cheyenne under fluff

cheyenne is covered in fluffy white snow. staying with lovely family of texan origin. they even have texan christmas ornaments. and cook books. and computer background of the texas football team with a big 12 cup... apparently.

went to see narnia (Again) last night. the theatre here is much nicer than laramie. and drank pink lemonade and stole amanda's folks' popcorn. mmm

slept lots and long and good last night. then got up rather late and chit chatted with amanda's dad over breakfast. started on humidity, progressed to geography, then to pacific islands, ww2, and predictably politics. slightly different perspective but good conversation and didn't get heated or anything so lots of fun. whew...

me and amanda are about to go out for lunch, then to see pride and prejudice, can't believe i haven't seen it yet, goes against my very character i think. but rather excited. then christmas shopping at the mall and might talk her into a photo with santa. for the scrapbook.

it's official. i'm 12 on the inside. ah well, could be worse.

off for fun. later!

a week of goodbyes

the africa group: me, ismail, caolon and jillian. had dinner at altitude on wed night.
me and krystal - farewell drinks on monday night. she's off to hawaii. you and me baby, on the beach at opposite ends of the south pacific.
lindsey and kelly in the KKr sorority house, after dinner.
lindsey, me and kelly, in front of the chiristmas tree in KKr.

navs farewell/christmas party:
so, navs ppl and the boys in the front belong to todd and gerri-anne

silas shows us his skills
running man, care of paul (zim), lindsey and terri. heheheh. i laughed.
pretty decorations at todd and gerri anne's.
tina and terri. there was a sensible photo but i think this is better.
silly games for silly people. and the guy who runs navs runs through the middle of the photo. good work toddles.
same game - basically charades meets chinese whispers - have to act out christmas carol name and pass it down the line. names...? dunno the first one, then derek, gerri anne, shaun, levi, jill.
snow. and 40 below F. icky fozenness. i was sitting in the semiwarm library in cooper mansion, getting distracted by the pretty view and trying to do those essays. which are both done now and seem much less frightening and ominous.

final stretch

last day of school. essay due in 4 hours and then (hopefully a bit before...) i am going to write christmas cards and distribute, take back 1, maybe 2, sets of overdue library books, and put some pictures on here!

[about bloody time? i know... what can i say? essays have priority... it does happen. occasionally]

had american studies dept christmas break up last night - everyone piled into frieda's house with lots of food and met john and eric's wives, shenan's husband, talked about england and scotland with shanan and husband who are headed there for 10 days over break, and about nz and africa with eric's wife. and i'm bearing gifts for them, back to nz. their requests: nz wine, coffee sugar... strange americans.

back to work. will finish essay and then be useful again.

final weekend

final weekend before finals
final weekend in laramie
final weekend with homework to do
final weekend in dorms. possibly ever...

yay!
no complaints, whatsoever. looking forward to living in a house again. and getting excited about christmas now that the end is in sight. 3 days in sight! doesn't seem so painfully long now.

on 6 of 7 pages (single spacing - so will be the required 15 or so when done) for essay due tomorrow by 5pm, and will get (terrible) draft back tomorrow for working on and finishing by wednesday at 2. then home free! or at least free! home is a couple more weeks away.

but current plans for time left in US
monday - meeting with eric, picking up draft, handing in essay1, working on essay2, going to dinner at KKr sorority house with lindsey and kelly, krystal's party

tuesday - essay2 bollocks, hopefully the gym, very noble eh... then at night i think it's frieda's house for potluck and goodbyes

wednesday - finish essay 2, joy oh joy! maybe the gym again (wonderfully noble) celebrations, some packing perhaps, reading novels due at library a while back now - but really dont' need wonderful record at albany co. library. i should survive unless they employ hitmen. bit unreasonable for library books perhaps. write christmas cards and distribute. then in evening dinner with ismail, caolon and wife, jillian and fiance at altitude or something. laundry at some point might be wise.

thursday - finish library books, more packing up, buying presents that are UW related, posting hillary's christmas present, returning library books, celebrations (and probably bursting into song without warning... just occasionally) lunch at 12 with friend from church, and maybe dinner with someone else to say goodbye. laundry if not done on wed.

friday - final pack up and leave for cheyenne with amanda. relax! read, write, watch movies and eat. perhaps a walk around the shops for exercise, gotta see pride and prejudice and king kong (johnny worked on the set! that's right. i know all the important ppl) and bit of chirstmas shoppin, exploring cheyenne - until the 20th

20th - to denver - party with lindsey and see the sights - and above movies if not yet.

some time go to eitmillers for christmas. plan gets blurry and proof of my terrible organizational skills becomes evident. screaming in fact. oh dear.
time for supper. need food obviously, or can't think.

postnobrainer

if i only had a brain
a song which would have been song of the week if it weren't only one line from a song that is kinda all over the show. seriously, what were they smoking when they made that film?

so, in othernews, saw narnia just thisavo! bloody brilliant! whole battle scene - filmed right outside the city i live in - or am going back to anyway - in like 3 weeks.

but in the prenarnia hype didn't check my ticket for christmas carol tonight... turns out it wasn't tonight at all but rather at 2pm thisavo and this nobrainer missed it completely. was really looking forward to that. but headache (probably caused by excessive quantities of sugar and no real meal since 11am) and tiredness made me wonderfully nonchalant, decided should eat something other than sourworms, as good as they are, and relocated to my beloved kingstreet market - where i am now waiting on a smoothie and meatballs, not in the same dish, and working on a decaf coffee with the knowledge it is gloriously bottomless! joy!

five days and counting. (bloody essays)
grr
back to work.

early or REALLY late

so turned up to the union at 11pm for the 11.30 movie... oops. but as blogger won't work on my computer in my room this comes in handy and i might actually update - and what do you know? I AM! had my doubts about it happening again.

you have my little bro (tho bigger than me) to thank (or torture) as he pointed me to his blog today and inspired me to get my A into G. what kind of role model am i?

so today has been... bit stressful in places but generally not too bad.
early up and breakfast with kate, by accident, then when she left, had my coffee with brett and silas, also by accident. went to cooper mansion to interview eric and ended up doing so from 9 (as planned) till 11 (cause he had to be somewhere... and i had to write draft by 11 for frieda to mark by monday).

so worked frantically on draft, snubbing msners, desperately trying to put ideas together. feel i may have made this slightly more stressful than necessary but there have been so many things going at once. and it will all be over in a week.

handed in draft and then took off to king street market, bit sick of small library in cooper mansion, though the sun makes it less cold than usual. yay for the sun. 2 days straight and still below freezing consistantly.

odd.

apparently not so here.

got some meatballs and mozzerella, a cinnamon roll and the necessary legal addictive stimulant that they let me have bottomless amounts of. sat there and did a bit of work, chatted to aforementioned brother, watched end of old version of the importance of being earnest (oscar wilde) on nz's tv 1 - yay for internet, and answered a few emails.

returned to room for book and note pad, then to cooper mansion. left book for shenandoa and took a few notes from material culture display relevant to other essay (not aforementioned draft), eventually got lazy and photocoppied. on that note, as only had two dimes, owe amst about 20cents.

returned to room and decided to be noble. aka. go to the gym. and actually went. first time all week. have been waking up achy and runny nose/sore throat/ickiness has deterred me from noble behaviour. had fun tho asthma was a pain. stupid cold.

very pretty tho.

then met amanda and others by accident for dinner.

then packed. oh, long story and others have arrived for film so shall go.
more tomorrow -- possibly. promise neither same time, tho same place is likely.

After my first last class!

oh joy of joys. it is done. class was great, minus a few rather dull presentations, but ours went brilliantly, i got over 90 on my exam and we gave prof. ntiasare a christmas card and copperbelt bangle. he said to keep in touch! that's right. there's a king who wants to keep in touch with me! hehe. i'm chuffed.

and i'm goin home in just over 3 weeks! to auckland, in four weeks i'll be back in chch!

just 30 pages of good interesting and succinct writing to do in the next ten days. then i'm sweet. free to be frivolous for a week - undoubtedly involving a spot of shopping, an awful lot of movies and reading, perhaps even some writing, inspired by my sudden freedom. hope so anyway. sounds good. would bode for a very productive new year. and with all that wonderful, juicy free time in january...

ooh yay
[bouncing in chair, unfortunately in cafe, uninentionally drawing attention to self from pool players and waiter sweeping floor...]

so better get on with those papers. icky poo. but watching nz tv1 news online. yay for technology i say. (and for ismail)
that cricketer jumped real high.
okay, getting distracted. and watching lenno on the cafe tv too so abundance of distraction.

don't blame me

blame the lame connection in my room. havent updated in ages. so... another catch up session. might just pull the photos from file as that's so much easier and maybe come back to this caf after class, with time and joy from successful presentation, and blog with actual words... things to anticipate. i'm breathless too. could be the yummy strawberry smoothie, the straw between my lips leads to... mmm.

pretty gingerbread house i made at our final navs girls study group. tastes good too!

what to do over thanksgiving weekend:

eat

sleep

movies

shopping

go to deadwood, south dakota, so brittany's dad can hop casino's with his brother in law while we eat crab legs and dress up like old fashioned hookers... good times.

seeing the road is such a luxury - riding back from thanksgiving

little bit chilly. nice icicles hanging from the rafters...

boys at the party...
girls at the party...
i'm not the only weirdo taking photos.

early next morning on road to nebraska - visiting krystal's family in scotsbluff for the day.