Cats and Earthquakes

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Lol, that's got to be the most ridiculous of the titles of my blogs so far... It is in fact all of my news however!

So I'm pretty settled now, my flatmates have been great fun and we're all pretty used to each other's company now which is nice. I'm also getting used to the cold now a bit, although that took a while! One of my friends left a lot of his shopping - milk, yoghurt, eggs etc. out of the fridge overnight by accident and in the next morning it was still perfectly chilled, and infact in need of thawing. It's pretty chilly!

Anyway on to cats and earthquakes...

I returned back from my first full day of lectures on Monday to hear a cry of,

'Shut the door!!'

Before I could close it, a little kitten shot outside and into the bushes. It turned out that my flatmate Donna had found it on the street outside, and as it was so skinny, nervous and only a little thing, assumed it was abandoned by someone and had brought it inside. She'd planned to look after it for the night and then hand it over to the RSPCA the next day, but first we had to get it back. Luckily it was an agressive little bugger and so the way to coax it out of the bushes was to dangle some string nearby. It shot out paws flailing and eventually Donna's boyfriend managed to grab it; pretty much in mid-air. It became our pet for the night and was constantly entertaining. It was incredibly quick and one time I only just caught it before it jumped into the washing machine along with my clothes. I have a video of it climbing all the way up our curtain's too, before working it's way down with perfect rock-climbing technique. Once my camera starts working for me I'll put it up.

Anyway it was very sad the next day when it had to be taken back. I woke up too late to say goodbye and walking downstairs into an empty cat-less room felt like losing a leg. Still it was the right thing to do I'm sure...

The other news in my blog is possibly your news too as I think it was reported across the world. New Zealand had one of it's strongest ever earthquakes last night - 7.8 on the richter scale. Luckily it was far off to the Southwest of the South Island in Fiordland, so there doesnt seem to be much damage or any casualties. It was however easily strong enough that we felt it here in Dunedin. I was in a restaurant at the time catching up with my friends from last year. I was talking to my friend Hannah when I suddenly felt my balance going a bit crazy. I hadn't drunk anything but having never experienced an earthquake before, I immediately thought I must have had too much. I kept falling forward and then having to steady myself with my foot.

'Get it together!' I thought.

It was quite a powerless feeling and went on for around a minute. By that time I knew I wasn't drunk and was wondering what was going on. Soon after the people with me were talking about how the lights had been shaking and the restaurant building swaying during the earthquake. It was good breakfast talk this morning! Turns out a few power lines further south had come down and lots of companies who live closer to the earthquake have been asked to check their buildings properly, although it seems that it happened far enough away from everyone that there shouldn't be much damage.

There was a tsunami warning put out to various areas including Hawaii, however turns out there wasn't much to worry about... Members of the Sydney Opera House (I think it was), were forced to evacuate, only to later find out the tsunami coming there way was only a couple of centimetres high!!

Besides that, things here are pretty party-orientated while the 1st years go nuts. Me and my flatmate Andrew went to a bar last night for a game of pool and ended up meeting about twenty drunk people, so drunk they were hard to trust - we weren't sure if they want to be best best friends or fight us.

'If you guys ever need a room, seriously whereever you are, come to Louis'... There's always huggles, we do big huggles in Louis' bed' said the drunkest guy there, referring to himself in the third person.

He changed his tune later though and at one point said,

'The UK can suck my f*ckin' c*ck'..' - they're not all friendly here sadly.

Turns out he was sick of meeting people from Kent.

'Every English guy I meet is from f*king Kent, you're not from Kent are you?'

He flipped between being hilarious and a nuisance for a lot of the night. He did buy me a drink though, inbetween England-hating...

And today I've had a lecture with a lecturer I find hilarious so that's always fun. He is basically a stand up comedian, which is great as everything he says sticks in my head. And that is just about all of my news I think...

I'll be booking some travels soon, and also taking some thai cooking lessons in a weeks time - I'm tired of being a bad cook! Until then just got work etc. to do so not much more to write! I hope everyone's good, thanks for all the comments on my last blog, good to hear from everyone back home. Please keep letting me know your news! If Gregs out there too I'm very excited about your album! I am promoting you here too my friend!

Will speak to everyone soon, Tom

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Comments

[Noelle]

Exciting stuff!
Another great read, Tom. I'm from Kent btw - good job I wasn't in the bar that night! xxx