Neglected much?
Yeah... uhhh, sorry about that. I blame twitter actually. Why bother blogging when you can just pick up your phone and tap out what ever's on your mind at the time?
Anyway, I think this blog's pretty much done. If you have the burning urge to keep up with my mundane mutterings, follow me on twitter -
http://twitter.com/CaroNZ, and flick me a DM to say hi. I'm also on facebook somewhere - but not much these days.
Ofcourse, sometimes there are things I need to say that just won't fit in one tweet, so the blog will remain open for intermittent soapboxery, but otherwise it's sayoonara from me, aufwiedersehn (sp?), au revoir, laters mate.
C
Stop Childhood Racism
I've just finished reading a sad story about an 11 year old asian girl who was being taunted on the bus about her ethnicity. You can read about it here also:
http://livingmyotherlife.com/2008/11/25/protecting-my-childs-innocence/ (thanks to
Mike for the tip). This story in particular strikes a chord with me because it's very similar to a personal experience of mine when I was a child that I thought I would share.
When I was 7 or 8, I was riding my bike around the neighbourhood. A boy from a younger class at my school rode up along side me and started a long string of taunts. He called me a white n*gger. He told me to "go home". He told me I was poisoning the neighbourhood. He started sing-songing his words, following me the entire way as I cycled as fast as I could to get home, where I would be safe from his taunts.
Being not older than 6 or 7 himself, he can't have thought up all that hate by himself, and must have been repeating it from somewhere. As I had never heard those words at school, or anywhere else, it was believed that the racism might have come from his parents.
His mother was a teacher at my school, and not long after the incident, gave birth to a child afflicted with Down Syndrome. If indeed it was Mr and/or Mrs X that planted the seed of racism, I'll bet they were quick to yank it to prevent any possible nastiness towards her youngest son.
I still remember the name of this boy.
I wonder if he remembers that day at all.
I do. I always will.
Snow, Gadgetry, Alcohol, Games
That about sums up the weekend I had. A quick (4.5 hour) drive down to Ohakune for a weekend of Snowboarding, Drinking, and Games. "Where's the gadgetry" you ask?
My shiny pretty new iPhone.
(queue angel music, and rays of sunlight beaming down)
I could go on and on about how cool it is, but I'm sure you've already read that from other people. I am about a month late on the bandwagon afterall. Instead, I'll put up some pics from my iPhone :D
And... the requisite screenie...
Intelligence...
... is not driving to Whangarei in the middle of "the worst storm in decades".
Here are some reasons why:
Fine Dining - what is it?
Ok, this is just a quick one.
I'm involved in a discussion via email with some friends over "fine dining". My friend wants to spend a great deal of money on a dinner with his girlfriend at one of several restaurants listed on cuisine.co.nz as "fine dining restaurants", just to get the "fine dining" experience.
Now, I've been to my fair share of supposedly "fine dining" restaurants, and my take is that New Zealand wouldn't know fine dining if it picked up the salad fork and water glass and bashed itself over the head with them.
So my question to anyone that cares is, what makes fine dining? Is it the amount of cutlery at each place setting? Is it the price? Is it the quality of the food? Is it the food size to plate size ratio? And has anyone experienced
true silver service in any restaurant in New Zealand?
I might not have experienced true silver service fine dining yet, but I can tell you what does not make fine dining, and that is having Lindauer
anywhere on the wine list, and making Moët the most expensive champagne available.
