It's a Start

So what has Calum been doing during the holidays? Absolutely nothing...OK that's not absolutely true but most of the time has been spent doing nothing but wasting time watching TV or on the internet mucking around on Facebook (surprise surprise). In fact I just recently discovered games on Facebook which I'm sure to waste a bit of time on in the coming weeks!

On Friday though I went into the city for the Dessert Club AGM which didn't turn out to be much of an AGM in the end since half the committee members were late and the original location of our meeting was closed which meant we had to have it in Albert Park! A few speeches were read before we all decided we'd go for lunch.

We had lunch at this place (the name eludes me). We ordered things like cold oysters, a mussel pot and a metre long sausage! I'm usually hesitant when it comes to eating things like oysters and mussels because my dad has instilled this fear in me, but this time I thought to myself what-the-hey I might as well try! I had a few of each, but it was only towards the end when I heard one of the committee members mention that you're not supposed to eat mussels whose shells haven't opened fully! I instantly spat the remains of my mussel out and onto my tissue. For the rest of that night and the next morning I kept on the look-out for any signs of possible sickness but fortunately it's now Monday and I still haven't thrown up!

Yesterday after church Aonghas dropped me off in the city and I met up with my friend Eliza who had invited me to attend the Auckland Symphony Orchestra concert with her as she had a spare ticket, so we caught a bus over to the shore and her dad gave us a ride to the Bruce Mason Centre where the concert was held. We met up wth her mum and her siblings and the concert began! As usual the concert was great and I especially enjoyed the movie music at the end which featured music from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly! One of Eliza's friends who's really really good at the oboe and is only 16 years old performed this piece which is one of my favourites by Amici Forever called Nella Fantasia (of course instead of singing it was oboe playing!). Thanks Eliza for having me come along!

I have been doing a few other things these holidays and have started putting together a TO DO list as well. I've got to work on some Christmas music for the church's Christmas concert on Christmas Eve. I was asked if we could sort out something for ten minutes, and so I asked if we could maybe perform an accordion trio and then maybe form a string quartet/quintet along with some others from our youth group. This time since we've got a cello we'd be able to restrict it to strings rather than include random instruments like the recorder!!

Finding music is quite a task. I can only find string quartet arrangements of the more traditional carols when they want something more jazzy/contemporary frmo us! I'll probably have to end up arranging something.

Aonghas also has to put together a Leavers' DVD for his year at school similar to how we did one last year for the year 13's at Rutherford College. Aonghas has been bogged down with NCEA exams though and still has another four in the next two weeks! Therefore the task of doing a lot of the videos has once again been passed on to me. I really should get started on that...

Another thing on the TO DO list is to find a job. My mum has been telling me to try find a pharmacy-related job which was met by a less-than-enthusiastic response from me, which I will probably elaborate on in my next post!