Mobile Internet Horror

I've had a long and frustrating experience trying to get my phone to connect to Vodafone's mobile internet ever since I first bought it!

I bought my phone earlier in the year, but soon discovered that while I could access the net on my phone via WiFi, I couldn't do so via the 3G mobile internet, despite using the settings on the Vodafone website. I managed to find settings that would let me connect to WAP but not mobile internet, so my apps couldn't connect to the internet!

I tried contacting Vodafone and they just referred me to the same page on their website with the settings I had already tried! I tried ringing technical support as well and got someone from Egypt and they gave me pretty much the same advice. I also emailed the shop I bought the phone from and they gave me the same settings.

At this point I gave up and tried to make peace with the fact that I wouldn't be able to use the internet on this phone, and would eventually have to buy another phone sooner than I would have liked.

It was only recently after someone suggested I go back to the shop I bought the phone from, so I replied to them saying the settings didn't work. They told me I should hard reset my phone, then try the settings, so that's what I did and it still didn't work!

I then tried something I probably should've started right at the beginning - isolate the problem. I put in a 2 degrees sim card and it connected to the internet perfectly fine. Next I tried a Vodafone sim card and it also worked fine with the settings that didn't work for my Vodafone sim card, and it also worked fine!

I rang Vodafone again and they said maybe my sim card was old, and that I should go into a shop and ask to transfer my number to a new sim card. I did that today (which cost me $30!). Guess what? It didn't work!

I rang Vodafone AGAIN, and this time the lady told me it might take up to 24 hours. I'll have to wait and see, but I'm not holding out hope!

The Photos Are Ready!

 About three months after graduation, I finally received the photos that I got taken at the studio! They managed to digitally patch up my bald spot and my mum's teeth!

I look a little weird in the photos and you may notice my 'hat hair'. I really wish I fixed my hair before I had the photos taken!

(https://picasaweb.google.com/mr.calum/GraduationPhotos?authuser=0&feat=directlink)

Walking it Off

Today my family and I went to Imperial Garden Restaurant for another round of yum cha buffet which made us all feel bloated afterwards! We had an hour and a half to eat though, so we all tried different tactics of not being full for longer by pacing ourselves!

Afterwards we had a stroll along Queen Street to walk off the meal, and opposite us was a small but loud protest for 'Democracy in Syria'. There was a policeman on a motorbike following them, as well as a couple policemen keeping an eye on them and helping them cross intersections as they always took longer than the timer that counts down how long you've got left!

(http://youtu.be/Nf4AHPkn5V8)

Primary School Memories at a 21st

What a busy day it was for us! First it was the zoo, then we had a 21st birthday party in the evening! It was Danielle's 21st birthday. She was in Aonghas's year at primary school, so we've known her since waaaay back!

When we got there we didn't know too many people, but recognised a few such as our old deputy primary school Mr Wh...I mean Warren (by the end of the night he wanted us to call him by his first name!). We talked to him quite a bit tonight and he was quite open with us about his views on how the school ran!

We also caught up with a few old primary school friends we hadn't seen in a long time!

As we went up the stairs, we could hear classical music and initially thought it was a CD recording, but when we reached the venue, we discovered it was a string quartet featuring Danielle! They played some very lovely music!

There was plenty of food so we helped ourselves, before the speeches started.

Danielle's dad first gave a speech, reading out a poem he had read to her. This was followed by a speech given by her best primary school friend Katrina and a speech and song written and sung by her older sister Juanita.

They then played a little video they had put together for her, featuring various friends leaving messages for her. It was quite amusing!

They all shared stories and talked about how caring and friendly Danielle is, and I'd have to agree with them!

After the speeches, we returned to mixing and mingling before the birthday cake was brought out and we all sang Happy Birthday to her!

(http://youtu.be/9aC9rlNdEgI)

Supper was brought out, which included a lot of sweet and yummy food!

All the ex-Henderson Primary School gradually got together and we managed to get a group photo!

The night was soon over and while the weather wasn't great outside, the night inside was great!

Happy 21st Birthday Danielle!

Lions, Tigers and Bears!

Today our youth group went on a trip to the zoo! Throughout the whole week we were worried about the weather, as it had been raining all week right up to the night before Saturday. It was raining heavily last night, and we were not looking forward to today, as we would have to walk around the zoo in the rain wearing ponchos and jackets!

Surprisingly though, the weather was perfect this morning! We arrived at church early in the morning to meet up with the others, had a little prayer and then we headed off to the zoo.



The zoo car park was full, which was unsurprising considering the perfect weather! We were lucky to find a car park inside though. We met up with the others at the entrance to wait for a few more before going in. It was decided that Nadine and I would be the two 'adults' as part of a 2 adults + 2 children deal (our children were Ruth and Ivy!). Apparently one of the ladies at the counter beside us asked one of the others in our group how old us adults were!



The first animals we saw were the kiwis! They were in this dark enclosure with red lights inside so that we could see where they were. We weren't allowed to do flash photography so we didn't get good photos. Of course Grace forgot to turn her flash off though! Uh oh! Luckily no kiwis died though!



We passed the red panda enclosure where the red panda was high up in the tree and barely visible! It was a little fitting, seeing a panda (albeit a red one) since we just watched Kung fu Panda last night!

There was this really weird pig that was being taken all around the zoo. It looked as though it had teats dangling from its chin!

We went into this building which looked quite new, which had windows where you could see something that resembled an operating theatre. I'm guessing that's where the vets operate on animals. It sorta made me proud to think one of my best friends Diane does that sort of thing and will be doing even more of it when she graduates at the end of this year!

Next, we saw some otters lying around before we came across the tiger! In one enclosure the tiger would wander up to the glass window and walk away, then come back!

In the larger enclosure there was a tiger who was playing with a giant barrel at the top of something that looked like a cliff.

We then had a walk through the Aussie animal enclosure, seeing some kangaroos, emus and peacocks and other Australian birds.

There were a whole lot more birds to check out!

We then saw some monkeys which were very entertaining! They were dangling from their tails and playing with each other.



There was one fat monkey who didn't seem all that interested in playing though! Some liked to slide down ropes too.

There were all these other kinds of monkeys too, including one that looked like Beethoven!



We also caught a glimpse of a few baby monkeys, which hitched rides on the backs of other bigger monkeys.

The weirdest thing we saw at the zoo had to be two tortoises going at it! Well...we couldn't be too sure, but one was climbing on top of the other very, very slowly!



We could have watched them all day, but Gabrielle pulled us away, so we had to move on. We saw some crocodiles and alligators and some orang-outangs on the way to the meerkat tunnel!

We were all quite excited about the meerkat tunnel! However, it didn't live up to our expectations. For a start, the tunnel was quite small so we had to crawl through them.

We also couldn't see any meerkats through the windows either! By the end of the tunnel I couldn't wait to get out! When we got out, we saw a meerkat just lying there around the corner from one of those windows! One of the signs read:

"The meerkats get fat from the food you feed them"

or something like that!

We all took a rest as Tim wasn't feeling too well after the tunnel experience.

We moved on to check out the otters and penguins (sadly no emperor penguins!)

 before we realised Tim was still behind with the other group leaders, so we waited for a bit longer before they rejoined us.

We came to the hippo lake and saw two hippos! It was really cool. I have to say I was looking forward to seeing the hippos! Most of the time they were under water, until one of them climbed out of the water!

We were getting closer towards 3pm when we were going to leave, and we were also reaching the end of the zoo. We saw the elephant Burma (Kashin died right?) who stunk really badly. I didn't realise elephants are hairy!

To finish off the zoo experience we went through the African enclosure where we saw lions, giraffes (Ruth's favourite) and zebras. Gabrielle discovered that the stripes on the zebra aren't actually black but are brown!

While we waited for some parents to come, we hung out in the kids' area, where some of us tried going down the long slide. 

We also climbed all over this dragon, 

while Hamish tried planking it...

Sadly our zoo trip had come to an end. We split up and made our way back to church. We originally thought that was the end, but then we heard that Karvin was buying hot chips for us all! Amazingly it finished quite fast!

To burn all that fat off, we had a good game of soccer before we had to go home for good!

Finding Inner Peace

Tonight I went with my youth group to watch Kung Fu Panda 2. To be honest, I wasn't too sure what to expect as I hadn't seen the first Kung Fu Panda movie, and remember when it was playing on TV that I wasn't all that interested. That was probably because I was busy doing something or just too tired to pay attention!

I only just got to the cinemas in time after having to catch a bus directly to West City to meet up with everyone.

I have to say I came away from the movie keen to learn martial arts or to learn some sort of traditional Chinese dance or skill, something to bring out my Chinese roots!

The main message of the movie was about finding your inner peace, along with other things. We returned to church to discuss this and talk about Christian messages we could derive from the movie. Our group of Tim, Jireh, Cleo and Joylynn actually had a pretty good discussion! It reminded me of the good old days of Oddfellows when we were a lot smaller and more open!

The weather outside has been terrible and we're meant to go on an outing to the zoo tomorrow. I'm not so sure it'll be such a good idea anymore though... Please prove me wrong God!

Snapshots of Work

Campus's Lovely Girls???

Domino's for Dinner

Tonight Angie, Gwen and I had our first dinner together for semester two, along with Gwen's cousin Rachel who is new to New Zealand!

I met up with Angie first and we went to Domino's where we were eventually joined by Gwen and Rachel. Angie had a coupon for a pizza, so she ordered two pizzas and garlic bread with cheese on it which looked quite yummy!

We were originally planning to sit and eat at Atrium on Elliott, but there were signs on the windows saying only foodcourt food could be consumed there! We ended up sitting on the stairs in Midcity, despite the sign saying not to do that...  

The garlic bread was quite nice!

 

The pizza also tasted good. It was just as well we were having dinner, as my mum went down to Hamilton tonight with a friend and wouldn't be cooking dinner for us!