making myself at home..

really starting to miss NZ home now - Uni is getting very difficult and money is tight, so travel is virtually non-existant and pub trips are minimal. Tonight I am relaxing with a facial mask from Rotorua's famous geothermal mud pools, it's gooood but I think if I left my room my flatmates would be somewhat alarmed!

Christmas Time, Mistletoe and Wine...

Hi Everyone!

I do have some new photos to post, but time is running out before I head to Pewsey in Wiltshire for my Xmas holiday... I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I will get those photos up as early in 2010 as I can!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

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

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.