Week's End

I’m sorry (to all those who bother to visit this blog) for not updating as frequently as I have been in the past. I promise to update more often from now on.

 

Anyway finally it is the end of the week just as all the homework and assignments were beginning to build up! Researching for my debate has taken a considerable amount of my free time as well. I’m really starting to worry about it. We don’t have a team case, nor do we have main points assigned to each speaker! The debate against Diocesan Girls School (rich private girls’ school) is on Tuesday, so we’re in a lot of trouble. Dare I say it, but we’re screwed. On Monday our debating team will have a practice debate with Chen’s team, who are the affirmative team. I’m determined not to let a team of year 11 students beat us!

 

Hamish had his first taste of independence this week with his orientation day being held on Wednesday, and then the parents evening later that night. That day was the first time Hamish caught the bus into and out of the city all by himself. It was 5pm and he still wasn’t home! We started to get worried as we weren’t sure if he had caught the wrong bus to somewhere like Howick! Fortunately he did return home! He told me that all Auckland University Students Association members got free condoms and an FHM Magazine as a free welcome gift. Hamish missed out on this because he hadn’t joined yet. So our mum and Hamish went into the city the next day to both buy more books as well as join the AUSA. Because his mum was with him though (assumingly), he wasn’t given any condoms, and no FHM Magazine either. Instead our mum chose the magazines for him…Women’s Weekly!

 

I’ve nearly completed the first half of my six months’ worth of Isotane which is supposed to get rid of all the acne on my body, so I had to make a visit to the dermatologist after school yesterday. I let him know about all the side effects I’ve been experiencing lately, such as dry lips, dry skin, sore fingers, sore back…He simply told me not to worry as these were expected side effects and would cease once I was off medication. He then prescribed the next three months’ worth of pills for me. And so it continues…

 

Tomorrow will be the first time we have our violin lessons at 8:30am in the morning, after it had been moved from Tuesday. Straight after that we have to travel all the way to North Shore for our accordion lessons. After that we might pay a visit to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Albert Park. Many of my friends will be going tomorrow night so who knows who I might meet up with!

 

 

I’m really disappointed at the boy who appeared on ONE News, claiming that he passed his NCEA Level 3 school exams without writing a single word in his exam paper. He did not want his identity to be revealed for fear of losing his EXCELLENT marks which he did not deserve, but was apparently worried for other students who might not have been as lucky as he was and get their mark lowered. I found that hard to believe. Now that boy has been caught out for lying. He in fact asked to be paid in order for TVNZ to broadcast the news item about him! It is completely unacceptable for this boy to make false claims and to ‘stir the pot even more’, especially when enough blame has been put on NZQA.

In full Swing

Last night was the first school Board of Trustees meeting I had since school had started. Usually I report good news to the board because I’m too afraid of upsetting them, but they asked me to find out what bad things the students thought of the school so they could get a good picture of how to improve the school. Fair enough. From today onwards I’ll be visiting some classes during form period to survey them on their opinions of how they think the school is doing. Interestingly after I spoke at the junior assembly last week, a few people have come up to me to ask if I’m the board person!

 

Yesterday also marked the start of cello lessons and string ensemble rehearsal for me. Today I signed up for the school choir (yeah I know you all think I’ve got a bad voice but if I am to try and promote school pride by encouraging student participation in extra-curricular activities, I might as well set an example!), and I’m thinking of signing up for the environmental group and SADD (Students Against Drink Driving). In all honesty, I would rather see it as being against drinking full stop, but we have to be realistic and set our sights on something more achievable.

 

Our Young Enterprise business has decided to sell flowers, so we all are going to contribute $5.00 each to the business, and then I will be responsible for buying about three sample plants with the money, and then testing our market (selling to the teachers).

 

Orchestra rehearsal is at quarter to eight tomorrow morning so I better get off to bed early! I’ve started a routine of waking up an hour early to do exercise before having a shower, eating breakfast and then going off to school. So far I haven’t been late!

 

 

The successful (to a certain degree) newsreading duo of John Campbell and Carol Hirshfield that have graced our screens weeknights on TV3 are no more. Let’s see how well Mike McRoberts and Hillary Barry will do. At current 3 News doesn’t rate as one of the national Top 10 most watched television shows, nor does it even rate in the Top 10 most watched TV3 shows either!

Starlight Spectacular

Yesterday was one action-packed day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YESTERDAY SZELIN!!

It started off with a Chinese New Year celebration at the Glenfield Community Centre. What made it special was that my dad was to perform Tai Chi with a group as part of the celebrations. He was even asked to give a little introduction to Tai Chi! 

The Tai Chi performance went pretty well. As well as that, there was a Chinese singer, a dragon dance, and an Iranian lady doing a dance. Unfortunately she was let down by a very poor sound system which kept cutting out! While this performance was going on though, Hamish, Aonghas and I had to occasionally dash across the road to the Music Education Centre to have our accordion lessons. That was very convenient!

Once we came home we had very little time before we had to set off again for the annual Sky City Starlight Symphony at the Auckland Domain. Every year the free open-air concert is held in the domain, with over 200,000 people from all around Auckland attending the event to watch classical, pop and show performances. The weather was great, with only a slight fear of rain. We sat right up near the front of the huge television screen and the stage, so we had no problem watching the action! There were plenty of fireworks throughout the night, including a spinning fire wheel and fire fountains. The host John Hawkesby was as good as ever and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra was at its best! The concert ended with the usual 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky accompanied by a magnificent display of fireworks, lasers and the cannons of the army. Can’t wait till next year now!

 

Sunday school started today at church, and now together with Aida, Jennifer the translator is helping to teach the class. This year the class is made up of four girls and two guys – Hamish and me. Lucky us!

Szelin this afternoon came over to our house to visit. I’m not sure if it was to visit us or our kitten? Anyway her family went out and she was home alone so she thought she might just come over.

One day the bad luck will run out

I’m definitely in no short supply of bad days.

 

Yesterday I got my first detention of the year for coming late to school (by only a few minutes may I add!). Aonghas managed to sneak into class and his teacher didn’t send him to the office to sign in only because he had a test! The detention required me to fill out this form asking me why I came late to school, how I can avoid it next time, and so on. I had to spend all morning tea filling it in, and once it was finished I’d be free to go. I fortunately did bits of it during class so I didn’t have to spend too much of my morning tea ;) Only two weeks have passed and I’ve already had one detention…I’ve got to get seven more to beat Hamish’s record last year!

 

I was then relegated to 3^rd speaker on the debating team because the other two in the debating team didn’t want to be the 3^rd speaker (even though I’ve used the word ‘relegated’, it’s not as though 3^rd speaker is any worse than the other speaking positions. I’ve just favoured 1^st position because you get to open and close your team’s argument, and as for 3^rd speaker you don’t really make such a substantial point but instead spend most of your time on rebuttal). Anyway I’m sure I can be flexible and adapt to whatever position I’m assigned (or should I say consigned?) to.

 

After school I was ‘verbally abused’ by Szelin (nah not really!), shouting out to me as she went up the driveway with her family in the car

“MURDERER!!”

 

I can assure everyone that the fault cannot rest solely on me for the deaths of our two goldfish and canaries! It is a near-certain possibility that they could’ve died due to natural causes! Despite rumours circulating around the place regarding our kitten’s health, our kitten, now named ‘Meow-Meow’, is perfectly healthy. We were worried at one stage because it wasn’t as lively as it used to be, it didn’t get excited when it’s father Tess came home, and it also slept for most of the day. Now she/he is back to his/her usual self.

 

Szelin rang me late last night to interrogate me on the kitten’s health. After that she asked me if her friends had been chatting to me less lately. Ever since she added me to a conversation with her and her friends by accident, her friends added me and started chatting to me on MSN, but recently I noticed how they weren’t as talkative as they used to be. I realised why when Szelin told me that her friends checked out my school’s magazine from last year and she showed them what I looked like. Typical…but didn’t come as a surprise. As I’ve said before, I’m used to all this by now. Evil evil women

 

After I came off the phone (I was outside at the time), I turned round to go back into the house to hang up the phone, but didn’t look where I was going. Before I knew it I lost my balance and landed myself in the rose bush. Now my right arm is covered in scratches. My friends thought the cat inflicted the wounds on me! When I came inside, she was more worried about the rose bush than me!

 

Today I spoke at the junior assembly, introducing myself as the school’s student rep on the BOT. Before I even had the chance to say anything, the principal introduced me by basically saying everything I was going to say! In the end I had to ad lib it all. Man it really feels uncomfortable sitting up on stage, with 600 kids staring at you.

 

Swimming sports was on today, and my Calculus teacher was helping out which meant we would have a free 6^th period. It was not to be though. Swimming sports managed to finish earlier than expected and so I found myself in 6^th period doing maths!

Another Day at the Office

Ok not really the office but school…but anyway just another usual day.

 

This year’s young enterprise group are thinking of selling pot-plants first to teachers and then a wider market as their product. The plan is to buy plants from The Warehouse or Mitre 10 and then sell them at a higher price to other people. I think plants from those two retailers cost from $1.99-$3.99. I’m not so sure of the idea, as I don’t know how much we could earn, as well as whether the plants will be too expensive or not. The other idea for our business is to make exam revision flashcards for various school subjects and sell them to students from our school or even students from other schools. I’m keener on that idea, but the other members of the business don’t think we will make as much profit.

 

The Inter-School Debating Competition Draw has been released. I’m in the ‘Rutherford Commanders’ debating team this year, along with Hyun, Joon and Kaylee who’ll help out with the research. Our first debate will be up against the ‘Dio Diamonds’ from Diocesan School for Girls (yes a rich private school). We will be on the negative side of the moot:

 

“That we support human cloning.”

 

It will once again be the Battle of the Sexes, a rematch of last year’s debate. Last year we came away with the debate, but we were up against a team consisting of first-time Asian girls (not being racist because that is factually correct). Our school’s advanced team will be called the ‘Rutherford Harassers’, hopefully for the right reasons though!

 

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After listening to a debate on NCEA between the principals of Papakura College and Rangitoto College on National Radio this morning, it came to my attention (or gave my memory a reminder) that the principal of Rangitoto College Allan Peachey is in fact a National Party member. I’ve always believed that schools should remain apolitical, and National have made a big fuss about keeping the national secondary school qualifications (NCEA) apolitical as well, by stirring up the pot with regards to the poorly drawn caricature of leader Don Brash in the history exam, and the ‘National Party Member unsympathetic to Maori’ claims. According to National it will brainwash the students into thinking that National is a Maori-bashing party. Let’s hope Mr Peachey isn’t doing some bashing of his own at school assemblies, trying to run his employers down, and promoting National policy to his students. Come to think of it, how ironic, that this National Party member is employed by a Labour government…

 

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Who doesn’t think that Avondale College, Rangitoto College and Auckland Grammar are getting enough publicity as it is? When the media wants comment on educational matters, who best to turn to than two of the largest schools in New Zealand. Doing this repeatedly gives these schools free publicity. There’s no surprise why these schools are so popular.

Valentines Day the Day of the Damned

Oh YAY Valentines Day. Single again, no Valentine, nothing great, another normal day. I’m slowly creeping towards becoming a convert of the Anti-Valentines Day movement.

This is what my horoscope said for Valentines Day:

Love and romance on Valentine's Day should be just as you like it. Plenty of chat and idealism, and not too much passion, which might frighten you off anyway. Mercury conjuncts the Sun and Venus conjuncts Neptune - great for flirting and finding out how the other person thinks. But whether it will turn into a deeper relationship only time will tell - it certainly won't straight away. However, you will enjoy all the attention that comes your way and the multiple offers of dates that you may have to choose from - poor you.
-MSN

Fat chance lol

Valentines Day is just another one of those commercial money-making days. Now that Christmas, New Years Day and the Back-To-School sales are all over, retailers are in need of another celebration to fill the void. Here comes Valentines Day, a good day to get sell all those roses, teddy bears and chocolate and get rid of stock left over from Christmas.

Our school is pretty Anti-Valentines. There was this notice that travelled around school today:

“Roses delivered to students at school will be held at the deans’ offices to wilt till the end of the day”

Originally I was going to look for suicide rates for Valentines Days to reinforce the Anti-Valentines stance, but I doubt anyone kept count. The Ministry of Health have been heavily promoting the Hubba Bubba message today though.

Anyone else feeling lonely should check out the Anti-Valentine Spectacular, a webpage dedicated to all those pessimists and loners out there who want to express their cynicism towards Valentines Day. It will definitely make you feel a lot better.

…Of course I wouldn’t be sceptical myself if I wasn’t single! ;)

Dump NCEA? - Act MP Deborah Coddington

The NCEA debacle has been featuring a lot lately in the news. Tonight after reading of Act MP Debra Coddington’s latest press release on her 3 thousand and somethingth reason for dumping NCEA, I decided that I’d email her to ask what she thought should replace NCEA. I sent it at 6:00pm tonight and surprisingly received it at about 7:00pm!! Her reply is as follows:

Dear Calum,
…I would allow choice. Schools that want to keep the NCEA would be free to do so. At the moment it costs around $400 for each student to sit the NCEA. The Govt pays $250 and the student $150. With choice, the govt would pay the same contribution to those who want to sit the Cambridge exams, or the International Baccalureate. Or if schools wanted to go back to Bursary or School Certificate, then they could. It needn't cost a fortune. There's no reason why NZQA should have a monopoly on setting exams. They could be contracted out and we could get rid of a helluva lot of the bureaucracy and free up more money to spend on schools and teachers. If funding followed the child, and parents had real choice, instead of only affluent parents having choice, then parents would soon sort out which were the best qualifications for their own children. And employers, universities, etc would choose their intake according to the qualifications they valued the best. Those students half way through the NCEA "journey" are currently being used as guinea pigs. The wheels are falling off this handcart as it makes its way to hell. The National Party and the Labour Party should be made to compensate those students who have been let down by this fiasco…

Cursed

This morning at church Hamish and Aonghas performed a Chinese duet while I performed a Chinese solo as part of the church’s Chinese New Year celebrations. How did it go? BAD (no surprises there)! I don’t know why I can do anything in front of an audience at times, and then at other times I’m nervous. I’m not trying to look for excuses but an audience made up of Chinese people does frighten me because I always assume they have high standards of me, and expect me to play really good. There I go and stuff everything up and don’t play any good at all!
When I was younger I rarely made mistakes and managed to perform well in public without letting the nerves get to me. Several years ago after I had won this music scholarship for an accordion performance, I was invited to perform at this dinner for members of the organisation that funded the scholarship. I chose to perform this piece ‘Maleguana’ (keeping my policy of playing one piece per performance in tact), one I had never performed before, nor was I ready to. I played it like it was a jumbled sequence of notes and obviously embarrassed my parents. I’ve never been the same since then… I’m sure I’ve made a stuff-up in each performance I’ve been in ever since.

Even though they weren’t exactly together, Hamish and Aonghas survived and managed to play right through their piece without stopping, unlike me. Phoebe told me a couple weeks ago that she might come to church (because she occasionally comes to the same church as me) to watch me perform. Now I’m hoping she didn’t! A few people did comment after the performance on how good we played. I find it hard to believe the sincerity behind those comments though!

Anyway afterwards there was this ‘Love Banquet’, which was basically a shared lunch most likely to celebrate the upcoming Valentines Day. I may not have a love for Valentines Day but I certainly love shared lunches! It’s a change from the usual rice + vegetables + tofu lunch we usually have at church. Unfortunately, my run of misfortunes continued, when I spilt a hot cup of tea all over my pants! I walked to the toilet, hoping no one would notice the wet patch between my legs. However, the hand dryer in the toilet was too high for me to reach and dry my pants! It did dry up after a while.

Stay tuned for my rant and rave on Valentines Day – how much I loathe it, especially since I am single!

Happy Birthday Chen!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHEN!!!

It’s my good friend Chen’s birthday. From today he is legally entitled to get his learner’s license and a whole bunch of other stuff. I’m just about to ring him…

End of the Week

First week of school is over, and nothing spectacular has happened so far. Oh yeah…today some car/jeep or some sort of motor vehicle from the radio station Flava FM came to our school during interval, with their boot open and all the sound systems inside letting out all the ‘beats’. Probably all just a publicity stunt. I’m not really into hip-hop or R&B. I don’t mind some, but most of it is endless garble to me. I’m more into music that actually has a tune to it.

There was an SOS call out today for anyone who wanted to join the debating team, after only having heard that today was the closing date to enter teams into the competition. Hyun, Joon and I re-entered again this year, and added Kaylee’s name to the team just in case she wanted to be a part of it. Last year the four of us (with the help of Norma) entered as the ‘Rutherford Keas’ and although we won our first debate against Diocesan (yes the rich private school!!), we won two other debates by default and forfeited another. We didn’t get past the preliminary rounds. Our first debate is on the 1st March and the moot is
“That cloning is good”

My favourite position is first speaker, not because it is the easiest (remember first speaker has to give two speeches plus open and close the team’s argument – very important!), but because it’s fun (couldn’t really remember why now – I first started off as first speaker and enjoyed it so much I’ve never spoken in any other position) What was interesting in last year’s debate was that I tabled some documents, and referred to them throughout my debate speech, however the opposing team had no idea they had the right to read through them, so I could basically make anything up! I doubt the teams we will come up against this year will be that ignorant though.

I was told by someone at school today that universities don’t exactly like it if you take all three sciences (biology, chemistry and physics) and look to see if you’ve widened your horizons like having taken an arts subject or something like that. If that is the case, I’m screwed once again! I’m going round and round in circles without the faintest idea about what I should be studying or what I’m aiming for. I NEED HELP!

This weekend marks the beginning of accordion lessons for this year – I haven’t practised much in the last eight weeks so my teacher will be very disappointed! Fingers crossed I’ll bluff my way through the lesson n fool him.

Extreme Heat

The last few days have been extremely hot! The temperatures inside our humid classrooms have been soaring sky-high, and I haven’t been able to concentrate. I can’t seem to keep awake in biology, and today in English I kept dozing off while the teacher was teaching us about sentence structures (well who wouldn’t?)

 

I put my name down to go for the performance credits for NCEA Level 3 Practical Music. The solo performance is worth 12 credits while the group performance is worth 4. The only thing is that I have to perform about 5 pieces. At the moment I only have three and I can’t play any of them yet! This Sunday I’ve got to perform this Chinese song at Church as part of the Chinese New Year celebration there. Aunty Helen said I was playing it a bit too fast so I have to slow it down. The only problem is that when I play it slowly it sounds dead!

 

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I haven’t watched it yet but the overall rating given to Paul Holmes’ new show – two thumbs down. Even The Simpsons got higher ratings than him! John Campbell’s new show will come out in April but I’m a bit disappointed at the name they’ve given it – Campbell Live. We already have Mike King Live, Rove Live…It ain’t that original.

 

RIP TWEETY

Our only remaining canary was found lying dead in its cage tonight. Chirpy II, the daughter of the late Tweety (who died eight years ago) and Chirpy (who died last year) died, most likely due to the extremely high temperatures we’ve been experiencing in Auckland for the past few days! I will always remember our chirpy little Chirpy.

 

Rest In Peace Chirpy II

Catch-Up

I haven’t posted much regularly ever since school started, so I’ll try make up for it now.

 

I just got home from a little viola get-together with violists from the Auckland Symphony Orchestra. Their orchestra rehearsal was cancelled so they decided to meet to play some viola music at one of the violist’s houses. Mrs Green took Hamish and me over to the lady’s house in North Shore and we played all night till 9.

 

I got in a bit of trouble with other people when they read on this blog about how I was thinking of aiming towards medicine, because they wanted to do that too (either they thought I was a copycat or they just couldn’t bear thinking of working together with me if that would ever happen in the future!) The thing is I only decided to take three sciences this year because 1) my dean recommended it and 2) it would keep the path to medicine open for me, and yes I do listen to the dean, especially when I have no idea what I want to do after school! In fact, I’d listen to anyone who could offer me career advice!

 

I’ve officially lost the bet with Zippo. Now I owe her $5, which I don’t have at my disposal. Even though all my money is stored away in my bank account, the bank has this deal that I cannot withdraw any cash and I must deposit anything at least once a month if I want to keep my interest rate up at 4.25%. If I don’t, then it drops to 1%. Yeah it’s pretty stingy. Aonghas and Hamish are with Kiwibank, and they get 4.5% no matter what they do with the money in their account! I really should think about changing banks. Anyway since I don’t have a job either, I have no money so I might have to pay Zippo back in little instalments, maybe made up of coins I find around the house…

 

Two days in to the school year, and even though it is early days, it feels pretty weird compared to last year. Last year I was busy during every lunch, whether it was Student Committee, string ensemble, young enterprise or orchestra. I haven’t signed up for anything yet so I’ve been able to enjoy my lunchtimes for once! The first meeting for anyone interested in Young Enterprise will be tomorrow so I’m thinking of resigning for that. It’s this competition where you create your own business. Last year together with Hamish, Hyun and Joon, we formed RCJ (Rutherford College Jewellery) and sold …you guessed it jewellery. Although we advertised in our own school’s daily notices, there was not ONE single person interested in what we had to sell. We got a better reception at the neighbouring primary school though, managing to sell everything we had the first time round. In the end we made a $30 profit, and a $6 dividend. We each contributed $2 so that was really good. I was secretary of the business, which turned out to be a good position for me in the end as I wasn’t blamed for everything that went wrong (Hyun copped a lot of that as managing director, so much he doesn’t want to be in the same position this year!) and I had a really light workload.

 

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So Paul Holmes wants his new show simply titled ‘Paul Holmes’ on Prime TV to be ‘fearless’. I would’ve thought that Mr Holmes was already a fearless figure, being brave enough to call the UN head (whose name has eluded my mind) a ‘Cheeky Darky’ and Maori Party leader Turiana Turia ‘a bag of lard’. I wonder what he has in stall for us on Prime. We can’t receive the signal for Prime TV though because we only have a VHF antenna, so we will be forgoing his show.

 

 

 

 

A Quickie

Ok this will be very brief to update what has been going on:

On Friday I had my first full day of school. After attending biology class, I was left thinking what am I doing?!! I was really keen to attend chemistry class, but physics...yawn.

I’ll write some more tomorrow.

First Day Back at School

First day back – what can I say? Everyone was in their new senior uniforms, little third formers ran around school, and half of the school buildings had been repainted blue. Our form teacher this year is Mrs Lee, an art teacher, which means our form room is…an art room. Last year we had the music room and I must say I’d much rather prefer the music room because I’d be able to see the music teacher everyday (and this helps me improve my relations with her in the hope of being given more opportunities to perform!). Despite this, I have no problems with spending form time in the art room.

 

This year my form class is basically the same as last year, bar two new people. One is….I forgot his name now…but he used to be in my accounting class before I moved to a different one (not because of him of course!) I never really got to know him but hopefully this year I might. The other is a girl called Lisa, who made a no-show at school today and ended up being the talk of the class, leaving many wondering who she could be. When the form classes were being read out there was originally a big shock when the dean read out Sarena’s (a very intelligent girl who deserves to be in the top form class) name in another form class’s list. It got everyone wondering whether the class we’ve been apart of for the past three years would be split up this year. Fortunately, it was a mistake and Sarena was supposed to be in our class!

 

We got our ID photos taken in the library. At our school they use a digital camera hooked up to a laptop, and so the camera is controlled by it. Since the camera doesn’t flash or make any sound at all, it’s a bit hard to tell when the photo has actually been taken. So there I was, sitting there staring into the camera with a long face (me smiling for a photo gets exaggerated by 100 times!) Often I would turn to look at the lady who was taking my photo to see if she was finished or not, so hopefully she didn’t take a side shot of my face!

 

I ended up waiting for almost half an hour in the office foyer to see my dean to confirm my subjects. What made it worse was the sweltering heat! I don’t know how I’m going to survive at school in this type of weather! I decided to wear a singlet under my white t-shirt because I’m aware of how easy white can get dirty. Another reason is because my shorts are…short. I bought them from the second hand uniform shop at school, thinking they were the right size, only to realise they were shorter than I expected! Now I have to low-ride at school to make them cover at least my knees. My singlet is long so it will cover any undergarments that could be exposed through my white t-shirt.

 

Also while waiting in line, Jacqueline came by and gave me this good-luck necklace.

 

“It’s for good luck and also because you worry too much!”

 

I don’t know if having a good-luck charm comes into conflict with any rules of Christianity, but I’ll probably just carry it with me just in case!

 

Tomorrow Aonghas will go to school for half a day, while I get a day off. I’ll have my first full day of school on Friday. I better enjoy what little time I have left!

Random Txts

We got probably the most text messages in one day than we’ve ever had before! The only thing is that we don’t know who they’re from. Anyway, here is a collection of text messages we’ve received from random people in the past:

 

“C u at school!”

 

“How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood”

 

“Hay sexy”

 

“Hay come 2 the big orange archers n well meat u dea”

 

“How’s ur dad bro?”

Bets Bets Bets

For some reason people keep making bets with me relating to my personal/social life. At least one bet is coming to an end – (with Zippo) to get a girlfriend by the end of the school holidays, stay together for a week and bring her to my house to meet Zippo. Originally, on the line was $5, then it was breakfast, and then it was helping Zippo with her NCEA English short story. I probably would help her out with her short story regardless of the outcome of the bet. However, school starts tomorrow, there is no chance of Phoebe coming to my house, so I have no choice to either pay Zippo $5 or make her breakfast.

 

In the last week or so, Diane made a deal with me that if she gets a boyfriend by the 1^st of June (one that she really genuinely likes and wants to be with), I have to tell her five big secrets of mine. If she doesn’t she has to tell me her five biggest secrets. If I get a girlfriend (same rules apply) by the 1^st of June, then she will tell me five big secrets and…you get the idea.

 

Just last night Disha, a friend of Diane’s, made a bet with me – to not like any girls or have any crushes for the whole of February. That should be easy…

 

So school starts tomorrow…well only for a half day for administrative things like taking our school ID photos, paying our school fees and sorting out options. I’m hoping that my ID photo this year won’t look as bad as last year’s. Last year my face looked like an orange. Literally it was orange! It must’ve been from all the light, but I guess that can’t be helped. I wouldn’t mind how bad my ID photo looks if it was only served that purpose – to be used for identification, but last year, our school reverted to putting each student’s photo ID in the school magazine (yearbook)! They had used class photos for the previous year’s school magazine, but I suppose since everyone was drenched from the rain in their class photo last year, they decided to use the ID photos. Mine made two appearances in the school magazine, as they had forgotten to take a photo of me for an article I wrote, and so instead they just put my school ID in there!

 

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The world’s first Rock Paper Scissors Text Knockout Tournament is set to be held soon, with anyone owning a Telecom 027 mobile eligible to enter. After two weeks of competitions, the final eight players will battle it out on national television – C4. Whoever knew Rock Paper Scissors would become a televised sport? They’ve even got their own World RPS Society! Anyway it is free to enter the competition as long as you have an 027 mobile. I don’t, so I won’t be entering

 

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As this post was typed, Katherine Rich, Welfare Spokeswoman for the National Party was dumped from the portfolio, dropped from No. 4 to 10 on the National Party list, and relegated from the front to second bench. This was the consequence for her dithering over whether she supported Don Brash’s ‘Orewa II’ speech last Tuesday. Last year as you may recall, the then Maori Affairs Spokeswoman Georgina Te Heu Heu got dumped from that portfolio for not supporting Don Brash’s first Orewa speech. One quote I really like comes from Prime Minister Helen Clark:

"I'm wondering what the next keynote speech is because the spokesperson must be quaking in their shoes."