Second Epistle of Peter: to a fake brother

so as i've discussed in a previous post i like to send letters and care packages.
i got another opportunity to assemble a box of fun and cleverness just a few weeks ago. as i'm sure just about every one of you knows (i doubt many people who don't actually know me read this) i am an only child. which is mostly fine, but has left me occasional wanting the kind of brotherly relationship found in much pop-culture. for much of my public school life i wished i had an older brother to help me learn how to defend my self and to play me good music, though i made due with good friends, though we did have some kind of crap taste in music. i have known a few brother sets over the years, a few happy but a few taking the normal sibling rivalry to occasionally dangerous heights. specifically i'm thinking of my cousins who are about as different as two people can be who were the product of the same couple.
i still wished i had had a brother.
then i lived with Caitlin, Blyth and Kristina and got some sisters. which was/is truly awesome, not that we haven't had our moments of fighting and annoyances, but when it comes down to it we know we love each other. the first few pieces of mail i sent out from down here went to them.
and it was through them that i met my fake brother, well the person i would like to be my fake brother anyway and more importantly the recipient of the package i just sent out.
mid summer of 2008 just as the Olympics were happening in Beijing, Kristina's little brother came to visit. half way through the summer between his junior and senior years, he came a few days before his mom arrived so he could check out the city with his big sister and her friends.
so for a week me, Kristina, Caitlin and Blyth showed him the city and our favorite parts and a lot of our apartment. in between all this tourism and on the nights where Kristina and Caitlin wanted to do things that an under age boy shouldn't be involved in but whisky gingers should i stayed home and watched Olympics (i watched an absurd amount of Olympics last year). it was really fun. he is a smart kid and we had a lot of fun conversations about things while we watched and while we wandered around town. it was nice to have a boy to hang out with, not that i don't love my sisters and the few homo friends i have. it was also fun to hang out with a teenager who doesn't make me want to go back in time and smack my self for the things i know i used to do. really he made me wish i could go back to high school and be friends with him. so i did the next best thing and was friends with him in the present.
we didn't get to hang out for too long before he had to return home but even a week and a half of having a surrogate brother was awesome. and i've tried to stay in touch. sending him the occasional note about his favorite SF based ice cream treat (the delicious Its'-It) and i've already sent him a post card from here in NZ. then Kristina told me about moving him into college and i decided to get together a box of back to school fun for my little bro. it was another of my ideas that would have been super duper awesome if i'd had the time and resources that the idea in my head required. but for my budget and time it turned out well. three books from the Popular Penguin series we have at work (sufficiently boyish and college-y, Cats Cradle, Fever Pitch, and Quantum of Solace) a sweet NZ t-shirt (i know of no other country that loves the image of it's own outline as much as here.) and some school supplies including a notebook that i redecorated with crap i've accumulated here in NZ. all in all some good work i think. if anyone knows how i can be a professional care package-er let me know its about the only thing i really am good at and like to do.

anyway more letter related blogging coming up. i hope ...

i tried i really tried

i started a post the other day.
and i tried to finish it today but i'm just too tired. i was rambling so i put a hold on it till i can actually form real sentence and sound interesting.

for now i'm just going to fail at all my art projects and eat cereal for dinner.

this city is trying to kill me

Progress Report

so in a previous post i talked about some of my goals for while i am here.
now i intend to update you on how those things are going.

and it will be in list form.

- still haven't zorbed or met phil keogan. this will happen later. well the zorbing will still not sure about the meeting phil keogan part
- real bunggy jumping is still on the agenda, i might do it here or i might wait till i'm somewhere more cool to jump off of.
- visiting lord of the rings sites also still on the agenda just not with a date written down next to it
- sailing, hmmmmm still need to properly look into this. i want to actually have to do things like work on a boat but i have no actual knowledge of how to do that so i'd need to find someone who likes to teach people to boat? research will be needed. anyone want to do it for me?
- hobbit hotel. need to find out where that one is, then hope it is affordable.
- i'm certainly improving my fitness. i just got back from the gym. its really making a noticeable difference and i'm really getting into the swing of it. i even read some fitness magazines at work yesterday. i still don't really know what i'm doing but i can almost fake it now. and i can swim better, though i have to wear nose plugs which look silly.
- blog: i could be doing better, but then NZ's Internet could also not be absolute poop
- journal: has been going fantastically, missed a few days but not that many. though recently i've been attempting to journal before i go to bed and falling asleep mid sentence. so i'm instituting a new rule of not journaling in bed. and the art has been getting better. see facebook for proof.
- writing project: i have one and its going well, though i hate having to type up what i've hand written in my journal which makes it slow down. when i have more of it done i will talk about what it is.
- the picture a day thing is where i've completely lost it. mostly due to crap internet making photo uploads somewhat torturous. also the long walk to work and then all that time actually being at work. i've been trying to take more pictures and i will try to get them uploaded in a semi timely manner but one a day is just not a doable project.
- favorite bar, done! though i get to it less now that i'm not unemployed.
- expat thanksgiving plans are coming along, i just hope to increase the amount of people to invite.
- visiting Amy is almost definitely not going to be possible, it is way too expensive to get up there :(
- Australia should still be do-able but will need some more looking into
- tropical island. see previous answer
- letters and postcards are going well, as you can probably tell from my list of posts to come i have some mail projects either done or in the works. i have a stack of envelops and things that i need to get into mail boxes soon, and one big project that i started over a month ago that i need to actually work on again.
- taking an art or design class is probably not going to happen, i saw some listed but they are just too expensive. but i did get invited to a crafter's bar night that i'm going to go to and so that's something. i've also been checking some stuff out of the library and i have a big art project in the works as a souvenir for everyone (well lots of people) that i think i can get to turn out really well.
- i haven't seen an Opera or a Symphony yet, there haven't been as many options as i thought there would be, though i did miss out on one that was this past weekend (it might be next weekend too i should look into that). i have however been to two plays, both quite good. The God of Carnage and Holding the Man, both funny and sad though Holding the Man was far sadder.
- still don't have a concrete plan for when i get back, but i am thinking about it and i have lots of ideas. i know i want to have a week in SF on my way back to NY but beyond that i have no real shape or form of what i want after this. i know what i would like for it to involve but its a matter of what i can actually get together and plan.

so that's how i'm doing on all those things i said i would do. not a bad tally. other then the photo thing i've kept up with most of them or plan to. even if Auckland hasn't been great to me it has helped me be good to my self. and it its own way i couldn't have done it anywhere else. i just know i never want to live here ever again.

Why I Didn't Blog yesterday

there was a bus strike.
that's the short answer.
the long answer involves many factors. in the interest of finishing this post before my internet caves in like a house of cards and or i get bored i will list them. (also i like lists)

- the a fore mentioned bus strike
- a longer gym session then i intended
- choosing the only bus stop in Newmarket that doesn't have an electronic informational sign. (which amusingly did not call it a strike merely said that the buses weren't running for an "event")
- my internet at home is crap, see previous statement about the house of cards.
- 45 minute commute to work/the place where i can get free fast-ish internet
- laziness, i will not totally blame the Auck
- i had a drought of topics until yesterday, now i have a glut and no time till Tuesday to fully apply them to bytes.

posts for you to look forward to: (hey look another list)
- Status report: how i'm doing on the various goals i laid out in "goal post"
- Second letter of Peter: to my fake brother Stevie
- (a topic i forgot to write down and thus have forgotten)
- Third letter of Peter: to Lynn a fellow traveler

see you soon
-Peter-

Transformations

i hate this city the way you hate medicine.
i've long since come around to the idea that being here is good for me, i'm not going to love Auckland or want to live here permanently like i did in SF, or even like it in the want-to-visit-every-other-month way that i love NYC, but i can see the way that this city is helping me shape my self, find new habits lose old insecurities and become a better me.
i've been doing more writing here, not much else to do when the internet sucks, i've started a journal and out of the almost 3 months i've been here i've only missed about 7 days. which is more then i imagined i would be able to do consistently. and i've been doing a lot of drawing in between those entries, some of it already featured on my facebook page (and more to come when i get them photographed). i'm even a bit worried that i might run out of the two moleskins i brought for journaling purposes (don't worry i will either use something else or put out a call if i need more). they aren't quite the amazing super pretty art-books that i want them to be but they are there and that is better then i've managed before i got here.
i've also started a new writing project. to be fair i have at least one old one that i could be refining but i'm not sure if i can give it the editing it needs yet (also i'm kind of over a lot of the feelings that inspired it and the sort of "marketing niche" it was semi-aiming for is kind of over). i'm keeping it a bit under wraps till i get at least half way done with it, and i don't know what i will do with it when its all the way done (it's scripts for what would be a webseries) but as i was working on it yesterday it was feeling really good and i miss that feeling. i have a lot of projects in my head, i get them on my long walks to work and i'm hoping that i can pull at least a few of them off and start down the path to developing an artistic career or at least a hobby that satisfies me. on top of the writing projects i have two mail based projects that i'm planning, one for you guys one for me and i have a stock pile of some art supplies that i hope to find ways to use.
i've become an early riser too, well at least for the last two weeks, my job starts early most days and because it takes me a bit of a walk to get there (and don't get me started on the bus) i'm up at 6:30-7:00 most days of the week. i've also been getting up for the gym but we're getting a head of ourselves on that one.
i'm slightly less socially awkward then i used to be! this is one of the big ones. being alone in a foreign country has kind of forced me to get better at this. i'm still no social magnet but i've developed a small circle of friends almost entirely on my own and i'm getting much better at the random interactions with other people that used to be really bad for me. the short conversations with strangers who will probably not become friends but are still people i can learn small things from. i'm also less terrified of the idea of people of authority yelling at me that made some more institutional interactions i've had in the past. i still could be better at this, i haven't found a bar i like enough to meet new people at and i still kind of hate calling people but i'm not going to sell short the progress i'm making. (also i kind of like that i hate calling people, i's a good quirk as long as i don't get to pathological about it.)
and lastly i've joined a gym, which is something i've wanted to do for a while. i don't have the goal of becoming a gym bunny or a muscle god but i know i could be both healthier and more sexy (i know that second one is hard to imagine but it's true). i've never been super concerned with my physical appearance, ok well that's not quite true, but i've never been what you would call "high-maintenance." it isn't my intention to become that either, but i've wanted to do good things for my body and get closer to the kind of sexy boy i want to date, now i don't have any absurd expectations about having a ripped six pack and pecs of steel but i have already noticed improvements and i feel really good about my body for the first time in a long time (public school did a number on my self esteem). to the point where i'm entered into an underwear contest next sunday! gaynz.com check it out.
these are just a few of the big changes i've been noticing that Auckland has in its weird way has been helping me with, there are more i'm sure other big ones and i'm sure a bunch of small ones. i'm hoping that all my time here is long enough to reinforce these great developments so that i can keep them up when i get back (i'm still not sure where i'm landing yet, that is a whole other blog post).

anyway, i need to go to bed i'm off to the gym tomorrow.

The Plan

so new digs, a job (which i learned on Sunday will definitely last till November) and all kinds of things in the work. an update on "The plan" is in order.

really up till now there never really was a plan. there was the amorphous "i'm going to New Zealand" phase, then the "Auckland is going to be awesome" phase, then several iterations of the "oh shit" phase and finally we have "The Plan":

now-December 3rd:
-work at Borders, accumulate monies (repay Amy (super shout out thanks BTW)), read books from the library, receive mail (hint hint), send mail, take day trips (so many volcanoes i can visit), meet new people/make friends, hate the Auckland bus system, go to the gym (more on this later?), work on art projects (suggestions welcome), watch some of the movies and TV i have on my hard drive, get to my two favorite cafes as much as i can considering the crappy bus system, go to art openings, blog, relearn how to cook (and relearn how to shop for said cooking), have a thanksgiving fest, and some other as yet unknown things of fun, leisure and adventure ...

this is where things get interesting
December 3rd till at least half way through January but i'm hoping till early February:
i'm going to be working on a farm/resort.
not just any farm/resort, this farm/resort:
http://www.autumnfarm.com/
a gay, clothing optional hippy farm.
yea crazy right. i'm figuring because Auckland/New Zealand is not going to be a place to advance my career (though i guess that would require having something approaching a career in the first place but that is baggage for another post) i should do something weird/exciting/adventurous so that i get something out of this country other then nice pictures and a bunch of stuff with the All Black's logo on it. a lot of the people who come down here to work/putz around for a bit end up doing some fruit picking or farming work (apparently many of the crap ton of Germans do it) and while i don't really want to do it as a form of employment the idea of doing it as a sort of adult (not in the XXX way) summer camp really appeals to me. sort of a vacation from my normal existence but one where i'm doing something productive and still having fun. i have been wanting to learn about growing food for a while (the slow food and urban homesteading movements are big in SF) and just generally do something a little more radical then i usually do. i have this vision of working hard on crops and cooking and general interesting estate maintenance/handyman kind of stuff for a few hours each day then reading on a beach or a nice green field in some small item of clothing (or if i get brave enough nothing at all?) then some kind of magical campfire events at night and some nice yoga sessions in the woods. obviously i don't really know what to expect but i'm still really looking forward to it. i've decided to do it when it is summer here as opposed to just hopping on a bus now because i think that will make it a more enjoyable experience, and give me time in the city to make money.
so yea gay naked farm for two months. neat right?

February and some of March:
fuck around, go on crazy adventure/travel buses (google Kiwi Experience and or Stray) do all the fun silly backpacker touristy things meet drunk college kids and freaks from the UK and Australia and Germany and the US, get drunk, eat lots of bad food, talk about the gay farm. send postcards from lots of places, just vacation basically. by this point i will probably picked a date to come home so it will be a "run out the clock" kind of mood. i'm hoping to get in some Australia travel and maybe an island or two before i head back but it will depend on how much i bank here in Auckland.

late March:
return triumphantly to the US just as its getting nice (weather wise, i'm hoping that economically things will be better too), parties in SF and NYC, consistent internet, real public transit systems, currency that doesn't have the queen on it, showing all my pictures to everyone.
but most importantly figuring out what's next.
still not clear on that, "The Plan" kind of drops off a cliff at the end of next march, but then i'm hoping by then i will have added to it. i know i want to take a road trip across the US but not really how or why (i mean why in a narrative thrust way, they why is because its an awesome idea), i could go to grad school or move to Austin who knows. i'm hoping some of my time here and in the naked woods of a gay farm will help me figure out a "what's next"
or i'll mooch off my parents for a month or two and go from there?

stay tuned for "The Plan 2: in a State"

i'm not moving again/i want to move again

so i'm going to try and keep this less whiny then all my other posts. (emphasis on try)

as some of you know for the last two weeks i was camped out at a hostel as i looked for a new place to live, which was its own stressful and annoying story. anyway i have a new place but i'm feeling conflicted about it. i'm trying to figure out how to deal with that.

i liked a lot of the things at the hostel i was staying at (BK hostel) it was kind of nice being back in a dorm like atmosphere and having a kitchen after a month without one was nice. even their bathroom was nice if really cold. i even had a manageable useful Internet connection. really the only thing i would have changed from there was having a roommate and even that wasn't so bad, he was hardly around and when he was he was nice.
but living in a hostel doesn't really feel like living here (not that im super attached to living here, my new plan (upcoming post) involves staying here till the end of November, which did it's fair part to cramp my apartment hunt im not going to lie.)
so i looked for places, and for the most part didn't find much. one place was WAAAAAY to far out, most places didn't get back to me, on place i looked at were great till i mentioned that i would be leaving at the end of November, and then there was the place i am now.
now my problem is not so much that i hate this place, i don't, i just have a few problems that are keeping me from like it a lot. the room its self is awesome, its big and comfortable (once i figured out the heater) and has plenty of storage for all the crap i've accumulated. the house it's in is also nice its big and in the really posh part of town, it is kind of more like a fancy long term boarding house, which by it's self is fine. really my problem with the place comes down to two factors, everything else is either great or at least not a problem.
the first problem, crappy internet now really that is kind of a problem with the whole country (see previous post) but here the problem comes down to the fact that there are a bunch of people living here sharing one connection which makes it even more glitchy. it doesn't seem to be as much of a problem during the day (today is my day off) but it is really bad when i get home from work and just want to vedge out in front of the Internet for a while. also it isn't good at just leaving me on during the day so that all the people back home who are asleep by the time i get home from work can leave me messages (note to all of you, email would probably be better from here out). as internet is my one big life line to all of you its going to take me a while to adjust to that and find ways around it, i demand more e-mails (and seriously yell at me if i haven't updated this in more then a week.) and working more on the other stuff in my life i could be doing like writing and art projects. i think i can get over this hurdle i just have to go through an adjustment period.
the other problem, which might be bigger but i can't tell yet, is that this place is kind of far out from the parts of town i like. in another city this wouldn't be such a big deal, get on a bus or subway and your back where you like in 10-15 minutes, but Auckland's public transit system is pretty embarrassing. its 15 minutes just to get to a useful bus, a 25 minute to the place i work three days a week and takes between 30-45 minutes to get back to the cafe and bars that i like (well bar, singular) and i haven't commuted to the place i work the other two days a week so we'll see about that. really i'm going to have to plan my days so that if i do something cool i leave from work and don't come home first because once i'm here getting back out seems really daunting. this might change as it gets warmer and if i can figure out some shortcuts or just get used to it but for now it is also putting a damper on my excitement for this place.
really i'm just taking longer to settle in here because i feel like i mostly took the place because i was a bit backed into a corner and it isn't my ideal place. i'm worried that the next three months here will be more challenging then i want to deal with on top of other things (i already kind of hate my job, in the same way i hated it when it was my job back home) but i could also find great ways to deal with the situation here and be all better and awesome for them.
i'm thinking of joining a gym.

coming soon i promise

so i didn't realize just how long it had been since my last post.
and a real through post is coming soon.
but right now i just need to vent and because of time zones non of you are online.
what the fuck is up with Kiwi Internet. i mean i know i'm kind of spoiled because of us Internet and what not but seriously, you are a fully developed wealthy nation participating in the modern world and i am in your largest city where 1/3rd of your population lives. why is it so hard to get an Internet connection that can handle downloading a few podcasts and not drop twice an hour for 15 minutes. all my us connections had issues which were annoying but this is just unacceptable. i just have no words for how frustrating it is. i'm not in some backwoods tinny town or on a farm (which i'm planning on going to one but more on that in the future) i'm in a bustling metropolis and in one of the posh parts of town, and Internet is my best connection to the people i miss back home especially consistent Internet as i'm at work for most of the time you all are awake and not at work.

and i don't even know how to fix this, ugh ...

Hope Springs Eternal ...

my bank account could use some work.
feeling less stressed and panicked then for my last post.
just booked another week at a hostel for Tuesday and have actually done a little apartment hunting.
still not sure if i'm going to stay more then the 6 weeks i'm definitely here but i'm less dead set against getting out of the country.
just need to get back the slight bit of stability i lost in loosing my place.
if anyone hears of someone in Auckland who needs an adorable if neurotic flatmate let me know.

ok more when i get regular internets back.
miss you, send me e-mail based love till i have an address again.

What Now !?!?

this was going to be a post about my new job! which i will still cover:
i work at Borders, its a lot like working at Borders. if anything it's kind of a step back in my life but it's employment for the next 6 weeks. i'll take what i can get at the moment.
instead this is a post about how i now have to apartment hunt, or i was going to apartment hunt now i'm thinking of just staying at a hostel for the next 6 weeks then getting out of NZ before it strips me of all the dignity i have left.
... the explanation ...
so i'm about to head to my second day of work, i'm not exactly excited but i am at least kind of happy to be working. i step out into the hallway and the guy who lives next to me, and is the floor manager for (and son of) the landlord stops me to talk to me. he is a chubby and sweaty asian guy of indeterminate age, probably mid to late 20s but looks like a 10 year old. he proceeds to ask be who i am and what i'm doing there, i explain that i am living here while the guy who rents the place is back in Canada. i am paying him rent but just what he pays (though that turned out to be a bit complicated). see before i even got to Auckland i asked this guy 3 times if things were going to be cool with his landlord, and he assured me he spoke to them and it was fine, and not like i need to lie/fake OK it was supposed to be for real OK. so when this sweaty chubby boy tells me that it isn't OK i'm confused and annoyed, then he explains that i can either sign my own contract (for more per week) on this shitty place, or leave and pay rent on the time from when he spoke to me till i do go, and i have to pay a bond for the key card for the front door and elevator. i didn't have much time or will to fight as i had to head down the hill to work, so i spent most of the day with it festering in the back of my head. then when i got home i had to talk to the sweaty boy like 4 more times and his mother too who didn't seem to contribute much to the conversation.
now if this had happened last week when i was still unemployed i would have just called up Air New Zealand and gotten the hell out of the country by the end of the week. but now i have this job, and it's only a 6 week contract (though i would probably be able to stay on at the end? i think?) but i hate calling out sick so i'm not going to just give up on this job two days into it. so now i have to decide what i want to do.
i started to look at apts online and even walked a tremendous way to look at one this morning but as i was walking i started to think.
and i may have made a decision, i'm going to work the 6 weeks for Borders and maybe stay at a hostel for that time. then if i have some cash at the end of it do something exciting and then get on the next plane out of NZ.
i'm mostly just tired of putting so much energy into this city when i don't feel like i'm going to get even half as much back from it. and really in retrospect i should have just done the Holiday part of the visa and then maybe considered the working part. i miss stability and even if it means the stability of my parents couch for a few weeks or moths while i figure out a new plan i think i'd much rather it over the sort of rolling crisis that i feel like this place has been for me.

please give me advice if you have it.
and maybe things will change in the next week or 6 and i will have an all new plan. who knows.

First Epistle of Peter

i ended up seriously drunk last week at like 8:30 (free drinks were involved) and came home without much to do. i started chatting with my friend Tynan, because he has just the right kind of weird sleep schedule for good talks at random times. i was sad about things; homesickness, lack of purpose, poor social skills. and we had this conversation:

Tynan: yeah but you send letters
Tynan: carefully considered letters
Tynan: that's like going the full 110%
Me: what does that mean?
Tynan: it's indicative of your care for a person
Tynan:let's do a political analogy
Me: ok?
Tynan: an email is worth 10 votes
Tynan: a phone call, 100 votes
Tynan: a letter, 1000 votes.
Tynan: it's about effort
Tynan: conspicuous consumption, but instead it's like conspicuous feelings or something
Tynan: conspicuous effort
Me: wait i'm confused is this a problem or a good thing?
Tynan: you are the sort of person who sends letters
Tynan: sends collages
Tynan: sends postcards
Tynan: and they are all well-considered, at least as far as i've gotten
Me: thank you
Tynan: the implication is that you actually give a flying fuck about the recipient
Me: that is kind of the point
Tynan: i've dated guys who wouldn't send me even an email from their trip abroad
Tynan: but do you realize how rare that makes you?
Me: no?
Me: i think i get that its rare but i don't understand why
Tynan: maybe you're from a letter-sending clique or something

this conversation really made me feel much better, and i think says a lot about me. it's not that i have bad social skills i just have less instantly noticeable ones and ones that are a little more rare.
as most of you know he's right, maybe you haven't all gotten letters but most of the important people in my life have gotten postcards at this point, and not just lazy "wish you were here" postcards but thorough postcards often chosen just for you (a lamb for Caitlin, gay penguins for Dan). some people have gotten letters and more will in the near future. i have a whole fleet of stationary ready to go and if i weren't doing so much job hunting i would have sent out more. at the moment i'm working on a sort of complicated letter, Amy's boyfriend likes codes and puzzles and so i'm trying to create an interesting puzzle for him to solve. i even wrote a letter to my friend from elementary school who sent me his address on FB when i put up the status message "who should i write a letter to today" and that one was two pages.
and i can't tell you how much i'm jonsesing to send my first care package too. those of you who have received my "collages" and packages of goodness know how much i enjoy assembling a bizarre but well chosen assortment of stuff/crap/art/joy and shipping it off to someone. i've already been making mental lists in my head of all the things i want to get and make for people when i finally have some money coming in.
if you don't believe in my letter/gift prowess i can give you a list of references, all three of my SF roommates, Amy, Paul & Mayo, Becky, et al. really if i could find some way to be a professional gift giver or care package-ist it would be my ideal career.

oh and if you think i might not have your address you should probably send it to me. then check your mailbox (though i am on the other side of the pacific so you might want to give it some time)

love
-Peter-

What am I Doing Here?

well, i've been here for a full month now, and i still don't really have an answer to that question. i didn't really have an actual plan before i got here and what small idea of a plan i had isn't going so well so far.
i'm still job hunting, though i think i've gotten to the point where if i don't change tactics soon i'm defiantly not going to find anything. if i were back in the States i would be hounding everyone i know about publishing jobs (which isn't strictly true but it's easy to think that way from over here) or if things got desperate hit up BN. but here i don't really have the right contacts to get the inside line on jobs and i don't seem to have the social skills (or experience) to get a cafe job. i've already dropped my resume off at just about every bookstore in town. (i didn't give one to the Cookbook shop because it was tiny and there were two people already working there when i went so it seemed like they might need less staff not more.) i don't quite know the ethics/procedure for nagging people into a job. i did start reading What Color is Your Parachute the other day (thanks for the advice Tynan) and it was one of the only books about job hunting that didn't just make me feel more crazy. some of it's advice was a little hokey and would be more useful to me back in the US (and i still want to go back in time and break all the fingers of that first asshole who wrote a god damn thank you note after an interview) but it did a good job of talking me down. at least for now, looking at moneys (which is being annoying in it's own way, more on that later) i have till the end of July to find something before i don't really have a choice.
part of me wouldn't mind getting to the point where i just have to give up and go, i'm still not really liking Auckland all that much. i've meet a few people by now which is nice but so many of the people i meet are travelers and in and out of town, i haven't really made any Kiwi friends yet which could change but we'll see. i'd love to be here on a for real vacation, just going around the country and seeing all the cool things i keep hearing about but actually living here isn't all that exciting. i've seen a bunch of places in Auckland that i like but would like more if i had someone here (i've seen over a dozen places i'd love to go to brunch with Blyth, Caitlin and Kristina) and i don't really have the cash at the moment to get the best out of the city.
on that: because my old bank got bought during the Great Banking SNAFU last year i've been sort of half way between two banks since october. now if my new bank had just gotten on the ball and taken over my account i would have done and international money transfer to my bank here, but because they didn't and there aren't any physical branches near my parents (though there is one of the new bank in walking distance) they couldn't start the process there either. so i had to write my self a check, which i was told would take three weeks to clear. that would have been monday, as it stands now i only really have 40 NZD in my account. though at some point soon there will be 1100NZD in there. so at the moment i'm being super frugal and tip-towing into credit card debt.
which is whatever i guess.
i'd really like to give this country the chance it deserves but beyond money i don't know how much longer i can last down here. i spend a lot of time alone, which could be ok if that were an active choice but i'm living in a really solitary apartment in a town with the kind of night life where you really need to know where you're going. i think this city might be making me exaggerate how bad i am socially, like maybe i'm not as shy as i think i am, i'm just in a city where breaking into social networks is harder or at least works differently then back home?

well depending on how things go i might be back there sooner rather then later, though i keep realizing that if i go home before it hits summer here i will have the unique joy of winter part two. lovely.

Goal Post

so i had a whole list of goals written up before i came here. most are probably still the same but a few might have changed. here's the list:

- go Zorbing and try and meet Phil Keogen, from The Amazing Race. (this are for my college roommate Paul who is a bit of a reality TV show dork, on top of just being a regular dork.)
- go bungee jumping. now i sort of half did this already, but i want to do a for real-real bungee jump too (maybe not the one in Nevis which is apparently like a billion meters high.)
- Visit locations for Lord of the Rings. there are tons of tours for this. the morning before i left the US my dad was showing all the special features from the DVDs about where they shot.
- go sailing. Auckland is the city of sails and i need to get on one of those boats while i'm here (also i have a more general life goal of spending at least a week at sea, and not on a cruise (though i do want to go on a cruise too))
- hobbit Hotel. Caitlin sent me a link to a hotel that is in the side of a hill like the houses from the Hobbit, i want to stay there, but first i need to find the link so i can figure out where it actually is.
- improve fitness. i always tell my self i need to work out more, even if its just some crunches some push ups and a bit of yoga. though i've been doing just that for almost a week now so i'm on my way, if it weren't so damn rainy and winter down here i might try some running too but who knows.
- write more. this one is multi parted
- blog. well i'm doing OK on that one so far. this is post 11 and i think i have a few people who will pester and punish me if i start to flake off with it.
- journal. i snagged a nice molskine notebook before i left my Chronicle job and so far i've done a pretty good job of writing at least one page a day. i've only missed two days and they were right when i was moving into my new place. there is also some art in there which i posted some pics of on facebook.
-writing project. i haven't decided what this is yet. i was thinking of trying to write one big project while i'm here but i need to make up my mind as to what it will be first.
- take at least one picture a day. i have mostly succeeded at this. (see Flickr account) some were taken kind of late and are not all that exciting pictures but i have at least one a day and a few of them are actually kind of good. oh and there will be plenty more on top of that in my facebook.
- have a favorite bar, go there often. this one i think is going to be tricky. i have kind of replaced it with two cafe's i like (one is more of a day spot, the other a night spot) and have been to both multiple times. there is also a guy who works at both of them which i discovered last night, too bad it's not the cute boy from the day cafe though.
- expat thanksgiving. i'm not quite sure if i will be in a place to orchestrate this when the time comes but we shall see. (when i'm done on here i'm going to make a poster for some kind of ex-pat 4th celebration.)
- try and visit Amy. this one i might fail at. tickets to Korea are kind of expensive so it will all depend on what kind of job i get and things like that. but i'm still going to try. also see about Becky if she is still in Japan at a time when i might be able to get there.
- go to Australia. i'm right here i better at least get to Sydney, i'd be a really crappy gay if i didn't.
- go to a tropical island. everyone here seems to go to Fiji but i think they still do Fucked up things to the gays there so i need to investigate. if not Fiji there are plenty of other options. but i want at least one side trip that just involves me half naked on a beach, probably reading.
- write lots of letters. working on it. most of you should have gotten postcards (if you think i don't have your address send it to me) and i have nice stationary for more and more letters in the months to come.
- take an art or design class. this is kind of a long term goal and i haven't found a good one to take yet (i also can't afford one yet) but i'm going to try and i've scouted a few good places to look.
- see and Opera or a Symphony. something i should do more of in general. nothing seems to be coming up till August here but i've got a few things marked ready to go when they get here.
- make a plan for when i get back. i don't want to end up like i did at the end of college with nothing ready to go next. it will all depend on money and what my life is like after NZ, top two ideas are grad school (though i usually say that) and a massive road trip across the US (probably ending in SF, though i want to take at least a month and stop in lots of places) both are kind of cash heavy but i have time to think about them.

well looking at the list i wrote before i left that is everything. so nothing much has changed on that front. i have a few new goals too though, ones that are more NZ specific. i think i will save them for another day.

The Domain-ation

today was the first day in what is supposed to be five days of rain. so of course this ends bu being the day that i make a nice nature trek into Auckland's largest park, The Domain. (i think domain is kind of a generic word for park here as i've seen it a few places on maps of the country.)
luckily there was a big burst of rain early in the day when i was at the library (where i was writing postcards to people). by the time i left there it hadn't exactly cleared up but it was no longer full on raining, which was giving me SF flashbacks. i quickly realized that as much as i know the Domain is near my apartment i probably should have checked a map anyway. i ended up taking the semi long way there, which was mostly longer because it involved walking to the top of the hill first. though i did get to see a different view of the park then i did two weeks ago when i just went to the Museum (which is in the park).
a large part of the park is taken up by soccer/rugby pitches. which due to rain and general winter-ness were unoccupied. i skirted the outside of the fields and walked through a nice well groomed garden area with a pond for ducks and geese. i saw some nice places for picnics and maybe some outdoor yoga if i ever get around to that. from there i went into the area of the park where their are forest walks. those are really cool. the one i started on is just like stepping into a mini (if cold) rain forest. the paths are paved which kind of detracts from things but you really do feel surrounded which is nice. there seemed to be a few side trails but i didn't explore those yet, waiting for a day when they aren't 80% mud. there was only like one place where you could stop and maybe sit or something in the forested parts, other then just sitting in the middle of the path and blocking traffic.
It's no Central Park, or Golden Gate Park but its nice. and now that i know how to get there without hiking up and down too many hills i might actually go there more often. though i will probably wait till this week of rain ends.
right now the view out my window is like the inside of a cloud its so foggy here today.

ok to the post office for more stamps!

Job Interview Kiwi Stylye.

So, i went on a job interview on Tuesday.
it was to work here: http://www.skyjump.co.nz/
the interview was ok, nothing too exciting. Why are you in NZ? describing the job, helping people into jumpsuits and harnesses, how long are you planing on staying in Auckland? i thought i did fairly well and it wasn't a complicated process. non of the "where do you see yourself in 5 years," or "how can you bring value to our company," or any of that nonsense.
after the interview was where things got interesting. she says thanks for coming in and she will let me know later that afternoon because they are apparently hiring for the next day. then she's like "oh and now you get to jump so that you know what it's like."
now, i kind of wanted to do it. i watched that kid from the hostel do it the other day and it looked really cool. but showing up for a job interview and then at the end being told you get to jump off of a 630 foot building was not what i was expecting on the day.
i get all suited up by a very cute Irish boy, weighed (62kg with the harness) and put in an elevator. i'm honestly a little surprised i didn't vomit or something, the elevator has big glass panels that open out to the city and one in the floor. i get to the top of the building (well not the very top but quite high enough thank you) meet the very nice, and comfortingly burly men who attach my harness to the thing that's going to guide me down and make sure i don't have to be hosed off the street. we walk to the end of the thing that looks suspiciously like a pirate's gang-plank and he asks "are you ready?" i reply "no."
(there was a family doing the Sky Walk www.skywalk.co.nz) and the kid helpfully said "yea!" for me. to which the guy answered "good enough."
now he didn't push me off the building, and surprisingly i didn't hesitate too much before taking the step off the building. first you just kind of dangle then they drop you about 10 feet so that the people in the observation deck can point and laugh. then time for the big drop. about 50 mph and 630 feet to the ground. it was quite exhilarating and for the first few seconds terrifying but totally fun. i would do it again (though it's kind of expensive to do for real). when i landed my legs were quite wobbly and tingling and i had definitely drooled allover my self and anyone below.
we went back down into their main area under the tower and i not only got a free photo of the fall but a free DVD of my fall too (there is a camera attached to one of the guide wires.) which all tolled was like a 250NZD that i got just for showing up and being asked a few questions.


and after all that i didn't even get the job. oh well ...

Observations

just some things i've been noticing.

- No pennies, NZ coins only come in $2, $1, 50¢, 20¢, and 10¢ denominations. they also include tax in all their listed prices which is nice.

- this city is hillier then SF, at least it feels that way. i have to walk down a hill to get anywhere and from the bottom of that hill i usually have to walk up another to get somewhere.

- all of the men's rooms have weird sheet metal trough urinals that make a loud waterfall kind of deal to flush, and most of them have a step up from the floor too. the first time i saw one i wasn't quite sure what it was.

- the gay neighborhood is flanked on both sides by churches (one a Baptist and the other a Methodist) and has a hetero strip club in the middle. it is also the "red light district."

- they call ketchup "red sauce" and in restaurants it sometimes comes in a little squeezable tomato.

- they really like to jump off of things. just about every tall thing in the country has a bungy jump or something off of it.

- they use the word Bro alot, but it means something difrent then it does in the us. it is more of a synonym for Dude, as upposed to that assbag in the club with the popped collar and the bad fake tan.

- there are gambling machines in most of the bars here (video slot machines mostly) but apparently most of the money they make goes to charity, kind of like how the us lotery system goes to education in the US.

i'm sure i will think of more in the future but thats a few of the big ones for now.

Stray-ight boys.

so its been a bit, feel free to harass me if i don't update often enough for you. (it means people are reading this which i like)

a few days after the gay-fest that was Family, i made a new friend at the hostel, Rich from Yorkshire (England for those of you who don't know). first we chatted over breakfast then bonded over Mario based video games (i was playing Super Mario World and he was wearing a Mario Kart shirt). he invited me to join him at the bar down in the basement of the hostel which i had not visited (and kind of thought i wouldn't visit) it was for some reason Skirt night, which meant that if you wore a skirt you got a free beer. a box of skirts was provided and they looked like the dregs of a goodwill store but were quite amusing. it also meant that there were about 20 guys in the bar wearing skirts, most over jeans but a few had clearly taken the event seriously and were quite gussied up. many of the skirted boys were also playing in a pool competition which was fun to watch.
i met up with my Brit friend who offered me one of the three beers he had been handed upon presenting his skirt at the bar. the night started slowly and sort of turned out to be quite the "sausage fest." there was a nice older couple from Boston that me and Rich talked to for a while (and who provided me with my second free beer). they were just back in Auckland for the night after returning from south east Asia and were flying back to the states the next day.
the music slowly turned up and the pool tournament ended (the owner of the bar won, which is kind of amusingly unseemly, and i saw him cheat at least once but i don't think anyone cared much) me and Rich started talking to two other Brit boys, who's names i can't for the life of me remember.
it's been a very long time since I've hung out with boys as straight as this and it was for the most part amusing. there was one moment where they did drop into the "i don't mind gay people as long as they don't hit on me" thing (which was in response to two guys who showed up dressed as cats) and there were some things that i'm sure Blyth or the WOA crew would not have approved of but generally they were quite nice. i didn't out myself and i'm not sure if they picked up on it but i didn't really feel the need to at the moment. it turned out that it was one of the other Brit boys birthdays at midnight so we sang for him and "took the piss out of him" (which i still find an odd expression but whatevs).
there was another British guy we ended up talking to who was quite odd, and according to Rich from a quite dodgy part of the country. he was very excited that i was from New York and had his picture taken with me. he had also gotten his picture taken with the cat boys. this guy turned out to be quite the close talker and told this long rambling story about a skateboard he had borrowed from his brother-in-law that he was very excited about. the two other Brit boys packed it in because they were going to Waitomo caves the next day. the close talker invited me and Rich out to another bar but me and him dodged him and headed back up to the hostel, i was going to take a free tour of the city from one of the adventure bus companies (called Stray) and Rich had decided to join me.
~~~
so the next morning at 10:20 we hopped on a nice orange buss and started to explore the city.
the first stop was the Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, and Rich won the chance to jump off of it (NZ loves their adventure sports, especially jumping off of very tall things) they suited him up and loaded him into and elevator and we went to the base of the tower to watch him come down. it was quite the amusing thing to watch.
after the Sky Tower we drove around the water front and took a bunch of pictures, then headed to a park and a monument to the country's first Labour PM which was quite an ornate toumb but offered quite nice views of the bay and one of the volcanic islands you can get to by ferry.
next stop was a dead volcano called Mt. Eden, which has a huge crator in it (i had seen pictures and was surprised at how deep it actually was). the crator is also apparently cursed because a tribe's chief got stabbed in the back there so you can't (and i wouldn't have anyway) go down in to it. there were great views of the city from there and a nice bronze place that points to major cities all over the world and tells you how far away you are.
our tour guide gave us a brief sales pitch about the kinds of trecks the company offers and what they are all about (most of which i had already heard) and then we headed down to a local pub for lunch. we were supposed to go out onto the Harbor bridge to watch someone bungee off of it but they are aparently resurfacing the roads at the moment so we couldn't, instead we drove a lap over it and i got a bunch of pictures for mom. we took a wide lap around some of the smaller neighborhoods of town, including K' Road wich is the "red-light-district" in addition to the gay part of town, where i may have semi outed myself to Rich (assuming he hadn't noticed the I <3 Kiwi Boys button i had on my back pack). our last sight was the steepest street in Auckland and teh second steepest in NZ, which at first i thought was going to be lame having come from SF and it's hilly bastard roads but i was actually quite impressed. the steepest st in NZ (and i think maybe the world) is down on the south island and is on my list of things to check out. i need to go back and get some better pics of this street some time today or tomorrow for all my SF peeps.

still no job yet, i need to do more hunting tomorrow, today i moved into my new place (which i suspect might suck more then the hostel but we'll see). but at least i have an address, message me if you want it and i haven't already sent it to you.

-Peter-

I May Have Taken a Vow of Celibacy

so me and Mr. Alabama went out last night to Auckland's one big gay bar.
The bar it's self, Family is the name of the bar, is not so bad. it's more of a club then a bar and looks the part. there were about 3 dozen disco balls throughout the place most in big clusters, including a veritable disco ball orgy over the dance floor in the back. beers were ordered (Alabama keeps his money in one of those undershirt pouches which i always find kind of silly) we walked a lap of the bar which was still relatively empty (it was at least 10:45). decent bartenders and at least one cute boy there but nothing too earth shattering. there is also a small room full of digital slot machines off to one side of the front of the building.
over all the place was sort of like (sorry for those of you who don't frequent the SF gay bars as this explanation will be useless to you) the worst of Badlands mixed with a fair amount of the good things from Bar on Castro, with just a small hint of the Mix. it was kind of awful. of course i'm never particularly fond of gay bars anyway but this really is not going to be my favorite place in Auckland by a long shot. there is a really strange mix of trashy young guys, Maori transsexuals, gruff looking old guys (three of whom had their shirts off) and a fair amount of girls.
me and Mr. Alabama stood outside on the nice enclosed smoking porch and talked, he is a weirdo. he's probably a libertarian (he was talking about government being paternalistic) and i'm not quite sure if he is actually religious or just has a vestigial fondness for it, he is studying law and has a boyfriend. him having a boyfriend is not why we didn't make out, he was talking about how he would be disappointed if he didn't hook up with lots of people while out adventuring (he has quite the multi city travel plan).
[before we left the hostel he was chatting with his boyfriend through Skype, and i'm pretty sure at one point they were having Skype-phone-sex or at least i think his boyfriend was doing something naughty on his end of the line. i was eavesdropping like a maniac.]
so finally around 12 more people started to show up to the bar and we made another walk to the back to see how things were going on the dance floor, on queeny 20something with his brutish friend were dancing away, the aforementioned old guys with shirts off, some awkwardly dancing mid 40s business men and an Asian couple making out rather furiously. the one cute guy we saw when we came in was nowhere to be found. we returned to the front smoking area, where Mr. Alabama started to talk with a cute-ish couple, which would have been fine except that he was trying to talk about race issues with two people he'd never met (one white, the other either of Maori decent or pacific islander of some kind (i tried to not get too involved in the conversation)) and being sort of furiously racially insensitive, not actually racist but just so blunt and odd and nonsensical that he almost started a fight. we also started to talk to the queeney 20something from the dance floor until he started slagging and drooling a little pre-vomit on the counter next to him.
it's not so much that i hated this bar, i've hated lots of bars, its more that i don't really have many other options. maybe when i have a job and feel more like a resident of the city i will find some place that i like that is gay enough but as it stands i don't hold a lot of hope for my Kiwi dating prospects, and really at the moment i'm kind of stressed/cranky about lots of other far more important things.
as it is now i'm not sure if i'm going to stay here the whole year, but who knows my mood could change tomorrow. and maybe some intentional celibacy would be helpful to my life, who knows.

Ireland, New Jersey, Alabama, Canada and me New York

8:30: Jersey does laundry in preparation for the bus trek that he, Canada and Ireland are going on tomorrow. Canada and New York are laid out on the couch hungry and lazy. Ireland is talking to UK about very tinny computers.

8:45: Jersey moves his laundry into the dryer and sees Alabama who looks lonely in the big hostel filled with British girls and German boys. Jersey tells Alabama that he and some friends are going to for drinks in a little bit and that Alabama would be welcome to join them.

8:50: Canada, Ireland, and New York decide to head to the bar now so they can get some food. cell phones are retrieved and they head out side, Jersey will meet them later.

9:00: the bar is an Irish pub and their kitchen is closed, so Ireland, Canada and NY order off the snacks menu and get started with the beers, NY realizes he is wearing a pink shirt at the very macho Irish bar, he also orders a cider.

9:15: snacks arrive, Canada realizes she has ordered too much. the live cover-band of Scotland and friend start up. no one can hear a damn thing.

9:30: NY can't wait to go to pub quiz next week with Colorado again, and hopefully come in first this time, or at least get a few more people to come out.

9:40: Canada and Ireland are talking about the first stop on their adventure trek, which involves a beach and digging holes in the sand that fill with hot springs water. NY is jealous but does not have quit a flush enough bank account to join them.

9:50: Jersey makes it out and starts eating Canada's left over snacks. there is much shouting over the band and the even louder jukebox that comes on when the band is on breaks.

10:00: everyone is on a second round. Jersey is drinking Guinness, Canada is trying to figure out just exactly where Scotland is from based on his accent. Ireland is eye-ing the pool table.

10:30: Canada, Ireland, and Jersey move on to round three of beers, NY opts out because this is the third day in a row that he has had two beers and he hasn't drunk this much since he was California back in March.

11:00: pool finally happens Ireland is good but not annoyingly so, Canada is not so good but sporting. Jersey and NY switch in for a bit.

11:15: the Kiwi cops arrive but are very mellow and are just there to bust some underage drinkers and give the bartender a fine, NY thinks it is probably the most polite raid ever.

11:20: most of the underage drinkers return

11:40: Alabama shows up.

11:45: everyone agrees that Alabama is a little weird, and awfully intense.

11:50: Alabama tells Canada that he was conceived in Maine, she is confused as to both how and why he knows this.

12:00: Ireland and Canada get more beer, NY sits in a very uncomfortable bar stool and waits for them to return. Alabama and Jersey are chatting.

12:05: Alabama mentions how his family was not excited when he moved to NYC on account of being "the gay." Jersey is unsure why he is being told this. NY in his pink shirt is not informed of such but can pretty much figure it out on his own.

12:20: Ireland and Canada are talking and no one can hear them, least of all either of them.

12:30: NY moves off of the hard bar stool and sits with Jersey and Alabama. Jersey is trying to bash New Jersey and Alabama is defending it and an oddly aggressive manner. he is also trying to touch Jersey in those casual ways that people do at bars.

12:45: Jersey and NY learn that Alabama is studding at Yeshiva[sic?] university in NYC and that he got mugged twice in the lower east side.

12:55: Alabama is very glad he no longer lives in Alabama but has very odd political beliefs and is almost aggressively cynical in a strangely upbeat way. Jersey is trying to not be to attractive, NY is intrigued.

1:00: Alabama wants to smoke, but doesn't want to go outside alone. Jersey and NY know who he wants to come out to smoke with him but Jersey couldn't be moved from his chair with a crowbar. NY offers to baby-sit him while he goes out to smoke.

1:03: Alabama continues to be odd while he smokes his cigarette. NY intends on hanging out in the hostel lounge tomorrow after Jersey leaves for his adventure trek, he wouldn't date Alabama but he would definitely make out with him.

1:05: while inside Ireland, Canada, and Jersey have decided they are leaving. NY and Alabama join them.

1:07: Alabama points out the epaulets on Jerseys shirt and starts playing with them. NY explains the origin of epaulets on shirts. Alabama is the kind of guy that despite being a gay in Alabama probably still slept with most of the football team, or at least that's what NY is imagining.

1:10: Alabama gets off on the 5th floor of the hostel. everyone else on the 9th, where they all discuss the oddness of Alabama in a way the probably woke up Germany, Poland, and Spain.

1:15 NY bids the three travelers good night and goes up to his room on the 10 floor.

I don’t love Auckland, at least not yet.

There is nothing wrong with it, it’s beautiful the people I’ve meet so far have all been nice but it’s just not stirring my heart at the moment.
I was feeling cranky after the afore blogged job search so I went for a walk, it was nice out and I wanted to take advantage of it and take some pictures and do some more non-damp exploring. I have only been here for three out of the potential 365 I might spend here but as I’ve been exploring there just hasn’t been anything that’s made me feel really excited about this city yet, the bookstores are kind of lackluster (though the library looked quite nice) the “gayborhood” is lame (and there are at least two titty bars there???). I’m going to check out the gay bar tomorrow night and hold out a little hope that it will be at least a little redeeming. (Though note that that was “the gay bar” as in singular)
The public transit sucks, or at least I think it does, I’ve found it too incomprehensible/destination-less to really judge yet.
There are tons of cloths shops but even the weird ones aren’t all that exciting, and I haven’t been able to find a decent hoodie yet. I kind of miss H&M, even though their stuff was getting ugly as I left the states.
There are plenty of exciting “adventure travel” kinds of things to do, some of which I fully intend on doing but when it comes to actual normal living kinds of things I haven’t found much yet, there is a theater-ish kind of place down the street from my hostel but not much going on there at present, I will have to check back.
Maybe I just need to find a good tour guide to show me places to love.
Or maybe when I figure out job stuff and have some money going in instead of just going out I will feel better about the place?
I don’t know, I’m starting to feel way to existentially fraught at the moment. I’m going to go hang out in the lounge of the Hostel and hope that something makes me feel less mopey. I promise that next post will not be about me freaking out.

-Peter-

Help Want Me.

(i wrote this yesterday but couldn't upload it till today)
This morning I officially started my “job hunt” and as usual just opening a job listings site sends me into paroxysms of self-doubt and confusion. Made all the more fun by the fact that I am in a foreign country and thousands of miles from anyone who uses the term miles. Nothing makes me feel as unqualified as reading a job posting, somehow even listings for jobs that I know require little to know skills manage to make them sound out of my reach, or they are so heinous sounding that my soul dies a little inside just reading the job description (though to be fair if you wrote out the job description of any of my bookstore jobs I would probably rather drink acid then do them, but I guess that’s why I left them.) I am uselessly picky in much the same way that I am when it comes to relationships, I assume all of the things I would like would never hire me and all of the things that are practically throwing themselves at me couldn't’t arouse my interest with a bottle of Viagra and a copy of freshman magazine.
Though to be fair I think the larger problem here is that it is a recession and there seem to be no publishing companies or magazines in the city of Auckland, the only kind of jobs I ever feel both vaguely interested in and vaguely qualified for. So on top of having “issues” with job hunting there are also just not that many things out there for me at the moment which is over feeding my pessimism. I’ve sort of started to look into temp agencies but haven’t made enough progress there yet to know if that will be useful to me. None of them had a convenient “start” here section on their websites and I need to work up the nerve to try and visit them in person. (Sidebar: at some point in my life I became terrified of unsolicited communication with people/entities, that I’ve just started to realize is incredibly problematic in my life. It makes me shy, anti-social, and scared of the kinds of things that it takes to get a job/friends/boyfriends. How do I fix this?)
Then there is the fact that I have borderline useless degree and little concrete idea of what I actually want to be doing with my life. I know I want to do something creative, and something that is sort of to do with words (problematic for someone who is dyslexic and has awful penmanship) but beyond that I can never quite come up with anything that comes close to an actual kind of employment. Editorial assistant was the last job I applied to that I really was interested in doing, but Chronicle decided that I should probably stay at my crapy retail post, which is at least better then how McS treated me vis-à-vis paid employment.
This is usually where I start thinking “maybe you should go back to school” at which point my brain really starts to spin wildly out of control. I like the school application process only a hair more then I like the job application process (and anything that would mean talking to Hofstra is its own bag of worms). As much as the idea of living in a dorm gives me an emotional (and actual) boner, I know it won’t be like that and then I remember that I have know idea what I would want to study (well I think the problem is actually that I have too many things I would like to study and none of them are any more practical then the stuff I already know) …
Ok I’m going to stop, now that I’ve annoyed my self with my neurotic ramblings I’m going leave off here. Maybe I will just work at the Borders down the street (I was shocked when I first saw it) or become a baker, or maybe I will join the Peace Corps. Who knows?

-Peter-

I am Upsidedown.

It's raining.
I am not thrilled by this but i will live, mostly what annoys me is that i can't find a decent not 100NZD hoodie anywhere. to be fair i haven't looked that far yet but still. it is winter here, though north enough that it's not terribly cold and if you know me at all you know how much i hate my winter coat so the finding of an acceptable hoodie (is there a real way to spell this or does blogger just not consider it a word yet?) is an imperative. well at least it gives me a quest for the next few days.
so far bookstores here are quite disappointing, they all kind of look like that sad Walden books in the back end of the crappy mall, most books are kind of expensive (a lot of them being imported) and a very sad magazine selection. this is at least making my wallet happy. though on balance the library here in Auckland is very nice looking, i will need to explore that further when i have an address with which to get a library card.
Jet lag is still messing with me, it's not so much that i'm still on home time, its more like my body/brain just has no idea where/when it is and is cranky about it. though last night i made the mistake of going back to my hostel around 6:30 yesterday. i intended on doing a little bit of stock talking then either going out to get food or going down to the loungy area to hang out. neither of these happened. i passed out, way out. i only woke up again around 10 when my new hostel roommates arrived (i had been alone in a four person room up till then) not that i really stirred, just opened my eyes enough to realize there were new people in the room. unfortunately this meant that i woke up at 4:30AM. i tried to get back to sleep but nothing came of it. so i laid in bed listing to podcasts to kill time to a reasonable time of day to get out of bed.
but i did accomplish a lot yesterday, i applied for my tax number, got a cellphone, opened a bank account, wandered the town a bit, found the grocery store, and met a few new people (Ted from New Jersey, and a girl from Canada who's name i forgotten). i intend on going out to the happy hour thing the IEP office(more on them in the future) is arranging tonight, it's a pub quiz!
for now i'm putzing around on the interwebs (i need to start me some job searching) and then i'm going to go have lunch with a guy i met on CouchSurfing.com.

-Peter-
at some point i will get some pictures up. i found a really neat park to take pictures of but i want to wait till it isn't raining.

Pre-Flight

so i should be off doing other things, packing and the like (my last load of laundry needs to be moved into the dryer) and i'm going to head out to my last target trip when i'm done with that, but i wanted to make sure i got in one pre-departure post on here. i also want to start getting in the habit of doing this, i'm going to be away for a while and i know lots of you are excited to hear/see what kinds of things i will be getting up to down in the land of sheep and kiwis (hmmm, do they actually grow kiwis there? someone look into that.) there will hopefully be many posts to come and i'm thinking of setting up a flickr photo stream too, all of which i will announce here (and of course tell some of you directly).

well packing and some phone calls await me.
-Peter-