A Taste of my own Medicine!

I was supposed to go to this social get-together with the MEDSCI study group that I had joined only a couple weeks ago but since my mum was home today I wasn't allowed out today which was a little sad since I really wanted to get to know some new people and make a few more friends!

 

Later that night I went back to my old school Rutherford College to perform in their final Studio Show for the year. I was waiting in the music room (which is kinda like backstage for the hall ever since they knocked down the theatre and started having Studio Shows in the hall!) and just hanging out with Aonghas, Janet and Ji Eun, these Korean girls. Janet was runner up in Rutherford Idol a couple years ago and won the music section of the Talent Quest last year (so you should get an idea of how great a singer she is!) while Ji Eun is like the resident pianist at Rutherford (despite there being some new Korean international student who is apparently really good!!). 

 

Aonghas and I decided to wear our matching Cotton On dress shirts (the one I wore to the Scholars' Assembly earlier this year which Angie called weird!) along with these Chinese hats with pompoms on the top of them to go with the Chinese song we were playing. It has some Chinese name so I'm not too sure if we translated it correctly - Beijing News to the Frontier Village...yeah doesn't really make any sense! Our performance wasn't too bad and we got through it all right (or most of it!).

 

Anyway the interesting (or should I say weird?) part tonight was when I got asked by Janet if I used to like #(&$(&*&# (I won't name names!). I tried asking her where she heard this from and she said she talks to year 13s at her school, which is the same year level that  #(&$(&*&# is in, so it was either her or someone else! Last year people around school kept making things up about me liking #(&$(&*&#  as well but I've been trying to put a stop to it and to find out someone is still telling people...if it's you and you're reading this, I will find out!!!! I probably won't do anything to you though...

 

To add to this, Janet and Ji Eun started speaking to each other in Korean, pointing to me. When I thought I heard something I asked what was the gossip, you know, just to join in(!) when they told me it was about me...and some girl...who's Asian, plays the flute, guitar and piano...:S

 

Now I know what it feels like! But I'm not a gossiper I swear!!

Confudiddlibimbambuzzled

So holidays have officially started. While I've been TRYING to do a bit of study, I've ended up making a stupid bet with a little girl and been made even more confused by another!

On Sunday I had church in the morning. We woke up a little late and Aonghas had spent quite a bit of the previous night staying up doing some video work on the computer so he sort of slept in. My mum drove Hamish and me to church, but she thought we were really really late, and so she ditched us and let us go to church by ourselves! So I was hoping at least Angie would be coming to church as she spent her last txt replying to mine the night before telling me she'd be coming if I was going! I suppose her mum told her that there would be no Sunday school for the next two weeks though!

In the weekend as well I had this conversation with this girl who for some reason is angry at me. I tried to sort it out again, asking her what was wrong. I suspect it's because people tell me all sorts of stuff about what goes on at their school and some of it involves her...so I pretty much bent over backwards to try reassure her that I didn't let it affect what I thought of her and it didn't change anything, but she just kept telling me she didn't care and that it wasn't any of her business and I could listen to whatever I wanted. In a similar fashion to how the two preceding conversations ended, she went offline without saying any more!

I've been good friends with this girl for the past four years and suddenly now for some reason everything has changed! I have no idea why and have done my best to keep our friendship going but I'm just so confudiddlibimbambuzzled! Is this what guys mean by girls being so confusing and difficult to understand? I've tried and tried and now I'm just about to give up and let things be and if she still wants to be friends then so be it but if she doesn't, then...yeah...

Last night I went with Aonghas back to good old Rutherford College for the studio show rehearsal. I'm playing an accordion duet with him. Originally I was going to play cello with this other girl Shirley while she would be playing flute and someone else on piano, but she later told me she wasn't going to do it anymore. Anyway back to yesterday, it felt so weird being back! It was like I was a stranger there!

It's funny too how there are various phases in what people call you. At first people call you Hamish's brother. Next they call you Calum, and call Aonghas Calum's brother, or Head Boy's brother, and then the last phase is when they call you Aonghas's brother! It's happened to me both at Rangeview and now at Rutherford! It's not too bad though.

And finally, last night was also the lunar eclipse. I wasn't expecting much as I couldn't possibly imagine how the moon could look red, but sure enough it did! We were all standing outside, with Aonghas manning the camera on top of the tripod watching the moon sloooowly disappearing when Szelin, our neighbour came out in her sleeping gown and joined us. We were talking for a while when our other neighbour came out and told us to look for the lunar eclipse! A little ahead of him, but he meant well!

Just as we were about to go back inside, I had one final task. I stupidly made this bet for $10 with a 13-year-old girl Kar-mun who lives next door, that I could make her scream. Well she was heckling me! Anyway I quietly followed Szelin back home and sneaked into her bedroom and sat on her bed, but Kar-mun was still awake and texting! Although....she did make a quiet

AHH....

noise which I consider as a quiet scream but she contests that it wasn't a scream and that there is no such thing as a quiet scream!!

High School Musical at Henderson High!

On Saturday night I went to Henderson High School (yes into enemy territory!!) to go watch their school production High School Musical, which I must say is the coolest musical a school could do! In fact the day before at Rutherford Day the wife of one of the board of trustees members asked Aonghas and I to recommend to the right people that the school do High School Musical next year! We told them that Henderson High had beat us to it, and suggested that we should do High School Musical 2!

Anyway we got to the school just in time. We were seated in a row that was really really tight though! We figured out the reason for the tightness - the people sitting in front of us had pushed their bench back a bit! I ended up sitting diagonally just to give my legs some room!

The story went along the same lines of the movie (as expected!). The lead actor and actress were pretty good, with the actress playing Vanessa being the best singer in the cast. However, probably the best in the cast (with not even a little bit of bias in this! ;) ) would have to be my cousin Janice, who played the crazy drama teacher! She was great! She didn't even need a microphone and I could still hear her! I was amazed at how she didn't crack up laughing even once on stage, as she's usually always smiling and laughing!

Prior to watching High School Musical at Henderson High there was only really one song I kinda liked - We're All in This Together....

But well done Henderson High! You've made me become addicted to High School Musical music! I even listened to the whole album the following night!!!!

45th Rutherford Day

On Friday it was the '45th Rutherford Memorial Day' as my invitation said! I never knew it was a memorial day! Anyway I got my mum to give me a slight trim and she ended up chopping the sides of my hair off my head so I once again ended up at Rutherford College with a weird haircut!

I was racing against time to capture a tape for the video camera as the one Aonghas did over night malfunctioned while dressing myself. Mr Moore the school principal had given me a new school tie to replace my tie that the school lost (but hey I'm not complaining! My one last year was plain! At least this one had some patterns! Woo!) I ended up wearing my head prefect uniform from last year excluding the blazer, as I couldn't think of anything else that would fit the 'formal dress' requirement. I thought my white shirt would look better than the stripy purple shirt that I wore to the Scholars' Assembly, which Angie called a bit..weird.. However, when I turned up to school I soon discovered I looked a lot like one of the prefects at school! In fact some people even thought I was a current student at the school!

Originally I was going to come to school earlier during morning tea so I could catch up with some of my friends, but once again being an Anderson I arrived just as interval ended! I passed all the senior students who were lining up and came across Alex and Angie, and as I got to the staffroom I met my year 12 English teacher Mrs Betanzo who asked me

(#1) "Oh hi Calum! Are you taking photos today?"

I replied that I was a guest . I caught up with Chen and the head students who directed me to the holding pen for guests (the music room). There were quite a few people who I didn't know in there! I was the odd one out, being the youngest and without my ex-co-head student Heather who was still down in Christchurch! This lady from AUT saw me , came up to me and asked

(#2) "Excuse me, do you know where the toilets are?"

I directed her to the staffroom while trying to hint that I didn't go to this school any more. That's when she asked me if I was an alumni.

While in the music room I had someone else ask me

(#3) "So you here to take photos today?"

I replied I was a guest. Quite a few people gave me odd looks when I told them that, and so I had to explain that I was last year's Head Boy.

Finally it was time to go into the hall. All us guests lined up ahead of the teachers and then we walked down the aisle as the jazz band performed on stage. Apparently the hold up was due to the guest speaker Dean Kent having just proposed to his girlfriend the night before!

It felt really weird to be sitting amongst the guests and staff when for so long you've been one of the ones on stage performing to them! Mr Moore gave a rousing speech at the beginning which was surprisingly pretty good, and this was followed by the choir singing The Rutherford Way Values Song that the music teacher Ms Faaea wrote in one night during one of the school production rehearsals! Now just like the rest of you upon hearing this I was a little sceptical as to how you could possibly write a song about something like that, but Ms Faaea seemed to pull it off! I ended up having that #@$*& song stuck in my head all weekend!

Dean Kent next gave his speech, which he managed to do off the top of his head! It was pretty amusing hearing about how he was a small white guy with no hope at all and soon had the opportunity to represent NZ in swimming. One of the funniest parts was when he went off in a tangent and started bagging Paris Hilton for being scum!

Chen thanked Dean Kent with his typical humorous speech and then it was followed by the Joseph cast and choir performing a medley of songs from the production and Janet performing a song by Norah Jones which got a really loud applause from the students.

The kapa haka group came up next to sing Me Hui Hui, the school song. Their guitarist wasn't present and so the music teacher was playing the piano. The group weren't too familiar with the arrangement and missed their cue though, and so an emergency guitar had to be sought to rescue the performance!

The Rutherford Day ceremony concluded with us walking down the aisle as the jazz band played. After I managed to catch up with Chen, Gwen, Alex and Zahir before being invited to the lunch for guests and staff. I managed to catch up with quite a few teachers, and talked to this student teacher who asked me

(#4) "So..you're like a year 13 student?"

To which I replied,

"No I'm a former student"

So the day turned out to be quite a feel-good day, albeit a little weird to have so many people mistake me for a current student at Rutherford!

Time for a...Slight Break!

Finally uni has come to an end for two weeks at least - it's the mid-semester break!! Well it officially starts on Saturday but I don't have any class tomorrow so I'll just start tomorrow!

It's about time too, as I've already started to get restless! At the beginning of the semester I told one of my friends that I was surprised I was staying awake in lectures and was surprised how full of energy I was, only to be told by my friend to wait till the end of the semester and see if things would be the same by then! Well he was right; I'm all tired and worn out!

I had two lectures this morning that I barely survived through, and then spent a couple of hours preparing for my MEDSCI lab in the library. After that I went over to Albert Park to have some lunch and enjoy the outdoors, when one of my uni friends Kevin unexpectedly came by and joined me! We just discussed our dire situation of being stuck studying a useless degree i.e. Health Science

"Most people who don't know what to study just do BCom, while we did Health Science!!"


Yep that's us! As soon as it hit 1pm I had to dash off to the Clock Tower to check out this Student Life Christian meeting thing that Ayesha (my ball partner way back in year 12! She's now a 2nd year law student) had been encouraging me to come to for the past few days. It was ..interesting, all about the differences between men and women. I also got to catch up with Ayesha after not having seen her since the ball way back then! (Well I've chatted to her just never had the chance to catch up with her in person since)

I then dashed off to my MEDSCI lab over in Grafton where we got to play with THE BRAAAAIIIN. That was...OK...We mainly just spent the three hour lab session identifying the different parts of the brain. Our brain had a tag BH42.

To conclude the first half of semester two, we had a test!

But yay now it's holidays now! Well...sorta...I've got four exams in the first four days back after the holidays so I'll have to be studying hard out!

Heather and Diane will be coming back up to Auckland during the holidays though so I'll have to catch up with them!

DRC BOOBS ON BIKES SPECIAL: Perving at the Perves

It was the controversial Boobs on Bikes Parade in the city today. Now before you ask me if I skipped my lecture to go perve, the answer is of course not! It was all just a coincidence!! I just happened to be at the Kiwibank ATM machine getting more money to buy some stuff at the 'Lost and Found' Sale going on at the Quad (all items that hadn't been collected in the past three months were being sold off, including textbooks and electronic Chinese dictionaries!! And I needed cash!!!) and then saw all these people standing along the side walk of Queen St waiting for the parade to begin, so yours truly, on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Calum decided to investigate..not what was on parade (I couldn't see!!), but to see the other side of the parade - the perves!

When everyone realised that the parade was going to go up Wellesley St rather than down along Queen St, the masses began flocking up Queen St to get a glimpse of the boobs and ...bikes?? The range of perves out there was amazing. Earlier in the day I had seen high school students (won't mention which schools they were from *Massey* and *EGGS*) wandering along in the city. Some of the onlookers included roadworkers who were supposed to be working on Queen St, office workers, little kids, old men, old women, Asians (they were the ones who tended to have cameras with them..how convenient!) and even little kids.

This is contrary to what mayor Dick Hubbard told Paul Holmes on Newstalk ZB this morning, something along the lines of
"I'm sure some of the Asians, people of other cultures and students will find this offensive"

Yet many of the onlookers and photo-snappers were Asians and students!

Here are a collection of quotes I heard amongst the perves:

"WOOOOOOAHHHHH!!!! LOOK AT THOSE!" - Young little Samoan boy with jumbo-sized Wendy's drink as he dashed to the parade

"I don't know if I would do that...Maybe if my parents didn't know..." - One girl to another

"I should've bought a cow udder and squirt milk all over them <insert sleazy laugh>" - One horny guy to another

"Did you see those boobs? They were horrible!!" - An office worker

Extensive coverage, including photos of perverts (with their eyes blacked out to conceal their identities) can be found HERE

Rutherford Senior Debating Champions!!!

Congratulations
to the
Rutherford Atoms Senior Debating Team
for beating St Kentigens College
tonight in the ISAY Debating Finals!

New Friend, Chinese on Maori TV...Beauty Pageants Amongst Other Things...

Just a random collection of stuff...

I made a new friend today! Andy, this Chinese guy who can play piano and used to go to Takapuna Grammar School (yeah phewee flash!) who organised the MEDSCI study group came up to me today after our population health lecture and started talking to me. It turns out he can speak Cantonese, and so he's going to try talk to me in Cantonese! While he was sitting with me and my other uni friend Kevin on the bus he actually asked me an interesting question:

"Since you're..a halfcast. are you attracted to Asians or Kiwis?"

I never actually thought about that before! They didn't think I looked like an Asian though!

---

I cannot commend Maori TV enough after last night. They screened a Cantonese movie 'Infernal Affairs' (the movie in which The Departed is based on) during prime-time hours, and best of all with no ads! (Maori TV is ad-free). Maori TV now also have the rights to some boxing and the Tall Blacks basketball. They're really becoming a good public broadcaster! So Congratulations Maori TV and keep it up!

Ever since that new Chinese TV CTV8 went on air and replaced Alt TV, my mum has been addicted to that channel! It hasn't been too bad, but it's all in Mandarin, when we would prefer to watch Cantonese shows! My friend Esther told me that it is possible to change the audio to a Cantonese feed for a few shows, but I think our TV is too old to do that!

On Saturday night my mum FORCED us to watch the Miss Asia New Zealand 2006 pageant. Now you would be thinking GREAT! Girls in bikinis woohoo!!! However the standard of the broadcast as well as the format of the show was a bit questionable at times. For a start, it was 3 HOURS!!! The sound levels were all over the place throughout those three hours. Sometimes it was deafening, sometimes it was too quiet, and at one time they left one of the hosts' microphones on while he was backstage or out of the shot!

The girls were made to parade in their bikinis and then had to stand in the middle of the stage and answer a question. The girls actually looked pretty much the same! Yeah I know they're all Asian, but they were all fairly white! I don't think there were any tanned Asians! To add to this, they were judged by an panel which included 'experts' such as John Fellet (Sky TV CEO)!

But then again what do I know about beauty pageants? Luckily I didn't miss too much of SWAT!

First KiwiAsian Club Event...For Me!

On Saturday I attended my very first KiwiAsian Club event - Foodoke, which was having a buffet lunch at this Chinese restaurant, and then going to karaoke afterwards.

I had to rush straight home after music lessons to get ready before Sarena picked me up. She looks so mature behind the wheel...especially in a big jeep-type vehicle too! We got to the city and met up with her cousin Allen (or is it Alan?) and walked down Queen St to the restaurant. We originally thought we were late (yes my fault!), but it turned out that we were actually almost an hour early!

We waited outside for other members to arrive and when it finally was 1pm we all went in. The buffet was great! I'm used to going to yumcha where you only get three or four on a plate and can only eat a little bit and then fill the rest of yourself up with tea! This time though I could eat as much as I wanted! I ended up having three plates of food and two plates of dessert (I did sneak some stuff in my pockets to feed my family later that night ;) ) and so I couldn't be bothered entering the food eating competition.

Thank goodness Aneesya and Kat also came too, so I sat with them along with Sarena and her cousin.

While Melissa (who actually organised the event! Well done Melissa! I'm voting for you and Kat to be p-execs!!) was looking at the list of people who were supposed to be attending, I saw the name

JASON YOU

My old primary school friend who I hadn't seen for five years!! I started looking around for him. Dickson had told me the day before that he was now really tall. Well guess what? It turns out he was the winner of the food eating competition!

When time was up we had to leave the restaurant and walked all the way down to the karaoke place. We got split into two rooms and so I went into the room with the people I knew. I didn't really get a chance to sing much except for one song...a Backstreet Boys song. What's with me and singing old school pop songs!!

After a while we all went into one of the karaoke rooms to watch the competition for best and worst singing and most entertaining performance. Kat and Aneesya competed for best performance while Aneesya and Melissa got dancing on top of a table for most entertaining. I'm not really too sure who won because I had to leave early!

So I've finally broken that barrier and attended one KiwiAsian Club event. Next up is the KACino Royale gaming night where everyone gets together to play Mahjong, poker and big 5 against each other. I'm tossing up between whether I should go or not, as I don't know how to play any of those games!

70's Birthday Party!

On Friday night it was my cousin's girlfriend's 30th birthday party with a 70's theme, so we all had to dress up. So as you know, I just grabbed whatever I could find: a sick orange shirt, striped pants, one of those old hats with a flap and my sleeping gown. My mum wouldn't let me wear my sleeping gown though because she thought I was too embarrassing! I told her it was the only night we could wear whatever we wanted and not have to worry how we looked!

The party was held in Mt Wellington, but of course someone lost the address and so when we got to the road, we ended up driving up and down the same road two and a half times until we finally spotted the purple balloon at the gate!

Most of the people at the party were older people who had dressed up in 70's clothes. There was even one girl on roller skates! Only one of my female cousins from the other Anderson family - Korina - showed up, as Janice was somewhere else.

The dance music was all the sort of music you'd hear on Classic Hits (then again to be expected!) and so Aonghas and I (and trying to get Hamish to join in) hit the dance floor and tried to do a bit of dancing. We ended up coming up with some of our own moves like the shovel, the shopping trolley and the wheelchair ;)

By the end of the night a few of the older people including the birthday girl were drunk and everyone was tired, but it was a good night in the end. I think I'm starting to enjoy trying to dance! Haha...notice the word TRY!

Calum's First Time in a Bar

How could I forget to mention?? I went to the Shadows Bar (the Auckland University bar) for the first time on Thursday!

Yeah...I bought chips...(well it was lunch!!!)

Roskill Domination

I had to go into uni on Friday for just one lecture in the morning and then afterwards attend my very first MEDSCI study group session...well actually my very first study group full stop!

I got into the live lecture theatre with my friend Henry, and I saw Estee sitting in the row behind me so I txtd her and she saw me! I got a text a little later on during the lecture from her that said

"Calum you're falling asleep!! lol"

I replied telling her I was looking down at my notes ;)

I was sitting in the General Library foyer staring at this really weird display where a bike is on a treadmill. Hmmm....it had only completed 2.2 laps...when along came Jerrard my chemistry lab partner from first semester! He introduced me to his girlfriend which was cool.

I attended the MEDSCI study group later that morning. I was originally a little anxious as I thought I'd be the dumb one there! It didn't turn out to be so bad! This health science student Andy was running it. I don't know how he managed to learn everything he told us! I also met this girl called Courtney who's a frequent poster on the message boards! There were a few more other people in the group too. We're going to get together some time during the holidays to get to know each other better...hopefully!

After the session I was walking back to the library when I saw Melissa walking in the opposite direction. I then saw her say hi to Courtney who was behind me and then hug each other! It turns out Courtney went to Kelston Girls High School as well!

I was originally going to wait for Alice before getting my free munchkins (doughnuts) from the Dessert Club stand when I met Dickson, my old intermediate school friend, in the Information Commons. He had just finished playing basketball and had nothing to do so we ended up walking down to Burger King for something to eat.

While at Burger King I caught up with Toby, another intermediate school friend and one of Dickson's really good friends! Toby, Dickson and I were all in the same class in year 8 back at Rangeview until Toby moved back to Mt Roskill half way through the year. And so my encounter with Mt Roskill people for that day began...

After I got back into the city, I met up with Alice and Elena in the Information Commons. They're both also Mt Roskillians, although Elena also used to go to Rangeview for one year before moving to Mt Roskill! Elena soon had to go, and then Lun Shen came along, another Mt Roskill guy! I kinda met him through Alice, although I think Diane (who's another Mt Roskill girl till she moved down to Palmerston North!) mentioned him a few times.

Apparently some guy got hit by a girl in a car down Symonds St! That was the main talk of the day. I had just been telling Alice and Lun Shen something about some girl called Karmen (from Mt Roskill of course) who Diane had mentioned (I think her good friend?) when not too long after guess who comes along? Karmen!

Next on the list...Winnie, this other girl from Mt Roskill! Actually I was just talking to Diane a few days ago about pharmacy and she was telling me about those two girls in pharmacy! So when I met them I was a little taken aback that they were the real thing! (maybe it's just the feeling of being able to put face to name huh?)

And then if the day couldn't get any more Mt Roskill, Zehra, this other Mt Roskill girl passed by! When I was introduced to her for some reason she recognised me...or maybe that was after she heard my name...but I suppose that's probably after Diane, Zehra and I played pool online earlier this year!

I really can't believe how many former Mt Roskill Grammar people study at Auckland University! There's hardly any Rutherford students!

So to top off this day, I took a photo with all of them (well Zehra left early and Alice didn't want to be in it ALICE!!!) so I could send it to Diane and make her even more homesick ;)

Caffeine Killer!

This day wasn't so exciting I just woke up at 10am had a shower for an hour and jumped on the bus to uni for an economics lecture, then off to Tamaki for some population health classes, then back to the city to study the brain. I then caught up with Hussein who gave me a lift home in his cool car.

Anyway here's a few randoms for the day:

"Your face has more nerve-endings than any other body part. Your lips, in particular, are jam-packed with them, which is why lips are so sensitive and kissing can be so exciting."
 - The Complete Book of the Brain

According to this website Energy Fiend (try it out for yourself!) if I drink the following:
- 80.06 bottles of V
- or 109.09 cans of Red Bull
- or 60.19 Large McDonald's Coffees
- 252.96 cans of Coke Zero

then I'M DEAD

Get it Right Calum!

This morning in my health psychology lecture I was sitting next to my friends on one side, and this other guy was sitting next to me on the other side. I thought I'd try start a conversation with him and here's how it went...

"So you don't do health science do you?"
"I'm in your health psychology tutorial!"

So quickly to redeem myself...

"Oh yeah that's right! Sorry I didn't recognise you for a second there...Your name's Lenny aye? 2nd year pharmacy student?"
"Yeah that's right. Sorry I forgot your name...is it Richard?"

Later that day we got handed our health psychology 'behaviour modification' assignment in our tutorial, in which we have to modify one aspect of our behaviour for three weeks.
Some possible options for me:
- Sleep earlier
- Study more
- Study more
- Use the internet and watch TV less
- Study more

Yesterday morning I had an appointment with the surgeon who will be operating on my jaw in November - 12th November to be exact, the Monday straight after exams! He took a few measurements of my face, and determined that it is most likely that he will only have to operate on my bottom jaw. That means there is less chance that any nerves will be damaged PHEW! Or else I would lose feeling in my lower lip and chin or around the edge of my tongue! That would be weird!

The unfortunate thing though is that it will take me about 3-4 weeks to recover fully. During that time I will be swollen and restricted to eating soft food. Hamish's 21st birthday is that very same week so it looks like I'll be missing out on eating some yummy food, as well as whatever comes with Christmas!!! Oh well a small price to pay I guess!

Meeeeoooowww!

The result of jokingly telling a friend to chuck a gumboot at her friend:

"karm says she wants 2 twist ur head up and roast u alive..."

"...she wants 2 tear up ur insides n cook it she wants 2 smash ur head into da ground and still have ur neck attached so u can feel the pain she wants 2 peel n boil ur skin into a soup..."

"...she wants to feed u 2 the dog..."

"...stuff da gumboot up ur a$$..."

Gotta Stay Optimistic...

On Friday I basically got told that my health science degree would be useless and I would find it hard to get a job with it!

This has led me to have quite a few epiphanies...well not exactly epiphanies as they haven't come straight away to me but it's really made me open my eyes and realise I've got to start thinking about these things or else by the time I'm 30 years old I'm going to end up a lonely old man living in a shack and on the dole! To be honest...right now I have no idea where I'm going or what I'm doing!

So on Friday I decided to go to the Coke Careers Expo at the ASB Showgrounds. Now usually I'd spend this event going around asking useless questions, collecting rubbish and trying to get as many freebies as I possibly can. This time though I was going there solely for purposeful reasons! I went straight to the Auckland District Health Board stand to ask them what sort of job opportunities there were for someone with a Bachelor of Health Science degree.

This guy who's working on his Masters Degree in Nursing told me that in order to get a job I'd need to be registered, and and when I asked about health promotion and non-clinical jobs he said there weren't that many around and most of them would go to clinicians who had had enough of the clinical side of things and wanted to move on. He started promoting nursing as an alternative and it kinda made me think...Calum as a nurse? Hmmm......

I went straight to the University of Auckland stand afterwards to check if what the DHB guy told me was correct, but the lady from University of Auckland told me that it wasn't and that I should have a talk to the careers people at Tamaki.

I'm so confused!!!!! Everyone is telling me different stories and I don't know what to believe or what to dooo!!!! Alternatives I've been considering have been:
-Biomedical Science
-Bachelor of Health Science/Law (but apparently that is the most difficult combination)
-Bachelor of Science

This morning at church I got my Sunday School class to pray for me so hopefully God can help me! haha Jennifer said she understood my situation because I think she's facing the same dilemma (although she's a year 13 so she doesn't have to screw up her first year at uni!). She also gave me her CV to pass on to Aonghas so he could see if he could try get her a job at Cotton On. She told me not to read it because it was embarrassing but hmmmmm ;) Angie didn't go to church today because she was too busy working on her English seminar (or some sorta story like that!)

Last night though I chatted to Phoebe for the first time in a few weeks! It was a bit surprising that she actually replied to me, but it did feel a bit like de ja vu, because when I asked her how things are going and she said I've surely heard something, and so I admitted that I heard something about her, and she said she didn't expect me to hear about it and asked me if I had someone who gives me a weekly report on what goes on at school before abruptly going offline. I'm not too sure what happened there! Oh well hopefully we're on speaking terms again!

Later that night I also had a webcam/voice conversation with Diane for a few hours too which was really cool! She wasn't having such a good day due to earlier events and I really wanted to cheer her up. When she came online I then remembered that she told me a while ago that she got a microphone and so I suggested having a conversation over the Internet! I admit I was a little unprepared as I hadn't prepared any songs! For some reason we have this thing where we just joke around and sing songs to each other. I grabbed my ukelele and just tried rehashing a few songs using the only chords I could remember. Apparently I'll Make Love to You by BoyzIImen is our song because we jokingly sang it at this place we had lunch at when we met up with each other earlier! Fortunately by the end of the night she had cheered up so that's good! Now all she needs to do is get a webcam! I also promised her I would write a song for her so I've got to do that too!

Which led me to think...maybe instead of health science I could revive my fledgling singing career. It kinda stalled after my first single I'm a Chocoholic got me nowhere...

The Last Minute

Well I'm bored while I'm at uni... I really should be studying but I just handed in an assignment on the biopsychosocial model for population health that I had stayed up for two nights trying to complete (OK I still had a few hours of sleep!) but I'm too tired to so I thought I'd just waste some of the $7.00 the university has given me to spend on the internet till 7pm when I go off to Auckland Grammar to support Rutherford vs Auckland Grammar in the advanced debating grand finals!!! Go Rutherford!!

 

More good news - the senior Rutherford debating team (my brother's in that one) just defeated Auckland Grammar in the semifinals last night and so they're through to the grand final in a couple weeks time (or 21st August to be exact...put it in your diaries!!) to take on either Tuakau or St Kentigens.

 

Anyway flash back to Sunday. I DARED Angie to come to church that morning and guess what? She did! I kept myself awake trying to keep Aonghas awake by kicking him in the shoe. Angie was sitting behind us with her mum either doing her homework or doodling.

 

Finally when the service was over Hamish, Angie and I walked over to our Sunday School classroom to find it stinking inside, so we hung outside talking for a little while catching up with each other after four weeks since I last saw her and since she last went to church! Sunday School was a little boring. There weren't that many people there for some reason...well three of them were moving houses (they're brother and sisters) and Jennifer had her ball the night before so that's probably why! While our Sunday School teacher Sherman went on and on about something in one of the bible's chapters, Angie scribbled a little note to me saying

 

"I'm kinda lost!...lol"

 

And that's when we started having a secret little scribbling conversation! That was until the class finished...

 

Later that afternoon we went to the Auckland Town Hall to watch the Auckland Symphony Orchestra perform river music. Yes I know river music doesn't sound all that riveting, but it was a loosely themed programme anyway. Once again we got told off for taking photos in the Town Hall! How come we seem to be the ones who always get picked on when other people get away with it??!!!

 

While my mum spent half an hour checking out that Japanese $3 shop after the concert, Hamish, Aonghas and I walked down Queen St looking for interesting things to look at. I decided to show them the arcade that Alice had taken me to, and showed them what DDR was like! We didn't actually try it out. We just watched someone else attempt it.

 

Monday was just another uni day, except that I:

- caught up with my German friend Michael in MEDSCI for once because I came early! Yay!!

- paid Sarena to buy my KiwiAsian Club ball ticket. YES I'm going to a ball this year and the first ever KiwiAsian Club event for me! Yay!!

- went to Tamaki an hour early to attend my tutors' office hours to get some advice for my assignment. Yay....

 

I tried staying up all night working on my assignment. I managed to do a little bit but didn't quite get it all done. I managed to only have two hours of sleep before it was back off to uni!

 

The topic of my health psychology lecture that morning? SLEEP! Some worrying things we learnt are that sleep deprivation can make you sick, get cancer or KILL YOU! Eeek I've got to sleep earlier! I'm getting an assignment for health psychology next week in which we have to modify our behavour or something like that. My dad suggests I try going to bed early!

 

As expected I kinda dozed off a little in that lecture. Medsci was pretty good. Our lecturer concluded his last lecture on the endocrine system by singing a song about MEGA-STRESS (to the tune of I want to be in America from Westside Story). I'll try put it up here somehow!

 

I had my health pscyhology tutorial up in Grafton where I got to play with the cool access cards again, oh and learn stuff. I met a few new people in my class too! I did fall asleep a little during the video clips that were shown!

 

I was originally going to hang around Grafton because I heard the biology class from Rutherford were somewhere on campus, but I never found out so I went back to the city and had lunch with Alice before working on my assignment in the computer room till about 6pm when I went off to catch the bus to Diocesan School.

 

Fact: till last night, Calum had never caught the right bus or get off at the right stop while trying to get to Diocesan School.

1st attempt - I got off and found myself at Epsom Girls Grammar.

2nd attempt - The bus just ignored me and drove off!

 

This time I was hoping I would make it! I thought I'd take a quick snooze on the bus. When I woke up though I found myself looking through the window at this building that said 62 on it. I knew I had to get off at 29 Great South Road, and so I thought I might've missed my stop! I pushed the bus stop button. As the bus moved a little more along the road, I saw a road sign and realised that this was a different road! I was thinking I might have to get off to save face! However, the bus stopped at the next bus stop. No one got off, the bus driver closed the doors and continued. PHEW!

 

I managed to get to Diocesan all on my own only to find the building locked! Mrs Betanzo, an English teacher from Rutherford just turned up at the same time though and we saw someone working in an office who we got to unlock the door.

 

As I mentioned before, Rutherford beat Auckland Grammar in the semifinals, and I must say I've never seen depressed Grammar boys before! Although these guys weren't overly sad, they weren't acting like it didn't matter either! Seeing that kinda felt...yeah anyway...

 

I was going to get a lift back to uni with my dad who was transporting the rest of the team, till he realised he locked his steering wheel and didn't have the key for it! That's when I took my cue to exit! I ended up staying at the uni till 11pm working on my assignment before catching the bus home.

 

I got really frustrated at night while trying to work on it as this biopsychosocial model has been so confusing to get my head around! I eventually decided to take three hours of sleep before keeping on going.

 

As soon as I got up I took a shower and planned the rest of my essay in there and then kept on working right up till 11.45am. My first lecture for the day was at 12pm so my dad rushed me into the city for the lecture. That kinda reminded me of the last time I finished my assignment at the last minute! Anyway I handed in my essay with a couple hours (which were occupied by a lecture and tutorial) to spare, and spent the rest of that time nodding off in Tamaki.

 

When I got back I caught up with Shen and his friends for the first time! And now is about the time I should get going to catch the bus to Auckland Grammar. Hopefully I don't miss this one! Fingers crossed for a 2-nil Rutherford clean-sweep over Auckland Grammar!

Racism Alive and Well

Just a day after a story was featured on 20/20 about racism in New Zealand, I myself got racially abused as I delivered newspapers!

Yesterday I was strolling down the path while delivering newspapers when these two boys up in a tree called out to me

"GO BACK TO CHINATOWN!!!!"

I just kept going on my way, with a smile on my face. What a change, they think I look Asian! :D

Thank Goodness These Reasons Aren't why MOST People Have Sex!

As featured in this NZ Herald article:

BOTTOM FIVE REASONS TO HAVE SEX FOR MEN

1. The person offered to give me drugs for doing it.
2. I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease.
3. I wanted to punish myself.
4. I wanted to break up my relationship.
5. I wanted to get a job.

BOTTOM FIVE REASONS TO HAVE SEX FOR WOMEN

1. I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease.
2. Someone offered me money to do it.
3. I wanted to get a raise.
4. It was an initiation rite to a club or organisation.
5. I wanted to get a job.

Week Long

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ESTHER!!!
And condolences to Mr Jameson (ex-principal of Rangeview Intermediate) upon the passing of his wife

It's been a week, so here's a look back at that week:

Last Thursday I had my first MEDSCI lab at the Grafton campus, and guess what? My access card was working, so you could picture me standing there swiping my card just for the fun of it! Anyway time caught up and I had to go to the lab. Not knowing anyone in my lab, I was hoping I'd be able to make a new friend (preferably a girl hahaha nah boy or girl I don't mind!). I caught up with Sheena, the girl I met on the bus the week before, and so I sat next to her and became her lab partner.

We had to pick the rat we wanted to dissect. I picked this large male rat with his face covered in blood (due to the CO2 - they died in a 'humane' fashion). We were shown how to open up the rat on the TV screens. At first everyone felt really bad about cutting open the rats as they looked so innocent! Once we got into it though playing with the guts, lungs, stomach and other bits and pieces inside, we soon forgot what we were playing around with! The smell was horrible though. Fortunately no one popped a caecum or else the whole lab would've stunk!

The following Friday I had one lecture in the morning and then spent the rest of the day sleeping in the library (I was trying to study!), before Hamish and I went to the Dessert Club's movie night in the engineering building later that night. Of course dessert was available before the movie!  We watched a Cantonese movie 'Infernal Affairs' which is supposed to be the movie that 'The Departed' is based on. The movie was pretty cool, and I was able to pick up a bit of the Cantonese which was an added bonus! (NB please please please Cantonese-speaking people speak to me in Cantonese!!!)

The weekend was just the usual music lessons and church. Boring boring boring...

I had a meeting with my scholarship mentor Aritra on Monday. We had a discussion on what my future should be and what I should aim for this semester. Pretty much I've got to aim for the very very very best! Not too sure if that's possible for me!

On Tuesday we had a VERY interesting health psychology lecture in which the lecturer spoke for 15 minutes and then put on a BBC documentary which was really fascinating! The following health psychology tutorial was very short because the DVD we were supposed to watch didn't get delivered. This meant I got back into the city earlier. I caught up with Melissa at the KiwiAsian Club tent trying to type her assignment. It's been a while since I last talked to Melissa! I've also been a little behind on what the KiwiAsian Club have been getting up to (actually I haven't done anything with that club or the Hong Kong Students Society!!!), and I discovered the reason for this was because their emails were being delivered to my junk mail folder! Anyway I found out that the KAC (KiwiAsian Club) ball is in September, and so I'm definitely going to try attend that!

Following that, I had a dental check-up at Middlemore Hospital. I now have green braces! :D

My dad later dropped me off in Mt Roskill to watch Rutherford vs St Peters in the Soccer Knockout Cup with Patrick, Niven and another guy. Unfortunately Rutherford weren't at the top of their game and lost 5-0. Then again, Rutherford are in the B grade while the St Peters team are in the premier grade (despite being one of the weakest in their grade!).
Mr Moore (Rutherford's principal) joked that I might've been their bad luck charm!

Another major achievement last Wednesday - I didn't fall asleep during population health for the very first time this semester! I kept myself awake making notes this time! I was hoping to make some new friends in my tutorial class as once again I knew no one in my tutorial class. There didn't seem to be too many girls in my class! I sat next to this Asian guy called Oliver. It didn't exactly start off too well! Because he didn't say too much, I asked him

"Oh so you been in New Zealand for long?"

He replied:

"I've been here for nine years....is that long enough?"


OK not a good way to start off but it got better towards the end! I don't know why I always seem to make friends with the less talkative people! There I am constantly struggling to find something to break the silence!

I sat there in the Tamaki cafeteria by myself (all my friends went back to the city without me!) waiting for the Health Science afternoon tea, so I would hopefully be able to get a better idea of where Health Science could lead me. Weeeellll....I can't say I'm any wiser. The lecturers kept telling us that Health Science students were in hot demand, and most people employed in the health promotion area at the moment didn't have qualifications, so if we graduated with one, we would get a job with almost no problem. They also said they were developing an honours programme for Health Science, which would mean you would only study the normal three years for the degree, plus one extra year for honours, and then you'd be able to go straight to PhD! That would mean if I got into honours, I'd be able to start my PhD by the time I'm 22! I guess that's not too bad, but would I want to have a PhD in Health Science? We'll have to see....

Yesterday I had two classes in the morning and then I hung out with my friend Henry for a little while before deciding to catch the bus home from the city. I caught up with George on the bus and had a good chat!

Today I've got the day off so I can spend it on starting (and hopefully completing!) my 2000 word essay on the evolution of the Biopsychosocial Model and its impact on the practice of medicine :S