Up, Down, Shoogly About

 Hey!

Hey, it's me! Been a while, huh? Forgotten what I look like? Christ, lucky you.

Yeah, so Things have been happening. And Stuff. And, very likely, Shenanigans. No wait, that sounds kind of lighthearted and fun. Shit. Let's go for Shit has been happening.

Canterbury, the district I lived in until very recently, had a massive earthquake. There was damage. It was VERY traumatic for the people of the city I used to live in, Christchurch. In fact, it IS still very traumatic because the aftershocks have STILL not relented and given the people an unbroken night's sleep since. Mercifully, there were no fatalities and very few injuries, so all's good in that regard. But the Council's response has been... interesting. They've done well in some areas, not so well in others, and for a while got very bulldozer-happy with some beautiful historic buildings. I was fairly sure tragedy was looming large and the beautiful Garden City would lose a huge chunk of it's graceful character and become, god forbid, yet another bland concrete wasteland.

Not so! The people of Christchurch and many of it's Councillors have shaken off the shock and realised that this is the time to protect the city's history. Common sense may yet prevail.

In other news, I am finally a FULLY LEGAL migrant! My visa was approved THIS MORNING, a mere THREE MONTHS after my application. Three months of not working, living on meagre savings, not knowing if I was going to be booted out of the country at a moment's notice. It's been.... stressful. Just, you know, a tad. What with the not having enough money to live on much less find $5000 for flights home. Hmm.

Anyway, now I have a work permit! I can totally work and feel like I have some USE in the world instead of being a hermit! I can put those Kleenex boxes away instead of using them for shoes! I can have a shower with purpose as if I have somewhere to go! Hurrah!

Oh, except for the fact that I'm getting NOWHERE with my job applications. Here's a quick run-down:

Applications: 5
Interviews: 2
Job Offers: 0

Now, I KNOW that's not many applications. Bearing in mind, these are tentative applications I was making for jobs I thought were too good to pass up, despite the whole technically-not-actually-legal-to-work-at-the-moment issue. So, I fully expect the number of applications will rise. I can only hope the number of interviews will also rise, and that someone (dear god, SOMEONE) will make me a job offer.

The last application I sent I had *such* a good feeling about. I worked on my CV and covering letter for THREE WEEKS, tweaking and refining and shining my very best light on everything. I felt the job was potentially a little bit of a stretch in as much as it paid a little more than my last job, but that my experience was relevant and sound (and in fact, pretty impressive in terms of the results I've been able to acheive in my last two roles). I was pretty sure that, even thought the job wasn't exactly "in the bag", I would at least be called to interview. (Which I don't seem to do all that well in, so that was my main worry).

Yeah, I was wrong. First, I didn't receive the promised acknowledgement of my application. So I waited a week, and then used that opportunity to contact the recruiter to confirm that my application had been received, since I was really KEEN and INTERESTED and that would surely score me some points, right? Hm. They apologised for me not receiving an acknowledgment, and told me I'd be hearing at the end of last week if I was being called to interview.

I was not contacted at the end of last week.

<sigh>

So now I'm waiting for the rejection letter. Even though you know you've been rejected, since you haven't heard within the timeframe and blah blah blah - you hold out some kind of completely irrational hope that they might just be running late! You could still totally get a call! Riiiiiiiight up until the day you get that rejection letter. It's Beaten Puppy Syndrome - you're bad to me but I'm desperate and I love you. Please kick me again!

Bastards.

But now I'm LEGAL! I can totally apply for ANY AND EVERY JOB ADVERTISED ANYWHERE! Eeeeeeexcept of course I'm currently living in the arse end of the world, in the smallest population I've *ever* lived in, and there's kind of not many jobs if I don't know one end of a cow/sheep from the other. Which I don't. (Well, I shouldn't sell myself short. One end is bitey and one end is smelly, and I'd really rather not to be too close to EITHER, thank you very much. Rules me out as a candidate, I should imagine.)

So! Once more unto the breach, dear friends - to scry over a burning hot laptop, to analyse and berate and second-guess oneself again, to pour all one's hopes and dreams into a piece of paper or email, and face heatbreak yet again. ON!

Meanwhile, I have the pleasure of having my brain drilled by the most awful noise I've heard in a long time (besides Himself snoring). The local authority, in it's wisdom, is chopping down an enormous Eucalyptus tree which sits RIGHT outside my house. You might imagine that this is some kind of bleeding heart concern for my house - what with dreaded leaves cluttering up guttering. Or oh god, ROOTS totally getting it on with my foundations and we're all paranoid about EARTHQUAKES now, so dear GOD cut that dangerous thing down! It could even fall right through the bedroom window in a storm or something!

No. It's so they can put a parking space in it's place. A parking space. Right outside my bedroom window. Now, let me be TOTALLY clear - this is not a parking space for me. Or Himself. We only have one car, and even if we had two we actually have two-car garaging (currently half occupied by exercise equipment, but we could totally move it to accommodate a second car), and an enclosed courtyard which could easily accommodate ANOTHER two cars.

The road outside is a main road. There's a school further down, which I believe has a car park. And there's free parking on the very wide side streets leading off the main street. So, naturally, there's a clear need for another car parking space RIGHT OUTSIDE MY BEDROOM WINDOW. 

Not only are they using a chainsaw (possibly the most irritating noise since nails on a chalkboard) to cut down every. Individual. Branch. One-at-a-time. They also, in the interests of... being tidy? Pissing me off? ...are running a mulcher. To turn the branches and tree into sawdust. Which is giving a lovely kind of reverberating, house-shaking, psychological warfare generally used against entrenched dictators bass counterpoint to the buzzy chainsaw. Yay!

Futhermore, last night while eating a bar of chocolate (as I do), a crown on my front tooth came out. Himself has been to pharmacies all over town this morning looking for one of those little temporary cement fixy kits, to no avail.

So I might be a totally fully legal alien and can leave the house with my head held high for once - but I'll look like a goddamned hillbilly.

AWESOME.