Day 2. Best day so far. Really enjoyed discussing the management dilemmas. Funny thing for the day was one of the HR people introducing our speaker Bevan (man) as Beverly (and not realizing she'd said it). Other funny thing was the questionnaire (that the other HR lady kept calling a kestionaire!) which I had thought was bollocks, actually giving me five very cool strengths - whether they're true or not is simply not important! Other people got odd stuff like "likes to love and be love" (I kid you not!). My top five were: fairness, equity and justice; self control and self-regulation; creativity, ingenuity and originality; honesty, authenticity and genuineness; and curiosity and interest in the world.  Photos from around campus (again...) :-)

 

Got through the first day. Woohoo. Reasonably interesting although I hate sitting down for so long. I discovered this morning I didn't have my hairbrush, missed my buddies for the walk over (fortunately found others) and carefully took the wrong material with me (after sorting out the necessary from the crap beforehand). But our first speaker was the campus registrar, and she had rushed in after forgetting she'd agreed to talking to us and not realizing it was today - clearly I AM management material (snicker).
The other funny thing was the video on management a polling company had put together. The narrator was like some smooth character from a soap opera and his voice kept shifting from American to English (which made him sound a bit fake to be honest). Funniest bit was when he said that we needed to show we care for staff, and caring meant caring for their success, so he said "even firing someone can be caring". I kid you not! :-). The buildings are nicer here, crazy sign and beautiful stain glass window.

Have realized why everyone else is buying their food - they're charging it back. I think I have failed the first managerial test: are you assertive enough to spend loads of money and charge it to Massey. Oh well, I think my tuna and egg salad was nicer than takeaways any day :-)  Also, nice view out the window (sunset reflected in the window of the ginormous building across the road, part of which is a Chinese restaurant).

Am in Auckland. Flight short and sweet :-) About to head off for a short walk and then make myself a healthy dinner (everyone else thinks I'm nuts because they've headed off for takeaways... :-) ).
Decided to be a dag in the airport and (subtly) take a photo of the taxi guy holding up the sign with my name on it - although the first one blurred and the second one his hand is over my name so it looks like I'm Sonya [w]ho.... ??