Papa Can't Afford a Brand New Bag

I'm venturing into week six of my 15-week trip and I'm still struggling to find someone who thinks my services are worth actual payment. I knew going into journalism I was entering a career that would provide some struggles in the monetary realm, and that was a fact that I was okay with. What I'm less okay with, and what is sometimes difficult to wrap my head around, is how I managed to pick the one field that is considered by all accounts to be a dying one. Bankruptcy is likely at the doorstep of every major newspaper in the world over the next 5-10 years. Magazines, my breed of interests, are fairing a little better, but I would suspect they're not far behind either.

The Internet, arguably the most powerful tool for information available, is the dirty little culprit. And the fact that this surprises me - the man who wakes up every morning and catches up on his news with a few clicks of the mouse - is quite sad. Will this technological beast be a provider of jobs to aspiring journalists like myself? I think only time will tell, but I'm not incredibly optimistic about it.

That hoopla aside, I did meet with the editor of local news-magazine The Aucklander and had a little chit-chat about potential work in the area. He's currently looking into a copy editing position for a local printing press that would, if possible, pay for my services - an exciting and rare transaction that occasionally happens in this kind of work. Admittedly, copy editing is far from my forte as I grew up in the spell check age and used it to its full potential. But they don't need to know that.

As far as recent events, this past Sunday Will and I went to Bethells Beach on the west cost for a nice morning hike. For the most part, nothing different from our usual hikes: beautiful weather and breath-taking scenery. Your typical Utopian paradise. I'm sure you understand. No really. Go turn up your heater. You're probably freezing.

The event worthy of note, however, was our abseiling adventure down another hill/cliff/mountain/all-of-the-above. On this particular day the ground was extremely muddy. And, as one might expect, mud+abseiling is likely a recipe for disaster. To clarify, to be able to successfully scale down a hill with a rope, you need to be able to plant your feet firmly to the ground, which in turns shifts your body weight to your legs and holds you in place.

What Will and I managed to do wasn't abseiling, per se. It was more like mudsliding, backwards, whilst gripping a rope for dear life - in style. Will assured me it was perfectly safe, but in our little duo I'm typically the voice of reason. And by voice of reason I mean I'm the only friend who cares enough to tell Will when he's being an idiot. This was one of those times. I got myself into a situation where I was absolutely certain if I moved another inch I was going to slide all the way down this mountainside (Note to Mom: this is all for show - I was totally safe. Really). So I began ranting to Will, who was already quite a bit below me, what an incredibly bad idea this was and there was no way we were going to be able to get back up. Because, lets be honest, sliding DOWN mud is certainly possible. But sliding up mud? I barely passed physics in college, but I think this one is a no-brainer.

As it usually goes though, I was talked into continuing our nonsensical adventure and within 30 minutes we'd completed our descent. The prize, of course, was another private beach to ourselves that nobody else would dare be insane enough to try and access. We had lunch, took some pictures, and headed back up. As it turned out, it wasn't nearly as impossible as I'd talked myself into believing and we made it back to the top in half the time.

Thus ended my 5th week here in kiwiland.

Thanks for reading. Miss you all.

Mudsliding guru,
John