it's been a busy month

I can't believe it's been a month since I posted on here. It's been busy though, in my defense. I moved back to New Zealand at the beginning of September and have been settling into life here again. It has been a decently smooth transition and my boxes that I mailed by surface mail are FINALLY starting to show up. My Christmas box arrived today!

It took some time and two extra days in quarantine, but my buddy Tai made it down to Nelson and is LOVING his country life in Wakefield. He gets to run around like a fool outside most of the evening and terrorizes the cat by playing with his rope and running around the house. Poor Squeak doesn't quite know what to do about this new furry creature living in her house.

The highlight of this month has been getting to take my relationship with J further than phone conversations once a week. It has been awesome to be around him and spend time together, learning more about each other every day. I've met a lot of his mom's family and he met my dad and one brother this weekend. He also met two aunts and my sister-in-law. Being with J is different and wonderful. He's so unlike anyone else I've dated, but still feels really familiar. I suppose 7 months of long-distance phone calls will do that.

The next step is to sort out my visa situation as I'm here on a temporary visitor visa. For that I need work and I've managed to find a job working for a rental property management company as their viewing agent two days a week. It's not enough to live on, but it's a start and I'm really happy doing it. It'll sponsor my visa and allow me to stay here more permanently until something else comes up. I'm hoping to get a teaching job, but until that happens, I will gladly show people rental homes (and look for one myself) and do any other odd jobs that pop up.

I'm so happy to be back in Nelson finally and am enjoying every day that I am here. I don't know where this blog is going to go now since I obviously had a hard time getting anything out in the last month, but I hope to sort that out soon and possibly get back to a schedule of some sort.