.

the fire alarm went off in my building at 5:30 in the morning yesterday. i was tres unamusant.

but one of my new flatmates has moved in! her name is Paulien, and she's Dutch. she actually studies at the university in the town Nath is from of all small worlds. she's incredibly sweet. i feel kind of bad for leaving for Aux for the next few days, but perhaps another one of our flatmates will move in soon.

and I spent last night at Ina and Chang's flat. i taught Chang how to make friiiied chick'n, which he did a MARVELOUS job with. good on you, Chang. and i saw Ina's movie i was an extra in=FANTASTIC. i'm so proud of you, Ina-bina!

i am the party goddess

i threw a surprise birthday party for chang tonight. ina and mima bought me all the groceries and decorations that i asked for, and then i spent the day cooking and cleaning for the night. the surprise was pulled off perfectly, actually, and the party was a blast...we played a drinking game called "three kings" and people fiddled around with my music to put together party music, and all the food i made got eaten, save for a few pieces of cake.

most importantly, though, chang had a wonderful surprise and it made him and ina happy, which makes me happy. so it was a fantastic night, despite the millions of dishes i have to do, and all the cleaning that must take place tomorrow. oh well, it was totally worth it.

i said goodbye to kimbrough tonight, and tomorrow night will be the first night i ever have completly alone in the flat, as annie and nath are heading to australia, mateja is in the south island, the boys have moved out, lena will be moving out, and sascha is leaving for summer school at a little school called HARVARD. it's so surreal that the semester is done now. i really can't believe it.

edit on the grade front

the B i reported on my Chinese test was only the grade for my 10% Oral Final. i got an A- on my Written Final, worth 35% of my grade. oh, how i RULE.

A Semester is almost over...so close i can taste it....

assignments, finals and what-not

bounced thru my History final, so yay no more NZ History! i feel pretty good about it.

so thinking about my future again (and the far future to boot), i'm pretty sure i'll be able to graduate from NAU totally on time...just means i'm gonna have to load up my schedule with at least two 18 credit semesters and a 16 credit sememster (and that's if my Philosophy class transfers...if not, i'll have two 18s and a 19). 'course i could always take a winter or summer online class, but if i'm taking 18 or 19 credit hours in a sememster, i'll likely be pretty damned burnt out by the time winter or summer breaks come 'round.

buh-dum bum.

i also finally picked up all my assignments from the end of the sememster. i got a B- on my Philosophy quiz, a B on my Chinese final exam and a B+ on my History term paper. woo woo.

only 8%? and I'm already 20?

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

huh. that intimidates me. i have a lot of work to do, apparently. too much grey there for my taste.

oh, by the way, i got the padded envelope right after i talked to you bums. thanks for the stuff! damn nz post, though...grrr....Haaaaaaate.

if The Plague returns, i'll be MOST put out.

on a less funny note, my throat hurts. the last time it hurt like this, i got sick. Haaaaaate. i will be MOST unimpressed if i get sick. only naturally, i'm out of Airborne, and my damn package has yet to arrive with new Airborne in it. Haaaaate.

hup hup Holland!!

because i have a flatmate who cares infinanitily more about soccer than practicallity, we woke up annie's boyfriend so we could watch the Holland vs. Serbia-Montenegro FIFA game at one am. heh, Holland won, too, which gives us a reason why we're up this late dressed in orange, and wearing hats with gigatic soccer balls on them. heh, again, i say.

blast...

me and ina, me immitating her famous "crazy face"

ina's film was robbed!

for the 48-hour film festival, hundreds of teams around nz made short films within a 48 hour time frame. that's it, two days, and one second is too late to submit a film after the deadline. my daaaahling ina-bina made a GREAT film under crazy stress. i'm so proud of her for getting it in, and following the rules so well, which one of them was that a mirror had to be a notable prop. 'course some films copped out on this by having the "guy-looking-pensive-in-the-mirror" or a car mirror as their prop...

ina's group had the mirror tell the story, practically, as a real class way of showing a really well-shot "sex" scene. and the quotes are cause they had clothes on, which ina specifically points out everytime. i guess you might have to see it to get what i mean, but it was cool.

the winner of the "best use of prop" at the hamilton finals? a group who broke a mirror when the main character slips on a skateboard, sending it hurtling into the mirror.

l-a-m-e. and i swear i'm not just being defensive. that should have gone to ina's group. arg.

nevertheless, it was fun watching all the films. and i got free beer and snackies. score! ina walked away happy, so that was all that mattered.

i'm going to miss her.

today

so i'm officially done with chinese 101! yay! took my last test today, and i'm pretty confident i passed, but i have no clue as to an actual guess, and honestly, i won't even guess. we'll see when i get my marks in a few weeks.

i went to the optomotrist and within five minutes of me sitting down, she told me my eyes hated my contacts and they were drying out because of them. ironically, i'd changed contacts right before i got down here to a more breathable kind. but climate changes and all that make for no goodness for my poor little eyes, which usually look so bloodshot i've been asked on more than one occasion if i've been smoking weed. so she's got me on drops and we're going to trial some of the newest kinds on the market. is it weird that i think my eye doctor is this cool?

anyway, i went to the StudVille mid-winter dinner, which was pretty uneventful, save for the end when poor nathalie broke down crying, thinking about everyone leaving, plus news that she didn't get an interview for a job she REALLY wanted. it's going to be an emotional next few weeks. i can't believe it's just going to be the two of us soon...

lastly, i went to a performance of "The Laramie Project" that the theatre studies department put on. i was suitably impressed. okay, i was put off by how the ones who attempted american accents did southern ones, when they should have been speaking in my own rocky mountain non-accent, but they did a good job of it.

do i have no soul for crying during the performance during the vigil scene, but not with nathalie? after all, i love my friends here. i just haven't been able to cry for them yet. i know i will, though.