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!

17 April, 2010 in Social by Aonghas

Twins Turn Twenty

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

A bunch of people who jumped in for a photo

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

We ended up discussing our Engineering project...

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

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

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

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

The Ultra Mega Get-Together

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

Oddfellows at the Westcity Foodcourt

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

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

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

The four boys managed to squeeze into the backseat somehow

15 March, 2010 in Church, Social by Aonghas

Church Camp 2010: Willow Park

This weekend our church had its first family camp at Willow Park Christian Camp out in Howick. The purpose of the camp was to encourage everyone to get to know other people at our church and also to just have some time to relax and have fun. We left home at around 6:45pm hoping to arrive at the camp by half past seven. Earlier in the day our car tyre was punctured by a screw, so we were still driving with a space saver tyre which meant we couldn’t drive faster than 80kmh. Still, we managed to get to the campsite just on 7:30! The location of the camp was really nice, with Bucklands Beach pretty much across the road from where we were staying.

[googleMap name="Willow Park Christian Camp" description="1 Hostel Access Road, Eastern Beach, Auckland" width="630" height="250" mousewheel="false" zoompancontrol="false" typecontrol="false" directions_to="false"]1 Hostel Access Road, Auckland New Zealand[/googleMap]

When we arrived, we were shown to our room upstairs by Sherman. We were allocated to Room 10 with Jireh, Andrew, Rayson and Bobby also together with us. We went back downstairs to meet up with everyone else outside and found them playing on the trampolines across the field. Jireh demonstrated how to do a forward flip on the trampoline while the rest of us looked on. I had a quick jump myself and although I attempted to do a forward flip, I landed on my back! Pretty scary experience at first though; I hadn’t ever tried that before!

The ice breaker game to help us get to know one another

The bell was rung and it was time for the official camp programme to start. We were all ushered into the auditorium where Gabrielle gave an introductory speech and welcomed us all to the camp. Camp programmes were handed around which included all the names of the people and their group numbers, as well as a timetable outlining the schedule of events during the weekend. After a few more introductions, Richard’s wife Michelle led us in a few ice-breaker activities. We all got out of our seats to mingle with people we didn’t know before we were split into two halves with a division down the centre aisle. For this activity we had to sit facing a curtain with someone from the other side facing us (but we couldn’t see them). When it was time, the curtain was dropped and we had to call out the name of the person sitting across from us. I was filming for most the time and it was pretty funny seeing the looks on people’s faces as they tried to scramble their mind for a name.

We were then asked to get into our concert groups (there were eight in total) to start planning for our performance at Saturday night’s concert. Four groups had to perform songs, while the other four had to present skits. I was in group eight along with most of the other people from Oddfellows, and we had to prepare a skit with the theme of “Welcoming new people to church”. It was nearly 10pm before we all headed back to the dining room to have supper. I had a cup of coffee to keep me awake (not knowing how long I was going to be staying up!) and we spent a while talking at a table. I also had a chat with Tim which was pretty interesting. The instruction we got from Gabrielle was that we had to go upstairs to our room at midnight so in the end we didn’t actually get to stay up that late to talk. Then again, Calum and I had to get up early in the morning anyway because I had to take him to Lincoln Heights so he could teach his recorder classes at 8:30am.

Willow Park Christian Camp is quite a nice venue

The first night of sleep was a little bit of a roller-coaster because I kept waking up. Maybe it was the fact that I was sleeping in my regular clothes, or maybe it was because I wasn’t used to the different environment. The first time I woke up I thought it was nearly time to get up but I didn’t feel like I had had enough sleep. It was only 3:50am. The second time I woke up it was nearly 6am. Trying to think about sleeping didn’t really help, which was a little strange because usually I find it really easy to fall asleep. Before long there were sounds of little children bellowing out in the hallway. Once they started up, I knew I wasn’t going to get anymore sleep. Calum and I left the camp just after 7:30am; I left the video camera in the trusty hands of Ray so he could film the morning programme while we were away.

We finally got the tyre replaced after half a day

As it turned out, we made it to West Auckland with 20 minutes to spare before 8:30 so we decided we’d take a quick detour through the McDonald’s drive-thru for breakfast. Little did we know that Calum’s hot chocolate would end up with a dead beetle inside! Yuck. After dropping Calum off at Lincoln Heights, I headed down to the car repair garage in Henderson Valley to see if I could get the tyre replaced. I must have arrived too early though, because everything was still closed when I arrived. I went back after going home for a shower and by that time they were open so I managed to get the tyre changed. Yay, now I didn’t have to worry about driving faster than 80kmh on the motorway!

The camp food was delicious!

Calum finished teaching at 11:30am so when I went to pick him up, we headed straight back to camp so we’d make it back in time for lunch at half past twelve. Our timing was pretty much perfect actually, because lunch was just about ready when we got back. It was my first meal at the camp since being there and I must say it was very nice! We had pork rib patties in bun with pasta, salad and beetroot! After lunch there was a little bit of free time so we headed to the gym to have a bit of a play. Some of the guys were playing with a soccer ball while the others were playing tennis without a net, playing random stuff on the piano and throwing around other balls. Later the rest of the people joined us down at the gym for the prepared group activities. There were four groups doing different activities in a rotation.

The group activities were crazy but fun

The activities consisted of: blowing flour off a plate in order to grab lollies with your mouth, transporting water by cupping it in your hands and balloon relays in partners and also with a stick. Sounds pretty crazy I know, but I think everyone had lots of fun. Most of the time I was filming and it was definitely a lot of fun watching them all looking silly. After the four activities I thought it was over, but I was wrong. We only stopped for a short break to have afternoon tea before we were back into it! The second round of activities was more about skill. Each group was given a number of plastic cups and the goal was to construct the highest tower of cups. There were many tumbles and crashes along the way, but in the end I think the winning tower was stacked 17 cups high!

The end of the group activities segwayed nicely into the soccer game we had during free time. Originally we were hoping to have a soccer game between the different fellowships at church, but it ended up being just mixed teams. I don’t know what the final score was but if we lost, I’m sure it wasn’t by that much We were all tired and exhausted after the soccer game but luckily it was just in time for dinner so we could all refuel.

'Welcoming new people' was the theme of our skit

The highly anticipated evening concert was held on Saturday night with all the eight groups performing their prepared presentations of songs and skits. It was pretty entertaining even though I couldn’t understand any of jokes in Chinese. The basic summary of our group’s skit was Calum, the church pastor, welcoming all sorts of stereotyped people to the church from emos to nerds to homeless people to druggies… I don’t know how I’d cope if our church had so many extreme stereotypes like that though!

We sang Shirley 'Happy Birthday'

After having a relatively early first night, we were all keen to stay up late on the second night. There were still quite a few people awake after supper, bantering away around tables in the dining room. It was also Shirley’s birthday so we gathered around to sing her happy birthday by the sofas. Gabrielle told us that we had to go upstairs to our room when the other fellowship decided to go to sleep. Since we found out earlier that the Canaan fellowship stayed up until 3am on the first night, we thought we’d still have ages to talk. Unfortunately for us, the other fellowship decided to go to sleep just after 12:30am so we were pretty gutted because we knew we couldn’t stay up for much longer. We savoured the remaining minutes we had together before we skittered upstairs back to our rooms.

We had the Sunday service in the auditorium

The final day at camp on the Sunday was more or less a wind down to the weekend. More people arrived at the camp in the morning for the church service that was held in the auditorium. Ada gave the sermon while Sherman was the translator. Before lunch we also had another time for group activities. This time each group had to collect items that were called out by the person running the game. The items on the list (such as belts, necklasses etc) then had to be used to dress up a volunteering member in each group, who then had to parade across the stage in a makeshift fashion show. Hamish was the model for his group, brave man!

The whole camp was over in less than three days but it had felt so much longer. On the drive home from camp I started thinking about Uni again and how long ago it seemed since my last lecture. I don’t feel like going back to Uni so soon; it feels like I should still be on holiday. Overall I think the church camp was definitely a great way to spend a weekend away from home and relax. I wish we could have more weekends away like that!

Smile everyone!

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.