An EGGScellent Concert!

On Friday night my youth group and I attended the Epsom Girls Grammar School's music concert to support two of our group members Jenny and Cleo. Jenny is the concert master of her school's symphonia orchestra while Cleo plays the big bass drum in the orchestra. Originally Aonghas, Hamish and I would be joining our youth group to watch, but our mum decided to come at the last minute as she was concerned about Aonghas's ability to drive safely in wet conditions at night!

We initially had problems finding carparking and got stuck in a big jam in the school's driveway. We managed to turn the car around and head back out towards the exit of the driveway, with people in cars heading in the opposite direction asking us if all the carparks had been taken up. Poor people!

There was only about 10 minutes till the start of the show and we were still looking for a carpark, so we all jumped out while Aonghas and my mum went to find one. I went to try buy a ticket for my mum (tickets for our youth group had been pre-purchased) but it was all sold out! This other guy we had taken with us hadn't bought a ticket either! Fortunately not too long after everyone had entered the theatre there were either some spare seats or they had added extra seats. Big phew!

I managed to get a seat right at the the top, right at the back of the theatre. This was a good position as there was a railing and I'd be able to lean on it as I filmed the show! I was next to a girl from the school who was filming with the school's camera. She saw me and asked

"Hey you're from Jenny's fellowship aye?"

I told her I was and asked her how she knew. She said,

"Oh I met your brother at Polyfest earlier this year."

I had to tell her that it was me she met! Wow did she think I looked older?

The show started off with a couple of jazz and stage bands performing, one from the school and one from another school, Sancta Maria College, who were guest artists. There were some quite catchy tunes, and I was amazed at just how many brass musicians a girls' school has!

The Epsom Symphonia, the group our youth group had come to see finally performed just before the break. They performed two pieces, 'Dance of the Clowns' by Mendelssohn, and 'Danzon No. 2' by Marquez.

Jenny, as the concert master, came on stage last and tuned the orchestra like a true pro. What was funny was that straight after Peter Thomas was announced as the conductor, Jenny walked on stage! I'll probably call her Peter from now on!

The orchestra was pretty huge, especially when you compare it to what we've been used to at Rangeview, which is an orchestra of 10-13 people!

Cleo was all the way in the back corner with the percussionists. I could just see her!

The orchestra's performances were pretty good, and Jenny even had her own little solo in the middle of 'Danzon', their second piece! Go Jenny!! I heard some of our youth group attempted a Mexican wave but failed. If only I was with them so I could join in!

During the break I met up with this new girl in our youth group who only recently came to New Zealand and is learning English. I'm going to get her to help me with my Chinese and I'll try help her with her English!

The most of the second half of the show was made up of performances by concert bands from both schools, ending with a combined concert band performing music from the 'Chronicles of Narnia' movie.

To end the night in true Oddfellows fashion, we hijacked the foyer to take a group photo!

It's always really cool going to support someone you know, and it sorta makes you proud seeing them on stage doing so well, and being able to say you know them too! ;)

Stress Replaced with Boredom

It's now three days into the holdiays for me! No more studying or thinking about pharmacy for another three weeks! Well that's the ideal scenario, but it's likely that I'll end up doing some before next semester, especially when resutls come out! :S

After my first MEDSCI exam a couple Saturdays ago, I had my next chemistry exam on the following Tuesday, so I spent all of the days in between studying for that. Chemistry was....so-so? I really don't know! My pharmaceutics exam was then the following Thursday, which left me with a day and a bit to study.

On the night of the Tuesday my second exam was held, my old intermediate school were holding a music evening. The music teacher at the school still keeps in touch with us, and emailed us to invite us to come watch. In past years I've always been meaning to attend but exams have usually gotten in the way. This time because it's been so long since I last talked to the music teacher I decided to come watch the visit.

The theme of the music evening was animals, and so there were songs like 'What's the Time Mr Wolf'...you get the idea! When the show started with all of us being asked to stand as we sing the national anthem, I thought how Rangeview Intermediate hasn't changed one bit in eight year since I last attended! As the night went on though I could see that it's definitely changed!

For a start a big surprise was the performance of the school's Korean drum group. It may have just been drumming, but it was pretty catchy drumming! The school has also been trying to keep with the times and had a few students playing electric guitar/bass to accompany the choir. The orchestra was pretty good for an intermediate school orchestra, and was probably bigger than it was when I was there.

The recorder ensemble was pretty cool. I listened to it, wishing my students could play that well! Then again they are half their age...

Another big surprise was one young Korean boy, who played a violin solo which was very impressive. He probably got the biggest applause of the night!

It's quite different watching an intermediate school concert though compared to, say, a secondary school concert as you have to constantly remind yourself just how young these kids are! When you're 20 and you have these 11 and 12 year olds you certainly feel much older! You could tell quite a few of the boys' voices hadn't broken yet!

I went to see Ms Rai, the music teacher afterwards, and she was still happy to see us again. She's still got photos of past orchestras as well as me and the newspaper article I featured in on the wall beside the front door of her classroom! She kept going on about Aonghas and me whenever anyone came in to the room!

We waited around with Ms Rai at the office as she had to keep an eye on a couple of students till their parents picked them up. She got quiet annoyed with them!

I spent the next day trying to cram for pharmaceutics, but I started to get frustrated, not being able to absorb anything! I had to go all the way to the Tamaki campus for that exam the following day, and it was not too great! They had only changed the exam format this year, which meant we had to answer short and long answer questions instead of multiple-choice questions! Within the first five minutes of the exam I could hear people sighing!

My final couple of exams were for pharmacotherapy, which is probably the hardest paper in 3rd year pharmacy! It's a full year paper, so we won't fail the paper if we fail these exams, but it helps to pass!

I had my oral exam on Monday. After that random encounter with the girl on the bus in the morning, it gave me a little boost to try do as well as I could! Throughout the weekend prior to that day I was beginning to give up as I just couldn't remember anything and it wasn't sticking with me.

While my oral exam was scheduled for 2.15pm, I arrived in the morning and hung around in the computer room/Information Commons with some of the other pharmacy people waiting for others who had their oral exams earlier to come out and find out what disorders they got. It was a bit of a process of elimination! The room was filled with all these nervous, well-dressed people!

Eventually it was my time to go up. I was with a group of people who had their oral exams at the same as me. We were first put in a room together where we were given two cases, and twenty minutes to prepare for them. The two disease I was given were duodenal ulcer (yessss!!) and Crohn's disease (uuuggghhhh). All I could manage in 20 minutes were scribbles all over my paper!

For my first case I went into this room with this female examiner who will be our course co-ordinator next year as well as a pharmacy intern who had only recently graduated. This lady was scary! Apparently she made the girl before me cry! (She didn't upset her, I think the girl was just scared of her!) I got into a bit of a sticky situation with this case, as I screwed up the treatment and went blank. I tried saying I was having blanks and couldn't remember!

My second case was a lot better...I hope.... The guy in my second case had osteoarthritis which I know more about than the others, as well as peptic ulcer disease, which I was able to read up on. This time the intern asked me the questions. Because she went through the list, sometimes I had answered some of the questions before she had asked me. She would then asked me the questions I had already answered, which meant I ended up repeating myself. We finished ahead of time though, and I was about to leave before the examiners told me I had to wait till the whistle blew. I sat back down and an awkward silence followed...

Finally FINALLY my last exam was on Wednesday. This time it was the written exam for pharmacotherapy. After the oral exam most of us just felt like holidays had already started (or wanted them to anyway!). By now I had sorta given up, or was struggling with thoughts of giving up! I did do my best to study as much as I can though. The exam wasn't as bad as I thought, but then again I went into both the oral and written exam thinking I wouldn't be able to answer anything. Therefore anything else would definitely be better than expected!

I swear 85% or even more of what I wrote in my exam was rubbish! If I was to implement any of my patient care plans in real life I would've killed my patient by now! I don't hold high hopes for that exam, nor the oral exam, but I won't worry about it till I get the results back...

To end the semester, I jumped on the computers after exams only to be joined by Susannah, a pharmacy friend after, and Chi not too long after. We were just talking about random stuff when they discovered they were both in the same intermediate school class but hadn't realised till now! What a discovery!...And how sad is it that you don't remember people you attended intermediate school with!

To finish off the end of semester, I went and bought Wendy's, but had to catch the bus before I could eat the burger. The only thing...I caught the wrong bus, the one which happened to take over an hour to get to my area by travelling down too many side streets! I just wanted to get off as soon as possible so I could eat my burger!

The King is Dead

RIP MICHAEL JACKSON

I was hoping this wouldn't be his last unconfirmed death (remember all those other ones?), but it turns out this is the one that would be confirmed. What a sad day! First it was Farrah Fawcett (of Charlie's Angels fame) earlier today, and now Michael.

I have many memories of Michael Jackson and his music. In almost every school social, disco, and ball you could expect his music to be played! Moonwalk competitions would be held, impersonators would perform...complete Michael Jackson craziness.

I could also remember his tour to Auckland in the mid-90's (I didn't go but saw it on TV), especially his shiny gold spacesuit, and all those crazy screaming people!

Anyway, as someone somewhat distastefully commented on the NZ Herald Your Views section,

"Michael Jackson didn't just touch the kids, he touched the whole world with his music."

Rest in peace Michael Jackson, and may your music live on!

A Kiss from a Stranger

I had a weird experience on the bus on Monday morning on the way to uni. I got on and was about to sit down when this girl across the aisle said 'hi' and asked where I was going, and I told her I was going to uni. I swear I saw her holding a joint...on board a bus!

Anyway I thought that was it and decided to have a read through one of my pharmacy reference books as I was having my oral exam (osce) later that day. She then came over and sat next to me and asked me what I was reading. I happened to be reading up on asthma treatment, and so she started talking to me about her family and everything.

We were approaching New Lynn when she started telling me about how she just recently broke up with her boyfriend because he kept cheating on her. She then jokingly said I could be her boyfriend!

As the bus pulled into the New Lynn bus terminal, she got my number (I don't think she has a phone though?) and asked me if I wanted a kiss. This caught me by surprise and I was left going

"uhhhhhhh...."

trying to figure out what I was supposed to say or do next! That's when she kissed me on the cheek before getting off the bus! She just happened to put on some lipstick before doing that, so I made sure it was all gone before I got to uni!

Well that was a bit weird and unexpected! It's not often you get kissed by a random girl on the bus...

Twittering Away!

Wow I just found out you can send and receive 'tweets' from Twitter for free on your mobile (thanks Jennifer)! That's pretty cool! Now I admit I didn't get what all this fuss and hype over Twitter was all about, and I sorta still don't, but when it's free, who cares!

So if you've got a Twitter account then follow me at http://www.twitter.com/euraznboy and I might return the favour!

Suppressing Those Feelings!

Sigggghh.....BIG sigh......

I just had my first exam this morning, it was MEDSCI303, or in other words Pharmacology. I've had a week of study leave to prepare for it as well as all the other exams coming up, so I've been trying to balance my time (which I'm not good at). Originally I had planned on studying hard out at the library or somewhere where I could concentrate and hopefully not fall asleep, but the bad weather has left me stuck at home (we've had the fireplace going too!), so I've had to contend with studying with all those distractions like the TV and family around me.

I've been a little worried about MEDSCI as sometimes the questions can be a little tricky, especially the calculations. During our ten minutes reading time prior to the exam though, I looked through the paper and thought...this is do-able!!!

I managed to write a bit for most of the questions, except for two questions that were worth 20 marks each though, which I'm a little worried about. The last question in the exam also caused me a bit of worry as well, as I was using this equation that featured pKa - pH, and I started to question myself, wondering... is it supposed to be pKa - pH or pH - pKa? I was starting to get a little tense but decided to go with pKa - pH, my gut instinct. As soon as the exam was over I checked and it was right! Phew! While I feel good about being able to answer most questions...I've got to remind myself about those two 20 mark questions. I hope I've done enough to pass though!

After my exam today though I caught up with a couple of my second year pharmacy friends. I ended up having a bit of a moan (to use the nicest word I can think of!) session with Scholastica about how much we were fed up with pharmacy, and I think it has kinda let all those negative feelings I've had towards pharmacy that I've been supressing all come flooding out again! I've been spending the night trying to study as well as fight off all those questions I have about why I'm even studying pharmacy in the first place!

To be honest in the past several weeks I haven't been finding pharmacy too bad, and some of the stuff I've learnt I've actually found interesting. I guess it's just a case of enjoying it when you're coping, and hating it when you're not, and maybe it's just the pressure of exams that is doing me in! I'm sure I'll get over this. Remember Calum you're doing it for the graduation teddy bear!

On a completely unrelated but more brighter note, yay for my friend Jenny from youth group who made it to the semifinals of the NZ Chamber Music Contest Auckland District Semifinals with her chamber group tomorrow afternoon! Let's all wish her the best!

Cramming It All In

First semester is all over for 2009, with the only thing remaining being....exams NOOOO!!!! I've almost reached that 'don't care' stage, where you just don't care how well you do in exams, so I sorta want exams to come sooner or later before that does happen! I've got a couple days before my first exam on Saturday morning so I've been doing my best to study as much as I can before the floodgates open and my exams all come a day or two after another. I've gotten so sick of pharmacy though so I thought I'd just take a break and update this.

The last two weeks of uni were quite hectic. Not only did I have two lab reports to complete, a wedding and accordion comeptitions to attend, I also had two tests, a group presentation and a 21st birthday dinner to go to (and this time I actually managed to make it to it! More on that later...)
Let's start off with the Super City Hikoi. In the second-to-last week of the semester, the Maori and a whole lot of other people who weren't happy with the way the government is going to amalgamate all of Auckland's city councils into one, staged a protest or 'hikoi' from all four corners of Auckland and by midday they were marching up Queen St to outside the Town Hall. Now I really should have been studying, but I couldn't resist and went for a little stroll along Queen St to check out the happenings. What I thought would be a protest looked more like a party! There was music, shouting, and everything! Everyone seemed to be behaving themselves though so no complaints from me.

In one of our classes that same week we were told that the format for one of our exams had changed - byebye multiple choice questions, hello short answer and long answer questions! I can say I was absolutely gobsmacked! As if I couldn't dislike pharmacy any more! I've gotten over it now and have accepted it!

I had a Medsci lab test a couple days later, which was a test on everything we've learnt in the labs this semester. I vowed not to have a repeat of my calculator failing on me, so I found another calculator that actually worked, and I stayed back at uni late the night before to do last minute study.

I sat the test though and after when I was in the Information Commons, I overheard others talking about what they wrote as answers and realised just how stupid my answers were!

With the accordion competitions and the wedding approaching the following weekend and everything else, I was running out of time. I was also invited to James' (this really cool guy - I owe him so much, without him I'd probably be failing pharmacy! haha) 21st birthday dinner at this Newmarket restaurant though. I was tossing up between whether I should go or not, as I had so much to do. Our family went out for dinner that night as well which cut down the time I had even further!

The day before though, I was walking back to the city from Grafton when this girl at the traffic lights asked me if I knew James. I must've had a mind-block that day as I was thinking to myself James...James...church? High school? Then it clicked!

"Kan!!!!" (That's his surname)

"Oh so is that what people call him these days??"

Woops...I didn't realise I spoke my mind...Anyway it turned out it was James' little sister who is doing 1st year pharmacy this year! I have no idea how she knew me! She asked me if I was going to the dinner as well, and I told her I would.

Regarding 21st birthdays - I've been invited to a few, but I've never been able to attend most of them because of where or when they've been held! (I'm so sorry to those who have invited me though, I really appreciate being invited though!) Fortunately James' was held on a Thursday night, which was good because I had a late lab that afternoon. I could go straight to the dinner afterwards.

Our last pharmaceutics lab was not too bad. We were learning all about tablets, like how to make them and test the quality of them. We even got to play with a tablet machine and make our own tablet! We were also using Paracetamol tablets and a tablet fight almost ensued!

After that lab I asked around to see if others had bought birthday presents for James, and most said they had, so I had to look in the limited shops around Grafton for something good to give James! I ended up finding this shop located within Auckland Hospital that sold a few novelty gifts. I ended up buying this capsule-shaped stressball, a bottle of pill-like lollies and some chocolate (notice the pharmacy theme?). I returned to Grafton to tag along to some others who were about to walk to the restaurant.

The restaurant was flash, and James had reserved almost half of the restaurant! I sat with the people I had walked with to the restaurant. To be honest, sometimes I still feel like an outsider amongst 3rd year pharmacy people because I don't belong to one group and sometimes hop from one group to another, so it can be a little awkward since I'm not extremely close to any particular person in pharmacy (although there are some I am closer to than others!). I was thinking I'd be sitting there not knowing what to say, but luckily one of my good friends from way back in my Health Science days, Kevin showed up! We had a good catch up.

He and a group of his other Malaysian friends decided to check out some of the neighbouring food joints, so I thought I'd tag along. We went and had a look at Foodtown and a few other places before returning, and discovering James had already started opening the presents! I think he had already opened mine by the time I got back. At least I got there in time to see him unwrap the Playboy Magazine he got given!

In the following Tuesday in the week after the accordion competitions and the wedding I had my pharmaceutics test, but thank goodness it was multiple choice! Now the only thing left to complete before the end of semester was my Medsci lab report! By now I just wanted to get started studying, but I had to get the report out of the way!

I had an orthodontist appointment on Thursday, and to my surprise I was told that I was almost ready to have my braces taken off! In fact I'll be getting them taken off in about a month's time! Wow it's almost been three years since I got my braces put on...I remember it being my high school's open evening and I was to give a speech! It doesn't feel that long! They also told me they'd give me some mouthwash which would be able to polish my teeth, which is cool because my teeth is getting a bit dirrrty. I was even considering getting my teeth whitened once I get my braces off! I'll talk more about this once it actually happens though.

Come Friday though, no more tests, no more lab reports, semester one over, and all there was left to do was STUDY!!

A Music Competition and a Wedding

Last weekend was a bit of a busy weekend, with the annual NZ Accordion Competitions and Benson and Danielle's (two people from our church) wedding taking place, almost at the same time! I was hoping to be able to make it to both, as I had to compete at the competitions as well as perform with some little girls at the wedding. The only problem was that my competition class was to start at 1.30pm on that Saturday, with me being drawn third to play, and the wedding was to start at 2.30pm! I was hoping to be able to be shifted to first so I could get away as soon as possible to the wedding.

I wasn't looking forward to the competitions as I hadn't really done much practice leading up to it due to uni and everything, and was sure I was going to screw up and embarrass myself in front of everyone. This year really should've been the pinnacle of my 'accordion playing life' as my original plan was to compete at these competitions with the aim to later compete at the World Championships being held in Auckland later this year. Because I haven't been able to practise as much lately though with uni getting so intense, my goal of competing in the world championships has well and truly evaporated. I suppose once I graduate if I'm motivated enough, still young and have money I could try compete in it somewhere overseas...

What made things worse for my championship preparation was the night before after youth group I was playing soccer with the guys, and as goalie I was trying to stop the ball flying in, and as I jumped to tip it over the goal my fingers got bent backwards slightly. That didn't hurt so much but later that night at home I was starting to feel muscle strain...in my hands! I guess I haven't been doing much exercise lately! I had a go at playing the accordion a few times that night and my fingers were so stiff! Before I went to bed I tried looking for some cream to rub on my hands. Apparently Deep-Heat would work, but I couldn't find any, so I just used Vicks, and surprisingly in the morning my hand felt as normal as ever!

Hamish was performing first on Saturday morning and so my dad took him there to perform while I practised in the morning. The plan was that Aonghas and my mum would go to the wedding while I performed at the competitions, and as soon as I finished we'd go straight to the wedding.

I got to the Raye Freedman Centre at Epsom Girls Grammar School where the competitions were held, and did my best to see if I could perform first, but I was told the playing order had already been drawn and it'd be unfair to the other competitors. I was just going to have to play 3rd.

It wasn't so bad, as even though each competitor's programme was about 10-15 minutes, it was about 2pm when it was time for me to perform. My programme consisted of two sonatas, Sonata in G Minor by Scarlatti and Sonata in B Minor by Tchaikin. I almost forgot the names of the pieces on stage!

My performance got off to a shakey start as I battled with the nerves, but I started to gain control, even though I made a few slips throughout. I came to the end of my piece, finished it and took my hand off the keyboard expecting applause, but there was none! Did the audience not realise I had finished my first piece? I was trying to think of some way to make it more obvious that I had finished, but it was getting a bit awkward so I decided just to start on my next piece. My accordion teacher later told me that when he noticed no one was clapping, he was about to start clapping for me but saw me about to play the next piece!

The second sonata, Sonata in B Minor, which was almost ten minutes long, was the piece I was most worried about. I haven't been able to play it from beginning to end without stuffing up, and so forget making it sound like music I just wanted to get through it! OK I did still stuff up a few times but at least I didn't embarrass myself majorly! I ended up coming third so that wasn't as bad as I predicted it would be.

As soon as I was done, my dad and I made a quick getaway to church to attend the wedding. I took my accordion into church with me to put into a spare room and some people were looking at me weirdly, wondering what was going on! I managed to make it to the beginning of the wedding and sneaked in to sit in the back row.

This was the second wedding I had attended for the year, and it was pretty cool. This time I was actually going to be involved in this one! After the couple shared their vows, exchanged rings and kissed, they signed the book on stage and as they did that Aonghas performed the violin with one of the church members on piano. Once they were done, we joined the 'Angels Choir' which was made up of these little girls from church to sing a couple of songs, one which involved waving ribbons.

Aonghas and I were standing at the back, and because we were the only two guys singing with a group of girls, our voices were quite low compared to theirs. When the songs went up high my voice got a bit quivery which was not too great! It was good fun though. One of the girls in our youth group told us that when she first saw us performing, she remarked

"I'd rather commit suicide than perform up there!"

not realising she was sitting next to our dad! But she swears she loves us haha.

After the wedding we went into the big hall for food. A few of the guys and I were scoping the field checking to see if there were any nice girls out there (sadly not haha ... nah I'm just joking) while hovering around the tables eating food when we were asked to serve some heart-shaped donuts to people. It ended up turning into a competition to see who could hand out all their donuts the fastest! Let's just say I didn't win. Everyone had a donut before I could get there!

Back to the accordion competitions, it continued the following day (Sunday). Aonghas was to perform and us three Anderson brothers were performing our trio straight after. I was going to stay long enough to try out the SLR camera and try take some photos of Aonghas but I ran out of time and had to go to the waiting room for the trio!

As a trio we were performing 'The Magnificent Seven', the theme song to this old western TV show/movie (I'm not entirely sure...), and so we decided to wear cowboy hats just to be different. I had to rearrange an accordion orchestral arrangement of this piece for accordion trio, so I'm sure it didn't sound quite like it was meant to, but our performance wasn't too bad! Straight after, one of the organisers had asked us to perform at the afternoon 'Farewell' Concert, sorta like the concert to showcase selected winners.

The results were announced, with Aonghas and our trio coming first in our respective classes! I think that makes it nine years in a row we've won the accordion trio class now!

We had about four hours to spare before the afternoon concert, my dad and us three brothers went to Burger King in Newmarket for lunch. In the middle of lunch our accordion teacher texted us to tell us that they wanted Aonghas to perform as well! We went home straight after to try convince our mum to attend, which we managed to do!

The concert wasn't too bad, but our trio didn't perform as well as our first performance in the morning. Hamish came in a bar too early but fortunately regained himself. We avoided a near disaster! Jessica Chen, my main accordion rival entered the top NZ Accordion Championship Class this year and....came first!! Go Jessica! She was really impressive. I entered the class below since I wasn't as prepared as I would've liked to have been, and I also didn't have enough music to play for the second year in a row!

So in the end I managed to make it to both with the results not being so bad. We also got to have a photo with the accordion 'world cup'! If you can't win it, get a photo with it!

It was a temporary distraction from studies and assignments, so now the focus is all back on that!