Could do More

I finally did something I've had on my 'to do' list for a long time - give money and food to a homeless person! At the end of the day I was sitting on a bench down Queen Street finishing off my lunch when this girl came up to me asking if I had any spare change, just 20c or something like that because she was homeless and wanted to buy food as she was really hungry. At first I was a little hesitant but I knew I didn't have that much money in my wallet anyway so I decided to have a look. I had half an orange left in my lunchbox as well which I offered to her, half expecting her to want it as I thought she would be more interested in money, but she accepted it and ate it! I had a look in my wallet and could only find 30c but she said that'd be good enough so I gave it to her and not long after she thanked me and I asked her if she was sure it was enough she wandered back to some other people sitting on the steps outside McDonald's.


I was having a moment and that event really did open my eyes and realise that other people have things a lot worse than I do and so I should be grateful! What made me feel a little bad though was as I walked off I started thinking to myself that I really should have offered to buy them some food or something, even from McDonald's! I would've liked to get to know them and their story - how they got where they are and how they're coping. Arrh well I might run into them again one day...One thing that was questionable though was that the girl's clothes weren't that shabby, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and accept the possibility that it's acceptable for homeless to be wearing clean clothes!

I guess the only other highlight of the day was that I was walking up the stairs in the Information Commons on my way to the chemistry lecture when I felt someone tugging or hitting my school bag. I turned around to find it was Angie! She was on her way to hand in her statistics assignment. We were heading in the same direction so we had a bit of a chat on our way there. It turns out she goes with her friend to the church across the road that is based at the stadium! What a traitor! Nah that's OK different churches work for different people I suppose! I tried to urge her to come back once in a while though!

Spot That!

I just noticed this recently: my sometimes stand-in violin teacher acts as a teacher in this RNZAF TV ad:

Aonghas's Trip to Atlanta

Almost Barred

I've now accumulated $9.55 worth of fines with the university library, that's 45c away from being blocked from borrowing any library books! I'm going to have to be more aware of library book due dates from now on in order to avoid paying off any of my fines!

So since last time, we got our marks back for the CHEM mid-term test (this paper is apparently one of the hardest!). We were told that we'd get our marks back on Wednesday but we didn't get them back till Thursday night. That night I was sitting near the computer constantly refreshing the page just in case they did come up! Well it turns out we didn't do toooo well. Our class average was about 43% with the adjusted average still being below 50% at about 48%! I was fearing for the worst when I first saw that but fortunately I passed!

Now onto the budget! No surprises there. The main thing that affects me is the slight increase (that's if you consider a $5 increase a slight increase) in my student allowance but besides that...I can't wait to see how John Key responds now though with the larger tax cuts he claims is possible. For those of you living outside of NZ, Finance Minister Michael Cullen pretty much spent everything rather than leave a huge surplus like in previous years. One could say that it's a move to catch John Key out and make it harder for him to try promise larger tax cuts without having to cut services. Mr Key still claims it is possible but won't give us any details on their tax policy. No surprise there...

As you could see in the video in my previous post the budget didn't cause much hype around me in the computer science room. I probably looked like a dork watching the goings-on in parliament on the computer while frantically getting my chemistry lab report done (which I completed just in time!).

There's only two weeks till exams now though so it's all about study study study which you could say is pretty depressing!

There's only two weeks till exams now though so it's all about study study study which you could say is pretty depressing! On Friday I finally got round to sitting the DELNA test which all new uni students have to sit to test their English ability. I was probably meant to do it last year but they didn't really force us to in Health Science. It was sorta sobering in a way as I have been teasing my first year friends for having to wast their time sitting it! It actually wasn't as bad and scary as everyone made it out to be!

Speaking of Health Science, earlier that same day one of my pharmacy friends asked me if I could proof-read his friend's assignment before he had to hand it in later that day. When I started reading it I realised it was a Population Health assignment for Health Science!! Boy that brought back many memories! I have to admit while reading through it I started to genuinely miss Health Science...slightly!

One bright moment this weekend was after one of my recorder classes when the mother of one of my students who was sitting in on the lesson told me how she thought the worksheets I gave out were great with all the pictures on them and everything (credit goes to the former recorder teacher who designed all the worksheets and passed them on to me!). What was equally cool though was she asked me if there were any schools around that were teaching Chinese, and one of my students said his mum taught Chinese and so she went to talk to her. It's great to see people of other ethnicities taking an interest in the Chinese language! (I think they were Maori or Pacific Island?)

My new class is great too! I have two Korean kids in the class and they not only remembered everything I had taught them last week but they had done their homework and followed everything I said! Oh...and they laughed at my lame jokes! What more could you want!

Pre-Budget Hype

The live broadcast of the Budget 2008 is about to begin on TV ONE (who needs live sports coverage when you've got live coverage of the budget!!) and I can feel the excitement in the atmosphere around me in the Auckland University computer science computer lab...or maybe it's just me... OK so I admit I've got a lecture on right now but the budget is much more exciting and important! Who knows what Labour is about to throw money at this year and if they have any election year bribes for us. Let's wait and see!! (Oh I'm actually skipping the lecture because I'm completing my chemistry lab report...;);), seriously!) 

 

On the Same Level

I had only one lecture all Tuesday, from 8-9am and then that was it for the rest of the day! My bus came late so I ended up missing that lecture and instead went to the library to study. The problem was that I kept dozing off! Actually the day before one of my friends commented that it's possible that I've fallen asleep even for a little bit in every lecture this semester, which is not something to be proud of!

Anyway I managed to do some study till midday when I decided to go have some lunch at the business school which would be a lot warmer than eating and studying over at Albert Park. Before then though I thought I'd go to the university bookshop and see how much it cost to buy a copy of one of the Acts (not Bible Acts but acts like Employment Relations Act etc) that I could read for leisure. I could just print it off the internet but that would be too lazy. After seeing the price at the bookshop though I got put off a bit! It's sooo expensive! Maybe I'll print my own copy off afterall!

I went to the business school and sat down to eat when my name was called out from a distance and it was Gwen and Angie! I went over, and Gwen ditched me! So I ended up catching up with Angie for a little while (which was the first time I had done so since the second week of the semester) before she had to go off to her exciting European Studies lecture and Gwen rejoined me. Zahir and Alex were at another table but had to go off to a lecture...or somewhere...and so Gwen and I just talked for a while before Zahir and Alex came back later on.

It was really cool hanging out with the guys (and girls) again, just making jokes about random stuff and laughing about little things. There was no pharmacy or medsci talk at all, which meant I didn't have to feel dumb for once!!

Gone Going

I walked past a $10 note on the ground yesterday at uni and while I was tempted to pick it up I didn't!! There were people around and I was thinking someone who would see me pick it up would probably think I was stealing or being dishonest or something, but then again someone else would have probably come along and picked it up soon after I walked past it!

I've caught a cold and so it's been hell lately, having to deal with a runny nose, a cough and a sore throat! Yesterday it wasn't only my nose that was dribbling, but for some reason I started dribbling while falling asleep on the bus! Fortunately I woke up as soon as that happened and tried to cover it up before anyone noticed!

I caught up with Chen and Andrew, two friends from Rutherford yesterday afternoon. That was just before we all had to go to our own chemistry lectures/labs. Funny that..

Since wagging all my classes on Wednesday, I've attended every single class since that day, even though I probably haven't learnt much from them! Some of the lecture theatres are only three quarters full, especially in the 8am classes!

We had this pharmacy lab where we were using this instrument to determine the surface tension of a liquid. Because there was only one instrument and twelve people in our group, we all stood around for three hours doing nothing much. Our tutor was just hanging around with us and I asked her if we'd have to use this instrument once we're working in a pharmacy and she said we would really only need to use it if we worked in some pharmaceutical company, but then again it's done by machines and computers these days! I asked when we'd ever need to use this instrument, and she said maybe if we were doing research and were too poor to afford machines!

These past few mornings have been extremely foggy! You can hardly see beyond 200m at most! It was like that again yesterday morning on my way to music lessons.

Speaking of music lessons, I had two new students yesterday morning. They're both Korean and are occupying the half hour gap that used to be my break, which means I'll be teaching for two and a half hours every Saturday morning now. What is good though is that they're slightly older than my other beginning students and so they were able to pick things up a lot faster than my other beginners. I was trying to teach one of my beginners class how to read a few musical notes, and I gave them a worksheet which even had the notes at the top of the sheet as a guide. I had one of my students telling me he didn't know how to spell!!

We had our second to last accordion lesson before the national championships in a couple of weekends. I don't think our teacher is too confident about our chances of success! I wouldn't be either! I'm playing in the top class this year which will probably mean I'll be up against a few Chinese people as well as some other top NZ accordionists, and at the moment I'm not playing my pieces too great. I don't even think my programme will be long enough, and so I'm relying on this second movement of a Mozart sonata to make my programme long enough (it's 8 minutes long with repeats. If the audience falls asleep I'll have done my job:D ) Our main chance of winning this year will be our trio. Hopefully we can extend our winning streak in the trio classes!

Blooooood!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANE!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HYUN and JOON (for Tuesday)

I've finally finished all my Medsci labs for this semester!! Yay!!! That means no more assessments or assignments to do for them! I also only have one lecture on Tuesdays for the rest of the semester!
We learnt how to determine our blood type as well as what we were allergic to in our last Medsci lab on Tuesday. That was really interesting. We each had to be pricked with a Lancet, one of those things diabetics use to prick themselves so they can test their blood (I think...) so we could take a sample of our blood and mix it with some antibodies. Of course me being me, I screwed up my blood sample and added the wrong thing to the wrong thing and so I got blood taken out of me for a second time. They pricked me right next to the place I got my first prick on my thumb, but this time after collecting my blood I started to feel dizzy! Before I managed to faint I went and sat down at the table and put my head down until I came right!

Anyway we came to the conclusion that my blood type is A+!

Now time for a confession (ssssshhhhhh don't tell my parents!) I skipped all my classes to work on an assignment due yesterday. I sorta felt bad but the assignment is more important! I have to say that I'm starting to question the importance of attending lectures, as I go to lectures, sleep and then come out not knowing any more! I could well be studying on my own and have learnt a lot more from that!

Ah well today I attended all my classes which also involved two three-hour labs (veery booooring. We spent most of the time standing around waiting for others to finish using the limited equipment!

Two more not so cool moments:

- I only remembered this morning that two of my library books were due YESTERDAY!! I tried seeing if Aonghas was taking the car to uni today but he was catching the bus so he couldn't bring my books with him. That will take the total of my fines up to...$7.55!! $10 is the limit when they'll block me from borrowing any more books!

- I tried sending a text this morning only to get a text back from Vodafone telling me I didn't have enough credit to send it. That's when I checked out my balance to discover I only had 14c left!!! Vodafone never reminded me that my TXT2000 would expire a couple days ago, so I spent $9 sending texts to people in the next couple days!

- I got off the computer in the computer science lab, whacked my finger against the table and scraped myself causing my finger to bleed just before my chemistry lab so I had to do it holding a tissue to my finger throughout!

Hidden Fame

I was sitting at the bus stop outside the Grafton campus the other day waiting for the bus back to the city when I saw this Nutrigrain (cereal) advert:



I thought that school in the background looked a bit familiar, and when I had a closer look I realised it's my old school! Wow talk about famous! Uh huh....

Mother's Day

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
and
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HIMESH!

We got our mother a blood pressure monitor for Mother's Day, and yes I am for real! She has a bit of a problem with blood pressure and she mentioned one on discount at Harvey Norman a couple weeks ago so I dropped into the store after coming back from uni on Friday to buy it and hid it at home. It was funny because yesterday night after coming home from shopping my mum was going on about seeing dads and their kids out shopping for Mother's Day presents and how none of us got her anything! By the time it was past midnight we finally decided to give it to her just in case she decided to go out and buy one herself the next day and fortunately she was happy to have one!

This morning I had to get to church extra early because I was rostered to put up the tables. Aonghas also had to rehearse with the choir as he was playing trumpet with them. We got the tables up pretty quickly and by then the service was about to start. Our youth group was sitting at the back of the hall since we were going to hand out small Mother's Day gifts to the mothers. Aonghas's performance was right at the beginning though and we didn't realise everyone would be standing and singing while he was playing up in front. I was standing right at the back so I had to hold the camera up high! Fortunately a guy in our youth group Jireh grabbed a chair for me to stand on.

The choir performed a song later in the service after the sermon which was given by the minister's wife, and that was followed by the children's performance which is usually funny! This time was no different, with a little boy running off stage in the middle of one of the songs they were singing. I found out a little later afterwards that it was because he had to go to the toilet!

As soon as they were done, mothers were asked to stand up so that we could give them these little clay badges that had been made for them. We didn't have too many so we were hoping we had enough! I think we managed to give one to nearly every parent, but some mothers wouldn't sit down after they had received one which made things slightly confusing!

So to all those mothers and everyone else out there hope you all had a Happy Mother's Day! We love you!!

Sleep Problems

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZIPPO!

On Friday morning I missed the bus stop for the second time! I caught the bus in the morning and usually I get off at the bus stop outside Aotea Square or outside the AMI (or AA?) Building. When I woke up though the bus had already passed it, so I had to get off at Britomark and walk all the way up Queen St to get to uni! Fortunately it hadn't started raining yet. Later in the day the rain just started falling in bucketloads! I felt really sorry for those graduating that day. Two of the people in my Sunday School class were graduating that day, Winston in Biomed and his sister Nadine in pharmacy. Hopefully they didn't get caught in the rain!

Anyway the night before I had caught the bus home at about 7pm and usually I get off at the intersection by the road I live down. However, when I woke up the bus had long passed the intersection and I had to get off at the next bus stop in Glendene, this nearby suburb and ended up walking all the way back home! At least it gave me time to eat my sandwiches!

I'm really having a problem with sleep at the moment. Since Wednesday I've been falling asleep more in my classes! I end up coming out of my lectures none the wiser and question the point of attending in the first place! Sometimes lecturers just read straight off the slides which is a bit of a waste of time too! I would rather make better use of my time by sitting in the library or wherever reading the slides and studying from the textbooks myself which would be of greater benefit! It's the guilt though that keeps me attending the lectures though! We had a discussion on temptation in our group at youth group on Friday night, and when I mentioned this as my temptation (to sleep in class or skip lectures), everyone else also mentioned sleeping in class as their temptation! It was really funny as the adult facilitator was in a bit of a state of disbelief! He was probably thinking what lazy kids!!

On Friday afternoon while my friends and I were walking back to the city from the Grafton campus, one suggested going to the engineering faculty to have lunch and I commented that there were too many guys there, and then they must've thought I was afraid of guys or gays and started teasing me about it! I tried defending myself by telling them I support Labour (in some ways) and doesn't that say something! What I really meant by my comment was that there wouldn't be that many girls to check out! haha But I think that got lost a bit. As I was defending myself though I walked straight into this big guy standing outside a cafe! I quickly apologised and kept walking straight ahead and avoided any further eye contact with him! He looked pretty staunch and he probably overheard our conversation!

But yeah as for the sleeping problem, I know...I've got to stop staying up late to watch The Late Show with David Letterman and go to bed early so I can get more sleep!!

Wonky Fish

Lately our fish have been swimming upside down for some reason. Now before you try to state the obvious to me and tell me they're dead, let me tell you they're well and truly alive! We've actually mistakenly thought they're dead on several occasions now, but when we leave them for a while and come back they're swimming the right way.

With the help of Yahoo Answers I discovered that fish swimming upside down are most likely to have 'swim bladder disease' and are on the verge of dying. That's a shame as we've had these fish for quite some time! They certainly outlived the all the big goldfish we previously had! 

Brief Calmness

I'm proud to announce I am healthy enough to become a health-care worker! Last week I got a blood test taken from one arm and a mantoux test done in the other arm. That meant two needle injections! The mantoux test was to test for tuberculosis, while the blood test was to see if I had been vaccinated or had enough antibodies to defend my body against measles, mumps, hepatitis and rubella. I got the all clear yesterday and so I thankfully didn't need any injections!

We had the worst test on Wednesday morning for chemistry. Even though we were allowed to bring a cheat sheet in with us (allowed to write anything at all on both sides of a single A4 piece of paper) it wasn't any help as most of us didn't finish in time, so now we're all dreading getting less than 50%! Apparently CHEM240 is one of the hardest papers in all of pharmacy. I jolly well hope so or else I'll be screwed next year and the year after!

I've completed all my tests for now...until the exams that is. In between though I've got all these assignments that keep coming! As soon as the chemistry test was over I had to get started on my chemistry lap report which was due the following day! I ended up spending most of yesterday working on it and ended up hanging out in the chemistry computer lab waiting for my friend to finish his (as I finished mine a little earlier) which went right up till the due date. During then though I ended up talking to Jade, this other pharmacy girl who I first met several years ago during this half day workplace experience thing at this law firm. It's funny how we still remember things from way back then! She asked me how I did in Chinese scholarship, something I must've told her which I had completely forgotten!

And now for the story of the psycho bus passenger:

My friend and I were catching the Link bus up to Grafton. The bus driver was driving the bus pretty fast but nothing out of the ordinary. That's when some lady sitting behind us (by herself as well...does that say anything??) called out to the bus driver

"Are you driving a race car?"

The bus driver gave some diplomatic reply, when the lady then repeated her question. The bus driver's wry response was

"I'm trying to keep to schedule"

which drew a few chuckles from the rest of us passengers. The lady then murmured to herself, before she got off at the next stop, but not without a parting shot:

"You know...the speed limit is 50km!"

That's when she drew a response from one of the male passengers who called out to her as she got off:

"He was below it you silly tart"

He probably spoke for the rest of us passengers who were ashamed of this lady!

And you thought everyone complained about buses not being on time???

Movie Music Miss

I'm soo gutted I missed the Auckland Symphony Orchestra concert yesterday in the city! The programme of movie soundtrack music would've been my ultimate favourite!!! Their programme included The Lord of the Rings theme, Robin Hood theme, The Magnificent Seven, Forrest Gump, Pirates of the Caribbean and some others!

They're performing again this Sunday at the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna if you want to check it out, but you will need to book your free tickets though (if there's any left!).

Movie soundtrack music is one of my favourite genres of music because it tells a story and most of it is pretty darn good! Here's my list of favourite movie soundtrack music in no particular order (I'm sure they have proper names but I'm on slow internet and so cannot find out till I get broadband back!):

- Forrest Gump theme by John Williams
- The Shawshank Redemption theme by Thomas Newman
- Jurassic Park by John Williams
- Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves by John Williams
- The Green Mile by Thomas Newman
- Troy theme by James Horner
- Now We are Free (from Gladiator) sung by Lisa Gerrard, composed by Hans Zimmer
- Hedwig's Theme (from Harry Potter) by John Williams
- Harry's Wondrous World (from Harry Potter) by John Williams
- The Eternal Vow (main theme from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) by Tan Dun
- Southampton (from Titanic) by James Horner
- Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by Howard Shore
- The Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein

I'm sure there's many more great movie soundtrack music out there waiting to be listened to, so go to the movies and listen to some music! I'll keep on adding to this list (or make one on Windows Live Spaces) and if you know of any good tunes let me know so I can check it out too!

Birthday Dinner

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RHEA!!

I missed out on youth group on Friday night and stayed behind in the city to go to Rhea's birthday dinner at Fortuna Restaurant at Sky City. I spent an hour prior to the dinner shopping around for a birthday present for her, and so that meant going round to check out all those Asian gift shops (my favourite ooooh yeah!) but I couldn't make up my mind! Everything is so expensive there too! In the end I got her some chocolate and a soft toy.

Dinner was great! I definitely ate my money's worth! I didn't really know anyone there besides Rhea's younger brother Philip and Jenna, this girl who used to go to Rutherford. We just reminisced and shared stories all night!

Back to the food though, I ended up having two or three plates, eventually filling it with deep-fried food (here comes the pimples!) before moving onto the dessert which was really nice! I piled it on till I got full!

Anyway it was good catching up with Rhea as well as finally checking out what was beyond the ground floor of the Sky City building!

The Police are on the Scene!

After our last class in Grafton, a few of my pharmacy friends and I were walking past the Grafton shops opposite the Auckland City Hospital when we came past this Korean liquor shop which had a policeman standing around the entrance and some lady with a massive camera taking photos. We weren't too sure what had happened and it was a bit odd there was even a police photographer at the scene, especially if it was just for a burglary! These days police only focus on the serious things like issuing speeding tickets and murders.

 

It was not till I went on the Newstalk ZB website that I discovered what exactly happened there earlier in the day:

 

'Auckland police are speaking to a teenager who hid in a toilet after allegedly robbing a liquor store.

Members of the public reported seeing a man running from the Park Rd shops in Grafton at around 11.20am. He was being chased by a woman who was bleeding from the head.

Police say witnesses saw the man run into Starship Hospital and lock himself in a toilet where staff kept him until police arrived.

They say a 17-year-old is being interviewed about a liquor store robbery at the Park Rd shops, where the attendant was hit on the head with a bottle.'

 

An Unknown Threat

I was in the chemistry lab today when my phone started vibrating for about a minute in my pocket, which meant someone was trying to ring me. I didn't pick it up as we're not allowed phones in the lab, but when I came out and saw that I had a new message in my voicemail inbox, I went to check it and got a message with some guy saying:

 

"Watch what you f*#ken say f@ggot, you're gonna get your f*$ken head done in one day"

 

which was really weird...and a little disturbing! He didn't hide his number so I've got a home phone number with the Auckland area code. I don't know if I should do anything about it but I'm just hoping this is a case of someone dialling the wrong phone number!