wash your hands vigorously after cooking with chillies

I just rubbed some in my eye. It's still a bit sting-y, and it certainly was not funny, smart or cool. Do not make the same mistake as me. Wash your hands when you're finished with the chillies. You will not regret doing this. Trust me.
The days roll by....
Oh! Don't see "The Clearing". YOU know when you're watching a thriller that's kinda tense and you're waiting for the twist? Well, the twist with this movie is: there is no twist. In the last five minutes the kidnapper kills the guy and then a couple of days later they catch him. I'm still shaking my head.

feeling pretty blurrrh

So this head cold has seriously gotten into my head. Todd came over today with needles to acupuncture me to heaven and we got some serious qi action. Real dense pressure coming out of my upper calves and "big mound" (that muscle that forms at the back base of your thumb when you press it against the index finger). Just massive. I suppose I feel better, but gawd! It's kinda like that nasty sinus infection I had last year that kept my head on this crazy level where I couldn't tilt or bend without all the brain fluid sloshing and banging. That's not real good descriptive writing but I'm tired and sick. I've always got some excuse.
Anyhoo, I figured I'd better update this thing with the events of the weekend regardless just to keep in practise and such.

Havana
I went to Havana on Saturday night to hear Diva Mahal and Holly Smith sing their big hearts out to a crowd of dozens. First though, I sat at the bar for at least an hour, pretty much keeping myself to myself. This might not seem such a big thing, but for me it was a massive exercise in patience. Not that I was waiting for something or someone ( iwasn't, but you never know) but patience with myself withstanding the feeling of just being there alone. I'd like to say I learned something big and important out of it, but I really can't say that. I guess it was an improvement on going home in that I was actually out and maintained my outness until quite early in the morning whereas had I gone home I would have stayed put.
So after enough sitting around I got my chicken ass up and strolled around in case there was someone there that I knew (as it was clear Hellen and Nivee were never going to get there early) and stumbled across Gretchen and met her friend Wendy, so I imposed on their space until the next person I knew arrived and yadda yadda $$$ drink drink dance dance talk talk go home sleep.

i have a cold

Felt it setting in on Saturday night what with the scratchy throat and all. Wasn't certain until waking up on Monday morning (thank you, lord!) . I quite like the endorphin-rush (that's not what it is, but tit'll do for a description) from a nice cold, and this is a nice cold. Seen some flicks, read some comics - all in all a good couple of days loafing.
The drawback of course is that I'm slightly irritable, particularly now after 9pm, and particularly now after trying (unsuccessfully you might note) to get a picture up here on this blog.
I'd lke to add a few more features to the index bar on the right side but, fuggit all, I just don't have the patience., so I've settled for just making another post instead.

Jess and I tried to watch this movie "Confidence" tonight. What a piece of nuts-flexing macho bullshit. You can tell it's a bad movie when every character has an inflated sense of the weight of events and their of own dramatic existence. Jess walked out in disappointment once Dustin Hoffman appeared as a sleazy strip-club owner, and I gave up soon after that when the main character whatsisname did that chase the (gorgeous) pickpocket girl outside the club and "Nice lift, but I saw you take this wallet from across the bar"-thing. [[Shudder]]

Back to work tomorrow. Yay. I reckon two months; a quick jaunt around the island to places of note (Giz, NP) and then on to AKL for the flight to Daegu. Starting to feel a bit more real about it now to the extent that I will be truly fuckin gutted if it doesn't go ahead for whatever reason. Seriously.
G'night!

the image of a clean-cut young man 

decision made

Or made for me as it turns out.

The Hess organisation of Taiwan (much like the JET organisation of Japan) has judged and found me wanting. I asked exactly what it was but I guess it's possible that there's some truth in the calim that "...outstanding applicants," beat me to the punch. So be it! I shall take my degree and frustrated ennui to a country that doesn't care who teaches it's citizens English! Fie and a pox on all who confirm my essential mediocrity!

Self-effacing enough for ya? I thought so.

Anyhoo, looks like I'll be going to Daegu http://english.daegu.go.kr/ which seems like a pretty nice place. I mean, how bad can it be? I won't be learning Mandarin this year like I hoped, but at least I won't have to face another Wellington winter. At least unil 2006 at the earliest. Although I'm not actually going until June 25 which at this stage is still, what? - ahhh fuckin weeks away anyway. Heaps of time.
So what that means is I might actually have time to train Elena in all my work shit and perhaps even my replacement will have some vague knowledge of the job before I start.
Man, just training Elena makes me feel like such a better person than Erin. There've been a couple of occasions where I've just felt so smug that I'm doing a much more patient and thorough job of it than that stiff little robot ever did for me. Oh well, takes all sorts I suppose.

So now that I'm going I guess I have lots of shit to take care of. Visas and that. Packing. Ugh!
And research! I suppose I should learn at least some rudimentary Korean. I hope the grammer is simple. I've no hope of learning much vocab in a month. Still, one should try. And of course one will.

Ha!

I am blowing all my money on silly shit again

Well, I'm at it again, sucked into the consumer wheel as I walked past Jess' work on the Quay. "DVD's from $10!" No crime in looking and I figured there might be something worth grabbing and, lo and behold, I grabbed some fairly decent scores I think:
Human Nature for $10 was probably the most decent score. I've seen it once and thought it was pretty cool. MIght watch it again and pass it on to somone who hasn't.
Led Zep - the song remains the same. I thought it would be tough decision, but it turned out to be a no-brainer. Led Zep always makes me think of Todd these days, so there was also the obligatory PInk Floyd's The Wall there on the other side of the coin and The Wall came down. Heigh ho. Pretty sure that was $15.
There was another $15 one - Human Traffic. Always a happy charming and fun one for a cold winter weekend night. Feelgood Classic.
What was the $20 one. Oh yeah - Nature's Best. Double set of about 60 kiwi music vids. Was thinking about overseas when I picked this up. I only scanned the back, but there's sure to some good stuff to iron to or something.
What else? Well it looks like being a goey-outy weekend. No rest for the wicked I suppose. Will try to get by on as little as possible but my power of denial waned with the moon. Oh well, we'll see how it goes.
I'm sure there's other stuff like presents for all my mothers and cards and probably lots of food and some liquor.
There, that's where all my money goes. Saying it doesn't make me feel better and this isn't a therapy session.
Ahem.
Glenn out.