Trying to breathe!

(Helga's flowers, and a view from my window.)

I could use a stiff drink. Three days until my things ship and quite a few major things are still up in the air. I can't wait until I can relax again.

Adventures in "Bussing It"

This weekend on a whim I met Rose Marie's son in Tauranga for a couple days. I plopped on the bus at 7:30AM. Each day, I write 3 things I am grateful for in my journal. When I looked back, "Bus Rides" made it in there both Saturday and Sunday. There's nothing like riding some sort of public transportation, looking out the window, listening to music and reflecting on life.


Beach off Tauranga


Succulent boat


Avocado I picked


Relaxing on the deck I


Relaxing on the deck II

The end of the work week; thoughts on students.

Working with students is an adventure in itself. There is a huge range of abilities and I never know who I will encounter on any given day. They are here to become optometrists, ranging in age from 21 to 35. I am supposedly imparting my wisdom on them, since I have seen at least 20,000 more patients than they have.

What I hope I'm teaching them is confidence in themselves, listening skills, responsibility and clinical thinking. I hope to be one of those to whom they can ask any question, no matter how stupid it seems. And I hope never to be the one to beat them down or treat them poorly. God knows most of us can point out our own flaws.

Last night after work, I realised my shoulders were not tight. In fact, I was not sore anywhere. I was relaxed. And it was nearing the end of the week. I used to carry so much stress that my fingers would go numb sometimes, or my shoulder would barely move.

The internal relaxation is something I have been feeling more and more of since I've arrived in New Zealand. There are things about this job that might seem to be negatives. Maybe they are just differences again.

Sailing the Bay of Islands (north New Zealand)

The view from the little bush walk we did after we sailed into this harbor. It had 2 lagoons, but was called "Three lagoon harbor". There's some difficulty with counting here, as 90 mile beach is really only 55 miles.

Here's the sailboat. I laid out front on for a while, and felt like I'd died and gone to heaven. Perhaps I can get a gig on a boat and drift along for a while. Sounds dreamy.

Captain Mike, from Vancouver BC. He's been in NZ for 15 years, took 8 years to sail over with his wife and 2 children. Lovely man.

I hiked up to a lookout and this was one the way- pretty cool when the tide is out- it looked like it was from another planet. The smiling pic on the next post is when I was at the top. This was just adjacent to our campground.