This week has been a bit of a write-off. I have spent a good chunk of time in my dressing gown, talking online and blobbing out. I’ve talked to Lea and Anastasia back in the US, I’ve talked on the phone with my sister, Siobhan, in Ireland and a bunch of my other friends locally here in New Zealand.

I re-watched the last few episodes of John Doe, and was reminded how irritated I was when they cancelled it. I also re-watched Beck, one of my favourite anime. Given how lethargic I’ve been this week, it was good for me to watch something that I find really uplifting and inspirational. Whenever I watch it I am reminded of my affinity with music and how much I want music in my life in some capacity. I read a few manga online, seeing if there were any that I liked. I’ve been feeling really hormonally unbalanced for some reason this week, like I’m not quite lined up how I should be internally… I’m not sure how to fix it, though.

Also this week, I watched Secondhand Lions (a.k.a. “Badger up my cornfield” in my family… don’t ask) with my mother. She’s been telling me to watch it for a few years now (basically since it came out) and I’m glad I did finally get around to seeing it, as I did very much enjoy it. I also spent some time around at Rach’s flat, chilling with Rach and various others, that was good fun. I had dinner around at my grandparents’ house, which is always good seeing them. My Grandad has recently been written up in a golf magazine with an article about him. He’s almost 80, and his handicap is 2. Very, very impressive. Clearly I come from good golfing stock, and I’m hoping to do a bit more of that while I’m here. ^^

My aunt and uncle from Wellington were passing through this weekend, so I got to see them today. We drove out to Little River, where we stopped for coffee and nibbles and a look around the art gallery before driving (I was doing the driving today) on to Akaroa. I really like Akaroa. I wouldn’t want to live there, but it’s a lovely place to visit and get away from things. I went to Fire & Ice, the local crystal and jewelery shop that I adore. I have several pieces from there, and have given a bunch of gifts from there as well. Anyway, today we had a wander around, had a frozen yoghurt, walked around the bay to have a look at the other art place (I managed to get some pretty shocking singlet-sunburn, although it doesn’t hurt… just feels kind of tight, you know?)… anyway, after all that we drove back to Christchurch then sat around talking and listening to music for ages.

When I left to come back to Dad’s place, I pinched Siobhan’s old acoustic guitar out of the closet where it was sitting – after watching Beck, I thought I might have a crack at learning a few more chords and how to play some songs. Why not? Anyway, time for me to write a few emails then head to bed.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Or Happy Holidays, or whatever it is that my (lack of) readership celebrates.

I actually managed to get some sleep, which was rather delightful. After a shower and shave it was off to Mum’s for Christmas pancakes with her and Dace. Is that a tradition in other families? I don’t even know. The whole morning was generally good fun, and then from there we went to Aunty Kath’s to join up with the rest of the family that’s in town. There was a lot of general milling about, chatting and so on, then a sit-down lunch which was a pretty damn good spread. There were some presents meted out and I got a good chance to hang out with my cousin Dylan and his girlfriend Abby – I was again reminded what really funny, cool people they are.

We then head back to Mum’s to chill out, we were joined by Dace’s girlfriend and were in theory supposed to be meeting up with some family friends but it didn’t really pan out for some reason. Anyway, we watched some movies on television and just generally chilled.

I head back to Dad’s eventually and folded a bunch of my washing, which I’d been meaning to do. ^^; I then had a great visit from Rach in the evening, she came over and chilled out with me, we chatted about stuff and played a little backgammon.

A very no-stress Christmas this year.

Well, I’ve started to get a bit more sleep, which is all to the good… still waking up early in the mornings, though. This week I’ve had coffee with Maureen from the Japanese Consulate, dinner with Grandma and Grandad, visited Daniel, wandered around town for various bits and pieces… including my regalia for graduation.

Graduation was this Friday. The day started off well – I woke up to a nosebleed. I walked into town after getting all dressed up (I actually did my ironing the night before and everything…) and met up with Mum on my way to the Arts Centre, where everyone in the procession had gathered. I hung around talking to all the Computer Science people around me for a while – that was kind of weird, I hadn’t really thought about it, but most of the people my year had already graduated long since. Still, I knew quite a few people who were graduating, which was nice. I even saw Nik briefly, as he had come over from Melbourne to watch his brother graduate. Everyone then marched to the town hall, filed into the main auditorium and we had the ceremony. There were a few things which I found odd about the ceremony. For one, we sang the national anthem in Maori first, English second… when I left for the US in 2005, it was the other way around. We also (tried to) sing Gaudeamus, which is apparently Canterbury University‘s song. It was kind of appalling to realise I didn’t know any of the words, at all. I guess the school song just doesn’t get used all that much.

As a side note, I can still remember all of the words to the St. Andrew’s school song. ^^;

Anyway, back to the ceremony. Our speaker was the Governor General, who wasn’t particularly good at all, which was a shame. Afterwards I heard a few people saying they thought he did a good job, but I thought he was rubbish. I had way more inspiring and invigorating speeches at St. Andrew’s prizegivings… a little scary, that. Anyway, lots of names got read out, I recognised a whole lot more people in other departments than I thought I would. Time came, I did my bit and walked across the stage to receive my Bachelor of Science, First Class Honours in Computer Science. I even managed to forget that my face got plastered all over the massive screens when I did it, which was a plus… I didn’t really want to be self conscious about that.

After the ceremony I met up with my attending family upstairs to partake of the provided refreshments, talk for a while and take a few pictures. From there it was off to drop off the regalia, then back to Mum’s for a long, late lunch with Aunty Dee and Nana. Unfortunately Siobhan, Dace and Dad were all not in attendance, as Siobhan and Dad were out of the country and Dace had work. After lunch at Mum’s I came back to Dad’s and talked online with Anastasia for a while, it was good to see her right after the graduation. I had dinner around at Ruby’s house that night, then went to the Ric (Rach’s flat) for a party. No drinking or anything, just a good chance to catch up with some more people. During the course of the evening, my voice proceeded to re-break itself. Or that’s what it felt like, anyway. Instead of the previous voice-break (which took some 6-8 years to go through all of it) being young boy to man voice, I went from man voice to Barry White voice in the same cracking pattern… was very, very weird. Turns out it was just my body being messed up from being sick, as the next day I woke up and had no voice. ^^;

Saturday Nik and Ian both came over, we talked through a whole bunch of stuff to do with the company that we want to create together, how we’re going to proceed from here, etc. It felt really productive, and really reinforced the idea that at least the core team for any company really does need to be in the same place instead of being halfway ’round the world from each other.

Yesterday I was a bit domestic and did a lot of laundry. I very unfortunately missed seeing Hera play in the Arts Centre because I didn’t check my to-do list early enough. Ah well, luckily I’ll be here for a little while and should be able to see her live again before I leave. I had dinner at Mum’s again (is it just me, or do most families do the whole Sunday-dinner thing?), joined by Nana which was nice.

Today I went shopping with Dace in the afternoon, got some Christmas stuff (I know, I know… left it to the last minute – hey, my being in NZ was my main Christmas present to most people), then Nik and Ian came over again in the afternoon, we talked a lot of crap and then watched Gargoyles into the evening.

So, I’m all graduated (finally) and my voice appears to be (nominally) back again. Hurrah!

So, for the last couple of days I have been wiped out on the couch, drifting in and out of consciousness. The whole thing has been a bit of a blur, really… I watched some movies, some anime, Dace came over briefly, so did Rach… and some people that work for Dad, which was a bit disconcerting because they showed up in the evening.

Today I’m feeling much better, even if I did wake up at 6.30 in the morning again. I took the day fairly slowly, easing myself up to doing things to make sure I am actually better, rather than just on the mend. I set myself up at the table with my laptop and started going through my email and various other online to-dos.

The big news: I got a call from my sister from Egypt – she and Christopher are now engaged! Congratulations!

Well, the week started off with my final stuff at work, last couple of interviews and a brief dinner out at Harry’s with a bunch of the guys from work. Anastasia and I shared a quiet night together with some champagne and then the next day it was back to study and exams for her.

On Wednesday I was up ridiculously early to drive out to Orlando with Lea, who had generously agreed to drive me out there on her way down south to see her family. I had breakfast with her at the airport, then started the long process of flying back to New Zealand. First was a flight to Atlanta, which I dozed most of the way through, waited about an hour at the airport there before flying to LA. That flight I did a little reading, a little more dozing and was mostly just feeling really uncomfortable. I was in LA for five hours, where I tried to eat some food and talked with people back in Florida on the phone. For the flight to New Zealand, I doped up on Benadryl to put me out for most of it, and watched the Bourne Ultimatum on the in-flight entertainment system.

I arrived in Auckland very early in the morning, went through customs, transferred my baggage, then had some McBreakfast. They put milk in my coffee, which I wasn’t happy about. I chilled out for a bit, read a little of my book, then got on my plane to Christchurch.

Mum met me at the airport there then we made a brief side trip to her place to pick up my keys, NZ phone, plastic bins (that replace clothing drawers) , etc. before heading over to Dad’s so I could semi-unpack. I had a shower to wake me up and got set up (ish) in the spare room. I didn’t end up having lunch with Mum because of the parking issues in town. I tried to get various laptop things working, talking to some people online while sipping blackcurrant. Man I missed that stuff. I had dinner with Mum at Misceo’s (joined by Dace after a while), then back to Mum’s place for general chatter (and more blackcurrant ^^).

This morning I woke up at 5am and generally cursed my inability to take naps, or convince my body to go back to sleep once it had decided it was time to be awake. Anyway, I did some email, mucked about online and had some juice. I talked to people online, went and did some groceries, went to watch some rowing and have some coffee with Mum, then head back to Dad’s again. Rach came over for a little while and we generally chatted about stuff, caught up a little.

Later this afternoon, I took a bad turn, I’ve got a fever and chills and so on… I’m definitely sick, probably some viral thing. Ugh. I hate being sick.