My New Thing is Listening To Music in the Dark

I had been sleeping more than is strictly necessary while Kate was on her night duty - we were pretty much keeping the same hours except while she was working, I was out gallivanting. Because she was day sleeping to make up for night shift, I felt completely vindicated in my own sleeping in, which was probably outrageous, but sure.

The past few days have been slow to get going in the mornings because I have become even lazier in my unemployment, which has potential to become the awful vicious circle of apathy I was so accustomed to working with at home. We have been watching some films (Half Nelson - what a show, really loved that one) and listening to music, and last night we went snowboarding. Now that was some craic indeed! Snow Planet is an indoor artificial venue for snow sports, but rather than a shitty auld dry slope, they actually make their own snow which makes them very cool indeed. Literally. Its like -5 degrees in there.

I spent the past few afternoons applying for tons of support work style jobs online, all over the North Island. At this point I have decided that I really will go wherever the job comes up, because I am really not attached to Auckland at all except that Kate and Cathal are here. I may have a Night & Weekend Manager job lined up in Rotorua in a couple of months, but in the meantime I have been out all day today scoping out quick fix jobs - book shops, second hand clothes, music shops, that sort of thing. Some of them had vacancies which I applied for, and I've emailed a load of CVs out today too. Now, if they could just hurry up and realise that they need me to start immediately, that would be lovely.

Last night I discovered that one of my favourite things to do is lie in the dark with my earphones in and listen to music loudly. When you deprive yourself of a sense, they say the others are meant to sharpen to compensate. I don't know if that counts in the very short term, but I was defintely much more tuned into the nuances of what I was listening to, and had a real blissed out chilled drop-off to sleep. Nice.

Other things of note:

• I am a google monster. Just try and slip a new fact past me. I WILL check it if its in any way interesting to me.
• I now have a New Zealand bank account. Just no money to put in it.
• The chair I am sitting on is definitely going to disintegrate while I am sitting on it some day soon.
  

Well!

This month has been crazy busy with the wedding and accompanying jollifications, a lot of North Island touring, surfing, spa-ing, horseriding, drinking and has largely been without substantial internet access, hence my complete failure in the 'Recording My Life For Posterity's Sake' stakes. I have been making scribblings of phrases and ticklings as I go, and I will sit down to collate them when I feel like I can do them some form of justice. I promise.

So anyway, today is my birthday (and therefore also my brother Andrew's - happy birthday, bro!), and unfortunately my Jones couldn't get off her weekend night duty, which sucks but can't be helped. I'm staying with her and Cathal until I get some income sorted - the job search begins to get aggressive on Monday! Cathal and I are gonna head to the Thirsty Dog on K'Road tonight to see a Finnish band, I Walk the Line, who I incidentally saw in Auntie Annie's a few years back. Of course, I had no inkling at that stage that I'd ever see them again, never mind that it would be in Auckland and I'd be living there. That sort of thought always leads me to wonder what sorts of things I'm completely unaware of right now - if Future Me could come back and tell Present Me one important thing that I am going to do, or some special event i'm going to be part of, what would it be?

Anyway.

Other things of note:

• I am quite contentedly drinking (cans of) Guinness from a Bertoli jar, which makes me stupidly happy.
• Put your mike to the mouthrophone, bro!
• I really enjoy being clean.
• Posting things is fun.
  

Have Love, Will Travel

The last few days have been amongst the longest of my life. In fact, it just felt like one big, fuckity, mahooosive day. Left the house at 11am on Tuesday 31st March, and arrived in Auckland on April 2nd at 7.10am local time. The second flight, from Heathrow to Hong Kong, had the potential to feature the worst 12 or so hours of my life due to the in-flight entertainment system malfunctioning for the ENTIRE flight. Luckily, I was sitting beside a lovely couple who were travelling to Hanoi to meet their brand new grandson for the first time. Their son has been living there for ages and has set up a charity working with street children which sounds like it could be a potential opportunity for me if I get round to coming back through South East Asia on my way home as I have been hoping.

On finally reaching Auckland, I eventually got through passport control, baggage collection (after a good 20 minutes of watching the same two suitcases lazily make their way round and round the carousel) and customs/biohazard checking to find that the weather was glorious. Score! I was feeling surprisingly good at this stage and resolved just to stay up all day and try to do a quick reset of the old body clock by sleeping when I am meant to. I seem to have been somewhat successful too; I really don't feel too bad at all, considering.

Yesterday afternoon I met Kate, which I had been looking forward too for so long. She and Cathal are living in a converted garage off Kyhber Pass, which is a really nice space. Hilarious to find an empty Bertoli jar in her sink, all rinsed out and ready for a Guinness. Although it didn't know it was ready for Guinness at that stage, I made sure it learned quickly. We headed down to the Dog's Bollix on K Road that night to a gig that Cathal was doing sound for, where I got one fairly decent pint of the black stuff, and one that I wouldn't expect any human to drink. Really, really boggin' like. Swapped it for a Monteith's, sharpish. Highlight of the night - Gay McDonagh winning the $200 tattoo voucher in the raffle that I had my eye on - a highlight because she just might use it! Ha. Lisa was also playing a gig in the Wine Cellar that I would have loved to try and make it down for, but by the time we got sorted in the Bollix, it was kind of late. I did manage to catch her afterwards quickly, and I'm sure we'll get meeting up properly soon enough.

I have now managed to get a NZ mobile number sorted (+64 21 0657723), and almost instantly lost my UK sim card. Pain in the arse - I can still see texts I receive to that number on o2 bluebook, but can't use my free texts to home. We now have the weekend to hang out in Auckland before heading down the Hamilton and therabouts until the end of next week for Katie and Mikey's wedding. Big dinner tomorrow - my Dad and Jo, Kate, Cathal and both their sets of parents (who are incidentally meeting for the first time - eeeek). Considering an early, sober(ish) night tonight. Seems sensible. Losing. Ability. Form. Sentences.....

Other things of note:

• Really need to get to the post shop.
• 'Cazi', the drummer of a shit band in the Bollix. Only in profile, mind.