Schrodinger's Cat

Don't Panic

Thursday, 28 April 2005

Dream this morning about preparing to board a large wooden sailing ship, to travel to Europe with a couple of hundred other New Zealanders. The journey was to take two months. I was (needless to say) running late with my packing. At one point as the ship was just leaving an older man came along with my pack, but as he was about to jump on board with it he had a heart attack and fell into the water, dropping my pack which sank. I had to get help for him and jump in after it. At some point Jeff Henderson told me “if this is a drink then you’re the mixer, just tagging along. OK you’re not doing any harm but we’re the beer and you’re something non-alcoholic”. I also remember seeing a cheesy Maori comedian from TV, looking like a serious warrior. And due to the confined quarters, there were rooms that could be hired for an hour for the boys & girls to hook up in.

Sunday, 1 May 2005

Had a pretty relaxed weekend. The Saturday Age newspaper has the big jobs section but browsing it didn’t reveal anything inspiring. I signed up with a temp agency, so hopefully they can find me some work – could be office stuff from here on. I should go back to NZ in time for my Dad’s birthday on August 25th since he’ll probably have had chemo treatment and be in need of cheering up by then. So it’s possibly too late to be finding a long-term job anyway. Temp work would also help with the plan Mike & I are forming of going on the train through the desert up to Darwin for the winter – it might even be worth staying a few weeks if there's temp work there.

I had a bike ride today and went for a look around CERES, the sustainable community / environment park. They have organic gardens, solar powered buildings etc. Could be worth putting in a few volunteer hours there.

This evening I went and saw the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy film – better than I’d been expecting. OK so they cut a lot of the plot and dialogue out, but those jokes were over 25 years old anyway and nearly everyone in the audience would have known them already. It did strike me that part of the value of a new film adaptation is seeing how different actors can play with the emphasis and timing of the dialogue – like seeing Shakespeare performed. The Hitchhiker’s Guide was part of my upbringing, I can still quote large chunks of it from memory. So with the movie I appreciated some of the new material and especially the visual gags. And giving it more of a happy ending than the books didn’t feel too out of place. Or maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.

I also heard a rumour that Nick Cave is playing here in a couple of weeks. Now that should be worth seeing.

Also, for what it’s worth I’ve been feeling good recently. Getting out of Wellington has been helpful, but there’s also so much stuff I want to do back there in the second half of the year:

1) Pass shorthand and collect my journalism diploma
2) Help my Dad make his video documentary about our family history (since he's retiring from work now so will have time, and it seems important to get close to him while I still have the chance)
3) Ascension Band show in the Jazz Festival, ideally followed by NZ tour
4) Somehow scrape together money for travels further afield next year

At the moment my employment status is SNAFU but other than that I think (don’t say it too loud or it’ll break) for once maybe I’m happy…

[Later]

Responses to job applications so far: a couple of automated replies to 'Dear Applicant' saying that they've had so many responses blah blah blah, one phone call from a guy who obviously thought I'd be good for the job but unfortunately it's on a govt-subsidised training scheme for which I'm too old to qualify, and the agency I joined haven't come up with anything. Oh well - ten applications today's obviously not enough. Have to do twenty tomorrow...

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