NDBT

I feel like a chicken with it’s head cut off. Really and truly. Things are slowly getting done, but why, oh why, couldn’t Christmas be another 4 weeks away? I seriously need a week off between work and travel to pack up and finish everything here and I could REALLY use the extra travel time. Basically,

Checked with Stray, twice, to figure out my schedule. They currently have me on 3 full days in queenstown. I do not need 3 days in queenstown, nor do I want it, but they can’t change it till I’m actually on the bus. Since it’s getting into the tourist season, what do you want to bet I’m going to get there and the next bus will be all reserved already? It’s ok. I should be able to stop off in Wellington and Waitomo anyways. This traveling under a deadline sucks. I liked going around other places where I wasn’t going to be in such a rush to do everything and my plans could change with my whims. Oh well – you take what you can.

Trying to file an application for a tax refund, which I may or may not get. The only problem is that they need a copy of my last pay stub. I turn in my final paysheet Friday. The final pay stub will come on Dec 11th. I am passing back through Chch on my way up north, but only for an evening. Sooo… I’m trying to figure something out. I’ve paid New Zealand more than $1000, so if I could get some of that back, that would be fantabulous.

I also have to apply to get all of my accrued holiday pay from Hudson this week. And I shipped off my laptop. Took down all my photos from off the walls last night and devided my drawers into “to be sent home” and “to go backpacking”. It should make the next bout of cleaning and packing easier. Last night I was supposed to have a meeting with my personal trainer, waited at work for an hour at work, took off, got to the library and realized I had left my tennis shoes at work. And the new girl now has my key card, so I was locked out. And it was the first day I hadn’t brought my coat into work, so it was raining and FREEZING. That was awesome. 

Getting my haircut today. Hopefully baking a pie (the courier swung by yesterday but didn’t leave the package – hopefully one of my flatmates will get it today). Tomorrow I have to go exchange my used books at a bookstore (I just finished reading Death’s Acre, which is about the Anthropological research station in Tennessee. Good book overall, but I’d say Dead Men do Tell Tales is a better forensic anthro book. If you like that kind of stuff, I also recommend A Fly for the Prosecutiuon, which is about forensic entomology).

I’m stuck at 57th in the box office challenge (they’re up to 1,900+ players). I’d really like to be in the top 50 for the fall, but unless I come from behind and manage a perfect score on next week’s I’m not sure it’s gonna happen.

Got the next 3 ep.s of Heroes from a friend, plus Little Miss Sunshine and Ocean’s 13, so yay there. I have to ship stuff home and I’m not sure when or how. Seeing as I need a lot of my clothes until the day I move out… Maybe a flatmate can take me to the post office super early on saturday? But then what do I do with my gym clothes from Sat.? Crap. I might send off one box tomorrow if I can, and do another one sat. afternoon. I wonder if it’s open? I’m so unused to places being closed on the weekends… 

Yeah – crazy hectic here. Luckily, JOSHUA comes out TOMORROW!!! And it’s playing at the Rialto, which is an art house theater I really like. So silver lining to all the stress. I can go unwind and watch the second Sam movie in as many months.

I’m working on finishing up a couple of retrospective posts before I take off – we’ll see how it goes. If I don’t finish them now I’ll post them from Boston. Stuff about suggestions on packing, what I found best and worst about the places I went, etc.

Check out the new EW.com. Spiffy! And keep your fingers crossed for a writer’s strike resolution (NEED JON! NEED JON!). There’s lots of good stuff on there, especially on the hollywood insider blog. I don’t have time to post it all, but check it out (new No Doubt record?). I will just post this popwatch bit on HIMYM (one of the last tv shows I have to catch up on for last season) and hand the rest of it over to Cleolinda’s backlog of linkspam (in other words, all comments hers);

I has a icecap. 

When geeks and Yo Mama jokes collide. 

Any Colder and mah Tail will… ah! 

Cate Blanchett and David Wenham get political; Australians wake up to new era after Rudd crushes Howard. 

What Kind Of Powdered Chocolate Drink Mix Have We Unleashed Upon The World? 

“God In The Dust: What Catholics attacking ‘The Golden Compass’ are really afraid of.” Definitely read this if you’re trying to articulate a defense of the books/movies to people like your panicked Southern Baptist grandmother. Key passage, IMO: But this is a sad misreading of the trilogy. These books are deeply theological, and deeply Christian in their theology. The universe of “His Dark Materials” is permeated by a God in love with creation, who watches out for the meekest of all beings – the poor, the marginalized, and the lost. It is a God who yearns to be loved through our respect for the body, the earth, and through our lives in the here and now. This is a rejection of the more classical notion of a detached, transcendent God, but I am a Catholic theologian, and reading this fantasy trilogy enhanced my sense of the divine, of virtue, of the soul, of my faith in God.The book’s concept of God, in fact, is what makes Pullman’s work so threatening. His trilogy is not filled with attacks on Christianity, but with attacks on authorities who claim access to one true interpretation of a religion. Pullman’s work is filled with the feminist and liberation strands of Catholic theology that have sustained my own faith, and which threaten the power structure of the church. Pullman’s work is not anti-Christian, but anti-orthodox.