My weekend rocked!

I had the best weekend! Man, it felt so good to get out of Dunedin for a couple of days. Garston is so quiet and peaceful, spending long hours sitting on the porch in the sun. It's like another world. There is plans to develop Garston in the next year, I hope it doesn't because it would really ruin that quiet atmosphere.

We headed down there on Friday night and just laxed out.

It was great to sleep in but if there's one thing I've learned in Garston is that it's fine to sleep in but once you're awake you had better get dressed because someone will always stop by for a cuppa and I always get caught in my pyjamas.

My aunty and uncle came up on Saturday morning before going down to Riverton for the day.

I took some putiputi (flowers) for my Dad and showed Jo and Kat around the cemetery. Garston cemetery is fascinating, some of the graves are really old. The cemetery is divided into 3 sections, Catholics, Protestants and foreigners in the middle. There are a few chinese graves from the mines in Nokomai. I never knew that the woman buried in with the foreigners was the local prostitute.

My friend, Sally came up for the afternoon with her two boys, Taylor (7 next month), Callum (2 next month). I hadn't seen them since January so it was awesome. The boys have got so tall. We got ice creams (never buy ice creams from the Garston pub unless you're prepared to pay $4.50 for a double scoop, thankfully Sally isn't afraid to complain so we only paid $2.50) and took the boys to the school.

It was a really hot day and we all got burnt. I had driven with Sally and the boys round to the school while Kat and Jo walked over the hill. Sally went home and I walked her to her car. When I turned around I couldn't find Jo and Kat. I thought they had walked home without me but I found them in the school pool, sneaky monkeys had climbed the fence. But it was so refreshing, and very daring, I'm not usually into acts of delinquincy, I'm too much of a wuss.

It was good to see my cousin, Jane and her little boy, Quinn who is one of the most beautiful children you've ever seen. Here is a photo my sister took in April (I think):

We cranked up the bbq for tea and we headed to Kingston to get a real ice cream for dessert.

Kat and I did some bush bashing. I took the girls up the hill behind the house to admire the view. Jo gets hay fever and all the broom bushes were too much for her, she headed back down the road. Kat and I decided to go find this rock I used to spend long hours sitting on, admiring the view, thinking amongst all the broom with no luck. Instead of going back the way we came she suggested going right down the middle. It was hilarious, the bushes were taller than Kat most of the time, we laughed our heads off the whole way down. By the time we got down we had bits of sticks and flowers all through our hair and clothes.

We had a few visitors on Sunday. My mum and youngest sister, Olivia came up for lunch plus we had visits from a few of the locals.

We stopped by the family farm before we left and showed Kat around Naylor cottage (the house where my dad grew up till he was about five, built by my great great grandfather I think). Uncle John had been fishing so we got some blue cod to take home.

We drove home through central Otago. Guess who was in the driver's seat from Lawrence to Mosgiel? Yes, me! I managed corners and some gears (mental note: you cannot go from 1st to 4th, it does not work) and I negotiated my first intersection, first I stalled, restarted then bunny-hopped my way through. I was so proud of myself and turn out to be somewhat of a speed demon, anything less than 7o is just a let down and 110 really sneaks up on you. :-)

I need to get away more often!

Music: Fiona Pear - Cacuts Sky (Album: Fiona Pear - Los Sayas)

In sleep he sang to me...!

Gotta love 'The Phantom Of The Opera'!

Hello!

Well, I'm having a great day! I just had a meeting with my supervisor and things are going great! We are ahead of schedule, but I have a lot of work to do next week to keep ahead of schedule but at this rate I'll have the whole dissertation completed by the 15th for Prof to look through over summer and I get a nice long holdiay/time to get a job and not be poor anymore.

I'm about to leave for Simon and Liz's wedding, I'm helping with setting up and pouring drinks. I went to the rehearsal yesterday, it's gonna be good, I don't want to give away the ending but they get married.

After that I'm on my way home to pack, find someone to feed the cat for the weekend then off to Garston for the weekend! Woo Hoo! I'm so looking forward to getting away and not having to think about anything, plus catch up with whanau (Ooh I just thought of a new challenge for my blog, Maori words, one new word per post, today's word: whanau - family, that's an easy one. Next challenge - how do I put macrons on the vowels?).

Cool!

Well better go!

Music: Angel of Music (Album: The Phantom of the Opera [2004 movie soundtrack])

WOO HOO!!! The zombie finally died!!!

I finished my chapter!!! Oh yeah!!! *happy dance* And it's over 1000 words too long! I'm finally one of those geeks who comes to class the day the essay is due and says "Man, that was so hard, I had to cut so much stuff out". I could never understand how anyone could write too much when I could write the best essay ever but it would only be 200 words and it needed to be 2000. Yay me!

Music: Planet Shakers - Lift Up Your Eyes

This post has no name

I watched 'Shaun of the Dead' last night, very funny but not really what I was expecting.

I had a great day yeaterday, today has been kind of blah. Speaking of zombies, my latest chapter is a zombie because no matter how hard to kill it, it just won't die. I am meeting with the Prof on Friday (our Monday meeting was cancelled) so I must get it finished tomorrow before 3.30.

I am helping out at Liz and Simon's wedding so I have to go to the rehearsal at 4.30 tomorrow.

How wierd will it be when my dissertation is all finished and I can do what ever I want? I won't have to live at uni anymore!

I think I'm going to go home now, it's early but I'm sick of staring at the computer screen.

Bye bye!

Music: The White Stripes - The Denial Twist (Album - Get Behind Me Satan)

I had chocolate cake for breakfast!

Happy Tuesday! It's amazing how much work I can get done in two hours when I haven't done anything all day now I'm going to go home.

Dana came round this morning and cut my hair, it is a lot shorter than it was. Dana is the best hairdresser!

I had planned to do lots of work at home, it didn't really work. I came in to uni for a meeting but there was no one there. Do I smell? My meeting yesterday was cancelled as well (well, it was postponed - that's alright though cos now I may even be able to give her my last chapter).


It feels like Thursday, it's wierd. My flatmates and I are going to Garston for the weekend. I am so looking forward to it. (Garston's claim to fame is that is New Zealand's (south island?) most inland village and it has Garston spelt out in big white rocks (put there by my Grandad back in the day), which people always like to rearrange to spell other words ("But there's no 'f' in Garston?!?") and if you blink you'll miss it. But heaps of my family live there and my dad is buried there so it's kinda like home and we (me and my sisters) have a house there. Plus, I haven't been out of Dunedin in aaaaaages!

It'll be great! I'm going home now! Yay!

Music: The White Stripes - Take, Take, Take (Album: Get Behind Me Satan)

My baby sister is so grown up!

I forgot to mention. My sister, Olivia and her boyfriend, Glen were up on Saturday. They have just bought their first house in Concord and it is very nice. Three bedrooms, living room (with fireplace), nice bathroom, big backyard, garage (although their driveway is too steep to drive down, the previous owners said to keep nagging the council to get it fixed), basement (which their planning to convert into a laundry so they can extend the kitchen into the existing laundry). I'm very impressed with my little sister. I want a house too!

Music: REM - Losing My Religion (Live acoustic version)

Blah Monday!

I can't believe how fast the weekend went! Back to the blahness that is Monday! I have a meeting with my supervisor shortly, a little nervous about that. Getting a little stressed about the dissertation, less than a month till my first draft is due and I'm not getting much done. I really can't wait to go home for Christmas. I think November in general is my most stressfull month, looking back at my old diaries, I'm always seem to be stressing in November. Roll on December (the 16th) and my holiday! Yay!

Well, my flatmates went away and left me home alone over the weekend but I kept myself busy so I didn't get lonely.

Tish came round on Friday night, we had chicken burgers for dinner and we got some vids out (Mental note: must take the DVD player in to be fixed! but oh the joys of 5 vids for $5!). We watched 'A Walk To Remember', that movie is so lovely! If you want a really good chick flick, this is it! And 'The Lizzie McGuire Movie', cheesey!

I invited my friend Kate and her family around for tea on Saturday so I spent Saturday tidying up around the place (Which Desperate Housewife am I? Definitely Bree on Saturday). It turned out to be Kate's birthday so Tish had helped me bake a chocolate cake (but I made the icing)! Kate and her son, Jake came around. Mads fell asleep so Conway was at home with her.

Oops better think about heading to my meeting...

How do I post pictures?

Help!

I want to put some pictures up but I don't know how! I tried to follow the instructions but it didn't work. :-(

The punk rock of jazz!

'A Cashless Society' got together last night for a reunion jam. It was a lot of fun. For those of you who haven't heard about 'A Cashless Society', we are me on bass, Anna-Kate Loughnan on sax and Jesse Kokoua on guitar.

We kind of formed earlier this year when Big Jess would bring his guitar in to Azucena (the cafe/gallery that I volunteered in which sadly closed down in August) on Saturday afternoons and play jazz for whoever happened to be around. I would join Big Jesse occasionally if I was rostered on to play bass at church the following Sunday and we could go over the song list then Anna-Kate would play her sax and that's it.

So, Anna-Kate had suggested having jams with Big Jess on Wednesday nights so I could practise my songs for Sunday and get a bit more confident in my playing because I was getting kinda stressed about it, the more stressed and nervous I got, the more mistakes I made, the more mistakes I made, the more stressed and nervous I got...

So we had dinner with the Kokouas, Jesse's famous curry, mmm mmm! And then jamming for a couple of hours.

Jesse was talking about us playing at the Queenstown Jazz festival next year. I don't know where I'll be next year but how cool would that be?! We're going to get together in a fortnight and talk about putting a song list together.

How desperate are you?

OK, so here's something to keep you occupied, 'Which Desperate Housewife are you?'

Here's the link:

http://abc.go.com/primetime/desperate/quiz/index.html

I tried the test and came out with Gabrielle but I sent it to Anna-Kate who is far more scientific than me. She had to do 15 trials, she was Lynette 5 out of 15 but she swears she is a Susan. I would have thought I was a Susan but Gabrielle seems to be winning. I don't know if that is a good thing or not.

Music: Lee Ritenour - Rio Funk (Album: The Very Best Of Lee Ritenour)

How long has the clock been an hour slow? Has it been like that for ages and I just haven't noticed?

Well, the clock says that it is 10:45, it's actually 11:45. I have done no work so far and I'm about to stop for lunch.

Hopefully I will get my chapter finished tomorrow.

Well, I went up to Sam and Anna's last night for board games. We do this fortnightly although Anna has an alterior motive for inviting me, so she can introduce me to one of Sam's friends. My flatmates like to take great pleasure in teasing me from the time I arrive home from uni on Tuesdays to the time that Anna picks me up.

Anyway, he seems like a nice boy but I don't really know if he's my type but then again what is my type?

Games are fun though.

I've been seeing this on other people's blogs and have to add it to my own:

Music: Alicia Keys - You Don't Know My Name (Album: The Diary Of Alicia Keys)

OK, I'm getting used to this...

After a lot of confusion I've managed to work out how to put links in my sidebar, yay! Now I have friends! :-)

Hmmm, not a very productive day today. I've been in the postgrad room all day, my goal is to write 1000 words a day and finish my chapter on Friday. I'm almost there, another 200 words (ish) to go before five so I can go home. This is my 9-5 job that I don't get paid for. Sounds easy? Nah!

OK, better get back to it.

Aaaah, yet another tool of procrastination

Hello kids!

Well, I have succumbed and made myself a blog so I will now have another way to occupy my time that isn't writing my dissertation... oh well.

Actually, I've had quite a productive day today. I managed to get 1000 words written on my final chapter which is more than I wrote all last week and I'm about to head home with "my cool friend" Abby.

I should write something a little more interesting though. I went to a cocktail party on Saturday night at Anna-Kate's. Mmmm cocktails!

My mum texted me on Sunday morning, wanting to know how my head was, fine thanks mum and I did manage to make it to morning church. I did handle my cocktails better than I thought, although champagne goes right to my head.

Very good night though!