8 October, 2010 in University, Youth Group by Aonghas

Test then Bake

Although I didn’t have any lectures today, I had a test for ELECTENG 204 (Electromagnetics) tonight, the second and final test before the exam. We were being tested on various topics in electromagnetics including energy in inductors and magnetic fields and the such. I must admit I was feeling a bit iffy about the test beforehand because I don’t know if I had studied enough.

But anyway, there was big drama before I had to leave for my test tonight. I was planning to drive to uni tonight for my test and then I could go back to youth group afterwards to join them for the baking night, except my mum was out with the only car we had at the moment, and she wasn’t home at 5pm, one hour before my test! Earlier in the week someone had driven into my mum’s car so it was at the panel-beaters being fixed up. I started panicking because I didn’t know what to do if she didn’t come back home soon, since it was too late to catch a bus by that time. I thought I had better ring someone to ask for a ride to uni, so I called Nick and asked if he could take me to uni but he was in the middle of finishing an assignment, though he did offer to take me if I couldn’t find another way. So then I rang Szelin and asked if she could take me and just as she said she could, my mum came up the driveway! Phew! Close call. I rushed outside and my mum asked why I was still home. I told her that I was waiting for her to come home, and she told me that I could have taken the other car.. apparently the other car was in the garage all along! I didn’t even think to check. That was pretty fail on my part.

I made it to uni just in time and thankfully a there was a vacant carpark close to my test room. I managed to write something down for all the questions, though I don’t know if they were good answers or not. We’ll just have to wait and see.

They were placed as separate cookies but came out as one merged cookie!

I made my way back to church after my test to be greeted by nice smells oozing from the kitchen. It was bake night at youth group tonight so everyone was pitching in to bake some nommable (thanks Sunny for introducing me to that word!) goodies. On the baking menu tonight included muffins, cookies, brownies and chocolate crackles. The cookie mix was placed on an oven tray as separate cookies but came out of the oven as a huge flat cookie afterwards. All the cookies had merged into one massive cookie so it was like a… cottage cookie (you know, like a cottage/shepherds pie?). We all enjoyed each other’s baking and it was good to see most people getting involved. And the best thing about it is that I’m not sick yet, so hopefully that means the food was all hygienically sound and everything is going to be okay!

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!

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

2 April, 2010 in Church, Youth Group by Aonghas

Odd Time for Oddfellows

Today was Good Friday – the day remembered for Jesus’ death on the cross. As was customary, we attended church this morning for the special Good Friday service. Pastor Chan invited us to play accompaniment music on our accordions for the prelude as well as the Holy Communion. The song was called “Old Rugged Cross” and we played together with Tim on piano and Jenny on violin. The chairs in the auditorium were arranged to face the centre where there was the table for Holy Communion. We sat through the sermon before having refreshments afterwards.

We had pizza for lunch after the Good Friday church service

Because of the morning service, our youth group “Oddfellows” was shifted to earlier in the day instead of tonight. We all had pizza together for lunch before going into the church library for the youth group programme. Today Karvin led the programme by showing us a video about Jesus’ death on the cross. It looked like quite an old video and it was a bit cheesy in parts but on the whole I think it delivered quite a strong message and there were parts of the video I never realised about Jesus’ death before. When we were having supper after the programme, Cleo and I decided to swap jackets to see how they looked on us…

Apparently I looked like a Mexican gangster, or a cholo. After looking online, I found this article about how to become a cholo. I didn’t realise there were so many steps to consider in order to be one. I wonder if anyone actually takes them seriously.

19 March, 2010 in University, Youth Group by Aonghas

Building with LEGO®

Our group's LEGO model

On the topic of churchy stuff, tonight at Youth Group we had activity night. Calum led worship while I played the piano (tried to!). We also brought Angie along with us to Youth Group tonight as well. Gabrielle led the programme and told us that we’d be building a model using Lego. There was a bit of a twist though. Each group had to nominate someone as the ‘President’ and someone as the ‘Vice President’. In another room, Gabrielle had constructed a model earlier using different Lego pieces and each group had to recreate it without looking at the original. Only the President in each group could see the original model and then report to the Vice President what it looked like. The Vice President then went back to the room where the rest of the team was and had to tell them how to create the model, but only being able to answer “yes” or “no”. In our group I was the Vice President while Rebecca was the President. It took our group a bit of an effort to get started, but once we had the base sorted, things started to take off quite quickly. Rebecca did a great job explaining how the different pieces were positioned, using her arms and hands to show me on the wall. In the end we managed to finish the whole model, and amazingly we were only one space off from being exactly perfect. Great team work guys!

20 February, 2009 in Church, University, Youth Group by Aonghas

Reverse Photo Scavenger Hunt

Today I nearly missed the bus in the morning. I was so close to missing the bus that by the time I got to the traffic lights, the only thing stopping me from missing the bus was the fact that the lights turned red for the bus just as I ran around the corner to the bus stop! That was so close.

In the afternoon tutorial session there wasn’t a lot of work being done. I think it was down to the fact that it was a Friday afternoon and everyone was waiting to go home to start their weekend. The people in the room next door to us were enjoying a game of hangman, led by one of the tutorial helpers. Some of the words they had to identify included ‘DAN CARTER’, ‘FACEBOOK’ and ‘SADDLE POINT’. Since Luke, Marianely and I were sitting in a position where we could see the whiteboard of our neighbouring room, we were playing along as well, and Marianely solved a number of them quite fast. She told me to call out her answers, most of which were correct! The tutorial helper (I think her name is Jennifer) asked me to come up and choose a word. I didn’t know what word to choose until I introduced myself as Aonghas and was about to say “but it’s spelt differently…” That gave me the idea to use my name as the word for hangman. I started off with seven lines _ _ _ _ _ _ _, to which many people responded with a puzzled look. They managed to spell most of my name correctly quite fast but the only letter they couldn’t work out for while was the ‘O’ (A _ NGHAS). I nearly had the whole hangman drawn before someone shouted out ‘O’. That was quite a fun activity, and a good way to sort of get to know the others on the course.

Marianely’s dad gave me a ride home today. He dropped me off on Te Atatu Road because I said I could walk the rest of the way home. Luckily on the way home, my mum happened to be driving past so she stopped to give me a lift home. Before we went to Youth Group tonight, I stopped at David’s house quickly just to drop off the laptop so he could do some programming for the robot before tomorrow’s competition. He showed me the robot upstairs in all its glory, together with spare parts scattered on the floor. It looked pretty sophisticated.

Tonight at Youth Group Hamish and I led worship. First Hamish led the song we played off a CD, called “What the Lord Has Done in Me“, while I wrote the lyrics for the next song on the whiteboard. The second song we sang was called “Great is the Lord and Most Worthy of Praise“. I attempted to play the accompaniment on piano, a personal first for me at church. All in all I think it was okay, despite my many split notes and mistakes.

After our worship leading, it was activity time! On explained that we were going to be split into three groups and we’d each be given a set of captions. For each caption we had to take a photo that would match the caption. In my group there was Claire, Cleo, Brendan, Justin and myself. The three captions we were given were:

• It was pretty obvious to the onlookers how THIS was going to end.
• It is a miracle! A youth group walking on water! (or similar)
• Who would have thought a youth group could do THIS and no one got arrested!

We were stuck for ideas at first, but we decided to have a walk around the church anyway to give us some inspiration. We thought we might go into the bathroom to see if we could photograph anything in there. I had my first experience in the female bathroom at church tonight (don’t worry, there wasn’t anyone in there at the time) and I must say their bathroom looks a tad prettier than the guys’ one. They have more toilet cubicles for one, though I guess they make up for the absence of urinals. We ended up taking a photo of me in one of the toilet cubicles with my back to the camera… embracing myself… as though I was making out with someone! Don’t ask me how that idea came up..

Next we went into the janitor’s closest further up the hallway and found a huge gas cylinder in there. After playing around for a little while, Cleo taped Brendan to the gas cylinder and I put on latex gloves, ready to “interrogate?” Brendan (this was all for the photo of course, I wasn’t planning on carrying out any such act on Brendan!)

We got back to the classroom at the end of the activity and looked through all the groups’ photos after sharing time. Some of them were quite funny, while others were just plain random! Hopefully someone will upload the photos on to Facebook or something so you can see the final shoots.