If only payday could be every day. Alas, next week marks my last payday for the year. When’s yours?
Putting money into savings
I transfer my whole paycheque into savings every month, then transfer out money every week thereafter as needed (rent, groceries and the other big expenses are all weekly) – so actual savings transfers only occur when I have extra income. And damn, those feel good.
Chips
Fries, potato chips, veggie chips, prawn crackers, corn chips … doesn’t matter what it is, I lose all self-control around them. It’s not pretty. But it’s worth it while it lasts…
Books
Especially when I’ve just made it through a challenging read (cough AnnaKarenina cough), there’s nothing like rewarding myself by devouring the equivalent of literary fast food. Best found on the recently returned shelves at the library.
Running in the breeze
One foot in front of the other. The sun on your back, warm and familiar, but not oppressive. A light wind that keeps you from sweating. Light shorts and a tank. Bra-less, if possible. This is about as free as you can feel while outside and clothed, IMO – and it’s glorious. End with a masochistic sprint – deliriously lovely in that brief feeling of near-weightlessness, terribly painful when you’re forced into a premature stop, wondering if you could even manage a sub-20 second 100m today and knowing you wouldn’t dare time yourself.
Friends, I have made one last outrageous expenditure. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are coming to Auckland in January. I tried to get tickets to their last gig in 2007, and failed. This time, I would not be thwarted.
I’m paying $160 apiece for the privilege … and it burns even more that this is a lineup sans Frusciante, who is about 75% of the entire reason I love this band, but now that I’ve seen Metallica, the Chilis are the only other group I want to see before I (or rather, they) die.
That said, here are five other performers I wouldn’t mind seeing in concert:
Elton John
Would need to be up front in a fairly personal show, or else what’s the point? But I would DIE if I could marvel at the legend himself up close.
Michael Buble
I find it hilarious that there is a Facebook group called Michael Buble’s voice makes my clothes fall off. Forget Barry White.
Maroon 5
I only recently realised Maroon 6 has been around for a decade. Can I get a WOAH to that?! I have fond memories of a lazy summer afternoon practising for the high school talent quest at our drummer’s house and bashing out a rough version of their first big hit, Harder to Breathe. And now look at them, all Jaggered up. Adam Levine would put on a damn good show, I can just tell.
Michelle Branch
The artist who made me want to write songs and play guitar. An artist who actually inspired me to buy an album (Hotel Paper, which I picked up in Singapore).
Mariah
The diva herself. Granted, there are plenty of her songs that I really dislike, but anyone with a vocal range of five octaves is, quite frankly, superhuman.
DAMMIT JOHN. COME BACK ALREADY.
I’ll leave you with my five favourite Chilis songs.
I have a double eyelid on my left eye. But not on my right.
I entered a poetry contest when I was 13 and won a trip to the US. Only it turned to be a scam – and a pretty lame one at that. What’s the point?
One year, I was placed in the second-lowest reading group in the class after being assessed reading a chapter to everyone, rather than the usual one-on-one reading comprehension test (I HATED that particular teacher, not least for this!). Usually I was always in the top group, easy. That was the level of disconnect between my reading and verbal skills.
One of my first gigs was writing for a website for uni students (I don’t think anybody still uses the term “online magazine”, but that’s what it was). One of my assignments was to write a tongue in cheek piece, “You know you’re drunk when…” And the editor LOVED it – she asked for more in that vein. I was still in high school. I was 15. Or maybe 16. I’d never been drunk in my life; I was a geek; I’d had one sip of dark beer in my entire life, and hated it.
I have never tried (nor do I intend to) chicken feet. Renounce my Chinese badge already.
As I mentioned in this post, the housing market in NZ is rather unique. Crappy stock, sky-high prices.
I thought it might be fun (in what sense of the word, I’m not quite sure, actually) to recount all the places I’ve lived in since leaving home.
Student life is, of course, meant for building up horror stories about bootstrapping. Two-minute noodles. Walls of beer bottles. Bongs and one-night stands and other awful flatmate escapades.
The boarding house
My first place was .. an experience. Along with one of my best friends, we set out to find somewhere we could both live. Nobody would rent to 17-year-olds, and no flats were advertising two empty rooms at once. Eventually though, we found a special situation: a six-bedroom townhouse/boarding house where each tenant paid the landlord individually. And he didn’t mind if we weren’t 18. (He actually also proposed us living in the basement apartment of his own house, with cheap rent in exchange for help with chores and cooking. That was a bit too weird, though.)
The first night my cell phone was stolen off the coffee table. Everybody locked their rooms when they weren’t home. Flatmates came and went, including the P-addict who used my soap and shampoo, the crazy old lady who threw dishes into the bin if they weren’t washed immediately, the girl who slept with the middle-aged body builder who lived next door, the guy just out of jail, and more.
The family townhouse
Next was another terraced house, with my friend and her grandad. Nothing much to report there. It didn’t last long; her mother came back to the country and I got the boot so she could live there instead.
The quiet suburban house
This is the furthest I’ve ever lived from public transport – a good 20 minute walk at least. Very inconvenient. Again, only lasted a few months.
The old bungalow
This was the oldest house I’d ever lived in, but it did have mixer taps (this is a requirement for me in any house). Flatmate had a few dope plants growing in the cupboard, but otherwise was sweet to live with. My first experience living on a main artery road, in which I learned to factor in road-crossing time in my walk to the bus stop, T had a major car accident just outside, and I vowed I would never buy a house on a busy road.
The suburban apartment
Apartments are rare outside of the CBD, but this was one of the notorious blocks. We were here for about a year. You pretty much couldn’t make any noise; the big communal rubbish bins were always overflowing and the pool was usually kinda grotty. Our dishwasher was home to cockroaches and for some reason half our mail never made it to our letterboxes, which were inside the lobby (I was a student then so had plenty of correspondence from Studylink to deal to … or I should have had, anyway).
The ghetto house
Nobody would rent to students. So we ended up in the ghetto. Our street was nice at one end, but at the other end was a state housing enclave – and that’s the end we lived at. Our room was a converted garage. There was mould in the closet, on the ceiling, and I could see my breath in front of me in the winter. Our landlord lost his job and when the hot water cylinder went, he took over a month to fix it. That was coming into winter, too. He also then tried to pin a bunch of things on us when we left, like the roof caving in. Oh, and we got burgled… three times?
Other fun things: nightmare flatmate still owes me nearly a grand from this. He was a terrible drunk and broke a couple of panes in our door while on the piss. Similarly, the boys used to wrestle all the time and managed to break a couple of windows doing so. I got half decent at painting/puttying. Nightmare flatmate also got his car rear window smashed several times, mostly by the shits down the road who also burgled us, and once by his girlfriend.
The thoroughfare house
Weed got sold. People came and went. One of the flatties literally had a walk in closet for a room. Another had a bit of casual polygamy going on. Lots of Naruto was watched.
The bottom floor studio
A really nice small place, albeit a tiny kitchen with old cupboards. But brand new bathroom, gorgeous built in cupboards and drawers and a cute little patio-type thing. It was a quiet, affluent neighbourhood handy to everything – and really cheap.
The bad: the yard was always in the shade so I hardly ever used the patio and our clothes took forever to dry on the line; it got a little too small for our liking (even the apartment we lived in had a living room); the landlord’s kids upstairs were often loud and the floor was thin; it was always dark because we were on the bottom floor and surrounded by fence/trees; T’s first bike got stolen, after which he hated the place; and it was just that little bit too far away from the west, where everyone he knows lives.
Current house
Also on a main road, but not at the same level as the other bungalow. We have a garage, a deck, lots of sun, a 20-minute walk to work for me and a spare room for junk, among other things. After moving in, we also found the previous occupants had been growing cannabis in the space between the roof and the house, hacking a power point to run electricity up into that space, and apparently using the hall cupboard (now my wardrobe) for drying.
The house itself isn’t all that nice, I’ll be honest – it needs work and it’s very much a rental (but all the cosmetic things, like the carpets and walls, are pretty well hidden once you move in with all your stuff). It’s at the low end of my standards, but it does well enough.
The house itself is split into two dwellings; the back one is a one-bedroom, and the tenant is a lovely older lady who’s rarely home. In fact, we haven’t seen since Christmas and just found out she’s down south caring for her sick mother. Hope she can continue to pay rent and keep her place – quiet neighbours are great!
So, that’s my woeful housing history from 2005-2012. What does yours look like?
I sure would win a prize for purveyor of unattractive baked goods
I find baking cathartic and the end result both surprising and delicious. But pretty? Food presentation is not my forte. And given how fast it disappears in our household of two … meh. Hence why recipe posts here are sporadic.
I sure would win a prize for planning
Okay. Sometimes I view life like a chess game. In probability trees. Almost infinite paths of ‘what if’. Forewarned is forearmed, I say.
I sure would win a prize for failing at remembering what I spend
Hence why I spend a few minutes every couple of days, when I log on to internet banking, to check and categorise our latest transactions. Even that sometimes is a struggle. And that’s why I don’t use cash.
I sure would win a prize for parking fails
I have parallel parked once in my life. During my test. (I am still the only person I’ve heard of EVER to have been asked to parallel park during their driving test). I hate parking. Almost more so than lane changing (I’m with Marge Simpson. Changing lanes is for rally drivers, she sez.)
I sure would win a prize for least put together female in the western world
I check my reflection before I leave the house. After that I do not look closely in mirrors during the course of the day. I don’t quite know why; it’s a weird kind of phobia. It started back in high school, when I simply refused to ever look at myself in the bathroom mirrors. Suffice to say I had some body image issues, and today I think that persists a bit even though my skin has cleared up. I am friends with my home mirror, and that’s about it.
That said, I do check myself out in car windows. The picture is much more forgiving. And something about the curve shortens my long, rectangular face.
I was tagged by Two Degrees to take part in this meme:
1. Post these rules.
2. Answer the 11 questions from the person who tagged you.
3. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag.
4. Tag 11 people and link them to your post.
5. Let them know that you tagged them.
1. What does your wallet look like? Is it organized or cluttered?
No money. Lots of cards. Reasonably organised.
2. If you had $10 to spend on a date, where would you go?
New Flavour, or another similar place, to share a plate of dumplings.
3. If you had $200 to spend on a date, where would you go?
I’ve always wanted to go hot-air ballooning. Would that come in under budget?
4. What was the first blog that got you into PF blogging?
9. If you could resurrect one musician from the dead and watch him/her perform, who would it be?
Freddy Mercury.
10. What would your ideal retirement look like?
I really don’t know. Probably a mix of reading, volunteering, travelling and general chilling out in a rocking chair. All I know is that I want to have options – maybe I’ll want to work in some capacity, maybe I won’t. But I want choices, and that requires saving for retirement.
11. Are you going to do your taxes by yourself this year?
NZ taxes are pretty straightforward. So yes.
Dudes, I’m beat. It’s the end of the week and I just don’t have the brain juice to come up with one single original question right now, let alone 11. I can think of some people to tag, but really, if you want to take part, feel free to carry on with these prompts (what an [exhausted] rebel). Or whatever.
Photo meme time! (I’ve done a fair few, but I think they’ve all been Q&A based, so this is a first). Hat-tip A Lotta Lettuce for the tag.
Here’s the lowdown:
1. Go to the fourth folder where you store your pics in your computer
2. Pick the fourth photo in the folder.
3. Explain the picture.
4. Tag 4 people to do the same
If it looks a little pixellated, it might be the fact this was originally a film photo (remember those?) scanned into my computer. That’d be us circa 2006 when I visited T at Burnham military camp. It was bloody effing cold down there. I still have that scarf and jeans.
I’m taking a leaf out of Lesley’s book. Want to play?
Let’s talk that 4-letter work today: W.O.R.K.
1. Are you in a job/career you always wanted?
I am. I’ve also come to realise something: while I couldn’t do something I hate for a living, by the same stroke, work is not everything – there’s so much more to life.
2. Do you find your workday world fulfilling and rewarding?
Mostly, yes. But another thing I’ve learned: despite what some like to espouse, it’s insane to expect every day to excite and inspire you.
3. If you could change jobs, what would you do?
It’s less about what I would *do* per se but I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at something in the music industry. I’d also be open to working in government, a university, a bank (or somewhere like Sorted.org.nz that’s all about personal finance), a nonprofit, travel or the arts. If not in editorial, probably within the marcomms department or a function like technical writing.
4. What about your job irritates you the most?
I’m going to copy Lesley verbatim here: Talking and making nice to other people. Dealing with people who don’t know what they’re doing (myself excluded). Also, crap technology (!!!), frustrations with systems/processes.
5. Would you rather have a high pressure meaningful career or a mindless clock-punching job?
Ugh. I’m highly-strung and try to avoid stress as much as possible – after all, I’m trying to swing towards balance, not away from it. I guess at this stage I’ll still go with the former.
6. I believe in the concept of “paying myself first” as in tucking away dollars for emergencies and vacations. If you started a special savings plan and could save a certain amount each week to do something only for yourself, what would that be?
7. What do you think is the hardest paying job on earth?
I think working in emergency services – fire, police, or medicine. The pressure, the responsibility, and the hours, plus they require both mental and physical stamina.
When you’re a teenager, all you want to do is figure out who you are and to fit in. I could never understand how I could be one person in a certain situation, and act like someone entirely different around another group of people. I felt like I was in a constant state of personality crisis.
I can’t for the life of me remember what it was called, but there was once a website devoted entirely to personality tests and quizzes, and it quickly became one of my favourite time-wasters. I took and retook almost every quiz on that damn website, hoping for a result that would, I don’t know, change my life? Eventually I realised I was far from the only girl on earth who adjusts herself depending on social situations, and, more importantly, that I was who I was.
That said, the Myers-Briggs personality test is generally a good indicator of a person’s traits. Four letters – that’s all it takes. As an ISFJ, I’m part of a group that Wikipedia reckons makes up 9-14 per cent of the population.
Like the ISFJ description suggests, I learn best by visual reinforcement (diagrams, writing things down) or better, by doing.While I was always a pretty good student, tertiary presented more of a challenge for me, and I knew I was never going to be a candidate for grad school (not that it’s really very useful in my field). Conceptual theories and theoretical discussions tire me like nothing else can.
I’ve always thought that the world rewarded extroverts. In the working world, introverts get trampled, passed over. ISFJs hate conflict and confrontation, and don’t do well with criticism – two traits I’ve always, always struggled with (especially the first one, and I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. I know nobody likes fighting, really, but it’s like I regress to childhood and clam up completely in the face of argument).
Obviously, each personality type also comes with its own strengths (hurrah!).
The ISFJ feels a strong sense of responsibility and duty. They take their responsibilities very seriously, and can be counted on to follow through
Usually good (albeit conservative) at handling money
Take their commitments seriously, and seek lifelong relationships (and here I thought that was called “maturity”!)
Likely to put others’ needs above their own
Excellent memory for details which are important to them
Value security, tradition, and peaceful living
What’s your Myers-Briggs personality? I’d especially love to hear from other I-types (at 83%, it’s my strongest tendency of the four preferences); I so rarely encounter other like minds…
2. Nor do I remember our exact anniversary. The catchphrase has always been, “The Wednesday before Christmas”. I did calculate the exact date last year so we could celebrate five years properly, but it’s already slipped my mind.
3. I never imagined this relationship would last. I’d just come out of a breakup and I knew T was leaving at the end of the summer, so that’s when I expected it would end.
4. My language of love is food. If I care about you, I care about making sure you eat. Which is why I was so bewildered back in the hell that was 2009, when he accused me of neglect (or something similar) – what the hell was love if it was not keeping you fed (and watered, clothed and sheltered, and generally keeping things running?)
5. A surprising number of my dude friends apparently once had a thing for me. Most of which I found out after the fact.
6. I’ve never been tempted to stray but there is one person I’ve come across who I’ve felt a strange draw toward, who I recently found out is now also spoken for.
7. I’m sure more of you engage in baby talk than would admit to it, but I bet we could beat you in a competition, hands down.
Day 1 – Pride. Seven great things about yourself.
Day 2 – Envy. Seven things you lack and covet.
Day 3 – Wrath. Seven things that piss you off.
Day 4 – Sloth. Seven things you neglect to do.
Day 5 – Greed. Seven worldly material desires.
Day 6 – Gluttony. Seven guilty pleasures.
Day 7 – Lust. Seven love secrets.
