Umm, yeah, sooo............

I think I might have recovered from the wrecking, although 3 hours sleep on Sunday night didn't help. I have no explanation. I was tired, I went to bed, and lay awake for hours. Boooring!!!!!

Its party central here, last night it was lights out at 8.20pm. Rock on, Jimmy.

Because people have asked, and because I am kind of proud of it, here is the wedding cake I made. For my sister. For her wedding.

Srsly, if one person did, 20 people came up to me and said "OMFG girl! That cake was teh awsum!!"*
5 cakes (although I actually made 7, which didn't last much longer than the 5 I used) of chocolate and chocolate-vanilla marbled, it stood about 40cm high and the bottom layer was about 35cm diameter.
The penguins were on the Chilean wedding cake as well, I made Carlos bring them over for my cake. Continuity, they call that.
This is the topper I bought and put on the practice ensure-that-the-bride-and-groom-actually-like-it cake I made a couple of days previously.
Emma wanted that on the real cake, but Dad wasn't entirely sold on the idea, if you get my drift.

And now I shall return to despairing of the state of this country's education system as reflected in the writing abilities of its first year university students. Head, meet desk. *THUNK*

*it is entirely possible that I somewhat elaborated on the language.

How to completely wreck yourself in 10 easy steps

1- Spend your last night in your home country sitting up late with your bff drinking wine. Continue the last 12 days trend of waking up at 7 am.

2- Arrive at airport at 1.30 to check in for international flights. Wait in airport for 1 & 1/2 hours.

3- Fly to Auckland at 3pm. Wait in Auckland airport for 3 & 1/2 hours. Drink 2 pints of Speights.

4- Fly to LA. Manage approximately 4 hours sleep. Read Ramsay's autobiography from cover to cover and watch 2 & 1/2 episodes of Top Gear.

5- Due to poor planning on ticket-booker's part, miss connecting flight from LA to Chicago. Wait in LAX for 10 hours. During that time, attempt sleep. Due to screaming children and stupid airport security announcements, manage about 1 & 1/2 hours sleep.

6- Fly from LA to Chicago at 11pm. Manage zero hours of sleep.

7- Wait in Chicago airport for 1 & 1/2 hours. Achieve zero sleep.

8- Fly from Chicago to Syracuse. Manage 1 hour's sleep. Arrive in Syracuse 9am.

9- Arrive at house in time to have cup of tea with Tyra, shower, and find half clean clothes.

10- Go to school, teach 2 classes.

Total travel time: nearly 40 hours
Total sleep: 6 & 1/2 hours
Total distance covered: approximately 15,ooo kms
Total wrecked-ness: unprecedented.

Home Home Home

I'm home.
It's awesome.

Doing some sightseeing with the Chilean in-laws today, meeting a couple of my boys for a Ginger Tom, drinks at my sister's place, dinner at Dad's, then off to Mount Cook tomorrow with parents and the bride and groom and The Peanut. Wanaka the next day, then worky work for a few days to get all ready for the nuptials.
I am making a wee speech, in English and Spanish. Note: I don't speak Spanish.

Updates likely erratic.

In conclusion: being here is the shizzle.
Ok bye.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go......

I'm off tomorrow.
Off home for 12 whole days (which is 12 days NZ time, even though I'm gone for a fortnight....so confusing)

Blogging may be erratic, but I'm sure you'll cope. Its not like you'll miss much!!!
For those of you so inclined you may rest assured that I shall be making plans to secure arrangements for your inevitable immigration.

In 41 hours I can hug my favourite people in the whole world.
That makes me happier than a whole room full of puppies.

Also, I just watched the first episode of season 4 of Doctor Who...... I tell you, I DID NOT see that coming!!!

I've had my fun and now its time to send my conscience overseas

I am sensing a pattern here.
A couple of days before I go home, I have weird moods and am indescribably tired.

About half an hour ago I was in the shower and nearly burst into tears (and no I'm not PMSing, that was my first thought) and I don't really cry that much. Then I found myself singing.
(I'm not so much a crier, more a furniture thrower and glass smasher)

This afternoon I came home and landed face down on my bed and was a hair's breadth away from abandoning the idea of dinner and work and just climbing into my bed and starting again tomorrow.

And then earlier still a couple of things went really right, and I had one of those moments where you believe that there may yet be a day in the foreseeable future where you *aren't* focusing on just getting through this one day so you can get through the next.
In those moments you realise the volume of things that make it better and that perhaps the universe possesses slightly *more* joy than a sucking chest wound, and you get a glimpse of a future where its all ok and you realise that this too shall pass.

And of course for the previous several weeks I have been my usual grouchy unsympathetic impatient self, civil only to tyratae, members of the Smith Family and about 1 in 10 of my students.

Perhaps its the imminent reprieve, because one can never underestimate the sheer exhaustion that comes from being a stranger in a strange land on one's own.
It doesn't really matter what it is, because its nearly over.
I don't understand how people can do this permanently.

Thank the gods for $7.99 bottles of wine, aye?

You damn dirty apes

Ok, is it wrong that I don't feel any sadness at the passing of Charlton Heston?
Yes, he made some good movies, but this was the guy who publicly supported Nixon and Reagan, accepted a medal from George "Right now a village in Texas is missing its idiot" W. Bush, was the head of the NRA and in that position made a statement only days after the Columbine shootings that the government could pry his gun from "his cold dead hands".

Does this make me:
a) a tree hugging granola eating wildlife loving gun hating freaky liberal
b) a heartless bitch

Warning, fan-girl level dangerously high....spoilers ahead.

t-minus 10 minutes until the first CSI of the year..... I have been waiting since December for my fix!!!
Curse you, writer's strike!

Let the live blogging commence....

8.56 pm: 4 minutes to go. Am wondering if its wrong that I am skipping a day in my tooth-whitening regimen. Focus, woman!!!!

8.59 pm: Fucking commercials.

9.00 pm: Hello Grissom. I adore you.

9.01 pm: Hello Brass. You're pretty awesome too.

9.02 pm: Hank!!! The drooliest boxer on telly. Yes, drooliest is a real word. Grissom is wearing his jammies, making himself chicken soup and coughing up a lung. He has to make it himself because SARA IS GONE!!!!

9.06 pm: I see that Catherine has taken the time off during the writer's strike to get some more work done on her face. Leave it alone woman! You are a beautiful woman, stop plasticifying your face.

9.07 pm: Hello Greg. Poor baby is sick too.

9.08 pm: NICKY!!!! Le sigh.

9.14 pm: The whole team has got the lurgy. Poor Nicky..... and all the others of course.

9.20 pm: More of Grissom's house. This is rare, but sadly, NO SARA!!! Brass cries. Nicky looks hot. Happily Warrick has turned up for this week's performance instead of sending in a cardboard cut out of himself, as he did for the last few episodes. Perhaps there was an upside to the writer's strike after all, you know, aside from the better deal for writers and all....

9.27 pm: BOOM!!!

9.32 pm: Grissom references MacGyver. I die a little bit. Too. Much. Awesome.

9.34 pm: Flatmate tells me that she has a "really bad flu" and that I should be careful and take my vitamins so I don't get it. Note that flatmate is up and walking and talking and eating and therefore doesn't have the flu.

9.35 pm: Nicky looks fine, disses Hodges. I smile.

9.41 pm: Where is the dog? I want more Hank. Consider that perhaps Vegas might not be the safest place in the world to live. Remember this isn't a documentary. Have another sip of wine. Experience moment of sadness because CSI is over halfway done.

9.45 pm: Ben pings me online and gives me shit about being a fangirl.

9.53 pm: Grissom mentions Dave Eggers. See 9.32 pm. There is some complicated story about a bad-arse gang guy and Dante's Inferno and piss (really) and a burnt out car. Thankfully, iTunes will download the episode tomorrow so I can actually pay attention to the story instead of geeking about.

9.57 pm: Grissom receives a phone call from Sara. Sigh. Episode ends. "Coming up, scenes from our next episode....."

10.00 pm: Next week looks grim. Next week I will be home. Yin, meet yang. Happily, the one outweighs the other.

10.01 pm: Ooooh look! Without A Trace!!!

M.I A. rocks my world




Updates:
- by 7.15 on Monday morning I had already walked 2 dogs.
- I'm going home in a week.
- I need to find a summer sublet for my flat.
- I fit my jeans again.
- My cow slippers are falling apart.
- I have accumulated far too much stuff in the nearly-three-years I have lived here.
- I'm going south a week before Bonnaroo to do fun southern stuff and get shown around the place by a proper Southern son-of-a-preacher-man boy.
- The top step onto the porch and into my building is missing, replaced by a hole.
- I'm going to make bacon vodka.