Birthday Surprise

Tonight a few of my old high school friends invited me to come out with them to dinner in the city for my birthday and also for a catch-up. Jacqueline organised the whole thing which was really nice of her! 

I was told we would be having dinner at the Zap Restaurant, so I drove into the city and parked by the uni, as parking is free after 6pm there (now you know if you didn't before!). With the address I had gotten off the internet (well that's what I thought it was anyway!), I wandered down Queen Street to the other end, but when I got to the number, the restaurant wasn't there! 

I then remembered being told the restaurant was besides a BBQ King, and I went there for Shrikkanth's birthday a little while ago, so I walked back up Queen Street to the BBQ King I knew of only to not be able to see any other restaurant nearby! I then texted Jacqueline who told me it was down by Fort Street, which was right at the other end of Queen Street, so I walked back the way I came!

I got to Fort Street and almost missed the side street but soon found the right place! Already there was Shen, Nick, Larry and Jacqueline. Zap Restaurant turned out to be a Thai restaurant which was good because I haven't eaten much Thai food before! We ordered quite quickly after I got there. I ordered this dish with lamb, rice and sweet and sour sauce. It was really nice!

Shen wasn't too happy with his dish so he ordered another plate while Jacqueline ate his dish! The rest of us managed to eat our food though! Once we all finished, we just hung around and talked for a bit before the spotlight was put on me - I had to decide what to do next, as in what sort of dessert to get! I have no idea when it comes to things relating to food or eating out! 

Somehow the discussion then turned to what sort of girls I go for, what I look for in a girl and which...parts of a girl I prefer...if you catch my drift! Even long after we had decided to go to Hulucat Tea House which serves pearl milk tea and other drinks and were walking there, they were still asking me questions as to what girls I liked! I'll let them know eventually!

Shrikkanth soon joined us at Hulucat, and a few of us ordered drinks. I ordered a peach slushy and was surprised at how huge it was when I received it! 

While the rest of the guys waited for their drinks, we played Last Card with a pack of UNO cards provided. The place was full of Asians playing cards and drinking all sorts of drinks, as well as a few doing what looked like their homework.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgOuBmmMp6Y)

I soon had to go as I had a driving curfew at 10pmm. I admit I left a little late, and ended up running out of the place, forgetting how to get back to my car park and getting lost in the city. I was also desperate to go to the toilet as well, but that was at the bottom of the priority list! I had to get to the car and drive it home before 10pm first! I managed to do so...more or less!

Thanks guys for making my day and night! I'm grateful to have friends like them!

Exploring Henderson

Today our family went over to the minister's family's house for lunch and so our parents along with Tommy and Harris's mum and Nadine could do some baking.

After lunch, Joylynn suggested going for a walk to pass the time away, so we all crossed the road and took a little walk down to the nearby park that was next to the West Wave Aquatic Centre (used to be the Henderson Swimming Pools where the 1990 Commonwealth Games were held). 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rnAnX9k66s)

We used to have accordion lessons when the Music Education Centre was located in the building next to the swimming pools, but it moved when the pools got renovated. We hadn't been down there since, and it was amazing seeing how much the swimming pools had changed! The adjacent buildings were relatively the same as before, but we went on a bit of a trip down memory lane, remembering what they used to be used for!

We then strolled across a bridge to Falls Park to have a little play around the water. I had to make sure the kids didn't get too close to the water and that they didn't fall in, or else I'd be in BIG trouble!

Some slightly dodgey guy came to sit on the bank and smoke, and that's when we decided it was time to move on! We crossed the bridge and wandered through Tui Glen Reserve which used to be a motor camp. I haven't been through there in quite a while either! Now it's pretty much just a park. 

We wandered down onto a tier where people can launch their canoes and kayaks off. The tide was definitely out as the river was no higher than knee deep!

We just sat around talking for a bit before we decided to head back across the bridge.

We ended up following a path that took us under a road bridge. We had to get across the river, but we were a bit too lazy to walk back up to the bridge and cross there, so a few of us decided to just cross the river since it wasn't too deep! 

The water was running quite fast though, so we had to make sure none of us slipped in! We sent Harris and Tommy back up to cross the bridge with Hamish though, as it was too dangerous for the younger kids.

We headed back to Jireh and Joylynn's house, where they had just finished baking a cake and were onto the decorating part.

We had a bit of food to eat. Jireh made some nacho's while Joylynn made us some yummy ice-cream cones!

We were then told the cake was to celebrate Harris and my birthdays coming up! They all sang Happy Birthday to us before the cake was cut and shared. 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oeVTPMS2FI)

It was really nice, thanks guys!

It soon got late, despite the sun still being out! That was my first birthday celebration!

Gay or Nay?

A visiting pastor and lecturer at the Bible College gave a talk at our church for Sunday School today on homosexuality and Christianity's stance on it.

I have to admit I'm a little conflicted in my stance on this. The overall feeling I got from the talk is that homosexuality is a sin, but no bigger sin than any other sin, and that homosexual and heterosexual rape is bad (obviously). There is no such thing as a gay gene, or in other words you're not born gay or you don't inherit it from your parents.

I do have to say that I do find homosexuality a little out-of-the-ordinary, seeing two same-sex people together, make out, etc. but I don't have anything against them and they deserve a chance to be happy. I don't think forcing them to be heterosexual or single for the rest of the lives is fair on them. 

As for whether homosexual couples should be parents or would make good parents, I can't really say! 

I guess I'm slightly more liberal than most Christians are perceived, or maybe I just don't know God's word as well as others do? 

Let's just say I like to keep an open mind!

Injury Prone Calum

So after slipping over on the carpet at Jennifer and Amelia's house last Saturday and smacking into the piano, I seem to be hurting myself a lot this week!

I got smacked in the face with a foam noodle by Rebecca after we had a little noodle fight after lunch at the Children's Summer Programme. My glasses fell off and a lens popped out! Lucky Rebecca managed to put it back in or else I would've had to give her a good thumping! (No I wouldn't do that....>:O)

Last night though, I was in my parents' bedroom looking for some clothes to wear as a costume for the summer programme today when I must've stood on a toothpick. I checked my foot and the toothpicks were on hte ground.

Later when I was in the lounge though, my heel was still hurting and after taking a closer look and a bit of poking with a needle, I managed to get a bit of the toothpick out of my heel! It still hurts though...

Tonight as I walked into my bedroom to get changed, I stood on something sharp, and thought nothing much of it because I'm tough like that. It was only when I walked over to the other side of the bedroom where my clothes drawer was that I realised there was blood on the carpet! I looked at the sole of my foot and saw all this blood on my foot! All I wanted to do was go to sleep after a tiring week, but now I had to clean the carpet as well as wash and patch my foot up (the same one that got injured the day before!).

Hopefully I don't get hurt any more in the next few weeks before I have to start work!

Dress-Ups

It was the last day of the children's summer programme today which was a little sad after doing it all week! I suppose it had to end sometime! 

We started the morning off a little differently to the past four days. Instead of games and singing, we had a bit of a fashion show as today was DRESS-UP DAY! Because the theme of this summer programme has been 'Time Traveler', the children were asked to dress up as someone from a time period in the past or future. It's quite unspecific so everyone just came dressed up in anything. 

We had a princess (Amelia), fairy (Jireh and Derek), Japanese girl (Jane and Aonghas...he was Japanese guy though!), slave girl (Jenny...or was she supposed to be Egyptian girl?), mouse (Angie), cowgirl (Lisa), Matrix guy (Hamish), soccer player (Andrew), Santa Claus (Ben), boxing guy (Karvin), painter (Joylynn) and I was Lin Da Lung from Hi My Sweetheart, a Taiwanese drama Rebecca, Grace and I have been watching for the past few weeks! Naturally as a geek I got beaten up a bit!

Once everyone went paraded and showed off their costumes, we moved on to the first game, Noughts and Crosses which was led by Peter and Hamish. I didn't really see it as I was in the back room preparing for the interview which I was going to do straight after with Cleo.

Today's final edition of 'Time Point News' saw Cleo interviewing interviewing me as Thomas, one of Jesus's disciples. I just wore a bath robe and a piece of material. I hadn't rehearsed or memorised most of my lines, so I had to wing it with Cleo. Luckily Cleo went along with it. I did remember to tell the jokes that were in the script, but hardly anyone laughed until I signaled everyone to! 

After our interview, Rebecca and Derek led a game with the kids before Terence and Ben played Feet and Stare with the kids. Andrew and Ruth played a game on time periods with the kids before the final Bible story and group time. This time all groups got points (I think they were just being nice!).

The kids had morning tea before we had the final craft time in which they made clocks. Something we hadn't been doing for the past four days was telling the kids the relevance of the craft work, so before all the kids got stuck into it, Jireh and I told all the kids about how we have 24 hours in a day and that how we spend those 24 hours is up to us.

After craft, we had prize-giving. Expectedly, our team Frankie didn't win. In fact, we came last! The prizes were handed out to the kids while the rest of the kids got bookmarks, a toy and a lolly (all the prizes that we had bought the day before!). It did get a bit messy with kids appearing out of nowhere, and trying to get kids to stand together with their groups for group photos!

We eventually got everyone to pose for one huge group photo before we let them go home.

The programme finally came to an end! We had our last lunch, before celebrating Derek's mum's birthday by singing Happy Birthday to her (no surprises as to who was asked to lead it!). 

As everyone started leaving, we had to clean up the church. Some of the parents carried on talking and so a water fight broke out amongst us young people. 

After a while we sorted ourselves out into two groups - past and present Rutherford vs Rangitoto Capture the Flag in the car park! Rangitoto-ians won by one!

We finally left church partially soaked. My mum wanted to do some shopping at Westgate, so Hamish and I were stuck in a hot car and ended up falling asleep! We did a whole lot more of that when we got home too. We were wasted!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF2pN0LNOCY)