So I finished my first week of work with Greenpeace, and am not entirely sure if I will have another. There is a target of member sign-ups that we have to get in a week to be able to move on to the next week, and I didn't exactly make that target. I was one short, so I have one more day to prove myself, or else I'm back to the job hunt. I have very mixed feelings about that. It is disappointing because I want to be able to do it and I so desperately need a job that it will be a real problem if I lose one so soon. On the other hand, that job is extremely hard, and I really might not be cut out for it.

Basically me and three other members of the "Street Team" go to a different Wellington location everyday and try to get people to sign-up as Greenpeace members. It is very cold and rainy, and usually the day is an emotional roller coaster. I go from feeling hopeful and really enthusiastic about people, to being really disheartened and miserable about people. The more I've learned about Greenpeace, the more I've grown to appreciate them, which keeps me glad that I am working for them. I find it really hard to ask for money and I have to work to muster the courage and enthusiasm to approach every single person who walks past me. I don't think this is the type of job I'm meant to have long term, but I would like to get better at it. My team leader is incredibly nice and the other two people who got hired with me are great too; unfortunately, they did not make their goals this week so they are done.

For all of the rude remarks and times I was ignored this week, there were so many times when someone thanked me for doing my job, or passed me by but came back a second later once they realized what I said, or signed-up even though they are unemployed or on benefits. I've met some incredibly kind souls this week, often in the most unexpected bodies. It has been a valuable lesson for me on judging books by their covers. For that I am grateful.

You should sign our Save the Whale petition! NZ parliament votes Wednesday on whether or not to legalize whaling again. I voted no:
http://www.greenpeace.org.nz/action/iwc/action.asp

Peace out.

I got a full time job today! With Greenpeace! I am a "frontliner" (aka street fundraiser.) This has always been a job that I am glad people do, and even more glad that I don't do. Mostly because it requires an assertiveness that I will probably have to work hard to muster. But it'll be a good fear to face. I feel so awkward about having to ask people for money, even though I know that it is the purpose of my job, and it is money for a cause that I support. I have lots more to say about it, but don't feel like it right now, so I'll try again tomorrow! In the meantime, just know that the financial downfall is coming to an end and Maggie and I both have full time working girl jobs! G'night.

Five nights ago as Maggie and I laid in our car talking before sleep we realized that it was the one year anniversary of our graduation. One year! And what were we doing? We were in our car with the seats back, bundled up in sleeping bags, parked on the darkest cul-de-sac we could find, hoping no one would notice us spending the night there. We were even pulled up as close as we could get to a trailer in front of us, so as to be better hidden within its shadow. It was sure to be the utter opposite of what the University of North Carolina hopes for its bright young graduates. Vagabond girls sporting university sweatshirts and sweatpants (so as to advertise the fine education the preceded the current bout of homelessness,) clean because of stealthily snuck camp ground showers, trying to fall asleep unnoticed by the unsuspecting residents of Picton. But what they don’t know about the situation is that we could not be happier to be there. That we are there laughing and feeling grateful for the many opportunities people have given us. They don’t know that we saw 3 shooting starts within the first 10 minutes of lying there, before the stars disappeared beneath the fog of our breath on the glass. They don’t know that peanut butter and jelly is our favorite food, so eating it every day actually works out pretty well. They don’t know that I couldn’t imagine an alternative course that my life could have taken up until that moment, and that a bed is great, but in the end I’d wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else.

That was five nights ago. Four nights ago we slept in a tent in the middle of downtown Wellington. Tomorrow, Maggie has her first day of work as the new manager of a trendy little store on Cuba St. in downtown Wellington. I know, right?!!? After much self-mockery about how far a year has taken us (sneaky sleeping in our car), we set out on our Wellington job search. Little did we know where two days would take us. Maggie and I have long since learned that we only have to make a plan to have a plan-changing opportunity sneak up on us. Maggie applied for a sales position at this store, and next thing she knew she was the replacement for the manager who is leaving. She is even going to be buying the clothes for the store because they owners "don't have much of a fashion sense." It's incredible. It is just so ridiculous and exciting and amazing. They don't know that Maggie has $33 dollars in her bank account, which is not enough to buy her outfit from the store for the first day of work, but now she has a yearly salary. They don't know that this job means we finally get to fill up our car with gas, which we were waiting to do until we got jobs. She went from an unemployed car-sleeper whose dream job was a checkout girl at New World (grocery store: think Harris Teeter quality) to a big city manager with a career, a car, a house. Whoa. This was def not our decided plan, but it is bigger and better. Maggie will be able to get sponsorship, then residency, ultimately sealing her stay in New Zealand.

What does this mean for us, you might wonder? For us, the not-gay-together-maggie-and-robin couple? It means that really, the end of our New Zealand journey together has come to an end. It is very sad. We spent much of today mourning its loss, along with the loss of Maggie's youth and freedom. We got a few solid hours of crying over each other done today. I don't think we realized the sick depth of our co-dependency until separation became imminent. Since I still have to say my goodbyes to NZ (and Carolyn's and Gilly and Greg's) I still want to go to those places for my final time, even if Mags can't come along. I'm not entirely sure how long I'll stay in Wellington, but I'll just try to save up a little money. I will at the very least be here until Dad visits in early July. Living with Caroline and Eva is perfect. It seems like we have all known everything about each other forever and get weirdly dramatic about everything together. Girlfriends. Gurlfryndz.

Since I started this blog post Eva got home and said she got me a job today. See? You NEVER know what is going to happen! It is at Kapai (think Subway, but salads and healthier and better) where Eva has worked for a few months. It won't be full time, but it will hold me over for the moment. It is fantastic. Plus, one of the stores is in a food court, and some days we will get to work there together. Then, some day when we are career women we can laugh together over cocktails about the days when we worked at that subway for salads in a food court. I'm pumped.

You never, ever know.

Ok, end of the suspense. I have my hair. All of my hair. I don't have $1000. After so much anxst, so many polls, so much consideration, we never heard back from the people doing the project and our plans mean that we can't be in Dunedin on the dates when it happens. I suppose it wasn't meant to be. I appreciate the encouragement, though. I really like to think that I would have done it, had the opportunity arisen in the end. I felt silly about all of my dramatic deliberation because I had conversations about it with multiple female friends of mine, only to find out later that they had already done it and it was no big deal. Heidi failed to mention it completely in our whole convo and then emailed me later with a picture of her bald head. It was so not a big deal that she didn't even need to mention it. Jessie, a friend from UNC who is also in NZ, received an email with a link to the ad and then I saw her the other day and was surprsied to see her short hair. She jumped the gun and shaved it off 6 months ago because she was in Singapore and it was hot. These women are perfectly capable of maintaining perfect cool about it, whereas I fear that I would use mine as a badge of cool for the rest of my life. They are truly the cool ones.

Maggie and I finally have a winter plan! We can't promise that it will stick, since our plans rarely do, but it is our "plan." We leave Queenstown tomorrow and go to Dunedin to spend a night with a friend. Then we head back up to the ferry and jump over to Wellington. We've now said bye to the North Island 3 times, but for some reason it is always a lie. We received an awesome offer from Caroline, Eva, and Eva's cousin Laura to come live in Laura's house for free until the end of June while Laura is out of town. It is a great house, in a cool neighborhood and we like Wellington and will seek out jobs for that time. We have to work, and we figure we've got the best chance of getting jobs in a bigger city. Plus, living with Caroline and Eva is just about the most fun I can think of, so that works out pretty well. THEN on the last day of June (maybe) we head to Nelson for our final weeks at Carolyn's. We aren't AT ALL ready to let go of that place yet. So we will work there as well and leave in mid-August in time to sell our car and visit Gilly and Greg again. Dad is coming for all of July, so that will let me have the flexibility to travel a bit with him. Carolyn said that we can work as cleaners and cooks at the house where the lumberjacks of their logging business live during the work week. I don't know why people give us such incredible offers, but we keep accepting them and it has yet to be a mistake.

Queenstown has been a lovely place to spend two weeks. We only had to work a week of our two here, but we got to remain at our hostel for free. Our boss even gave us tickets to the movies, which is a big time treat for us right now. Being in Queenstown is a lot like being back in college. A lot of young, social people working and playing and drinking a lot. It's strange to fall into this world after so many months in a totally different life. I've gotten so accustomed to rural life that I surprise myself with my reclusive tendencies now. I think I'm not so good at being a socialite anymore. I can see it changing if I stayed longer, but I'm happy with the idea of spending winter with the people and places I've come to love most in this country.

I gotta go find a job.