and everyday, I am learning about you, the things that no one else sees

Today I went about my day feeling, I can’t believe it’s only the third week of semester, I am far too tired, and the feeling hasn’t shaken off since. Even when I get a full night’s sleep, I can’t seem to ditch this innate tiredness. Of course, staying up late this very instant is not helping, but I am completely hooked onto listening to an album right now and I can’t turn the computer off until I’ve sat through the whole thing. I’ve got a dissertation to write before the semester’s out, and I’m trying to listen to all that I can cram in, because I honestly have no idea what form, shape or directionmy “musical voice” is in whatsoever and I need to figure it out pronto! It’s just been a really slow couple of weeks, which is why I wanted to blog about the blissful evening that the boy and I had. We’ve been together for another “celebrate-able” length of time now, and didn’t waste any excuse to book in an evening of feasting on food, bubbly, each other, and of course, the action at the Olympics!

With help from the boy, I cooked cordon bleu, firstly on the stove, and then we threw it all in the oven with potatoes, onions and a healthy dollop of mustard seeds and tasty (read: randomly thrown together) herbs that was then sprinkled with cheese and mushrooms. For dessert we hadamazing mango sorbet, fresh fruit and berry yoghurt… I’m getting hungry just thinking about it! It was a wonderfully relaxed and lovely evening, and pretty much had all of my ideals: the boy, yummy dinner, great wine, dessert (plus spearmint dark chocolate!), live hockey, a fire going, the cat being jealously affectionate, and to top it all off it was raining outside, which is our absolute favourite. I dare not imagine life any other way, even though I am juggling so many things and exhausted all the time, at least I am healthy, loved, and happy. And I think that’s three of the most important things to strive for in life. Most of my friends tell me that they feel like we’ve been together for years and years, which it hasn’t been, just yet – but I certainly believe that we will be, without a shadow of a doubt. We make each other better people not just through the good things, but we also confront each other with our worst parts to change and improve. I’m a hectic, chaotic madhouse of a person but maybe I’m cooking just well enough for the boy to stick around? Kidding. But I’m glad that he does, despite the chaos… because I don’t think I’d quite be Amanda if I were to attain a stable personality. So thank you, to my main man, and to everybody else’s main-men for keeping us sane or at least distracted from insanity!

Also, it’s been superb to watch top notch international-level hockey every evening, and of course I’ve got my fingers crossed for our women’s Black Sticks team (sorry, the men were too much of a disgrace the other night, don’t even ask!!!) for hopefully a medal. Speaking of hockey, my team’s season’s been going fairly well so far – we’ve made the top four play offs and will hopefully do well in the next couple of games to make it through to the finals. It’s nerve-wracking stuff and I’ve kind of been playing below my standard lately, but I’m willing myself to pick things back up. I don’t know what’s been happening in my head that I’ve seemed to have lost all my sense of being “onto it” when it comes to potential-goal-time, and my fitness has vanished into thin air in the past couple of weeks, but it must return! Maybe it’s got more to do with being mentally exhausted rather than my actual physical fitness right now?

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.

the sun is sinking awfully fast, can we make it last? we’ll make a family in the quiet country – you and me, in simplicity

Today feels like good-news day (apart from all the uni work I have to do tonight…) because I woke up to find a txt telling me that I’ve made the hockey team that I was trialling for, and now I’ve just gotten back from the gym where I’m on a personalised programme as of today, and I just feel great at the moment. I think that all the major decisions I’ve made about what I’m going to do this year and what direction I want to take myself in has been proving good for me. Doing the “final year” of my jazz performance degree part-time whilst embarking on the other degree I’ve always always aaalways wanted to do feels right and I’ve got no doubts about it thus far. Plus, I was right in thinking that giving myself a smaller music workload makes me more passionate and determined in it, because I’ve done a lot more practise and have tried a lot harder on the bass and in combo in general. Hopefully I can continue this and make it pay off… gah!

Since I’m in such a good mood, here are some more of the photos from the trip that the boy and I took to Hot Water Beach during the last week of our summer holidays, just over three weeks ago. There are more photos on another roll of film, but I haven’t finished it up yet, so haven’t gotten that developed. The highlight was definitely Cathedral Cove, and we didn’t actually end up digging a hole at Hot Water Beach because we couldn’t be bothered swarming around the area with tourists, so we ended up exploring the other end of the beach, and created our own form of athletics, as you shall see below… the memory of it still cracks me up, it was so much fun:

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There was a black-beaked seagull that kept making a pitiful noise, so I decided to give it a bit of the crust off my sandwich. The boy had initially told me off for feeding it, but then he ended up feeding this particular seagull a lot more than I did, luring the cheeky bird closer and closer… until he was within touching distance, and the seagull kept squawking and talking to him, see! The magic thing was, when we retreated back to our cabin at the campsite that was 5 minutes down the road, we found the very same seagull waiting for us outside our cabin!!!

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A good assortment of condiments, apple ale and wine.

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The dorkiest I’ve ever seen him. But I didn’t put up an even dorkier photo… I must say it was mostly my fault, making him carry all our stuff in my old swimming bag. But it seemed justified – that bag’s a thick, waterproof and sturdy workhorse. Doesn’t the sea and its colours just look amazing?

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Going to the deserted end of the beach.

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Three guesses what I thought that was when I first spotted it. And so I saw my first blue bottle jellyfish, ever. It does look like a “bottle”. Ahem.

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The game was… run on this ridiculously soft sand with no grip and resistance, and see if you can jump over that ridge. Our own beach version of the high jump, haha.

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This looks silly, but not as silly as when I ended up with a mouthful of sand.

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Reading with a rum and coke at the end of the day.

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People on a kayak tour at one of the little beaches we walked to on the way to Cathedral Cove.

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Cathedral Cove: where signs advise people not to enter due to falling rocks.

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Urgh I have MAJOR hat hair after a long trek down to Cathedral Cove. And I knooow, this photo is hilarious. What happened was, I had asked the boy to get a picture of “me AND the cove”, but he heard “me IN the cove”… apparently he had initially lined the photo up to look like the one I had taken of him, but it ended up like this, haha. I literally burst out laughing with “WHAT THE!” when I saw this.

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A German tourist took this for us.

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It seems that animals really liked me on this trip because not only did the seagull greet us at our cabin, but this little cute dog, which looks like the one that belonged to a barbie doll that my sister and I used to have, followed me back to our cabin from the barbecue where we’d cooked sausages for dinner. I’m sure it just wanted some food, but it was sooo cute, following me everywhere! There’s a better photo of it on the other roll of film though, this was the 37th photo in a roll of film made for 36 exposures, so the camera ate it up just as the shutter went off, causing major blurring.

I really wished that we were back there again, lying on the beach with our books and swimming in the sea that was so beautifully clear. But I wonder where our next adventures will take us. And oh yeah, the day after our beautiful trip to Cathedral Cove, the weather turned awful and was pouring down with rain. For some reason we thought the best remedy was to climb Mt. Pauanui in the rain, and I’m glad it took us less than half of the prescribed 1.5hrs to get to the summit. The weather was so bad that we were up in the clouds and the view wasn’t the best, but hopefully I’ll get something out of it when I develop the other roll of film eventually!

we learn together over time that tolerance is more appealing tn theory than in practice. ah, we wait at ease, we wait to see – we are waiting here for catastrophe

I’m getting terribly behind on travel posts (I can’t believe it’s been two months already!) but I don’t want to rush them and want to do justice to all the fun and photos we had. This… putting off of sorts has definitely been brought to attention by the boy, so it’s definitely not like I’ve forgotten about it, it’s just a matter of time…

The truth about me is that I’ve been very lacking in motivation since circa 2004, and the sort of motivation I’m talking about is something of an all-round kind of motivation. The sort of drive that isn’t limited to one area of life or activity at hand – rather, something that spans across daily life in general, and dreams at large. But I’ve completely surprised myself these past couple of weeks by my new-found resolve to, well, put bluntly, try. I feel like I’ve spent the better part of the last decade running away from expectations of me, and avoiding the deadly word that gets thrown around a lot when people talk about me: potential. (Don’t even get me started on the whole idea of “potential”… trust me, I’ll never shut up.)

Anyway, what have I been doing away from the blogosphere? I’ve stayed ahead in my course readings, I’ve actually practised the bass (I know, right? It’s my bloody major and I often neglect it more than I should) and I’m determined, bloody determined to get things the way I want them. I want to get myself to where I want to be, or at least, in the direction of where I think I want to head, because frankly I have no idea where I want to “go”, as such. Today the boy and I washed our cars in the rain, as it was our mutual day off from uni. It sounds either more romantic or more dreadful than it actually was – and downright stupid, I know. But we did it despite the rain since it was already planned, and both our cars were dirrrty so it really couldn’t be ignored any longer. The “me” a month ago would’ve probably just sat inside and kept reading whilst the boy went and washed his car, or somehow negotiated another day to do it – but I’m glad that I got off my arse and did it today.

Also, I joined a gym last week, and I made sure to join the new fancy 24-hour franchise gym, because then I’m not limited to the crappy opening hours of traditional gyms. Believe it or not, for once I was the one urging my friend (who has been a member there for sometime, but I know doesn’t go often enough) to make a gym date with me, so that we can’t let each other down and have to show up. And show up we did. Yes, yes it was well after nine that evening, but I pounded out around 3-4km on the treadmill at a decent pace, and I didn’t even need Angie to hold my hand through it. I did my core exercises and other things and then… I felt fucking great. Then today I had a complimentary one-hour session with the personal trainer that also happens to manage the gym, and I am getting a programme made up for me so that I have more of a sense of direction as to what exercises I need to do for the fitness level and strength areas I want to achieve. He said he was really surprised by how motivated I am, and how a lot of people are all groggy and laid-back about it all, but I seem really determined to achieve things. And I guess I really am. I hadn’t really thought that much about it until then – how suddenly motivated I have become. All-round. Not just in one degree, but both. Not just with uni, but with hockey, with trying to be a better and happier person all around.

Then yesterday at my hockey trials I ran my butt off and tried my very best, even though I didn’t get put in my ideal positions. They’ve restructured the grades and so there are 3, maybe 4 teams’ worth of people trialing for the one team. I think I did well enough yesterday, but I’m definitely going to step it up for the second round of trials next week. Watch this space. Hopefully this time next week I’m gleefully chirping about looking forward to the hockey season… rather than being disappointed about it.

I thought I’d share the dinner that I whipped up for my mum, cousin and myself tonight – I have a tendency to make recipes up as I go, so today I’m pretty happy with how my pasta turned out. I started off with a bunch of tomatoes… then the next thing I knew I was all, phew, sorry to say so myself, but this sauce is bloody delicious. It’s a shame the boy had football training and missed out on it. (On the topic of football, did anyone see Barcelona and Messi’s ridiculously amazing result today?!!!) So, courtesy of a very full fridge, I’d cooked: sirloin steak, fish baked in lemon juice and ground pepper, butter pan-friend zucchini, pasta in some randomly concocted sauce, and mushrooms with melted butter and bacon. Ahhh I’m hungry all over again just thinking about this!

 

 

By the way, how do I hold onto this surge of motivation? Is it even possible/probable?

has black hair, and who cares? well I do. You’ve got a lovely smile, I could spend a while with that smile. Would you hold my hand? I’m as cold as the snow If you said let’s go, I would follow.

Little over a week ago, this is where we were, frolicking in the sea,  tumbling in the sand and spluttering out salt. This is where we were, when we befriended seagulls that stalked us to our two-night-home and learnt that pseudo high-jumping onto sand dunes was difficult if the sand was soft underfoot. This is where locals and tourists alike flocked to, and could you blame them?

Final summer getaway location – taken on Kodak UltraMax 400 colour film; nondescript Konica.

University just started this week, so it’s completely taken over everyone’s lives, once again. I can’t be bothered explaining the finer details, but I’ve taken up another degree, without the possibility of a conjoint arrangement, so as of Monday I’ve embarked on doing two full degrees, concurrently. I don’t know what you’re supposed to call it – some say a “double major”, but I think that just sounds like I’m doing two majors under one degree – regardless, I’m kind of freaking out. Although I think at the moment I am at a good place between optimistic confidence and nervousness over grades and all that, rather than being on the extremes of cockiness or absolute breakdown, so I will try to maintain a steady mindset. I must say, I really miss being a full-time hermit down at jazz school. To put things in context, jazz school is in a separate building from the School of Music (I’ve been a music student for 2 years and have never had a class in there until now!) and the rest of university altogether. Although it is only a few blocks and a hill down the road, it’s a very different atmosphere from the rest of university. And now I’m subjected to having to move around through crowds and crowds of people, feeling claustrophobic in a very full basement lecture room, and generally not enjoying how horrible some people are, without having to utter a single word. I know, I know, this is what university is supposed to be like, and I will indeed suck it up and get over it, but I just say to say woaaaah what a shock to the system, even though I knew it was coming! My final and main complaint is that I simply don’t understand how rude people are. More specifically (skipping over those people whose phones go off, chat in the doorway of a busy building, don’t move 50-50 out of the way so everyone can keep moving…), I hate the girls all over uni who just glare at people as if they’re pieces of shit. As if I’ve personally offended them by merely existing. The evil up-and-down, know what I’m talking about? It’s like the bitchy version of checking someone out. I am so over that shit, just get me to 2013 so I can be half-hermit again, please!

Anyway, I will put up the rest of last week’s photos from the same roll of film – I still can’t believe that it was merely last week! It feels like so, soo long ago. The good news about today is that now I’m officially a member at a 24-hour gym, which means I will have a more productive activity to help with those sleepless nights. Buuut the great news of today is that the boy and I have secured Radiohead tickets for their show here in November. It felt really surreal right after we managed to buy them online today (sold out in less than 5 minutes, no joke), but now it’s all worn off and I totally don’t feel it at all. Although I love Radiohead, I was never one of those fans that longed for them to come to New Zealand, nor did I ever join in on the rumour circuit, every time they did a tour; so when they finally announced a show in Auckland… well I still feel like, oh really? But it will be amazing. It will be the boy and I’s equivalent to seeing Portishead last November.

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