So I moved into my new place last Saturday, and while the moving was all pretty smooth and everything get shifted okay, I found out late at night that I hadn't had any gas connected and so I didn't have hot water. This would have been close to midnight, so I was tired and frustrated and in my haste to go to Jono's house for a shower, I backed the car into a fence. Fortunately it looks like it's just superficial scratches and nothing serious, so that's that.

Of course, on Sunday, the power company still isn't working, so I didn't have hot water on Sunday either. That's alright, I was at Jono's house for a shower then as well. On the bright side, though, Tom was down from Auckland so we went to Strawberry Fare for some excellent desserts.

On Monday, the phone contractor arrived and told me I needed to be at home to sort out the bloody phone line, so I ran home and sorted all that out. The gas company had also apparently made everything work, so at least I have hot water now. Later that night, I met up with Mel at Estadio for her farewell dinner. And that was really good, I became a lot more social after a glass of Montieth's Crushed Apple Cider.

In any case, we went to the Library for more socialising and then I walked with Roman up Cuba Street on my way home, and we parted ways at Abel Smith Street. As I walked down, I became aware of two people following me. In the next instant, they had caught up and at that point in time, I thought about running but they struck me from behind and knocked me to the ground. I could hear them say something like "grab his stuff" but I struggled and they ran off without any reason, and also without any of my possessions. The only thing I had lost were my glasses, but I managed to pick them up, although they were pretty busted.

¯\(º_o)/¯

I phoned the police shortly after and they arrived on the scene very quickly. We did a few laps around the block to see if we could catch anyone, and we returned to the crime scene where I showed them what had happened and managed to spot some blood splotches. We returned to the station where an ambulance was waiting. I heard they managed to apprehend someone, so I'm thankful for their quick action and vigilance. They took some DNA swabs and some photographs for evidence, and then I was taken to the hospital for an examination.

I must have spent around three hours at Wellington hospital, just having my facial injuries checked, and the extent of damage to my eye. I also visited the ophthamologist yesterday to have a proper check over my eyes. It looks like everything is pretty superficial and that there's nothing permanent, so I'm thankful for that as well. They'll continue to monitor me over the next few weeks, and they'll also be taking an x-ray to make sure there's no fractures that they have missed.

Apart from that, I've been in to see the optometrist for new glasses, the dentist to fix some chips in my teeth, the insurance company to pay for my glasses and the police to finish off some paper work. It's been just a huge inconvenience and I'm quite annoyed that this happened like this. Physically and mentally, I'm fine and there's nothing serious, so I appreciate all the messages of support I've been getting. I don't know how long I'll be off work for, but I said I would try to come back on Friday.

I guess I'll see how I feel over the next few weeks, huh?

So thanks to Elliot at work, we (he) diagnosed the problem with my computer and found it was a faulty graphics card, so I bought a new one and hopefully it will arrive tomorrow and I can have a computer again. But then I'll be moving house and probably have no Internet for two weeks so blah, but that's okay because I'll still have my computer. Or something.

In my computer's absence, I've had to resort to using primitive methods of organising my life, such as a pen and paper schedule of what's coming up as well as things I need to do before/after I move house. Things are slowly sorting themselves out, I've managed to get power and the phone sorted (despite being a telecommunications company, Telecom is surprisingly difficult to get a hold of). I just need to call up my ISP tomorrow and get that sorted too and finally organise a van to move all the big stuff to our respective flats.

Phew!

The Sidhe Christmas function this year was a two part extravaganza, the first part being Tron: Legacy and the second part being at the Ballroom, a pool lounge.

I went into Tron expecting "terrible" and I got "average". I was anticipating lying in my seat, writhing in agony but it wasn't actually the case. It was a mildly entertaining film with pretty graphics (bar Jeff Bridges in CGI) and an enjoyable soundtrack. Final verdict: not the worst two hours of my life. I have to say, though, movies aren't very social events. You're all focused on the screen and can't talk with anyone, so if we could avoid yet another movie for next year's Christmas do, that would be great. (Last year, they had 500 Days of Summer, but I was unable to attend that due to my flight to Malaysia ":(")

Following the movie, we had about an hour to kill and Surya really wanted to go to Strawberry Fare, so we gathered a small group and went. I was astounded at the number of new desserts I hadn't tried... there was a strawberries and cream one, a gooseberry dessert of some sort, the key lime pie was back, and there was a cranberry and white chocolate cheesecake, which I ordered. Absolutely fantastic.

The rest of the night was good. I played two games of pool with Jordan against Damon and Rob C, in which we were owned, twice. The remainder of my time there was catching up with various people, drinking, scoffing some pizza, just chilling and relaxing really. Being a Thursday night, there was some self-control to be exercised so most people started drifting away around 10pm so we could at least turn up to work the next day...

The last day of work was pretty uneventful, and I was just cleaning up my scripts and committing my code to the repository. We submitted the Zen Puzzle Garden update to Apple, so hopefully it'll go through review soon. We said goodbye to four of our artists by having dinner at Harem, and we learned of some surprising resignations for next year. Gasp.

The past week has been pretty hectic in terms of finding a flat to live in. After turning down the Mt Victoria property that I mentioned in my last post, we were kinda desperate to really wrap up the flat hunting situation before the end of the week. It so happened that we found another place at the bottom of Brooklyn Hill that Charlotte and I loved, and it also turned out that the landlord really wanted to get the tenancy sorted before the end of the week as well. So all in all, things aligned perfectly and now we have a really nice flat about 20 minutes walk from work and we are paying the same amount of money for it as the Mt Vic property.

Thank God for that.

I can't remember the last time I was actually depressed over something relatively serious and non-trivial, but I guess life has its ups and downs and this in particular is a downer.

I got an email from Beth this morning. It was a lengthy but cleverly written poem about indecisiveness. As I sit here pondering about my housing options for next year, I can't help but think about the what-ifs. If I sign this tenancy agreement, I might miss out on a nicer place for a cheaper price. If I don't sign it, then I might have to settle for a dump at a high price (a bit like what happened with my current place). There's a lot of properties out there - some are damn expensive - but all the ones I've seen have been inadequate or were taken by someone else.

Charlotte and I looked at a place today in Mt. Vic, and she seems really keen on it. The practical side of me likes the place and I can see myself living there. But something doesn't quite appeal emotionally. Something isn't quite right. I pride myself on being logical and rational, but there is something I do not like about the place and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Is my gut instinct telling me there's something wrong?

Usually when I become stressed or depressed, I can just sleep over it and wake up feeling fine. Maybe that's all I need, just some time to relax and chill out, sleep and process the day's events, then come back with an answer tomorrow.

Hmm yes, I haven't blogged in a while. I've been quite busy, and lazy at the same time (How I've achieved that, I don't know).

Let's see. Since I last blogged *checks* last Friday, I've had a nice farewell from the youth at Western Springs, complete with Burgerfuel and Chocolate Scrabble; I went out for dinner with my CompSci friends and play Guitar Hero; I had a good last crack at the piano at church on Sunday; I've LAN'd enough for the next couple of weeks; I helped Mat move into his new flat with five med school students; I went to play Poker with Jono, Nat, Richard, Andrew and Mat; I had dinner with my family at the Viaduct for Dad's birthday.....and I have..uhm..begun packing. Yes. Packing.

I've seriously put packing off for so long. Bleh. I should be alright though. I still have practically all of Tuesday, and the big things need to be packed into the van on Tuesday anyway. I also need to pack for Parachute which is in...uhm..6 hours.

Oh yes, I got a damned Vodafone. Ask me for my number, I'm not giving it out over my blog. However, you can check my Profile page for my Credit Card number :O!

So today was a big rush, trying to firstly help Mat move out of the flat, secondly organising Yum Char with Simon at Hee's Garden, thirdly I'm so totally late for the LAN at church but that's okay, because we found THIS at the flat!



It was so small and cute and..probably extremely terrified when Tom picked it up. But we took the opportunity to take pictures and then Tom set it down again. But it just sat there unhappily, so I picked it up (it was so cute) and took it to the tree where its parents were, and it jumped out of my hand and flew happily back into the tree. Ah, happy endings.

Okay I better run for the LAN. I think they're all expecting me :(

It's probably not a very common term, but if you explain it by using a contrast to "flat warming", it makes total sense.

So yeah, the time has come for Mat, Simon, Tom and Richard to move out of 'the flat'. So they had a flat cooling party. Without Richard and Simon. It was so damn awkward for the first three hours or so. First of all, Mat's rower friends came, and they were loud and rowdy and I didn't really feel like socialising with them, so I joined Tom's friends. And Tom's friends were total retards and kept dry-humping each other, so that was really disturbing and what-not.

Eventually Graeme showed up, so at least there was one other Asian in the house. Simon eventually showed up at 11pm, so we made plans to have Yum Char before he left forevarz on Saturday.

Anyway, interesting things we did:
- showed Tom lemonparty
- put lemonparty as a background on Tom's computer
- unplugged Tom's mouse and keyboard to prevent him from changing aforementioned background
- shutdown Tom's computer to prevent him from changing aforementioned background
- ridiculed Tom's choice of words in that lame Facebook Scrabble game (eg, chouse, areae, catlin)

Tomorrow! I'm helping Mat move out because I have the van. Then we're going for Yum Char as a farewell thing for Simon. Then I have the LAN <3 So it'll be a pretty busy day for me...and I should probably go to sleep because I have to wake up before my parents leave the house.

I was invited to have dinner at 'the Flat' today - that is, Mat, Simon, Richard and Tom's flat. Poor Tom was being a drama llama the whole day over not being present at this dinner. Andrew was there too, as well as their friend Natasha.

Dinner was actually really delicious. Mat cooked a prawn and avocado risotto, with tiramisu and chocolate mousse for dessert. Absolutely fantastic, and compliments to the chef. I helped to prepare o/

At the moment we're just waiting for Richard to sort out his wireless so we can play DotA. Yes, Simon and Richard are hellbent on DotA and Richard has revealed that he has an addiction for it, and can't sleep until he has had a game.