There was one moment when I was talking to two of my friends from third year who were there, and one of my pharmacy friends came in holding a textbook! They started wondering why he was carrying a textbook to Completion, but it was because he was returning it to me! I took it off him so he wouldn't have to suffer from carrying a large book around with him all day.
Once the guests, i.e. the staff finally arrived and mingled a bit, the speeches part of the brunch got started. Our two class reps Nick and Lun Shen, and the APSA President Mimi MC'd the event, and presented awards to several of our lecturers and tutors, which were framed photos of our class!
Once that was over, we went back to taking photos with each other before everyone started going their separate ways, as there was about an hour or so before the official class photo at Albert Park.
After we dropped off a few things in the car that we parked in the Business School underground car park, my family and I went over to the Campus Pharmacy, where I'll be doing my internship next year so I could hand in my contract. It turns out I'll be starting work on the 1st February, which means I have another two months of holiday to go!
After signing the contract and sorting a few things out with my preceptor, we headed towards Albert Park where the official class photo would be taken. Our class was made to stand on these steps overlooking a hill where the photographer and everyone else with cameras stood.
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I have to admit it was a really surreal feeling standing there in front of so many cameras! I could imagine how celebrities would feel with so many cameras clicking and flashing in their faces! We stood there for a quite a while as everyone tried to take photos of us, before the staff members joined in on the photo.
After the photo was taken, we all continued to hang around the park to take more photos before we slowly drifted to the Maidment Theatre where the actual Completion Ceremony would be taking place.
We had to line up in alphabetical order outside the theatre as all the guests went in. The prize winners were sent to the front of the line, so it was a little obvious as to who would be getting class prizes! My mum wandered off to the toilet so my family and Winston, a family friend who I invited to come along (since I had a spare ticket) were a little anxious, hoping she would get back in time!
Fortunately my family went in on time and soon us pharmacy students were led into the theatre where we took our seats at the front.
The ceremony started off with a Maori welcome. A woman in the audience was sobbing loudly, we were hoping she was OK! I think it was probably happy sobbing though!
The Associate Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences then gave a welcome before class prizes were handed out. While awards were handed out to several students, such as Edwin receiving the Aseptic Dispensing Award (he's the 'Aseptic Superstar'!), and James winning an award which was based on nominations from students for being the most supportive (he deserves it!), most of the academic/top in class awards could be summed up by one name: Jayanna! She almost won all the awards, and ended up just remaining on stage so she wouldn't have to come back up to receive another award! Congratulations to her and all the other prize winners!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OQHCNNXaQU
The certificates with the declaration were then handed out to each person. Row by row, we went up to the side of the stage to wait for our name to be called out and then proceeded onto the stage to receive our certificate. They ended up reading out our full names! I guess I got off easy compared to some other people who had 5+ names!
The ceremony concluded with the Head of Pharmacy Professor John Shaw giving a little speech and thanking a few people, before the staff members left the stage.
The day concluded with an afternoon tea up in the Post-Graduate Lounge, where we also received our Pharmags (sort of like a yearbook). The most amusing part of it was the back of the magazine where each 4th year student had a photo of themselves, the pharmacy they'll be interning at next year and where they see themselves in 10 years' time. For those who didn't submit a photo, a very nice photo of Justin Bieber was used! As for me, I said that I see myself owning 15 pharmacies and a rest home, and possibly taking over the world in 10 years' time!
It was a lot more packed at the afternoon tea since it was a smaller area. Food was also served by waiters and waitresses, so people surrounded the bar area to wait for them to come out with food. I think they caught on and tried to vary their routes so they could serve more people!
Once the food stopped coming out, we decided it was probably time to go. It was about 4.30pm by now. We had planned to go to Grand Habour Restaurant with Winston's family at 7pm later that night, so we had a bit of time to kill.
After we took a few photos at Albert Park, we decided to walk down Queen Street and just check out some of the shops. First on that list was JB Hifi of course! We had a go at the Playstation Move! The guy before us was struggling with it and soon gave up and handed it to us! Our mum went to check out some shops on her own and we agreed to meet up at 6pm.
We then went over to Aotea Square to check out that photography exhibition. We saw long lines forming outside the Town Hall and realised they were all there to attend the Citizenship Ceremony! Our family friends from church were to attend that ceremony, so we tried looking for the but didn't see them!
It was getting closer to 7pm, so we started heading to the restaurant. We walked past an area that had been cordoned off for filming of Power Rangers. I didn't realise that is still on TV!
We got to the restaurant early, and waited outside for the others to arrive before going in. We were immediately given a table to wait at and the rest of the party soon arrived.
We spent a while deciding what to order as we kept getting distracted by taking photos. We soon befriended one of the waiters named Johnson who was quite friendly.
We ended up ordering six dishes. Some of them were quite nice, such as the hapuka in lemon sauce, the pork spare ribs in OK sauce and the deep-fried squid! They even gave us cut-up fruit after dinner for dessert!
Even after we finished all the food, we continued to sit there and talk for a long time about all sorts of things, from work to church to possible girlfriends!
It was soon 10pm and the restaurant was about to close. The waiters/waitresses seemed to be hovering around our table as we were one of the last remaining people in the restaurant. They were probably waiting for us to leave so they could clean up! The dinner was paid for, Aonghas and my dad had arrived back from going to pick the car up, and we finally left the restaurant!
A long day of celebration was over!
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