Turkeys and Technical Difficulties

Yes, yes, yes! I know it has been too long. But I have been drowning in computer non-functioning nonsense for the last few weeks, and the blog has suffered.

My poor computer (yes, brought from home) picked up a virus in Auckland, I believe, the very first week we arrived. We tried to transfer a word document from our hostel's computer to my computer, using Bjorn's memory stick, and somewhere in the process that dirty hostel computer sneezed on my computer, spraying it with lots of nasty (and potentially fatal!) germs. Ugh.

All of this is to say that now, when we try to open word documents, we find that the contents of those documents have been replaced with a message that says "Hack by debugger!!!!!" Creepy, right?

As the weeks have passed, computer has grown sicker and sicker, and basically all the files we have on there (which includes our personal entertainment - downloaded seasons of TV shows) have been infected, corrupted, whatever.

So blogging became a bit of an adventure. Because we can only pick up wireless internet standing at our kitchen counter, it's a bit more comfortable, going into a long writing session, to sit down on the couch, put the blog into a word document, then transfer it onto the blog-site later, when you can get onto the internet. Of course, with our Word completely corrupted, you must make sure NOT to save the document or close it, because once you have, your work will be sure to be replaced by that irritating debugger message.

So what happens when, amidst all of this complicated mess, your internet goes down? Well, that's what happened to me the last time I tried to write my blog. I had written a lovely entry about life as a cleaning lady (which you'll just have to wait and wonder about for now), only to find that when I was ready to post it onto the site, the internet was completely gone.

And so, because any computer messes like this REALLY drive me bananas, I just decided to wash my hands of it and haven't been bothered with trying to get that entry posted for some weeks now.

Mr. Computer has at this point been left at a service shop in Christchurch. Please pray for healing. Hopefully we'll get it back next week.

And another excuse! Internet here is $6 an hour, and they've like completely blocked you from connecting your camera and doing fun things like downloading pictures for your friends, which is what I was attempting to do when I came to the internet today. It is FASCINATING to me that internet access was so much better (and faster and cheaper) in South America than here.

So...pulease bear with me until I have my computer situation smoothed over. I have not given up on the blog!

Meanwhile, it is Thanksgiving day in America today (though it's Friday afternoon right now here). I imagine all of my friends and family sitting around their warm homes, shoes off, glass of wine in hand, full of food, watching TV, working a puzzle, perhaps already heading back into the kitchen to pick at leftovers, depending on what time you've eaten.

It's hard to be here for Thanksgiving. Well, no, actually. It's almost too weird for it to be hard. I feel so very far away that it's hard for me to imagine that it's Thanksgiving on the other side of the world. They obviously don't celebrate this holiday here (when, as my boss says, the Americans give thanks to the Indians for letting them take over), and furthermore, they don't really eat turkey over here! Ever!

Bjorn and I went into Christchurch on Wednesday night to have a big dinner out to celebrate A) Thanksgiving, B) our 8 month anniversary, C) my half-birthday, and D) my father's early birthday. We had yummy Thai food, and then went to a restaurant that specializes in desserts for a stomach-sickening pig out. It was fun - GREAT fun - but it wasn't really Thanksgiving, was it? We didn't even talk about what we're thankful for!

So I've been making myself go through my annual what am I thankful for list, even though I have no turkey to eat and no Frazier family party to attend. And I won't write out the whole list (though one of these years I AM GOING TO DO THAT!), but my family, my friends, Bjorn, and this amazing year are in the top five. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Know what I am REALLY thankful for? Mumsy and dadsy and brother John are coming to see me...for Christmas!! I cannot wait! EEEEE! It will be such fun.

Okay, my hour at the internet is about to be up, and I am not about to spend more than $6. So sorry.

Hope everyone has had a fabulous Thanksgiving! More soon...perhaps I'll even be able to rescue my cleaning lady entry one of those days:)

Much love to you all.

Half Flush or Full?

When I arrived at the Auckland airport seven weeks ago (seven weeks! though it actually feels longer), the first thing I did when I finished with customs was hit the ATM. It was the usual stuff – enter your password, select withdrawal, key in the amount, etc. As I was wrapping things up, a message came up asking me if I wanted my receipt. Again, typical stuff. But, glancing over the message, my eyes stuck on something unusual. “Would you like your receipt? Please be mindful of the environment when making your decision.”

I am not a super environmentally conscious person. I mean, I try to recycle when I can, but environmental causes are pretty far back in my mind. Pulease, I’ve got like, Bjorn and what am I going to have for lunch today and should I have another cup of coffee and why can’t my bottom be less jiggly and all other manner of important things on my brain instead.

But in all seriousness, I was struck that day by how something so seemingly simple – just an extra sentence on an ATM machine – could make me (and millions of other ATM users) immediately aware of the environment. Do I really need my receipt? Well, no, I guess not. I’d probably just take a quick glance at it, wad it up, and throw it in the nearest trash can.

New Zealand is a very familiar place. The people speak English, they look like me, they dress like me, have similar backgrounds. But I have learned that NZ is also an extremely different place from the US, and the differences come across in very subtle ways.

The toilets here are fairly standard, but wherever you go, be it a restaurant, a gas station, a shopping mall, the toilets are spotlessly clean. The first few weeks I kept approaching public bathrooms with dread, breathing through my mouth, prepared for the worst, and finding…clean! They have these little sanitation boxes in each stall, which are full of disinfectant that you can spray out onto a bit of paper and wipe the toilet clean. A great idea, to be sure, but even greater, people ACTUALLY DO THIS! Can you imagine Americans EVER stooping so low as to clean up after themselves in public restrooms? I love us, I promise you, but we wouldn’t do it. It wouldn’t catch. I can’t figure out why.

While we are on the subject of toilets, let me also tell you how puzzled I was at first when it was time to flush. Instead of one little flusher, there are two little buttons – one plain and another with a little half-moon symbol on it. After about a week of just randomly selecting a button to push, I brought this up to Bjorn. Oh, he said, that tells the toilet how much water it needs to pump through. If it’s just a number one, it just needs a half flush. If it’s something more, it needs a whole flush.

Water saving brilliance. This is so simple it’s just silly.

I'm not trying to put America down for not operating this way, for not having these kind of systems set into place. But, when you see these simple things working so easily in a country, functioning successful, actually succeeding in making citizens more mindful about things like the environment, this light sort of dings on, like - Oh! These things ARE possible. It CAN work.

And, in light of our most recent election, I am feeling rather hopeful about things like this. Hopeful about my country. Proud of my country! We CAN change.

And that is all I am going to say about that. Because I don't like to talk politics:)

Now then. Everything is super here. This morning at 8 AM I began a five week exercise class led by my friend Erin. It's twice a week, for an hour and fifteen minutes, and we meet on the recreation field, just across the street from my house. There are about eight of us in the class, and we just do an assortment of cardio, strenth training, that sort of thing. I was doing lunges across the rec field today, the sun shining, the bay looking like its beautiful self, the mountains doing the same, and I just had an eek moment. I do love this place.

And this afternoon, I got invited to go out for a FREE sailing lesson, taught by a friend of a friend who is trying to start up a sailing instruction business. It was such fun. I got to be the jib trimmer. I got to trim the jibs. (I just sort of moved the front sail from side to side when we needed to turn.)

Sailing lessons, outdoor exercise - it's all making me very excited about the quickly approaching summer season here. (December is like our June.)

At the same time, though, I am really feeling homesick for fall. I talked to my parents the other day, and they were cozied down by the fire, eating chili - spending a November day the way it's supposed to be spent! And I thought about the fall leaves, and the way the air smells and feels, and I felt a little sad to be away from it all. But I won't complain too much. Skipping from summer to summer to summer isn't half bad!

Okay. Wrap it up, wrap it up. This blog has taken me bits and pieces of all day to write because I cannot focus! I am all over the place!

Love you all lots. Hope everyone is well and enjoying November.