New highs of university living to go with new lows of stupid.
I'm sorry I haven't updated recently! I'll, um, try to be thorough? Let's start with today. I was having a really good day, that was derailed when I managed to do something incredibly dumb.
I went out and had delicious Chinese food for lunch (though I payed for it with an immediate MSG headache), then went to Te Papa to see the new exhibit - whales! Very educational, with stuff on their evolution, biology, conservation, the unfortunate fact that New Zealand is like the beaching capital of the world (something about the sand in the bays absorbing sonar), and all the Maori stories and traditions surrounding them. I was envious of the kids who were small enough to crawl inside the model of the blue whale heart, which was the approximate size of a Mini and fit about 14 pre-pubescent children. It was very cool, is what I'm getting at. It was a beautiful day, and the waterfront was awesome: the water was clear, actual fish were jumping, people were fishing and skateboarding and eating gelato - I was in a damn good mood.
Then, I went to New World with the Massive List of Doom to do the flat's weekly shop, even though it's a day early, since we're out of basically everything. Had a freaking nightmare trying to find everything, because they were moving stock around - in the end, the thing that thwarted me was peanut butter. Peanut butter! Can I ask, what is the goddamn point of stock-shuffling, except to excercise the employees? It seems like it would just lose you money. Anyway, I emerged in an empty lane, mostly triumphant, got everything packed - and then realised I'd left the flat card at home.
Also, my cable-car pass.
Arrived home an hour later, sweaty, achy, frustrated and embarrassed, and had a little tiny cry. And that's how I ruined my own good mood. *bows*
Yesterday was much better. Being the last day before the two-week break meant it was automatically pretty sweet, but my Film tutorial elevated it to the ranks of Awesome. I got back the marks for both my presentation - the one on Westerns, which I was pretty sure I'd stuffed by going over time and having to skip a large chunk of - and my essay, which was two weeks late. And now I'm just gloating shamelessly, because A+! on the presentation, and an A- on the essay that would have been an A+ if she hadn't had to take 10% off for lateness! \o/ does not begin to cover it. Last semester made me really kind of paranoid that I'd lost my assignment mojo, so yay!
And on Thursday, I accidentally joined a protest. It was all about student debt, which has apparently risen to a record $10 billion dollars, and it's not actually something that directly affects me since I'm in the lucky minority whose parents pay their way. I'd forgotten all about it until I went for a walk, heard them coming down Salamanca and decided to tag along. You know, for kicks. (Also, I did kind of want to lend support, even if it was just bulking out the crowd.) It wound up at parliament (a.k.a. the Beehive), where there was much abuse of the current minister for education. Then we turned around and went back, only this time, the back, where I was, had suddenly become the front, and I ran up to one of the guys helping to hold the VUWSA banner because I knew him from the Wednesday night Scifi club, and the bugger holding up the end nicked off and left me holding it, so I wound up holding a banner at the very front of a few hundred chanting students, coming out of parliament with news cameras pointed at us. It was very bemusing, but also quite cool.
Later, I told my dad, and as a former 1970's uni student, and a man who still remembers most of the words to The Worker's Flag (I think it goes, "The Worker's Flag is brightest red / it something something something dead"), he was very, very proud. I'm pretty sure my grades were as nothing compared to this achievement. Ah, well, I know there won't be any rallies at Zayed University any time soon, so I suppose he has to get his kicks somehow.
Other than that, my week has been thoroughly uneventful. Well, unless you count finishing Tin Man and getting a little better at knitting.
Alrighty. I've spent the last few hours wallowing in Oblivion, but now is the time to make some kind of attempt at dinner. Isn't it funny that, no matter how bare your cupboards are, there's always just enough ingredients to make a decent tomato pasta?
I went out and had delicious Chinese food for lunch (though I payed for it with an immediate MSG headache), then went to Te Papa to see the new exhibit - whales! Very educational, with stuff on their evolution, biology, conservation, the unfortunate fact that New Zealand is like the beaching capital of the world (something about the sand in the bays absorbing sonar), and all the Maori stories and traditions surrounding them. I was envious of the kids who were small enough to crawl inside the model of the blue whale heart, which was the approximate size of a Mini and fit about 14 pre-pubescent children. It was very cool, is what I'm getting at. It was a beautiful day, and the waterfront was awesome: the water was clear, actual fish were jumping, people were fishing and skateboarding and eating gelato - I was in a damn good mood.
Then, I went to New World with the Massive List of Doom to do the flat's weekly shop, even though it's a day early, since we're out of basically everything. Had a freaking nightmare trying to find everything, because they were moving stock around - in the end, the thing that thwarted me was peanut butter. Peanut butter! Can I ask, what is the goddamn point of stock-shuffling, except to excercise the employees? It seems like it would just lose you money. Anyway, I emerged in an empty lane, mostly triumphant, got everything packed - and then realised I'd left the flat card at home.
Also, my cable-car pass.
Arrived home an hour later, sweaty, achy, frustrated and embarrassed, and had a little tiny cry. And that's how I ruined my own good mood. *bows*
Yesterday was much better. Being the last day before the two-week break meant it was automatically pretty sweet, but my Film tutorial elevated it to the ranks of Awesome. I got back the marks for both my presentation - the one on Westerns, which I was pretty sure I'd stuffed by going over time and having to skip a large chunk of - and my essay, which was two weeks late. And now I'm just gloating shamelessly, because A+! on the presentation, and an A- on the essay that would have been an A+ if she hadn't had to take 10% off for lateness! \o/ does not begin to cover it. Last semester made me really kind of paranoid that I'd lost my assignment mojo, so yay!
And on Thursday, I accidentally joined a protest. It was all about student debt, which has apparently risen to a record $10 billion dollars, and it's not actually something that directly affects me since I'm in the lucky minority whose parents pay their way. I'd forgotten all about it until I went for a walk, heard them coming down Salamanca and decided to tag along. You know, for kicks. (Also, I did kind of want to lend support, even if it was just bulking out the crowd.) It wound up at parliament (a.k.a. the Beehive), where there was much abuse of the current minister for education. Then we turned around and went back, only this time, the back, where I was, had suddenly become the front, and I ran up to one of the guys helping to hold the VUWSA banner because I knew him from the Wednesday night Scifi club, and the bugger holding up the end nicked off and left me holding it, so I wound up holding a banner at the very front of a few hundred chanting students, coming out of parliament with news cameras pointed at us. It was very bemusing, but also quite cool.
Later, I told my dad, and as a former 1970's uni student, and a man who still remembers most of the words to The Worker's Flag (I think it goes, "The Worker's Flag is brightest red / it something something something dead"), he was very, very proud. I'm pretty sure my grades were as nothing compared to this achievement. Ah, well, I know there won't be any rallies at Zayed University any time soon, so I suppose he has to get his kicks somehow.
Other than that, my week has been thoroughly uneventful. Well, unless you count finishing Tin Man and getting a little better at knitting.
Alrighty. I've spent the last few hours wallowing in Oblivion, but now is the time to make some kind of attempt at dinner. Isn't it funny that, no matter how bare your cupboards are, there's always just enough ingredients to make a decent tomato pasta?