The last week in July minus the weekend

The last few days have been pretty good weather here really - well, it hasn't been raining. On Thursday morning I walked to work - it took abuot 40 minutes. I walked along Ponsonby Rd for most of the way which runs along the top of a ridge. Then I went down a hill into this beautiful park that makes it feel like I'm not in a city at all with tree-ferns (punga) and big rees and windy paths through a valley. Then had to climb all these steps to get out! I popped out and had a beautiful view of the harbour and Auckland city with the sun reflecting off the skytower. Beautiful way to start the day.
Once I got to work I was flat out until we went to Mt Roskill School to introduce the program to 100 potential students. We will be choosing 10 out of those who apply. They had all been in NZ for less than 3 years. Good day.
Yesterday was a bit boring at work but got through it.
On my day off when I last wrote I ended up going for a massive walk (8kms) and going to the gym. Tried to join the library but needed something with my new address on it so couldn't. Might get it done next week. Anyway, busy putting things on Trademe to sell - like some old stuff of Dave's. It's fun playing with auctions.
In the middle of one right now in fact so gotta go....

Inspirational Women

Given that this is the first time I have used this, I think we can all assume that as time ghoes on my blog-spot will get snazzier - hopefully!

Just thought I'd let you all know about this incredible woman I met at work yesterday. She works at Univeristy of Auckland as a researcher as well as being busy as a guest speaker on Cultural safety - mainly in the medical profession. She used to lecture nurses as well as surgeons regarding cultural safety when treating patients from different cultures. She isn't even 40 and she has worked with so many different types of people - including in a methadone withdawal clinic for newborn babies! She's also teaching herself html and web coding and has a fantastic internet site which I will post up here when I get it from work incase any of you are interested in checking it out.

I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to expand my networks in Auckland so quickly and to be mixing with such successful, intelligent and creative women through the seminars we organise, the training as well as the awesome women that are mentors on the Future Leaders program that I work on.

Very inspiring stuff.

I am so sucked into getting some stuff on my blog that I have just made the executive decision to skip yoga this morning and go to the afternoon session. Also hoping to join the library today as I haven't had a book to read for ages - if anyone has read any recently that they wanna recommend, please email me and let me know.

10 minutes writing on "Cement"

Bleak gray wet dry sticky mushy soft.
Always wanted to carve my name in it as a kid.
Never did.
Lived in the country.

Cement sticks to shoes and cars, when builders are above.
And when it dries hard, it hurts when I fall wearing my shorts on the way to school.
Cement is grazed knees and bleeding elbows. Cement is what I saw when the other boys beat me up and left me in the alley - it looked red then but I know really it's grey. I heard once you can stain it though. Imagine hot pink or bright blue leading up the path to, um, someone famous, um, let me think, I know - leading up the path to the Prime Ministers house (just for a laugh).
Sometimes my heart feels like cement. Oh, I forgot to tell you, cement is heavy, very heavy. That's why only big, fat men and noisy machines are allowed to play with it because for little people, when they sink into it before it dries, will never get out again and will spend the rest of their life stuck in it just watching people walk around them hoping someone will stick a banana or a nut or even a crust in their mouth and they will be waiting for it to rain to wash of all the bird poo and get something to drink. Well, that's what Auntie Esther told me anyway - or was it Gertrude? I never know - they both have purple hair and stare a lot and when they smoke cigarettes, the smoke comes out their nostrils. My dad calls them Nostradamus and they don't know why and I don't even know what it means but I know it's funny but I know I shouldn't laugh out loud 'cos I know that might hurt their feelings. I know a lot really.
If the sky is a reflection, does that mean the blue is from the ocean and the grey clouds are from all the cement? Maybe that's what my cousin with the dreadlocks means when she tells me people are making the world polluted - which means dirty and smelly and poisonous. My other cousin told me that.

I know a lot really but I don't know how to make cement because it's different to plasticine.

10min Creative Writing Exercise on "Betrayal"

When he first rolled up atop a clattering old engine, unhushed and breathing oil, I smelt him before I saw him. Rusty petrol fumes and stale oil moulded to his overalls. The truck was covered in a reddish dust and caked on thick like cracked clay. As it rattled to a standstill, dust huffed around it - a cloud of orange puff on a still day, just sitting in the air. "It's choking the birds" I thought.
As he clambered down from his rig, I noticed his belt buckle glisten through the dusty haze. He stopped, stretched his back arching backwards, spat twice - once on the ground then on his sleeve - and rubbed the number plate clean. "Betrayal" it read, shining out across the entrance to the store - my store. "Julie's Veil".
We sold bits and bobs and everything a man'd need when passing through, been on the highway for days in a passing haze and getting crazy as the lazy belly hangs loose over his fly, sweat in his eyes and the rig groaning and grunting, shuddering like a stuck pig.
Not many pass through but when they do, they find what they're looking for - if you know what I mean. Not always the cleanest or leanest but I'll get their rig to glisten, and listen for a while, and smile. And may never see them again.
Some die on these roads, most live. I just am.
Am here.
Going nowhere slowly.