Twenty three minutes after low-tide

I may have found my rhythm in cold-calling, but that doesn't mean that it is any better. I'm onto my fourth marketing interview this Friday: my third was a real rocker. The Hong Kong-born New Zealand-raised training responsible, upon hearing about my linguism and wanting to know whether I would be able to build rapport with the (potential) Chinese students, lured me into speaking Cantonese. Lightning questions were bolted across the table. One sentence: fended neatly; another one: replied with aplomb; the third: boujee? what is a boujee, "Newspaper," ah, "baozhi," I translate into Mandarin, well, yes, I can read newspapers in Chinese. The meeting was the best yet, though. Despite the trial, she has been the one that I've built most rapport with in the meeting, and whose company's situation was most likely to yield potential students.

With my roll shrinking even further, the urgency has increased. But there is good reason to believe the bottom has been struck; the bleeding has been arrested. E-mails last night reassured me somewhat: two Czechs will be returning from their travels, journeys which I thought might have ceased their tuition; another student, who promised that he'd talk his manager into extending his tuition, extended it with interest; and another will come back from a trip. And I've finally settled on what my volunteer work will comprise, after a hiatus of half a year.

And at Abel Tasman National Park, tides oppose your your progress with their ingress. Low tide is when you can cross. I've done fairly well with my additional leisure. My lack of travel last year in the boom has been more than compensated by my frolicking about the place including Abel Tasman. 23 minutes after low tide on 16 March, I crossed a morning chilled Awaroa inlet on the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, one of the most perfect places, where I had one of my most perfect moods the previous evening.

That was when I went out for a walk on the mudflats in my jandals to see the extent of low tide. The exertions of the day had levelled my mind so the starlight could shine in.