Busytown: Sons for the Return Home
258 Responses
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James Butler, in reply to
I wasn't away from NZ long enough to have this problem, but I know my husband does in reverse, having been gone nearly a decade. He will visit his hometown in the USA and every year or two it's mutated irrevocably. People don't live where they used to, or they died, or that thing everyone did - no one does that thing any more.
Shit, I get that on my visits back to Wellington.
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Sacha, in reply to
How about a web site somewhere with hints and tips
The government's Settlement Support service offers some info - and I've seen stories about informal sites set up by people from particular places or industries (like South Africans or nurses).
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Thanks Sacha - again more intended for people immigrating rather than those of us moving back.
One useful thing is this I was looking for something with that curve in it to post above. Lisa was studying psych in the US and came across a different form of it at about the point where I crashed 9 months after we moved to the US - the versions I've seen before last 18 months rather than 2 years (and without all the silly F alliterations) - I think it's a great way to look at the process of moving anywhere new - that crash after the novelty wears off is a whole mess of homesickness - and when you're back on an even keel 18 months later you are "home"
(for us it was much easier moving back to NZ than moving away)
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Sacha, in reply to
more intended for people immigrating rather than those of us moving back
Doh. Quite. I guess beyond the tips and stories, a 'Resettlement Support' service could have handy tools like being able to choose the date you left and see the major changes (law, politics, places, cultures, etc) since then.
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it doesn't tell me up front what I really wanted to know at the time:
- how do I enroll the kids in school? answer: find a school, bowl on up and talk to the principle, no form filling required with the dept of education to explain where this child who's never been on their books before materialised from (take their passport with you) - you can choose any school, some schools may be zoned, mostly high schools
- how do I choose a doctor? answer: basically the same, choose one, show up, bring your passport - bring a passport if you ever go to casualty, you're accent may trigger much form filling otherwise (did this last week with my son who forgot his)
other stuff:
- don't forget to register to vote - it's election year
- hunt down your IRD number, you'll need it, eventually the kids will too, if you can't find it call them they'll get it for you
(don't forget to file taxes in both countries - because you're moving from one place to another chances are you'll get a refund in both places - the IRS has a bunch of useful rules that apply if you are leaving the country for more than a year)Jolisa - did you take out US citizenship? if not kiss your SS contributions goodbye, unless you move back for a few years when you retire
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We managed to get our garden equipment, and tent, in without much more than a 'man clean' by myself. In fact, customs was a lot less interested in our stuff then we thought they would be. If in doubt, give them a ring. I found them very helpful on the phone when I called them regarding my wife's 50 or so food essences!! You might be surprised about what you can bring in.
I often tell people I moved to London with a backpack and three tea chests and moved back with a wife and a whole shipping crate, and that the two are definitely related. Get a few quotes from different moving companies but expect to pay more once they have wrapped everything up. My wife brought a whole bunch of antique furniture which I thought was excessive at the time but has been great to have now. Once you reach a certain volume of stuff, the marginal cost of including even more is fairly small.
Whether you like Georgian furniture or Ikea, the range in NZ is a lot smaller and more expenisve than the UK (and the US probably), and it is also good to have stuff that remind you of your overseas adventure. Bring back those lamps.
And if you are moving to Auckland, prepare to be shocked re house prices.
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And a whole lot of better and more exciting galaxies to stare at down here too!!! With unpolluted, light free (nearly) skies!!
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Christopher Dempsey, in reply to
how do I enroll the kids in school? answer: find a school, bowl on up and talk to the principle
Yep, those principles are very handy when talking to the principal.
And a whole lot of better and more exciting galaxies to stare at down here too!!! With unpolluted, light free (nearly) skies!!
Wearing elected rep hat: Unfortunately light pollution hasn't really figured much in Council planning/capital works etc. I'm working on it though. Doffing hat.
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oh heh! sorry
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Jolisa, your posts often make me cry, and this was no exception! What a sweetly sad piece of writing.
I love the treehouse idea. I wonder if you could train a tree to be a house like these folk in India have trained trees to be bridges?
The disjuncture you describe between how familiar places look and how they exist in the mind is familiar to Christchurch people. I suppose our memories gradually get overwritten. I thought this was a poetic visualisation of change in a landscape: artfully merged images of Toronto past and present.
ETA:
Flying home from the successful job interview, the astrophysicist in the family says he felt as if he’d landed the biggest fish in the world.
I’m dying to ask if it’s Dancing With the Stars . But I’m resisting! ;-)
Congratulations, and welcome home! :-)
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Can I suggest that you make sure to make contact with as many friends as possible. You want an instant social life, it really softens the blow. Don't forget the PAS peeps!
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
Somehow, I don't think that'll be a problem......
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One thing that I've only just worked out is that my children have been little repositories of disease this year. In the last couple of years in South Australia, they had relatively little time off school, but this year back in New Zealand has been quite different - there has usually been at least one child home for at least one day every second week. I think it may be something to do with reacclimatising to the NZ germ pool. I'm hoping that by next year they will have developed some resistance to the local bugs.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
And a whole lot of better and more exciting galaxies to stare at down here too!!! With unpolluted, light free (nearly) skies!!
Bah!
While we were in Arizona, each evening I'd set up the scope and look at something - often Jupiter and her/his moons. In auckland I tried to do that and really our skies aren't too light polluted ... but the clouds :( I hadn't remembered how many days it is cloudy, even thin wispy stuff ruins an evening of gazing :(.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
I wonder if you could train a tree to be a house
One of the things I like to joke about when asked what I want to do is "I want to plant a seed and grow a house" ... only I'm not joking, I really want to see that done someday and know I had a part in that. Of course making it a home such as the one Jolisa is leaving is a much more complicated task.
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Sacha, in reply to
a GM house...
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
integumental shellter...
“I want to plant a seed and grow a house” … only I’m not joking, I really want to see that done someday and know I had a part in that.
...with convolvulus for cabling,
hedges for proximity alarms
and lilyponds for solar power...
I wanna see that done, too... -
Ross Mason, in reply to
Of course.......Auckland. I forgot. ;-)
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James Butler, in reply to
I wonder if you could train a tree to be a house
Our wisteria is doing its best to make a sunroom of our deck, so there's a start.
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recordari, in reply to
I wonder if you could train a tree to be a house
I think you'd have more luck training a house to be a tree. No, I'm not kidding either.
But oh the humble tree house. Monkey Mansion is my favourite. Only $10,450! Or there's this.
The problem with growing a house would surely be the wait? Especially if you wanted one with hardwood floors.
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Sacha, in reply to
The problem with growing a house would surely be the wait?
hence the GM. or some smart nanotech might help
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recordari, in reply to
smart nanotech might help
They could call them Entwood houses.
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Rich Lock, in reply to
I want to plant a seed and grow a house
A Yew Topiarian vision.
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Jolisa, I too found your writing wonderful and very familiar. I constantly think about returning to NZ, possibly for the wrong reasons, and you have named and identified many of the things that both trouble and excite me albeit with so much more clarity. Although I've been away nine years, it has been in Australia, a far more familiar place, I suspect, than New Haven. Still, when last in Auckland, the place I spent my first 19 years, I felt very dislocated.
A Yew Topiarian vision.
Genius.
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Ross Mason, in reply to
That copse the lot.
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