Discrete Retreat

The tactical handing-in of my notice of resignation to the supermarket went ahead without any problems yesterday. For a while it was looking as if I was going to have to face the department manager directly in order to have the termination of my employment scheduled. Thankfully, with the help of some old friends, I was made aware when he graciously left the store to leave the lowly workers suffering under the burden of the New Year's Eve shift. I was then able to bestow the honourable task of giving me the required paperwork on Joseph, the most deservant of individuals.

My co-worker Anand had informed me earlier in the month of a method by which I could attain some extra pay towards the end of my employment, without having to put any hours of labour in. He pointed out that since the only days of the week that I was rostered to work were Monday and Sunday, and because all of the public holidays that occur around this part of the calendar cycle -- Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, and the Day After New Year's Day -- fell on those two days of the week, I would be entitled to pay whether I worked those days or not. Anand suggested that in recognition of this, I shouldn't hand my notice in until after my first camping trip, so as to gain the stay pay from those four days. His tactical intelligence is most certainly appreciated.

It would appear that something of a minor miracle has occurred -- I may well have, within the past hour, come to the almost-final decision as to which papers I will be taking at university this year, and indeed which course I will be taking towards my obtainment of a degree. Politics was always obviously the subject that was going to win out. As such, politics is guaranteed to be my choice of major. The original plan was that media studies was going to be my other major, but it turns out that there's practically not enough media papers worth taking to get me the one hundred and twenty points necessary to claim a major in it. In the context of my degree, I plan that media will now be subjugated to a minor.

The great thing about this set-up is that I can now concentrate on the selection of the interest papers that will contribute the additional required points to my academic credential arsenal that will allow me to obtain my degree. I'm spoilt for choice in that regard. One idea would be to take Anthro 200 Archaeology in the first semester. That would allow me entry into at least three archaeology-related anthropology papers in my third year, and that would be all that was required to earn me the total of three hundred and sixty points that I need to get my BA. Or, I could take the sociology paper on popular culture in the first semester. There are not many sociology papers of huge interest to me to be taken in stage three, however two of them would be attributable to a media studies major if I in the end wished that I wanted to go that way after all. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on all this. Nevermind how confusingly and intimidatingly I may have worded it.

I'm glad of the fact that I'll be off camping again tomorrow. It was very refreshing to escape last time, with the only real knowledge of what is going on in industralised society being provided by talkback radio whenever I was asked to listen to the news in order to get a weather report. Don Brash's Christmas greeting was most entertaining, with him delivering in the standard tone -- and complete with pauses -- something along the lines of "I would like to take the opportunity to wish all New Zealanders, a Merry Christmas, and a safe, and prosperous, 2006." The station reported that they didn't know what Helen would be doing for Christmas, but rather they knew what she wouldn't be doing. A sound byte was then played that involved her stating that she's terrified of melanoma and won't be showing any skin on the beach. I'll tell you what, though -- one of the best parts of going away last time was being so far removed from the constant, overwhelming distraction of the Internet. Happy New Year.