The Week From Hell

OMG what a week.

Work has been absolutely insanely busy with projects finishing here and there... things with regards to Jess have managed to get themselves even more messed up, which I don't feel comfortable elaborating upon at the moment, and it just seems like my run of bad luck still hasn't ended.

I'm almost too exhausted to even make an update. Hopefully at some time in the future I will have the strength to write about one of the more unpleasant and painful weeks I have ever had.

Perhaps.

Aaaaaarrrggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Gee what's up with my dreams at the moment? My post yesterday could almost be repeated with my dream last night, except in even more detail making it even more realistic. In past dreams I guess the situation of suddenly being back together with Jess meant that it was a little bit difficult to recognise the reality of it, and everything had this surreal edge to it. That was different last night, as my dream involved the whole process of getting back together with Jess and us talking over what had happened before realising that we were better off getting back together. This really made it seem real, like I was thinking that finally this time it is reality and not a dream. Hmmm... that managed to make it all the more gutting when I woke up to find out reality remains rather different.

I am sure there is a point where I'm meant to start feeling better. Last week I thought I had turned a corner, as I was starting to think about things in a more positive light. But for a variety of reasons it seems like I've gone backwards in the past few days. I felt really down yesterday, to the point of ending up really grumpy with Jess for doing this to me. Not so much simply the fact that she broke up with me, but how she made it seem like she was so happy with things right up until the final moment. It felt like she had been cruel in a way, to build me up so much and to make it seem like everything was so absolutely perfect when obviously it wasn't - and then to end things so dramatically quickly. I guess the only other option is that I did something totally shocking in the last few days that we were together that made her change her feelings towards me so drastically. But not only can I not think of anything along those lines, she said to me on quite a few occassions that it wasn't anything in particular, that I hadn't even done anything wrong at all. So I'm left with the conclusion that I deserve to feel angry at her in some sense, for not letting me on earlier with regards to how she was feeling, to at least let me know that she had some doubts about things. but instead she was saying things like hoping that I was as happy as she was, and talking about long-term things. It's all just very confusing and upsetting, especially as I don't see myself ever getting an answer to these questions.

Ugh I just want her back. I really really really want her back. Aren't I hopeless?

Dreams

Over the past four weeks it has been amazing how often I keep on having the dream that I'm getting back together with Jess. It's a rather frustrating dream, very enjoyable at the time as I feel a huge sense of relief and joy that my life has sorted itself out and things are back to how they really should be, but then really painful when I realise that it was just a dream. Last night I had another one of those dreams, although this one felt quite different. Not only was I dreaming that I was back with Jess, but at the same time in my dream I was thinking "wow... I have had many dreams about this before but finally it's actually happening and it's not a dream." That made it all the more annoying waking up this morning to once again realise that it was just a dream.

In some ways I feel like I'm beginning to deal with not being with Jess anymore. I can get through days without thinking of her all the time, although during other days it is really difficult. I find myself just really missing her lately, I guess it's now been a reasonably lengthy period of time since I last saw Jess, and above all the other emotions I find myself having, this basic feeling of just missing her seems to dominate. Yesterday I was walking around Greenlane delivering leaflets and talking to residents of the area so they knew about a few road changes happening soon, and it was really frustrating to see all these nice bungalow houses really nicely set up for the peope's families, thinking that I had that. I had a really really fantastic living situation with Jess in Takapuna, and it's just really frustrating and annoying that it's gone.

Winter
Now Playing: Fort Minor - Where'd You Go
Some years it seems Auckland scrapes by barely having a winter. I mean sure we have a pretty long autumn and it's not really until November I feel comfortable leaving home each with without my jacket, but the nasty cold of winter sometimes seems to barely hit us. Well that definitely hasn't been the case this year. I guess the weather over the past few weeks has somewhat accurately measured my feelings, with lots or rain, bloody cold temperatures and really not particularly much to smile about. We have got off fairly lightly compared to places in the South Island, who are still without power because of snowstorms since Monday last week. This isn't just high-country areas either - I saw a satellite photo of the South Island on TV the other night and it seemed about 80% of the place was white with snow. Pretty amazing really. I've never been much of a winter person, especially as I tend to feel the cold worse than most people. I guess I just enjoy being in the outdoors during summer and find it rather annoying that in winter my options are rather more limited. On the other hand we really don't have winter that are that bad, so I shouldn't really complain too much.

Life does just seem to roll on at the moment. This week has seemed to disappear rather quickly, although work has been extremely bits-and-pieces like, which is a bit annoying as I'm always finishing little things, then waiting for a while as that gets sent off elsewhere before we can take the next stage, then finishing off another little thing, making some small update and so forth. I wouldn't say it's boring, just rather frustrating at time that I can't just get really stuck into a project. I know there are quite a few substantial projects that will require my work in the next few weeks, so this situation shouldn't last too long. I also have a few more interesting things coming up in the near future, including being part of an "Open house" where people will supposedly ask me all sorts of questions about the traffic management plan for a roading project we're involved in.

It will be good to get through to the end of this month. June has really been a shocker, although that was largely kicked off by the events at the end of May. As my financial thinking is also worked out on a month-by-month basis I really don't know where I stand at the moment, as I had to pay rent for the remainder of the notice for the house, so it's all been rather messy. Once I have a better idea about where I stand on that front, I should have the opporutnity to work out how much I'll be able to afford when it comes around to buying new laptop, iPod etc. However that will also largely depend on how much the insurance pays out. All of this contrives to mean that I can't really do much at the moment, apart from wait for everything else to be organised.

Oh... and watch a lot of Soccer on TV.

Replacement...

Finding a replacement for my iPod is actually proving to be a lot more difficult than finding one for my laptop. I knew it would be rather tricky because Apple no longer makes iPod minis, but it turns out that they also don't make the 20GB model anymore, so I need to either fork out big money for the 30GB iPod video model, or the 4GB nano, which is bloody expensive considering it has pretty limited storage capacity. I always used my iPod as much as a portable hard drive as I did for music, so I might be leaning towards the 30GB one. Alternatives to iPods all seem to look pretty stupid and have small LCD screens.

It's still anyone's guess as to how long it will take before the insurance money comes through, and therefore before I can get around to replacing my laptop. This is a tad frustrating, even though I do have internet, as I keep on going "hmmm.. I have that program... oh yeah I don't anymore, bugger". It's also annoying not having my DVD recorder, as I had just really learned how to use it properly and was quite looking forward to recording movies off Sky and music videos off TV as well. Ah well, I guess it has been more of an inconvenience than anything else, a rather large inconvenience though on top of everything else.

I had quite a good read back through my posts on here in the last six or so months. It's interesting getting a wider-scale perspective of everything that has gone on in what has largely been (the last month excluded) an incredibly happy stage of my life. I guess it's still rather sad looking back on how happy things were once I realise how they have changed since then. But I'm trying to be positive here, to look at things from a more positive perspective as recognise that even though things have turned to shit, I shouldn't forget the good times that have happened to me lately, although it is difficult when I realise they have ended.

Well I made it through another day...
Now Playing: Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
Funny how making it through another day without anything more shocking happening can actually feel like a bit of an achievement at the moment. I guess with all the bad luck lately it is a bit. Perhaps this can be a bit of a turning point, where things have reached a low point and will turn the right way shortly. I do feel like my life has been rather "on hold" for the last while, thanks to all these rather unfortunate events happening, and while we wait for insurance and other stuff to sort itself out, my life will remain on hold for a little while yet.

It will also be a case of starting again for me in many ways. So much has happened in the last month that it seems to have taken absolutely forever. It feels like three months ago I was living with Jess in Takapuna, not three weeks ago. I suppose there's always a good aspect of starting again, a freshness and a chance to wipe a clean slate on things and forge a new path, to do things better this time, but it just seems a little bit hard to have this optimism when the path I was on seemed to be working out so well. I really get the feeling that I will often sit there in the future wondering how things would have turned out, thinking that perhaps they would have been better. I guess I can say in response to those feelings that I haven't really had a chance to choose, that it has all been thrust upon me.

At least I have the internet back, as Ella has kindly lent us her laptop for a little while until I get around to buying my new one. I should also have the chance to get back a good chunk of my mp3s off Natalie, as we had the same collection until a couple of years ago. So the opportunities are there, the kick-start to getting on with life has begun. There are a few positives out there and a few options for me to explore, so hopefully the next month can be a good one. If it's as good as the last month has been bad, then I'll be over the moon... but I think that's expecting a bit much.

When's It Going To End?

Well, I thought that I had been having a pretty tough last few weeks. After a freakish car accident and then the whole breakup with Jess I definitely felt like the world owed me one, like it was time for things to settle down quite a lot so that I could start getting my life back on track. In regards to Jess I have started feeling like I'm getting somewhere, that there is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. I could start to think back on things without a horrible stabbing pain, but a smile in the sense that my time with her was an incredibly happy part of my life, and that although the fact that's ended hurts like nothing else, it shouldn't stop me from remembering the good times in a positive light. I guess it's perhaps the point where instead of remembering a loved relative who has passed away simply in a sad way because of their death, but rather looking at the good times, even though you now realise they are gone.

Unfortunately I have been rather distracted from this whole "getting on with life" thing in the last couple of weeks thanks to another couple of bouts of rather bad luck. On Monday last week it was a pretty crazy day, the power went out across most of Auckland (although only for 45 minutes at work) due to a storm causing some little thing in a power station to short-circuit. I spent half the day battling traffic with the rest of Auckland, as traffic lights were out across the city and lots of people had to head home early because of the power-cuts. In short it was pretty chaotic.

When I finally got back to work my Dad called me, he sounded really upset about something and started asking if I had taken my laptop to work for any reason. I never take my laptop to work, so I didn't know what he was talking about until I heard that our house had been broken into, that my mum's computer had gone and it seemed like mine was gone too. Only that morning I had specifically decided to hide my laptop under my pillow, because my mum had started taking a bit of care when placing hers during the day. I told my Dad to check my room but it had gone... argh talk about another gut-wrenching feeling. I immediately worried more about what had been on the computer rather than the actual computer, as hardware is always replaceable. Fortunately I had backed up all of Amalia's photos to CD recently, as well as various other irreplaceable things, but it was still incredibly annoying to lose all this stuff. 1800 mp3s, 200+ music videos, countless photos, word documents stretching back three years and just all the little things that I'll never get back. In addition to my laptop, my iPod headphones and USB cable were gone, my new DVD recorder, my mum's laptop and cellphone, as well as other little annoyingly difficult to replace cords.

So a lot of the last week has been based around trying to sort out replacements and insurance, and all that stuff. I guess the good side of things is that I'll get a new laptop, something that I hadn't exactly planned on (as the plan had been to get a desktop), but it will mean that I will end up with a nice new laptop. I have been looking around a lot of this week trying to figure out what I'll end up getting, as I have reasonably strong criteria. I'm pretty much settled on the model I want, I just need to do a bit of research to find out the cheapest place to get it from.

By this stage I had thought that for sure my bad luck had come to an end. But sadly that was not the case. When I was going out this morning I noticed that the passenger door of my car was slightly ajar. I thought that was a little odd, and hoped that it wouldn't mean the battery had gone flat from the inside light running all night. But then I noticed the little window on the backseat had been smashed, and obviously someone had got into my car. Everything had been pulled out, and obviously my iPod was gone. I knew I shouldn't have left it in the car, but last night with carrying Amalia and all her stuff inside I had forgotten it. This was particularly gutting as the last remnants of my music collection were on the iPod, the rest having disappeared the previous Monday.

I guess the thought now is when's all this crap going to end. I don't really feel like any of my stuff is safe anymore. I've lost a music collection that took at least 6 years to put together as well as my iPod. Wow I really feel like someone has it in for me at the moment. All this bad luck happening in a row...it's just not fair!

Mangawhai

This should be a really good weekend. For the first time ever I'm going to take Amalia up to Mangawhai Heads for the weekend to our beach house. I have been meaning to do this for quite a while, although the logistics of it all have made it impossible to happen until now. It should be a good chance for me to clear my head of things a bit, to get out of the city and at least figuratively have some sort of escape from things. Hopefully the weather will stay reasonably fine, which will mean that we can go down to the beach and fully enjoy the place. I guess even if the weather isn't particularly great I will feel better off as the result of having a weekend away. I haven't been to Mangawhai Heads since about December, when I went there with Jess. I guess it will be a little sad to be reminded of the awesome weekend we had there, and then to think of what has happened, but I can't go through my life avoiding things just because they remind me of her, as I wouldn't really have too many places left.

I do find myself in a bit of a catch 22 situation when it comes to having any contact with Jess at all. On the one hand I crave anything, even a text message to sort out who owes who what money so the rent and everything else is sorted, but on the other hand that same contact is such a painful reminder of what has happened. It does hurt less if I'm not having any contact with her, but then at the same time (whether it's a result of misguided hope) I guess some part of me still thinks that things will sort themselves out and that she'll come to her senses. My brain really knows that won't happen, as every indication she has given is along the lines of once the decision has been made there is no turning back, but I know my heart doesn't truly believe it yet... who knows how long it will be before that happens.

Just Another Day....

My attempt to get life back on track continued today. Work has been incredibly hectic the last couple of weeks, as we had a really massive project that was completed yesterday. It was good to get it done and out of the way, but also in a way somewhat sad - like when you reach the end of a book. Although I have written a few small resource consents and other little jobs before, this project really was mine, as I did most of the initial work and ended up writing a significant proportion of the final report. It was somewhat satisfying to see how it has all turned out, and I also seem to have reasonably impressed my bosses with my share of it which is good.

After working almost exclusively on that project for the last few weeks though it has been a bit odd in the last day or two to actually move onto something else. As I really had a deep understanding of the major project and knew exactly what I was talking about with regards to it, I know almost feel a little lost moving onto something else. Like I have to start again with things. I guess it's always good to be shifting onto other things, it'll just take me a little while to get stuck into something else.

I guess I have been trying to focus all my energies on work, to remove my focus away from the rest of my life, which has largely fallen apart. I do think that I have coped pretty well so far with it all, perhaps because it has been such a clean break that it is possible to just block things out a lot of the time. I do imagine that's what Jess has wanted from this, to minimise any contact and just do whatever is necessary to ensure that we can both move on with things as quickly as possible. However, it's very difficult and painful to think that she has gone from seeming so happy and talking about long-term things such as where we would like to buy a house some time in the future, to not ever wanting to see me again in the space of a couple of days. I find myself thinking that any moment I'll wake up from this nightmare and life will return to how it was not even two weeks ago - but then I see all my things back at my parents and I realise that this is reality, that a year that started with so much promise to be one of my best ever just hasn't turned out to be that way. I also realise that for some reason a relationship I really really really thought would work, and seemed to be working incredibly well, is now over.

I will figure it out one day and make sense of it all.... Perhaps.

Recovery?
Well my last post turned out to be a bit of a novel. It's frustrating that I always seem to update the least when I have the most to write, and then it turns out to be a mission to catch up on everything. I have had an excuse recently though, with shifting back to my parents I haven't had internet until tonight (last night I managed to update through a dial-up patch job). I guess now that I have my room set up again, and also have the internet back it does slightly feel like my life is shifting onwards.

Yet I'm not quite sure whether that's a good thing or not. So many times in the past I've had great difficulty in showing my emotions and feelings, and actually emerging from this thick shell I created around myself during my teenage years, as so many other people do. Even after then I always seemed to have great difficulty in letting people know how I felt about things, or even in actually allowing myself to be happy, to be excited, to try a few things and not be afraid that everything would go wrong. I guess I had become so used to minimising my feelings and carefully managing my emotions that it became incredibly difficult for me to let myself go. I'm not sure whether this ability is helping me at the moment, so that I'm not breaking down to cry all the time, or whether it's just delaying the inevitable acceptance of what has happened, and that eventually its going to hit me even harder.

Right now I know that my calm exterior is just a front for how I am really feeling. I know that all it takes is to see Jess online or get an e-mail, or to even think about how things were only a week or two ago and I get the feeling that all this calm persona and theory that I'm getting on with life is really just a myth. I realise that I'm nowhere near getting over her, and will not be for an incredibly long time. I just want to talk to her, to hug or kiss her, to desperately pretend that the last week hasn't happened and to hope that things will just magically return to the way they were. It seems so impossibly wrong that this should happen, so inconceivable that something which seemed so absolutely right could turn out this way. It almost feels like there is some really bad trick going on, that I'm in a giant game like The Truman Show, and the ratings were getting low because life was so good it must have seemed boring. This wasn't meant to happen, things weren't meant to turn out this way...

Shattered
Mood:  sad
Now Playing: The Killers - Smile Like You Mean It
Just over a week ago my life was pretty good. I remember on New Year's Eve thinking that 2006 was going to be a fabulous year, everything seemed to be falling into place. The early months of the year had proven that to be a pretty correct assumption: my relationship with Jess had developed really well, my job had really just fallen into my lap and was both interesting and well paid, watching Amalia grow and develop was making me so happy, and with Jess we had found a place to live together that seemed perfect. A nice home, a great girlfriend, a good job... things seemed almost too good to be true.

And perhaps they were...

The weekend before last started out really well. On Friday night I saw The Da Vinci Code with Jess at the movies, which was a pretty good movie. It was also really nice to have some time when it was just Jess and myself. Although of course we loved having Paige and Amalia around, it was great to spend some time together when it was just the two of us. I had been meaning to do something like that for quite some time so it was good.

Saturday seemed a fairly normal day. We headed over to my parents' place to try and sort the car out, which turned into a bit of a nightmare as the guy who was supposed to be looking over it ended up forgetting about things, and was then busy doing something else. We then picked up Amalia on the way home from there, and although Jess didn't quite seem like herself that evening, it didn't really appear to be anything major - probably just her being tired as she had said that the previous night she had hardly slept.

Sunday morning things were a little more odd. Jess once again didn't seem herself and snapped at me a couple of time for things that wouldn't have normally been an issue. I was a little grumpy at her by this stage, but also a bit miffed as she didn't really seem to be herself that much. But once again it didn't really seem like anything particularly major, so when she went to spend the day up at her parents, and then driving Paige to and from a birthday party, I figured that everything would probably be sorted by the evening, that she perhaps just needed a bit of a break. I then spent most of Sunday afternoon with my family, as we took Amalia up to North Head, checking out the tunnels and rolling down the grassy banks. It was a really pleasant afternoon, and I really didn't think much of the slightly strange behaviour in the morning.

However, that evening when Jess got home once again things seemed a little odd. She wasn't really very talkative and things seemed quite forced and almost unpleasantly tense. By this time I was racking my brains a little to see if I had done anything wrong recently, and couldn't really come up with something that stood out, especially since the Friday and Saturday morning when everything seemed so normal. We didn't really talk that much on Sunday night, although that seemed to be largely because she had an early night - still recovering from her poor sleep on Friday I imagined.
Monday morning I needed to wake early to catch the bus and then train to work, as I still hadn't got my car by that stage. Jess asked me if I was going to be late, as I had generally caught an earlier bus previously, until realising that I could catch the one 20 minutes later and still be at work on time. I gave her a quick kiss on the forehead before leaving, and she briefly mentioned that she needed to go to some university thing and might not be home until a bit later than usual. That worked in quite well with me, as the large project I have been working on at work was coming to a close, and it would be good to spend an extended day on it. So I headed off to work thinking that perhaps things were sorting themselves out, and that she had just had a bad weekend.

Monday was a pretty good day at work, and during my lunch hour I met up with my Dad to finalise the car we had hoped to get checked over on the weekend. Everything turned out to be OK with it, and we set on a very reasonable price. I finally had a car! I felt really happy about that outcome of things and text messaged Jess to let her know the good news. It was a little strange when I didn't get a reply, but I didn't think too much of it. I stayed at work until about 7pm that night, and then caught 2 buses to end up at Takapuna. I text messaged Jess again to ask if she was at home or on her way home, with the idea that she could hopefully give me a life home from Takapuna, as it was half an hour before the next bus taking me closer to home would arrive. I got back a simple "No" message... which definitely seemed strange. She hadn't mentioned anything about me getting the car, and had not asked about why I was wondering where she was. At this stage I was getting rather annoyed by it all, so I send back a reply that I hoped she would tell me what she was grumpy about sooner or later.
I then ended up walking home from Takapuna. It was about a 35 minute walk, and I quite ironically reached the bus stop closest to my house just as the bus was pulling up. That was a bit of a coincidence, but I was quite happy that I had walked, as it had saved me $1.50 and given me a bit of exercise. Jess wasn't home when I got there, which made sense as that had been what she had just told me. I half jokingly looked around for a note from her, with my mind doing one of those "worst case scenario" things that she might have left a note she wasn't coming back. The type of thought that you sometimes get when you walk into your house after coming home, and you think "gee... I hope the place hasn't been burgled". But anyway, there was no note so I hopped on the computer and waited patiently for her to come home. It did seem a little odd that she would be out so late, especially at it was 10pm by the time her car finally pulled into the driveway.

I was still pretty happy to see her, and hoped that whatever strange stuff that had been going on in the last couple of days could be sorted out. However, she seemed oddly in a rush about things as she walked in. Then she said "I'm not here for long, just getting a few things.." I was like "what on earth..." and then she explained that she was leaving, that she was staying at her parents for a few weeks and that I needed to tell her if I wanted to keep the house as she would otherwise have to give notice to the landlord.

Talk about world crashing down around me... I was just thinking "hold up... what are you talking about?" It took a while for me to figure out that by saying that she was moving out that she didn't want to be with me anymore. A feeling of disbelief set in, that this could not actually be happening, my chest tightened and I felt an incredibly sick feeling in my stomach. I recognised this feeling somewhat vaguely, from about six years earlier when I had been told that my grandmother had died. She had to be joking, this could not be happening, everything had been so great, I had been so happy, she had seemed to be so happy, everything was working out... WHAT ON EARTH WAS GOING ON?? Sadly, she informed me that this was no joke, that she had been unhappy for quite some time and had only just realised what was causing this (I guess she figured it was me). By this time I couldn't think, I couldn't move, I couldn't understand what was going on. I just wanted to scream and yell at her for doing this to me, but at the same time just wanted to hug her so tight that she couldn't run away, to just magically make everything better. I pleaded with her to reconsider her decision, or to at least take a week to think about it. But all it seemed to no avail.

I didn't really break up until she had left... and then it was a horrible feeling. I felt confused at first, that this should not be happening, because everything seemed so damn right. Then that was the really nasty feeling, that everything WAS right and that I knew it's going to be damn hard if not impossible to find a relationship THAT right again. I felt in a daze, I tried to just head off to bed as anything I had been doing prior to that seemed like it was of another age. I felt exhausted yet at the same time my mind was working in overdrive. I felt incredibly cold and shivery, but also flushed and feverish almost. After lying in bed for almost an hour I decided sleep was a pointless option. I got up and headed back to the computer, I needed to talk to someone about this - to offload what had happened. Fortunately Natalie was online, so I talked to her for a while about things, and she seemed as disbelieving of the whole thing as I was. After at least making an attempt to feel better about things I headed back to bed, and eventually probably got about 2 hours sleep before waking at 5.30am.

If there was one day I really didn't want to go to work then this was it. But then again on the other hand staying at home would have probably been worse. I trudged off to work, thinking that the people who were looking at me must have thought I was mad or something, as I knew I had this incredibly blank far away look in my face. I felt completely numb by this stage, wandering seemingly aimlessly to the bus stop, from the bus stop to the train station, then from the train station to work. As soon as I reached work I realised that it was a pointless exercise. There was no way that I would be getting anything done. I called my Dad, who had ironically just come home to call me and organise how we'd go about picking up the car in the afternoon. I related the news to him, and he then insisted that he would come and get me. Luckily my boss was sympathetic as well, and I took a sick day.

In a way it was really unfortunate for this to happen exactly when it did, as Tuesday would have otherwise been an undoubtedly exciting day, as I got MY first ever car. I guess on the bright side it did provide some sort of distraction for me, but it did definitely take the gloss off Tuesday's excitement (the understatement of the century).

It's now a week later... although I seem to have resigned myself to the idea that things aren't going to be fixed (which is hard considering I have dreams about getting back with Jess almost every night) I still feel shattered by the whole thing. The unexpectedness of it all, the overwhelming sense of sadness... it's really just thrown me. I should come right... eventually.

Franticness

Things seem very busy and frantic at the moment, as there is a huge project at work that is to be finished by next Wednesday, and just when it seems like we're making progress with it there is another whole pile of work that needs doing to ensure that one set of data is consistent with another. It is generally interesting work once I'm actually writing the final report, although it can be very tedious in getting everything ready for that stage. It's going to be a very long next few days to get everything done.

I should be buying a car this weekend. Things have been put a little bit on hold this week as the mechanic who is going to look the cars over for me has been incredibly busy this week. But everything should sort itself out on Saturday, and by next week I will be driving my new car to work. It is quite exciting as this will be the first car that's really properly been mine.

Jess and I plan to go see the Da Vinci Code movie tomorrow night. I read the book last year mostly in Canada on my trip there. My mum and I got a couple of books at the airport just before we left. I did enjoy the book, although it didn't really blow me away as one of the greatest books I had seen. However, the whole time I was reading the book I was thinking how it would make a good movie. The ongoing pace of it almost seemed like a book of a movie was being written. Therefore, I am guessing that it will translate very well into a movie, although apparently the critics haven't thought particularly much of it. I will have to pass my own judgment on it I suppose.

The Car Search

So the car search is well and truly on now. On Saturday I found three pretty good possibilities, all around the age, kms, size and price that I'm interested in. One was a manual (a Honda Civic sedan) which put it a little ahead of the other two, but really all three of them appeared to be basically what I'm looking for. It's quite exciting that I'm going to be buying a new car very shortly, one that I will really like.

Then today I met up with my Dad, who had found another place that he thought had a couple of cars that might suit my needs. In particular, there was a Mitsubishi Lancer, that although is quite old (about 1996 I think) that had only done 17,000km. Of course I was initially very skeptical about such a low mileage, thinking that it must have been wound back to be so low. But it had all the AA checks sweet as, and when I was driving it today it certainly felt very new. My Dad is getting his mechanic to check it out within the next couple of days, so hopefully that passes sweet as and we can get on with the buying process.

It is rather frustrating at the moment not having a car, mainly because it just means that getting from home to work and back just takes so damn long. It's not that I really dislike catching public transport - as in many ways it's a more relaxing way of getting to work, and I feel a bit better about myself as I did spend most of last year criticising people who drove to work all the time. Once my work shifts to Herne Bay (in a few months time hopefully) my commute will be cut in half, and perhaps catching the bus might make a little more sense. However, I'll still need to catch a connecting bus from the city or do a hell of a long walk... so I'll probably just end up driving to work some more...

Powered by Qumana

Eek... two week gap!

Well... I guess for some reason I've managed to avoid updating for another two weeks. Unfortunately it seems as though the times I don't update are the times when the most happens. And then I feel like there's just too much for me to write about and I just put things off and off. Which is unfortunate.

Anyway, I guess to kick things off I should talk about my graduation, which happened almost two weeks ago now. Graduations are always fun, a day that I can unashamedly be proud of myself. I was reasonably well organised for this graduation - having sorted out my gown and everything (although it all seemed like such a mission at the time). Everyone got together as always in the big marquee outside Old Government House for a breakfast. I saw quite a few people who I had studied with, and it was really interesting to catch up with people and see what they are up to close to 6 months after finishing off university. I guess I felt a little bit special being one of the select few Master's graduates. Some people asked how come my gown didn't have the fur on it that most people's had. It was quite cool to say that it was because it was for a Master's.

After having breakfast and getting my photos done we got ready for the march down to the town hall. This is always my favourite part of the day. Everyone's all lined up and we then follow a marching band down from the university, through the city and onto the town hall. It's a nice way for the city to recognise its graduates, by closing the roads. Once we got to the town hall we spent another 15 or so minutes reorganising and getting ready for the proper ceremony. Then we all walked into the town hall which was pretty amazing to see so many people. I looked around and finally spotted Jess, my Mum, my sister and my Dad. The ceremony was pretty cool, and I got my moment of glory which was lots of fun. After the ceremony we had lunch, took a few more photos and headed home.

I don't really remember much of what happened not last weekend but the weekend before. However, last Wednesday was not a particularly nice day. I was driving to work and my windscreen had fogged up a little, inside and out I think. However, this wasn't really much of an issue as I could still see really well out of it and hadn't really noticed the fogging until I turned from Blockhouse Bay Road into New North Road, about 2 minutes from work. This meant that I was now directly facing into the sun - which hit the windscreen reflecting all the sunlight and basically couldn't see a thing. I slowed down, but couldn't just slam on the brakes as I was in the outside lane in pretty heavy traffic. I didn't really have any time to do anything else before I stopped rather suddenly by slamming into the back of a truck. I guess because I didn't actually see any of this I wasn't particularly freaked out, and the first thing I did was wipe the window down so I could actually see what had happened. When I realised what had happened it was a bit of a shock, although I think all my adrenaline kicked in and my mind raced about how one earth I'd sort this all out. The front of my car was totally screwed, as it had smashed into the tray of the truck, going above the bumper to crush in all the bits and pieces of the engine. Somehow we managed to get the truck and car off the road, I then called my Dad and told him the bad news, before calling my boss and telling him what had happened. It was a nightmare morning, sorting out insurance and apologising profusely to the guy I had run into.

The car was written off that afternoon, which in a round-about way is actually probably a good thing, as it's insured for a reasonable amount - more than I could have probably got from selling it on. So now I need to find a new car... and I've been stuck catching buses and trains to work for a lot of the past week and a bit. Last weekend we did a bit of car shopping, and found a couple of potential options, although nothing that really stood out. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to buy a car as it's rather annoying not being able to get around much. Luckily Jess has been incredibly nice and lent me her car on the days when she hasn't really needed it.

Graduation!

Wow... I graduate (again) in two days time. It now seems like quite a long time since I finished off the last of my thesis and had an incredibly stressful day printing it off and getting it all organised. Apparently the reason behind graduation happening so long after you've finished your exams/thesis is because back in the oooooold days the university used to send off the manuscripts from the examinations to England to get them cross-checked. By the time they had been all the way to England and back it was May the next year. The tradition has stuck.

Anyway, I am looking forward to finally getting my Master's Degree and also walking from the university down through the city to the town hall. It's a pretty special occasion as some of the streets of inner-city Auckland get closed off for you. This time it should be a little more special as I will be one of a rather more select group of people, those getting a Master's Degree, rather than one of the many hundreds getting Bachelor's Degrees. I think they even read out what subject I did my degree in, rather than just one of another bunch of people getting BAs. But anyway, it's a day I am really looking forward to, especially as I don't ever see myself graduating again.

24

So it was my birthday yesterday. Turning 24. Overall I guess it was an OK day, although the fact that it was a Thursday meant that everything was really a very very normal day. However I have a few more things birthday-related this weekend so hopefully it will end up being a little bit more of an "event" than it has so far. I also have Amalia tomorrow night, which will be great as I really missed her yesterday in particular.

On the bright side, I get my first proper pay tomorrow from work, which will be great to actually have a reasonable amount of money. I haven't got paid since about April 4th so my bank account very much needs a bit of reinforcement. Work has been pretty interesting lately, once I got past the trivial creation of about 215 datasheets, basically from copying and pasting. I spent about 4 hours yesterday driving around Auckland doing site visits, checking that what 2002 aerial photographs said is there hasn't changed too much since they were taken. By in large the sites I checked were still fairly similar, although one had turned from a mini-golf course and driving range into the construction site for a private hospital. Next week I need to drive around some of the more rapidly developing parts of Auckland, or soon-to-be developed areas, like Flat Bush, Hingaia and Silverdale North. It's quite funny traveling through parts of Auckland that I remember being farmland, and seeing them covered in houses. It's quite easy to feel annoyed that the city is seemingly spreading outwards and outwards, but as I've developed a much better understanding of the urban growth management process in the last couple of years I guess development has to happen somewhere, and hopefully future developments won't be quite as screwed up as those which have happened in the past.

Another Loooong Weekend

So I'm about three-quarters of the way through another four day weekend. As I haven't gone away out of Auckland at all, I guess in somewhat hindsight it might have been a little bit of a waste taking a day's leave today to give myself a long weekend. But then again, I've actually had the nice, quiet day today which is how at least one day of the weekend SHOULD be, so I guess things aren't a total waste.

Unsurprisingly, I've spent quite a lot of time in the past couple of days playing the Sims. I think I need to be a little careful, as overdoing it too much more than I am at the moment will probably lead to me getting rather sick of the game, at least in its current state on a pretty slow computer without any expansion packs installed. At the moment I'm debating with myself whether I can afford to buy a new computer in the next couple of weeks - I had planned to do so as a sort-of birthday present for myself, and I do have the credit card capabilities to spread the payments out over a few months. I guess with some pretty serious money involved (probably around $1500) I don't want to screw myself over financially, especially when I'm just starting out in a new situation to me where I do have a bit of money and hopefully don't have to live from payday to payday. Buying a computer is generally a pretty fun process, working out all the bits and pieces that I want, and then finding the cheapest way to put it altogether. I've got a pretty good idea of what I want now, and a pretty good idea of how much I'm willing to pay for it. So I guess the real challenge for me is to find a place that can give me what I want, and then inevitably what I want to either compromise on, or what I will be willing to pay more than I had planned to stop myself from compromising on.

Its my birthday on Thursday. 24 years old. Yikes that does actually seem like I'm quite old now...

The Weekend

Yay it's Saturday! Last week was a pretty short week at work though, as Monday was a public holiday, so the weekend has rolled around pretty quickly. Work is settling into more of a pattern now, as I settle into my official role as a consultant planner. I have pretty much finished my first resource consent application, which was for a rather interesting deck extension at Piha, while doing a variety of other jobs as well. The last couple of days have been pretty boring though, basically a whole pile of copying, pasting and resizing to manipulate the data into something a little more easy to read and make sense of. I've even got my own page on the company website now, and my own e-mail address so I'm all set up!

As I briefly mentioned yesterday, between moaning about not updating this site enough, I'm going to take a day's leave on Monday to give myself a four day weekend, as Tuesday is a public holiday. It seems almost too good to have two 4 day weekends in a row, though as my weeks are pretty busy these days it feels like I half the weekends are just taken up with mentally recovering myself and then sorting out the house to a point where it's livable again. I might try to manipulate things to see if I can get out of Auckland for at least a day or two over the next four days, as it feels like a long time since I was out of the city (although I was in Nelson not long ago).

Well, this whole Qumana thing does simplify updating, so quite possibly it will provide me with the motivation to "get into" the whole updating thing a lot more from now on.

Qumana

Hmmmm.... well this is something new. It seems as though with Anglfire's interesting new Qumana blogging tool I won't have to go into my browser and do all that messy login stuff each time I want to update. Hopefully that'll make life a bit easier for me. Hopefully it will also fit in with my existing formatting.... let's see.

Out of Habit
Now Playing: U2 - With or Without You
It's funny when it comes to updating this page, as the more often I write in it seemingly the more I have to write about. I know that logically this should work in reverse, as after a quite substantial break there would be heaps for me to write about, but when that happens (such as now) it all seems so overwhelming to write a big long entry explaining what I've been up to in the last week, so I make somewhat of an effort and inevitably it turns out to be a pretty crap entry.

However, as I do pay (a rather small amount) for this blog - in order to avoid advertisements and get my own domain name - there is motivation for me to write more and I will make more of an effort in the next few weeks to really get "back into" writing here for the first time really in almost 6 months. It has seemed that since about November last year this page has really been going through the motions, always "catching up" rather than being something constructive for me, a way to look at my life from an almost outside perspective while recording how things are going for future reference. I should be able to get back into "the habit" of updating, as my life is finally settling down into some sort of a pattern. It's now been almost three weeks since we moved in here, and it's really starting to feel like home, and patterns are starting to emerge in my life for the first time in quite some time, as I'm no longer in limbo between staying at two different places half the time.

However, while there is a new pattern to things establishing, it seems to be increasingly taken up by playing Sims 2. I have a nasty little habit of getting hooked in Sims games. Back about 5 years ago (almost exactly actually) I spent a pretty solid month or two playing the original Sims game, which itself proved to be rather addictive for a while. However, there was more of an endpoint to that game, as after you reached the top of your chosen career path the game pretty much just continued on and on without anything particularly new happening. With the Sims 2 though, there really isn't an endpoint to the game as everyone grows up and gets older, new generations emerge to play with and the game really does go on forever. I did eventually get sick of the original sims, though I think this time it will take a lot longer for me to get sick of it, especially after we add in expansion packs and transfer things onto the new computer I will eventually get around to buying. So with all this Sims playing I seem to have forgotten about the internet largely as of late, and especially this blog. But I guess I will have the opportunity to go online and update more regularly - while Jess plays the Sims of course!

However, for the last week Jess has been on holiday - away in Wanganui - which is great for her to get out of Auckland for a while but has left me at home all alone for the past few days. It's strange being in this house all by myself, it seemed to quiet and empty without either Amalia, Paige or both of them running around. But Jess was back tonight, which is great, and I have a nice 4 day weekend to look forward to (the second one in a row amazingly!) I just need to keep reminding myself to update more frequently!