Why is it impossible to keep time in this city?

A.  The University does not appear to have ANY wall clocks, anywhere, excepting, of course, the ones handily placed BEHIND the projector screens. WTH?
It also has cellphone coverage that is patchy to say the least, so I can't look at my screen to divine the time. Everyone on campus must own a phone - what is wrong with this picture??

B.  I spent two hours tramping around the central city this morning trying to find a pendant watch. Why is that so difficult? This *is* an honest-to-goodness city, don't people need to get to, I don't know, appointments and meetings on time? Without having to fork out $200 for precious ones from actual jewellers?

Also, it would be nice if Metlink didn't randomly cancel the off-peak trains. Ok, some of them were replaced with busses, but NOT the ones from my station, and more importantly, HOW in the world would I have known if they had been? So I had to wait 40 minutes (in a freezing cold wind, I might add) to catch the next, and missed my tutorial. Which was compulsory. Gahhhh...

*headdesk*

Ok, complaints over.

     A few days ago, me and four others went up to Auckland.
     We were all from my A Cappella singing group, which is a type of choir only more fun. Ours is run by a really nice woman called Annie and we're really lucky to have her because she's very good.  We were Tee, whose car we were all squashed into, and who is a lovely lady who sings alto (medium-voice) for my A Capella group and always surprises me by being interested in things like clarinets and classical music. Also Gee, Annie's husband and the best (and only) tenor in A Capella , Me, My lovely friend Bee and Eryl, who is an elderly woman who loves music... and she's very good at it. We did a musical together a few years ago.
     Anywho, this talented bunch, and where were we going? Well, we were going to Town Hall to see the Messiah.
Yes... THAT Messiah. Handel's Messiah. You know, the one with the Hallelujah chorus in it? That one? Anyway, the Auckland Choral were putting it on and Annie, who sings for them, had got us tickets.
     So we did... and I am so, so glad that I went, because I almost didn't.  But how could I have missed this... this phenomenal music. It was marvellous. We were sitting at the very end of the circle, just above the musicians (first and second violins, violas, cellos, a bass, bassoon, two oboes, two trumpets,a timpani, a harpischord and a full-blown pipe organ... sighhh...) and with terriffic views of the choir. And we sat there, the five of us, for two and a half hours with our mouths open. * The four soloists were good, the orchestra was good, but the choir... the choir, all hudred-odd of them, made the most glorious sound I've ever heard. I just can't describe the impact of all those voices in perfect harmony, ducking and diving over and under each other but doing it all so gracefully... it made me want to sit there and listen forever.
     My favourite bit would have to be the Hallelujah chorus. Even if it is used 90% of the time as a farcical steriotype for shurch music. It was Brilliant. The best attempt at putting emotion into music I have ever heard. And the harmonies were sooo  good.
Sigh... and there is a tradition dating back to the very first showing of the Messiah, at which King George of England was so impressed by the Hallelujah chorus that he stood up. So of course everyone else in the building copied him - you cannot be seated when the king is not. And since then it has become a tradition to stand for the hallulujah chorus. And we did. It was such a cool bit, because it was like taking part - if a very small part - in that music.
     Also, I am very glad of the Auckland Choral's very own tradition of performing the Messiah every Christmas. Isn't that cool? Dating back to when thre choir was first formed, way back in the 1800s. Put this is perspective - we're a young country. The first European pioneers were fresh off, the boat, and what did they do? They got together and formed a choir. Brilliant.
     Next year? I'll be there.

*Well, mine was... i'd never heard live Classical music before.

   Today was my second brother (read: Fourth child, second brother younger than I am) Pascal's birthday party. He turned nine.
   Why, oh why did we let him have an animorphs party! I mean sure, let him invite seven other knee-high kids around and run around screaming in the reserve pretending to be animorphs while we act evil human-controllers and shoot them wth water-pistols.
   Yeah, why not?
   Anyway, I'm sure they all had a wonderful time bushbashing round te reserve (now what was wrong with the paths?) while we poor human-controllers had to crouch in cutty-grass bushes waiting for them to come near us.
   Ah, filial affection is a wonderful thing.

   His best friend Jack who is my babysittee is also staying the night and they are STILL talking. I am ignoring them in the hopes that this will have some effect.

   Olivia and Kieve might be posted here sometime soon. That's my WIP story. Shall I?

WHY, Why, why do my friends have to lead such complicated, dramatic lives, and then insist on sucking me into them?

Or, alternatively, why do I have to insist on meddling in my friends' complicated lives?

Just a month ago I had my sixteenth birthday.


Of course sixteen is a significant age; it's the age when you traditionally begin to be taken seriously, you can drive, and of course when you become 'legal' (First comment of every teenager I know when I say I'm sixteen; :Hey, you're legal!" Very dull.)
But yay, very exciting, serious milestone and big celebration. So my family threw a party that was, I have to say, brilliant, (though somewhat painful - don't ask) and nine of my friends came, and I got lots of presents which were very nice (chocolate, jewellery and candles were predominant, of course!) and every present (bar two) were wrapped in purple paper. My friends know me well.
But you know one of the best bits about birthdays?
The cards.
Maybe it's just a peculiarity of my friends but they mostly write lots inside the cards they give me, and I find this sooooo nice. I can go over them again and again and remember all the nice things everyone wrote about me. Hee-hee.
(And an aside, it's also really nice seeing the variety of people who gave me stuff. For example I got a rowing championships commemorative teaspoon from my eight year-old babysittee, a bag from Sonja, a crunchie bar from Frances and a pencil shaped into a treble clef from my piano teacher Kathie quite apart from the friends who came to my party. So many people surprised me )
I'm sifting through my pile of cards. The one on top is a gorgeous home-made one from Claire - paua shells in the shape of a heart on bubble-printed paper. Amber's card is funny - It's one of those ones my Mum hates so much that plays a tune when you open it. "Oh what a night!" It warbles. Alice K's is dark blue with a stunning golden and turquoise dragon embossed on it. Bron's is bright lime green with navy and yellow squares receeding to a tiny tile painted with a purple flower. Kathie's is a close-up shot of the inside of a dazzling red flower.
Oh, and that's only the outsides. The real treasure is inside.
Darling Frith, begins Claire's card, and goes on to wish me all the best in the future and for going to school next year. (Darling Claire, you're so encouraging.)
Heather wishes me a good year, a fabulous day, and that I enjoy high school. God bless you!!! With lots of love from Heather! it ends.
Alice K thanks me for being a good friend.
My Nanas say I'm a very special grand-daughter and wish me a lovely birthday.
Alice E hopes that my birthday gives wonderful memories and wishes me the best.
Jack (my babysittee) says thank you for teaching him to play 'Into the West' and gives me a ticket to the show that he and Pascal are putting on (lol)
Eowyn says she's got my back.
Bron tells me I've reached sixteen and what a milestone it is! (with a 'hehe' in parentheses) and that God has an amazing future for me and she's so excited about it. God bless, Love + Hugs!"

And having sifted through the entire stack, I'm sitting here with a huge happy grin on my face and this big golden glow. Wow, with friends like this, who needed the presents? I have absolutely no excuse to be anything less than wildly happy this year... with these to look back at.




(Note: I really hope no-one minds that I put what they wrote onto this site - I did it because I loved it so much and y'all should be proud. Much Love Frith.)
(Note 2: “Tell them I consider myself a lucky woman to have such friends.” ~Livvie Walton)

Let's see, what's been happening here...
   On Friday night Eowyn came over and we went out to the church's fireworks BBQ party for the evening. I would have to say, not to sound like a glutton or anything, that the best bit about church gatherings is the food. Everyone actually makes nice food to bring, instead of buying a packet of biscuits on the way there. The fireworks were really good and we two and Bronwyn talked the whole time. Which is good because I haven't seen a lot of Bron recently.
   Eowyn stayed the night and in the morning we went shopping!! Clother shopping! Ahhh... It was market day so we went down through the market to the sally army store, where I found this very nice beige-y top with a cowl-neck and ties at the back. Eowyn liked it to but she couldn't fit it (she's a size 8 and I a size 12) so I got it.  And we also went to Pagani where we were just going to look.
   Yeah, right.  We both ended up buying the same skirt because we loved it so much and neither of us was willing to back down. So we both have it and it's gorgeous - flared brown cord with a flower motif creeping up the side and little god flourishes, and layers of lace at the edge.
   Nice...
   Anyway, after that we were all shopped out, so I walked Eowyn back to her house up the K Valley. We passed Bron's house again on the way there and stopped for a chat. She was outside playing with a hacky-sack as it was so hot (BAD day to walk 14km) and called out to us.
   I had to walk back into town and I wa sso tired by the time I got home, but it was worth it.   I mentioned that walk to Shaz today and she just looked at me with some serious shock on her face.  Personally, I think biking to P****** (which is about 30km, and what Shaz does for exercise) is much more impressive. But still.
   It's really cold outside and not looking good for the BBQ on tonight... maybe I'll stay home. That would be good...

Oh, and tomorrow St. Margarets posts chapter eleven of "The New Zealand Chronicles". Yayyyyy!

Well. First entry. It's taken me about an hour and a half to get this far on LJ, so please bear with me because I'm already confused about this stuff and I only get two hours on the computer/other screen technology per day.
Well, the hour and-a-half was in-between reading chapters of "The New Zealand Chronicles, Part 1" by St. Margarets, which I am following avidly with my tongue hanging out because I am so delighted that she'd writing about my country. (oh, and also because St. Mags is a fantastic writer)
So I have half-an-hour left.
And twenty minutes before I have to go out to Rangers as well. Ah, the quiet life. Rangers at the moment are entering the cardboard cup, which a yearly event with the cubs, guides and scouts. Everyone makes a cardboard boat and we all take them out into the firth and have a race. Of course everyone's boats disintegrate within thirty seconds, but it's a lot of fun anyway.
I went downtown to get the cardboard today (having put it off till the last minute). I went to the appliances shop and put on my best "earnest and naive" face to ask them if they had any large cardboard boxes. Bingo. They took me out the back and gave me a couple of washing-machine boxes to take. So I rubbed my hands and lugged the things home. It was very awkward, because I had to splay my arms out and hold onto the edges with my chest facing the boxes but keep walking forward. I felt like an egyptian painting.
On the way home I met these two elderly ladies who stared at me, so I said "hello" and they asked me how my baby brother was.
I've never seem these two before in my life and they know all about my baby brother and expect me to know them.
Bad, very bad. Must ask family to keep lower profile.
And now, time is up! Time to throw on my badge tag and lug those boxes half-way across town to the other Rangers. Cheerio!