Day 12: Half baked post!

As of right now, this post covers only until this evening. I might add to it later or maybe I won't! Watch out now!

I woke up this morning to call from a job agency, just to get set up and tested for typing speed and such (I think?), and it was very heartening. Potential jobs! Yay!

One thing that is strange about the New Zealand job market is that there seems to be a super fast turnaround time between searching for and getting a job. I say "seems" because everyone I talk to comes across as moderately perplexed that Claire and I haven't found jobs yet. I'm probably a little bit oversensitive (surprise! unemployment is not fun!) but it's just making me wonder how young people in New Zealand find jobs. In my head, job hunting is -- aside from the active search and the follow ups, etc -- a lot of waiting. I'm not quite sure how you find and secure a job in four days, unless you are going for the really seasonal work like fruit picking, which, as far as I know, is not in huge demand in Wellington City. I suspect that because we're on working holiday and because there is such a huge backpacker culture, people expect me and Claire to pick up those seasonal jobs and be done with it. Unfortunately, we're not on that route (-- yet; who knows what'll happen if we're jobless in a few weeks), and we're trying to find temp jobs that are a bit more stable, and that takes a bit more waiting.

Anyhow, we're both not too worried quite yet, and we're chipping away at the job apps. I think the thing that's niggling at us both is that our landlord, who is this super fast paced woman, left town on Monday and her parting words to Claire and me were, "I'll be back on Thursday. Maybe you'll have jobs by then!"

Today is Thursday and we have no jobs. How will we look her in the eye?

Luckily, the other renters in the house say that she's rarely around, so thank goodness for that. I think I'd feel legitimately judged by her, and that makes for an unhappy house. (Speaking of which, apparently we nearly moved into one of those Cold Wars Of Female Passive Aggression. Two of the renters apparently Did Not Get Along and it got to the point where one of them just had to leave. Literally. She barely gave any notice at all. Well. I'm relieved that we didn't have to deal with any kerfluffles.)

Anyway, Claire and I are still internetless and it sounds like we might continue to be so for a while yet. We're starting to strategically budget when we can access the internet and for how long. Last night, we got about five minutes of some kind linksys soul and it was an immediate profliferation of tabs. I should get back to job stuff though.



AND NOW, SOME RANDOM THINGS THAT I AM TYPING UP INSTEAD OF WRITING COVER LETTERS:

• While we were in the hostel, Amy, one of the girls in our room, talked about a guy she used to live with. She said he was the weirdest guy she'd ever met, and he was "the kind of guy who would go out at night and come back with Werther's Originals in his pocket." And that line completely stuck with me, because that sentence really did not end where I thought it would. (What kind of person ends up with Werther's Originals in their pocket? No, seriously, think about it.) Anyhow, I relayed that line to Derek at dinner on Monday, and he made mention of Wether's Originals being some sort of prostitution code. I'm not sure if he was kidding or not, but, man, that would certainly change the tone of Amy's story.

• People in New Zealand keep their eggs out of the fridge. This weird me out. This especially weirds me out because the girls in the flat do not share food, so we have something like five cartons of eggs just hanging out on top of the fridge. Why do we have so many eggs? And why are none of them refrigerated?
  
  
• Oh! And finally-- On the train ride into town today (which is pretty cool in that Wellington has mountains and you get these occasional beautiful glimpses to the sea), I thought up a great superhero and tagline...
  
  SLOTHMAN: ARMED AND LANGOROUS.
  
  I'm really proud of myself for that.

If I don't get to this later--

Tomorrow: Possibly drive around Wellington with our roommate Libby, as she shows us her favorite spots around town!