Entries Tagged 'Random thoughts' ↓

A week ago, a moment that everyone will remember where they were in my lifetime happened when a devastating earthquake struck Christchurch.

Tuesday 22 February 2010 at 12.51 6.3 5km deep

I was at my desk. Switching between an email I was writing and our internal system to look something up to put in the email and I saw a few tweets scrolling by about an earthquake, then photos began to appear and that’s when I realised it was a big one.

I was not expecting the effect it would have on me. I was distracted by the news coverage and got to the point where I had to stop watching and reading the news because I became quite upset by it. I don’t have any particular ties to Christchurch, I don’t know the city particularly well. The one personal connection at the time was that my sister-in-law was visiting her parents with her daughters – we heard pretty quickly that they were OK. Seeing the crushed people emerging from the rubble, the broken buildings, the people crying on television brought tears to my eyes.

I wouldn’t call myself a shallow person but I have to shamefully admit that I don’t watch the news much and I’m fairly immune to the destruction and death from war, terrorists and natural disasters. 9/11 is the only other time I’ve looked at the news and cried. But the earthquake in Christchurch put people on the television crying and talking and devastated in New Zealand accents, they were from my own country, and I just felt sick with the horror of what they were going through. I felt compelled to rush and donate rather a lot more than the $10 or $20 I give to the Cancer Society each year after having cancer take my best friend 7 years ago. I had to ban myself from watching the news.

Also, I’ve never felt particularly patriotic or really felt anything when hearing our national anthem. Of course I’m proud to be a kiwi but the anthem’s always been a rather droning courtesy. But when the low rumble of the anthem grew out of the stone silent crowd in Wellington’s Civic Square after 2 minutes silence as we stood to signal support for Christchurch I could actually feel the hearts of the whole country joining together. And as more and more of the broken city is uncovered, bodies are found and the people of Christchurch and New Zealand link arms and get back on their feet, that anthem makes tears come to my eyes every time and will mean New Zealand to me from now on.

You may recall that a lot of my coffee reviews from New York drew the conclusion that if a guy in a trilby hat is making the coffee, then it’s going to be good – like the guy we spotted when we went into RBC on Worth St.

However, thanks to this article in the New York Times it seems that baristas are required to wear a hair restraint. So if we judge a barista purely by the fact that they wear a hat we may be disappointed although thankfully all our hat-wearing baristas were pretty good!

This week the old Manners Mall has really been transformed into a road and now on our way to work we’re using the new footpaths and crossing at the new pedestrian crossways and lights.

Today on our walk home a guide dog had arrived at one of the new pedestrian ramps off the footpath to take his owner across the road using one of the new pedestrian routes. It got me wondering how the dog knew what to do. This must happen all the time. Has the dog been trained to know that the ramp is the only place you can cross? And then what does he do if he gets to an intersection that doesn’t have one? As he’s approaching the road he wants to cross does he scan up and down to find a safe crossing place? Or does someone get in touch with all people with guide dogs to let them know of new pedestrian crossing areas? Take the person or dog out to run them through the new approach and crossing? Guide dogs are amazing.

What is it about a large group of people that makes it harder to keep a kitchen as clean as you would at home? In the last few days at work a growing number of those ‘corporate’ kitchen-type signs have appeared in our work kitchen … ‘scrub your coffee cups’, ‘dishwasher is on’, ’empty when done’, ‘keep bench tidy’ … I know I’m at the clean-freak end of the scale but really, are there that many people in an office-full of people who don’t or haven’t lived with someone else and know what it’s like to share filth, or don’t have or don’t have the observation skills to figure out if dishes in a dishwasher are clean or dirty? I guess in an individual family people might let dishes pile up on the bench and clear them away all at once at night, and this doesn’t work when 50 people are doing the same thing or leaving their cups and bowls soaking in the sink preventing others from easily using the tap. I only go in there for the cold water tap.

It’s just a social behaviour pattern than fascinates me – that individually people may have common sense but in a crowd perhaps not so much.

Why am I so allergic to clothes shopping? I’d quite like to enjoy it but I just don’t. I really have to prepare myself for a wander around the shops and as soon as I’m pounced on by 1 (or even 3 as occurred recently) assistants asking if I’m just happy browsing or looking for something specific (what do you think lady? if there was something specific I’ll come and ask you) or making some comment on my current outfit or showing me something new, it’s over. Whatever grain of good mood I had fortified myself with leaves my body with such propulsion that I’m left drained. You probably think this sounds overly dramatic but it’s what happens! Sometimes I have to ball up my fists and hold back tears!! I am stumped by this repulsion of attention given that I love it when I go into a restaurant or cafe and I’m greeted like an old friend and the staff there know what I like. It’s just clothes stores that I want to be completely anonymous in. Which is probably why I have the biggest problem in Wellington. And that’s not all, if I manage to stay in the store long enough to see a couple of things I quite like I immediately spiral into a confusing loop about what I’ve already got that’s similar, or that would go with it, or just know instantly it won’t look good on, or note that the store is fairly quiet so get put off trying anything on because the ladies with nothing to do will gather around offering opinions and this and that to go with it so I leave without trying, and without anything. Then realise half way home that I do in fact have a pair of tights, jacket, shoes or whatever to go with it, but I can’t go back and try it or get it for fear the assistant will recognise me and so that whole cycle starts again. And if I do buy something, I don’t want that to get any attention either so end up not wearing it for months to avoid the “is that new?” question!

God, do I need counselling? This is way at the other end of the shopaholic problem spectrum!

I had a bizzare and quite realistic dream last night that in order to overcome my fear and sickening nerves when it comes to speaking to a group that I decided to read a book out loud at work in the training room for as long as it took to read the book. I wasn’t sure what book to read, a novel, one that I knew wouldn’t have any rude bits in it, and that every day I stood in the corner and read aloud and people started to bring their lunch in to take a break and I ended up with quite a following including some hardcore stayers who listened to the whole story. I did it every day and it took months. Was obviously quite relieved when I woke up and looked at my book beside the bed and realised it had been a dream!

I wonder if I’ll ever write a book? I was talking with my team today about proof reading and the process you might go through when writing a book – whether you’d force yourself to write every day for half and hour or so then after a while see if any story was being shaped and then throw everything else away and develop one idea, or whether you’d sit down and map the whole structure out and write to that. If I wrote a book I wonder what it would be about? I think I’d love to but doubt it’s going to happen.

First time I’ve seen this concept of a ‘flipper bridge’ joining 2 countries where each drives on a different side of the road. Have heard the terminology at work in terms of ‘flipper accounts’ which I guess is the same really – an account that changes between being a debit or credit account for reporting purposes – like a credit card.

Anyway, this pic of the proposed bridge between Hong Kong and China looks very cool and there’s a bit of a write up about in on the Fast Company website.

Why is it so hard to find buttons in this town? Buttons to close an opening in a garment. I went down to Goldings in the Harbour City Centre yesterday at lunchtime to find some, but they only had a very small range and I wanted some white and orange buttons of the same (or a similar) design. I left work early to go to Knit World in Cuba Street, but didn’t get there by 5pm when they closed. Sigh.

Today I went to Arthur Toye in their new location in The Grand Arcade. The woman at the counter did not make eye contact and barely lifted her head from a magazine when I asked where the buttons were “I’m sorry we don’t carry buttons.” In a fabric store. Huh? She didn’t apologise or offer an alternate location. So I left work even earlier today and made it to Knit World before they closed. They have a reasonable selection but while they had white and every other colour in a similar design, there was nothing similar in orange. And lots of the tubes of white buttons I picked up only had 1 or 2 buttons left in them. I needed 5.

However, I got some in the end, not the most ideal buttons for a knitted baby’s cardigan and very fiddly to sew on but they look good. Next time I buy wool I’m going to get the buttons at the same time.

Have been back in the Wellington office a couple of weeks now and I think I’m suffering from motivation sickness. I know your office space can impact on how you feel at work but I’m believing that there can be a physical impact itself, beyond sitting at a badly arranged chair and desk. That part of my set up is good.

I just don’t recall when working in New York that I ever had such stinging dry eyes and dog tiredness and often times feeling totally deflated. We’re getting way more sleep here than we did in New York and we’re not working stupid long hours, probably the same length days as New York. Perhaps it’s a winter thing, that our bodies and minds are in hibernation mode. Or perhaps it’s the fluorescent lights and too warm dry air from the air-conditioning. Perhaps it’s being in the office again getting interrupted and dragged into meetings and conversations, which sometimes I missed while being away, but most of the time just enjoyed doing my own stuff in my own time at least being able to recognise something achieved at the end of the day.

Hmmm, have to figure it out before my productivity slips.