3 March, 2005

I am knackered…but at least I’m finally in front of classes and teaching (using a rather liberal definition). Writing lessons and unit plans has taken up a lot of my time but the kids at the school are great and I’m having a ball. It’s still rough getting up early, forcing food down my throat and biking into town but it’s starting to feel worthwhile. It’ll be interesting to see how long that lasts.

The main story in the paper today was about the declining home ownership in New Zealand. Apparently there’s been a drop in first time buyers over the last ten years….well, no shit Sherlock (see Word: 18 November, 2004). I would go further and say a lot of that would have occurred over the last five years, oddly enough in the middle of a housing boom built on the back of booming immigration. Welcome to reality, foreigners leave when things start going bad and you get left with the locals you just shafted. It will not be pretty.

Petrol prices have gone up in the form of a government tax and predictions are in place for an increase from the oil companies in the near future. Again, none of this should be coming as a surprise as the warnings have been there for a long time now. Time to wake up people or it’s going to get real bad, real quick.

I am hanging out for Easter now and a holiday in Nelson. We don’t know where we’re staying and I don’t really care. A tent and a beer would be fine by me.