Looooong Day - Perfect Glass of Wine Waiting at the Other End.

I have had a great last few days - got back from Ohope, did some assignments, then a friend from Auckland came and hung out on Friday and Saturday (Blake). We did shopping mainly - opshopping and dress shopping (although the latter was express seeing as Blake is a boy). We also ate burger fuel and fed the ducks by the waikato river. Then Saturday evening i called in to see my brother who was up at a party, and then headed over to kaharoa (by rotorua) to my cousin Matt's 21st - was real good to see him and his parents and sister Jacqui. Totally keen to catch up with them again. After speeches and the yardy (2 minutes, good work Matt!!), I left, getting back to Hamilton at 1am. I called in on brother Gaz, and ended up staying until about 4:30am - met some really cool guys that are in my brothers car club (www.oldschool.co.nz). Then we went to the supermarket to buy breakfast supplies, then home to bed - up at 9am to cook for stupid boys ;) slept Sunday arvo, and then got up this morning to start work again.

So today, i was all ready for the day to be a great one - i had my positive thinking cap on. I was late to work, but on the way there the song "time is on my side" by the Rolling Stones (i think) came on, and it just made me relax. I got to work at 9:59 - i started at 10. an hour or so later, i was exhausted. falling asleep whilst trying to explain the fibre and matrix interface to students. So i spent the rest of the day trying my hardest to stay awake, stay positive, when all i really wanted to do was sleep. I think i pulled it off though - I really feel like the day was pushing to be crap, and I was pushing back just as hard for it to be good. I won! totally enjoying my glass of wine at home now though - i should do this more often :D

Zonked. Happy Zonked.

Just got back from Ohope - had a fantastic weekend/Sunday&Monday. Hannah, Roz, Jenna and I just hung out in Jen's bach, played charades, watched movies, sunbathed, and walked on the beach. We spent a good half an hour down at the beach drawing in the sand - our names, animals, and several other things - the Ring of Fire, the Rainbow of Doom, and the Pot of Rage (clearly found at the end of the Rainbow of Doom). We also had a heated debate over what Whale Island should be called - I think Snail Island from the Port Ohope direction and Turtle Island from the Whakatane side. Not Whale Island. Ever.

Walking on the beach today and then sitting in the car for the 2-3 hour drive home, I had time to reflect on a few things. Didn't really come to any conclusions, except that I am Happy. How cool is that?

finished project!!

I finally actually made something out of my craftiness. I was at stella's this weekend, who is actually my grandmother's cousin's grandaughter (point of this is that i am close to her whole family), and i was practising my crochet on the couch. Practising because i am horrible at it. Anyway, Stella's brother Nolan was extremely amazed that I was actually making "something" out of yarn. The bright orange yarn. So he asked me to make him a sweatband. He wanted a thin one, so it was actually something I could do - 5-6 rows of single crochet stitch using an H hook with about 4ply bright orange acrylic yarn. He was stoked - i was amazed at his happiness, but yeah, it was great to actually finish something - even if it only took me 30 minutes!

While i was relaxing out at their beautiful home (argh i sound retarded - but it really is tranquil out there), I managed to convince stell, alice, and noley to come over the road to the primary school courts and play tennis with me. I have never played tennis before, and I have severe hand-eye co-ordination issues. I played the whole half hour or so, while the other three took turns (as none of them really wanted to play in the first place). In the beginning I was AWFUL but towards the end I had improved quite a lot so was able to get in some good rallys with Noley. Really glad I did it - played squash yesterday with Jenna, but haven't been doing that as regularly as I should be.

Off to Ohope tomorrow morning with Jenna so hopefully will do a bit more relaxing there - but maybe get some Uni work done also??!!

xx

gearing up for an awesome weekend

Hellooooooo Readers (grand total of 1)

I have had a semi-productive week (it's only Thursday but hey, who works on Friday anyway). I went swimming this morning which was rather refreshing (yay, been trying to slot that word into a sentence for quite a few weeks). For the last few days, inbetween teaching kiddies to play keyboard (part-time job), i have been studying up a storm. However, I kind of think that maybe what I am studying is useless. You know, the time-consuming, high-effort, type of study with no point? Yup, well, that's what I think I have been doing. However, next week I am going to go into the University and doing some Computer Game creating and hopefully this will (somehow) make my Environmental study more effective.

I am quite excited about this weekend. I was going to go to the Hamilton 400 (v8 car racing) seeing as I live in Hamilton and all, and I even got offered a free 3-day pass, BUT I have graciously passed the opportunity on to some Policeman called Jamie who will stay on our couch (he does not object to being mentioned in my blog - I checked). The better offers I had to replace a grease-filled weekend of roaring v8s and smoking tyres were from two of my good buddies, Stella and Jenna.
Stella kindly invited Alice and I to her parents cafe/guesthouse (Out in the Styx in Pukeatua NZ - exquisite, you should try it sometime) for Friday evening and Saturday day - it's in the middle of nowhere, idyllic surroundings, and just perfect for time out. As Stell says when I am stressed and she thinks I need a break - "great food, great views, great atmosphere, great company". So I am really looking forward to that; I always use my holidays for study so I am really lucky to have Stell who forces me to visit her!
The other offer I ditched the v8s for was from Jenna. Jenna and her flatmate Hannah, along with some of their other girl friends, are heading over to Ohope on Sunday morning and coming back on Monday evening, so I thought I would crash their party with my presence. Another chance to relax I think. Am quite looking forward to the weekend!

In other news, I unravelled almost an entire scarf's worth of knitting today - decided it was incredibly ugly and therefore had to be terminated. I saved all the yarn though so that's good. Totally keen on new projects now.

Well, that's about it from me for now. I said I would mention Chris here so he'd feel special (gotta keep my readers happy, they're scarce) so this is officially me mentioning Chris and implying he is a nice guy. Possibly because he is.

EPIC WEEKEND

Hey! Hey HEY HEY!

I have had the most amazing weekend. On Friday night I went to see step up 2 (cheesey i know) with my friendy Jenna. On Saturday I volunteered at the Balloons Over Waikato event - i stopped traffic to help people cross the road he he - where the work I did raised money for Camp Quality, an organisation that helps children living with Cancer. Whilst I was doing this, I got a call from my one and only sibling, my brother Gareth. He asked me how I was, what I was up to, and then casually slipped in "Me and Jute are getting married!" !!!!!!! I am SO buzzing about it, my big brother proposed to his long-time girlfriend Juliet. She is amazing, I went to High School with her and she has grown into this person I have a lot of admiration for. Wedding will be next year some time, so I will have to fly back from Melbourne. YAY!!

Saturday night, I went to town with my friends Stella and Alice. That was an AWESOME night.

Many bars, many people. My dress was rather short. My arms are longer than it in fact. But it was very very fun and I felt great in it - I got quite a lot of male attention which was a real confidence booster even though it's really not the kind of attention I want. But I think it is really cool to have a night like that every now and again; I had been getting quite down on myself because even though I'm not the type to bring guys home, everytime I go out all my friends get hit on and I don't. I've been told that I look more like a Ms. Right than a Miss Right Now, and that guys out are looking for the latter. I'm glad I don't appear avaliable to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, but sometimes I wish boys would at least look twice! So I had a fabulous night on Saturday night in my little green dress, and I like to think I managed to maintain my dignity!

Thanks Alice for looking after me on Sunday and Thanks Stella for not fitting the little green dress - I do!!

xxooxx

Fantastic Day - New Lease on Life?

Wow! I have had a fantastic day, and I put it down to a simple, yet life-changing strategy. Positive thinking. I'm serious. The other day, I was reading an article about a thing called "The Secret". It means that you can get whatever you want from the Universe, if you just ask for it. If you focus on the positive things, you will get more good stuff happen to you.

So... Today, I thought I would give it a try. Last night, I went to see Matchbox 20 play live at the Vector Arena in Auckland - it was AMAZING. Love them so much!! Aaaaaanyway, so I was quite tired this morning, but I wanted to give the day a go in spite of this. I got ready for school, even in time to walk the 40minutes instead of driving. Right from the word go, everything was good. I was able to shower in a short time. I found clothes I wanted to wear. My hair sat nicely. And as I was wandering through the picturesque research innovation park that stands between my house and my university, listening to my mp3 player, I decided that today was a going to be a great day. I walked with heaps of energy, i mostly had a smile on my face. I got to Uni and taught my morning lab - i had two cool groups of students to work with, and even though now I think about it, the labs didn't go the best, it seemed like they went really well. Then I walked home, smiling at every maintenance worker I saw in the research park- got some great smiles and waves back - enjoyed the sunshine, got my clothes off the line (they were dry!) and went to work this arvo - then made it back to uni to grab more notes, and then went to a friends house to catch up with a few good mates from high school i haven't hung out with in ages. Basically my entire day just had a huge happy spin on it - most things i did went great, and the things that didn't just seemed insignificant.

This is the way I want to Live my Life.

big fat bellies and a shortened life

Hey!!

so i did the relay for life last weekend, and it turned out that me, my mum, and a lady liz were practically the only walkers from our team overnight. i was so bloated for some reason, and weirdly, i got worse when i'd been walking - if i had an hour or so off, my belly became slightly less fat ! it was very uncomfortable though, although my mum said i looked pregnant so i'm guessing everyone else thought i was pregnant instead of fat. excellent.

the walk itself was quite emotional, there were these white paper bags that you could buy and decorate with peoples names that had died of cancer, and then put some sand in it with a tea light candle, and these were all spread around the inner line of the walking circle. so as i was walking around, i couldn't help but read "to mummy" and "my dad, my hero" - and outside our tent - "margaret, my lovely wife with the big heart, 27/03/08" - bearing in mind the walk was on the 30/03/06. Each of those bags were for at least one person, many for more. It is amazing how the world works, and it is so difficult to believe that there is some "grand" plan when there are so many people getting their lives cut short for no apparent reason, and so many people losing people they love. I'm all for a little death here and there - makes people stronger, and shit has to happen to make the world go round. BUT families that are being hit by tragedy not once, but two or three times, is just bullshit. Why so much Pain? why does this have to happen?

i don't think anyone, or anything, could ever justify that to me.