This weekend, I planted: strawberries, lettuces, lavender, mint, cilantro/coriander and a bay laurel tree ( Read more... )

I continue to be very impressed with the food in this town. So much deliciousness all around! On principle, I'm trying to eat out less now that we're settled in our apartment, although the value proposition of that principle is less clear when you're setting up a kitchen from scratch. It takes a while to build up the stock of pantry goods that ( Read more... )

and BAM! just like that it's winter solstice tomorrow. I guess I've been busy ( Read more... )

I've now signed a contract, so I can announce the news I've been bursting to share: I have a fantastic new job in Sydney! I'll be the manager of statistical methodology at APRA, the Australian financial regulator. Like my current job, this one sounds like a snoozer on paper, but means greenfields development. They've created the position to ( Read more... )

Coming up in the next week and bit: interviews for the awesome career job in Wellington, and the lucrative adventure job in Sydney (by phone). Feeling lucky to have no bad options at this juncture. Also feeling just a tiny bit anxious that it's been a long time since I've interviewed.

All in all a reasonably productive trip to Canberra. Not really enough for 2 days, but enough that covering it in 1 day would have been exhausting. Topics ranged all over, so I was glad to have the varied experience that I do--I think my colleague was a bit lost when we veered into price deflators ( Read more... )

Sunday was another day of wandering around Sydney, this time to Surrey Hills, where Jo and I had scrumptious Moroccan food. It's full of trees, and older new orleans -style terraced victorians that mix shops and housing. Definitely getting the sense that I could spend more time here in the future. We got back just in time for me to collect my ( Read more... )

The move was successful and the new place is delightful: big kitchen, tons of light, cozy warm. We made it to about 70% moved in before 'real life' kicked back in. Now I'd like to get the remaining stuff put away and have some free time to enjoy it, but that's not in the cards just yet. I'm choosing to go to yoga tonight rather than go home to ( Read more... )

Having declared victory over my intro economics course, my Thai politics guest lecture, and a 4 hour long meeting in Chch, I am now officially very tired. But I came home and conquered the basement, the attic, and the gimp cupboard anyway, as well as squeezing in arranging movers and electricity for the new apartment. I've got more areas of the ( Read more... )

It's a new financial year, so it's performance review season here at work. Like the end-of-calendar reviews I do annually in my 'real' life, I look forward to the enforced reflection that this involves. I'm often surprised by the results. Writing up my self-evaluation reveals that I've worked like a dog for the past six months. I've written ( Read more... )