Just to confuse things

Okay,

I am unsure why I was given this choice but it was presented to me and I have made my decision.

I'm not moving to Aro Cafe! I'm staying with the new owners of Malo (which from henceforce will be called 'The Recovery Room'). Lots of reasons came into it and it definately called for a pros and cons list in order to come to a decision but in the end money, time and comfort overruled. Its also a hell of a lot of fun to be quite closely involved with revamping a cafe.

Aro Cafe was still very tempting but the urge to make money, pay off my loan and save for travelling (hah! who am I kidding? Saving for travelling? I'll probably just buy more vinyl) overruled.

And plus I'll still have all my regular coffee drinkers around.

So all those planning to visit me at Aro .. don't! well .. actually, you should go to Aro as it's a really nice cafe and my friend Will is the chef and he's a bloody awesome chef/guy so go and say hi to him .. then come see me at the Recovery Room!

hmmm sounds like we're going to have a hell of a lot of drunken louts hanging about ... maybe its a little too close to Rehab Room. Hah now that could have been hilarious.

Moving on

Just for those of you who want to know, I am in my last three days of working at Malo. A change for 2006 - moving on from student to worker (ugh, the more I say it, the less I like it!) - so I'm moving cafes. Actually the sale of Malo forced me to look further afield but even with employment offers from the new owners, I'm venturing out from Newtown.

If you want to come and visit me next year, you'll find me at AroCafe instead. mmmm, yum coffee, organic milk, recycling left right and centre and divine food (as organic and GE free as poss).

What more could you want?

Think about it

"It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."



http://www.progressiveportal.org/resources/stickers.html?ref

The Best PROFESSIONAL Advice I Have Recieved

"If you can't write well, write shittily. The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts"

Wolcott, H. (2001). Writing up qualitative research. London: Sage Publications.

In other lucky news

Yesterday, one of my placements recieved funding for a music therapist within their Special Education Unit. I am very excited to say that they have offered me a job for 2006!

To be able to continue working with these young beautiful children is definately a blessing.

Camping with the Hookers (not the seals)

It was a cold and blustery evening. At approximately 6.00pm, Gitika and Rebecca make their way down to the Marion Street Post Shop. They set up base camp in the doorway of the shop, receiving continual stares from those passing by. Obviously they were oblivious to the excitement about to unfold in 15 hours from then.



During the next several hours as darkness crept in, visitors began to drop by.

First of all, Paddy the Irishman brought his mattress down to mark his place in line ...

Jess bought Hot Chocolate in a thermas ...



Marianna and Hugo bought Havana coffee and chai tea ... (Hugo isn't normally that small .. I just cut and pasted him in, just so you know)



Femke came to sleep over ...



But it wasn't until the wee small hours that the excitement really kicked in.

Here is a photo of us just after we had talked to a man/woman street worker (I mean no offence to someone if I use the wrong terminology) about a Johnny Farnham concert - we never figured out what the hell he was talking about. Those were the only two words we understood but she seemed satisfied with our conversation.



Significant points to remember:

12.35am Man in a company (an inter-island ferry company) van picks up a male street worker. IN A COMPANY CAR FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

12.55am Four girls in ball dresses and a guy in a suit jump (all about 14 years old) leap out of a car and get changed into 'going out' clothes, on the street. Marion Street. Could you possibly think of a worse place?

Finally Gitika realises she really should sleep and she climbs into Femke's car (Femke had been sleeping for awhile by now, inbetween the chairs).

Trevor (another irish man .. is that bizarre or what!) joins the queue after I spend 45 minutes on "my own" reading and speaking to the StreetWise people. He has an IPOD and kindly shares it with me. We listen to U2 (of course) mostly. It's nice to have some company and I don't feel so scared now with two males around. Okay Paddy has been sleeping since about 9.30pm so he wasn't going to be much help should we have had people decide to mug us :)

Eventually the sky lightens and more people start to join the queue. It's getting exciting now with people bustling about everywhere.



We are front of the queue when the doors open at 8am and to pass the time inside we look at the plan to decide what tickets we want. Having had our heart set on the $199, we were pleased to learn that the General Admission were centre field and only $99. So we went with them.

Gitz kindly takes us through the Five Minute Quiz.



The boys strike a pose out of boredom.



THEN ..

We counted down (hey it made it pretty exciting) and I was first there. I must thank Gitika for her amazing kindness in letting me go first. Long story short (too late many will say) .. I WAS THE ONLY ONE TO GET TICKETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I tried not to leap up and down and look too much like a moron in front of the other 40 people still lined up in the shop. There were A LOT of disappointed people here as I'm sure there are everywhere in NZ.

Unfortunately all my tickets are spoken for and I have no more that I can pass on to all the wonderful friends I want to come with me!

But guess what ...


SHITE!!!!!!!
I'M GOING TO U2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And i'm still so hyped I can't sleep. In fact .. I'm not that tired .. wonder when it will hit me.... 30 hours awake and still counting...

oh and just so you know, tickets on Trade Me average about $500 each.
Crazy.

The End