15. Your favourite blogs.

14. Your earliest memory.

I can't really think of a specific 'first memory'. I remember things I used to do as a kid- 'feeding' my soft toys with spoons and empty yoghurt pottles, creating mansions for Barbie dolls with my sister using every accessory we had, and coffee tables and cardboard boxes to create different floors. I don't remember how old I was when I started doing those things.

I remember being scared of getting in trouble at my first year of primary school. I remember my Dad (an avid model car collector) giving me a little yellow convertible (I think it was a Mercedes) for my 3rd birthday. I remember unwrapping an Esméralda Barbie-like doll at a birthday or Christmas, and being so happy because I'd dreamed of having one for months (probably weeks, who knows) but I don't know how old I was then. I remember finding my aunt's cat with a live baby rabbit on their farm, and 'rescuing' it- it wasn't until several years later that I realised it probably didn't survive long after we left for home, being a big time pest and all.

I remember when our golden Labrador Shadow had eleven puppies, and we were left with five of them to raise until they were homed. I remember Mum explaining to me how Shadow got pregnant and being disgusted, but didn't make the connection for a few years that humans reproduce in the same manner.

I remember being too short to reach a fabric wall hanging kind of like this, and Dad convincing my sister and I that if your peeked around the bonnet you could see her face. I remember going along with my cousin in telling my sister that there was a secret staircase in my wardrobe, then shutting her in there. I remember my little sister starting school, and thinking to myself how tiny her hands were when we walked to Mum's car at the end of the day (I would have only been seven myself).

My parents and I, my teddy bear Hans and I (he now looks like this), my little sister Emily and I, me being typically squinty and frizzy-haired.

13. Somewhere you’d like to visit.

As I said in a recent post, I am absolutely dying to visit the USA. I've always had a thing about New York City because it just looks so unlike anywhere I've ever been. But really I want to go absolutely anywhere; the big touristy cities and attractions, middle-of-nowhere hick towns, highways and dirt roads and mountains and everywhere! For the above picture, I did what I often do on lazy Sunday afternoons- dropped myself into random blue streets in random outlined states on Google Maps. So far I've never managed to Streetview anywhere in the USA that doesn't look like somewhere I would like to see.

The lovely Caitlin commented on that recent post that I'm probably not missing much having not yet been to the USA, and that New Zealand looks so pretty. And she's right, I know that, New Zealand is a beautiful place. But I know there are quite a few Americans who read this blog (largely because I mostly read American blogs myself) so I just thought I'd attempt to explain why the hell I'm so eager to visit somewhere which is just home to so many of you.

Growing up in New Zealand is all I've ever known. I only left the country for the first time last year, and that was for a week-long trip to our neighbour Australia (three hour flight). According to Wikipedia, 90% of the world's population live in the Northern Hemisphere, so even allowing for the possibility of Wikimisinformation, there's not a huge amount of people living down on this half of the planet, and there's a significant amount of ocean between each land mass. New Zealand is seriously isolated, and traveling further away from the country takes a lot more planning and funding than driving across a border.

As you're hopefully aware, especially following my previous post, Southern Hemisphere seasons are opposite to the Northern Hemisphere. It's winter here now, and when Christmas rolls around it'll be heating up into summer (according to the calendar, anyway). Christmas means barbeques and beaches and sunburn time in New Zealand, and yet our Christmas stores are full of snowflakes and snowmen and icicle lights. We play all the universal carols about hot dinners and cold snow, often while sweat is rolling down both our foreheads and beer bottles.

I grew up watching Postman Pat and Thomas the Tank Engine, Barney the Dinosaur and Disney films, and later Coronation Street, Friends, and a hundred other examples of imported entertainment. Even if all the kids in my class were speaking with a mumbly Kiwi accent like myself, the majority of characters on screen were British, American, occasionally Australian. We have locally produced TV shows and films too of course, but to me they were definitely the exception growing up. From what I've observed, most New Zealand kids (girls, anyway) go through a phase during adolescence of trying to imitate American accents. We start idolising the high school teenagers we see in our entertainment, and of course we start wanting to speak like them too. American accents are definitely the 'norm' on screen, and we've come to cringe on the rare occasion a New Zealand actor opens their mouth. In everyday life, you don't notice the accents of those around you, but for some reason when you filter a local with pixels, their voice becomes so embarrassing.

Of course the benefit of having so much overseas influence is that New Zealanders are pretty knowledgeable about the world. Maybe our idea of 'overseas' has a brilliant Hollywood glean, but primary school children can point out different continents on a globe, and we all have a pretty decent knowledge about who-comes-from-where. With a population of around four million people and a recorded human history going back only a few hundred years, our education system would get very boring very quickly if we kept to learning about the happenings within our little islands. (I could launch into the impact of our export economy, but I don't want to bore you further, nor show my relative ignorance about business).

I'm generalising a lot here, of course I am. But the older I get the more people I know who are venturing off overseas, and nothing gets peers envious like a Facebook announcement about a trip to the USA, nothing. * What I can't really explain is why America appeals to me so much more than Europe or Asia or anywhere else- I'd love to go all over the world too of course, but other countries just don't make my eyes glaze over for daydreaming in quite the same way.

In summary, I'd compare my feelings about the USA to loving a famous actor who has played the same character for a long time. You've seen them on screen so often you feel like you know them, and coming face to face with them becomes the ultimate dream. You know they might look a little less stunning in person without the airbrushing and stage make up, and maybe they'd even be a total jerk and disappoint you completely. But that doesn't make you want to meet them any less.

* On that note, my friend Renee is currently on an amazing adventure overseas, and I'm insanely jealous. If you're curious to read her (amusing, I promise) thoughts on a city (possibly) near you, go ahead and follow her blog now. I'm not totally sure about her itinerary, but she's currently in the USA, and eventually she'll end up in Scotland.

If you're interested, there's also a great blog on our local news website from a Kiwi living in Boston, that you can read here.

12. Bullet your whole day.

Sorry to disappoint... probably the most exciting day of my whole week and it's still not much to write about. Friday 12 August

• 0400 First alarm went off.
• 0500 I actually managed to get out of bed and feed Wallace.
• 0510 Quick shower, got dressed, grabbed my bag.
• 0530 Walked to work.
• 0600 Turned on my computer, cleared emails, opened up all the programmes I'd need.
• 0610 Work.
• 0800 Headed to the supermarket for an energy drink and food.
• 0810 Work.
• 1030 Lunch break, also known as cigarette and sandwich sheltered from rain in Civic Square.
• 1100 Work.
• 1430 Finished work, walked home in the rain.
• 1500 Fed Wallace.
• 1510 Miscellaneous computer activities.
• 1700 Watched Deal or No Deal.
• 1730 Watched Home & Away.
• 1800 Shower, make up, dressed.
• 1900 Watched Shortland Street.
• 1930 Went to buy a bottle of wine, then to Charlie's work (still raining).
• 2000 Walked with Charlie and two of his friends to a party in town.
• 0030 Walked home... via Burger King haha.

11. Put your iPod on shuffle and write 10 songs that pop up.

Okay so I've cheated ever so slightly on this one, because I have far more Rufus Wainwright on my iPod than any other musician, so his songs come up an awful lot. So these are the first 10 that played on shuffle by artists other than him. Although technically the question doesn't even specify that it needs to be the first 10 sooo... whatever.

1. Out of Reach - Loudon Wainwright III
2. Set the Fire to the Third Bar - Snow Patrol
3. Last Call - Kanye West
4. The Last Time - Rolling Stones
5. I Feel My Stuff - Brian Eno & David Byrne
6. Operate - Peaches
7. Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn - Hellogoodbye
8. Shoebox - Kate Miller-Heidke
9. In the Sun - She & Him
10. Rosary - Marvey King

10. Write 5 messages to 5 different people without using names.

I tried writing answers for this question, honestly I did. It just didn't work out. I'm sorry.

9. Tattoos. If you have one, post it and its story. If not, what do you want?

I have two tattoos, both done here in Wellington, both technically incomplete. My thigh was done by Kev Dunne when he was at Tattoo City last year, and my arm was done by Simon Morse at ALC earlier this year.

They don't have 'stories', as such. The cat was done freehand from a photo of my old cat Vodie, and the planes were drawn up by Simon. I love cats, I love planes. The cat has a bit of significance to me that you can read about here, but like a lot of non-tattooed people I've encountered I took it way too seriously when I got my first one. I definitely plan to get more in the future- above the knee on my legs, above the elbow on my arms, maybe my back once I've run out of space. I want to stick to places I can easily cover until I'm considerably older, and have decided where my working life is heading. I love them both, and to be honest the only thing I wish is that I could look at them myself more often!

8. A show you thought you wouldn't like, but you did.

Please excuse the shakes and funny angle- I could not be bothered setting up my tripod.

7. What you wear to bed.

I didn't know how to answer this one tactfully.

Image source.

6. Write 30 interesting facts about yourself.

30 interesting facts! You tricky bastard question-writer. I'll try, but no promises.

1. I was born on Wednesday 17 May 1989. I just Googled that date, and according to IMDb, Audrey Hepburn was on Good Morning America that day. We're not off to an interesting start.
2. If I were a bit more obnoxious, my life goal would be to have the 1989 entry on this Wikipedia page. I have never thought so much about my birthday before, let's move on.
3. I am an appalling singer. I auditioned for the choir at my primary school, and didn't get in.
4. When I was a kid, I bit my fingernails like crazy. But didn't eat them cause that's disgusting. Haha. My Mum's friend told me any tiny bits of fingernails I swallowed would make a giant fingernail in my stomach, and that scared me for a while. When I quit biting my nails before I started high school, I stopped cold turkey- just told myself to stop, and did. Now I'm at the other extreme where I forget to cut them, and I end up with long unmanicured claws. Pretty attractive.
5. This is a photo of me taken last night. I quite like it but didn't know where to put it.
6. I've never had a filling... but then again I haven't been to the dentist since I turned 18 (the age free dental care ends in NZ).
7. I want to visit the USA so, so badly. But at the same time I can't even save money for a domestic flight. Sometimes I spend a couple of hours randomly clicking US states and dropping myself into Street View. I remember a Baby-Sitters Club book which says Mary-Anne has a crush on New York City- pretty sure I have a crush on the entire nation.
8. I am a pretty good speller, except for when it comes to the word 'necessary'.
9. I lived in the same house until I moved out of home at 17 years old.
10. Since then, I have moved house nine times.
11. I have not yet mastered chopsticks. It's a little embarrassing.
12. The most famous person I have met is Rufus Wainwright.
13. I've seen 2/3 of my favourite musicians in concert (Rufus Wainwright and David Byrne). Therefore Kate Miller-Heidke needs to come to New Zealand.
14. The only food I can think of that I really dislike is onion. But in saying that, I will always have it at a sausage sizzle.
15. The first movie I remember seeing at a cinema was The Lion King, with my Dad at Masterton's Regent 3 Cinemas.
16. However, the movie from my childhood I remember going to most clearly was The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, with my Dad and little sister Emily. Dad tricked us by saying we were going to a church and we were dragged along with a lot of protesting!
17. My first celebrity crush was Zac Hanson. He looked like this at the time.
18. I don't have a driving license, and I don't have any plans to get one in the near future.
19. I estimate that I've spent less than a year throughout my whole life living without a pet of some kind.
20. I personally think chocolate tastes better than skinny feels.
21. We have several images of semi-to-fully-naked chicks in our house. I never realised quite how many until recent guests pointed it out.
22. Apart from living things, the first thing I'd rescue if our house was burning is my teddy bear Hans. When I was little I probably had close to 100 soft toys (stuffed animals/whatever). I was absolutely crazy about them, and was totally certain that I would never be able to give them up, and I'd have them forever. I do still have eight of them in my house today, and there are quite a few in boxes full of junk at my parent's house that I need to sort through, but many have been given away or donated to op shops. My child-self would be horrified.
23. A couple of weeks ago someone was surprised to discover Emily and I are sisters, for the first time ever. Most of the time people joke about us being twins (there's a two-year age gap). Turns out I'm actually quite sad when people think we don't look alike. (Also, Facebook's facial recognition often tries to tag Emily in photos of my face).
24. I just remembered that when I was around 14 years old, I won tickets for me and about five friends to a Elemeno P (NZ band) concert at the local town hall. The concert sold around 50 tickets, no exaggeration. There was two rows of people along the front of the stage, and that was it. I am scraping the barrel here.
25. I love tabby cats.
26. I started training to be a flight attendant after I left high school, but ended up dropping out due to my AS and other health reasons. I wish I had been capable of completing the course and going for a job, and when I started Humira part of me did consider pursuing it again. But I decided to get tattooed instead haha.
27. I'm currently listening to Manic Street Preachers' This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours.
28. I am not looking forward to the Rugby World Cup next month. I'll try to be more enthusiastic though.
29. I hate clothes shopping. Especially bra shopping. But I like nice clothes and pretty bras. Conundrum.
30. I just scooted across the lounge on the computer chair to get a glass of Pepsi (I prefer Coke) so as not to boot off Wallace who is sitting on my knee. Now he's chewing the clip on the headphone cord.

5. Your three favorite books and why.

I planned to answer this question in a video, and even filmed it a couple of days ago. Then I watched it back and realised I'd said the complete wrong title for one of the books I'd held up. Idiot. I've had my friend Tara staying with me for the last couple of nights, and we all ended up going to town last night so I haven't felt the best today.

Instead I've changed the books for this question, since I already did a post on my favourite books which you can find here, and just written briefly about each. The three books in this post are my favourites that are visually beautiful.

Days with my Father by Phillip Toledano.
Fortunately for both you and me, I don't need to write much about this one at all, because you can read the entire book online for free here, and I highly recommend that you do so (it's mostly photographs, so only takes ten minutes or so). However I warn you that you probably do not want to read it at work, nor if you're wearing any eye make up that you don't want smudged. Since I bought a copy, I've showed it to several people and every single one has cried. It's so, so beautiful but my goodness it chokes you up.

The Sinatra Treasures by Charles Pignone.
My parents bought me this book as a birthday gift a few years ago. Between its pages are pockets containing reproductions of Frank Sinatra photos, tickets, fliers, letters etc. with the detailed story behind each item. I actually have a couple of other Sinatra books, including one other scrapbook-style one, but this is far and away the best. If you like Sinatra then you will definitely appreciate this book.

30,000 Years of Art.
I got this insanely heavy Phaidon book as my leaving present from my last job, and it's amaaazing. It contains hundreds of images of artworks, and also has a detailed timeline of art periods at the back. It mostly sits carefully in my bookshelf to keep it safe, and is definitely a book to treasure- maybe some day I'll be comfortable sitting it on a coffee table but at the moment I'm way too paranoid it'll get damaged!

4. Your views on religion.

Another blehhh question!

Personally, I'm not religious. I don't believe in any kind of god. But I understand why people do.

I think that when a person dies, they stop existing. But I totally understand the comfort that believers get from spirits and the afterlife. I just can't believe it myself.

There are religious views that make me roll my eyes or facepalm or sometimes even make me angry, but at the same time I don't really know that much about different religious belief systems, so I do my best not to be too judgmental.

Basically, religion doesn't play any significant part in my life at all so my views are kind of non-existent. Sorry! Boring.

3. Weird things you do when you’re alone.

Hey, check it out- it's the back of my head. Toi Poneke Arts Centre just uploaded some photos to their Facebook page, and weirdly I didn't even need to enlarge the thumbnail and see the bag strap to know it was my head... too much time over the years spent juggling two mirrors and perfecting ponytails, perhaps? Anyway, it was taken at the TRACE exhibition opening, where I didn't even notice a photographer. It's a pretty neat photo I have to say.

For the third day of my 30 day blog challenge I need to list weird things I do when alone, which is proving to be rather challenging. I can't really think of anything particularly weird that I do alone.

I talk to Wallace- but I do that no matter who's around. And I doubt any pet owner in the world would find that weird.

I wander around with my tripod and take photographs of myself. That's a little weird I guess, though not when I'm writing to an audience containing a large number of fellow bloggers. Perfectly normal behaviour.

A few weekends ago I was home alone and did half an hour of dance videos each day from this YouTube channel. It was actually really fun, and probably something I should do more regularly. This one isn't terribly weird either, unless you've actually seen my attempts at dancing. I can't even do a rhythmical grapevine anymore.

Again, I wish I'd read the questions a little more carefully before I began, because this post has been a little bit lame!

Image source.

2. Where you'd like to be in 10 years.

Good grief... I've worked out how to change the preview thumbnail thingy, but apparently it can take up to 36 hours for the image to actually change. Oh well!

1. Three things that irritate you about people.

Argh, why can I never get a normal looking frame for the preview! I recorded this last night just before heading out. Excuse the occasional swear word- I tried to record again without swearing but kept messing up and making stupid faces...

Starting tomorrow.

1. Three things that irritate you about people.
2. Where you’d like to be in 10 years.
3. Weird things you do when you’re alone.
4. Your views on religion.
5. Your three favorite books and why.
6. Write 30 interesting facts about yourself.
7. What you wear to bed.
8. A show you thought you wouldn’t like, but you did.
9. Tattoos. If you have one, post it and it’s story. If not, what do you want?
10. Write 5 messages to 5 different people without using names.
11. Put your iPod on shuffle and write 10 songs that pop up.
12. Bullet your whole day.
13. Somewhere you’d like to move or visit.
14. Your earliest memory.
15. Your favorite blogs.
16. Talk about your family.
17. Things that make you instantly happy.
18. Name the thing you are scared of most.
19. You favorite music.
20. How important you think education is.
21. One of your favorite shows.
22. The last movie you saw in theatres.
23. Give pictures of five guys who are famous who you find attractive.
24. Your favorite movie and what it’s about.
25. Talk about your siblings.
26. Your first celebrity crush.
27. The last person who texted you.
28. Five things within touching distance of you right now.
29. Someone's Facebook status you can always count on to annoy you.
30. List everything in your purse right now.

Source.

15/30 Bad photos of stuff I have not yet packed

Owl cup I store make up brushes in.

Model aeroplanes.

Aeroplane mobile.

My teddy bear, Hans.

My pink PJ pants. And a dirty mirror.

A bunch of pretty dresses I do not wear nearly enough.

Lamps.

Policeman magnet.

Wallace.

12/30 Packing Has Begun

It has been several days since I last updated you on my 30-day-challenge progress! But I have achieved quite a lot. Not particularly exciting I'm afraid, but that's my fault for being lazy and choosing a pretty boring topic to record!

I've taken almost all of our framed pictures and posters off the walls, so it's looking very bland in here now! I've packed up quite a lot of stuff in the lounge, thrown away probably half of my art supplies, and have thrown away all our old toiletries from the bathroom, so the biggest jobs left now are packing all our clothes in the bedroom, packing all our kitchen ware... and, of course, actually moving. Squeak!

PS: Yes, eagle-eyes, that is a The Unicorn Club book peeking out of a box in the bottom picture... Sweet Valley for life.

3/30 The New Place

Correct- there is no day two. Hey, this challenge is one without oppressive rules, remember, I can skip whatever days I like! It's still a little to early to begin packing up our apartment, so today I'll tell you about our new residence.

We are moving into a three bedroom flat. The decor is pretty retro, including highly sought-after features such as ruddy brown carpet on some of the lounge's vertical surfaces- Wallace is going to have a freaking ball. Uh-oh. Despite this generous dose of ugly, I am in love with our soon-to-be home. The primary reason for that is all the space we are going to have! The lounge and kitchen are at least twice the size they appear in the photos below... and did I mention three bedrooms? Since Charlie and I 'live in sin', as my aunt (jokingly) likes to say, Charlie and I will have one bedroom and Matt will have another. Which leaves one room left over for...

...my new art space! [mentally insert lots of extra exclamation marks and ones here... I don't want my blog to look juvenile or anything...] The boys have very generously allowed me to set up the smallest bedroom which is lovely, white and sunny, with all my supplies... yes, I am going crazy with excitement. This will mean the lounge will probably turn into a man-den fairly quickly but I am sooo not bothered.

1/30 Apartment Tour

Today I am beginning Faute De Mieux's 30 Day Blog Challenge. The best part about it is that basically there are no rules, but it's a great way for a bunch of people to get shit done. Click here to see others who are taking part, and here to read the original post on it.

My own personal challenge isn't really something I can fail at, but it's still going to be a mission to get done... As I mentioned, we are moving house next month, so my 30 Days will be a documentation of packing our apartment, moving, and setting up in our new place. We'll see where that takes us on this blogging journey!

I thought I'd start with this video tour of where Charlie and I currently live. We have been here a year now and it's been really fantastic- I'm going to be a bit sad about leaving I think. At the start of 2010 year I was flatting after living by myself, and was really hoping to find an apartment on my own again. I was also thinking about how great it would be to live with Charlie, but I wasn't going to suggest that. Luckily, he did. We got this place pretty quickly, after I hit refresh on TradeMe immediately after it was listed. The apartment happened to be right next to where I was working at the time so it was super convenient, but it's right in the CBD so has also been great for my current job and Charlie's.

I would say the only think I don't like about this apartment is the concrete walls- it takes a lot of adhesive to get posters to stay up, and you can forget about hanging most framed pictures! Even 3M hooks, applied following their instructions exactly, fall off after a day or two.