Friday, February 20, 2004

Bus-driving, marae-visiting and exploding whales...

No doubt the exploding whale thing is what you want to know about most - I found it on Scattered Speculations blog.

All I can say is, it should've happened somewhere in Japan as revenge for all that whale-harpooning and eating they do. It might sound a bit rich coming from a Chinese person - someone whose ancestors (and relatives, perhaps) have been known for eating anything with legs that wasn't a piece of furniture. But then, I personally have never condoned the killing of (at least) semi-intelligent, rare mammals just because they are a delicacy.

I had my second driving lesson in the library bus today. It was still terrifying, especially when I went on the motorway and tried to reach a decent speed. I was only going at 60-70 km/hr, but I felt a bit out of control. It felt like I was barrelling. Mike asked whether I found it more comfortable driving the bus now, since I'd now had one lesson behind my belt. I likened it to bungy-jumping (which I've never done - I should have compared it to trekking in high altitude). It's something which, before I do it, I don't want to do it. Then once I've done it, I'm really glad I've done it. But I really don't want to do it again.

But I will. I'll be getting more driving lessons until either I get my full HV licence, or leave my job in a radical attempt to avoid being a mobile librarian.

This afternoon, I and about 20 other city council staff visited the local marae. I've never been to a marae, which is really surprising because I've grown up in New Zealand and learned about Maori culture at school. For non-Kiwis - if you've seen Whale Rider then you'll have an idea of what it was like (it's the part where our heroine leads a group of visitors in, chanting at the top of her voice). I even enjoyed singing the waiata (songs), despite my complete lack of singing ability.

Even better, we didn't have to go back to work afterwards. Except my boss said that 'if you were really conscientious, and had stuff to do, then you could come back and do it' - she wasn't necessarily saying it to just me, but I definitely got the feeling she wanted me to come back afterwards and work on the Academy Awards display for Monday.

The temptation of leaving work an hour early on a Friday was far, far too great ...

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