Rolling on through

Oh summer, where have you gone! December is always a bit of an iffy month…but part of me was still holding out for a beautiful sunny first week. Instead I am sitting behind my computer in Tauranga at 5pm wondering if we’re actually in Hamilton in the middle of winter.

Week one of work has so far gone quite smoothly. I’ve managed to remember how to file, how to do research, how to operate a PC computer (they’re of the devil I’m sure…), and I’ve learnt how to do invoices.

#winning

No, all jokes aside it looks like it’s going to be quite a cool job. I get great hours, good pay, and have time to learn all about different areas of the property market…which I am a bit obsessed with at times.

By the time this year ends I will have gone from having no job to having three quite good part time roles: admin/marketing, show home hostess (cheers dad), and Communications Consultant. Oh and don’t forget the cool title of ‘Youth Engagement Manager’ for YouthNet. All titles aside, pretty much I spend my day either talking to people about something I can do for them, or doing things for people that need to be done because they don’t want to do them. As for the youth one…the New Year should see that become more of a doing something and less of a ‘I’ve got a cool title and business cards!’.

Why have I gone from being all like ‘nooo, I want a life I don’t want to spend it working’, yet now have three jobs? Well, they’re all flexible which makes my heart sing and means I can actually exercise properly (I hope) but it’s also because I have grand plans for more travel come the end of the year.

When don’t I have grand plans?

I’ve managed to keep my pot plant alive thus far, my horse is so fat and has eaten so much grass she’s gone borderline mad, and the cat thinks life is better anywhere that I’m not…unless I’m feeding him. I don’t blame him. If I was a cat I’d spend all my days wandering around making friends.

Christmas is rolling around and I’m yet to even utter the words ‘Christmas shopping’, but I do have a plan for New Years celebrations and I’m hoping to get something of a in my two weeks off during office close down.

Then it’s off to Canada! Life never really does get boring!

So on that note I must leave with my pounding headache from a lack of sleep and too much coffee so I can see my fat horse and eat some food before I escape to church tonight for a ladies evening.

I will stop at some stage.

I think.

No promises though.

Shovelling therapy

I have found I am quite often happier on days I get up at 4am. I’m not quite sure how shovelling horse muck can improve ones mood for an entire day.

Actually, most people think I’m a bit mad, or that it’s a source of stress, but the days I start in the barn with the very fat birds chirping overhead and the radio playing softly in the background, doing the same routine each time I work there, I breathe a little better.

It’s not something I can do everyday because I do actually need sleep, and no matter how hard I try, it is impossible to get the amount I need when I don’t get inside my house until 6pm.

But this is how I think I can explain why everyone should give getting up before work to do something completely different a go.

I thrive off routine, though a spontaneous person, I must have consistency to function properly. The smallest inconsistencies can throw me completely off if they happen in every aspect of my life all at once, so I have learnt I must have one thing that remains the same – a constant to come back to, to refocus myself when it’s all spinning out of control.

I’m in my early 20’s, I have a long term relationship, I have a reasonably stressful job, I want to travel, I have hobbies, I flat, so I have many factors in my life that change on a daily basis or plans that develop each day for the future. Life’s just like that. Things happen and there are many things completely out of my control – like most other people.

Many of those things come with fairly high demands or expectations.

I am thinking all the time. Life doesn’t just stop and wait for me to process things. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and like the other day while on the phone to my mother, I have emotional breakdowns. Everyone has these in different ways – mine always tend to be in the most awkward of locations, such as a supermarket.

Some people bottle, some people just shut it out and the people along with it, others get angry, others cry, others just feel like shit.

Either way – people don’t cope all the time.

I do everything at high speed. Stories need to be finished yesterday, interviews need to be short and to the point, transcribing needs to be done in the most time concious manner, the horses need to be looked after and ridden before it gets dark or cold. Everything has to be planned and has to happen when it’s supposed to. I work in an office so there are people talking all the time, there is music, clatter, there is always fairly nerve jarring noise.

Plus, I’m not the kind of person who likes being in an office – it’s like being in a box, a noisy box, and with no fresh air all day, I go a little mad.

I’d say a lot of people who be in the same situation – demands, stress, talking, noise, questions, offices, inside, lack of sun light, lack of air, lack of movement. It just doesn’t stop.

Some people run, but I find I get complacent running and quite easily hit the snooze button if I’m tired.

When you’re working for someone, you actually have to turn up to work. So when that alarm goes off at 4am I have to get out of bed whether I like it or not.

Then, I spend 2.5 hours with little to no communication with anyone. Not a single person asks me a question, or to do something, there is little talking and little noise other than the birds and a quiet radio. Each horse has its own personality and most want a cuddle if you want a break. There is a strange barn cat who wants to be my friend, but doesn’t really know if it should be so tame. I do the same thing, get the wheelbarrow, muck out the poo, rake the bedding so it’s flat, change the water, put in fresh hay. I don’t have to think, I work at a methodical pace, there is no certain amount I have to achieve, I just achieve what I can in the time I’m there. I set my own pace and I work at that.

Suddenly, I feel like my whole world is under control and I’m not spiralling out of it at a rapid pace. Things aren’t falling apart. The world is there to be conquered, one task at a time. I can sleep, and it’s a deep sleep!

It is a refreshing break and it gives me to focus and a chance to step away from my ‘norm’ to stop caring so damn much.

I know waking up at 4am to go clean up after horses does not seem therapeutic to most, but it is exactly what I need. Actually, I think it is the one thing that has kept me sane these last few weeks. I even love my own horses just a bit more because they’re no longer a point of financial stress.

While it’s not for everyone, I would strongly suggesting if you’re stressed, can’t sleep, worried, short tempered, go and do something before work. No matter how tired you are, you might find it give you enough physical exhaustion to sleep better to relieve yourself of the mental exhaustion.

It is guaranteed me time where I can check out of life for a couple of hours.

Man I sound like a weirdo!

But I am so happy I have found something that gives me a bit more balance and a lot more courage to tackle my daily life.

P.s this song is an awesome pick me up if you’re feeling like the world is crushing you!

http://www.theedge.co.nz/Ezra-Vine—Braver-Than-Most/tabid/139/articleID/33390/Default.aspx

Real world master class

I realised this morning what the definition of living in the real world was. 

Real world: When one can cook a size 16 chicken, ride a horse, have a shower, look somewhat respectable, make lunch, prepare and turn on chicken soup in crock pot, make lunch, make breakfast, feed horse, get out the door in under an hour and a half… and still get to work on time.

Other than forgetting the banana in my smoothie making it so unbearable I had to go back and add it, and smoking the house out because I forgot avocado oil has a low smoke point, it was a pretty successful morning. Beautifully cooked chicken, probably the best one yet, a great lunch, even if it did have the unexpected addition of a snail, and a happy, much fatter and fitter horse. And I only had one chicken without a head moment, around the same time I was standing in the kitchen surrounded by smoke and a variety of ingredients and having no idea which meal each was meant to go in. I’m lucky I didn’t end up with a raw chicken smoothie and berry soup. 

This cold is rather persistent and how now moved from a runny nose to a splitting headache, that chicken soup better be good. 

I also realised today I have still not shaken my very ‘student’ approach to food. IT’S FREE I WANT IT! I don’t care how close it is to nearly off, it’s still edible, it’s going in my tummy. 

I am still finding it weird how one can spend an entire day inside. I have become one of those people who ask whoever walks in the door “what’s it like outside” as if I am somehow locked in a cell and unable to see the light. Sun, glorious sun. I yearn to sit under it in the middle of the day during the week. 

Sunday I spent all day just walking around in it. After tackling the house work (with three of us there all the time, it never looks done no matter how hard I try) and vacuuming the work car (a mission in itself), I was able to spend from midday till 4pm clipping my horse, simply lounging in the beautiful sun. This time of year is my favourite, when I’m at home. At 4.30pm, after managing to shower away all the horse hair I had accumulated on my body, I snuggled in bed for some much needed TLC. A good book, plenty of TV show catching up, and a hot cup of tea, with the afternoon sun streaming into a clean and cool room, with blankets piled up, perfection.

This was of course jumping out of a plane the day before. 

Never the less, I think I am getting a grasp on this ‘real world’ thing… with my own spin of course. Life would be far too boring if I wasn’t throwing myself out of things or jumping over them. I won’t start to worry about my sanity until I attempt to cook a chicken and skydive…

Over and out.

 

Off I go

I got my legs out today. No more jeans, no more tights, no more long pants! It is warm enough to just wear a dress! I’m somewhat thankful for the slow tan moisturizer or I think I might have blinded a few people, I think I still did. I even dipped my toes in the sea yesterday and wandered along the beach. There is nothing like the beaches in Papamoa, but it was still a beach. There was no way I was dipping anymore than my toes though. Winter still hasn’t quite bid us farewell yet.

The last day of my internship. Success. So far, I haven’t done too much wrong. Well, actually nothing I can think of that I’ve really done wrong at all. I even drove Seb in my car and didn’t crash, stall or kill him. I think that deserves a medal. Perhaps it is because it is the shortest internship yet, but that is a record (the not doing anything wrong thing. I haven’t killed anyone, ever. That I’m aware of). While I’m looking forward once again to getting back to my own bed and my own house, I miss this city more each time I leave. Not the traffic, not even the climate, or even the size, I just miss being in an office and being around good people. I like doing what I love, all day long. Even if the transcribing is painful.

I have found this week that I actually don’t operate so well on 5 hours of sleep each night. I have no idea why I don’t sleep in Auckland, I just don’t. It really is a city that doesn’t seem to sleep. Literally. So back to tech it is. Thankfully I’ve done my assignments on time, unfortunately the whole not doing anything wrong this week, doesn’t stretch into tech work.

Keeping on, keeping on.