What has been lost.

May 27, 2011January 28, 2013 / Lisa / 2 Comments

I have just finished watching 5 Days In The Red Zone which aired on TV One last night.

It follows a group of police that travelled from Ashburton to Christchurch to help after the February 22 earthquake.

It was so intense to watch, I was actually crying. I would like to tell all of you to watch it to see what it has been like down there, but I know I can’t force you. It is on TVNZ OnDemand if you wish to.

I’m not really sure what this blog post is actually going to be about. But watching In The Red Zone started to remind me of my Granddad.

He passed away on February 19. It came as a major shock to me and I still have moments where I just have to stop and cry. I think it was made all the more worse by the quake three days later. I now think the memories of the two events will always be linked in my mind.

One day I hear that my Granddad, a solid rock my entire life, is no longer with us. Then three days later I see a city I once lived in and love destroyed. Within three days I had lost two very important things in my life and was going through that agonizing wait again to find out whether friends and family were alright.

But back to Granddad. Since February I have wanted to do a post on him, letting you all know how much he meant to me and tell you about the things that I remember most about him.

Granddad served in the army during WW2 and was stationed in Christchurch. His barracks were on Manchester St opposite Cokers Hotel. Pac’n’Sav is now there and I believe Cokers was lost in the September quake.

The reason the two will be forever linked for me, is because I am actually glad Granddad never got to see the devastation that Christchurch has witnessed. It breaks my heart to see a city that I love fall to pieces and I hate to think what Granddad would have thought.

I also can’t imagine what people in Christchurch are going through when I’m feeling like this. It must be 10 times worse.

I really want to be in Christchurch right now. To see my sister and friends and give them all a big hug.

Once again I have gone off on a tangent.

As kids, my sister and I spent a lot of time at my grandparents place and with them. They are my paternal grandparents and we were closer to them than my maternal ones who both died when I was younger.

We were quite lucky to have known and had the type of relationship we had with our Granddad, it was almost one as a second father.

Whenever Mum and Dad would go away for a weekend, we would stay with Gran and Granddad. My sister and I used to fight over the cheese bowl that Granddad grated the cheese in for our scrambled eggs, we used to actually alternate, just to be fair.

When we asked what was for dessert that night, Granddad would reply “W and S”, which was short for wait and see and in the Rapley household it meant custard. So naturally we would chorus “Oh no, not custard!”

Granddad would take us down to Cornwall park and lift us up on to the concrete lions that are there, push us on the swings and help us feed the ducks.

I have so many treasured memories of my grandfather. He was always proud of me and he insisted that he see me graduate from university, which he did. My grandparents travelled to Christchurch to see me graduate from the University of Canterbury, both had huge smiles on their faces.

Part of me is sad that Granddad will never see me succeed in my dreams of becoming a journalist, but he was always keen to read anything that I had written. He was so proud to see my name in print.

I remember when he came down to Christchurch one time, whether it was for my sister’s graduation or not, I can’t remember. But he insisted on going to visit Cokers. All of our friends were laughing at him because he kept saying he wanted to go to Manchester St, which is the red light district of Christchurch, most were wondering why this old man wanted to go there. But Dad took him down there, they had a photo outside and a drink in the pub. The smile he had on his face afterwards was amazing.

And that is how I’m going to remember him.

I wish I could post the photo of him outside Cokers, or even any photo of him, but my laptop is currently unable to be used (see previous post), I may update with a photo once it is back up and running.

I miss my granddad and just watching that documentary made me think about him and Christchurch and what has been lost this year.

Hopefully the rest of the year will be better for us all.

My poor laptop and other things…

May 26, 2011January 28, 2013 / Lisa

I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that I had a job interview this week. I am yet to hear anything about it though. So I continue to wait.

I hate the waiting. The waiting is always the most painful part. You’re stuck in limbo. Do you do more job applications or do you wait? Because if you do more job applications you then have to tell them, “Oh sorry, I got offered another job”. I always feel they will ask, “Well, why did you bother applying?”

I know, it’s lame, but that’s just how my mind works.

The bad news is that my laptop kind of shat itself. And by laptop I mean the power supply, which in turn means laptop because my battery only lasts about 30 minutes these days. Utter fail.

So I am without a laptop. The only way am managing to write this is because of Man Piece’s Mac Mini which is hooked up to the TEEVEE. Kind of awesome.

Alas that means there probably won’t be too many job applications going on over today and tomorrow. I did manage to copy my CVs over to the mac mini before laptop died so I may be able to do some. I just don’t have word or the equivalent on mac to write cover letters. I guess I could always write them in the body of an email. Awkward.

But hopefully a new power supply is on it’s way. Dad has a universal one lying around his workshop, he said it should do the trick. If it doesn’t then I probably do need to source another one from somewhere and who knows how long that will take. Oh well. For now the mac mini is working well.

It does make me consider just buying a whole new laptop. It has not been having the best year, or more just the last 12 months. Saying year I feel implies 2011, but the troubles began sometime last year. Poor lappy. It will be three years old in August.

So that was the good news and the bad news. I just keep trucking. Doing whatever I please because I don’t have a job. But at the same time, I can’t do whatever I please because I have no money and no benefit coming in. I really should do something about that…

Anyway, supposed to be going out for drinks tonight so I should probably extricate myself from the snuggliness of the couch and go shower. Because I’m one of those lame people who doesn’t shower till mid afternoon. It’s a #lifeoftheunemployed, what you gonna do about it?

Oh, and it’s raining and I should not be allowed to make fudge ever again. And by fudge I mean delicious chocolate, peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk all mixed together, chilled and cut into tiny addictive pieces.

Weird dreams and domestic goddess win.

May 23, 2011January 28, 2013 / Lisa / 1 Comment

Oh hai!

I have been mysteriously absent.

I did not mean to be, but I’m hoping now that I am set up in Wellington that there will be more regular blog posts. And hopefully I will start to meet my goal of a blog a day again. I guess I just needed a break after everything that has happened this year.

I hope to try and catch up on a few blog posts. I have an idea for a few ranty thoughts or just general thoughts that I think you’ll all find interesting, or I at least hope you would.

Today’s post though, is about my dream last night and my new status as domestic goddess.

In my dream last night, I essentially spazzed out. I completely broke and started yelling at everyone around me. The funny thing was that everyone around me was the Glee cast.

Yeah.

There was also this bit that after I had spazzed, I was driving around trying to find a Mitre 10 or The Warehouse and I could see Mitre 10, but I couldn’t seem to find the road that got me to Mitre 10, so I ended up settling for going to The Warehouse for what I needed.

But it was kind of the same thing, I struggled to find the entrance. I found it eventually and got lost in the store. But then my parents turned up trying to convince me to leave or helping me find what I needed, which was a set of plastic draws. I honestly don’t know.

I found a set that was adequate for what I wanted. Which was to just pack up a whole heap of school notes etc. and went to buy it, but struggled to find the checkout.

In trying to find the checkout, Man Piece popped up, but I kind of ignored him and carried on with what I was doing and he just started following me.

Once I got there I found I had forgotten my wallet, so I put the draws down and left to go find my car and get my wallet. But in the process Mum and Dad offered to pay and so did Man Piece.

But I was already gone, trying to find my car, which I couldn’t find. I had forgotten where I parked it.

Which is when I broke down in tears and Man Piece came to comfort me.

So yeah, weird dream was weird. I can see some parallels to my life currently popping up, but I would actually like to know what it all means. And why I keep having bat shit crazy dreams.

After I had gotten over that, I became the #geekflat domestic goddess. I made pumpkin, kumera and peanut soup and fudge. I didn’t get around to making brownies because the soup actually took a long time. Totally worth it though. Man Piece and I ate it with some artisan par-baked bread which I had finished off in the oven. So delicious. And there’s left overs for lunches and possibly another meal. Win.

In other news, I also have a job interview tomorrow. I’m not saying too much now, but I will keep you all posted with developments.

Today has been a day of winning for me. I like these days. They make me feel so much better in myself.
Except I did cut my finger on the sweetened condensed milk can while I was scraping the leftover stuff on the side to eat. That was a bit of a fail. Now my finger hurts and I can’t bend it.

Oh well. We move on.

It’s all about change.

May 16, 2011January 28, 2013 / Lisa / 1 Comment

I decided to start going through some of my journalism school stuff.

Partly because I really needed to find my shorthand book to brush up on it, but also because it’s been sitting there since the end of 2009 waiting for me to do something about it.

There’s not much that would benefit me now from the notes that I’ve kept, because I’ve been out doing the job. But there are things that I’ve decided to keep just in case I do need to brush up on some stuff.

For example, I haven’t done any court reporting since I was in the course. I’ve now found my notes and if I do finally get a job and end up doing some court reporting (because that would be awesome. I love sitting in court) I can just refresh, type thing.

When I came upon my court notes I actually had a thought of going and sitting in the District Court for a few days. I wouldn’t necessarily write anything for publication, but it could be a worthwhile exercise to brush up those skills.

I also fancy going and sitting in Parliament. Now that I probably could write about.

In going through all my notes I came upon the realisation that I missed out on a lot because of my depression. I passed the course and I did well. I had nothing but positive feedback from my tutors. But it was a lot of little things. I didn’t put 100 per cent effort into things because, for me, I just couldn’t. I kind of regret that now. Not getting the help I needed when I first needed it, but waiting till I was in the most stressful year of my life. Even then, I didn’t receive the proper help or the necessary time to essentially heal.

I did the course, I passed the course, but I floated through it like a ghost. And I’m starting to think that that is my downfall in getting a job.

Maybe I just wasn’t dedicated enough, or put in enough effort. But the fact is that I loved it. The course and the people helped me through. I need to write to feel sane. When I’m on my meds and I’m working at something I love, I feel normal. Currently, I don’t feel so normal. I feel like I’m floating through life, with no real purpose. Not doing anything significant.

I had all these plans after high school. I was going to get out of Hastings and out of New Zealand and never come back. But here I am, living with my parents again and haven’t set foot offshore since I was 12 years old.

It’s all about to change. I’m essentially moving to Wellington on Wednesday, with possible plans to move to Australia at the start of next year. But to do this I need a job. I want a job where I get to write, where I get to do something I love and do something that makes me feel normal. I just don’t know how to get that. I don’t know why people don’t want to hire me and I don’t know how to get the job that I want. I’ve started losing hope in ever finding a job in the journalism industry even though that’s the thing I want most in this world.

This post has deteriorated a bit. I guess that’s what happens when I don’t blog in awhile. Or just get writing. The words just end up writing themselves. They flow. I am the master of the written rant.