January 31, 2012 by Stephanie
Indeed I am. I’ve had a few text messages from family members – including my mother who said something along the lines of there being a shakey start to my birthday. I celebrated the Royal Rumble a bit too much yesterday so won’t be partaking in the beer drinking until later on, if I actually do. I’m not getting any younger and I know that there are a few changes that need to be made.
Which I will hopefully make over the rest of the year.
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October 27, 2011 by Stephanie
Two weeks ago, I was aware of pain in my neck that appeared somewhat suddenly, as most pain does. Last week, it wasn’t really going away so I filled in an accident form at work. This week, I finally went to the doctor about it because I had noticed that not only was the pain not going away, it seemed to be getting worse.
This morning, I had my doctors appointment. For me, my doctor is a block away from work which is a six or so minute walk away from home. I explained where the pain was and what it felt like and after having the discs in my spine checked, moving my head up, down, and side to side and arm reflexes checked, and also mentioning that I had been taking Nurofen which did little more than take the edge of the pain away for me, the official verdict is that I have a sprained neck. I will have microscopic tears in the muscle and the pic is of me holding the medication that I was prescribed for the pain. I have to take the Diclofenac for two weeks to help with the pain (two tablets a day) and I swear that it’s so good, I forget that I actually have a sprained neck. Until I feel it start to wear off.
I broke my left thumb the day before school exams when I was 16. I have sprained the ‘bird’ finger on my left hand previously. I sprained my left ankle on my birthday last year. And now I sprained my neck on the left side. Notice the recurring theme?
And I’m a righty too!
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February 1, 2011 by Stephanie
and just keep saying that I’m now 18 with x years of experience. Three birthdays in the thirties so far and on two of them (as I write this, it’s still my birthday in the western US 
) I’ve somehow managed to injure myself.
Last year, I sprained my ankle. Admittedly, when I did that, I had already had a couple of beers and was actually taking a shortcut over the neighbours’ fence (because I couldn’t be arsed going the long way) to go home and get some more. Add to that I got really sunburned on my upper back too.
And today at work, while cutting a straggling thread from a butchery cloth with a pair of scissors, I managed to cut a large chunk of skin from my left index finger (more to the point, the knuckle closest to my hand). I will admit that it didn’t actually hurt that much and it was a deep cut but I am thankful that I narrowly missed two veins in that knuckle when I did it. Having First Aid applied to it and then having to fill in the necessary accident form took up the best part of at least 45 minutes, which put me that far behind in the laundry. But I stayed until I got everything done which meant that I finished between 4.30pm and 5pm. I then went to the chemist to look at bandages there because I wanted something that would give me a little more protection than a shitty Band Aid and came out with a waterproof one that will give me about a couple of days protection. I will be needing to keep my finger covered for as long as possible over the next few days because of the severity of the cut. Believe me, I am glad that I didn’t actually get the veins (admittedly small ones but veins all the same!)
As for my birthday, I didn’t really do a lot for it. When you get to my age, birthdays are just another day but I knew that I didn’t want to work it – I’ve never worked on my birthday yet and I don’t intend to start now. I watched WWE’s Royal Rumble and I thought it was okay. Although I will admit that I’m not too pleased about Eve winning the Divas Championship. I’ve never really been a fan of Eve’s to be honest. But the way they’re playing hot potato with the title (seems like Divas Championship reigns are only a couple of months long at this point), to me, doesn’t give the impression that any reign means anything.
But that’s the WWE. Always throwing a curve ball!
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January 6, 2011 by Stephanie
Not at home but at work. In the staffroom. With about four staff members in there.
It was my fault that I did it. I was cleaning the bench where the tea, coffee, sugar and teaspoons are and didn’t have a proper grip on the sugar container (to be honest, I was really only holding onto the lid). Next thing I knew, it slipped out of my hand and onto the floor. And it was pretty much full too. Oh well, shit happens. I took it in good stride though which is the main thing.
Which sounds better to you? 175 days or 25 weeks? Because that’s how long I have to wait before I go to Australia. I went around a few places in the mall where I work to look at handbags as I currently don’t have one and want one. But I didn’t really like any that I saw and besides, I’m not going to pay out $260 on a Guess handbag at Farmers, thank you very much. That’s just over two thirds of my weekly wages. So perhaps that’s something that I could look at doing tomorrow. Could being the word. Chances are I’ll be on the laptop all day trying to level up my main character in WoW as I’ve just dinged to level 76 and want to get to level 80 before going on for level 85.
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January 5, 2011 by Stephanie
On Sunday, during my lunch break at work, I applied for some time off. We can do it online or if we haven’t accrued enough hours, have to fill in a leave application form.
Anyway, since my birthday is at the end of the month, I decided that I would take the day before and the day of my birthday off work, using the two lieu days I knew I had available. At the same time, I applied for a Sunday in March off as I will be returning from Oamaru after attending my aunt’s wedding and also the 30th of June through to the 7th of July off as that is when my mother and I are going to be in Sydney, Australia as well as Auckland. And since I have my payslip for this weeks’ pay, I currently have another two lieu days owing – one for Christmas Day (which I didn’t work [because it's not a normal day of work for me and the store was shut] but the holiday itself carried over to Monday) and one for the day after New Year’s Day. So now, I am thinking that perhaps I will apply to take the day after my birthday off work also. Given that I will be another year older, there is live wrestling on that day (Royal freaking Rumble, people!) and I will be drinking, I think I should. At least I’d get paid for it, ha!
And how’s this? Blogging every day so far in 2011!
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January 3, 2011 by Stephanie
it doesn’t have to be so friggin hot, thank you very much! Today has been one of those days where I’ve been in the comfort of air conditioning at work and the minute I step into the carpark, I can feel the heat. The minute I get out of the carpark (for the record, I’ve hated walking through the carpark since the 4 September quake but unless I have a desire to walk from one end of the mall to the other in order to get to work during the day, I have no choice) it hit me. Of course, it didn’t help that my work uniform is black and my work shirt is made of polyester which is horrible in 32°C-33°C 89.6°F-91.4°F) temperatures.
My home town does get hot in summer but this is a different kind of heat altogether. Having to literally peel yourself off furniture in order to get up and do anything is not cool. I was literally sweating buckets and resorted to having not a cold but not a hot shower in order to cool down, which worked for a while until I started feeling the heat again.
At least I won’t have to put up with this so much when I’m in Australia in June/July!
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January 2, 2011 by Stephanie
January: Started the new year at home, drinking as per usual. My hours at work went back down to what they were before Christmas but at least I wasn’t stuck in the fucking boring Christmas Shop! Ended up phoning WINZ (our Social Security department) about financial assistance on the 27th because of my pathetic wages. Turned 31 on the 31st. Got very drunk. Got very sunburnt. Sprained my ankle (only after two beers).
February: Worked for a total of two days in the entire month, partly because of my sprained ankle but mainly because I wasn’t rostered on at work at all which was making me seriously think that I was on the outer with them. That they wanted me to leave because if they wanted someone to leave, they’d deliberately give them less hours. Finally had my assessment at WINZ and they paid me the nearly $500 that I was owed because of when I first contacted them regarding my financial situation. Gave a lot of thought to an offer from a friend to move to Christchurch.
March: Made up my mind about Christchurch and handed in my resignation from work on the 6th. My final day was the 20th (Saturday) and I wasn’t rostered on at all that week. That was probably planned on their part and it made me even more disillusioned with them. I also vowed to myself that I would never work there again. Only told my mother that I was leaving the night before I was due to leave. Came up to Christchurch on the 25th, taking a 10 hour bus trip.
April: Learned that WINZ were docking my benefit to the tune of just under $60 a week because of the holiday pay that was paid out when I resigned. Naturally, they took it before tax, not after which meant I was expected to live off it until the end of August. Ended up having to get my mother to pay my personal bills and also pitch in to help me meet my share of the flat bills.
May: No luck on the job front. Was applying online at several places but never heard back so I figured that if I wasn’t contacted, they didn’t want me. This left me feeling somewhat depressed as every day, I woke up to look forward to nothing. My holiday pay had run out by the end of the month.
June: Resorted to applying for a job at the local supermarket and actually had a good feeling about it. Five days later, I got a phone call from them, asking me to come to an interview the following day. The interview went well, to the point where I came home with a lot of paperwork and a list of my hours. My training started the following day. It actually came at just the right time because my flatmate and I somehow ended up with a $366 power bill (and that was with prompt payment discount) and my share of it was more than what my benefit was at the time so I was very close to actually going to WINZ about it because I didn’t want to ask my mother to fork out a lot of her own money just to help me.
July: It felt so good to have regular hours of work so I knew what I was getting each week, as opposed to my previous job where I could actually afford to eat kind of decently one week and only being able to afford two minute noodles (and one packet a day) the next.
August: Went to Auckland for a couple of days for a WWE show as well as a Meet and Greet beforehand. Came down with a full-on head cold a couple of weeks later which meant I looked and felt like shit.
September: 4 September 2010, 4.35am is a date and time that will forever be engraved in my mind for that was the day and time that Christchurch was struck by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. I’d had three hours sleep at the most when it hit and I didn’t get back to sleep at all because initially, I was trying to find out how big it was. The streets that day were eerily quiet and it felt very surreal. Because the mall where the supermarket where I work is located was shut (very wordy!) I had an unexpected day off work and I promptly proceeded to start drinking the beer I had purchased the night before. I had gone rubbernecking in the morning to see some of the damage for myself and thought we were extremely thankful that the quake happened when it did to escape with no deaths.
October: Still feeling aftershocks from the 7.1 earthquake, some of which were big enough to still knock stock off shelves and force us to evacuate work. The quake was still a popular topic of conversation.
November: Found out that I now had two weddings to go to in the first quarter of 2011, after finding out that one of my aunts and her long-term partner had decided to get married. Still having aftershocks, one of which was again strong enough to evacuate the mall.
December: Found out that the WWE were coming back to New Zealand and Australia in July. My mother and I discuss the matter at hand and decide that we will be going to the Sydney show and the Auckland show so this is giving me an incentive to actually renew my passport, which expired in 2007. Started a countdown on Twitter with the number of days remaining until we depart. With each day that passed, my excitement grows just that fraction more. And we had a biggish aftershock on Boxing Day too. I knew then that I was well and truly over them by that stage.
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October 1, 2010 by Stephanie
We are now into spring in my part of the world. It is a beautiful day outside and where am I? Inside, typing this up, haha! I will be spending some time outside today as it is one of my two days in a row off from work and it’s something that I am still getting used to because normally, at this time, I’d be either at work or very close to work. Not that I’m complaining about having two days in a row off from work!
We’re still having aftershocks although the frequency of them has diminished somewhat. One did wake me up yesterday though which I didn’t appreciate because I wanted to sleep in, given that I didn’t have work until 3pm. Oh well, shit happens, right?
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September 9, 2010 by Stephanie
For the last two nights, I’ve been able to sleep right through the night – if we had any aftershocks, I didn’t feel them. Although the very shallow (6km depth) 5.1 aftershock that hit just before 8am woke me – the shaking in that one was very similar to the big earthquake. That aftershock resulted in the State of Emergency, which would’ve been lifted at around 12pm, being extended for another week and Riccarton Mall being closed. This meant that in order for my flatmate and I to get something to eat, we had to go to McDonalds, which wasn’t closed. And it’s bad if you have to reply on fast food for your meals.
We no longer have to boil our drinking water so this means we can actually do our dishes that we haven’t been able to do since Saturday. I have to send my mother a text message every day so she can pass it on to one of my aunts so they can tell my grandmother that I am fine – because my grandmother didn’t believe my mother when she told her that I was fine. My mother also told me that she (my grandmother) actually wanted to send me some groceries – that’s the kind of thing that she does.
I will say that the novelty of the aftershocks is definitely wearing off and that I just want them to fuck off.
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September 4, 2010 by Stephanie
As it stands at the moment, I am currently running on three hours sleep after what would have to be one of the worst wake up calls one could ever experience.
Strong earthquake rocks New Zealand’s South Island
What woke me up wasn’t the shaking – it was the noise beforehand. Then the shaking started and it went on for what felt like forever. A few things fell over in my bedroom but on the whole, my flatmate and I are fine. We haven’t lost anything – although the only thing we probably will lose will be cellphone reception.
I have not long returned from a trip into the CBD to check out the damage there for myself. A lot of the CBD is cordoned off because of the damage already sustained by various buildings and the authorities want to eliminate the risk of any injuries. They’ve really kicked into high gear which is good to see. Power is out in the CBD so the only way people can buy things is with cash – something I didn’t think about until I felt the need to get something then realise I couldn’t!
Power, for the most part, is down throughout most of Christchurch although not in my suburb. The mall where I work was closed before so I don’t know when it will open again or even if I have to go to work today. I can’t have a shower or do any washing because our water pressure isn’t as great as it usually is but that is to be expected when sewage and water pipes throughout the city are damaged. The city’s buses aren’t running either. We’re still having aftershocks and can expect them for a while yet.
Not something I really want to experience again any time soon, that’s for sure.
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