bring, bring the thunder and the loud, loud rain

Life’s changed a lot as of late. For one, I haven’t blogged for over a month, and believe it or not, at one stage in the holidays, I didn’t turn my computer on for over two weeks! That is not to say I haven’t been on the internet for all that time, but I just didn’t do all the things that I usually like to do online. I was too busy doing so many things, or, more realistically, I was too busy doing nothing. It felt great, to not have to do anything for a little while, for a change. But now semester has started,  and everything is already taking off at speeds I don’t dare dwell upon. I’ve got an even bigger workload this semester, doing five papers as well as virtually doing a sixth paper, but not for credit. My exam and recital results all went well enough (the boy would tell me off if I said they were average, because most people would consider them “good”, but they’re just okay to me), and I’ll have to work even harder this semester. By the time I finish my two undergrad (non-conjoint) degrees, I’ll have completed 840 points. A fact which sent people at jazz combo reeling today, considering they were discussing aaaalll the things they have to do for their conjoint degrees.

I have to wake up in less than five hours to try and stream myself into a tutorial, and then I have to board a ferry and do some serious bass practise before having hours and hours of class in a row, so I’ll try and keep this short. Just a summary of what I’ve been up to, through the lens of a generously gifted iphone which I’d gotten for my 21st birthday in May. I can’t believe it’s been two months already…

From left to right:

– Sunset views on my birthday + best birthday meal EVER: the manager came out to see who had ordered the 1kg t-bone steak, haha.
– One of many birthday cakes + beer and burger at jazz school for lunch. Best way to ease oneself into late rehearsals…

– A percussive instrument which you either shake or tie to your leg (I didn’t actually play this), but it’s made of some kind of bean shell + School of Music is beautiful but after three years of university I have finally had ONE class there this year!
– The hardest essay I’ve ever had to write… and it took the longest time, too – I’d pulled so many late/all nights only to have NOTHING written + view of the beach round the corner from the boy’s house.

– Birthday party decorations + lasagne at dinner with the boy and our parents.
– Phone cover + garlic and cheese bread for sister’s birthday dinner.

– Sister’s birthday dinner + hockey.
– Amazing post-game cheese + drinksss.

– The Grizzly teddy bear that has now been transformed into my sister’s driver cover (ref to below) + art gallery with the boy.
– Flakey + Aotea Square

– Waterfront with sister + Flakey not wanting Liv to go back to America.
– Flakey being adorable + Grizzly bear now in Malibu!

– Homemade burgers + belated birthday lunch Christine took me out to – amaaaazing (huge) scotch fillet, yuuuum.
– Beer! + playing Chandeliers – so so so much fun.

– Sushi train dinner with mum + Flakey whilst we watched the Tour de France.
– Sandwiches I mad for lunch yesterday + dreary cityscape
– Deliiiicious lasagne with Flakey + musical education

After this hopefully normal-blogging shall resume… And find me on instagram: pixxybug for a daily stream of adorable-catness, haha.

it’s been at least another year, and I still haven’t got the chance to say

Disappearing from my blog because, oh you know, real life is so much more… I simply have far too many adjectives to insert here that I’d better just quit while I’m ahead. I’ve had an absolutely splendid first three-quarters of this two-week “study break” (aka two weeks off in the middle of a 12-week semester in order to catch up on what I like to call the 3 S’s – anyone want to stab a guess at what they are?) but now it’s all downhill from here since I’m having to face three assignments that I’ve conveniently avoided until now. The main thing that I’ve spent the past few days on has been hand-making and writing out almost fifty invitations for my 21st birthday party. Although turning 21 isn’t all that “special” in terms of what you get to do here in NZ since the drinking age has been at 18 for quite a few years now, it is still considered a milestone birthday where people tend to throw big parties that involve speeches. So, being the super-sentimental person that I am, of course that’s exactly what I’m doing, except that planning it has proven to be rather time and energy-consuming.

I’m not sure if it’s craziness or just my refusal to let facebook take over the my world, but I didn’t want my birthday invitation to just be a mass message put on the internet where people are bombarded by events everyday, and nothing ever feels personal anymore. On top of that, I want to make my birthday nice in the underrated and undervalued sense of the word, and for it to not become just another blur in everyone’s memories of this years’ batch of 21st birthday parties. Because by the time you’ve been to three or four weekends of 21st birthday parties in a row… unfortunately they do begin to blur. So in typical Amanda fashion of all-or-nothing, I made them all myself, only employing mum’s help for some advice, and asking her to ship the cards into the next room for me because I ran out of floor space! I’ve still got the majority of them sitting behind me on my bed though… need to deliver them all ASAP!

Here’s some pictures of the lengthy process. Luckily the only purchase I had to make in contribution to these invitations were ribbons, since mum magically has all the art supplies I needed! I made them by cutting up large watercolour paper into quarters. Painted. Textured. Folded with two ribbons tied on and hand drew a double bass design that I had made into a stencil. Then I wrote, signed and sealed them in wax.

This whole process of planning and inviting people to my 21st has also inspired me to catch up with a lot of old friends that I’ve not had the chance to see in far too long. It’s definitely been a colourful couple of weeks, and on Saturday I had a mini-drinks thing at Daniel’s house where Cara fed us all too much cheese and salami. Definitely not a complaint though! And despite the assignment deadlines, the boy and I have made some lovely plans for the next couple of days/nights; and tomorrow night dad is uploading to dropbox my film scans for the b/w rolls he’s gotten developed in Taiwan for me, so I can’t wait to see those either!

Yeah I’m just crazy, I’m fucked in the head. And maybe if I really tried with all of my heart, Then I could make a brand new start in love with you

I made a really nostalgic playlist that is pretty much comprised only of songs from 2008 and 2009. At first it started off as an accident that all the songs were from 2009, but then I sort of continued it on purpose. I’m the sort of person that has rather intense phases with a certain band, album or song in particular, so every time I sort of come out of a phase, I get a really lost feeling like, what the heck did I listen to before that? So here are some oldies:

 1. Lust For Life – Girls
To be honest I never really got into Girls until recently, but this was always pretty much their only standout song to me. Except now I’m way more hooked on it and hearing it reminds me of Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero and Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk because I had read both those books in around 24 hours each, both whilst listening to Girls for a significant length of time. I relate far too much to those lyrics (especially this weekend…) and it’s also where this post’s title comes from.

2. Skin of the Night – M83
One of my favourite songs by M83… It kind of ties for first place with Asterisk which I posted last month on this previous playlist. I don’t know where to start when it comes to describing this song except that it’s a must-listen. The lyrics are rather creepy to be honest but I guess that’s part of the beauty of it. And the buildup is incredible… it’s almost got like an 80’s synthed-up sort of feel as well, especially because of the drum sound employed.

3. Crystalised – The xx
I just realised another common theme (besides release dates) with this playlist – it’s full of first-or-second favourite songs by bands I like – and this song is no exception. I like all of these songs so much that I changed the blog post title three times before I left it alone, but it had originally started with lyrics from The xx. I will never get sick of calling their stuff sexy, sly, sexy music. Mmm.

4. With My Eyes Closed – The Raveonettes
It took me so long to decide which song from The Raveonettes’ Lust Lust Lust album to put on this playlist. It’s seriously one of my all-time favourite albums ever, and whilst getting the Youtube link for this song, I got completely distracted and spent like half an hour watching videos of the band discussing each track from the album, ha.I’ve said this a thousand times but I’ll say it again – this song makes me think of those old American movies where there’s a prom scene and the teenage couple are finally slow-dancing. Oh, how I want to slow dance. And dance in general. Sigh.

5. It Will All Make Sense in the Morning – Halou
Whilst looking for this song on Youtube, I ended up watching a trailer for some movie that is (according to the greater world wide web) classified as a “gay hustler” film. Ahem. It looks interesting though. I then went and read a review on it. But I doubt I’d watch it because 1/ I’d never be able to get hold of it and 2/ I don’t think the boy would want to sit through that with me. Oh, I should probably clarify here that the reason I saw that trailer at all in the first place is because whoever made it had used this song in the background. Gosh. Love this song.

6. Say Back Something – Tapes ‘n Tapes
This song always makes me want to cry a little… it’s tugs at my heartstrings every time. Besides the obvious, I can’t really explain why. My favourite lines are when it goes “when you say come back/why don’t you mean it in the morning?” and “say back something/why can’t you look me in the eyes?”, ahhhhhhhhhh.

7. The Thief – Secret Knives
I used to be so hooked on the EP that this song is from. I think they came up (from Wellington) to play shows in Auckland a while back but I wasn’t very onto it, and still haven’t gotten around to hearing their album. I think that might largely be contributed to laziness, rather than the “averaaage” review that someone once gave me. Either way, oh this song and this EP makes me so so sooo nostalgic for 2009. It’s one of the songs that just instantly take me back to 7th form, whether that’s a good thing or not.

8. 2010 – The Mint Chicks
Couldn’t find a better link, but skip like the first little bit unless you’re watching the video because the song doesn’t kick in for a little while. I had this song on a limited edition white vinyl that they had at their “farewell tour” thing a few years back, but a friend of mine kindly left it in my car and it melted in the summer sun and heat – I’m still bummed out about this because I liked that version better than the album version. Oh well.

9. Life Will Get Better Some Day – The Mint Chicks
My “other favourite” track from their Screens album.

I’ve had a really crazy couple of days this weekend and I’m too tired and touchy to talk about it. However, I’d have to say that I’m very proud of myself for pulling off cooking risotto and steak for ten people, as part of a kind-of-surprise birthday dinner that we organised for my friend Cara. And boy is right hand tired from all that bloody stirring! I’ll probably post photos from that later on.

Something from the boy:

Make it long, make it last forever, Make it cruel, just make me laugh

Let me first get your attention by showing you a cute picture of my very affectionate cat:

Now, that that has succeeded, I can insert a long entry below. So unless you’ve been living under a rock, or not very active online, you would have noticed a trend in the phrase “first world problems”. It’s a Twitter and Facebook tag, too. Anyway, that’s what I had today – a first world problem. I feel like such a brat saying this, for having even had this “dilemma” in the first place – it’s about choosing between two pairs of shoes for the law ball, by the way. I just felt like, oh my god, think of the people struggling to pay bills, and I’m struggling to decide between sexy-hottt-leather or subtle-preeetty-suede?! so yeah, I basically felt like an idiot in my utter indecision. I’ve “decided” for now, but tomorrow I will probably struggle with following my decision through. Anyway, the main thing is – I hate this phrase, “first world problems” – it’s so true, and yet, so crude! It’s especially bad when people misuse or overuse it, just like how the whole “fml” thing exploded some years back. I don’t know… I guess it just makes me feel like we are all a bit pathetic. It’s like how you can always find people in worse off positions than yourself, so why invalidate whatever problems you may have? Be it if you burnt your hand baking, or can’t find a sober driver, or like me at the moment, can’t decide between two hot pairs of shoes?

On the topic of shoes, I don’t know how on earth I developed a “shoe thing” – all I know is that it began with my aqua blue patent Doc Martens last year, then expanded onto Ksubi boots and then… well it all went downhill from there…

And a warning for the next post – I love love love Bloc Party and haven’t been able to take this song off repeat this week. It’s an oldie but a goodie – The Prayer SOOO applicable and relevant right now. More on that later!

Yeah, the river, it spoke to me, It told me I’m small and I swallowed it down, If I make it at all – I’ll make you want me

Leaving the internet and blogosphere behind for a bit has been good for me. I’ve been doing a lot of major thinking in terms of re-structuring my life, my studies and my future. I still haven’t made a 100% commitment on any decisions yet, but at the moment it looks like I will be stuck at university for quite a few years to come, yet. I guess I’m just going to really try to make whatever I decide work for me. Ahhh. The woes of being multi-faceted, apparently multi-talented and seeking a more academic outlook.

A couple of days ago we had an “AS Music class plus Joel Reunion” roast lunch at Cara’s house. She had bought a few kilos of pork last Sunday and forgot to freeze it, so it went off and she had to re-buy the meat again that morning, causing us to wait until 2.49pm for lunch! All of us had skipped breakfast in anticipation of the roast lunch, so we ended up pigging out on my cupcakes as entree instead. The food (when we finally got to eat) was amazing though, so kudos to Cara for having us all around and being a lovely domesticated host. Poll of the day as to who would produce offspring first went to Cara (be it good or bad), so I guess it’s a good thing that she can do a bloody good roast!

Clockwise from the man in the beanie: Kingi (William), Freddy, Joel and Cara tucked away in the background.

Cara, Colin and Kingi. It’s funny how weird someone’s first name sounds once you get stuck into calling them by their last name.

Typical Joel slouch. With possibly my glass of Lindauer that he nicked and drank! Which I didn’t quite complain about though, after the wine incident last weekend.

The lovely view from Cara’s parents’ house. We had the lunch there instead of at her flat – because it’s much brighter and nicer. Plus it’s plenty more familiar territory to me.

Making sure we eat our greens…

Almost meal time.

I brought up how weird it was that we are all still friends, even though we rarely see each other, let alone everyone at once these days.  Joel (the tall, lanky, token finish-all-the-leftover-food guy, haha) is an absolute all-rounded genius who can write more Kanji characters that I can, who also makes Mechanical Engineering and Chemistry conjoint degrees sound too easy. When he tried to explain to Colin what “mechanical engineering” means, and the possibility of becoming a rocket scientist, we begged that he should become one just because of the endless “you don’t need a rocket scientist to…” jokes that we can pull. He was also the friend who traveled with me to Taiwan and Japan last year, although we really only became friends in 2008 from a mutual friend. That was the same year that Cara and I became friends as well; prior to that she absolutely loathed my guts because of some doped up footballer I dated and then dumped (because he was too stupid…) all the way back in those junior days of high school. She now works full time in freighting (is that what you even call it?) and sings in the Auckland Graduate Choir that often performs with the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra. I don’t really remember how I became friends with Freddy at all asides from music and economics class; he’s the token Asian chick-magnet who has severely buffed up this year and we have to constantly tell him to keep his muscles to himself! I’m also not sure how I befriended Kingi, but I only remember that we bonded over our mutual distaste for our music teachers, growing up in the “ghetto South Auckland” and concert band camps back at college. Lastly, there’s good ol’ Colin. Mister Spanish-speaking gossip extraordinaire law student who is now also studying Chinese and constantly asking me for pingyin of words and phrases he doesn’t know. What a weird and eclectic bunch we are. I’d say it again – I simply don’t know how we’re friends. But that doesn’t matter, right? One or more of them are always there in times of the oddest needs. I think I’ve received late-night rides home from everyone except Kingi. I gave him one once.

So back to that afternoon, our lunch looked like this:



Then Freddy left because he had promised to meet someone at the gym in town, and look at how gleeful the rest of them looked at the sight of dessert! The action shot of them all shaking on some bottle of mousse or trying to get ice cream or meringue is absolutely priceless.

I have to admit: I’m not too keen on Crunchie ice cream. I don’t like Crunchie chocolate bars so the ice cream didn’t go down too well with me at all. Plus I was extremely full. Kingi rebutted my excuse of the ice cream being “urgh yellow!” was “but you are too!” – just priceless! Especially coming from the Pineapple Lump/Crunchie Bar man himself – brown on the outside and yellow on the inside.We are full of racially colourful jokes, aren’t we, literally… courtesy of our high school culture, I’d say.


Then Colin nicked my camera off me and embarked on a mission to photograph me. As usual, I resorted to my face-hiding tactics…



Creepy stalker-like photo by Colin, tehe.

My dessert!!!

In all seriousness though,  I need to lose some pounds and get over this lens-shy habit that I’ve formed in the past couple of years. I don’t know how I ever managed to fare as a child model, but apparently I’m supposed to go back to Taiwan in some months to let some famous photographer shoot me. Good lord. Help! Gulp.