Cons of "laid-back-ness" and paperwork

Ran into some difficulty getting the University to issue funds into my bank account. Everything here is done electronically (no paper checks). All must have all the appropriate forms, signatures and boxed ticked to be filed. Added to the bureaucracy red tape issue is that much of the staff is still on holiday.

Result= no pay for me. Yet.

Corollary= must pay rent in cash? I hope.

I'll let you know tomorrow if I've become a street person. HA.

Click here if you want some encouragement to slow down your life (this is a link)

National slow down week is Jan 13-19, 2008.
Good little cartoon on life in this link.

Working, sort of.

I've made it through a few days at the University. They are pretty laid back. It'll be interesting to see how it goes when the students start coming back in full force. (Not until Monday.) The University of Auckland has 37,000 students and 3 campuses in Auckland. The optometry program has only about 200 total students. They call it a "boutique program" for good reason.

Optometry has only gotten therapeutics here in the last 3 years, and ophthalmology was actually instrumental in this- they have been helping to forward the career. For you ODs, they use chloremphenical here for eye infections. The horrors!

I have one more night of living in the hotel, then to my little "granny flat" in Parnell. I'm looking forward to really unpacking and hopefully a firmer bed. Though I am pretty content just having a good newspaper to read every day. The New Zealand Herald covers everything- no worries about me forgetting the USA.

Good day to all!

Still no pics.

I have to get my little mac hooked up to broadband. As long as I am living in a hotel, it's not possible. So patience, my friends.

I have taken photos, per your requests, but they are trapped in iphoto for now. Check back this weekend! Cross your fingers.

In other news, it was another perfect day in Kiwiland. Sunshine, 25. Celsius, that is. I have a ID badge for the University. Sigh. :)

Can I apply for citizenship yet?

I'm on day 6 of my new life in New Zealand. I feel like a new person. It's unbelievable. I feel so alive.

Yesterday, I got myself a mobile phone. Now I can be a texting fool like the rest of the New Zealanders. Funny story about the guy in the Vodafone store: I was thinking about shopping around a little more and asked the him when he'd be closing and he said, "3:00, maybe 2:30 or 2:00 if it's slow." Can you imagine a store in the US doing that? So I just bought the darn phone and went on with my day.

To reward myself on the phone purchase, I took a 12 minute ferry to Devonport, a suburb just north of Auckland. I walked around and made myself rest in the coffee shop for a while (my calves are solid muscle now) before I headed up to the top of Mt Victoria. I saw a sort of steppish path going straight up the side of the mount. About halfway, I realised it was quite steep and tending to be on the clumsy side of things, I stopped and thought, "It would be really bad to fall down the hill. My family would not like it." So I leaned forward more and hurried up to the top. When I got there, I was greeted by a bench with two nice people on it, Michelle from Nova Scotia (working on her PhD here) and Dave from Papua New Guinea (civil engineer for Auckland city). We ended up hanging out all day and now I have 2 new friends.

Today I wandered into the Auckland Museum today, which was great, though I am pretty bad at museums. Carrie can attest (Deutsches Museum delirium), our family goes into an instant sugar low and blood pressures drop the second we enter a museum. They had a fantastic exhibit on volcanoes though, including a simulation of Auckland if one should erupt anytime soon. Hope not! This is the land of volcanoes, so you never know.

After that some kiwis I met walking advised I wander over to the Domain for some free live jazz. I sat in the grass amongst about 500 other Aucklanders (in the shade) and thought, this is really not too bad. Gee. I think I have converted in 6 days. There's always a friendly face for conversation or directions. I love it.