<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part 2 – A Bit Of Background<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2012, New Zealand Immigration ran a series of videos that popped up in my YouTube feed. It was incredibly intriguing and after discussing it, we were genuinely interested and researched quite a bit. It was, however, not the right time as we lacked the funds as well as having a rather small newborn on our hands. Despite our strong desire to want to make the move at that time, it faded from memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fast forward several\nyears to 2018 \u2013 I had left my job with the Puyallup School District in July\n2014 and had been consulting for four years since. The change was transformational for me as it\nallowed me to meet new people, to travel and interact with others and to face\nnew and challenging situations to grow professionally and personally. In every sense of the word, I loved what it\nis that I did, and couldn\u2019t see myself going back to a \u2018desk job\u2019 doing regular\nIT again. Throughout this time my\nprofessional network grew, and I met someone who lived in New Zealand via\nonline chat. After collaborating a bit\nafter hours, he jokingly asked, \u201cWhen are you moving to New Zealand?\u201d \u2013 with\nthat, the spark reignited within me and I was reminded that we had agreed that\nit was a great idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I sat on the idea\nfor a bit, wondering how or if I should even approach the idea with\nRebecca. After all, professionally I was\nvery much enjoying what I was doing (though, I could do without the absurd\ncommutes). I casually repeated the\nquestion in a sort of joking way to \u201ctrial balloon\u201d the idea, and much to my\nsurprise, Rebecca immediately agreed with a sort of sense that, \u201cOh, yeah, we\ndid think that was a great idea!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We discussed it\nagain a few more times and went to work researching all about New Zealand\nlife: Families, work, locations,\nlifestyles, hobbies. Everything from the\nexciting adventures in the more extreme adrenaline activities like bungy\njumping and skydiving to the mundane, like shopping hauls from local super\nmarkets. After some time, we discussed\nit again and I asked Rebecca if she was still on board with the idea, and if\nso, to let me know when she was indeed certain of our decision, as I would\nreach out to professional contacts I had to try to network and make contacts in\nNew Zealand. I certainly had no qualms\nwith blindly applying online, but I know from experience that a simple\nrecommendation goes a long way in getting in front of someone. Despite a strong resume, I know that the\nprospect of spending time considering a candidate that lives half a world away\nisn\u2019t necessarily something all companies wanted to do, especially since the\ntime investment required for such an effort isn\u2019t small. A referral would go a long way in getting\nthat first meeting, where I could explain just how serious I was, and why I\u2019d\nmake an ideal candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Weeks had gone by\nand the feeling built within us until the time came: Yes, it was worth reaching out and leveraging\nrelationships I had built with others to see if they might be able to connect\nme with someone in New Zealand. Through\na series of e-mails, I talked with several individuals who had relocated or now\nlived in New Zealand to both explain our desire to move and ask for any\ninsights into where we should look at living and working. It was through these networking conversations\nI became acquainted with the name \u201cInde\u201d. \nBy this point, it was decided that we would vacation for two or three\nweeks in New Zealand, to scout it out a bit, so I reached out to Inde, we\nexchanged a few initial e-mails and agreed that we\u2019d chat when we visited New\nZealand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The. Wait. Was. Intense.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Part 2 – A Bit Of Background In 2012, New Zealand Immigration ran a series of videos that popped up in my YouTube feed. It was incredibly intriguing and after discussing it, we were genuinely interested and researched quite a bit. It was, however, not the right time as we lacked the funds as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/image-1-1024x559.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n