The University of Auckland says its online enrolment scheme is working well and blames a reported "systems failure" on students misunderstanding the way it works.  

The Herald reported yesterday some students were panicked by what they considered to be "error messages" when they tried to check enrolments on Monday - Auckland Anniversary Day. 

Director of student administration Dr Wayne Clark said: "Any backlogs that have occurred over the last few days have either been dealt with [yesterday] or will be dealt with very sortly."

He believed some students had misunderstood "status updates" as error messages.

This weekend and Monday is the Aquatica Festival 08 on the Viaduct in Auckland and there's been fireworks on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night! We missed the fireworks on Friday and Saturday but we were definitely going to see the fireworks on Sunday night, apparently New Zealand's largest!

The day started off typically with church. The guy giving the sermon was going on about the number of violent assaults and homicides already this year in New Zealand, and then when he said he wasn't going to analyse those and started talking about something else, that's when I started to drift off!

Once the service was over my mum told me Angie came to church but I only just saw her as she went out the door with her mum and sister! Oh well, Aonghas, Hamish and I went to the combined youth Sunday School. We played this game where one person wrote down six statements about themselves which could be true or false. This time it was Tim, my former Sunday School teacher. I managed to get six out of six correct and win a tube of M&M Minis! :D We finished the story about a reformed gang member before the teachers answered some questions about God and Christianity that had been submitted by people or chosen from a list of possible questions. They picked the paper with my questions! One of them was a question I picked from the list

"Why is Church boring and a drag for some people?"

I made the other one up myself, just to see how they would answer it

"Which political party would God choose?"

They just said that he would want the government of the country to rule in a fair way...or maybe not...I can't exactly remember. All I know is they didn't tell me exactly which political party!

We did a little clothes shopping and I bought some more shorts before we went home and we all just fell asleep in the extreme heat! I checked our family email an hour later to find out our dad had emailed us an hour earlier telling us he was sick and asking us to come pick him up. He couldn't get through on the phone (probably because my mum was on it!). We tried contacting his work but he had already left to catch the bus. We were wondering what to do next when he came in the door! He must've gotten food poisoning from the takeaways yesterday so he went straight to bed.

Later in the night our mum and the three of us Anderson boys went into the city to check out the Aquatica Festival. There were street performers, including this American Indian trio performing some cool pipe music. There were also all these carnival rides around the place and heaps of people walking around.

We came just in time to catch the Hello Sailor performance on the main stage. The lead vocalist acted and sounded like he was drunk! I had never heard most of the songs they had performed until they performed the last two songs, one which was the Outrageous Fortune theme song and the other was Blue Lady.

As soon as they finished performing the fireworks went off over the harbour! They were pretty big and beautiful! The final fireworks were especially big with the sky filled with light! Once it was all over, everyone started heading towards the road. I was walking along with my family and saw the back of some girl thinking she looked familiar. We stopped to watch a bit more of the American Indian group performing when none other than Sarena sprung up on me! She had come with her....friend(s) (won't say anymore!) to watch the fireworks too.

The Aquatica Festival's last day is today (Monday 28 January). The highlight is probably the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra performing some sea-related music (a highlight for me anyway!) but because Aonghas is working, we'll probably miss it. If you can get there, you should!
As soon as they had finished

Aonghas finally got back from his camp today and fell asleep, while the rest of us went out to West City to sort some stuff out at the bank before doing a bit of shopping. On top of our shopping list was a new can opener. Of all things, we are most careful and picky when it comes to shopping for a can opener, and yes we go shopping for one often enough! They just keep on breaking! We've gone through at least seven can openers in recent times, so I guess you could say we haven't been too successful in finding the best can opener! However, we didn't break the most recent one, we just lost it.

As well as shopping for a can opener, we also went buying shorts so I can now proudly say I am gradually replacing my drawer full of holey shorts! We also bought a whole lot of food to restock the house with, as for the past week or so we've had hardly any food to eat. I'm sure I've been losing weight! I was just noticing tonight though (and this may sound girly!) that I look a bit out of shape, so I've really got to get started working on one of my New Years resolutions - to do more exercise!

Friday night was the first proper English youth group meeting at our church. We started off with poorly done singing (come on girls!) before moving on to a bit of discussion before the highlight of the night - playing the body part game! There were two teams of five, with each team member being a body part. The person who were the eyes was the only person who could see while everyone else was blind-folded. He/She was tasked with providing instructions to the ears who listened to them and forwarded them to the mouth who would call out loud to the legs or the arms. I happened to be the mouth of my team! We were directed to move forward a few steps each time, take a step sideways, move a step forward...Eventually the arms were told to grab museli bar and feed in mouth! With both of us blind-folded, Cleo, the girl who was the arms tried finding my mouth with the museli bar to put it in, but ended up poking all around my face! She soon found it though! Hamish's team was next, and he happened to be the eyes...uh oh!! He was a little late in giving directions at times and his team ended up walking into a wall at one stage! His team did get to the food quicker though, although I bet that's because they saw what we did and copied us!

Youth group wasn't too bad and was a lot more fun than Sunday School! Our mum didn't come to pick us up till about an hour after it finished though as she forgot to, and so Hamish and I just spent the time talking to others and eating supper while waitng.

In the past week since NCEA results came out I've had a few of my friends asking me for help dealing with nDeva, understanding how degrees work and how to sort out their timetables. I have to say that it's been really fun as it's given me something to do for once instead of just sitting there watching TV or constantly refreshing websites to see if there's any new news updates (how very sad...). Boy do those first year students get off easy when it comes to sorting out their timetables! I never knew how complicated it is when it comes to arranging a Bachelor of Science degree or conjoint degree though, but maybe it's complicated to me because I've never had to understand how it works. In Health Science they basically told us what to study!

This year's budget might include an increase in the student allowance, Tertiary Education Minister Pete Hodgson said today.

Students were asking for an increase in their allowance and this was what the Government would tackle next, he said.

Mr Hodgson told Radio New Zealand that the average student debt of nearly $30,000 was "too high".

"There's a lot of things at play here including the tendency for some banks to shovel loans towards students in order to have them as customers."

But the underlying issue was that the student allowance plus the accommodation allowance had not shifted for many years "and needs to".

There "might" be an increase in allowances in this year's budget, Mr Hodgson said.

"That's as far as I can go in January," he said.

"Allowances haven't shifted in many years and they need to."

This would happen over a "number of years"....

Over a number of years? I wonder how big this increase will be then, and whether it will continue to increase over the years should (Bob forbid) National get into power!

Happy Birthday Stephen and Shirley!

(for Tuesday)

I'm not usually one to shop for clothes that often, if at all, but I think I'll need to very soon. I have three pairs of shorts that I've been wearing for at least the past 3-4 years and now two of them are starting to rip! I guess that's what you'd expect when you wear out your shorts. I know I know, not only do I sound poor but I'm several years behind in terms of fashion, but then again my clothes may not have been in fashion back then when I started wearing my clothes either! I'll have to get round to some clothes shopping before uni starts at least.

The Wizard of Oz production back in 2004 - I'm still wearing the shorts I wore for that production back then....hhmmmm...

I've started to develop a daily (at least weekday) television-watching routine which goes something like

News->7th Heaven->Joan of Arcadia->Rugrats->Pepper Pig->Angry Beavers->Rocko's Modern Life->.........

I watch too much TV! I've become addicted to 7th Heaven and Joan of Arcadia, and I know that it's a little...gay/pussy/weird/girly for a guy to be watching those shows but it sure beats anything else on TV at that time!

On that subject, while not spending my spare time having fun on nDeva (oh yeah those were some good times!) I've been listening to some old music from way back in the days, such as Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus, Mmm Bop by Hanson, and Dr Jones by Aqua. Oh yes....brings back many memories from all those years ago. I can't believe I used to listen to that!

Thanks to Esther, Joon, Julie and Angie (despite thinking my birthday was Tuesday instead of Monday but hey it's the thought that counts!) for the belated birthday wishes too.

To finish off this post, here's a video of Bill Clinton taking on Chris Wallace of Fox News regarding why he didn't do more to hunt down Osama Bin Laden.

Go Bill go!! I swear having Bill back in the White House isn't the reason why I'm supporting Hillary Clinton!

I'm quite late at posting this but I'll do it nonetheless! I came home after dropping off some stuff for Aonghas who was at camp, went on the NZ Herald website as usual and was shocked to read of his death, especially someone as young as he was!

To be honest I didn't really know much about him or pay much attention to him because I kept getting mixed up with those other guys like Colin Farrell (even now I don't know that actor too well!), but it was only once I saw 10 Things I Hate About You that I started to notice him. I actually didn't know he was in Brokeback Mountain either! I did know he was in Batman: The Dark Knight and have to say that going by the trailers it looks like he plays one hell of a Joker! Shrikkanth, my friend pointed a bit from this Wikipedia article out to me though:

"To prepare for the role he lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's posture, voice and psychology"

Originally the article went on to say that the role had affected his sleeping patterns, but it has since been deleted.

Anyway my thoughts are with his daughter, and I shall best remember him for this scene from 10 Things I Hate About You:

There's not very much to say about my birthday. In summary it was wet, long and boring! I spent the whole day at home either reading the news on the Internet (I was considering playing some shoot 'em up war game to boost my manliness at one time), watching TV or practising accordion. Originally a week ago a friend had asked me if I had anything planned for my birthday and that got me thinking. After that though I put it on the back burner and forgot about it till a couple days before when it was too late! I'm sorry guys I would've invited you to a birthday get-together/party if I had remembered to organise one!

My friend Diane stayed up texting me to see in my birthday which was really nice of her, seeing as she was supposed to go to bed early so she could wake up early to get to the farm. She texted me throughout the day as well which was really cool of her. I stayed up a little later watching movies on TV. Freddy vs Jason, Possessed...a little creepy!

We spent the morning discussing what to do with our dad's old car. The warrant of fitness has expired and to get it renewed he'd have to pay for some repairs. However, the car is pretty old that it would need more and more repairs and so we started questioning whether it was worth it. He rang up a company to find out how much they would pay him to take his car to use for scrap metal. They would only offer him $50 though! Fortunately he talked to someone later in the day who was offering to buy it so he could do it up himself and sell it. We're going to hold off for a week though to wait for Aonghas to come back so he can say goodbye to the car as well ;)

My mum bought me an electric toothbrush for my birthday which has been really useful seeing as I have braces. My dad gave me some money too. I thought that would be it till my neighbour Szelin came over sometime after midday with a chocolate cake she had baked for me! I was originally thinking about trying to bake a cake myself for the fun of it today but she did it all for me! She also made it through the rain just to deliver the cake to our house which I really appreciate! Thanks so much Szelin!!!

What probably made the day most special as usual though were the birthday wishes from my friends who knew/remembered my birthday. Just that they even bothered to do something as small as texting me meant something to me and I feel a little guilty for them having wasted their time! So I will take my time to thank you all! Thanks Maxine, Gavin and Gwen for the early wishes, and to Melissa, Zahir, Alex, Shen, Sarena, Amy, Mr Hirst, Facebook, Chen, Ayesha, Janice (and the Andersons), Szepo, Richard (so surprised! I never knew he knew my birthday!), Jacqueline, Kat, The Cookie Bear, Aneesya, Alice, Estee, Rhea, Lun Shen, George and Hyun who sent me a long, thoughtful email which also made my day! Thanks so much guys!

To round off my birthday I just watched the movie Must Love Dogs on TV, which funnily enough was about some desperate divorced woman who had been single for a long time and couldn't find love!

Boy being 19 really blows doesn't it. It certainly doesn't sound as young as something like...15 or 16 (for obvious reasons!), but I guess we should just be thankful we're still alive and have reached this age! Might as well make the most of the time we have too!

The Chinese New Year Festival held at the ASB Showgrounds came around once again this year, and this year we were going to try get there earlier than in past years! We had to pick Aonghas, Rose, Chen and one of their camp friends Harmony from O'Rourke Hall, where they were staying, as they wanted to come along on their 'Explore Auckland Day'. For Aonghas and Rose, well they live in Auckland so they thought they might as well come to the festival!

Our dad dropped my mum, Hamish and me off at the festival before going off to pick up the others. There were these cool Beijing Olympics mascots in the foyer! I wanted to get a photo with them but I couldn't get to the front so I just had to get one taken with their back.My mum wanted to look at some ceramic pots, so Hamish and I wandered around, checking out the stalls. The aisles left not much space for moving, and people ended up squeezing past others, or having to resort to pushing and shoving. Felt like being somewhere in Asia! We walked around, checking out stalls selling food, books, toys, advertising religion, while Aonghas and the others were stuck in traffic. I caught up with a few people like a Sunday School teacher from church and Julie, a friend of mine!

We met them in the foyer when they finally arrived, and immediately split into groups. Harmony, the other girl, hung out with us Anderson brothers and we just walked around having a look at the stalls. We came across the National stand where there were photos being taken of John Key, Pansy Wong and some other dignitaries. I tried asking some of the younger Asian people about joining the National Party, and asked them if I would get discriminated against by others for being a member ( e.g. if I was to apply for a job and the boss supported Labour...) but they guy just said to me

"Oh sorry sorry I'm just a volunteer!"


After talking to someone else who did know, that made me even more determined to join a political party on campus this year!

We were getting pretty hot and had nearly seen everything so we went outside to check out the food stalls and have something to eat. Once Harmony bought her food we sat under the shade talking for a while when we heard there was some game going on. We went over to the crowd to see that girl from the TV drama 'Ride with the Devil' picking people from the audience to come up and throw a dart at this spinning wheel, and win a prize. After a few people had a go, she decided she'd pick someone from the back, and after a bit of confusion as to whether she picked Aonghas or Harmony, Harmony eventually made her way up. She threw her dart and hit number 19. The lady in charge of the prizes went over to them, picked up a bag and wrote 19 on it and gave it to her! She ended up winning some food which was pretty cool.

By then it was about 1pm and we had to go meet up with the others so we could drop Chen off at Sky City for his job interview. We had a twenty minute walk all the way to the car park with me getting isolated from the rest of the group when I missed crossing the road at the same as them. We got to the car and got to the city slowly amongst all the traffic! We only JUST got Chen to Sky City in time, but fortunately it turns out the guy interviewing him was twenty minutes late!

We were originally going to drop the others off after buying an ice-cream from McDonalds, but after realising the McDonalds by the entrance to the Harbour Bridge was gone and that we were in the lane leading to the Harbour Bridge, it was too late and we ended up having to travel over the Harbour Bridge and back again! At least it was a good opportunity for Harmony to check out the sights, as she's from Christchurch!

We ended up finding a McDonalds and got our soft-served cones, before dropping the girls off at Sky City and making our way back to the Showgrounds. Just when I got there I discovered my friend Richard (supreme violin virtuoso!) was nearing the end of his performance! I felt so bad!!! I had planned to watch him perform! I will DEFINITELY be watching him perform at the Lantern Festival regardless! Nothing will stop me from making it this time!!!

The day grew old and the festival came to an end. This was probably one of the highlights of my holidays, or at least this week anyway.

On a completely different topic, I got accepted into BHsc/LLB (Bachelor of Health Science/Bachelor of Law), BHsc/BCom (Bachelor of Health Science/Bachelor of Commerce) and BCom/BSc (Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Science in Computer Science) so a big HMMMM........

I spent half a day guiding Chen through the wonderful Ndeva (the university course enrollment system) the other day, which was a bit of fun, but just reminded me that I better get on to sorting out my own timetable soon!

I also just discovered that two of my friends are doing exactly the same conjoint - BA in Chinese and BCom! Go Chinese!!

Last night was the first English-speaking youth group meeting at our church. After nearly a year and a bit of talk and planning, it was finally happening, and to start it off we had a little barbecue. The initial number of people wasn't too large. There were only about six of us, as a few had work and other commitments, but bear in mind it was our first meeting! There were also all the Cantonese and Mandarin groups going on in other rooms though.

I spent most of the time talking to Gabrielle, one of the group leaders who used to go to Rutherford College who's now studying architecture. The girls seemed to be hanging out together while the guys hung out with the guys!

After the barbecue we went into a room and did some singing (pitiful effort by most! I'm sure I heard more guys singing than girls!), played some ice-breaker games like trying to name the other person before the other person could name you (I know the way I've put it makes it sound a bit lame but it was a good way of remembering people's names!), and also did a bit of sharing and stuff like that.

Overall it was a good start and now we've just got to grow the youth group a bit.

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Boy has it been hot lately? I originally thought 34 degrees Celsius was bad, today our thermometer recorded 39 degrees Celsius in the conservatory!

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Congratulations to all those who passed NCEA, and to those who passed NCEA Level 3, yay no more NCEA EVER for you guys! Since Aonghas has been at camp, we got his results in the mail and being the open family we are, we ripped open his envelope and checked his results (we did warn him though!)! Fortunately he didn't do too badly. He passed everything and achieved NCEA Level 2 with Excellence, got NCEA Level 3 and University Entrance so that's a big PHEW. When I texted Aonghas to let him know we checked his results, he first replied

"Are they bad?"

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Chinese New Year Festival is on at the ASB Showgrounds today from 9-3pm! One of the only times I feel sorta like an Asian, being pushed, shoved and squished around! How cool is that! I'll type up all the goings on when I get back.

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Let's make it official - Melissa and I have a bet with 20c on the line. I won't say much right now but it's somehow related to Valentine's Day. Roll on my 20c!!

Tuesday 15th January - Fudgecaking hot! We had nearly every window and door of our house open for most of the day, and for the first time this Summer we turned on the fan! It was so hot that just after watching 7th Heaven and Joan of Arcadia on TV I fell asleep on the floor.

According to our thermometers the temperature peaked at 34 degrees Celsius at one point! NB this was taken inside our house. Now I know that it's probably much hotter in other areas of the world and so I probably shouldn't complain. I'd probably get roasted overseas!

The fridge provided temporary relief...

Looks like McDonalds have finally chosen a name for their burger (drumroll please):

Downunder Deluxe

Congratulations to whoever came up with that. They obviously didn't like the names I entered, such as:

Calumburger
McCalumburger
Beef Burger
Burger Burger


Couldn't you just picture yourself taking a bite out of that juicy, delicious Calumburger???

UPDATE: I've just discovered one of my suggested burger names feature under the 'Other Burger Names of Note'!

I came home this afternoon, went onto some forum only to find someone mentioning his passing away several hours ago. That's when I immediately went to the news websites and there it was already all over the place! NZ Herald, BBC (Most read article), CNN (Most read article), Sydney Morning Herald... A very sad day for this country! He will be missed.

A state funeral is a must!!!