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

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

5 April, 2010 in Holidays by Aonghas

Leonie’s New Shop

Since I wasn’t working today and we didn’t have anything else to do, my mum suggested we go to St. Lukes Mall to visit Leonie at her new shop. Leonie (from church) bought the Obsessions shop at St. Lukes a couple of months ago and she’s going to change the name to Gl’amour soon. Since all the shops were closed yesterday for Easter, the streets were packed with cars when we left the house at midday. Finding a carpark was no easy task either. We circled the top carpark at St. Lukes for a good five minutes before we finally spotted a vacancy.

Leonie bought the "Obsessions" shop at St. Lukes Mall

We weren’t sure exactly where Leonie’s shop was inside the mall, so we decided we’d just have a little walk around to try and find it. Initially we saw a jewellery store that we thought might have been Leonie’s shop, but upon closer inspection there was a different girl behind the counter. Then we saw the sign “Obsessions” in front of the customer service desk where Leonie was working. Leonie’s mum was also there helping her out at her shop. Leonie looked pretty surprised to see us and she showed us all the new jewellery she bought for her shop while she was overseas last month. While we were talking to Leonie, Cleo and her mum showed up; they had just bought a ball dress for Cleo. She showed me the dress they bought at a nearby store. It was purple and looked quite nice. I’m looking forward to seeing photos afterwards!

All the primary school teachers had this stamp

My mum decided to let Leonie get back to work so we had a walk around the mall. We ended up at Kmart where we saw really cheap toilet paper. We also found a whole lot of stationery in boxes for $1. I also saw a stamp that reminded me of primary school – it was one of those smiley face stamps that all our teachers used to use! Later on my mum and Leonie’s mum went for a walk around the mall, so Hamish Calum and I went off on our own to have a look around the different stores as well. We had lunch at McDonald’s downstairs before checking out random shops to pass time. At Nature’s Window Calum spotted a sign that said “Angus’ Room” which was pretty cool, seeing as my name (despite the difference in spelling) is rarely seen in those kind of shops.

It's rare to see my name on a sign in a shop

At Living and Giving we also saw this thing called a “banana saver”. It’s this hard-case container shaped like a banana to keep your banana from being squashed I’m guessing. Quite an innovative idea, but pretty purpose-specific.

This could come in handy

We ended up staying at the mall until it closed, by which time it was just after 6pm. The daylight saving time change yesterday sure is having an effect; it was already dark when we got outside!

1 January, 2010 in Holidays, Work by Aonghas

The Beginning of a New Decade

Happy New Year everyone. As I’m writing this blog there is less than 40 minutes before the first day of the year is officially over, so I’m going to try and cram this to make it on time!

At midnight my brothers and I drove to Te Atatu Peninsula to watch the fireworks from the Sky Tower. They were pretty predictable as it turned out, similar to the fireworks last year. I guess there isn’t much that could have changed, but maybe in the future they should consider having fireworks shoot out of the harbour bridge too. That would be cool!

My first day of 2010 was spent… at work. That’s right, while all of you were sobering up from your late night partying, I had to be at work at 8:30am! A whole one and a half hours before the mall even opened at 10am. Before opening the store, I spent the time unpacking stock and taking out the rubbish from yesterday. When it was time to open, luckily there weren’t too many customers (just a few grandparents straggling around). I managed to get quite a few boxes of stock finished before midday, which arrived quicker than I expected since we opened an hour later than usual. One of the weird things that I came across today at work was writing the date in the daily planner and on various paperwork. I had become so accustomed to writing the year with a ‘zero’ prefix, for example ‘08 or ‘09. This morning when I went to write the date down, I wrote “01/01/0” before realising it was now 2010, so I had to add the 1 before the last zero – 01/01/10. Bit of a brain teaser that one!

Like yesterday, I worked with Sigourney from 1pm onwards. It was our initial plan to get all the stock finished by the end of the day but there were still a couple of boxes left when it was time to rack up. Luckily the girls working this weekend only have to do two boxes of stock over two days so it should be a cinch! Overall the day at work wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. If there’s anything that can make me feel better, at least I got paid time-and-a-half wages today! Hopefully the bank account will be looking a bit healthier shortly, because chances are I’ll need it for later on in the year when Uni starts.

I just want to thank everyone who sent their New Years wishes and texts to me today. Even though a lot of the messages are pretty much the same thing, it still means a lot to know you thought of me when you were decided who to send the mass message to! I hope you all have a wonderful 2010 year, enjoy the sunshine for the next few months while it’s still around, and set some realistic goals for yourself while the year is still fresh!

And would you look at that, I finished with 17 minutes to spare before midnight…

28 November, 2009 in Holidays, Home, Personal by Aonghas

Nineteen Years On…

It’s a little bit scary to think that I was born on this day nineteen years ago. I hadn’t even had a chance to properly adjust to to being 18, and now I’m another year older! My day started pretty early this morning with my violin lesson at 8 o’clock. We waited for Calum to finish teaching his recorder classes before we picked him up and went to Sherman’s hostel in town to see John’s new baby. We met up with Nadine, Winston and Aunty Stephanie when we arrived, before being let into the hostel by John’s wife Pauline.

The new baby was only 10 days old but he already had quite a lot of hair on his head. I’m not sure of the baby’s name though (I’m not even sure if they have named him yet!). Since we arrived slightly late, we couldn’t stay for long since we had made reservations at the Dynasty Yumcha restaurant across the road for 12 o’clock. We told Pauline that we would come back to see the baby afterwards.

I had lunch at Yumcha with my Sunday School class

The Yumcha restaurant had really fast customer service; the waiters and waitresses were coming in from every angle with all sorts of food just moments after we sat down! Knowing me, I just HAD to embarrass myself at some stage today – and sure enough I did. Just as I was picking up my little cup of tea (it was still hot!), I knocked the cup over and made a huge wet patch on the tablecloth. Luckily it didn’t spill over the side so I didn’t get wet. Even more surprisingly, the wetness dried pretty quickly too and I nearly didn’t even notice it after about 10 minutes. The prawns I tried were interesting to eat. I wasn’t sure of the proper technique to eat them, but apparently I was supposed to “suck” the flavour out of it before I peeled the shell off the prawn. In the end I just made a bit of a mess on my plate with all the prawn shells, but I managed to get through all of the fleshy stuff (with greasy hands afterwards of course!).

After lunch we went back to Sherman’s hostel. The baby had just been sleeping so he was pretty calm when we arrived. When Pauline brought the baby out into the dining room, we all took turns holding the baby. It was actually the first time I’ve held a real baby that small I think! He was so soft and a little wriggly when I held him. Everything about him was so tiny, like his hands and feet and nose and ears! I guess that’s what expected from a baby though…

My first time holding a baby!

We dropped Calum off at his friend’s birthday party on the way home. Meanwhile Hamish and I played a bit of basketball in the back yard. I had a short rest in the lounge afterwards before I decided to text Chelsea and ask when the TDI Farewell Evening started tonight. Thinking it started at 7:30pm, I thought I would still have time to get ready, but I got a shock when Chelsea texted me back and told me it started at 6pm (which was in less than 5 minutes!). I rushed out the door, jumped in the car and zoomed off to Rutherford!

When I arrived at Rutherford, I was greeted at the door by Hohepa and Helena. They gave me a a programme and invited me inside. It felt pretty good being back at my old school and seeing all my old TDI buddies from last year. I mingled with a few peeps over dinner and met up with Chen and Mathew as well. When dinner was over, we all took our seats and the official programme started. Michele and Caleb van Beynen, the Head Students for next year, were the MCs for the evening and they did a stellar job! Every student in TDI was acknowledged for their achievements this year, and the Year 13s were all given their speeches by their Year 12 underlings. I was so proud of all the speakers tonight because all their speeches were really touching, as well as humorous in their own way. It was such a nice way to end my birthday, so thank you everyone in TDI for reminding me of the good days at Rutherford. You have all grown so much.

Overall my 19th birthday was very enjoyable. This is my last teenage year so I’m going to try and live it up as much as I can while I still can!

11 November, 2009 in Holidays, Home by Aonghas

Mitre 10 Mega, Carters, Bunnings

This morning I went out to the front of our house to measure around the conservatory with my dad. Underneath our conservatory we’ve got this cement board-like stuff that’s been cracking over the years so we thought it was about time that we replaced/repaired it. After we got the measurements, I went out with my mum and dad to have a look at some different materials we could use to fix our conservatory.

The first place we went to was Mitre 10 Mega. The guy we approached there didn’t really know much about what we were talking about, but he did show us some of the wood outside (it was slightly raining at the time). Before we left Mitre 10, we passed by the garden department because my mum brought a couple of plant clippings from the back yard to find out what type of plant it was before digging it out. We saw one of the garden guys and when we showed him the plant clipping, he immediately dismissed the possibility of it being a fruit plant, but couldn’t decipher what it was. He asked two of his colleagues if they could tell what it was, but they didn’t have and idea either. Finally he showed the clipping to one of the young ladies (her name was Jessica (I read her name badge!)) working on the other side of the gardening section.

The mapou plant

She identified the plant as being a mapou, a New Zealand native apparently. She even took out her New Zealand Natives book to double check, and sure enough she was right. The red stem on the plant was a “dead giveaway”, she said.

Next stop was Carters, down the road. The guy we met there was driving on a forklift. At the time he was moving a pallet, but when he came back he directed us over to the plywood (while still driving the forklift). Seeing him riding on that forklift made me a tad jealous because it looked like so much fun, what with the multiple joysticks and rear-wheels that steer! We weren’t too sure if plywood was the best way to go either, so we decided we’d give it some thought and moved on.

The last destination on our home depot store round-trip was Bunnings Warehouse on Lincoln Road. It’s much smaller than the Bunnings in Pakuranga, but nevertheless we thought we’d just pop in to see if there was anything we hadn’t seen earlier. The older-looking guy we met there was quite a character. I missed his name, but he took us over to the corrugated plastics and suggested we cover our conservatory with this stuff. When my dad mentioned that our conservatory roof might need replacing after the birds had picked holes in the top layer of our Twinwall plastic roofing over the years, the guy joked with a solution to keep the birds off the roof. He said,

“Just put the f**king cat up there, that’ll keep the birds off it! The only thing is how to keep the cat up there… might need a cage!”

His seemingly ingenious idea was followed with a loud roar of laughter, I chuckled just to play along.

In the end though, we didn’t buy anything today. At least we’ve got some ideas now – hopefully they’ll be put into action before long!

10 November, 2009 in Holidays by Aonghas

Goals For Summer

Sitting at home all day with nothing to do got me thinking… I thought I should probably come up with some goals for summer so that I’m not completely bored with nothing to do every day!

I might add to this list as I go on, but here are a few things on my summer to-do list for starters:

• do something physical outside every day.
• motivate myself to go to the gym regularly while I’m not at uni.
• keep my blog/website updated.
• prepare for next year’s courses in January.
• make an effort to meet up with friends.
• wake up in the morning before 9am (or maybe 10…).
• do some maintenance around the house.
• upload some more Youtube videos!
• sort out all the random stuff wasting space on my computer.
• read some fiction books!

That’s all I can think of at the moment, but I’m sure there will be more things that will come to me later on.

10 November, 2009 in Holidays by Aonghas

Let Summer Begin!

I had my last exam for the year this afternoon! I was so relieved when I finally put my pen down at the end of the exam, knowing that it was the beginning of my four-month holiday! Today’s exam was my general education paper, Economics (Understanding the Global Economy). The exam itself wasn’t actually too bad because half of the questions were multi-choice so I knew I had some chance of getting them right! Now, as always, comes the daunting wait for exam results to come back. But for now I just want to free my mind of anything study-related! I think I’ve had enough of that for a while.

The thing about holidays starting is that I always find myself having too much time on my hands and nothing to do! During the semester things always popped into my mind that I thought I’d definitely have to do when the holidays arrived, but now that they have finally come I can’t remember any of them. Hopefully I’ll find something to keep me busy over the next four months, or else I’m going to get bored pretty fast. If you’ve got any suggestions for me, please let me know!

30 June, 2009 in Holidays, School by Aonghas

Blending in at Rutherford

Today I met up with my old school friends at Rutherford! I arrived at the school just after 11am and signed the visitors’ book at the office. It just so happened to be their mufti day as well, so I didn’t look too out of place as I walked through the school at interval. It was a little unnerving at first because I didn’t know if I would recognise anyone, but I made my way to the TDI form class and was welcomed with a big “AONNNGHHHASSS!” as I walked in the door. Most things in the form class looked similar to last year, and I noticed some photos of me still on the wall which was nice to see. A couple of interesting things caught my attention however. The first was a small whiteboard behind one of the laptops with David’s name on it and read “What to Wash”, followed by a list of body parts for each day of the week. When I asked David about it, he told me that he was in fact washing those body parts each day PLUS more. That was reassuring to know. The other slightly strange object in the room was a large cardboard box with eye holes cut out on the front and the words “T.D.I Guess Who?” I managed to get a photo of me with the Guess Who box on my head – can you even tell it’s me under there? Pretty hard, I know.

A whiteboard to keep David's hygiene in check

Who's the mysterious person under the box mask?

I spent most of the day in the form class talking to whoever had study periods. Mrs Russell was trying to send an email in Gmail with an attachment file, but she kept getting a pop-up proxy box before it would freeze on her. I then found out from Chelsea that sending emails home was now restricted and they aren’t allowed to send emails home with attachments anymore?! That’s just crazy. It made me remember how much I loathed the school network last year. Thank goodness the network at Auckland Uni is nothing like that!

Chelsea, me and Gannin

Gannin, me, Ari and Clinton

Before I left Rutherford, I sat in with TDI during their form period after lunch in Room 50. It brought back a lot of memories from last year just being there, and all the things that I miss started to come back to me. It was so good to see that the love and support for one another in TDI is still very much alive; everyone still keeping themselves busy. Thank you guys for making my day and reminding me of the good ol’ days! I hope you all enjoy your ball this Friday!