Posts by Amy Gale
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"come on, have yourself a look / I'm proud of my shop / almost everything is from overseas / you won't find a better selection"
is from A Thing Well Made, by The Mutton Birds. Which also has a euphonium solo, for an additional dose of awesome.
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come on, have yourself a look
I'm proud of my shop
almost everything is from overseas
you won't find a better selectionYou'd want someone who could pick out the cringe, the unease. Frizzell, perhaps, or Janice Gill.
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I will have my very own computer security expert travelling with me
Which reminds me, does your very own computer security expert have work lined up? I may know some people.
And also reminds me: Fulbrighters meeting in groups are often called upon to do Cultural Performances. Consider yourself warned. But fear not, for this last weekend I heard a report from a friend who had recently perpetrated what I consider a genius choice: Oma Rapeti (with actions, and audience participation). Awesome. I am totally doing that next time I'm asked for anything. Which may be never, admittedly.
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An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
Goodness knows how many can access mere Secret stuff and the rest.
To clarify, holding top-secret security clearance doesn't mean you have access to ANY top-secret information, much less ALL of it.
What it means is that if you need to know some piece of top-secret information, Them That Do The Checking have decided that you can be trusted with it.
That such a large number of people have been vetted to TS is fairly astonishing in a purely logistical sense (how many staff would you need?) and has privacy effects for them and their families, but it doesn't tell us anything at all about how many people actually have access to anything.
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Mums tend to like the Hedgehog book - I was recommended it by the mother-in-law of a friend's daughter.
Yes! I was given it by my mum too!
I'm inclined to suspect a conspiracy. I bet they all know each other. Because, honestly, doesn't it seem like every time you mention someone your mum is all "oh yes my friend went to kindy with her mother" or whatever?
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I've sometimes fantasised about being a in position to decree a meeting at 11pm - particularly to educate those who think a 7am "breakfast" meeting is somehow morally superior just because it happens to suit their body clock.
Lordy, I'm as useless at 11pm as at 7am. Possibly more useless. On the plus side, I have the luxury of working somewhere that doesn't demand either of those. Many people don't, which is weird when you get right down to it. Why wouldn't companies want to pay for the time when you're at your peak? Sure, sometimes meetings have to happen, but not every day, and not with every employee, and surely not necessarily at 7am.
I would, however, find a breakfast meeting at 7am to be significantly more tolerable if actual breakfast[*] were involved. Also if it were some kind of unavoidable one-off, as opposed to standard practice.
[*] Proper breakfast, mind. Not a paper cup of drip coffee and a muffin made of meh.
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Also: clothes-shopping is pretty cheap over here, if you need to supplement your stuff. It's also really quite boring.
QFT.
Don't despair too much, though. Interesting places can be found, eventually, though they may be interesting in ways that differ from your traditional favourites. (Will anyone sell you a pair of gigantic Wellington-style trousers? Not as far as I can tell.) You'll also always have trips home, plus a ready answer whenever anyone asks what you want for your birthday.
Oh, you know what else? Blundstones (assuming you like them). They are extremely convenient in winter when you are continually putting on and taking off shoes as you move between indoors and outdoors. It's not that they are unavailable here, but they are priced as a luxury fashion item rather than a pragmatic work choice.
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We laugh now, but at the time I was genuinely traumatized by the suggestion that I might not be able to make proper friends. That's no small thing to tell someone who's just left everyone they know on the other side of the planet.
It being high summer, I was also rather alarmed by the indication that Americans showered "every day". Only once? Ew.
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Wow, that's new since I arrived. I think we had America-is-Bad, This-is-Plagiarism? But it was the Clinton/internet bubble years, though, so maybe we just got the America-Fuck-Yeah! seminar. Amy, do you recall?
I didn't get any of those. Is this a Fulbright thing?
I did, however, get this super-awesome pamphlet from the international students' office.
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(And DO NOT MENTION packing of clothes. Or shoes. Or my inability to get down to a rational amount. It's a wee bit pathetic from someone who has to be forced to go clothes-shopping. Or, hang on, maybe it makes perfect sense; I'm trying to delay inevitable clothes-shopping. Either way, Air New Zealand's decision to suddenly remove half their baggage allowance is not being greeted with equaminity in my household.)
I must mention it, though, to give you useful advice and (I hope) reassurance.
1) Don't worry that you're not packing in July! I didn't really manage to pack until the week before I left.
2) Improve your volume-for-permitted-linear-dimension by packing in large cube-ish boxes rather than suitcases. (I used monitor boxes, but I suppose now those are all much flatter? There must be something, though.)
3) Baggage allowance, schmaggage allowance. Excess baggage fees are still cheaper than any other mechanism for moving large amounts of your stuff quickly to where you want it. Plus you may find that you are crying so hard when you check in that they waive the fees out of pity. Uh. I hear.
4) Things I am not sorry I packed: textbooks, kitchen/household gear, hiking boots (excellent in snow), little bits of memorabilia, medium-size bits of memorabilia (esp. art).
5) Things that mattered less than I thought: my nice NZ-suitable clothes - only weather-appropriate for 2 weeks in the fall and 2 in the spring, because the rest of the time it's either too cold or too hot. Computer - they are so much cheaper here anyway.
6) Somehow you will get packed. You probably know that already.