Odd confession Monday

When I go for a jog and meet friendly animals, I like to take pictures of them. The current record is four in one day.

Out of body

Still no job, but HOLY SHIT I PASSED THE BAR EXAM. Interesting move, universe. Didn't see that one coming. Eager to see what you've got lined up next.

Sometimes you can't tell whether the glass is full or empty

My cute little cousin posted a quote on her tumblr that I'm struggling with. It says that forgiveness is something like letting go of the hope that the past could have been any different. But I'm feeling like that definition suits so many things: forgiveness, sure, but also regret. Currently I'm struggling with a shitload of regret. I regret that I didn't study harder for that stupid bar exam. One of my besties cocked her head and lowered her eyebrows the other day, gently asking, "Are you really worried about it? Statistically, you passed." And yes I know that the numbers are in my favor for the thumbs up, but the numbers also give a middle finger to a whole lot of people every year, even if it isn't the majority. I regret that I didn't put on a tidier show in that job interview I had several weeks ago; the job that would have tidied up my money situation; the job that they gave to someone else. I regret that I can't seem to really get back my everything is going to be okay mojo.

But I am a proponent of fake it until you make it! I am all moved in to the new apartment, and it's honestly wonderful. By "all moved in" of course I mean that all of my shit is now inside of it, but naturally there is always box-emptying and organizing to be done. I sometimes say that I inherited the Murphy packrat gene, but the truth is that I was raised by people who had to work hard to make sure that everyone had enough, and we always had more than enough because of straight up frugality and saving things that might be useful in the future. So I tend to save things that might be useful in the future. Or maybe they have sentimental value, which holds complete sway over me. Or maybe I don't want to pitch it in the garbage and can't think of an appropriate place for it to go.

Anyway, just like I boasted, the new place is spacious and sunny and close enough to downtown to walk but not so close that I'm tempted to go eat out every night. Pretty good. And though I do spend a lot of time looking for jobs with a frown on my face, I get to do fun things. I'm trying really hard to get in a frame of mind that is focused on finding a job but also relishing this forced vacation. I have absolute freedom, and that is a rare animal to find.

Adventures in bar study

Me: You're going to have to roll me into the exam. I've had pancakes for 3 meals in the last 2 days.

Jesse: I didn't even know you like pancakes.

Me: I hadn't had pancakes in like 3 years. All of the sudden they're like crack. And I would bleed coffee at this point.

Yeah, I know there should only be about 5 items in this list. Go ahead and criticize and see what happens.*

Things I have learned while studying for the bar exam:

1. I have poor study habits.

2. I would rather do anything besides study for the bar exam.

3. Stress eating is a unique and interesting compulsion.

4. Cleaning is a more favorable activity than studying for the bar exam.

5. Wait WHAT? Cleaning?

6. Yes. Cleaning. Vacuuming and scrubbing suddenly seems imperative.

7. But you normally hate cleaning!

8. True story. But procrastination is a guilt-inducing beast, and at least the dishes are done when cleaning is the chosen method of procrastination.

9. I don't want to go through with this madness, and I'm not even sure I will ever benefit from this madness even if I do pass, which, let's be honest, these practice test scores need to ramp up real quick-like if that little miracle is going to come to fruition.

10. I need a nap.

*DEATH is what happens! I will voluntarily manslaughter you in the heat of passion after adequate provocation! And more legal stuff I will never use! ACK!

ACK

One year ago today, I had just moved to New Zealand and was absolutely cackling with glee as I watched the temperatures spike back home in Indiana while I started exploring my new country in the 50s and 60s. Sure, it was a little rainy at that point in the year, but most days were so pleasant temperature-wise that I didn't mind the rain. My point is that I am obviously being punished for the laughing and finger pointing of one year ago as today's high peaks at 91 and 97 is on the menu for Thursday.

Sometimes it helps me to just laugh my ass off for a few minutes.

Honey badger don't give a shit.

One of the treats of which I speak.

When trying to rise to the occasion, it helps to get out of bed. Oof.

Things I do each day:

- eat

- study

- procrastinate

- eat

- abuse caffeine

- fret about procrastination

- eat

- try to stop worrying about impending doom

- go to the gym so the eating can continue unabated

- resume studying/procrastinating/eating/fretting/doom

The sort of thing that gets me excited these days? This bad boy became mine today:

I'm going to study in bed all the time now, you guys. I mean, for at least another week or so. Then I'm going to read in bed for pleasure like a real live person with hobbies and joie de vivre. PLUS my new darling toy came courtesy of some coworkers who gifted me a Barnes and Noble giftcard when I left to go to law school. Three years ago. Sometimes I hang on to things until they can be truly useful.

A fellow recent law grad aptly ranted on facebook a few weeks ago that anyone who has a job lined up for after the bar can just shut the fuck up, so I feel like I still have permission to whine that studying for the bar is MISERABLE. But I am fitter than I may have ever been in my adult life because of all this mad gym action. And I'm in this misery with some very close and wonderful friends. And this one amazing man gives me heaps of attention and treats. And my superhero mom already helped me make huge headway in the battle that is moving apartments. AND ALSO LEST WE OVERLOOK GOOD FORTUNE, a second interview next week for a job that I think I could really be good at and also might enjoy. Is it a jinx to announce that sort of thing when there's always the very real and near possibility that it will fall through in short shrift? Maybe. But I'm going to keep it on the list of things to be thankful for, even if it doesn't materialize. Good things, keep coming to me. Motivation to study my ass off immediately would be good, universe. Right after I fix some macaroni and cheese. Kisses.

I also go to the pound sometimes to pet kittens.

Oh, hi. How are you? I'm perfectly fine and healthy, if not generally happy, but often bored. I'm studying for the bar exam, which is an awful and overwhelming task that frequently makes me feel like being mean. I'm also trying to get a job, which is an exhausting process fraught with waiting and chinks in the old self esteem. BUT! I've recently found the perfect apartment for when my current lease ends, which is a very good thing since the lease ends on August 6th. It's certainly nothing fancy or architecturally interesting, but it's an enormous east-facing spot and has a dishwasher, washer/dryer, tons of windows, and a big shade tree. It's going to be great. Aside from the misery of bar study/job hunting/apartment finding, there have been some sweet bits to the last couple of months for sure. Let's look.

I got to see The Black Keys with some of my favorites.

Took the nephew grocery shopping.

Oh yeah, there was a whole graduation-type thing.

Went morel hunting for the first time.

Went to the Taste of Bloomington.

And spent quite a bit of time with a very nice man. Shit he's cute.

I'll see you next time, hopefully after I do some more stuff. Like take the bar exam and have a job. Smooch.

South Island Day 9 & 10

Waking up in Hokitika was not a treat. Saving money is awesome, but freedom camping has its drawbacks. I guess that no bathroom/running water and fear of being rousted in the middle of the night are the big two, especially when it's raining so all three of you are sardining it in the back of the campervan instead of two in the van and one in the tent. Occasionally we managed to find a freedom campsite near a public toilet, but usually we focused on finding a spot where we could be inconspicuous.

Hokitika is nothing special. We did a little obligatory souvenir shopping: Brent was counting on his fingers how many people were in his office that required tchotchkes. But we drove on quickly, eager to get to our next destination, Franz Josef. We settled in to one of the cooler campsites we'd seen, threw the frisbee, cooked dinner, and visited the backpacker bar on site. But all of that was after we enjoyed a couple of happy hour drinks on a nearby bar patio. The view was pretty okay.

Crappy liquor is still popular at bars down under.

Franz Josef is a very small city with one purpose: get to the glacier. There are a couple of famous glaciers on the south island, and we decided to hike the Franz Josef glacier. Gluttons for punishment, we naturally chose the full-day hike. I wrote down that the day lasted from 8:15am to 4:40pm, although sense of time feels sort of skewed after you strap on crampons and zig zag your way up a glacier. It's the coolest thing.

First view of the glacier

Feeling pretty badass

Our guide actually was a badass

Just the absolute coolest thing.

Back down from the mountain, we headed out to Queenstown to hopefully find another freedom site and get some rest before Brent's last day with us. As always, even snapping photos from the moving van was breathtaking.

Sunday, November 28/Day 8 South Island

Sunday was a doozy, but that's what happens when your first adventure of the day starts at 4:30am and you know that your last adventure of the day is scheduled to involve a five-hour drive if everything goes according to plan. FORESHADOWING. But nothing could squash our enthusiasm, not even having to wake up and get ready at 4:15am in the dark at a freedom campsite. Because today was Farewell Spit day. Farewell Spit is a sea bird and wildlife preserve closed to the public except for guided eco tours. We saw seals and birds and sand dunes and a lighthouse from our neat tour bus. Maybe that term isn't accurate. I'll go with badass 4-wheel-drive offroading truckbus of awesomeness. Behold:

The morning was magical.

The end of November is late spring in New Zealand. You know what that means? Babies. This little feller is the first Oyster Catcher chick of the season! Our guide Tim spotted him for the first time on our tour and whipped the bus around to take us closer. Oyster Catcher parents are fiercely protective as we had learned when Brent got dive bombed a few times by some angry parents back in Kaikoura when he unknowingly wandered too close to their nest.

Aw, twins.

And then a quick trip to Cape Farewell, the actual northernmost point on the island, and we were on our way back to Skyla and out of Collingwood.

It was late morning and we had to make some decisions that would affect the rest of our trip. My friend Mark spent several months in New Zealand a while ago and stayed for a bit at an organic tea tree farm while hitchhiking. He impressed upon me that if I was ever close to the farm that I had to look up the couple that owned it and go visit them. Nicest people in the world, he said. But if we were going to visit them, it would be a couple hundred kilometers out of the way, and we'd only get to stay with them for one night. I'd called them and left a voicemail, but before I received a return call, we'd decided that we just didn't have enough time to make it out to see them. It was a hard decision, but when you only have two weeks to spend in a place that it takes years to properly explore, there are lots of hard decisions.

So we got on the road to the next place. Hokitika was only about 260 miles away, but New Zealand roads are windy and speed limits are strict. We didn't want to waste any money on speeding tickets, and we were heavily warned that they're distributed liberally. Brent took the wheel for the first time and seemed super comfortable immediately. I'd driven a few miles one night on a beer run, and that was plenty for me. The memories of a little fender bender I had once in Ireland are still vivid, and I was not eager to drive. So Jesse had been doing all of the driving. In addition to fearlessness, the Smiths apparently like to drive. We were keeping a good pace, eager to get our first glimpse of the west coast. New Zealand obviously isn't huge, but the coasts are vastly different.

And then came the point when crossing through a small town that we realized we had made a wrong turn. It was as simple as taking highway 60 instead of highway 160. Nothing was ruined. We weren't turned around. We were just taking a more direct route toward the city that was the ultimate goal for the night, and that meant that we were bypassing the most amazing part of the west coast and several points of interest along the way. In order to get to the sightseeing spots we'd planned we would have to backtrack about 84kms in total. Morale dropped. I got the call from the tea tree people, expressing their sadness that we had decided we just couldn't take the detour and going on about what a nice young man that Mark was. My morale was boosted, but the general air in the car was tense. Jesse had spent weeks pouring through the guidebooks and making notes and plans and routes, and a mistake like this annoyingly crossed things off of the master list. And to add insult to injury, she was relaxing in the back seat for the first time. Brent and I both thought we were cooking right along on track, but shit, I should've been paying more attention. But no! Brent was determined. He would drive fast and we would make it to the coast before sunset and backtrack up the coast and see everything! And we did. The Pancake Rocks were the main goal.

I was often taking a video when the twins didn't know it.

We planned to freedom camp again, but once more, it's challenging to find a good spot in the dark. En route to Hokitika we stopped by a glowworm cave so Brent could see them even though we had already. And then we finally found a good spot to park overnight, sardining it since it was raining. Eighteen-hour day SUCCESS.

Saturday, November 27/Day 7 South Island

Our goal in Takaka was to get to visit the Farewell Spit, an incredible sand spit and nature preserve that extends out into Golden Bay like an arm and is the northernmost point of the south island. Because of the tides, you have to get in on a tour super early in the morning, and we'd booked our tour for the next day. So we fossicked about Takaka, souvenir shopping and stumbling upon an amazing weekend market full of jewelry and handmade trinkets. We popped into an internet cafe to check for grades since we'd finished our final exams over a week prior to leaving for the trip, and I discovered I'd passed all of my classes. HOORAY. The day was leisurely. We checked out rock formations at The Grove.

We chilled at Ligar Beach. It's probably my favorite animal.

And then we had a crazy steep hike to check out one of the largest cave entrances in the southern hemisphere, I think. One of us thought we read that somewhere, and now we can't find information about its size. It's poorly signposted, but we were determined to find it. A website about the cave says, "The last section of the hike, from the valley floor up to the cave entrance, is a steep and rough track requiring good fitness and experience." True story. It was a workout. This post is nearly identical to the experience we had.

From outside:

From inside:

It was super slippery, and I was too nervous after a couple of good slips to go too far down. Those Smiths, though, are fearless.

And then one more tiny adventure for the day: Pupu Springs, the clearest, cleanest water outside of Antarctica, apparently.

We planned to stay overnight at a campsite in Collingwood, the closest town to the Spit, but the campsite was charging $16 per person. SIXTEEN DOLLARS PER PERSON to park our van on a patch of grass, and maybe flush a toilet once or twice. In unison we said fuck that and went off in search of a freedom campsite. Freedom camping is generally frowned upon because tourists park wherever they want, clutter up the scenery, and leave trash. We were travelling before peak season, so we probably got away with far more than anyone campervanning it in late December or January did. There are many signs on city streets and water fronts explicitly warning against overnight parking or camping. So we wound our way up into a slightly residential area on a big hill and spotted a perfect spot: an undeveloped plot of land hidden from the street and other houses by trees and bushes. We zipped up into our little clearing and made dinner as the sun set.

We felt so victorious over the exorbitant campsite, though slightly paranoid that someone would spot us and kick us out in the dead of night. That's the kicker when it comes to freedom camping. But we were safe, and we even had a view of the bay with the tide out to go with dinner.