Sunday 19 April 2009

House Visits

In the past week we've gone over to other people's houses, which is pretty cool because it means we can enjoy being in a clean house and forget about the dump back home!

On Sunday afternoon after the Easter Sunday service at church we went over to Winston, Nadine and Leonie's (the Tans) house with the Chin sisters, who go to our youth group. Our mum is friends with the Tans' mum, and the brother and sisters are in our Sunday school class, so we kinda know each other well. Their house is pretty cool! While the parents checked out the garden and gossiped, us young people played on the Playstation for a few hours. They only had a couple of games so we played the same game but at least we were entertained!

After the Chin sisters left, we stayed behind and had dinner with the Tans. They ordered pizza. After the pizza, we were already full, but they weren't finished with us! Leonie made us a bowl of noodles, and after that she gave us ice-cream! She mistakenly heard that I wanted a banana split, so she made another bowl of ice-cream and by then I was completely full!! I had to slouch in their couch while we watched Memoirs of a Geisha! We're extremely grateful for their hospitality though. We didn't get home till 11 at night, and at least I didn't realise my dad had been home all day, and so he didn't get any dinner!!

Because my mum had the car though, I wasn't able to make it to my pharmacy friend Leo's 21st birthday party which I was a little gutted about. It's not often I get invited to things! From the sound of things it was extremely funny.

On Thursday us Andersons went over to the Sees' house (another family friend) for lunch. Once again, there was heaps of food to make me full (I love going to people's houses, they always seem to fill you up! Or maybe I just don't eat enough at home....) It was cool catching up with the See girls since I haven't talked to them in a while.

After two big food binges in one week, you'd expect me to have gained some weight, but I'm still weighing the same as I was after surgery!

Easter Stumble

With Easter being a big thing on the Christian calendar, our church had a Good Friday service in the morning. It was a smaller service which involved a lot more singing than usual, a Communion, time to reflect and a sermon. Oh, the choir performed as well and I had to accompany them on cello. It's just as well people probably couldn't hear me, since I'm usually out of tune on the cello!

That was sorta the case on Sunday morning at the combined church service when the city and Howick churches had their service together with ours. The church is usually full whenever we have a combined service, and I also get to see Hannah, my pharmacy friend who attends the city church! She was warning me that she would be filming me in retaliation I think for uploading a video of her youth group singing at a previous combined service!

Aonghas and I were accompanying the choir for one song which followed straight after another song the choir were singing (but accompanied by uber-talented violinist Jenny). We originally stood up together with them as they were about to go to the front of the hall, but Jenny told us to sit down, so we did. Aonghas then told me that he thought we should at least stand at the side since we were to play straight after, so we got up and quietly walked up along the aisle...that was until I tripped over the wire and knocked the projector, turning it off! I felt bad, but fortunately the projector wasn't damaged or anything! What made me feel better was that someone else tripped over the wire not too long after, so it wasn't just me! They put a chair over the wire as a warning after that.

The performances didn't go too badly. After the service, I met up with Lisa, this girl in my youth group, who asked me if it was Aonghas who was playing trumpet accompanying the choir, to which I said it was him. I then asked her if she heard me play. Her response:

"You played???"

Tuesday 14 April 2009

DIY Timber Transport

What do you do when you purchase a 6 metre long plank of wood from Mitre 10, but don't want to have to pay $50 to have it delivered to your house, and you can't fit it in your car? Well you walk home with it of course! That's what we did last Wednesday when we went there to buy a plank of wood for our second basketball hoop (after the first one got blown over!).

Before we got there we had to deliver our newspapers and while I was walking down the road, I heard all these police car sirens and thought to myself that something big must be going on! When we got to Mitre 10, just as we parked in the carpark we heard on the radio that a car chase had taken place down the road we had just been travelling, with one guy in the car carrying a rifle! At that very moment about three police cars shot down the road, and not too soon after an ambulance went by! We soon found out that three people from that car were arrested, so that's all good!

Anyway we purchased our 6m plank of wood. The guy had to take it off the high shelf with a forklift, with a bit of difficulty. My dad jokingly asked him if he could get a straight one, so the guy was being very careful to pick a straight plank of wood with his forklift. Another Mitre 10 guy came over to help and asked him what he was doing, to which he replied

"He wants a straight one!"

After we paid for the plank, we were about to pick it up and go when the guy came over and asked how we planned to transport it. My dad told him that we were going to walk home with it, and he started laughing!

With Hamish at the front, Aonghas at the back, and me across the road filming with Aonghas' phone, we were off! It looked really weird, and it was funny especially when we crossed a bus stop. A little boy cried

"What the hell??! What's that for?"

I jokingly replied

"We're building a house"

I think he believed me! We got quite a few heads turning as well! We had to take pleny of breaks along the way home as it was quite tiring. We all took turns carrying the plank, and our dad, who was following with the car would often park it ahead of us and come back to help carry it.

One of the most embarrassing moments was when we were crossing at an intersection with this plank of wood and there was a group of Rutherford students, including Ben, this guy in our youth group!

What was even worse was when my dad, Hamish and Aonghas were crossing the road with the plank of wood and had to stop in the middle to wait for traffic. A police car was driving by and as soon as they saw them their lights started flashing and they stopped in the middle of the road, causing someone to honk their horn and cars to overtake the police car! I was a little down the road but managed to catch it on film! The conversation between the police and my dad and brothers went something like this:

"Where'd you guys get that from?"

"Mitre 10"

"Where are you taking it to?

"XXX Road."

"And you're going to walk it all the way there?"

"Yeah...$50 otherwise! Would you like to see the receipt?"

"Nah nah it's OK I believe you"

We didn't come across any more police after that fortunately, and after a couple of hours we finally got the plank of wood home!

Aonghas and my dad have been working on getting the basketball hoop up and finally put it up earlier today. It's been probably about a year since we last had a basketball hoop. That one was so low we could just about do slam dunks on it, so we've made sure this one is closer to the proper height.

What's funny is that a few days ago Aonghas had to drop off a video at Rutherford College and he had a quick conversation with the principal, who said he saw the Andersons do the plank walk! I can't imagine how many people would've seen us, especially since it was during peak hour traffic!

Sunday 12 April 2009

Getting Things Done...Eventually...

I just did this quiz on Facebook on what I'm like based on my birthday. Admittedly the questions are not that great. Besides the first two questions (one asks which month your birthday is in and the other is which day your birthday is on) the rest of the questions are irrelevent. Nonetheless, this is what I got as a result:

Calum took the
What does your birthday say about you? quiz and the result is January:
"Stubborn and hard-hearted. Ambitious and serious. Loves to teach and be taught. Always looking at people's flaws and weaknesses. Likes to criticize. Hardworking and productive. Smart, neat and organized. Sensitive and has deep thoughts. Knows how to make others happy. Quiet unless excited or tensed. Rather reserved. Highly attentive. Resistant to illnesses but prone to colds. Romantic but has difficulties expressing love. Loves children. Loyal. Has great social abilities yet easily jealous. Very Stubborn and money cautious."

Some of those things do actually sound like me! I won't name which ones, I'll let you tell me what you think!

These Facebook quizzes are a great way to waste time! Besides constantly trying to study throughout these holidays for the three tests I have in the first three days back (two on the first day back at uni!), I've had to type up this MEDSCI lab summary. OK it's only 600 words long, but believe me it's hard! For the first lab report, I was struggling to make 600 words. I ended up losing 1.5 marks for going slightly over 600 words, and when I mean slightly, I mean <25 words over! This time I typed 800 words and so I was having to cut out 200 words!

This second lab summary was actually due on Wednesday, but the due date was pushed back till later today (Sunday). Thank goodness, because I only started earlier today! I think I've been procrastinating too much, doing those silly Facebook quizzes and studying amongst other things!

What I plan to do though is take enough Facebook quizzes to build a 'portrait' of myself, or what Facebook thinks I'm like! We'll see if it matches me in real life! But first priority is study of course...and getting this lab summary done!

Saturday 11 April 2009

Clean-up Confuffle

Is confuffle even a word? Anyway last Sunday at church we had a big clean-up after lunch. I admit...this was the first church clean-up I took part in, as our family usually leaves before the clean-up starts (I know I know, very baaad!). Now that we're getting more involved with church we ended up staying, also because they had asked our youth group to help out.

Guess what part of the church we were assigned? The men's bathroom! That was going to be fun! I was a bit of a noob since I don't really clean the bathroom much at home, but with Andrew's (one of the guys in the youth group) guidance I was able to at least clean one shower!

When we thought we were done, a couple of the guys and I were asked to help carry branches into this huge rubbish bin outside in the carpark. That task felt like it was never going to end! I should've worn gloves, as I ended up with cuts all over my hands, which wasn't good especially since I had to run back inside for music rehearsal with the choir (I wasn't singing, just playing cello!).

It's the video I made of our youth group cleaning the men's bathroom that caused a bit of a stir on Facebook. I hadn't realised that people in our youth group have had to clean the toilets all the time in the past, and so they were commenting on the video, complaining about having to do it! I sorta felt a little bad for uploading the video and causing the argument between the younger people and the older people, but oh well! It's probably the lengthiest discussion from people in our youth group we've got on Facebook!

She Won't be Doing That Again!

Last Saturday my mum was taking us to music lessons early in the morning, speeding along the road as she usually does. We were coming down the road, when I was sure a car parked on the side of the road looked a little dodgey, and before we knew it as soon as we passed it red and blue lights started flashing and my mum immediately pulled over. She got her first ever speeding ticket! Fortunately the fine wasn't too big.

The exchange between her and the police officer was a little awkward though. The officer was explaining to her to pay off her fine at any Westpac Bank. She then asked him

"So how do I pay the fine?"

and us three said to her

"WESTPAC!"

The officer told her to ask her sons!

She's decided to keep this a secret from my dad, as he'd probably freak out. Fair enough...she still doesn't know about the time I got pulled over by the cops when I was out practising driving with my dad!

Monday 6 April 2009

Eggs to End It

Finally our uni break has come! I ended it by spending most of the last day of uni helping out the Dessert Club with their Easter Egg Giveaway. We were giving away free Easter eggs to Dessert Club members. They were only those small ones though.

We were supposed to pick up our APSA (Auckland Pharmacy Students' Association) packs from Grafton that day, but because I was already at the city campus I couldn't be bothered walking all the way to Grafton and back. I really should've since I spent $25 on joining for the year! I asked a few friends what they got in their pack, and I was told that the guys got two condoms, some body wash and a cheaper and nastier membership card than last year, while the girls got pretty much the same but only one condom. I was talking to my friend who I was sitting next to in my chemistry lecture about how I didn't bother picking up my pack, and she told me I should've since I had paid all that money. She thought those condoms might come in handy one day. I told her though that unless I was going to hold a party and was short on decorations, chances are that those condoms wouldn't be of any use to me!

After catching the bus into the city with Phoebe, I met up with the rest of the Dessert Club committee members who were helping out and we set up stall out in the Quad. Initially it was quite slow...actually, the whole day was pretty slow! It must've been due to it being Friday and the last day of uni!
Laura, our Events Manager and I, went around the Information Commons with our basket of eggs and our bunny ears looking for club members. Depressingly, we were only able to find about five members, a few ex-members, and one girl who saw me and asked

"Aonghas Anderson?"

I told her I was his brother and discovered she was an ex-Rutherford College student! Yay!!
I finished the day off with a chemistry lab. How much better could it get? I seemed to do everything wrong in that lab, like transferring my crystals to the wrong-sized flask, then transferring them again to the right-sized flask before realising it really didn't matter and transferring them twice only resulted in me losing more crystals :S I also knocked over one of my containers containing one of my products, and had to try brush it back into my container off the table! I was just glad to get out of that lab as soon as possible! Although I seem to have misplaced my lab manual...

So that ends another week of uni, which included lab mice injections again (I still couldn't master the art of holding onto a mouse tight enough!), boring workshops, a free meal and wagging lectures...

Actually I have a good reason for wagging three lectures in one day - I went to Middlemore Hospital for a check-up,and I've been told I can now eat soft food! Woohooo! I'm on my way to eating normally! On Thursday night Scholastica, this girl I met during pharmacy interviews last year (she made it in too) asked me for help with her assignment. After, we went down the road to a nearby Chinese place to have dinner and just talked for a little while. That was cool (both the talking and the being able to eat thing!)

Sadly for my friend Lina (or maybe it's a good thing?) she just went in for her surgery last Monday and has been in a little bit of pain. Her surgery only involved the top jaw being operated on (I think) but I'm sure it'd be just as painful! Luckily she's got two weeks to recover before uni starts up again.

I guess the same could be said for all of us - we've all got two weeks to recover from the last five before we have to endure the next seven weeks of semester one!

Wednesday 1 April 2009

A Pot Luck Dinner

Friday night was our youth group's annual Family Pot Luck Dinner where we'd bring along our families, a plate of food, eat and play games!
 
Our youth group had been divided into three groups and were assigned the task of coming up with a 15 minute game both parents and kids/teens could play. I missed the bus to uni that day and so I didn't bother going in at all since it was only one lecture. I then set about trying to find a game our group could run! After making several suggestions to the others in my group, I ended up coming back to one game Lisa, this girl in our youth group told me about - Chinese Whispers, except rather than whispering, it was drawing on people's backs!

We started the night off with shared dinner. Everyone showed up which was cool. There were even a few new faces, they all happened to be girls! haha Because I was still eating soft food I couldn't eat any of the pizza or the other food, I ended up just eating rice and noodles.

After dinner we had a bit of singing where Jenny and Jireh each played the violin for the songs we sang.

Then it was time for games! Our group was up first. We ran our game, and it started off slightly slowly since some of the parents couldn't understand the rules being given out in English, and some of the little kids didn't know what to do. It was quite funny when we got people drawing on the whiteboard what they thought was drawn on their back - we got them to draw a tree, a house and the finale - Pastor Chan! A few were quite good, while team with Pastor Chan in it cheated a little by trying to spell the words! It may have been coincidental but it was funny because Pastor Chan had to draw himself on the whiteboard...unknowingly. When we revealed what they had been drawing, he looked shocked!

The next game was a relay involving transferring marbles from one bowl to another using chopsticks. I never realised just how difficult it was! Using a bit of innovation and trying to get around the rules, I tried to put the marble in my mouth and transfer it to the other bowl that way, since they never said I couldn't use my mouth! Unfortunately they didn't count that marble...

The final game was a bit of a surprise - dodgeball! It was parents vs kids/teens, but uni students were asked to join the parents. That was a bit of a mistake, because we wasted the kids! One of the parents managed to get one of the small kids who was holding a ball to come right up to the middle line and give the ball to them. As soon as they did, they chucked the ball at the kid and got him out! That was a bit sad but funny!! I managed to last for a while, and tried targeting a few...certain people...I ended up getting hit somehow though! We won convincingly in the end though so it was all good!