New Year's Resolutions

2006 New Years Resolutions Review:

1. Take at least five photos a week
I think I accomplished that!
2. Do at least 3 good things a day
Uhhh...not so sure hope I did!
3. Get good grades
FAILED
4. Achieve something as head boy
Not too sure...
5. Make at least one more really good close friend
Yep! Not too sure how I defined 'good' and 'close' but yeah made a few - Melissa's become a pretty good friend, Phoebe become one of my best friends (well I think so till recently anyway), and umm.....
6. Go to the ball with A GIRL
FAILED...sadly!

My 2007 New Years Resolutions:

1. To get over the girl(s) I like/have liked this year and in the past, and to start afresh in 2007! Make a new close friend with a girl or even find a girlfriend if I'm lucky! haha!
(I was told by a friend that I get too attached! No wonder I find it hard to get over people!)
2. Continue to keep in touch REGULARLY with my friends both at uni and also the ones fortunately still at school ;) At least visit those lucky souls at Rutherford once a term or something!
3. To pass everything at uni whether I decide to do Health Sci, Biomed or Law with nothing less than B+ (and don't lose my scholarship)
4. Make two really good close friends!
5. Continue to take 5 photos a week
6. Get fit by doing regular exercise
7. Find another part-time job, buy a cellphone and text people!

Maybe a few more to come soon...Hopefully I'll be more successful in fulfilling these ones in 2007 than I was in 2006!

Year In Review Survey

Was 2006 a good year for you?

Yep really fun!

What was your favourite moment of the year?

Heaps of favourite moments! Slave Day, AUT Camp, International Languages Week, the ball, prize-giving, year 13 dinner, Sarena's party, Gwen's house, International Village at lunchtimes, last few days at school, OK maybe the whole year!

What was your least favourite moment of the year?

Pulled over by police

Where were you when 2006 began?

I was in Te Atatu Peninsula watching the Sky Tower fireworks

Who were you with?

My family and some random other people who were watching the fireworks too

Where will you be when 2006 ends?

This time probably in the city at that First Light thing at Aotea Centre/Square

Who will you be with when 2006 ends?

Probably my family again!

Did you keep your new years resolution of 2006?

See my next post for that!

Do you have a new years resolution for 2006?

See my next post for that!

Did you fall in love in 2006?

Nah not fall in love! Might have liked someone though...

If yes, with who?

Uh yeah

If yes, do they know?

Hope not but maybe!

Are you still in love with them?

Not in love

Do you regret it?

Yeah kinda (liking them!)

Did you breakup with anyone in 2006?

Nope!

Did you make any new friends in 2006?

Yip!

Who are your favorite new friends?

Probably Melissa, Stephen (he's pretty cool!), Gwen, Alex, Angie (I don't know if those people consider me as friends but I consider them as new friends I made this year and they were pretty cool!), who else...there are probably a lot more!! (Remember these are my favourite NEW friends! Everyone else I mentioned in this list have already been my favourite friends already ;) )

What was your favorite month of 2006?

Probably February, March or August as there were no exams and heaps of things at school were going on

Did you travel outside of NZ in 2006?

Nope

Did you lose anybody close to you in 2006?

Nah although Steve Irwin's death was pretty sad! Oh and so was Peter Brock's and James Brown's. Not so much Suddam Hussein's... None of these people are close to me though anyway! Although a few of my fish and tadpoles did die which was sad, as well as Uncle Tom who died a couple days before his wedding anniversary.

Did you miss anybody in the past year?

My dad when he went to Melbourne, and maybe the twins a little when they went away to Korea?

What was your favourite movie that you saw in 2006?

House of Flying Daggers! Not exactly a 2006 movie but I watched it in 2006!

What was your favorite song from 2006?

The Only Difference Between Martydom and Suicide is the Press Coverage by Panic! At the Disco (only one I can think of right now)

How many concerts did you see in 2006?

About 5-6? (Orchestral concerts though!)

Did you have a favorite concert in 2006?

Last Night at the Proms! lol nah but Spacifix at school was pretty cool too (yeah not actually a concert I paid to go to I know)

Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2006?

No more than last year, none :D

Did you do a lot of drugs in 2006?

Nah don't think so!

Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?

Yessss!!!!!! At Sarena's and Gwen's! Man I am not good at get-togethers! I need to get out more!

What was the worst lie someone told you in 2006?

Joon telling me he had a girlfriend! OK it wasn't that bad, I probably haven't found out the other lies people have told me yet

Did you treat somebody badly in 2006?

I hope not! But I have a feeling I have...let me know if I have so I can try rectify things!

Did somebody treat you badly in 2006?

Ummm.....nah I don't think any have!

How much money did you spend in 2006?

Enough!

What was your proudest moment of 2006?

Probably Senior and Junior prize-giving, not too sure if it's meant to be proud of myself or proud of other people though, as I was pretty proud of seeing all these people who you've grown up with getting awards.

What was your most embarrassing moment of 2006?

End-of-year exams!!

If you could go back in time to any moment of 2006 and change something, what would it be?

I would not have got involved in so many activities so close to exams and focus on exams more! But I would have tried to get the Junior Council to have done more and maybe have more events run more frequently towards the beginning of the year (all about school I don't have a life aye!)

I probably would change the times I took my stance against alcohol too far by persuading people not to drink. That was a bit over the top!

What are your plans for 2007?

Go to uni, learn to drive, get a job, buy a new cellphone!

Year In Review

Once again here is my annual Year in Review, the first sentence of the first post of each month this year and highlights from that month:

January

Yay another year begins! Another year older! All the best to everyone for the year 20 06 let's hope it'll be a great year!

- Tadpole runs away
- Watch the only movie I will have watched in 2006 - King Kong
- House gets painted
- Attend a music teaching training course and meet Elisabeth Yi!
- Sign up for some marketing survey
- Chinese New Year Festival on my birthday
- Meet Hussein!

February

Even though the year has only just begun, it feels like we're already well into the year! It's already February, which isn't a great month to start the year off with...school starts again...Chen's birthday... (nah I'm teasing Chen! Your birthday really is worth celebrating! Just wait and see!)...and worst of all that horrid Valentine's Day!

- Go back to school
- One of my best friends finds a boyfriend! Yay!!
- Lonely Valentine's Day but raise heaps of money from selling roses at school!
- Go on prefect's camp

- After a little hanky panky at night signals the start of a relationship for two of them!

March

This week has been pretty good so far. I've had to speak at two assemblies in one week which I don't think I've done in a while! I probably made a fool of myself both times as well! Hopefully I get better as the year progresses!

- Hounded by little year 9's for my socks
- Waste Corran School in debating!
- Patrick and I meet the Minister of Youth Affairs at AUT while updating everyone on our Prefects group's progress
- Snapped at by some girl at a Careers Seminar for trying to find out some info about her for my friend
- Shen talks to hot Asian girl at Careers Seminar
- Bombard Auckland Grammar with personal attacks in debating after a frustrating debate!
- Sarena gets late detention!

April

In light of my recent bad results, I've decided to drop out of school

- Told by some careers programme that my best career option is as a Call Centre operator
- Sell off Mr Jefferies, year 9 dean for $84 at Slave Sale!
- Make a bet with Zippo to french-kiss some girl by end of year for $10
- Burn toast yet again
- Heather and I stumble randomly into some ANZAC service
- I try sucking up to some TVNZ manager who comes to our AUT training in the holidays

May

Hi my name is Calum and I'm a chocoholic...no thanks to Easter!

- I sit in on a slinging match between school IT guy and Carey
- Meet a gorilla in the city raising money to get his daughter back
- Waste Avondale in debating!!
- Enter Russel McVeagh Debating Competition and beat Takapuna Grammar for calling us Rutherford Grammar!
- Catch up with Stephen when Spacifix comes to school!

June

Today was an interesting day. I had asked Mrs Taylor (my dean) if she could help get a list of all the student names and their enrolment numbers for me so I could use it for our student website.

- Accused of something going on between Mrs Taylor (year 13 dean) and me
- Accordion championship flop!
- Mr Breckall, chemistry teacher has a little accident involving splashing cyclohexane into his eyes
- Meet Melissa and Aneesya, two of Kat's friends at Bruce Maclaren Intermediate while promoting our school! (oh yeah and my cousin but...yeah)
- String quartet teacher throws a hissy after twins and Aonghas arrive late at String Quartet Contest
- Big Sing!
- Visit a Chinese temple
- Get to check out hills and trenches as part of a history trip!
- Farewell Mr Edmeades!
- Ball!! Partner: no one!

July

School holidays has gotten off to an unproductive and boring start. It's so hard to get into studying when you're stuck in a cold, messy, foodless house!

- Successfully lit a fireplace!
- Accused of being a stalker
- Fooled by Joon into thinking he has a girlfriend
- 5c coin finding spree
- First time in the city alone for work experience at law firm together with some Asian girl from Westlake
- Sarena dies (our second to last surviving goldfish), leaving Rydia the sole survivor
- Meet the new principal Mr Moore!
- Get braces the same day as school open day

August

We had this speaker as part of Amped4Life come to speak to us today during last period of school on making right choices in life. The speaker was some ex-druggie who had tried all sorts of drugs but had been clean for the past 12 years and turned his life around, with five kids.

- Mistake a hickey for evidence of domestic violence
- Have revenge on Joon, making him believe rumour is spread, leaving him...paranoid :D
- Get new recorder student whose dad joins lesson and learns more than the student
- Lose a bet to Alex on who could get the most pens at Coke Careers Expo (oh and a fight broke out there too!)
- Caught and warned by IRD
- Careers Seminar Awards - Two Amy Chau's?
- All those days of help from Phoebe finally put to the test with Chinese Speech Comp
- Teeth pulled out
- Salsa Dancing!
- Come to school in Scottish kilt, told to shave legs
- Go out for yumcha with Jacqueline and Hannah and check out Auckland Uni Open Day
- Defeated after a heated debate against the lowly Senior debating team on cabbages and roses

September

I think I finally settled on my future! OK it's a little messy, and may be a little stupid and unrealistic. My dean suggested it to me so right now since I have no other idea I'll just go with it!

- We beat Henderson High in water polo!
- Studio Show, meet the guys of Fyrewood
- Several encounters with cousins at Henderson High when we turn up to collect cheque from Children's Variety
- Angie comes to my church!
- Eden Park for scholarship awards
- Sworn at by lunchbox girl after school
- Receive ball photo I paid for...a photo of another couple???
- Whack car mirror into mailbox
- Pulled over by police for dangerous driving

October

The church service this morning was interesting, despite the not-so-interesting sermon. It was about love, go figure!

- Mysterious stranger txts me telling me she loves me, but then tells me she hates me and ditches me
- Inundated with manly hugs!
- Rutherford Day and opening of Info Commons!
- Sarena's party!
- Play with little kids at primary school travel launch
- Last day ever ever of free weekend texting!
- Halloween mask doesn't work

November

Today we got told we get to go home from school a period early on Friday if we attended Rutherford Day! Well I had to speak at the assembly so yay I get that period off!

- Helping Phoebe out with maths
- After-effects of no free txtn being to be felt
- Fireworks! Walk all the way from Phoebe's work to get there. Joon and *coughcough* are nowhere to be seen, apparently in a bush
- Chen appointed Head Boy, and Yvia Head Girl
- Goodbye Telecom, hello IHUG/Vodafone!!
- Photo-taking goes into overdrive!
- Sunday School class go out for Wendy's at church
- Last day ever of school, prize-giving and doing prize-giving speech
- Finally apply for uni!

December

Yesterday I sacrificed my attendance at the music school (where I teach) prize-giving to watch my students perform just to be at school to sit my Scholarship Statistics exam. You don't know how much I wanted to be there to watch my students perform!

- Screw up exams
- Book return, then Singstar at Gwen's!
- Get-together at Gwen's house!
- Dad off to Melbourne
- Rejected by Sky City Cinemas for a job
- Year 13 Farewell Dinner - dancing, food, fun!
- Weird being back at school for Junior Prize-Giving
- Washing Machine dies, new washing machine and fridge arrives
- I buy a car
- Meet Chen and Diane and go for yumcha!!!
- Job hunt continues
- Uncle attacked by other uncle's dog
- Christmas at Mission Bay, frantically dropping things off for people
- Car fills with smoke

And that's 2006! Roll on 2007!
-

Final Days of the Year

Not very eventful. Oh yeah. Yesterday I practised driving around Te Atatu Peninsula, and I now have a whole new respect for that suburb! I used to think that it was nothing more than a road! (OK a bit of exaggeration there). I drove past Gwen's house, Sarena's house, Shen's house...(yes I remember where you guys live! :D Don't worry!) It was so much more fun driving around there than around Kelston! I got back home in time to watch the news about Suddam Hussein's execution, while Hamish was taken out by my dad to practise driving in my car.

I got a phone call a few minutes later from my dad. I immediately asked him

"Oh no...what happened? Did Hamish crash my car?"

He replied:

"No no no, don't worry he didn't crash it. Smoke just started pouring out from under the bonnet so we pulled over. The guy living in the house we pulled over by came out with a fire extinguisher but fortunately didn't have to use it."

AAARRRRRRGGGHGHHHHHHHH I knew something like this would happen!!! When my mum got home from picking Aonghas up from work, they went out to look for Hamish and my dad, and then took the car to our mechanic friend to get it checked out. I'm a little scared of that car now, and even more scared that I wasted my money on a bomb! The mechanic guy thought the cause was possibly because a plastic bag got caught underneath the car and melted, but I'm not too sure...

Today we had a special New Year's Thanksgiving Service at Church. Hamish, Aonghas and I were playing in it, so yesterday Hamish and I (while Aonghas was working) had to go into church in the morning to have a practice with the pianist and Aunty Helen.

We had to play three tunes, two at the beginning and one after the message. We also played the descant part for these three tunes everyone else had to sing. It sounded a little weird on the accordion.

During the minister's message we went to our seats right at the front, which was scary as we had no one to cover us when we nodded off to sleep! Fortunately I had someone to stare at to keep me awake, as well as kicking Aonghas in the foot to keep him from falling asleep!

After the service we got into groups to share our thoughts on what we were thankful to God for, and my brothers joined my Sunday School class group to share their thoughts. I just said I was thankful for learning stuff in Sunday School, for the cool *winkwink* Sunday School teachers I had and the cool *winkwink* classmates. I was also thankful for cool friends, for my family, friends and me staying alive and healthy throughout the year, and also thankful for getting through 7th form. We had to staple the little stars we wrote down our 'thanks' onto this board. I was using this mini stapler that someone passed on to me, and while my star got stapled to the board, another fell down, and I tried putting it back up but then a few more fell down! Someone who had a more powerful stapler came over and took over for me thank goodness!

Us Anderson brothers sat together with my Sunday School teacher Shirley (or is it Shelly?) and Jennifer, the other girl in my class. We grabbed some food (it was a shared lunch sort of thing) and then ate! I managed to get into a little conversation with Jennifer yay! I've got to try make some friends at this church after several years! She's really the only one at church who's nearly the same age as me anyway! Oh apart from Angie...when she turns up! She hasn't come since Sunday School finished for the year, and the teacher and Jennifer keep asking me about her! I just told them I didn't have enough credit to reply to her.

I was going to buy this laptop on discount during the Boxing Day sales that stops tonight, but no one had any money, and I couldn't take any of my money out of the account because I don't have a card for it and the bank's closed today! So I tried shifting my money into Aonghas's account over the internet so he could withdrawal it. Unfortunately I only read afterwards that it would take one working day for it to be transferred, and it would cost me $3! Moral of the story - find these things out first! I could put a deposit on it and pay the rest later, but now I'm more inclined to just wait a little while. It's an AMD Turion X2. What I read was that it's better than Intel Core Duo, plus its 64-bit whereas Intel Core Duo is 32-bit, but Core 2 Duo, which catches Intel up to and overtakes AMD is out and isn't too expensive I don't think, so maybe I might just wait for Core 2 Duo-powered laptops to drop in price. I probably won't bother waiting for Quad-Core as that might be a while! But woah man those things must be really impressive! Anyway I probably don't know what I'm talking about!

Tonight I'll probably be off to Aotea Centre for that First Light event to welcome in 2 double O 7. Hopefully something good happens!

Not Many Days Left!

Only ten days to go before our good friends Hyun and Joon leave our shores for good! Of course that won't be a reason to party. I know I'll be drenching the carpet with my tears along with a few...others... (and by the way no I'm not gay if that thought did happen to pass your mind! I've just known them for about seven years, which is a long time!)

So as we approach the new year as well as the time they leave, I'll upload some photographic memories of their time here in NZ, right from their fobby days (well we were all fobby at one stage of our lives weren't we!) right to their post-pubertal days and post some interesting stuff they never thought I'd remember ;)

People Visiting

On Wednesday our family decided to spend a day out together. Originally I had been invited to go to the movies in the city with friends, but once again it just had to coincide with family get-together didn't it!! So yeah I had to choose family over friends again.

We had a huge long discussion on where we would go the night before, but couldn't decide, until Aonghas suggested visiting some random place called Lee (not too sure where that is...). It would only be a couple hours drive from Auckland, which was required so we wouldn't spend the whole day driving through countryside staring at cows and grass, and so we'd get back home in time to deliver newspapers!

In the morning however, things changed once again and it was decided that we'd wait for the next time my dad had a day off to go out, and that we'd just spend the day going to yum cha and visiting our relatives over in St John.

Yum cha was...well... yum cha. We went to our usual one in South Auckland with the B rating. We went there in my car, and you never realise how much you worry about thefts until it's your own property! When we parked the car down a side street, I was constantly turning around checking it as we were walking away from it, ensuring no one would pinch it! Then again it's not that flash so I don't know why anyone would pinch it, apart from some car parts!

For some reason my mum was willing to spend a bit more money than usual on food! But we were all a lot hungrier than usual so we were eating faster and that cancelled it out to make the time we spent there about the same as usual.

Our relatives in St John had to go out by 2pm so as soon as we finished our lunch we rushed over there. I got to meet my great nephew (or whatever he is!) Joshua again, who's about four or five and can speak (English AND Cantonese! better than me!!) and run around! I'm his goh goh!!! Awwww! His mum (my not too sure...aunty? Yeah well us Chinese call anyone Aunty so yeah Aunty) asked him to show his goh goh's his Star Wars Lego (because he's really into Star Wars!) but he was a little shy. My parents talked with Aunty Doreen about tax stuff (she's an accountant) for a little while, before we had to leave. As we were about to leave, Joshua crawled underneath the table and played a little hide-and-seek with me!

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, looking for a cheap steering wheel cover, which we found at the $2 Shop. I saw Zahir at work! (Long John Silver if you want to check him out;) ) He was in the back room so I don't think he saw me.

Yesterday my former neighbour Phillip came over again for one more time to meet Aonghas since the last two times he came over Aonghas was working. He took us for a drive, showing us his radar detector and speeding down the back streets at excessive speeds! He had to go off at 5pm for an appointment and Aonghas was called in to work again, so later that night my parents, Hamish and I went to visit Mrs Simpson, our other former neighbour. For you people from Rutherford she's the grandma of Miss Simpson at school!..I think...Her younger brother, Bruce used to come over and play with us when we were a lot smaller. He and Phillip didn't really like each other though!

We talked and talked again with our former neighbour. She's still doing pretty well for an 83-year-old, still able to talk and walk around freely. We had to leave at about 9.15pm to pick Aonghas up but she kept on talking and talking! I think we really need to visit her more than once a year since we've got so much to talk about!

Today Sarena also came over to pick up a DVD I was MEANT to burn her AAAAGES ago!!! I've been procrastinating too much these holidays! I've got to get back in gear! She accidentally dropped it so while I was burning another one for her I was just signing her book (with my already-planned message!) and talking to her outside the front doorstep, reminiscing and everything!

The Watch of Terrorists?

My brothers were doing a Google search of their Casio watches, and to his surprise Aonghas found out that he's wearing the 'watch of terrorists', the Casio F91W!

According to Wikipedia:
"This model of watch is notable because United States intelligence officials have identified it as the watch that terrorists use when constructing time bombs. Ahmed Ressam, the millennial bomber, bought two Casio F91W"

and that

"...it became known that the allegations against approximately one dozen of the Guantanamo detainees justified their continued detention because they had been wearing this model of watch, when captured"

However, Casio issued a statement saying that this particular watch has "no exclusive technology" and that "Casio continues to work closely with all government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security to help limit any potential threats and deal with security concerns."

A list is then provided of a few detainees who were held for wearing this particular type of Casio watch, with some of the reasonings being:

"The detainee was captured while in possession of a Casio watch model that has been used in bombings linked to al Qaida and radical Islamic terrorist groups with improvised explosive devices."

(Source: Wikipedia)

Signs!

I spotted these two signs around the place:

(Saw that sign stuck on a building over in Mission Bay on Christmas Day)

LOST

Three legged large beautiful tabby cat Skills is diabetic and we desperately need to find him
Hme: **********
Mob: *********

How sad! A three-legged diabetic cat!

and this one I saw by the PS2 display at Dick Smith today:

Dear Customers

- 5 minutes only
- No cursing
- No food or drink

I love that second point! I wonder how common it was for people to curse out loud before that!

Boxing Day Visits

On Boxing Day morning I drove with my dad to Hyun and Joon's house to say Hi to them and drop something off, and ended up talking to them for a little while and show them my car (haha yeah not much to show!). After that we drove over to another family's house to drop something off before coming back home.

We were going to visit our Uncle and Aunty at 4pm so we had four hours to check out Boxing Day sales! We parked at The Warehouse Stationery car park (which was nearly full, despite not very many of them shopping at the shop!), and walked to West City. It was really really crowded! I'm guessing the close proximity of people around me made me start to feel hot and all sweaty (oh yeah combined with the really hot weather of course!). There were sales everywhere - 50% off clothes, 20% off jewellery, 50% Christmas goods...

After several attempts at trying to track down Julie while working at The Warehouse (oh yeah by the way Julie works at The Warehouse if you didn't know! ;) ) I finally spotted her working at the checkout today! I was really trying to find something to buy so I could take it to her checkout! Unfortunately there wasn't anything that interested my mum so we ended up not buying anything (actually nothing for the whole day! Dad was happy!) and I just had to walk by and call out to her. I had my camera ready too! Oh well next time when it ain't so busy!

We tried to look for Aonghas who once again was working from 7am to 7.30pm. He was on his break so we went down to buy some takeaways and ate together with Aonghas before realising we had overparked at the car park. There was only a one hour limit so we had to hurry back to save our car! Fortunately it was still there!

Later in the day we visited our Aunty and Uncle to give them their Christmas present. We had a little chat with them about all sorts of stuff, before our other Aunty and Uncle and cousin Martin came over! So we kept on chatting for another several hours till 7.30pm before realising that we had to pick Aonghas up!

Last night I watched The Shawshank Redemption which, I must say, has GREAT music, especially the main theme which is played during the credits! I don't know how many times I've listened to that tune but it's got to be one of the best movie soundtrack tunes out there!

Christmas Day!

Christmas Day was really good! Last night I felt really bad that I hadn't wished everyone a Merry Christmas like I usually do, including the people I haven't spoken to all year, so I started emailing as many people as I could until it was 1am and I decided to go off to bed and try email more people in the morning. I was thinking of waking up early in the morning and going driving around! Unfortunately, I typically slept in till 9am! My dad was originally going to take me driving, but he was on the phone for a while so we changed the plans, and decided to have a family outing to the city to drop our dad off at work!

We all went in my car so that we could listen to the stereo, and once we dropped our dad off, we didn't really know where to go, so Aonghas just decided to drive around the city until we thought we might check out what's around the bay (Mission Bay way!).

We drove around, past a few beaches with a few people there, until we got to Mission Bay where there were HEAPS of people! We stopped and got out to walk along the beach, and then have a little snack. It was really cool to see families having fun together at the beach, with all people of different nationalities playing with each other, beside each other and getting along with each other in the same area - Asians, South Americans, Middle Eastern people, Pacific Islanders...it was really great! It was starting to get late so we decided to head back home.

When we got home we decided we'd clean and vaccuum the cars! I can't believe how dirty some of the cars were! While we were cleaning we met Zippo, her boyfriend and Szelin. That was...an interesting experience...

The family spent the night enjoying our mum's Christmas cooking (which was nice!) and watching Phantom of the Opera which was a really cool and sad movie! I ended up singing along with the songs! (just an octave lower)

What did I get for Christmas? Third party car insurance...yeah like I really need it! Nah I didn't get anything but that didn't really matter as what really made my Christmas were the kind replies I got from people I emailed, especially the people I hadn't heard from in ages and had remembered me! You guys are all the best and I can never thank you all enough for being really great people and I'm so glad and honoured to know you all! I don't forget people that easily (apart from...some...people...nah jk) so I'll never forget you guys! I just hope you all don't forget me!

One of the highlights? Alice!! OK so I've never met Alice before and I don't really even know her! However several years ago when she used to be Diane's (my friend) friend, she added me. Then they weren't friends anymore (for whatever reason), but because she was still on my contact list I kept sending her Merry Christmas emails every year (a little random from a stranger I know!) despite not chatting to her all year! This year I was a bit late, and instead of me sending her an email first, she was first to send me one, which was amazing! Oh yeah and that she had read this blog! Yay!! So yeah that was a bit of a surprise and made my Christmas!

To add to it I even chatted to my friend Phoebe who I haven't chatted to in ages! Although she said it was only two weeks, but yeah that's a long time!

So yeah it was a great Christmas without the need or want of material posessions! Just the spread of Christmas cheer and joy and love all around the place! Ain't it sad it only happens once a year? Another 365 days till the next Christmas!

Christmas Eve!

Yesterday we had a special Christmas Eve church service, where people from the other Chinese church joined together with ours for the service. People were baptised, and the little kids (including Angie's little sister!) sang these songs, which was really cute! Afterwards Hamish and I had a little rehearsal as we're performing at the New Year's service next week. Aonghas wasn't at church as he got called to work and had to work till 7pm - 11 hours of work!

When we got home we found Phillip again, who took Hamish and me out to lunch at Wendy's. I think I saw Tommy and some other girl from school (I can't remember her name though!) working there! I don't think they saw me though. Phillip hung around for a few more hours to play basketball and talk, before having to go home for dinner.

My mum, Hamish and I decided we'd go to Westcity early to do a little shopping before picking Aonghas up from work. We were going to try take some photos of Aonghas at work and also...tease him... We were surprised at how busy the shop was! We met our cousins who were shopping for clothes. Aonghas wasn't there so we went looking for him at the foodcourt and found him having his dinner. He was due back, so we followed him back to work and tried out some cheap clothes he pointed out for us ($5 clothes!). I came across Toni who was waiting for Evan, Vicki who had finished work, and Sheetal who was going up the elevator. Man I wish I went Christmas shopping a lot earlier! It's so fun when it's busy and you get to see everyone!

We had another hour to kill before Aonghas finished work so we went to The Warehouse for half an hour. I was going to try look for Julie who works there, but I couldn't find her! I can never seem to find Julie at work! I even had my camera all ready and everything!
So we just wandered around The Warehouse before spending the last half hour at Countdown where we bought some food for our Christmas dinner.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!

This year I left things a little too late (with exams and the year 13 dinner making things a bit difficult as well) and ended up not being able to write Christmas cards, so I've been frantically trying to type soppy emails to everyone wishing them Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! If yours haven't come yet I'm probably gettin round to it! I know it's a lot easier just to type one email and send it to everyone but yeah I'd rather send personal ones!

I just want to thank everyone for a great year! I've met heaps of really cool people and hopefully I'll keep on talking to them in the years to come!

Anyway hope everyone has a very very Merry Christmas! Hope you get heaps of presents, you eat heaps of food, watch heaps of good quality Christmas television, listen to happy Christmas music and most importantly spend quality time with the ones you love!

Old Faces

We spent most of Friday over at North Shore as Aonghas had his grade 8 accordion exam. As it was to last for an hour, my mum and I walked around the shopping centre in Milford, where there was not that much to look at, although we did come across Aunty Helen from church, who lived around that area and was just doing some banking. It was also the first time I had tried using an ATM machine!

As we were leaving the shopping centre we came across Mr Li, an old maths teacher from Rutherford College who left for Glenfield College. He was on his way to pick up his wife from work. He told us that because of decreasing numbers he was leaving Glenfield for Albany Junior High School. He'll get to work with Ms Takeda, the Japanese teacher from Rutherford who's also going to Albany!

We picked Aonghas up from his exam after an hour. He and my dad got a talking to from one of the Accordion Association ladies who kinda criticised us Anderson brothers for not participating more in accordion activities such as performances here and overseas, and the accordion orchestra. The main reason was that most of these events took place in North Shore and we're not that very rich! She was telling them that we should, or we NEED to participate more next year.

I got a phone call early that morning from Hallensteins! They wanted to have a phone interview with me so that if there was a position available at the Henderson store they could use me. The lady asked me some questions like:

-Why do you want to work for Hallensteins?
Because I want to serve the customers, communicate and connect with them, do Hallensteins proud, and SERVE STUFF!

-Have you had any previous work experience in retail?
I've taught music, and I've done some similar stuff at school but....no..

-What sort of pay would you expect?
I don't really mind, anything! (well I mean right now I'm earning nothing!)

-What do you think makes good customer service?
Attending to the customer's needs as promptly as possible, being open and friendly to them so they aren't hesitant to approach you for help, and to make customers' shopping experience enjoyable! :D

-How would your friends describe your work ethic?
If I'm given a job, I put my head down and get on with it, and give it all I've got to get the job done quickly and efficiently as possible

-How would your best friend describe you?
As loyal *winkwink*, fun-loving...OK maybe not fun-loving but....adventurous (I couldn't think of a word and they don't really know me so...oh well!)

Yeah so I my responses weren't too well thought out!


Later that afternoon Aonghas got called into work so he was working till midnight. I was just mucking on the computer when I got a phone call from who I thought was the Hallensteins lady ringing to let me know they needed me to work that night! Turns out it was just Zippo, my long-lost neighbour who I haven't seen in yonks...nah it was good catching up with her! She came over with Szelin (her sister) and hung out in our messed up bedroom checking out the school magazine and talking.

Yesterday morning I went driving in my Nissan Pulsar (oooh yah!)...with my dad of course...around Te Atatu South and Glendene for half an hour. When we were at BP about to fill the petrol, I tried pushing the lever to pop open the petrol tank cover, but for some reason the boot opened! I think I must've pulled the lever, because that's what's supposed to happen when you pull it, but we thought that was broken! So yeah I'm happy about that! Now we don't have to stop the stereo to open the boot!!

In the afternoon Aonghas got called to work AGAIN (he ended up working for ten hours, man that rich guy!) while Phillip, my former neighbour of about ten years who lives down in Palmerston North now came over to visit. He's got a flash Mazda with this really cool Sony stereo! He drives a manual, and so he was teasing me about how I could only manage an automatic. Pfffff well I enjoy the automatic thank you very much as I don't have to get heart attacks that often and I can relax and listen to the stereo more! :D

He ended up taking me driving for about an hour which seemed to go by fast despite me driving around and around the same place over again. He kept telling me to improve my turning as I kept turning too sharp, and keep an eye on the blindspot and the rear vision mirro, and told me to go read up on the road code as I didn't give way to this car! He let me reverse all the way down our long driveway too!

We got home to find my Aunty Noeline and Uncle Peter there! Uncle Peter got bitten by my other Uncle David's dog earlier in the morning and had to go to hospital, but he seemed fine when he was at our house. Now you see why I'm afraid of dogs! After a while of talking they left, and then Phillip left.

I spent all night watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation One and Two. I've seen the first one almost four or five times now. It's not so bad, but the second one was terrible! It must've been one of the worst movies I've seen! Thank goodness after that finished Aonghas was home and so we were able to watch the second episode of 24 Season One. I'm trying to convert Aonghas, who didn't get any of it when season five was on TV. Hamish and I haven't watched all of the seasons either so I thought we'd start right from the beginning and it definitely is good!

Searching

On Monday I went over to the neighbours to sort out the paperwork for the car that I've got to buy. While my parents were talking I wandered over to Szelin's bedroom and so we just started talking about her type of music...not too sure what you call it. Anything besides mainstream music? My parents had already left without me knowing, and when I heard something downstairs I thought my parents had left, but it was actually the little kids coming over, so I decided to leave at that point! Our fridge was going to be delivered any minute as well! I saw Kar-mun (this girl who seems to have a grudge against me for some reason...probably for being a guy!) and said HI to her! hehe

The Chinese man we bought the fridge from soon came with the fridge and we carried that into the house. It's one with a freezer on top and the fridge down below. We gave it a bit of a clean before we went down to Noel Leeming to do washing machine shopping. We were told that the washing machine we were originally looking at would be too small for a family of five. Even though we would get a year's supply of washing powder together with it (which is actually only 12 boxes of washing powder!!) we decided to pass on it and check out the neighbouring Bond and Bond. We found some pretty good washing machines that were slightly larger and slightly cheaper! So we went for those. They had none left though so we'd have to pick it up the next day. We picked it up on Wednesday and boy was it good to be able to wash clothes again! The smell of fabric softener! You don't really appreciate these sorts of things till you don't have it in a while!

We went to Westcity to get the paperwork sorted for the car and when we got back home we found it parked on in our backyard, already in our possession! On Wednesday we tried fixing the car stereo as there was a loose wire somewhere which caused the stereo to turn off just as we went over bumps. Aonghas pulled the stereo out a bit, stuck the screwdriver in and wiggle it about, put the stereo back in and wham bam it was working! It feels a lot better being able to drive down the road cruising to music with bass such as Affirmation by Savage Garden and The Fray! Oh yeah!!!

On Tuesday morning I went back to Middlemore Hospital where they took out those rings in between my teeth and put these metal rings around my back teeth. The dentist was having trouble putting the rings around my teeth because they were shaped funny! She gave up on one of my teeth. When I was about to leave it felt as though my gum was caught in one of the rings. I asked about it, and so the dentist rechecked my teeth. She then realised she had left one of the rings around my teeth and hadn't cemented it down! It was lucky I asked or else I would have loose metal in my mouth!

Yesterday Hamish and I went into the city to get our student allowance stuff sorted out. I was at the StudyLink office, handing my brothers' and my birth certificates to the lady, when I forgot how old Aonghas was! I first told her he was 15, then 16, then 15, then no 16 because he had a birthday last month! We got back home before midday. Aonghas was away with Szelin's dad helping him out with his work.

On Wednesday I was searching all over the net for jobs that I could apply for online, as Aonghas had been called into work (by the way he works at COTTON ON in Westcity so go look for him! He's the one who makes heaps of mistakes around the place ;) ) till midnight and my mum was complaining me for doing nothing. So I ended up applying for Hallensteins and the Pizza Hut Call Centre (in the city, with a carpark provided for that car of yours!) When I got home yesterday morning I was surprised to find that someone from Hallensteins had left a message asking me to ring back, as they wanted to conduct a phone interview with me (despite not having any positions available)! On Tuesday when I was at Westcity I tried asking around for a job. I met up with Elisapeta at No. 1 Shoe Warehouse where she's in some big higher-up manager position, and asked her if there were any positions available and she told me they were all full.

If anyone knows of any jobs that need doing, please let me know, as I am desperately in need of a part-time job! So far this is how my job searching is faring:

Sky City Cinemas: REJECTED
No. 1 Shoe Warehouse: FULL
McDonald's: NO REPLY (I'm going to apply with a paper application form this time!)
Hallensteins: FULL
Pizza Hut: NO REPLY
Burger King: In the process...

Wouldn't it be cool working at somewhere like McDonald's though? I could say to people

"Hi I'm Calum and I flip burgers!" :D

Or at No. 1 Shoe Warehouse

"Hi I'm Calum and I'm a shoe salesman!" :D

Or the Pizza Hut Call Centre:

"Hi I'm Calum and I answer phones at Pizza Hut!" :D

Anyway today Aonghas has his Grade 8 accordion exam so hopefully all goes well!

Replacing the Old

Yesterday morning's church service seemed to go on for aaaages and went on an extra half an hour longer than usual. We didn't have Sunday School and instead there was this combined thing where each Sunday School class had to sing in front of everyone, and us Anderson brothers would be performing a trio on our accordions. I had no idea about the classes singing songs till Angie texted me during the week asking me about it! She never showed up to church though. I'm guessing that's because I told her our class didn't have to sing!

We warmed up in one of the adjacent rooms till it was our time to perform. We performed Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - Allegro. We were playing it half the speed you hear orchestras play it on CD's though! At first I was a little nervous and made little slips, but I heard somewhere that this was just a rehearsal for next week's REAL Christmas service, so I started to loosen up! We managed to stay in time despite playing a few wrong notes here and there, and we finished in time as well. Afterwards though, I discovered that that was it, the real performance! Oh well at least we don't have to practise that song anymore!

Jennifer, this other girl in my Sunday School class gave me a Christmas card and one to pass on to Angie if I saw her. I was really tempted to have a read of hers! But...I didn't ;) It's been really weird as whenever Angie wasn't at Sunday School class everyone would turn to me and ask where Angie was that day! Because I didn't see Angie and before I was tempted to read her card, I found her mum and passed it on to her.

After lunch Aonghas had to go to some meeting about some kids' summer programme that he would need to help out with. Hamish and I weren't asked so we were just mucking about in the carpark, till Aonghas came running out telling us that Jennifer suggested we help out! How nice! We joined the meeting, in which the head lady delegated jobs to people. It looks like the programme's theme will be Narnia, where they will learn related bible readings, learn about the characters, play games, watch the movie, etc. Aonghas got delegated the job of 'Toilet Supervisor', when just before morning tea he has to keep an eye on the little boys in the toilet to make sure they don't do anything funny! Aonghas told me he saw that when the head lady was looking for someone to help with collecting donations, she was looking at me, and then suddenly turned right around and asked some other guy to help out! I don't think they trust me!!

I got this text from a friend the night before telling me she saw the photos of my reunion with an old friend, and recognised one of the guys in the background to be this guy who I used to go to intermediate school with! I never noticed he was sitting right behind us at yum cha the day before! I told Aonghas about it and he told me that the guy was probably one of the people sitting at the table beside us laughing at me when I attempted to pick up the chicken's foot with my chopsticks and drop it, splashing stuff everywhere.

This afternoon we visited this person my mum found in the classifieds of a Chinese newspaper to check out her washing machine and fridge. Our washing machine is dead and our fridge door doesn't close properly. After a bit of inspection we decided to buy both of them, so hopefully they'll be delivered tomorrow morning!

A Reunion After Three years and Six Days!

Today I got to meet Diane for the first time in three years and six days!!! This now makes it three times I've met her since I first met her for the first time five years ago!

Aonghas and I were supposed to arrive at Chen's house at 10am but we were slightly late because we had to buy Chen a Christmas present. We got to his house at about 10.30am and found Diane by herself as Chen had gone off with his mum to buy a guitar. So Aonghas, Diane and I just sat around watching NZ Top 40, chucking grapes and dates in the air and catching them with our mouths, while Diane went on a chocolate eating binge. Diane didn't talk as much as I thought she would, but I think that was because she wasn't in such a good mood as she had warned me about last night.

Once Chen got back home in another half hour, we all left for yumcha in Mt Roskill, Diane's suburb. We had quite a lot to eat there! Food just kept appearing! Sitting next to Diane around the table we started talking a lot more. With Chen's mum around, we weren't able to talk about certain things so we had to keep it safe! I had a race with Diane to see who could finish their food first - Diane half a won ton and me a chicken's foot. It was pretty close but...I think I won (uh huh!) Chen was a really bad aimer with the teapot and nearly soaked half the tablecloth! There were two big wet patches on opposite sides of the table.

Once we had eaten as much as we could and were full, we left and went to Diane's house to drop her off. What came as a surprise was that we were allowed to come inside and check out her house! We got to have a look in her bedroom and watch her play the piano. It was pretty cool! It's just a shame it was for only half a day. We'll have to get together sometime again soon! I'm definitely not going to wait another three more years before I see her again!

What I'm most relieved about was that there wasn't that awkwardness that was between us three years ago, and I didn't freeze up and not talk like I did on Tuesday, so hopefully that means I don't ALWAYS shut myself up in social ocassions and that maybe Tuesday was just a bad day! Phew! I chatted to Diane as well soon after I got home and she wasn't bothered by my ugliness and didn't me annoying trying to constantly keep the conversation going so that's good!

The Death of our Washing Machine

The washing machine fixer-upper guy came over today and told us it would cost over $300 to fix our washing machine that blew a fuse or something like that, and that we should really just buy another one. Oh the memories we've had with that washing machine! It's nearly as old as Aonghas! When I was little and lighter I always climbed on top of it to reach the toilet paper placed in the higher cupboards beside it. Recently it was where we put the cat's basket for it to sleep in.

RIP WASHING MACHINE

Tomorrow Aonghas and I will be going over to Chen's house to visit and then have lunch. That's going to be fun! But the added bonus - Diane might be there too!!! I haven't seen her in nearly three years! I was caught off guard a little as although I knew I'd meet up with her sometime these holidays I never thought it'd be so soon! Last time I met her it was a little awkward talking to each other and I just hope it won't be like that again! It's just that when you've been chatting and texting someone for so long, and haven't seen them in person that when you finally meet them in person it's a little bit weird! Oh well if she does come I better make the most of it, especially if it's the last time I get to see her for another several years! (since she's going down to Palmerston North next year)

Final Final Day Ever at School!

Yesterday was to be my last ever day at school...in school uniform anyway! I was invited to attend the Junior Prize-Giving, but wasn't required to do anything so I was allowed relax. The female head students couldn't make it, nor could Patrick, so Hyun took the Head Girl's seat on stage beside me!

Before the prize-giving started though, the 2007 head students, Hyun and I had to direct parents to seats in the hall. I had the unenviable task of telling parents to move from the seats beside the aisle as they were reserved for prize winners. It was really uncomfortable having to tell parents they couldn't sit where they were! There was this Indian couple who really wanted to sit beside the aisle to take photos and really didn't want to move!

Eventually when the prize-giving got started us head students future and present walked down the aisle following the teachers onto the stage. From there we watched the whole ceremony. The Gospel Choir performed a couple of pieces. It really brought back memories of me performing in the choir several years ago, only they sounded heaps better! It was really great to see all the hardworking juniors being rewarded though. Seeing Shameela and Te Kura, both Junior Council members, receive the special Services to Community awards was really cool.

After the assembly I went to see my dean to check up on that photo frame I broke! When I saw her she had removed the frame completely and told me she would buy a new one. She sounded really impressed with the picture, I'm just glad she wasn't offended by anything I said at the dinner on Monday night! I also caught up with Sarena, Amy and David along the way, and was meant to write a message in Sarena's book but didn't get to finish!

I went to give presents to a few teachers. Mr Watson spoke the least to me. He just said thanks and that was about it! But I guess that's kinda Mr Watson. Our parent teacher interviews were always less than three minutes long! Mrs Britten was really nice though. She said something along the lines of I (and later on afterwards Chen) made nerds cool lol nah she said something like one thing she was impressed about was how there was something about me that made people respect me for being intelligent which was a little different!

Hyun and I stayed for a little while after to have lunch with the staff. I had to pass on the bad news to Ryan that we would once again have to put off the date when we'd be able to give him the Rutherford Idol DVD due to a lack of disk space on our compuer! We're frantically burning heaps of data onto dvd's to clear up some space! We had to leave afterwards when the staff were to have their own little farewell function. While we were around the corner, we could hear the staff laughing hysterically. I wonder how many of them were already drunk!

The more I go back to school the harder it gets to leave the school! It was really sad watching the prize-giving from the stage, thinking this would be the last time I'd ever be in this hall, and that I wouldn't be around with all these people next year. But as Hyun keeps telling me, this is just the end of one chapter of my life, and another one is about to begin...

Weird

This morning I went all the way to Middlemore Hospital just for a five minute appointment where they put these blue rubber rings in between my teeth. Next week I think they're going to put rubber bands around some of my teeth or something like that. Having the rubber rings between my teeth has made it a lot more difficult to eat. I couldn't even eat my chips or my biscuits today!

After that my dad drove me to Mt Roskill, where he then let me try practise driving for the first time in several months. Driving a manual car put me off a little bit as I was really scared of uphill starts, intersections and rolling backwards and smashing into the car behind, so now I'll probably aim for the automatic. Yeah yeah I know that makes me a poof but if I can master the automatic at least then maybe I might get my restricted sometime before I get married!

My dad rang up the insurance company today to enquire about policies for the car we might buy. He ended up having this half an hour conversation with the customer service person about whether insurance policies for cars owned in West Auckland were more expensive than those in Remuera, which ended in the customer service lady asking her supervisor to ensure she gave a correct answer. The answer was that that was the way insurance companies operated!!

I've spent the rest of the night with Aonghas working on the Rutherford Idol DVD, which is looooong overdue! We should've had it completed by the end of last year at least, but we kept having to put it off! We finally got round to sorting it out tonight. I can't believe how many hours of video we recorded for that. Going through it again definitely brought back many memories!

I don't know why but I've been feeling bad about something for the past few days like I've screwed something up, which is really weird. Where's school when you need it to take your mind off certain things!

I realised that I've actually finished school (duuuuuuh you must be saying) but that means I'm allowed a girlfriend! HAHAHAHA...yeah just no girls at the moment...if you're interested my number's 021 10.......yeah...lol

Anyway I applied for student allowance today, which has also scared me as I'm not too sure if I gave the correct information, and if I haven't I might be...PROSECUTED!! Not too sure what that involves but I'm guessing some not so nice stuff. Besides that though, if all goes well, hopefully I'll get some free money next year so I can spend it on texting!!! (yes I miss texting really badly. I feel guilty everytime I spend 20c on a text now, as I'm down to my last few cents...or my mum's anyway, and my brother blames me for wasting money!)

On Thursday I'm back to school for my very last time ever in school uniform to attend the Junior Prize-Giving Ceremony. I don't think I'm required to do anything except show up and look pretty. Chen and Yvia will make their first speeches as head students so that'll be something to look forward to. I'll probably be taking Hyun there, and Patrick will probably come too, but I'm not too sure about Heather as she's gone off to Rotorua, while Jane and Joanne are at some drama thing.

Got It!

Yay I got my Foodtown/Woolworths ONE Card today! Now I can go spend up large at those places and save money!!! I'm trying to fill my wallet with cards to make up for the lack of money in it! It's slightly bulging at the moment with all my past school ID cards in it, so I should probably take them out.

Tomorrow I'm off to hospital to get these little balls put in between my teeth, so that when I go back in a week's time they can put rubberbands somewhere inside my mouth. I'm in for another few days of painful eating, and my mum was thinking about taking us all out for yumcha after my dentist appointment!

My neighbours were left with the job of selling this car, and they offered it to us for $1000.  Now I don't have the FOGGIEST idea about cars, except that if it has electric windows, central-locking, a stereo with speakers in the front and back, then it's a pretty cool car! It's a white Nissan Pulsar with all that. We also got it checked out by a family friend who's a mechanic and he thought it was OK. My parents don't have any money though, and they think it'd be better for Aonghas and me to practise driving in that car rather than crash theirs, so it looks like I'll be footing the bill. Now if only I had a restricted so I didn't have to take my parents everywhere I drove!

Hi My Name is Calum Anderson and...

I have a problem. I went to a friend's house today for a little get-together, which was pretty cool, but I don't know I just didn't really feel like talking for some reason which kinda wrecked it for me...

I was the last person to get there got there last as I had to do a little phone calling for my mum (our washing machine is broken...amongst other things...), and then phone answering. When I got there the others were just sitting around on the computer while the rest were up in the bedroom. We just mucked around for a bit in there till the pizza was delivered, so we all went down to the nearby beach with pizza, drinks and other stuff. We sat at this table by a little pond and ate our food. Phoebe was then eager to play some game with these little shot glasses with Coke and Sprite, where you say something you've never done before, and if anyone else has done it before you have to drink. Unfortunately for me everything everyone else had never done, I had never done either! So I was getting really thirsty and once the game died down I just drank the hell outta my cup.
 
We got back to the house and while everyone played cards I went upstairs with Alex and Natasha to play some games on the computer. After everyone else finished their games downstairs they all came upstairs to join us, before we went downstairs to play a bit on the playstation and then go outside to throw waterbombs at each other. I didn't get that wet as I wasn't really a target. Once all the waterbombs were gone we crossed the road to play a bit of soccer, which I was kinda looking forward to, as I hadn't played soccer in AAAGES and because we had a group of people we could finally play a game of it! It was first boys vs girls, but the boys were too dominant so the teams were mixed. Because the girls wouldn't really get into the game though I was relegated to goalkeeper. Most of the time the ball was at the other side of the park (which probably goes to show how good my team was!) so I spent most of the time standing still, or lying down. The game finally collapsed when a couple of the girls on my team deserted us and everyone else decided it was time to pack it in.

We went back inside, and while everyone else played some card games, I just sat on the couch playing this wrestling game. The counter at the bottom right corner ticked to 57 minutes. I called my mum to pick me up at 5.30pm, which was a lot earlier than everyone else. They're probably still there as I type this.

So yeah it was good getting out and actually being invited to something, but I just don't know why some days I don't really feel like talking! Last night at the dinner I couldn't stop talking and today I just didn't feel like saying or doing anything! Either there's something wrong with me, I'm not used to going out (less likely) or I'm just a very boring person!

Oh and apparently some girl thinks I'm a 'hot nerd'??? LOL! I could believe the 'nerd' part but not the 'hot' part after my past traumatic experiences with females!

Farewell Dinner!!

We had our year 13 farewell dinner on a cruise boat last night which was really cool, but also really sad!

Prior to that though heaps of rushing around took place. In the morning we were checking out this car (which I'll talk about later) and so we were driving it around. We only got home at about 2pm and the twins had rung earlier to confirm that they would pick me up at 5.40pm. When I got home I got straight onto the present I was preparing for Mrs Taylor (our dean) that I would give her on behalf of the year 13 students - a photo mosaic portrait of herself made up of photos taken throughout 2006. I finally got the sizes right, and now just had to wait for my mum to get home from the bank so I could go print it out at Warehouse Stationery and buy the photo frame to put it in. She didn't get back home till about 3.30pm. Once she got home we went off to the shops, bought the photo frame, and then went to Henderson Warehouse Stationery. The guy there didn't know what he was doing, so we decided we'd go to the Lincoln store, but their copier was broken! Finally at about 4.45pm we got back to the Henderson store where we printed it out there. Their machine took a few minutes to print, and then the lady took a little more time to trim the edges of the photo to fit in the photo frame.

By now it was 5.30pm, and I had only gotten home! I quickly jumped in the shower, jumped out, and then ran around the house looking for clothes to wear. The twins arrived and I still hadn't gotten fully dressed. I left the house with my hair all over the place and my clothes messed up.

It was lucky the twins' mum took me to the city, as we had to board the boat from 6.30 to 7pm, and we got there with plenty of time to spare! If I had gotten there on my own I probably would've been late! Before we got to the wharf though I accidentally dropped my bag, and broke the photo frame! Luckily the glass wasn't broken, only the wooden frame. I was very careful afterwards!

Mrs Taylor was waiting by the wharf ready to greet each person. Everyone looked really neat! We all mixed and mingled till the boat set off.

The boat sailed around the harbour, under the Harbour Bridge, past Devonport and all around the water. After half an hour we had dinner, which was vegetable salad, meat, ham, potatoes and beetroot. Dessert didn't come too long after, which was pavlova and cake.

After dinner were the presentations made by Mrs Taylor. I can't exactly remember what everyone got, but I'll type them up later. I got the 'Punctuality Award' for always being punctual! :D Nah for the opposite. Together with it I got an alarm clock!

After all the presentations were made, Mr Moore (the principal) made a short speech and was presented with a Rutherford Leavers Hoodie, only that his one said something like Rutherford Beginners or Rutherford Beginnings!

Before Mrs Taylor was about to get everyone to start dancing, I jumped up to make a presentation for Mrs Taylor. I did a short little thank you speech off the top of my head which wasn't too great. I did what you're not supposed to do, and mention DIE! People all started cracking up when I said Mrs Taylor was the Big Fish, the Head Honcho (apparently her nickname is 'fish'). But anyway I presented the photo to her and offered to fix it up later but she said she could fix it.

We spent the rest of the night dancing, and hanging out with friends. I got dragged into dancing. I think I looked a bit like a fool! My friend asked people walking by to dance with me, including one of the waitress ladies who kinda looked at him weirdly and walked off!

At about 10.30pm the boat approached the wharf, and it was all over. It was such a great night! I tried to take as many photos and record videos and get email addresses! I just hope I keep in touch with as many people as I can, and continue to meet up with them in the future! I'm not going to say farewell to them, because they will never leave me!

Deja vu

It looks like Kat will be prefect of Kelston Girls for another year!

PAST PUPIL SUCCESS

Kathryn Cho, Megan Grigg, and Natasha Pullan all past pupils at Rangeview have been named as Prefects for Kelston Girls College for the 2007 school year.

(Source: Rangeview School Newsletter)

The End of It

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANICE!!!

This morning I was meant to go to yum cha with my Chinese class and my Chinese teacher in the city, but because I had to go to accordion lessons at about the same time I wasn't able to come. I was pretty gutted about that! I really wanted to be with my Chinese class for the last time!

Oh well anyway I went to accordion lessons, which were my last for the year. It could also possibly be my last accordion lesson ever. When we got our last bill, we found out that music lesson fees would increase for next year AGAIN, and already my parents are paying quite a lot for us three Anderson brothers to learn the accordion, so they have been seriously considering stopping our accordion lessons. Even though we don't go to lessons, they would probably continue to nag us to practise and enter competitions, but just without any assistance. Nothing has really been decided yet so I'll just have to see what happens. We haven't told our teacher just yet, just in case it makes him sad! He's going off to China with his wife to visit her family tonight.

We got back to West Auckland afterwards, about to prepare to go to Christmas in the Park, but it started to rain, so we decided not to go. The sun then came out after a few minutes, so we thought maybe we should go! Then the clouds got darker and it started raining again, so we decided we DEFINITELY wouldn't go. Originally I was going to go with my family and meet up with Ben and Jacqueline there, but I guess it wasn't to be! The twins were thinking about going but...apparently they had something on so yeah just as well...

I met up with an old friend at Pak N' Save today. Paul, this Korean guy I sat with in physics class last year was up in Auckland for the holidays. He had been studying Health Science down at Otago University, aiming to become a dentist. The most surprising thing I discovered today was that he was the older brother of Sue, the Korean clarinet girl!! I never knew that!!! After a while I gradually noticed the resemblance! I admit I kinda struggled to remember his name throughout our catch-up, till we exchanged cellphone numbers. Then it came back to me. I was thinking long and hard...P..P.....PAUL!!!!

My mum tried using her credit card today at The Warehouse but it got declined. That was funny. She was asking the Warehouse lady what she should do, and the lady was telling her about how it happened to her before and explained to her what she did.

I got a letter back from Skycity Cinemas today:

Dear Calum

Thank you for your interest in the Cinema Attendant position at SKYCITY Cinemas Westcity. Unfortunately, all of our available positions have been filled.

We appreciate your time in submitting the application and are regretful the outcome was not more successful.

We wish you well for future opportunities.

Yours sincerely,

Ruth Dean
Duty Manager
SKYCITY Cinemas Westcity

So in other words they probably didn't want me because I didn't have a First Aid certificate or one of those Health Certificate things. Oh well at least they didn't leave me hanging and they wrote me a letter. No more free or discounted movie tickets to look forward to now! I've also applied at McDonald's so we'll have to await the outcome of that application!

Oh yeah by the way its the 6 year anniversary of my hotmail account (or at least since it was last activated)!!! Yay!!! The stupid email account I created originally to remain anonymous in chat rooms, that I also screwed up with my faulty keyboard with sticky keys still remains today!

Flying Off

On Thursday our dad was flying out to Melbourne at 7.20am in the morning as part of this 'Familiarisation Programme' with Air New Zealand, which meant we all had to wake up at about 4am to set off for the airport! We were all pretty excited as we haven't been to the airport in yonks!

We got there in plenty of time, and my dad joined his workmates, who then checked in. We just wandered around the airport looking through the shops and the places. The arrivals area was slightly different to what it looked like when we were last there several years ago. A lot of the chairs had been removed. There were heaps of people hugging and kissing each other. There were also people sleeping on seats!

Being around the planes did kinda remind me of the passion I once had for aircraft when I was a little wiener at primary school. Back then I always used to read books about civilian aircraft and draw planes (like Air New Zealand and QANTAS planes!) to the point where I could just look at a plane and identify it by the number of engines, the body and wing type (like a Boeing 747-400 or an Airbus A380)....yeah psycho! Anyway I couldn't remember much when we were on the viewing platform. It was fun though watching the planes being loaded, taking off and landing. There were several Air NZ planes, one QANTAS plane and a Cathay Pacific plane. The Cathay Pacific plane had a large brown mark near its rear wing, which looked like a burn mark. I would be freaked out if I was flying on that plane!

While waiting for our dad's plane to take off, I was freaking out a little bit. With everything that has happened in the aviation industry in the past few years such as September 11 etc, I was a little apprehensive about my dad being on a plane. I was hoping and praying his plane would take off safely and he would get to Melbourne in one piece (alive)! After one hour of waiting, the plane he was in (Boeing 747-400) took off safely!! We then left the airport quickly before we had to pay for three hours of parking.

Because we had all finished exams, and Aonghas was driving, we decided we'd just check out shopping malls around the area. We went to Sylvia Park, thinking Stage Two would be worth checking out. We were also looking for breakfast/lunch as we didn't have any time to eat earlier. It's amazing how when you wake up so early it feels like the day has passed but then when you look at the time it's not even midday!

Sylvia Park turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Stage Two was made up mostly of fashion stores, which were of no interest to us. We ended up just buying some food from Pak N' Save, eating it and then leaving. We went into the city so I could check on my Auckland University application (which turned out to be fine...my photo ID is still being processed!).

We got back home at a time we thought would be late afternoon, but turned out to be only midday! I got my EFTPOS card in the mail which was cool! A milestone for me! I can't wait to try it in ATM machine! Now if only I had money in that bank account...

Christmas Concert

In the past couple of days my brothers and I have been practising with the Auckland Symphony Orchestra for this Christmas Carols concert at the Town Hall on Friday night. On Thursday night we went to the Town Hall for a rehearsal. We saw ...I can't remember her name but she plays the cello and she is the daughter of Mr Padoen (sorry I probably spelt his name wrong!), Rangeview Intermediate School's computer teacher. I used to go to intermediate school with her. She was playing in the orchestra as well, but I don't think she recognised me! We went through the programme, which included the traditional carols, solos from the South Auckland gospel choirs, and two Blue Grass singers.

It's really hot up there on the stage. Hamish and I sat next to each other in the viola section. We were right in the back, which meant we were right in front of the drums! I noticed a few of the viola players wore ear plugs. Fortunately we could still hear after rehearsal.

Last night (Friday) was the real concert. Because the previous night we couldn't get a carpark underground (which we had a free ticket for), we decided to leave earlier for the concert this time, and this time we managed to get a carpark! We were there for the concert just in time, although we had to wait a little while to get on stage.

Once we were though, it was all go! The Town Hall was packed, with all three levels filled. The real night of the concert is always a lot more fun than rehearsals, as they go by a lot faster, and everyone really gets into it! Plus you know you won't have to repeat it again!

The orchestra did stuff up a little in Jingle Bells, as half the orchestra didn't know where to go back to for the repeat, as Santa Claus was conducting, but apart from that the night went well! The choirs sounded great as usual!

Disaster

On Wednesday this week I had my very last NCEA exam - Chinese. This was supposed to be my easiest exam of the seven, but I wasn't going to take any chances, as usually I stuff things up! I spent all morning practising characters, grammar structures and listening to Chinese tapes right up till 1.30pm. Reporting time was supposed to be 1.40pm! So we rushed over to school where I met up with the rest of the Chinese class.

We didn't go into the room till about 5 minutes before the exam since there were so few of us. We sat our exam in the accounting room. We started off with the listening section, where we had to listen to passages read in Chinese on tape. It wasn't too bad at first. Listening is my worst paper in Chinese, so I usually have to concentrate very very hard whenever I listen to the tape! It was just a little unfortunate Nikki, who was a little sick, got into a bit of a coughing frenzy. I heard her plead to the supervisor to stop the tape, but to no avail. The tape kept playing. I ended up missing bits of the passage but just tried to make notes. I thought I'd just fill in the answers later on after I had completed the other two papers.

I rushed through the reading section and completed it, and then got to the writing paper. I spent a bit too much time deciding which topic to write on, either careers or sports/leisure. I was at first going to write about careers, but then after a few minutes I decided to go with the other. I wasted too much time planning and thinking about what I was going to write, that I had to rush through writing the whole thing. I ended up with 5 minutes remaining, realising I hadn't filled in the answers to the listening section! I quickly went back to that paper, but time ran out.

The Chinese exam in the end turned out to be a complete disaster. I've never done worse than excellence in any NCEA Chinese paper, and now I'm likely to get a not achieved in one or more of the papers! What I'm more worried about is that I did bad enough not just in Chinese but in all of my exams overall to not make it in the top 20% of NCEA Level 3 students in NZ, and lose my scholarship! I have a few weeks to worry about that now!

I got home that afternoon, feeling pretty bad, but fortunately my good friend was online so I just went on a chatting binge with her, which made me feel a lot better! We then got a phone call from the neighbour, and there was mention of heaps of people standing outside beside the road, and something about a fire. My family and I went outside to check it out, and to our surprise smoke was everywhere! There were also two firetrucks with a third coming up the road. The house on the other side of the road was on fire! The smoke was pouring out the bedroom, and all the neighbours could do was watch from the side of the road. A fire car (as I like to call it!) was parked right across the road blocking it off, while the firefighters did their job. The Pacific Island family who lived at their house were gathered together, with the little boy of the family looking pretty upset and crying. After a while it seemed as though the fire was put out, and the bedroom where the fire originated was all black. Fortunately no one was hurt or injured!

Visit to Gwens

On Monday we had book return day at school. I wanted to get to school early so I could see my friends, but of course Aonghas just had to wait till that morning to look for his school books that he was going to return! So we ended up coming to school late once again, possibly the last time I will ever go to school again! We missed the assembly at the beginning of school, so we just went off to form class.

After all the administration stuff was complete, we then went out to find our teachers to return our books. It didn't make me too long to return my books for history, chemistry and physics, but for statistics and maths there was one huge long line. After a while I got to the end of the line, returned my books and then went back to form class.

All of us 7th formers then had our final little assembly in the old library where we got our tickets to the dinner on the boat, and reminded that we had to board at about 6.30pm as it leaves at 7pm. OK so I'm definitely going to be there early!

After that I was about to join Joon, Gwen, Zahir and Alex, before another Alex (Daley) and David caught me and reminded me that I had a little date with the fire hose!

We couldn't use the fire hose by Room 51 because of exams in there, so we went to the fire hose outside Rooms 38 and 39. This was like the original fire hose the great Howard Gardner (former kaleidoscope student famous for his fire hose antics) first used to spray everywhere with. I was a little scared, keeping a look out for teachers and students passing by, as Alex was holding the camera ready to catch everything. After five tries and no water coming out, I finally got the hose working, squirting the roof of the shelter for about a couple of seconds before turning it off, putting the hose back and running off! OK that was done! (even though Alex wanted me to do it for about 5 seconds!)

I then rejoined Gwen, Joon, Zahir, and the other Alex, and we all walked out the school to explore Te Atatu Peninsula. On our way to nowhere we decided to go to Gwen's house, so we passed by Chloe's house along the way and grabbed her. We then kept walking around Te Atatu Peninsula talking about stuff and eating things until we finally got to Gwen's house.

We first played Singstar, which I lost to Chloe...but I beat Zahir! :D After a few rounds of that we then went up to Gwen's bedroom and checked that out. Man she's got her own toilet and shower! That is so cool! I'm so excited I got a picture of myself in there!!!! :D After a while we then went downstairs to watch The Incredibles. That was a cool movie!

By the time it was finished it was about 3pm and I needed to get home. I actually didn't tell my mum that I was going to Gwen's house so she was a little annoyed that I didn't let her know! I was originally going to walk home with Joon and Zahir, even when it started to rain and Joon was feeling a little bit sick. Joon and Zahir then decided to catch the bus an hour later so I just started walking home myself. Fortunately my mum came to pick me up on the way and we ended up taking Joon and Zahir home.

I managed to change the topic with my mum so that she wasn't too angry at me. Our other cellphone got barred as the credit expired. We hadn't used it in a whole year! So there goes $30!!! If any of you have 021 251 9573 in ur address book, you can now delete it!

Oh yeah the bet I made with Gwen, that if I could get Joon to sing by the end of term 4, was extended to book return day, with the bet doubled. I was that confident that Joon was going to pull through for his buddy o'pal, especially with a LARGE SUM OF MONEY. But noooooooo he didn't even play Singstar! I ended up losing the bet. While we were walking back to the main road after being at Gwen's house I tried taking a photo but realised there was no memory card. At first I thought it had fell out somewhere and that I was going to get the bashing when I got back home, but then I heard Joon ahead of me mention something to Gwen about payback, so I just played along as if I was still worried ;) When I was about to walk home by myself he gave me the card back so that was all good.

Later that night my brothers and I went to a rehearsal for the Auckland Symphony Orchestra to practise some Christmas music for the carols concert. Most of the music we played was the same as last year's so it wasn't too bad

Scholarship Saturday

Yesterday I sacrificed my attendance at the music school (where I teach) prize-giving to watch my students perform just to be at school to sit my Scholarship Statistics exam. You don't know how much I wanted to be there to watch my students perform! Instead I had to sit in the school library for nearly three hours trying to complete an exam I would have no chance at passing.

Aonghas had to cover for me instead, and apparently it went well so that's good. I'm really proud of those kids for being able to get up there and perform in front of an audience!

As for me, because my parents had to drop my brothers off at the prize-giving, they dropped me off at school early. With no one around I just sat there by myself trying to study as much statistics as I could. In the days prior to the exam, I spent most of the time just mucking around and going shopping with my mum and brothers at Lynn Mall and West City.

So I was sitting there outside the library studying, checking my watch ocassionally. The time was approaching 9.10am, the check-in time, but no one else, not even the exam supervisors had turned up! A car then pulled into the carpark. At approximately the same time Joon, Hyun and Heather walked up the driveway. We all just talked and discussed leaving the exam early if we felt like there was no point (of course not Hyun though) before we all went in about five minutes before the exam.

We each got a nice comfy chair and a large table to sit at for our scholarship exam. I had to sit at the front table, so I didn't have the luxury of seeing how the others were coping with the exam.

The exam itself was...well I don't really know. I tried to put down as many answers as I could, and I filled 10 of the 26 blank pages they gave me to write on. Also as a promise I made with a few people (originally as a joke) I wrote down some names in my answer booklet in ...certain places...

Heather left the exam first, with Joon leaving about half an hour after that. It was now two hours into the exam and I had promised the others I'd leave by two hours into the exam or else I wouldn't leave at all. I really wanted to leave, but Hyun still going behind me kinda put some pressure on me to keep going! Also I kept wondering if I'd regret leaving early, knowing I could've done more! I also didn't know what I'd do with myself for the rest of the time, or what my mum would say if she knew I left early! In the end I decided I'd stay till two hours thirty minutes. I just sat outside talking to Joon for the rest of the time.

After the exam I had to rush off to accordion lessons still in my school uniform. When I got there my accordion teacher forgot that I had an exam in the morning and thought it was a bit odd seeing me in my school uniform, while Jessica (my fierce accordion rival!) also saw me in my uniform. I suppose that was good publicity for Rutherford!

I had church today, this time I wasn't the only person in my Sunday school class, with Angie and the other girl Jennifer showing up. We talked about school rules and family rules, and Jennifer, who goes to Westlake, told us about how they're not allowed cellphones PERIOD at school, and so all the girls go into the toilets at lunchtime to use their phones!! Angie and I just looked at each other and laughed. It's a bit sad, as I have to move to a different Sunday school class next year, the university students class, so I won't be able to be in the same class as them anymore!

Oh well I've got to go back to school for book returns tomorrow and to collect my money when Joon helps me win a bet! (He better!!) Only one more exam to go (Chinese), and then that'll be it for me!!