News from Nelson - October 2017

Hello again!
I hope you are all fighting fit? This month was a bit smoother for us than last month: thank goodness. Everyone has stayed well.

I have been clearing out my wardrobe a little: I have gotten rid of some unworn scarves, pants, jewellery, shoes and accessories... and even a very old laptop. While that has not made a huge difference to the space consumed, getting rid of stuff seems to make a difference mentally.

Doing yet another FutureLearn MOOC on “An Intermediate Guide to Writing” from the University of Reading. This is a two part course, which should be interesting.

Lara came for a week while Otto was up in Auckland at a hockey tournament, which was lovely. I took her for a leg wax and a facial... and she stealth shot me while having a haircut. Totally at my best!

Lara spent lots of time on with Lexie, walking, talking, playing pool, and even inner-tubing down the creek. She had a few baths with a bath bombs, and we did some cooking and watched a few movies. The dogs got walked a lot, which was great. We went Op Shopping to get her some gumboots, as her feet are now larger than mine, but had to give up. We bought some at the Warehouse instead. We have caught up with Dawn - Lara and I went to visit while she was here. She now has Pekin ducks - and a couple of those have cowlicks!

Our new couch has arrived (weeks ahead of schedule), and we have taken one of our old two seaters - the least worn one - to my Mother for her lounge. Now we are hoping that the L-shaped couch arrives too... but they did say the ETA on that one was the end of January. A while to go yet.

Boo and Bonnie are quite relaxed at home: and both have found good places in the sun, now that it has finally decided to stop raining.

Smudge, Scott's bulldog, adores tummy scratches. She trails around after Jan panting at him until he does his duty. 

The sunrises continue to delight:

Jan went down to Christchurch for a two day course in October and brought home a cold, bless him. That led to me having my first cold in 18 months, and ended up in bed for a few days. I missed Anabelle's birthday because of it, so Jan went on his own, as he had recovered!

I managed to strain my medical cruciate ligament, and thought that I could walk it off - and no you can't do that, as I have found - and now have it strapped. It seems to be very slow in healing, so instead of doing my 12,000 steps per day, I am just getting to whatever distance I get to without pushing it. One of my sport & rec students showed me how to strap it properly, so hopefully it will come right.

Jan has been approached by another organisation to see if he would be interested in working for them as a safety coach, and so he is exploring options. We will see how it shapes up.

We headed off to Auckland for a few brief days at the end of the month: I had a conference to go to, and we managed to squeeze in a couple of lunches with friends (one with Morv at Mojo, one with Doug at Bird on a Wire in Takapuna) and a night out with Janet & Shells at "Pleasuredome, the musical", out in Avondale. My advice on Pleasuredome: don't bother. It is pretty fragmented, and it took me quite a long time to work out where the songs came from. Most of them were pretty hard to recognise, and the storyline was very, very weak. The highpoint was the recreated New York street scene outside, which was pretty cool, however the prices for drinks and food was pretty steep. However, if you do go, and if you value your hearing, take earplugs. It was deafeningly loud. I stuffed chewed up tissues in my ears!

We booked an apartment in Lorne Street. It was very central, and - although it was getting quite worn - it had everything we needed. We did a lot of walking. Janet was awesome, picked us up from the airport and dropped us back again, as well as ferrying us to the Pleasuredome. We also did a spot of shopping at Sylvia Park (H&M). It was really lovely to catch up: it has been so long! 

The whole show was disappointing. Never mind: I am glad we went, because going is important. The songs included the Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’; Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’; Frankie Goes To Hollywood, ‘The Pleasuredome’; Diana Ross, ‘I’m coming out’; Lou Reed ‘You’re a slick little girl’; Luther Vandross ‘The Night I Fell in Love’; Grandmaster Flash, ‘White Lines’; Hall & Oates, ‘I Can’t Go For That’; George Clinton, ‘Tweakin’; Tears for Fears, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’; Simple Minds “Don’t you forget about me'... I am sure there were more, but I didn't recognise them.

We caught the Devonport ferry on a bit of a day trip, and I visited the Anna Stretton outlet shop ;-D

Everything was going swimmingly at work, when a colleague from the IT degree died suddenly. She had leukaemia, but went downhill very quickly. One of my supervisory team was covering for the IT courses, and suddenly found herself with our colleague's entire workload. My supervisor is now off on stress leave, having tried to do it all without outside help. However, the rest of us have managed to pick up the slack, and to start the process of getting in an outside marker for the end of year reports. Thank goodness for having written up all the instructions last semester: it should make it reasonably easy for me to brief someone new. I have also been asked if I would be interested in developing and teaching a Master's course on Leadership. Oh, yes!

We caught up with Magda and David before they left for Aussie - QLD - to live. I hope to catch up with them when I am over for supervisory meetings. They don't go until the end of November, but this was their last trip to Nelson. Julie came out with Sterl and Siobhan as well. We had a great time, and though it is sad to see Magda move so far away, I am sure the move will be great for both of them.

Graeme and Julie, and my mother, have been out to Rose Road for lunch as well.  Allan and Sarah are getting married in Dunedin in January, so the family are planning a road trip south to help them celebrate.

More next month!


Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - October 2014

Hi all,
Long time, no post.

Things have been a bit chaotic, this last six months, really: what with getting the thesis in and then what has practically been two full time jobs. I haven't done a family update for a LONG time. Things have been so busy here this year, that all sorts of things have slipped. A bit mad.

So let's roll the clock back and tell the story of the last six months.

Jan had a lovely birthday celebration with friends and my family at a German restaurant in Nelson last month. He got spoilt with lots of lovely presents, including a MS Surface (tablet) from me, and a copy of Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide from 1913, complete with fold out maps. Very cute.

My Masters was submitted on 26 June, but I had not heard anything back by September. I then got an invite at the beginning of September from Auckland Uni inviting me to the graduand's dinner. So I contacted the PostGrad Co-ordinator and asked if my results were back yet - that I figured I would only be getting an invite if I had passed. Response was an "oops, that's a mistake", and a "sorry we haven't got your results back yet. As you weren't going to graduate until May next year, you got put [on the slow boat]". OK, so I have waited another three weeks, and just sent off a hurry-up email today. I hope all this delay doesn't mean bad news :-(

It was crazy in the lead-up to getting my Masters in. There were so many things to get done with the final report, my teaching, my brother's wedding in Rarotonga, my Father's 80th, meeting our 'lost' cousin, and the skullduggery of getting my Uncle here from Australia in secret for my Father's shindig, Joerg's birthday and having Otto & Lara here that I don't feel I have had time to draw breath since the gallop began in January. I have only been teaching one paper for NMIT, one for AUT per semester over the past two years, while I completed my Masters; that's about a half-time teaching load (as well as career clients). The idea was to have a staged return to work from July where I increased my revenue and got back up to full-time speed.

However, since the start of Semester 2 in July, I have been very, very busy working for NMIT. The Head of School resigned in February, and one of our Management lecturers, John, replaced him (a very good choice, too). John tried to keep teaching all his papers, but had to admit defeat due to workload, so a lecturer who was waiting for the bulk of his Postgrad courses to start in semester 2 (doing project work in the meantime), finished two of John's courses off. Planning immediately started on reallocating John's teaching and him only taking one paper per semester in future (he wants to keep thoroughly in touch with teaching practice, keeping it fresh and top of mind). This left three papers needing a home. One I coveted, and thought that would make a great addition to my two existing teaching papers. All good.

Then suddenly in the semester break, another Management lecturer resigned. Eeek! This meant there were now 7 papers needing a home, a week out from the start of the new semester. But wait, there's more! NMIT is reducing costs - they, like most ITPs, are being starved of cash by central Government. So either through attrition or redundancy, costs must be cut. So we effectively have a sinking lid policy, and didn't get go-ahead to hire replacement lecturers. Three management lecturers left: seven papers. I took on two more papers.

Things went from having a bit of a rest after the madness of getting my Masters in, to total chaos. I had to rewrite two papers 'in my own image' so that I could teach them: one online, and one face to face (now known as 'F2F'!). One had been an online paper that I had set up originally, but the world has moved on since that was done three years ago. However, previous incumbent had left it un-updated, disorganised, not in the current teaching model, using old technology, and worded in a very autocratic manner. This took me until a month ago to get up to current standards, well resourced, friendly and for me to get my head around the new requirements of teaching online, and au fait with the new tools and policies.

My second paper, a 30 credit research paper, has me mentoring year 3 students doing their capstone management research projects. I love it! But John, who taught this before me, teaches by telling stories, and had few resources aside from the PowerPoints from the textbook: he was the resource, and had very little online on the course site.

My teaching approach is to have a blended course: lots of resources online so students can seek their own resources from the resource bank, which includes recorded lectures, readings, exemplars and software. It took until mid-September to get this course written, resourced and the lectures recorded and posted.

Oh, and I have an NZQA moderation to prepare for on one new paper, and an external moderation on the other, both for this semester. So things have to be absolutely spot on for both courses. No pressure! I am so thankful that I habitually tweak my courses as I go to keep them up to date, because the two I already had at the start of this semester needed very little attention from me aside from me turning up to deliver familiar material. They saved me from total overload.

And then, to top things off, both Jan & I got sick. We both got the flu that was going around, and each spent four days in bed. Luckily I got the flu on a non-teaching day, Thursday, and only missed one day of lectures; the Friday. I was walking wounded for my next teaching day; Tuesday. I think I under-performed for around two weeks - dog tired, coughing, fevers, headaches - before I shook it off. Jan too took a long time to recover - and in fact is still suffering from phlegmy throats.

A month ago, at last, I finally got some time to draw breath. I had worked 50 days straight from the beginning of the semester before I got a half day off that wasn't a sick day. Now I am able to focus on marking, teaching and small course tweaks to keep everything up to date across the four papers. I also have time now for my other clients and my role as the Treasurer and Comms Director of CDANZ. Things are still busy, but are now do-able.

Jan too has been very busy. With the changes in the H&S in Employment Act coming into force next April, Nelson Pine has lots of things that need to be planned and enacted. Jan is also heading away next week on a residential NZIM management course in Chch, out at the Airport Commodore.

Other news: Warren, Tracy & Erica have moved to Nelson, and are living 15 minutes away in Cotterel Road. We have caught up a few times, including a wonderful Election Night Special with them, Murray, Julie & Janet at our place with cocktails, pool playing, music and half an eye on the election with the sound off. Great fun was had by all. Hopefully Janet will email some photos other than the panorama photo I took from the top of Christian's driveway.

We had a great time at Jörg's birthday party in Morrinsville earlier in the year (and hopefully some who were there will email some photos); my cousin has been up to stay from Dunedin (and hopefully will email me her photos)... hmm. Sound like a theme happening here?

We have caught up with Jenny L a few times, which has been great, and Kathleen, Frits and Amy came out and we had a mid-winter Christmas celebration in mid-July before the semester started which was very enjoyable. Otto and Lara came to stay in the break as well, and it was lovely having them here (we are hoping to have them here again in late December, early January for another week).

Magda had a car accident in August, being struck by a 4WD driver on a one lane bridge on the Lewis Pass. Luckily she was unhurt, though her car was written off. As she was heading off to Holland to visit family soon after the accident, she decided not to replace her car until she got back to Kiwiland. She got back last week, and is now in the exciting phase of road-testing new cars. I hope her good judgement is on hyper-sensitive!

I am also about to have an article published in the Canadian Career's publication, and about to start some new research on Applicant Tracking Software with a local HR company. That too should result in an article or two.

Dogs are well. Jan has a new Motorbike on the way (Triumph Tiger).

Right. I know I have forgotten lots, but that will do for this time. More in a few weeks :-)

All the best

Sam & Jan

News from Nelson - July 2014

Hello all!

Wow - here we are again, back on track. And what a busy few weeks this has been! We are all well, but there is lots to report.

Firstly, though, some very sad news: Janet's Dad passed away in June. If you want to get in touch with Janet to let her know you are thinking of her and don't have a way of getting in touch, email me and I will connect you.

<and I didn't do any more because I was slack>

Sam (& Jan)

News from Nelson - April 2013

Hi all,

So, that was Easter, disappearing in the rearview mirror of life!

We are still having lovely weather, and the Easter break was pretty good. We had a nice time doing lots of relaxing, socialising and even prepping our accounts ready for the tax man (hey, I wonder why tax collection is still a gender-oriented profession?!).

On Saturday night, Jan & I went to Krauts German restaurant for my birthday, ably assisted in celebration by my folks, Uncle Norman, Kathleen, Frits, Amy, Dawn, Janet (who had come down from Auckland for Easter) and Julie & Murray. Several foolish souls ordered schweinshax’n (pork shanks) and took home doggie bags for the next day :-O

 

Jeanette & Jake vdB were at Krauts while we were there too, and say hello to Magda, Gea & Tjibbe. All is going well with them.

Murray, Julie & Janet came out for a BBQ on Sunday, with Murray’s very grown up daughter Amy & her boyfriend. After lunch, Janet, Julie & I tackled Christian’s hill with Coco & Bonnie in some very light mist (only day without lots of sunshine all Easter), leaving Flissy behind dozing on the couch with Murray & Jan! 

 

With regard to our next trip away - the Rotary exchange student NI Tour - Jan hopes to catch up with Beth D on the 23rd of April when he is in Waitomo in sole-charge of 11 teenagers (as I will be in Auckland presenting at the International Leadership Conference). I catch up with Jan again in Rotovegas on the night of the 24th. Then we hope to see DJ & Dilani on our way through Tauranga on our way around the Coromandel. If anyone else is around and would like to catch up, please get in touch!

I will be in Auckland on Monday 22 to the afternoon of Weds 24, staying at the Stamford. Days I will be at Auckland Uni’s business school (http://nzli.co.nz/64/conference).

On the 16th we had the first concert of the NSO 2013 Concert season, with a tribute to the Steinway. It was a very professionally delivered concert, and the audience seemed to really enjoy it. I loved Rhapsody in Blue – that is such a lovely piece. The applause went on for some time. The NSO had its AGM last week, and Jan found – somewhat to his surprise – that he is now Chair of the NSO committee. He will do a fine job. I guess that also means that I will carry on doing the PR for the orchestra as well :-)

The weekend before Easter we went out to a friend’s orchard & traded some ‘grape juice’ for fifty plus kilos of royal gala apples. We juiced the apples, loaded the juice into jars, sealed and ran them through the Agee preserver, and now have 40 lovely litres of apple juice in the cellar alongside with our tomatoes, apple purée, pear halves, rhubarb and plums. It is a lovely feeling, making and storing food. Mark C from NMIT came out & he & Jan chainsawed wood. We still have a trailer full in the shed that we don’t know where to store it! Kathleen, Frits & Amy have been out to visit too – and we have given Amy the guided tour so she knows where everything is for when she is here and we are away.

Tonight Jan is going to permanently wire in our pump, so we can push a button in the laundry to fill the tank up the hill. All these little jobs are slowly getting done. It takes time, but we get there in the end. It will also make Amy’s life easier!

 

Since Janet left, Jan has been practicing pool diligently, as Janet nearly beat him twice and he is feeling his manhood has been challenged ;-)

Thanks for all the kind birthday wishes via email, Skype, text, phone and Facebook. We had a great chat to the Martins in Brazil and John in the UK. Very kind of everyone! On Monday we went in to see Murray B about the North Island tour. We are now pretty much all sorted for the trip, and leave on the 20th of April. Amy H is going to house & dog sit for us.

We leave Nelson for Welly on Saturday 20th, Auckland on Monday 22; Waitomo on 23, Rotovegas on 24-25; Tauranga Coromandel on the 26th; Whangarei on the 27th; Paihia on the 29th; Kauri coast on the 1st; Orewa on the 2nd; home on the 3rd. 

This Weds nite we are going for dinner at NMIT’s Rata Room (the chef training school) with Sandra & Kevin which will be fun. This coming weekend we have nothing booked at all, which will be just lovely.

I have my next CDANZ meeting in Welly on May 12-13; then June 30-July 1; Sept 9-10. Jan is in Auckland on Sept 10-12.

We will both be in Chch in October – myself for a CDANZ Career Symposium and AGM, and Jan on an NZIM residential course. We were both going to stay the weekend afterwards to hopefully catch up with everyone (Oct 19 & 20). Will confirm dates etc later. Then the last trip away for this year should be November to Queenstown.

Jan’s Oma Lieselotte is not expected to last much longer. Over Easter she has become bed-bound. She is now not eating, and is unable to drink without choking. Aunt Uta is looking after her, with Thomas, Bettina and Simone there to help and Uta’s home physio/nurse friend. Hopefully Omi will have a peaceful end to what has been a full and busy life. It is a rare privilege these days to be able to die quietly - with dignity - at home, amongst people who care for you. Our thoughts are with you all in Neu-Ulm and please tell Omi we love her.

Tanja – I hope your knee comes right. Take lots of sunshine, rest, good company and recreation to help it along :-)

I am sure that I have forgotten heaps, but that will do for now.


Jan & Sam

News from Nelson - September 2012 #2

Hi everyone,

Wow, nearly another month has passed, and here I am talking to you all again.

Our sympathies go out to Janet, Robert and the boys as Janet’s mum died recently, after a relatively short illness. Janet had just been down in Nelson & we had all had a catch up, so it was rather shocking – though somewhat expected – to get the message about her Mum so soon.

The pool table is still proving great entertainment: largely because Jan is rehearsing so much at present for Les Mis, there is not much time for anything longer. 

We seem to have had weekends based around the weather of late: we have had lots of fine weeks and wet weekends. However, last Sunday we managed to have a session sorting out the gorse as the rain stopped for a couple of days. Got some good weather-oriented photos though!

I got my Masters research proposal in, and was told that it was one of the best my supervisor had ever received (which was very kind of him). I had a very productive day at Auckland Uni, meeting all sorts of people and asking millions of questions. I even had time to get a book out of the library for Jan. I caught up with Tessa and we had Japanese at Kabuki Teppanyaki restaurant at the Stamford; I met her friend Lisa who seems really nice.

On Thursday I delivered a Leadership diversity lecture at the AUT Manukau campus. Wow, that is the most fantastic campus! It is like being in a park!

This weekend Jan is playing in a Les Mis performance both days, so I will get on with some housework and study. I also have a good chunk of marking to do, with the study break coming up, there will be a bit more time for doing all those ‘nice to do’ things like cleaning :-(

Life is pretty full of Les Mis at the moment.

I will be up in Welly briefly in a couple of weeks (Oct 13-14) for Sunday - Monday meetings, which is the weekend that Camila comes to stay. Jan will get her safely installed, though I don’t know how he is going to find time to do some required furniture repairs. I might need to get Michael Bender onto the job and take the pressure off him.

Dogs are well, though both Coco and Fliss took themselves off for an unsupervised walk today. I caught up with Fliss down past the winery, heading determinedly along the road to our bottom gate. She is so deaf she couldn’t even hear the car, but got in the car sheepishly enough when I tooted RIGHT behind her.

Barb has been the US having a tiki-tour, and hopefully she will catch us up on how she enjoyed that now she is back.

Jan & I are both in Welly from 7-9 December (next Exec meeting) so any ideas for catch-ups would be great. 

Andreas, Katrin & Christian will be with us for Christmas and maybe New Year in Nelson. Flights are booked, should be loads of fun, and we are really looking forward to it!

Happy birthdays to Andrew R, Ana Silvia WHO IS TWENTY ONE, KT, Aunt Uta, Robert dB, Jenny L, Bertie, Guy, Barb, Kelly A, Erica, Julie T & Tracey M! 

Right – better start my marking  :-D

Jan Kuwilsky & Sam Young