High above the Muscovite sky

...New shoes! Shoes that will probably limit the amount of chicken fat, coleslaw dressing and ice-cold water from making my life just a little more frustrating.

Sure anyone needed to know that. But seeing as that is possibly the highlight of the past seven days, it's probably worth making a deal out of it.

One of, maybe. Tonight I started a 'Russian for Travelers' class at a night school in town. Outside of practicing my name in the Cryllic script, I achieved a slight headache and the dire need to know why I was there at all! It was possibly the most random thing I could have chosen to do, why I couldn't have taken German or Art History Appreciation, or stayed at home and watched CSI: New York, but it is the first night, and the alphabet is obviously a little too confusing to get my head around on the first go, and I will get the hang of it. Or I cave and switch to German next Wednesday. But such is my 'thing' for Slavonic languages, it's a, er, start. Of something. It gets my brain doing something one night a week, which is the whole point, anyway.

And another thing I have to decide is whether I may need to move out, or move back home if I can't find a better job soon. I work full-time in the delicatessen in a suburban supermarket, it's not as if I'm making a lot of money, and it's not like I really want to be doing this permanently. I got turned down for the AgriQuality job in Upper Hutt today, and it's just yet another rejection. It is frustrating, but I just have to keep going. I like living where I am, but if it comes to moving back home, then I'll move back home. If Dad ends up going to East Timor this year, it may work out, to some degree. I don't want to 'wait and see', butI do want to hold out some hope that I'll get better work soon.

And meanwhile, things elsewhere are good; I emailed V. yesterday because I hadn't done so in months and that's almost shameful, and I am going to email E., because she's already emailed me twice from Korea, and I don't think I've talked to her in almost a year. B. is so kindly sending me Life on Mars, to add to my growing list of new television shows to watch and get into, only we seem to be cursed at getting disks that work. I am going to miss B. when he flies back home. Oh, and I have to remember to send various bits and pieces to K. and P. (sheepies, magnetic sheepies! The fantardery is spreading. Insert evil cackle here) this week, and something else to C. for the sugar cookies which I am rationing like anything (yum, oh, so yum!). Aaaaand S. shall be down from Dannevirke this week or so, and it'll be good to catch up again.

Lastly, the photo is Palmerston North from the patio this morning, taken (again) with my phone. Well, Palmerston North is down in there somewhere, the zoom wasn't so great. We live up behind the university, to the south-west of town, and to get a view like this is fantastic, it more or less sold me on the place. No idea if the lantern actually works, though.