This week I learned one of my dear friends back in Palmerston North passed away with Breast Cancer.
"Rest in Peace now Gill. You fought a tough battle and are an inspiration to all of us. You had the strength and humour to go on in the face of adversity and to prove them all wrong. I admire you so much for that. I will always remember our lunches and the stories we shared. I will also always treasure the beautiful flowers you picked for me from your garden. I miss you already dear friend but thank you for being a part of my life's journey."
With much love always
Angela xx
Friday, August 15, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Netball ANZ Shield Match – Hyundai vs SMOGA
Well this weekend has been one of big sporting games. Hey didn’t the All Blacks do well on Saturday night?!! Yay it looks like they have some of the old fight back in them. I was personally very glad to see them kicking for territory and playing the game in the Aussies half. Well at least if the ball is up there then the Aussies can’t score right? Good on Woodcock for 2 spectacular tries.
Adam and I both had netball on Saturday. This week though was the one of the big televised ANZ Shield match for us girls. After last weeks experience of reffing on the TV I was surprisingly calm. I think it was because I had seen that the TV does not capture everything and that you can’t hear all that is said!! Mind you I did spend an hour in the morning trying to teach my friend to drive a manual car, yes our car! She did pretty well actually along with a few laughs and scenarios of waving people past each time she conked out! Luckily we were driving in circles around her back yard and not out on the road. My nerves survived!
We arrived at the courts in plenty of time as the B team was playing the match beforehand. A number of the girls had not slept the night before, 2 had been out (!!!) and the rest were extremely nervous. Our goal keeper was shaking like a leaf as I was trying to tape up her fingers. I suggested a shot of whisky – but all she had was a Vailima beer. We did wonder if she should dash off and drink it but thought the better of that! We all had on our “winning” shoes or toe nail polish etc and were fired up and ready to go. Before the match both teams were announced onto the court (just like the Silver Ferns). It was all very official and nerve wracking (yes my nerves had kicked in by this stage!)
The match began for us with a pretty bad start. It took us at least the 1st quarter to calm down and slot into our groove or get our mojo back as one of the girls says! It then went on to be a hard, hard game. We all played as well as we could but were just not good enough on the day. It was about 30 degrees which for me is so out of the ordinary. I am used to playing in under 10 degrees and wanting to run around to warm up! In this game however I was getting the dehydrated goose bumps even in the first quarter. At each quarter break I was drinking icotonic drinks and putting ice on my kneck while standing outside looking for a breeze with the other palagis in my team.
We did some good stuff and we did some bad stuff! Mind you the other team made their fair share of mistakes too. Our biggest problem though was that we have lost our best shooter, she has done something bad to her calf muscle and can’t walk, and our fill in had to go off with a strained side. Our centre tweaked her dodgey knee and then got dealt to by her partner just to finish it off a bit more! Our shots were therefore not dropping when we needed them to and all the hard work from the defence and the mid court to get the ball up to the circle was going un-converted. I got bashed about a bit by the 2 WDs I had but at least I’m still standing! What a bunch of injured old farts!
Our second quarter was our best. We pulled our score up a lot but by half time people were wanting a rest and we swapped the team around which we can now see was our biggest mistake. By the last quarter we had our Centre (with the dodgey knee) shooting and the rest of us doing the best we could. We managed to keep them at 6 goals each though. In the end a very high scoring and fast game. We lost 55 – 30 but were pleased with our efforts and with managing to score 30 goals against a good side.
The boys did much better. After losing by 20 goals last week they were keen for a win and managed that so good on them. Adam either celebrated, or drowned his sorrows for our loss, a bit hard so is suffering today! Our B side has also won all their games so far so are looking good. It’s just us that need to sort ourselves out. Want a bet we will be on to it by the last game of the season!
Anyway it’s Sunday today. Adam and I came up to the library at 12.00pm so that we could watch the game on TV. This is where we get the best signal. It’s very hot today so have got all the fans going full bore in the library. Watching the game was good, I have managed to make many notes for things for us to work on (yes me and my lists!!) I opened up the library at 2.00pm and so far have had hardly anyone in. Some of the students who live on campus have been in to check their email etc and that’s about it. I have had 2 boys studying but I don’t even think they are USP students!
We have managed to get the panels up on the walls so I’ve uploaded some photos to Flickr. Just hoping they stay up now in an earthquake! We had yet another power cut during the week and also had no water on a few days as apparently the tank was running low. Even though we have had heaps of heavy rain it has been pretty fine in the last 2 weeks so I suppose things are drying up. Not too good when you can’t flush the loo or wash your hands though. I’m pleased to say it’s come back on now and it rained last night so hopefully that has helped the situation.
Off home in 20 minutes. Might watch Hairspray on DVD tonight as kindly sent over by Latika along with the Swifts vs Magic netball game and some chocolate!! We are planning a BBQ for the netball club one night soon to watch the netball and relax. Next weekend is a long weekend as Monday is a public holiday for Fathers Day (yes I know!) Wouldn’t we all like to be able to have a day off and close the library for Fathers Day?! After netball we are planning a trip over to Lalomanu beach and might go and stay on Namu’a Island in one of the 8 fales there. Apparently it is close enough we could paddle our kayak across and the snorkeling is good so look forward to having some other news to tell you next week!
Adam and I both had netball on Saturday. This week though was the one of the big televised ANZ Shield match for us girls. After last weeks experience of reffing on the TV I was surprisingly calm. I think it was because I had seen that the TV does not capture everything and that you can’t hear all that is said!! Mind you I did spend an hour in the morning trying to teach my friend to drive a manual car, yes our car! She did pretty well actually along with a few laughs and scenarios of waving people past each time she conked out! Luckily we were driving in circles around her back yard and not out on the road. My nerves survived!
We arrived at the courts in plenty of time as the B team was playing the match beforehand. A number of the girls had not slept the night before, 2 had been out (!!!) and the rest were extremely nervous. Our goal keeper was shaking like a leaf as I was trying to tape up her fingers. I suggested a shot of whisky – but all she had was a Vailima beer. We did wonder if she should dash off and drink it but thought the better of that! We all had on our “winning” shoes or toe nail polish etc and were fired up and ready to go. Before the match both teams were announced onto the court (just like the Silver Ferns). It was all very official and nerve wracking (yes my nerves had kicked in by this stage!)
The match began for us with a pretty bad start. It took us at least the 1st quarter to calm down and slot into our groove or get our mojo back as one of the girls says! It then went on to be a hard, hard game. We all played as well as we could but were just not good enough on the day. It was about 30 degrees which for me is so out of the ordinary. I am used to playing in under 10 degrees and wanting to run around to warm up! In this game however I was getting the dehydrated goose bumps even in the first quarter. At each quarter break I was drinking icotonic drinks and putting ice on my kneck while standing outside looking for a breeze with the other palagis in my team.
We did some good stuff and we did some bad stuff! Mind you the other team made their fair share of mistakes too. Our biggest problem though was that we have lost our best shooter, she has done something bad to her calf muscle and can’t walk, and our fill in had to go off with a strained side. Our centre tweaked her dodgey knee and then got dealt to by her partner just to finish it off a bit more! Our shots were therefore not dropping when we needed them to and all the hard work from the defence and the mid court to get the ball up to the circle was going un-converted. I got bashed about a bit by the 2 WDs I had but at least I’m still standing! What a bunch of injured old farts!
Our second quarter was our best. We pulled our score up a lot but by half time people were wanting a rest and we swapped the team around which we can now see was our biggest mistake. By the last quarter we had our Centre (with the dodgey knee) shooting and the rest of us doing the best we could. We managed to keep them at 6 goals each though. In the end a very high scoring and fast game. We lost 55 – 30 but were pleased with our efforts and with managing to score 30 goals against a good side.
The boys did much better. After losing by 20 goals last week they were keen for a win and managed that so good on them. Adam either celebrated, or drowned his sorrows for our loss, a bit hard so is suffering today! Our B side has also won all their games so far so are looking good. It’s just us that need to sort ourselves out. Want a bet we will be on to it by the last game of the season!
Anyway it’s Sunday today. Adam and I came up to the library at 12.00pm so that we could watch the game on TV. This is where we get the best signal. It’s very hot today so have got all the fans going full bore in the library. Watching the game was good, I have managed to make many notes for things for us to work on (yes me and my lists!!) I opened up the library at 2.00pm and so far have had hardly anyone in. Some of the students who live on campus have been in to check their email etc and that’s about it. I have had 2 boys studying but I don’t even think they are USP students!
We have managed to get the panels up on the walls so I’ve uploaded some photos to Flickr. Just hoping they stay up now in an earthquake! We had yet another power cut during the week and also had no water on a few days as apparently the tank was running low. Even though we have had heaps of heavy rain it has been pretty fine in the last 2 weeks so I suppose things are drying up. Not too good when you can’t flush the loo or wash your hands though. I’m pleased to say it’s come back on now and it rained last night so hopefully that has helped the situation.
Off home in 20 minutes. Might watch Hairspray on DVD tonight as kindly sent over by Latika along with the Swifts vs Magic netball game and some chocolate!! We are planning a BBQ for the netball club one night soon to watch the netball and relax. Next weekend is a long weekend as Monday is a public holiday for Fathers Day (yes I know!) Wouldn’t we all like to be able to have a day off and close the library for Fathers Day?! After netball we are planning a trip over to Lalomanu beach and might go and stay on Namu’a Island in one of the 8 fales there. Apparently it is close enough we could paddle our kayak across and the snorkeling is good so look forward to having some other news to tell you next week!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Samoan Drivers Licence
We have been here a couple of months now and all this time I have been driving illegally! It’s amazing what you get away with as a palagi. Anyway today I was starting work late so I decided it was about time I got a Samoan drivers licence. Adam already has his and so I knew to leave plenty of time and to take my NZ licence and WST$100 with me (in cash as there is no eftPos). As Adam had the car (and as I’m not meant to be driving anyway – yeah right!!) I walked up to the licencing place. The walk started off nicely. Lovely day, sun was shining and the sea sparkling but of course I forgot about the heat of the sun beating down. By the time I got to the top of the hill and to the licencing place I was hot and bothered and trying not to look sweaty!! Anyway I found there were at least 9 other people waiting……. Adam had warned me that things may take time so I joined the mob and waited too. The thing was it seemed to be the norm for people (the workers?) to come in and out of doors past us all without saying a word and to disappear behind a closed door never to be seen again. I had no idea what was going on but figured all I could do was wait. There was another man in the queue getting slowly more and more frustrated. He spoke to me in English so I asked him how long he had been waiting and he said 1 ½ hours!!! Just to get a licence!!! Well I figured it was now or never so I waited some more. While waiting I had to amuse myself somehow so I took to examining the jandalled feet of the others around me. They have all colours of jandalls here, sell them in the supermarket, and quiet a lot of people co-ordinate their jandall colour with what they are wearing. Interesting right? Well it sure is when you have nothing better to do than look at peoples feet! Eventually a guy came and sat himself down at the licencing office desk. The agitated man let himself in first and anyway I thought I would wait for the stampede to die down. It pays to be a white palagi female though as it wasn’t long before I was ushered to the front of the queue and told to take a seat in the air conditioned office. When I finally got served the Samoan behind the desk was talking to me about living in Wellington and the Cake Tin! Oh he also thought the train service was pretty good. Eventually he finished filling out the application forms (they seem to do these things for you here) and he remembered doing Adams licence so he looked him up and copied the address etc. I was then sent through to IT to have my licence created. Only a few minutes longer I’m pleased to say and my photo was taken, I signed an electronic pad and a plastic card was produced from a very high tech space aged looking machine (well anything whizzy like that stands out over here). 1 hour all up. Well this is Samoa!!
Palagi Pants and Palagi Pace
Correct me if I’m wrong but am I the only person who wears knickers in this country?!!!!!!!!!! I ask this question as my washing line seems to be the only one with knickers hanging on it in nice neat rows!! I now have a complex about this so have taken to hiding the hanging up of my knickers in between long towels and sheets so that no one can see them!! Just a thought to ponder, is it only palagi’s who wear pants?
Also, I have discovered there is palagi and then there is samoan pace for doing things. Samoan pace is s..l..o..w (you can’t rush things) and palagi pace (especially mine) goes 1,2,1,2,1,2. I recently had to send one of the library staff downtown to pick up some things which I needed before heading into a meeting. I had to instruct her to go at palagi pace otherwise I would have seen her 2 hours later!! No one walks around in a rush here and all tasks are done slowly and methodically (but done well ;-)) I will now understand the samoan people better when I see them in NZ.
Also, I have discovered there is palagi and then there is samoan pace for doing things. Samoan pace is s..l..o..w (you can’t rush things) and palagi pace (especially mine) goes 1,2,1,2,1,2. I recently had to send one of the library staff downtown to pick up some things which I needed before heading into a meeting. I had to instruct her to go at palagi pace otherwise I would have seen her 2 hours later!! No one walks around in a rush here and all tasks are done slowly and methodically (but done well ;-)) I will now understand the samoan people better when I see them in NZ.
Library News July 2008
On a work front the maintenance boys have been back in the library this time to replace all our mosquito screens on the windows. This is something I am very pleased about as I sit here at 6.45pm at night not having to slap myself and flick the bugs off my desk. I have been managing to get some action around here as you can see. I will have to stop spending the non-existent budget soon though although I have had fun ordering book display stands and other necessary library items that I don’t know how they have done without. Adam and I also created several panels for the walls which are plywood covered in samoan fabric. They are going to brighten the place up if and when we manage to find a way to hang them up on the very stubborn concrete walls. We have tried drilling and hammering but nothing will work. Hopefully the maintenance boys will solve this problem tomorrow and find something to hang the panels up with. Maybe this is why the walls have been blank for so many years ………. Note to self, curb weird and wonderful ideas in the future!
We have just started the Second Semester at work. Today has been relatively quiet. The students must be easing themselves into study again. Last Friday we had a staff meeting to talk about what we needed to remember to do when serving people. We also did some training on the library system Athena. Having read the manual (as you do – or as I do) I discovered things that could be done that were not being used. We therefore started with Circulation and went through each part of it to make sure everyone knew what was there. There is a nifty feature that allows us to search for any part of a patron record so you can search for a first name if need be. Quite surprising that the past system I looked after couldn’t do this even though it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars!! I have discovered that no one is using the reserves functionality so am looking to put this into place especially considering we have only 1 copy of most books. It’s contacting the students when the book is in that will be the difficult thing as we can’t phone mobile numbers from our phone lines and they don’t generally have a land line or a postal address. Email it will have to be and I think we might have to introduce the writing of names on a whiteboard like I’ve seen done in Whanganui. Next step – buy a whiteboard!!! There is also a booking feature but I’m saving that one up for later. It might be useful for putting bookings on DVD titles for lecturers. I discovered a barcode scanner in a drawer and plugged it in. Much to my surprise it worked – just like that – so hopefully that will cut down on the number of mistyped barcodes at the desk. We are going to have to enroll our patrons properly and put in more info about them than just their ID and name (which does not help with contacting them!) One of the other things that was news to the library staff was that you could put a message on a patrons name that could pop up at circulation. This is certainly going to help keep track of things if we put it into practice.
We are now closing at 7.00pm at nights. I wowed the campus manager with my spreadsheets and graphs of library usage in the evenings and convinced him that shutting an hour earlier was a good idea. As there are still just 2 of us covering the evenings and weekends this is a good thing. Hopefully this will mean that during study and exam time we only have to open til 8.00pm instead of 9.00pm which I personally found hard going. Soon we will have the place up to a standard I’m happy with (lol) and then we can begin to tackle new projects…….
Oh one thing I have to deal with here that I didn’t have to at home is sudden power outages!! Yes the power can go off without warning fairly regularly which then plunges us into darkness. The computers crash and the fans stop working so it fast gets hot. I have got a UPS plugged into the Library Server machine so at least that doesn’t have a hissy fit and we have time to shut it down normally. I also discovered another UPS in the cupboard (covered in dust and cobwebs I might add!) which I have plugged into my machine as it’s mighty annoying to lose what you are working on when the computer crashes. I’m the boss so no one else gets to be this lucky and have their own UPS!! I should put it out on the library counter really right? I’m just testing it to see if it’s working ;-)
We have just started the Second Semester at work. Today has been relatively quiet. The students must be easing themselves into study again. Last Friday we had a staff meeting to talk about what we needed to remember to do when serving people. We also did some training on the library system Athena. Having read the manual (as you do – or as I do) I discovered things that could be done that were not being used. We therefore started with Circulation and went through each part of it to make sure everyone knew what was there. There is a nifty feature that allows us to search for any part of a patron record so you can search for a first name if need be. Quite surprising that the past system I looked after couldn’t do this even though it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars!! I have discovered that no one is using the reserves functionality so am looking to put this into place especially considering we have only 1 copy of most books. It’s contacting the students when the book is in that will be the difficult thing as we can’t phone mobile numbers from our phone lines and they don’t generally have a land line or a postal address. Email it will have to be and I think we might have to introduce the writing of names on a whiteboard like I’ve seen done in Whanganui. Next step – buy a whiteboard!!! There is also a booking feature but I’m saving that one up for later. It might be useful for putting bookings on DVD titles for lecturers. I discovered a barcode scanner in a drawer and plugged it in. Much to my surprise it worked – just like that – so hopefully that will cut down on the number of mistyped barcodes at the desk. We are going to have to enroll our patrons properly and put in more info about them than just their ID and name (which does not help with contacting them!) One of the other things that was news to the library staff was that you could put a message on a patrons name that could pop up at circulation. This is certainly going to help keep track of things if we put it into practice.
We are now closing at 7.00pm at nights. I wowed the campus manager with my spreadsheets and graphs of library usage in the evenings and convinced him that shutting an hour earlier was a good idea. As there are still just 2 of us covering the evenings and weekends this is a good thing. Hopefully this will mean that during study and exam time we only have to open til 8.00pm instead of 9.00pm which I personally found hard going. Soon we will have the place up to a standard I’m happy with (lol) and then we can begin to tackle new projects…….
Oh one thing I have to deal with here that I didn’t have to at home is sudden power outages!! Yes the power can go off without warning fairly regularly which then plunges us into darkness. The computers crash and the fans stop working so it fast gets hot. I have got a UPS plugged into the Library Server machine so at least that doesn’t have a hissy fit and we have time to shut it down normally. I also discovered another UPS in the cupboard (covered in dust and cobwebs I might add!) which I have plugged into my machine as it’s mighty annoying to lose what you are working on when the computer crashes. I’m the boss so no one else gets to be this lucky and have their own UPS!! I should put it out on the library counter really right? I’m just testing it to see if it’s working ;-)
Netball, Netball, a bit of Mountain Biking a Party and all the rest ….
Just adding a post script to the post script below …. So did you see the bit about getting up to 40kms an hour!!!!!!!!!! Only the hard core break spokes by the way and what Adam doesn’t know is that I was hoping and preying (must have been in Samoa too long!) and muttering “Oh My God” under my breath as it was a pretty fast descent but I figured jamming on my breaks on a gravel road at this speed would probably not be a good thing. Thankfully I made it to the bottom with only broken spokes and no grazes to the knees!! Next time Mum I’ll go a little slower I promise.
Anyway Netball, Netball, Netball seems to be about all we are doing these days so apologies for the lack of white sand beach and blue sparkling water stories to tell. The netball season has now started and so we are at training twice a week and play on a Saturday. By the time we work around Adam’s game, my game and when I have to umpire there is not a lot of Saturday left. Speaking of umpiring, little white palagi legs starred on Samoan TV3 this week during the Shield match!! Think I did an OK job (still trying to upload a video to YouTube so watch this space. Most worrying of all is that this weekend we will be playing and I suspect we are going to get beaten. How embarrassing. Of course Sunday is spent catching up on the “house work” and preparing for the next week of work so we do little more than eat, sleep, work and play netball at the moment! Situation normal right?
Mind you this said we did manage a Pina Colada on our deck in the 29 degree heat as the sun set on Sunday afternoon this week. Even managed 40 winks in the lounger chair …………………. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Us old farts get worn out by the lifestyle mentioned above!! Now the highlight of the past weekend for Samoa was that Condoleezza Rice, the American Secretary of State, was visiting. She was here for…… wait for it ……. All of 3 hours! We know someone who works at Aggies at the airport who had been told to cut his hair as it didn’t look very traditional Samoan. This was just for Condoleezza’s visit. I hope she noticed. I saw on the news though that she did a bit of shopping while in NZ so good on her.
Adam has reminded me to mention that we have averted the Jack Daniels crisis!! Yes the 2 bottles we brought in duty free ran out and the bottle store (THE bottle store as in the only one in town) had run out too so it has been a dry week or so. Never fear though as we now have a 1.75lt bottle to keep us going until Latika and Hedley arrive in September (I’ve put in an order for some more!)
Well it was a bit of a weekend of losses wasn’t it? First the AB’s on our Friday night. Many jokes were made at the party we had at work on Friday night as to whether I’d still be talking to my Australian friend on Monday morning – she is actually not that interested in the rugby so I got off lightly there. Speaking of the party – it was a leaving do for 2 of the senior lecturers. The culture around contributing to these sorts of things has blown me away. A list came around where we could all “pledge” how much money we were going to give to the party fund. Not wanting to look miserable I dutifully followed the lead of the other senior staff who had gone before me on the list. This meant contributing WST$50.00. The party was held outside where tables and chairs were set up. A massive cake was delivered (chocolate mud cake – very delicious). There was Vailima beer provided and red wine neither of which I drink so I stuck to the soft drink. Lots of lovely food, chicken, pork, palusami, taro, breadfruit, salad etc all cooked in the umu. Anyway not wishing to outstay my welcome we left at about 7.00pm. Low and behold I get to work today and an email is sent out to all staff with a spreadsheet outlining what everyone contributed (yes we were named) and a breakdown of the budget that was spent. Of course this then erupted into an argument over who’s contributions were left off and how the totals were added up wrong and how the balance was “demanded” to be deposited into the Senior Staff Social Group fund immediately!!! Well firstly I was astounded that everyone now knows how much I contributed and secondly that there would be an argument over the totals!! I then actually found out that some of the “boys” were still there drinking at midnight (long after the guests of honor left) and that the extra money not accounted for had been spent on more beer and CIGARETTES for them!!! Well oh well next time we will have to get our money’s worth right?
Anyway back to the losses, so first the AB’s, then Adam and I both lost our netball games (very depressing), the NZ Women’s 7’s team lost to the Aussies in the qualifying tournament for next year’s world cup and the Magic lost to the Swifts so not a good weekend all round for sport. Actually we weren’t even sure if the rugby was going to be shown on the TV as they started a movie 45 minutes before the game was due to kick off but in true Samoan style, the movie was cut off in it’s prime just in time for the game! (It resumed after the rugby of course).
We have been up to the new and improved supermarket on the corner of our street to look for Tim Tams! 1 packet polished off now. Sad to say though they are not like at home. These ones were made in Indonesia. They are thin and small in comparison and of course the chocolate does not taste the same but hey some chocolate is better than none right? I miss the double chocolate coated ones in the blue packet. This supermarket will be very handy when I’m having a Tim Tam crisis in the future.
I’m trying to grow some Frangipani. According to my trusty friend Mr Google you cut a piece off an existing tree (the ones by work sufficed here) and then starve it for a week. When I broke bits off it leaked a sticky milky stuff which I wasn’t expecting. I had to swiftly find something in my bag to wrap them in, all the while trying not to look dodgy hanging around on the street corner and breaking bits off people’s trees! I put these bits of stick on the table on the deck for a week until they looked suitably shriveled up. They are now planted in yogurt pots with Samoan dirt and a bit of water. Well this is supposed to be the recipe so I’ll let you know how they get on. Hopefully lovely fragrant and beautifully coloured Frangipani next time you visit ;-)
Anyway Netball, Netball, Netball seems to be about all we are doing these days so apologies for the lack of white sand beach and blue sparkling water stories to tell. The netball season has now started and so we are at training twice a week and play on a Saturday. By the time we work around Adam’s game, my game and when I have to umpire there is not a lot of Saturday left. Speaking of umpiring, little white palagi legs starred on Samoan TV3 this week during the Shield match!! Think I did an OK job (still trying to upload a video to YouTube so watch this space. Most worrying of all is that this weekend we will be playing and I suspect we are going to get beaten. How embarrassing. Of course Sunday is spent catching up on the “house work” and preparing for the next week of work so we do little more than eat, sleep, work and play netball at the moment! Situation normal right?
Mind you this said we did manage a Pina Colada on our deck in the 29 degree heat as the sun set on Sunday afternoon this week. Even managed 40 winks in the lounger chair …………………. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Us old farts get worn out by the lifestyle mentioned above!! Now the highlight of the past weekend for Samoa was that Condoleezza Rice, the American Secretary of State, was visiting. She was here for…… wait for it ……. All of 3 hours! We know someone who works at Aggies at the airport who had been told to cut his hair as it didn’t look very traditional Samoan. This was just for Condoleezza’s visit. I hope she noticed. I saw on the news though that she did a bit of shopping while in NZ so good on her.
Adam has reminded me to mention that we have averted the Jack Daniels crisis!! Yes the 2 bottles we brought in duty free ran out and the bottle store (THE bottle store as in the only one in town) had run out too so it has been a dry week or so. Never fear though as we now have a 1.75lt bottle to keep us going until Latika and Hedley arrive in September (I’ve put in an order for some more!)
Well it was a bit of a weekend of losses wasn’t it? First the AB’s on our Friday night. Many jokes were made at the party we had at work on Friday night as to whether I’d still be talking to my Australian friend on Monday morning – she is actually not that interested in the rugby so I got off lightly there. Speaking of the party – it was a leaving do for 2 of the senior lecturers. The culture around contributing to these sorts of things has blown me away. A list came around where we could all “pledge” how much money we were going to give to the party fund. Not wanting to look miserable I dutifully followed the lead of the other senior staff who had gone before me on the list. This meant contributing WST$50.00. The party was held outside where tables and chairs were set up. A massive cake was delivered (chocolate mud cake – very delicious). There was Vailima beer provided and red wine neither of which I drink so I stuck to the soft drink. Lots of lovely food, chicken, pork, palusami, taro, breadfruit, salad etc all cooked in the umu. Anyway not wishing to outstay my welcome we left at about 7.00pm. Low and behold I get to work today and an email is sent out to all staff with a spreadsheet outlining what everyone contributed (yes we were named) and a breakdown of the budget that was spent. Of course this then erupted into an argument over who’s contributions were left off and how the totals were added up wrong and how the balance was “demanded” to be deposited into the Senior Staff Social Group fund immediately!!! Well firstly I was astounded that everyone now knows how much I contributed and secondly that there would be an argument over the totals!! I then actually found out that some of the “boys” were still there drinking at midnight (long after the guests of honor left) and that the extra money not accounted for had been spent on more beer and CIGARETTES for them!!! Well oh well next time we will have to get our money’s worth right?
Anyway back to the losses, so first the AB’s, then Adam and I both lost our netball games (very depressing), the NZ Women’s 7’s team lost to the Aussies in the qualifying tournament for next year’s world cup and the Magic lost to the Swifts so not a good weekend all round for sport. Actually we weren’t even sure if the rugby was going to be shown on the TV as they started a movie 45 minutes before the game was due to kick off but in true Samoan style, the movie was cut off in it’s prime just in time for the game! (It resumed after the rugby of course).
We have been up to the new and improved supermarket on the corner of our street to look for Tim Tams! 1 packet polished off now. Sad to say though they are not like at home. These ones were made in Indonesia. They are thin and small in comparison and of course the chocolate does not taste the same but hey some chocolate is better than none right? I miss the double chocolate coated ones in the blue packet. This supermarket will be very handy when I’m having a Tim Tam crisis in the future.
I’m trying to grow some Frangipani. According to my trusty friend Mr Google you cut a piece off an existing tree (the ones by work sufficed here) and then starve it for a week. When I broke bits off it leaked a sticky milky stuff which I wasn’t expecting. I had to swiftly find something in my bag to wrap them in, all the while trying not to look dodgy hanging around on the street corner and breaking bits off people’s trees! I put these bits of stick on the table on the deck for a week until they looked suitably shriveled up. They are now planted in yogurt pots with Samoan dirt and a bit of water. Well this is supposed to be the recipe so I’ll let you know how they get on. Hopefully lovely fragrant and beautifully coloured Frangipani next time you visit ;-)
Friday, July 25, 2008
Netball Shield Match Article
Hi All
Check out Flickr for a copy of a letter that was written to the editor of the paper here. Last weekend we started our outdoor Netball season. Apparently SMOGA are the current holders of a Shield therefore every time they play it's a Shield match. Shield matches are shown on TV3 here!!!!! Lots of exclamation marks as next weekend my team will be playing SMOGA (and yes we will be on TV!!!!!) Anyway just thought you might like to read about he fist-i-cuffs during the first game. Since the article I have heard that the GA got severely annoyed (obviously) with the GK who was mouthing off at her for the whole game and contacting. This was not controlled by the umpires (the umpires have a lot to answer for) so she eventually took matters into her own hands. Hopefully we will not end up in the paper after our game. Oh and I might even be having to umpire the Shield match this weekend so I will be sure to watch out for any contacting and mouthing off!!!!!!!!!!
Check out Flickr for a copy of a letter that was written to the editor of the paper here. Last weekend we started our outdoor Netball season. Apparently SMOGA are the current holders of a Shield therefore every time they play it's a Shield match. Shield matches are shown on TV3 here!!!!! Lots of exclamation marks as next weekend my team will be playing SMOGA (and yes we will be on TV!!!!!) Anyway just thought you might like to read about he fist-i-cuffs during the first game. Since the article I have heard that the GA got severely annoyed (obviously) with the GK who was mouthing off at her for the whole game and contacting. This was not controlled by the umpires (the umpires have a lot to answer for) so she eventually took matters into her own hands. Hopefully we will not end up in the paper after our game. Oh and I might even be having to umpire the Shield match this weekend so I will be sure to watch out for any contacting and mouthing off!!!!!!!!!!
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