Easter Happiness

HAPPY BELATED EASTER EVERYONE!

Congratulations to Hannah, this girl I met at pharmacy camp who got baptised today! Now the coolest part is she got baptised at my church! We had one of those Easter services where the three churches (one in Howick, one in the city and our one in West Auckland) combine at our church for the service and then the baptism services because I think our church is the biggest...or something like that...I'm not too sure what the structure is like but I think the churches are like different branches. Anyway we came late so we were sitting right at the back. During lunch we were sitting around eating while my mum was talking to Angie's mum, when Hannah came over and said hi to me! It turns out she was the first girl to get baptised! I thought I recognised her, but then I thought naaahh she probably doesn't go to one of these churches, but it turns out she goes to the city church! She's come to our church for the special combined services a few times now but this must be the first time we've actually known each other. That's pretty cool that I know someone from the city church now though!

We visited our uncle and aunty tonight for a catch-up chat which ended up taking all night. One very amusing thing though was that our great uncle made it on the front page of the local newspaper down in Christchurch for the most amusing thing! He's a beekeeper and he accidentally lit a fire which spread into this huge scrub fire! OK maybe that's not too amusing but what's funny is that he's the sorta guy who gets himself into these funny situations! Apparently he's just recently had a 6 foot fall the other day when he walked off the edge of some...where (his eyesight's not too great either).

The other day I was catching up with a friend by text and when she found out I was still single she started having a go at me, telling me I need to get a girlfriend! Yeah not that easy! I also just recently made a pact with a friend that we don't date anyone no matter what, unless someone worthy enough comes along and breaks it. It doesn't change anything about my way of life! It's probably more for her, seeing as she's in quite a few failed past relationships, but I'll be her voice of reason just in case her heart gets the better of her!

I actually don't think I've achieved much these holidays so far! I've been sleeping in, doing nothing, I really should be studying and finishing off my assignments! I've got two more days to go so I'm going to make sure I make the most of these two days, despite most of today (Monday) probably going to be taken up by yumcha with my youth group.

One thing I have achieved is sorting out all the email addresses I have. I think I've got four or five of them - Gmail, Hotmail, uni mail, Ihug, Yahoo!...and when faced with filling in this form for the Medical and Health Sciences Faculty string orchestra, I had trouble deciding which email address to put down! I don't actually use Yahoo! so that leaves me with four. I ended up deciding to go with Gmail and have arranged for all my Ihug and uni mail to be sent to my Gmail account. There's not much I can do about my Hotmail as they won't let email be redirected. I could stop using it but I still use it for MSN so I'll just stick with Gmail and Hotmail. Those of you who don't have my Gmail it's mr.calumATgmail.com.

--TV Talk--

Yay for ad-free TV, although it's not truly ad-free is it? Promotion of other TV shows are technically ads. It would be great if they could just limit those TV show promotions to in between shows, not in the middle of shows! But anywho, it was good being able to get through TV shows in less time than usual!

Only one week to go till TVNZ7 launches too! I won't be able to watch it when it's launched anyway but it'll be exciting for NZ to finally have a uniquely NZ factual channel with news updates throughout the day, not just three-four times a day. The only bad thing is that there's quite a few repeats in the schedule and I'm a little sceptical as to what to expect, the standard of the news updates and the news hour, and how different it'll be to the current news provided on TV ONE. Only time will tell though! Please TVNZ blow us away! I have to say the look of TVNZ7 with all the triangles and everything is a little odd too.

Oh and go Ramiele on American Idol! Doin' it for the Asians!! I wasn't sure if the blonde girl who got kicked off tonight was the Britney Spears impersonator or the 'precocious girl, but once she started crying and going on about how embarrassing....yip it was the precocious girl! I still actually haven't heard any of the guys singing yet! Hmmm why do I even have time to watch this??

Does anyone else find the newish episodes of The Simpsons slightly off the mark and not as funny as the older episodes? I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but for a start Marge and Homer's voices are different, they talk a lot more (faster) and I'm not quite sure but do some of the characters (Homer in particular) seem more whinier than before? I was hoping it was just because the writers were preoccupied with The Simpsons Movie, but now I'm not too sure. The Simpsons' parody of Mr & Mrs Smith in the 'Halloween Special' wasn't too bad though!

Time for a Break!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIFER
and HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUSSEIN (for Wednesday)

Finally it's the holidays, despite it only being five days! That's all right though. I had the best sleep I've had in a while last night and slept in this morning. Today I've mostly just been mucking around doing nothing, but I'm about to get onto my assignments and some chemistry studying!

So what have I been doing in the past few days? Well on Wednesday afternoon after class it was the pharmacy touch tournament over at Auckland Domain. Disappointingly the first years didn't send a team to compete! I offered to compete for the first years but got told that I'd be disowned if I did! Well turns out it was just as well that they didn't send a team or else us 2nd years wouldn't have won a game! I didn't end up playing as I didn't really feel like it but I sat with the other 2nd years to watch the game. We started off with a loss to the staff team (with one of the players looking suspiciously like a male despite wearing a skirt!), followed by a loss to the 3rd years and finally...you guessed it a loss to the 4th years. Well there's always next year, as well as the dodgeball competition later in the year!

I'm still having a problems staying awake in class and it was made worse when we ended up learning pretty much the same thing in our PHARMACY class as what we were doing in our CHEM240 class! Fortunately that pharmacy lecture was my last for the day yesterday before I headed off back to the city! I caught up with Shen for the first time in a while before having to go over to the Dessert Club stall to help out with the Easter egg give-aways. I was made to wear bunny ears! Despite getting a few glances from passers-by I didn't get any weird comments like Will (another Dessert Club exec), who got told he looked cute by a GUY!

I was just about to finish when two girls from pharmacy came over to ask me for help with this chemistry excel file. I hadn't actually talked to them before so it was cool to get to know them! Unfortunately I wasn't able to be of much help to them but we just hung out for a little while before they had to go.

Last night was the first time I attended a Debating Club meeting as well! Originally I hadn't planned on taking part in a debate but just watch, but Chen had already put my name down! Fortunately I got put in his team with this other girl who didn't know how to stop talking! We had half an hour to prepare with the moot being

"That this house supports a boycott of the Beijing Olympics"

We were negating. I was so not ready for debating after being out of the game for a few years! I didn't end up writing anything down at all, and when I got up to speak as second speaker my mind went blank and I ummmmed and errrrrred and made funny noises for a while before I got on to a ranting roll! What's worse is that we were up against these debaters who had been debating just in the previous year!

Somehow, just somehow, we managed to win which was a complete surprise! To round off the night while Chen and I were waiting for his dad to take us home down Princes St, some random guys came over and asked Chen how was physics. Chen had no idea what he was talking about! The guy then told us he did health sciences down in Otago and started telling us all this random stuff. That was really weird!

An Inspiration!

About time they fix those stairs! Whenever I walked down those stairs you'd hear a THUNK which was a little worrying...

Yesterday we had a lecture on herpes viruses for MEDSCI, and I've got to say one of the funniest... and disturbing things a lecturer has said in any of my lectures went something along the lines of (I'm not quoting accurately of course!)

"If you saw a cold sore on my penis, you'd be able to tell if you had one on yours"

Very disturbing...

We had a lab today where were growing bacteria on agar plates. My bench group also had to redo a reassessment in gram staining bacteria because one of us got it wrong, which meant none of us got a mark! This time round didn't work as well, and I ended up doing it twice before getting it right!

I stayed a little later at uni today and was about to head off home at 6pm when Janey one of the Dessert Club execs caught up with me and invited me to attend this Spark Business lecture thingy. It's this programme which encourages people to become entrepreneurs and ends with a competition where the winner with the best business plan gets several thousand $$$ to help start up their business. I thought I'd just attend to see if I could learn anything. There was this guest speaker who had set up his own marine-related company (I'm not exactly too sure how to define it) and now its a multi-million dollar business. This guy though was so energetic, running around, telling us about this and that, that it really inspired me! Now I want to be an entrepreneur!

After the lecture I ran all the way to the bus stop only to be stopped by a red light, and saw my bus pass me! To pass the time away I thought I'd try out a Baby Big Mac at McDonalds, and I have to say it tastes pretty good, a lot better than those dry hamburgers and cheeseburgers they serve! As I was walking down the road, I had a goal come to me - I want to buy a homeless person a burger! I have no idea why, but I just want to!

As I stared at the sky while walking down the road to home after getting off the bus, I realised what I really want to do is be a philanthropist! I want to be able to give away money to organisations and schools or whatever and hopefully see them benefit and move forward. There's only a few problems with that - you need A LOT of money! Now if I was an entrepreneur and established a successful business... What the guest speaker emphasised though was that you've got to take action and not just sit around or else you won't get anywhere. He went on to say that there is a difference between business risk and gambling risk, in that with gambling risk you either win or lose, whereas with business risk you can influence and improve your odds of success by what you do.

I actually stayed awake throughout the whole hour and listened intently!! It really sounds like something I want to do, the only thing though is that I need a brilliant idea, or just any idea at all, and then money to start off with! First I've just got to get this pharmacy degree first and make a bit of money!

Schools in the News

My old schools have both appeared in the news today for some...not so great reasons!

Firstly, a suspicious fire at Rangeview Intermediate where three classrooms were damaged...

'The Fire Service was alerted to the fire at the Rangeview Intermediate school, on Edmonton Road in Henderson at 9.39am today.

Up to five appliances attended the scene, with 20 firefighters battling the blaze at it's height.'

- The New Zealand Herald

Secondly in an article about an 'explosive' report by the NZQA on schools that mark too generously for internal assessments and those that mark too harshly, St Cuthberts College has been named as one of the top schools that mark too generously, while amongst a few of the top schools that mark too harshly is none other than Rutherford College!! (along with Auckland Girls Grammar, Kelston Girls College and a few others). The article hasn't been published online yet but you can find it in today's Sunday Star Times though.

Where we Left Off

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHOEBE!!! (for yesterday)

I actually caught up with Phoebe the day before! I had finally finished uni for the day at about 4pm and after having only slept for two hours earlier that day (stupid chemistry report!!) I tried working on another report in the computer room but just felt really tired! So I was tossing up between whether to stay at uni for the Debating Club's introduction evening or to go home and have a rest. I thought I might go home for a little while to help my brother deliver newspapers and then come back to uni for the Debating Club function so I was walking through Albert Park when I caught up with my friend Kevin and started talking for a while and catching up with him. That's when I saw Phoebe and her boyfriend Alan coming towards us! They caught up and we had a little chat before Phoebe said she had to go to her commercial law lecture and asked if I wanted to go. I've always wanted to attend a law-related lecture! I went with her to her lecture and that's when Toni, this girl in my year back in Rutherford came and joined us!

I have to say Commercial Law was really fascinating! It was on bills and acts [of parliament] and other things like that, and I stayed awake throughout the entire lecture! I have to admit that I did pass a few notes and talked to Phoebe and Toni a few times during the lecture and did a bit of drawing, but besides that it was pretty cool!

I then walked with Phoebe and Alan to the bus stop, catching up with Estee and Pita on the way there. I stupidly stopped in the middle of the road as I was crossing it to turn back and wave to them at the traffic lights! Luckily I didn't get hit by a car! I caught the bus home with Phoebe, catching up with her and everything that's been going on. We didn't really talk much last year and I thought there might've been something going on but looks like things are all good between us now!

Earlier in the day my friend Ziheng and I were rushing to get our chemistry reports done as we had just a little bit left to finish off. We ended up having to write about ten pages! We ended up having to wait about 12 minutes for the next bus to Grafton, and our lab had already started! While we were waiting for the bus we were trying to think up some excuses! Once we got there I had to go all the way down to the basement to grab my lab coat from my locker before going all the way back up. I was huffing and puffing by the time I got to the lab and I apologised several times to the co-ordinator and fortunately we got off with a warning, as long as we're not late again! PHEW!!

Setting up Stall

Monday marked the first day of my experiment to see what would help me stay awake the best in class. That day I tried coffee-flavoured wafer sticks. I had two before my first lecture and two before my three hour lecture! Actually I was just unwrapping one while walking up to Grafton early in the morning when I came across Angie!

Well it turns out I stayed awake in three out of four of my lectures (if you count my three hour lecture as three lectures!). Not too bad, a slight improvement there! In one of my lectures the lecturer Roger Booth, who was teaching us about immunology...or something...sang us a song about it! He's really good at coming up with these songs! He sang a song about stress to the tune of this Westside Story song in one of my lectures last year!

We also learnt about these different pathogens, and I have to say I never realised just how bad meningitis could be, just as well that I'm already taking the necessary precautions to prevent getting it!!

I was to help the Dessert Club stall once I finished all my classes at 1pm, and so I went and met up with a couple of the execs who were sitting there at the time. Once I arrived though they had to go off to their classes, so it was me manning the stall by myself for a while!

A few of my friends passed by but I couldn't persuade them to join the Dessert Club though! Kevin, my health science friend hung out with me to keep me company for a while. Kat and Melissa, two Kiwi Asian Club stalwarts (Kat's even an exec of that club!) came by to see what I was doing at the Dessert Club stall. We ended up having a little debate which went something a little like this...

"You guys wanna join the Dessert Club?"
"Oh...nah...we joined last year but we didn't do anything with the club"
"It's only $3 for returning members...I paid $5 to rejoin the Kiwi Asian Club! We're cheaper than you guys!!...but not cheap in quality of course!!"
"Oh watever, that's because we have more events!!"
"Well check out some of our events! We've got The Amazing Race..."
"You guys stole that from us!!! We had that first!!"
"Well you guys don't have ice-cream eating competitions!"

I couldn't convince them to join though! Amy, the president of the club told me she'd come by to close up the stall with me in a little while, but I ended up sitting there at the stall for a couple hours right up till 5pm! During that time I did have one girl who really wanted to get membership number 444, just because her friend got 333 and also the number 4 is bad luck for Chinese people :S Apparently she's been coming by the stall everyday, so she's well-known to the other club execs! She stood around the stall eating nearly all the free lollies while criticising Craccum, the student magazine!

Chen soon came along and we waited for the Boss to come along so I could shut up shop, which wasn't too far from then. Chen and I then walked to the bus stop and caught the next bus. Phoebe happened to catch the same bus as us and tapped me on the shoulder to say hi, but she went further down the bus to sit by herself. I asked her if she wanted to come join us, as we were sitting on those seats with two other empty seats facing us, but she said it was fine. Oh OK!

Today I came late to my lecture and ended up sitting on the ground in the middle of the aisle. Yes I know...safety hazard! I didn't have enough time to drink the Chinese tea that my mum had made me though, but nonetheless I didn't fall asleep!

After class I went to help look after the Dessert Club stall again for a couple hours. It turns out I'm actually in the Dessert Club committee now! Something to put on my CV haha. I probably really should find one of those serious clubs to get involved with too. I've joined the Debating Club though. Maybe that can be it! Anyway there weren't that many people who came to sign up while I was there. Chen came over to sit with me and talk for a while before we both had to go to class at midday.

I had a lab over in Grafton where we played with some bacteria and other fun things like that. When I got back into the city I bought some chips from one of the uni food shops. I asked for $2 chips, but the lady must've heard two cups of chips, so she served me two cups of chips! I just went along with it and bought both of them. I caught up with Shrikkanth, David, Jonathan and some of their other engineering friends before they had to go off to their lab. A few steps away and I caught up with Sarena who was waiting for Amy! Amy came over soon and we just talked for a while. Once they left I was going to catch the bus with Chen, and so I was waiting for him to text me. Twenty minutes later and no text...so I texted him and he replied, telling me he was already on the bus with his friend!

RIP Hayden Adams

Yesterday I heard from my friend Hussein and today it's been confirmed by The New Zealand Herald that the person who died in the Bethells Beach accident is Hayden Adams. Those of you might remember him from Rangeview Intermediate and Rutherford College. He was in Room 15 and Room 20 at Rangeview. This other guy Sam who I've known since primary school and have attended the same school as him right up till high school was also in the vehicle and is still in hospital at the moment according to Hussein.

 

I had heard of the accident on the news and didn't really look too much into it till I saw Hussein's display name say RIP HAYDEN ADAMS and put two and two together to realise and discover that it was him who was the man who died in the accident.

 

I wasn't exactly close with him and haven't talked to him since he left Rutherford but we knew each other and occasionally talked and regardless of how he was to others he was always nice to me! Usually you hear about accidents and tragic deaths in your area in the news and while you have some hope it is no one you know personally, you don't really expect it to be. It's quite a shock when it is someone you do know though!

 

My heart goes out to his family, and I hope the others get better soon. I'll try put some photos up of Hayden if I can find any!

 

RIP HAYDEN ADAMS

Making the Most of Life

About Schmidt is quite a moving movie, and I found it to depict exactly what I fear my life will end up like if I don't make the most of it right now!

A quick summary from IMDB.com:

'Warren Schmidt is forced to deal with an ambiguous future as he enters retirement. Soon after, his wife passes away and he must come to terms with his daughter's marriage to a man he does not care for and the failure that his life has become'

He finds that he has not made a difference to anyone or anything in the world. His life has been so insignificant and pretty much a failure. A few of the more meaningful quotes from the movie:

'I know we're all pretty small in the big scheme of things, and I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference, but what kind of difference have I made, what in the world is better because of me?'

'Relatively soon, I will die. Maybe in 20 years, maybe tomorrow, it doesn't matter. Once I am dead and everyone who knew me dies too, it will be as though I never existed. What difference has my life made to anyone. None that I can think of. None at all.'

That brings us to the purpose of our lives. What really is it? I've always thought that my purpose in life is to make a difference in this world before I pass away so that I haven't lived for nothing. I know I've still got many years left in me, but you've only really got a certain amount of time before you reach that age when you become too old and ineffective to do anything!

A Day of Meeting People

After a week of seeing so few ex-Rutherford people due to spending a lot more time at Grafton, I finally managed to catch up with quite a few people on campus on Friday. It started off right at the beginning of the day when I caught the bus into the city together with Cameron Fraser, this guy who got the runner-up to Dux at Rutherford last year.

I got into the city for a chemistry lecture before having to walk all the way to Grafton for a pharmacy lecture. Snore snore snore...I seriously have a problem! I've been falling asleep in nearly all my lectures so far! This coming week I'll have to experiment with various methods of keeping myself awake and I'll document my findings here!

Once I finished my lecture I power-walked all the way back to the business school back in the city to catch up with Gwen! She was there with Angie, Rebecca and Cameron. They all do Commerce papers, or at least some commerce papers, which meant I was the odd one out, no matter how much I sometimes wish I did commerce! It was pretty fun hanging out with them. I hadn't seen Gwen since last year before she went off to Malaysia for a holiday. She looks different with her haircut and no glasses!

When they all had to go, I ended up wandering around the new business school building by myself, till I decided I'd go catch up with Alice who I haven't seen since last year as well. She's doing commerce/part II law this year. Go her!!!

When she had to go off to class, I decided to go check out the club stalls at the quad just in case it was the last day they were on display. I joined the debating club! :D Chen and I were originally going to join together but I think he joined before me. I texted him to let him know I joined, and he told me to meet him at Albert Park. That was ten minutes before I read the text though, so by the time I got to Albert Park though so I assumed he wasn't there anymore! I was sitting on the park bench, when I noticed my Health Science friend Andy (and also MEDSCI study group co-ordinator!!) sitting under the tree studying! I went over to him to catch up with him for a while. That's when I noticed the guy lying a metre away was Andrew, this guy I knew from intermediate school!

After a while of catching up with both of them, Andy had to go and so I talked to Andrew for a while before I had to go off to my second chemistry lecture of the day. Boooooring!!!! It was so hot, that after half an hour when we finished a chapter, someone called out

"Can we go home now???!!!"

The lecturer just kept going though. When class was finally over though everyone rushed out of the theatre!! As I was walking through the quad with my friend Michael, Jessica my arch-rival in accordion called out to me! I went over and caught up with her and she introduced me to her schoolmate Byron. When my friend Michael came over, I introduced him to Jessica and Oliver. That's when I got

"I'm Byron"

Shameful!!!!!!!

Back to School

Uni started pretty much like last year, having to wake up extra early at 5.30am just to catch a bus into the city which would let me get to my 8am lecture at Grafton! It was a bit of a struggle but I got to the bus stop in time and found Zahir! We caught the bus into the city together and went our own ways once we got into the city as I had to head off to Grafton. I was walking up Symonds St on my way to Grafton when I caught up with my old chem lab partner from last year Jerrard, which was really cool! He used to do Health Science too, but has now switched to Biomed. We walked up along Symonds St when some Asian girl called out to me...I think it was Angie, but I didn't get a good enough look. When I got to the end of the road I caught up with my pharmacy friend Michael (who I met at camp) and went with him to our first lecture.

The first lecture wasn't too bad I suppose. It's been my goal this year not to fall asleep as often as I did last year, but I just can't help it! I did doze off slightly in the first lecture which wasn't a good start! We had an hour break after the lecture and so Mimi, this other 2nd year pharmacy girl introduced Michael and me to the rest of the pharmacy gang in the cafe since we don't know too many of them. We got to know them a bit before we had to head off down to the basement theatre for our next THREE HOUR marathon lecture!

We were sitting there, ready for the lecture to start when the fire alarm went! We all had to evacuate the building till the alarm stopped ten minutes later. Finally we got our lecture going, and we started off with this lecturer who wasn't too...exciting...He did his thing for about an hour and I dozed off a little. We then had this different lecturer for the next hour and I was awake during that hour! Then for the final hour the first lecturer came back...zzzzzzz.....

I headed back into the city after that lecture and re-signed with the Kiwi Asian Club and the Dessert Club. I think I'm supposed to be helping out with the Dessert Club stall as I got an email from them saying they'd like me on their committee! I might be a little to late to help them this week though. Anyway that cost me $8 in total! At least the Dessert Club wasn't too expensive for returning members...

I caught up with a few old friends like Kevin, my good Health Sciences buddy from last year who's doing...Health Sciences this year!! I also came across all the guys and girls from Cabin E at pharmacy camp! They really hated their first BIOSCI107 lab, and I wouldn't blame them, seeing as all you do for the three hours is practise using a microscope!

I did a bit of study up in the quiet study space at the Info Commons before guess what...fire alarm!!! Reminds me of the good old days of Rutherford College!

One of the highlights of the day was probably catching up with Dickson from intermediate school, who introduced me to Jessica, this girl who joined our class later in the year way back then. I hadn't seen her in...probably six years! Even though she was at our school for not very long I still somehow remembered her and remember approaching her asking for a dance at the year 8 graduation. Of course I didn't bring that up with her though! It was good to see she still remembered me too...I think...

Uni today was pretty much more of the same. I didn't have to wake up as early as my first lecture (8am once again) was in the city, not Grafton. This time I caught up with Estee who was in the same lecture as me which is cool!

I did a bit of study before I had to head off to Grafton for my three hour lab which involved dealing with bacteria. I couldn't find the lab and so I arrived slightly late and ended up sitting in the last row with a few other girls. I didn't have much success at putting bacteria onto a slide and going through the grams method! I tried putting bacteria onto an agar plate. Let's hope that worked properly. I'm getting assessed on these things in the next labs!

I managed to find myself a locker at Grafton afterwards so I can keep my lab coat there and not have to carry it everywhere with me! :D The only thing is that it's all the way in Grafton...That reminds me, I still have to get my bus card sorted out! I've had to walk all the way from the city to Grafton and back again in the rain!! i guess it's good exercise but I get all hot by the time I arrive at the lab!

When I got back to the city I waited for Aonghas to finish his first COMPSCI lecture (he's only doing one) before he gave me a ride home. We drove past the bus stop at Sky City where we saw Zahir and Chen there. Since it was a red light, I called out to them asking if they wanted a ride home. That's when Phoebe, who was sitting with her boyfriend, called out to me! So I offered her a ride too if she wanted one, saying we had three seats in the back for whoever as confusion reigned for a moment, but she declined so Chen and Zahir jumped in. One of them left the door open though and the bus right beside our car was starting to move off! Fortunately the bus didn't ram into the door and rip it off!

Well it's off to sleep for another early wake-up tomorrow morning and yet another day at uni!

Up to Speed

I've been pretty tired ever since I got back from camp! The day I got back I was up for a while but then I just fell asleep on the couch that night!

Thursday was like a deja vu day where everything seemed to happen twice! We had to drop off Aonghas's lunch at school for him before I was to go in to the Studylink office in the city to sort out my student allowance application. As soon as I got to school though I realised that we forgot to bring Aonghas' lunch with us!

We decided to carry on to the city to sort out my student allowance before coming back home to pick up Aonghas's lunch. I got to the Studylink office, handed my forms over to them when I realised I had forgotten one of them at home!! So I went all the way home to pick Aonghas's lunch and the form. We dropped off Aonghas's lunch and went back into the city to drop off my forms. I caught up with a few people at uni while at it too including Nick and Chen's mum, and Angie, Cameron and Rebecca who were together.

Later that day when I got back home I had to deliver newspapers but I counted wrongly so Aonghas took some of mine. So I was waiting on the side of the road opposite to our house, when I saw this guy walking along the footpath. He came past our house before walking slightly up our driveway, reached out and grabbed a peach off our tree! He then carried on walking down the road.

A little later on while I was delivering newspapers I caught up to the guy and saw him walking out of this dead end road coming onto our road. He walked all the way to the end of our road before crossing it and walking back down, and guess what he was holding in his hand? A bag of fruit! What a cheap guy!!

Friday was pharmacy orientation day at Grafton, so I got to the city early to meet up with the rest of Cabin E, our cabin group at pharmacy camp. From there we all walked to Grafton. It turned out that the 1st year welcome lecture was at 9am while 2nd year was at 10am, so I was early! I waited a while before going into the 2nd year lecture with Michael, a 2nd year I met at camp. There were a few welcome speeches and a vote for class rep, before we left for the 1st year lecture, which was boring as most of it was the same.

Michael and I decided to go buy our pharmacy course guides, but when we got to the room we were told it would cost $20 for all of it! We had no money on ourselves and were told to go to the hospital to withdraw some, so we made our way there, and by the time we got back we found the door closed and told we'd have to come back in about two hours! I must've been talking about it a little loud, as one of the course co-ordinators was sitting around in the nearby foyer talking to some other people and offered to let us buy our course guides as long as we bought her a muffin! Thank goodness for her!

There was a bit of a barbecue and entertainment at the quad outside the medical school afterwards where all the biomed, pharmacy, nursing and med students got together. I was surprised to see a few familiar faces around, like Nikki (from my high school), Sheena (my MEDSCI lab partner), and this other guy from health science who's doing a nursing/science degree, Chen who's doing biomed and the biggest [pleasant] surprise - Beth who got into med!! Yay go Beth!!! I later caught the bus home with Chen which was fun.

That night at church for youth group we had a 'birthday party' where we celebrated all the birthdays that had occurred from the beginning of the year till that day, which included the minister's son, this other girl Claire, Cecilia one of the adult helpers and...me! We had a little show-and-tell where we had to talk about an object or something that reminded us of a past birthday. I showed a few photos of the day when Hamish crashed into a tree on his bike! We also had a cake-decorating competition. I don't actually know who won, but with them being covered with M&M's, sprinkles, chocolate, pineapple and gummie bears and marshmellows, ours certainly tasted great!!

I had my first proper recorder lessons yesterday morning which went fairly well, except for one of my beginner classes where one of my students was a little hypo and the other one forgot to bring his recorder! They didn't manage to get through all the work I had planned for them but oh well...I have their class sorted for next week then!

We went over to Henderson High School afterwards to pick up our hungi, as we bought three off our cousin Korina to help her netball team fundraise for their trip to Australia. That was the first hungi I've ever tried!

This morning at church Angie showed up for the first time in...ages! We'll have to catch up again sometime at uni. I also got to ask Jennifer about some Westlake girls I met at camp who know her! Ain't the world a small place? Apparently they're all pretty girls!

Pharmacy Camp Photos

Those looking for pharmacy camp photos can find them here under photos or at Flickr (larger size). Enjoy!!