Jan 14, 2007

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Well, we've past the "two weeks, two weeks" stage. Down to 11 total days. In truth, I now feel ready to just get down there and get this thing started. No more waiting. Strangely, of late I have been viewing the move as more of a "trip." Doing this is kind of a mind game on myself but it helps me to not freak out so much. I have about a day and a half of work left at the end of next week. We're going out to Mexico Viejo for lunch on my last day (after working at Springdale High School in the morning).

Speaking of jobs, I applied for two in Palmerston North but something went wrong with each application I sent. For the first job, I had to send four emails because of all the attachments required (transcripts, visa). Well, only the first of four emails was received due to space limitations of the International Pacific College inbox. For the other position, my cover letter read that I had a Master of Arts rather than a Master of Education so I sent a correction email. We'll see what happens.

We did get the small rent house at 14 A Savage Crescent Road. It's nice to know that we will have a furnished home to start out in although we won't be able to get into the house until Sunday, January 28 because the landlord will be away. Rotary paid the bond money so we'll have to see how it works in paying them back once we get down there.

The guys came up from Little Rock last night to hang out although the winter storm of the century is supposed to be upon us. However, its only rained for the last two days insead of hitting us with a major ice storm. Erica won't be making it up here to visit due to car trouble. We managed to get the house pretty clean because they were coming to visit so that was nice. There will be more cleaning in the days ahead. Still need to cancel utilities and change our mailing address too.

With Josh's dissertation defense on the 22nd, I would like to arrange a couple's massage for us on the 23rd to try and have a relaxing reward for us before the move. Need to set that up. There was an article in yesterday's Northwest Arkansas Times about Josh and the Ambassadorial Scholarship.

I also managed to contact the Fayetteville Rotary Club secretary on Josh's behalf about visiting with the club before we leave. Josh and I are going to their noon meeting next Thursday and hope to get a club banner to take with us. I found some information about what to bring with you as far as gifts from a Rotary Youth Exchange website. I picked up some Razorback mugs, pencils, postcards, and notecards from Walmart. Josh still has money on his UA bookstore giftcards so we'll need to use that too for small gifts. We also have Razorback stickers donated from the Alumni Association. I ordered some "friendship pins" from Ebay. They have the US and New Zealand flags on them. Hope they come soon!

I'm going to start packing my suitcase today with the summer clothes I want to bring down there since I won't be wearing those around here before we leave. Hope the bad weather clears out by the time to move. It's been a mess with canceled flights in other parts of the country.