Amid all this sourdough nonsense of late, I've perhaps been avoiding the subject of what's actually going on over here. Coaxing my starter into life has occupied a fair bit of my time, admittedly, but I do have (part of) a life outside of the kitchen. Sort of.
So on the job front, I'm still bashing away at the market here, trying to find a suitable niche. Next week I'm to be subjected to a battery of psychometric tests as part of a conversation I'm having with an insurance company, and it's hard to say just how much I'm not looking forward to it. Still, needs must.
The Kiwi's faring a little better, but out of sheer superstition I'll refrain from commenting until the process has moved on a bit further, but at the moment things look good.
In other news, I have begun to miss London, and I always wondered when it would happen. It was sort of inevitable that springtime would be the time, as we slip into grey skies and all-too-obviously unheated houses, all I hear from the other side of the world is news of beautiful spring days, the optimism of the coming summer and the excitement of eating and drinking outside. I think what really precipitated this homesickness was a comment in this week's Popbitch newsletter, which simply said 'The sun is out. The sky is blue. The ska is on the stereo.' I've tried a bit of Desmond Dekker's superbly sunny '007' this morning, but it's not really having the desired effect and our sky is still a leaden grey.
Perhaps I might try a bit of the Specials later on.
Also, it seems that people I don't know are reading Eating Auckland and enjoying it - I started getting a bit of traffic from an unfamiliar site the other day, and it turns out it was a discussion on a (more popular) blog about maintaining a point of view whilst blogging. Someone was holding my site up as a great example of a totally impartial blog and said some lovely things about it too, which fair made my day.
Showing posts with label boredom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boredom. Show all posts
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Another month...
You may have noticed an uncharacteristic lack of posts here of late. This is mainly as very little has changed over here - we're still looking for work, still getting up in the morning and scouring the job sites, still getting remarkably little traction from doing so. A promising conversation I've been clinging onto for three months fell through yesterday, so we're back to square one again. This ceased to be funny a very long time ago; now it's just boring, and not a little terrifying.
I am not, though, at the point yet where I'm questioning whether or not this was a good idea. It'll take a little longer for that to happen, and a few more rejections too, I think. Oh, and the UK economy would need to be in a better shape than the NZ one, which will take some time, I reckon.
It's still sunny here, although as we move into autumn the breeze is getting a little cooler. What's funny from my perspective is, whilst walking around in jeans and a t-shirt and finding it quite temperate, hearing other people shiver and complain. It's still over 15C and beautifully sunny, FFS people! Man up a little!
The garden, such as it is, is going great guns, although something or other is eating our spinach and some of the leaves on my chilli plant. We've been using the flat-leaf parsley, the basil and the (uneaten) spinach quite happily for a while now, which is nice, and I think the lime tree needs pruning as some of the topmost leaves are looking a bit sickly. Oh, and the Kiwi's spring onions seem to have, er, sprung, finally.
More news as we get it, on all fronts.
I am not, though, at the point yet where I'm questioning whether or not this was a good idea. It'll take a little longer for that to happen, and a few more rejections too, I think. Oh, and the UK economy would need to be in a better shape than the NZ one, which will take some time, I reckon.
It's still sunny here, although as we move into autumn the breeze is getting a little cooler. What's funny from my perspective is, whilst walking around in jeans and a t-shirt and finding it quite temperate, hearing other people shiver and complain. It's still over 15C and beautifully sunny, FFS people! Man up a little!
The garden, such as it is, is going great guns, although something or other is eating our spinach and some of the leaves on my chilli plant. We've been using the flat-leaf parsley, the basil and the (uneaten) spinach quite happily for a while now, which is nice, and I think the lime tree needs pruning as some of the topmost leaves are looking a bit sickly. Oh, and the Kiwi's spring onions seem to have, er, sprung, finally.
More news as we get it, on all fronts.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
The Curious Case of a Truly Awful Film
Last night the Kiwi and I watched 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', the latest film to involve Brad Pitt and apparently also-ran for last year's Academy Awards.
What a terrible, terrible film. It's like a 166 minute slap in the face, a prolonged insult or a particularly bad case of constipation. From the overall concept to the appalling acting and stomach-churning attempts to tackle 'deep' subjects in ways that the Dawson's Creek kids would find mawkish, it almost motivated me to call up David Fincher and ask for that 166 minutes back. There is literally nothing of merit here, not even Cate Blanchett's initially hilarious 'old southern woman' accent (which fast matches being poked continually in the chest as a number one annoyance).
I rarely post about films, but I really had to get this one off my chest. What an absolute shocker.
What a terrible, terrible film. It's like a 166 minute slap in the face, a prolonged insult or a particularly bad case of constipation. From the overall concept to the appalling acting and stomach-churning attempts to tackle 'deep' subjects in ways that the Dawson's Creek kids would find mawkish, it almost motivated me to call up David Fincher and ask for that 166 minutes back. There is literally nothing of merit here, not even Cate Blanchett's initially hilarious 'old southern woman' accent (which fast matches being poked continually in the chest as a number one annoyance).
I rarely post about films, but I really had to get this one off my chest. What an absolute shocker.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
On jobhunting
I have always hated jobhunting with a passion. More than once I've resigned myself to a few more months working in a job I've outgrown purely because I hate the whole process. I hate the constant disappointment, the way your personal worth is evaluated in terms of keywords and qualifications, and the way nine recruitment consultants in ten actually bother to read your CV, let alone take the time to understand what it is that you do. For someone like me who has a fairly shaky grip on my own self-esteem, it's a challenging process.
I don't think I've hated it as much as I do right now though. Two months after arriving in the country we've still to gain any real traction with anyone or anything, and as we come to the end of our interim cash, what's irritating me the most is the creeping sense of desperation, the sense of needing something from someone, the increasing feeling that I'm going to have to take the first thing that comes along and just be grateful for it.
Past experience doesn't help, either. All the positions I've ever worked in have come about through a personal contact, one way or another, with the possible exception of Virgin Digital, and as a colleague there rather unprofessionally told me once, I only just got that job, mainly as someone much better pulled out. So I don't have a huge amount of faith in the recruitment community, you could say.
Anyway, there's a little insight into what's going on at the moment. I applied for a few more things today, so chin up, this might be the week. I should probably take a leaf out of Melvtopia's book and find the hidden positives here... watch this space. Next week, if there's still silence on all fronts, I'm going to the pub.
And asking them if they have any jobs going. Backpedalling 10 years in my career could be just the thing to do, who knows?
I don't think I've hated it as much as I do right now though. Two months after arriving in the country we've still to gain any real traction with anyone or anything, and as we come to the end of our interim cash, what's irritating me the most is the creeping sense of desperation, the sense of needing something from someone, the increasing feeling that I'm going to have to take the first thing that comes along and just be grateful for it.
Past experience doesn't help, either. All the positions I've ever worked in have come about through a personal contact, one way or another, with the possible exception of Virgin Digital, and as a colleague there rather unprofessionally told me once, I only just got that job, mainly as someone much better pulled out. So I don't have a huge amount of faith in the recruitment community, you could say.
Anyway, there's a little insight into what's going on at the moment. I applied for a few more things today, so chin up, this might be the week. I should probably take a leaf out of Melvtopia's book and find the hidden positives here... watch this space. Next week, if there's still silence on all fronts, I'm going to the pub.
And asking them if they have any jobs going. Backpedalling 10 years in my career could be just the thing to do, who knows?
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Is it really late February already?
Time is seeming very elastic at the moment, stretching out like caramelised sugar and constantly wrong-footing me. This morning I was inspecting a pot outside where I'd planted some chillies, and decided glumly that they weren't sprouting and so were probably dead, when I noticed on the label that I'd only put them in three days ago. It seemed like over a week.
On the other hand, it seems ridiculous that our second rent payment is due next week. It only feels like we've been in here a week or so, but in reality it's been quite a while. We're pretty much settled in now, with all the absolutely necessary furniture installed and most of our stuff unpacked. Still in boxes are most of the books, CDs and DVDs, which are waiting patiently in the spare room for us to buy a bookcase. This is one of those purchases that we've relegated to the 'when we have jobs' list, along with a thing to put the TV on (entertainment cabinet? I'm sure they have a name), a barbeque, an olive pitter and some decent cheese for a change. Our warped sense of priority means we bought an ice-cream machine this week - it was on a 50% off deal though, in fairness. So far I've made an orange & grapefruit sorbet and some plum ice-cream, both of which pretty good. It's taken a bit of getting used to but I think I have the hang of it now.
Actually, that said I think we're going to relent and get a barbeque anyway. The main reason for this, apart from the social stigma of living in New Zealand and not having one, is that our smoke alarm is so sensitive that showering with the bathroom door open can set the upstairs one off, so the indoor grilling of any meat at all involves all the windows being open, the Kiwi racing round the house flapping things, and me occasionally holding the grill pan outside the kitchen window. Yesterday evening I was grilling some chicken, and poked the sizzling, smoking pan out of the window just as a neighbour walked past - fortunately missing his suit by a whisker. So I think it's a worthwhile purchase. The smoke alarms, you see, are linked to the fire system in the building, which in turn is linked to both the fire service and the sprinklers, neither of which I want going off. We get charged for every fire truck that turns up, and they usually send several.
No news on the job front, although the Kiwi seems to have found some more tame recruiters, which if I've not heard anything by the end of this week I might be pimping myself to as well. The thing that's really getting me worried is the boredom and lack of stimulus - despite trying to follow all the online media and industry buzz I used to, I can feel my brain drying up and grinding to a halt, and the temptation to retreat from the world into a comfortable cocoon of Mario Kart, Simpsons, Quake Live and the odd glass of wine is getting harder to resist.
Hilariously, in the context of all this media nonsense about social media atrophying the brains of our young, Twitter and Facebook are about the only things keeping me sane at the moment.
On the other hand, it seems ridiculous that our second rent payment is due next week. It only feels like we've been in here a week or so, but in reality it's been quite a while. We're pretty much settled in now, with all the absolutely necessary furniture installed and most of our stuff unpacked. Still in boxes are most of the books, CDs and DVDs, which are waiting patiently in the spare room for us to buy a bookcase. This is one of those purchases that we've relegated to the 'when we have jobs' list, along with a thing to put the TV on (entertainment cabinet? I'm sure they have a name), a barbeque, an olive pitter and some decent cheese for a change. Our warped sense of priority means we bought an ice-cream machine this week - it was on a 50% off deal though, in fairness. So far I've made an orange & grapefruit sorbet and some plum ice-cream, both of which pretty good. It's taken a bit of getting used to but I think I have the hang of it now.
Actually, that said I think we're going to relent and get a barbeque anyway. The main reason for this, apart from the social stigma of living in New Zealand and not having one, is that our smoke alarm is so sensitive that showering with the bathroom door open can set the upstairs one off, so the indoor grilling of any meat at all involves all the windows being open, the Kiwi racing round the house flapping things, and me occasionally holding the grill pan outside the kitchen window. Yesterday evening I was grilling some chicken, and poked the sizzling, smoking pan out of the window just as a neighbour walked past - fortunately missing his suit by a whisker. So I think it's a worthwhile purchase. The smoke alarms, you see, are linked to the fire system in the building, which in turn is linked to both the fire service and the sprinklers, neither of which I want going off. We get charged for every fire truck that turns up, and they usually send several.
No news on the job front, although the Kiwi seems to have found some more tame recruiters, which if I've not heard anything by the end of this week I might be pimping myself to as well. The thing that's really getting me worried is the boredom and lack of stimulus - despite trying to follow all the online media and industry buzz I used to, I can feel my brain drying up and grinding to a halt, and the temptation to retreat from the world into a comfortable cocoon of Mario Kart, Simpsons, Quake Live and the odd glass of wine is getting harder to resist.
Hilariously, in the context of all this media nonsense about social media atrophying the brains of our young, Twitter and Facebook are about the only things keeping me sane at the moment.
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