Catching up

\paragraph{21.03.12}
In the middle of the night, I woke up because of an intense pain at the right big toenail, which has been getting worse the last few days. I must have turned around in my sleep and strucked something with that toe. The rest of the night, I sat in the kitchen with my foot submerged in cold water, surfing via a free wifi someone left on. The pain shows what I am inside, an unfriendly elbow person. I was not very polite to the women at the hostel counter when I asked for the next doctor. The Worknholiday office explains via phone that I have to pay the doctor and send the receipts to the insurance company in Germany. The doc charges 70 dollars via his desk staff and cuts quite a bite of nail and infected flesh out of the toe with one of those surgical miniature bird feast scissors. Hurts even more than the wake-up call. But afterwards, it's much better. He wants to prescribe antibiotics, but after me asking for less heavy artillery he gives me the receipt for an antibiotical ointment. I thank him and go for a fast-food breakfast. Later, I start writing my log on the pc in the hostel and some notes on a podcast about anarcho-pacifictic capitalism.

\paragraph{22.03.12}
With my toe treated and not much sleep yesterday, I slept long and good. I take a walk to Tauranga and ask various pawnshops if they want to buy my used netbook, but they won't take a chinese import. This hostel makes me watch too much tv and just now someone asks how much time I spent in front of a screen, and I answer "too much".

\paragraph{23.03.12}
A slow and silent day with a walk along the beach and the town.

\paragraph{24.03.12}
I walk to Tauranga to put "for sale" notes on the hostel boards to sell my netbook. At the Loft 109 a woman is interested in the netbook, but I don't have it with me, and she tells me that if it works, she'll buy it if I bring it around. I tell her I whould return later today or tomorrow. On my way back, a bearded byciclist coming towards me stopped and asked where I was from. When I said "Germany", he complimented my english and proceeded to tell me that the pope whould die soon and the new one whould be from Belgium. He whould turn against the Vatican. America whould retreat from Irak, Iran whould attack Irak and Russia whould step in. Obama whould be replaced with a new black president, he even gave me a name. Putin whould want to go to heaven, and after he whould have heared the voice of Jesus telling him to push the button, he whould start WWIII and by then, I should be in the southern hemisphere. It whould happen in the end of August 2012 and I should watch for the Belgium pope and the other signs. I said I had to get going, so he wished me a good day and cycled off. This feels like it belongs to the dream section.

\paragraph{25.03.12}
I walked to Tauranga and sold the netbook for 80 dollars. 100 percent win. I preorder the last 300 dollar netbook at Dicksmith but can't take it with me because the battery is missing. I leave my mobile number. On my way back, I visit various work agencies and leave my number. Business seems not good these days. I ask at a place where old TEU-containers are remodeled into easy-transportable and fast-to-build houses, but the office is run by one man. I head to the hostel.

\paragraph{26.03.12}
Lazy day, short walk to the beach, lying in the sand.

\paragraph{27.03.12}
Since I am waiting for my netbook, I decide to stay for another week. I walk to the small hill near Mt. Maunganui, the peninsula and the beach. I see an advertisment for a weekly poker tournament later that day and get back there to play. I am the second person to loose his chips.

\paragraph{28.03.12}
I want to visit Dicksmith for my netbook, but choose a new route. I walk along the beach towards the second bridge to Tauranga when Jonas calls. We chat about what I am doing and what's new with the Anglophilic Cineast's Social Club. I describe my position for him to find on Google Maps. Later, I cross the narrow bay not on the intended car bridge but on the railway bridge I didn't know to have a pedestrian sidewalk. It takes me directly to the center of Tauranga. At Dicksmith, the battery has not arrived and they won't sell the netbook without it.

\paragraph{29.03.12}
I take a walk along the beach to the peninsula to climb along the rocks and chill and think. I realise that I like the rocks because they lack right angles.

\paragraph{30.03.12}
I walk along the beach and visit the peninsula. I really like the place.

\paragraph{31.03.12}
I take a walk along the beach. Today, many people are coming the opposite way. At a tent I ask two people handing out water to the walkers about all that, they explain that it is a charity walk for something. The main thing is past the peninsula. A hiphop group and a singer are performing, giant cheques are handed over by the Rotary Club and other councils. I meet the most uncanny mascot costume so far: a human in a human costume. Sleeves with gloves resembling bare arms and hands, a big head with a cap. Uncanny. There also is a bbq, I eat a sausage with onions. As I walk back, the microphone guy says his last thanks. I tell him to announce that there are delicious sausages left, which he does. At the rocks beside the peninsula, I meet two of the guys I flew here with, they are in the same hostel this night. I climb the small hill near the peninsula, but as the shadow of the mountain falls on me, I get cold and go . As I cook rice, I talk to a german guy whom I have given advice on a laptop purchase some days ago. We discuss movies and how they are usually copying stories, themes and styles.

\paragraph{01.04.12}
I had the revelation that I am in charge of every aspect of my life, thus I bought bacon and eggs for breakfast. I also found a book on overcoming your fear in the shelf, "Feel the fear and do it anyway". It breaks fears down to three levels, the first being the obvious fear of a situation or action, the second being states of mind causing the level above and the third level, causing the second, being "I can't handle it". This is surprisingly overlapping my philosophy about adulthood, about which I'll write more once that damn laptop battery arrives in Tauranga. On the beach, as I used shells to dig holes to bury the very same shells in, I invented the Karma Mine, a small sandcastle with a shell splinter inside to deliver karma to people enjoying the trampling of sandcastles.

\paragraph{02.04.12}
Since it rained, I cancelled my plan to walk to Tauranga to ask for my battery.

\paragraph{03.04.12}
Because of the stormy weather, the waves were high and reached the dunes. At the peninsula, the waves were shooting high into the air, spraying the spectators with delicious salt water. The entry to the peninsula was temporarily inaccessible due to the high and far reaching waves. At the evening, I played poker again. This time, we were 13 players. I make it to the final table with eight players, but loose as first of them.

\paragraph{04.04.12}
Today I take a picture of the Work-and-Travel participation paper and mail it to Jonas for the AStA. Yesterdays plan of taking a walk to Tauranga is postponed due to rain.

\paragraph{05.04.12}
After watching Pirates! in 3d, with me being the only person in the cinema, I walk up the beach, along the railroad tracks, over the railway bridge to Tauranga. The same route I took a few days ago. The battery still is not there and the used electronics and pawn shops have no netbooks either. I order Atlas Shrugged in a bookstore, and say to myself that I should leave after whatever item is delivered first.

\paragraph{06.04.12}
A days journey to the mountain. I took the reverse of the route I took last time I was in Tauranga. At the summit, I meet some guys from the hostel, I take a picture of them with their expensive looking camera. The view is great, it is raining in the distance. As it approaches, two rainbow segments can be seen. As it starts to rain, people rush down the mountain, but I take my time, waiting under the trees during the heavier rain.

\paragraph{07.04.12}
meh.

\paragraph{08.04.12}
Walk to the peninsula, walk back over the beach. I build a small dam with a shell at low tide.

\paragraph{09.04.12}
I cut a shovel out of an old plastic bottle and go to the beach to build a bigger dam than yesterday. A kid sees my construction with a small detour chanel for water and copies it down the beach with the very water from my channel. He learned a valuable lesson about the free market and the guy with the bigger dam and strategic water reserve. As I walk to the hostel, I realize that the high flood that night took away the driftwook that marked my exit. In Europe, every beach has bunkers for orientation.

\paragraph{10.04.12}
With cookies for the poker game later, I head to the peninsula to watch the waves on the rocks. There is a group of teens, offering me booze and ask me if I smoke weed or snort crushed pills. They do. I politely refuse and offer them cookies in return. After a time, a guy with a tripod and a huge camera moves into position on the rocks to capture the sunset. We talk, it turns out that he, Phil, founded his own postcard company with better-than-average motivs he shoots himself. I tell him about my vague idea of one day having my own cinema in Bielefeld. He says that since he founded his company, he ends up doing the paperwork instead of photographing, but he made it despite not having had any management knowledge at the beginning. He says that you just have to "dive into it". At the poker game, I loose before we get to the final table. For the night, I had to change rooms to one filled with Argentinians who like to get drunk and return late every damn evening and leave the lights on. Also, the morning sun keeps me from sleeping in the mornings because it shines through windows in the roof without anything like a curtain.

\paragraph{11.04.12}
I walk to Tauranga to ask for my netbook battery and search for one at the pawnshop and used electronics store. The guy there says that tomorrow he will have a netbook for 320 dollars.

\paragraph{12.04.12}
In Tauranga, I buy the damn netbook. It has a bios, so far so good. But the Linux distribution does not recognize the hard disk drive. That evening, I experience the old why-does-nothing-I-try-work madness.

\paragraph{13.04.12}
I checked out of the Pacific Coast Lodge to finally get on with it and travel along the bay of plenty. In Tauranga, I ask for the bus connections. One leaves at 1400, in about half an hour. But I want to take one last shot, so I ask if it drives on saturdays, too (it does) and book a night at a hostel in Tauranga and go to the it guys at Techology Wise that tried to help me with the last netbook. They can't, so I try to give it back or exchange it for a Thinkpad. He agrees, but the laptops weight makes me change my mind and return to Technology Wise. They keep the netbook for extensive scanning of the drives, so I walk along and return about two hours later. They change the settings of the drives from "compatible" to "native" and Linux recognizes them. Success! We install Mint 12 and I partake in their friday evening sit-in with beer and chips. Michael Doerner, the director who came here 15 jears ago from Germany wishes me the best of luck and gives me his card, in case I get into trouble or they want to throw me out of the country. Maybe it was the euphoric feeling about the working netbook, but that sounded like half an invitation to send a resumee. Now I sit in the lobby of the Rialto cinema and type. Addendum: In the hostel, we played poker with 4 people. I talked to a guy from Singapore about innovation, ideas, letting more intelligent people work for you and various ways to succeed with a great idea. He told me about thebcc.co.nz, an innovation contest. I noted that I made a big mistake for a hitchhiker: I lost my towel, it was propably still at the Pacific Coast Lodge.

\paragraph{14.04.12}
I checked out the hostel, stored my bag at the i-site and walked to the supermarket to replace the lost towel. I felt euphoric at the prospect of being on the move again. I took the bus to Whakatane and checked in at the Windsor BBH hostel. I had a first look at the mountains. In the evening, I realized that I forgot my mobile phone charger at the Pacific Coast Lodge in Mt Maunganui. Also, the german guy staying there was quite a downer. He studied geology and has no further ambition than to get a job to pay the bills. No hobbies other than the usual "doing stuff with my friends". He called American Pie Reunion a worthy sequel to the series. He does not watch animated kid's movies and won't ride the OGO at Rotorua, his next destination, because he doesn't think it whould be fun for him. A man with principles and opinions of things he never tried rather than a person who decides case-to-case and a sense of empirism.

\paragraph{15.04.12}
I went on the full-day hiking trip around the area, with beautiful scenery in a kiwi-repopulation rainforest. When I reached the beach at the other side of the mountain range, it was already quite late, so I ate there and hitched a lift back to town.

\paragraph{16.04.12}
Today I went on the other half of yesterday's hiking trip, which had an even better scenery. A beautiful look down on the town, the small harbour and the pacific with its small and big islands in it. At one point, I stand at a high cliff and have a full 180 degree view of ocean and far, far horizon. Later, I discover that the spot labelled 'impassible at one hour at ether side of high tide' is a beautiful beach that is flooded every high tide. Instead of sand, there are small and smooth shell pieces that sound and feel what it must be like to walk on gold coins. There also are piles of driftwood that rattle like bones in old pirate movies when jumped in. There is a small river flowing into the ocean, I climb over large pieces of driftwood and follow the stream behind a large boulder, where I discover a small sand bank almost surrounded by rock. There is one main waterfall, but the other walls are dripping with water, too. The sound is unique. I climb up the boulder next to the waterfall and see some natural ponds constantly filled and emptied by small waterfalls. Back on the beach, I climb a tree that fell off the mountain long ago and hangs over the place where the water vanishes into the beach. The place is a paradise. Later that day, after a hitched ride back home, I get really homesick and think about calling someone. Instead, I just surf around facebook a bit and play a whole year of dwarf fortress. It feels bad immediatly after switching it off. I somehow miss the Pacific Coast Lodge. I stayed there for almost four weeks and in the end, it was horrible. But I guess I somehow got accustomed to it. I got homesick for a place I don't even like. Maybe whatever place we call home is just that, a place we got accustomed to. Humans don't like change, don't like the unusual, the new. Thus, they long for 'home'.

\paragraph{18.04.12}
I walk around town a bit and climb to a viewpoint to oversee the city. It looks like civilisation barfed the city between the trees. I take the bus to Okotipi and check in at a hostel with germans in it. I immediatly get in touch with the people, there is even a movie nerd amongst them. I have a long conversation in which I share some of the ideas I had earlier this trip. It was refreshing to finally talk to normal people again. The question is, does the nz-trip stimulate my brain to countless ideas because I have noone to give me proper feedback, for better or for worse? Or is it just the lack of possibilities to numb the brain with aimless surfing and videogames? I don't know. Propably both. They tell me about a small birthday party at the beach, with a driftwood fire. I ask if I can join, which is no problem. We drive to the beach and sit around the fire with eight people, talking. It was very vitalising.

\paragraph{19.04.12}
I am informed that the people in the hostel are waiting for the late kind of kiwifruit to accumulate enough sugar to be picked. I join them waiting. I explore the city a bit to find out it is quite far from anything. There is a cinema, but it only opens on weekends, the local bookstore can only get me an abridged version of 'atlas shrugged', and even that takes two weeks. Dinner is rice and chicken.

\paragraph{20.04.12}
We cycle around town. Felix and Frieder show me a spot at the river with a slide and ropeswing, but the water is too damn cold.

\paragraph{21.04.12}
The kiwis have a disease and were dusted with something, so we can't pick until the level of whatever poison they were dusting is low enough to send in the pickers. Dinner is rice and chicken.

\paragraph{22.04.12}
Felix, Frieder, Christina and I made a day trip to Whakatane, the town where I was last. We visit the swimming pool and the Pak'n Save megamart.

\paragraph{23.04.12}
Whatever. Dinner is rice and chicken.

\paragraph{24.04.12}
Christina and Frieder get a job in the packhouse because they are sick of waiting. The same day, Felix and I are called to start picking. We pick from 12 to 17 at 15 dollars per hour. Picking is hard, but the same mindless task is quite meditative. After we're done, we celebrate one of the colleagues birthday with hamburgers from the hostel bbq grill.

\paragraph{25.04.12}
It is the national memorial day for both world wars. The only day except christmas when everything is closed. Felix and I get an early call to pick kiwis from 09 to 17, with 50 percent holiday pay on top. Picking itself drives me close to insane. One of the indian guys has no earphones, so he listens to his three-song playlist with speakers. All of the songs are bollywood-esque indian songs. Try to listen to that for hours and hours. Dinner is rice and chicken.

\paragraph{26.04.12}
Picking from 09 to 15. Imagine a basket the size of a microwave in front of your stomach, its weight resting on your shoulders. You fill it with kiwis that grow on vines between my shoulder height and one head above mine. I have a good size for this. The vines are suspended on wooden structures and metal wires. When the basket is filled, you stomp to the next tractor. They have a hanger with four large wooden bins. The bottom of your basket can be opened and you slowly release the kiwis into the bin. When your bag is filled, you empty it. When the bins are filled, another tractor takes the last ones place. When you reach the end of one field lane, you go under the next one. Today we stop early because of the rain. Not that they are concerned about the pickers, but the kiwi get injured when they are wet.

\paragraph{27.04.12}
Picking starts later because of rain at night.

\paragraph{28.04.12}
Free day. Two of our german picking mates, Philip and Timo, come over to play risk. Felix and I have been playing it for some days with Frieder, but he is not very good at strategy games and three is not enough anyway. With four players, it is fun, but Volker, the hostel owner, throws them out because it is getting late and they don't pay any rent here.

\paragraph{29.04.12}
Picking again, but again later than nine in the morning because of night rain. Felix and I consider the packhouse instead of the kiwi picking. Bunty, our contractor, a sexist indian, finally gives me my contract for picking.

\paragraph{30.04.12}
You remember the first kiwi you pick. Then the kiwis blur. You remember the first bag you empty. Then the bags blur. You remember the first tractor change. Then the tractors blur. You remember the first break you take. Then the breaks blur. You remember the first field row you finish. Then the rows blur. You remember the end of the first workday. Then the days blur.

\paragraph{01.05.12}
Bunty texts us that there is no work today. So Felix and I cycle to the packhouse where we get paperwork and the grand tour around the facilities. We don't have work, we loose a job and we get a job, alles am Tag Der Arbeit.

\paragraph{02.05.12}
The packhouse is less backbone breaking than the picking. We work in a large hall that is cooled for the kiwifruit. It is dominated by a large transport line. At one side of the hall, it is loaded with the kiwis from the very bins I filled before. They have an automatic quality control, are sorted by size and labelled individually before they rush onto the transport line and are distributed to smaller transport lines beneath, which bring the fruit to the first of the jobs I am taught, the packer. That is what I do today. I count an amount of kiwis, depending on the package size, into boxes that are delivered by a transport line beneath the kiwi line. Box after box. After that, the wrapper takes the box and closes the plastic inlay and the box itself. Then, the stackers label the box and stack it onto the right pallet. These are transported out of the hall by forklifts to be loaded onto the very trucks that brought the bins. Or others, I don't know. We discuss the disney propaganda video 'der fuehrers face' because the monotone work with kiwis reminds us of it. Also, the intro to 'lord of war' will now look different to me. Book and movie 'fight club' refer to this sort of worker as 'space monkey'. press a button, pull a lever, do one job only, do it perfect, do it without knowing what the big picture is.

\paragraph{03.05.12}
Second day. Other than picking, the workhours are consistent, so we get up at six in the morning again. Workhours are from seven to five thirty. With an unpaid break, that is ten hours of 13,50 dollars per hour plus holiday pay minus tax. Everyone knows the tax rate, but everyone gives me a different number. After work, Frieder drives Felix and me to Bunty because thursdays is payday for the prior week. His 'secretary', aka his buddy who knows about numbers, is not there yet, so he offers us a beer. I refuse, but Felix drinks three 0.3 liter bottles of 5\% in under twenty minutes and is quite funny afterwards. Also, we need to hurry home because he needs to go to the toilet. I tell him about waterfalls, how the video store there sure has customer toilets and inception of ideas. Do not think of pink elephants. Who are peeing. He was pissed (figuratively).

\paragraph{04.05.12}
For lunchbreak, we get a chinese buffet. Some say that it is to celebrate another million of pallets loaded, others know that it is the reward for working last saturday, which normally is our free day. Since this is my third day, I don't care and enjoy it. We also pack a small amount of a new variety of kiwi, the red kiwi. We are told not to take any of those out of the building. Back home, I tell Felix about the buffet and the red kiwis. He was not there because of a cold.

\paragraph{05.05.12}
Our free day. I launder my stuff (for free, Felix had to pay five bucks, maybe they ask me later) and argue with Felix wether or not to tramp to Whakatane and watch 'the avengers' movie. I lost my motivation to convince people of stuff I want to do. Maybe it's the work, or I just become a nicer person. Fat chance. We stay at the hostel and waste our free day on the net. In the afternoon, we go to Franzi's and Sebi's place to party and eat self-made pizza. We get to bed to late.

\paragraph{06.05.12}
Work was hell today. I don't know wether it was the short night sleep, the noise and mindless pop music, the packing job that requires me to stand at one spot for hours and made my knee kill me or the bile-rich daydream about me being back at the abi-reunion and rubbing my (imaginary) success in everyones face. Propably all of the above. I ask for ear protection, which numbs down the noises but the pop music still gets through. They numb their brains with pop everywhere. At work, during breaks, at the beach, when walking or jogging, all the time. The ubiquitous mundanity of pop music is their Brawndo. Horrible day.

\paragraph{07.05.12}
I wish I had a mind reading machine. I could extract my thoughts without the restraints typed words whould give them. I could send you 'newestcrazythought.thnk' and you could use your machine to rethink it. The factory work makes my mind wander.

\paragraph{08.05.12}
Today, I quit my job. My knee, or rather my inflammation is killing me. Also, the mindless pop music on the too loud radio there was making me deaf and dumb. I'm going back to Bunty and kiwi picking. I can listen to audiobooks and podcasts. Also, I can sleep longer and work in natural light and fresh air. My talent to find arguments for everything is working with me. I'll write another essay about this. Also, Jonas just called back so I could tell him about 'dr-horrible's sing-along blog', which Felix recommended. He reminds me of freedomainradio.com, a philosophical podcast he recommended to me before I left Germany. I download some episodes to listen to while picking. Also, the letter from my family arrives. It is a good feeling to read excerpts about the normal life at home.

\paragraph{09.05.12}
Due to rain, there is no work today. Instead of buying headphones for the podcast, I slack the day away.

\paragraph{10.05.12}
Felix spontaneously takes a day off. We hitchhike to Whakatane to watch 'avengers'. The hike back is divided into three parts.

\paragraph{11.05.12}
At the orchard, I bite myself in the ass for not buying headphones in two days time. The price I pay is listening to mindless pop music yet again. In the evening, I upload my essay collection to my blog.

\paragraph{12.05.12}
I borrow Christina's headphones to listen to Stefan Molyneux' podcast. I start with his audiobook 'on truth: the tyranny of illusion'. A great book. Listening to mind-boggeling implications makes fruitpicking a lot more lighthanded. In the evening, we meet at Sebi's place for Christina's fare well party. We drive to the beach and make a fire from driftwood one last time. We took bread dough and marshmallows with us.

\paragraph{13.05.12}
Kiwipicking starts more early today because of rain predictions. It ends at about four o'clock. The stores are closed, so no time to buy headphones yet again.

\paragraph{14.05.12}
picking with the relief of stefan molineux whispering great logical conclusions into my ear.

\paragraph{15.05.12}
same

\paragraph{16.05.12}
Free day, I take the bus to Whakatane and watch the avengers again. Joss Whedon finally takes back the throne that was taken from him by fox.

\paragraph{17.05.12}
picking. Yay.

\paragraph{18.05.12}
Instead of picking, I go pruning, aka cutting the branches of the kiwi plants that are dying because of the kiwi plant disease. The cut is covered with a blue copper paste. I am told that it is harmless, but a view on the bottle makes my supervisor driving to town and buying rubber gloves. I wear a t-shirt that gets some paste. I am told that the paste is not washable.

\paragraph{19.05.12}
Today we threw large plastic bags in a seven meter deep hole and buried them. In the bags were the disease-affected branches. I also got to drive the large quad we use to haul the branches, chainsaw and the other tools.

\paragraph{20.05.12}
Pruning again. It is cold since I wear the same t-shirt to avoid blue paste on other clothing. Under it are three other layers of clothing, but it is still cold. I think about going to the ninty mile beach, which is up north, the most northern point of the main island.

\paragraph{21.05.12}
Pruning again. I decided that I quit and go up north to chase me some warm weather. Hot shower after work.

\paragraph{22.05.12}

Today I ordered my papers and packed my stuff which was spreaded all throughout the hostel. I inquire about busses and call Bunty about an official paper stating that I worked for him from then to then.