I’ve got the day off, so I feel like I should blog.

I’ve been sick with a fever for the last 4 days.  I mean, really sick.  The last time I felt this bad was that week in Illinois and Wisconsin a couple years ago that I blogged about under the title “Probably the worst week of my life.”

Well, this time it probably wasn’t the worst week of my life – I haven’t been doing any physical labor in the snow, but I was still really sickly, and I did have to work at the damn restaurant.

For the last 4 days, I’ve been either in bed or at work.  I worked a 10 hour shift the other day, fumbling through the lunch and dinner rushes like a zombie, completely numb from the pain killers and cold meds.  I got home, got into bed and fell asleep shivering and sweaty, only to repeat the process again the next day.  Yuck.

I watched 2 movies and 13 episodes of Prison break in 4 days.

Anyway, I feel better today.  At least I feel good enough to actually leave my room for short periods of time.

So yeah, I should be blogging about all the cool shit I’ve done in the last few weeks.  Like my road trip to the east coast with Robin, Thomas, and Sara for the Blues Brews and BBQs festival in Mount Monganui.   Or like my New years with at the Yot club with the whole gang and even Zoe who I met years ago in Turkey and who happened to be in NZ for the holidays.  Or like my last few awesome surf sessions where I felt like I was really beginning to progress to a new level of not completely sucking.

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to the last few weeks.

As for the future, there is lots to tell.  I’m moving out of the Raglan Backpackers on Thursday.  I’ve been living and working there for the last 5 months, and really it was just time to make a move.  There were a couple of catalysts that I won’t go into detail about, but all in all, I think it’s a good move, and I’m feeling really positive.  Mark and Megan decided to move to a place of their own, leaving Canadian Chris with 2 spare rooms.  So Lou and I decided to move in.  $100 / week, fully furnished, awesome house, just a 5 minute walk from town.  Sweet deal.  And my own room!  Christ, I’ve been sharing a room with three other people for the last 5 months – I mean, I love the people I live with, but I also like to have my own space.  The lack of privacy has certainly made me get creative with the places I have sex, which has been fun, for sure. But yeah, it will be really nice to have my own room again.

Tim and Suz are going to let me continue working 1 day a week at the hostel to cover my surf board hire, and also so I can still hang out with my friends and whatever lovely new travelers happen through that place.

Also in the works is a visa extension.  Yesterday marked 11 months in New Zealand, and that means my one-year visa expires next month.  The problem is, I’m not ready to leave yet.  And neither is Lou (her visa expires in Feb too). So we’re working on a small extension.  Just a couple more months.  There is going to be some conniving and sneakiness involved, but I’ve got a man named Dodgy on the case.

So yeah, I hope to get that visa sorted in the next few weeks.  Stay in Raglan until April, travel the far north for a couple weeks, then fly to Bangkok and bum around South East Asia for 2 months before catching a flight back to California in June, just in time for little Sis’s wedding!

Woo!  That’s quite a travel plan, especially for a man who hates plans.

As always, I’m really excited about the future.