(no subject)
Sometimes, when I'm really tired, I dream about being too tired to do things. It's very meta.
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My trip to Christchurch was great (thanks, everyone who wished me well for the trip). It was so good to see my mentor-person again. He's somewhat technophobic and I'm somewhat telephone-phobic, so it can be really difficult to keep in touch. We spent about five hours catching up, and it was really good just to talk over with him some of the stuff I've been doing and thinking about and so on. He's one of the wisest people I know, and getting his perspective on things was really helpful. I may actually be on the right track atm.
Otoh, it also really made me miss home, the town of my birth, and how things were before they suddenly... weren't. I guess a part of me will always wish to go back in time...
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Christchurch itself was pretty different in some ways. The CBD is cordoned off, with police checkpoints at the entrance points. (There are bus tours through the red zone, which seems a bit ghoulish.) From beyond the cordons, you can see a forest of cranes as they work to clear the debris and rebuild. There are groups of rebuilders throughout the city - you come across people in yellow vests and hardhats every once in a while. There are buildings blocked off and shored up, with broken windows and fallen masonry. There are empty sections and parking lots, where you suddenly notice the footprint of foundations and realise there was once a building there.
Otoh, the city is running. Lots of things, including the office at the bus stop where I left from, are being run from temporary buildings or even shipping containers. There's an entire mall built out of shipping containers just outside the CBD, all tiny shops in bright colours. There are signs everywhere telling the world that businesses are still open or have re-opened, giving new locations of places that have had to move. More than anything else, it's reassuring; despite everything that's happened, you can tell that things will be okay.
*
My trip to Christchurch was great (thanks, everyone who wished me well for the trip). It was so good to see my mentor-person again. He's somewhat technophobic and I'm somewhat telephone-phobic, so it can be really difficult to keep in touch. We spent about five hours catching up, and it was really good just to talk over with him some of the stuff I've been doing and thinking about and so on. He's one of the wisest people I know, and getting his perspective on things was really helpful. I may actually be on the right track atm.
Otoh, it also really made me miss home, the town of my birth, and how things were before they suddenly... weren't. I guess a part of me will always wish to go back in time...
*
Christchurch itself was pretty different in some ways. The CBD is cordoned off, with police checkpoints at the entrance points. (There are bus tours through the red zone, which seems a bit ghoulish.) From beyond the cordons, you can see a forest of cranes as they work to clear the debris and rebuild. There are groups of rebuilders throughout the city - you come across people in yellow vests and hardhats every once in a while. There are buildings blocked off and shored up, with broken windows and fallen masonry. There are empty sections and parking lots, where you suddenly notice the footprint of foundations and realise there was once a building there.
Otoh, the city is running. Lots of things, including the office at the bus stop where I left from, are being run from temporary buildings or even shipping containers. There's an entire mall built out of shipping containers just outside the CBD, all tiny shops in bright colours. There are signs everywhere telling the world that businesses are still open or have re-opened, giving new locations of places that have had to move. More than anything else, it's reassuring; despite everything that's happened, you can tell that things will be okay.