I've been into writing poetry since I could first write in functional sentences as a child. I've been into performing since the first time I had the opportunity to take a stage. When I first discovered that my home city had a performance poetry scene after getting back from exchange in the latter part of 2012 I was beyond excited to get amongst it.
Back then, I got into it by way of signing up for a slam event which acted as a qualifying heat for the Wellington Regional Poetry Slam which in itself acted as a qualifier for the New Zealand National Poetry Slam. I had one piece which I'd barely memorised and a friend along with me for support.
By some miracle I came third in that heat and qualified for regionals. I did a little more writing and brought another piece with me to that event where I didn't end up placing, but I had fun and learned a lot. At this point I was really just feeling out the scene and I was still so nervous on stage that mental blanks were regular.
Fast forward past my 2013 trip to the US. On my return to Wellington I decided to get back involved in the scene. The events I'd competed in before had been put together by a group that now had themselves the name of Poetry In Motion. They met once a month which sounded managable at a bar in town which I'd never heard of at that time having formerly held their events at a rather small pizza place in town.
I decided to once again test my nerves on the slam stage and went along equipped with some new pieces, this time having actually taken the time to write and memorise before the event. Something felt different this time though. When I first slammed the sound of my voice coming at me from the back of the room made me uncomfortable and I felt like a scared little kid on the stage. This time the words were coming out the way I wanted them to, the audience reactions were what I wanted them to be and I felt like I was meant to be on that stage.
The scores I was getting through the night were reflective of a far higher level than anything I'd done prior and I was pretty stoked with myself on that. I was pretty sure that I'd made it into the top 3 again but there were a lot of other really strong performances that night and slam scores can be odd sometimes so nothing's ever a given.
As the third place name was read out, my heart sank a little, I figured that was probably my spot and when it wasn't me called I thought I was done. Second place got called out and the name belonging to it was who I thought would have been the winner but as I said before, slam scores are a little odd sometimes. At this point I was getting ready to congratulate whoever it was that had slotted into first place for the night, waiting for the name to be called.
I damn near cried. This was my third time in a slam poetry event and by some miracle I took first place. There was a cash prize that went along with it but honestly just the sense of belonging and empowerment I got out of that night was more than I ever could've asked for.
This of course meant that I qualified for the regional event later in the year so in my downtime I kept churning out loose lines that eventually got crafted into pieces from which I put together new performance material. I tried out some new stuff on whatever open mics I could get stuff organised for and kept churning through lines in my head trying to get stuff together that felt like it was of a high enough calibre to put out at regionals. I intended on doing the same pieces I'd done in the heat but I also wanted to try and write something in the mean time that could top that.
In the middle of the year, a slam event was organised in celebration of Matariki, essentially the Maori new year. After a little bit of procrastinating and inner debate, I decided to go ahead and sign myself up for it, promising myself that with the deadline of that looming, I'd actually get a new piece finished.
That goal was achieved and so I performed a brand new piece at the Matariki slam. The stage there was awesome. It was set up as part of Te Papa museums official Matarki celebrations so we had the privilege of using their Marae for the event. The place was packed out and there would have easily been a couple of hundred people there.
Unfortunately I didn't make the cut after the first round. I felt that I performed really well, and I got a relatively good reaction so I was feeling slightly hard done by if I'm totally honest. Slam scores don't always make sense though and I had performed the best that I could so I was at least happy with myself for that.
I got a few compliments from people I respect within the community on that particular piece so I shook the overall result of that one off and got working towards the regional final.
At the regional event I broke out a brand new piece which I was nervous about but I felt it would go over well with the audience. I performed better than I ever had before and in an amazingly strong competition, I had the honour of claiming third place. I couldn't believe it! In only my second slam season I'd managed to qualify for the National Poetry Slam finals.
The National Slam was hosted in Wellington on the Poetry In Motion home stage at Meow Bar. It was nice to have the comfort of a home stage in such utterly terrifying circumstances. I was more nervous before the National Slam than I think I've ever been before in my life. I had to down a good couple of beers to stop myself from shaking.
I did the same pieces at Nationals as I did at Regionals but switched up the order a bit because I thought the new one I tried out at Regionals was the strongest one I had and I really wanted to make sure I made the first cut, which eliminated half of the poets.
Again I had the good fortune of some of my strongest performances and the small edits and developments I'd made in pieces since the last slam seemed to go over well. This resulted in me making the first cut which I think left us with a top 7 competing in the second round.
I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to make top 3 although it would've been incredible to have done so. After making the first cut I was just hoping that one of our three Wellingtonian poets would win the night and that the other two might make the top trio.
In the end a Wellingtonian by the name of Ben Stokes took the title of National Slam Champion and as I predicted, I didn't make the top three cut but was more than happy with how my slam season had turned out.
I never even dreamed that I could write and perform well enough to make top 3 in a Wellington regional slam but somehow I managed to back myself enough to pull it off. The 2014 slam season was definitely a huge learning curve for me and gave me a massive boost of confidence towards future performances.
I could not have asked for a better set of results or a higher sense of self satisfaction than what I got out of performance poetry and slamming in 2014. I'm excited to hit the slam stage again this year and see what I can bring to the table. I'm sure I'll find a way to once again surprise myself and exceed my own expectations.
The next post here will be about Christmas 2014 which I spent on Great Barrier Island at mum's house.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Friday, April 24, 2015
My Second 21st Birthday
On Saturday, October 11, 2014, I celebrated my 21st birthday with my closest friends in the city that I grew up in. This was the second of 2 celebrations organised for the occasion and this one was timed to end on my actual birthday which was the day after.
It all started with a group dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town called Red Hill. I'd organised for a group of around 20 of us, including myself, Clemmie, Campbell, Linda and 16 of my friends to meet up there for food and some drinks before unleashing upon the city bars.
Our venue decision was based largely on the central location, cheap dinner prices and B.Y.O. nature of the restaurant and it turned out to be the perfect place to start our night.
Clemmie and I coincidentally ran into Campbell and Linda on the bus into town and the four of us were the first ones to arrive at the restaurant. The place had an interesting looking cocktail list so we sat and ordered some drinks while we waited for other people to get there.
As the others began to arrive, we all just sat around chatting over drinks until all of the seats at the table were filled. Once everyone had arrived we ordered food and ate. I think I ordered the Kung Pao chicken which was delicious. Most of the others brought wine with them so I had a couple of glasses of wine over dinner.
My rough plan for the night was to cruise through a few of the bars in town and end up at The Fringe bar for karaoke to cap it all off. After dinner someone suggested we go up to a park near town and drink up there for a bit. I hadn't done the park party thing since I was in high school and it felt like a good way to get the night going so we convinced the group that it'd be fun.
We stopped at the supermarket on the way to pick up booze and some snack food, I should probably mention that at this point I was dressed in a lion onesie that Clemmie bought me for my birthday which I put on in the restaurant after dinner and continued to wear for the entire night. A friend of mine who works at a pizza place in town stopped there to make some pizzas to bring up to the park as well which was awesome.
Up at the park we had spotify going through someone's phone blasting out of a little speaker thing so we had good music to accompany our juvenile festivities. We managed to get through about half of our supermarket provisions before everyone decided that they'd had enough and that it was a good time to go down and do the karaoke thing so what was left of our group stumbled down toward town to do that.
On the way to town, I checked the time and noticed that it had ticked over onto October 12. It was officially my real birthday!
I don't remember all of the karaoke but I do remember my first song. I did "Forgot About Dre" and absolutely nailed it. People kept coming up to me and telling me how good it was. I'd like to remind you all at this point that I was still dressed in a lion onesie so just let that sink in for a bit.
We had about 6 of our group left with us this late in the night and we all cranked through a couple of songs each. I got talking to a guy outside and told him it was my 21st so he bought me a beer which was nice of him. When we'd all had enough if drunkenly singing in front of strangers we decided to call it a night, so I said my thank - yous and goodbyes to everyone and hopped a bus back home with Clemmie.
The next morning I used the last little bit of money from the party fund to take Clemmie out for a much needed hangover curing breakfast and coffee date at one of my favourite Wellington Cafe's "Sweet Mother's Kitchen." I highly recommend their breakfast burrito, it's absolutely glorious, particularly the morning after a big night.
True to my usual style, I did my 21st in a slightly unconventional way. It was great to be able to celebrate with my family and people who have known me my entire life and I think it worked well holding that as a separate event. It was also fantastic hitting town in the city I've always known as home with the amazing people I've been blessed to have as my close friends.
As is typical of birthdays for me, I feel hardly any different at 21 than I felt at 20. The only thing I can guarantee is that on October 12th 2015, there will be a lot of Taylor Swift playing at my party and I will definitely be feeling 22.
The next post here will be about the excitement of my 2014 slam season and the New Zealand National Poetry Slam.
It all started with a group dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town called Red Hill. I'd organised for a group of around 20 of us, including myself, Clemmie, Campbell, Linda and 16 of my friends to meet up there for food and some drinks before unleashing upon the city bars.
Our venue decision was based largely on the central location, cheap dinner prices and B.Y.O. nature of the restaurant and it turned out to be the perfect place to start our night.
Clemmie and I coincidentally ran into Campbell and Linda on the bus into town and the four of us were the first ones to arrive at the restaurant. The place had an interesting looking cocktail list so we sat and ordered some drinks while we waited for other people to get there.
As the others began to arrive, we all just sat around chatting over drinks until all of the seats at the table were filled. Once everyone had arrived we ordered food and ate. I think I ordered the Kung Pao chicken which was delicious. Most of the others brought wine with them so I had a couple of glasses of wine over dinner.
My rough plan for the night was to cruise through a few of the bars in town and end up at The Fringe bar for karaoke to cap it all off. After dinner someone suggested we go up to a park near town and drink up there for a bit. I hadn't done the park party thing since I was in high school and it felt like a good way to get the night going so we convinced the group that it'd be fun.
We stopped at the supermarket on the way to pick up booze and some snack food, I should probably mention that at this point I was dressed in a lion onesie that Clemmie bought me for my birthday which I put on in the restaurant after dinner and continued to wear for the entire night. A friend of mine who works at a pizza place in town stopped there to make some pizzas to bring up to the park as well which was awesome.
Up at the park we had spotify going through someone's phone blasting out of a little speaker thing so we had good music to accompany our juvenile festivities. We managed to get through about half of our supermarket provisions before everyone decided that they'd had enough and that it was a good time to go down and do the karaoke thing so what was left of our group stumbled down toward town to do that.
On the way to town, I checked the time and noticed that it had ticked over onto October 12. It was officially my real birthday!
I don't remember all of the karaoke but I do remember my first song. I did "Forgot About Dre" and absolutely nailed it. People kept coming up to me and telling me how good it was. I'd like to remind you all at this point that I was still dressed in a lion onesie so just let that sink in for a bit.
We had about 6 of our group left with us this late in the night and we all cranked through a couple of songs each. I got talking to a guy outside and told him it was my 21st so he bought me a beer which was nice of him. When we'd all had enough if drunkenly singing in front of strangers we decided to call it a night, so I said my thank - yous and goodbyes to everyone and hopped a bus back home with Clemmie.
The next morning I used the last little bit of money from the party fund to take Clemmie out for a much needed hangover curing breakfast and coffee date at one of my favourite Wellington Cafe's "Sweet Mother's Kitchen." I highly recommend their breakfast burrito, it's absolutely glorious, particularly the morning after a big night.
True to my usual style, I did my 21st in a slightly unconventional way. It was great to be able to celebrate with my family and people who have known me my entire life and I think it worked well holding that as a separate event. It was also fantastic hitting town in the city I've always known as home with the amazing people I've been blessed to have as my close friends.
As is typical of birthdays for me, I feel hardly any different at 21 than I felt at 20. The only thing I can guarantee is that on October 12th 2015, there will be a lot of Taylor Swift playing at my party and I will definitely be feeling 22.
The next post here will be about the excitement of my 2014 slam season and the New Zealand National Poetry Slam.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
My First 21st Birthday
On October 12th 2014 I turned 21. All year I'd been thinking about what I wanted to do to celebrate seeing as 21 is an age at which one is obligated to make a relatively big fuss. I decided that I wanted to have two separate parties, one for all of my close friends and one for all of my family.
While that might seem like an obvious avoidance tactic, it was more because the only appropriate venue I could think of for a massive group of people was my grandparents house which is about 2 and a half hours drive out of Wellington.
It seemed to make sense to host the larger family event there and to have a group dinner followed by a night in town with all of my friends for the sake of an optimal invited guest to attending guest ratio.
The first of these two events was the family one which took place the week before my birthday so that it fitted in with Mum's school holidays. Pretty much my entire family was invited along with a few close family friends who I consider to be my family. I also invited Clemmie along because I thought it would be fun to subject my new girlfriend to the terror of meeting my entire extended family a month into our relationship.
I had work the day of the party and caught a ride with my big brother Campbell and his fiancee Linda after my shift. We arrived a few hours before the scheduled start time which gave me a few hours to get some much needed sleep before I had to be presentable and lively.
When we arrived Mum and the grandparents whose house we were borrowing for the evening were busy finishing off decorations and organising food prep. I said a quick hi to them all before I disappeared upstairs to crash out.
Clemmie was one of the first to arrive which was nice for the both of us. It gave her time with not that many people around to slowly be introduced to everyone rather than having to walk in and meet a hundred strangers all at once. It also meant I didn't have to worry about her getting lost trying to find the place for very long.
The place filled up pretty quickly and it was good chatting with everyone and revisiting my entire life through photos over a few drinks. Mum did a really good job of organising everything over the course of the evening and we had a constant stream of good food circling around the house.
About halfway through the evening, after dinner had been served, everyone was rounded up for the whole presents and speeches thing. I've always found it hard to pay much attention to compliments so having several important people in my life all make speeches about how proud of me they are was hard to sit through without bursting into tears but I think I did alright. It was really nice having both of my parents there particularly during this part of the night too. I haven't had a huge amount of significant life events where both of them have been around so that was cool.
I got a lot of really cool presents as well, from stuff that will prove exceptionally useful in future travel, to things with meaning that actually did make me cry, I even got the laptop that I'm typing this blog post on (thanks mum).
My family 21st was a great night and I'm glad I had so many people that were able to come along and celebrate it with me. I had an awesome time, ate great food, got exceptionally drunk, all the things that should be done at a good party. It was the perfect way to celebrate 21 years of life with a group of people who have known me for most if not all of those 21 years.
My next post here will be about the celebration I had with my friends for my 21st birthday.
While that might seem like an obvious avoidance tactic, it was more because the only appropriate venue I could think of for a massive group of people was my grandparents house which is about 2 and a half hours drive out of Wellington.
It seemed to make sense to host the larger family event there and to have a group dinner followed by a night in town with all of my friends for the sake of an optimal invited guest to attending guest ratio.
The first of these two events was the family one which took place the week before my birthday so that it fitted in with Mum's school holidays. Pretty much my entire family was invited along with a few close family friends who I consider to be my family. I also invited Clemmie along because I thought it would be fun to subject my new girlfriend to the terror of meeting my entire extended family a month into our relationship.
I had work the day of the party and caught a ride with my big brother Campbell and his fiancee Linda after my shift. We arrived a few hours before the scheduled start time which gave me a few hours to get some much needed sleep before I had to be presentable and lively.
When we arrived Mum and the grandparents whose house we were borrowing for the evening were busy finishing off decorations and organising food prep. I said a quick hi to them all before I disappeared upstairs to crash out.
Clemmie was one of the first to arrive which was nice for the both of us. It gave her time with not that many people around to slowly be introduced to everyone rather than having to walk in and meet a hundred strangers all at once. It also meant I didn't have to worry about her getting lost trying to find the place for very long.
The place filled up pretty quickly and it was good chatting with everyone and revisiting my entire life through photos over a few drinks. Mum did a really good job of organising everything over the course of the evening and we had a constant stream of good food circling around the house.
About halfway through the evening, after dinner had been served, everyone was rounded up for the whole presents and speeches thing. I've always found it hard to pay much attention to compliments so having several important people in my life all make speeches about how proud of me they are was hard to sit through without bursting into tears but I think I did alright. It was really nice having both of my parents there particularly during this part of the night too. I haven't had a huge amount of significant life events where both of them have been around so that was cool.
I got a lot of really cool presents as well, from stuff that will prove exceptionally useful in future travel, to things with meaning that actually did make me cry, I even got the laptop that I'm typing this blog post on (thanks mum).
My family 21st was a great night and I'm glad I had so many people that were able to come along and celebrate it with me. I had an awesome time, ate great food, got exceptionally drunk, all the things that should be done at a good party. It was the perfect way to celebrate 21 years of life with a group of people who have known me for most if not all of those 21 years.
My next post here will be about the celebration I had with my friends for my 21st birthday.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
The Particularly Good Christmas Party
In December 2013, after recently returning from the U.S. (rather begrudgingly) I made the snap decision to attend a Christmas themed party at my friend Floyd's house. Fitting with the theme which asked us to wear either green or red coloured clothing I was dressed in sneakers, grey jeans and an Aaron Rodgers jersey which for those of you who know nothing of American Football is a dark green colour, Rodgers being the quarterback for Wisconsin's NFL team the Green Bay Packers.
Said party was the first social occasion I had attended since returning to the country after an 8 month absence. This was the chief influence on my decision to go and I expected nothing more than a night of light drinking and catching up with good friends I hadn't seen in a while.
A few minutes after arriving I was introduced to a rather attractive girl with bright red hair who was in a gorgeous dress and instantly made me question my fashion choices. This seemingly inconsequential meeting lead to further conversation later in the evening regarding cats and over-analysis of popular music which also seemed to be and at the time was completely innocuous.
Throughout the evening I had many other interactions with old friends and other people I'd just been introduced to and went home thinking not a whole lot more about it all. At some point one of us added the other on facebook and we liked each other's music pages and I was happy to have made a new friend.
Then she went off to England to study abroad for a year and I more or less forgot about her and carried on with my day to day existence.
A few months later, a movie came out called The Fault In Our Stars. Based off of the book of the same title by my favourite Young Adult author John Green, I saw the movie about 7 times over the course of its cinema run. After my third viewing, Floyd from the earlier paragraph about the Christmas party, organised a group of us to go and see it together.
One of our friends in this group extended the invite to none other than the girl from earlier, who I should probably mention does actually have a name, which is Clemmie. She was back from her adventures in the U.K. and apparently also quite the fan of John Green.
She came along and brought her best friend Chloe with her. I again conversed with her briefly, thought not much of it except that she was an okay human being to converse with and went on with my life.
As time went on, she became a regular feature on our thursday night quiz team, which resulted in me talking to her more and more. We got along reasonably well and after a bit, we started to miss questions in quiz due to being so wrapped up in conversation.
One week after quiz, we all went out to celebrate my friend Nathan's 22nd birthday. We hit a few bars, had a bit to drink and capped off the evening with karaoke at The Fringe bar. I think I did a rendition of Outkast's "Miss Jackson" that night. Karaoke is one of my favourite things to do on a night out, and rap is my favourite genre to do at karaoke given how incredibly white I am.
At the end of the evening, Clemmie offered to drive me home, I accepted and so began a tradition that would last for the next 3 weeks which involved her driving 15 minutes in the opposite direction of her house to drop me off at mine, me completely missing the point and thinking it was very generous of her to do so and both of us wondering what was going on.
On a Sunday night, our friend group usually does movie night at Floyd's house. After about 3 weeks of Clemmie driving me home every time we hung out with the group and us basically conversing with only each other in said group situations, nothing much had changed. Well, apart from the fact that I had now realised that I was crazily into her, everyone else was relentlessly giving me shit about it and I was starting to think that maybe there was an ulterior motive to driving me home. Halfway through this particular movie night, we were all gathered in the kitchen making dessert pizza when Clemmie said she was cold.
Given that I'd been sitting next to her all night debating whether or not I should try to put my arm around her, I took the opportunity I saw in front of me. I went to the lounge, got us a blanket and draped it around us both, using one of my arms to hold my end of the blanket around me and putting the other around her. She seemed to be into it.
When we returned to the couch, we put the blanket over the both of us and I put my arm back around her. The rest of the movie played out with the two of us cuddled up adorably and I felt like things were going pretty well.
At the end of the night, she drove me home, we talked for the entire trip and when we arrived... I said "thanks for the ride" , probably followed by "I'll see you at quiz."
I then spent the better part of the next few days kicking myself for being far too anxious to actually address the situation. I guess I just wanted to let Sunday be a good day in itself rather than ruining the evening by chancing rejection.
On Thursday, I was determined to put the whole thing to rest one way or the other. As per usual we talked pretty much only to each other all night, at the end of the night it was a given that she'd give me a ride home (at this point there wasn't even a verbal exchange about it any more) and so it went.
The entire car ride I felt physically ill and my heart was beating at an unhealthily rapid rate as I went over and over the speech I'd been rehearsing since I'd left her car the previous Sunday. I was struggling to keep my end of the conversation going as a million different panicked thoughts drifted in and out of my head.
When she pulled up outside my house, I very nearly said thanks and left the same way I had every previous time but I managed to mentally slap myself and force out what I felt needed to be said. I took a deep breath and uttered something to the effect of "Although I enjoy the flirtatious friendship we have going on, I would very much like to be your boyfriend." To which she responded positively with a look on her face which seemed to say a combination of "I'm so glad this is happening" and "It's about time you said something, you oblivious dick!"
And that pretty much sums up the story of how I, by some miracle, got together with the most wonderfully intelligent, beautiful and absolutely hilarious woman I have ever met. As I write this I have had the truly blessed experience of sharing my life with her for almost 8 months and have every intention of adding to that number infinitely.
So I guess if there's anything to take away from this story it's this: Never turn down a Christmas party invite.
The next post here will be about the first of 2 magnificent parties I had to celebrate the grand life achievement that is turning 21.
Said party was the first social occasion I had attended since returning to the country after an 8 month absence. This was the chief influence on my decision to go and I expected nothing more than a night of light drinking and catching up with good friends I hadn't seen in a while.
A few minutes after arriving I was introduced to a rather attractive girl with bright red hair who was in a gorgeous dress and instantly made me question my fashion choices. This seemingly inconsequential meeting lead to further conversation later in the evening regarding cats and over-analysis of popular music which also seemed to be and at the time was completely innocuous.
Throughout the evening I had many other interactions with old friends and other people I'd just been introduced to and went home thinking not a whole lot more about it all. At some point one of us added the other on facebook and we liked each other's music pages and I was happy to have made a new friend.
Then she went off to England to study abroad for a year and I more or less forgot about her and carried on with my day to day existence.
A few months later, a movie came out called The Fault In Our Stars. Based off of the book of the same title by my favourite Young Adult author John Green, I saw the movie about 7 times over the course of its cinema run. After my third viewing, Floyd from the earlier paragraph about the Christmas party, organised a group of us to go and see it together.
One of our friends in this group extended the invite to none other than the girl from earlier, who I should probably mention does actually have a name, which is Clemmie. She was back from her adventures in the U.K. and apparently also quite the fan of John Green.
She came along and brought her best friend Chloe with her. I again conversed with her briefly, thought not much of it except that she was an okay human being to converse with and went on with my life.
As time went on, she became a regular feature on our thursday night quiz team, which resulted in me talking to her more and more. We got along reasonably well and after a bit, we started to miss questions in quiz due to being so wrapped up in conversation.
One week after quiz, we all went out to celebrate my friend Nathan's 22nd birthday. We hit a few bars, had a bit to drink and capped off the evening with karaoke at The Fringe bar. I think I did a rendition of Outkast's "Miss Jackson" that night. Karaoke is one of my favourite things to do on a night out, and rap is my favourite genre to do at karaoke given how incredibly white I am.
At the end of the evening, Clemmie offered to drive me home, I accepted and so began a tradition that would last for the next 3 weeks which involved her driving 15 minutes in the opposite direction of her house to drop me off at mine, me completely missing the point and thinking it was very generous of her to do so and both of us wondering what was going on.
On a Sunday night, our friend group usually does movie night at Floyd's house. After about 3 weeks of Clemmie driving me home every time we hung out with the group and us basically conversing with only each other in said group situations, nothing much had changed. Well, apart from the fact that I had now realised that I was crazily into her, everyone else was relentlessly giving me shit about it and I was starting to think that maybe there was an ulterior motive to driving me home. Halfway through this particular movie night, we were all gathered in the kitchen making dessert pizza when Clemmie said she was cold.
Given that I'd been sitting next to her all night debating whether or not I should try to put my arm around her, I took the opportunity I saw in front of me. I went to the lounge, got us a blanket and draped it around us both, using one of my arms to hold my end of the blanket around me and putting the other around her. She seemed to be into it.
When we returned to the couch, we put the blanket over the both of us and I put my arm back around her. The rest of the movie played out with the two of us cuddled up adorably and I felt like things were going pretty well.
At the end of the night, she drove me home, we talked for the entire trip and when we arrived... I said "thanks for the ride" , probably followed by "I'll see you at quiz."
I then spent the better part of the next few days kicking myself for being far too anxious to actually address the situation. I guess I just wanted to let Sunday be a good day in itself rather than ruining the evening by chancing rejection.
On Thursday, I was determined to put the whole thing to rest one way or the other. As per usual we talked pretty much only to each other all night, at the end of the night it was a given that she'd give me a ride home (at this point there wasn't even a verbal exchange about it any more) and so it went.
The entire car ride I felt physically ill and my heart was beating at an unhealthily rapid rate as I went over and over the speech I'd been rehearsing since I'd left her car the previous Sunday. I was struggling to keep my end of the conversation going as a million different panicked thoughts drifted in and out of my head.
When she pulled up outside my house, I very nearly said thanks and left the same way I had every previous time but I managed to mentally slap myself and force out what I felt needed to be said. I took a deep breath and uttered something to the effect of "Although I enjoy the flirtatious friendship we have going on, I would very much like to be your boyfriend." To which she responded positively with a look on her face which seemed to say a combination of "I'm so glad this is happening" and "It's about time you said something, you oblivious dick!"
And that pretty much sums up the story of how I, by some miracle, got together with the most wonderfully intelligent, beautiful and absolutely hilarious woman I have ever met. As I write this I have had the truly blessed experience of sharing my life with her for almost 8 months and have every intention of adding to that number infinitely.
So I guess if there's anything to take away from this story it's this: Never turn down a Christmas party invite.
The next post here will be about the first of 2 magnificent parties I had to celebrate the grand life achievement that is turning 21.
Monday, April 13, 2015
The Comedy of Errors
The last piece of Wellington culture I chose to introduce Hannah too was a happy coincidence. A friend of mine was in a production of Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors"for the theatre programme (Whitireia Stage and Screen Arts) he was studying in at the time which just so happened to be running at the same time Hannah was there.
This was perfect for two reasons. The first is that Wellington is a very artsy city and it's theatre culture is something very much worth experiencing. The second is that Hannah majors in theatre in college. She actually ran our show when I was in the Spring play in Fort (best stage manager ever) and when I helped out on crew for the musical there.
The way that the director had chosen to approach this particular production put an interesting spin on things which is always nice when it comes to doing Shakespeare. They set the entire production inside of a 1930's era jazz club complete with bartender and period - accurate dancing before the show and at interval from the cast. They even enlisted some of the students from their music programme to form a live jazz quartet who played throughout the evening at appropriate times.
This approach made for a very interesting rendition of an extremely funny play which neither Hannah or myself had seen before.
My friend played the part of Dromio of Ephesus, and was hilariously matched up with a woman who played his twin Dromio of Syracuse. The role is a male role and most of the play's humour relies on the fact that the two different characters are supposed to look exactly the same. Somehow cross - casting one of them actually stood to make the whole thing funnier.
Similarly the parts of Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse were played by a student of European descent and a student of African descent which once again seemed to work for the better of the play due to the casts utter commitment. By the end of the performance you almost believed along with the characters involved that each of the Antipholus' and each of the Dromios is identical to the other.
It was an absolute riot of a performance and at the end of it all my stomach hurt form laughing so much. Hannah seemed to really enjoy it as well and said it was really interesting to see how another school in a different country approached theatre.
I think seeing a show was a good way to end my time hosting Hannah and showing off Wellington city yet again.
I was glad to be back to being able to sleep during the day again when Hannah took off for Dunedin (I, of course, went to see her off) but it was also sad going back to a quiet house again and knowing it would probably be a good while before I got to hang out with her again.
The next post here will be about some amazing things that happened in my life circa August 2014.
This was perfect for two reasons. The first is that Wellington is a very artsy city and it's theatre culture is something very much worth experiencing. The second is that Hannah majors in theatre in college. She actually ran our show when I was in the Spring play in Fort (best stage manager ever) and when I helped out on crew for the musical there.
The way that the director had chosen to approach this particular production put an interesting spin on things which is always nice when it comes to doing Shakespeare. They set the entire production inside of a 1930's era jazz club complete with bartender and period - accurate dancing before the show and at interval from the cast. They even enlisted some of the students from their music programme to form a live jazz quartet who played throughout the evening at appropriate times.
This approach made for a very interesting rendition of an extremely funny play which neither Hannah or myself had seen before.
My friend played the part of Dromio of Ephesus, and was hilariously matched up with a woman who played his twin Dromio of Syracuse. The role is a male role and most of the play's humour relies on the fact that the two different characters are supposed to look exactly the same. Somehow cross - casting one of them actually stood to make the whole thing funnier.
Similarly the parts of Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse were played by a student of European descent and a student of African descent which once again seemed to work for the better of the play due to the casts utter commitment. By the end of the performance you almost believed along with the characters involved that each of the Antipholus' and each of the Dromios is identical to the other.
It was an absolute riot of a performance and at the end of it all my stomach hurt form laughing so much. Hannah seemed to really enjoy it as well and said it was really interesting to see how another school in a different country approached theatre.
I think seeing a show was a good way to end my time hosting Hannah and showing off Wellington city yet again.
I was glad to be back to being able to sleep during the day again when Hannah took off for Dunedin (I, of course, went to see her off) but it was also sad going back to a quiet house again and knowing it would probably be a good while before I got to hang out with her again.
The next post here will be about some amazing things that happened in my life circa August 2014.
Friday, April 10, 2015
A Day at The Zoo
Like most of the days I had hanging out with Hannah, this one started with questionable weather and a bus ride. It was grey outside and a little chilly but it didn't seem like it was going to rain much and the forecast said we were good so it seemed like the opportune time to visit the zoo.
Wellington Zoo is one of my favourite places in the whole city. I've probably visited it about 30 times in my life dating back to when I first moved to Wellington as a five year old. I absolutely love seeing the animals and they've done some awesome re - designing over the last few years to make the place a lot easier to get around and a lot more interesting in general.
The re - design has the zoo and it's animals divided up into continents so that largely all of the animals from Africa are in the same place, all of the ones from Asia are in the same place and all of the ones from Australia are in the same place. Each area is decorated up to suit it's geographical theme and there's a lot of interactive zones that fit in with the theme as well.
My favourite approach to looking around the zoo as an adult is to follow the talk schedule around and listen to the presentations by keepers about as many animals as possible. We got to the zoo just before 11 in the morning which left about 5 talks for us to catch.
We started with the chimps, my favourite animal at the zoo and always the most entertaining talk. They basically feed them and chat a bit about the group of chimps they have there and the hierarchy of them. It's always fun watching them catch the fruit being thrown into them by the keeper and watching the impatient ones clapping their hands to try and coerce the keeper into throwing more for them.
From there we had the giraffe talk, another favourite of mine. I've always loved the ridiculous nature of giraffes. They're so gangly and silly looking and their tongues are intriguing. The best part of the giraffe talk is that they give you some branches with leaves on them to try and feed the giraffes with. I have been able to feed them in the past but on this particular day they weren't having any of our nonsense.
At this point it started to rain on us a little bit so we found cover and decided it was probably an okay time for lunch. We hadn't brought food with us this time so made use of the zoo cafe. I bought myself a coffee and some chips while Hannah indulged in traditional NZ fare in the form of a meat pie.
After lunch we decided to take a look around the Australia area of the zoo, figuring that if we took our time there it would tie in well and have us in the right place for the Tasmanian Devil talk.
The Australia exhibit is in my opinion the most well set up area of the zoo. You walk in through half of a house and come out the other side with a fence separating the two areas to highlight the whole neighbours thing between NZ and Australia.
All throughout the area there are kangaroos, wallabies and several kinds of bird wandering free around the path and garden areas as you walk between enclosures. They have a relatively recent Tasmanian Devil enclosure with (I think) two of them currently living there and a Dingo enclosure further round.
This area of the zoo also has the coolest interactive stuff. Continuing with the neighbours theme there are letterboxes dotted around the place with information about the animals there, a couple of staged washing lines set up, a trampoline for kids to use and a sandpit next to the Dingoes that invited children to "dig like a Dingo."
Once the Tasmanian Devil talk was done we decided to wander around the zoo for a while on our own schedule. We stopped by the meerkat enclosure for a while and watched some people having a Meerkat experience tour feed them and hang out with them inside of their habitat for a bit. We also made stops by the spider monkey enclosure near the zoo entrance and the tiger enclosure. We tried earlier to see the lions but they were sensibly avoiding the cold weather inside their den which you can't see into.
When we'd seen everything we were interested in seeing we checked on the talk schedule again to see if there was anything interesting left. The Sun Bear talk was yet to come so we went over to the Asian area to check that out.
That talk was really cool because in their new enclosure there is a gate where the keeper can lure one of the bears down to be fed and get him to stretch out on the gate so that you can see all of his underbelly and claws from about 2 metres away. It was the closest I've ever been to a real bear and quite the intimidating experience.
We were both pretty tired at that point and ready to call it a day. We headed back over towards the entrance/ exit area and checked in with the Otters on the way out to see what they were up to. We tried to see the Little Blue Penguins next to the Otters as well but they were hiding from us.
It was an awesome day checking out the zoo and I'm glad the weather held up enough for us to make an enjoyable time out of it. Wellington Zoo is a great place to spend the day and is in my humble and unbiased opinion, the best zoo in New Zealand.
The next post here will be about a friends play that Hannah and I went to see before she left to go down to Otago for school.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
A Midwinter Picnic
The weather for Hannah's second day was scheduled to largely behave itself so it seemed the best day we had to venture up to the botanic gardens. I'm not quite sure why I always prioritise the gardens so much whenever I have visitors to show around but I think it's largely because I don't often make a point of going there or venture near them in my day to day life and secondarily because the cable car goes up there and is such an icon of the city within itself.
Once again making use of Wellington's brilliant bus system, we made our way into town and got of at a supermarket in the CBD. We had packed with us a blanket, plates and other generally useful picnic items; all we were missing was the food.
Although the weather was behaving itself in that it wasn't raining on us and the wind was relatively calm, it was rather cool given the time of year so we were both dressed accordingly. I'm sure there aren't many countries where winter time picnics are a feasible or reasonable option, point for New Zealand right there.
We walked up towards cable car lane and travelled up to the gardens, that being the only acceptable means of transportation up there. There is of course pedestrian and vehicle access around the place but the cable car is way cooler and I love taking any opportunity I get to ride on it.
At the top we wandered around parts of the garden I had looked at with Beckett several months before, as well as parts that Beckett and I hadn't bothered to see. There's an old Scout Hall (I'm not sure if it's still actively used or not) that we walked past which Hannah was particularly interested. Her brother at home had been involved in Scouts so their family by default had been heavily involved with his Scout unit.
After an hour or so, we found a nice spot near the sound - shell to lay down our blanket and have something to eat. We'd organised ourself some sandwich stuff, muesli bars and some orange juice; all classic picnic fare. Fortunately the grass was dry enough so as not to soak us or the blanket we had with us.
During the summer the sound - shell hosts a series of free musical events crossing a range of styles and appealing to a variety of different audiences. In my teen years I'd often go along with Mum to a couple of them and we'd sit around the same spot Hannah and I were sat at for our picnic. Usually we took some fish and chips with us or easy to eat picnic type food with a few beers. It was nice being able to revisit that spot with a friend and introduce them to such a cool little place.
We spent some more time wandering the gardens after lunch, stopping by one of the information centre / observation deck spots to learn about the various enormous trees dotted around the gardens. There are all sorts of interesting plants there from around the world and it's great being able to read about them all and their various history's and uses.
In total we probably chilled around the gardens for a good four or five hours which was enough to give them a good go. We took the cable car back down and had a much more peaceful trip than I'd had with Beckett, completely free of unfortunate incidents with children.
My next post here will be about our trip over to Wellington Zoo, the coolest little zoo there is.
Once again making use of Wellington's brilliant bus system, we made our way into town and got of at a supermarket in the CBD. We had packed with us a blanket, plates and other generally useful picnic items; all we were missing was the food.
Although the weather was behaving itself in that it wasn't raining on us and the wind was relatively calm, it was rather cool given the time of year so we were both dressed accordingly. I'm sure there aren't many countries where winter time picnics are a feasible or reasonable option, point for New Zealand right there.
We walked up towards cable car lane and travelled up to the gardens, that being the only acceptable means of transportation up there. There is of course pedestrian and vehicle access around the place but the cable car is way cooler and I love taking any opportunity I get to ride on it.
At the top we wandered around parts of the garden I had looked at with Beckett several months before, as well as parts that Beckett and I hadn't bothered to see. There's an old Scout Hall (I'm not sure if it's still actively used or not) that we walked past which Hannah was particularly interested. Her brother at home had been involved in Scouts so their family by default had been heavily involved with his Scout unit.
After an hour or so, we found a nice spot near the sound - shell to lay down our blanket and have something to eat. We'd organised ourself some sandwich stuff, muesli bars and some orange juice; all classic picnic fare. Fortunately the grass was dry enough so as not to soak us or the blanket we had with us.
During the summer the sound - shell hosts a series of free musical events crossing a range of styles and appealing to a variety of different audiences. In my teen years I'd often go along with Mum to a couple of them and we'd sit around the same spot Hannah and I were sat at for our picnic. Usually we took some fish and chips with us or easy to eat picnic type food with a few beers. It was nice being able to revisit that spot with a friend and introduce them to such a cool little place.
We spent some more time wandering the gardens after lunch, stopping by one of the information centre / observation deck spots to learn about the various enormous trees dotted around the gardens. There are all sorts of interesting plants there from around the world and it's great being able to read about them all and their various history's and uses.
In total we probably chilled around the gardens for a good four or five hours which was enough to give them a good go. We took the cable car back down and had a much more peaceful trip than I'd had with Beckett, completely free of unfortunate incidents with children.
My next post here will be about our trip over to Wellington Zoo, the coolest little zoo there is.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Playing Host Again
A couple of months after Beckett's visit to Wellington, another one of my good friends from Wisconsin came all the way across the world to see me.
Hannah, who was my prom date in high school at Fort, decided to do a semester on exchange down at Otago University in Dunedin, after much convincing from me that New Zealand was a much better exchange option than going to England (take that so called motherland!).
She arrived a couple of weeks before the start of the New Zealand second semester in Auckland and made her way down country, spending time with friends along the way near Tauranga and seeing a bit of the New Zealand landscape before arriving to spend about 3 days with me in Wellington.
The closest her bus got to my house was Wellington airport (15 minute walk) so I walked down to meet her and hear tales of her adventures thus far.
Unfortunately with the time of year she arrived at, the weather was disinclined to behave in a particularly accommodating manner, so my loose list of options for things to do was entirely weather dependant. It sounded like she'd experienced okay weather in her travels prior to Wellington which was lucky.
Also unfortunately, I had to work the time that she was there so I was dead - tired with starting at 2 AM and then going out and doing things all day but it was a small sacrifice to make for the sake of showing a good friend all of the cool stuff in my hometown.
On her first day in town, it rained torrentially for about 8 hours. I'd already decided that the weather was looking sketchy so the best plan was to visit Te Papa, the National Museum.
We were lucky enough to make it to the bus stop, into town and inside of the building before the real rain started but when that set in we were pretty well restricted to spending the whole day there. Thankfully there's about 3 full days worth of interesting stuff to check out inside the museum.
I was determined to get to Te Papa with Hannah as I didn't quite manage to find time with Beckett and it would have been an absolute crime to have hosted two visitors in Wellington without paying it a visit.
Hannah seemed to really enjoy the areas of the museum pertaining to New Zealand history and Maori culture which was cool to see. I made sure we got in on a showing of Golden Days as well, a must - do for all visitors. I think she found that pretty interesting as well, I know I always get a good laugh out of it even with having seen it about 50 times.
It surprised me actually how much it all interested her. She spent a long time reading through everything while I found ways to keep my short attention span continuously occupied.
We stopped for a lunch and coffee break at the cafe after a couple of hours. I had one of the better coffees I've had in the city and a piece of cheesecake because sometimes it's fun to eat cheesecake for lunch.
After lunch we went back to perusing the museum and stopped in at the art gallery there. I don't generally connect well with visual art, mostly because I know nothing about it and I need explanations of what the thought or context is behind pieces for them to hold my interest. I do enjoy taking wild guesses whilst walking through galleries though and the Te Papa gallery is rather fantastic. At the time they also had a magnetic poetry board set up in there so naturally I left a brief composition on that.
In the sculpture section we got talking to one of the volunteers, an older guy who LOVED to talk. I think he probably would have kept going all day if we hadn't cut him short after about half an hour of him telling us all sorts of stories about his half Chinese grand - daughter and his time at the museum.
When we finally managed to break out of conversation with him, we finished wandering that part of the museum, looked around for another couple of hours, essentially visiting every part of the museum (including the earthquake house) until we were both sufficiently exhausted.
Fortunately by the time we left the rain had softened a bit and we didn't get terribly wet trying to make our way to the bus stop. We must have been in good favour somehow with the weather gods to have not gotten soaked at some point through the day.
We hopped a bus back to Miramar, organised dinner, set up sleeping arrangements (I gave up my bed and slept on a mattress on the floor instead) and I crashed out early, ready to be up at 1 AM to get going for work.
The next post here will be about our adventure on the second day through the Wellington Botanical Gardens.
Hannah, who was my prom date in high school at Fort, decided to do a semester on exchange down at Otago University in Dunedin, after much convincing from me that New Zealand was a much better exchange option than going to England (take that so called motherland!).
She arrived a couple of weeks before the start of the New Zealand second semester in Auckland and made her way down country, spending time with friends along the way near Tauranga and seeing a bit of the New Zealand landscape before arriving to spend about 3 days with me in Wellington.
The closest her bus got to my house was Wellington airport (15 minute walk) so I walked down to meet her and hear tales of her adventures thus far.
Unfortunately with the time of year she arrived at, the weather was disinclined to behave in a particularly accommodating manner, so my loose list of options for things to do was entirely weather dependant. It sounded like she'd experienced okay weather in her travels prior to Wellington which was lucky.
Also unfortunately, I had to work the time that she was there so I was dead - tired with starting at 2 AM and then going out and doing things all day but it was a small sacrifice to make for the sake of showing a good friend all of the cool stuff in my hometown.
On her first day in town, it rained torrentially for about 8 hours. I'd already decided that the weather was looking sketchy so the best plan was to visit Te Papa, the National Museum.
We were lucky enough to make it to the bus stop, into town and inside of the building before the real rain started but when that set in we were pretty well restricted to spending the whole day there. Thankfully there's about 3 full days worth of interesting stuff to check out inside the museum.
I was determined to get to Te Papa with Hannah as I didn't quite manage to find time with Beckett and it would have been an absolute crime to have hosted two visitors in Wellington without paying it a visit.
Hannah seemed to really enjoy the areas of the museum pertaining to New Zealand history and Maori culture which was cool to see. I made sure we got in on a showing of Golden Days as well, a must - do for all visitors. I think she found that pretty interesting as well, I know I always get a good laugh out of it even with having seen it about 50 times.
It surprised me actually how much it all interested her. She spent a long time reading through everything while I found ways to keep my short attention span continuously occupied.
We stopped for a lunch and coffee break at the cafe after a couple of hours. I had one of the better coffees I've had in the city and a piece of cheesecake because sometimes it's fun to eat cheesecake for lunch.
After lunch we went back to perusing the museum and stopped in at the art gallery there. I don't generally connect well with visual art, mostly because I know nothing about it and I need explanations of what the thought or context is behind pieces for them to hold my interest. I do enjoy taking wild guesses whilst walking through galleries though and the Te Papa gallery is rather fantastic. At the time they also had a magnetic poetry board set up in there so naturally I left a brief composition on that.
In the sculpture section we got talking to one of the volunteers, an older guy who LOVED to talk. I think he probably would have kept going all day if we hadn't cut him short after about half an hour of him telling us all sorts of stories about his half Chinese grand - daughter and his time at the museum.
When we finally managed to break out of conversation with him, we finished wandering that part of the museum, looked around for another couple of hours, essentially visiting every part of the museum (including the earthquake house) until we were both sufficiently exhausted.
Fortunately by the time we left the rain had softened a bit and we didn't get terribly wet trying to make our way to the bus stop. We must have been in good favour somehow with the weather gods to have not gotten soaked at some point through the day.
We hopped a bus back to Miramar, organised dinner, set up sleeping arrangements (I gave up my bed and slept on a mattress on the floor instead) and I crashed out early, ready to be up at 1 AM to get going for work.
The next post here will be about our adventure on the second day through the Wellington Botanical Gardens.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Beckett's Last Day
With an intense week of travel and activity behind us, Beckett's last day in Wellington was a truly New Zealand day in that it was very laid back. We were both tired and neither of us was too interested in doing much in the way of sight - seeing.
I would have liked to have shown him around Te Papa, the national museum in the middle of the city, but when you don't have the energy it's a big ask to wander around a museum for hours. Instead we slept in late and settled into some quiet drinking couple with general R & R.
We went into town and played pool along some of the iconic Cuba Street bars which is always a good way to spend a chilled out day. Beckett's flight the next day was an early one so we didn't have too big a night or anything but it definitely wasn't a day wasted.
I think it was a good way to reflect on the trip we'd had and share some quality stress - free hang time before we said goodbye for an indefinite length of time once again. It's not very often you find friends that are willing to fly halfway across the world to see you for just a week and if I've learned anything in life so far, it's that those are the people who stick around in your life for a long time. In saying that they're also the genuine kind of people that you want to be in your life for a very long time.
I realise now that writing this, I have seen Beckett every year since my exchange, except for 2015 but with a trip to North America planned later in the year I'm sure we'll make it happen. That's a pretty cool claim to be able to make for friends that live on opposite sides of the world from each other.
To cap off the series of blog posts that have been written about our adventure across the North Island of New Zealand and Wellington City, I woke up at about 4 AM to drive Beckett to the airport the next morning. As is always the case at that time of day, we were both exhausted, it was dark and it felt like the middle of the night. I dropped him off there with his bags, said a quick goodbye and left him to his own devices to check in and such as I drove back toward home.
Naturally, when I got back to the house (thankfully I live about 3 minutes drive from the airport) I went straight to sleep. The accumulative lack of sleep over the trip seemed to catch up with me in one hit and I slept until about 2 PM. I woke up still feeling a little groggy, made myself a cup of black instant coffee and stared out my kitchen window as I often do mindlessly during the wake - up routine.
As I looked out to the neighbours yard with the sun shining in on it, the surreal nature of the previous week dawned upon me. If there hadn't been a half bottle of Duty Free tequila in my cupboard, I'm not sure I would've believed it and so having just woken up in the middle of the afternoon, I poured myself a tequila shot and drank to the raw power of friendship.
I would have liked to have shown him around Te Papa, the national museum in the middle of the city, but when you don't have the energy it's a big ask to wander around a museum for hours. Instead we slept in late and settled into some quiet drinking couple with general R & R.
We went into town and played pool along some of the iconic Cuba Street bars which is always a good way to spend a chilled out day. Beckett's flight the next day was an early one so we didn't have too big a night or anything but it definitely wasn't a day wasted.
I think it was a good way to reflect on the trip we'd had and share some quality stress - free hang time before we said goodbye for an indefinite length of time once again. It's not very often you find friends that are willing to fly halfway across the world to see you for just a week and if I've learned anything in life so far, it's that those are the people who stick around in your life for a long time. In saying that they're also the genuine kind of people that you want to be in your life for a very long time.
I realise now that writing this, I have seen Beckett every year since my exchange, except for 2015 but with a trip to North America planned later in the year I'm sure we'll make it happen. That's a pretty cool claim to be able to make for friends that live on opposite sides of the world from each other.
To cap off the series of blog posts that have been written about our adventure across the North Island of New Zealand and Wellington City, I woke up at about 4 AM to drive Beckett to the airport the next morning. As is always the case at that time of day, we were both exhausted, it was dark and it felt like the middle of the night. I dropped him off there with his bags, said a quick goodbye and left him to his own devices to check in and such as I drove back toward home.
Naturally, when I got back to the house (thankfully I live about 3 minutes drive from the airport) I went straight to sleep. The accumulative lack of sleep over the trip seemed to catch up with me in one hit and I slept until about 2 PM. I woke up still feeling a little groggy, made myself a cup of black instant coffee and stared out my kitchen window as I often do mindlessly during the wake - up routine.
As I looked out to the neighbours yard with the sun shining in on it, the surreal nature of the previous week dawned upon me. If there hadn't been a half bottle of Duty Free tequila in my cupboard, I'm not sure I would've believed it and so having just woken up in the middle of the afternoon, I poured myself a tequila shot and drank to the raw power of friendship.
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| Photo by CMDR Shane on Unsplash |
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