I was on the bus this morning on the way to work, sitting across the aisle from a guy who was talking to someone next to him. He was talking about the rugby team that he trains, a bunch of school kids. He was talking about his philosophy of training, getting them to be aware of the consequences of their actions, in regards to their positions and actions during a game. He was talking about how other teams that he's played against seem to be really strict in the placement of the kids, and gets the kids to stick to positions during game play. He felt that was too constricting for the development of the kids. The guy next to him asked him how many games his team won, and the guy replied that they didn't win many, but at least his kids were developing their own understanding of the consequences of their actions and placements on the rugby field.
I've been doing some good work on the training stuff that I've been doing, with some excellent feedback on my progress and what I'm doing for the training material.
However, I've done both a good thing and a bad thing today.
Bad first: I'm not going to be travelling around the country any more. Travelling around and training staff was part of the job description, which is now no longer happening.
Shock-horror!? Not quite.
Now the good: I'm not travelling the country any more because I've found a better way of doing the training, which has been accepted with excitement by all concerned and I received the comment, "Well done - that's thinking outside the box."
I was walking along the street one evening a couple of weeks ago. There were some teenage boys in front of me, blocking the sidewalk. People were walking on the road in order to walk around them. I'm not one to do this, so I was going to walk through them. When people are ignorant in groups, I do something which 'politely' points out their ignorance to them. Usually by just walking in the middle of them. I notice it works, as they usually then move out of the way of everyone else.
Today is the day that I've been here in New Zealand exactly 4 years. I arrived here on June 14 2000, and it's now June 14 2004.
Happy Anniversary to me! Happy Anniversary to me! Happy Anniversary dear Alan… Happy Anniversary to me!
(Sung to the tune of Happy Birthday to me!)
I think this will be a small trip down memory lane. We're going to go through each of my entries from when I arrived, at this time each year, and we're going to see how things have developed.
I just watched a movie called Lost In Translation, starring Bill Murray. It made me sad. Do not continue reading if you haven't seen it and plan on seeing it, as I'm giong to be telling you all about it.
Bill played an actor getting old, not able to get work in America, so he's in Tokyo doing a whiskey commercial for 2 million dollars. However, he can't understand the language, and the people are strange. He's bored and alone, with his family back in America. We quickly learn that he forgets his kids' birthday and he can't be bothered giving his wife an answer about what colour the new carpet in his study should be.
I asked for a USB keyboard yesterday at work, so that I could connect it to my laptop and work more ergonomically. You'd think it'd be a simple thing in a computer company, wouldn't you, but nooooo…
Within the space of 24 hours, we've had a number of people involved, with keyboards of the wrong type ordered, someone wondering if Australia would have one, someone asking if maybe a PS/2 to USB convertor would be appropriate, and even purchase orders supplied. All I wanted was a fucking USB keyboard lying around somewhere!
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