A long day at work has finished, now time for a long night of working on my assignment at uni ahead of me... My preceptor wants to go through my assignment with me tomorrow but I haven't completely finished it yet!
I'm hoping to catch the 9.30 bus home, but it's looking more likely that I'll be catching the 10.30 bus home. I'll probably get home at 11.30, just in time for bed!
Today was our church's pastor's (and one of our youth group leaders) birthday. I only found out when Jireh whispered it to me as I came late into the church service. We promptly decided to sneak out of the service to go buy him something for his birthday!
We went over to Pak N' Save to find a cake, but Karvin's quite special so we decided to get him something different to the usual cake or cheese cake.
We wandered across the road to check out a bakery but they didn't have any cakes, and the Cheesecake Shop didn't have anything we could afford! We were walking back to Pak n' Save when we came by Dunkin' Donuts and decided that we might get him some donuts!
We got back to church and tried to decorate the box (it had all these kids on it, so we decided to name the kids after Karvin's kids) and changed 'MUNCHKINS' to 'MUNCHINS' (Karvin's surname is Chin by the way!).
Karvin was delivering the sermon at the service, so once the service was over, we all gathered in the foyer and sang him Happy Birthday as we gave him his birthday present!
In other famine-related matters, I ended up handing over money to some of the girls. I kept forgetting a few of them were doing the no-talking famine and couldn't talk!
I was promised the best ever hug from Rebecca in exchange for sponsoring her, but I didn't get it today...so she owes me now!
While all those poor people are giving up food for the weekend, my brothers and I had a little pig-out today.
A little while ago this new one-day sale website Treatme.co.nz started up, offering $1 Burger Fuel burger vouchers on their site. Everyone in my family bought a voucher but never got around to redeeming the vouchers...until today!
After music teaching, we went into the city so that Aonghas could study and I could work on my assignment (I bought a 2 Degrees USB modem by the way and I must say the internet was a lot faster and reliable than the actual university wireless!). It's funny how I spend five days a week working at uni, and then I come back to uni on Saturday to study! What a life...
I tried working on my assignment for a few hours before it was 9.30pm at night. I met up with Aonghas and Hamish and we went over to Burger Fuel to get a burger. I ended up getting a $14 burger, and all I paid for it was $1! What a deal!
After Burger Fuel, we all went over to Wendy's for a bit of a feed and didn't leave till almost 11pm at night!
The past two weeks of music teaching have really put me off wanting to become a teacher, so I was looking forward to teaching this morning. However, I was pleasantly surprised when my students actually were able to play the music I had given them for homework, and my music theory students had actually done/attempted to do their homework!
There was an incident with a wasp flying around the classroom though, with all the children hiding behind the bookshelf at one point. I was getting frustrated as ten minutes had already passed, and I actually forcefully told them to sit down! Even I was surprised with myself! One of the girls started crying for some reason though and then sat underneath the desks for a little while which was a bit weird.
I made the class run over time to make up for it though so it's all good!
The 40-Hour Famine started tonight and while I won't be doing it (me giving up food? Never!) several of the girls at my church are. Most of them are just giving up food but one of them (Joylynn up above) is giving up sight for 40 hours! Go Joylynn, finally an interesting one!
Work was quite boring today, I just mainly vacuumed and wiped benches, but hey at least I'm not getting into trouble! One of my friends from OCF came in just before work closed and introduced me to some of her friends before telling me they'd wait for me outside.
I joined them after work and went to OCF (Overseas Christian Fellowship), the second time I've attended! Tonight all the different fellowships were combining to get to know each other better. They started off with some singing which was really well done, as they had a big band made up of guitarists, a violinist, cellist, keyboard player and someone on electronic drums!
After the singing, we played 'Human Bingo' before Aonghas and Hamish came to pick me up to take me to our own youth group.
For youth group we just watched this Japanese movie called Summer Wars which is quite...interesting! It's a little hard to explain, so you can just watch the trailer!
A lot of the time I make recommendations to customers on which medicines they should take for minor conditions based on what I've studied or been told by others. I very rarely use OTC medicines unless I've been prescribed them by a doctor.
Well this weekend I started developing a sore throat! I didn't think much of it until Sunday when it started getting worse. I decided I'd finally try some sore throat lozenges and maybe some of those multi-vitamins that are supposed to boost your immune system and reduce recovery time!
I ended up going with Difflam (since that's the one I recommend the most) and Immunofort. Apparently Difflam can make your mouth numb (it has an ingredient which causes the numbing effect to reduce the pain). I was sucking on a Difflam lozenge at home last night and I could start to feel my tongue go numb! The raspberry flavour also started to wear off!
As for the Immunofort, I took my first tablet today. We'll see if that has any effect...but that may be hard to tell!
This morning Angie and I were back-up vocals for the once-monthly English service while Aonghas was playing piano. It was kinda fun, but we had to get to church extra early to be ready! Hamish and I were also scheduled to put out the tables too so we had to do that as well.
The English service went relatively well without a hitch. At the end of it though when Edward the song leader finished worship with a prayer, I closed my eyes as he prayed, still standing up in front of everyone, and when I opened my eyes after he was done, Angie who was next to me had disappeared! I quickly went over to a seat and sat down! Hopefully no one noticed that...
I've also promised quite a few people at church that I will sponsor them for next weekend's 40 Hour Famine. I don't know how many people I've promised, but my bank account is set to take a dent!
In the afternoons after church I teach a few kids recorder and today they were expecting a prize after practising everyday for four weeks. I had bought some prizes for them but one of their parents must have heard that I was going to give them some prizes and gave them to me in the morning to give to them! That was nice of him!
Finally when all was done and dusted at church, we decided to head across the road to check out the Rise Up Christchurch Telethon going on at the Trusts Stadium. There was some band performing, and a few celebrities running around interviewing people, doing challenges and stuff. There wasn't much to look at so after we had donated some money, we were off! Hopefully they raise quite a bit of money though.
Just a week after hanging out with my high school friends to farewell Lindsey, we all got together again, this time at Toni and Evan's house to watch a short film Nick and some of his classmates put together for a paper they were taking (they study film!). Nick arrived late with Shen though so we all watched Grand Designs Australia together (first time I've ever watched that!)
Their short film 'Continuum' was about this guy who can give people the ability to live an extra day during the week (that's probably not the best plot summary!). It was pretty good! Nick wrote two of the six episodes of it. Evan had arranged his couches in tiered seating so we could all get a good view!
Since the short film was only about eight minutes long, we had enough time to watch another movie - The Road. It's about this father and son who are one of the last few people left on the world and it tells of their struggle to survive. It was quite appropriate, seeing as tonight was the night the world was supposed to end!
When the movie was over, it was all time to go and fortunately the world outside was still in tact! It was just a little chilly...
This morning some of my students almost pushed my tolerance levels to the limit!
In my classes I usually count my students in to start them off and expect them to be ready. Some students in my class thought it'd be funny to pretend to get ready to play and then when it was time to play they'd just play nothing! They kept doing it despite me telling them not to, that I almost got to the point where I was going to end class early and tell them to go home.
Instead, I gave them a worksheet to do and that shut them up for half an hour!
Tonight I hung out with Ting Ting, a new friend I made over Facebook! OK actually she's a friend of some of my pharmacy friends who I met on Facebook...Anyway we decided to meet up after work and hang out at Starbucks.
I soon spotted her approaching me and we then went to the nearest Starbucks, but when it was almost packed, we decided to find another Starbucks. It was probably the first time in a long, long time I've been to Starbucks so I couldn't remember which drinks tasted good!
I ended up choosing this caramel Frappucino which tasted like a milkshake despite having caffeine in it. It was really nice! I thought I'd be a good guy and shout Ting Ting a drink, who had a hot white chocolate or something like that! I didn't realise my drink would be cold though!
We had a good chat for a while and got to know each other before I had to go catch my bus at 7.30. It turns out my bus passed Ting Ting's house, so she caught the same bus as me and got off really soon after!
I don't know why I can't seem to do it! All week I had been thinking about how to do it and all day I was psyching myself up, and then when it came to the moment I just couldn't do it!
It's been going on for a long time now and the same thing happens every week. I'm starting to get frustrated with myself now!
I don't really know what to do, maybe it's not meant to be...
Tonight I went over to Lindsey's house for a farewell BBQ, as Lindsey will be leaving us for London on Tuesday! I've known Lindsey since year 8 at Rangeview Intermediate and he's been in my class at high school as well.
When I got there, I realised it wasn't the same house he had his birthday BBQ at last year, as they recently moved houses! All his cousins were in the garage sitting around the table eating, while the ex-Rutherford guys were elsewhere. I grabbed some food and joined Sarena, Claire and Ellyce who were sitting around the outdoor fireplace thing.
We ate and talked for a while before Shen and Nick arrived and joined us.
After a bit more talking, everyone went over to the garage to watch people have a go at smashing open the pinyata! A few people gave it a pretty good go but didn't manage to crack the horse open. I was pushed into having a turn, so I had an unsuccessful attempt at it. A few people later a girl managed to smash off the and all the chocolate came poring down!
Us ex-Rutherfordians went back to sit around the fire and kept talking about all sorts of random things, like the Double Down Burger, sharing scary stories and communist countries.
Eventually I had to leave and say goodbye to Lindsey, as I won't be able to see him depart on Tuesday!
While it's quite exciting to see my friends leave, it's also a little sad having to say goodbye. Shen, one of my other good high school friends also told us he's got a job in Singapore and will be leaving in the next 4-6 weeks. Both him and Lindsey will be gone for the next two or so years. Amy left a couple weeks ago for an engineering job in Hong Kong, and David left for a job with Google in Australia earlier in the year too! A few of the others are considering going overseas in the near future too. Our circle of high school friends is definitely shrinking!
I guess at least it'll mean I have connections all around the world!
It's Friday the 13th today! Oooooh scary! Fortunately nothing totally bad happened at work today. This girl I caught up with at the pharmacy the other day (who recognised me from the one meeting we had at church earlier in the year!) invited me to her uni fellowship meeting tonight, called the Overseas Christian Fellowship (OCF). I've always wanted to check it out so I decided to bring my brothers along and attend.
We got there slightly late as I had just finished work. They started off with worship, and it was quite good! There were a couple people singing, with several people on guitars and one on keyboard. The music was really uplifting and everyone was into the singing!
After the worship, there was a guest speaker who got us to sit in groups to answer questions about a Bible passage his talk was based on.
My brothers and I had to leave early to make it to our own youth group as it was activity night and we were meant to organise it. Just at the last minute we decided to play theatre sports with the youth group!
The youth group was split into groups of four, with each group getting to play one game such as Let's Make a Date, the multiple-headed oracle and the rant game (each person rants about something for a minute before passing on a topic of their choice to the next person).
I just happened to be the person they all picked on tonight, with them all making fun at my singleness! Oh I can't wait to prove you all wrong!
We truly love you mummy for giving birth to us and everything else that you do for you!
Yesterday I thought I better get something for my mum on Mother's Day, so while my mum was out, I walked down to West City looking for something to get her. I had no idea what to get so I started off at the Reduced to Clear store, then went over to Kmart, thinking that maybe I could buy her some towels as we have plenty of holey ones at home! The towels were quite expensive! I also wasn't too sure what kitchen appliances she already had or wanted.
I then came up with a really, really good idea - electronic bathroom scales! Our bathroom scales have been giving us the wrong readings for a long time now, and I'm sure our family would be able to make good use of it, even if my mum didn't like them! I couldn't find any at Kmart though, and I was about to try The Warehouse when I thought I'd give The Appliance Shed a go.
Just my luck! There were these Weight Watchers bathroom scales that could even tell you your % Body Fat, Bone Mass, etc. There were quite a few scales to choose from, The more expensive they were, the more features they offered. A sales person came over trying to entice me to buy. He was also trying to push this cleaning kit on me! I ended up going with the scales, but not before checking thoroughly...
I asked the sales person what the maximum weight the scales could handle. His reply...
"It should hold up to 180 kg so I think your mum should be fine!"
Now I'm sure you'll think I'm insinuating that my mum is fat and that's why she needs bathroom scales to constantly check her weight, and what a horrible, horrible present it is. Well, it turns out she actually liked it! She thought it was quite useful too!
The next day at church to celebrate Mother's Day, all the children went on stage to sing (along with a few of us older 'angels').
After the performance, some of the Oddfellows handed out the presents we had made for the mothers a few days ago at youth group - a bookmark with these dangly things on them.
To top it all off, the men were in the kitchen cooking lunch for us all. They cooked rice with several different types of meat and it actually tasted good! Too bad they ran out of rice so soon and had to cook some more...
Today was finally my big day! It was to kick off with a breakfast in this giant marquee at uni for graduands and their families at 8am, but as usual our family set off from home late (like 7.50am late!) and were stuck in traffic! We didn't get to uni till just before 9am when the procession was about to start. We parked somewhere up Queen Street, so we had to walk all the way to uni. I only just made it in time!
We had to line up together with people graduating with the same degree. When I first saw the others from pharmacy, I noticed they all had different hood colours to mine since I hired mine from this Chinese place instead of the official place! Fortunately there were a few others who had done so too so I wasn't the only one!
As the procession started, we walked down the road onto Queen Street, with onlookers lining up the footpaths taking photos and cheering us on.
I even bumped into my old high school principal Mr Edmeades along the way!
It was amazing just how many people were walking down Queen Street. I don't think I've ever seen that many!
When we finally got to Aotea Centre, all of us taking part in the ceremony had to go to this back room where we had to line up according to the seat number we had. I discovered it was based on what sort of honours you got, with those with First Class Honours lining up near the front! I was around the middle, since I was graduating with Second Class Honours.
After a while of everyone sorting themselves out, we finally filed into the theatre, with the audience standing watching us as we came in.
The ceremony started off with all of us singing...or attempting to sing the official graduation song. It was all in Latin and no one really knew the tune either so it was a bit of a fail. The organ playing the music made it extra hard to determine the tune as well!
The medicine students then the nursing students going up on stage one by one. As their name got called out, they would cross the stage, pretend to be capped and then walk off and receive their degree off-stage.
It was a loooong time before it was pharmacy's turn! I was sitting next to Natalie, my best friend in pharmacy, and she was busting to go to the toilet, so it was lucky there was a music performance by a music student before we were set to go on stage! She made it back on stage just in time!
It was finally my time to go up on stage to get capped. I was seriously hoping I wouldn't screw up buy tripping over, shaking hands wrongly or not putting my cap on the right way!
Fortunately as you can see it went without a hitch!
After me there were still quite a lot of people to get through, along with all the masters and doctorate students needing to be capped too.
When they finally had their moment on stage, we all sang God Defend New Zealand before the staff and special guests left the stage, and we all followed afterwards.
I was quite hungry afterwards, but I had already started receiving text messages from friends saying they were already at Albert Park waiting to take photos with me! My mum and Aonghas went to Burger King to buy some food while my dad, Hamish and I went back to the car to drop some things off.
We then met up at Albert Park where I also caught up with some friends to take some photos.
It was also a really good chance to catch up with some old friends. I even caught up with Mandy, a really old primary school friend who I hadn't seen since, well, primary school! She had recently moved back to Macau but came back to New Zealand for a visit and I was lucky enough to catch up with her while she was still here! I'm so grateful for that, as I was always wanting to catch up with her once again after all this time! To be honest I wasn't exactly too sure if it was her or not at first!
I also managed to catch up with many of my old pharmacy friends! It was cool seeing all their graduation toys too! I had borrowed my friend Nadine's graduation bear as her's had the proper pharmacy hood while mine wouldn't since they had to order them in. I also had my graduation pig with me too!
Amazingly I had been at Albert Park for over five hours and it was almost 4pm, and so I thought it'd be the right time to go visit my workmates at my work (Campus Pharmacy). Apparently it had been a busy day today, so maybe it was a good thing I wasn't working! I could see they had heaps of boxes to unpack in the dispensary! We took a few photos together and I introduced them to my family before Aonghas had to take off for one lecture.
Our church friend Winston had just finished his research work for the day, so we met up with him at Albert Park to take some photos around the place as Winston knows how to take the good shots!
We had to be at the photography studio to take photos and to return my gown by 5.30 and we were already running late, so I rang them up to let them know we'd be late (twice in one day!). We parted ways with Winston and got to the studio where we had to wait our turn before having our photos taken.
We took quite a few photos, spending almost half an hour there! We tried different poses and different combinations, with me on my own, with my brothers, with my parents and with everyone altogether.
We'll have to revisit them in a week's time to view the photos and choose which ones we want developed.
To end the evening, we went to Wing Wah Restaurant in Avondale, where we were pretty much the only people there. That's probably why we got good service with one of the ladies hovering around our table waiting to refill our teapots and rice pots!
We got home by 9pm since we all had work and uni the next day. There was one more surprise left for me later that night, when one of my best friends Chen came over with a bouquet of flowers and a graduation teddy for me! That was a really huge surprise as I wasn't expecting that! We had a bit of a catch-up before he had to go as he's got to be at Middlemore Hospital early next morning.
And that officially marks the end of my time at uni!
