23 April, 2010 in University, Youth Group by Aonghas

Steamboat Tenpin

I bet the owner of this locker feels special

I went to my second Student Life action group meeting this morning. Josh couldn’t join us because he had a test/assignment that he needed to work on, but Nesta and Chris were both there. Today we looked at "Stepping from Being Unable to Empowered". We talked about sme frustrations we have as Christians and different struggles we come across. We read a passage from 1 Corinthians 2:9-3:3 about Paul discussing the power or ability needed to understand God’s truth.  

This afternoon I was pleasantly surprised when I bumped into Caragh Taylor after my last lecture. Since I hadn’t caught up with her for ages, I decided I’d walk with her to her next lecture so we could have a chat at the same time. Turnsout her lecture didn’t start for another 40 minutes so we sat outside OGG and shared the latest goss in our lives. Before long Rebecca Cunniffe joined us coincidentally; she had just come back from a trip. We had a pretty nice conversation before Caragh had to leave for her lecture. After we left Caragh, Rebecca and I walked to her locker under the quad. I was amazed when I found out Rebecca’s locker was almost opposite locker #1! I just had to get a photo of it while I was there. Don’t judge me, I live for the little things okay!  

Fiona and Gabrielle cooked up a storm

Tonight’s programme for Youth Group was activity night. The plan was to have a steamboat dinner at church first, before going to Westgate to play two games of ten-pin bowling. When we arrived at church just before 6:30, most of the preparation had already been done; the food was all laid out on the tables with the gas cookers at the ready. The food that was on offer ranged from crabmeat to meatballs to fish balls to noodles and cabbage. Since I didn’t trust myself cooking anything properly, I let the experts (the females) take control of the cooking pot. Before tonight I didn’t really know what a steamboat dinner was, but it was an interesting way to share dinner with the others.  

We cleaned up after dinner before heading to Westgate Tenpin. As well as Angie, we also gave Claire a life to Westgate. Because Claire was riding shotgun, she got to decide what radio station we listened to. If you’ve been in Calum’s car before, you’ll know that the radio is really dodgy and displays random things like "CD" even though there is no CD player. So it was a bit of a mish for Claire to decipher the whackjob of a stereo system, eventually tuning into her desired station, Radio Hauraki. Fortunately we were nearly at Westgate by that time, so we didn’t have to listen to that for long… just kidding! It wasn’t too bad   

Everyone looks on at Westgate Tenpin

We split ourselves into four groups and changed into the trendy bowling shoes. I always thought I was a size 8 at bowling, but as it turned out, the size 9 shoes actually fit better. So I’ll have to make a mental note to remember that for next time. In my group we had Samuel (NOOB), Cleo (CHINY), Claire (URMUM), me (ANGUI), Carmen (ZOMBI) and Grace (PUFLY). Not having played bowling since that time our ex-neighbour Phillip took us out (the time I scored my personal best of 146!), I was feeling a bit rusty, and it showed. I missed all the pins in both my bowls of the first set. Luckily I started to improve, very slowly. I ended up with one strike and two spares in my first game, a total score of 104.  

  

I started the second game off a bit better than the first, though I only managed to knock six pins down on my first bowl. Throughout the middle section of the game I started to dwindle in points scoring, even coming last at one stage I think. The real climax of the game came down to the last set however. Cleo had bowled her last set and ended with a score of 84, the highest in our group so far. After my ninth round, I was sitting on 75 – 9 points under Cleo’s final score. So in order to win, I had to get a strike or at least a spare to finish with 85 points. The pressure was on. I hadn’t bowled any strikes in this current game so far, so the odds were already against me. I calmed myself and went for my last bowl and… STRIKE! I knocked them all down! And I got to have another bowl as well?! I went for my extra bowl and I never thought it would happen, but I got another strike! AND I got to have another bowl after that too for some reason! In the end I finished with a score of 102 for my second game, I really didn’t expect that at all. If only luck was on my side earlier in the game.  

Group photo (of the ones who were left when we finished our game)

Here is the full table of scores for our group:  

Game One

Game Two

I would type up all the scores from the other teams but I think it’s going to take too long!

20 April, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

MM2 Project

So I didn’t sleep last night. My maths project took me all night to do and I didn’t even end up finishing it until there was 10 minutes left before due time at 2pm! In an epic attempt to rush to get my project in on time, I brought my laptop to Uni and found Jesse in the Engineering library, studying for his test tonight. I just wanted to make sure I was on the right track seeing as Jesse had already completed and submitted his project. I’m so glad I managed to get that project in on time though. Now I have an Electric Circuits test tomorrow to study for…

19 April, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Metal Milling

First day back at Uni after the break. My first class was MM2 (maths) and we had a new lecturer. Well, it turns out he wasn’t actually “new” to most of us because he lectured us last year in our programming course, Peter Bier. This time though he was going to be teaching us Multi-variable Calculus, whatever that is. The thing I really enjoy about Peter Bier is that he makes lectures interesting by entertaining us mid-lecture. Last year he showed us his prowess at uni-cycling as well as impressive juggling tricks, so I was excited to see what he had in store for us this time round. Half way through the lecture he showed us how to juggle – with one ball. But it wasn’t your usual juggling. It was more like ball rolling from hand to hand. I think it’s called “contact juggling”. It took him 3 months to learn apparently, and it looks pretty cool too!

The milling machine looked pretty complicated at first

Tonight I continued my workshop practice at AUT. I had already spent two sessions previously on bench work and ended up constructing a dill gauge. Today it was time to change over, so our group moved to milling and lathe workshop. We were split up into two groups; half on the milling machines and half on the lathe machines. I had never used a milling machine before so everything looked pretty complicated to me at first. Our teaching assistant Paul showed us how to assemble and attach a drill bit to the milling machine, which required multiple pieces. He then showed us the basic controls of a milling machine and demonstrated how to shave off some metal to make it smooth. It was a very slow process but it didn’t look too hard.

All the pieces needed just to assemble the drill bit

We were then sent away to our own machines to begin our project. The people on the milling machine, like me, are making a level (you know, one of those things you put up against an edge and it has the little bubble to tell you if it’s properly horizontal etc.) We were given a metal bar an we had to mill it down to the right width and height (25mm square) before we could continue. As we were milling the bar, we had to constantly spray this watery/milky stuff on the drill to help keep the metal cool (I think?). As you can see below, milling a piece of metal takes ages, especially if the bar is moving past the drill very slowly!

 

It took nearly two hours, but eventually my metal bar was pretty close to being 25mm square, given the fact we were only taking off fractional millimetres at a time! Next week I think we’ll be adding the little level bubble to complete our project. Exciting stuff!

18 April, 2010 in Church, Personal by Aonghas

The Book of Genesis

We resumed our Genesis Bible study at Sunday School today. We’ve nearly finished chapter 1 now, and already it’s raising some pretty interesting discussion topics. Like in verses 29-30 when it says:

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

The meaning behind these verses is a bit iffy since it talks about eating green plants but doesn’t actually mention eating animals. Does that mean we should all be vegetarians? If that’s the case I’ve been doing the wrong thing for the last 19 years. But I can’t live without meat, where will I get my protein? Soya bean just doesn’t do it for me. There were several other points of contention that were raised but I don’t have time to list them all out here. I’m sure more will be revealed as we study the rest of the book.

It’s the night before Uni starts again, and I’m feeling a bit edgy. I really am. Okay so basically I have an assignment due tomorrow morning at 9am and I’ve finished it (tick!), but I have a project due Tuesday afternoon that I haven’t really started (no tick…). What’ worse is that after I sweat blood and tears to get this project done on time, I’ll be fried and won’t feel like doing anything else for the rest of the day. Even though I have a test on Wednesday night which, as you can guess, I haven’t studied for! The last two weeks for me really have been a holiday… for the wrong reasons. I feel like I’ve wasted so much time doing, well, nothing really. Let’s just take one thing at at time. First, this maths project…

17 April, 2010 in Work by Aonghas

Working with Nikki

Similar to last Saturday, I was rostered on to work today from midday till the end of day. The only other person working with me was Nikki and, similar to last Saturday, there was nothing to do at work when I arrived. Because we were bored out of our brains, Nikki and I had a bit of a chat to help pass time. We talked about a variety of topics: school, uni, work… and funnily enough, because Nikki went to Avondale College, she also had the same misunderstanding about me as the girl at the Sizers’ party last night. We soon talked about our interests and I told her about my website and how I hope to start selling stuff in my online store… then Nikki talked about her art/graphics and some design work she does… THEN we clicked – we could go into business together! If I had the online store and she designed the T-shirts and stuff, we could have a good thing going! Ahh but that’s wishful thinking I guess.

I had worked with Nikki a few times before today but we didn’t really talk that much because there was never any time. Thanks for the chat Nikki, I look forward to our next shift together!

17 April, 2010 in Social by Aonghas

Twins Turn Twenty

Tonight I went to the Sizer twins’ house to help celebrate their 20th birthday. Although the party officially started at 5:30pm, I arrived pretty late because I had youth group beforehand and I was leading worship with Cleo. We watched the movie ‘2012‘  which was pretty cool, although it’s a bit scary when I think about all the earthquakes and natural disasters going on in the world today. Let’s just hope this planet has a little more than two years left at least! I want to see my children grow up…

A bunch of people who jumped in for a photo

Anyway, back to the topic of this post. So by the time we got home from youth group it was past 11pm so I zoomed off to the Sizers’ house to pop in for a quick hello. Luckily, most of the people were still at the party when I arrived. I bought Carey and Luke a little wind-up beach boy. Carey’s beach boy did press-ups while Luke’s did dumb bell curls. It wasn’t anything too fancy, but at least they had matching presents! I caught up with a few mates who were standing around before we all sang “Happy Birthday” to the twins at midnight (their actual birthday).

We ended up discussing our Engineering project...

Luke Dickinson was also there, so we casually started having a conversation about engineering, namely the maths project we have due on Tuesday. Unlike me, Luke had already nearly completed the project and was telling me what was involved. From the sounds of it, I have a lot of work ahead of me. But as long as I have enough energy to do an all-nighter on Monday, I think I should be fine (fingers crossed!). I also had quite a lengthy conversation with this girl from Avondale College. I don’t think I had ever met her before the party but she seemed to know about me so I was intrigued to find out how she knew so much. Luckily I clarified a few “misunderstandings” she had about me.

A few people who had had a bit to drink left the party a little while later. I stayed back to help tidy up, along with several of the twins’ church friends. We chatted in the kitchen while we waited for Janet to pick up the girls. Carey was feeling a bit weird after eating a questionably-cooked sausage, though he had a large bowl at the ready in case the worst happened. I ended up leaving with the rest of them at around 1:30am and I just got home. It was a great night to catch up with everyone and a nice way to end my holidays. Now I have to start thinking about Uni again… projects… tests… oh dear.

Me with the birthday boys (Luke on the left, Carey on the right)

16 April, 2010 in Holidays, Social, Youth Group by Aonghas

The Ultra Mega Get-Together

Tonight some of us Oddfellows joined together for what became known as The Ultra Mega Get-Together. Pretty much we were going to have dinner at Westcity first and then watch a movie afterwards. Because a couple of people needed to be picked up, Calum decided he would walk down to the mall while Hamish and I went to pick up Angie and Jireh. When we arrived at the mall, we met the rest of the peeps at the foodcourt. My mum also came to pick up Calum on the way to save him from the sudden rain (it was a bit late though) and she brought for us brothers at the same time. Some of the others guys bought their dinner from various places such as McDonald’s; Daniel was quick to run back when he discovered there was no toy included in his takeaway bag.

Oddfellows at the Westcity Foodcourt

The poster for the movie 'Kick-A$$'

Because of the age differences, there were a few movie choices: Clash of the Titans, When in Rome and Kick-A$$. Everyone watched Clash of the Titans except for Grace, Angie, Claire and the three of us. Grace was too young to watch Kick-A$$ so she watched When in Rome with Angie. That left Claire and the Anderson brothers to watch Kick-A$$. I hadn’t heard much about the movie beforehand except for the fact that it was R-18 and was supposed to be funny. The movie, directed by Matthew Vaughn, tells the story of teenage Dave Lizewski who sets out to become a real life superhero only to get caught up in a bigger fight. He meets Big Daddy, a former cop who, in his quest to bring down an evil drug lord Frank D’Amico, has trained his eleven-year-old daughter to be the ruthless vigilante Hit-Girl. Overall I was pretty satisfied with the movie; I thought it was pretty funny despite all the gore and violence. I can see why it was rated R-18 and it might not be the best movie to take your parents to if they’re sensitive to offensive language, but swearing and gore aside, I liked the action scenes and the comical style it had. If you’re over 18 and you don’t mind some blood and gun action, I’d definitely recommend this movie for you!

After the movie we offered to take Jireh, Ben and Angie home. The only problem was there were only five seats in the car. Solution: squash four guys into the back seat. From where I was sitting in the driver’s seat, it looked like a pretty tight-fit in the back, but they seemed to manage with Jireh practically sitting on the floor with his back against the door. I swear it used to be so much easier squashing four children into the back seat when we were at primary school. Luckily the boys in the back only had to hold their breath until we dropped Jireh off at home; once we passed the police station we knew we’d be fine the rest of the way!

The four boys managed to squeeze into the backseat somehow

14 April, 2010 in Social by Aonghas

Student Life Night Out

Turns out I wasn’t actually rostered on to work today. Though I only found that out when I got to work and my manager told me. She said I could stay since I was already there so I worked a three-hour shift until 3pm. Tonight I was invited to have dinner with the guys from my Student Life Action Group at a Korean BBQ restaurant in town. They said it was fine for me to bring my brothers along too since they had nothing else to do. We got into town just before 7pm and parked down a side street off K Road. We were sure to take everything with us and not leave anything valuable in the car since the alley looked pretty dodge.

The sign outside our restaurant

My Action Group leader Chris came out to meet us on the corner of K Road (that’s sounds dodgy in itself…) and he walked us down to the Korean restaurant where everyone else was. I saw Josh and Nesta, the other two guys from our group, as well as a bunch of other guys from another group. After grabbing a plate, I had a look at the different food that was available. I didn’t actually recognise much, if any, of the food there apart from the kim-chi. I opted not to try the kim-chi though since I knew it was really spicy. Instead I had Korean noodles, Korean pancake, seaweed and some other creamed pasta-looking stuff. Since it was a Korean BBQ restaurant, we had to cook our own meat on the gas stoves provided on every table. The raw meat all looked pretty similar and I couldn’t tell what was what, so I just grabbed a few pieces of random raw meat and took it with me to the table. The other guys were already cooking meat on the stove and some of it was ready by the time I sat down so I tried what I think was lamb. I’m glad they cooked it for me though because I don’t think I’d be able to trust myself enough. Because the restaurant was a buffet, I filled myself up until I was full.

After the dinner, Chris suggested that we go to play some pool. As we walked down the road, I realised one of the other guys who was with us was Toni Keeling’s boyfriend, Alistair. I had only met him once before, and it was brief, so I wasn’t sure if it was him or not at first. He told me that he went to Rangitoto College last year and he met Toni last year at MAX, the maths extension programme for Year 13 students at The University of Auckland. This year he’s doing Engineering – good stuff!

Chris taking a shot

The place we went to play pool was on Queen Street, just up the road from the Town Hall. We hired three tables between us and I played my first game against Chris. I played a few more doubles games before the final game where I played together with Chris against Ryan and Nesta. It was a contested battle to the end, and what made it more interesting was the new rule that Ryan introduced halfway through. Basically before we took our shot, we had to make a call and decide whether or not we were going to sink a ball. If we said we were going to sink a ball but didn’t, then we’d get chalk rubbed on our face. Similarly, if we said we were not going to make the shot but ended up sinking a ball, we’d also get chalk to the face. As you can probably guess, by the end of the game we all had blue faces covered with chalk. All in the name of fun though! We ended up leaving just before 11pm and we were relieved when we saw that our car was still where we left it and in one piece!

You can tell I missed a lot of shots

9 April, 2010 in Holidays, Social by Aonghas

Picnic with the Girls

I hadn’t seen Chelsea or Ari for ages before today. I bumped into Ari once or twice at Uni this year but we never really had time to have a good catch up. Since I saw Ari at work yesterday and she said that Chelsea was up in Auckland at the moment for the holidays, we decided to organise a catch up for the three of us. The idea to have a picnic was settled on and we brought our own homemade food (well, my mum made mine for me!). So at midday I went to pick up Ari before heading over to Chelsea’s. On the way to Ari’s house I crossed paths with Allie Le Lievre who was pulling out of a driveway as I was coming down the hill. We stopped our cars and had a brief chat through the window, though we couldn’t really talk that long because I don’t think how we were parked was legal. Ari was trying to decide what to wear before I came over; I could see what she meant by “picnic dress” when I arrived at her house. She was wearing a spotted blue dress and it looked quite summery. After Ari got herself ready and tuned her bright yellow ukulele, we hopped in the car and headed for our next destination – Chelsea’s house.

I don’t actually remember the last time I saw Chelsea. I think it may have even been last year at the TDI farewell evening? Anyway, it was nice to see Chelsea again after so long. While we were at the door, I also saw Peter (Chelsea’s brother) and Chelsea’s mum as well. I’m sure Peter grows everytime I see him! We said our goodbyes before we took off on our little joyride to nowhere in particular. Because I didn’t know where we’d end up, I thought I’d fill up the petrol before we got too far. So off we went on our journey and this is where we ended up…

[googleMap name="Waitakere Golf Club" description="This is where we had our picnic" width="610" height="250" mousewheel="false" typecontrol="false" directions_to="false"]35 Falls Road, Bethells Beach, Waitakere, New Zealand‎ [/googleMap]

The tourists arrived shortly after we did

I didn’t even know this place existed until we got there. It seemed like an odd place to have a golf course seeing as it’s in the middle of a forest. Then again, it’s probably really peaceful as well. I just wonder how many golf balls there are scattered around the surrounding bush. There was a long windy road down to the bottom of the golf course where we parked. A nearby little mound next to the large photo frame was a perfect location for our picnic. Chelsea unfolded her picnic mat and we all sat down in the sun – such a beautiful day! Ari’s plastic wine glasses added a nice touch to the atmosphere too. Just as we were getting settled, a tourist bus came down the gravel driveway packed with Asians. At first we thought they were Chinese, but later on we found out they were actually Japanese.

"There's a wasp in the container!"

We spent the next few hours talking while sipping on L&P and juice and snacking on Ari’s yummy cookies, Chelsea’s yummy ginger kisses and my mum’s sushi. In the end I realised I probably talked too much (there was heaps to say and not enough time!) but we had a really nice afternoon, despite the scary wasps that were floating around.

Tonight I discovered today’s picnic was exactly three years and one month (to the day!) since Chelsea, Ari and I had our first real deep meaningful conversation at Waiwera Camp in 2007. I look forward to our next picnic girls – maybe sometime before we’ve graduated perhaps?

Check out more photos from the picnic in the photo album.

The perfect setting for a photo

8 April, 2010 in Work by Aonghas

Working My Holiday Away

The past two days I haven’t really done much except work. Yesterday I worked from 1pm to 6:30pm and today I worked a lunch cover from 11-2. The good thing about working in the holidays is that there are more people rostered on so I always have someone to talk to and I’m never alone in the store. The bad thing about working in the holidays is the increased number of customers, namely school kids who have nothing else to do but stroll on in and mess up the clothes I’ve just tidied. Today I worked with Ashton for my whole shift and Dasha started at 1pm. I managed to finish all the stock we received before my shift was over, leaving nothing for Dasha to do for the rest of the day. Hopefully she didn’t get too bored this afternoon/evening! I had to walk home after work and on the way I nearly walked into a budding fern that was hanging over the footpath. Unfortunately I didn’t have a better camera with me, but I took a photo with my cell phone. It looked way better in real life though, honest!

I nearly walked into this fern hanging over the footpath