Whew.

I showed off my holiday photos at work on Friday, before rushing off to meet Chris at the library to embark on our seven hour journey across the North Island. We only just missed the curfew at Mystery Creek, but we were fortunate to have accomodation in nearby Cambridge for Friday night. We set out for Parachute early on Saturday morning to make it for morning worship.

The weather was fantastic on Saturday, with a light breeze and plenty of cloud cover to shelter us from the blazing sun. It was still very warm but pleasantly so, unlike many Parachute weekends before. Nevertheless, I made the most of the heat and purchased two Danish ice creams that day. Awesome.

Saturday night's big line up included the eccentric Family Force Five and the popular Switchfoot, before the birthday celebrations of the 20th Parachute festival began. There were free drinks and ice creams, fireworks, lots of singing and dancing, and the atmosphere was wild and electrifying. We decided to skip Underoath for Nathan King in the Palladium, a decision I did not regret after hearing some feedback about the type of music Underoath play.

And then on Sunday morning...it began. The rain came and drenched the entire campsite, causing some minor floods. Fortunately, none of the tents took on major water, but the huge inconvenience of having everything soaking wet was a pain. We attended morning worship armed with umbrellas, and retreated hastily to the tents after the sermon.

We only emerged later for Late 80s, and they were fantastic - finally playing some songs I knew (I'm Yours <3333) as well as some classics like Zoot Suit Riot and Living on a Prayer. It was still raining at the end of Late 80s, so we congregated in one tent and played Mafia (YAY) until dinner time, when we equipped ourselves with wet-weather gear once more and headed to the mainstage for the epic Sunday night show.

And epic it was. The rain cleared slightly, allowing us to enjoy such acts as Steve Apirana who was clearly the most unexpected outstanding musician that weekend. As the Parachute Band took stage again, the rain intensified and the crowd began to diminish, but the strong endured until Hillsong United appeared on stage.

I was pretty sulky all this time because I didn't really know many of the songs, and I'm not the biggest fan of Hillsong songs because of the repetition, and it was pouring wet and I was cold. But as Joel Houston began singing... "A thousand times I've failed", I stood to my feet, defying the wind and the rain (and the lightning) and joined the crowd in singing From The Inside Out.

It was epic.

There is something about singing at the top of your voice with a thousand-strong crowd in stormy weather. I can't think of any other word to describe it. It was epic. The adrenaline of standing against the elements of nature coupled with the power of the song and the resonance of the crowd...simply epic.

We were blessed to have a fine day on Monday to pack up our gear. We had lunch at the infamous 4th-form-camp Burger King where I unexpectedly met somewhere whom I have not seen in eight years, before departing for our seven hour journey back to Wellington.

When I look back over the weekend's events, I think of how there are so many people who are ten years younger than me, I think of the crazy messages you hear from speakers, I think about the excessive choruses that worship bands sing and of course the retarded weather.

But despite all of this, I had a really good time. Thanks for a great weekend, Parachute.

I guess I've just been so busy with everything. Last week was the last week of the sprint at work, so we were trying to finish things up. Mat, Nats, Stacey and Richard came down over the weekend for a visit (see the Gallery pics), and I've got an influx of work from Psypoke...and also another secret website ¬.¬

Let's see... last weekend was really good. It was great to see Mat again, and he got to meet all the Wellington people I hang out with, as well as see some sights (including my work place). We had lots of good food (YAY PARADE CAFE AND STRAWBERRY FARE). We did a 15 minute run through Te Papa, we visited Mt Victoria in incredible winds, we watched the All Blacks beat Ireland, we played Pictionary (never again.), Mafia (never again.) and Puerto Rico, and Mat even went to church with us.

It's bug-fixing week this week, so it should be relatively quiet, but I've got a lot to do outside of work. *yawn*

I've had a pretty damn awesome week. I got to spend time with family and friends, eat lots of delicious food (that I took pictures of, don't worry) and I graduated in two degrees that were the result of four years' hard work and divine intervention.

Fantastic.

I spent all of Wednesday with Debs. We went to see Iron Man, which was rather disappointing in my opinion. The story and the villain was predictable, the fight scene was short...and the physics were completely wrong. Also,
1. Build robot arm and leg.
2. ???
3. SUCCESSFUL ROBOT!
I got to spend some time on the Internet (which explains the rushed post below this one) before we went for dinner at St. Tropez. We shared escargot; I had a nicely done steak for mains and a tart au citron for dessert - she had braised duck and creme brulée.

I wanted to meet up with Casey and Jesse on Thursday, but neither of them were in. Instead I spent half the day fixing the Internets for my dad, since he'd decided to ditch Woosh for ihug. I spent the rest of the day catching up with friends and lecturers at Uni, before going with the family to Mikano in Mechanics Bay for dinner. Tom wasn't working there that day. Whether this is fortunate or unfortunate is for you to decide. But the dinner was nice and dessert was superb - I had another steak and a nut trifle. Trifles for the win, seriously.

Friday graduation brought about some weather uncertainty. Andrew picked me up before picking Deanna up. We were a bit strapped for time, so he decided to drop me at Uni so I could rush in for the Maths breakfast. And what a delicious breakfast it was as well - there were fruit kebabs and toasted croissants and danish pastries and garghharg*drool*. There was also some champagne but I decided to take the sober route for the day.

I rushed to the CompSci breakfast two floors above and to my delight I managed to swipe the last custard tart as I entered. It was good seeing lots of people I knew and catching up with more of my lecturers - telling them I'd gotten my dream job, and thanks for putting me through all of that, and so on. Many thanks to Ann for including Python in the CS111 cirriculum, it has become quite useful at work :p

Rain threatened to cancel the procession at 9.30am but a window of opportunity arose and we quickly marched down to the Town Hall, a bit wet, but still jovial. Upon arrival, who should we find but HSIN-YAO?!, who had previously not existed for the past three years or so. We have pictures as proof, in case you don't believe us.

Trudging back up to Uni, I took some photos with some of my lecturers and old Clock Tower workmates, before heading to the Science brunch for some delicious chocolate cake, and finally to Albert Park for some more photos with the youth. It was all too short lived as we rushed down to the Town Hall again for the ceremony. Mad props to Andrew for high-fiving the chancellor!

Dinner was with my CompSci friends at Santa Lucia in Mission Bay. It was a really good atmosphere, with live music and dancing. I was in such a good mood that I asked Debs for a dance. Only to be refused. But apparently Amy was keen, so I tried to teach her some Ceroc moves without looking too uncoordinated, and it seemed quite good O_o So hooray for that. We migrated to Amy's house for 4 hours of mafia (again, I was promptly killed in the second game I played. I blame you, Casey!!).

I spent Saturday with Mat, Tom and Richard, playing Ticket to Ride in the afternoon, then heading for dinner with the CSC + Mat and Richard at Jimmy Wong's on Lorne Street in the city. It's some kind of fusion east-west place, and I had some wagyu beef which was really disappointing. My parents can cook better stir-fry than that. Unsatisfied, we went to the dessert place next to the Civic Centre for some ice cream and pearl milk tea (I had a double scoop of mango and cheesecake ice cream!).

Sunday was a chance to say goodbye to the youth group. It was a Mothers' Day service, then a quick lunch at New Lynn Shopping Mall, before spending some time with Debs and then my family. We rushed to the airport at 7pm, to find out my flight had been cancelled...engineering problems, or something. I was really lucky to get a flight at 9pm on Air New Zealand, for no extra cost. What's more, my luggage was overweight so I had to stuff some clothes into hand luggage. So while the flight was a bit chaotic to start with, I managed to get back to cold, cold Wellington without further troubles.

I wish I could relive this week again. :3

It was indeed a fantastic time catching up with friends and family as I travelled back to Auckland for Easter. I left for Wellington Airport at around 10.45am to catch the bus from Wellington Hospital at 11.15am. I arrived at the airport with about an hour to spare so I just lazed about and walked around. The flight left early and only took 45 minutes, so I was out of Auckland's domestic terminal by 2.15pm. Shereen picked me up and we headed to the Hunua Falls.

We didn't do much on Friday. It was basically unpacking, team and cabin allocations, team building exercises including a blind obstacle course, some brain teasers and a team chant. I was the leader of my team: the Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Raymond and Quan were our guest speakers.

Saturday was a rotation of four activities: kayaking, raft building, high ropes course and random games. I was stupid enough to wear my glasses while kayaking and as a result, they're sitting somewhere at the bottom of the crater lake where the waterfall spills into. Sigh. But anyway, I did have fun the rest of the day, despite the fact it was the second time I've lost my glasses in two months. We also had a guys' discussion and had some "manly" games. I can't believe how stubbornly competitive I am.

On Sunday we had a treasure hunt, a Burma trail, a barn dance, theatre sports and epic Mafia. My apologies to the committee for being so cynical during the Burma trail, haha. But yeah, it was a good night, I got to roleplay Phoenix Wright (to a certain extent) and of course, the other activities brought a smile to my face.

Yesterday we cleaned up the site and Debs and I left early to go to Burgerfuel for lunch (despite the 10% surcharge, it was so worth it), and then I dropped by home to see Dad and my sister.

So today I stumbled to work; tired from four days of fun, blind from no glasses and limping thanks to..um... certain manly games. It was a really nice surprise to see an Easter goodies box sitting on my desk: two Moro bars and two Cadbury Easter eggs. I shall add this to my collection.

It's less than a week to Easter, which means I get to fly back to Auckland to visit my youth group and my parents. It also means our current sprint for work is wrapping up, so I'd better finish all my work!

Today we had a flat barbeque, for no apparent reason whatsoever. But it's always good to have a flat barbeque. At least there wasn't any dancing this time. Rather, we played Mafia! Hooray. We had a twist on the game where we only two of the sheriff, doctor and sniper would be active, but it would be random and no one would know which one had been left out. So it makes it interesting when someone attempts to pass themselves off as something they aren't. Yeah, it was quite intense, but Jono kept making the wrong decisions and I think the Mafia got away with a lot more than they should have.

Oh yeah, as a followup to my last post, the three most common responses to the story have been:
3. Sleeping? And listening to your iPod? Let me note this down
2. So, the bridge you say? I think I'll go check it out some time
1. You said WHAT? You should have said "I'm taken, but here's my friend's number!"

Anyway..Grammar traditions never die. One of the long-standing traditions between me and my Grammar friends is to congregate sometime around December 6th (preferably on that day, but generally ) at Auckland Grammar School and play some games...like handball.

Following that, we usually head to BK and stay late before going our separate ways. Anyway, this time, since we actually had a proper place to hang out (ie, the flat), we opted for Domino's and took it all back to the flat where it disappeared within around 10 minutes.

After that, we proceeded to play Cranium, using the pristine unopened box from my 21st that all my friends had so generously given me..but that didn't last long. Question: If you had to act out "tour guide" for charades, how would you do it? :O

Finally, we had a huge Mafia marathon until 5am where there were epic battles and epic frustrations and epic idiocy. I even enjoyed the times when I wasn't the overlord, because unlike SOME PEOPLE WHO I PLAY WITH, my Grammar friends don't kill me off in the first round.

So yeah, with 7 hours of sleep, I woke up groggily and proceeded to watch Simon play "Stalker", and get owned. Apparently he's making progress on that, so good on him. He kept getting shot on the first mission, and he had to use like 8 bullets to kill everyone and blahblahblah. When everyone had finally woken up, we had two games of DotA where we were royally sassed, then I finally drove home to beat the traffic. \o/

Tonight! We are going to Momo's because Ted is leaving for Taiwan tomorrow. I have to remember to get some money off him for his Parachute ticket. Oh yeah, we're going to be playing Mario Party DS at Momo's... haha. That'll be fun :O

So I've had a real busy two days. On Friday I went out for dinner with my sister to this Japanese place called Moto on Paramount Drive (It connects Central Park and Lincoln Road) and we ate so much, and it was really good as well. We both had a bento box, except I had beef and she had chicken. The bento came with sashmi, sushi, teriyaki chicken skewers, tempura and some miso. We also shared 8 dumplings and a tofu salad. Of course, my sister couldn't finish some stuff so I had to finish it for her. I think the only thing left on the table were my two sushi, so we did a pretty good job.

After that we went walking around West City for present ideas. We came out empty handed. West City was about to close anyway, so yeah.

Then I went to pick Bobby up and we went to town for Linh's birthday thingy. Her Facebook invite thingy said 9pm, so we were a bit surprised that she was..um..not there when we arrived at 10pm. She was "running late"...haha. Poor Linh. We had a good time though. The music was a bit loud and it was hard to hear people talking, but it was good to catch up and meet new people. Half the time I didn't know the person's name, because you know, you introduce yourself over the loud music and then you spend the rest of the night trying to figure out what they said... and whether you got it right. Oh, we got her a drinks set where you add your favourite alcohol, freeze the mix, and then you have an instant cocktail. She also got this punching bag thingy that swears each time you hit it. O_o

Today, my CS friends went to Wenderholm for a picnic thingy. As usual, Amy organised a huge amount of food, so we were exceptionally well fed. We had fun cooking on the barbeques, and kicking soccer balls around, and lazing about, and catching waves in the water (It was cold, but wasn't unbearable, yet Ted came out shivering like he had hypothermia). Raymond kept washing things. Al and Ted "wrestled" on the grass. There was a turd in the urinal. No one ate the "kerosene sausages". We fail at capturing ducks. Pics and video of Al and Ted at Casey's blog.

In the evening, we had nothing to do, so we made a stop to Plantations in Orewa and had some ice cream before going to Al's house and play PS2 and Mafia. Ah Mafia. I haven't played Mafia in ages. And today I was reminded as to why I hate it so much. Everytime I'm mafia, the sheriff investigates me, then reveals himself and points the finger at me, so I die. Everytime I'm not mafia, the mafia kill me. So that leaves me with two places left - when I'm the doctor, I get to heal myself all the time; also, when I'm the sniper, I get to randomly kill someone. Han also introduced a "Joker" who has a one-per-game ability to either shoot, save or investigate someone. I guess it opens possibilities, but in the end, I suppose people just shoot for fun.

Eh. It was a good day. I'm tired. I'm on piano at church tomorrow so I have to get up early.