News from Nelson - July 2017

Hello everyone!
Another month rolls around, and here we are again.

First of all we had Joan's 80th birthday at the Boathouse, on the wildest, stormiest day of the year. Because we were in Nelson, we were out when our creek flooded and cut off the houses on the Road. We missed it completely: had no idea when we came home that the creek had been raging away.

Part of the problem was that the Council had been prepping a ford, as they were about to replace the bridge at the bottom of our road. Their contractors had put in a temporary ford for us to cross while the new bridge was going in. When I looked at the culvert pipes on the way home on Friday night, I realised that they were miles too small, and that one rain would overwhelm them. Well, it ended up being a bit of a debacle as the torrential rain we had on the Saturday certainly did that: there was no ford left after the rain. Of course, the undersized culverts in the temporary ford was part of the reason that the road higher up became impassible. However, water will find a way, and the force of the backlog pushed all the fresh earthworks out of its path: one of the culvert pipes was found half a kilometre downstream.

Aside from that excitement, the 80th birthday party went well. Despite the terrible weather about 40 of us were warm and snug at the Boathouse, well fed, with lots of chat and catch ups. The family set up in the morning, Mike staffed the BBQ as Jan had only had surgery 10 days before, the Lionesses did the salads, and Barb organised a spectacular cake.

The one difficulty was in packing up afterwards: I had far too few plastic containers to pack things away in to transport home again. I have made a mental note to remember to take LOTS more next time!

The next day 'the gang', my parents group of friends, came out to Rose Road for a BBQ, to eat the leftovers (everyone had had strict instructions to bring NOTHING). A fabulous way of getting rid of lots of food from yesterday’s Boathouse shindig, and a great afternoon.

As I mentioned in last times' newsletter, my Mother ended up in hospital with a lung infection. I turned up to visit her just as her lung specialist was explaining that "with congestive heart failure this type of thing happens", which was a "$#^%?!" moment. I explained that she had been waiting to see a cardiologist to get a diagnosis since January, and the lung specialist said he would speak to the cardiology nurse and get my mother into the system. He did, and she now is in the system. Crikey. I am so glad that I came in when I did. She finally got to see a cardiologist, and the prognosis seems pretty good. She has a clear plan of action to work to, and I will attend her future appointments as an extra pair of ears, and to ensure that her case continues to be pushed forward.

Jan has recovered really well from his surgery, and in mid-July got the sign-off to return to work. He has been very careful in what he is doing, and has been slowly working up to full use. The specialist is very happy, but has warned him that he really needs to give everything a year to properly bed in before he can really relax and go back to 'normal'.

As Jan was getting signed off to return to work, I headed off across the Tassie for a PhD induction and a meeting with my supervisors. I flew out of Auckland on the Wednesday. When I arrived in Brisbane close to midnight, the airline had left my luggage behind in Auckland. This was because my flight out of Nelson had been delayed by an hour and a half due to bad weather around the rest of the country delaying inbound aircraft... Dunedin had hail, Queenstown had snow, Christchurch had fog, Wellington had a wild windy storm, and Auckland had rain. Nelson was fine, but the inbound aircraft was delayed by an hour and a half. While Jan and I were waiting at the airport, we were sitting at a table next to a South African couple, who were talking about the delay to the flight, and I realised that they too were flying to Brisbane. I talked to them about it, and when we boarded a plane at long last, they were sitting on the row opposite me. We asked the crew to radio ahead to let them know we were on our way. We arrived at Auckland domestic terminal with 35 minutes to get from the domestic terminal to the international terminal, and down to gate nine right at the end of the international terminal. I just made it as they were doing the final call for passengers. Funnily enough, I sat with the South African couple all the way across to Brisbane.

I had anticipated having enough time to get to dinner, and to go through duty-free, and get a combination Wi-Fi hub and charge unit. Epic fail there! Luckily I had a peanut stash in my handbag. But dammit, my checked luggage didn't make it. So I spent two days in the same clothes until Brisbane airport services reunited me with my gear. At least it was delivered to the door!

Tanja and Tony were awesome to stay with: they couldn't have been more helpful! Hotel Kuwilsky is alive and well in QLD! Tony lent me his travel card, which made it really easy to take buses and trains from Brisbane down to the Gold Coast. It’s the same as the Oyster card, or the Snapper card, with a tap and go function. I am going to buy my own, as I think this will be very useful for what is likely to become regular trips.

The PhD sessions were really useful. I have a Griffith ID card, got to see around the Gold Coast and the Nathan Campuses, and get a feel for the place. I really like it, and the culture. I learned some useful things, and have started to build a network - including a study group. I have a 'discipline librarian' (hilarious title!) who, funnily enough, turns out to come from Wellington.  I also attended a poster competition, which was interesting to see. There is an awful lot of VERY poor design with the posters, but there were some really good ones that I took some shots of below.

While I was away, Warren had arrived. After picking me up at Nelson airport, Jan, Warren and I called in to see Michelle and Margot, who were having a Rose Road midwinter party at their place. Jan and Warren had made marzipan horns, rounds of cucumber with cheese and ham, and taken basil and feta cheese dip with carrot crudités... that was a very nice dinner! Warren caught up with Erica, before flying on to Wellington for a Monday morning meeting.

We caught up with Dawn, who is happy, but is battling fibromyalgia. We spent a wonderful afternoon telling war stories and having lots of laughs... which reminded all of us how important it is to get together regularly!

Jan has had a graduated return to work which has worked really well. Although he was impatient to get back - as he was bored at home - I think he found himself more tired than expected at the end of each week. That makes the graduated return to work even more sensible. He is absolutely fine physically and mentally though, and gets out brushcutting every chance he gets.

He will be starting rehearsals for the next NSO concert next month, and has been asked to go back on the NSO committee. He is thinking about it.

Jenny Ladley was up in Nelson and we caught up with her for dinner, which was really nice... though the reasons she was here wasn't so good: a death in the broader whanau. Note that Jan had the briefing finger out while he was explaining the pertinent points of working for the Government at dinner.

Uncle Norman got hospitalised with a gastro bug, but is now back in the nursing home. I didn't go to see him after my trip away because of the possibility of having brought back a bug on the plane, neither has my mother been able to see him because she got another cold, then the hospital trip. Not a good month for visits.

Semester two is underway, and I am off to a much smoother start than last semester. This time we knew ahead of time that there were close to 50 research students, and there were two other supervisors from last semester to step in and know the ropes. With only one supervisor to onboard, it has been much easier. I am teaching a new AUT paper that is not well-resourced as yet, but I am organising that week by week instead of having it all ready to go at the start (an approach that I am struggling with, but am aware that I need to do it that way or else burn out!).

I have been writing a couple of articles for submission to peer reviewed journals. NMIT's research department suggest that NMIT researchers work with two emeritus profs who have moved to Nelson to retire, and who like to be paid in coffee (now there's a deal I approve of!). I have had a couple of meetings with Prof Bevan Grant about some work I am doing, and he suggested that I needed to get help in writing professionally, which took me back a bit at first. However, knowing he wasn't telling me this for no reason, I had a scout online, and found an English writing programme on FutureLearn, “English for University Study” from the University of Reading. As this is a self-paced three part MOOC, I completed the first unit fairly quickly (the whole thing took about 6 hours), and have signed up for round two, and for another course with Berkeley, on the edX platform. I have learned some things that I didn't know existed (such as topic sentences) which has, I think, made my academic writing more clear. The Prof was right, of course :-)

We had a wonderful mid-winter Christmas celebration at Rose Road with Kathleen & Frits, Amy, and Phil and Pauline. A fabulously easy weekend of laughter, conversation and relaxation. I wish I had taken some photos!

Magda and David are off to live in QLD in November, sadly... but they will also be there to visit when I pop across to Griffith. And speaking of that, Jan & I are both going across at the end of November/beginning of December for ten days.

Again, we have had some lovely views to enjoy:

Lara is coming to stay for a few days in October, which will be fabulous. Looking forward to it already!

Hope all of you have a wonderful month, and I will be back to you in September.


Sam (& Jan)

Acceptance to Griffith Uni

A bit of excitement today: I was accepted as a doctoral candidate at Griffith Uni.

Stoked!

I have a couple of forms that I have to return, and I need to negotiate when I will attend an induction (due to my teaching load getting to most of the dates is impossible). However, the July date looks like it MIGHT be do-able: I may be able to squeeze in a weekend in Brisbane before the start of Semester 2 next year.

Hmm. I probably need to check with my supervisors whether I need to officially attend the induction as well, due to my teaching hours. It is possible that I may not have to. But anyway, we will see!

I am now officially on my way :-)

Sam

News from Nelson - August 2016

Hi All,

A few of you have been mentioning of late that you miss our news updates.

My workload has significantly increased over the past two years, which is why - I think - some things have had to slip. However, family connections should not be one of those things, because I think it's important.

But at the same time, I have have been doing a bit of research on what helps people get through the PhDs, and funnily enough, a key thing is simply writing. So in order to hone my writing muscles, last November I signed up to a website kept by a couple of Californians, called 750words. The idea behind Buster and Kellianne's website is that you write 750 words every day, and that kickstarts your creativity and builds your writing habit.

So since 11 November last year I have kept a daily dairy, and have written lots of my business blog posts through this mechanism. iin other words, I have been writing up what Jan and I have been doing, but I just haven't been posting it to our family blog.

I have given myself a metaphorical kick in the backside, and am going to aim to upload our news every two months as two short 'monthly' written updates write updates rather than creating videos or posting images (because it takes less thinking time, and is therefore 'easier'). I will, as usual, send out the email links to you once more as soon as I've uploaded.

So. What follows is a link to each month which you can click through to all that we have done this year since I caught you all up last in January, with August's news below these links:

• February: Westport to spectate at the Buller Half Marathon, PhD derail, Frits's birthday celebration
• March: harvest time and Taupo
• April: mega-migraine, visitors, puppy yearnings and movies
• May: Concert, friends, dogs and nature
• June: Wrist surgery, lunches, lakes and Uncle Eddie
• July: Victoria leadership lecture trip, driving, mid-winter Xmas, orchestra, new Uni

This month Jan played in the Stabat Mater, a mass for peace, with the Nelson Civic Choir:

Jan caught up with Gary and Karen when they did the Queen Charlotte track in Marlborough recently, along with Max and Karen, Tracey and Erica:

Towards the end of the month we flew to Sydney, then hopped on a train, and travelled four days across the Nullarbor to Perth. Why would we do that? A friend of ours, Ian, was having a pretty significant birthday, and had always wanted to do the trip. Ian and Sharon were going, and had asked a few other people if they wanted to go. Jan had always wanted to do a longer train trip, and I was reasonably keen, so we teed it up.

The timing meant I had to miss a week of lectures, but I had planned that week in back in May, so there was no problem. I set tests and tutorial work for the week so the students weren't disadvantaged.

We started in Sydney with a delicious birthday dinner for Ian at Essen, a German restaurant close by UTS (and just down the road from the Mercure, where we stayed overnight).

The next day, Sharon's cousin Glenn took us out for lunch to the Sydney Fish Market, where we ate far too much gorgeous fish, and I finally tried Barramundi. A bit too soft in texture for me, but Jan loved it. 

At 2pm we rocked up at the train station, and were shown to our berths. Despite being small, the cabins contained all you needed, and were more spacious than I thought they would be. We had four days of enforced idleness, looking at the world going past. Jan had some study to do, and I spent a couple of hours each day reading and writing my PhD research methodology. The rest of the time we were playing games, walking up and down the train, talking to people, taking photos, and listening to books and music... and eating.

Man alive, they fed you well. Everything was included: snack food, morning and afternoon tea, coffee, teas, cocktails, bubbly... wow.

We stopped at Broken Hills for three hours on the first full day, the next day for the afternoon and evening in Adelaide, then Cook on the third day for half an hour, followed by dinner under the stars for a couple of freezing hours at Rawlinna (and pretty much only sitting down), then no stops on the last day until we hit Perth. 

We were supposed to do a walking tour in Adelaide, but we found that they were going to take an hour and a half to walk a couple of kilometres, so we cut out of the tour and did our own walking tour through the CBD, just meeting up with the rest of the company at the Adelaide Wine Centre, in time for dinner.

The  age of most of the passengers looked to be 60s to 80s, so I felt rather too young. They were all nice enough people, but it did feel a bit like a retirement village.

For me it was an OK experience. Jan really enjoyed it. I found it a bit too confining, as there was not enough opportunity to walk around on the third and fourth day; although I had really thought that it would be Jan who felt that way, not myself.

One of my work colleagues, Sue, has done the Trans-Siberian, and said that that was a great trip. That might be worth doing. She and Steve had stayed at Lake Baikal in the middle of the trip, which I think saved them from going stir crazy from the confinement.

When we got to Perth, we met up with Robyn, one of the Nayland old girls. Robyn used to work with my father at MAF, and used to play hockey for Waimai. She hosted us, toured us around Perth, and had us to stay at her place. We got to see Kings Park, South Perth, Fremantle, Victoria city and up the coast to Woodvale. We had a lovely walk along the new waterfront development in the CBD. It is going to be quite spectacular when it is finished. The bell tower on the waterfront has used bells imported from St Martin’s in the Fields in London for its carillon. It is also going to cast a new ANZAC bell as a ‘great bell’ shortly, which will be quite cool. 

It is a very picturesque place, with lots of green areas, and some really interesting development. It has been hit by the mining downturn, but I think that is something that is affecting all of Australia at present. 

I will create a movie from the trip photos and video sometime soon, and will post it below. For now though, just a few key photos:

Our flight home was pretty uneventful - aside from neither of us being able to sleep. Oh, and the movie that Jeremy was in - A Letter for Hope - was on the AirNZ film list on plane when we flew home (I was so excited)!

I will be down in Christchurch in October, as I am presenting some research that a colleague and I at NMIT are doing on employer cybervetting. Staying with Jenny.

Jan too is in Chch in September and October - a week each month for his NEBOSH course. I am sure he would love to catch up with as many Cantabrians as he can :-)

My sister is, I think, heading off to America in November, and I assume that sometime soon after that we will get a date for the wedding... with hopefully enough time to arrange good flights to Maryland to help celebrate.


Sam (& Jan).

News from Nelson - February 2016

Hi everyone!
This month we went with Tracey and Erica to Westport to spectate at the Buller half marathon, because Gary, Karen, Karin and Ian all came up from Christchurch to compete (or, in the case of Karin and Ian, back from Austria). Jan and I rendezvoused with everyone else at Berlin's for dinner on the way down. We hadn't been to Westport quite a while, and it was a great trip. 

Erica at Berlin's

'Our team' completing the half marathon

While Gary, Karen, Karin and Ian all worked hard, Tracy, Erica, Jan and I did a bit of sightseeing, had some great cafe meals, and stayed overnight at the University of Canterbury field-station (thank you Jenny).

We also celebrated Frits's birthday at a new Italian restaurant in Nelson. Note the scintillating converstationalists at work below...

Frits, Neil, Amy & Kathleen

Jan & Frits making conversation on their smart phones

We caught up with Tracey and Erica at the Sarau Fair for some local beverages, produce, food, music and conversation, to celebrate the end of the blackberry harvest. It is always a fun afternoon and evening, kicking off at 4pm and going until 9-ish. Mellow.

Tracey at the Sarau Fair

Also this month, my PhD supervisor pulled out on my PhD project, for reasons of work overload on the very day I was about to upload the last piece of documentation to become a pre-candidate - my pre-proposal. Gulp. I asked if we could push my project back a year, but she said that this would not change the situation. Worse, as my secondary supervisor was now living in Australia and supervising remotely, and Uni statute said that a lead supervisor had to be on campus, my secondary supervisor could not become my lead supervisor. Even worse, my third 'advisor' who was at the Uni in NZ hadn't finished her PhD yet, so was unable to fill the role of lead supervisor. Combined, this essentially stopped my project dead in the water :-( 

I stewed on this for a couple of weeks, and tried to digest this news, having invested six months in working up my idea (August to February). Planning was done. The pre-proposal was done. I was ready to start. The University was going to fund my research (the deal has always been that I could do my PhD when our mortgage was gone - and we still have NZD$100k to go... so if I could get a "PhD for free" I could start early. AUT had been going to give me a "PhD for free" plus $1500 in expenses each year).

Then I spoke to a friend who had done her PhD at no cost through an Australian University... and thought about that idea for a while. After a while I decided to revert to my original idea of looking at emergent career leadership in New Zealand, and to work that embryonic project up into a pre-proposal, and apply to somewhere like the University of Queensland (we are there are a couple of prestigious career field professors) once my idea was reasonably well-formed.

I would imagine this will take quite a while to work up due to - once more - a very heavy workload this coming semester.


Sam (& Jan)