On Friday my mum, Hamish and I went to this Progressive Enterprises (owner of Foodtown, Countdown and Woolworths) open day where they were interviewing all these people for jobs at their supermarkets. We were going to try get Hamish to get a job interview and with some luck, a job. There were all these people sitting and waiting in one of the conference rooms at Lincoln Green Hotel while in the adjacent room interviews were being conducted. It looked a bit like NZ Idol, only for a job at a supermarket! Hamish finally managed to get his application form completed, and was given a little slip of paper saying he was number 93.

We ended up waiting there for over an hour and a half until it was Hamish's interview. During that time, my mum and I had been trying to prep him by giving him advice on how to answer possible questions, and to make sure he doesn't sound like a robot but sounds genuine and actually try to SMILE!

Hamish went in for his interview with some lady from Countdown which seemed to last about five minutes. We didn't hear any of it, but when Hamish came out it sounded as though he managed to answer all the questions asked (even though he probably over-glorified Countdown!). He was a little concerned that his interview was too short though! Oh well at least he got a bit of interview experience!

Later that night us Anderson brothers had to go to church for some carol rehearsal with a fellowship group. It was the first time we were there so we mainly listened to the group singing instead of playing music. It lasted for at least three hours, and by the time we got out it was 10pm! The Muse concert was going on at the Trusts Stadium across the road, so we thought we'd go and check it out...from the outside. We're a bit cheap. The last concert we went to was the Bee Gees when they performed at Western Springs, and even then our whole family just sat outside the fence all night listening to their music for free!

We didn't get too close to the stadium as we would probably look a little dodgy to the security guards. I've got a YouTube video of me enjoying the concert up. I had it up before but I got someone calling me a LOSER! haha so I decided I better remove my name just in case someone who actually knows me watches that!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX AND RUBY (for yesterday!!)

Looks like exam results are available online now! I've been logging in to nDeva, the University of Auckland website to check my results on an extremely regular basis, and finally got one mark back yesterday for MEDSCI, probably my hardest paper and exam! Surprisingly I didn't do too badly and did better than I would have expected! According to an email sent by Mr Colin Quilter, the course co-ordinator, the course lecturers got together and decided that the exam was too difficult and so they added 5 marks to each of our totals!

That got me looking at what I should be doing for next year. So far I've come up with the following possible paths I could take:
- Bachelor of Health Science (and just aim for getting honours so I can go straight to PhD)
- Bachelor of Health Science/Arts (Major in psychology and Chinese)
- Bachelor of Health Science/Commerce (and cross-credit my economics paper)
- Bachelor of Health Science/Law (although I may not get into law and then end up wasting another year!)
- Bachelor of Science (either in Physiology, Pharmacology, Psychology)/Bachelor of Law
- Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Arts
- Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Commerce


OK that hasn't really narrowed it down too much has it? (Any help would be greatly appreciated!!) I've also been considering which General Education paper I should take. So far there are only a few that I'm interested in. I've been thinking about possibly taking an education paper on how people learn, or a paper on beginning Chinese (which I probably won't be allowed to do!) or Korean. I once tried learning Korean during one of my school holidays but only got as far as learning how to pronounce those signs and circles, and then I forgot it all once school started up again! Oh the decisions...

A little soppy but did anyone see the ending of Scrubs last night? Wouldn't you just hate being in that position where your best friend, and the one you possibly still love dedicates her life to someone else and you realise it should've been you but it's too late? Man I hope that's not me in a few years time!

Anyway I've been reading the $108 psychology book I bought for one paper (stupid stupid me...but it's an interesting, albeit expensive read!) and there's this chapter on attractiveness and love which is interesting. I'll try summarise the part on attractiveness.

Apparently there are several factors in interpersonal attraction:

- Proximity: Many studies have shown that people tend to choose their friends and lovers from people nearby. Proximity also plays an important part in romantic relationships, in that it allows people to get to know one another better. However, increased proximity with a person who you initially dislike may lead you to dislike them even more!  Environmental spoiling is when you gradually dislike someone over time despite initially liking them.
 
- Interpersonal Rewards: The second factor is how rewarding we find interacting with another person to be. The more people associate a relationship with reward, the more likely they are to affiliate (behaviourist point of view). According to social exchange theories, people try to maximise the value they can obtain with their resources. In other words, choosing a relationship is like trying to maximise the return from your investment. In romantic relationships, people tend to choose others of similar value because both partners are trying to maximise the value of their mate.

- Similarity: People tend to choose friends, acquaintances, mates and best friends who share similar attitudes, values and beliefs. As for 'opposites attract', while people tend to like those who have similar attitudes and values, they prefer people whose resources, needs or behavioural styles complement their own, e.g. a dominant person would prefer a submissive person and vice versa.

- Physical Attractiveness: Probably the most important factor. Even in non-sexual relationships, physically attractive people are magnets. Physically attractive people tend to be more popular than others, receive more cooperation and assistance from others, better job recommendations and higher pay than less attractive people.

Why does physical attractiveness play a part in interpersonal attraction?
Research suggests that there is an area in the brain called the ventral striatum that is activated whenever one makes eye contact with a physically attractive individual. When eye contact is broken, the activity in that area of the brain decreases. This particular area of the brain is associated with reward. Therefore, making eye contact with a physically attractive person stimulates activity in the reward centre of the brain, while loss of eye contact with an attractive person decreases activity and also reward.

Because only a small portion of people find themselves in the best part of the bell-curve of attractiveness, how do the rest of us find dates?
In reality, people follow the matching hypothesis. We choose partners who we perceive to be equally attractive to ourselves, not necessarily the most beautiful or handsome. One set of studies demonstrated that men tend to choose partners who they perceive to be equally attracted to themselves in order to decrease the likelihood of being rejected.

- Psychology: Australia and New Zealand Edition

I'll post up the psychological perspective on love next time!

The Sunday morning church service went by and finished at the regular time for the first time in a while, which meant we would have to have Sunday school for the full hour! It was just lucky that we brought a cake that wasn't eaten the night before at Hamish's birthday party to Sunday school to share with the rest of the class.

Sherman our Sunday school teacher saw me with the cake and went off to get some cups, tea and knives n spoons. When the others arrived they saw the cake and once class had started we all sang Happy Birthday to Hamish before he cut the cake and distributed it to everyone. We then spent the next half hour eating and talking about 21st birtrhdays! Phew!!

I was starting to feel a little guilty that we weren't learning to be honest! That's why I was slightly relieved when we started getting into regular activity after half an hour. It was a shame Jennifer and Angie couldn't make it to Sunday school! Jennifer was too busy studying as she has ten exams over the next couple of weeks(!!!!!!!!) while Angie..well she texted me the night before to tell me she wouldn't be coming which was a bit unusual...

After church Hamish, my dad and I went into the city to watch the Auckland Symphony Orchestra perform in the Auckland Town Hall. The theme of the concert was 'Going Places', in other words music from around the world. Jason Bae, some young Korean guy from Westlake performed a piece on the piano with the orchestra, and the orchestra also performed pieces such as Barber of Seville, Pirates of the Carribean, Miss Saigon, New York New York, and An American in Paris. I got mixed up with An American in Paris with another of Gershwin's pieces Rhapsody in Blue and so was getting excited. When I found out it was a different tune I was a little disappointed but An American in Paris was just as good!

Not for me but for all the seniors and year 13's in particular at Rutherford College. Yesterday was the school's Senior Prize-Giving. Originally we weren't going to bother going as Aonghas didn't get any award. It was not till a couple weeks ago that Mrs Martell, Aonghas' dean rang up and told me that Aonghas was to get a special award that was supposed to be a surprise and so he didn't know about it and we weren't to tell to him. Along with this, Chen was strongly twisting my arm to come and support him and the school. That then made the perfect cover! My mum and I told Aonghas we were only going to attend the prize-giving because Chen wanted me to, and my mum would be coming just so I wouldn't feel weird being by myself.

We weren't too clear on the actual starting time of the prize-giving though, as I thought it was 1.10pm while my mum thought it was 1.30pm! We ended up getting there at 1pm to find that the proceedings had just started, and so we had to walk up the aisle amongst the teachers so we could go join the other parents and family at the front of the hall. There was just one seat left so I let my mum take it while I stood up and just filmed the whole thing!

NB. The following order events may be incorrect, but they did happen!

The prize-giving started off as usual with an opening by principal Mr Moore, followed by the year 11, 12 and 13 awards. The school choir and the 2007 and 2008 prefects groups then got up and sang The Rutherford Way song. That was interesting as I've never seen some of those guys (such as Chen, Gwen and Angie!) sing in front of a crowd before! I heard...that some of the people were quite tone deaf! You couldn't tell by their performance though as it sounded quite good.

Chen and Yvia then got up to do their farewell speeches. Yvia's was quite good and was well received. I can't really summarise it but I'm sure that if you really really want to watch it you can watch it when it gets uploaded to the internet. She pretty much talked about her time at Rutherford and how she had grown and so on (I think??). Chen then did his speech which apparently lasted longer than 10 minutes! That must be a record for Head Student farewell speeches! His speech was quite well-received as well.

Now it was down to the serious stuff - the big awards. There was over $100,000 worth of scholarships awarded.

First of all, congratulations to Miss Gwen Tay! She was awarded the Cliff Edmeades Scholarship!

Congratulations too to Aone, Melissa, Micaela and Angie (I'm sure I've missed someone out!) on being recipients of the Waitakere Licensing Trust Scholarships! I actually kinda knew Angie would probably get it as she told me a couple days ago that her parents were coming to prize-giving for no reason. That's when I thought to myself...she's got it!!

John Kim wiped the floor clean with firsts in year 12 subjects, however Luke Sizer got Top Year 12 Student as he came first in three year 13 subjects. That was a bit sad for John as he had worked quite hard and did quite well this year. Craig was awarded Top Year 11 Student.

My brother was awarded some new award called the Rutherford Values Award. At first when Ms Heath, the school's deputy principal was talking about the award and about the Rutherford Way song, I thought Aonghas had only won it for singing that song as part of the choir! It turns out he has the Rutherford Values instilled in him,,,or something like that...

Then down to the top awards - the Dux awards. Micaela Cole received Dux Artium, Samantha Roebeck got Dux Ludorum, while Proximae Accessit went to Cameron Fraser who also won this Price-Waterhouse Coopers Scholarship. Finally Dux Litterarum went to..no guesses needed here...Mr Chen Liu. It was his day to shine.

After the prize-giving I went around the hall towards the tuck shop and came across Shirley, a friend who I haven't texted in a while. Fortunately she doesn't have any texts! I met this adult student (who's not actually that old!) who told me his mum knew me! He said his mum was one of those exam supervisors.

I was now on the hunt for Aonghas to try find the bag for the camera and tripod while coming across all these other people. I met Cathy, this girl who was in the same year as me until she left for Avondale College in year 13. She came back to Rutherford College this year to do year 12! She said it was because she went back to Korea and was a bit behind. Fair enough!

I also caught up with the accounting teacher and the chemistry teacher which was cool, and met Angie's mum who was also looking for Angie. I then spotted some of the old Village crew - Alex and Zahir! I tried to persuade Zahir to take up Health Science at uni next year, but he just could see right through me! I was trying my best to promote the degree!!! I received another comment on my bad hairdo, that I looked like a mad scientist! I WILL get a haircut soon!!!

AND then, there was Gwen with Isma! She was the first person I had seen at the school who was in tears which was (not meant to be in an evil way) kinda cool to see because you don't often see people show much emotion these days! I don't think I've seen any of these guys in ages so it was cool to see them again. Not too sure when I'll see them again though!

Esther and her mum, a maths teacher at the school were trying to persuade my mum, Aonghas and me to come to afternoon tea but my mum was too ashamed to come until her mum dragged her along. I didn't actually talk to too many people at the afternoon tea! It was a bit sad. I would have liked to have talked to Mrs Britten the old deputy principal who announced she wouldn't be coming back, as well as Mr Edmeades, the old principal.

Aonghas wanted to go off to his form class's shared lunch so my mum followed Esther's mum to her classroom for a chat while I went to look for Mrs Taylor, my old dean, for a catch up. There I spent some time talking to her about my dilemma and not knowing what I was going to do next year. Actually Chen told me last night the careers advisor told him that it was good dealing with someone who knew what they wanted to do for once, as in the year before it was HELL sorting Calum out. I must be a careers advisor's worst nightmare!

I went to Esther's mum's classroom to join my mum who was badmouthing me to Esther's mum in Cantonese. What a shame I could understand it all! One of Esther's mum's students who had just received a bit of help from her had to wait a while for her mum and so Esther's mum told her to talk to me, which put me on the spot a bit as I had never talked to her before! She said she knew me though so that was a good start! Her name's Annette and for some reason I already knew...She's in Aonghas' year though so I suppose I may have heard it somewhere. Anyway we had a good long talk with each other and she was telling me about this stuff (I like listening! lol) and I forgot to check my phone, as Aonghas had been trying to text me asking me where we were! He had tried searching all over the school looking for us!

So it was finally a break from being stuck in the house and it was so good to see some of the guys at school again. It's going to be weird seeing them around uni next year, as I admit that I'm used to wandering around uni and the city during the day thinking

"Poor sods, locked at school HAHAHAHAHAHA"

Nah nah I'm not that evil! It'll be cool seeing them more often next year and possibly hanging out with them. I don't know why I was feeling slightly sad at the prize-giving today when I've already left this school! Either someone infected me with the sadness bug and I was just feeling sad for those year 13 students who were feeling sad, or maybe the prize-giving just reminded me of everything I didn't achieve at the school and my failures! But it was really encouraging and enlightening to see all of the students who achieved so much and how all the students had reacted positively throughout the ceremony towards academic achievement and towards each other. If only they could be like that all the time!

I've just attached a few random photos that Aonghas took of the last day of school at Rutherford (hey there's one with me in it!!!!)

Shopping centre Santas are being urged to go on strike, if they are banned from saying "Ho Ho Ho."

Recruitment company Westaff has instructed its Santas at Australian malls to tone it down, or say "Ha Ha Ha" instead. It believes "Ho Ho Ho" might scare the children, and it is now feared the same New Zealand company will follow suit.

Associate Professor John Kirkland of Massey University has studied the effects Christmas has on children.

He says it is normal for a child to be nervous or even frightened of a shopping mall Santa... but ditching "Ho Ho Ho" is over-the-top. He believes the recruitment company has lost the plot, and hopes Westaff New Zealand does not follow in the footsteps of its Australian division.

John Kirkland says when the real Santa finds out about this - he is going to be mad.