What Reunion?

Today after music classes my brothers and I decided to visit our old high school Rutherford College to check out the 50th Reunion. While we couldn't afford to attend the Mix n' Mingle Evening last night or the Formal Dinner at Sky City later tonight, we thought maybe we could at least check out the school's open day. Or so we thought...

We were led to believe the school would be open during the day for visitors, but when we got there, the weather was bad. There were several empty tents in the carpark, and so we thought we'd check inside the hall. There was no one there!

The car park was full of cars, but we thought maybe that's due to Saturday sport. We had no idea if anything was meant to be taking place so we left not too long after arriving!

Later on we found out there was a football game taking place down in the gym to celebrate the 50th reunion...

A Brief Lantern Festival Experience

Tonight we went to the Lantern Festival, but we arrived quite late that we only had a limited amount of time to check out all the lanterns! Our parents went out and didn't come home till about 7pm, so we arrived at the Lantern Festival at about 8-9pm.

We parked quite a while away so we had to walk all the way to Albert Park!

When we got there, Princes Street was lined with food and toy stalls, and the road was packed with people! We didn't spend much time there as we went straight into the park to look at the different lanterns.

There were quite a few new lanterns this year, such as the farm animals (which also made noises!).

We were checking out some lanterns and then moved on, when we lost Aonghas! We spent quite a while looking for him and trying to ring him. It didn't help that I ran out of credit to ring him either! We were going to meet him at one point but we ended up moving to another point so it complicated things a bit.

While we were waiting beside the karaoke stage for Aonghas, we briefly met up with the minister's family before they moved on. Aonghas soon caught up with us. It turns out he caught up with an old friend!

I really wanted to sing on the karaoke stage after last doing it a few years ago, but after finding Aonghas, it seemed as though it was too late. I guess I'll have to try again next year.

We caught up with some of our church friends Andrew and Ben and watched some of the performances on the main stage, before they had to go.

Our family decided to try have a look around despite the park being really, really packed before the fireworks were lit. We visited this stand where we each had to answer a question regarding customs and what you can and can't bring into the country, and got a puzzle for answering the question correctly!

It was soon time for fireworks, and we noticed everyone sitting on the bank so we just joined them, assuming they were facing the direction in which the fireworks would be taking off. We bumped into our other church friends Antonia and her family!

We all sat together to watch the fireworks which were quite good, despite the trees slightly blocking our view!

As soon as the fireworks were over, everyone started filing out of the park, which gave us a chance to check out the lanterns a bit more easily before we left too.

(http://youtu.be/qWJ18BTSpDY)

A Viola Get-Together

Straight after church today Hamish and I attended this viola get-together held at the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra building. It was basically a group of viola players playing some music together.

I was initially weary about the whole thing as I didn't think I'd know anyone there besides my violin/viola teacher, and they'd all be a whole lot older and much better than us!

It turns out that they were quite friendly and there were a few younger people there as well! We played quite a few pieces, although I do admit I dozed off slightly while I was playing! (I must've been a little tired!)

Anyway after several hours of playing music, we ended with a mini performance to whoever showed up, which were mainly parents/family members of the viola players!

Being with Other Interns

Tonight was Mimi and Natalie's (two of my pharmacy friends) belated combined birthday party at a bar in Mt Eden, and usually I can't make it to such events because I can't drive myself and also I'm not exactly close with many of the other pharmacy students, but this time I decided I'd make an effort to attend!

Of course, I didn't realise it was tonight and thought it wasn't going to be held till a few weeks later and so I didn't buy them anything! Aonghas drove me there and we stopped by a petrol station on the way. I ended up just buying them each a block of chocolate.

When I got there I got to catch up with a few of my pharmacy friends, and it was interesting to hear the sorts of experiences they were having with their internship. In fact, it was great hearing that other people were in a similar boat to me!

I went over to wish the birthday girls a Happy Birthday before I had to leave soon.l

Despite my attendance being quite brief, it was good to see everyone again.

Surfing the Wave

It wasn't too busy at work today and so there wasn't really much to do besides the occasional dispensing. I did talk to a patient who told me she had been working in a pharmacy since she was 15 and didn't want to study pharmacy because it's sooo boring and didn't want to waste four years of study just to work in retail! That was...interesting....

I also wore my name badge upside down for the second half of the day without realising till my preceptor pointed it out to me just as I was about to go upstairs to the doctors to give them some prescriptions!

I managed to find a seat outside in the Quad during lunch and spotted my old friend Shen! We were right beside this mechanical surfboard thing which is kinda like a mechanical bull. He wanted to have a go at it because they were giving away free razors to anyone who had a go. 

Shen kept persuading me to have a go as well, so after he went, I decided I might as well try it too! I didn't last too long though, but at least I got some free stuff!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MQ2b_iOVls)

I was going to go to the gym after work as well but I didn't have a lock and after going all the way down to Queen Street to find one decided to just go home early!

$1 Cheeseburgers

This morning I heard on the radio that if you downloaded this app called VoucherMob you could get $1 Cheeseburgers at McDonald's for today.

I completely forgot about the deal till I got home and downloaded the app. As soon as Aonghas and Hamish got home later tonight, my mum told us to go out and buy some Cheeseburgers so she wouldn't have to make lunch for us.

We ended up getting 15 Cheeseburgers, the most number of burgers we've ever bought in one go! Funnily enough the people working at McDonald's weren't even aware of the offer and were surprised to hear it too!

The Hello Count (Updated)

I have grown to absolutely hate the song 'Hello' by Martin Solveig & Dragonette, especially since they seem to play it constantly on the radio! It's driving me so insane I'm ready to self-medicate myself!

At work we're tuned to The Edge, and I thought I'd start a tally of just how many times it's played this week, and will keep this post updated!

Monday: 3
Tuesday: 2

For those of you who don't know which song I'm talking about, here it is. Knock yourself out...