Hen's Night

Here you see Jem and I looking a bit freaky with Jo on Saturday night as we celebrated her impending wedding. Unfortunately a lot of friends from out of town, but we had fun all the same! Went out for dinner with friends and fam. Jem and I organised a peg game, where everyone has 2 pegs and we weren't allowed to say "Jo", "Paul", "wedding" or "drink", if someone caught you out they took your peg. Ended up being well successful and rather hilarious as we tried not to say the taboo words. Then there was a 'Jo and Paul quiz'. Earlier in the week Jem and I had filmed Paul answering questions, then at dinner Jo had to guess what Paul would've answered. She did very well, and we gave her a nice tacky veil that we'd made (can't believe she looked lovely in it!), and terribly ugly white satin wedding heart bag, with pink fluffy handle to match her veil, a nice badge, camera and a number of tasks to complete in town during the night. All round it was a fun night and Jo seemed to enjoy it too, which was the objective!

This morning I sat out in the sun (though a bit overcast at times) for about an hour to try get a bit of colour before the wedding. Tonight I realised my back is bright red! One hour I tell you! Lesson: NZ has stronger sun than I remembered.

NEWS!!!

Was about to blog, but then thought I would call ... cos still hadn't heard from them. But then the phone rang and it was TC. I got a job! As of 28th November I will be a sales and service consultant. Happy to have a job, but apprehensive about the potential of not liking it, or there being too much corporate shit, and targets etc... But then again I've never worked in that kind of atmosphere so I might just thrive!

The other side of it is that I won't be going to UK/Ireland in Feb-April as I first planned. I can't leave this job within 6 months really, and with Shaun and Ann's wedding in Feb 2007, I'd barely be over there long enough to get a job judging by the length of this job hunt! There are some pros... I will save more money, get more experience in a new thing AND people can come visit me here in NZ!! I might try do some English tutoring or something though cos I don't want to waste the money I spent on doing the CELTA course by forgetting everything I learnt.

On Monday I was driving along when I got stopped at a police check point. They just wanted to check over cars. The cop asked when my warrant of fitness was due, I looked and realised I was 10 days overdue! So I said "Oh this month, November." Then he asked what date. It was the 4th, so I decided to say the 14th. Then right when I said it I realised the date was the 14th! So he says, "Looks like you'll have something to do this afternoon then." I agreed, got my licence, rego and breath checked then drove straight to the garage to have the WOF done! I was lucky on a couple of points, one that he didn't lean in and check the due date himself, and also lucky the the date I decided to say was the actually date and not the day after or something silly! Cos really have no concept of dates these days, they all flow into one and the same. Hope that was my last encounter with the police for a while!

Yay!!

My life involves little so this is very exciting news... There is a third and final part to Paullina Simons Russian novels! For those who don't know, 1st there was "The Bronze Horseman" then "Bridge to Holy Cross" and now there's "The Summer Garden". So looking forward to seeing how things turn out!! And that's what's exciting in my life.

Update...

Today I went to Christchurch again. This time for testing at a recruitment agency on behalf of ..., the place I interviewed for last week. For two and a half hours I did tests for internet, alpha-numerical data entry, windows 2000, verbal reasoning (odd word out and 'swim is to fish as fly is to...?), numerical reasoning (2, 4, 6, 8... what's the next number, etc), and some other reasoning one with patterns - odd one out and what comes next. Then there was a personality type test to see what type of sales person I am (strongly agree, agree, in between....etc). Finally I had to write a letter to a customer. Phew, talk about whole lot of shit to do! Supposedly I passed with flying colours, and they will pass the information back to ... who'll decide the next step I guess... Watch this space!

P.S. It was 30 degrees when I left Christchurch! Bring on summer!!

Recently...

• Went to Dunedin to visit the few mates I still have down there. Had nice time catching up and hanging out with friends.
• While I was walking along the main street in Dunedin talking to my mate Rachel, saw some birds on the footpath. Continued walking and talking, and next thing you know, I kicked a bird! My God, my heart was pounding - like who kicks a bird! The poor thing was bound to have died of shock or head injuries.
• Arrived at a pub and saw a guy jumping a high gate, then saw a guy and cop running along. So assisted in their quest to catch a baddie! Or 3 it turned out they were looking for, not sure of the background to the chase.
• Drove home on Saturday morning and got pulled up for speeding. My first speed ticket - 112km/h in 100km/h zone (state highway 1) = $80 fine. Just what an overspending, unemployed person needs!
• Had some guy fawkes at my mates flat on Saturday. Highlight was her down on the lawn with her caving head lamp on lighting them, esp. when the grand finale of the "red devil". It went off big, then fell over, and shot into the hedge making it glow with live embers! Twas quite amusing!
• Still haven't heard back about my job interview. Probably hear something tomorrow.
• Can you believe I kicked a bird!?

Still not the full Kiwi!

Twice in the past two days (as in once each day) I have been commented to about my accent. Yesterday by a chick who was our neighbour when I was a kid and probably haven't seen for 10 years. She goes, "your voice is different!"

Today at the job interview, I didn't even think I'd said much and one of the guys said, "Right, first question. Where are you from? I detect a bit of an accent."

Both times I say my standard response - I've just come back from two years in Japan and I had few NZ friends! I hung out with British and Americans mostly. Then they respond - Ah that's right, I hear a slight British accent.

Crazy, I keep thinking I must be back to normal cos no one mentions it, then a stranger goes and surprises me!

Interviews

Today I went to Christchurch for my first interview! Two months I've been home, and applied for so many jobs, and finally an interview. It was for ...- a NZ telecommunication company The job is a call centre 'sales and service consultant' position. The interview went alright I guess... they were very laid back, and I smiled a lot and said what I thought they'd want to hear! I will find out how I got on on Friday I think.

After that interview, I went to a recruitment agency for an interview and testing. It was pretty full on with a visual accuracy, grammar, spelling, and math test (all pretty easy). When I finished I went to go out of the room, and the door wouldn't open. I thought "my God, they've locked me in, how strange and wrong!" I sat back down, and thought maybe they were going to come back to get me. Then I started thinking there was a camera and this was some kind of test! After about 5 minutes, I decided to knock on the door, and I tried it again, but still no opening and no one coming. So I waited more, knocking sporadically, thinking how bad it is that they locked me in! Finally after another 10 minutes or so, I knocked louder, and the receptionist came. She said, were you just knocking? When I told her that the door wouldn't open, we realised that it was sticking really badly! Phew, glad they weren't so weird that they'd lock the door on a client! After that fiasco I did the standard typing, alpha-numerical, and numerical tests. After 4 hours of interviews I was done for the day and drove back home to Timaru. Will let you know how I get on.