nishatalitha

Have heard from my mother and both my cousin and his wife in Christchurch are both okay. Have also heard from thesane and both she and her husband are okay.

We knew by COB today that all the Christchurch staff from my firm are alive. Some of them had to be evacuated from the CBD office building after the stairwell got blocked, which is far better than the initial report of the stairs collapsing. One of the partners was at the City Council building and left sans cellphone, wallet or ID—which is causing its own set of problems.

I should possibly note that my current definitiion of 'okay' is alive and as far as I know, not injured/badly injured.

Just, Jesus Christ. The recovery wasn't over from the last one!

I accidentally stood up the person I was supposed to meet for lunch (cellphone was dead, wasn't in my calendar and I forgot) and went to the library instead.

Along with others, I got out The Bone Tiki by David Hair, which is a new young adult New Zealand fantasy novel. It's very New Zealand; so much so that I'm not sure how well people who don't know the country will follow it. So much of what happens in the book assumes an inherent cultural knowledge - it's not something I'm really capable of judging. Although things are explained, they're explained to the level of a local reader. One thing I really liked about it was that Maori words were not in italics to indicate a foreign language, but in the same text as the rest of the book to show their everydayness.

I have to admit, one of the things I enjoyed about this book was the trip through the New Zealand countryside from Napier to Taupo, along the Waikato River through Hamilton, to Auckland and eventually to Kaitaia, where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. I grew up in Hamilton and did some study on the Land wars, so the countryside, both now and parallel is familiar. It tries to deal with the intermingling of Maori and European (Pakeha is not a word I use to describe myself), but ends up being far more about good vs evil. However, the theme of joining together, working together as Maori and European, both of New Zealand is very strong, symbolised most obviously by a koru-and-celtic-knot pendant. Concerns of the country brought down to family size, if that makes sense.

There is a clever take on the all-stories-are-true concept and I quote: ...every land has a shadow twin. The real land is where the people live and die - but the shadow land is where all the things those people believed and remembed still exist. This is mostly set in New Zealand Aotearoa's shadow land, and people can move between the two. Plus there is an awesome haka. And, you know, Maori myth and legend, nineteenth century settlers, evil tohunga, good tohunga, warriors and vagabonds - all you would expect, really.

This is a first novel, but it is a good, fun first novel (I really wish publishers would stop saying books are first novels as it really puts me off). The Bone Tiki is engaging - it kept me occupied waiting for the bus, on the bus and after I got home and had to finish it - with interesting concepts and I look forward to seeing what the author can do with future works. I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for future works of his. I will probably even buy them. I will certainly reread this one; probably tomorrow.

So Helen Clark is gone from Parliament. She's been there for 27 years: more than my entire life, and for almost my entire voting life she's been Prime Minister. She's off to be the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and I wish her all the best for it.

The descriptions which come up when talking about her tend to be words integrity; hard-working; determined; respect; I would add honourable.

I am proud that she lead my country for so long.

I would have liked to have heard her final speech in the House. The full text of it is here.

Went to Kapiti Island today with C. and it was lots of fun. We saw many birds, did much exercise, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I highly recommend it.

I'm kinda dead now and bed sounds like a really good idea.