There are days when I step outside the hospital and just stop to breathe for a minute. I look up at the cloudy skies, feel the wind blasting my skin, see the Brooklyn wind turbine on a far off hilltop, hear the GO Wellington buses chasing each other up and down Riddiford Road, gaze at the magnificent and lush greenery surrounding all of urban Wellington and it hits me all over again: wow, I'm in New Zealand!! I live here, this is my life now. It should feel utterly familiar by now, and often does, but somehow that sense of being a stranger in a strange land is something I've never quite gotten over.
However: it's now 2011 and we are definitely Moving On with our lives here in NZ. A few big things from the end of last year:
1. Our Permanent Residence was finally granted and I'm starting to forget how incredibly frustrating it was dealing with the bureaucratic pinheads at INZ. I'm now convinced that you only need two qualifications to work for INZ. One is tunnel vision ie if it isn't written in The Book, it doesn't exist. The other is the ability to speak without actually imparting any useful information at all. This is a skill that our CO's boss had honed to perfection and he practiced it daily - on me. :-((
2. I put my house in SA on the market in early December and within three weeks, I received an offer for almost full asking price, from a pre-approved buyer. AWESOME!! If all goes well, transfer should take place towards the end of February, mid-March or so. My thanks to a lovely agent, Juanita Gleeson of Sun Valley.
3. Matt is settling in, has found part-time work in a funky restaurant in Cuba Street called Floraditas. For the month before Christmas, he also had a second job in another very upmarket restaurant in Oriental Bay, but that has now fallen through. But he seems to have found his feet and is enjoying exploring his new world.
4. Livi finished her NCEA Level three exams, and passed with flying colours, gaining more than enough credits to gain her university entrance. She then went off on a five-week holiday back to SA and had a marvellous time with her dad and family and friends. Doing this meant she flew from Wellington (via Auckland, Brisbane and Dubai) to Cape Town and back again, on her own. She managed fine. For a neurotic mom, so did I, except for the hours we lost contact while she was on the ground in Dubai and all I could get when I dialled her cell no was a disembodied voice saying: This number is not recognized, please contact your service provider!! My over-active imagination instantly found a thousand insane reasons for this. The reality was extremely mundane, though: 2degrees does not have strong provider support in Dubai - and her battery died at the same time!
5. We moved house - yes, again! :-) We loved our last home in Miramar, but with both M and L starting fulltime at Victoria university this year, it made sense to look for rental accommodation closer to town. We found a really great place up in Kelburn, ten to fifteen mins walk to the central campus. It's a beautiful old villa, divided into two flats. We have the top one and we look down across a central valley, towards Mt Cook. Rising up behind us are tree-lined ridges with some very smart homes indeed. Kelburn Village is an upmarket suburb which also has a large student population, so the main street where the shops are is a fascinating mix of the local pub, butchery, video store and dairy, as well as a German bakery, several high-priced antique stores and a interior design showroom. Oh, and quite a few coffee shops too!
Back yard
Looking down the valley towards Mt Cook
Kitchen, before we moved in
Lounge
So now we face several years of tertiary education! M is enrolled for a BSc in physical geography, L is also enrolled for a BSc with majors in psychology and stats .. and I'm taking the plunge back into study as well, although not on a fulltime basis yet - someone has to earn the money to pay the rent, buy the food and keep the broadband connected! :-) I'm enrolling for a BA and my first semester I'll be doing papers in English and Religious Studies. Looking forward to it a LOT!
Love to you all!
Lin
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