5 September, 2010 in Friends, Social by Aonghas

Nick Turns Twenty

It didn’t seem that long ago since Nick’s last birthday party, but here we are again another year on. Tonight Nick celebrated his 20th birthday and invited a few friends to dine with him at La Porchetta on Lincoln Road. The last time I had eaten there it was still Pizza Hutt, so everything looked a bit different inside. When I arrived, most of them were already seated and we were just waiting on Sam, Bryn and Hailey. The menus were passed around and me being my usual self, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to eat. After scanning over the menu back and forth, I finally settled on the Quattro Gusti pizza, which was a pizza that had four different toppings. I ordered a large pizza, though I didn’t realise how large a ‘large’ was until it was put in front of me by the waiter. Luckily I was hungry by then so I managed to gobble it down… just! Just before we left, Nick was surprised (though somewhat prematurely due to one of the staff members mentioning “candles”) with an ice cream birthday cake! We sang him ‘Happy Birthday’ and divided up the cake before it had melted completely. On the way out, I bumped into a Michelle Lee, an old friend from Rutherford. She was with her friend Aniva, who turned out to be the same girl I met at New Zealand Natural a while ago.

Happy Birthday Nick!

From left: Me, Carey, Nick, Luke

After dinner, it was back to Nick’s house for a bit of hangin’ and chillin’. Some of the girls arrived later after getting ready, while the rest of us played some pool, darts and listened to music. It was nice to chat up with some friends I hadn’t seen for ages, even though a few of them were a bit tipsy at the time. We sang the birthday song to Nick again, but this time with gifts.

The taxi vans were due to arrive just before 11:30pm to take us into town. Since I wasn’t going to be staying out all night, I decided to drive into the city myself, and Luke came with me too. On the way into town, we saw two breath-testing stops on motorway on-ramps, so the Police were definitely out in numbers tonight! The taxi van we were following stopped just before the viaduct so we needed to find a car park as close as possible. At first I didn’t know where to go and there were cars all over the place, but luckily we didn’t have to search for too long before we found a carpark down at the viaduct opposite the Westin Hotel.

From left back: Luke, Racheal, Steph, Sam, Nick, me, Rosie

The message from friends was that they were at “Provedor”, a bar on the waterfront. It took a couple of misguided instructions from road workers and security guards to finally find our way there, but we got there in the end! The music at the bar was pumping loud and I took my first step into a bar in the city! Over the next hour or so, we had a great time dancing with friends in amongst a crowded pack of randoms. Photos were taken and we even met some other friends from school. When it was approaching 1am we left Provedor to go somehwere else. I’m not sure if anyone knew where that “somewhere else” was at first, so we walked through some streets trying to find another club that was free. One of the clubs had a very long queue waiting outside; I’m not sure what that one was called though.

Tonight was a night of “firsts” for me. It was the first time I had eaten at La Porchetta, the first time I had walked into an alcohol store (but I didn’t buy anything!) and the first time I had gone to town! In other news, my workmate Nikki invited me to her party tonight as well and I was planning to go, even for a short while, but I didn’t manage to get there in time . So I’m really sorry about that Nikki, but I’ve still got your birthday card so I’ll make sure I give it to you when I see you at work next!

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)

20 March, 2010 in Social by Aonghas

Cooking Mama at Jennifer’s

This afternoon we were invited to Jennifer’s 20th birthday party at her house (Jennifer is a girl from my Sunday School who studies Chemical Materials Engineering). We thought the party started at 4pm but when we arrived at her house, we didn’t see any other cars. After sitting in the car for a few minutes, we thought we might as well go in. When Jennifer answered the door, we found out that most people were actually arriving after 5, so we were a little early. We met a couple of Jennifer’s friends who were already there though – Sarah and Marco. They were still planning the group games that we were going to play later in the evening. Soon more people started arriving and we were trying our hardest to remember all their names. Nadine from church arrived as well, so we started talking to her since she was a familiar face. Jennifer took a photo of us with her Polaroid camera (Calum thought it was an underwater camera!) which was really cool. I hadn’t seen one of those cameras for ages!

I haven't seen a Polaroid Camera for ages!

Everyone prepared a different dish

When there was a sizable number of people, we started eating food from various dishes people had prepared. There was heaps of different food such as pasta, chicken nuggets, sausages with pineapples and tomatoes, sausage rolls, sushi, sweet desserts…

The evening was getting on and it was time to start the group activities. We were split into four teams and then told which game we would be playing first and with whom. Our group (The Cool Bunch) was up against Team 1 first, playing a game called Jukebox. We were played the beginning of different songs and we had to identify what song it was. It was the best out of ten songs and our group ended up winning! Other games during the evening included Jenga, a speed drinking game with coke and a straw, and a rubberband-passing game using straws in our mouths. I don’t actually know what the prize was for the winning team though; maybe there wasn’t one.

Our group playing "Jukebox"

Make a wish Jennifer!

We all sang Happy Birthday to Jennifer after the games, before group photos were taken. One of Jennifer’s friends got a little crazy with the cake cream, which soon escalated into a cream fight. Because I was standing in the corridor while this kerfuffle continued, I was caught in the crossfire. As Jennifer passed me she wiped a large lump of cream on my T-shirt, although I don’t think she realised. It was no biggie; I just used a tissue to clean myself up. We didn’t stay too long after that and we left at the same time Nadine did. It was a pretty fun night overall, really good to meet some new people and have fun celebrating Jennifer’s birthday!

Our Sunday School class with Jennifer the birthday girl!

7 March, 2010 in Social by Aonghas

“Party in the USA”

Make a wish!

Tonight Stephanie Gates had her 19th birthday party at her house. As you can probably guess,  the theme for the party was ‘Party in the USA’. After feeling a bit overdressed last year at the Sizers’ Christmas gathering, I didn’t know how extreme to dress up for tonight’s party. In the end I just went in some casual clothes, nothing too out-there. Though I did have blue shoes, a blue hoodie and some blue on my T-shirt so as to keep with the American colours (or should I say colors). I arrived at Steph’s house not too long before 9pm and made my way round the back of the house. From the looks of things, the American atmosphere was definitely buzzing with all these American flags and balloons hung around the place, along with those cool red plastic cups you see in all those teen American movies! I actually later found out that there’s a company that makes those red cups called the Solo Cup Company and the ones we had at the party were the real deal!

Having a good time chatting on the deck

"Yea-eaa-ea-eaah! It's a party in the USA"

There was already a decent-sized group of people at the party when I arrived. I said my hellos and wished Stephanie happy birthday before I blended into the scene. Some people were dressed to the American theme a lot more than others, notably Luke who didn’t actually have a shirt on at first (and I didn’t even get a photo!). Hand-painted T-shirts was a recurring style in many outfits too. From feeling overdressed last time, I started to feel a bit underdressed this time! But it didn’t faze me for long once I started chatting and mingling with some of the peeps.

It turned out to be a really good night of catching up with old friends and finding out what everyone was up to these days. I had a nice long chat with Cresilda as we reminisced about the old days way back as far as primary school! There turned out to be heaps of people at the party that I didn’t know (or at least I didn’t think I knew them from vaguely seeing them in the dark). In fear of missing someone out, I won’t attempt to recall everyone I caught up with, but to everyone I talked to – thanks for the catch-up! We should do it more often.

See more photos from the party in the photo album.

From left: Shaun, Stephanie, me, Hannah, Rosie

P.S. Happy birthday to my other friends, Claire and Rebecca from church! I hope you both had a great day and got a chance to relax and enjoy yourself on your special day

29 November, 2009 in Personal by Aonghas

Birthday Wishes

It always feels good when people remember your birthday and pass on their birthday wishes. Yesterday I was overwhelmed by the number of people who wished me happy birthday and I would like to thank the following people who sent their regards (in approximate chronological order):

• Amanda Teo
• Fiona Ho
• John Luong
• On Tsui
• Carmen Chin
• Grace Wong
• Cleo Chin
• Rose He
• Nick Miller
• Szelin Yap
• Mercury Keomahavong
• Carey Sizer
• Serenne Fang
• Ruby Jang
• Kayemm Chan
• Chris Kim
• Chelsea Robinson
• John Kingi
• Johnny Wu
• Ella Tunnicliffe-Glass
• Anne Yu
• Ari Osborne
• Luke Sizer
• Marianely Ngangom
• Kassandra King
• Szepo Yap
• Yvonne Tse
• Rachel Jury
• Chandre Smith
• Caragh Taylor
• Phoebe Chong
• Rebecca Cunniffe
• Sophie Kaulima
• Alexandra Siu
• Menglu Rao
• Mengyun Rao
• Sarah Bailey
• Qi-Wern Chi Chi Lim
• All my TDI buddies
• Joon Suk Oh
• Brendan Su
• Mohaimen Ibne Mizan
• Jireh Chan
• Jesse Peeters
• Amanda Koo
• Hyun Suk Oh
• Stephanie Tsang
• Vanessa Gao
• Becky Li
• Johann Jungwirth
• Josephine Mak
• Rhea Peters
• Oceane Jossomme
• Albane Jossomme
• George Song
• Julian Tang
• Ying Tan

I hope I haven’t missed anyone! Let me know if I have! Thanks everyone once again.

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!

28 February, 2009 in Home by Aonghas

Surprise Party

Tonight was the night of Mum’s surprise birthday party. In the morning we all went to violin lesson (at the super early time of 8am!) and afterwards I had to assist Calum with his recorder lessons again since he’s still recovering from surgery. I drove Calum home after we finished at 10:30am, by which time Mum had gone out. Dad was left home to take us to accordion lessons over in North Shore. The plan was to buy Mum a birthday present afterwards.

When we got home from accordion lesson, we told Mum that we were taking her to the Auckland Showgrounds for the big sale that was being held there over the weekend. We didn’t tell her, but on the way home from the Auckland Showgrounds, we were going to drive to my aunty’s house where everyone would be waiting to surprise welcome my Mum for her birthday party.

There were boxloads of makeup selling cheap

There wasn’t much time to look around at the sale since it closed at 6pm, but we decided to go along to have a look anyway. By the time we arrived, parking was free at the Showgrounds. We got to the main entrance, where we were only allowed in without any handbags or other bags. There were tables and tables of all sorts of things, ranging from sunglasses to makeup (there was A LOT of makeup) to perfumes to car stereos. I wasn’t too sure if some brands of perfume and cologne were famous or not but a few I did recognise included Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, Dolce and Gabbana, Elizabeth Taylor as well as others. There were quite a few Casio watches being sold as well, but I wasn’t too sure if the prices they were selling at were actually cheaper than the prices elsewhere or not.

Casio watches

Calvin Klein's "Obsession"

Hundreds of sunglasses

On the way home we stopped to buy some takeaways (to keep Mum guessing if she had suspicions) but I think she started to join the dots of our secret operation on the way to my aunty’s house. She asked Dad why he had a day off work today (since he usually works on Saturdays) but he kept tight-lipped about it. We arrived at my aunty’s house and saw all the cars parked outside, by which time I’m pretty sure Mum had a good idea about what was going on. When we got inside, everyone came up to wish my mum a happy birthday.

The evening was quite relaxed and it was a good chance to catch up with my cousins. There was plenty of food for everyone and a delicious dessert including pavlova, ice cream, fruit saland and cream-filled eclairs to top if all off. My aunty and her family bought my mum a dwarf garden ornament with a pot at the back, while my dad bought her a pagoda and a gardening book. Hopefully it will mean our garden will look lovely in the near future!

26 February, 2009 in Recreation, University by Aonghas

Happy Birthday Mummy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUMMY! (AND HELEN CLARK)
This morning when I got off the bus in town, I met up with one of the guys on my maths course. Apparently he caught the same bus as me but I didn’t realise he was on it. He told me that he was Shameela’s uncle and that he came from Afghanistan some years ago. We walked to university together before he went his own way (because he was doing another course for the day). Marianely arrived at the lecture theatre just before it started but Luke was still nowhere to be seen. I later found out that his car didn’t want to start this morning so he had to catch a bus into town later. Our morning lecture today was on integration. It was mostly revision stuff for me, but it was still good to refresh my memory. We met up with Luke after the lecture when we went to our tutorial room.

My first time upstairs at the Queen Street McDonald's

I met up with Persis and Lydia for lunch today (Lydia was Head Girl of Henderson High School last year and Persis was Deputy Head Girl). We met at Albert Park before walking down to McDonald’s on Queen Street for lunch. Since I had already finished all my lunch at interval, I decided I would just buy a small combo at McDonald’s. When we arrived, it was pretty full of people and quite a few students in uniforms standing around. I ordered a bacon cheeseburger combo (or something like that) for $5. The upstairs eating area was actually opened for the first time in my life so we went upstairs to sit down (I’m sure I’ve never seen the stairs without the chain across the bottom before!). It was good to catch up with Persis and Lydia after not seeing them for ages – I think the last time I talked to them was at Rangeview last year when we were promoting our high schools to the intermediate students. They are both doing Science degrees at Auckland Uni this year, though they will be specialising in different fields later on.

Persis Samuel and Lydia Rayner

After lunch we had a two hour lecture by Addie Pujii about Mechanics. I didn’t actually know what part of Mechanics he was going to talk about, but neither Marianely or Luke came to the afternoon lecture. Before the lecture started, Julia passed around an evaluation form for everyone to fill out about the course. Although the Mechanics lecture was mainly about deriving the formulae found on the Mechanics formula sheet from last year, Addie did show us a video clip of these guys rapping about vectors. I managed to find the video on Youtube, it’s called The Vector Song. Original title, I know. It was kind of funny in places, but pretty random! Here it is below:

–

Tonight we went to Sylvia Park Shopping Centre to pick up a Pharmacy book that Calum bought off Trademe. After we picked the book up, we decided to have a browse around in the different shops. We came across the Sony Style shop that sold all sorts of Sony electronics, but everything was really expensive. I saw a tripod that was $849! For a tripod! I don’t know how many people actually buy stuff there; they might just gawk and ‘wow’ at everything and then walk out, like we did. As we were leaving Sylvia Park, we spotted Ryan Benjamin at a restaurant/cafe place about to have dinner. He waved us over, and we had a quick chat with him. He seems to be enjoying his job at Rosehill College. Apparently the interest in Debating has risen over there, which he’s excited about. Too bad Rutherford is going to win the competition this year…

Although we didn’t have a special celebration for Mum’s birthday today, we’ve got a little secret up our sleeves for this Saturday which she doesn’t know about (or at least we don’t think she knows about it!)

19 February, 2009 in University by Aonghas

Geek Campers Reunite

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SZELIN YAP AND MICHELLE YE!
I was slightly more pushed for time this morning than I was for the last three days so I didn’t have time to eat breakfast before I left to catch the bus. Since the 7:45am only let me just make it on time to the lecture yesterday, I was a bit worried that today would be a repeat. Luckily for me though, we made it into town early at around 8:40am (although it meant I had to cut my sleep on the bus short!). When I arrived at the lecture theatre I didn’t see Luke or Marianely so I decided to find a seat myself. There was a guy sitting in the middle of the front row where we usually sit, so I sat near him in the same row. I noticed the guy glancing over at me a couple of times and I thought maybe I looked funny or maybe I had something on my face, but then he said, “Hey, did you go to the Avondale Ball? With… Serenne?” Apparently I drove this guy (his name is David) to the Avondale Ball from Serenne’s friend’s house where they had the pre-ball. Marianely and Luke arrived shortly after, so I moved over and sat next to David for the morning lecture. There were more students in the lecture today because it was the first day for the new ones since they are doing the condensed 7 Day course. When we got to the tutorial rooms, I met up with Sanna O’Connor-Morberg. I knew her from the Science and Technology Forum I went to at the beginning of last year. She told me that she is doing an Engineering/Arts degree at Auckland Uni this year, just like me. I guess I’ll be seeing more of her once uni starts.

At lunch time I left Luke and Marianely to meet up with a few peeps from the Science and Technology Forum (the same one I knew Sanna from). Apparently a couple of the students who were in the Forum camp up to Auckland to visit so they were having a little reunion thing at the food court at Planet Hollywood. When I arrived at the food court I was trying to look out for people I recognised but I wasn’t very successful at first. I didn’t want to walk up to a bunch of randoms and act as if I knew them, only to find out that they were complete strangers and that I had just made a fool of myself. Luckily I saw someone wave at me, and when I got closer (I couldn’t make out any faces from a distance) I saw Joyce, Eugene, Yvonne and Anne sitting at the table. I was pleased that they all remembered who I was! Yvonne is only up in Auckland for a short while before she is going back to study at Victoria University. Soon Josephine arrived as well, followed by Maryanne (all the way from Palmerston North!) and Julian Lees. I didn’t know initially, but I soon found out that Maryanne and Julian were a couple. I thought that was quite amazing, seeing as they lived so far away from each other for all that time. They looked very nice together though, I must say.

The tall purple stools at Giapo on Queen Street

Joyce, Eugene and Yvonne with their delicious-looking ice cream

After lunch we headed down Queen Street to the ice cream place with the tall purple stools outside, called Giapo. I’m sure I hadn’t seen that place before, but I was told that it’s been there for a while now. A couple of the girls went in to buy ice cream while the rest of us waited outside. Jin and his friend had arrived by that time too.

We walked up to Albert Park and sat in the rotunda to chill out. It was quite interesting to learn that almost everyone who was there was either studying Biomed or Engineering at uni. I couldn’t stay long to talk though because I had to get back to uni for the maths course. We had a group photo just before I left so hopefully it will be uploaded somewhere online shortly. It was a really good to catch up with them – I’m sure I’ll be seeing them around uni regularly, especially the Engineering ones!

Update: I found a photo of the group on Yvonne’s Facebook. Here we are at Albert Park:

From back left to right: Yvonne Tse, Jin's friend, me, Jin Kim, Eugene Shin. Front: Maryanne Ting, Joyce Chan, Anne Yu, Josephine Mak, Julian Lees.

31 July, 2008 in School, Update, Website by Aonghas

The Official AONGHAS.COM Launch

First of all, I would like to welcome you to the official launch of my website on 31st July 2008 at midnight. For those of you who stayed up to wait for the launch at 11pm, I apologise for the one hour delay. There were a few things I had to fix up before it all went ahead, but luckily they didn’t take too long to adjust.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MRS RUSSELL. Today we celebrated Mrs Russell’s birthday as she turned 21 What I was disappointed about was the fact that I missed out on the birthday celebration during tutor period because I had to talk about International Languages Week at assembly. Luckily there was a little bit of cake left when I got back, so I got to have a taste. It was a chocolate mudcake (I think they’re called?) and it did taste quite good!

I also want to wish Mars Keomahavong a happy birthday for today as he turns… 18?! Wow that’s so old (sorry Mars!) I can’t believe it. For those of you who don’t know Mars, he is one of the earliest memories of a friend I had at Henderson Primary School. Whenever I talk about him to other people, everyone always says “wow, his name is Mars?!” and yes, it’s true, like the planet. In fact, he even has a sister called Mercury and a brother Comet! He was quite the man at soccer/football back in the day, and when I caught up with him the other month, he’s still going strong with his footy apparently, going overseas to play in tournaments etc. So I’m sure he’s going to make the big time soon and when he does become the next David Beckham, I can say “Hey, I know that guy!” Good on ya mate!