17 Mar, 11

Thursday evening but with a regional ‘quake remembrance’ holiday tomorrow my brain has slipped into Friday mode. Still deciding how I feel about the idea of ‘remembering’ something that is still happening. Seems a bit odd but a holiday is much appreciated – assuming already struggling businesses can handle it.

We’re pretty lucky really with power and water back on despite being in Avonside surrounded by pretty hard hit areas. A block either way and things start to look really rough and people are having a tough time. I find that quite hard to deal with. On the bright side, Christchurch is no longer to host any of the rugby world cup games. That seemed a bit of a “Well, duh!’ decision and quite frankly I don’t want a bunch of rugby knobs pounding away in my city … unless they are trades-people willing to help clean up in between games.

Work has been weird. In our second temporary office in six months and slowly discovering all the things that have been lost in the quakes. It’s the small things that get me. The personal items that were at work to keep me sane. I think of them as being trapped rather than lost. We have no idea if we’ll be able to get them back and as always, NZ bureacracy is reigning supreme. Knobs in suits running around pretending to care and all singing from different hymn sheets. Can’t believe them, can’t kill them. I’ve learned two things from the recent disaster: 1) If nature wants me, it’ll have me. I feel happy that this time I was kept in play despite being up six stories with flying filing cabinets, and 2) complex bureaucracy has no place in my country. If you can’t explain a situation or solution in 30 seconds it’s probably unnecessarily complicated and I don’t buy into that crap. Keep it simple or sod off.

Now, I’m off to feel a bit sorry for my city, feel a bit lucky and generally carry on enjoying my life. Have fun.