Silence

I've met some interesting people over the last week. I went to my first tweetup, a meetup organized via twitter. The only other person I knew who was going to be there had to pull out, so I was essentially meeting complete strangers, heh. They were cool though, they had interesting jobs, one a microsoft employee for the last 10 years, another working at the company who has just won the contract to lay Christchurch's ultra fast fibre network. My twitter list has grown at an alarming rate, but the difference between it and say facebook or msn is that these are real, local, tangible people, that I can physically go and hang out with, have a meal with, get to know. It's... it's exiting to have a reason, or desire, to leave the house again.

Last Saturday I went to the Frompsons' and met another couple of tweeps. We played Scene It, which worked pretty well, but the film clips they kept showing us were of lame movies or movies we didn't know wtf was going on. On Sunday I came down with the manflu though, so I've spent a lot of the last couple of days in bed.

There was a news story today about how geoscientists are predicting a 23% chance of a magnitude 6.0 to 7.0 aftershock to hit the wider canterbury area in the next 12 months. If narrowed down to the city limits it's about a 6% chance. People are panicking and getting upset, but I can't really see why. I mean, we already know there's a risk of aftershocks, considering we're still feeling then every couple of days. We know they vary in size, everyone watches the seismographs. What should people take from this story? 'be prepared', 'be cautious' and 'it's not over.' Surely we already knew all this. I just don't understand the panic.

I guess I've been pretty stoic for a long time though. Que sera, sera.

On a whim I ordered some limited edition Halo 3 miniatures from Weta Workshops, which arrived at work today. They are very cool. I took some photos but only one turned out because it was a bit dark in the room.

I also bought a new guitar, a Fender Squier, which as well as being a fully fledged guitar, is a controller for Rock Band 3. With (a lot of) practice I should be able to play some proper guitar sometime! I bought a little Fender Mustang amp for it as well. That pretty much emptied out my savings. I got a payrise at work today, so I think I will rejig my savings a bit, try and save more than the $30 per week I had been managing. Travel is becoming a real goal for me. I've never been out of the country, and I want to see Ireland, France and Italy before I'm too old to 'do it properly.'

Best get some sleep or I'll never get over this manflu.

Pioggia di notte

The sound of rain on the roof at night is my favourite sound in the world. It always reminds me of someone, along with seeing a full moon, feeling a crisp but still winter night, seeing a sunrise, noticing the stars persevering through the city haze. These are the things that reach out to me from nature. Beg me to acknowledge them, reconnect me to that world I was once so much a part of.

The person it reminds me of, is of that world too. The phases of the moon and the wheel of time turning her slow gears. Quietly, introspectively, her and I mark the seasons, the months, the sabbats. It is a personal reflection, but that you can share such an observation, silently, knowingly, with someone.. I'm blessed to have such a kindred spirit in my life.

I left work at 3pm today and walked home. I wanted to survey the damage along the opposite side if the river. Dad and I walked home along our side of the river bank on the day of the quake. We could see the swollen river breaching the banks across the road, getting as far as peoples front door steps. Everything I remember seeing that afternoon seems so surreal. I'm so fortunate that I didn't have to walk through town. To see bodies being hauled from the rubble as my brother did. To have my work and home deemed unsafe as my good friends did.

Anyway so I walked 6.3km home along the riverside. The scale of damage to homes and properties was remarkable. Whole houses on unnatural leans. Looking up a driveway and then there's a two foot escarpment in the middle of the drive. So many people had left that area. It's hard to see what the solution will be for those people. The land needs serious remediation before anyone could consider building there again... and who's to say these people would want to?

Anyway.. the sandman calls.

2am reflections

It's 2am so this won't be too long. It has been three long months since our city was torn to pieces in the earthquake. Things are getting back to normal, but it's 'a new normal', as people around here like to say. The roads are still incredibly bumpy. The council is doing their best to sort all the problems, but they get the road into a drivable state and move onto more serious work. Rightly so, I guess. The sewer mains over the entire city sustained massive damage, and are being worked through, suburb by suburb. Being so close to the creek, I'd imagine ours is pretty bad. We still go out to the street to use the portaloos. We can do laundry and have showers though, thank goodness.

Another turn of the wheel I marked recently was that I have now been single for a year. It took me a long time to work through the end of that relationship, with far too much retrospection and not enough common sense. Fortunately I have some amazing friends who were willing to lend me an ear and help me put the puzzle pieces together. Even if all the pieces weren't in the box in the first place. Thankyou.

I was inspired to start this blog by a friend who started hers, I realized how much I had missed hearing her thoughts, and I wondered if I needed to start putting mine down somewhere. It's not so bad to get all your thoughts in order occasionally. I will write here instead of livejournal because the lj client is not so great on the Tab, heh.

The Rock Band 3 Fender Squier guitar has been released in New Zealand, so I am breaking into my savings to get one. It's a fully working guitar, but it can also be used to play the songs in Rock Band 3. I'm pretty excited to get my hands on it!

For now,
the sandman calls.