Happy Birthday Karvin!

Today was our church's pastor's (and one of our youth group leaders) birthday. I only found out when Jireh whispered it to me as I came late into the church service. We promptly decided to sneak out of the service to go buy him something for his birthday!

We went over to Pak N' Save to find a cake, but Karvin's quite special so we decided to get him something different to the usual cake or cheese cake. 

We wandered across the road to check out a bakery but they didn't have any cakes, and the Cheesecake Shop didn't have anything we could afford! We were walking back to Pak n' Save when we came by Dunkin' Donuts and decided that we might get him some donuts! 

We got back to church and tried to decorate the box (it had all these kids on it, so we decided to name the kids after Karvin's kids) and changed 'MUNCHKINS' to 'MUNCHINS' (Karvin's surname is Chin by the way!).

Karvin was delivering the sermon at the service, so once the service was over, we all gathered in the foyer and sang him Happy Birthday as we gave him his birthday present!

(http://youtu.be/cGzi8VBOLX4)

In other famine-related matters, I ended up handing over money to some of the girls. I kept forgetting a few of them were doing the no-talking famine and couldn't talk!

I was promised the best ever hug from Rebecca in exchange for sponsoring her, but I didn't get it today...so she owes me now!

Famine Time!

The 40-Hour Famine started tonight and while I won't be doing it (me giving up food? Never!) several of the girls at my church are. Most of them are just giving up food but one of them (Joylynn up above) is giving up sight for 40 hours! Go Joylynn, finally an interesting one!

Work was quite boring today, I just mainly vacuumed and wiped benches, but hey at least I'm not getting into trouble! One of my friends from OCF came in just before work closed and introduced me to some of her friends before telling me they'd wait for me outside.

I joined them after work and went to OCF (Overseas Christian Fellowship), the second time I've attended! Tonight all the different fellowships were combining to get to know each other better. They started off with some singing which was really well done, as they had a big band made up of guitarists, a violinist, cellist, keyboard player and someone on electronic drums!

After the singing, we played 'Human Bingo' before Aonghas and Hamish came to pick me up to take me to our own youth group.

For youth group we just watched this Japanese movie called Summer Wars which is quite...interesting! It's a little hard to explain, so you can just watch the trailer!

(http://youtu.be/HjLE8BmWfKA)

What Should I Sacrifice?

Yesterday I went to this Auckland Cultural Festival at Potters Park in Mt Eden. There were heaps of ethnicities represented, predominantly from Africa, South-east Asia and South America. 

The performances were interesting, including this Japanese guy whose Australian visa expired and so he came over to New Zealand. He tried busking down Queen St but was told that it was against the law to use an amplifier on the side of the road. So instead, he decided to busk at this festival! I have to admit he was pretty good. The small little Indian musical instrument he was playing made these BOOINNGGYY BOOOIINGGGY sounds which sounded really good when dance/techo music was played in the background. This other really cool performance was this Bolivian guy who played the panpipes and guitar all at the same time. The only downside was the weather. Even though we usually complain about too much rain, yesterday was pretty much TOO MUCH SUN! It was so hot, and when most of the stalls are selling hot food, it ain’t that great.

Today wasn’t so bad. I realised I did my Physics experiment write-up completely wrong. Apart from that though, the cello/string ensemble teacher was in a good mood, and I signed up for the 40 Hour Famine. I still haven’t decided what I’ll sacrifice for 40 hours though. So far some ideas and suggestions from others have been:

• Sleeping in a cardboard box for two nights
• Asking girls out for 40 hours (not so sure about this one, I might run out of girls to ask and my safety wouldn’t be guaranteed if I turned to the streets)
• Forgoing technology for 40 hours (did this one last year)
• Not eating for 40 hours
• Not studying for 40 hours

Anyway I’ll try think of some more and decide before the time comes.

I’m hoping things are getting better between Zippo and me. She has thought of me as weird and disturbing (for some reason…must be something I said), so I’m really trying hard to get back in her good books. I decided to part with my $5 and fulfil the bet I made with her (actually it’s money from Young Enterprise but don’t tell the twins! I’ll pay the business back when I find enough loose change around the house). I like to think of it as compensation for whatever psychological damage I’ve caused her. I’ve talked to her on the phone a few times in the past week which is hopefully a good sign, and let’s hope things get better.

I’ve realised how important friends are recently, and so I’m determined to keep the friends I’ve got so far, and hopefully in thirty decades’ time, I’ll still be close friends with them.