alkaline-kiwi's blog

So tomorrow marks the start of NaNoWriMo 2010 (and I'll be starting at midnight!). I'm hosting the kickoff party at my apartment tonight then we're heading across the road to Esquires Hobson Street just before midnight to start our frantic novelling session!

Expect more blog posts about NaNoWriMo from me this month, plus I still need to finish 30 Days Of Me.. bad blogger!

Something you crave for a lot

Well there's quite a lot of things, some being similar to what Erik posted when he did this topic. Generally what I want is to be happy and hopefully for others to be happy as well.
A few other things being

1. To be good at what I do.
   
2. Right about now I crave something to eat.. I find most of my immediate cravings revolve around food.. and it isn't always junk food either
3. Entertainment
   
4. Hugs
5. To be able to focus more.. I tend to get distracted very easily
   

What makes you different from everyone else

Hmm that's a bit of a tough one.. I think that it is more a combination of my different traits and interests that makes me unique.
Still.. I think some of my defining traits and interests are my love of books, my faith and my sense of humour.

A picture of something that makes you happy

This is a small part of my book collection (is very disorganised.. obviously I have not yet gotten around to organising my shelves.)
The written word is such a big part of my life and I adore reading. Curling up with a good book is my idea of bliss (bonus points if there is a purring cat beside me, I have chocolate or a snack and drink).
I get a lot of books secondhand.. my favourite method of acquiring books is through BookCrossing.. I love sharing books, passing them on and releasing them into the wild. Generally once I have read a book I will pass it on through BookCrossing unless it is one I want to keep hold of.. but even those I will lend to trustworthy friends.
I find it easier to name favourite genres than to name favourite authors or even books. I read a lot of travel writing, books about animals (especially cats), oddball non-fiction, GLBTQ fiction & non-fiction, YA fiction and books related to music.

Someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future


Not the best photo of me but it just looks so adorable.
The person I see myself marrying would be the guy who's giving me the kiss, my darling Erik.
I remember Erik a little from high school but I don't think we really talked then.. it wasn't until I started going out with one of Erik's friends when I finished high school that I got to know Erik.
We lost contact when Erik moved up to Auckland but it just so happened that Erik's father would come into my work (when I worked at the art gallery in Greymouth) and Erik was down for a holiday. Erik came into see me, we hit it off and started a long distance relationship.
Fast forward about 6 months after we started dating and I moved up to Auckland to live with Erik. Will be 3 years in January that we've been together for.

We understand each other fairly well and we can joke about different things. He's a sweetie, huggable and he gets along well with my friends and family.
I consider him my best friend (along with Jay of course).

Nicknames you have; why do you have them

I don't really have that many nicknames. The one that most people that call me by a nickname call me is Kirst.. which is pretty self explanatory.. my name but without the Y.
One of my Aunts (who has read this blog before.. you know who you are) and my cousin call me Kirt.. why, I'm not too sure.

Then there's the usual terms of endearment I get from parents or Erik, which don't really count as nicknames.

My stepdad has some creative nicknames for me: fridge phantom and big footed kitchen vulture are the two that I can remember.

Plans/dreams/goals you have

My far out crazy dream is to run a literary themed backpackers or B&B one day. I'm not sure if I will ever do it, I'm not particularly business savvy at all. Still it is a dream.
Plans and goals.. well my rooftop garden being successful is a medium term goal with the long term one being that I keep it up.
I guess another dream/goal/plan is to be a published writer, even it is an article somewhere. It is something I haven't really worked much towards so that's another plan. Finish things I start.

I plan to get married though not sure if I want kids (I do want pets so when we move elsewhere we will be parents to fur babies)

There's some more.. read more books, clear my TBR piles, get organised and get fit. Also to be a better cook and learn to bake more.

Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why

Hmm this is an interesting question. By switching lives is it just taking the place of someone else or are we talking full body swap?
I'm not sure who I would like to switch places with for one day.. maybe Jay as her job seems so interesting and fun.
If we are talking full body swap maybe being a guy for one day would be an interesting experience.

Another picture of yourself


From April last year. I have no idea who the hat belongs to but I find this photo quite amusing.

Put your iPod on shuffle: First 10 songs that play

Ooh I do enjoy music ones. OK here goes

1. This Year's Love by David Gray
   This is from Erik's CD collection, I do enjoy some David Gray.. nice mellowing music (which I like to sing along to. My fave of his is probably Sail Away, which I know Erik loves too)
2. Goodbye Tonight by Lost Prophets
   Don't think I listened to this song much before, was one of the ones that a friend gave me. I should probably give this album a listen.. I like some of their other songs that another friend put on mixtapes for me.
   
3. Misunderstood by Better Than Ezra
   Love this song.. sent to be by my Canadian writer/BookCrossing buddy Jamie. The reason she sent it to me was after a rather strange chat conversation that we had with Jay and possibly someone else about a misunderstood demon.. yeah my memory of that chat is a little fuzzy. Anyway I used to listen to this song a lot and think it will be going on my playlist for NaNoWriMo this year.
4. We Want More by The Living End
   Ah The Living End.. seeing them live at The Civic in Christchurch still rates as one of the best gigs I have ever been to. I do like this song but it isn't one of my favourites. I used to have a copy of their first album on a dubbed tape and would bounce around the hallway at the flat we were living in at the time listening to it on my Walkman.. I remember telling Chris (Cheney, the lead singer) this when I met them after the show at The Civic... embarrassing.
   
5. Who Needs The Kwik-E-Mart? by The Simpsons
   I downloaded a heap of the songs from The Simpsons a few years ago.. I think it was from this site and enjoy listening to them when they pop up on shuffle. Still one of my favourite TV shows. "Let's hurl a brick-e-mart"
   
6. Dead and Broken by Alkaline Trio
   Alkaline Trio are another one of my favourite bands... who I hope to see at No Sleep Til later this year. They're the band that I took the Alkaline from in my username. What else can I say? I haven't listened to them much lately.
   
7. Silver and Cold by AFI
   Was really really into this song when I first got this album and now listening to it (and yes I am singing along.. Erik just looked up at me with a strange expression) I have the urge to dance too.. ok next song
   
8. Penguins & Polarbears by Millencolin
   I was listening to this album (Pennybridge Pioneers) just recently while lugging groceries home from the supermarket.. I think I bought this album when I was in high school (and heavily into pop-punk music evidently). I used to have a penpal called Dan who used to make me these amazing mixtapes (which I still have somewhere) and he got me into a lot of bands, Millencolin being one of them.
9. Foux du Fafa by Flight of the Conchords
   The first NZ band that has come up on my shuffle, it took a couple of listens for this album to grow on me and now I love it. This is not one of my favourites on the album but still enjoy it. And yes I have sung along to it in the past.
   
10. Are You Waiting by Stellar*
    And another Kiwi band, Stellar* being one of the first NZ bands I got into. Final show in Auckland next week which I should get a ticket to for nostalgia's sake (that and I still do enjoy their music)
    

A picture of you and your family


A photo of me with my parents at my graduation. That's my Dad Paul on the left and my Mum Christine on the right.

My Dad had quite an influence on my interest in classic rock music and quite a few of the bands I like now are ones he blasted on our home stereo when I was a kid.. so loud that my Mum could hear it walking home from the supermarket.. which might explain me being hard of hearing at times. I love my Dad for his loyalty and his sense of humour while at times just not funny means he looks on the bright side of life. He lives in Reefton with my stepmum Shelly and my two step brothers Liam and Jordyn. My stepbrothers are still kids and I'm the sister that gives them books. My heart swelled with pride when my stepmum told me they took some of the books I gave them to show and tell at school. "Our sister Kirsty gave us these".. its enough to make a bookworm cry tears of joy.

I take after my Mum more than my Dad according to my sister. Mum is quite a bit more serious than my Dad (though she does have a sense of humour.. which is fairly warped at times like mine). She taught me cooking and baking (I'm better at the former than the latter) and encouraged my love of reading (though before when it was 'don't read in the dark you'll ruin your eyesight' it is now 'do you really need so many books?')
I am fairly close to my Mum and we talk on the phone at least once a week. Now that she has Facebook I can talk to her more often.
Mum lives in Greymouth with my stepdad Kevin. The amusing things about my stepdad could fill a blog all on their own. Kevin has two kids, both older than me.. Nicky who lives in Christchurch and Ray who is overseas.

I also have a younger sister Mishae. We really used to clash when we were younger but now we are pretty tight. Mishae never fails to make me laugh and says what she feels which can be highly amusing.
Mishae is mum to an adorable baby girl called Miley. I adore my niece and think she is just something else.



Like her auntie Miley loves books which I always buy for her. I look forward to her getting a bit older so I can gift her some more of my favourites.

A letter to someone who has hurt you recently

Oooh a tough one.. I can't think of anyone that has hurt me recently.. there have been some people who have annoyed me but thankfully I can't remember their names.
I find I get more pain from inanimate objects (physical pain).. maybe I could write a letter to the chair leg that I run into.. or the junk on my floor that I trip over...

How you found out about Blogger and why you made one

I think Erik used to have a blogger account which his blog was hosted on before he moved over to wordpress and then Drupal. I figured that it looked fairly easy to use and host a blog on this site.
Why I made a blog fullstop was I thought it would be fun and an interesting way to keep friends and family up to date with my life

Another picture of you and your friends


This one was taken around April last year on Queen Street while waiting for the Airbus for Jay to go to the airport. Was after the BookCrossing convention.. am using this photo as I don't have my external hard drive near to go looking for pictures.
On the left is me with my ITC keys hanging around my neck. I think I might have had course that day which might explain the black jacket.
Next to me is Kevin and Jay, who I have talked about previously. Two of the nicest people I know.
We all share a love of books, Questionable Content, chocolate and random odd conversations that go late into the night.

Songs you listen to when you are Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad

Even though I am a bit of a music nut mood rarely depicts what songs I listen to and it is normally bands that I can name that I listen to, not specific songs.

Though some of the stuff I am really into at the moment as far as songs go are:
Pulp Fiction by Motion City Soundtrack
Brand New Day from Dr Horrible's Sing A Long Blog
Second Season by Five Iron Frenzy
Stutter from A Very Potter Sequel
All For You by Sister Hazel
Thomas by mumsdollar
Popularity by Jonezetta

Plus a heap of other stuff.

Am on a bit of a short break at the moment from updating my blog as I have my friend Jay visiting. Will be getting caught up on my 30 Days Of Me posts on Thursday & Friday.

(Yes I missed a day or two this weekend so I'll do two posts today and two tomorrow to get back up to speed)

Something you’re proud of in the past few days


Behold the start of my rooftop garden which Janet (Erik's Mum) and I sorted out yesterday afternoon.
There's quite a bit planted already, though need to do some more planting over the next week or so. Will be also making it pest proof.
I do feel that Janet did most of the work but I helped out too, plus it was something that I was planning on doing.

I also cooked a roast pork dinner on Thursday night, was my first time doing roast pork and it turned out really well.

Short term goals for this month and why

Ooh, a good question that I can give a good lengthed answer to.

Work on my rooftop garden
I will be making a seperate blog post sometime soon detailing my plans for my little slice of greenery in Auckland Central but the short of it is that I am working on a container garden on the rooftop area of the apartment I share with Erik. I have a heap of seedlings which are on my windowsill getting sun until I transplant them into various pots and planters to sit them outside. I'm also growing some stuff from seeds in propagator trays and my snow peas have sprouted and looking really good.
Why I want a garden is because I love my veges and think it would be great to grow some of my own vegetables to eat, if I have any extras will be giving them to friends.

Organise my desk
Look at this photo and see how messy my desk, it really is a shocker.

So one of my goals for October is to clean up this mess of a desk to something that I can actually sit at and do some typing.

Organise my bookshelves and books
While I don't believe there is such a thing as having too many books I do realise my books need a good organising and October will be my month to do it. No photo of that to show but will be posting photos when I start getting it all organised.

A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you

I had a few ideas of what I could use for this picture but when looking around I didn't have any pictures already that would fit. So I though of another way to do it (and will replace the map I got from the Lonely Planet website with another one soon)


Possibly the thing that had the biggest impact on my life so far was moving to Auckland as it set in motion a lot of other big life changing events in my life such as moving out of home for the first time, becoming a Christian, making new friends, studying again and a whole raft of other things. I covered some of them in an earlier post to mark my second year living in Auckland

Favorite super hero and why

This is a tough one as while I am a fan of comics I'm not a huge reader of superhero ones though I have enjoyed the X-Men comics that Nik from work loaned me.
I did enjoy comic book movies and comics like Watchmen and Kick Ass plus I really liked the Iron Man movies.

Short answer I don't really have a favourite superhero. Now if the question was what my favourite comic is then I would have a better answer.

A picture of somewhere you’ve been to


To be honest it was hard to pick out something to use for a place I have been to. I wanted to use one from one of my trips to Melbourne but most of them were of people. Then I found this photo I took of the entrance to Missing Link Records, which is the most awesome music store I have ever visited.

I am a bit of a music nut and I made sure that on my first visit to Melbourne back in 2005 (with my then-boyfriend and his family) that we popped by this store. While they waited outside I went quietly hyper over the music and magazines they had. Ended up spending quite a bit on music.

The second time I went was in October 2007 when I was over for the Australian BookCrossing Convention. This time I had more money and time to browse.

Melbourne is a city that I want to go back and visit. I have enjoyed both my visits there and have had amazing experiences there. I have also got a bit of an addiction to slurpees from the 7-11 as depicted by this photo here taken on my second visit.

A habit that you wish you didn’t have

Now this was a tough one as I have quite a number of habits that I wish I did not have. I did think about covering a few but the sermon at church today made me think of a habit that I really wish I didn't have.

Working in customer service I sometimes get really fed up with people and can be quite irate at times. Normally I don't verbalise being cranky to customers at work but I feel bad that I can automatically snap judge someone based on a short encounter. It is something I am trying to stop but it is easier said than done.

A picture of you and your friends


I have different groups of friends and the friends featured in this photo are those who were part of the Wellington to Christchurch road trip for the BookCrossing Convention held in Christchurch April 2009.

On the left we have Kevin. I first met Kev at the Melbourne BookCrossing Convention in October 2007 and since then he has been an awesome friend who I chat to online just about every day. He's huggable, geeky and a booklover so we get along really well. After the convention he stayed up in Auckland with us for a couple of nights. I refer to him as Aussie Kev, as my stepfather is also called Kevin.

Then next to Kev is Jay who is my BBFF (or BookCrossing Best Friend Forever). As I mentioned in my first post of this challenge I first met Jay at a BookCrossing convention in Wellington. Jay is such a smiley and positive person who is a lot of fun. She also knows how to cheer me up and there have been times when she has completely surprised me, like sending me flowers when I had been having a rough week, or calling me for my birthday when she was in America for their Summer.

Then of course that's me in the white BookCrossing tshirt.

Next to me is my sweetie Erik. I first met Erik in late 2003 when I started going out with someone else who is one of Erik's close friends. The story of how Erik and I started dating will be saved for another post but we have been together for coming up to 3 years in January. Without getting too mushy Erik makes me laugh and cares a lot about people. His motivation and plans always inspire me.

Next to Erik is BookCrossing legend Pete aka Skyring. I met him at the same BookCrossing convention that I met Jay at.
Skyring is always good fun and he's famous for his hugs and generosity. We talk about books and he makes really lame jokes which I roll my eyes at but he is really a funny guy. The New Zealand BookCrossers love him so much that they declared him an honorary kiwi.
I love reading his blogs and he has several. My favourite would have to be Hello it's me which he co-writes with Jay.

At the far right is Janice or MissMarkey. The rest of us on this road trip all knew each other to some extent but MissMarkey from the UK was someone new to us. It did not take long for everyone to click. Don't let the sweet look fool you, she's a bit of a rebel (posing for a photo on top of a parked police car in Christchurch for example). I talk to her online whenever I can and hope to catch up in person again one day. When we parted ways in Christchurch at the end of the convention she gave me a copy of one of her favourite books with a nice note.

So that is some of my friends and I could post a lot more about them, or my other friends (most of whom I don't have many photos of). I did have a lot of fun writing this post though.

The meaning behind your Blog name

My blog name is not that interesting, is currently just 'alkaline-kiwi's blog'. My username alkaline-kiwi is because Alkaline Trio are one of my favourite bands and 'Kiwi' is pretty self-explanatory being that I'm from New Zealand

(Just ignoring the fact I have not posted since June...)

A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself

The photo of me was taken by either Erik or my Mum at my graduation earlier this year.

1. One of my earliest memories is getting a pot plant stuck on my head around age two or three.
   
2. I think I am fairly good at cooking but not so great at baking.
3. I'm a cat person and hope that when Erik and I move somewhere that allows pets we will get a cat. I have a soft spot for tabbies.
   
4. I'm frequently mistaken for a lot younger than I am.
5. My birthday is five days after my Mum's.
   
6. If you take the first two letters of my first name and the first two of my last name it spells KIWI (which Erik tells me merits as an interesting fact)
7. I don't know how to drive a car. When I was living in Greymouth I would ride a moped around and living in Central Auckland I normally don't need to travel far.
   
8. I'm a geek of the book and gaming sort. Also maybe slightly addicted to the Internet.
9. At a guess I would say I have roughly between 200 and 300 books in the apartment. One day I will count them and be shocked.
10. I've won both NaNoWriMo (2009) and SocNoC once (2010) and going to go for NaNoWriMo again this November.
    
11. When I was younger when I grew up I wanted to be a vet, then an author and then a music journalist. Out of those I still want to be an author but have added a few new things to the list.
    
12. I like to put my headphones on, choose some favourite songs on my iPod then sing and dance around the apartment. Anyone who sees me is highly amused.
    
13. I met my best friend at a BookCrossing convention in Wellington.
    
14. I like t shirts especially cute, funny or band t shirts.
    
15. My favourite colour is blue.
    

Thursday the 17th of June marked two years since I packed my bags, plus boxes and boxes of books, and moved up to Auckland.

What made me move up here in the first place? Well I guess first of all I did it for love. I have an amazing boyfriend who I was doing the long-distance relationship thing with and on a two week holiday up here with him I made the decision that I wanted to move up to Auckland.

The preparing to move up was harder than the decision as I went through all my stuff in Greymouth. What clothes did I take, what books, what little pieces of my life went with me?

When I first moved up my plans were to find a job as soon as possible so I could be kept busy. But despite my best efforts and a lot of applications I never got past the first interview. So I decided to study instead and after attending a careers expo decided to apply to study at the International Travel College, which I started a couple of days after my birthday in 2008.

Being in the past a rather average student I was pleasantly surprised that I did quite well studying Travel and Tourism and finished the first part of my course with distinction. So I was happy and feeling fufilled.

After I finished studying in October last year I took a break for a month, relaxing in Auckland and visiting my hometown of Greymouth for a couple of weeks. Then in November, after sending my CV through ITC I was hired as a travel consultant for InterCity which is where I have worked for the past six or so months.

I believe that moving to Auckland was one of the best decisions I have ever made and while my time here so far has not all been sunshine and lollipops I have had a a good time mostly with some notable things being as follows.

• Seeing some awesome bands live
• Doing the Sky Jump off the Sky Tower
• Being part of some awesome meetup groups such as the Auckland BookCrossers, NaNoWriMo/Script Frenzy Write Ins and Auckland Game Works
• Being part of a church that welcomed me right from the start
• Studying and then working as a result of that in a job that I really enjoy
• And finally but most importantly is living with someone who I love very much and who loves me back. Who is supportive, caring and encouraging in all that I do. The wonderful Erik.

So here is to another year living in this big, amazing, crazy at times and fun city!

The road to procrastination is paved with good intentions. Well that isn't the quote exactly but you get the idea.

It was April when I last updated this thing. April! A lot has happened since then including my graduation from the International Travel College which I graduated with Merit and with the College Life Award for the City Road Campus (which also won me a voucher to do the Sky Walk 360) and having my family visiting from the West Coast.

The main point of this post is that I am going to follow my partner Erik's lead with his blog updates and aim to update my blog three times a week which will tentatively be on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I will be updating again later today as my actual post for Friday.

Well so much for updating regularly, I was intending to post every few days or so but for some unknown reason (probably slackness) I haven't updated for a while.

Updates since then have been that I have not being doing so well with the ol' Script Frenzy. I changed my story idea which helped but then my enthusiasm for the whole thing just kind of collapsed. However I am still giving my full support to Erik (have even offered to work on his script with him if he gets stuck) and am still attending the write-ins.

A couple of Saturdays ago I went to see Kick Ass with Erik and a couple of friends. Erik has been in a rabid fanboy frenzy about this movie ever since he first heard about it. We've both read the comic collection (looking forward to future issues too) and looked forward to seeing the film.

I'm not sure how many other countries the film has an R18 rating in. I had a good laugh during a walk recently in Newmarket where I saw a poster next to the Kick Ass movie poster stating that if you were under 18 and wanted to see the movie, you can't. Then again I remember being underage and wanting to see certain movies, being frustrated that I couldn't.. well until the DVD release anyway. I think they had DVDs then..

The movie is quite violent and while it is funny in parts some of it is kinda dark. However I enjoyed it and laughed, cheered and even went 'aww' at a few scenes. Definitely not a movie for everyone but one for those who enjoy action/comedy/superhero movies who are not easily offended.

Erik is planning on seeing it again on Tuesday so I might be able to update this post with more thoughts after we go and see it again. There's also some other movies coming out soon that I am looking forward to seeing.

In other news tomorrow I am heading up to the Bay of Islands for a work famil aboard the overnight cruise ship Ipipiri. Working in the travel and tourism industry rocks!

Well I was a bad writer and didn't even touch my script yesterday though I did make a few notes about characters and where I wanted the story to go.

I have been thinking about the reasons why I have been struggling so much with writing a script and I have come to the conclusion that maybe it isn't script writing that I am struggling with but this script in particular.

One of the reasons is that I can't just fly through it like I did with NaNoWriMo, writing anything that came to mind. Of course with my NaNoWriMo project I did a bit more planning and had an idea of where things were going to end up. Now I know that an outline is important for this but when I have sat down to write it I can see the beginning and the end, plus some of the stuff that happens on the way but tying it all together baffles me.

Also the script I am working on is not really anything like the graphic novels and comics that I have enjoyed reading. Some of my favourite comics are fairly edgy and for a mature audience, my script and plans for it are very tame by comparison.

Then probably the most important one is that I'm finding it hard to get to know and ultimately like my characters. Zeke and Skeeter were a lot of fun to write in my NaNoWriMo as supporting characters - Zeke was the wise mentor who always had a lot of good advice and I had a lot of fun writing Skeeter even though he didn't feature as much as Zeke. Writing them now in this prequel they don't seem as interesting to me.

So what I am I going to do, considering that I am a couple of days behind with my page count already? Well I have decided to start another script, the one that I was intending to write before I thought to write my current script. It will be another graphic novel script but I have a far clearer idea for it and the main character is one that has been around in my head (but rarely in written form) for 8 years now.

So today was the kick off for Script Frenzy, a month long script writing challenge in which the goal is to write 100 pages of script before the end of April.

I took part in NaNoWriMo for the first time last year and managed to reach the goal of 50,000 words but still have not actually completed my novel. Reading it now most of it still makes me cringe but there are some good parts which I am quite proud of.

My script for Script Frenzy is sort of a prequel to my NaNoWriMo novel which was about the formation of a Christian ska band. The script I am writing for Script Frenzy will be a graphic novel script (just the script so far, my art skills are terrible) about some of the secondary characters from my NaNoWriMo novel, the band Cross Affiliation who acted as mentors to the members of the ska band.

Writing a script is a completely new thing for me and I will admit I am finding it a little difficult but I am sure that I will soon get the hang of it. I am using a free program called Celtx which is specially designed for scripts which is fairly simple to use with some good features.

I'm attending a Script Frenzy kick-off party tonight which I am looking forward to. I enjoyed attending the write-ins for NaNoWriMo and some of the same people will be along tonight.

I have attempted blogs before. My last attempt at one was early last year when I had a blog briefly hosted off my partner Erik's website and made a few posts on it before there was a server crash and I lost my blog.

To those who don't know me I am Kirsty, a 24 year old bookworm who also loves music, writing, BookCrossing, movies, video games and other random branches of geekery. I live in Auckland City (but originally from Greymouth) with Erik and work as a travel consultant.

The point of this blog is to write about some of the things I am passionate about, write about my projects (I am doing Script Frenzy in April and I have some other things coming up throughout the year) and various musings about other things.