Happy Birthday Scholastica!

HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY SCHOLASTICA!

To celebrate her 21st birthday, Scholastica had a birthday dinner at the Grasshopper Restaurant tonight which was perfect timing for me as I could just go there straight after work.

Because of work, I had to quickly buy her a birthday present as soon as I finished work. I managed to find her a box of chocolate in tablet form which is quite appropriate seeing as she studies pharmacy! I'm not too sure whether it's more suitable for guys though...

When I finally got to the restaurant, everyone was sitting at this very long table at the back. I didn't really recognise anyone except for Kathleen, another pharmacy student, so I just sat next to her for the night and caught up with her.

The restaurant was a Thai restaurant so a lot of the food was marked with how spicy they were. I tried to choose a dish that was the least spicy. It turns out most of the plates weren't spicy at all! I think I chose the sweet n' sour dish.

I had to leave after a couple of hours and was ready to go when speeches were about to start, so I decided to stay for a little bit longer to hear the speeches. A few of Scholastica's friends gave speeches which were quite entertaining!

The cake was soon brought out and so I stayed A BIT longer to have some before I finally had to go! 

 Hopefully Scholastica had a great night and will have a great 21st year!

The First Step Towards Buffness

I finally joined the gym last Thursday after saying I would for the last two years, and today was the first time I actually went to the gym! 

Aonghas cycled in to the city to meet up with me after work and we went in together. Aonghas was more or less my personal trainer for the night, taking me around to some of the machines and teaching me how to use them. 

We started off doing some leg presses (is that what they're called?) where I sat down on this machine and pushed up against this platform with my feet. Aonghas told me to do 12 at a time, take a rest and do 12 more, then take another rest before doing one final set of 12. My legs were sore after that!

Next on the circuit was this machine that made me push these two bars forward using my hands and upper body strength. We also lifted weights, and used this other machine where I had to pull down this handle thing to lift some weights. Boy were my arms so sore by the end of it!

The final thing we did before we finished for the night were the good old sit-ups. Aonghas then cycled back home while I went to McDonald's (there goes all the hard work!).

I never expected working out at the gym to make me feel a lot better after a bad day at work! 

A Chinese New Year on Waitangi Day

It was Waitangi Day today but that was the last thing on people's minds at our church, as we celebrated Chinese New Year!

We had a normal church service, and then had a pot luck (shared) lunch which is something I always look forward to as there's so much food!

After lunch though we had games! Originally when they split everyone up into age groups I thought we would be competing against each other based on age. A lot of my friends were in the 11-18 age group and so I was looking forward to wasting them since I got sent to the >19 age group! They ended up mixing us up into six groups. I was in the green group!

The first game was sort of like charades, where each team was given a Bible story they had to silently act out in front of all the other groups. There were a few weird skits that we couldn't figure out, while ours was Jonah and the whale. I don't think our team won that round though!

The next game was a bit of a relay where pairs of team members had to run to the other side of the gym, carry a balloon without using their hands back to the team and get the word from inside the balloon to form a Bible verse with the first team to complete it the winner.

The final game was more our kind of game. It was newspaper hockey! It got a bit vicious a few times, with some people falling over and others getting whacked! Our team came runner-up so we faced off against red team in the final but...we lost!

After all the fun and games though, we still had a music rehearsal for Gabrielle and Tim's wedding. By then I was really exhausted!

22 New Experiences in my 22nd Year: Waxing

After the Children's Summer Programme Reunion today, I decided to go ahead with something I'd never tried before - waxing! Grace and Carmen had previously offered to give it a go on me and made me promise I wouldn't back out!

It was decided that we'd experiment with my arms. Carmen took my left arm and Grace too the right arm. Before I had a chance to think things over, they put these strips over my arm and started rubbing them to ensure the strips were properly stuck to my arm.

Without warning they just ripped them off me! It actually only hurt momentarily! My arms were left with a lot of spots though.

Unfortunately, they didn't have enough wax strips to wax my entire arms so I was left with hairy patches on my arm! I look a bit weird but I might just roll my sleeves down for the next few days till Grace does the rest of my arms with her hair removal cream!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGXH4XgQvr8)

My First Day at Work

I finally have my Annual Practising Certificate to practise as an intern pharmacist!

Today was my first day at work, which meant I had to wake up at 6.30am to get ready. I caught the bus into the city but I got there so early I managed to spend an hour on the uni computers (I can still log in, yay!!).

On the first day of work I got to meet all the staff and they're all quite friendly. I mainly spent my time in the dispensary helping enter prescriptions into the computer, dispensing and handing out medicines to customers/patients though. 

It was quite quiet at work too! I get two breaks throughout the day, a half hour lunch break around midday. I just went upstairs and sat outside in the Quad to eat my lunch, as it was good being outside after being stuck in the pharmacy all day!

I got a nice surprise when one of my friends Eliza came into the pharmacy just to drop off a little first day of week present for me - a really nice cupcake! Thanks so much Eliza, that made my day!

I finally finished work by 5.30, and I was going to join the gym but I didn't know which membership I could qualify for so I had to email the manager. No New Years resolutions fulfilled today!

I then met up with another one of my friends Scholastica who was going to shout me dinner at the Sky City Fortuna Restaurant sorta as a birthday and first day of week treat! 

As soon as we got seated we went straight to the food! Last time we went to a buffet we ate and got full too fast, so this time we paced ourselves! 

 

There was quite a lot to eat, and it was really nice, especially the dessert! Scholastica and I chatted throughout dinner about all sorts of stuff and also made a toast to a successful year ahead!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1PlvwSoJTU)