Yesterday was pretty much the best day ever. It was tariqa's birthday, and as she's never liked her birthdays I thought I'd make at least this one memorable and ask her to marry me... and she said yes! Wooooo! So we're now officially engaged. It's pretty awesome.

I got her what Wikipedia calls a "promise ring" - being a poor student still, a proper bling-ring's a little out of the question for now. It's still pretty nice, and has some tiny little diamonds that I'm sure no Africans would have been killed for.

I foolishly updated my Facebook status before getting to uni, so was ambushed by a gaggle of female classmates wanting to know the full story... hamymonkey said it's a genetic thing. Tariqa had a similar situation at work apparently, after one of her workmates caught a glimpse of the new mini-bling on her finger...

I suppose the next step is telling my mum and her dad...

So um, yeah. There was lots of icing on today's cake too! (that sounded like something Alan Partridge would say, I've been watching far too much).

I handed in two assignments, leaving only a couple more till I'm done... I passed the phone interview and got an in-person job interview at Netguide... I found Civilization IV Complete (with all the addons) has been released, so finally bought it...

Then to top it all off, on the way home, I got to ride in one of them Diplodocus-length bendy buses!!!

What an awesome day.

"Sexy sports presenter splits with ref" - the first sentence is enough! I know it's credited to the Sunday News in the small print, but they could at least not put it on the front page of the site if they want to be taken seriously now, huh?

So my week in Hamilton... On the first day, we popped into the Dewar court case in one of Htown's three adjacent courtrooms; it was the first day, and as I'd no idea what this Dewar guy looked like, I thought the guy being interrogated was Dewar. It wasn't, and was boring as fuck anyway, so I didn't really care when I found out it wasn't him.

On the second, we'd been in the Waikato Times office not even an hour and all the computers died. All us newbies panicked, while our tutor said things like, "how'd you have done this twenty years ago?".

A dumb question, cause (a) twenty years ago I was still learning how to tie my shoelaces, and (b) we've never been taught how exactly to go about things without computers. Use phone books? Okay, and what do we say when people tell us what we're asking is on the website? Write it longhand? Yeah, but will they mark it? Etc etc.

Anyway. I interviewed Pedro Carneiro on Wednesday morning, which was kinda cool. Part of me was hoping he barely spoke English so I could get everything down on paper without too much trouble. Turns out he's a fluent speaker, and I'd called him at 10pm (I was told it was 9pm in Portugal). Hmmm. Anyway, he was really cool, and going by his Youtube videos a much better classical marimba percussionist than any I've probably interviewed before.

So over the week I did a story on a high school surfing competition, a brief on APRA, the piece on Pedro, a preview of a play at the uni, and an article on a high school with a record label in Ngatea, which the Times decided to get a photo for - driving a photographer and I an hour each way to cover. I'm not sure which if any of these stories have been/will be published, being back in Aucks, but we'll see. The brief was included on the Ent page on Thursday, the play piece later this week I've been told. Fingers crossed for the rest.

Haha, Dave Letterman's getting ripped apart by someone from HR. He works one hour a day, high blood pressure, and has been with the company 14 years without a promotion. Hehe.

Anyway... the trip to Htown wasn't all work. Which doesn't mean the rest of the time was all fun. We stayed at the Ascot Lodge Motel; my room, and I suspect the others, had no internet, a shower whose five streams you couldn't position yourself in at once, and a Gideon Bible. Our tutor stayed across the road at the Kingsgate Hotel, which you can tell was awesome just by comparing the names.

My best attempt at entertainment alone involved hooking up my iPod to the TV, which for some reason only played the left channel, or playing mp3s off the laptop, which due to my lack of mp3s (AAC for the win) and desire to use the memory-limited laptop for getting thrashed at Civilization wasn't anything to rave about.

I went out one night and played pool with Rob and Jennah which was fun, and the night ended earlier than we wanted cause everything in Htown shuts early on a Tuesday; no bowling and video games for us.

On Wednesday we (the students) went out as a group to Barzurk, the gourmet pizza place. I think I was the only one who actually ordered a pizza. Anyway, it was an enlightening evening; it seems the young 'uns, predominantly those in the 3rd year of their degrees, want to forgo an honourable career in exchange for a money-grubbing career in PR, and the older ones, predominantly us in the grad dip course, intend to go into proper journalism. Strange, when you think at first it'd be the older ones who have degrees and go back to uni that'd be doing it for sanity and non-ideological reasons.

But you know, come the end of the course, we'll see what jobs are available...

Anyway, one particular student really ground my gears on the trip, but in that 'I find it amusing and a little frustrating while she gets completely riled up' kind of way. Cutting a long story short, she's a loud, incessant, rejects-anything-that-doesn't-sound-right to her kind of person, but not in that persuasive and admirable... sort of way. More in that intolerable, loud for the sake of it, inarguable... kind of way.

I remember last semester at the marae trip, after standing up for five minutes talking about how much Jesus meant to her, how angry and offended she looked after I spent my minute or so explaining why I was agnostic.

The most ridiculous part of the whole non-debate (at a pizza joint, for god's sake) was the moment she leaned past me and said directly to the girl to my left, a Christian who'd this far not disagreed with anything I'd said, "well we're not afraid to die, cause we know where we're going, eh?"

Quietly afterwards (and some even during), the others at the table (including she to my left) pretty much all agreed it was not a done deal Christianity was 100% correct, even if it was their faith.

I'm not sure if it counts for anything that she didn't stay with us for the entire trip, instead choosing to commute from Auckland to Hamilton every day, at her own expense, rather than spending three or four nights with us open-minded scum.

But the night was fun, regardless of how it comes across now. I do enjoy prodding and egging along people with bizarre opinions without giving too much of a shit myself where we end up. If I come out of it understanding another point of view a bit better that's great, if I disagree with their reasoning and they come out of it better understanding my point of view that's even better. If what they're proposing is blatantly absurd and they refuse to budge, the more ridiculous I can show their position to be without getting amped up myself, well that's a night well spent.

To counter-act her pro-Jesus bias and balance out the universe, as all good journalists are meant to do, I then thought I'd steal a bible. What could be worse than committing a supposed crime with the very word of God? As it turns out, most things are. One was left in the drawer in my room making it easy, but a quick glance at wikipedia suggests those who planted it wanted me to 'steal' it. Ah well. I'm sure when I'm done it'll make a good table leveller, projectile, fire, or something.

Court reporting lessons start tomorrow. Bed, I think.