I'm back. Well better late than never. Actually I forgot the password and I never really had time to find it again. Now I've made another one. I promise to be better and to post on a regular basis.n Here are some photos of the summer holidays. I will post more later.

Nothing realy exciting happening except for the falling NZ dollar (61 cents!!!) and the rise in the number of students to my school. The weather is pretty shitty but at least I got to go over to Korea and Japan for week. I managed to miss a week of crappy winter.

Merry Christmas

It has been raining for the last couple of days. Recently we have had pretty good Christmas weather but we have been getting back to the old fashioned shitty Christmas weather that I remember since I was young. Anyway - normally in Hampden it doesn't get nice until the middle of Jan. That is real beach time. This year we are taking 2 weeks off over the Christmas vacation period. Back into the batte next year.

The dollar is starting to drop - hurray. 67c down from 71 a few weeks ago. This gladdens my tortured heart. Please fall to 60!!!!

Anyway. To anyone from any part of the planet who happens to read this- Merry Christmas.

Josie's Birthday

On Saturday Josie had her 7th birthday party. She invited 4 friends but one couldn't came and another left the invitation in his school bag. So in the end only two came. THey had a real ball though. We went through the obligatory treasure hunt followed by lollies wrapped in silver foil stuck in the garden. We had an attemped hit the balloon with the balloon race along the newly done lawn (miserable failure due to the constant popping of all of the balloons.) We did an egg and spoon race and lots of swingball games.

Anna and James added to the mix a little with was good. They had just arrived for the hols from Singapore. The 5 sprogs actually played together quite well (6 if you count Victoria). Peter (my brother) and Ai Lee (Sister in Law) enjoyed my brew and sat in the sun porch with Nana.

Aunty Jo sent up a bike for Josie which will double as a Christmas and birthday present.

On Sunday Victoria and Josie and I went to the park to teach Josie to ride the bike. After a few spills and tantrums Josie was able to ride from one side of the park to the other ... hols that thought I'll post a little later...

Language schools

A recent article in the newspaper said that language school enrolments have dropped by 28% over the last year. Stunning stuff really. We have experienced a drop but not anywhere near the same amount of percentage. I hope that this won't continue as a trend into the next year. We really need a drop in the dollar. We are going to have to do some pretty severe international marketing.

Ruminations about small business and economic recession

Just yesterday a big sawmill near Balclutha closed its export plant which was exporting timber. They said that they couldn't compete with the Chileans. 37 jobs went. That kind of got me to thinking. Big companies lay off staff early in order to avoid going bust. This company will now focus on the domestic timber trade and those 37 people will just have to fuck off. Small businesses just don't seem to have the balls to lay off people. They seem to wait until their nuts are in the closing vice before they act. Because of this I think that once small companies start to go under the country is really in the grips of a recession. Once small companies start to die however the inherent lag in economic flow through means that the economy won't instantly respond to the reduction of domestic competition. Small companies will die and die and new ones won't enter the market. NZ is inherently a nation of small businesses employing 15 people or fewer. At this time the big companies are laying off staff early. Surely this is a sign for small business to act before it becomes necessary to act. We are reducing our staff wages and going to start doing our own GST. We might even reduce the number of rooms that we rent.(if our landlords agree to this.)
The bottom line is that I am sure the indicators of recession are being written on the wall now. Small business closures will follow within 6 months if the dollar doesn't fall substantially and soon. Once small business start to die the snowball of nationwide recession will be off down the hill and will be unstoppable.

The Kiwi Dollar

The Reserve Bank raised their interest rates to 7.25% yesterday! This means that floating mortgage rates will be around 9% from now on. On Morning Report today there was an interesting discussion between Mike Pero and some Waikato Uni dude about whether or not this would bring down the house prices. Pero said that it would and that the correction was overdue and the Uni guy ( of all people) said that the correction could come as late as 2007. He talked about a levelling off of house prices rather than a drop.
Another thing a heard yesterday was that if the $ dropped to 65c to the US$ that would be classed as a recession. I don't think that is much of a drop at all. I would like the Kiwi to be at 61-62 against the US.
Even at 9% some people still think that the housing market won't cool. I am just stunned that the average Kiwi can put up with so much mortgage pain and still go out and borrow like there is no tomorrow.

Blogs

Since I started reading blogs I have been quite interested to see that most people who write blogs have really shit lives(much like myself). I wonder where all the brainsurgeons and lawyers and business executives are? If anyone knows the blogsite of a millionaire I would love to read about their tribulations.

In the meantime I will have to make do with teenage angst and meandering career paths (much like mine).

Nothing much to blog about.

I've nothing much to blog about. That proves the meaninglessness of my existance really.
"John, we will go and watch Narnia or The world's Fastest Indian this summer holiday.
Don't be so pathetic!! Let's just be happy that we are here". Mari
Get out of my blog Mari!! How dare you squeeze into my cyberspace! Now you have disturbed my train of thought. Where was I. Oh yes. The meaninglessness of life. Is meaninglessness a word? If you are reading this shit your life is as meaningless as mine.
Sick puppy.

Are you still reading?

Fuck off!

Still here?

OK then would you like to read my attempt at touch typing?

New Zealand is a really great country. There are two maon islands. THe main island is cilled the Southe Island and this is quite strange becaise most of the peaple libve on the Motth Osland. THe Motth Island countaons the capital city which is called Wellinggton. It also has the largest city which is called Auchland. This is the end of my touch typing came. I hope you ingoyes it.