The normal life (group email)

Well, here I am, settling in. It sneaks up on you and before you know it, you’re in a comfortable wee routine, making new friends and once again worrying about things like insurance, rent and doing the dishes. Oh, and what’s going to happy next in Shortland Street and Grey’s Anatomy. The excitement of today was getting Sky TV installed – no more trying to distinguish between Joey and Chandler through a haze of static.

I lie, there WAS more excitement to today – I went and had an afternoon skiing on the ‘dark side’. Mount Ruapehu runs two skifields (same company): Whakapapa (my side, pronounced ‘fukapapa’) and Turoa (the ‘dark side’). They’re about an hour’s drive from each other and very different. They have different weather, different atmospheres, different styles of runs etc. So it was definitely interesting to take my season rental skis round their to suss it out on a day off.

The job’s going well. It’s still just about varied enough to keep me interested. Yes, there’re the usual politics that come with any company, but the Customer Services team is brilliant. My manager, Jane, ranks in my top 3 All Time Best Bosses (alongside Christie Assembly and Dave SAC) and my supervisor, Mairi, is an inspiration too. As anyone in a job will know, good management makes a world of difference. As a team we’re also settling in around each other and functioning pretty well.

I’ll be here until the end of October when I head up to Auckland to see Crowded House (woohoo!). After that, who knows?! In the meantime, I plan to save money, ski and enjoy a bit of the normal life. I’m also still taking the opportunity to catch up with people when possible. Roz and Frank came down for a visit a few weeks ago and last week I met up with Lincoln, one of the kiwi boys we hooked up with in Laos for a while. He trounced me at mini golf, we walked, we talked. It’s just so nice to see people again and some different faces.

I’ve been thinking of home a lot too. I missed my sister’s graduation, and thoughtful friends (thank you Sean and Linds) have sent me postcards of home. I miss you all and love hearing your news – even wee messages on facebook or bebo or snippets of emails are so important to me. Thank you everyone! I’m not homesick, just thinking of home and smiling.