Pictures!

Yay!!! I finally got the pictures to upload! I figured I had a few updates, so I would throw them in a new post. 

Other than the cold I developed this week, things have been going great. I'm actually getting to do a decent amount of design work at work, which has been awesome. Some days are quite slow as they often run out of things for me to do, but at least it gives them a chance to find design work for me to do. My contract was renewed another month as well, so I'll basically be working there until a week or so before my visa expires.

It is officially winter here. Tuesday was absolutely freezing and most of New Zealand got snow. We only got hail, but we finally got a thunderstorm. It poured all day. I finally broke out the space heater in my room and it still wasn't doing the trick. Fortunately, I survived.

Monday is the Queen's Birthday so it's a public holiday. My boss also gave me Tuesday off, so its a long weekend for me. Sean's parents just bought a new house up north, so we are going to see the house this weekend. Hopefully the weather is nice enough to enjoy the scenery.

 

The view from Mt. Albert. The water you see is actually the shore of the west side of New Zealand, even though Auckland is situated on the East side. It's quite thin at this point.

The storm clouds started rolling in and the sun reflecting off the water was cool. This is the east coast of Auckland.

My last day at the restaurant. This (obviously) is the bar.

My manager decided to be sneaky and take a picture of me serving customers.

The display flowers from the restaurant that they were about to throw out. They were furry and so unique looking I took them home.

A picture of the kittens.

My dresser with a bit of home. Grandma, that's your picture on the right.

Life is Good!

Everything has been going great! The big changes from last week (or has it been two weeks now?) have made a huge difference in life. I absolutely love my new job and the normal schedule has allowed me to actually have some free time. I almost don't know what to do with my time now. Living with Sean has been great and I'm really enjoying getting to spend more time with his (now my) flatmates.

Everyone at work is super friendly. Its a pretty small company and you can tell everyone enjoys working together. My boss got a puppy last weekend and since it is too small to leave at home alone, she has been bringing it into the office. It is the most adorable puppy ever (sorry Skittles) and its safe to say our productivity went down a bit this week. Tuesday was by far the best day this week. When I got to work, the HR lady, who had been on vacation since I had started, was back. Within 5 minutes she brought up getting started on a visa for me... until she realized that I'm not technically their employee so they can't. It gives me hope for the future though. Then shortly after, the designer had me help with some of his work. I was super excited. I got to climb around in the boat and see where everything was and what they were doing. My job was technically still data entry, but it's what I would be doing if I was employed by any other designer so I was really excited. He kept mentioning to people that I would be in charge of that part from now on, so that was good news. The end of the week got somewhat slow, but just because we became caught up on everything. Their daughter leaves next week, so it should be a bit busier without two of us doing the work.


My homework is going well and I have less than a month until my final deadline. I am a lot more relaxed about it now that I have more time in my schedule to get things done. My stress level has gone down significantly which has been really nice. I also finally have a good chunk of money saved up which is nice.

I now have time to exercise again and have started running. My flatmate plays on a soccer team and apparently they need people. I'm still debating if its a good idea, but I have completed my promise of taking a year off and my knee has been feeling good. I think I may use the next month to make sure I am strong and kick the ball around a bit and see how tempted I am in a month when school is done and I have way more free time.

The cats are as cute as ever, but I think they are starting to get jealous of me and how much of Sean's attention I steal. They were doing so good, but one of them peed on my bed last week. Its been over a month since they had done that so we thought they were done with it, but apparently not. Its been pouring rain for over a week, so I am fortunate to finally have a drier (and washing machine as well). Winter is definitely here.

Yesterday was semi nice so we decided to go for a picnic up on Mt Albert. I am trying to get to all of the mounts before I leave and since I now live in Mt. Albert, it was an short trip. The trees broke up the 360 views, but you could see both coasts and most of immediate Auckland.

For some reason I still can't upload pictures so I will have to do a post with pictures later once I get it working.

When it rains, it pours...

...and has it poured this week. Both literally and figuratively. There has been one day this week where it hasn't rained, and every other day it has poured all day long. Winter is here. Its made it almost impossible to get the laundry done that I desperately need. 

So on a related note, I have exciting news!!! I just did a huge load of laundry and I am proud to report that after almost 10 months of traveling and numerous different shared washing machines, I still have ALL of my socks. Each one is still happily mated with its pair. I know, I'm as shocked as you are.

With this exciting news aside, I'll get to the slightly more relevant and equally exciting news. This week I moved and started my job.

Saturday I wrapped up my last shift at the restaurant. There was a torrential downpour so I ended up getting to go home early at noon. I enjoyed my free afternoon and then went out to celebrate with some of my coworkers.

I set Sunday aside to pack but I overestimated how much stuff I had and it took all of about 30 minutes to get everything packed. I used the extra time to get some homework done and hang out with my flatmates. One of them made an amazing venison dinner as a farewell dinner for me. It continued to downpour all day so I took the opportunity when it slowed down a bit to pack a bit of my car up. Three trips later I had packed everything I could. I realized packing had started to become extremely underwhelming. I hope all my moves in the future are this easy.

Monday I drove over to Sean's and unpacked my stuff. I was not pleased to see the rain was still in downpour mode when I woke up and fortunately it slowed down for the twenty minutes I needed to get my stuff out of my car. 30 minutes later I was unpacked and had to wait for Sean to get home from school to go get my bed and furniture. Due to the continual rain, we ended up having to wait until Tuesday when it was finally bright and sunny out. Quickly everything was setup and I'm very comfy in my new room. Since there are shelves in the room I was able to use my dresser to remind me of home.

Long story short. I'm moved into my new room. I already know his other flatmates so I've had a lot of fun getting to hang out with them more now as well.

Wednesday I started my new job. The office is on the air force base so its a bit weird driving to work with the troops assembled on the road right next to you. The facilities are really nice and the people are really fun to work with. They have significantly downsized so the office is empty. There are points in the day where I am the only one in the office (as opposed to the workshop). The people are great and friendly and its definitely a family atmosphere (especially considering the two directors are husband and wife and their daughter is who is training me).

They are primarily a boat builder, so its fun to see all the boats they are working on. My functionality is mostly accounting, answering the phones, and helping out with admin stuff where needed. I think they think they are giving me all the boring work, but I am loving it. I have learned a lot already and I realize how helpful it is that I know boat terminology. They way that I have been introduced to everyone makes me think they are planning on keeping me for a few months, so that is promising.

Basically its been a great week. The hours are so much better and I have so much more free time. I turned in my last big assignment and have also turned in the next two small ones so I am onto my final big assignment. I have just over a month to complete it, but I should be okay. I can't wait for the day when I don't have to worry about homework anymore. I'm also actually getting to cook since I have evenings free now and I am really enjoying it. Hopefully this means I can eat a bit healthier now as well.

(for some reason I can't get the pictures to upload, so a revision will come soon)

A Short Story

Here is a short story for you that I wrote:

Our relationship started out strong. The first 13 years went by with no problem. Everyone was happy and we were both able to do what we wanted without a problem. Around year 13 we started having some issues. Professionals were called in to help, but they could only offer temporary fixes and nothing really seemed to be resolved. Even so, we managed to stay together for another 10 years. We learned to work together to make things easier on one another and we had our good periods and we had our bad periods.

It wasn't until that fateful day in July that things got bad. We had just had a thrilling vacation in Germany and hiking the Swiss Alps. We even went skydiving a few weeks before with my dad and his new relationship. Things were looking good, but I must have been too demanding and he unwilling to bend. Out of nowhere he decided to break things off. I was crippled and did not expect it at all. I needed support from my friends and family just to function. I was in pain and it took a while before I could start to heal. Fortunately I was able to start a new relationship a mere 10 days later, thanks to someone for setting us up.

Things were rocky at first and it took awhile before we could really get our feet on the ground. It took a bit of learning to see how far we could stretch each other and it wasn't easy. He had just gotten out of a relationship too, so it took awhile before we could really get attached to one another. I was still recovering from the rough blow I had just endured and I had to recover from that before I could really progress with this relationship. Slowly progress was made and our relationship eventually started getting stronger with the help of those around us. Six months in and things finally became real. We were able to do the things we loved together, but it was still new enough that we had boundaries. I kept limitations on our relationship to ensure things stayed strong, but I must have trusted things too much. Not even two years after we met, I let the limitations go and pushed him too far. It was only a slight nudge but it was enough for him to call things off as well.

I had been here before, so I knew what to expect, but I was even more upset because I thought this had been the one. I had been so careful and one mistake ruined it all. We even had a big trip planned together and were supposed to leave in a few weeks. It got me thinking about what I was doing wrong and if I should change things about my lifestyle to keep my relationships lasting for good.

Fortunately I was set up again by the same person and was back in a new relationship in a weeks time. I was super careful this time and held back on doing some of the things I normally did until things were stronger. I was no stranger to new relationships at this point, so I recovered much more quickly. I was able to go on the trip I had planned with the previous break up and take my newfound relationship with me. Things were still tender, so I held off on doing many things I thought might push the limitations. I still had fun and was able to look past the previous relationships. We still have our rough patches and issues from the first relationship are still there, but things are getting better and I have learned enough to hopefully keep things strong this time. Things are looking good and I am proud to say, Happy One Year Anniversary ACL #3.