So im really sorry I havent updated the ol blog in a while!! I have been working none stop down here.
So im guna tell you a little about my job first and then I’ll get into some stories!! So the job is working for Arrow International who are a project solutions company hired by the AMI insurance company. So near enough everyone in Christchurch and Canterbury as a region has their homes insured by AMI. This means that when everyones homes that got damaged in the earthquakes that all the houses in Canterbury have to be structurally assessed and tendered. So my jobs is to go into these buildings, measure it up and note down all details and structurally assess the building. Then write it up in a report an chuck it over to the quantity surveyors!! Simple!! Its not, its very detailed and it takes 11 hours to complete a report and survey each house. Its dangerous as well as all these buildings are coming down anyway after the Sept and Feb quakes.
So Christchurch is getting into its winter and the first stage of the clean up is over for the city, threes the demolitions to complete and clear all the rubble away from the fallen brick buildings. We had more quakes on Monday the 13th . The office got trashed and we were all sent home. But the aftershock that followed that was worse. I was working along the street to my house and the aftershock came and pulled a church from the 1900’s down to the ground right next to me.
Its been a crazy 6 months in NZ. And as I write this I will have to let you all know im ill with man flu. So if this piece of the blog comes across slightly soppy then you’ll all know why!
So work is still amazing and I think the work ive put in, with the people im surrounded by is worth a degree in itself. Ive learnt so much and its crazy to think how ‘basic’ some of my previous methods were. I work with 2 outstanding chaps called Jay, who’s from India and Romeo who’s from NZ but was born in the Philippines. And between us we’ve been assessing all the damaged buildings across Christchurch. Id be lying if I told you it hasn’t ground me down slightly. Having to walk into peoples homes and deem their properties damaged and un-inhabitable and then to come home and face an area that over the past few months has spent more time shaking than standing still. There isn’t an escape from it and it does ware you down. I visited a property, one of many, over the past few months. And inside was this sweet old woman in her early 70’s. The house was in one of the worst conditions and she was still living there, by herself. When we go into these properties we make an effort to speak to the people inside and not make it like some regimented walk around. This old woman, living by herself had lost her husband a few years past. It was really tough to sit there and listen to her and to know that she’d loose her house in the coming months due its condition and the recent land status the PM John Key announced to CHCH. Its tougher again when you cant tell them due to legal stuff. Its really wrecked me on that side of things.
So there have been some party antics, and if you’ve read the above I think you’d agree ive needed a pint here an there!! As times gone on ive met more and more people and im not going to lie….the accent work well. Theres been a few wild nights out. The most recent was by far the most entertaining. But theres a wee story before hand just so we get on the straight and narrow.
So when I first rocked up in CHCH, my landlady, Natasha took me too Sophies Café. And there I met my friend Marina who is Sophies daughter. Now Marina invited me to her birthday party, which was a Mexican party and I drank far to much tequila with a bunch of strangers. Could of ended worse. Anyway there I met my good mate Amy and sometime after that got to know her boyfriend Callum. They’ve been awesome to me and invited me to a few of their house parties where ive got to meet even more people again!!. So the last party I went to at Amy and Callums it was Amys birthday and I returned the favour of tequila to Amy because she made me drink a fair amount at Marinas some months before. But even though I brought the tequila, I still didn’t turn up with a present for. So I promised a ‘boozey lunch’. Which was an attempt to sound sophisticated but as the stories continues you’ll clearly see that there was nothing sophisticated left of me by the end of it.
So Amy, myself, Callum and Amys friend Martine arrived at Winnie Bagoes for our Boozey Lunch. I think the mistakes started around now as I thought it would be a good idea to avoid breakfast and just go all out on lunch. A chicken salad readers does not cut it when your drinking all day. So we smashed back the food, and we all had 2 or 3 pints. Then we started getting in the pitchers full of booze. And then Callum came up with the best/worst idea of the day/evening. ‘Lets get some of those cocktails……the ones with all the shots in…….a Long Island thingy’. Now remember its 2.30pm and were already doing well from havin a few lagers. So we get a round in of the long island ice teas…..then another………..and then another. For a break we decided to have another pitcher of lager. Then the long islands came back out again. And im pretty swurly now. What followed was me and Callum tryin to haggle, with the clerk at the offy, a price for the Jagermeister footie shirt….(note: go back and get jagermeister footie shirt.)
Never the less I was totalled by now and its around 8pm and we’ve still got a party to get to. We arrived wasted and as I got there I was handed a pen by some woman who was asking to sign this box. So in my pissed state I drew a great big, black penis on this box and signed my name. What id actually done was get handed a pen by the birthday girls mother……who was walking around with her daughters 3D 21st birthday card and asking all of her friends at the party to sign it. Not a good look. Leavin the party we made a pit stop at mac d’s and asking for the cream-of-some-young-guy over the drive-thru speaker aint cool. The next day wasn’t good. It was a new low when you have to warm up the burger from mac d’s in the microwave because you couldn’t pull together enough minerals to eat it once you got in.
Anyway, ive got some more stuff written down. I’ll let you know more sooner than you think.
PEACE
TD
