Having a Ball

Last night was the Pharmacy Ball and I only sorted out my clothes an hour out from it! It wasn't too difficult. I just wore the same suit I wore for the KiwiAsian Club ball last year, so the total number of balls I've worn that navy blue pin-stripped suit to is now at TWO (let's see how many I can wear it to!).

I got to the ball a few minutes before it was due to start and caught up with James, a 2nd year pharmacy friend who had brought along two girls with him (go James!!). I think they're his neighbours! We just stood around in the foyer for a little while catching up with others who arrived. All the other second years came along not too long after. Once there were quite a few of us we all went up in the lift to level 3 of the Ellerslie Convention Centre where the ball was held. There were a few other dinners being held at the convention centre too, such as the Auckland Airport dinner and the Fonterra dinner.

When I got to the room there was Eliza, 1st year class rep calling out to me! I was the last 1st year pharmacy student to turn up (well...I'm sorta a 1st year I guess...). I went in and caught up with some of the first year students. The room the ball was held in was not too big. There were high tables around the place, a long table where all the food was, a poker table and roulette table at one end and a dance floor at the far end.

I thought I'd start off with dinner so I went over to the food table with this guy Asal (I think that's how you spell his name?) and this first year student Hans and we just ate before I decided I'd get a drink! We were given five $6 drink vouchers. I originally thought drinks would probably cost more than $6 and since I didn't bring any money with me I thought I wouldn't be able to use any of the vouchers, so I just went over to the bar and asked for water. They asked if I wanted a glass or a litre bottle, so I went with the litre bottle. I never knew how big it was! I ended up drinking from this bottle that looked a wine bottle...it had water in it though!!

I went over to watch some of the guys play blackjack, and then once that was over I joined Tony, another 2nd year pharmacy student to play Texas Hold'em poker along with all these other 2nd year students. I'd never played it before so I was just joking around while some seemed to be taking it pretty serious and putting on their best poker faces! I somehow tied the first game which was weird! From then on though it all went downhill and I was fast running out of chips. In what I thought would be my last move I put all my chips in, and fortunately I managed to get some more back! By then I was sick of the game though and let someone else take over from me.



Now it was time for the dancing! Most of the music seemed to be hip-hop which is music I don't understand how you can dance to! It's soooo sloooow! Where's the dance and the techno??? Like Ministry of Sound music!!! It got better towards the end of the night though. I did most of my dancing with the first years. Some of them were getting quite tipsy by the end of the night! I was quite content with my water!

I also caught up with the APSA (Auckland Pharmacy Students Association) exec who I ACCIDENTALLY kicked in the shin during a soccer game at the Freshers Camp earlier in the year. She asked me if I remembered her and showed me the mark that I left on her shin that's still there! I told her I felt bad everyday! She just told me not to do it again hahaha

It was soon midnight and I had to leave while the partying and dancing continued. My friends were taking a breath of fresh air outside when I had to leave. All in all though it was a great night! I was initially afraid I wouldn't have anyone to hang out with but heaps of people were really cool. I don't know what part alcohol plays but who cares what a good night!

Helping Out

Yesterday was Courses and Careers Day at Auckland uni and I had volunteered to help out at the pharmacy stand from 1-3pm. I had to teach in the morning and go to violin lessons, but once that was all done, my family, our neighbour Szelin and I went into the city to check out the goings on at uni.

We got there right on time and so I went straight to the pharmacy stand while the others split up. My mum and Hamish went around collecting free stuff while Aonghas went to the engineering school to find out more about computer systems engineering or something like that. My dad was already somewhere around probably checking out languages (typical!).

The pharmacy stand was quite small! I was expecting to have free stuff to give out but that wasn't the case. We did have placebo inhalers (inhalers with no drugs in them) to let people play around with though.

At first there weren't that many people coming by to our stand. According to those who helped out at the stand during the two hours before I started, most of those who were interested were girls. Not too bad not too bad!

Finally we got some people coming by...mostly girls of course, but there were a couple guys in between. There was a group of guys who came by. They were wanting to know if it was just a degee for girls! Excuse me! I was standing right there!!

During a lull in visitors one of the other pharmacy students took me upstairs to the free food! :D There wasn't much left at that time, so I went back down not too long after.

It was kinda fun talking to prospective students and persuading them to study pharmacy. We had the medicine stand on one side of us and the biomed stand on the other. I have to admit to dissing other degrees (namely medicine! We're sooo much cooler than them!!! I'm kidding I'm kidding! I went over to them and asked if they were interested in pharmacy. One looked at me funnily...) and told a few that we were cool and that's why you should do pharmacy! Nahnah that's not the only reason I gave them! The students who I did talk to were pretty cool and would make good pharmacy students, or classmates anyway! Most of them seemed intimidated by the selection criteria and process, such as how there is an interview process and only about 100 students are accepted. I used me as an example - if I could get in, then surely they could! (no guarantees though!!)

I did meet one guy from church who was considering doing biomed. I was expecting to meet a couple others from my youth group as they had told me at youth group the night before they'd come by, but it turns out they had to leave early so didn't get to. (Youth group the night before was pretty fun. We were put into random groups and given limited materials to use to protect our egg from being cracked when thrown up in the air and hitting the ground. We lost.)

The two hours went by really fast, but it was pretty fun! It's pretty cool being on the other side of things after attending these Course and Careers Days as a prospective student for the past few years.

KBB Music Festival Extravaganza!

Thursday was the KBB Music Festival at Auckland Town Hall which saw orchestras from various different Auckland secondary schools perform. On the Tuesday and Wednesday before it secondary school jazz bands and concert bands were performing. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't go to watch those since I had tests. Fortunately I was able to make it to the orchestra performances!

I got back from the hospital just before 12pm in time to catch St Kentigens College perform before Auckland Grammar performed, and they were pretty good! Their orchestra is at least 50-strong, and I'm amazed how they can get so many guys to join an orchestra!

The programme lasted all the way till 4.30pm, but I only stayed till about 4pm once Epsom Girls Grammar School had finished performing. There were plenty of highlights and a few mishaps along the way:

Highlights:

- As expected, Westlake Symphony Orchestra were Great with a capital 'G'! The very fact they can put together a symphony orchestra is impressive in itself! My friend Eliza from pharmacy (the ex-Westlake horn player!!!) came along just in time to watch them perform! They were great as usual, this is the final piece of their programme - 'Hoe Down':



- Another great performance was by Epsom Girls Grammar School, the Epsom Symphonia. This girl Jenny in my church youth group Oddfellows is second lead violinist of the orchestra which is pretty cool! The first piece they played, 'Bacchanale' from the opera 'Samson and Delila' has been stuck in my head ever since!



Not So Highlights:

- A bit of a shame Mt Roskill Grammar School's orchestra crumbled a bit on stage. They were performing a Handel suite and got to a passage where it was just the recorder and keyboard playing when the keyboard player kept playing faster and faster. The recorder player couldn't keep up and just stopped. The rest of the orchestra looked on, not knowing where they were in the music (or maybe they had just missed the entry) which meant the conductor had to resort to stopping the orchestra completely and telling them to go back to a certain bar (which happened to be at the beginning of the recorder and keyboard part). The same thing nearly happened again but fortunately they managed to pull through to the end!

It was a bit of a shame there were no West Auckland schools there, except for a Kelston Boys Stage Band. Avondale College did send a few groups, but technically Avondale falls within Auckland City boundaries ;)

Despite not having any groups there, Rutherford still had a presence in the programme though. Since it's the festival's 25th anniversary, there was mention of the very first orchestra festival being called the Rutherford Music Festival (the first few were held at Rutherford College way back then in the 80's when the school had a super dooper orchestra!!).

Bullet-Pointed Briefs

It's the holidays now! Well...sort of holidays, after a long hard week of two tests and two lab tests! I haven't posted in a week so this is what has been happening with me since then:

- I've been taking the Aqueous Cream I made in the pharmacy lab a couple weeks ago around with me, getting people to try it out, but no one really wants to try it! It's the only medicine I've been allowed to take out of the lab, and I almost didn't finish it! I was running out of time and my ingredients hadn't fully melted yet. My tutor told me it wasn't going to be completed within two minutes, but fortunately the head tutor helped me out so that I could take something home with me!

- My week of tests started off on Monday with a pharmacy test early in the morning which was worth 5%. It wasn't tooooo bad but I don't want to say anything just in case I jynx it!

- My next test was on Tuesday morning (as well), this time my pharmacy lab test. We were told a drug we had to fill in a batch sheet for, and then make. I was given Sodium Citrate APF (from the Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary). It was a little weird, as I calculated that I had to use 20g of something, and so I had this big pile building up on my balance! The person beside me didn't have anything of similar quantity! I was also getting a little concerned because it seemed as though other people made whatever drug different to me. I only discovered after the test that they were making different drugs!

- Wednesday was the biggie - the BIOSCI106 test, worth 40% of my mark! I spent all Wednesday studying, except for an hour where I had to have a one hour training session for the Auckland Uni Courses and Careers Day on Saturday, and also for lunch. Business school was completely packed so I just sat on a bench outside and struggled to eat (my braces were killing me!!) when Alex and Gwen came by! I had a chat to them for a while before Gwen went off to catch the bus home. Alex and I went over to the General Library to do a bit of study. I tried but my mouth kept bleeding because of my stupid braces! She left soon for dinner and I kept going till my test at 6.30pm at night. I caught up with Zahir before my test and then it was test time!! The test was....yep....afterwards I went with a fellow pharmacy friend Natalie to the computers to do a bit of chemistry work.

- Thursday was my break day! No tests, nudda!! Despite that, I had a list of things to do that day! First I had to go to class to make my mum happy, then go see the optometrist upstairs at Grafton to fix my dad's glasses, then go over to Middlemore Hospital to fix up my braces, AND THEN KBB Music Festival!!!! - The festival I've been looking forward to all year where secondary school orchestras from all over Auckland perform at the Auckland Town Hall! (More on that in my next post!) To finish off the day I had a Dessert Club Mid-Winter Festival event later that night. I had to catch the bus home as soon as Epsom Girls Grammar performed and then come back to the city with all the lolly bags for the Dessert Club event by 5.30pm. It was 5pm when I got home, so I had half an hour to get back into the city! Fortunately Aonghas was able to give me a ride and I made it in time. It was just that I didn't know where the venue was! I finally found it, but was a little late! The event wasn't too bad. There was plenty of dessert, and we watched 'I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry' which was quite funny!

- Oh and the sad news: is the fly of my favourite shorts broke!! I've had those shorts for about four to five years now, the pair I proudly claimed to have bought from Jay-Jays!! :'(

Boo for Bebo

What is with Bebo these days? I got eight messages within the space of one minute and most of them read something like:

Hi muffin!

Okay, maybe muffin is a little too cute, but I was seriously browsing for guys when I came across your profile page. Not bad! I want some more! I'm back on the market, after a serious relationship ended. I'd like something different now. Maybe start off slow, play it by ear. What do you think? Oh, and I'm looking for someone in the area. I think you live close by. I'm not sure, because I'm just visiting. I feel you should know more about me. I'm good-looking, smart and ambitious. I'm also easy going and independent... not the clingy type. I like doing many things and I'm a coffee fanatic! Go caffeine go! Don't be shy; if you're interested, get back to me, you will not regret it. FYI, I'm using my best friend's account, so please don't reply directly. Instead, you should send your message to this email address: ********.

Thanks.

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Hi cutie!

Very interesting profile! I think I'd like to meet you but I want to know a little more though. A little about me first: I'm slim and very cute. I'm a non-smoker and a vegetarian, but not righteous about it... I like being active and watching some tv. I also enjoy going out to restaurants and dancing. I got dumped a while back and not looking for anything sexual or too long term right now. I kind of want to play it by ear and to start with something simple. I'm trying to meet local guys. I think you are, but I can't tell. (I'm just a visitor here) I hope you're still available and that you'll write back. By the way, I'm using my friend's account currently because I'm not a member here, so don't reply to this message directly. Please send your replies to my E-mail address ********.

Thanks in advance!

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Hi stud!

I was a little bored, so I decided to try out this dating site... my best-friend's been talking about it for several months now! I'm unattached and looking for something uncomplicated. I want to take a short term break from the lonely single's life, but don't want to start something right away sexual either. I'm trying to meet local guys. I think you are, but I can't tell. (I'm just visiting the area) I'm cute and thin, I watch what I eat and work out regularly. I love to laugh, to watch sappy movies and to go shopping. I'm also outgoing and ambitious. By the way, I'm not using my account to contact you because I'm not a member on here, so please don't reply directly to this message. I'm just borrowing my friend's account. Please use my mail address instead, it's **********.

see you! xoxoxo

OK you get the picture! Now I don't mind being called a stud/muffin/cutie but not if it's from some....random spammer!

Not only have I been getting all these spam messages lately, but I've been getting invites to groups such as the Madrid Plane Crash Group, the Xbox Group, the Windows Live Messenger Group, the Sexy Girls group... no thanks!

And......these random comments from people who want me to check out their photos, as well as all these random people wanting me to add them to Bebo. OK now that I'm all right with! ==> Boost me friend numbers up! ;) hehehe

Bebo = Boo
Facebook = Fffff...Good!

Balls, Beggars and Boobs

I've finally bought a ticket to at least one ball - the Pharmacy ball!! Here's the story behind my ball-going-decision-making dilemma:

Originally I was planning on going to the Pharmacy ball as that is the thing for a pharmacy student to do right? But then nearly all the 2nd years I asked said they weren't going! For $70 and no dinner, only finger-food and a few drinks, it didn't seem worth it to them. I then decided I wasn't going to the pharmacy ball!

I next considered the KiwiAsian Club ball!

I did attend last year's afterall and it was pretty good. If I was to go I'd prefer to sit with people I knew (which is not that many), but it turned out the table where all my friends would be sitting was booked out after two days! If I was to go I'd be seated with complete randoms and I'd be a loner! So it looks like I might give the KiwiAsian Club ball a pass.

I was walking to class at the Business school when I came across several posters stapled to a few trees advertising the Commerce ball - for the same price as the pharmacy ball but with buffet included! I would go to that ball but...I don't know anyone else who's going to it!

So...it all came back to the pharmacy ball when I discovered some people reconsidered and were now going to it, as well as the first years who were all going and really wanted me to go, so I started thinking that maybe I should just go for the experience. That was till I discovered they added a buffet dinner to the ball. Now I'm definitely going!!

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I walked down Queen St tonight on my way to the bus stop. I counted at least five to six people - either donation collectors, buskers or beggars - all asking for money down the street! There were some good guitarists and harmonica players and teens trying to collect for SADD as well as some children's charity, but I have got to say the most questionable would be this lady who was playing a ukelele (score some marks for that!) BUT on the sign beside her collection box read:

"Any change for petrol and food. Thanks"

I saw her on the way to uni this morning at about 10 am, and she was still there at about 6pm! Now if she was really that desperate for money then petrol for her car would be the least of her worries and would be more of a luxury than a necessity, especially with today's sky-rocketing petrol prices!

During lunchtime there were also ordinary people asking people for spare change at intersections and as I was walking to uni with Phoebe this morning there was also this old man asking everyone he passed for a dollar. Begging seems to be the way to go these days!

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Yours truly did NOT attend the Boobs on Bikes Parade this year despite what he may/may not have said. In fact I was a good boy and attended my CHEM230 lecture! I did however go down to the Dymocks bookstore just before the parade to try spend Aonghas's soon-to-expire book voucher with no success. As I walked back to uni (note: before the parade started!!) it was really weird seeing so many people gather along Queen St. You got your Asians, road workers, parents, uni students, and as the NZ Herald reported, Auckland Grammar boys! There were even people clamouring onto the tops of telephone boxes just to get a good view! I even caught a television reporter interviewing a mother with a pram!

All for free boobies... 
 

What the??

I got this email from some organisation 'Top News Agency'...obviously spam...but it wasn't the usual Viagra/enlarge your wang/pharmaceutical drugs email:

Bigcock Discovered In Georgia

After the discovery of Bigfoot in Georgia comes another discovery - Bigcock - a giant of a man in more ways than one and a beast that certainly needs taming.

Some news that is!!

Chop the Balls!

What is it with me and locking myself out of the house? I came home early from uni on Thursday, and was the only one home for a while. I was just about to hop on the computer when someone knocked on the door and it turned out to be the kids from next door who I looked after during the holidays last year! One of them wanted to give me some drawings because apparently I'm his best friend! They also wanted to come inside and play Monopoly but I wasn't too keen on that as our house was a bit of a dump!

The girl told me that the older sister of the little boys (remember that girl who screwed up my Bebo profile and hates guys...or me...for some reason?) still wanted the $10 I owed her because I failed to make her scream way back sometime last year, so I went back inside to draw a $10 note and went back outside to give the kids to pass on to the girl. I closed the door behind me, unaware of the fact I didn't have my keys on me!

The kids brought me back over to their house so I gave a few piggy-back rides and played with the kids for a while, while I could hear the older sister calling me a paedophile!! I can truthfully say that I'm no pedo! Man I seriously need to figure that girl out!

Anyway the kids wanted to go outside and boy were they crazy! They were in their pyjamas, running onto the wet grass, kicking our garage, kicking my balls, swinging big sticks around! Sometimes I wonder whether having kids is really such a good idea! Naahhhh I still want kids and those kids are pretty cool kids...well the guys are...the girls are just MEAN!

Fortunately they were called in for dinner. PHEW!

Better Days

I had my pharmacy lab today, and at the end of the lab when I finished early and my lab tutor came by and asked me

 

"Oh, you already finished?" I said yeepp! And she said

 

"Oh OK good."

 

That's when I knew things were a lot better than last week's lab! In fact I don't think I did too much wrong in the lab this time round, but then again I hardly saw my tutor this time and we did easy stuff like mix two creams together and make paracetamol elixir.

 

Fortunately she didn't see my cream when it was in this state:

 

 

 

Shocking Calum! I managed to clean it up and make it look tidy enough for it to be signed off, but even though I had made 10% extra, my final total was less than the proper weight!

 

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I overheard someone saying this as I left the lecture theatre after my BIOSCI106 lecture, and it pretty much sums the paper up:

 

"And that's 40 minutes of my life I'm never getting back"

 

Too right!

 

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Not too long ago the NZ vs USA women's soccer game kicked off, with USA (world champions by the way) scoring after about 40 seconds. After NZ men's thrashing against Brazil, my prediction for this game is...0-4 to us, and I'm going to make that my conservative bet ;)

 

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I'm selling my laptop to my brother after his one screwed up (how in the world did he do that???) so I'm on the look-out for a new one now! My dilemma is that after buying my last laptop which has a 15.4" screen and weighs 2.5kg, which is hardly portable, is it better to go for performance over design and portability, or the other way round? HP or Sony or ASUS or Acer or Toshiba? We've been going with ASUS till now, but I might start considering other manufacturers. If only Canon made laptops! We recently bought a Sony product and so I've been looking more into what Sony has to offer, but I'm open to any advice anyone can give me!

Olympic Fever!

Olympic fever has been spreading and isn't a shame the Olympics were on during the holidays? I'd be glued to the telly all day! For now I've been trying to watch as much as I can, starting off with the opening ceremony on Saturday morning. Here are the highlights of the Olympics so far for me:

- Opening Ceremony - WOW. You'd expect nothing less especially given the millions they spent on it! It was only during the second time I watched it that I realised that those fireworks 'footprints' were actually in the shape of footprints! I did doze off a little bit during the parade of nations, but woke up briefly to see NZ come out, and then again for the final moments of the ceremony when the speeches were given and the caudron was lit. I have to say I really enjoyed the music composed for the ceremony and have been trying to look for more details on them! Apparently 18 composers composed music for the ceremony. The Beijing Olympics theme song though is called 'You and Me' (or 你和我).

- The rowing - possibly the only sport we have a chance at winning a medal in! Six wins out of eight in the heats with the other two coming second is not a bad start! I don't want to jynx it though so I won't make any predictions!

- NZ vs Brazil (aka Ronaldinho) - a 5-0 loss, what did you expect against the world's best in soccer? It's much like the All Blacks vs Romania. Even though we got thrashed at least we got to see our team get thrashed in a bit of style! I was personally surprised at how some of the earlier women's and men's soccer matches could be so exciting (NZ women vs Japan and NZ men vs China). You never know when a goal is going to be scored! In both of those games were leading till the other team equalised!

- Gymnastics (more specifically women's gymnastics) - the Chinese team look like they're made of children even though they're all older than 16 years (the rule I think) but they were great, and are coming first I think. What was more spectacular (for the wrong reasons) was how the gymnasts were slipping off the bars one after the other! The Chinese gymnast who was thought to have a good shot at getting a medal slipped off, the American slipped off....There was also a British girl who had lost her balance on the horse and was about to fall off several times! Fortunately she didn't though!

I've fallen victim to the commercialisation of the Olympics and after discovering McDonalds are selling these small soft toy keyrings of the five Olympic mascots (BeiBei, JingJing, HuanHuan, YingYing and NiNi - 北京欢迎你 or Bei Jing huan ying ni which means 'Bei Jing welcomes you' which is pretty clever!) I went off to McDonalds after picking Aonghas up from work to buy a Happy Meal to see what they were like. Today after uni I went to McDonald's and there was an Asian girl at the counter. I asked her if they sold a different toy each week but she told me she had a variety of them, so I ordered a Happy Meal (she gave me some funny look!). She overfilled my Coke but that was all good. What was even better though was that when I got home I discovered she had accidentally put two toys in my Happy Meal! Good on her! I might try see her again!

It's also great to see the Olympics being screened on at least four screens at the Business School. We don't get that over in Grafton. All we get on our LCD screens are photo slideshows of random things nobody takes notice of! After watching so much of the Olympics though, I really want to visit China and Hong Kong (nothing's changed about that)!!! 

Bring on the Olympics, and hopefully a medal or two for New Zealand!!

Blocked

In the past week I've been blocked from using the University library for two different reasons!

It all started off with the Organic Chemistry book I borrowed from the Engineering Library being recalled. I forgot to bring it to uni on the day it was recalled, and so I thought I'd just return it the following day, forgetting that I would incur a greater fine for an overdue RECALLED book! I also thought, well I've only got $9.55 worth of fines, another 20c (normal fine per day for a book overdue) wouldn't push me over the $10 limit. That was until I discovered it's actually $3 per day for each overdue recalled book!
So I returned the book the next day and kept checking the library website to see what would happen. It was a couple hours since I returned the book though but it was still saying that my book was overdue and that I had been blocked for not returning it!

After a while the status was finally updated and I was now blocked for having $12.55 worth of fines, over the $10 limit!

I left it for a few days thinking I'd be able to survive without needing to borrow anything from the library (plus I don't want to pay my fines!! That's a waste of $12.55!), but after a while I realised I couldn't, so I went to the Engineering Library to pay off my fine and the guy at the desk said he had seen worse...as in $1000 worth of fines worse!
So right now I am fine-free (for the university library...Waitakere Library is another matter...) and can resume making use of my book-borrowing privileges!
 

Amazing

The Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics have just finished and it was amazing! OK I did sorta doze off while all the countries came out but I was awake to see the important 'nations' come out, such as Hong Kong, China, Chinese Taipei and of course New Zealand! I'm going to freeze if I don't get into bed soon so I'll type more later in the day about it!

A Fire?

Yesterday all of us pharmacy students were working away on our chemistry lab reports in the library's group study rooms (apparently we booked them all out!) when out of the blue a fire alarm went off! That's the second one at Grafton this year! Surely Grafton is not like Rutherford College! The first one we had was considered a practice drill as well so I don't know if we failed that one or not!

We all filed out of the building and filled the quad outside, waiting there for several minutes until the fire alarm stopped. We STILL kept on waiting, until I noticed about four firefighters make their way through the crowd towards the entrance of the building! They didn't actually go in but went around it, completely equipped with helmet, oxygen tanks, axes and everything!

They came back a few minutes later and had a chat with one of the fire wardens (or that's what it looked like). We were then told we could go back inside, just not up to Level One of one of the buildings! I wonder what happened...

Calum Comments: Dirty People!

What's with the Most Viewed Stories on the Stuff News website for today?

1. Student shocked to star on club's loo-cam
2. Eva Mendes strips for Peta (explicit image)
3. Eva Mendes' nipple too hot for TV
4. Inside NZ's biggest leaky home project
5. Spice Girl traumatised by 'Sex' film
6. Nude Anne Hathaway pics seized by FBI
7. Eva Mendes' nipple too hot for TV
8. Alarm as pregnant mothers stay svelte
9. Woman wants Work and Income 'abuser' sacked
10. Key's rubbish searched - Nats

How many of these stories are related to sex and nudity? But I guess as they say...sex sells...

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If you wanted to be a billionaire (in Zimbabwe...just a little thing!) you had your best chance last month, when 1NZD reached 24,000,000,000ZWD (Zimbabwean Dollars) at one point, but now they've redenominated the ZWD and is currently 1NZD=6.46ZWD. I was trying to look for some foreign exchange place back then for me to exchange my $1 for $24 billion (Zimbabwean) but I never got round to doing it! If things don't get any better and inflation continues to rise then I'm sure there'll be another opportunity soon!

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What an exciting soccer game last night on TVNZ Sports Extra between the NZ Women's Team and Japan! Unfortunately it fizzled to a 2-2 draw in the last half hour. I don't have Freeview yet but fortunately they're streaming all four channels on their website (NZ only). Just keep an eye on your data allowance though! Let's just say I'm supposed to be on dial-up speed..Our data allowance renews tomorrow though so tonight we're going to go binging!

There wasn't much to TVNZ Sports Extra and the other tvnz.co.nz3 and 4 channels though, as in no pre-match talk nor half-time analysis, just the game with commentary by a New Zealander, and in between was a camera shot of the field from long distance while music plays. It sorta reminds you of a security camera, only with better quality video! Funnily enough they made it through the background music and had to repeat it! That's how long they stuck with that shot for! Of course they did play a few ads here and there during the breaks, but thank goodness they weren't on during the actual game! Good on you TVNZ!

Pure Evil

I think my pharmacy lab tutor hates me, or at least thinks of me as a gumbie!

Yesterday in the lab we had to make three drugs - an enema solution, a mouthwash and a cream. Each week one person from each bench group gets assessed (just a practice assessment) on how well they can explain the drug they've made to the tutor who pretends to be a patient. I just happened to be chosen this week, and the drug just had to be the enema! So I was talking to my patient, instructing her on how to use the enema, such as lubricating the rectum, inserting the rectal nozzle up her rectum and so on. She was the tutor of the bench next to us and she was really nice, she marked me COMPETENT! :D I think it probably should have been JUST COMPETENT!

Because I did the practice assessment towards the end of the lab session I only had ten minutes left to make the mouthwash so I was running around the lab mixing this into that and stirring stuff. I quickly poured it into a bottle, chucked on a label and asked my usual lab tutor to sign me off, and she said my label was crooked, was slightly ripped (hey I was rushing!!) and not aligned (I did seek help from the head tutor on this and she said it was OK!) and so she said she'd have to mark me NOT COMPETENT!!

My friends and I agree she's probably a bit of a perfectionist who wants to make sure we do everything exact so that when it comes to the real McCoy we all pass comfortably and don't screw up, but I keep feeling these negative vibes from her! I'm going to go all out to woo her over next week...just in case I get stuck with her as my assessor for the proper assessment!

Complete Turn around

In the previous week I tried asking/texting a few people if they were free so I could hang out and have lunch with them (coincidentally they were all females), but they were all busy with class..or something. Talk about bad timing Calum! One of the first real times I actually bother asking people and my timing is all screwed. Anyway Monday was a complete turn around! Admittedly it was all a bit coincidental though..

It started off when I finished my morning pharmacy lectures (which I remember not that much about, too much zzzz....) and was eating lunch while revising a bit of biochemistry at the Business School. That's when Angie came over to say 'hi' and talk for a little while while she waited for her friends. She soon went off to look for them and I was back to my bacon and tomato sandwiches. She came back a little later on and sat down with me after discovering her friends had gone to some tutorial, so we just talked and....ahem studied until she had to go off to her lecture.

Not too long after she had left Sarena came by with her friend! They asked if I wanted to tag along with them and Amy who would be joining them, as they were going to some cafe/restaurant upstairs, which I've never been before. You thought the outside of the Business School is flash, well the inside is quite flash too! It was like one of those posh cafes for rich businessmen! We all sat down and talked while Amy and Sarena had their caffeine-filled drinks.

I soon had to go off to Biosci with Zahir, Archi and Esther which was typically as boring as hell. Originally I had planned on staying afterwards to attend the Medsci142 lecture that followed, seeing as it would be on puberty and all, but Biosci destroyed me so much I was about to leave at the end! That was till Sarena came over and I remembered I was going to attend the lecture with her! Well it sure made up for the lack of sex ed we received at high school! Oh and no guys (those I were sitting with) we're just friends!

To top off the day of catching up with people after staying at uni till about 9.30pm I was power-walking my way to the bus so I wouldn't have to stay at uni for another hour when David came from behind, and we caught the bus home together!
 

A Bit of a Reunion!

A few of us ex-Rutherfordians got together for a dinner at the Breakers restaurant on Saturday night to catch up with each other which was timely, as it's been a while since I've seen quite a few of them! I was still at home getting ready to go so I could arrive on time at 6.30pm when I got a text from Amy saying everyone was already there! I got there, thinking I was only three minutes late, only to discover we were all supposed to meet at 6pm!

No one had ordered yet so that was OK! There were about ten of us there. A few were missing, hopefully they had a good enough reason for their absence!! The restaurant had a bit of a surfer theme with Beach Boys-like music playing in the background, surfboards hanging on the walls and a mini van around one set of seats and table! The best thing about ther restaurant though were the many TV screens which played the live rugby when it came on! Oh and what a game! The All Blacks redeemed themselves for sure! Now to make sure it wasn't a one-off, they need to play just as good away from home in their next test!

Anyway back to our get-together, it was good seeing everyone again! I hadn't seen Estee and Pita in a while and it's good to still see them going strong! I also hadn't seen Jane, Claire, Larry, Ellyce and Sarena in a while too. I also saw Nikki for the first time since the first day of the semester. I sat with Sarena and so it was good catching up with her and reminiscing over the good times. I ordered this burger called the 'Big Kahuna Burger' which came with chips and it was a new experience for me! The burger was so massive it had this massive toothpick which was stuck through the centre of it to keep it upright! We also had dessert and with Sarena's help I ordered this donut with ice-cream which tasted pretty good!

We soon all got a bit carried away by the rugby game and went a bit silent! Once it was half-time though everyone decided it was probably the best time we left, so we all went our ways. Sarena offered me a ride home which saved me from having to get Aonghas to pick me up. Yep even though I have my restricted my parents don't trust me driving at night, especially in wet weather!! Sarena and I were in her jeep and she just started the motor when there was this loud thud on the driver's window! We both jumped with Sarena cursing hahaha I thought she had hit something but it was only Estee hitting the window! (No not flying off the window!) Sarena jumped out and gave her a good beating! Minus the violence..

It was good to see everyone again, and as I told a few of them it was only just a couple weeks ago I had sent an email to Hyun and Joon, my Korean friends in America telling them about how distant I had grown from our high school mates! At least now that distance has shortened!

A Child's Mind

One of my little recorder students was waiting for his mum to turn up after his recorder lesson on Saturday morning and so I tried to make some conversation with the little boy and asked him if he liked Hannah Montana, and he completely shocked me!
I asked him about his sister and if he played with her much, and he said sometimes he played with her dolls and that he saw the doll's bra and the doll's willy!! He was talking about a guy doll of course... He then went on to start talking about willies, asking me if I looked at mine and if I liked mine and....

Feeling uncomfortable about the topic for many reasons (being his teacher the most pressing reason) I tried changing the topic and asked him if he liked Hannah Montana. He said to me

"My secret wish is to see her boobies!!"

I was flabbergasted! Fortunately it was time for my violin lesson so I told him we better leave the classroom and I started heading to my violin class, but he kept asking me to say 'boobies' and even tried blocking the door telling me he wouldn't let me in until I said the word! I have no problem saying the word, but to this little boy...

Skating on Thin Ice

I've been warned by Facebook for apparently violating their Terms of Use for some reason. They've blocked my access to their Notes feature for a while and any continued abuse of features will result in my account being disabled! Waaaaaahhh!! All I did was try edit the 'Notes' feature's settings so that the RSS feed from this site would appear in my Mini-Feed, but they must've thought I was spamming or something! So I'm going to be more careful not to upset the Facebook masters above or else my account will go byebye!

Dessert Night!

Thursday night was Dessert Night!! It was the first KiwiAsian Club event I've attended this year as I thought I better attend at least one event before their next AGM! It was an interesting experience...

Because it was the first event I've been to this year I didn't know anyone when I first turned up except for Kat, Dominica, Amy and Bettina but they were sorta busy with their own friends so I was a bit of a loner to start off with! I did catch up with Dominica and she introduced me to this girl Anzie (yeah what an interesting name! I originally thought she said Angie!) and she happened to be in the same group as me when we got into our allocated groups to play a game involving transferring Malteses from one cup to another by sucking through a straw!

After that game we got started with the dessert and were allowed some cake and a couple of drinks. Once again I had no one to sit next to since I didn't know anyone! I found a spare seat at the table with Anzie and another girl she was talking to. For a while I just sat there listening to their conversation until the other girl left and she and I just talked for a while.

There were a few random events throughout the night such as an ice-cream eating competition. I'd be sick of chocolate by the end of that! Earlier in the day I had bought six cookies from Subway which were a bit too sweet for me after the third straight one!

I ended up having to leave slightly early so that I didn't miss the bus but hopefully I didn't miss too much at the end! Now I've just got to try make it along to a few more of their events this year!