Thought for the day

If you really put a small value upon yourself,

rest assured that the world will not raise your price.

(Author unknown)

Folding drawings

One of the 2 people here who are on contract has resigned, her last
day is Wednesday next week. That leaves just 16 of us (excluding
not-my-dept boss and his people). Weirdman is the only one (that the
typist knows of) left of the non-permanent staff. So, we *might* be
whittled down to 15... I'm just hoping that they don't do a whole
reshuffle until nearer to our leaving time, if at all. If they do
retrench me I would get a 'package' which probably wouldn't be much
but would at least be something, but I don't want to wait and see
whether it happens... end of December it is!

At the moment I'm folding drawings. One of the jobs has nearly been
completed, so I have hundreds of drawings to fold. It makes a change
from sitting here twiddling my thumbs, but I still feel as if I'm
sitting in a waiting room for an eternity. I'm surviving though, and
I at least have other things to keep me awake, like my iPod, and the
knowledge that we're busy making things happen - organising forex,
etc. Really not long now til our trip! And it seems that apart from
activating our bank account and buying simcards, we don't have
anything we *have* to do, so we can just relax and see the area!
We've hired a car and we're planning on driving around seeing what
different suburbs are like. It's not a long holiday but it's still
TOO exciting.

I've been slowly working on the Wedding Blessing, it's coming along
nicely. Hope I can finish it before we move! Want to get it framed,
almost as a 'seal' on our life here: one last cross-stitch framed
(matching the other 3), the rest to be done in Aus.

Mmm choc cake. It's a colleague's birthday so he brought cake. And
some soccer-ball-theme foil-wrapped chocolate balls! Mmmm!

24 weeks

6 months until I'm free... 24 working weeks until I am FREE!!!!!! I
can't wait. 6 weeks til our trip, which I also can't wait for!! 9
months left in SA. Hbbm is away until 28th, and 1 of the 2 directors
is away until 5 July - YIPPEE!!

SWC has started... Friday last week was phenomenal! Our office closed
at 13:00, which is a FIRST in the 6+ years I've been here. I wore
jeans and takkies with my Bafana shirt over my top. Out of about 20
of us there were only 9 of us at work that day, and only the typist
and I wore our Bafana shirts. One of the other dept ladies wore an SA
tshirt, and HBBM wore an Italy shirt. To add to the holiday-feeling,
the typist organised 'eats' for us: a soccer-themed paperplate with a
soccer-ball-pattern foil-wrapped chocolate ball, a packet of "Simba
Soccerballs" chips and a green+yellow iced cupcake with an SA flag
poked into it (the cupcake was DELICIOUS!!). All in all it was a
rather festive day and the vibe in the CBD was incredible, so
infectious it was hard to do any work at all because everyone was
blowing their vuvuzelas and hooting. And the weather couldn't have
been better!

We left at 13:00 and headed over to G's parents to watch the opening
ceremony and the opening match between Bafana Bafana vx Mexico. The
ceremony was nice (a bit short!), and the opening match was fun to
watch... pity it was only a draw, but at least not a loss! We had
supper at G's parents and headed quietly home afterwards - the roads
were quiet, but we passed 2 accidents which were probably a foretaste
of the chaos that would descend after the night-match in CT.

Monday, on the other hand, was a disaster. It was the Italy vs
Paraguay game, in CT at 20:30. The office *didn't* close early, and
everyone was already heading over to the stadium at 17:00. The
weather was dreadful and traffic was MAD! It took G over an hour to
get to me, which is usually a 5/10mins drive. While I was standing
outside waiting for him, not only did it rain on me, it hailed as well
- yippee!!! Luckily I'd packed my umbrella, but it was flippin'
FREEZING and I felt like an iceblock when he finally picked me up.
Tonight there's another 20:30 match but I'm walking downtown to his
office so we can escape the CBD without having to cross it.

Wednesday was a public holiday and the 2nd Bafana match, which they
lost terribly to Uruguay - 3:0. We play France next, and unless we
get an incredible score, I think we're out of this tournament.

This blogpost seems very soccer-oriented, which is typical of
everything nowadays, but I do want to point out that I am still not
happy that the SWC is HERE. I'm enjoying the vibe, enjoying watching
the games, which I would be doing anyway were it hosted in another
country, but I'm not enjoying SWC 2010 in SA. SA is not ready for it,
and we're going to suffer once the tournament is over and reality
floods back. We're in for tough times and it should have been
avoided.

In happy news, G's dad has got a job! After a stressful age sans
employment, he's landed himself an interesting-sounding job and starts
1 July. What better gift could there be for Father's Day? :-D

I can't believe we have only 9 months left here. It isn't time yet to
start closing things up, but at least with the SABC account it was a
good call to do in January - it took them FOUR MONTHS to cancel our TV
license! Way to go, people! At least that's DONE, and we must now
just wait to start closing the rest of the accounts/ending
subscriptions. For now, still, I'm trying to focus only on the
holiday, and all we have to do is open bank accounts before we go.
Then, once we are there, RELAAAAAXXXXXXXXX!!!! Enjoy touching down in
what is to be our new home country. It's incredible... I can't wait
to be in that plane, flying over Aus, looking out the window at 'our'
new land. It was indescribably moving looking down at Adelaide when
we went in Nov 08, thinking that this was one day in the future going
to be our home, but now it's FOR REAL!!

9 months though - an eternity, and yet so short. So much to do in
that time. At least the last 3 months we'll both be more or less free
with no work-day to hog most of the waking hours. Can't wait til I'm
free!!

For now, my happiness is that it is Friday. A chilly one but a Friday
nonetheless!

Progress!

Thought for the day

A lack of planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on mine.

Are you ready?!

On Tuesday we went to see the Masters of Rock concert... Wishbone Ash,
Uriah Heep and Deep Purple, in a 4.5hr session of pure ROCK! It was
brilliant, the bands had fun, Uriah Heep's singer seemed to be having
a complete ball! There were loads of solos from everyone and of
*course* Deep Purple played 'Smoke on the Water'. So awesome! There
really are so many hard-core grand-daddies of rock out there, the
crowd was made up of a good proportion of older guys with leather
boots, long ponytail and denim/leather jacket.

On a 'negative' vein, though, the sound at the venue was at times too
loud - so that it affected your ability to hear all of the song's
music/sounds. G and I both noticed it at Kelly Clarkson's concert -
the sound was so loud that you could hardly hear her singing
sometimes, and at this concert you could also barely hear the singers
at times. Another 'gripe' was the cameraman/camera co-ordinator whose
footage is beamed onto the screens at the sides. The dude just DID
NOT KNOW when to focus on which band members. Steve Morse was ripping
up the hall with a mean solo, and the cameraman was focused onto the
drummer who was just filling in with a standard background beat... and
only after half a minute of solo from Steve Morse did the cameraman
realise that the lights were beamed onto someone for a *reason* and
whip his camera around onto the right person. It wasn't just a once
off occasion - you can check the News24 'clip' from both the Kelly
Clarkson concert and see how she just disappears out of the frame for
a bit... is the cameraman too busy with Mxit or something?

But anyway! It was a once in a lifetime, awesome experience.

Other than the concert and being so tired (still, today) after getting
to bed only past 1am on Wed morning, there isn't really any news...
Work has been superdull, I've been learning more/same of the typist's
job, actually doing some of the things now... and GUESS WHAT!!
They're also dull!! It's pure data-entry. Jissie this place really
is a rave! I have 40 working days left til our HOLIDAY!!!!!!!!!!
Can't wait.

I am (for now) decided about finishing up at this place at the end of
Dec. January just does not appeal to me one bit. At this rate, there
are +-2 months til our holiday, then +-2 months til our next holiday,
then 1.5 months til I'm FREE!!!! Really can't believe how little time
we have left here... 300 days to be exact (yes I counted)... +-10
months, 10 months to do everything, finish up our life here, wrap
everything up and move. Hectic. Just really mindblowing. I can't
wait to get started!

There are 7 days left til SWC starts. Chaos for an entire month.
Can't wait... at least Hbbm's away for a week + a half!