Wednesday, 31 December 2008

Year in Review

And here's the usual Year In Review - the first sentence of the first post of each month along with my highlights of the month. I actually discovered some of my blog posts are missing from Windows Live Spaces! Shame on them! Thank goodness for Blogger!

January


'Another year has just started! May it be a great year for you all, and an even more prosperous and special year than 2007 ever was!'

- Set off fireworks outside Sarena's house, nearly hit some cars
- Aonghas and I try jazzing up the car
- Watch National Treasure 2 with Chen and the girls and play a bit of squash
- Hamish and I chill out in the park with Megan and her friends
- My suggestion of 'The Burger Burger' makes the honorable mentions list for the new McDonald's burger!
- Our youth group is born
- Boring birthday - get an electric toothbrush from the mother
- RIP TV

Feburary

'Yesterday Hamish had a job interview in the city, and so I went in with him too as I was going to catch up with my really good friend Diane, who I haven't seen in over half a year.'

- Have the annual catch-up with Diane going shopping
- Decide to study pharmacy
- Festival month - Chinese new year festivals galore, and also Air NZ Open Day at the airport
- Get my restricted license!
- Perform at a rest home
- Go away on pharmacy camp for three days, where I get tossed in the pool but meet some really cool guys and girls!

March

'Those looking for pharmacy camp photos can find them here under photos or at Flickr (larger size). Enjoy!!'

- Orientation Day and uni starts
- RIP Hayden Adams
- My first task as Dessert Club Committee member - running the orientation sign-up stall
- Rangeview classrooms catch on fire

April

'After nearly two weeks of absence, I'm finally back with a lot to catch up on! I've had quite a few assignments and lab reports to complete and have been soooo tired!'

- Our youth group goes out for yum-cha and shame ourselves in Cornwall Park
- Mid-term tests!! PHARMACY101 mixes up our rooms
- Watch my friend Eliza perform with the Auckland Youth Symphony
- Aonghas heads off to Atlanta, USA
- I get hypnotised at a hypnosis show
- We hand in our accordion championship entries after the deadline!
- Protesters take over Grafton
- Pharmacy dinners! I get to go to both first and second year dinner

May

'I was in the chemistry lab today when my phone started vibrating for about a minute in my pocket, which meant someone was trying to ring me.'

- Attend Rhea's birthday dinner at the flash Sky City restaurant
- Horrible horrible CHEM240 test!
- I feed some hungry homeless people some oranges!

June

'Since it was the fifth Friday of the month it was supposed to be the night we celebrated people's birthdays in the past couple of months at youth group, but we spent the first half designing our noticeboard thingy for the church foyer.'

- We have a youth group 'drag' race...back to church from ...The Warehouse
- Accordion competitions don't turn out so badly, but still aren't that great
- Aonghas and the Rutherford College choir perform at The Big Sing
- Exams and then the semester is all over!

July

'The holidays have just started and already I've nothing to do, but hey I'm not complaining! After twelve weeks of constant uni, boring is just what I need!'

- Woops slip over in the shower!
- Iphone is released - BOOOO to Vodafone!
- Spend a week at the Tamaki Campus for Maori Health Week
- High-speed drug-making begins!

August

'Thursday night was Dessert Night!! It was the first KiwiAsian Club event I've attended this year as I thought I better attend at least one event before their next AGM! It was an interesting experience...'

- I attend my first KiwiAsian Club event for the year - Dessert Night!
- Get a Facebook warning for apparently violating their Terms of Use :S
- We have a bit of a Rutherford reunion dinner
- Get barred from borrowing books from the uni library!
- Olympics gets underway

September

'I just got a random phone call from someone. I originally thought it was my neighbour but I'm starting to have doubts now.'

-
Buy a new laptop
- Recorder students go crazy
- Our church's minister goes in for brain surgery after collapsing at church
- Our youth group attends some talk at another church in the city, get hugged by an emo
- Have to help out with Dessert Club's Amazing Race
- Make suppositories for the very first time!

October

'Two weeks since the last post this must be the longest I've been away from blogging and I admit to procrastinating as well, thinking to myself well...I'll post something tomorrow... Although I do have a good excuse for the past couple of weeks - my two assignments!'

- Have a catch-up with Rhea before she leaves for Australia
- Steven and I complete our formulation assignment, name our new drug 'Paediatric PP'
- Semi-sprain ankle when I trip down stairs in lecture theatre
- Pharmacy formal dinner - catch a bus to get there (wearing a suit)
- Attend Jacqueline's birthday get-together at Mission Bay
- Help out with Dessert Club's Ice-Cream Eating Competition

November

'We finally bought a cello, abeit a very cheap one off Trade Me! Sure it's made in China and probably basic quality, but hey at least it does the job and it's not like any of us are professional cellists anyway!'


- Finally buy a cello!
- Have a horrible community pharmacy placement that puts me off becoming a pharmacist
- Parents and Hamish go down to Christchurch for a week. Aonghas and I are home alone
- Our youth group goes bowling and laser-forcing. We 'drag' race back home
- Labour loses the election (that's how National won it!)
- Semester two finally finishes. I hang out with Young-Bin and Eliza during study period
- I go into hospital to get photos, x-rays and the whole shebang done.
- Eliza takes me to Auckland Symphony Orchestra concert

December

'Besides having his [Aonghas] chemistry exam on that day, he had a happy day going out to lunch with his friends after the exam and got a few presents from them.'

- I spend most of beginning of holidays finding Christmas music for church concert
- We have Sunday School barbeque at Jennifer's
- It's our end-of-year music school concert and my recorder students do me proud!
- My brothers and I perform with the Auckland Symphony Orchestra at their Christmas concert
- I help out with pharmacy interviews, chatting up the guys and girls before their interview
- My surgery gets delayed again!
- RIP Fridge
- A group of us from church go caroling at Waitakere Hospital and outside various Chinese grocery shops
- Our string group performs at church Christmas Eve concert and at Christmas service
- We spend Christmas morning playing cards in back room during service
- Boxing Day sales!!!
- Catch up with a few friends at Alex's birthday gathering

End of Year Survey

Once again here's another End of Year Survey I got sent, here we go:

Was 2008 a good year for you?
It was so-so. Certain things were difficult, such as having to change degree..

What was your favourite moment of the year?
Let's make it favourite moments
- the pharmacy camp (at first I wasn't so sure but by the end of it I enjoyed it and now I am definitely thankful I went!)
- pharmacy ball, hanging out with the first years
- going to yumcha and hanging out at Cornwall Park with the youth group

What was your least favourite moment of the year?

First semester exam period and after it - I can't explain how vulnerable I felt and how much I didn't know!

Where were you when 2008 began?
Outside Sarena's house setting off fireworks and nearly hitting a car!

Who were you with?
All the old Rutherford guys and girls!

Where will you be when 2008 ends?

Probably on the side of a road somewhere in Te Atatu Peninsula watching the fireworks

Who will you be with when 2008 ends?
With my family!

Did you keep your new years resolution of 2008?
Most of them.....no...(I'll comment on them in a later post!)

Do you have a new years resolution for 2009?
Yes! (I'll comment on them in a later post)

Did you fall in love in 2008?
Uhhh.....noooo I don't think so, but then again...I did like a couple of people though (not at the same time of course!)

If yes, with who?
Won't name them because it doesn't apply anymore!

If yes, do they know?
Nope don't think they did (know I liked them)

Are you still in love with them?
Not in love, like? Maybe but I can't tell haha

Do you regret it?

Yes...

Did you break-up with anyone in 2008?
Can't break up with anyone when you're not with anyone!

Did you make any new friends in 2008?
Yes! Quite a few!

Who are your favourite new friends?
The first year pharmacy guys and the people in my youth group. They're really cool and easy-going!

What was your favorite month of 2008?
Don't think I really had one but I'll say January because I did actually go out a bit and do stuff

Did you travel outside of the country in 2008?
Nope

Did you lose anybody close to you in 2008?
Can I say Sir Edmund Hillary? If not then probably no (unless I've forgotten someone!)...although there was Hayden Adams. I wouldn't say I was close to him as I haven't talked to him since he left Rutherford but I did know him and it came as a shock when I discovered the guy who died at the beach nearby was him. He certainly went before his time!

What was your favourite movie that you saw in 2008?
Uhhhh....If it means favourite movie that was released in 2008, well then I only saw one that was released in 2008 - The Simpsons Movie, and it isn't exactly the best movie I've ever seen. If it's of all the movies I've watched this year, then probably About Schmidt and My Sassy Girl!

What was your favourite song from 2008?
I've got too many so I'll name a few instead of just one - Human by The Killers, Viva La Vida by Coldplay, Love Lockdown by Kanye West, 1 2 3 4 by Plain White T's...oh and anything by Ne-Yo!

How many concerts did you see in 2008?
I only went to symphony orchestra concerts - I think I saw maybe two concerts and performed in a couple

Did you have a favourite concert in 2008?
The Christmas concert because I got to perform in it? ;)

Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2008?
Nope still drinking my non-alcoholic beverages!

Did you do a lot of drugs in 2008?
I made a lot of drugs, but didn't do them! (My favourite being suppositories! ;) )

How many people did you love in 2008?
Outside of my family and relatives, if it's friendly love then probably quite a few! If it's love love, umm....well....maybe....

Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?
I'm sure I've said a few things that I thought afterwards was either inappropriate or slightly harsh. Either I'm too hard on myself or I just don't think before I speak! Anyway there were countless times that's happened to me!

What was the worst lie someone told you in 2008?
I can't really think of one...maybe I haven't discovered they lied to me? haha

Did you treat somebody badly in 2008?
I don't know if it's considered as treating somebody badly, but I did feel bad about it and it definitely wasn't intentional - I promised I'd lend my textbook to one friend but then told another friend he could borrow it, since I thought my other friend wasn't interested anymore. When the first friend I had promised it to asked for it, I had no choice but to give it to him since I had promised it to him first, leaving my second friend a little miffed!

Did somebody treat you badly in 2008?
Let's just say that this year was the year I discovered those who were true friends and those who sorta just forgot about me!

How much money did you spend in 2008?
I spent a bit more on food than I did last year, but I managed to save most of it, until the end of this year when I bought that TV (I'm still waiting for my mum to pay me back!)

What was your proudest moment of 2008?
The end-of-year concert at the music school I teach recorder at. My students played so well and I was so proud of them!

What was your most embarrassing moment of 2008?
I can't really think of one but one of them was when I turned up late for a pharmacy lab and the guy in charge gave me a warning!

If you could go back in time to any moment of 2008?
I would have marked my recorder students a little easier for their reports, especially how they performed at the end-of-year concert!

What are your plans for 2009?

To do a lot better at uni and meet new people!

Who Let Calum Out?

Call me pathetic but for the first time in a while these holidays I hung out with some friends! Usually conversations happen like this:

"Hey Calum are you going to xxxxx?"

"Xxxxx is happening? I never knew that!"


This time I was actually invited to my friend Alex's little birthday gathering on Saturday at his house and so I asked my friend instead if she was invited...of course she was! I ended up going and caught up with a few old high school friends there. Alex had some of his Air Force buddies there too. Our side formed sorta the sober side while the Air Force guys did the drinking for us. It was pretty cool catching up with the guys though as I hadn't seen anyone since uni finished!

Just last night while watching War of the Worlds on TV I got a text from my sometimes-neighbour Zippo asking if I wanted to come over and play some board games and stuff, so since we had seen War of the Worlds how many times, we went over and played a few games with her while catching up with her after all this time. It's been ages since I last talked to her!

And finally Boxing Day sales...I went to West City on Boxing Day and it was packed! I don't think I had ever seen it that full before! I'm glad I wasn't Aonghas who had to work at Cotton On during that day. They have no air conditioning and when you have heaps of people in a confined space it gets a bit hot and smelly!

We finally bought ourselves an DSLR camera, getting the Canon 450D. It's sorta the only one that we could afford (that was a Canon of course!). We've started taking random photos around the house but we're going to see how it fares when we take photos of the fireworks tonight when it hits New Years!

Sunday, 28 December 2008

Celebrating Christmas

We started our Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve with a concert in the evening in which my brothers, Jenny and Jireh from our youth group and I performed as a string group. We performed five pieces - Jesu Joy of Our Desiring, Deck the Halls, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Hallelujah Chorus and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. We were somewherei in the middle of the concert so we prepared in the library and sat there and mucked around until it was our turn to sing with the carolling group and then perform as the string group.





Our string group performance went not too badly! We didn't screw up and we got through without a hitch! Too bad the little kids were running around making noises and crying though!

We also got our Secret Santa presents. I ended up getting this Rubix Cube game thing, while Aonghas got a High School Musical 3 soundtrack (there's a story behind it - Aonghas came up with the High School Musical theme for our youth group's board) and Hamish got this calendar thing.

Prior to that concert we had rushed around dropping off presents to family friends and went over to farewell Chen who was leaving for Australia early the next morning. Aonghas and I turned up at the door in our black uniform and Chen's mum asked if we were going partying!

Earlier that morning of Christmas Eve it was finally the day we decided to replace our TV! We've been living off a 21" TV for the past year after our 29" blew on us. We went all the way to Manukau City to buy this LCD TV and got this salesperson who was pushing us to buy another brand which was at a higher price. The only thing was I only had enough for the one we had in mind so we stuck to our guns and got the one we came for!

We got home, bought ourselves a Freeview box and went about connecting everything together. I have to say HD is amazing! You notice the camera movement so much more and the picture is extremely clear! I'm a little concerned at how some tickers (especially TVNZ News) is occasionally blurry though. For some reason BBC News' news ticker isn't too blurry though.

With Freeview we seem to be watching TVNZ7 quite a lot, especially its news every hour and some of the interesting documentaries they have on. Admittedly some of the news headlines on their news ticker are useless/pointless and a lot of the news is repeated but with no other TV news alternative it'll have to do for now. On the other hand I haven't come across anything too interesting on TVNZ6 (the other Freeview-exclusive channel). I did come across Bumble and remembered reading that Jason Gunn does Bumble's voice. Now that just puts you off Bumble doesn't it!

On the night of Christmas Eve I was busy writing Christmas emails and watching Christmas movies when Christmas Day came along.



The next morning we had our Christmas church service. We woke up late and rushed to church a few minutes before it started! It was a combined service with the other churches so it was a lot more packed than usual. Our string gruop was due to perform at the beginning and the end of the service. We managed to perform without a hitch and then left the hall for the backroom.

Once we got to the backroom after our performance we didn't really have much to do while waiting for the service to end but to play cards! We had a few rounds of various card games before going outside and watching the guys play around with the tractor. We went back inside to build card towers...yes that's how we spent our Christmas morning!

The service lasted over two hours thanks to all the baptisms going on as well. Finally we performed right at the end of the service. Everyone remained seated to hear us play Hallelujah, which we nearly stuffed up when Hamish got ahead of time! Fortunately we all regained our places and finished together. We began We Wish You A Merry Christmas and that's when everyone just upped and left! The service must've been too long for them to sit any longer!

For the rest of Christmas Day we were sitting at home finding something to watch on ad-free TV. Sadly this year Christmas TV was really poor! I decided to use my time sending the remaining Christmas emails/texts. We ended up playing with my Rubix cube and watching The Simpsons Movie while starving (since our mum forgot to go shopping for food the night before!). Our parents had gone over to the neighbours to give them a present. We watched Home Alone 2: Lost in New York which was our first time watching something in HD! It was cool watching the movie for the first time in a while. You notice things you didn't when you watched it as a little kid.

The other television highlight of the night was Love Actually, one of my (and TV One Breakfast's Paul Henry's) favourite Christmas movies! Once again it didn't fail to disappoint! I really enjoyed the soundtrack music too! Sadly I didn't watch Notting Hill the night before, which is apparently better than Love Actually!

So that was pretty much our Christmas, spending half the day at church playing cards and then the other half of the day watching TV!

Thursday, 25 December 2008

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!!!

So it's about 6.55pm and nearly over in New Zealand but oh well hope everyone [who is reading this] is having a very Merry Christmas! I've only nearly finished sending out Christmas emails and texts. I left things a little late this year! If I didn't wish you a Merry Christmas then I'm sorry I haven't forgotten you I'd only have forgotten to email or text you!

Anyway I'll post on what I've been up to on Christmas a little later on...