when doing research for an academic type paper, when do you know you've done enough? i'm at the point where i'm re-reading articles that i somehow printed off twice without realizing it - and i'm not picking up that i've already read the whole bloody thing 'til i get close to a third of the way though...

sigh

i think i just don't want to start writing...

first day of work today. oh, yes - i've managed to get a job. it actually came through the other day in the late afternoon. i had a day to go and find suitable 'office' type clothes on a very limited budget. fortunately there is a decent secondhand shop just up the road that will yield up some very decent goods if one just sifts though it long enough. so i'm officially the new 'catering assistant' at a rather swank law firm on the harbor-side edge of downtown. in reality i'm the cleaning girl who takes apart the coffee machine, makes sure nothing is growing in the refrigerator, wipes down the counters and tops off the milk and biscuits every morning. i may get to do some baking and cookery type things, but i think my main function will be to clean... but we'll see how things progress.

our internet connection is freaking out.

i was listening to concert radio NZ but decided i'd had enough classical music for the morning (as it was fueling my desire to curl up with tea and read novel) and thought i'd switch over to wxpn out of philly.
now the internet has been slow all morning - pages taking longer than usual to load, radio coming in and out, but playing nonetheless. so i find station page, link to live streaming, load it into winamp and wait. and wait. now it become a test of wills. its been 'buffering' for the last 5 mins now reading 0% 20% 50% 80% 0% over and over and over.

i give up. 'net: 1 me: 0

i don't know what the deal is. the building is practically deserted during the day. who is choking up all of the bandwidth???

the rain drops run down the pane and i fear me the wind is blowing them in onto the window sill as well, in spite of the mostly closed window. my little basil plant in its over stuffed wee pot will get very little sunlight today. the wind makes our small room rather drafty and chill, but without the cracked window it is unpleasantly stuffy. the cars are backing up along the mortorway - it seems drivers do know how to drive cautiously, it just takes a spell of nasty weather to bring it out.

i have thus far spent the morning tucked away with my book, watching the window out of the corner of my eye to judge the time. but the clouds are thick and low - touching the tops of some of the higher buildings in the downtown and entirely hiding the tower (a word about the tower: picture the lower half an inverted Cloud City and you've about got it) - preventing me from being able to judge the light very well. so now the morning is nearly gone and i am no more inclined to turn from my book than i was a few hours ago. it still looks like it did at 7.30, why should i be wanting to be productive?
answer: because i've a term paper to produce in two an a half weeks time...

ah, i have news: my class schedule has taken yet another potential job from me. perhaps i will elaborate the subtle intricacies of my class schedule as laid out by this institution of higher education. but not now. i am disappointed - i actually wanted this one. a bookstore, even though located in a mall, is still a bookstore.

c'est la vie

what word describes the sound of air pouring fourth from a vent? one of those square ones you see in drop ceilings across the westernized world. "rushing"? "discharge"? "effusion"?
coupled with the tapping clatter of keys and the occasional bit of objuration coming from the disgruntled ESRI crafters it re-enforces the weighted silence of the grad student lounge.

what am i doing here?

i am "researching" for my next paper. this one is about farming subsidies. i will readily admit that i am feeling a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the topic. the propositions for my proposal are dull and lifeless; i wrote them because i had to but i don't know if they will actually lead to anything worthwhile, much less 4000-5000 words worth of something... objectively i am pretty sure that they are actually ok (i think, this could be wishful thinking though). but i, the researcher and scribbler of words, am finding nothing in what i wrote that is leading me to further thought on what more to write...

what am i doing here?

i don't want to be an academic. an inveterate scribbler of words out of touch with the world and reality who takes other papers and makes new ones to feed the endless cycle of journals and digests while feeding the ego with thoughts of informing those who form the minds of the masses... a scholar perhaps, learned, well-read, conversant, trained in the lore and practice of my immediate field and those related. but an academic?

one of the first things i was told about auckland and nz in general was that there are more cafes and coffee-type shops per capita than any where else in the world. now whether or not this is (f)actually true there are certainly a whole heck of a lot of them. no street is complete without at least two per block. add to this that every other cafe seems to also be a licensed bar and you have a rather interesting dynamic set up for job hunting...

"do you know how to make coffee*?"
"no, but i learn really quickly"
"do you know how to work behind a bar?"
"no..."
"well, i'm looking for someone who is already trained, but if no one comes up i'll be sure to get back to you"
"ok, sounds great. thanks for your time"

if you don't know how to make coffee* (*espresso, et al - they don't do drip coffee here) or how to pour drinks, you and your cv can go to the back of the line. and the idea of training is almost unheard of - if you don't already know what you are doing you are wasting their time.

back to the drawing board; there has to be something i can do in this soddering city...

*sigh*

i was saving up little things all week to share and now they are gone...

*sing-song*
all gone...

there was something about rain in the city - how it sticks and is messy and dirty - how natural bits that we take for granted in other towns, wind, rain, tree lined streets, all seem rather lost and distracted in this city - as if they are still trying to figure out why there are tall ugly buildings and mazes of pavement blending roads and sidewalks and alleys where there was forest and streams for so very long - how wind and rain are very old and have very long memories and become used to change so very slowly with much confusion in the between times

but i've forgotten it... i was not feeling so well for most of this week; but i'm better now.

in other news i turned in my first graduate paper today. "where does the answer lie? population control and the disjunction between the arguments" my thanks to em for her help in finding resources. i'll see about putting up a link to it somewheres abouts if anyone is interested (or perhaps even if there isn't any interest...)

signing off...

"that must be a weird feeling"
"what?"
"hearing something and not knowing whether it's yours or something you heard"
"yeah, it is. it is really kinda frustrating because people ask you stuff like that and you don't know if it is yours or someone else's. and I don't know where it comes from"

by now it is very much something he wrote or was inspired to play. the riff that he was playing has had about a dozen variations and is morphing into something else even as i'm trying to capture a description of it on screen.

dog gone flighty music bug-
come

back

here...




you know, i think plato was right about inspiration. it is something from the gods.

why is it that people don't talk to each other in elevators? it's a long way down from the 25th floor to the 1st floor and the whole way down none of us said a word... it's very peculiar.

ah, what was i doing up on the 25th floor? well, i was interviewing for a job. i think it went well - i was able to intelligently answer all of their questions (well, except for the bit about what exactly the company does, but i don't think that hurt too much). much more damaging is my weird class schedule that has me in class all day for four days in a row and thus unable to go to work. that is not so good.... really not very marketable no matter what spin you put on it. but i'll hear about it in a day or two.
...
perhaps i should return to the drawing board sooner. i really need to find myself a job - or we really won't see anything of this country than this overgrown suburban sprawl.

a friend of mine asked me a bit ago in an email if married life was heavenly. i'm going to continue my tradition of cheating on posts and use some of the letter i wrote to her...

In all honesty, married life very much not heavenly... and I mean that in the best possible way. It is very earthy, and gritty and right now rather monetarily poor. There is quite a lot of making due and being very frugal (giving up alcohol for lent was very good for that... and hopefully I'll have a job in the next week or two and we'll be able to afford to drink again... :) But it is wonderful. There is a lot of adjusting to do - mostly of things you'd never think you'd have to adjust to: like not seeing him for however many hours of the day, or where he decides to leave his shoes and socks when he gets home or how he eats his soup (which somehow you'd never noticed when you cooked for him before...) He is more fully your best friend and closest companion... He gets to kiss you more and snuggling is a must both morning and evening. (I would have to say that part is pretty close to heavenly...) All in all, I am happy and would not trade my life right now with that of a king. (though being able to get out of the city would be very nice...)

there is a water spirit residing in our building - a very unhappy water spirit. he can generally be found lying on the floor along the hall between the kitchen and the showers. he spreads himself across the entire width of the already narrow hall forcing anyone wishing to pass from one room to the other to either leap across or wander around with wet socks. i know he is unhappy, anyone (or thing, as the case maybe) soppy enough to get in the way of someone heading to the toilet or shower must be unhappy. on particularly warm days he wanders off to visit his kin down in the harbour. but he is almost always back in the evenings, reaching out toward the kitchen, following the contours in the uneven floor.

lesson: people really need to be more careful while in the shower

This little dude was on the ferry back from Tiritiri with us. He was pretty excited about being on a boat and I don't think he sat still for two minutes put together the whole trip back.

Little kids are cool...

I went on a field trip today for the Environmental Processes class (or "paper," as they call it here) I'm taking. We went out to a science preserve called Tiritiri Matangi Island (link is to map - here is link to the 'friend's of' website). The place is amazing. Twenty years ago it was practically bare having been grazed by cattle and sheep for over 100 years. The native bush (forest) and birds were practically gone. Through much persistence by two of my professors and many volunteers they have successfully brought the island back to life. Geoff has posted some of the pictures I took while on the trip.

It was very heartening to see something that had actually worked and was doing well after two days of very intense (and somewhat disheartening) lecturing. By yesterday evening, I couldn't help but feel that men were a blight upon the earth, all of his practices bad and inherently damaging to the earth from which we were spawned. I had to rationally talk myself through the arguments and logic of our faith in a loving God who actively created us and gave us in a certain place within creation. I have been feeling desperate for a Catholic response and input on the environmental issues that have been raised. I found a number of very good articles on the Zenit website (searching under 'ecology' brings up numerous good articles that every Catholic should read).
I was ideally looking for a moral/ethical response to the arguments for population control that I could use in the discussion portion of class tomorrow (faith based arguments holding little water for a basically atheistic crowd). I've read numerous articles for this class from a range of scientific journals saying that voluntary population control is necessary in order to enable future generations to enjoy life at the current standard of living. No one (including myself thus far...) has questioned this conclusion. (Somehow, despite having spent four year supposedly debating and challenging the conclusions presented in the texts I feel very unsure questioning the material in my new scholarly environment...) I don't feel like I know enough or have anything scientifically significant to present as a counter argument. I have moral arguments against the conclusions the that are being drawn from the science but no alternate science evidence to back up those moral arguments. It's all very well to say that something is wrong and is not an acceptable solution, but when I have nothing to suggest as an alternative...

Somewhat relatedly, I've nearly finished reading Slim's wedding gift: Happy are You Poor: The simple life and spiritual freedom by Fr. Thomas Dubay. It is wonderful - simple, clear, from first principles, practical, and realistic. I highly recommend it for anyone seeking to live the Gospel more deeply (ie everyone). Relating this to the above, this is a beautiful solution to the potential global shortage of resources so feared by all of those scientists I've been reading. If we all lived a sparing-sharing life (the term Fr. Dubay gives to the factual poverty advocated in the Gospel) then we would be using significantly less of the earth's resources and it would be able to be developed in a more sustainable manner.

*sigh*

why are there no simple answers in life?

...signing off

class tomorrow morning - first of the semester. i was excited a few days ago, but right now i am at the tired and nearly overloaded point that tell's me i am actually back in school...

my my how little things actually change.

...signing off.

sunlight is filling our small room, unhampered by the rain and street be-grimed window. it has been heavily over cast all day; but now the winds have changed and the evening sky is filled with setting sunlight. the windows are open in the flat across the alley welcoming in the cool air brought by the breeze. in their reflection i can see a lone pine tree somewhere off behind my own building or across the motorway.

...

the sun is gone now; the sky a faint blue accented with sunset colour stained clouds. perhaps it will be clear tomorrow there are fewer clouds now than there were half an hour ago.

our building is full of people from all over the world. the chap across the hall is from Zimbabwe. around the corner are fellows from Korea (Seoul), China (Beijing), and Canada (Calgary). the fellow next to the stairs is from Bulgaria. whatever else i could say about the place it has been good for meeting people from around the world and getting a feel for how others see America. it's not all bad. one of the first questions asked is "why would you want to leave America?" often the next question is our opinion on the presidential campaign. the first is easy to answer: to see the world (or at least some more of it). the second is not so easy and a little embarrassing. neither of us has really been following the campaigns so giving even half decently informed opinions has been rather difficult. (by way of excuse for this lack of attention to civic duty, we were living in DC the most politic'ted city in the country where the campaigning began a-way back in the middle of last summer nearly a year and a half before the actual election... and we were planning a wedding and two long distance moves...) so i've been trying to keep a bit more on top of things now that there is a bit of distance between us and the politics.

...

dark outside now. i'd really like something sweet. mmm, or a cup of good coffee (which is not hard to find in this city)...
guess i'll get another glass of water and read for a bit...

signing off...

i am avoiding...

you see, if i keep busy with lots of little things i can avoid the unpleasantness of writing up and polishing my CV (variation on the theme of a resume). which means i in turn also avoid the unpleasant uncertain sensation that accompanies searching for a job and the nervousness of job interviews. i can also avoid thinking about shrinking account balances, falling exchange rates and the generally higher cost of living here in the city (caused somewhat by our government's shortsighted and selfish policies).

but you see, it is rather hard to keep busy when the room is tidy and supper is already started (there are only so many times you can go check on a pot in the other room) and the inbox has been checked for the third time...

which inevitably brings me back to the conclusion that i have been avoiding: i need a job.

hmmm, i think i'll go and check on that pot one more time...

something about the weather on the weekends here... it is raining for the second weekend in a row. folks keep asking us when we arrived and then saying what a beautiful summer they just had. and it's windy - downright blustery. our window keeps swinging itself shut leaving us without fresh air in our damp-ish, badly ventilated room.
yesterday was beautiful - sunny, warm. there was a breeze but the wind itself was busy hauling the large over stuffed clouds away to the northwest. we walked up to one of the neighbourhoods in which we are thinking about looking for a place to live. it is a hip borough with lots of off beat shops and cafes. kiwis do two things far more than their american counterparts: drink coffee and smoke. and most of the cafes are also licensed bars. so the three most common addictive substances are readily available on nearly every corner... (sorry a little post-modern angst coming out there...)

signing off...

i've come to the conclusion that i ought to be making more use of this page being so far away and all... and i've been wanting to write more but making the excuse that "nothing comes"... but if i make myself actually sit down and at the very least describe something about the day, even if is just to say something about the noise or a funny smell or odd people we're now living with, it will be more that what i've been doing recently (which being nothing would of course me more...)

...
so
...

we just got back from a three day field trip up to the Northland region of NZ. it's been an intense three days; lots of driving and lots of talking. mostly talk about environmental issues, but also just random stuff amongst the people in my program. i found myself becoming more and more quiet as other people talked more and more. perhaps i innately feel that there must be an equilibrium of noise in a given volume of space/air. the Northland is beautiful - rolling hills and forest (native bush, pine for harvesting, and everything in between). it's not the image drawn to mind by LOTR, and i'm glad we saw the Northland before going down to the south island. i was able to fall in love with this and appreciate it for itself without trying to make comparisons to "the movie." see Geoffrey's page for pictures

on coming back to our flat i made the very pleasant discovery that our small refrigerator had died sometime while we'd been gone. fortunately we'd only just moved in and hadn't done much by way of shopping. we lost a jug of milk that was nearly full, but i think the eggs are still good (people here don't refrigerate their eggs anyhow...) and the rest was fruits and vegetables. i guess it's a matter of being thankful for small blessings.

i'll save descriptions of the flat for some story to warrant it... off to fold laundry...

I'm an auntie!!!!!



see nephew, sister and brother-in-law here...

I have come again to the Hill House. The Sprite and her Sage Husband have made it a place of love and warmth, good scents and lovely sounds. I would be content to fall into the roll of invisible housekeeper - taking care of the little things they didn't notice needed to be done. But there are very many things I need to do and the weight of them is nearly stealing away my breath...

~ ~ ~

We have come very very far. And our journey is still only part way done. We have seen cities and deserts, mountains and valleys, wealth and squalor of many sorts. We had hours of conversation, of music, of wind, of silence.
It seems hard to believe that a week ago we were still at home...

...there are pictures on Geoffrey's page.

there is a little red oak tree in the backyard. most of the leaves have fallen - taken away by the wind and turned brown by the sun. but there are a few, perhaps a dozen perhaps a score - bright red, scarlet, the color of rich blood - still on the thin branches and twigs.