Well, Hello!
It has been a while, hasn't it. I'm at home in Wallacetown for the weekend, we surprised Mum for her 60th birthday which is today. A nice end to a very busy week!
What has happened since my last update... Well a fair bit!
Block test week went past rather quickly, with one or two tests each day and an assignment due on the Friday. The attitude to the tests was rather...lax shall we say! For my sound test we didnt even have desks, just leant on our knees for the written part and then as we finished we were given a number and we went and waited in the commonroom to be called in to do the practical part, plugging in a microphone, plugging in a reverb unit, finding the optimum gain for a signal etc, etc.
The blocktests for hiphop dancing were definitely the most nerve wracking. We had to dance in groups of 4 on stage in the auditorium in front of whoever wanted to watch. The dance majors decided to watch - shall we put something in context, the dance majors include members of a hiphop team that came second in the hiphop nationals and are off to the world champs in Vegas! - Oh goody. and we had to dance each dance about 4 times each. Not knowing which time they were marking - bad luck if you stuffed up that particular time!
But i got through without mucking up or making too much of a fool of myself! And ended up with 73% and 75%. pretty chuffed!! Managed 86% for my vocals theory and demonstration of diaphraghm breathing. Pretty stoked with that too!
My holidays sped past - only a week long! I stayed put in Auckland and Louise, Ben and Jacob came up to stay for most of the week, so good to see them - Jacob has so much more hair now and he's talking much more. He's developing quite a little personality. cheeky little monkey! And he remembered who i was which was nice. We explored Cornwall Park, home to no tree hill and said hello to the farm animals that live on the farm there. Jacob is growing quite the vocab of animal noises! We then took on Onehunga Dressmart. Quite the undertaking with an active 18 month old who doesnt like to sit quietly in a stroller while we went shopping. It took some creative distractions and tag teaming along the way!
He was quite taken with shoes for some reason, which we used to our advantage!
We had a quiet week back at school where we dived straight back into two new routines for hiphop and introduction to one of our two songs we will sing for mid year exams. Leona Lewis's song "Footprints in the Sand" a very pretty song but it is going to be one heck of a challenge! we find out our second song next week - apparently its going to be a fast one that we will sing with a band. I have my work cut out for me...
And last week we had the experience of camp. Monday morning we loaded onto two buses, which sadly enough, ended up as basically a polynesian bus and a white bus. Anyhow we arrived in Taupo 5 hrs later, after a lunch stop in Tirau and thankfully without need for any stops for sickies. Off the stuffy hot bus and away from grumpy Mr bus driver Andy into the rather bracing air of Misson Bay. It was pretty cold after the mugginess of Auckland!
I was one of the lucky Girls who as a (cough)older one got one of the beds in the cushy self contained unit which had 4 beds per room ( as opposed to 12) and our own lounge area. Sweeeet! As quite a few of you are aware - people who get in between me and my sleep dont get a pleasant reception - i'm nice however compared to one of my roomies who threatened to 'smash' someone who decided to burst into our room late on the last night and turn on the light. I'm very glad i was in that room, apparently on the Tuesday morning some of the girls were up at 5.30 am singing and straightening their hair and waking up everyone else in the cabin whether they wanted to or not!
We had a rather cushy schedule - a meeting in the morning from 10.30 till about lunch and an evening worship and teaching time, we had a sports challenge on the Tuesday afternoon where 6 teams competed in volleyball, ultimate rugby (like ultimate frisby but with a rugby ball and with only 6 passes, slug gun target shooting and archery. We (the Red team) weren't the most enthusiastic bunch after we lost the first 2 challenges so it was a bit of a downhill slide from then on. Suffice to say we didn't win. We couldnt even manage best sportmanship. Sad but true. So we missed out on the newspaper pirate hats and mini choc bars. sigh. On the wednesday arvo we had free time and on thursday we were on the bus at 10am for home.
Several of us took the chance to take a dip in the beautiful Lake Taupo. I am pleased to say it wasn't as cold as i was expected - thats not to say it wasnt cold! I was thinking about the equivalent of Oreti Beach in Summer and then my feet started to cramp up. So maybe a litttttle colder. Ol' Mt Ruapehu is still ignoring my requests to show its pretty head so as of today, i still am yet to see it. Tis a shame that. 4 members of the tour team were baptised on the Wednesday arvo in the Lake beside SH1, they got quite a few toots from passing motorists! It was very special seeing these guys and girls make their public declaration of their faith.
On the Wednesday night we had teaching on forgivness and we had an opportunity to deal with anything that was... festering - for lack of a better word! It was a very moving time, many tears were shed and a lot of people dealt with stuff. Heavy stuff!
The last night was a rather active night, there were food fights in the dorms apparently and liberal applications of toothpaste and shaving cream to certain people while they slept. oh and someone decided to pour all the drinking chocolate and coffee from our lounge area onto the floor of our lounge area. cheers people. no really - thanks. It made for a fun clean up time before the bus left.
It was back on the buses, a little less segregated this time - and we were homeward bound. A short stop in Matamata sent the junkies scrambling for takeaway and cigarette fixes. 3 days are a long time to go without takeaways and fizz and on restricted ciggie rations!!
Friday morning was an early start - up at 5.20 am to catch the 7 am flight, from the torrential rain of Auckland, into the sun in Wellington and then onto a plane bound for Invercargill which according to the safety sheet in the pocket had seat cushions which in the event of an emergency we could use as floatation devices. Feelin the safe vibes right about now!! Thankfully there was no ditching into any sort of water and i could leave the seat cushion to do its job as seat cushion as i arrived into somewhat damp and chilly Invercargill. Ahh, it was good to be home.
Louise, Ben and Jacob picked me up on the way through and we arrived home to an unsuspecting mum who got one heck of a shock when we managed to sneak into the house without her seeing us arrive! As they say, anything worth doing is worth doing well! Dad arrived home and we took her out for tea at Ziffs, a rather classy establishment out in Otatara where we had a very nice meal followed by a birthday cake we had organised earlier - a yummo chocolate gateau which Jacob took great pleasure in helping his Nan 'blow' out the candles - no there weren't 60 of them!- By this time a little boy was getting rather ratty since it was well past his bedtime so we called it a day and took the cake home in a doggy box for later enjoyment. And enjoy it we did!
I'd best get to bed, or the couch, in my case as my room is in the process of being 'organised' into something a little more practical than its current state. So tomorrow i'm going to be busy deciding what tests and exams i really need to keep from high school and uni before i get back on a plane for Auckland via Chch tomorrow afternoon. I will have to suppress the packrat instinct (what i like to call an archival instinct)that runs through my veins and be a little ruthless..... its going to be a tough ask!
toodle-oo! till next time, which hopefully wont be so long in coming. And for quite a few of you, I shall see you in 2 weeks time at Jonny and Maries wedding! Woop Woop!
Ciao!
KJ
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