The kin…

She’s always lookin’ at me

**Edit: It’s 3am in the morning and I’m not bothered to write a new entry, but the good news is I’ve changed the theme and I have a random image rotation on the head banner; so you can refresh to see almost 30 odd pictures! I may or may not delete/add some more later**

This is such an image-heavy post that I’m not even sure where to begin recalling my past week of events! But I’m counting on the theory of chronology to help me out here:

We left for Raglan on Tuesday, but I’d stayed up to some ridiculous hour on Monday night – well into the early morning – and it was raining all night, with general terrible weather. Thankfully the rain had cleared up a bit by Tuesday morning, and more so when we headed South-West towards Raglan, the first 3 photos are from the beach on the Tuesday:

Everything asides from the crap weather that returned on Wednesday, and my ever-worsening cold was great: the campsite was awesome and it was set up so you could park right next to your tent (instead of the sort with a separate carpark); we were lucky enough to get a spot right next to all the vital facilities like toilet, shower, bbq, etc. On the second day due to my cold and our lack of wetsuits, Charlotte and I opted to stay out of the choppy waves down at the surf beach, but my sister and her friend Caryn dived straight in with some rented boards that were $35 for 3.5 hours. We were all so tired from either surfing or going on an huuge walk down the beach (it’s a very, very long beach, we found out) that we all collapsed and went to sleep halfway through our poker game that night. I haven’t had the chance to get the photos off Charlotte’s camera yet, but she has the other half of photos, which include the huge sand dune that we decided to scale whilst the youngsters surfed. Soft sand is very, very difficult to climb – but the leaps down felt amazing!

The photo on the right is of the Bridal Veil Falls, which we visited on our drive back to Auckland. I believe the sign said it was a 55m drop – and evidently we didn’t feel like taking the half an hour walk down… and back uuuuup.

Upon arrival home, Liv and I cleaned all the sand out of our bags and flopped down on the couch for some much needed rest – I shot the Peaches gig that night too, except I haven’t yet had a chance to sort those photos yet.

The very next day I awoke to my paranoia of forgetting something important as I was leaving to attend Auckland’s Big Day Out. Usually I would’ve packed light – sunnies, money, ticket and phone in pocket, but this year I was photographing for Cheese On Toast (who had offered and gotten me my first fancy-looking media pass that had my name pre-printed and all!). Here are some shots of acts that I’m sure most people will recognise, the rest are up at CoT! (Hopefully I’ll put some up soon as well… although such publication is a bit iffy…)

To be honest, I’d always thought Muse was good, but I had been quite indifferent and definitely didn’t constitute myself as a fan. But that changed after photographing them – I was completely blown away. It was just so EPIC, intense and insane.

Ironically, this is my favourite Muse photo:

Lily Allen:

Sophia Burns of The Veils – she’s stunning, it was a mission to get her face though, with the shoe-gazing bassing stance:

Ladyhawke & what I found beyond the media room beneath the stadium stands – the stadium changing rooms had been converted to the bag check area, and all the rooms and bathroom walls were lined with numbers and bags against the wall in numerical number; here’s a photo of the main corridor:

Jet:

Joshua Third from The Horrors – once again, trying to get his face was such a mission, but I eventually got quite a few, here’s two I like of him:

At the end of the night my sister got a shot of me in my bright orange photo vest. I never wore it apart from when I was in the pit because the fabric was quite rough, and plus it got pretty hot. Although, the one time I’d left it on whilst trying to find my wallet in the shade, soooooo many people stopped to ask me for directions for things… obviously they couldn’t read the “PHOTO 19” on the back of my vest and assumed I was an event guide – who were in florescent yellow vests scattered throughout the stadium. There were so many of them I couldn’t figure out why anyone ever thought to tap on the shoulder of the girl who was evidently having trouble juggling 2 heavy cameras with 3 lenses digging in her bag! Following that, I had to work both days of the weekend and my shoulders were completely rubbed, raw and soooo sore. But it was definitely quite an experience – front row punters were all jealous, and they all had some misconception that I want to take a photo of everyone of them… haha.

Completely irrelevantly, today my mother bought me a belated graduation gift. It’s a turquoise Thomas Sabo bracelet, and thoroughly appropriate for the occasion, as we were barely just discussing how she hadn’t quite yet found something I could keep close to me all the time. When I spotted the bracelet it immediately reminded me of mum because she has a custom silver cuff with the same stone embedded in the centre of it from Japan when she was about my age – and I’ve been borrowing it for about the past six months. Ahh I’m so in love with this, it adds some sparkle to my silver and monotone jewellery, yay!

Hello, how are you?

My grandmother flew down from Taiwan a week ago and is spending Christmas with us this year; so in between my erratic Christmas shifts and gigs, my nights have been slotted full of silly banter whilst playing Rummikub. Work has been more stressful as of late, as the mall’s been far busier than usual (and I only get called into work on the hectic days). According to today’s newspaper front page, Christmas sales have been down significantly since last year, but at work it seems to be that most people are resorting to cafes to catch up with people, instead of actually spending money on presents for one another.

I’ve been stuck on the till for somewhere between 15-20 hours in the past 4 days alone, and so many things are really making my nerves tick. You know when you enter a store and the sales assistant greets you and ask, “Hi, how are you?” and if they linger for a response you usually respond with “good thanks” and keep browsing? Or, if they’re awful at their job and completely ingenuine, they’ll simply ask and move on before you respond… that’s all very well because it seems to be the routine for sales people. But what I truly cannot wrap my head around is about the 2/5 customers that approach me at the till and go “Hi how are you I’d like a flat white… etc…” – the painful lack of punctuation reflecting the exact way they speak – not even pausing to make their words a question or proper sentence. WHY do they open their sentences with “how are you” without really even making that a question?! Furthermore, even when you totally disregard the fact that it’s a completely redund
ant thing to say, it also makes me feel like a right prick because I’m the one who is supposed to be asking such things, and I don’t know whether or not I should even acknowledged that they’d said it at all?! On top of this, I think the usual 80% of people who say medium when I ask whether they’d like a small or large coffee (whilst pointing to the small, then large cup), has grown into about 90%. Is it really so hard to figure out that a middle-sized cup will not miraculously appear out of thin air, just because many womens’ conscience (or stupidity) seems much more satisfied when they think that they’re not getting a “large”. I give up, I truly do.

I’ve got so many more pet peeves accumulated from work over the past year, but it’s all been heightened over the last few days. It didn’t help that on Saturday morning I started work at 7am following a very late night out in town watching Yacht, who were supported by a crazy set by The Sneaks, and the alien-headed Kazaam Blam. The mere three-hour nap I took before rolling out of bed to get to work on time was simply not enough to refresh myself from having to get quite pushy and block the view of other people in order to get a decent shot of Yacht; their dance moves and craziness kind od reminded me of Karen O, but definitely nowhere as wild. Overall it was a good show, but it was a shame that my friend and I couldn’t stay until the very end of it, just because we were both sooo exhausted from work and Saturday the following would be much worse and busier.

I’ve picked out some photos from Yacht, click here for the full set:

A perfect circle

Tuesday 1st December, 2009: First day of the last month of my final year.

For months and months I’d been anticipating December 1st. No, for once it wasn’t for the birthday bash of my best mate, but rather, for my 7th form sign out day – my last day in uniform, ever – followed by Graduation Dinner. Not only did this signify the end of all college exams and last minute cramming for the year, but it also brought an end to five, often long and tedious years spent at Macleans College. Surprisingly, well, actually in all brutal honesty, I know myself better than this so it wasn’t really surprising to have found myself spending the day in numb frustration. I was sad to be leaving, but only because I’ve been so used to the comfort zone and safety bubbles that I’d built up around me at school: the daily routine of classes and socialising that I had become accustomed to and can execute in zombie mode all day, everyday, all year. But it’s for that same reason (and many, many more) that I have been more than ready for leave for over the past couple of years. I’ve been tired of the same surroundings, the same (many not-so-likeable) people, the uptight school rules, the chore of upholding my “prefect status” and trying to be some kind of role model to juniors who mostly don’t care. Speaking of surroundings though, I will admit that, whilst I often took the picturesque sea-view from school for granted at times, and often cursed it as the reason the billowing wind during winter was so brutally lethal, I don’t think I could have attended a school with a better setting. Most people don’t get to sit perched on a hill in the middle of a reserve, in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods everyday!

On that note, I think I’ll end my sentimental train of thoughts, I don’t think that I will fully deal with the change until it actually hits me once university starts next year. I have a lot of regrets… no wait, that’s probably not the best word, but in the sense that, people are right when they say things like “in ten years time it’s not the things you did that you will regret, but the things you didn’t do”, or something along the lines of… I can’t remember the exact, more eloquent phrasing! Anyway, there are definitely things that I wish that I’d done, or had done differently, but I guess that would ultimately have made me a completely different person, and I’m not too sure how well that would work out, haha.

Here are some photos from each setting on the big night:

Colin was generous enough to offer the services of his spare lounge for our pre-grad. Not surprisingly, everyone’s looking pretty glum. I think most people with either extremely hyper (definitely not us lot), or were feeling pretty out of it, tired, and generally just wanted to get through the evening unscathed by any huge pangs of “OMG SENTIMENT!”

This picture shows Sinead hijacking the background of me and Freddy… A bit of organisation later we were on the ferry into the city. It seemed the most social option, so we didn’t have to split into cars, beg parents for rides, etc, and at $4.40 it wasn’t so bad… until we got off the ferry and decided not to split a 10minute taxi fare, instead deciding to make the 4-block uphill trek on foot. Now usually I’m not one to complain about walking, but when the only black heels you own are about 4 inches high and also have a platform, my feet didn’t like me so much that day. Plus it was hot and humid, and showing up sweaty was really, really unattractive.

I must say, the good at Grad Dinner was a thouuuusand times better than that at the ball. And the dessert too, for that matter. I actually ate both slices of cheesecake! Though, as you can see here, I left my cardigan on for much of the evening. My Topshop dress is lovely, but I hadn’t really wanted to wear it to Grad since it’s very low cut at the back (as well as the front, for that matter, forcing me to break my arm-folding habit for the evening) and I didn’t really feel like it was that most appropriate.

And last, the true highlight of the evening = getting tipsy down at O’Hagan’s on the viaduct. Thankfully I have a lovely mother with a distrust of taxis, so offered to pick me up at any hour, drunk or sober. Me and three friends decided that mum’s transport offer was a huge ask already, and her having to wake up at 6.30am was just brutal, so we didn’t stay out too late and got home at 2am. Needless to say, I crashed without sparing a thought of taking a shower that night.

Cover Me (Slowly)

I only just realised that my supposedly published blog post from last Friday was never published at all. But seeing as it’s all irrelevant and silly now I can’t be bothered going back to publishing it. So now it’s become my 27th draft post.

Anyway, I’ve been procrastinating from catching up on my mountains of homework for ages and, in between my darting from various accounts – facebook, twitter, last.fm, etc… – I’ve just been reminded of how easy it is to net-stalk me (not that I’m implying that anyone would ever want to, but I’ve had friends that have done that to me before, so…). Afterall, like most people, I would think, I have a handful of usernames that I generally sign up to things under, so it’s quite easy to follow my trail on the internet. I’m not hugely bothered by this, although I’ve suddenly become quite paranoid that the slightly illegal, urhm, shenanigans that we get up to may someday come back to bite us in the arse.

For example – and I can’t believe I never got around to rambling about my 18th, but my little brothers* acquired me “Amanda Lane”. I should explain now that Amanda Lane is a street at a place called Snells Beach a few hours up north from Auckland (popular holiday area), and earlier this year during summer break I had a jazz gig up there at the local cafe/bar/restaurant, and it was then that some of my mates who had rented out a holiday house there informed me of Amanda Lane’s existence and I subsequently went and photographed the street sign. A little digging around on facebook will show you that some 16 year olds’ 5 hours’ illegal late-night drive later, it is now mine. I have to admit, touched and beaming from ear to ear is a far-fetched euphemism when I dug through an entire refrigerator box’s worth of more carboard boxes to unravel such a peculiar birthday present. Kudos guys… this is going to be hard to top.

Oh and I almost forgot my title reference – been listening to Deerhunter, after reading them all over the gig guide, internet and undertheradar… think I might go to their gig in a couple of weeks. $40 for a great Monday night. Hmm… weekday + sister’s 16th the next day though. Gah.

*little brothers being my best mate (Chris – basically my big brother, year older)’s little brother (Stu- year younger) & his mate (Ed).

Last ten days of 17

I can’t believe I’m almost turning 18! In barely ten days’ time I will legally be an adult, be able to buy alcohol, go to pubs, clubs, R18 movies, etc!

It’s a really exciting prospect, yet at the same time scares the crap out of me. Considering the amount of things that have changed since even my last blog post (staggeringly busy, no time to blog, gah!), it’s amazing to think back on the transitions and growths that I’ve experienced in the past 17 years… at the moment I just keep thinking “holy crap!”. My friends joke and say that I’ll “finally be the age that everyone things [I] am” – because I’ve been sneaking into (mostly mates’) gigs in town for years, and have been awaiting the day when I can actually flash my drivers license at the bouncer!

Today’s been the hardest day of my week – it started bright and early at a little past 6am, and saw me go from running warmup laps around the hockey turf which I didn’t actually feel warm after; to attending two classes; leaving school for “year 13s’ half day Wednesday”, only to return for a 3-hour-long seminar by an Australian speaker, Darren Pereira; then I had two hours’ of concert band practise – yet another 12 hour day doing school-related things! In addition to all the stress of my AS Music exam on Tuesday, and internal mock exams all this week and next week, I got informed today that next Friday, on the eve of my birthday party, not only will I have to set up art at school for the annual 1st XI Hockey fundraiser, but then I have to race over to another school, play jazz for a charity gig, and rush back home in time for my own birthday party. How sad is that?! I’m furious at the music teacher – he has asked the stage band/jazz combo whether or not we’d like to do the gig, and most people weren’t keen, especially since half of them were coming to my birthday; but this just makes my already tight schedule even worse.

The thought of my birthday/arty is the only thing that’s getting me through these couple of strenuous weeks – the highlight is, though, I get to countdown to my 18th birthday with all my friends and family :D.

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