It's Been A Quiet Week

Top stories in the national news this week (honestly): Troubled Cambridge High School is having to re-advertise for a new principal . . . More flu vaccine doses have been purchased after concerns there would be a shortage this winter . . . And, my favorite: Rotorua district council says rollerblading fairies will be allowed next Christmas after all. (Apparently a Xmas tradition commissioned by a local business, from mid-December through year-end a pair of rollerbladers would skate around town topping up people's parking meters. Last year, however, the district council’s Scrooges decided to enforce a bylaw that bars skating in the CBD. Fortunately, the Spirits of Christmas are alive and well in Rotorua.)

My week began at Auckland’s 13th Annual Pasifika Festival, a blast of Polynesian music, food, and . . . well, that's enough, really.



During the past week I’ve continued to bone up on NZ contracts law which, interestingly enough, is reasonably interesting. They start in the same place as U.S. law: Merry Olde England. But, whereas the U.S. broke away from English law about 200 years ago, NZ continued to track England closely until the 1970’s. Since then, however, they’ve implemented a lot of reasonably innovative statutes, in an effort to rationalize the common law, at least in some respects. (God love ‘em for trying.) So, I’m getting to brush up on fun stuff like Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Company (forever linked in my mind with the law school winter formal, known, of course, as the Carbolic Smoke Ball); feel smug about how superior American law is to modern British law (at least in the sense that U.S. law gives people much better opportunities to sue and be sued); and study NZ’s Prostitution Reform Act of 2003 (yup – that’s legal here – so contracts for solicitation are no longer in the realm of illegal contracts).

Ali & I also went to see “The Aquatic Life with Steve Zissou,” which I liked pretty well up until the last 10 minutes; it was zany and charming and weird. But then, in the last ten minutes, the movie transcends itself. When Bill Murray's character says "Eleven and a half - that was my favorite age," the whole thing came together for me. By the time the credits rolled, and I realized that the vaguely-familiar-looking Bond Company Stooge was Bud Cort – aka Harold, from “Harold and Maude,” I was completely smitten. It’s about Life, Death, the Sublime Dignity of Angelica Huston and The Meaning of It All. Simply brilliant.

We also managed to submit our formal application for residency this week. Cross your fingers and press your thumbs, our case manager said he could process an application in as little as 4 weeks - from the time they had all the required information. I sent everything I thought they could possibly want and then some, although I’m sure they’ll find something to surprise us with. It would be nice to get this finalized, of course, since then I could get serious about applying for a job. I've heard they need a new principal at Cambridge High.

Cheers,
Sandie