job and dresses

So as I wrote earlier, very briefly, I have a new job for iSentia, a media monitoring company, as a Daily Briefings Editor. I saw it advertised on Trademe and I thought the title sounded interesting so I opened it and thought to myself 'I can get that job!' I had drunk most of a bottle of wine the night that I applied, and that obviously worked, because a few days later I had a phone interview, a few days after that an in-person interview and the next week I started. It is early morning - I start at 6.30am and work till 9.30am, after which I can head to uni for classes and just get on the with the day. It works out perfectly for next semester's classes because they start at 10 or 11. At the moment however, I am on uni holidays so I just get up and go to work for 3 hours and then have the rest of the day free. It's quite nice! The company monitors and tracks the media for its clients. So they have people and computer programmes that scour the internet, tv, radio and social media and 'tag' articles or mentions of clients and these are put into the mediaportal. When we get there in the morning we log check which clients we are working on that day and log into mediaportal where all the clips and articles mentioning that particular client has been stored. We go through all the clips selecting the relevant ones and then turn these into a report - the Daily Brief. We send these reports off to the client and as most of them are in Australia, they receive them before the beginning of their working day so that they are up to date with what is being said about them in the media. Cool!

A few weeks ago I went wedding dress shopping with my mum and three friends. it was so much fun! three shops, 18 dresses. I didn't find 'the one' but I have an idea. I think I will get one made customised because I really want one that is unique to me.

I have a job! that is not a cafe! It is for a media monitoring company where i go in early in the morning, and write up reports for clients on their media presence over the day/night. very cool, very exciting. More to come...

off the wagon

Shit, i've really fallen off the wagon in all respects. I didnt do any exercise last week, didn't write a blog post and nick and i have only cooked dinner at home twice in what feels like forever (probably a week). I've bloody university! ive had so much to do, and am finding it really hard to get going on it that it's been all-consuming for the past few weeks.

Some pictures

Colin, Uncle Wayne's guidedog

Wellington on a good day!

Old pals

missed a week (or three)

i told myself i would post at least once a week, ummm but my last post was on April 24, and that is three weeks ago. not a very good effort. there isn't much news regarding the wedding, my running has slowed up ever so slightly, and uni is good. i really want to upgrade my blog a bit, so i need to spend some time to add pictures and make it look cooler. the problem is, i hardly take any pictures so i won't really have many to upload...

me, nick and a girl in amsterdam

Ok, so there is one of me and nick and a girl whose name i don't know in amsterdam. that was the best holiday ever. literally, the best holiday i've had. so. much. fun. and. love.

dresses!

So i have booked two appointments for early june to try on wedding dresses and my two friends and mum are coming to wellington for the weekend! My friends were talking about coming anyway, so i thought it was a good time to do it, then i asked mum to come too and she is. yay! we are going to Paperswan Bride  in Kelburn and Sally Eagle on Cuba St. I've been obsessively scrolling through dresses online and instagram so can't wait to actually try some on and see what looks good!

Invites are out

a very positive post today!

Firstly, (most of) the invites are out. there are still a few we need to get addresses for, but so far they have reached the USA, Netherlands, UK and even Auckland hehe. Plus we've already had a few rsvps, so very nerve-wrecking exciting. And just this evening i went for a wonderful 8.6km run along the south coast from Pak n Save to Princess Bay and back. it was twilight and so beautiful. I struggle to maintain mental focus and my mind wavers between carrying on and stopping. I think it's because I don't have a plan, i kinda just run and see how I feel. But, if i had a plan, I'd stick to it. So i might ask my beautiful (runner) friend Pamela to write me one up. Cos she's training for a half at the moment in Seattle. She's in a different league from me though, she's done maybe 5 already, and has had two babies god dammit!

best run yet

After a busy day at work on Sunday, I made myself go for a run. Work is a good place to start from as it is on the flat down by the water. Oriental Parade. It's a really popular place for running. I forgot my watch so i didn't know how long i was going for, although I've done that route many times and had a fair idea. It was windy, of course. Going down the back side of the hill towards Evans Bay was really windy and the thought of turning around and running into it was distasteful enough that i carried on. through the tunnel and back through mt vic. I stopped at pirie st and walked back to work, pretty stuffed. then i called nick to see if he could come and pick me up, but no, he was in Aro Valley and was about to cycle up the hill. So i rode my bike to meet him there and as much as i thought i couldn't do it, i rode my 3-speed cruiser up Ohiro Road. that shit is STEEP. i got home and mapped out the run and it was 7km. what a day! if my body doesn't get into shape doing that sort of thing then what does it take! we have sent out most of the invites. oooh we are now waiting to watch the RSVPs roll in!!

no title

I can't seem to think of a title for this post.

It involves all three points of interest to this blog.

1) I went for a wonderful run last night. it was a perfect night, the sun was setting on the south coast and i felt really really good. I went for 35 mins, following the slow and steady increase regime.

2) our wedding invites arrived! they are just great. at first i thought the writing was too small and our names took up too much of the card, but that doesn't really matter. hopefully we can start posting them this weekend, if Nick ever has time to do anything other than uni work...

3) as part of my internship i made a goal to post a blog at least once a week and to continue to learn new html and other fancy things. also, to run twice a week. so now that ive said that, i have to stick to it. Although right now I am not writing in html because im at uni and i have other things to do. i have just completed my first piece of assessment and shit it took me ages to get into it. i've known about it for weeks but only started on it yesterday pretty much. a critical review of an article, but only 400 words. often its more difficult sticking to small word limits than trying to meet large requirements. i felt completely out of the loop until finally something clicked and i was away.

Wedding

Time for an update on the wedding plans - finally have something to say on the matter! We have had some invites designed by a friend of nick's sister, whose website you can find here . I sent her a few other designs that I liked the look of and gave her a brief idea of what our wedding will be like and what we wanted the invites to look like and she got it spot on! It took a few emailes back and forth to get it just right, and to sort out the printing, which we did through vistaprint , but they should be arriving today in the post. and hopefully they look good! we're gathering a list of addresses so within a week, we should be sending them far and wide.

Here's a sneak peek of where it will be taking place...

internship

I have started my internship with Patricia as part of the BA internship. I have met with her a couple of times and last week attended a workshop with her in Lower Hutt, and her industry and business is so completely new to me that i didnt really know what i was going to be doing, but after our first official meeting yesterday, things are finally taking shape. I have just proofed edited an abstract for her, which i think needed a lot of work and which i think i did well. now i have to improve her website...

I left the meeting yesterday and my first thought was "what am i doing". I couldnt think of anything to say back to her cos its all so new and technical and i dont know anything about it, but after actually doing the proof, and improving it for her, it felt really good. and finally i am actually thinking "how am i gonna fit all this in?" because the so far at uni i've had nothing on. Because this internship is counted as a course, i'm only doing two other regular courses, for which there is no assessment for another couple of weeks. Nick on the other hand, is so busy and as much as i love spare time, ive told myself this year i will be busy and proactive because it's time to get the life that i want!

first day at the gym

today i started at the gym!

I signed up to the uni last week cos they had a great deal on - it works out at about $4/wk compared to les mills which is $20/wk. I love les mills, but i can't afford that at the moment. so the uni gym it is. it's great! totally fine. there are pump equivalent classes too so i will come to those and start working out again. it's been too long and my body has lost its tone, so time to change that. i ran 20 mins on the treadmill and that felt good. treadmill running is a good chance to concentrate on technique and breathing, both things that i need to work on. so yes, here we go, let's make fitness!

running

How did I run 10k two weeks ago?? I went for a little one yesterday, in the sunshine and the wind along the south coast, and I only went for 15 minutes. I felt sluggish. It felt like I was starting from scratch, even though just two weeks ago I did a 10k race! oh well it's ok, I'll just start slowly again. After my run I walked up to uni wearing my sandals from Miss Selfridge, the ones that I walked in for miles around eastern europe and Istanbul last year. They don't exactly look like they're made for walking but I was surprised at how comfortable they were for lots of walking back then. Obviously I haven't worn them in a while because when I got to class, I had a massive blister on the bottom of my heel. It's about the size of a 50 cent piece, the old ones. It is so painful. Nick was working and there's no bus from uni to home so I had to walk home and made it worse. So I don't know when the next run will be.

I'm conscious of how often I write 'I' on this blog. That is the 'me me me' aspect of a blog that always put me off. My friend Pamela doesn't capitalise her "i"s on her blog which you can find here and I think it looks quite nice actually. Like, less emphasis on the ME . oh my god this is so exciting i'm writing in HTML. I did a little bit on codecademy. Now I will make my words in bold . i can manually add in a link to google here . i can simply make italics . fun!!

First blog post

My very first blog post. I'm nervous. I don't know where to begin. Just write.

I have toyed with the idea of a blog for years now, but I have always decided that it was too egocentric for me and therefore never went through with it. But this time is different. I am in my final year of uni and face the prospect of finding a job next year. NEXT YEAR. From next year, I can no longer give the reason (excuse) of being at uni for being 30 and not yet having a 'proper job'. And that is scary cos now that I am actually looking into jobs and things, I think I have even less of an idea. I kind of have an imaginary job in my mind, but it doesn't seem to be advertised on Seek. Anyway, the area I am interested in involves writing, research, and that word which I think means something else to me than it actually is: communication. And these tend to include the internet. So that is why I am starting this blog - to learn something new, something that may prove useful later on.

The topics of my blog will be these:

1. Trying to run a half marathon
2. Being a mature student and trying to start a completely new career at 30
3. Planning a wedding

Half marathon - I have probably been thinking about doing one of these for as long as I've been thinking about starting a blog. Late 2011 I signed up for the Wellington Round the Bays which was to be held February 2012. I should mention I've always been a casual runner. It has always been my exercise of choice and I did it regularly, but never long distances. So it wasn't like I was starting from scratch when I started training for RTB, but it was definitely the most running I'd ever done. My longest run was one where I left my house in Mt Victoria and went down Adelaide Rd, through Berhampore and Island Bay to the coast and along the coast to Lyall Bay and back to Mt. Victoria. It was amazing! Just about 14km. I felt like I was floating, I think they call it being 'in the zone'. I was fit, I lost 7kgs and I loved it. On my next run, my calf muscle felt like it tore in half. I was by the NIWA station in Evans Bay so I had to limp home. I went to physio and that experience prompted the memory of doing the same thing when I was at school, after my calf muscle went while I was playing hockey. So I figured it was an old injury that never healed properly and I don't know much about muscles but I imagine that if they don't heal properly the first time, they may not ever heal completely. At least, that is the conclusion I've come to after this same calf injury happening again and again. I didn't run that half marathon. One great positive outcome of that time was the free trial at Les Mills that came with registration, thanks to their sponsorship. I started going to the gym for the first time in my life, and became totally addicted to Pump! Jeeeez, I love it. That was the best shape I have ever been, fit from the running and toned from Pump. I will get that body back...

Anyway, I really want to run a half marathon. I know I can do it, if my calf muscle can.

Study and career - As stated above, I am in my third year of my Bachelor of Arts majoring in Linguistics. I love it. It's so interesting and is fulfilling a passion and curiosity of mine. I just don't really know what to do next. Most students say this, especially those doing a BA. One day I would love to become a Speech Therapist but this would require me to do a Master's in either Christchurch or Auckland and that is not something I am ready to do at the moment. I just want to get a job and work for a year or two. I've been poor for too long!

Planning a wedding - yay! Nick and I are getting married next February at a campsite in the Marlborough Sounds. That is all we have planned at the moment, so there is plenty more to come with this topic!