NZ's Best Fish and Chips

It has been announced!

The Crisco Oils Best Chip Shop Competition winners were:

Region: Northland to North Shore Region
Shop: Oceanz Albany, Greville Road, Albany
Owner: Anton Howell

Region: Rest of Auckland Region
Shop: The Fishmonger, 182 Jervois Road, Herne Bay
Owner: Patrick Chandulal

Region: Waikato to Hawkes Bay Region
Shop: Seafood on the Beach, 43 Ocean View Parade, New Plymouth
Owner: Grant Schwieters

Region: Manawatu to Wellington Region
Shop: So Fine Seafoods, 2 Tennyson Avenue, Avalon, Lower Hutt
Owner: Anthony (Charlie) Cho

Region: Nelson to Christchurch Region & Grand National Winner
Shop: Lyttelton Fisheries, 38 London Street, Lyttelton
Owner: Caroline Otene

Region: Timaru to Southland Region
Shop: Waihola Fresh Fish, Main Road, Waihola
Owner: Dallas Leebody

- NZ Herald

Herne Bay and Albany are just a little too far away for me. Personally I think the best fish and chips (both quality and value!) are from this takeaways shop down Great North Road in Henderson!

Another Hit

If losing the number one ranking in NZ wasn't bad enough for University of Auckland (despite still getting a larger portion of the funding than any other university), they've slipped in the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings, dropping from 46th to 50th! They're still well ahead of any other NZ university though, with University of Otago ranked one hundred and ... and University of Canterbury at one hundred and ...(they just aren't worth remembering ;) )

You may be asking, why waste time posting about a non-issue? Because Calum has too much time to waste! So he decided to waste a bit of that time on looking into these rankings create a beat-up over nothing.

Do they really mean anything? Well, for a start UoA is further down the list in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University "Academic Ranking of World Universities" where UoA is ranked somewhere between 203-304. This then causes some inconsistencies between the two ranking systems as you may notice that in the Times Higher Education rankings, UoA is ranked higher than Seoul National University (for want of a better example), but in the Shanghai Jiao Tong Univeristy rankings, Seoul National University is ranked higher than UoA! How absurd! So which university is really better? (of course that could well be subjective..)

If you look at the methodology of the two ranking systems though you could definitely question their validity. To determine the Times Higher Education rankings, a survey is sent out to thousands of lecturers and researchers etc asking them to rank the top thirty universities in their research field. With a response rate of 1%, there could be some degree of bias in there. The Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings determines excellence by the number of Nobel and other award winning research. Many of the awards were gained by staff when they were at other institutions though, so it may give an indication of the ability of the university to attract top staff but it doesn't indicate the number of award-winning scientists/researchers etc. it can produce.

(If you seriously want more, here's the reference:
BioMed Central (2007, October 26). University Ranking Systems Seriously Flawed, Study Says. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 8,)
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Calum's Favourite The Young and the Restless Quotes for Today
(I swear I don't watch this regularly...only the beginning after the news!):

"I couldn't give a ffffffffflying............FIG about Brad!"

-

Dodgy man: "I understand you got loaned a sum of money"

Lady on treadmill: "Yeah...so what?"

Dodgy man: "Why'd you flush it down the toilet?"

Oh so Close!

Well the Rutherford College Head Students for 2008 have been announced:
Head Boy: Luke Sizer
Deputy Head Boy: Aonghas Anderson
Head Girl: Rose He
Head Girl: Allie (I will find out her surname later!)

There goes my hopes of having Aonghas as Head Boy! I guess at least as deputy he still has some sort of input, and really it could've been worse! Congratulations to you guys.

Rejections!

Yesterday I got a phone call from someone from Farmers. Several weeks after submitting my job application to them, they finally got back to me. They lett me know that they had already completed their recruitment process for Christmas casuals and so didn't have any positions left, but were willing to forward my application to Westgate Farmers, where they hadn't started recruitment yet. I had to turn them down on that though as Westgate would be a little too far away for me if I didn't have a ride.

Tonight I got another phone call. This time it was from the lady from Jester's. She rang to tell me that they had employed someone else for the job. She said the reason I missed out was that I wasn't able to work on Sundays. Apparently though, the new owner of Jester's was really impressed with me and would like to offer me a job some time later when a few others left after she had taken over. So we'll have to see if I'm still unemployed then!

Today I had to travel all the way to Middlemore Hospital for my orthodontist appointment. FINALLY I'd have that wire poking me in the mouth removed! First of all I'd have to navigate my own way there by train. Catching the first train to Newmarket/Britomart was no problem. The ticket guy told me I'd have to either get off at Newmarket or Britomart to catch the next train on the Southern line. He recommended I get off at Britomart as the conditions would be better there. However, when I saw a train on the opposite side of the Newmarket platform, after asking another ticket guy if that train was going to Middlemore (to which he said 'yeah'), stupid me got off the train and went to the other train. I asked the ticket lady if the train was going to Middlemore and she said the next one would be. Thinking the next train would be coming soon, I sat down and waited. I didn't realise it would take another twenty minutes for the next train to come! I finally caught that train and got to Middlemore. I thought I'd arrive late, but I managed to get there ten

I was a little worried what the orthodontist would think about my wire moving around, but they weren't too fussed about it. This time I chose light blue rubber rings for my braces. I didn't know that they would be using purple wire though! Now I've got a combination of purple and baby blue in my mouth! The orthodontist had to ask me

"So Calum...do you have a girlfrie

Her hands were still in my mouth so I sorta replied with

"GGHGGTRRGHHGHGHG"

My orthodontist also always seems to be interested in whether I've gotten a job yet. This time I was able to tell her that I got rejected by Farmers and still awaiting a reply from a pie shop!

On the way back I was watching this movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on my phone and I have to say it's probably the first movie I've seen Jim Carrey doing 'serious' acting in! It's an interesting movie where this guy and a girl aren't doing so well in a relationship and decide to erase each other from their minds. It all goes wrong though and so on and so on and so on.

The train got into Britomart and I went outside to ask one of the ticket guys if the train was going on to Henderson but was told another train would be. It was then that I realised I had forgotten my umbrella! I dashed inside the train checking the area where I sat only to find my umbrella gone. Oh well...

I finally got into Henderson and on my way home I decided to go into Toy World to visit Zippo (my neighbour) who works there. She's now third-in-charge there now! It was pretty cool catching up as we haven't seen each other in a while. She has got a pretty cool job working around toys, and so we were just wandering around pushing buttons on toys and playing with stuff. I asked her about my hair (she likes to give me constructive criticism on my hair) and whether she liked it as long as it is at the moment or if I should cut it. She told me:

"Yeah you should cut it. It looks *#(U$&*&" (can't exactly remember which word she used to describe it)

I asked what if I straighten my hair and she said:

"That'd only make you look more like a geek"

OK I'm getting my hair cut then!

Job Interview #1

After church today we went to West City to pick Aonghas up, but as usual he didn't finish on time, so my mum told me to wander around the mall seeing if there were any part time jobs available. Just as I was about to go, Aonghas finished! Despite that we ended up walking around West City, and we came across the Jester's Pies stand with a sign saying 'Part-Time Position Available', so I asked the girl at the counter about it and she directed me to these two women who were sitting at a nearby table. They introduced themselves to me and asked me if I could come back in half an hour as they were just about to interview someone. They'd tell me about the position then.

Half an hour later, I met up with them again, expecting them to just be telling me about the position, but it ended up turning out to be somewhat of a job interview! One of the women was the current owner and the other woman was the lady who had just purchased the stand. Now I'm a bit out of shape when it comes to job interviews as I've only had one before and that was about four years ago now! They asked me these questions about if I could do some cooking. I was caught a little off-guard as when I asked the girl at the stand if I needed to know how to cook pies, she said no. I ended up replying that I knew how to cook rice and noodles, and when they mentioned doing dishes and cleaning, I jumped and said I WAS CAPABLE OF THAT!!!

They did ask me how I felt about working with women, as currently all their staff members were women and I'd be the only guy. At first I thought they meant whether I'd feel out of place and feel like the job was too feminine for me, and said I didn't think Jester's had any reputation for being a female store. That's when they told me they meant as in making the girls do all the work and just slacking off, as had happened with a previous guy. I told them of course I wouldn't! That's no way to treat a woman!

They also asked me how confident I was with dealing with customers and whether I'd be able to cope with demanding customers (i.e. the customer is always right). I told them that I had a high tolerance level, and was very tempted to tell them that I've coped with dealing with very very difficult teachers (I won't mention names here but...Hyun and Joon will probably know who I'm talking about!)

I'm not too sure how the job interview went overall. I just acted like I normally would. They'll get back to me some time soon. As I was walking to the car I met my neighbour Szelin who happened to be looking for a job as well! I pointed out some stores looking for people to work for them. I just happened to forget to mention Jesters...

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Once again someone just had to point out how single I am and how they can't believe I'm STILL single (thanks I think it's becoming a regular conversation topic now!) and challenged me to actually ask someone if they wanted to hang out these holidays, as usually other people are the first to ask me. So I guess I'll be adding that to my list - ask someone to hang out with me! Boy does that sound desperate...