You can't have it all.

Where to begin. So much has happened in the last 5 months. I love New Zealand. My career is really taking off here. Of course I have had my moments when I was scared about money, friends, drinking too much, the American stereotype, missing home, missing family and friends, finding a place to live, and pretty much everything you can worry about. This is the biggest step I have ever taken in my life, so of course there is a lot of hurting, scariness and of course growing.

I have committed at least 3 years to living here. This will be a good step for my maturity, depth of meaning in my life, understanding of the value of money, understanding of the value of friends and family, etc.

This country is a beautiful place. People are friendly and I think since the country is so small, there is more of a sense of brotherhood. However, I am finding that even though people are friendly, it doesn't mean that they want to be my friend. I suppose you could say the same for a lot of cultures, so this is not the fault of NZ.

I have made 3 really good friends since I have been here. I have made several other friends, but none of which I call on when I am having a bad day. The hard part is that all 3 of my friends are transplants. Holland, France and Canada. This month I will be losing 2/3 of those people. One of which is my boyfriend.

Oh yeah, I finally want to tell someone significant that I've fallen in love with them and they're leaving in 4 weeks. Awesome timing. I never thought that I would meet someone who gets me, respects me, is intelligent and makes me laugh and who I find so attractive inside and out. I am so pissed that our relationship doesn't have more time to grow here. Of course, there is the possibility of a long distance relationship (which I swore I would never have). But I don't want to put stress on him and myself to keep in touch while we are both leading our busy lives thousands of miles apart. I have enough pen pals at the moment. I just feel like part of it will be, out of sight, out of mind" and we will slowly forget how incredible we are for each other.

I love him. I haven't said it yet. I am kinda waiting for him to say it, since I am afraid it will hurt too much if he doesn't say it back. That, and I want it to be said at the right moment because this is the first time I think I will truly mean it in the way they talk about it in the movies. Right now, at this moment, I can see sharing my life with him. I want to do so many things with him, simply cause my life is better lived with him than without him. He likes me for qualities that I want to be liked for and when I am having a bad day, just being near him lifts my mood exponentially. It's just so effortless being with him, and yet I think he makes me a better person without even trying. Fuck.

Hopefully my busy career/education will keep me busy enough so that I won't have time for loneliness. Get this, I just got a job teaching criminology to over 150 people starting the end of February. I have never taken a criminology course before, but I taught Soc of crime and deviance. I haven't read any of the course work yet, but I think it will be fine. I love getting up and performing in front of people, so I am sure I will make it work and they will love me. It will be nice to finally have somewhat of an income. Along with that, I am working on a research assistantship in the pharmacy department about the awareness and opinions of direct to consumer genetic testing in NZ. It is a pretty rad project which will get me published, so that's pretty neat. Oh, and of course, I am applying for my PhD here. Hopefully by next week I will have my application submitted. I am pretty sure the Soc department is pretty gung-ho to have me here, so that will be cool. I want to do it on consumer controlled medication due to Direct to consumer advertisement of pharmaceuticals and the vast amounts of medical information on the web. I wanna look at the discourse of diagnosis and ultimately the shift of doctor-patient relations. I hope they like my idea, if not, I hope they accept me anyway, cause PhD ideas are always changing anyway.

Woah this is becoming longer than anticipated. But, I feel a little better. Perhaps I should get on with writing in here more regularly.

Cheers!

Brooklyn Farmer Video Shoot

After coming home from our fun fun fun night, Cres and I took a photo shoot on the balcony. Yes, we took sleeping pills. Yes we are amazing. I fucking love it here and don't ever want to leave. I have two weeks left. I wish it were two months...or years.

Having a Coke and Eatin' a Tomato

Last night I hopped a train out to Rockville Centre to catch Lucas Carpenter at Vibe Lounge. This guy is an incredible musician and used to date Lauren. He plays a whole bunch of instruments and has a loop pedal so that his songs just build and become really amazing and multilayered. It really is astounding. I met this girl Crista, who used to date one of my friends from HS and is now BFF with Mike Del Rio. She is really great. I always get excited when I meet new girlfriends. It is really hard to meet really down to earth people sometimes. Anyway, after the show we went to a diner with Lucas and Mark Rose (the band that went on after)and then MDR met up. It was a really great, laid back night.

Lauren told me this great analogy that is synonymous for the strategy of pursuit of our love interests. They are like tomatoes. You can't ignore them. You have to water them, but they aren't ripe for the picking yet.

Time Well Spent on Long Island.

I had a great "weekend"/ non-weekend on LI the past couple of days. Thursday night was spent with Kim, Billy and Jim in the village. I haven't seen Kim since this summer. Her break up with Ryan (who was in and out of a psych ward throughout his and her relationship) has given her an abundance of time to spend with friends. I am really glad to have one of my good friends back in my life.

Billy and I have been trying to make plans for a long time. I always really enjoy hanging out with him and find him really easy to talk to. The 4 of us hit it off well and had a good time in each other's company. I always get a little nervous when I mix friends, cause sometimes they wind up hating each other and then the night makes an awkward turn while one person spends the night avoiding/making fun of the other person while thinking 'how the hell is Nicole friends with this person'?

We went to Honu, Mary Carolls and the Tavern and then topped it off with Taco Bell. It was ladies night at Honu which means 2 for 1 girly drinks. I totally got a coconut martini and a peach mojito. Their coconut martinis are probably my favorite drink in all of Huntington.

I saw 'the dentist' (this really cute, young and successful dentist I hooked up with over the summer) at Honu and was contemplating going up to him but waiting for the right time. After we went to MC's he showed up a bit later and I finally had the balls/blood-alcohol level to go up and say hi. I held my composure quite well for the amount I had drank. He seemed genuinely pleased to see me. For those of you who don't know, I was kind of obsessed with him over the summer and I think he might have gotten the hint that I was stalking him for some reason.

Yesterday was spent quite lovely as well. I woke up and got a mani/pedi. They used hot stones in the pedi. I was in heaven.

After that, I met up with Kristen at Starbucks. We made bracelets while chatting and catching up, then we went to Target. I got some good buy's including a stellar red plaid jacket (see photo). I really enjoy hanging out with Kristen. It's like she gets me. Really gets me.

Later on I went to Jennifer and William's to drop off Lulu. I had a really great time talking to Jennifer. She is reading the Twilight series as well so we had MUCH to talk about. She is on the second book (just like me) and she saw the movie twice (just like me). It was really great hanging with her and seeing the 5 new kittens she rescued recently.

Plane time...and we're ready for take off.