The Sign at the End of the Road

We have a house! Oh, wait, that's out of order. Let me start again...

12 October: We have a house! Okay, we've had a house but we couldn't move in until today. That being said, we really didn't move in today, we just unloaded the junk in the car (and there was quite a bit in there) and started packing back at Sam's place. We also went to K-Mart (yeah, they have those here) and spent a fortune on household goods. We also picked up a mattress from nearby and then spent some more money on stuff for the house. That evening, we played a game with Sam and watched Hannibal before bed. Not an overly exciting day, but at least we have a house now.

13 October: So we got everything moved out in two runs today, with the second after we said our goodbyes to Sam. We'll still see him for gaming events and whatnot, but we had to leave still. We got our refrigerator in the morning and moved in all our Kmart goods then went back out to shop like crazy. That evening we brought our last load of stuff over, mostly clothes and whatnot, and then picked up a few snacks for home. The refrigerator was in desperate need of cleaning and the doors had to be reversed, so we did that before grocery shopping the next day. I honestly can't even remember everything from this day because it was just so busy.

14 October: Tuesday was the most exciting day of the week because we finally liberated Niko from his cattery! But first, we spent another fortune at the Pak 'n' Save buying groceries for the now-functional fridge. And there were a lot of groceries to get since Kara's switched to an all-protein diet and I've half-switched to one. Things are not cheap here. After all that got worked out, we got Niko and brought him back. Let's just say he's acclamated well. In fact, he doesn't even seem to remember his traumatic trip in the plane. He cried a bit in the carrier but did fine once we got to the new place and he's done fine ever since. Which leads me to...

15 October: Wow! I forgot how annoying Niko can be at night. He didn't let us sleep. He was purring like a lawn mower all night long, which was apparently shorter than we planned for since he got us up at around 4:00 a.m. The house has some decent damage from the 2011 earthquake and as such many of the doors don't shut properly (or at all in one case), so he naturally discovered that he can get back in if we boot him out. We're going to be talking to our landlords about that one soon. Groggy, we crawled out of bed and went to Uni where we listened to a lecture on something-or-another—it was out of my field and I just don't remember it much. I think it had something to do with Ireland during the 1800s. We'll go with that. I read some. I wrote some. Kara made up most of the house. That's Wednesday.

16 October: Another night with little sleep. Niko is a bit of a pain. We also are trying to get him to eat a raw-meat diet, which is healthier for cats, but we have to kick his addiction to cereal-based kitty chow first, which he clearly doesn't want to do. We have this big old meat log in the fridge for him, but he only will eat a little bit of it at a time. Ugh. Kara had a training session in the morning so I did my French and started working on my book article while she was gone. She came back in time to help with some new furniture we bought for the living room—a sofa and two recliners, win! That mostly wraps up Thursday.



17 October: Friday was my turn to wake up early, though Niko still beat me to it. I met with my advisor, Chris, today to discuss my proposal. Did I say that I got accepted to present a paper at the biennial ANZAMEMS conference? Yeah, I did. It's pretty awesome. On the not so awesome side, Chris says I need to have two chapters done by the time I present and before I can student teach a class, which is a real pain in the neck since I still have my book I am writing until the end of February. The due date for my first chapter? February 1st. Ugh. I seriously am failing this whole PhD thing. I have had this little book by Geraeme Small that I've been reading for almost a month, and I'm not even halfway through it yet, but somehow I need to have my first chapter done in three months. .:.sigh.:. And on top of that, I'm dead broke and federal loans to New Zealand have been stopped over some stupid political issue about nuclear-capable submarines in NZ water.

Anyway, after a brief gap, I went to hear Kathleen Neal speak about medieval lettres and the Kara and I both went to a Q&A session with her about careers in the humanities. Both were very informative and, I believe, are the last research seminars of the year since the academic year ended today. Back at the house, we finally started settling in, though French and book writing are still taking precedence over everything else.

18 October: Garage saling. They have it here unlike in Britain where it is called "Car Boot Sales". In any case, we found a bunch of books and random other things, which was good. Kara also got us a washer and dryer which have both been installed. We'll do a load of laundry tomorrow to test them out. Other than that, it was a fairly slow day with mostly French and research taking up my time. Woot.

Crossroads:

• Intersections in New Zealand are quite odd. Roundabouts are common, though not the norm. Traffic signals are also quite common in the city, though not elsewhere. Stop signs are rather infrequent and mostly at major non-sigalled intersections. The big sign here is "Give Way" which is a rather clunky way of writing "Yield". In residential areas, virtually all signs say "Give Way" rather than "Stop", which is great because it means rolling stops are perfectly acceptable here. A line on the road usually shows drivers where to give that way, but you really just drive to it slowly and then roll through when nobody's around.
• However, left turns are not allowed at a red signal. Drivers must wait for a green before they can turn right, which is a bit of a pain sometimes when no traffic is coming. The American in me wants to go, but that's not allowed.
• Right Turns, which are the equivalent of left turns in the United States, are very odd here. They are usually not protected at all, so you just drive out and wait for an opening, which can sometimes be hard to see when the car right in front of you is also trying to turn right in the opposite direction. When the turn is protected, it usually only is for a few seconds before turning red. Then, it will just disappear entirely, which means you are free to try and turn right again. That's right, the signal protects you, stops you, then allows you to try. Very weird and slightly confusing.
• Lastly, speeding tickets are sent to the registration addresses and people rarely are pulled over for a speeding violation. Tickets are a set $150 for every violation, though I'm sure penalties start applying after multiples. There is no traffic school to opt out of the insurance violation, either, and the points go on your record immediately. Oh, and how do they discover if you're speeding? Cameras, of course, often hidden in unmarked cars sitting on streets. Didn't I mention that at least half the police cars in New Zealand are unmarked? Yeah, it's that creepy.