WOW! Tom has got all the photos and almost all the movies loaded onto the blog. YEAH!! I have not yet got them all labelled but will do at my next opportunity. Probably Monday. Have not had a chance to view them myself because this place has a wierd setup for movies. One must "install on demand" the windoze media plodder each time a movie is clicked on. Then it accesses the file across the internet instead of locally. Too strange. Big snore. So I'll wait until I next go to the place on K Rd. (the common Auck name for Kairangahape Road) on Monday. It is too crowded with kids playing video games, screaching back and forth at each other and smoking on the weekends and evenings.
I have discovered another grand idea to be here, maybe my true reason. I discovered heaven yesterday. It is on Parnell Road and it is called the Chocolate Boutique Cafe. They make 14 different hot chocolate drinks, 8 chocolate & coffee (choffee) drinks and 6 iced chocolate and choffee drinks. All the desserts (everyone decadent in itself) are served with hot chocolate sauce or chocolate fudge sauce AND they serve real homemade Italian style ice cream. Is your mouth watering yet. Well there's more. Yes, more. They sell every imaginable form of chocolate decadence and they have a wall of confectioners' delights. All original recipe stuff too including chocolate covered salt licorice.
Bought another gift for Cassandra. For those of you who aer new to this blog, Cassandra is my Grand Niece, niece Jennifer's daughter. The cutest, prettiest little sweetheart human eyes have ever seen. I'll send it next week.
Just had a lovely supper at an upscale trendy cafe with excellent food called TJ's. Still have not celebrated my birthday. Have not actually mentioned it to anyone yet either.
Have an appointment to open a bank account on Tuesday afternoon, a course on Thursday night for my Advanced Divers' certification, the first 2 of 5 required dives are next Sunday, and I have an appointment for a telephone interview with a Florida Crew Placement Agency on Friday morning. Monday I will find and book into a CELTA (English Teacher) training course. Then get my immigration paperwork done for a student visa, a work visa and a work permit. All just to get work. But I insist on going by the book. Never been tossed out of a country yet, don't intend to start now.
Had a busy day yesterday but a lazy one today. Spend 4 hours doing laundry (mostly waiting for machines to do the laundry) while reading the newspaper from front to back. Then I came into the city centre for this quiet non-smoking internet place and got lots of job hunting done. Applications sent, resumes edited to suit the jobs I'm applying for. I hate job hunting, always have. Is there anyone who does like it? For those of you who don't know this... there is a lot of ageism out there. The New Zealand government blatantly says that you are not welcome here after your 55th birthday unless you just want to come and spend lots of money on vacation.
I am having a bummer day but this too shall pass. I think it is just the weather. I don't know if you guys heard but winter hit here this past week. Not like Ottawa winter with snow and sub-freezing temperatures. Extensive flooding on the West coast of the south island and the south of the north island. The winds have been brutal, the air 6-10 degrees C below normal, heavy clouds and raining on and off. All this since last weekend. It is supposed to be summer here with similar weather to July in Ottawa (+30C every day, sunny skies, blistering heat and sun). As it is I have only one outfit that suits the weather and it is suitable for outdoorsy stuff not job hunting.
Anyway, just feeling a little sorry for myself. The immigration paperwork is daunting, the jobs are not there waiting for me. You know, the usual sort of doubts. But I do know it is temporary and it is Saturday night here.
Gotta run. This place is closing.
Posted by gailene at February 21, 2004 09:09 PM