Wednesday, June 24, 2009

What the?

Read this article - It's not murder, honestly! It's manslaughter, I didn't mean to stab her 216 times!

Are they going for the insanity plea or something? Cos that's definitely insane!

NB: I've just reread the article and it's been changed since when I first read it. The original wording that I read is:

"The man accused of the murder of Dunedin student Sophie Elliot has admitted killing her but denied murder.

Clayton Robert Weatherston pleaded "not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter" at the start of his trial for the murder of Sophie Elliott, in the High Court at Christchurch today.

Weatherson, 33, is accused of stabbing his 21-year-old girlfriend 216 times in an attack at her Dunedin home on January 9 last year."

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Happy Birthday Chrissy!

Today is my wonderful niece Chrissys 16th birthday. It really doesn't feel like 16 years. I should point out the picture is from Christmas a couple of years back now but it's her surrounded in presents which I'm hoping will happen today as well! She is such a cool girl in so many ways.
Love you heaps Chrissy!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Cross Stitch

Over the weekend I went out to Coalgate and spent the night with Deb and family. It was so nice and relaxing and one of the things that happened is that I rediscovered my love of cross stitch. I made the mistake of going on Trade Me to see what was available and ended up buying 3 yesterday. Here's what I got:

Will be 45cm x 10 cm when finished

Will be 41cm x 18 cm when finished

Will be 16cm x 10 cm when finished

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Asia Trip Plan

So last week Tahu and I bought our flights to Asia. It's so exciting to have it actually happening and to not being going on my own now is even better. Thought I'd tell you (by you I mean you, the one reader I possibly don't even have now!) what the plan is.

On September 10th I fly to Bangkok, Thailand and then on the 11th I go to Phnom Penh in Cambodia to meet up with Dr Annie Chen Green. We then spend the next nearly 3 weeks doing a variety of work in prisons, slums and with other charitys. I will be doing some basic nursing with Annie and also some IT work such as running some beginners classes for Microsoft Office, setting up Skype for people so they can have more contact with people from home and also setting up a database or 2 for charities that require it. The first one we have done is for CTAP which is an organisation that does dentistry work for those who can't afford it and really need it, for example those in prison.

On the 29th of September I fly back to Bangkok and meet Tahu there. We spend the next few days doing things like going to the Bridge over the River Kwai, the floating markets, the tiger sanctuary and of course shopping. On the 4th of October we fly to India where we are met by a tour operator who has created a tour for us. We spend the next 15 days going through India (Taj Mahal of course), Nepal (including flying up to see Mt Everest) and Tibet. On the 17th of October we leave Tibet and get on a train that takes us over a few days to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors and then up to Beijing for 4 nights. There we will see things like the Great Wall, Forbidden Kingdom and (if I have my way) the Beijing Zoo. On the 24th of October we fly over to Tokyo, Japan for another 4 nights and then on to Melbourne for a few days with our families and mates. After that it's back to Christchurch, work and recovering!

There's still so much to plan and organise but that's part of the fun. I bought a beautiful new camera (Canon SX10 if anyone is interested) and have done the fundraiser jump already, also had all my leave confirmed and I have my plan tickets. It feels like it is all suddenly happening even though I've been talking about and planning this for so long. Will be amazing though.

If anyone has any suggestions of things to do in the places we're going we would love to hear about them! Also recommendations for places to stay.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Bungy Jump Fundraiser!

Yes I did it. Was actually really scary but felt worth it. We raised about $600 too so worth it! 3 of us jumped myself, my workmate Jackie and my flatmate Heather.

This is before...


This is during....

This is after...