Coirtall
11mo ago
Not sure if shithole is the word I would use, but I wouldn't really want to live there. It's kind of a student city; Otago University is infamously known for being a year long party. There's a movie set in the city, Scarfies. Well known locally, but getting a bit outdated these days.
Coirtall
11mo ago
I can't deny the country is beautiful! It's largely peaceful here too, which is great for that environment of trust and friendliness. I'd be interested in reading a follow up post from you on how you feel your mental state evolves throughout your trip. I'm not going to leave the country til mid-2024, so hearing your perspective as someone who's figurative footsteps I'll be following on in could have some valuable insights.
You're here for two years so you have a lot of time to explore! I'm not sure what you would like to do for work, so I'm not sure what to recommend there. If you want to live in a proper city you only really have one option, Auckland. It's a less friendly place than the other cities but it's the business hub of the country and the infrastructure reflects that. Wellington has an arty vibe and prides itself on being kind of quirky, a bit like Portland in the US. It's very very windy though, and can be a bit insular, making it hard to break into a social scene. Christchurch is a great city right now, it's finally recovering from a devastating earthquake a bit over a decade ago. It seems to be the best place to go for your bars, clubs, and restaurant style social scene. Lots of friendly people there who have just come out of some terrible times together. There are loads of smaller places to live, but I have always seen them as kind of sad myself so couldn't really give you an earnest recommendation there.
Apart from that there's a lot of natural beauty so if you like hiking you could be on a different trail every weekend. Your more touristy spots would be Queenstown, Rotorua, Taupo, Waiheke Island, Marlborough. Honestly it's too much to cover in one post. A lot of people show up, get a self contained van or camper and then go on a months long road trip to see as much as possible.
Coirtall
11mo ago
Can I ask why you chose New Zealand? For context, I'm a local here and I'm in the process of doing the reverse; getting a working holiday visa for Canada, trying to make significant changes to my life, even bulking (84kg myself!).
Coirtall
1yr ago
I managed to improve mine with a combination of changing my seated habits, physiotherapy, and personal training. The single biggest difference for me was learning to be comfortable sitting up straight driving or typing. A lot of people have started saying 'wow you're actually really tall' since it improved, so it's well worth the effort. If you, like me, have trouble remembering; put post it notes up everywhere that remind you to push your neck back to 'overcorrect' -- it's unlikely you're actually going too far backwards and it all trains the neck muscles to sit where they should. If you're self concious, they also don't all have to say 'fix your neck you big nerd' so everyone around you can read them. A blank post it in a certain position can carry meaning for you when you see it and just look like a blank note to everyone else.
Coirtall
1yr ago
I've been thinking a little bit about some of the dynamics of left/right wing politics as a continuation of high school social dynamics into old age. It's a half formed thought that I have not fully explored internally but the vague idea is; popular kids stop getting things for free when they enter the adult world and find it unfair they've lost influence, so engage more with 'people should just be good to each other' type ideas. Unpopular kids who became successful are still resentful and engage more with a 'fuck you, why would I share my money/power/influence with the people who hate me' worldview. Both are pushing to maximize the type of influence that benefits them the most, popular kids obviously do better with social dynamics and the ones who succeed economically or in the workplace might(?) do better where influence is measured in tangible things or actions.
A second thought kicking around in my head is a little weirder and harder to pin down. The human brain seems to compulsively project personalities onto ... stuff. Things, ideas, ideals. I suspect (but don't know how to go about researching or confirming) that most religions spring from a desire to understand things beyond our control. Thunder is scary, you can't control it, but you can project a personality onto it and then 'understand' that in a social sense. From this perspective a religion like Shinto displays a kind of raw form of this, in that any random inanimate object can be inhabited(?) by Kami, and thereby have personality projected onto it. It is enough for an object to have been interacted with by humans, and for an emotional bond to be formed, for it to be divine.
Non-religious people do this as well, their cars, computers, plants, tools; they all have 'personality'. I think if you take this to its logical conclusion, we are simply projecting a personality onto ourselves, and others as well. People are more convinced by being described as the type of person who would do something than by trying to convince them to take a specific action in the first place. There might be some way to fit this into existing conversations about whether machine-learning type intelligence is qualitatively different to meat based intelligence.
I'm unfortunately too busy with work to flesh out either of these thoughts fully, and most of the time too distracted reading the entertaining conversations others are having to make an effort post!
Coirtall
1yr ago
Will have to think about this. I've lost the competitive spark I had when I was younger so something like this hadn't even occurred to me. Thanks for the suggestion!
Coirtall
1yr ago
That's unusual. I suppose you can 'back out' and enter the other stream at any time? Will take a look.
Coirtall
1yr ago
You're right in that I shouldn't be surprised. I guess I am just a little disappointed. Thankfully some of the other advice is already working well for me, so I won't necessarily miss that this doesn't work!
Coirtall
1yr ago
You make bumble sound worse than I had initially thought to be honest. Is that universal or just in particular areas?
The meetup suggestion sounds like solid advice. I guess it makes some amount of sense that friendships aren't usually created one on one but rather in a group context. I'll take a look at it and see what's around my local area.
Auckland gets a bad rap, and is actually pretty nice if you're used to city living. You do need a car to live there, public transport is a mess the entire country over. Wellington and Christchurch would both accommodate you well enough without a car as they're small places. In any city you wouldn't have much trouble finding work in hospitality or other service industries. There's a bit of film/television work around that often requires short term contract workers. In my opinion, farm work is probably going to be a big challenge. They're quite far from civilisation and without a car you'll feel that isolation. If you can manage to get a license you can easily run around the country living in a van doing seasonal labour - mostly picking fruit, or working in meat/seafood processing. Otherwise, if you're open to doing tourist work there's a lot of that available in tourist towns, but you'll need good luck to find affordable accommodation there!
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