The best thing about Ryvita crackers is that they don’t really seem to go stale. At least the ones in my desk drawer haven’t. I’ve been having them with peanut butter on them, on and off, for the better part of a month. They still seem crunchy and don’t have that stale taste to them.
I’ve been up to heaps lately.
The weekend was particularly good. On Saturday, Daphne and I went to Golding’s to do an Art Clay class. We came out of it with a silver ring each, that we’d made, and a necklace in the cast shape of a leaf. Steve picked us up, and we dropped Daphne off at her place. At the same time I picked up this aquarium that she was getting rid of. It’s quite a bit bigger than my one - 40 litres - and quite a bit longer.
Sunday we went to the pet store and got a new air pump (a flash Eheim one) to go with the undergravel filter and a hood light. Sunday afternoon was spent removing all the plants, then the fish themselves, then siphoning all the water out of the old tank (retaining as much of the old water as possible, in buckets, cooking pots, etc.), and finally transferring the gravel over to the new tank, then the fish, then the plants. It looks great now!
On Sunday evening we went to the premiere of the DVD release for the movie “The Last Hurrah” (the website for the book and the movie is here.) It was really fantastic. The Paramount was packed with bikies, most of whom showed up in their leathers and carrying helmets. They’d all shown up to lend support to two bloody tough buggers, both over 70, who had made the trip from China to Holland in three months. It was really fun.
After that we went to dinner at the Flying Burrito Brothers. We ate spicy pumkin seeds, pork crackling with salsa verde, burritos and enchiladas, and drank some beautifully sour and salty margaritas. Staggered home.
Also recently I got this great book from Amazon, called French for Reading. In addition to this, I also got some great books from Amazon.fr - including french versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Old Man and the Sea, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician’s Nephew. I’m really set up now. So my French lessons have been really enjoyable so far. I haven’t studied French formally since school, but I am finding it really interesting. I’m doing it for the express purpose of being able to read books in French - just to load up on books written in another language and have a crack at it. Sometimes that approach can be good - a bit like how we approached Old Norse for my uni paper.
I’ve also been really busy lately with all the reviews, etc. I’ve been writing for NZGamer. I think I’ve written eight reviews/columns in the past three weeks. Considering the fact that you have to give the games a decent play before you review them, my spare time in the evenings after work’s been pretty non-existent. I’m enjoying it though. I’ve got another three due this Friday.
Work is still boring me to tears, and I’m wracking my brain trying to think of how I can change my situation. Everything else in life is going swimmingly, and it’s frustrating to feel like how I earn a crust is beyond my control. Sure, it gives me the opportunity to do things like the art clay course, and to go out and buy fishtank stuff, etc. etc. etc., but at the same time I feel like I’m not being true to who I am with this job. Like I’m faking it. And it’s not even enjoyable to pretend to fake it anymore. I read about people who are librarians, teachers, doctors, accountants, journalists, or who serve in the armed forces. They’re such cut and dry sort of jobs, jobs that require a definite decision. I just don’t know how I could do something like that. I’ve thought about teaching, but thinking about it and feeling a passion for teaching are two such completely different things. I know I’m piddling around, wasting time. I need to set myself on some sort of strict regimen of no booze and plenty of writing - but other things seem to creep in and distract me. Perhaps I’m just too easily distracted. Sometimes I think things would be better if I wasn’t working, other times I think the structure is what I need to get out of bed and leave the house every day. I think Harvey Pekar said something similar about his file clerk job. You hate it, but at the same time it helps you out in ways you don’t want to acknowledge. It’s sort of like having to drink cod liver oil, I guess.
