Making Interesting Things

This week has been a bit of a tricky week. With two assignments due next week, I admit I've been skipping a few classes to work on them! After a couple days of planning to bring my laptop to uni, only to decide against it because of the weather and then realise the weather wasn't bad afterall, I finally managed to bring it to uni yesterday and today.

We had a bit of a cool pharmacy lab on Tuesday when we made suppositories - sorta like a pill you put up your rectum and leave to melt for those of you who don't know what one is! Fortunately I wasn't assessed that day, but then again maybe it would've been better to have been assessed so I wouldn't have to worry about being assessed next week or the week after!

Later that day I had to go see one of the university doctors to talk about my dilemma regarding my surgery being three days before my scheduled exam. Initially she said I'd have to apply for aegrotat and there'd be no way I'd be able to sit the exam as it was unlikely I'd be allowed to sit the exam under special conditions i.e. earlier or later than the exam date. After asking (in a pleading sort of way because I didn't want to trust my mid-term results which they would base my overall grade on - and rightfully so, since I did badly in the test!!), she contacted the exams office and they suggested I fill out an application. It's going to cost me $100 to apply to sit the test under 'special conditions' and $25 for aegrotat. Boy is that expensive!

I've also been assigned a pharmacy for my community pharmacy externship, and it's located in...drumroll please...Ranui!!! It's this suburb in West Auckland which....hhhmmmmmmm mmmmm....OK it's down Swanson Road so it's not too bad I guess. I'll have to contact the pharmacist sometime to arrange the time I have to spend a full working day there.

Mimi for VP!

Everyone who are eligible to vote in the APSA (pharmacy students association) elections then vote Mimi for vice-president!!!! Oh and don't forget to vote for Richard and Ahmed for sports reps and Asal for Otago liason officer!!! I have no idea who anyone else is...

They did their speeches/promos/publicity stunts on Monday morning before our lecture with Richard and Ahmed doing a little skit based on the Snickers 'Get Some Nuts!' promo which was pretty cool! They were dressed in army uniforms and even made their own little cardboard tanks and did a little dance to 'Eye of the Tiger'! (That's not why I'm voting for them though of course!)

Emos, Tests and Races

I've finally motivated myself to post again while watching the Emmy's on TV, and no the Emmy's didn't drive me to post, I just thought it was about time to post! After spending several weeks pondering, I finally brought myself around to buying a laptop. I ended up going for something different and getting an HP tablet. It's smaller than my last laptop so hopefully I'll be able to carry it to uni! I've been looking for a case for it, and bought this Sony Vaio case at this laptop shop today (only because it was cheap, nothing to do with the brand!), but it turned out to be too small! We'll just have to use it as a folder...

So since the last time I posed:
-my youth group went into the city to listen to this American guy Paul speak at this church down Queen St. We had dinner prior to the event at Sky City Metro, and afterwards while waiting for the last few to leave, we were waiting outside on the steps near some emos when one girl joined our group. Her friend called out to her

"Hey don't talk to them! They're not from our country!"

I told the girl that we were from this country and she could talk to us, so she started going on about how she went out with a bear (the animal not the drink!) until he took a swipe at her and she dumped him. Her friend asked me for money and I told her I wasn't sure if I had any from her country ;) She apologised and said she was drunk, so I gave her a few coins...you know...just trying to share a bit of love to the emos. I talked to that other girl again and after sorta half-jokingly making some encouraging comments regarding her 'relationship' with the bear, she gave me a hug! So I got a hug from a drunk racist emo that night!

As for the speech by the American guy...I think it was good....it was actually the following Sunday when he came to our church to speak which I found was pretty good because I actually listened! We also had a Moon Festival banquet at church that day as well which was cool. I spent most of the time talking to this girl at church Jennifer, possibly one of a couple others who are my age at church! That was till Gabrielle my youth group leader came over with this new girl to the church Eva, who was learning English at AUT, so she got me to try speak Cantonese to her while she'd speak English to me. I don't think that worked too well on my part!

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We finally had the Dessert Club's Amazing Race event on the Saturday before that banquet at church. I turned up slightly late because I had to teach in the morning. When I got there though I was thrown straight into it where I had to help out at the IS2 challenge - where teams had to make a snow ice (IS2 is this snow ice shop) and then eat it in under two minutes. Sadly two minutes was a bit too long to give them!

As soon as all the teams had completed that challenge I went over to the final checkpoint at one of the club's sponsors' shops where teams had 30s to memorise the prices before we tested them. One mistake would give them a five minute penalty! After that the race was on to the uni quad where the finish line was! I got there and had to go print off the winning teams' certificates and came across my accordion rival (oh and don't get me wrong a good friend too!) Jessica! It was probably the first time I had seen her since the accordion competitions in June, and it turns out she has changed accordion teachers! And we thought she had quit! Damn!! (I'm joking I'm joking! She would be a great loss to the accordion-playing society!).

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I had two tests in one day last Tuesday, which was horrible. What made it worse was I had a three hour pharmacy lab before my first chemistry test! I was quite off the pace in my pharmacy lab, measuring incorrect amounts and wrong ingredients!! Fortunately we weren't being marked!

The chemistry test was pretty bad! I completely forgot my phone was in my pocket with the sound turned ON, when right at the beginning of the test it went off! Fortunately I don't think they noticed or worked out where that sound came from, and so I just hoped throughout my test that no one would text me again and...well...no one did...

The medsci test later that night was a little better but we'll see...I forgot my bag in the room and didn't realise till I got home! The test was really weird as usually they collect your test paper as soon as the test finishes, but this time the invigilators went to the door and collected the papers as we left the lecture theatre which meant we could change our answers while getting our bags if they didn't catch us! I noticed that one of my answers was wrong, and while I was tempted to change it, I was a little chicken to, so I at least know now that I've at least got one wrong!

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The emmys are making me tired so maybe I'll save what I did in the last few days for tomorrow...Ahh yes procrastination time, just like with my two assignments!

And a Date Has been Set!

Yes yes 8th November has been announced as the date of the election, but for me the big date is the 10th November - the date of my surgery! I went in for my orthodontist appointment at the hospital yesterday and found out that it's less than two months till my surgery! I've been on the waiting list since I was about 9 or 10 years old and finally it's going to happen!

There is a bit of a problem though, which is that my last exam is on the 13th. I'm not too sure what I'm going to do about it and whether I'll be out of hospital or in the right state to sit that exam! I'll have to sort that out with the exams office, hopefully I won't forfeit the exam or anything but if it turns out I can't sit the exam earlier, and they have to look at my coursework to determine my overall grade then I'll have to make sure I do well in the midterm coming up!

I originally planned on doing a whole lot of intensive study this week but I've had all these going on! On Wednesday I had to go in to the city to help out a few of the other Dessert Club committee members with sorting out some gift packs for teams who compete in our upcoming Amazing Race competition tomorrow. We then had to go round to sponsors to talk to them and ask if they wanted to get involved. Most of their managers weren't in so I had to leave my contact details for them to get back to me, but only one sponsor rang back! I tried ringing a couple of sponsors back today, but one of them fobbed me off to head office which meant I had to ring someone else and then email someone else to finally get confirmation of their participation! The other sponsor I contacted told me I'd have to ring back tomorrow and then when I told them it'd be a bit late they hung up on me abruptly! I've been getting a lot of people hanging up on me abruptly lately!

Tragic News

I just got a text first from my friend Hannah then from my church youth group leader Gabrielle that our church minister has been in hospital since Sunday night due to bleeding in the brain and is to undergo brain surgery tomorrow morning! That came as quite a shock to all of us as he seemed perfectly fine at church on Sunday morning.

It's really hit us hard because we know the minister and his family well and his son is also in our youth group so hopefully hopefully hopefully his surgery goes well tomorrow morning and he is able to recover well.

Biff and Bo

Turning activities into competitions is sometimes not such a good idea when little kids are involved! On Saturday music classes the kids were pushing me for a game, and so I came up with music bingo! It went well with one of my first year classes, the one with the Korean students who are really good! When it came to the next class where there's a bit of tension between one of the boys and one of the girls, it wasn't so good. The girl won (although I do admit I screwed the game up slightly!) and then she started skiting about it. The boy looked pretty sad and was almost in tears, so I quickly tried to come up with another game to get their minds off that last one and to hopefully even things up...that's if the boy won, which he did! I told them the tie-breaker would be next week, but I'm sure they'll forget about it by then! There was certainly a bit of argy-bargy between them which made me uncomfortable as I had to try split them up!

Yesterday at church we had a special Father's Day service, which meant no Sunday School! Whether you think I'm happy or sad, I'll leave that up to you. We came late so we had to sit and watch from the foyer, which wasn't such a bad thing. I was sitting with some of the guys from youth group which also wasn't such a bad thing. The two other churches which are related to ours (sorta like sister/brother churches) from the city and Howick were combined with ours as well, so it was pretty full.

My pharmacy friend Hannah sang together with her youth group and she announced her group's pieces! I was telling my mum I knew that girl!! haha She was telling me that she thought the girl who was leading the singing at the beginning of the service studied pharmacy too and was the older sister of some guy who was born on exactly the same day as me (right next to my mum at hospital I think). It turns out she was right about the girl studying pharmacy! She's also one of the Pharmacy Students Association execs, possibly the one I injured during a soccer game at pharmacy camp! I'm not sure if the brother part is right yet though.

Usually they have baptism services when the other churches come along. Yesterday they needed emergency hot water since the water in the 'bath tub' (what I like to call it!) on stage was frfrfrfreezing!

After the service they served....pies for lunch!! Yay!! It's been a long time since they last served pies! I had a good talk with this girl in my Sunday School Jennifer's mum, who's also one of our Sunday School tutors. She told me about how she was a little worried for me as she thought it always seemed as though I was studying something I wasn't really enjoying. It's nice to know someone out there cares about you once in a while!

And finally, my studying went into fifth gear today when I went to the public library to study. That lasted for several hours...till all the high school students came along and made heaps of noise with their talking and their music playing! That's when I decided I had done enough study and decided to call it a day!

A Week Into Holidays

One week in, I'm still laptopless, addicted to daytime telly and really need to do more study!

I've been a little side-tracked from study by searching for a laptop after I sold my laptop to my brother. I think I've found a good one (OK not great but adequete for the prie. It doesn't have firewire though which is a shame but I suppose I could buy a card. Funny story, I went to Harvey Norman yesterday to ask a few questions, but the salesman had no idea what Firewire was! I then tried asking what about capturing videos, and he started going on about plugging the wire into a USB port or putting the card into the card slot...)

This sounds really weird but for a period I just couldn't bear to go on any laptop website as it would make me feel sick! But I think that was probably because one time while I was looking at laptops and eating at the same time, I didn't feel so well and maybe the two somehow got linked in my brain...Oh Calum what nonsense!

Anyway right now I'm trying to type this blog on Aonghas's EEE PC and by-golly is it hard typing with this teeny-weeny keyboard! He bought the first version of the EEE PC which has a seven inch screen (I think). He bought it for about $600 though and now it's only worth $300!

My mum has been thinking about getting a cellphone for my dad for Father's Day, but passing Hamish's one down to him and getting a slightly flashier one for Hamish. That's when I started thinking about possibly selling my phone to him...hehehe

Anyway I caught up with my neighbour Zippo the other day while delivering newspapers and she said she'd invite me over later that night. She baked muffins that night and screwed them up so I never got invited over.

I also went into uni on Wednesday for a Dessert Club meeting, which I thought was on. It turns out there wasn't any, but I still managed to somehow catch up with two of my pharmacy friends! I'm on the Dessert Club committee, which is I suppose a good place to start making my way up this world. It would be nice being involved in some more meaningful organisation but hey at least I'm helping people get their fix of sweets and dessert (and some would say diabetes)!

On Friday for youth group we went all the way to this Chinese church in Pakuranga to listen to this American guy speak about having a big ambition or something like that. I think it has something to do with some Go 4 Mission Conference thing involving several Chinese churches around the place. Well this Pakuranga church was quite flash! It was smaller than ours but they had nice chairs in their hall, two projection screens on either side of the hall, a band and a lift! This girl Jennifer in my Sunday School was there surprisingly. She goes to that church for youth group every week! What a long way to go! That church is mainly Cantonese based as opposed to ours which has more Mandarin speakers. Their youth groups are quite large though! That would be the best place for me to practise my Cantonese!

Random Phone Call

I just got a random phone call from someone. I originally thought it was my neighbour but I'm starting to have doubts now. It went something like this...

C: Hello?
C: Heellooo....?
R: Hey. Who's this?
C: Calum?
R: How old are you?
C: 19. Is this Zippo?
R: Po?? Are you Asian?
C: I'm half.
R: Where do you live?
C: Henderson, what about you?
R: Glen Eden.
C: What school do you go to?
R: Avondale, do you go to Henderson?
C: Nah I used to go to Rutherford.
R: Oh that's a gay school.
C: Really?
R: Yeah
C: Do you know anyone from there?
R: Yeah theres xxxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx.
C: Ooooh OK don't think I know any of them.
R: Yeah. I just dialled a random number.
C: Well it's been nice meeting ya!
R: Yep....bye