Doing Things

It's been another non-eventful week. Aonghas and my dad have been working on networking the house, I have been frantically trying to work on the student website for Rutherford College going (yes I know I've left the school I'm passing it on once I've finished with it!) as well as sort out all my uni stuff.

On Saturday I went to the Chinese New Year Festival at the Auckland Showgrounds. It was jam-packed with Chinese (or Asian) people! The Prime Minister Helen Clark (my hero!!!!) and a few other MP's crossed my path!! We caught up with Chen who was already there with his mum and grandma, and then we went inside to check out all the stalls. The stage had some really terrible karaoke singer! I think it's the same guy who turns up every year! While I was walking around looking at what was on offer I heard Unchained Melody being butchered and then thought...if only Phoebe was there to hear it! (it's one of her favourite songs)

I was carrying around this really tall, ugly, green plant that swirled around towards the top, when I had some lady came up to me and asked me where I bought it from! I think they were all sold out but I didn't know what to tell her, so I just told her I got it from somewhere over there. A few minutes later another person came over and asked me and I told her the same thing. When the third person asked me a while later, my dad told him they were all sold out, and there was this awkwardness before he left! I soon found out the reason why people wanted such an ugly plant was because it was a bamboo plant!

We spent quite a while at this Chinese movie stall checking out the VCD's and DVD's for sale. They advertised DVD's as $2 each and VCD's as $1 each, but they actually meant $1 per CD! Because each VCD movie contained two CD's, they cost $2 as well! We ended up buying eleven of all these random Chinese movies. My mum didn't bring her glasses so she couldn't read the back of the covers, and I...well can't read Chinese all that well, so it was a pretty random selection process!

After eating as much of the free food samples as we could (kiwifruit juice, noodles, everything!) and checking out the stalls, we soon decided to leave. It was approaching 3pm when it was due to finish anyway, so we were about to leave when my mum took a detour to have a look at the outside food stalls. So while I was standing there eating the food she bought me, I met Melissa, who I thought I wouldn't come across since she was about to leave too! It was good seeing her there, and got a photo together with her too! :D I've added photos showing the weird and wacky at my Windows Live Space.

Sunday marked the start of Sunday School at church for 2007. I was in danger of losing my favourite church buddies when the roll was called out and Angie and Jennifer's names were on the other class's list. Jennifer was pleading desperately to Shirley her Sunday School teacher (and my old teacher) to let her and Angie join my class, and I could tell Shirley really didn't want them to go! In the end Angie and Jennifer tagged along with our group! :D The class didn't seem to interesting though, with the teacher talking the whole way through and hardly anyone saying anything except Hamish answering the questions! I hope they're not regretting joining my class now!

It was interesting hearing other people's Chinese names when we went around a circle introducing ourselves. Jennifer's Chinese name meant 'Yellow Sun' in Chinese (I think), one girl's Chinese name was something like 'Qian Qian', and so she had a nickname ChiChi (I think! My memory's bad!), while Angie's was simply An Qi! How cool is that! The easiest to remember! I can't even remember Hamish's Chinese name!

After talking to a couple of friends, I realised I should enrol in my second semester courses as well! So today I enrolled in my second semester courses, and my timetable doesn't seem as bad as my first semester timetable! I get to finish at 10am on one day! I was trying to pick my general education course (a course completely unrelated to my degree) and ended up choosing law, as if I don't make it into medicine at the end of this year, at least I might have a chance of doing a law conjoint together with my health science degree (if I'm not allowed to change completely!)

It's funny, as I think I've talked to more year 13 students than students at my year level these holidays, so I don't really have much of an idea what many of the others are doing at uni...yet! I've got to get in touch with them to see who I'll be able to catch up with during lunch!

Yesterday while my mum was out shopping with Aonghas for a schoolbag, I thought I better do some housework around here and surprise my mum, make her come home happy! I hate it when my mum's mad! So I thought...why not try some cooking! :D I looked for cookbooks but could only find an egg cookbook so I grabbed that, opened the book at page 96 and found meringues, and off I went! It didn't start out too well. I was supposed to split the egg white from the egg yolk, but it didn't work! There went one egg! Fortunately the other two worked according to plan. Next was beating the egg white and adding sugar and a pint of salt. It was supposed to go foamy then stiff, but it never did! The recipe also said I required half a cup of sugar, but that was way more than the amount of egg white I had in the bowl! Oh and I couldn't find the egg beater so I was using a teaspoon...maybe that's why it didn't work...Anyway I gave up, quickly wiped all the egg off the table and poured everything down the sink, rinsed the bowls and everything and pretended nothing happened! My mum would've killed me if she found out I wasted three perfectly good eggs!

Today was the first day the year 12 and 13 students started school at Rutherford. It feels weird not being there while everyone else is! I want to go back and visit but I'm a little hesitant to, as it doesn't seem as though it has been long enough since school started, plus I feel a little out of place walking in there being the only one not wearing a uniform! I might sneak up the back gate and visit the people who take over transition sometime, or maybe come by during athletics if the public is allowed in! Anyway I'm sure all those happy souls at school are having a good time there! You guys don't know what a good thing you've got until you leave it! (Actually wait until I start university to see if I'll be saying the same thing then!)

I heard they put me down as Head Boy for 2007 on the Honours board, and Chen LUI (note the spelling mistake) as Head Boy for 2006!