The calm after the storm!

So it would seem that things just seem to be getting better and better for me at the moment. Last time I updated all of you fine people in the Northern Hemisphere I was working 3 jobs, all of which were good, but it was pretty mental and meant that I literally did nothing but work, eat and sleep. Since then I was offered a full-time teaching position at the school which meant that I could quit at the sandwich bar and officially call myself a teacher! This now means that I work Monday to Friday from 9 until 3.30 and then I work at the hostel in the evenings. I am really loving my job at the school, it's going really well, and the free time I have now means that I'm not so tired all the time and I can actually enjoy myself a bit more during the week and have a little more of a social life! In theory quitting at the sandwich bar would have meant that I had weekends off but I decided to take on a private English student as well to see what that would be like. He is a Persian-Italian guy called Oswald who has come here to study but doesn't speak good enough English to go to college. I was pretty nervous about doing this because it is totally different from teaching in a classroom and requires a completely different set of teaching skills, but it is going really well and I am enjoying it a lot, and he seems to be learning a lot which I guess is the most important part. Right now I don't really feel like much of a teacher because we just seem to hang out together so he can build his confidence using English so we go out for coffee and for lunch and go to the cinema...basically I am being paid to be someone's friend, it works for me!
Other than the continued positive progress on the job front I have very little of interest to report this time I am afraid because I am trying to work as hard as I can while I am here because the school is really good and I think that I could learn a lot about my job while I am working there! This is probably not good news for those of you who are expecting to me come back to England for a more permanent length of time in the near future because the better I get at my job the more places will want to employ me and the more travelling I can do!! I will come back...eventually...I promise!

Massive love to you all!!!!
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No jobs...to three jobs!

So, a fair bit has developed since last time I updated you all. After my slight (and seemingly premature) stress about the job situation I had a very successful 2 days of phone calls from employers. The first of which was from a school that I interviewed at very early on in my time in Auckland who said that they really liked my CV but unfortunately had no jobs available at that time. At the time that I got the call I was sitting in the sunshine in Auckland city centre contemplating the possibility that I would be in Sydney less than a week later. This was by no means a bad thought, but something I definitely hadn't been expecting. All of a sudden I was being offered a permanent part-time position teaching a beginner level class at at school, for 15 hours a week at $30 and hour!! This was definitely a turn up for the books and meant that even after tax I would have enough money to stay in Auckland and still be able to afford rent and be able to save a little bit of money for some travelling at the end. Perfect! But it didn't end there. The next day, while I was re-re-thinking my plans and deciding what kind of travels I would want to do in New Zealand and how much they would cost I got talking to the manager of my hostel who said to me that if I wanted it there was an evening job going to work for my accommodation so I wouldn't need to pay rent. I couldn't quite believe my luck...everything was falling into place so perfectly after being so spectacularly out of place for the three weeks before. I now had a very well paid job in the mornings doing a something that I love at a great school, a job at a sandwich bar in the afternoons...where, may I add, they feed me the most amazing sandwiches every time I work which I can fill with whatever I want (I always think food tastes better when it is free as well!) and a nice easy job in the evenings working at the hostel for a couple of hours which means that all the money I am earning working the other two jobs can be saved and go towards travels in NZ and be taken back to Oz with me when I leave! Right now, this has all turned out to be totally perfect! Don't get me wrong, it is really hard work. My only full day off is Saturday's and some days I wind up working from 9-12.15 in one place, 12.30-4.30 in another and then 5-7 at the hostel., but I tell you what if this means that I can save up lots of money for travelling at the end of my stay here then it is totally worth it...and was exactly the reason why I came back in the first place.
I know that part of my aim when I first started travelling last year was to stop planning things so much and to just take each day as it comes and go where the wind took me and I have done that and it's been great and some of the best times I have had over the past 14 months have been doing things that I never even thought about and that just randomly happened...Saying that however, it is nice when a plan comes together and that is certainly what seems to have happened here!
Does it show that I am very happy and feeling pretty awesome at the moment?! Well if it doesn't then both are true. It may be tiring and hard, and sometimes a bit stressful, but when I know how great the reward it going to be at the end it makes it totally worth it!!
In other news, Autumn has set in here, which in New Zealand means a fair bit of rain and very humid days. Not the sunshine I was becoming so accustomed to again, but given the amount of time I am spending outside at the moment it doesn't really matter all that much. And to be honest, it is still a bit of a novelty to look outside and see rain and respond by putting on board shorts and a tshirt because rain doesn't actually mean cold out here and board shorts and a tshirt will dry much quicker...see, 14 months later and I am finally learning how to dress appropriately for this side of this hemisphere!
Right, I am going to be off now because funnily enough I have to go to work!

Big love to you all! I will try to update again soon, but as I am sure you will all understand my free-time is now limited and also, there probably won't be all that much interesting stuff to report for a while!

Until next time,
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