Tag: New Zealand
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sex shop ucuz satan yer
sex shop ucuz satan yer
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Circulation
Last weekend I went with my friends Rachel, Angela, and Miriam for Circulation, a big olâ circus festival down in freezing cold yet oddly sunny Dunedin. I have been super extra busy for the pastâŚwell, for the past forever, I guess, and since I havenât been doing circus for months I just forgot about it…
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Affiliation
For me my nationality is a pretty random identity or affiliation, not something Iâm proud or not proud of. I didnât have anything to do with it: my parents chose for me to become an American citizen when I was two–my naturalization paper is typed in wonky typewriter and lists my height as â2 FEET…
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All About Me
About ten years ago everyone was getting married and I was so jealous. I was going to like five weddings a summer and everyone was all loved up and full of their plans: to have dinner parties, to buy a house, to have children, to do all those things that I thought meant you were…
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Christchurch Earthquake
Christchurch had another earthquake todayâfor you non-Kiwis, they had what was supposed to be the Big One, in September, and theyâve juuust started rebuilding. We heard about it at work and watched some of the footage, before anyone knew what was going on in terms of deaths or injuries, and it was already pretty brutalâChristchurch…
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See What I Can See
Itâs a gorgeous Christmas Day in Wellington: sun is shining, birds singing, all of that. My bag is packed, my house is clean, and all there is left to do is skype my various family members on the other side of the world, put on my travel outfit, and get on the first of three…
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Atomic
I was in the mood to go out on Saturday night. Iâve been very busy socially lately but itâs hasnât been the going out kind of social, if that makes sense; like I go to a lot of dinners and shows and house parties and things like thatâsometimes even events–and I have people over to…
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She Knows
This time last week my friend Calin and her (and now my as well) awesome friend Susan were staying with me here in my little flat, as part of a stop on this awesome Antipodean horse-riding tour they were on together. Wellington put on quite a show for them, being all sunny and lovely and…
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Long Light Days
How I–snap! click! pop!âwent, with what feels like no transition whatsoever, from staying home every night, not even going to yoga, to double-booking every weekend and having to schedule nights off from social stuff, is anyoneâs guess, but all of a sudden all my conversations are about how I can make it to this one…
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Soft Grey
Itâs cool and rainy and a little grey right now as I write this, but spring grey, soft grey; not the intractable closed-down iron of the winter thatâs finally dripped and dragged to an end. Earlier it was short-sleeves-and-sandals weather, and I didnât even need a hoodie as I got the seasonâs first cheap red…
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Tonga: Doing A Lot Of Nothing and Getting Home
Whale swimming was probably the big huge major thing we did on the trip, the thing we talked a lot about and thought a lot about. We laughed a little, later, when we realized how actually active weâd been on our beach holiday, suiting up and getting on boats right after breakfast, when mainly weâd…
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This, Here, Now
Yesterday I didnât have yoga after work and I also didnât have any food in the house. A quick perusal of the produce section at New World indicated that broccoli was expensive but that asparagus was (kind of) cheap because weâre finally getting into spring, and then in a flash I recalled that I had…
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Just A Nice Weekend
Friday night I walked home after work and waited anxiously for my new stove to be delivered. All the appliances in this flat are hilarious for their own various reasons, but the stove was not funny at all because a) all its various temperature markings had been worn away so you just sort of had…
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We’re Not Talking About It
We put Theresa on the plane to Melbourne yesterdayâtwo carloads of friends. Sheâs doing a working holiday visa there for a year, after two years in Wellington, and I donât think any of her friends have completely absorbed that sheâs gone yet; we joked about getting tickets to Auckland and continuing the party up there…
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Turning Out To Be A Big Deal
The stove doesnât workâIâve tried out all the burners and they get sort of lukewarm for a while, enough to almost boil water for pasta, but then they just shut off randomly. One of the windows sticks. Thereâs a washer from 1982 but no dryer. The bedroom closet door draaaaags across the carpet. The curtains…
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Wait Till You Get All Your Stuff In
The good thing about having a very immediate-yet-mostly-dealable crisis is that it focuses all your nervous energy into a very specific direction: Do This Thing, Now. Make It Happen. Make It Work. The night sweats and the upset stomach and the inability to concentrate all of a sudden have a reason and a purpose: I…
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Crying In August
I did so much crying in August. I did lots of different of kinds: the kind where you canât get out of bed and have to remember to drink water at hourly intervals to replenish your vital fluids; the kind where you start sobbing at work; the kind where you weep silently on the bus…
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Boxes Of Books
When I was in Seattle in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2008, I got rid of something like three hundred books which my buddies at the Blue House in Ballard had been storing for me in three identical IKEA bookcases (I had another one upstairs in the cloud room, also full to bursting) along with…
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Four Year Anniversary
Itâs four years exactly today since I first came to Wellington, coming from Napier on the Intercity Bus, waiting to meet Deirdre at the station with my big green backpack. That was so long ago. For my one-year anniversary in 2007 I was in Australia, not even paying attention, and for my two year I…
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There Is No Requirement To Still Your Mind
The yoga teacher seems to want to touch the American a lot in class tonight. She doesnât correct or realign her, she just lays her hands on lightly, gently, softly: spread-out fingers in down dog, shoulders in Warrior II, the small of the back in childâs pose. She can tell, thinks the American, lowering down…
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Sunday Night
You told yourself you were going to scale back from social stuff this weekend but youâve been out every night all the same. Brunch and lunch and coffees and dinners, lots of friends, lots of talking. Lots of texting and running around. You are home only to sleep and to throw your clothes in the…
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My Imaginary Boyfriend
Saturday morning, Chiara and her flatties lay around the lounge discussing their respective Friday nights they wait for a load of firewood to arrive, which they will have to lug up four flights of muddy slippery steps if they want to stay even slightly warm for the next eighteen months of Wellingtonâs winter. Outside, it…
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Squeeze
Things go quick or they donât go at all, these days. Iâm never at home anymore, thereâs never enough time to do anything like grocery shopping or laundry or reading or writing blog posts or anything, because either Iâve got dinner with one friend or dinner with another friend or easy-ish yoga or really hard…
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Pompeii To Paris
I met the beautiful and talented Leimomi last year at the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies ball, which she brilliantly organized and at which I discovered a predilection for wearing top hats and frock coats. We became Facebook friends, as you do, and saw each other at parties and whatnot, always very enjoyably; we may…
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St. Swithin’s Day
Thinking back now I suppose you were just stating your views What was it all for For the weather or the battle of Agincourt And the times that we all hoped would last Like a train they have gone by so fast And though we stood together at the edge of the platform We were…
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Winter’s Here
I am sitting our lounge in front of the fire; the flatties have mentioned something about itâs being âtoo warmâ in here but I have hadâwearing yoga pants, two long-sleeved shirts, a pink fur-lined hoodie, and pink fur-lined slipper bootsâto disabuse them of the notion that there can ever be such a thing as âtoo…
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Back From The Weekend
Towel-dry your hair and put on a singlet, thick socks, a shirt and two jumpers, shivering in your unheated room. Wrap your neck in your biggest scarf and pull your hat down over your ears, pull on your new mittens and be late for the bus, head down into the rain. Look at the different…
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Pancakes
At yum cha on a rainy Saturday afternoon⌠CHIARA:âŚyeah, soâsorry, can I have one of those sticky rice things?âwe have this rule in the house, now. You know how weâre all lonely spinsters, all three of us? Well, we decided that if anyone ever brings someone home, she has to cook pancakes the next morning…
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In The Middle
She missed the twilight while she was at the store, wandering around the aisles sort of dazed, trying to remember if they are out of milk at the house, if she needs more ravioli or feta cheese. The winterâs held off the last couple of weeksâsheâs been trying to spin out wearing her cute new…
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Pendulum
The last big Italian lunch I went to was for my own birthday; so I was really looking forward to the one this afternoon. May has been surprisingly still and calm and warm and every morning when Iâve hopped out the door and run down the 38923892 stairs to the street Iâve looked out the…
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Popular
Yesterday I had the day off because I was at a hui in Te Kuiti all weekend; one of my flatmates and I took the opportunity to stack this winterâs firewood and then we went to see my friend Tom speak at Pecha Kucha. Tomorrow night I am meeting Giulia for coffee and then going…
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Easter Easter Kayak Kayak
Iâd been talking with Theresa, kind of randomly, about taking a trip together somewhere for Easter weekend this year, without coming to much of a decision. I wanted to go to the top of the South Island, maybe to Shambhala again or something, but tickets to Takaka were sort of expensive and they close for…
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35 = Great
My birthday weekend was so good that I had one of the several cakes people made for me for breakfast today just because I felt like it. Iâm sort of sniffly and snuffly and had to skip yoga tonight so I could come straight home and make soup for dinner, but I am still basking…
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Sick In Bed
Sick in bed for a day and a half, in a way I havenât been since the Bush Administration. Tired and sore and achey and shaky, sweating through the sheets, sweating through my purple octopus shirt, dazed and dehydrated, staring at nothing. The last time I was this sick I was in my motherâs house…
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Carrying Me
The bay heaves and surges, flexes its muscles but never breaks into waves; the clouds filter the eveningâs light whitely, greyly, into the fading hills. I look out the window at the smudged harbour, tired from yoga, tired from my week. Looking forward to dinner and bickies and bed. Mist gauzes over the open mouth…
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Switching Up
Right after we all got back from Christmas and New Yearâs my very lovely flattie gave us some simultaneously awesome and awful news: she was moving out. Awesome: sheâs moving in with her fantastic boyfriend! Awful: sheâs leaving us! I had a couple days to wrap my mind around that, thinking about the hassle of…
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Sevens Weekend 2010
Yesterday was pretty exciting because not only was it Waitangi Day and good old Sevens, it was also like the one day of summer that we have in Wellington per year, and when I say that I mean that thatâs what they were actually saying on the news, like, âSummer to fall on weekend this…
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Watching And Listening
Thursday night I went to see Neko Case at the good old San Francisco Bath House, scene of many fun times over the past couple of years. Itâs a pretty small place but Iâve seen some very good shows there–Kristen Hersh in 2007 springs to mind, for example, plus lots of local stuff. I was…
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Summer Concert
You have been going to the summer garden concerts since you first arrived in this city: as you walk down from the cable car along the path to the soundshell you think about the night you first thought you might like to stay for longer than a year. So many memories, now, as you search…
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This Year’s Summer
Itâs been pretty awful weather since I got back from Golden Bay, as in itâs currently 54 degrees (Fahrenheit, that’s 12 for everyone else) outside, in the middle of whatâs supposed to be summer, and itâs raining sideways and the wind is whipping the tree branches against my window in such a manner that suggests…
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New Year’s In Golden Bay
I had only about twelve hours in Wellington between the Coromandel and going down to Golden Bay, where I hadnât been since the tail end of my South Island trip in 2008. I was very keen to return to my beloved Shambhala becauseâŚwell because my last New Yearâs Eve was not that great, to be…
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Natale A Coromandel
I just got home from my summer holidays last night and itâs been a bit of a shock to be back in Welly, to say the least. Today itâs been all awful and stormy and sideways-rainy and I couldnât sleep and I had to do a bunch of washing and food-getting and every time Iâve…
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Time To Go
Last night we all went to the Wellington International Ukulele show at San Francisco Bathhouse and got home ever so slightly late for a Sunday night, after much singing along to âAfricaâ and âSweet Child OâMineâ (works surprisingly well as a happy cheery folky song) and everyoneâs favorite âHeartacheâ. This morning when I got into…
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The Realization Of Desire
I leave in a couple of days for my summer holidays (and of course itâs still winter weather in Wellington, of course it is) and have been busy with many parties and much wrapping-things-up with work and much trying to see everyone before I leave for the usual lunches and coffees and dinners. Iâve been…
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Rotorua Road Trip
I was couching it all in super generous termsâmy friend Eric from the States is in Wellington for a couple of months, and I was all like, âGirl, your experience of the North Island should not be limited to Cuba Street!ââbut really I was feeling a bit restless and wanting to get out of town.…
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Trying To Dissolve
There are six or seven things Iâve been thinking about lately and meaning to write about here (Pride and Prejudice, my heterosexual life partners, the end of crappy olâ 2009, how my hair lady gave me this weird winged mullet with which I am having a hard time coming to terms) but thereâs no time,…
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Art’s Hopeful Sickroom
Friday evening I was invited to aperitivo, like after-work drinks for Italians, at the studio of someone I know through my friend Giulia and also from Facebook. I wasnât quite sure what this was all about, exactly: what kind of studio was it? Who would be there? What sort of a snack situation were we…
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Home Alone On Sunday Evening
The sunâs going down now, slowly, softly, and part of me thinks I should go downstairs and chop some kindling and make a springtime fire, but really what Iâll probably do is shiver slightly as the clouds rush overhead and drink another cup of tea in my yoga pants and oversize Auahi Kore shirt I…
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Thursday Night In Spring
Of course in the Northern Hemisphere Guy Fawkes Day would be cold and dark and autumnal: brief glares on a freezing November evening, actual bonfires, something warming in a hip flask perhaps. In your city, itâs cold and dark too, when you finally decide that oh fine, itâs just once a year, and suit up…
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Not Quite Spring, Not Quite Saturday
You thought, somehow, that when you got back to Wellington it would be warm, like spring, or spring-like in nature, and that you would be able to wear some of your adorable new mass-produced American clothes. You have been able to, actually, now that you think about it youâve been wearing those clothes all week:…
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The First Holiday
Iâm pretty well over my jet lag, now, thanks for asking, and I have very much enjoyed my long Labour Weekend back in Wellington, after only 24 hours in transit from Miami the other day. Iâve clicked right into being here, after the initial weirdness and when people have asked me how it was being…
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Short Duration
I meant to go for a beach walk today but the tide was too high and the sand was trashy with sargassum and the wind was too windy. I spent the rest of the day shopping with my mom, eating Sir Pizza, petting the cats and packing for my flight back to New Zealand tomorrow.…
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As Long As I Stay
My sisterâs wedding was a lot of fun. Her friend made the wedding cake (with an alleged thirty-two pounds of frosting), his brother did all the food, I wore my pinkest and fluffiest dress with my matching pink flip-flops, and we took a walk to the beach as the sun went down, dodging jellyfish as…
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Antipodean Quotidian
I guess we were talking about it at work, somehow, during afternoon tea at 3:30 on a Friday when there hasnât been much on except, like, writing email and reading policy papers and wandering around the office, counting the hours. One of us had some popcorn and I had some biscuits and someone else had…
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All The Goodbyes That Await You
The days are going by and itâs light in the mornings now when you yawn and stumble to the bus stop, and according to the tuis outside your window itâs starting to be spring, and the long strange dull winter is almost over now, even if it isnât quite sundress and jandal time. Time stops…
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Another Good Wellington Weekend
I really dithered around about what to wear Friday night; I havenât been out dancing in ages and it was cold and rainy and I donât have any good shoes, and all things considered the short blue dress and the knee-high boots with tights was a mistake. It was a moderately cute outfitâin fact when…
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Matiu/Somes Island
Weâre at an intriguing meteorological stage, right now in Wellington: itâs still sort of officially winter in that it can be cold at night and one wants at least two blankets on the bed, but the birds have been singing and the flowers have been blooming and everyone is waking up a little bit from…
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Day By Day
Monday I made some lentil soup with carrots, onions, a whole thing of tomato paste and some leftover frozen corn when I got home from work. I would have liked to put in some celery but celery was SEVEN DOLLARS at Moore Wilson and I was too tired and cold to go over to New…
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Sleeping In
Wake up, finally, because the morning lightâwell, the mid morning lightâ got in through the curtains. At first you thought your phone was going off on your bedside table but really it was the birds outside in the trees, singing, singing, making you believe the long cold wet winter is almost over and that one…
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Hospitality
I had some girls from my work over for dinner last night, which was a pretty big deal for me on several levels: Monday night after a long and hectic weekend wherein no laundry was done whatsoever; not sure what to cook; people that Iâm still getting to know and whom I will have to…
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Various Fun Reasons
Whoo, girl, I really should be in bed right now, snuggled up to my hot water bottle(s) but I always feel a little funny when I leave a super emo post up for more than a couple of days, you know, like it all gets a bit dire with all the big questions and vague…
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Returned To Sender
I canât help wondering: what happens to the love, the kind that never gets to the people it was so earnestly meant for? Sometimes thereâs a reason and sometimes there isnât: they werenât paying attention or they didnât understand what would be required, or they just plain werenât interested, they just plain didnât want it,…
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Sunny Weekend
I donât know about you, but I had a really nice weekend. It was full of pretty people and cute dresses and an interesting documentary and journal-writing at Fidelâs and lazy pajama-based mornings and a hubristic party and good talks and yummy hot chocolates and delightful cupcakes and a walk on the beach at Lyall…
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Hibernating
Two pairs of socks, in the mornings; a singlet top, merino jersey, fuzzy-collar zip-up sweater and a coat. Scarf and a very cute hat that always gets me compliments, and sometimes the orange chenille gloves I think I got at the Greenlake PCC nine billion years ago. Tights and boots. Three duvets on the bed…
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Relaxating
Well, it was Aliceâs birthday, and as you know when itâs your birthday you get to do whatever you want, and what she wanted was for her and me to go down to Hanmer Springs in the South Island and go to the spa there for a weekend. I am a good and true and…
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Skills
Community transmission of contagious disease being what it is, Iâve been back working on Operation Swine this last week and a half, and I am so totally OVER IT, man Most people at work have been on this thing for like eight weeks now and everyoneâs tired and everyoneâs tense and everyone has the little…
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Operation Swine
Yesterday at work I was innocently lingering over my lunch when a new co-worker of mine motioned me over. âUm, what are you doing right now?â she asked. âUhâŚtotally important work,is what Iâm doing,â I fake eye-rolled at her, finishing off the last of my third cup of tea. She’s new, this co-worker, but she…
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Nights
Nights I dreamed so hard I tore the sheets off the bed. Nights I looked at the clock and waited for the dinner to be over. Nights I spent online shopping for the perfect pair of knee-high boots. Nights I spent listening to the Disintegration album and writing made-up Sassy magazine interviews with my future…
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Expertise
I ought to be getting ready to run down the road and get on a bus to go to a little party in town; instead I am sitting on my couch with a terrible headache and a queasy tummy, miserably sipping Lady Grey tea and trying to enjoy the last smidge of sunset before I…
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The American Thing, Again
Last night I got an email from New Zealand Immigration saying that theyâve done the first stage of my residency application and needed some extra information about my job to continue on. This was pretty exciting because a) the information they wanted was really easy to get and I had it in the mail this…
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Body And Mind
Even though I started my new job last week, this past one was the first full-forty-hour week Iâve worked since
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Anything Other Than Temporary
Iâm pretty glad I didnât update last night after moving my stuff (which at this point in time consists of two stuffed-to-the-brim bags that barely made it into checked luggage and some very pretty bedding I got at the half-off sale at Briscoeâs last week) from my dear friend Aliceâs house in Mt. Victoria to…
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Anti-Climactic
Today I woke up late because I was up talking with Alice until three in the morning, drank some tea, had lunch at the Italian cafĂŠ with my friend Julie, submitted my New Zealand residency application, went to Farmerâs for moisturizer, and stopped at New World to pick up ginger nuts on the way back…
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Supposed To Be Packing
Iâm supposed to be packing but I had to make dinner and I had to ride the bike to the Quiet Gardens to take pictures of ibis and sandhill cranes, I had to drink tea, I had to read a book I borrowed from my sister. Iâm supposed to be packing but I got a…
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Not The Same But Similar
âItâs not going to be the same,â my sweet friend Giulia wrote to me today in chat, âbut it will be similar.â Ten days before I leave Miami, sixteen days before I get on the plane to Auckland, and youâd think Iâd be consumed by details, youâd think Iâd be all about my lists and…
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Its Own Level Of Tiredness
I took the bike over to the Quiet Gardens today, just to get out of the house for a while, and brought my book and my paper journal with me. I amused myself for a while counting the iguanas (ten) and monitor lizards (three) and sandhill cranes (three) and egrets (three or four) and ibis…
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A Few More Weeks To Go
This time next month, with all due consideration of time changes and the International Date Line, Iâll have just got into Wellington from San Francisco. Iâll have a couple of weeks before I start work–a couple of weeks to hug all my friends and to see if I recall how to get around the city,…
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Contingency
The last week or so, I guess, after I had to resubmit the visa, I was just starting to allow the concept of not going back to Wellington to lick at the edges of my brain, quickly and cautiously, nervously. After yet another paperwork-related mistake last Wednesday that involved panicked calls to the New Zealand…