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.

In a speech Thursday at St. John Lateran, Nicolas Sarkozy said, "No one denies that the French system of laicism is a guarantee of liberty: liberty to believe or not; liberty to practice a religion and to change it; liberty to refuse to betray one's conscience with public practices; the liberty of parents to educate their children according to their beliefs; liberty from discrimination from government due to beliefs."

Sarkozy, who was at St. John Lateran to take the title of "honorary canon," traditionally bestowed on heads of the French state, said his country has changed a lot. "The French have greater differences in convictions than before," he said. "Now laicism presents itself as a necessity and an opportunity."

However, he added, "Secularism should not be a denial of the past. It does not have the power to sever France from its Christian roots. This has been tried. It shouldn't have been done."

Sarkozy met with the Pope at the Vatican on Thursday morning.

"Like Benedict XVI," he said, "I think a nation that ignores the ethical, spiritual and religious heritage of its history commits a crime against its culture, against the whole of its history, patrimony, art and popular traditions, which permeate living and thinking in such a deep way."

The president added: "To uproot is to lose meaning; it is to weaken the foundation of national identity, and to drain even more the social relationships that have such a need of memorable symbols.

"For this reason, we have to join the two ends of the chain: to accept the Christian roots of France -- even better, to value them, to defend the laicism that finally reaches maturity. This is the step I want to take this afternoon in St. John Lateran."

"I am calling for a positive laicism," he said, "that is to say, a secularism that watches over freedom of thought, of belief and unbelief, does not consider religion as a danger, but as an asset."

so I've updated my template - I don't know if it's all that noticeable. I'll probably make it a work in progress and play with it for a while. meanwhile I'll play with photos using picasa2 (yay free downloads) and post lots of stuff on my photo page...

snow is falling again - it's slowly been falling all day. it is dampish snow and i am somewhat afeared that it will freeze over night and make the roads hellish.

but for now it is simply and utterly beautiful. everything curves - the tree branches, the mounds collected on the holly leaves, the sinks where the leaves are fallen on th ground.
they are saying that it is likely to be gone tomorrow but i don't care. it is beautiful now and now is where i am.

I just got thank-you letters from an entire second grade class. I'd taken their class on a nature walk back in October - I actually don't quite remember doing it - and something must have made and impression (on the teachers at least...).
hmmm, I'll have to go and look the date up to see if it was just me or if I'd only helped... it would be a shame to take all of the credit.

in other news - paper cuts are a pain.

leaf blowing: one of the greatest exercises in futility that i have ever encountered.

they are blowing leaves off the roof and from around the building - again. this is the weather report. but as the man said "job security - they pay the same each time!"

there is something broken in our government...and i don't know if it can be fixed.

first snow!!!

it was just a light dusting but it did come down. and we're supposed to be getting more tonight and tomorrow...

...snow...

well, i had wanted to say something...

in other news - my computer hard drive is nearly full. it took longer than i thought it would though - nearly three years.
i really need to just dump stuff onto my external hard drive...

*thinking*

no time like the present...
it's saying that this is going to take a while... 15 mins remaining.

i downloaded picasa2 so that i could play with my pictures on my own computer. i need to figure out how i can resize the files - they are unwieldy when they come off my camera... is there something better out there for me to pick up for free?

i'll come back and ramble in a bit...

so i've added two more links... chaps i found while doing some research on the community gardens here in the park. the odd thing is they are in the UK and i'm in DC. but they write well and seem to be living the sort of modern globally and environmentally concious farmstead life that i would one day like very much to have...

so i thought i'd share...

the one rub is that the wizard is rather pagan...this makes reading rather interesting sometimes- leaving one with a feeling of "if he only know the whole of it..."

i've put up a new page for photographs... it has lots of color... and even a few pictures... more will be forthcoming...
see "photos" link in sidebar for more details

so i cleaned up my links... but i didn't have the heart to get rid of a couple of them so they've been filed under the heading of "maybe something new..."
i've thought about giving the whole thing an overhaul - i really like toque's and tasik's new pages... but i'm kinda sentimentally attached to this one... perhaps i'll wait until i learn enough to design it entirely on my own and then up it up...

yesterday's winds have stripped many of the trees and now there are drifts, great big ones, of leaves everywhere... the winds here sound different from the winds in socal...less big. not small, but having less magnitude. they say less. perhaps they are too busy taking the leaves off of the trees and moving them up and down streets and back onto people's lawns to be having conversations or carrying tales and messages. or maybe they are distracted by having to move through so many buildings...

my cell phone is making the pathetic noises that dying phones make, an ironic counterpoint to the bouncy happy folk music coming out of my computer speakers...

"there's a car on fire down at 13"
"really?!"

sirens echo off the valley rises and up the streets coming closer. i watch as the flames licking the hood of the car and the open doors are doused with water. they are very efficient these firefighters. in seconds all that is coming from the car is white smoke drifting away on the light breeze.

words fall as so many leaves
stripped from the trees by the careless fingers
of the east wind.
they drift along the lanes of my mind
gather in great heaps
ready for the bagging of conversation
or the burning onto paper with pen or pencil.
and yet they remain
scattered in heaps - unspoke - unwrit
to be kicked and scattered again
by whim or passion's unruly progeny
until, ground down beyond recognition,
the what of them is gone
leaving only an
"i was thinking..."

intensity

my brains feel like they are slowly trying to pour out from behind my eyes - the florescent lighting in the office is pressing down on my eyes which makes me want to close them so that my brains will stay in my head.

...now where was i with this education program outline...

i really don't want to be sitting at the computer any more