Giedre tyttö Ozista

On My Feet

The apartment hunt is on once again. This time we have about 2 weeks to figure out the fine details of local property market, to check out different neighbourhoods and find something suitable. "We" means "I" until Wednesday, when Kaj finally arrives. So far it seems that a much more sensible thing for me to do would be attending a driving school (which I already booked for tomorrow!). I tried to explore the suburbs by bus and on feet yesterday and after 4 hours of determined walking I gave up. This place is so spread out, that it takes some 15min to walk a tiny stretch of a street (maybe 1cm on a map!) Very tiring and inefficient.

So Queen st, the main street in the town centre is my temporary home at the moment. Looks good, doesn't it? :) In couple of weeks there will be a dubious Boobs on Bikes parade going down the same street. What? Here's some funny stories raising a vigorous discussion in the NZ media at the moment:

1) Boobs on Bikes is a parade of topless porn stars riding motorbikes that is scheduled to go down the Queen st (the main street of the city!) during lunch hour (!!!) to promote the Erotica fair. The town council approved it. The public concern circles around the health implications for the girls. Remember? Its still winter here! What if they catch cold? :) Hey, but how about morals, children, that sort of stuff, a lone foreigner asks?

2) A "warrior gene" associated with risk-taking, leading to gambling, adictions and agression has been discovered as dominant in Maori population. A researcher goes out to a conference in Australia and says that the gene that helped the Maori to cross the Pacific Ocean and colonize the Pacific islands can be linked to tendency for anti-social behaviour. Yeah, blame the genes and the whole minority population, these people can't be fixed, they have wrong genes, you know... Has anyone heard about eugenics and funny things happening in Europe during the World War II? Hello?!?

3) Australian researchers found out that working 4-6 hours a day is the key to happiness. "More than 4-6 hours a day will bring anxiety, exhaustion and a poor quality of life". "Its going to require a lot of structural reform, but I think the time is ripe for addressing it as an issue". Yeah!!! Way to go!!! :)