Is there anything as quiet as a night alone with you?

OH NO: Half way through writing this post my site went down because the webhost had to reboot the server since it was overloaded. Once that was done, I backed up my database just in case, and then tried to synchronise all my files (to my computer, to backup as well), but I had checked the wrong settings and instead of syncing my computer with my folder online, it did that backwards, so effectively half of my files were DELETED. So I’ve just spent the past two hours restoring all my photos from up until October of last year. SO MUCH FOR GOING TO BED AT 11pm FOR ONCE. What was going to be a nice blog-before-bed experience turned into a nightmare. Oh my goddd. This is what I had written before this all happened though:

This is my umpteenth time being left home alone to fend for myself, but for various hazardous reasons, this time is also going to be the most challenging three weeks ever. Judging by my productive rate of five tasks in seven hours, I don’t know how on earth I’m going to get through October – aka jazz assessments and assignments. The only things of note that I’ve managed to accomplish today are: attend one hours’ jazz piano class at uni (was 7 minutes late, too… which is always helpful), put petrol in my car, did the grocery shopping, scribbled some things down, and most excitingly of all – fussed over the Laneway Festival lineup announcement. I’m not the excitable-hype-hype-HYPE type, so I won’t jump on the band(rambling)wagon right now, but let’s just say I’m very pleased and thoroughly looking forward to it. And no doubt I will post playlists again soon.

I think this is about to become a mini documentation of “how Amanda battles procrastination and juggles domesticity” for the next three weeks, until mum returns. It’s not that I don’t ever do the dishes, put on the laundry, clean the bathroom, cook three meals a day, put out the rubbish, feed the cat, let the cat out at 5am, clean the litter box, vacuum the house, collect the mail and deal with bills – nor does it have anything to do with my abilities to do so – it’s just that usually they’re (okay, rather unevenly) split between mum and I, and suddenly, in the busiest and most stressful three weeks of my whole year, I also have to do all those things, all by myself. Sounding like a spoiled brat aside, I think the biggest hurdle for me in terms of all the things I have to do is that I have to do them alone. Cooking for one just sucks. So does doing the dishes alone, without someone to chat to or share a cup of tea with.

Also, I tend to start going a little mad when I’m left for long periods of time on my own. Even if nothing is actually wrong, my old depressive and anxious spurts just come back to haunt me, if all I have for days on end at home is the cat to talk to. Maybe that’s where the “crazy old cat lady” stereotypes come from – because being alone with only the cat to talk to really doesn’t help with the escalation of madness. Gah.

Needless to say, I was more the overjoyed when the boy decided to bring his studying over for a couple of hours and let me cook him dinner. I’m sort of offering open dinner invitations to friends now, so as to have someone to cook for. I doubt it’ll actually work out too often because I have hockey two nights a week and I tutor on two evenings as well, but what the heck.

To round off such a messed up evening, here is an amazing song by Twin Shadow, who the boy and I are going to see on our almost-one-year-anniversary next January at Lanway. I love the video that this person has dubbed over the song though, it’s scenes from Before Sunrise and Before Sunset – two lovely lovely lovely films that fix so magically, so perfectly. It makes me gush, and I hate gushing, so there we have it. Reminds me that the boy and I need to finish watching them together. Oh memories… of one fine evening’s attempt to watch them, haha.

Click here for the video (the person who made it disabled embedding, gah!)

And oh… HELL YES THE ALL BLACKS ARE IN THE SEMIS!!!

Lord give me grace and dancing feet, And the power to impress. Tonight make me unstoppable, And I will charm, I will slice, I will dazzle, I will outshine them all

My stomach is restless. My feet are awfully blistered. I’m ridiculously tired… and the cause of all this is because last night I was at the Law ball, which was themed “Cluedo – A Murder Mystery” or something along those lines. I’m far too out of it (and lazy) to string together a coherent blog post at the moment, so I’ll let the very many photos do the talking. After all, pictures are worth a thousand words, and I know it would take me many thousand to commit last night into words, haha.

Shoe box

Shoes from Ruby Boutique

Remember the mystery Ruby bag from this post? This dress is what was inside it!

Makeup-ing photo taken by mum.

Obligatory lounge photos at the boy’s house.

And again.

And again!

JJ’s boyfriend dropped her off at the preball… what a ride to rock up in haha.

Waiting on people to bring the mixers so we can make cocktails.

Ben mixing up Harvey Wall-bangers.

Potent alcohol.

I can’t get over how awesome these glasses were.

Hippy happy, haha.

Candid photo.

Guys’ photo.

Girls’ photo.

JJ and I.

Amelia and I.

Tricia’s far better than me at doing the point-and-shoot thing.

Amelia, Tricia and I.

Shingle Peak Riesling – possibly my favourite wine.

Chocolate-coated strawberries, yummy.

*gasp*

Ben’s house was so nice.

Ben “dead”.

3rd-wheelin’ haha

Ian and Tricia.

In the wayyy.

Taxi van ride to the Pullman Hotel.

The awesome photo booth in the background that we took full advantage of.

The boy and Chris.

Cheap, crap alcohol that were not kind to our stomachs.

The boy’s salmon entree.

My quiche entree – SO DELICIOUS.

Steak

Chicken

Colin and I, like old times.

Double datin’, haha.

Lol @ Ian and Daniel.

Mis-aimed photo, oops.

Tricia and I.

Oh Colin…

The real definition of “boyfriend blazers” haha.

On the ferry going home.

I seriously want to nick off with this jacket… and all the rest of his jackets!

Haha.

Cos you know, it’s normal to wear shades indoors at something-past-2-in-the-morning.

Mister Fuckyeah.

Spot the dress.

The morning after: me reading his crim law textbook whilst he attempts studying.

Overall a great day/night except for the huge blisters I acquired on my feet and the disastrous effects of cheap alcohol on our stomachs! The only thing I forgot to take pictures of was the dancefloor, dammit!

And the hunger of those early years will never return, But I don’t mind, I don’t mind

Daylight savings is messing with my head. I know we’ve only flicked our clocks an hour forward, but somehow that hour throws me off so badly. It’s weird that I handle weird jetlag far better than this! I had my “technical jury” today, which is a technical assessment on everyone’s main instrument, in front of a panel of two teachers. It went well, I think. Not flawlessly, not amazingly, but well. And to be honest, that’s all I need right now. To be relieved. To breathe temporarily. I feel like I’m just clinging onto this university year by the fingernails (that saying sucks, bass players have really short fingernails!) so that I will be able to fall into the abyss of dreaming once again, come November. And then I will once again have to make some way-too-serious decisions about my courses next year that will potentially affect me for the rest of my life. What’s with young people and having to make big, huge decisions around the ages of 17-21? Maybe it’s for this reason that I sometimes feel I suppose the US college system where people just get a Bachelor of Arts or Science and then do post-grad if they want to do something more specific and refined. The whole specialised degree thing in New Zealand is kicking my arse right now. I don’t want to be a uni student for that much longer!

I was looking for some old travel photos earlier and stumbled across this – a photo someone took of me from 2 years and 2 months ago. I want to be that thin again. Somebody please preserve my generous bust-line and lipo my thighs away, please! That sounds awful. Urgh. Seriously though, if it weren’t for the fact that I tore those jeans in Malibu last year, I would try and take the same photo again, just to compare, for self-torture self-motivation. Why do us females do this?! So many blogs that I read have at some point or another (if not currently still) been through some kind of weight-loss scheme. I can’t handle taking tight-skimpily-clothed-photos like Amanda does, nor will I ever go “on a diet”, so I don’t see the point in rambling about this, but can my magic lose-4-kilos-nonsensically powers please come back? kthanxbai. (btw, that was the first – and last – time that I’ve ever typed that “word”)

“it would be nice to look like this again” photo. Everything’s just kinda gotten bigger – bigger boobs, bum, and hmm, hair is a close tie for size, I’d say – but they didn’t need to be! gah.

Tokyo, 2010 – taken by my friend Joel

Whilst I’m on the topic of useless requests, I’d really like to be transported back to Tokyo like about now. As seen above with some sunnies, Canon, asymmetrical-zip trench coat and thigh-high boots. I guess when I’m that covered up, I still look exactly the same… In all seriousness though, the good news of this post is that the boy and I are going to Taiwan and Hong Kong. We finally paid for our flights today, and I will leave for Taipei in mid-December, whilst he finishes up work and joins me on Boxing Day. We’ll mostly be doing awesome things everyday, as I tend to do whilst traveling – galleries, museums, shopping, eating, drinking, dancing, gigging, and photographing our way around town. It’s going to be a blast, and it will be the first time that I’ll see the infamous New Years Eve fireworks at Taipei’s 101. We’ve only got two nights in Hong Kong though, so trying to cram all the things to do there will be interesting…

I’ve also been going on and on about wanting to go to London and New York (I don’t care which first, at this point!), but as neither of us can afford it right now – obviously not after this trip! – it’s been put on the back-burner of things-Amanda-constantly-remembers-to-wish-aloud-for, haha. I need to take up more shifts promoting chocolate and crackers at the supermarket. Uni is getting in the way, but hopefully I can earn some moolah in Nov/Dec to save up ahead of time.

Taipei, 2010 – taken by my friend Joel

And summer hockey starts this week, yay. I’m playing in two teams on both Wednesday and Thursday, so it’s going to bring a lot of exercise for me that has lapsed since winter hockey finished this month. Maybe this getting-my-old-figure-back thing might actually happen after all, haha. In the meantime though, I just might tape up my knees so that they don’t get skinned and see blood, as the law ball is on this Saturday. You’ve been warned: the boy has bought the most amazing suit ever, and to be honest, I don’t think he ought to go out in it as it’d just be a waste of hundreds of dollars since I’ll just want to rip the thing right off him. Plus, it means I have to fight for the limelight, which was meant to be relatively easy in a gold dress, but not so, next to a fucking gorgeous blue suit worn by such a handsome lad. I really miss him tonight, can you tell?

love changes everything, I see my life in daydreams, little scenes of you and me

Winter seemed ridiculously long, yet far too short at the same time. The boy says I keep saying these juxtaposing sentences which makes no sense, but I think that on some levels they do. In the way that whilst I hate the piercing wind giving me head and earaches and making a wreck of my hair, I’ve only worn out my big long coat twice this year. I keep staying up far too late and not focusing on the right things but I’m adamant on posting this playlist before I hit the hay tonight!

And out of humour rather than offense, here’s the highly stereotyped and highly generalised breakdown before the playlist itself – if you like “nice” and what I secretly call “disposable music” then ref to #3 & #6; for those into more electronic-based sounds (see what I meant about highly generalised?), ref to #1, #2, #4, #8 & #9; #5 is a generally what people refer to as “indie rock” and #7 is very, very noisy. In fact I had wanted to post different songs by the band, but figured it was probably too self-indulgent to post such questionable noise which I love. And for the record, #2, #3 & #4 are songs with female vocals.

1. Should Have Taken Acid With You – Neon Indian
The boy and I obsessed over how awesome the first chord of this song was, and I was determined to find The Kills’ song which had the same chord (it’s on “Hit Me When You 1-2”, by the way). We were discussing how apparently this song was initially an apology for a missed acid date, and I said it would have been amazing if I were to one day receive something of the sort in my inbox, but you know, wishful thinking… Although we did devise loose plans for me to teach him the basics of playing guitar. That would be nice. Anecdotes aside, this is just a nice and chilled out song. Sounds like he knew what acid would be in sonic form, haha.

2. Stonefruit – Halou
I can’t get over how the song builds up. How it washes in and out relentlessly. I can listen to this song on repeat for aaaaages, no joke. In fact, I’ve done so many times before.

3. Love You Strongly – Amy Stroup
From whence the title of this entry came. It reminds me of song #6 on this list, that’s why I’ve put them both on. To be honest, I could easily (and I guess I am now) classify this as a disposable pop song by another singer songwriter, because there’s nothing ground-breaking nor particularly innovative in the song at all. But to be fair, I still like it just because it’s sweet. It’ll be forgotten by me soon enough, I won’t deny, but I think it might become one of those songs for when I need a dose of something sickly lovey-dovey. I say damn right love changes everything, it makes me fucking mushy and he knows it.

4. I Follow Rivers – Lykke Li
To those who know what Lykke Li’s music sounds like, you’d know what I mean when I say that this is pretty “Lykke-Li-ish”. There’s two main components that I like about this song. The first being syncopated drum motif that weaves in and out in all the right spaces of the song. The second is the declaratory lyrics and the matter-of-factly manner in which she sings it. Once again, loved up shit.

5. This Heart’s On Fire – Wolf Parade
It was pissing me off that I couldn’t remember the name of the guy who Wolf Parade’s singer’s voice reminds me of… and then a quick google search later, I realised that they’re the same person, d’oh! Major oopsies. Yeah, so I was sitting here going, man they remind me of Handsome Furs (who I actually stopped listening to after I saw them live… long story for next time, perhaps), and then I realised that’s because Dan Boeckner fronts both bands. Idiocy aside, I uhh enjoyed the guitar sounds? That sounds lame. I was going to mostly go on about the vocals, but obviously that was a failure.

6. 3 Rounds and a Sound
It’s just a nice, typical love song with sweet lyrics. And as I mentioned above, I only put this song on this playlist because song #3 sounds reaaaaaaaally, excruciatingly similar. But hey, it’s still sweet?

7. Deadbeat – A Place To Bury Strangers
I really felt like putting A Place To Bury Strangers’ song on here, but my other picks had less recognisable riffs and I thought was probably too noisy for most readers… so I picked something with (not as awesome, dammit!) lyrics, but is kinder to the ear. Bear with me, I love noise noise noiiise. Speaking of which, last Friday the double bass I was playing at uni started feedbacking into the amp and I had NO IDEA how that happened. Twice in a row! I’ve never ever produced bass feedback before in my life, let alone with an acoustic bass that was just plugged in. I know it sounds really backwards that I was so happy that it happened, but bear in mind the context that I’ve been putting up with singers and guitarists causing intolerable feedback for half my life, and I could finally enjoy the luxury of creating such a noise. Plus, it actually sounded good, rather than screeching and deafening. It totally made my day, haha.

8. I Can Get Love – Toro Y Moi
Digging Toro Y Moi’s new EP. It makes me bop and dance around in my room wearing only my boyfriend’s t-shirt. You know those Bonds ads? I totally do that. ALL THE TIME. Those black hipsters are the bessst.

9. Arcade Blues – Neon Indian
After a few more (okay a LOT more) listens, this song has ended up being my favourite song off Neon Indian’s latest album that I had posted about in the last playlist. But unfortunately the site that was streaming the album off has ceased doing so, and this particular song can’t be located anywhere else online. So you might just have to uhh “source it” in order to hear it. But I love love love this song. Not 100% sure why exactly though… it’s just one of those songs that you feel instantly familiar with, even though it’s brand new and you’ve never heard it before. That’s how I feel about it anyway.

As for what shenanigans I got up to on the weekend, it was hockey prizegiving! Which essentially meant trying to not over or under-dress, and definitely entailed getting a bit tipsy. Our captain, Sam, is Irish and had tickets to go see Ireland vs Australia in the pool play of the world cup, but she managed to pop around to our pre-drinks for a couple of photos first. I am SO HAPPY that Ireland beat Australia! (Awaiting the backlash from my Aussie readers now…) It’s going to be interesting to see what happens now because this essentially means that Australia and South Africa are on a collision course in the round after pool play now… Which I’m sure no All Black supporter would mind. And to those who commented on how they didn’t realise that rugby was so popular – well just remember the context that New Zealand is a Commonwealth country, AND we have one of the top rugby teams in the world (hopefully THE top team, soon!) – which for a population of just over 4 million is something to be proud of – and the fact that it’s the most popular sport in the country!

Not to digress further, photos of aforementioned shenanigans below. And also, what the hell but some guy took his pants off on the dancefloor and we saw EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!! It was SO uncalled-for and I thought it was hilarious how several of my team mates commented on how they’re glad they know that they’re “going home to” afterwards, haha. I know it confused the boy for a while because my last txt to him before my phone ran flat was a report of the pant-less incident, and needless to say he was relieved to see me sometime after midnight!

 

There are 5 people on the team that were absent. Lame.

Awesome snacks that I mostly didn’t touch because I wasn’t hungry, gah.

Nicole (our goalie) digging out the shots that she brought for us, ha!

Vice-Capt Sav grinning in the centre – her new house was super nice.

That’s my hand there with the red nail polish, surprise surprise.

I’m still not a Bailey’s fan. Eck.

Kim’s first ever shot of anything, I’m pretty sure. Girl is crazy.

Me with my trusty Speights beer. Liz our “player’s player” and Kim.

Remember Kevin Bacon? We gave him some beer, haha.

Okay yeah I just got sick of captions. Bedtiime. It’s well overdue.

True and everlasting that’s what you want, True and everlasting that’s what you want. Do you remember when 21 years was old?

It’s finally mid-semester break, signalling the long-awaited two weeks of pseudo-holiday that we’ve been longing for – before this semester even began. The boy and I just got back from our half-secret trip to Rotorua yesterday, and it’s no surprise that I’ve taken hundreds of photos that took forever to sort out. It’s been three of the most relaxing, beautiful and unforgettable days of my life, spent with the most unforgettable person I know. I can’t wait to get my films developed so I can see the rest of my photos! And I also can’t wait to do something like this again… summer, please don’t be too long.

Photo diary with chronological commentary:

We stayed in a log cabin for the first night. Since I accidentally (stupidly) revealed to Daniel a couple of weeks ago as to where we were going, I’m glad I’ve managed to keep the more special parts secret – where we are staying, precisely. It was definitely worth the effort just to see the delighted look on his face as we drove up to the cabin and stepped inside – we’d been talking about wanting to stay in a “log cabin” for a while now, so I’m glad that it’s turned out to be exactly what we were after. It was the coziest, cutest thing – perfect.

The boy setting the GPS, before we had quite figured out where things were in Rotorua.

Luggage. Mostly consisting of towels and cameras.

We decided to visit the Polynesian Spa first, and this was the view we spent our first afternoon with. A worthwhile $21.50 for the Adult Pools, albeit the all rude staring men (and some asian girls that followed me around with their eyes). Where Daniel exercised territorial glances and I translated the ridiculous conversations of self-righteous Chinese tourists who decided it would be okay to include me in their conversational topics, without realising that, yes indeed, I may just understand every single word.

There were a lot of seagulls as the Spas looked out over Sulphur Bay.

The stunning view that the 41C spa had – if only that spa had been cooler, we wouldn’t have had to sit on the edge the whole time, whilst I got chilly shoulders and mozzie bites!

The golden, hard-to-pry-for-a-photo smile.

He took a photo of me, taking a photo of him.

The aforementioned spa. It was the most crowded one, as it had the best view.

View from where we bought burgers and fries for dinner.

Eating dinner, lakeside, with the last fading rays of sunset.

Lake Rotorua.

Back inside the cabin, where we devoured Shingle Peak Reisling and chocolate biscuits.

Feeeeet.

We woke up the next morning to a shock score of Arsenal losing 8-2 to Man U. And spent much of the next couple of days returning to “OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT HAPPENED!!! EIIIGHT-TWOOO!!!”

We brought a pot of dumplings to cook for breakfast… but the fridge kind of froze the pot.

Locking up the cabin.

This was an absolute failure of a stove. Several attempts and a change of stoves later, we finally cooked the dumplings.

Back to the cabin we go…

…with rather destroyed-looking dumplings.

Trying to eat with a plastic spoon.

The dumplings were all mushy and stuck together because they had been sitting in warm water for far too long, before the stove decided to heat up enough to achieve boiling point.

Teeth brushing.

All packed up and ready to leave. I miss this cabin already.

At Hell’s Gate Thermal Reserve.

Kakahi Falls, “the largest natural hot waterfalls in the southern hemisphere”.

Unsuspecting photo by the generous camera-bag holder.

The landscape was so desolate and other-worldly and we loved every minute of it. Also, thanks largely to my photographing ways and knack for pointing out and staring at every nook and cranny, we stayed much longer than the prescribed 45-ish minutes for the walk.

At first we complained that it was cloudy and the weather wasn’t great, but then we decided that it made everything look far more volcanic and appropriate.

Another unsuspecting photo taken by the boy.

Black mud. Really, really hot stuff.

More hot stuff. Haha.

Caught-off-guard photos.

I think I like this one the best.

And then I attacked with a flick of the scarf.

The “steamy photo” of the boy. We had a bit of a misunderstanding about that phrase later on… haha. I made this photo black and white because I think it makes it look far better. I also took photos on black and white film, but I won’t get to see them for a while yet. Well worth paying $30 to enter the reserve, just to get this photo.

Apparently this mud volcano is still growing…

Hand holder.

Playing with the grey mud that we were allowed (and recommended) to touch. It felt really good on the skin, too.

Instead of visiting the Red Woods, we hit up Hamurana Springs instead – where the water was clear and purely amazing!

Makes me think of the Forbidden Forest. I’ve always preferred “forests” over “bush”, but New Zealand is mostly covered with bush – that’s why I enjoyed this so much. Although it was largely a blend of the two.

Yet another unsuspecting photo of me and my red scarf.

Self timerrr.

One of my favourite photos ever. It looks really constructed and cropped, but that’s just how the camera happened to drop onto the tree stump that I set the self timer onto.

The head of the spring, which is the largest in the North Island. It’s approximately 15m deep, and can you believe this thing has about 4,500,000 litres of water flowing out of it every hour?!

Don’t fall in.

Pleaase.

View from above.

Ferns.

Reflections #1.

Reflections #2.

Late lunch at Thirty1Five Restaurant.

$10 Beef Nachos – sooo delicious and incredible value for money. I think for the first time in my life I had more ingredients than I had chips to scoop it up with!

King Spa Deluxe Room I got a deal for at the Rydges Hotel. The boy looking pretty pleased with himself…

…and pretty pleased with the fact that we then got to watch the football highlights on Sky Sports.

Post-swim complimentary drinks at the Mezz Bar in the hotel. The bartender had just shut down the bar and was delighted that we made his job easy with 2x Monteiths orders.

Wreckage.

Indulgence.

More indulgence.

The next morning we rocked up to our free buffet breakfast at 10am, only to discover that the buffet shuts at 10am. Luckily they let us fill our plates with as much food as possible, before they cleared the buffet away. Won’t make that mistake next time!

Crazy kids.

The morning after.

We decided to go for a walk around Sulphur Bay – the bay that the Polynesian Spas had looked out on.

Sort of didn’t exactly “stay on the footpath” as signs had warned. The idea of DANGER DANGER was too exciting. Plus, how often to you get to check out boiling pools of water in the ground?!

The whole bay was steaming.

Marbled sulphur.

At the Government Gardens.

Me being ruining a perfectly good photo, haha.

Sweetness.

Car ride home.

The corrugated iron sheep at Tirau.

Fucking amazing trip. The End.

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