Songs In Blue

My Wordpress and Flickr accounts appear to hate each other right now, so I can’t upload photos to my blog without a lot of time and energy….which I don’t have.
I think my whole site needs to be taken down and re-installed, but I’m a little scared to attempt that on my own.

Anyway, we spent last weekend in Castlepoint.  You can see pictures here.  It’s a tiny town, so there wasn’t a whole bunch to do.  We hiked up the big cliff and it was so windy I thought I’d get blown off .  We walked along the rocks  to the lighthouse.  Then the rest of the time was spent playing Trivial Pursuit, Boogle and watching Flight of the Conchords.
Overall, it was really nice to relax and give my camera a bit of a workout.

Last April, I applied for a Partnership Visa with Matt sponsoring me. Unfortunately,  we didn’t have enough evidence supporting our relationship at that point and it was declined.  The lady dealing with my application was really helpful and said she would give me a 1-year Working Holiday Visa instead.  That way I would still be able to work and live in New Zealand then re-apply for Partnership once Matt and I had been living together for a while.

I was going to wait a few more months before doing that, but thanks to work, plans changed.

My 6-month contract with work ends in the middle of April.  I’ve been asking for an extension until August because it would be impossible to find a new job with only 4 months left on my current Visa.  Last week, work asked if I could apply for the Partnership Visa now so they could give me a longer contract or even make me permanent!

There’s a lot of extra paperwork to go along with the 16-page application form, so it’s going to take a couple weeks before I can send it in.  This creates a bit of a problem since I probably won’t be accepted before my work contract expires.  I’m still not sure what will happen in this case…they want me to continue working, but I’m not really comfortable doing that without a contract.  We’ll see how it goes, but I may have to take a couple weeks off.

Good thing is, since I sent in the same application last year, my police certificate and medical forms are still valid so I don’t have to send in new ones! 
This saves me a lot of time and not to mention, money I don’t have. 

The only downside to applying for this Visa early is that it’ll only be good for a year so I’ll have to go through the whole process again before I apply for residence. Overall, I’ve had a pretty easy go with Immigration matters, which is more than most can say.  Hopefully, that luck continues.

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There’s an update for my last post on my sideblog

Around Christmas time, I got a gift certificate for 1 month free at the gym down the road from our house.  I made an appointment to go in and get set up at the end of January with the intention of using my certificate to get some sort of deal on a membership.
However, the appointment didn’t really go the way I expected.  I filled out a form detailing my current fitness (or lack thereof) and the guy took me on a tour of the gym…that was all fine.  But I didn’t give any bank details (which they should take whether you want to actually join or not) or get a temporary pass and I walked out with a free personal trainer session and still holding my gift certificate.

So the next night I went to my free session and caught up with the guy I had my appointment with the day before.  He said he would put me in the system as a ‘prospect’ so I could use the gym for the weekend and get back to me on Monday to discuss my membership.  I asked him about my gift certificate and he told me to keep it so he could use it to give me a deal.

That was 6 weeks ago.

The guy hasn’t got back to me, in fact, I haven’t even seen him since and I workout like 3-4 times a week!  I just rock up, tell the receptionist my name, she says “Sweet” with no hesitation and I go on in.  They have none of my bank information, I don’t have a temp pass and yet no one seems to know or care except me (and my jealous flatmates).
I should be paying $25 a WEEK but instead, I’m going for free!

While it’s been awesome, I’m starting to feel a little guilty and don’t know what to do.
Should I say something the next time I go? and what exactly do I say?

“Umm, hi! No one got back to me about a membership, so I’ve been using your gym for free….just thought you should know.  Thanks!”

Or do I wait until they bring it up because technically, I’m still waiting for the dude to get back to me?

Free stuff is great, and they don’t have my bank info so it’s not like they can hit me with backdated payments, but I don’t want this to come back and bite me in the ass somehow.

What do I do???

Somehow, in a cricket game played by New Zealand and India, I managed to find a Canadian flag.  Pretty random…