Leaf, probably…

Today I spent lunch down on the waterfront with Kat, Becks, Jeri and Maike.

Usually when we all get together it’s fun and we laugh a lot, and bitch about boys and relationships, and talk about punching things. Our meetings make me feel powerful, capable, and happy. 

When it’s time to go I leave with a sense of direction and a cool ball of calm lodged just under my rib cage. Not many people give me calm. I value the ones that do highly.

We were all there on the waterfront today for Kat - one of the very few people that I actually hero worship.

Over three years ago now she introduced me to kickboxing and changed pretty much my entire outlook on life. To everyone else she’s the person who taught me how to throw a nice punch, to me she’s the person who taught me that I can be badass.

Kat can make me do things I never would have thought about trying without her influence. Like the time I did two boxing classes in a row for her. Or the time she convinced me to try scuba diving.

She’s the first person I think of when I need courage, or no nonsense ‘get your butt into gear’ advice. And I have a feeling I’m going to be needing that sort of advice quite a bit in the next few months.

All in all she’s one of my favorite people, and even though she’s younger than me I look up to her like the totally badass big sister I’ve come to see her as.

Today’s get together on the waterfront wasn’t about boys or laughing about crap, or punching things.

It was because Kat is going to Rarotonga for a long time. She’s planning on doing her diving instructors exams while working in one of the dive shops over there. We were all there to say goodbye to Kat, and to try and keep our collective raging jealousy under control.

When I left I didn’t have a sense of purpose, and I sure as fuck didn’t have a nice cool ball of calm under my ribs. Instead I have a messy ball of weepy sad GIRL.

I haven’t lost it and actually cried yet, but it’s probably not far away. In fact at 1.15pm tomorrow I’m going to be standing with my hands pressed to my office window watching Wellington airport and blubbering like a big baby.

It’s hard to be badass when you’re sad.

Kat: Have an awesome time, but not too awesome, because we all want you back.

I’m clinging to the top of a climbing wall at Fergs on the waterfront. My arms seem to have locked into place - which is a good thing, because I’m tired, and from my last estimate I’m roughly 10,000 meters from the ground.

“Lean back!” Louise is yelling. She’s been saying that for some time now.

She’s easy to ignore all the way up here.

I don’t want to let go of the wall. Perhaps I could climb back down, like spiderman in reverse? I go down half a step, and Louise yells at me again.

Finally I manage to relax my hands and sit back onto the harness. Not too far back, mind, but I’m not clinging to the wall anymore. I’m clinging to the rope.

Louise lowers me and my stomach takes a little longer than everything else to hit the ground.

“That was scary.” I say shaking out my hands.

Louise looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You’re on a rope. I’m not going to drop you.”

“Yeah But I’m scared of heights, and it’s scary leaning back.”

Louise clearly doesn’t get it.

For her the fun bit is whizzing back down to the ground. For me it’s looping the knot before I climb, and the climb itself. My climbs are always slow. I like to think about where my hands and feet are going, and I like to be sure that I’m not going to slip and plunge to the AstroTurf below my feet.

Louise hooks herself onto the ropes, and almost before I’m ready she flings herself up the wall that I just climbed. She gets up it in less time than I did, and casually lets go of the wall, leaning back into her harness with no issues.

I shake my head in wonder. I want to ask ‘What if you fall Louise!?”. I don’t yell out though - I know it will be counterproductive to getting her back onto the ground. Also it would be a really shitty thing for a belayer to say to a friend.

My turn again, and I jump up onto the wall. Two meters up the fear settles itself over my shoulders like a blanket. I shrug it off casually, and stretch to reach my next hold.

As long as I’m going up I’ll be fine.

Ahhh!!! Sex and the City!

Ok, sorry. Had to get that one out there.

So Leslea and I met at Readings before the show. We gulped down a burger from classy McD’s before making our way upstairs. When we got up there - I’m not even joking - we were greeted by a swarming wave of GIRL. Sure there were a few guys up there, but they were the ones in fetal position, at the sides of the room. Most of them evacuated back downstairs until the craziness was over.

The tickets we had procured were from Kinetic Recruitment, sent out to Louise as a thank you for choosing them earlier this year. We felt a little shady about pretending to be Louise, so we slunk by the first wave of friendly recruitment girls.

We found the second wave of recruitment ladies at the door of the theater. I was sure we were about to be thrown out. Around us the other movie goers were greeting their agents and chatting about their new jobs. Instead of throwing us out on our ear, or asking where the heck Louise was, they took our coveted double pass and handed us two cute little Chinese takeaway type boxes full of sweets. Then they ushered us past the pink and white balloons and into the theater.

In the movie theater we were confronted by the third wave of recruiters. They wanted to know if we would like ice cream, and perhaps a bottle of water, or fizzy drink. We did.

The people from Kinetic were genuinely nice (even though they didn’t know us at all) and the ladies were all so excited to see the film. It was catching I think because by the time we got to our seats I was dying to see the film too.

We had a bit of a wait, for all the last minute ladies, and made a game out of counting the boys. There were no more than 11 in a theater of 200, and boy did they all look pleased as punch to be there.

When the movie finally started it exceeded my expectations. Sure in places it was a little over the top, but I had expected downright awful for some reason. It wasn’t. I laughed my butt off in places, and got a little tear in my eye in others. It was a good movie, and enough to make me want to watch all the seasons again (also because I missed the last season!)

I’m not allowed to say too much - or anything - because Stace, Louise and Karlie will all shoot me, but the movie has a lot of raunch.

Also… you see penis… There I said it… This movie is going to be the new Wild Things.

(If you’ve ever been a teenage girl, in a room full of teenage girls watching Kevin Bacon in that movie you know what I mean.)

Tonight I am going to Sex in the City on behalf of Louise. Her recruitment company sent a free double pass to the preview but unfortunately, because Louise is massively popular, she has to be elsewhere tonight.

She gifted it to Leslea and I - although I have yet to hear back from Leslea as to whether she actually is coming. If she’s not able to get off work in time I’m sure it will be no issue at all finding someone willing to drop everything and come watch a movie with me.

Someone female that is. I hear guys would rather eat their own arms than have to sit in a movie theatre and watch SJP run around New York in a wedding dress. Whatever.

I was having a conversation along those lines with Ben the other day over coffee and he said the most improbable thing… He was moaning about how much of a waste of time the movie was, and how no self respecting male would allow himself to be badgered into going, and then he said:

“Besides, you can tell he totally doesn’t love her anyway.”

Did anyone else know that my boyfriend used to watch Sex and the City? Because I sure didn’t. He defended it by saying that he used to live with girls and was forced to watch it.

I’m not going to call him out on that at all, but I will say that of all the times I’ve been forced to watch something I’m truly not interested in I retain almost no memory of the programme, and certainly not enough to analyse the main characters relationships.

Despite my assertion that the weekend was going to suck, it didn’t.

I got my exam done, and that pretty much sucked. The rest was pretty awesome.

I went to Leslea’s birthday party on Friday night. She had mini slices on one of those cute three tiered cake things. There was also mudcake from the chocolate cake company, and many cocktails. Has anyone tried Fejoa vodka and Chi, with a squeeze of lime? It’s my new favourite thing. It tastes just like fejoa.

Karlie, Louise and I brought Leslea the Dirty Dancing special anniversary DVD, and the workout DVD. Leslea’s partner, Damon, saw them and wept. With happiness no doubt. I know he’s been dying to do that workout tape for some time now, we’ve just made his dearest dreams come true.

When it came time to leave we realised that I - true to form - had checked the wrong bus timetable. So we walked to Kilbirnie and caught a taxi.

On Saturday Louise, Karlie an I went to the zoo and Karlie photographed anything that moved - and plenty of things that didn’t. She has a new camera, and was super excited about it. You could take a gander at her photos here if you were so inclined…

After that we went for a very late lunch at Kallais in Newtown. It’s a bit dodgy looking on the outside, but the inside is a totally different story. We all ate too much, especially considering we had an early dinner at One Red Dog to go to.

Chris piled us all into his car, and took us out to his place where we met a goat called Buster. Karlie took photos and bonded. Did you know that Karlie daydreams about owning a heard of goats and making goats cheese for a living? No? Well she does.

One Red Dog was good, but then Pizza is always good.

Cats was amazing. I went with Louise, Becks, and Becks’ two flatmates. I got us seats WAY up in the gallery, and off to the side, so we missed all the action in the front right hand corner of the stage. There was enough action on the rest of the stage for me not to give a damn.

I had goose bumps the entire time, it was that great.

Then Louise and I went home and attempted to recreate the magic for Karlie. We would have succeeded too, except Louise wasn’t half as good as me at pretending to be a fat cat. I forgive her though, because she did attempt to sing, and not everyone can be as fabulous as me at this sort of thing. Neither of us attempted to do the splits, and that was probably for the best.

The rest of my weekend was spent eating roast pork, and slaving over the stupid 1000 piece black and white puzzle that I bought from the Salvation Army ages ago. Is anyone out there considering buying a black and white puzzle? Because you shouldn’t. Colours are what make these sorts of things fun. Also… you know… possible.

I feel like I’ve been wrung out. I feel like my insides have been dissected, and weighed, and found wanting.

I feel like I didn’t finish either essay in my 50 minute test. Mostly because I didn’t.

I feel like I should have written more about foreign policy after the Soviet Union became Russia. Two garbled sentences were probably not enough.

I feel like I should know more than I do. Mostly because The only tangible things I can remember right now from this course is the correct spelling of Britain and that the Bay of Pigs was not a fight about Cuban bacon.

In other news: We’re celebrating Leslea’s 23rd birthday this weekend by attending a swanky cocktail party with her.

This Saturday I’m going to see Cats at the Opera House with Becks and Louise, and we’re going to One Red Dogbeforehand for pizza. MMmm good!

And best of all? This Monday is a public holiday!

This Saturday I went to the Mediterranean Food Warehouse in Newtown with Ben’s parents. And Ben of course… It would have been awkward if he wasn’t there too.

The Pizza was AMAZING and, if you have an e-book, there’s a voucher in there for pizza. So, you know, you pretty much have to go.

And while you’re there grab a couple of bottles of Italian wine, because the wine was awesome. Much like the pizza.

I think my favorite had cherry tomatoes and Italian sausage and cheese and tangy tomatoy sauce - and my second favorite was loaded with mushrooms, and parma ham. And guys, I don’t even like mushrooms. That’s how good the pizza was.

You know what else happened this weekend? Karlie Louise and I were all in the same room for longer than an hour. That’s weird because usually Karlie has plans in town, and Louise works, and I have to be somewhere for something that involves being wet, or cold, or sweaty. So it was weird all hanging out together but nice too. I took a look around the room and I was like, ‘hey, I totally live with you people… Awesome…’ It’s nice to finally find a flatting situation that works.

On Friday night I was home alone. So instead of getting started on my readings, or writing my essay due in two weeks, I did a few other things. I washed every dish in the sink (It only took an hour.) Then I made myself dinner, and did the dishes again - I live on the wild side…

After that I put a load of washing on, vacuumed, baked brownies, washed a load of sheets and gross workout clothes that I found balled at the bottom of my gym bag - which I also cleaned out. Then I rearranged the lounge, cleaned up the mess of wires behind our TV, found the manual for our universal remote, put on another load of washing, and pondered why I have so many clothes, and can never find a thing to wear.

After I finished pondering I ate a brownie (I think I’m finally getting the hang of baking without burning), drank 2 litres of water, watered all the pot plants, tidied my bombsite of a room, shoved about a ton of clothing in the dryer, fixed the tv antenna so that we can get C4 without having an epileptic fit, and read all about the resting heartbeat on the Internet.

When I am bored I am productive. Unfortunately I did not do any work for Uni, or learn any more Korean for Taekwon-Do, but I can tell you that a woman’s average resting heartbeat is about 70 beats per minute, and a man’s is about 75bpm. Mine is 60bpm, measured from my pulse, which is actually not that accurate for measuring something like this. Listening through a stethoscope would be better.

Also your resting heart rate is measured while you are sitting quietly and relaxed, and things like fitness, weight and lifestyle have an impact on it. If you are overweight and unfit your resting heart rate will be higher, and indicate that perhaps your heart is under a bit more stress than it should be.

Are you glad you know that now? I am. I’m sure it will come in useful one day.

Also this weekend, I’ve been pondering glasses. I’m wondering if perhaps I need to visit an optometrist and get my eyes checked out lately. My eyes get sore and red after staring at a computer screen and text books all day, and I’ve noticed that I get headaches more and more often when I’m trying to read.

Also reading used to be something I had to force myself to stop doing in order to eat drink and sleep. These days takes actual effort to concentrate on textbooks, and recreational reading - which is weird because I am genuinely interested in the stuff I’ve got to read so concentration shouldn’t be an issue, right?

Then again, maybe it’s just too many hours in front of the computer, not enough sleep, and getting old. So maybe I don’t need glasses.

I have always wanted glasses though, I think I’d look totally smart with them, and that may balance out all the totally idiotic things I do on a daily basis.

Kat’s birthday was this Saturday (happy birthday Kat) and I went into town to help her celebrate.

We had mexican food (mmm), sangrea (mmm), and beer (mmm). Jeri and Becks were there and we had a good gossip, about work, boys, life, families, and who’s body we would like, and what we’d do with it (wander round in bikini tops and short skirts. All bikini, all day.)

I had more alcohol this weekend than I have had in months, and it was fine, mostly. I got home around 2am (which is also the latest night I’ve had in months…)

When I finally got into the house - stupid sticky door - I dropped most of my belongings as I walked up the stairs. I then made some more mexican food to eat on the couch while atempting to sober up a wee bit before bed. I dropped a laptop on a pile of plates (the noise was at about the same level as a bomb going off next door. Sorry flatmates!) Then I went to bed and slept till mid day.

Now I cannot find my keys. Or the stockings I wore out to town.

I’m more concerned about the keys.

It seems like the latest cool kid accessory to be lugging around with you at Uni is a guitar. Today I saw no less than 4 people doing it in the three hours I was there. I almost had 5 before I realised that I was looking at the case of a large cello type instrument.

Most frequently these are sighted casually strung over the owners back - no books or evidence of study in sight. Today though, I actually saw one in use while on Uni property, and I’ve got to say, there is nothing better than the sound of an acoustic guitar when you’re trying to avoid study.

Mmmm. I just ‘discovered’ the best lunch ever. And by ‘discovered’ I mean stole off Karlie, because Karlie always has the best lunch ideas.  

You need a box of cous cous, and a small snack sized can of lemon and ginger tuna (lots of other flavours would probably work well too.)

Put a less than 1/2 cup of cous cous in a bowl, with exactly the same amount of boiling hot water (I say less than because1/2 a cup of uncooked cous cous is a LOT of cooked cous cous.) Add less than 1/2 teaspoon of marge and don’t stir it!

Give it 3 mins with a plate on top to keep as much heat in as possible. Gently break up the couscous with a fork. Then add in the tuna, give it a good stir around, and then consume. YUM. Also cheap, and excellent for the office.

Also: I’ve NEVER liked marmite or vegemite, but lately my newest craving is a piece of sandwich bread toasted with a tiny bit of Mage and a REALLY tiny bit of vegemite. It has to be super tiny because I still hate the taste of it… But at the same time it’s exactly  what I want to eat at 10am. Weird right? Yeah. I know.

It’s been a bit quiet around here because I’ve just gone back to uni from holidays and I had all these unrealistic expectations of finishing an essay due next month and doing all my readings forever and ever. The end.

Needless to say, I’ve finally looked up from my jigsaw puzzle to find the end of the holidays here, and NONE of that stuff done. In fact it’s possible I didn’t even look at my exercise book because it’s in exactly the same place I dumped it at 5.30pm Friday on the last day of term.

The post that follows is my account of what it’s like to work full time, while studying part time. I actually wrote this as a letter to a friend who was thinking about going back to uni part-time, and then proceeded to steal it from myself for this blog. (woo! recycling is the way of the future. Also plagiarism.)

Studying and working is hard, but it’s do-able:

You’ll have to be prepared to take a LONG run at it because you can’t do a full course load like everyone else. At the beginning of this year I nearly quit, because it was. All. So. Hard. And I wanted more time for ME. And hanging out with my friends. And a lunch break. But then I sat down and looked at my goals again, and decided that if anything goes it’s my workplace.

I think you have to be very prepared for the stress and having less time, and have your priorities straight. Decide what’s more important in life right now, and in the future. (It’s different for everyone.)

It helps to have your reasons, goals, and your hopes for study written down the whole way through. Otherwise you end up losing sight of the main goal.

And if you don’t have a goal, then why are you putting yourself through this again?? Trust me. It’s a question that I ask myself all the time, and a question you need to be able to answer.

Fitting it all in:

Generally I work 36 hours a week (I start at 8am, and don’t usually leave much before 5.30pm.) I attend classes for 6 hours a week. I also have insisted my boss give me an additional two hours a week for study, because despite what you think you’re going to do at home, or after you go to the gym, you never quite do it all.

It may sound like that’s too many hours to fit into a working day, but it all crams it’s way in there somehow. I don’t take lunch breaks or coffee breaks or anything like that… And I timetable everything. It helps my boss know where I am, and it helps me plan my day.

I’m lucky, I think, because my job doesn’t offer me nearly enough work to keep me interested for 40 hours a week. Also, for some perverse reason, I do more, better, when I’m working to a tight deadline, or under a wee bit of stress. (Of course I’m not talking crazy amounts of stress, all the time. It’s all about balance.)

Getting permission:

My manager was incredibly supportive - I think most bosses these days wouldn’t turn you down outright, especially if they have something to gain from it all. So your job is to make sure the boss knows what he’s going to gain out of it.

I initially went to my manager with the overall course I wanted to do, along with a breakdown of the individual classes I was considering. I even made up a proposed timetable for my first semester of study. It showed my classes, buses, and work hours.

I also worked out how much work I do, and had a long hard think about whether I could fit it all in. (In my case, YES. Because opening the mail and emptying the dishwasher does not take much longer than 2 hours.) (I do do more than that though.) I even made a timetable for that to show my boss.

(Seriously, I do more than whine about the dishwasher. I keep supplies in the office all stocked up. I manage databases, a good deal of the correspondence, and paperwork flowing into the office. Also I manage email accounts. Along with a whole lot of really odd jobs for everyone to help the whole place keep ticking over.)

Once I had my managers OK, I went to HR, and proposed the whole thing to them - and, trust me, they had jumped on the bandwagon before the HR woman even stepped foot in my office. HR pretty much WAS the bandwagon. They were so eager to help that they practically filled out all my forms for me and offered me all kinds of deals - like the one where they wanted to pay.

I haven’t taken them up on that offer yet, because I’m getting more and more hesitant to tie myself to this type of job for an unspecified number of years just to get my loan paid off fast. I’d rather be doing something that stretches me a bit more in the direction I’d like to be going.

Money pay checks and the whole shebang:

My boss contributes 4 hours a week to my paycheck as a study allowance. This year I’m working on a 40 hour salary, including that contribution.

Your workplace may not be so eager to throw money at you, but it’s worth asking anyway. Even if they don’t take you up on a study allowance you really don’t lose too much of your paycheck if you’re working the number of hours I am.

I could live without my study allowance, and on a few less hours (but it would suck a little bit.) Work out whether you can afford it and what your limits are, and be really honest with yourself. If you can’t make it work then maybe look at adding a living allowance to your student loan with studylink (if you’re paying your fees through them that is…)

Free time? What free time?

As for life outside of uni and work? It’s all about to get WAY scheduled.

You have to decide ahead of time when you’re going to the gym, or Taekwondo. When are you going to be at the library to study for all those tests? When are you going to socialise, and when are you going to see your BF?

Depending on the courses you do, there’ll be readings and stuff to do outside of classes, and I have yet to find a way to get through all of mine in a reasonable timeframe. Usually the lure of going to the gym, or meeting up with Ben to hang out wins out. It probably shouldn’t, and I should probably use my diary more, but hey, I’ve worked out that I need to go easy on myself sometimes, because if I’m not having at least a little bit of fun and free time then I get all moody, and tired, and stressed. That’s when the gym becomes my best friend. I seriously don’t know what I’d do without it some days…

Also? If there are dishes to do, or washing to fold? You better bet I’m there doing that, rather than doing my POLS readings. Like I should be.

And last but not lest… Exams, essays and assignments, oh my!

Your employer legally can’t make you work the day before an exam. Take advantage of that, because, dude, nobody says no to a bit of last minute studying. Not even Superman. And I’m so not Superman.

The worst thing about trying to cram as much into my schedule as I can is that sometimes I just don’t get enough time to feel fully prepared for everything. That’s why this year I insisted on two study hours - and then I made them so that they were before my two tutorials. It works better for me that way, because I’m already at uni, and I’m in the mood to study.

So far I’ve been lucky - I haven’t got a grade below a B- yet… I put that down to many (many, many) last minute study sessions, and attending all my tutes. They’re invaluable.

____

Any questions? Comments? Straight up outrage? Disbelief? Feel free to express it below…