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Month: October 2009

  • October 31, 2009

    Bad drivers and the cost of meds

    It’s been a bit of a scary morning on the roads. First a little toddler ran out across the carpark towards our car at full tilt – the stuff of nightmares, seriously. Luckily we weren’t going very fast (how fast CAN you ever go in any kind of busy carpark?) And then on the motorway back west, just after getting off the Harbour Bridge, some  f#*%ing white Mitsubishi Legnum cut into our lane with an inch to spare ahead of us, then slammed on the brakes all of a sudden. Result: smoke, smelly clutch, and probably a layer of brand new tyre tread left behind on the road in black scuff marks.

    As if that stretch of road wasn’t already lethal enough. The signage is horrible and unclear; nobody ever knows exactly which lane to get in for which exit.

    On the plus side, I managed to get my latest prescription (a bunch of eczema meds) for free, thanks to a mystery shop. It was all the way up over the North Shore, but I accepted it after a call from the company offering $25 extra for mileage. Woohoo! I really resent paying for stuff like this – after all, it’s not like I ASKED to have a skin condition – so I wasn’t going to say no. But I’m pretty lucky in that my medicines are heavily subsidised – I have a community services card as a student.  And on a related note, Krystal recently blogged about the cost of birth control. I go to Family Planning and as I’m under 22, get six months worth of the basic brand of pill for $3. I’m not sure how much it’ll be once I turn 22 …but I guess I’ll find out next year.

  • October 29, 2009

    I love Lee

    …jeans, that is.

    They are made perfectly for me. I’ve owned three pairs in my life, and every single one fit me like a dream. Seriously, you put them on, they hug you like a glove, and that’s a tall order in the denim world. SO much can go wrong. The rise, the waistband, zip vs buttons, wrinkling, length, etc. Not Lees.

    I finally gave in and went on the hunt for a new pair. I wanted them to be medium to dark blue and fairly slim. All my jeans are flares, bar one black/faded pair and one light blue pair which I could no longer tolerate on my body. (They were $15 from Valleygirl on clearance three years ago, and THAT WAS FOR A REASON! I don’t know what they’re made of nor do I care to look. They stretched, lost their shape and generally look like crap on me now. I can’t even kid myself that they fit me today. It was driving me insane, I tell you, having to hitch the waist up even when belted, the way the knees sagged when tucked into boots, and the way the hems sat……..arrrrrrgh.)

    I nearly passed up on this pair just for the price, but you really do get what you pay for with jeans. Here’s my $45 Lee jeans from Recycle Boutique – a place which has a lot of crap, but offers up the occasional gem as well. (Pardon the smudges…my streaky mirror is long overdue for a clean)

    UPDATE: Now that I’ve worn them for a while, I’ve noticed the crotch seam is a little bulgy. I didn’t have that problem with any of my other Lee jeans. Marking this down to a 4.5/5 rather than a full 5/5.

  • October 28, 2009

    Wordless Wednesday

    (I’m a journalism major. Gotta sneak a few words in! Whatuwhiwhi (Doubtless Bay) was great. The drive home was a little painful once we hit traffic from Wellsford, but this was tempered by the free sausages/cookies/fruit/coffee on offer on the highway back courtesy of State’s Driver Revive. I’m not a fan of them – their auto insurance quotes are skyhigh – but this was a great idea. Long drives get people sleepy and dangerous! )

  • October 26, 2009

    Spending report

    Another expensive week! We had to get some work done on the car so it could pass a warrant, I bought a ticket to our end of year celebration/meet the editors bash, and then food and gas for our weekend away. PA250533

    I also bought a beautiful new bag earlier this week – I’d been lusting after it for months and waiting for it to go on sale, but finally gave in. Plus, I wanted it for my interview on Thursday…the one that I had to cancel, yeah. But I’m really glad I finally bought it (not to mention that my old one was falling apart); half of that I had already set aside from my birthday money, and the rest came from all the overtime I was finally paid out.

    Party ticket: $30 (I had to get out $40; stupid ATMs and not giving out tenners. If I remember rightly, we spent that ten dollars on food after I got home late and exhausted on Wednesday night :S)

    Almost $120 on gas (that’s two  full tanks. We used about 1.5 to get there and back, plus a fair bit of driving around while up north. The rest will last us the rest of the week. It’s unbelievable how economical the first half of the tank is – we went SO much further than we did on the second half! Must start filling the car up rather than leaving it as long as possible.

    $70 to hire scooters for an afternoon up north (seriously, hooning around on scooters is a GREAT way to sightsee.) They were $35 each; we rented one for the both of us, and paid for another for a friend, who’ll pay us back later this week.

    $290 for work on the car plus a warrant (check) – included fixing up the rust in the boot, two new tyres, and fixing up the loose windscreen seal and the broken driver’s door lock (done when the car was broken into in Kelston….)

    $30 for engine oil and a new oil filter

    $60 for food over the weekend (around $15 of which, again, we paid for our friend and are expecting back). Included disappointing food at the ‘best fish and chip shop in NZ’  in Mangonui

    $4 to go through the new Northern Toll Road (both ways)

    And we still have to buy groceries for the rest of the week!

    I’m still not sure how we’ll deal with the extra car and gas expenses – the trip was pretty spur of the moment. T is doing a few days’ worth of one-off work, and is due to be paid again for his coaching work (we’re still not sure how their pay cycle works. He was paid once, halfway through LAST month and not again since. He started there at the beginning of September, but had three weeks off due to school holidays, plus one rain day and today being a public holiday).

  • October 24, 2009

    Quitters

    This month T sat his final test for his course. Depending on his results, he may or may not be guaranteed entry to university. Whether he decides to carry on with that… well, that’s another matter.

    They’ll have a graduation ceremony in late November – exactly a month from now for friends and family. Obviously I’ll be going. But I asked him who else he was going to invite… and he said no one. Not even his mum? No, not even her.

    Apparently, he said, she doesn’t think he’ll end up going to uni.

    “Why not?” I asked

    “She thinks I’ve quit too many things before.”

    Now, I think that’s a little hasty. I think that’s completely unfair, actually. What has he started and not completed? He didn’t finish out school, and joined the army, which he decided wasn’t for him. So there’s that. Then he got into a good line of work, and got laid off after two years. (No dropping out there). Then with some prodding from me, he enrolled in a foundation course so he would have the option of going to university. Even if he doesn’t, it’s a fantastic thing to have under his belt. And it’s a darn sight more than any of his siblings have.

    Even going further back, what else has he started and not finished? He decided not to carry on with high-level athletics. That’s not uncommon. And let’s be honest, a career in sports is not the best of career plans anyway. I can think of so many activities I did throughout my school years and never carried on with… violin, badminton, debating, tennis, soccer… I got a kick out of all those while I did them, sure, but I didn’t want to keep going with any of them on a regular basis.

    Sure, he’s messed up a lot of things. Some of it is due to being naturally carefree, or careless, even. He’s never relied on his family to bail him out, although they have helped him out on countless occasions. And yes, he’s 21 now, and it’s time to start getting serious about something, especially with people bleating about the recession ending and things picking up. But he certainly isn’t the first, nor will he be the last, 21 year old to be drifting, to not have their shit together. Maybe more is expected of him, because he has possibly the most potential out of anyone in the family.

  • October 23, 2009

    A charmed life!

    Things just keep changing and I can’t keep up! But they’re changing for the better, I promise.

    Update on the job front:

    This week I was told there a couple of projects about to start at work, apparently, and if I wanted it I could have fulltime work for sure until at least Christmas and possibly beyond, depending on how it goes. What did I say? Well, of COURSE I said, “I’ll take it!”

    This means I’m back to regular hours and weekends off for now. YAY!! I promptly dashed off an email to the manager I was due to meet the next morning (interviewing for the PT subediting job) regretfully declining. That worked out nicely – although it could potentially have paid quite well, I would be paying secondary tax, not to mention shunting myself between their office and my “main” job throughout the week. Did I mention it was NOT in the CBD and would have taken me two buses to get there?

    So I’ve had a bit of a reprieve and can breathe easy for at least a couple of months. Even if I do have to revert to the part time, odd shifts afterward, I can then look for PT/casual work as well as I’ll have mornings off (plus a Friday; I’m sure I could handle a six day week if necessary).

    Then straight after all this I got a call from another editor, the one who had my details passed on to him. I’m due to see him next week; I’m not sure how that will go and how that might work now that I do have fulltime hours for at least the rest of the year, but we’ll see how it goes. It didn’t sound like they would need too much time from me, and possibly I could do a lot of it from home and on my own time.

    Oooh, exciting times are ahead.

    Anyway, tonight to celebrate the END OF UNIVERSITY, our class is gathering for a combined drinks/meet editors and important media people function. I can’t let too loose or stay too long, because soon as I can I’m outta there! T will be picking me up and we’ll be driving five hours up north to stay at a friend’s bach for the long weekend. Thank you  Labour Day!

    It’s going to be great; absolutely lazy and leisurely. No more staying up nights hammering out assignments. And even better, I also have Tuesday off..so don’t technically have to be back for almost five days (freedom is priceless :D). BLISS!

  • October 22, 2009

    The next step

    So after the disappointment of not being able to line up full time work, I immediately went out and got interviews for a) unpaid work experience at a magazine and b) a PT subediting role at a website.

    The magazine interview went well – really well I thought – and was super handily located right on Queen St, in the middle of everything, and around the corner from my work building. The only thing, of course, was the whole “unpaid” bizzo, but it would have been excellent work experience.

    After leaving the building, I started stressing about what to do if I was offered it, because my OTHER interview for the paid job was still a week away! That second job was Choice A in every aspect, but if that didn’t work out I would have been happy to do the internship.

    Anyway, it turned out to be a moot point as she got back to me saying it would probably take up more time than I had available, but would pass on my details to one of the other mags in their stable of publications! Crisis averted and a new door opens…

  • October 20, 2009

    Money and relationships – when it all goes pear shaped

    One of my flatmates and his GF have broken up.

    I’m quite sad – she was lovely and sweet. She had a fondness for bourbon and pornos, but was surprisingly intelligent and unskanky for a westie type (if you’ll pardon the stereotyping, but they exist for a reason…and I consider myself one as well, to a degree) and incredibly giving. To a fault, actually. Her generosity extended to going halves with him on a car (I think to the tune of $500), and advancing him $800 for the bond on our new place, despite the fact she didn’t even live here. She did it to help him out, that’s all.

    Now he’s found himself some hobaggy little blonde and ditched her.

    I have no idea what’s going to happen with all the money he owes her; BF says she gave him literally everything she had, and wiped out her savings. I don’t imagine the breakup would have been pretty 🙁 in fact, he had been seeing the blonde possibly even before dumping her… we just suddenly stopped seeing the GF around the house and saw the new chick hanging around.

    Poor taste, I say.

    NB: Tomorrow’s post will be protected – I’m talking about work related stuff and don’t want it to be all out in the open. You can email me at eemusings(at)gmail.com for the password

  • October 20, 2009

    Despite the massive mountain of assignments I had to work on, this weekend shaped up pretty well!

    I did a quick mystery shop on Sunday, did a spot of baking (using a recipe I’d been wanting to try out for ages), and caught up on laundry (I was all out of clean undies – no joke).

    We also went grocery shopping – last week we spent $20 less than the budget, and this week we came in right on target. For our $120, we got tons of veggies, meat, as well as a couple of treats. Strawberries are back in season – woohoo! We also bought a couple of herbs – chives and basil – which I want to put out in the garden.

    And lastly, we went up Mt Albert and went for a walk around the top. Now I’ve been up Mt Roskill, Mt Eden, Mt Atkinson… but never Mt Albert. The entrance is tucked up some leafy side streets; you’d never know how to get up there! The hillside is obviously a pretty wealth area. The houses are old and palatial and I wouldn’t even want to guess at how much they go for. Anyway, it was all very quaint – we went for a bit of a jaunt around the peak, looked for four-leaf clovers (unsuccessfully) and T picked a few flowers for me. Very Enid Blyton.

    Spending

    I finally got paid for all my overtime back during Fashion Week! Most of this went towards cancelling out the overdraft we racked up over the moving period.

    $50 in Vodafone topups for both me and T
    $22 at the butcher
    $25 on gas
    $80 at the supermarket
    $22 at Fruit World
    $21 pn misc. food and drink

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