weddings

My cocktail! At Valentino's.
The bridesmaids.
Katie in her huge heels stumbling across the gravel carpark.
Marielle and the bridesmaids. As you can see, she looked beautiful.

Well, the wedding's been and gone and it was a lot of fun. I hadn't thought it would be different at all, but it is, going to the wedding of one of your peers and not just older siblings or distant relatives or people at your church. Maybe because you can't help but think 'what if it were me up there'! I must say, yay for being single and unattached because the thought of getting married now is terrifying.

The service was at St Andrew's church, and was really nice. Basically everyone was smiling compulsively for an hour or two. The reception dinner was only for family and the bridal party, so my group of friends went out for dinner to Valentino's where I tried my first cocktail... and, ominously, liked it a little too much. :) Had the most delicious ravioli I've ever tried. Then it was out to Rangiora and the reception venue where we listened to speeches, wandered around a random little museum the venue owner has attached to the hall, danced and socialised. Home by 1am. 'Twas nice. And now I am off to church for the carol service.

the small pleasures of life

Natalie and Amanda arrange the lights behind the main table. Note the beautifully folded napkins. Natalie works at a reception venue so she taught us all the cool little details about setting up a wedding dinner.
The cake table. As it's pretty much certain no one at the wedding will notice this, please take note of the beautifully pinned up tablecloths around it. Are they not skillfully done? (by yours truly...)

The final result.

Photos above: This afternoon is a friend's wedding; last night five of us went out to the reception venue to set it all up. It's a low budget wedding as the couple are both still students and 20 years old, but I think we managed to do a rather good job! Although my fingers still smell like rubber from blowing up balloons....

Now - I am going to blatantly copy Stacy and make a list of:

Things That Make Me Happy

1) Making lists.

2) Writing in phonetics. Seriously, you all should try it sometime.

3) Going out for meals. Especially when someone else is paying.

4) Buying nice clothes.

5) Leaving the lawns to grow a little longer than is tidy, then mowing them. Cutting through all that grass is so therapeutic.

6) Christmas carols.

7) British comedians. Especially from a little while ago like Monty Python or Flanders and Swann.

8) Jane Austen. There is something so satisfying about finishing one of her novels.

9) Wrapping up Christmas presents. Isn't that just so fun? You get them all crisp looking, and tie curly ribbon on, and make little cards or labels for them, and then you arrange them under the tree... *sigh of contentment*

10) Finding little jokes in things that no one else finds funny. I look mad, but at least I enjoy myself.

11) Thinking of names for my hypothetical children.

12) Writing a story I think is good, or even just writing a sentence I think is clever or funny. This also makes me nervous though in case I'm the only one who likes it.

13) When the Korean students I tutor say or write something funny... eg "That ballroom is too small. You must blow it." (That was yesterday, and what she meant was 'balloon'.)

14) On a similar note, when I'm tutoring and someone really doesn't get something, and I spend a while trying to explain or demonstrate it, and suddenly they click. What a great feeling.

15) Drinking a milkshake.

16) The sunlight on a clear summer evening.

17) The smell of coffee or freshly cut grass.

18) Playing the piano or recorder or guitar, especially with other people.

19) When children like me.

20) U2 songs played loudly.

21) Jazz playing on the stereo while I cook.

22) Going to the airport. When you drive into the carpark there, an electronic voice says "WELCOME!!" in a very corny voice. It's so fun to talk along with it.

23) Similarly, talking and singing along with The Sound of Music. My sister and I could probably talk along with the whole movie.

24) Getting a really hard song just right on the piano. Or playing a really loud song with a super dramatic crescendo. There is no better way to destress.

25) Getting mail. Real mail, not bills or official letters or anything like that.

five favourite Christmas songs

I've been tagged by Stacy, so...

my Five Favourite Christmas songs are (if I manage to restrain myself to five):

1. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - screw feminism, I love the tune.

2. Mary's Boy Child

3. A Pukeko in a Punga Tree - yay for New Zealand!

4. O Holy Night

5. Ding Dong Merrily on High

Honourable mentions go to: Little Drummer Boy, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Te Harinui, Good King Wenceslas, The First Noel, and the Cradle carol (the really old obscure one that goes 'lullay lully thou little tiny child'). If I were to choose a modern carol I like... can't remember the name but it's set in New York and sung by Irish people!! I'm sure there's some more I've forgotten.

pleasures of the flesh

Well. Yesterday I went a little crazy after I finished writing my essay, and I decided to get out all the Christmas decorations and overdecorate the lounge. This was a really good idea because if I waited till Dad came back he would try to stop me but now he can't! Heh heh. So I got out every single decoration we own, strung up the Christmas lights I got last year in the Boxing Day sales, and proceeded to make the lounge look really, really silly. But I am so happy! I turned the lights on and they twinkled away (they have a controller and you can change the way they twinkle, how cool is that?!) and I played carols on the piano and bellowed away with all my lungs. There is a nativity set on the piano, tinsel everywhere, decorations hanging on all the doorknobs, snowflakes on the walls, a small fake Christmas tree on top of the TV and so on. I'm also going to try to make a wreath for our door.

Then this afternoon I went shopping! My friend is getting married on Saturday, which is a very bizarre feeling, and so obviously I need new clothes. I bought a blueish-greenish A-line skirt, a black singlet, a little thin black cardigan that looked terrible on the rack but nice on me, and peridot earrings. (I put them last, for emphasis, because I love the word 'peridot'.) It's really a very bad thing, but I can't deny it - successful shopping makes me happy! Especially when it happens fast. I am not a browser. I was going to try to find some shoes as well but I spent a little over what I was expecting... so I'm going to be good and wear old ones.

Now I'm about to go out to my sister's house in Lincoln for dinner. It's about 30 degrees celsius (a shocker in our dry Christchurch climate) and they have a swimming pool... what bliss...

deeeaaaath

That title is not supposed to be as morbid as it sounds. Instead, as I scanned some of the Ship of Fools website this morning I came across some more "gadgets for God" that should be shared. When you pass on, why not get your family to buy you a Talking Tombstone? Or how about a Glow Grave? Or if you have lost someone special, why not send an Afterlife Telegram? For only $5 a word, we will find a terminally ill patient for you who will hunt down your loved one beyond the grave and pass on the message to them.

As may be guessed from this, I am having a rather boring day. I should be writing an essay but I just can't be bothered, so I'm doing everything else - washing the dishes, tidying the house, dusting, for goodness' sake. I may even go completely overboard and vacuum! My dad isn't coming back for another week and a bit, so I don't need to do this until Friday at least... but this is the sort of thing that always gets done when it's a choice of essay-writing or housework.

Actually, I'm having a bit of a direction crisis over my English papers. I haven't done any actual Literature papers since first year, until now, and over the last year I think I must have lost a lot of my Englishy leanings. I love History a lot more and I can analyse things in a much more sophisticated way in History essays. With this English essay I'm having trouble saying anything that doesn't sound banal.

Photos: this is why mowing the lawn should be avoided - it makes for nice photos. I have, at least, mowed the lawns where people can see them. But there seems to be no good reason to mow the lawns that only I can see, at least until my father gets back.

advice to a discarded lover

This is a poem we studied in my New Zealand Literature class this morning. I thought it was rather cool and that I should share it. It's by Fleur Adcock.

Advice to a Discarded Lover

Think, now: if you have found a dead bird,
Not only dead, not only fallen,
But full of maggots: what do you feel -
More pity or more revulsion?

Pity is for the moment of death,
And the moments after. It changes
When decay comes, with the creeping stench
And the wriggling, munching scavengers.

Returning later, though, you will see
A shape of clean bone, a few feathers,
An inoffensive symbol of what
Once lived. Nothing to make you shudder.

It is clear, then. But perhaps you find
The analogy I have chosen
For our dead affair rather gruesome -
Too unpleasant a comparison.

It is not accidental. In you
I see maggots close to the surface.
You are eaten up by self-pity,
Crawling with unlovable pathos.

If I were to touch you I should feel
Against my fingers fat, moist worm-skin.
Do not ask me for charity now:
Go away until your bones are clean.

where's a sugar daddy when you need one?

I have decided I am not cut out for working. My soul is too sensitive. I have been tutoring for about six-ish months now and so far haven't had any criticism which means I am very lucky, I suppose, when you consider that I am tutoring kids with competitive parents who like to bargain. Today after I finished tutoring two girls aged 10 and 11, their mother said that she wants much more conversation and less grammar in the classes and that the older one finds it a bit boring because we don't spend as much time on conversation as she would like. She said this in the nicest possible way but I still find it very depressing to be criticised. I don't think I'll ever get used to it. Perhaps I should avoid politics as a career.

The thing is, the major problem I see with these particular kids' speech is that they make heaps of mistakes in their really basic English grammar, although they have a large vocabulary. Obviously, they haven't been properly taught the simplest verbs, like "I am" as opposed to "I is", or at least, they haven't remembered them very well. So even though we don't focus on grammar in our classes, I always slip some in when I correct them, because it is always their basic grammar that is wrong. It sometimes really annoys me how mothers have these opinions about what it is best for their child to learn and how. I guess that is the occupational hazard of ESL teaching.

Anyway (excuse the rant), I've decided that maybe I should win Lotto, be given a large inheritance from someone I've never heard of before, find a sugar daddy, or become a housewife, because I hate criticism, and it seems to me that whatever line of work I choose for my career, I'm going to have to face it.

Isn't it just my luck that the thing I really want to be is an author, and criticism is probably one of the main five points in the job description for that.

Christmas!!

Hooray for Christmas!!! What better way to succumb to holiday cheer than to be tagged with a Christmas meme by Stacy? And what better photo to use than that of the dodgy Santa on the Auckland Whitcoulls Building? Unfortunately you cannot see the finger actually beckoning, as it does in reality, but the vision is almost complete. Note the leery eye and the overall oddness.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Has anyone ever had egg nog?
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? I've always understood that Santa gives you the stocking presents, and the other presents are from your family... or else it becomes a bit weird when your parents want you to thank Granny for the socks when theoretically they are supposed to come from Santa.
3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white? Coloured. :) Sorry, Stacy. I wouldn't mind white, but we've always had coloured, and Christmas is not a time to be progressive.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? No. I'm not exactly eager to kiss anyone I may be spending Christmas with, thanks.
5. When do you put your decorations up? As soon as is humanly possible.
6. What is your favourite holiday dish? Truffles, very chocolatey ones. Or the little bowls full of scorched almonds. The roast meal, preferably chicken, with Mum's way of doing gravy, and as many roast veges as you can eat. Pavlova for dessert, with kiwifruit and lots of cream. Sparkling grape juice.
7. Favourite holiday memory as a child? If I can avoid being specific, just the excitement of being the young one who got to hand out the presents to everyone and build oneself a little pile over in a corner that one would then open as slowly as possible to savour the delights of materialism.
8. When did you learn the truth about Santa? Say what? Well, no, to tell the truth, I cannot remember a time when I ever believed in Santa. It wasn't because my parents were anti-superstitions or anything, I just didn't see how he could be true.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No, we always wait until Christmas Day. I think being in the southern hemisphere where Christmas is all about summertime you don't really want to be sitting inside around a log fire opening presents at night-time. You want to be able to run outside and try out your new water pistol as soon as you've opened it.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Start with lights, then tinsel, and then put every single decoration I ever remember using on it.
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Neither. It's just not going to happen in New Zealand! Yay! Honestly, summer Christmases are the best.
12. Can you ice skate? Nope. Maybe more relevantly, I can't water ski.
13. Do you remember your favourite gift? The chocolate fondue set from my sister a few years ago was pretty cool. As a child, I guess the Playmobil zoo was a high note.
14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? I can't choose. I love the carols, I love the religious side of it, I love it when my whole family is together. I can't really separate them out.
15. What is your favourite holiday dessert? Pavlova.
16. What is your favourite holiday tradition? Singing carols.
17. What tops your tree? A beautiful little gold angel my aunty brought for me from Germany when I was three.
18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving. I would have expected receiving, but thinking back to my favourite present, a few questions back, I realised I didn't remember very many of them. I do, however, remember buying for other people and the excitement of buying something they'll really like and watching them open it. When I was a kid my mum used to give me about $10 to spend on everyone and so I had to spend about 50c a person, an interesting challenge. But I loved doing it.
19. What is your favourite Christmas song? That's a hard question. I like O Holy Night but so does everyone. Mary's Boy Child? Away In A Manger - the version with the less well known tune? God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen? Hark the Herald Angels Sing? There's a lot of really obscure carols in the Oxford Book of Carols that are really beautiful. I especially love the music from a Christmas musical my sister wrote for our church's Christmas play once. My favourite song from that went: "There he lies / in a manger sleeping / Lying there / Sleeping in a stable / Quietly go / Or the King of heaven and earth may wake and cry / Imagine that / Our God has come to save us as a babe / From highest heights / Born a peasant child to show the way / Amazing love! Grace such as this world has never seen."
20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Yummmmmm! I could eat fifty candy canes. I love licking them very very slowly so they get thinner and thinner and the red comes off until they're only white. All sticky goodness.

This year most of my siblings, nieces/nephews, and my dad and I are hiring out a camp at Peel Forest, a few hours away from Christchurch, over Christmas and New Years. It's going to be an interesting Christmas without Mum there, especially as it was a few days after Christmas that she died last year. I've never been someone who thought the passing of a year was really that significant but I've started to see how it can be. Hence the spending of Christmas in a completely new place this year.

Armour of God

O Christian brothers and sisters, are you looking for the perfect Christmas gift for your child? Do you want to protect and arm them against the Devil's snares? Look no further! Buy "Armour of God PJ's" for your child this Christmas!

Or if you are in search of some entertainment, listen to this recording a helpful churchgoer left on a pastor's voicemail. Make sure you listen after the original recording to hear it set to music!

the end

Bono flies the kite during Kite (surprisingly), the last song of the concert. (This is two photos but I stuck the kite picture up the corner of the Bono picture.)
Bono plays mouth organ at the end of Angel of Harlem (which ROCKED) - Bono has made me want to learn to play the harmonica. Leaving the stadium, and looking back at all the people. Never realised how many people there were when you're right in the thick of it.
Bono and Edge sing during Angel of Harlem.
Angel of Harlem. Bono and Edge smile at something.

And then it was over. Sighhh. Good photos eh? Thank you (again) Katie! :)

The streets and more...

One - my favourite U2 song. One of the few I didn't jump up and down and scream madly because I was just too busy listening and absorbing.
Edge sings, I think during Angel of Harlem or The Saints are Coming. I could actually hear him over the speakers when he sang here, pretty cool.
Yay for rock star poses.
Where the Streets Have No Name. Bono wends his way down towards us; everyone waves their orange, white and green balloons. Awesome sight.

I'm so excited to get to show these photos to people! It makes it all seem real. I hope you like them! Thanks again to Katie!

up close and personal

Edge and his glittery guitar.
The Edge and Adam Clayton together.
Just Adam. As I said a few posts ago, we were really impressed with Adam Clayton. He's got a real stage presence.

Again, these are my friend Katie's photos and not mine, used with her permission.

in general...

The whole band!
The lights from Bullet the Blue Sky.
The lights during One Tree Hill.
Bono's first appearance down our end of the stage.
The main stage.

Here's some more general shots of the stage and the show.

before the concert

The stamp we each got to let us back into the front section if we went out to get food or use the disgusting Portaloos. We're special!!
Our little nook at the end of the stage.
Katie in the sheep-pen-like enclosures we had to line up in from 3:30-5pm
Our drunk friend Dan and a friend - the one who kept on telling us we were doing a "stellar job" and patting our backs. Obviously, he's taking part in Movember.

Katie and I - whose camera took all these photos. Thanks, Katie!

Here's the first lot of photos I'm posting from the U2 concert. Blogger only lets me post five at a time (unsure why) - so here's some from 3:30pm onwards on Friday as we waited for it to begin. These are not my photos but Katie's - thanks again Katie!

U2 U2 U2 U2 U2 U2 U2 U2 U2 U2 U2 U2 U2

The back of the t-shirt I bought.
My friend Katie in Auckland central city, on the morning of the concert, on a little back street we thought was pretty.

.... Well. It was FLIPPIN' FANTASTIC. What an experience. This is going to be one massive blog entry. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the concert - my camera's too big to take in - but my friend took heaps of great ones, and when I get hold of them I'll post them on here. In the meantime, I will post the pages I scribbled down furiously this morning and have added to numerous times since, as I don't want to forget a single thing about this weekend. Here they are, slightly shortened, from Thursday to Saturday:

THURSDAY 23 NOVEMBER
1.30pm Flight departs for Auckland. Sitting next to French guy and German girl who are very nice, on their way to Tonga, and kissing half the time.
3pm Arrive Auckland. Find my friend Katie, who came on a different flight up.
4pm My sister Felicity picks us up and takes us round to her and Mike's flat in Ellerslie.
8pm Burger Fuel for dinner, mmm! And home-made mulled wine - makes us sleepy!
9.45pm Exhausted, we head to bed. We are on squeaky airbeds in the lounge.

FRIDAY 24 NOVEMBER
6.30am Our alarms go off! Katie and I dress in a hurry, and it's off to the bus stop. She has an appointment at 8am at the US Embassy to get a visa that allows her to stay in Canada for five months. Don't ask why.
7.40am We arrive in town. Not too hard to find the US Embassy - it's the one with the huge flag in front of it.
8am Katie goes in to get her visa. I'm not allowed to go up without an appointment. I sit in a cafe next door with a large flat white, and the Samoan man at the table next to me tries to hit on me. He tells me he's a diplomat working at the US Embassy which I find very hard to believe, and then asks me a succession of questions:
- Do you have children? Why not?
- Do you have a boyfriend? Do you want one?
- Would you like me to come with you today?
- Do you want to sit with me?
- Want some gum? (Final desperate approach)
Honestly, I don't understand what makes some people keep asking stupid questions!
8.45am Katie comes back and rescues me, and we go shopping - see photo above, in Auckland city. We laugh at the huge dodgy Santa on top of the Whitcoulls building, with a beckoning finger and a leery eye.
10.30am We catch a bus back to Ellerslie.
12.00pm I have a shower and wash my hair, and get into my concert clothes. I'm not feeling great and am worried I'll be sick, so I lie down, but don't feel any better. We put on the U2 Live at Boston DVD and suddenly I feel a lot better! Tony, my brother-in-law, arrives from Christchurch.
2.45pm We rush away to the Ellerslie train station to be on a train that goes to Penrose, from which there is a 10 minute walk to Mt Smart Stadium. One Tree Hill can be clearly seen not far from the stadium. We arrive there, I buy a t-shirt (see photos above). My umbrella is confiscated because apparently I could poke people with it, and they take our bottle lids off our bottles of water. Somehow Mike manages to keep his Swiss Army knife, which we all think is very funny when umbrellas can be viewed as weapons!
3.30pm We start queueing! We are at Gate A, in a big marquee, lined up like sheep in pens. We sit down, eat the food they didn't confiscate, and discover ingenious ways to drink without breaking the seal on our lidless bottles. We play a game trying to think of a U2 song for every letter of the alphabet. Get to N and give up. Graham, James and Anna Early are not far away from us in the queue, people we've known for years who used to go to our church in Christchurch.
5pm The gates open! We pour onto the field and power-walk/run/sprint up to the front. We get into the front section! The stage is made up of a main section where the drums and electronics are, and then two jutting out bits on either side. We are almost right at the front but for one row of people on the end of one of the sticking out bits, a fantastic spot. We plonk ourselves down to save our places, stretching out even more when one of us five goes off to the loo, or to buy a t-shirt or food. A drunk man called Dan introduces himself and tells us repeatedly that we're doing a "stellar job", while offering us his beer.
7pm It starts raining hard. Felicity and I go to get her a t-shirt, and end up also buying five dorky water-proof poncho-things - very sexy. We see our cousin-in-law Justin, who is even closer to the front than we are.
7.45pm Kanye West starts playing. Can't distinguish a word he says. His backing singer starts stripper dancing at one point, and he has a small string collection and a harpist who are completely superfluous as it seems to be all just noise. This is the point I pick for going to the toilets.
8.30pm Kanye West stops, the rain stops. We wait impatiently for U2 - have been waiting almost exactly a year since tickets went on sale. The crowd starts clapping in time while the crew sets up the stage, or singing the Ole ole ole ole song. Someone gets a Mexican wave going around the entire stadium, about ten times - a cool sight with 45,000 people and when you're on an absolute high of anticipation. The U2 crew soundtest what seem like a gazillion guitars.
9.10pm Finally, U2 COME ON STAGE!!!!! The place goes wild. They are real, and 3-D!! Bono is wearing a jacket with an Auckland Warriors logo sown on the back, and tells us we are "sexy people, in the rain". The lights are awesome, completely indescribable, hundreds of them towering over the stage and wowing everyone. This is the set:
City of Blinding Lights - amazing opening to the show.
Vertigo - everyone sings along to the "uno, dos, tres, catorce!"
Elevation - a verse of Crowded House's Four Seasons in One Day inserted in here, which pleased all us Kiwis very much indeed.
I Will Follow - Bono told us that NZ was the first place this song was a hit before anywhere other than Ireland; we are therefore "Kiwis before the groove".
New Year's Day - Bono introduces the other band members as they do their solos; very cool.
Beautiful Day - Bono changes the words of the "see the world in green and blue" verse to carry on as: "Aotearoa right in front of you / See the land of the long white cloud / Cape Reinga, the fjords in the south / Harbour lights in the City of Sails / Aroha, the love that never fails / See the bird with the leaf in her mouth / After the flood all the colours came out..."
One Tree Hill - the crowd went mad for this, the song written set in Auckland, where their Kiwi crew member Greg Caroll was killed in a motorbike accident. Beautiful lighting, with Maori koru patterns scrolling across the lights at the back of the stage. Bono helpfully suggested he could take some seeds up :) (For those that don't get the joke, the lone tree on One Tree Hill was cut down years ago by a Maori activist.)
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own - Bono comes down to us for the first time!!! He's alive and real!
Love and Peace - Adam Clayton and the Edge come down our end.
Sunday Bloody Sunday - Katie rings her dad on my cellphone so he can hear some of the concert, at this point.
Bullet the Blue Sky - Awesome lighting and guitar solo.
Miss Sarajevo - very beautiful. Bono sings the Italian part that Pavarotti usually does, and surprises me by his skill.
Pride (in the Name of Love) - Bono gets us all to sing the "oh oh" bit, which leads into the beginning of Streets...
Where the Streets Have No Name - Absolutely amazing. Somehow heaps of people all over the audience have green, white and orange balloons that are waving round during this; it's beautiful.
One - Bono gets us all to hold up our cellphones instead of the classic cigarette lighter; another beautiful moment.
ENCORE
The Fly
Mysterious Ways
With or Without You - Bono pulls a girl up on stage
ENCORE
The Saints Are Coming - very very cool and surprising; I hadn't liked the single when I heard it on the radio but it's wicked live.
Angel of Harlem - this rocked my socks off. Bono and the Edge came down our end again, together this time.
Kite - Bono flies a kite that has helium balloons tied to it as he sings this. It's so beautiful live, this song, especially Edge's guitar solo. As a nice symbolic gesture, he lets the kite fly away at the end of the song, but it gets caught in the lights - a funny moment for all.

As a whole, the concert is a fantastic mass sing-along. One marring incident is that there is a very tall man in front of me, at the rail, but I manage okay. Bono, the Edge, and Adam Clayton all come within a couple of metres of us several times which is the biggest buzz. I also love all the NZ references; they seem to put a lot more effort into them than in DVDs I've seen of concerts in other countries, which is lovely and makes everyone feel wanted! I am especially impressed by Adam Clayton, who comes across much better live than he does on the DVDs; he really connects with the audience and seems like a really cool guy. My especial favourite songs are probably: One Tree Hill, Miss Sarajevo, Streets, One, The Saints are Coming, Angel of Harlem, Kite.
11.40pm Sadly, the show ends (although with two encores already, no one seems to be sure if it really is the end). We all file out, and it's amazing as we go to look back into the stadium and see the huge number of people. Mike and Tony queue up to buy t-shirts, we see my cousin Debs, and Justin again, and then we walk along to catch a train... along with about 8000 others - makes for huge delays. Legs aching like nobody's business, waiting for ages to get on the train. Finally get home at about 1.30am.
2am We collapse, exhausted, into bed.

SATURDAY 25 NOVEMBER
10.15am We get up finally after sleeping like logs. Still on a high. Tony goes to get us yummy things for breakfast. I text my friend Jane a whole heap of advice for the second concert which she is going to this evening, such as how to get a good spot, and to take extra bottle lids for when they confiscate them. By lunchtime we are putting on U2 DVDs - Sydney Zoo TV, Chicago Vertigo.
2pm Felicity drops Katie and I at the airport. My flight is leaving soon, but Katie has to wait around until 8pm to leave, poor thing. Luckily she has a book and is still on a high.
2.30pm I fly to Wellington. Am sitting next to another U2 concert-goer from Dunedin; she is also wearing a U2 t-shirt but a different style (there were about seven or eight available).
3.45pm Arrive in Wellington. Forty minutes or so to wait for next flight; eat some roti at the food court there, mmmm. See a friend from a few years back at music working at the CD Store there.
4.30pm Leave for Christchurch.
5.30pm Arrive in Christchurch, with a very bumpy descent that makes me glad I saw U2 before I died. Happily I am still alive when we touch down. My sister Rachel (Tony's wife) and her kids Sam and Alex are there to pick me up. We go to La Porchetta for pizza, then we're off to Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park, a big free concert at Hagley Park (the Chch equivalent of Central Park) which has big fireworks at the end. As terrible little teenagers try to sing High School Musical songs, can't help comparing it to the night before or wishing I had tickets to the second concert which must be going on as I think!
10.45pm Home! Into my own bed! The high is still present!

So, there it is. Had a marvellous time, as was bound to happen, and love U2 even more! Am planning to buy a few more U2 dvds as soon as possible, and Katie will come round soon and we'll work ourselves up to a high again! I will put the photos of the concert up as soon as I can - some turned out really, really well, and you'll be able to see just how close we really were!

eeeeeee

I cannot believe it's only FOUR sleeps to go. I've started asking myself questions like what am I going to wear, which makes it all seem scarily real. U2 is flying in to Auckland tomorrow, and I am flying up on Thursday afternoon. What if Bono pulled me or Katie (my friend) or Felicity (my sister) up on stage? What if I somehow got to go backstage? I haven't been dwelling on these questions that much actually because just the thought of seeing the concert is enough to make me squeal like a thirteen-year-old. It is exactly a year now, give a day or two, since I first got these tickets; so much has gone on since then but it feels so recent.

I will be disappointed if they don't play these songs:
- One Tree Hill (from The Joshua Tree; One Tree Hill is actually a place in Auckland, and one of their crew was killed in an accident near there, and so the song was brought out in NZ but nowhere else as a single)
- Where the Streets Have No Name (but they always play that so it's not as if I'm worried they won't)
- One (my favourite U2 song)

I would like them to play these songs, but I won't be crushed with sorrow if they don't:
- Bad
- All I Want is You
- Running to Standstill
- Desire
- Walk On
- The Fly

I would like them to play these, but I don't think they will:
- In a Little While
- Wake Up Dead Man
- Love is Blindness

Don't worry - I will give you a full rundown of how it goes when I get back. As if you could escape. It'll probably be a record-length blog entry.

I'm inviting some similarly obsessive U2-fan friends over on Wednesday night and we're going to have a big DVD-watching frenzy before we all head off to the concert - just in case I need to feel even more wound-up and overly excited!

In other news, I have been cheap-shoe-shopping today, and I got some really cool new slippers and some great sandals and about the first pair of sneakers I've bought in about three years. So exciting.

favourites

Inspired slightly by Stacy, I have decided to list some of my favourite things. This is by no means a comprehensive list or scientific selection, but merely off the top of my head. Having done a list of things I dislike, it would seem a bit pessimistic to leave it there, so...

1) Meat. I love meat. Strangely enough, I have more than once considered becoming a vegetarian, but have never been able to do so, because meat is just so great. Nothing else has the same texture or taste. I love chicken, I love beef, I love pork, I LOVE bacon. I especially love barbecues.
2) Chocolate (just to be unoriginal). At the moment my favourite is Nestlé's Double Blend, especially the coconut version. I can literally eat a whole block of it in one sitting. While I've gone off lollies and very sugary things as I've got older, there's no way I'm ever going off chocolate, although I try very hard to keep it as only an occasional treat.
3) Reading a good Agatha Christie mystery, or a Georgette Heyer romance. They are so light you could eat fifty without putting on one gram but they are so pleasurable, especially on a rainy day, curled up on the couch with warm slippers and some coffee and chocolate with the Jacques Loussier Trio playing in the background.
4) Playing music outside. When I finished school, our whole Year 13 went out to the farm of one of the guys from school, and he put his speakers outside playing U2 loudly and we had a bonfire and fireworks in the dark and it was one of those nights I look back to and want to recreate. Similarly, I love playing music myself, on an instrument, outside in the countryside somewhere. One of my favourite pieces of music ever is 'Evening in the Mountains' by Grieg, and I have this fantasy of going to Mount Cook National Park and walking up some track in the evening and playing this tune on my recorder.
5) How could I leave Jane Austen out of this list? There is something so satisfying about finishing one of her books, nothing can compare to it.
6) Driving fast. :) Actually, I hardly ever speed, unless you count 5-8 k's over the limit as speeding, but I just love pushing the accelerator down as you come onto a stretch of open road with a 100km speed limit. Mmmm.
7) Funny people, including Flanders and Swann, Monty Python, Adrian Plass, Jasper Fforde, Peter Hellier, John Safran etc - not to forget Jane Austen, again. Not all comedians are going to rub me the right way, but some are so good that I end up quoting them to everyone. I also love funny things that no one else gets.
8) Vanity Fair, by William Thackeray. I've just finished reading this for the second time, and I love it and would recommend it to almost anybody.
9) Being with my family, all of us all at once. (That's about 22 of us, counting the in-laws and nieces/nephews.) Makes for chaos but fun.

Okay, so that's all I can think of right now!

Photo: This is another photo with which I fiddled around with the exposure; you've already seen the original on here, perhaps. I think it looks rather cool like this.

independence?

This morning my dad left for a month to go gallivanting around overseas, in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and, quite possibly, Thailand. (My brother lives in Malaysia and a sister in Australia, the one who has just had a baby.) So I'm alone at home until he comes back on 18 December, unless some of my friends decide to stay for a few days. It was quite weird saying goodbye for a month. I've been thinking for a while that going flatting and getting more independence would be so cool, but I realised this morning that I've come to really rely on Dad's presence over the last while, now that Mum's gone. We're much closer, even though we get on each other's nerves just as often! So it's going to be very strange not having him round for a whole month. Also, he's left a huge long list of the things I need to do while he's away, in the garden (eg turning the hoses on every few days, mowing the lawns, tying back the tomatoes, clematis and sweet peas as they grow, etc), let alone the house. He advises I mow the lawns at least three times before he comes back... which, to me, doesn't seem feasible or likely. :)

It's only EIGHT SLEEPS until the U2 concert, as you may have noticed on the "U2 countdown" on the index of this page. I can't believe it's so close. I am so excited! I can't even try to express it! All I will say is, they had better not postpone it again!

Photos: I took these at a cafe I went to a few days ago. Obviously, the fish photo isn't exactly special, technically speaking, but it was just a cool fish.

hens

The hot springs at Hanmer, in winter. (Not my photo)
Our tent.
My friends Marielle (the bride), Kimilla and Natalie.

I have just had a very interesting Friday and Saturday! My friend Marielle is getting married in December, and last night almost all of her girl friends went out to Hanmer Springs for her hens' night. I may have mentioned Hanmer Springs before as a popular holiday location for Christchurchians, with its thermal pools. We ended up at Hanmer Forest Park, camping out in an Air Force tent our friend Kendyl borrowed for us. Unfortunately, Kendyl forgot the poles for the second part of the tent, so we ended up with the tent you see in photos above... for fourteen girls to sleep in! Obviously, it's not a huge tent. We ended up having seven people squished up along each side, in two rows, so you hardly had room to turn over, and if anyone wanted to get up to go to the bathroom... woe betide them. I was next to the door except for one, and these massive gusts of wind got up during the night, meaning the doorway flap actually slid over the girl next to me, leaving her outside half the time! It was pretty freezing during the night; I had on thermals, my pyjamas, and my polarfleece hoody with the hood zipped up around my head so only my eyes and nose were showing. I don't think any of us actually got to sleep but simply dozed the whole evening. There was something kind of fun about it though; it was an experience. And for only $8 each, it was a pretty cheap way to be accomodated! This morning we went to the pools, which are lovely, and there's lots of cute little babies gurgling away in the nice warm water to cluck over - although by the time you've broiled away in the pools for a couple of hours your fingers are about as pruney as they could possibly be. I drove back this afternoon with a couple of friends and I have to say I was very pleased to be at home and to stop concentrating on the road. Bring on the coffee. Strong coffee. And there's no doubt but that I will be sleeping well tonight.

We heard about Marielle's fiance's stag do - I am so glad I am not male. He got painted green and dressed in a grass skirt, tied to a stake, and carried through Riccarton Mall like a pig on a spit, with his "friends" yelling war cries all around him. They got kicked out twice. Apparently his wrists are still bleeding from rope burn. I do not think I will ever understand the male psyche.

how to: catch a man

I was on another website when I caught sight of these ads at the bottom:

Still No Proposal?
10 Secrets To Get Your Man
Positively Addicted To You For Life
www.CatchHimAndKeepHim.com

Next Pope is John Paul II
Impersonated. Bible Prophecy Shows
He Will be Last Pope. Learn More
www.worldslastchance.com

Marriage-counseling
No Spouse-No Problem
Marriage and family therapists
www.marriage-counseling.name

I just thought these were great and had to share them. I love catchy slogans like "No Spouse? No problem!!" I also love the "World's Last Chance" website that reveals John Paul II as the Antichrist. Sigh... life would be so boring without the internet.

[Photo: a little girl whose family stayed at my house for a night while they were in NZ a little while ago. She and her little brother were very cute, although the little brother did projectile vomit all over our kitchen, I have to admit. I spent the evening playing with them; it was fun. The trumpet she is holding plays Mary Had a Little Lamb.]

milk

(Just because I'm feeling random today) - besides being the name of a very successful range of books of photography, milk is my favourite drink. I'm aware this might make me sound like I haven't gone through puberty yet - but I am not ashamed. Just like I'm not ashamed that I don't particularly like Charles Dickens and find his books very hard to read. I just love milk. It is the most refreshing drink ever. Which is why I find it particularly annoying when we buy some milk and it goes off very quickly. We suspect that the owner of the nearest dairy (NZ version of a corner store, where you spend all your pocket money on lollies at age 9) buys huge amounts of milk and leaves it out the back unchilled before he puts it in the shop in the refrigerators, meaning all his milk goes off well before the use-by date. In my opinion, this is gross misuse of milk.

Photo: I've been playing around on the computer with some photos, and this was quite an unexciting underexposed one. So I fiddled around with the exposure, and now I think it looks quite... interesting.

fireworks

Happy Guy Fawkes for yesterday. It's always seemed a rather bizarre holiday but all the same I love it. Some people from my church have a house up the hill and last night some of us went up there for fireworks. It got a bit windy to do them in the end, but we had this fantastic view of the whole city bubbling and exploding all over constantly with little ones, and then we could see across to Brighton Beach where the big fireworks were going off on the pier. You could even hear them booming.

The government, however, warned the country that if people didn't stop behaving irresponsibly with them this year they would ban the sale of fireworks in future years. Unfortunately there's been a record number of fires this week as a result of fireworks so it seems likely they will be banned. I like fireworks so much so it is very disappointing, but I have to admit that there are just too many people being totally stupid with them. When I was working at the local library, a few people chucked some fireworks into the returns box and absolutely ruined a large number of books, for example. Why do some idiots have to ruin everything for everyone else? Grrr.

rejection

I have just written a rejection email to someone, and it made me feel rather bad. When I write rejection emails I find myself coming over all formal and staid and cold, and I can't think of anything nice or comforting to say except blatant lies when I hated a story.

I think one of the scariest things is being rejected; at least, it is for me. Rejection always comes after having made yourself vulnerable in some way, which is scary enough in itself. The thing is, if anything interesting is ever going to happen in your life you have to expose yourself to the possibility of rejection. And in many ways that can become quite an exciting thing. At the same time, it's not just a matter of opening yourself up and then being rejected and it's all over. If that were the way it worked, there would be no Harry Potter, and imagine a world without Harry Potter - we would be infinitely poorer. :) No, there has to be a sort of tenacity in us if we want to get anywhere.

I'm sorry about this little spiel. I'm just feeling a bit confused about the future at the moment. As is everyone, I suppose.

my eyes are back!

Yay! I have a camera again. Basically it seemed that there was something wrong with the battery, which is of a rare type unavailable in NZ and the camera would have had to be sent to Japan to be fixed. So they offered us the same camera new, at a cheaper cost, and Dad ended up giving it to me as my birthday present! These photos I took yesterday on a walk to Halswell Quarry. The quarry was being mined from 1860-1990, but now it's a bit of a touristy or picnic or walking destination.

It is great being on holiday. I got five mystery stories out of the library today - I love good old-fashioned whodunnits. This morning three friends came round and we watched the latest movie version of Pride and Prejudice. There are aspects of it that I am beginning to be reconciled to. It's got a beautiful soundtrack, and great cinematography. Matthew Macfadyen is becoming a little easier on the eyes as I get used to him. All the same, I can't help but grit my teeth when they rush through some of the coolest scenes.

My dad's off to Australia and Malaysia to visit two of my siblings in less than two weeks. He's away for a month so basically every day he's been telling me something else I have to do while he's away - mow the lawns, wash and vacuum the floor, leave out the rubbish on the right days, turn on the garden hoses every now and then, put the right things into the right rubbish bins, etc etc... Ugh, he's going to have to write it all down. I'm inviting a couple of friends to stay while he's gone so it'll be fun, it'll be like flatting but without rent. :)

I found out yesterday that Americans pronounce 'route' so that it rhymes with 'flout' or 'gout'. The Great Vowel Shift of 1500-1700 affected the word 'route' in the States but not in Britain. Weird. No offence to the Americans reading this! Sometimes it's just that finding these sort of things out feels like the world is being turned upside down under your feet.