4 November, 2010 in Engineering, Friends by Aonghas

My Only Exam

This morning I had my only exam for the semester (yay!) but I didn’t think I was totally ready for it yet (boo!). I guess I had nobody to blame but myself seeing as it was the only exam I had and there were nearly 2 weeks between the last day of semester and my exam. My exam was held in the Fisher and Paykel lecture theatre and I tried to find a seat that was nearby the front of the room so I could see the clock.

The exam itself wasn’t too bad though there were definitely areas where I felt I could have done a lot better in. A lot better. Towards the end of the exam I was just hoping it would finish soon so I could enjoy my holiday, but I didn’t want to leave early so I could spend as much time as I could trying to answer all the questions.

After I finished my exam I went to have some lunch and I was sitting in the quad when Chen came along. We had a good catch up over lunch (well, while I was eating) and he told me that he was going overseas to China for a holiday. I wish I could go overseas too!

As I was walking back to the bus stop I saw they were doing renovations to the footpath in Albert Park. Maybe next year when I walk through Albert Park it will be all nice and new!

It looked like they were fixing the footpath in Albert Park

6 October, 2010 in Home by Aonghas

Szelin to the Rescue

This morning in admidst my half-sleep/half-awake phase, my mum came into my room and supposedly told me to take the house key with me to uni today because she might not be home when I got home. Except I didn’t hear her say that. So this afternoon when I got home, I found Calum sitting outside our back door with no way to get inside since our mum was still out. At first we managed to kill some time by surfing the web on our phones since we could connect to our WiFi, but I soon got bored of sitting around so I tried to find something else to do to help pass time. Luckily I managed to get into our garage (which isn’t connected to our house) and I found a flat basketball by the door so I decided to shoot some hoops with it. Too bad it was flat though; it really took the fun out of playing basketball.

Szelin and Calum showing off their respective name badges from uni. I was the odd one out

Before long, I noticed my neighbour Szelin waving to me from her lounge window and I signalled her to come over. She came outside to ask what we were doing and we told her that we were locked outside our house because we didn’t have a key to get inside . She invited us over to her place until our mum came home so we happily followed her back to her house. It had been a while since we were last at her house – ironic really, since one would think that being neighbours meant we could go over to each other’s house all the time. I guess we’ve all just been busy and caught up with uni and other things so we never really got the chance. Szelin was home alone and she made us a hot drink before we had a catch up over the dining table. We continued our discussion downstairs in her bedroom and talked about the recent happenings in our lives. We were introduced to their new dog Lambchop (I think?), who was very energetic. He’s quite the constrast to their other dog Pepper, who has been around for ages. After a couple of hours, our mum finally showed up at home so it was time to say goodbye. Thanks for the hospitality Szelin, hopefully we’ll catch up sometime again in the near future.

2 September, 2010 in Friends by Aonghas

A Nicholaonghas Day Out!

We got our lunch from Country Fried Chicken (on a rainy day!)

The weather was groggy and wet this morning and I didn’t really feel motivated to do anything except laze around at home. Nick texted me mid-morning asking if I wanted to have lunch so I agreed (since he graciously offered to pick me up ). At first I was half-expecting to dine at Wendy’s like the old times, but Nick had a surprise up his sleeve. We drove in the rain for the better part of ten minutes before we arrived at… Kentucky Country Fried Chicken! It was a small little lunch-bar type place that sold everything from burgers to chicken and even sushi! Nick told me he had come to CFC, as he called it, many times in the past but not for a while. We both ordered a combo that included a chicken burger, two pieces of chicken, chips and a drink. As we waited for our lunch, we read the weekly Coffee News which always has interesting stories and jokes. In this week’s edition, there was an article about a Korean lady named Cha Sa-soon who had finally passed her written exam for a driver’s license… after 950 tries! That’s crazy. Especially since she paid almost $4200 in fees in the process. And that was just for her written test. In the “On the Lighter Side” section, this one-liner joke was pretty clever I thought:

What gets bigger the more you take away? A hole!

We sat in the car to eat our lunch

Our lunches were ready by the time we finished reading Coffee News so we took our food back to the car (the car with only 2 hubcaps, might I add) and Nick drove down to the little carpark near Te Atatu beach. We had a good catch up over lunch and talked about the recent happenings in our lives. Nick started playing music off his iPod so I decided to test this app on my phone called “SoundHound”, which is supposed to recognise songs after recording short sound clips. After correctly recognising a few songs, Nick dug into his vast music collection to try and beat the system, even with some home-grown NZ music. Although there were a couple of exceptions, I’ll think it’s safe to say we were both pretty impressed by the accuracy! And just in case you’re wondering what songs we tested, here is a list of (most of) them in reverse order:

Yeah, pretty long list! After we got tired of that and realised how much of my Vodafone data plan we were wasting, it was time to head home. But not before we made a quick detour to have ice cream!

My sundae had a mixture of cookies & cream and coconut strawberry ice cream

22 July, 2010 in Friends, Social by Aonghas

Drinks at Shadows

Today was the first time I had been to Shadows

Since I’ve been at the University of Auckland for over a year and a half now, you would have thought I had been to the student bar Shadows at least once. But before today, that wasn’t the case. I remember someone, maybe my brother, telling me about the $1 bottomless glasses of coke they used to serve at Shadows, and I was meaning to go up there one day to check it out but I never got round to doing it. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t be bothered climbing three flights of stairs, or maybe I just had nobody to go with and there was never a good opportunity. But anyway, today I was sitting outside in the quad with Nancy and Jesse, eating my sandwiches prepared for me by my mum.

After Nancy left, Jesse and I were talking about engineering when Carey and Stephanie arrived. It took me a few moments to realise it was the first time I had seen Carey since his American escapades to the States earlier this month. Carey and Stephanie were on their way up to Shadows and asked if we’d like to join them. I was excited to go up there for the first time, and after being ID checked at the door, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the bar actually looked quite tidy and clean. I always had a mental image of the bar being smoggy and dark for some reason; maybe I got the impression that a student bar would be filled with rowdy drunkards vomiting all over the place. Then again, it was 1:20pm in the afternoon so perhaps it was a bit early in the day for the hardcore drinkers to be out.

Carey and Jesse ordered a whole jug of some kind of beer while I opted for a non-alcoholic option. I didn’t know what was on the menu apart from the regular soft drinks, so the bartender offered to make me a “mocktail”. I’m guessing that means a mock version of a cocktail? Anyway, he mixed all these different things together and shook it up in a silver shaker and the final drink turned out to pinky-purple. I asked him what it was called but I don’t think he knew himself – just a mixture of everything perhaps. It did taste pretty good I must say, but I expected it to taste how it did – that kind of taste you get when you mix soft drinks and juices.

Carey told us a little bit about his trip to USA and he shared a few party stories along with Stephanie. When 2pm came knocking it was time for me to go. Overall I am impressed with my first Shadows experience, and I wouldn’t mind going back there sometime. So if anyone needs a non-alcoholic drinking buddy, you know who to call

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)

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

10 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Test Number One: Basic Skills

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE GATES! (her actual birthday day was today)

The thought of my first test this year at Uni hadn’t dawned on my mind until last night when I realised how much I still had left to revise. Although the topic of the test was “Basic Skills”, there wasn’t a lot that looked very basic to me when I went through the practice questions online. Feeling unprepared I decided to do some good ol’ last minute cramming. Fortunately enough, some stuff started coming back to me from last year as I was reading through the notes, namely things like Gaussian Elimination and matrix multiplication. By the end of the night I felt like I had a lot of it downpacked, though some of the integration questions still looked a bit dodgy.

This morning the plan was to get up early and study the rest of the topics for the test tonight. Well, that plan kind of fizzled. I did wake up and stagger to the lounge, but then I thought I’d take a “short rest” on the sofa. Which turned into another half an hour. There wasn’t much time for study by the time I had a shower and got my gear ready; I had to walk to the bus stop myself. Rose was on the bus when I hopped on at Te Atatu Road. I told her about my test tonight and got out some practice questions I had printed earlier. Luckily for me, Rose is the whiz kid at maths and she talked me through some of the integration questions I had question-marked. Phew! That was a relief, thanks Rose

It was the first time this year I had caught up with Rose on the bus today, but the reunions didn’t stop there. While I was studying at the Engineering cafe after my lecture, Ethan and Emily (from Robotics) spotted me at the table and came to join me. It’s been ages since I’ve seen Emily and it was great to find out she’s studying Engineering and Commerce. While I’m on the topic, I must also mention that I bumped into Toni (from Robotics) yesterday on the staircase too! She’s ALSO doing Engineering this year, so hopefully I’ll be bumping into them a lot more often this year.

Also today I met up with a guy from Student Life called Chris. Student Life is “a movement of university students who believe that every student at uni in New Zealand should have at least one opportunity to hear and respond to Jesus Christ”. During Orientation Week I indicated on a survey that I’d like to hear more about their group, so today’s meeting was about getting to know what they do around campus and seeing how I can get involved. Chris talked me through one of their magazine/booklets which had articles about God, successful studying, life’s big questions, etc. He told me about the weekly meetings they have and it was quite a good chat. It’s a pity their meetings are on at the same time as my lecture on Friday, but I’m sure there’ll be other ways I can meet other Christians on campus.

I attended my last two lectures for the day but I was thinking about the test the whole time. When my lectures finished at 5pm, I went to join Luke and Jesse who were studying up on level 5 in the Engineering building. It’s always great studying with those two before an Engineering test or exam, because I always learn heaps in such a short amount of time. I mentioned it to them while I was with them and I was saying how we’d be soo much smarter if we crammed hard like that every day!

Luke was in the same room as me for the test, 060-298 in the OGG Building. Not knowing if I was fully prepared or not, I was a bit weary at first going into the exam room. To my surprise however, the test turned out to be easier than I thought. There were a couple of questions there that were a bit iffy, but overall I reckon it wasn’t too bad. Luke’s mum took me home afterwards and I managed to make it home before anyone else. It was such a lonely place with nobody at home for an hour; only the TV and the cat were there to keep me company. I’m glad the first test is done and dusted, but when I think about the cramming that went on before the test tonight, I have to remind myself again that it was just Basic Skills. Please let the rest of the year not get too much harder!

3 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Sore Limbs

The cicada that flew into the bus

Day 3 of my Uni year. I was really lazy this morning and didn’t decide to get up until after 10am! Shocking I know. I only really had time to have a shower and a quick bite before I had to rush out the door and catch the bus. There weren’t any empty seats when I got on the bus today so I had to sit with a stranger half-way down the aisle. At the next stop one of the ladies near the front of the bus got off just as Julian Tang was getting on. He took her seat, but by that time it would’ve been awkward for me to join him from where I was sitting. Luke Dickinson also caught the same bus as us and he sat next to Julian. They were both wearing the same green-coloured T-shirts and from behind they looked a bit like twins! As we neared our stop in town, a cicada flew into the bus somehow and landed by the window right next to me. I didn’t want to make any sudden movements just in case it leaped off the window and sprayed that cicada fluid stuff all over me (they do that right?). So instead I took a photo of it

After my first lecture finished at 1pm, I went to the gym to continue my 2-day attendance streak since Monday. I was still feeling rather battered and sore from the previous two workouts but I told myself that I couldn’t break the routine! Not long after I started, I was walking through the gym when I heard someone call my name. I turned around to see a beard-faced man on one of the machines. Staring at him for a few seconds jolted my memory before I clicked and realised who he was – Jonathan Wilson from Rutherford! I didn’t even recognise him at first; he looked so different. We had a quick catch-up which was really good after so many years since the TDI Originals in 2006. He’s now studying for his Honours in Jazz Music and plays drums with Nathan King from the NZ band Zed. He’s also the drummer for Life Church in the city and anyone who has heard him on drums will agree with me when I say he’s amazing! He also told me that Michael Elliot (the guy who used to play the bass guitar with him at Rutherford) is now married in Australia! That was a pretty big shock, but congratulations Michael! In our Computer Engineering lecture today, our lecturer was wearing a really cool Elmo T-shirt. I just had to get a photo of it!

My lecturer's Elmo T-shirt

I’m still sore from the gym… I really hope it doesn’t get any worse or else I’ll have real trouble getting up that hill at Albert Park tomorrow!