Optimism Prime

Ok, so as I was a little down when writing my last blog, I thought I'd write this one now, as I'm quite happy....

Legs.

So how amazing are legs?? I've often thought I love the fact that I can walk. I'm so happy having legs. I love walking. Today I walked to the sea side at lyells bay to have breakfast with a stranger called Andy who I found through www.couchsurfing.org. It was a lovely hour and twenty minute walk in the drizzle to an overcast beach scene with choppy grey waters. Very refreshing. I looked a bit drowned rattish at the end of it, but I felt satisfied and happy that I'd made it to the wonderful little cafe on time. The cafe had the most amazing looking vegan cakes, which I had for breakfast pudding. I regret not taking a picture. Anyway, yeah, legs. My legs just have so much energy, it's great, I always forget how great it is using them. I'm living at the top of this, well, the middle of this hill, that's above another hill, so they're enjoying a daily mini hike. I have thighs again! It's all very exciting. I've been just running down the hills as its so much fun, and you get places more quickly!! Awesome. Because I just sort of let myself flop downhill people often turn, I think they might be worried that they're about to be attacked or something, but when they see a brightly colored girl running down hill in bright pink crocs I don't think they're quite so worried anymore. Actually running downhill in crocs is a bit painful, I've worn them right through, the right shoe has a hole in it. I'm still going to use them, they're great, I don't care what the haters say. I walked up the hill barefoot yesterday. It felt liberating, my toes loved it. The pavement was nice and warm even though it was raining. It was sort of like a foot massage.


Anarchists.

So, I didn't really know what an anarchist was before last Thursday. I had to look it up in the dictionary... Here's the dictionary.com definition:

an·ar·chy   [an-er-kee] Show IPA
noun
1.
a state of society without government or law.
2.
political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control: The death of the king was followed by a year of anarchy.
3.
a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.
4.
confusion; chaos; disorder: Intellectual and moral anarchy followed his loss of faith.

I think I'd always thought of anarchy as number four. But I've met some anarchists and stayed three nights at their house. They're all vegans and incredibly lovely people. They're very organized and don't appear to be confused any more than anyone else, (in fact they seem to have more of life worked out than most people I meet.) so they don't really apply to what I considered anarchists to be. Basically, they believe that people have the ability to function in a society without a government. Now as most people in a lot of countries are constantly dissatisfied with what their governments do, it does seem to make a little bit of sense to maybe just not bother, wasn't it like Belgium which managed fine without a government? And from the discussions I've had with the anarchists at their house, there is plenty of evidence of communities functioning perfectly well without having to follow rules enforced by the government. Plus, like a lot of people don't really follow ALL the rules set by governments anyway, I think maybe everyone's an anarchist at heart..(e.g. Driving over the speed limit? Recreational drugs? Feeding the pigeons in areas you're not supposed to? Etc.) This is something I will have to read into in more detail.
The community house where I stayed works really well, with a number of different people contributing in different ways, they have different societies which people are members of. This weekend I helped out with this organization called food not bombs. We basically take food which is being thrown out, even though it's perfectly usable still, cook it up and then hand it out for free in the street. It was good fun. It's the kind of thing that makes people happy, everyone's like 'wow! It's free?' I also intend to spend time at the anarchist house as I've become a member of the library there and they have a bike workshop where there's guys who can help you fix up a bike or buy one. I've found one I want to fix up, and I have big plans to paint rabbits on it. I borrowed a bike the other day to play my first game of bike polo, it was a little scary and I was worse than rubbish (kept putting my feet down, you're not supposed to) but I enjoyed it. We also all cycled off one evening to this sort of, I don't even now what it was, experimental music night..? Its the kind of situation that i have to not catch anyone's eye cos I know I'd burst out laughing. The artists take it very seriously. I think Neil and Ian would have loved it there. The weird scratchy music of instruments being played incorrectly on purpose did give me lots of ideas for stories though. Another fun experience.


Rabbits.

One Christmas time, I went a little bit mad, I was by myself and ended up thinking too much or something. I decided to write my thoughts down like this. Actually it was very similar to this, maybe it wasn't madness but just a need to express something, or maybe I'm still mad. Anyway! I typed up some stuff on the computer about things that made me happy, I think the first thing I mentioned was rabbits. Rory in fact. But, I don't know if I should worry about how much I think about rabbits... Why do I think about them so much? Why do I always end up talking to people about them. Even I'm aware of how weird it is but I can't stop it! It's verging on scary.
But let's face it. They are amazing. Insanely cute. The most mischievous and yet adorable personalities. Unbelievably pettable. And unequivocally the best animal on the planet.
I've been talking a lot about rabbits recently which is why I though I'd mention it, it still makes me happy, just talking about them. From now on, if I'm ever sad, I think I'll just try and think about rabbits and then everything will be ok.


Wellington life

I wasn't enjoying Wellington much at first, just the stress of finding accommodation and a job took the fun out of life a little bit. Especially after a six month long holiday. But as I get to know the area and meet more people it's getting better.
I met Alexis' cousin and his friend for a coffee which was lovely, they are both really nice arty types and helped me find a bank to set up an account as well as just being generally quite positive and funny characters. I became a sort of regular at a cafe where I went daily for breakfast, until I realized I didn't have the money to eat out so much. I keep seeing a guy who works there around so we have intermittent chats. I made friends with two guys who work at the donut and coffee place called jam nuts. I think I mentioned that in my last blog.
I've now found a house to live in with two kiwi guys who are really chilled out and friendly. It's nice to be able to unpack, and to wash my clothes. It made the job hunt a little more urgent, although I have signed up to a relief agency for early childhood education relief work, that wouldn't necessarily be daily work. I've got a job as a charity fundraiser now, but this is paid on commission which I've never done before and is probably not going to be the most stable of incomes. But it's better than a kick in the teeth! :-) plus I do like chatting to people, mind you I didn't get any sign ups on Friday, and I kept forgetting what the charity was called that I worked for. Good times. I took today off to have breakfast with Andy. I've got my priorities in order. I was worrying about life a bit last week, but then I looked at a sparrow and remembered that thing about God loving sparrows so of course He will love us and look after us.
And then today, I went for my enjoyable walk, that put me in a good mood. I passed st Jude's church, it was closed so I couldn't go in and say a prayer, but I think he's the saint of hopeless causes or cases or something, so I asked him for help with getting me a windmill (and maybe the vegan pub, cafe and bakery too...) it's worth a shot.



I'm still enjoying Genesis, they even had an album at the anarchists house. So good.

Wellington : my rude awakening

I arrived in NZ and naturally loved it. Had some wonderful holiday times being shown around Warworth by Alexis. Lovely beaches and trees, cakes and coffee, walks and baking, petting fat cats and being excited about living the dream.

One uncomfortable night bus to Wellington later( you're not in Malaysia anymore Mary), and I was in the city of my dreams, just a little lacking in sleep. Nevertheless, I dumped my stuff in a locker at the hostel I just booked into, (the downtown backpackers on Bunny street, which I obviously picked purely for the road name) and went to walkabout town. Found a nice little cafe to have toast and what not, and use the free Internet. Did window shopping, thought about buying lots of things, applied for a couple of jobs and enquired about accommodation at a few places. Bought a new sim card and contacted a few people, mostly Alexis' friends and family who are adopting me. And walked about a lot. I was quite content, felt very productive, and by the end of it, exhausted.

3 days later and I'm like, What the hell?! Why haven't I found a job yet or a place to live. A group of people actually rejected me for being vegan. How bloody narrow minded! I felt that I kept quite cool considering, I sent a txt back saying that I didn't know veganists existed and I would just pretend the real reason is because I was too young and beautiful to live with them... Which is no doubt true.

My six month holiday has come to a very abrupt end, in part because of me trying to be overly proactive. so I've decided to try and chill out a bit, you can't do everything at once. I went to the museum yesterday, which was excellent, very enjoyable, couldn't see it all, too much history, and as I may be here for a while I can go back and see the rest later. I really hate seeing those pictures of like how much of the country was forested before and after certain times. It really makes me want to cry. The Maori singing songs about the death of a species of bird was also really emotive. I just feel so guilty about what we're doing to the planet. I need to start earning money so I can plant some trees to make up for all my air miles.

I've met a few random people too, a guy called Tenison, who offered the room he had going to someone else before I even saw it! But we e mailed a bit, and then I invited myself to see him, so we chatted at his for a bit and people watched like in rear window. There are far too many people who 'watch tv' with the lights on, whilst on their computers. Pick one and switch the rest off people!!!! Argh. It's so frustrating feeling like you are the only person who cares about these things...

Before I met Tenison, I went over to this like hippy commune place I found whilst looking to couch surf somewhere. I really liked it!!! They had a 'knit and bitch' club going on when I arrived. Everyone looked very cute sat round the living room knitting with falafel on the table, I'm sure they weren't bitching at all. Hippies don't bitch... I met this guy called Tom, who'd invited me over, but he had to rush off to play bicycle polo! They fix bikes up there, have a veg patch and an art room. It's all very cool. There's like a set of ideals to read through as you arrive basically chatting about equality and rights and how the community there helps the community at large. I met three vegans, all in one room. Amazing. I felt guilty for all the non vegan cake I've been eating... But not guilty enough to forgo my donuts this morning. ( I've made friends with the guys who work at jam nuts, I owe it to them to eat their donuts, chocolate and custard this morning). Anyway, so I hope to stay at the hippy house (pretty sure they wouldn't appreciate me calling it that) from wed for a few days. I like meeting people who are passionate about stuff, I often think I'm Not serious about enough... I guess you don't want to be too serious about things, it'll prob just make you depressed. But it's also important not to hide from truths just because they're depressing or will in some way make your life more difficult. No one knows what life is about, but I don't think it's about having as an easy a time of it as possible. To show love to others often means putting yourself out. To do the right thing, is often so much harder than doing the wrong thing.

Wow. Ok I feel ready to be vegan again and to save the world single handedly.




I always feel just on the cusp of understanding, but never quite there. Story of my life.




Just had a little incident with the Internet, using all my ten dollars worth of megabytes in about two mins because I'm stupid, downloaded an album, I think Genesis was a good choice though... " and jesus he knows me, and he knows I'm right, I've been talking to Jesus all my life.... Well he's been telling me everything's gonna be alright."