Hurrah!

After a very hectic day (week, really) at work I am now on holiday! A couple of clients have my cellphone number but sometimes that's what you've got to do to get out of the office...

Anyway, I promised photos and now I have time to post them. First up, knitting progress:



Yes, I have actually made some! Now I am in Sleeve Hell. Usually I knit a front, then a sleeve, then a front, then a sleeve, but I completely forgot on this occasion.

Anyway, now I have 3 weeks to knit 1 1/2 sleeves, block, sew, find buttons and then wear it to my friend's wedding! Totally doable. I'll probably finish the knitting in the next couple of days as now I don't have anything to do (and the weather's crap).


In fact, the weather's so crap I feel like I should be knitting wool, so look out for the second Baudelaire too. If I manage to dig up the pattern and needles from wherever I've stashed them since the move and take it all on holiday with me.

Here are the promised pictures from the flat Christmas Dinner:















Because I have no shame!

oh, and I just switched to Blogger beta. Sorry for flooding your friends lists/bloglines/etc, I'm sure it won't happen again!

Someone please remind me to post some pictures tonight!

Anyway, maybe it's because the year is drawing to a close, and I'm leaving this place to go on holiday for three! whole! weeks!

Ahem. As I was about to say, I really love working where I do. I work in a building right in the centre of Christchurch, in Cathedral Square, the city's focal point. But even though I'm in the middle of a (fairly) sizeable city, much of the time it feels like a village. You see the same people every day in the building, you know them by name, and whether you get a burger or a souvlaki or a bagel for lunch the person behind the counter will always smile and pass the time of day with you. If you want to eat your lunch outside on the grass you can always find someone you know to eat with. If you want to have lunch with the Mayor or various other local identities the best place to people-watch is right across the road at the aforementioned bagel place.

If you want to see a real Wizard or get shouted at by fire and brimstone Christians I know a nice shady spot to sit and listen. You can also see the Town Crier making his daily rounds and ringing his bell.

There's always something interesting going on outside the window, from bands playing to market days, to Buddha's birthday (celebrated on the Cathedral steps!), the Festival of Flowers and Romance, the Armistice Day Parade, the giant Christmas tree, and countless other festivals and occasions (I don't actually know what they all are, I just see them out the window).

Y'know, it may not be Stars Hollow, but it's not half bad here.

Thanks!

Thanks for the Christmas decoration ideas, people! It's coming together. Nicole, I'd love some yarny goodness on the tree and I'd really like to do some mini sweater decorations, mittens, that sort of thing BUT most of my yarn is wool and two of my flatmates are vegan. We're getting there though - the lights are up, I bought a few decorations and one of my flatmates had a few candy canes that are now on the tree, along with some Christmas crackers.

We had our flat Christmas dinner last night, which went rather well. Pictures to come! I made a "turkey" that was really quite scary in its turkey-ness.

Here's a question for you all: Soft drinks rot your teeth. Fluoride stops your teeth from rotting. They're thinking of putting fluoride in the water system again to stop the teeth rotting from the soft drinks. Lots of people are opposed to this because they don't like fluoride.

Would it be a stupid idea to put the fluoride in the soft drinks? Has anyone even suggested this? Your thoughts please.

Decoration ideas please!

I'm putting a Christmas tree up this year, but Mum has had my tree the last couple of years and she's lost ALL of my decorations except for the lights. I don't want to spend much money or time really, but my Christmas tree can't go naked! Has anyone got any quick & cheap decoration ideas?

Ah, IRD, how I love you

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So, you mean, if I forget my password, all I have to do is remember another password and everything will be ok!

la la la

I'm at work and I want to go home. Of course, the sooner I actually get my A into G and do some work, the sooner I get to go home, but you know how it goes.

So you get a bullet-point procrastination post:

• Amazon: have already established that they are awesome, but it bears repeating.
• Clients: sigh.
• Dance teaching: is over for the year. I have been paid, but unfortunately not nearly enough. The whole point of me doing this particular paid teaching gig was to earn enough money to pay my taxes. Unfortunately I've been underpaid and also they got my tax code wrong so the whole exercise would have actually resulted in me having to pay even *more* taxes. Have resolved to quit work as then I won't have to pay tax.
• Must stop whining though as a couple of phone calls later and I was assured the problem will be fixed.
• IRD: (tax department) a real human answered the phone! Unless they've made startling advances in voice recognition and artificial intelligence technology. They didn't put me on hold or anything.
• This really is a money-themed post. Ex-flatmate still hasn't paid my bond back, the estimate has changed from last weekend (ie 1 1/2 weeks ago) to yesterday, to today, and now I am assured I will have my money (or whatever is left over after she thinks up heaps of excuses to keep it) on Friday. Is it any coincidence that Friday is the day after payday? I'm sure it's not - she can't possibly have spent money that was never hers to spend. Have been getting rather hard-line with her though - which is so easy to do when sticking up for other people but much harder to do when it's myself. Easier when I don't give a stuff about preserving the relationship though.
• In good money news, I get my Christmas bonus tomorrow.
• By the time I get home, the latest episode of Gilmore Girls should have downloaded. This is something to look forward to.
• Must also take picture of Christmas party dress for you all to advise on accessories.

I love Amazon

They are refunding me and sending me another CD!

Now I just really hope it's that particular package that went missing.... my flatmate said it was quite small, and the other packages I'm waiting for are a book + CD, and another very small package that is coming by courier so shouldn't be in my mailbox.

Hopefully both packages will arrive today, so if it turns out I am wrong I will (hopefully) have time to tell them before they ship stuff!

But yeah, go Amazon!

Today a package was stolen out of my mailbox.

Maybe I don't like living on the east side after all :(

Because Marcel can't use Google Image Search...

This is she:

A great role model for young ladies, don't you think?

Stuff that makes me angry

This just sent to the manager of Lippy: (so, don't correct me on anything because I already sent it!)

To: The General Manager

Dear Sir/Madam (probably Sir, I'm sure. The company is owned by men)

A friend and I were shopping in your Riccarton store the other day, and we were both incredibly shocked to see an A4 size photo of Nicole Richie on a changing room door. The target market for your stores is teenage girls and women in their early 20s. Many girls in that age range do not have a very positive body image, and a store changing room is already a very emotionally loaded place. Placing such a photograph in your changing rooms gives these girls an unrealistic and unhealthy ideal to strive towards, as well as reinforcing all of the pressure and insecurity towards their bodies that the media already encourages.

I also imagine that it cannot possibly help you to sell clothes - surely pictures that make girls feel good about themselves are far more likely to encourage them to buy your products?

Is it your store policy to have pictures like that in changing rooms? If so it needs to be changed urgently. A chain of stores such as yours has a responsibility towards its customers not to reinforce ideals of beauty that must be unattainable and very unhealthy for young, developing women to strive towards.

Regards,

(me)

I very much hope they write back. Or my next letter is going to the local paper.

In other ragey-ness, ex-flatmate has not paid my bond back yet. Cow. If I don't get it back soon she's getting a shitty letter from the firm though. The bonus of working in a law firm, especially one as close-knit as mine, is we definitely stick up for each other here!