remember building a few cool buttons and playing around with their location on my site around the time I was in Sydney at the start of 2001. It was also around this time that I probably made the most important step in the history of my webpage, by creating a semi-journal/blog/news page thing which I just wrote random crap about what I had been up to in. This was before I had even heard of a blog, and was based on what one of my chat friends had created.

Over the next three years the news page flourished, with who knows how many hundreds of entries, and it eventually became the frontpage, replacing a pointless introduction page once I finally realised that people only wanted to go to my site for one main reason, and I might as well make it easy for them to get there. It's a very very good record of what was going on in my life from January 2001 until about March 2004. Then Amalia was born in April, and that combined with my new addiction at The Numbers and a very intensive semester at university meant that I didn't really have time to update. And once I had got out of the habit it was quite difficult to get back into the habit. I stopped reading other people's blogs, which generally provided me with about half of the inspiration to update myself.

However, I wish that I had continued things. A lot has happened in the past year since I stopped regular updates (ignoring the "somewhat" regular updates of the last month), and although a lot of it would have made rather depressing reading, it would have been interesting to have a record of it all, like I still do have a record of most things that went on for that 2001-2003 period. This has prompted me to try and get started again. Using my old HTML created format though had become a major hassle, although of course it offered the advantages of complete flexibility about what I did create. Instead, I've become lazy and decided to use angelfire's blogging tool. Perhaps the ease of updating will mean that my updates will become more regular, as I do have an exciting year ahead of me. A year which is the beginning of things in some ways, and the end of things in other ways....

Anyway, enough with the nostalgia. This probably should have been my first entry in this 'new' blog, but it wasn't and I don't really care to be honest. Hopefully, with some reminders from Lisa-Marie and a bit of perseverence, I can get this blog going and keep everyone (and myself) informed about another interesting stage of my life.

Moving.....
Now Playing: Chemical Brothers - Galvanise
In June last year we moved house for the second time in five months. It was a mission. I swore that I'd not do it again at least for a year. So here we are, about nine months later, and about to move again.

Ugh.

I know that it's kind of necessary for us to move, as the rent here is rather unaffordable, and there are some issues with the house that are rather annoying. I guess on the good side, we're moving to a place about five minutes up the road. On the bad side, we've accumulated a whole heap of stuff in the past nine months which means that it's going to be an even bigger mission than last time. I didn't think that would be possible. But yes, in another three weeks I guarantee that on the day we choose to move it will rain, and it will be a messy disaster, and the house will take about three months to sort out and unpack things. Oh, as you can see I just love moving house.

Deli Choices
Now Playing: Pearl Jam - Better Man
On April 4th, or maybe 6th I can't really remember, McDonald's will launch nationwide it's new "Deli Choices" menu (I wonder if they'll fire me for spilling the beans?) Anyway.... I'm not just writing about this to let all McDs competitors know what's going to happen, but just once again to show how badly organised McDonald's can be.

Deli Choices is a massive change for all McDs stores. In effect, it close to doubles the size of the menu, and therefore the amount of work that needs to be done in the kitchen area. With something like 7 new "burger" options ranging from beef to tandoori to caesar chicken, there's something there for everyone, but obviously a lot more work for people who have to make the damn things. I guess I may be proven wrong in the next few weeks, but it seems as though this is going to be a huge nightmare training wise, as well as actually running the station. Typically, McDs seems to think that it'll just work out and that we can all just simply work harder than before to make a greater variety of food than ever before. Sadly, everyone's already run off their feet and something like this is just going to make things even more crazy - more staff will be required but how will they balance that with profit levels if "Deli Choices" doesn't attract new customers, but instead just changes what people order?

Anyway, I don't want to just bitch about McDonald's because that would just be too boring after about.... hmmm... 5 minutes. Having my tutoring job just makes me realise how crap my McDonald's job is. Pay wise, work wise, but also how that affects whether or not I give a damn about actually doing a good job or not. As I'm really enjoying tutoring, I obviously want to do the best job possible. I'm really keen on getting a good reference from the lecturer and really keen on helping people out and getting them excited and interested in geography. I would have no problem helping them out even out of my scheduled times, because that just seems part of the deal and it's something I would look forward to doing. This compares with my attitude to McDonald's, for whom I doubt I'd work a second if I wasn't getting paid for it. Anyway, I think the moral of the story is that hopefully in the future, any jobs I will get will clearly be more similar to my geography tutoring than my McDonald's work, and therefore because I've started at the bottom, and been the bum who works really hard for absolutely shit all money, I'll be pleasantly surprised by my future work conditions.

Which is a good feeling. :)

Getting Somewhere?
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Vanessa Carlton - Ordinary Day
I don't know why, but for some reason today I finally felt as though I was getting somewhere with my university research. I've finally got through the regional council's growth strategy and moved down to the city council level. This is more the level which I want to operate at, because it's actually realistic and you can actually see what's happening. I think pretty soon I'll be analysing things at the suburb level, which is when I might actually be able to do some 'real' research - and find out some interesting stuff about what's going on. Anyway, enough with the vague talk, I guess for the first time today I felt as though I was getting into it all - I actually came home and did some research instead of checking cricinfo for the 70,000th time for the day and wasting away the hours talking to homie gees in yahoo chat.

But anyway, it's back to McDonald's tomorrow. Or to head office at least. This should be a nice change from university on the one hand; although on the other hand it might disrupt my momentum just when I've finally got things going. Either way, it's something a little bit different and gives the possibility of getting some more food for home, as frequently the head office has a lot of excess frozen food which they're otherwise going to chuck in the bin.

Hmmmm.... I've studied at university for over four years and I still can't figure out what "incredulous" actually means. While I like angelfire's blogging tools, their choice of moods suck: there's no "tired, bored, blah, crazy... etc. etc. etc......". Maybe I'll just stop using the moods?

The Weeks Seem to Fly By
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Moby - Lift Me Up
Unbelievably this is the fourth week of university. Yes, where did the first three weeks go? It seem as though I've done absolutely crap all on my thesis, which is starting to stress me out, which isn't good at all. But I guess that I am making at least some progress, although it is rather slow and if anything makes me realise just how much more work needs to be done. I'm also only just getting back into the habit of studying, and find that my concentration starts to waver a lot earlier than it should.

I've done a bit more of my tutoring now, and I'm really enjoying it. I've always enjoyed showing people how to do things, passing on my knowledge and having a good talk about geography stuff. The first exercise that the class I tutor has been pretty interesting too, analysing either retail location patterns or population change in Auckland. It's a fairly easy job too, as most people generally don't need much help as everything's fairly straight forward, which means that the people who do need help I don't have to come up with a standardised rushed answer, and in fact can work with them to come up with some interesting conclusions.

Anyway.... there is life outside university. We're still looking for a cheaper place to live, although there's always that catch 22 situation of the cheaper the rents the further away from university the place is, and in some cases I wonder whether I'll actually end up spending more on transport to and from uni. Especially if I was to factor time into that. Ugh. But the rent we pay at the moment really isn't something that everyone can afford in the long-run so it is a matter of necessity.

Oh. And I just thought about it the other day that it's only about three months until I'm off to Canada. And it's also only a few weeks until Amalia turns 1. Wow.... time really does seem to be flying past at the moment.

The End For Queen Street McDonald's??
Mood:  rushed
Now Playing: Nada Surf - Popular
Today was possibly my last shift at Queen St McDonald's for quite some time. I never really thought about it much at the time, but from next week onwards as my university tutoring has kicked in I'll only be doing one shift a week, and that will be my Wednesday McFeed shift at Head Office. It's kind of strange thinking about not actually working there, as it has been over three years since I started at Queen St, and made a lot of friends (especially in the past few months) but I guess there's no reason for those not to continue, plus I guarantee that at some stage I'll ending up covering someone who calls in sick, or doing the odd Wednesday at Queen St when Head Office is cancelled.

After today I'm kind of glad that it was my last day. Just one of those days when everything is just screwed up, and you find yourself completely worked to the ground by the end of the day, just to keep up with things. Very frustrating.

But anyway, tomorrow is the first day that I will be doing the geography tutoring by myself. There was a class on Monday, but both myself and the other tutor were there so that we could introduce ourselves to people, and in case a lot of people went to the Monday session. Tomorrow will be a bit more challenging as I'll have to run it all by myself. But all the same it should be interesting, as I do enjoy teaching people things and on Monday I thought that I did a pretty good job explaining problems to the students. Plus, surely the first time will be the most challenging....

Oops... forgot
Now Playing: Salmonella Dub - Push on Thru
Oops. I knew that there was something else I was meant to be doing. In all the zillions of things that have been going on recently I completely forgot to update this page. Kinda silly actually, as it would have been quite useful really.

University stuff is progressing pretty slowly. Although I've finally managed to make a real start on things, it still feels like I'm at the bottom of a mountain. I guess at least on the bright side my interest in the topic, managing Auckland's future urban growth, isn't dissipating. While saying that, I'm sure that by the end of the year I'll be completely sick of it, would be kinda odd if I wasn't actually.

< nerdy academic talk >

My thesis is a complex analysis of Auckland's growth strategies which have been designed to cope with the city population being expected to double of the next 50 years. Past growth in the Auckland Region has generally been accommodated through 'urban sprawl', just continuing to build the city outwards onto farmland and hoping that by building motorways to connect these almost exclusively residential areas with workplaces, people could enjoy spatial suburban living while still living in a big city. Unfortunately, the last 50 years, and particularly the last 15-20 years, has shown this theory was horribly flawed. Instead of suburban bliss we have envrionmental problems and shocking traffic congestion. In response to these well documented problems with 'urban sprawl', an alternative, known as the 'compact city' has evolved. The 'compact city', which Auckland's growth strategies are based upon, proposes a different type of urban growth, based on more densely populated European cities. Under the compact city model, future growth is accommodated within existing urban limits - through intensification such as the building of townhouses and apartments. This alternative has been proposed as the way that Auckland should grow in the future. However, (of course) the compact city model also has its problems, which tend to critically include unpopularity with the people living in the city. My hope is to analyse this perceived unpopularity with this 'intensified' city model, and see whether much can be done to overcome it. Hopefully, I can give future urban planners (which might include myself!) some pointers as to make the compact city more palatable to the people living in Auckland, or whatever other city feels that it is necessary to grow in such a way.

The problem is that I've only just started making notes on how the regional council developed a plan for the whole region, let alone how other councils have adopted and twisted the plan, let alone how it's actually been implemented, let alone finding out reaction to the plan, and let alone making any conclusions about improvements that could be made. I guess in short I've got a long way to go. But then again I have until December to write it, so I perhaps shouldn't be too worried about it yet, especially as I've pretty much already written a lot of the theory surrounding the idea.

< / nerdy academic talk >

I've got a job working as a teaching assistant for a stage 2 geography class, which should be interesting and a lot better paying than McDonald's. It involved a lot of marking, which might be slightly annoying after a while, but I guess it can't be too much worse than making cheeseburgers all the time!

In terms of my 10 million things to do. Well I've got the job sorted, and I've been to the optometrists and my contacts are on their way. I just need to get my haircut sorted and I'm at least getting through all those things to do. Still need to buy that whiteboard!

Grr... McDonald's.
Now Playing: Lifehouse - Sick Cycle Carousel
I knew it would happen. This week I am 'supposed' to stop working that much at McDonald's and instead shift my focus towards university. I make a good start on Monday by going into university nice and early, going to the meeting of all Master's students etc. etc. Ugh, but then after three days work at McDonald's in a row it really doesn't feel like anything has really changed. I guess that as it is just my first week I don't have to stress too much about it, I guess it's just annoying. This is the only week that I'm going to do three shifts.

I need to buy myself a whiteboard, to write up all my 'important things to do'. I just know that eventually I'm going to forget all these little things that keep floating around in my head and there's going to be big problems. At the moment I need to do quite a few things tomorrow: take Amalia to playcentre in the morning; do some shopping as I haven't gone to the supermarket in like two weeks and I don't have ANYTHING left; I need to then go into university and find my supervisor to have a raelly good chat with so that I can effectively get started, see whether I'm going to require any special funding and so on; I also need to make an appointment with the optometrist as my contacts have been causing me some problems in the past few days, and I have run out of replacements as well as needing a new prescription. There are probably more things to do that I just don't remember.

Hmmmm..... it must sound like I lead a very busy life. Ha ha! Well I guess in a way that's very true as combining caring for Amalia, university, work and all the other inevitable things that pop up seems to take quite a lot of doing. But I guess I can't complain too much, things have been much busier at times during the past (notably the early part of last year) so I shouldn't be too daunted by things. I just feel rather bad that I haven't made any progress into my university workload, and I just know that it's going to sneak up on me and I'm going to be facing an absolutely daunting task by the middle of the year.

I should get onto buying that whiteboard ASAP! I can now think of about 10 others things I need to do! Oh the joy!

A whole pile of nothing
Mood:  suave
Now Playing: Moby - Signs of Love
Ugh, just when I thought I had escaped the world of McDonald's for a the more intellectually stimulating world of university I end up back at work. And for the next couple of days as well. I'm still at that "there's so much to do, but also nothing really to do" stage at uni, so I guess I have the chance this week to earn a bit of money and sort out my finances a little bit before everything goes back into crisis mode.

Work was fairly stock-standard today. As I mentioned yesterday, work had been really really busy for a Monday, so everyone had got all excited, revised schedules, added more people etc. etc. expecting things to go off for the whole week. But somewhat unsurprisingly (same thing happens every year), the first day really is a one-off. I guess that everyone back at uni on their first day waling past McDonald's thinks "hey... I haven't had McDs for ages, let's have lunch there". However, come Tuesday they all did that yesterday... well that's my theory anyway.

I've decided that waking up at around 9am is the best time for me. This morning when I woke up (to the fabulous sound of the phone ringing), I actually felt refreshed for once, and not half-dead as I tend to feel any earlier in the morning. I remember having this theory years ago that it didn't really matter how early I went to bed, if I had to wake up any earlier than 7am it would always feel like the middle of the night and it would be incredibly difficult for me to bring myself to actually wake up. But that was back in the days when Nats was starting work at 6:30am every morning and I would be hitching a ride in with her, which meant setting the alarm for 5:40am! I'm hoping that time of the day can be put in the "never again" category, although with all my graveyard shifts over the past few months I have become quite accustomed to being awake at that time of the day, although it's still rather unpleasant.

I don't think I've mentioned it anywhere here before, but towards the end of June I'll be heading to Canada for three weeks. As I've only ever been to Australia (and of course NZ), travelling to the other side of the world is something very very exciting. There's a whole itinerary with a trip through the Rocky Mountains, long boat rides and a stop-off in San Francisco on the way back. Over the next few months I'm bound to expand on the details for this trip, as it becomes a little more real to me.

A Weekend Off and Back To Uni
Mood:  chillin'
After three or four months I think, finally managed to wrangle a weekend off work - to go see the cricket on Saturday and then to organise myself for university yesterday.

The cricket match on Saturday was good, but somewhat disappointing as Australia have a nasty habit of being just too good - and that's how it turned out as every time it seemed as though we were doing a bit better the damn Aussies would come back and eventually we weren't even close. However, when you're at a match half the fun is just being there in the crowd and enjoying the atmosphere. As it was Australia who we were playing, the crowd was pretty packed and there was an amazing atmosphere.

Afterwards I headed back into the city, and after bumping in Ella made the fatal mistake of heading into work to say hi and grab a drink. Due to the cricket and the Chinese Lantern Festival going on nearby they had been utterly smashed all night and I ended up working for about two and a half hours. But that wasn't too bad really, a bit of extra money for next week.

Yesterday was a quieter day, except for lots of driving and getting stuck in traffic which was a bit of a pain. I feel as though I'm all prepared for returning to uni today, but the fact that I'm making this the official return to uni day just highlights how scary this year is in many ways. While I know after four years of university I can do the whole classes/essays/exams thing, writing a thesis is something very very different so therefore I can't afford to be quite as confident about things as I've been in the past. But then again, I suppose that in the past I've always been worried if I would be able to make the next step up and obviously I've always managed pretty well. So maybe I'm just being overly negative.

We shall see...

Playcentre
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: The Cure - Close To Me
I took Amalia to playcentre today for the first time. It looks reasonably interesting, and something that she will grow into and enjoy the interaction with other children as she gets older. I felt a tad out of place, being the only father there, and also quite a bit younger than everyone else there, but I suppose that I'll get used to that. Plus I think everyone else really liked the idea of having a guy there.

Yay! Cricket match is tomorrow. Although in all likeliness Australia is going to kick our asses again there's nothing like going to an Australia/New Zealand match at Eden Park. One of the best days of my childhood was in the 1992 World Cup when we beat Australia in the opening match - and I was there! Also means that I need to organise myself before tomorrow: buy some sunglasses for a start as wearing contact lenses instead of my old glasses for some reason makes the glare of the sun that much brighter. So I don't want to be squinting all of tomorrow. There are about 8 people from my work going to the match as well, and although I'm not going to be sitting with them, hopefully I'll have a chance to at least catch up with them some time during the match, and possibly have some sort out outing afterwards.