It's Official

The same day we lost electricity in Auckland, a major snowstorm knocked out power for a big chunk of the South Island. About 600 people are still off the grid. (They were hit with a second blizzard before the damage from the first storm was fixed.) Transpower officials say everyone should have power again by next week. Assuming the weather cooperates.

We just "celebrated" the solstice, of course, so winter is in full swing. Some days it doesn't get past 11C (about 54F), and MetService is forecasting a low of 1C (about 34F) tomorrow night. Since I grew up in Chicago, this shouldn't be a big deal. But in Chicago, we had insulated walls, double-glazed windows, and central heat. Here we've got a portable space heater and some big, thick blankets.

At school I've been borrowing my office-mate's space heater in the evenings. The University doesn't seem to heat our building, which isn't a problem during the day, but when the sun goes down it's cold. With the extension, my official deadline was last Tuesday at 4:30pm; working evenings and weekends since I got back from the conference, I managed to turn my paper in early - by 4:15!

There's one good thing about all the long hours I've been pulling lately. My next class began on Wednesday, and sitting from "only" 9 to 4:30 has been a breeze. It's on Chinese commercial and foreign investment law, and really interesting. Although the disconnect between their official law on the books, and the way things actually work, well, it makes you wonder how the country has been able to grow so fast. Or how long it can last.

A few days before I finished my paper I got a nice bit of news. I've been offered a full time position as a lecturer, starting next year. When they hired me as a part-timer last year, there was a tentative offer to go full time when I finished my degree. But it's been sort of on-again, off-again for the last several months. (The UoA, along with most of NZ's other universities, has been facing pretty serious financial constraints.) I haven't actually got the contract yet, but the head of the Commercial Law department assured me he's got our budget all sorted and is putting the paperwork through. So, it's more or less official.

Cheers,
Sandie