Yay! Jasmine finally makes an appearance, just for all the people who commented saying they wished she was on the layout! I do too, since she’s my favourite also, so maybe I’ll have to make another layout with JUST Jasmine on it some time in the future! I actually had one awhile ago, it was one of the very first ones I made and coded myself, but it was kind of ugly so another one might be in order I suspect.

Today I started deciding what I’m going to do for my birthday. It’s kind of a tricky one, I’m turning 20, so it is significant, and I need to so something, but it’s not as significant as my 21st will be next year either! At the moment we’re heading towards just inviting everyone over for lunch and cake and stuff on the Sunday after my birthday, that way I get to see everyone, but if someone has to leave early it’s not like they’ll be interrupting everything and wind up feeling rude. This is what we did for Dad’s birthday last year and it worked really well, so hopefully it works just as well this time!

Yesterday the funniest thing ever happened! I was in my room and Poppy, my cat, was wandering in and out as she always does, and suddenly I heard this weird kind of beeping sound. I started walking around looking for what was making it, but I couldn’t figure it out. I called my dad down to come have a look, but he couldn’t work it out either!

He even turned ALL the power off at the mains to see whether it stopped once nothing electronic was on. It didn’t. We checked the fire alarms, clocks, watches etc, but it was still going!

Eventually he moved my big armchair/sofa out of the way to look behind there. We discovered a bird! It was alive, and was just sitting on the floor going “Peep! Peep!” every now and then! We have no clue how it got there, but I think Poppy must have caught it and brought it inside while I was in the bathroom or something! I can’t believe I didn’t see her do it, but that was how engrossed I was in my computer and music, hahah! Poor little bird, lucky we found it, ROFL!

In other news, I’m in the process of making a mini site for all the stuff I’ve gotten from BBS requests and auctions, and the gifts affiliates have given me, so expect to see another update about that in the near future! It’s not quite finished yet (thanks Grace, for helping me), but it will be soon!

Yay! No more lectures for two weeks! Yesterday was the last day of the third term, and I handed in a ton of assignments and crap, which was so good! I don’t have too much stuff planned for the break, just tons of catching up on work, hanging out with friends and rehearsals for the show I’m in, and for my drama assessment.

I’m also still writing one more essay this weekend, a Philosophy one which is due on Monday. The essay topic is:

Should criminals be punished for their wrong-doing? What justification is there for such punishment?

This might sound like an easy topic, but once you consider everything we talked about in lectures and all the positives and negatives of the different situations, it becomes pretty confusing! :/

Yesterday was a pretty entertaining day actually, since it was the start of the Undie 500, which is a bit of a tradition at my university. It’s basically a big car rally down to Dunedin to get drunk. It has a history of causing trouble and public nuisance, so although it’s funny to look at all the decorated cars and people, I’ve never actually been on it!

Today I got an email from the admin person of the social work department at uni asking me and a bunch of other people to come into uni next Tuesday afternoon (in our holidays, bugger it) and meet with some people from the Social Workers Registration Board. Interesting.

I think it might help A LOT if I had a clue in the world what this mysterious Social Workers Registration Board actually DOES, so I did a bit of Googling and came up with this:

The Social Workers Registration Board (SWRB) is a Crown agency that provides public assurance that registered social workers meet professional standards of competent practice, are accountable for the way in which they practise and that they undertake ongoing professional development. Registration is new to the profession of social work and was introduced on a voluntary basis in 2003. The SWRB has been established under the Social Workers Registration Act 2003. This Act provides the framework for the registration of Social Workers.

I guess it’s good that they want to listen to the opinions of uni students on how successful our social work program is, but I have no clue why they want to talk to me, since although I want to do a social work degree eventually, I’m not actually doing one now!

Oh well, hopefully having participated in this discussion panel will at least look good on my CV! ROFL!

Yay! This week’s the last week of term! 3 more days of uni until two weeks of holidays! Hurrah! Of course I’ll still have work at 7:30 every morning, and still have essays and stuff to do, but not having lectures is always good!

Btw, do any of you lovely WordPress users know if it is possible to include a WP blog as a PHP include, in much the same way you can do with Cutenews? I don’t think I want to swap back again, but it’d be good to know how to do, if I ever did, or if I wanted to offer premade layouts accompanied by directions for including your blog. Any ideas? I’ve tried it with just blog/index.php inside the PHP include tags, but I get an error message. I’ve checked that my path is correct etc, and I’m fairly confident I know how to use PHP, which makes me think the problem is with my WP, rather than my site, if that makes any sense!

I also found a tutorial for creating your own WP themes, and some of it made sense, but as is visible HERE I have rather a lot of learning to do before I could consider running my whole site like that!

The Movies

1. Do you stand up and/or clap at the end of a good movie? No, I don’t think I ever have!
2. Have you ever cried in a movie theater? No, I never cry in movies, lol!
3. What’s the most you’ve done in a movie theater? Thrown popcorn at a bratty kid who put chewing gum in my hair! He was darn lucky I didn’t kick him!
4. What’s some of your favorite snacks to eat at a movie theater? Popcorn!
5. Do you sneak in drinks and snacks so you don’t have to pay the high prices? Sometimes!
6. Last movie you saw in theaters and with whom? Jesus Camp with Brooke and Jenny, then, as we were walking back to Brooke’s house afterward, this evangelical guy came and handed me a tract. Nice timing.
7. Where do you usually sit in the theater (front, back, middle, etc.)? Towards the back in the middle of the row.
8. What do you do when you’re alone in the theater? Pray that Mr. 7 Feet Tall doesn’t come and sit in front of me!
9. What’s the best and worst movie you saw in theaters? Not sure what the best was, the Teenage Mutant Turtles was pretty bad! Well, not BAD so much as it just wasn’t my kind of movie.
10. Have you ever had to sit on the floor because the theater was too crowded? No, thankfully!

The Mall

1. What’s your favorite mall store? Borders!
2. Favorite eating place at the mall? Starbucks…or a Turkish place with a name that I can’t pronounce (or spell) that sell souvalakis!
3. Do you like it better when the mall is dead or more crowded? In between.
4. Do you stay away from malls during holidays? Sometimes, but last Christmas my dad and I went to a mall on Christmas Eve and were STUNNED at how quiet it was! I guess nobody went because they all expected it to be really busy!
5. Last thing you bought while at the mall? I don’t remember…shoes…or shorts…
6. Name all of the malls you’ve been too. Westfield Riccarton, Northlands, Eastgate, South City, The Palms, Hornby, Barrington, Eastgate, Westfield St. Lukes (in Auckland)…and probably lots I don’t remember!
7. Pick your favorite mall and list your favorite stores in that mall. Northlands, but I don’t have any specific favourite shops, and I like town better anyway.
8. Which do you like better; the escalator, elevator or regular steps? Escalator
9. Do you and your friends ever go to the mall just to look at hot guys/girls? No, we have better things to do with our time!
10. What’s the name of your nearest mall? Barrington Mall, it sucks though, it’s tiny, nearest big one is Westfield Riccarton…or Hornby Mall…

Friends

1. Which of your friend’s houses is the biggest? I don’t know, they’re all pretty similar.
2. And the smallest? Not sure either!
3. Do you use good manners at a friend’s house? Yes, I hope so!
4. If you eat over, do you eat all of the food even if you don’t like it? No, I tend to avoid the stuff I don’t like.
5. Do you call your friend’s parents “Mrs.” and “Mr.”? Not really, when I was younger I sometimes did, but now I just call them by their first name, or nothing at all, lol!
6. What’s the worst thing you ever did at a friend’s house? Not sure!
7. Which of your friend’s parents is the best cook? No idea, lol!
8. Which of your friends live the closest to you? Merrilyn
9. And which lives the farthest? Erika…or the people who don’t live in NZ!
10. Do you like hanging at a friend’s house or your house better? My friends don’t usually come to my house, since I like out of town and quite far away from anything, lol, so if we’re going somewhere, my house just isn’t the logical place to meet!

Zoo

1. What’s your favorite zoo animal? Otters!
2. Has an animal ever peed on you from its cage? No, but a monkey once stole my dad’s sunglasses from his head!
3. When was the last time you were at a zoo? Not for AGES!
4. What’s your favorite part of going to the zoo? Animals! Lol!
5. Do you ever feed the animals when you’re not supposed to? No.
6. Are you afraid the animals at the petting zoo are going to bite you? Yes! Especially the goats! They’re so cute, but I’m just ever so slightly wary! They have horns!
7. Has a duck or goose ever chased you for food? Yes! A huge big swan flew at me and tried to land on my head! I was only about 10 and I don’t think I’d ever been so scared in my life!
8. Does it bother you when you see people taunting animals? Yes! It’s sad!
9. Aren’t zebras basically horses with stripes? Yep! Horses with striped pyjamas!
10. Have you ever thought about setting all the animals in the zoo free? No, the ones in the zoos I’ve been to all look pretty happy and well looked after.

Parks

1. Which is better; the swings or the slide?Swings!
2. Do you see parks as romantic places to be? Not really, especially not if you stand in duck poo!
3. Don’t you hate it when you fall and hit the woodchips? Not really, lol.
4. Have you ever jumped off a swing and broke a bone?No
5. Have you ever climbed on top of the jungle gym? No, I was always too scared.
6. Do you get dizzy from the merry-go-rounds? Sometimes, it’s funny!
7. Which is better; parks with lakes, benches and serenity or parks with swings, slides and noises? Not sure, it depends.
8. Where’s the nearest park? Over the fence!
9. Do you ever go to parks just to sit there and read/write/do homework/etc.? No.
10. Do you go to parks after it snowed to slide down the slides and stuff? No, but it sounds fun!

Restaurants

1. Favorite restaurant? Not sure
2. What do you usually order at it? Something different every time
3. Do you ever order a bunch of stuff just to take it home and eat later? No
4. Fancy restaurants, diners, or fast food? It depends
5. Don’t you hate it when people order hamburgers and stuff at fancy restaurants when they could’ve just went to McDonald’s? No, because some restaurants do have good burgers!
6. Is a date to a restaurant sound romantic to you? I guess it could be, but it could also be lame and “default”
7. Do you order more when you don’t have to pay? No.
8. How much of a tip do you leave? People don’t really tip in NZ, but sometimes I do, if I pay with cash.
9. Have you ever gotten horrible service? Not too bad actually, most places have been pretty good.
10. Worst restaurant you’ve been to? One at Club Med in Bora Bora. 80% of our group (around 100 people!) got food poisoning. Oops.