End of Year Survey

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
It was the first time I had
- gotten a photo taken in one of those Asian photo sticker booths
- gone inside a bar
- attended uni
- celebrated my birthday (in years!)
- tried one of those DDR dancing games
- tried pearl milk tea
- met my cousins from Christchurch

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I kept a few but not too many! I'll make some more for next year and will try do better!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Don't think so (although please forgive me if I've forgotten you!) although I know a couple who are pregnant, such as my accordion teacher's wife

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Fortunately no..I don't think

5. What countries did you visit?
None besides New Zealand

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Definitely direction!

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Probably the day that Korean guy went on a shooting rampage at that American university, the only thing is I can't remember the date of the day that happened, so I guess it won't remain etched upon my memory!

Maybe then ...(thinking off the top of my head...) 7th January - the twins left for Korea forever. The first date of this year I could recall from my limited memory!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Not a lot to choose from...

9. What was your biggest failure?
My uni results, I guess I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but will be looking to make amends next year!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I got food poisoning I think on one Sunday and spent the day vomiting and suffering from diarrhoea

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Probably my laptop or the video camera. Not so much my phone though as it seems to be buggy! Next time it'll be a Nokia!

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Chen for starting to open up to me. About time, seeing as we've known each other for about ten years now! haha

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Hmmm....I won't name the person...I probably don't have to! Although I wouldn't say it's too bad

14. Where did most of your money go?
My laptop and the video camera!

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Diane getting into vet school, Alice getting into law school is all I can think of so far!

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
How to Save a Life by The Fray, or Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol I suppose, that's if you go by songs played in 2007 (they don't really have much relevance to 2007 though!). I can't really think of one!

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
happier or sadder?
I'll say neutral. Some things made me happier while others made me sadder, and it all balances out!

18. Thinner or fatter?
I'm probably about the same, but I think I've lost weight since last year. Must be because we have less food in the house these days!

19. Richer or poorer?
Definitely poorer!!! Student allowance has been my lifeline!

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Studying, hanging out with friends as well as making more friends

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Studying inefficiently, wasting time at uni, spending money on food at the Munchie Mart and that place I buy fries from, jumping on the internet as soon as I got home every day, reading the newspaper at the library and falling asleep while studying in the library!

20. How will you be spending christmas?
It already passed but I ended up performing at the church's Christmas service and then going over to the neighbours for dinner

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Probably not quite fall in love! I did like someone this year though

22. How many one-night stands?
None haha

23. What was your favourite TV programme?
24, Lost, Scrubs, Eating Media Lunch, Power of One,

24. Do you dislike anyone now that you didn't dislike this time last year?
Nah not really, but I probably understand someone less now than this time last year though, sadly

25. What was the best book you read?
I don't think I've read any books beside textbooks this year, so I'll have to say the best one out of those was Psychology - New Zealand Edition. Very very sad!

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Charconne from The Fairy Queen by Purcell...that sorta discovery?

27. What did you want and get?
A cellphone! But I had to buy that myself though!

28. What did you want and not get?
Nothing material, but I guess I could say a cellphone that worked properly!

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
I only saw three - Fantastic 4, Shrek 3 and The Golden Compass and I have to say Shrek 3 probably wasn't my favourite!

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 18 this year and did nothing on my birthday, but Melissa and Kat dropped off a small birthday present for me (top-up yay!!) which was cool and my mum filled the house with smoke after her soup evaporated while left unattended. A couple days later though Gwen and Chen had organised a surprise birthday outing for me together with Alex, Zahir, Angie and Aonghas which was really cool and something I won't forget! We hung out at Gwen's house before going to the city to watch Night at the Museum.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Having gotten better grades and possibly one other thing I won't mention...

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Long-sleeved and baggy shorts - my 2005 wardrobe lives on!

33. What kept you sane?
Knowing I could text and talk to my friends whenever I was in need of company or support! Thanks guys!

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Don't think I had one but I can say the celebrity furtherest from being fancied by me would have to be Paris Hilton. - we definitely reached peak Paris this year!

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Possibly either the anti-smacking bill or the terrorist raids (if that can be considered as a political issue)

36. Who did you miss?
Probably Hyun and Joon and the others left back at Rutherford this year

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Probably Alice!

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007?
One mistake can screw you over big time so you better be at the top of your game at all times!

39. Sum up your year in a sentence:
A bit of a waste of a year, going in no direction with very little progress made!!!

No Two Days the Same?

Sun 31st Dec & Mon 31st Dec...

Birthday Bowling

Happy Birthday Alex! (for yesterday)

We had church in the morning which was a special one where two other Chinese churches from around Auckland gathered at ours for an 'extended' baptism service. Now usually this would be just another one of those baptism services, but what made this one different was the fact that we knew one of the people who was getting baptised - Angie's mum! She gave her testimonial which was about eight minutes long, and despite not being able to understand it since it was all in Mandarin, it seemed pretty emotional for her.

Later that night I was invited bowling with Alex and some friends for his birthday. Along with his cadet friends, Nick, Shrikkanth, Larry, David and Sarena came along as well.

Nick and I played a game of air hockey which turned pretty dangerous, as the puck went flying over Nick's head and landed several metres away, behind the Christmas tree over by the wall (and it was Nick who hit that one!), or past Nick's head causing him to duck, or right beside the counter!

When most people had arrived it was time for bowling! We played for the first hour. My first game was terrible. After a promising start knocking nine pins down, several misses followed after that. It was only once I tried using the ramp that I got back into knocking over the pins!

The following game I did a bit better. It was the next game that I did a whole lot better, getting a few strikes and managing to get a score of 120 out of not too sure but probably something outrageous. I'm adamant it was the bowling ball! I started off using the heavier 12 ball before going down to 10.

After reaching such a high my final game was completely hopeless. I was back to my old ways of getting quite a few gutter balls. The second hour was soon close to an end that I had no time to improve again. Larry was one of the better bowlers of the night, doing this fancy sorta routine with his feet, and Alex bowled a ball just after Sarena did. This got a ball stuck at the other end, requiring one of the workers to go down there and retrieve it!

After bowling we all went out to the car park. Sarena and Larry left and the guys waited with me till Aonghas came to pick me up, but before that one of the security guards told us to leave! I can report that I made it home safely!

Year in Review

Once again here's a look back at 2007:

January

'Well I spent New Years 2007 in the car down McLeod Rd watching the Sky Tower fireworks and thank goodness for clear skies!'

- Take down the front fence (still hasn't been replaced yet!)
- Farewell Hyun and Joon at the airport
- Look after little kids at children's holiday programme
- Our last big goldfish Rydia dies
- Pass NCEA but results not too great!
- Hooked on 24
- Gwen and a few others arrange a surprise day out for my birthday!
- Catch up with the guys again in the city within the same week!

February

'After talking to many of the 2007 prefects of Rutherford College, it seems as though hardly anyone is looking forward to the camp in two weeks time, which is something I can't understand!'

- Chinese New Year festival at the Showgrounds
- Lindsey's Farewell with drinks (Coke for me thanks!)
- Jacqueline, Patrick and I join the Year 13 prefects at their AUT camp
- Watch the massive ship QMII leave Auckland Harbour on the eve of Chinese New Year
- Orientation fun: going round to all the stalls and grabbing free stuff with Shen, Nick and Shrikkanth

March

'I've been so exhausted from the first week of uni that I haven't had time to post! It's been an up-and-down week as well, so here it goes!'

- First day at uni. Got lost on the way to first chemistry lecture but made a new friend in Kevin
- Catch up with Alice after uni, try pearl milk tea for the first time, then catch up with Gwen, Alex, Zahir and Tasha at the Lantern Festival where I do karaoke!
- Go to watch AK07 fireworks at the Auckland Domain and get swamped by people while in car trying to leave afterwards
- Get told off by security guard for sleeping in library!
- Stand in for Hyun at Rutherford College's Scholars Assembly
- Catch up with Diane, have lunch at Nando's and go to her old school with her

April

'I got my chemistry test mark back already (wow I know after only three days!) and it turns out it wasn't too bad! As for Biosci tonight that's another matter. Everyone came out of it moaning and groaning on about how bad it was (me included). It's funny though as tonight I found the test a place a good place/time to meet some new people!'

- Uni mid-semester tests with POPLHLTH111 being a complete shambles
- Auckland Christian Mandarin Church's 30th anniversary
- Good fun at Julie and Lisa's birthday party, keeping an eye on Gwen to ensure she doesn't drink herself crazy!!
- Go to the zoo for Gwen's birthday (same day as that Virginia Tech massacre)
- Spill chemicals all over my phone in the chemistry lab

May

'The weekend started off with a dinner at the cousins', this time because our other relatives from down in Christchurch came up to visit. We ended up getting to meet our long-lost second cousins! Well not exactly long-lost but just unknown! I would say what their names are but...I kinda forgot already...'

- Meet our long-lost cousins from Christchurch
- Mistaken for Aonghas at the parent-teacher interviews at Rutherford College
- Told my interpretation of a piece I performed at the North Shore Performing Arts Competition is 'strange' by the judges
- Race against time to get my POPLHLTH essay done, and end up speeding and dodging traffic to get from Henderson to Tamaki in under an hour
- Break equipment in chemistry lab
- First photo sticker thing with Jacqueline, Shen and Ben!

June

'Could this weekend BE any worse?...well besides getting killed...but what a Queen's Birthday weekend! Once again it was the National Accordion Championships. This must've been the worst prepared us Anderson brothers have been for the competitions of any year, as we hadn't even memorised our trio till the night before, and due to uni and everything I hadn't done enough practice!'

- Lock ourselves out of our own house while preparing to leave for the accordion competitions in the morning
- Spill hot coffee all over my old accordion teacher
- Get dumped by my Bebo other-half
- Uni EXAMS!
- Catch the wrong bus, get lost on my way to Aonghas' debate
- Get taunted, abused and vilified by little kids we're looking after
- Catch up with Diane in the city to watch a movie and waste her in pool

July

'Friday marked an end of an era - Mr Jameson, principal of Rangeview Intermediate School retired!'

- Mr Jameson, principal of Rangeview Intermediate School retires. I'm called the flagpole guy by the school property guy
- Miss out on going to Heather's farewell get-together
- Evil kids get into my Bebo account and make me out to be some gay pedophile
- Go to the movies with Shirley
- Diane gets into vet school
- Semester 2 starts, studying the reproductive system hehehe
- UMAT!!!!

August

'Last Thursday I had my first MEDSCI lab at the Grafton campus, and guess what? My access card was working, so you could picture me standing there swiping my card just for the fun of it!'

- Attend my very first club event - Dessert Club movie night!
- Get lost on the bus while on my way to debating again
- Told the degree I'm studying is useless by a guy at the Coke Careers Expo
- First MEDSCI study group meeting,
- Meet the whole Mt Roskill crew
- Attend a 70's themed birthday party, dress up as a cross-dressing trucker
- Attend first Kiwi Asian Club event - foodoke
- Auckland City at a standstill for Boobs on Bikes
- Back at Rutherford College for Rutherford Day, mistaken for a student/photographer
- Perform at Rutherford's Studio Show
- Make a bet with a 13-year-old girl that I can make her scream

September

'Last night was the last studio show performance for the lot and also for the year. I'm sure it would've been quite emotional for some of the year 13's as it would be their last ever at Rutherford.'

- Haunted by plane crash dreams
- Have fun at the Kiwi Asian Club ball
- Our Team ACE (Alice, Lucy and me) come 5th out of 16 in the Dessert Club Amazing Race
- Get-together to celebrate Heather's return at Denny's
- A strange encounter with some homeless guy at the Sky City bus stop who claims to see spaceships in the sky
- Enter the Dessert Club Ice-Cream Eating Competition and freeze myself
- Aonghas leaves for Christchurch
- Get into trouble with some girls and one of their mums...

Actually I never got round to telling this story...so here's how it all went...

The evil girl had a friend. She gave this friend my cellphone number and she ended up texting me and commenting on my Bebo page regularly. Her phone ran out of credit so she used her mum's Telecom phone to text me and got me to reply to her Vodafone phone. One day though she texted me with her mum's phone and I accidentally replied to her mum's phone. Her mum got her phone back before I replied, and when she saw my text, she rang me. I answered the phone, thinking it was the girl, but it turned out to be the mum! Apparently, later that night her mum was crying and so distressed as she thought her daughter had been talking to much older, dodgy guys! The mum was so angry at her daughter that she grounded her for the next several months. What made things worse was that the holidays just started and so she wouldn't be able to go out with her friends. Her friends were really annoyed with me because they blamed me for getting her in trouble. The girl didn't hate me though and didn't blame me for anything but because her friends did and were angry she was still communicating with me through Bebo, she had to stop to keep her friends happy and to avoid getting into more trouble with her mum. I haven't talked to her since!

October

'Yesterday was the first time I had thrown up since primary school and I can tell you it wasn't fun! After that I spent the rest of the day making trips to the toilet and struggling to sleep to forget the pain.'

- I get sick for the first time in years. Fortunately it's a weekend
- Cross paths with Fall Out Boy-obsessed tweens lining up outside Real Groovy
- Go to Gengy's and Spookers for Jacqueline's birthday
- Fall into deep, deep depression after the All Blacks loss
- Get a photo with THE MAN, THE Mr Colin Quilter
- Perform with Aonghas at Rutherford's Luv Musik concert
- Big uni EXAMS

November

'A few days ago a video of Aonghas and I performing an accordion duet at the Rutherford College Luv Musik Concert a couple weeks ago posted by one of Aonghas's friends managed to reach number 1 in the Top Rating You Tube videos for that week!'

- Exams finish, Kevin and I loiter around Queen St
- Great fireworks at the Trusts Stadium
- Have a job interview with the boss of Jesters Pies
- Get rejected by Farmers, rejected by current owner of Jesters, but offered a job from future owner of Jesters
- Aonghas elected Deputy Head Boy of Rutherford College
- Surgery gets postponed
- Attend Rutherford's Senior Prize-Giving
- Hamish celebrates his 21st birthday
- Work begins on the Leavers DVD
- Future owner of Jesters decides not to buy Jesters, I lose my promised job

December

The last few days have been busy with more and more video editing for the leavers DVD. We've had about 27 to do (a few are only half a minute and so require no editing!) so I've been flat out.

- Uni applications close, make a last minute decision
- We advertise the DVD at the year 13 farewell dinner
- I go for my pharmacy interview which gets shifted to midday after I get stuck in traffic.
- Mum gets sick, boys cook dinner - mince on nacho's
- Music school prize-giving mix-up
- Catch up with a few other ex-Rutherford students in the city for a reunion
- Church Christmas music rehearsals aplenty
- Alice gets into law!
- Aonghas's phone goes missing
- Christmas concert and service + have dinner at the neighbours
- Watch The Golden Compass with Chen and Angie
- Went bowling for Alex's birthday

Overall, an average year! Hopefully 2008 will be better!

Repeating the Process

I just finished watching Kindergarten Cop and now I want to be a kindergarten teacher! Nah maybe not in this PC world where male teachers get accused of all sorts of things.

For the past few days my mum has been pushing us to tidy up the house, which feels a bit like deja vu. I tidied the lounge a couple days before Christmas, and then when Aonghas tried tidying up the bedroom and shifted all these clothes to the lounge, it got messed up again! So once again I have to try tidy up the lounge again. It feels like going around in circles!

I slept in till about 11am in the morning and only just woke up minutes before my mum got back from the shops. She got a phone call and as soon as she was off the phone she told me to get immediately get dressed as we were going to Esther and Julia's house for lunch! Aonghas was too tired and lazy to be bothered so Hamish and I left him and we went with our mum there.

We had a bowl of noodles with soup, which was extremely spicy. I don't know how those people cope with spicy food! I was gasping for air and water as I ate the food, but it still tasted good though, especially with pineapple added to it! One good tip - if you're likely to splash your soup, don't wear a white t-shirt! I should've thought about that before I wore a white t-shirt to their house and got some stains on it!