Healthy

I'm sure you'll all be happy to know that I am feeling better after my spontaneous sickness. But sadly, I got well only to do assignments and whatnot.

The one I'm doing now is linguistics. It's fairly simple. Basically we're given a transcription of some spoken text and have to answer a few questions on it. The conversation it's based on is two girls going 'ooh like I was pulled over by the cops... and she was sort of and then she said like...' etc etc. Ryan was like gosh it's terrible! And then I informed him that that's what girl conversation was actually like. He was shocked.

Here are some pictures from Ryan's ball too!




That's mainly what I wrote this blog for, to show you all these :)

In other news, mum fixed my printer!

or not.

You won't believe it mum, it's still being mean to me. It prints, but in really faded ink. I don't know what's wrong! :/ But I'm over pulling my hair out over it to be honest. It obviously doesn't like me.

And I really don't like it.

Ummm, what else.

Ryan and I went to this seminar today about 'what to do with your BA' it was pretty interesting, just a bunch of people talking about what jobs they had. 1/2 of them had done political studies or IR or both. So that was good.

It's raining.

Hope you're all well!
:)

bleeeeh

Yesterday was possibly the nicest day in the history of Wellington. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and - brace yourself for this - it was actually warm. I know, preposterous, right? BUT I could hardly enjoy the good weather at all because: a) I had (and have) assignments to do. b) I'm pretty much cut off from even looking at the weather in my room. And c) I'm sick.

Isn't life grand?

I prayed the weather might last for a few days, just until I felt better? But no. In fact, Wellington couldn't even be nice for one weekend.

And then my cold got a bit worse.

I took the opportunity to make some soup. Pumpkin soup.

Here is the recipe:
500g pumpkin
250g potato (I used kumara)
1/2 an onion
1 clove of garlic
2 cups vege stock

What you do:
Fry onion and garlic in some oil (after chopping, of course), add chopped pumpkin and potato/kumara and cook for about 4-5 mins. Add the vege stock and some salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

Blend.

Yum yum :)

Another exciting thing, Someone was cleaning the windows in the building next to me, but with an ENORMOUS window cleaner.

I thought it looked quite comical, so I took a photo.


Much love,
Erin

Steaming the salmon

Dear everyone,

It's been great seeing you all (of course, not ALL of you, but a large proportion at least) over the last week. I had so much fun with Claire and Alice in the weekend, then with mum last night. Sadly, now it's back to reality and the neverending stream of assignments and tests I have to do now, but only three weeks left of that and then just one exam.

So I'll give everyone a quick rundown of the ACE reunion weekend.

It started on Friday night when Claire arrived at the train station. We spent a lazy night in watching movies and reading magazines. I was just lulling her into a sense of unawareness: she had no idea what would be following her in the two days to come... ;)

The next morning Claire and I headed to the airport to pick up the Alice. We actually missed the bus we were planning to get, but got a later one. Luckily for us, Alice's plane (like Claire's train!) came in about 20 minutes late, so it was perfect.

And then the weekend began.

Here is a quick rundown of the happenings:

1. Walking. I warned them. I really did. But I don't think they could have prepared their feet for the two days of constant walking ahead of them.


I walked them this weekend, precious. Walked them I did. Until their little feetsies cried with pain. Yes precious, yes....

I heard from mum that Claire was traumatised by the walking (well, those weren't her words, but they make this more dramatic). My feet are fine :P

The weather was amazing anyway, so we could hardly waste it by staying indoors!

2. Sushi!

In Japan, they're called kaitenyazushi, but in New Zealand, they're more likely to be called 'conveyor belt sushi shop.' I've been to this particular shop twice, and now Claire and Alice can rant to you about it's fabulous as well.

Alice even had some eel. And liked it ;)


3. Ice cream! Well, I kind of failed on this one: we were going to go to a cake shop but I didn't really think about it being closed. Oh well. It was closed. Luckily, the best ice cream shop ever was just two shops down.

I think this photo says it all.


4. Again, taking advantage of the good weather, our walk took us through parliament. It was a pretty epic Sunday morning of walking actually. We walked:

To Courtenay Place for ice cream
Through the Sunday morning market by Te Papa
Across the waterfront
and finally, through parliament.


Yes, it was a grand weekend.

Other activities included: Shopping, walking, watching movies, walking through the botanic gardens and up to Victoria, riding the cable car and taking the bus. A lot.

Thanks for an awesome weekend guys!


But it doesn't end there!

I had a great night with mum last night too :) I think the highlight was the afgan she brought with her. It was melt-in-the-mouth delicious.

I appreciate everyone's visits! It's been really great just talking to everyone. I enjoy your company.

Dad, I think it's your turn next: I still need to take you to the sushi shop after all! ;D

Haha, love you guys and looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks time.

PS. Big shout out to mum aka the GENIUS who fixed my printer. Somehow, she put up with me abusing it constantly....

PPS. Tonight I made some salmon for dinner! I steamed it with some vegetables in my bamboo steamer. I think I overdid it a little: It was kind of dry in some places. But those places were far and few and most of it was deliciously moist ;D I even managed to get salmon without bones.

Busybusybusy

Phew, what a busy past week and a bit.

Trust me when I say that my head is full of study and my legs are full of walking. I was a wreck by the weekend. Absolutely exhausted! Luckily, while some people would use Saturday night to go out and party, I used my Saturday to catch up on all the sleep I had missed out on during the week. I went to bed just past nine. What surprised me the most is that I was able to fall asleep, pretty much straight away at 9pm. I must have been tired. I slept until 8 and felt fully refreshed to start the week. Good times.

Last week's nights were busy! Tuesday: public lecture + art class. Wednesday: went to dinner with Ryan at a Korean restaurant. Thursday: public lecture. Friday: Wrote drama script with Ryan.

Tonight I'm going to the last public lecture and then my final art class. Then I will come home, do the dishes and sleep (ideally...).

I have a linguistics assignment due on Friday.

A drama to perform in Japanese on Monday.

And to top it all off, it is just raining CONSTANTLY. Yesterday I thought to myself, "at least it's not windy!" And guess what kind of weather we had today? Rain. And wind. Cool. Thanks Wellington :P

But life isn't as complain-y as I make it out to be. Actually I'm rather optimistic at the moment, despite the workload, weather and tired-ness :) Perhaps it's because I have the weekend to look forward to. And Wednesday too!

Plus, surely the weather won't stay terrible forever!

...

In an ideal world anyway.

:P

Love Erin

Who needs printers anyway?

Hello everyone!

First of all, thanks for making my holiday and my birthday a thoroughly enjoyable occasion. I had the best time and appreciate the time (and money :P) that was invested into my two weeks at home.

I had two essays due today. Both of which I have successfully finished and handed in after much stress, hard work and research. But the best part about finishing is that the hard work doesn't stop here. In fact it's only the start of it! I have a busy six weeks ahead of me with numerous tests and assignments to be written. So I apologise for any unsavory behaviour I might display over this period - It will purely be a result of stress and tiredness ^^;

However, I am thoroughly looking forward to next weekend when ACE reunites, Wellington style! Not to mention the subsequent visit from mum! For the moment at least I have something to look forward to :)

But to dampen the mood, I'd also like to make a complaint. Printers are the bane of my existence. Since this year at least. I never encountered any problems with them at home - the printer always printed when I told it to, and the ink never ran out (well, if it did, I didn't have to worry about it :P). But this year, I am faced with both of these problems.

Before my ink ran out, I didn't have any problems but from there everything has just gone downhill. So I eventually went out and bought some new ink for myself. I felt so adventurous, writing down the kind I needed and venturing out into the wide world of printer shops (yes, my life IS so sad that buying ink becomes an adventure). After succeeding in my task, I returned and put the ink in the printer straight away, only to be told that I needed yellow ink too. This baffles me because I'm sure I've only printed in colour once, but more than that I was furious that the printer forgot to mention until that point that I didn't have any yellow ink. So eventually (yesterday xD ) I went and purchased some yellow ink. I said to Ryan, "If I get back and it's low on other ink too, I'll be FURIOUS!" So I went back and put the ink in and after about six thousand years of cleaning....... Its hunger for ink was satisfied.

BUT, the story doesn't end there. I straight away made my move to print an essay before it spontaneously ran out of ink again. I pressed the print button and... Paper jam. But I kept my cool. Deep breaths. Open lid and remove jammed paper. Deep breaths. I pressed the print button again and... Paper jam. But I kept my cool.... until the paper didn't just pop out. It ripped. I can't see the jammed paper any more. It's probably just going to be there forever, mocking me and my inability to correctly utilise a printer. Who needs printers? They're just a waste of time. They just screw you around like a jammed piece of paper.

Who needs printers...?

University students who need to print out assignments, that's who.

I need a printer T_T

It's lucky that I have Ryan who has access to Weir printers. Lucky for my printer that is, otherwise it would be smashed on the pavement by now. On the pavement below my window...

^^

-Erin