I say potato, you say...

So the only thing I had on my list in Idaho is 'potatoes'. Very cliche, but I will now have to visit this giant baked potato, wherever it may be!

So I really need suggestions for Idaho, any ideas?

Killin' them off!

I'm day 2 into my new assignment. I decided to go to work AMA but I didn't want to lose my assignment. Ironically I am working at the Ministry of Health. So far it is pretty boring but I'm told it is going to get better. I've done a lot of filing but my main job today was killing old people... no not really. The resthomes and hospitals fax us through the date of death for people on our database, it was my job today to process them into the system so we no longer have to pay subsidies for that person.

I have been doing a little marking for Te Tumu the last few days. I finally got that finished today so tomorrow I can just come home and relax then go to bed early. I don't have any outside commitments this week (until Saturday) so I can concentrate on getting better. Yesterday was pretty miserable being at work and very sore and uncomfortable. Today I tried taking some paracetemol which mostly helped although in the afternoon the shingles started to itch which wasn't pleasant. The doctor prescribed codeine for the pain but I don't take it during the day because it makes me too sleepy and I am told that it can cause constipation, no thanks! I'm hoping that the itching means they are healing. Fingers crossed!

They should give it a nice name like fluffy rabbit spots...

I was talking to a friend the other day who said that she feels the best now at 37 than she did ten years ago. Well, I've been 28 for 9 days and I've had a cold for 11. Well, yesterday I developed a rash, this morning I went to the doctor and I have shingles.

It was way cooler being sick as a kid, I got to stay home from school, our next door neighbour, Nerilee babysat and she baked chocolate chip cookies and let me watch Dirty Dancing ("No one puts Baby in a corner."). The doctor recommended I take a couple of days off work, I just got a sweet as new assignment, if I take time off they will give it to someone else.

I have to take these giant pills five times a day for a week, I'm gonna be rattling by the end of the week.

And why can't they give it a nice name? At least chicken pox makes you think of chickens, shingles just sounds like scabby grossness. Dumb!

#3 Oregon

The third state on my list is Oregon.

In Astoria I can see the house from the Goonies. I had wondered whether I could find the same point of coastline where they line up the medallion with the rocks to find One-Eyed Willy's pirate ship but that might be a long shot.

Also the climatic final scene of Free Willy was filmed at the Hammond Mooring Basin in Astoria. "Jump Willy! Jump!!!"

I have a lot of things to do in Portland. One of my favourite Angelina Jolie movies is Foxfire which was filmed in Portland. There are a couple of filming locations I want to see, these being Lincoln High School and the Broadway Bridge:

I don't know if you can climb on the bridge like Angelina does in the movie, it would be cool though. There is also this really cool old house in the movie but I doubt that it exists.

I also take the recommendations of this interesting blog I found one day to visit Sesame Donuts and to ride the bus.

Whenever I meet people from the States I always make a point of asking them things they recommend in their home state. Jono's friend from Oregon recommended that I go see an I-Max movie, I visit the Spruce Goose (thank you Howard Hughes) and I visit the beautiful Columbia Gorge:

On again, off again, now definitely off.

I am not going to the Gold Coast. After talking to Sarah at Adecco on Tuesday (or was it Monday? I forget) and finding out that the interview for the call centre in Southport was back on, I talked to her again on Friday and it is now definitely off. Apparently what happened was the company in Australia had decided to restructure and heaps of people were laid off; then they seemingly changed their minds and told Adecco here that they were in fact taking on new people but Adecco talked to one of their temps over there who had just walked off the job because the pressure of the job was too high. Apparently there is quite a lot of animosity because of all the people who lost jobs and the sales demands are really high. The girl from Adecco had apparently been working in call centres doing hard selling for ages and she couldn't handle it so Adecco thought that being that I have no call centre experience they didn't want to throw me in to something that I was going to hate. I agree. But being that I was still getting my head around going again, with less notice and a little more pressure, I'm not too sad.

So, it's back to the drawing board. Te Tumu have offered me a marking position which I'm not sure whether I will take or not. It would be a secondary job if I did take it, something to boost my income a little. I have to decide whether it would be too big a time commitment on top of what I am already doing. Also, do I want to go to Korea? If I take up marking I will have to be here until the end of October.

As of yet, no work for this week. Apparently things are quiet at the moment, I would think that winter would be a busy time with lots of people taking sick leave.

I have been nursing a cold for the better part of a week now but I think I'm over the worst of it. We had Branded conference at church this weekend. I was involved in worship on Saturday morning and Saturday evening. So I was dosed up on Paracetomol and IBProfen (I don't know how to spell). It was awesome, the worship was great (I was certainly kept on my toes on Saturday night with one song being switched at the last minute, two key changes and two spontaneous choruses thrown in spur of the moment, I think I managed well) and the speakers were great! So yesterday was a quiet day at home. Sarah gave me the 5th season of the Gilmore Girls on DVD so I spent a large part of my day in bed watching DVDs. I also recently acquired Foxfire on DVD. It's an early Angelina Jolie movies, one of my favourites. It's not a bad movie, it gets a little silly towards the end but redeems itself in the last five minutes and Angelina gives a stellar performance.