Songs In Blue

One of the perks of living in a different time zone is being able to have 2 days of birthday fun!  Here in NZ, my birthday was yesterday, but back home in Canada it’s the 29th today which meant I woke up to a full inbox of birthday wishes.

Although that was pretty great, I’m not sure what tops waking up to your boyfriend giving you diamond earrings…I KNOW!  He’s all kinds of awesome!
Look how pretty:

They go perfectly with the 7 other earrings I have in my ears at any given time (heh), see?

I want another piercing now…

After that lovely gift, Marissa called me!  I told her that I wasn’t up to much since it was Monday and that’s a hard day for birthday planning.  She responded with, “Well, what about having your birthday right after Jesus’! How do you live up to that?” Ahh, isn’t she grand?

Then I got to talk to my mom, Courtney, and Chad.  It was a little short because I was meeting Matt for lunch, but still good.  Skype makes staying in contact so easy and so free! (There’s my plug, now…where’s my money )

When Matt came home, he cooked me an amazing dinner and my flatmates gave me a sweet Maori handbook and classic Kiwi movie.

After dinner, (and with the help of birthday brownies) I prepared for my interview and Matt did some work.  Turns out the company I’m interviewing with is a client of his, so he gave me a crash course in PIE tax and Prescribed Investor Rate and showed me some formulas he had learnt in excel….cause we’re cool like that.
Then it was bed at 9:30 (again, cool).

That perfect day plus today’s overwhelming birthday love has made this pretty much the best birthday ever.

I’ve started bringing a notebook and pen with me when I go out since I seem to be more inspired to write when not staring at a computer screen.  Plus, I’ve had a lot of wait time in between interviews and thought I would take the opportunity to actually write a post.

So that’s what I’m doing. Just sitting, waiting, with no patience whatsoever.

This will be my umpteenth interview since I arrived and I’m sure I’ll have a lot more before scoring a job.  All the tests I’ve done at recruitment places show that I’m an Admin Rock Star, so hopefully these guys see that and hire me.  *please, I’m kinda awesome*

At least, after all these interviews, I have a good feel for the city…which I love!  It reminds me of Victoria or North Vancouver. It’s a good size city with pretty much everything, but manages to keep a small town feel.  That probably has more to do with where we live tho.

I love our house.  Yes, it gets a little crowded with 1 bathroom, a small kitchen, and 5 people, but at the same time it’s comfortable and cozy.  We’re a 10 minute walk downtown and the grocery store (sorry, supermarket) is literally right behind our house.  Oh, and our door is red…which, for some reason, makes me really happy whenever I see it.  I’d post pictures, but I can’t seem to right now.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to this weekend.  There’s a rugby game on Saturday and we might all go to a club afterwards…oh and it’s the last weekend before my birthday

What are you up to?

At least between the hours of 8-5, when I’d normally be working!  I enjoyed my first couple weeks of unemployment, but now I’m getting restless and frustrated and I want to buy stuff without feeling guilty.  Plus, I’m a very social person and should not be left alone for long periods of time.
I try to get out of the house for a few hours everyday, which helps a bit, and allows for some adventure.  Like today, I don’t know how it happened, but I managed to get lost in the middle of the city.  Go me.
Anyway, I’ve been applying for absolutely every job posting I see, so that improves my chances of landing one soon, right? RIGHT?
It’s Friday night, so I don’t have to worry about job stuff until Monday.  Yay!

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Tonight we’re going to a Mexican restaurant with a bunch of Matt’s extended family.  I’ve been craving Mexican (food) for a few weeks now, and I’m told there will be pitchers of Margarita, so it should be a good night!

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I know I’ve been absent from my blog and most of my family&friends back home probably thinks I’m dead in the week between posts, but I have a good reason….besides being lazy.  I was going to go self-hosted before, but that didn’t really go according to plan.  No worries tho!  I signed up, and have been working on my new site!  It’s very frustrating at times, so I tend to give up after a couple hours and don’t have it in me to pump out a post.  The site should be up next week tho, and after that I have no excuse but to blog regularly.

Add ‘eating m+m’s’ and ‘watching Shortland Street’ to that photo and you have me…right now.  Yum.
I’m not feeling all the great, although I’m the only one to blame.  I may or may not have walked around Wellington for hours, in the rain, wearing very inappropriate footwear (read: flip flops).  In my defence, my feet hate me right now thanks to walking long distances in high heels…damn job interviews…so I thought it would be smart to wear flip flops then put on my heels once I got to the interview.  It would’ve been the perfect plan if I had factored in the fact that it rains almost every day.  Oh well, I have chocolate so it’s all good.

The job search is going pretty well.  I’ve had a few interviews and signed up with a temp agency, but nothing has gone much further than that.  I do have a 2nd interview next week for one place, so we’ll see how that goes.

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A couple months back I posted the shorten version of how Matt and I met and got to the point we’re at now. That ’short version’ turned into three parts that you can read here, here, and here.  Anyway, I walked past a few places in our story on the way home and decided to take a couple pictures.

The hostel Danielle and I stayed at

The main street

The first bar we went to on the night I went 'missing'

Where Matt worked and we met

Forgive me for what will forever be known as ‘The Week Dayna Fell Off the Face of the Earth’.  Truth is, the last week has been spent in writer’s wilderness, being completely overwhelmed with the world around me and unable to form any sort of written word to describe it.  I’ve felt that anything I were to write would somehow take away from the experiences I’ve had.  But I guess that comes with the blogging territory eh?
Any and all keystrokes are open for interpretation, leaving the entire truth/reality solely in the mind of the author.

Pen + Paper + A modern cafe = Philosophical Babble.  I’ll stop with that now.

This week has gone over and beyond any expectations I had.  Thankfully, the last time I was in Wellington most of my time was reserved for club hopping/sleeping in to the late afternoon.  Why thankfully?  Because if I hadn’t, I would’ve never met Matt and he would have nothing to show me this time around.
I think we’ve done most of the major sightseeing Wellington has to offer.  The weather has been really nice and the notorious Wellington Wind hasn’t been much to complain about.  I think it’s pretty much the same as Vancouver’s experiencing right now, just a little colder.

I’m starting to feel settled in.  I finally unpacked and organized all my stuff yesterday, and by some miracle, everything fit without having to cram random things into the closet or under the bed (for the most part).  Today I had a job interview, and signed up with a temping agency.  At least now I have a better idea what to expect job-wise and will hopefully get a few assignments while I look for a more permanent job.

I leave you with some pictures from the last week, and promise my next post won’t have you waiting for a week.