Our first night in Brunei

I remember very clearly the first night that we arrived in Brunei. We had flown from Bali, which was only a few hours away. However, it was a night flight so the children were feeling very tired when we arrived. It took a long time to get through immigration because we needed to get work visas. Finally we were able to collect all our luggage.

We thought someone was going to meet us but there was no one there. We didn’t know what to do. We sat there for a long time but no one came to collect us. After some discussion we rang up a hotel and they said they would send a driver to pick us up. A driver arrived in the end but he was from a different hotel! He took us through lots of dark streets until finally we got to the right hotel. I was so pleased that at last we could go to sleep.

Websites in English

I am interested in podcasting - getting messages sent to your ipod, mp3 player or computer. One site that might be useful for you is The daily idiom where several times a week a new idiom in English is discussed. It's also an audio file so you can practice your listening at the same time.

Other sites that I use a lot are
Google as my search engine
other sites for language teaching eg. journals
Sketch Engine for checking concordance programme for use of language

My ideal job

I would love to work for a publishing firm. There are different companies around that publish books, but I would like to work for one that publishes fiction or educational books. I like the idea of having to read books and make decisions about which ones should be published. I think it would also be interesting and rewarding to work with different authors and help them to edit their books before they are published. Another good thing about this job would be that the hours would be quite flexible, so that would suit having to look after my family at the moment. I could work at the time that my kids are at school.

Auckland

Auckland is a very green city. When I went overseas recently, I was really surprised when I came back and found how green Auckland was. I guess I had always thought that all cities were like that.

However, although the parks and gardens are lovely in Auckland, and especially here at Unitec, the traffic is a bad feature of this city. The public transport is not terribly reliable and the motorways quickly get jammed at rush hour. I try to avoid using the motorway at busy times.

I also love the fact that Auckland is so close to so many beaches. On the east coast, the beaches are flat with few waves, but on the west coast they are much more exciting, and the beaches have black sand! Muriwai is a great beach on the west coast, and a visit to the gannets (birds) is interesting at different times of the year when the birds are there.

While the photo at this site about Auckland isn't that great, the writing that goes with it will practice a lot of the vocab that we use when writing about cities. Have a look.

Where in NZ would you like to go?

A few years ago my family and I did a month's tour of the South Island. We had a wonderful time, but the one disappointment was that the day we were going to visit Glenorchy (near Queenstown) and do a tour, it poured with rain and the tour was cancelled. The reason that I really wanted to do this tour was because it took you into places where the Lord of the Rings movie was filmed, and I wanted to see some of the scenery. So I would like to go to the South Island do the Lord of the Rings tour. Tell me what you think about the tour.

Hahei

A few weeks ago, my husband and I went to Hahei for the weekend. It is a small place on the west coast of Coromandel The beach is a gorgeous stretch of long white sand. One morning we went for a walk to Cathedral Cove which is a very beautiful beach, and about an hours walk over the cliff. Another morning we went to Hot Water Beach where, if the tide is right, you can dig a hole in the sand, and sit in hot water from under the ground.

There are very few shops at Hahei, but there are several restaurants and we had two very delicious dinners there over the weekend. It was a lazy, relaxing time which we spent with some other couples and celebrated Mark's brother's birthday.

Almost lost!

I had a dreadful experience in Edinburgh about five years ago. We had had a month's holiday in England and were catching the plane to Singapore and then back to NZ. So we were coming home. We got to the airport early and my husband went to drop off the rental car. The children and I (with LOTS of luggage) went to check in, but we couldn't find the right check in counter. e had to walk from one end of the terminal to the other and on the way the wheels on our luggage trolley broke down. We had to find another trolley and move all our suitcases on to it.

When we finally got to the checkin desk, I couldn't find the bag with the tickets, our passports and all our money. I realised that I must have left it on the trolley. We ran back to the broken trolley but it was empty. I was very upset. I went back to the check in counter and my daughter was talking to someone. A lady had found my bag and was looking for me! I was so relieved. Now I am much more careful when I am travelling.

Mothers Day

The second Sunday in May is Mothers Day in NZ, although in other countries it is celebrated on different dates. It is a chance to appreciate how much our mums have given us over the years. People try to spend time on the day with their mothers and often give their mums a nice gift.

I visited my mother on Saturday night and gave her a present, as I knew I wouldn't see her on Sunday. Then on Mothers Day, we had my parents-in-law round to our place for lunch. We gave my mother-in-law a gift and enjoyed spending the time with them both.

Traditionally, children bring their mothers breakfast in bed. I stayed in bed especially, and my kids got up early, and brought me a lovely tray with a special breakfast of juice and pancakes. Fathers Day is the first Sunday in September. My husband says he is looking forward to getting his breakfast in bed!

Who am I?

My name is Karen Haines and I enjoy teaching at Unitec very much. I have been here now for more than five years, and have been teaching for more than twenty years in different places and also different subjects.

When I am not at work, my family takes up a lot of my time. My husband is Mark and he is also a teacher. We have three children – Roxanne, Christopher and Timothy. We enjoy going to the beach together and often go up to Muriwai on the West Coast. The children all learn different musical instruments and I enjoy playing piano with them. My husband sings and is in a band. We don’t spend much time watching TV, as there are too many other things to do.

Family

Family Aug 03
Originally uploaded by khaines.

This was taken about two years ago. Christopher and Tim have grown MUCH taller, and my hair is a little greyer!