I’m still here. The SDC offered the archives position to another candidate. I heard today. It was a close decision.

Oh, well. Thanks to everyone who gave encouragement.

Where was I?

I went to Friend-Link to be interviewed for the DVD they are preparing of the friendships we maintain. The three of us talked about Robert’s life and the memoirs we are preparing.

Another personal collection looks set to come into the archives. It is the collection of a women who was active in theological studies among Christian churches in Asia, studying indigenous theology and feminism. She died suddenly in June. Her husband is preparing the collection. He is still in mourning for his wife.

Ga nu, eldern, det messedas sinde gan

End des Sciptúra Dâs, det freelsing der Amenitas for’m eldern, heelde ettom tied des Sunjiet.

Det Boekhús heeld án reedingendeg toe jereië for’m nieste five jeer. Ik nie sleep well and ik wes teerd om deg. Ik dûrwund toe búgje myn heeft eer noentied. Wy eië for noenmet ettom Crocodylum and myn met nie seet well mid my, and ik wes hevig-eëd. Jet hit wes án akennende deg for’m boekhús.

Pentecost 6

God is a wabe. A wabe goes way before and way behind and way beyond. The term was coined by Lewis Carroll. Religious people think that their institutions are a wabe too. They often prove not to be. Today the Opoho Association of Presbyterian Women (APW) formally dissolved and handed over their special suitcase of papers to the Archivist. The members were too old to continue their organisation. All that remains is their fellowship.

Eventually even gods will die.

Graeme decided to go out to the church hall and sit over a heater. It was a cold day with snow on the hills. A member from the congregation sat with him and made sure he didn’t set himself alight. He celebrated his fifty-fifth birthday this week and was telling everyone about it. One of his presents was a cigarette lighter which he had with him. He hopes that I will buy him something. There is a church midwinter dinner next Saturday and he hopes to go.

I was waiting for the taxi at the supermarket this evening. After twenty minutes waiting in the dark I went in and rang them again. Normally I would have expected the taxi to have arrived after about fifteen minutes. There was a little delay in answering the call, I was queued for less than a minute. A taxi had not yet been committed to collect us. We waited ten minutes longer. After thirty minutes Joe decided to walk home. He was getting too cold to tolerate waiting. The duty person noticed that I was still there at closing time and rang them again. By this time I was on the verge of beginning to shiver. A taxi arrived. The driver was concerned that I had been waiting for so long and promised to investigate and give someone a rark-up. I gave him the supermarket taxi voucher when we arrived home. It wasn’t a voucher for his company. He took it anyway. I was waiting fifty minutes for a taxi and was finally delivered home by a different taxi service! That is ridiculous service!

I made some science: MIT Weblog Survey 2005

Knock on my door last night after eleven. Fortunately I was still up. It was my neighbour, a woman whom I know from church. She asked if I would come help push a car. It was parked diagonally across the pavement and onto the street. The driver, a young chinese man, was having trouble with his battery. He wanted us to push him onto the road so he could ride it downhill and get his battery going again. We gave him a push. He was having trouble steering and bumped into a fence across the road, fortunately without doing any damage. We found out later that he had not put the key in the ignition and the steering was locked as we pushed it. I waited in the night as my neighbour took him up to his flat to find someone with an AA account. She got back first. His keys were still in the ignition (he had tried starting it after it had hit the fence). She got it going and parked it on the curbside. The man was most impressed when he turned up with his landlady and managed to drive it away.

Is evangelical or fundamentalist religious goth a contradiction?

Servant of the Shared Meme

Quite amused. I don’t usually post quiz results. I noticed What kind of goth are you? posted on a couple of journals. I don’t consider myself gothic: I’m too mainstream, my most prefered counter-culture is church-based, my favorite colour is yellow (look at my journal pages and fear the glory of legal paper yellow), and I find find that charcoal gray is better at hiding cat hairs than dead black.

So I was amused to get this result. “A New Agey Goth: Bet you practice Wicca or Paganism or possibly more liberal Christianity. You probably love Dead Can Dance, anything ethereal, and might be vegetarian. You probably also like to hug people.”

Well, yes, I am a liberal christian. I laughed when I read that result. I haven’t the faintest idea who Dead Can Dance are, although I enjoy some ambient music. I am not vegetarian, and I only hug friends when I feel they need one. I am very restrained in that way.

Solstice in Invercargill

So I’m back. I had my interview. On the strength of it I don’t expect to get the position. I was thrown by one question “Do I have any suggestions on a strategem for converting metadata to computer?” My mind went blank. I have been dwelling on it since. Also my interview was delayed quarter of an hour while they were still talking to another candidate who had driven down from Dunedin that day. The interviewing panel were very sympathetic. I will hear either way next Wednesday. Can’t completely rule it out yet.

Traveled to Invercargill in the Catch-a-Bus minivan. I was the only one who was not going down for the Southland-Lions rugby match. Reports have it that bar owners around Invercargill were pleased by the visit of the Lions Fans who proved to be exemplars of British courtesy and queue-forming even when the taverns and bars spilled out onto the streets. It should be pointed out the popular name for the Hiberno-Britannic visiters, the “Barmy Army”, is an Australian invention.

Mother, Tim, and Jolls Major encountered during visit and all are well and in good health.

Tomorrow Invercargill. The archivist and I sat down at lunchtime and discussed interview questions. She asked after Mike. I would have pointed to A public secret, but some clever little gnome at telecom put a shovel through a cable somewhere so there was no internet. No EFTPOS either. Fortunately I had some money on me to pay for lunch. She had not realised Mike had been out of Dunedin for twelve months. I’m sure he will phone eventually. Or Else!

Since I attempted to open the application form from the Southland District Council using KWord I have started having hiccoughs with it. Suddenly it will autosave and the bottom of the document will be below the frame and the page won’t scroll down to show it to me. The cursor can go down, but I can’t see it. I might try an update to see if that will help. If not I will have to re-organise my document information.

World Refugee Sunday Pentecost 5

Friday morning worked on the essays, filled out a bibliography and posted them away to the Open Polytechnic. That is the end of that course. I’m rather relieved. Walked into town and visited the Dunedin City Council Archives to get an idea how they differ to a religious. Very similar. Whereas the Presbyterian Archives deal with parish records they deal with records relating to property, museums, minutes, plans and photos. It meant I was quarter an hour late for a haircut so I had to wait another 20 minutes so I could slot in at a later time. I am nearly ready for my interview now.

Went into town to library on Saturday. First time in ages. Didn’t see anything I desperately wanted to borrow. Town mildly busy due to an upsurge of Otago and British tribals. Predictions of an invasion of balmy armistas greatly exaggerated, at least for this far south. Was picked up at Knox Corner to go to ten-pin bowling with Friend-Link.

In the evening a visit to the Observatory had been organised for the Opoho youth group. Decided it was worth tagging along. I haven’t been to an observatory in years. Got to see Jupiter (two grey bands and three moons – it’s very close to the moon on the elliptic plain at the moment, first of the bright stars in the sky); the Jewel Box in the Southern Cross (beautiful, like a scattering of dust), and the twin stars of Alpha Centauri, Rigel Kent. There is talk about coming back in summer to see Saturn – I’ve seen it once, it’s worth the effort, moons and rings!

According to the Abrahamic accounts the first refugee became the father of the Arab nation. I sat at the back of the church today with Graeme. He is not feeling well, especially complaining about the cold. Eventually he went through to the church hall and sat next to a heater.

The universe is still here.

This is odd because not only have I not updated to the point that one reader wondered if I was a thumpstain on the front of a bus, but Crypt has updated Fun Stuff and Coffee twice!

That’s it, the universe is ending. Somebody hold me. (Ok, anybody but you)

I thought there might be something wrong with the catfood. Fremen has thrown up twice, the second time in the middle of the night – and I wasn’t out of range. Grrr. On the other hand Tao has sampled it and shows no sign of ill effect.

The universe is still here.

This is odd because not only have I not updated to the point that one reader wondered if I was a thumpstain on the front of a bus, but Crypt has updated Fun Stuff and Coffee twice!

That’s it, the universe is ending. Somebody hold me. (Ok, anybody but you)

I thought there might be something wrong with the catfood. Fremen has thrown up twice, the second time in the middle of the night – and I wasn’t out of range. Grrr. On the other hand Tao has sampled it and shows no sign of ill effect.