Outside, inside, outside, inside

That's pretty much how it goes at this time of year - outside for bit, then inside while it rains, then outside again for a bit, then sitting in the car while it rains - then you take pictures of the rain from inside your car...of the outside.



I took Kien for a drive on Tuesday afternoon through Cornwall Park. I have such fond memories of this place.





When I was in high school a friend and I used to ditch school just so we could go for a run around here. One time I fell down some stairs (not dissimilar to the ones in the above photo), and I had a really nasty gash on my knee. I had to drive us back to school with my knee dripping with blood, front up at the sick bay and explain what had happened. I'm not one for lying, so I innocently told the nurse my friend and I had wagged class because we wanted to run around somewhere beautiful. What surprised me was that she didn't even punish us!



Sometimes during our school lunch break I would just want to drive up to the summit (or go to the Auckland museum). So a group of us would sneak out through the hole in the fence, pile into my car and have a mini adventure before the bell rang.



You're probably wondering (from my alluding to the amount of times I've ditched class) whether I was able to finish school at all. Well, truth be known that during my 7th form year I had an overwhelming desire to experience high school elsewhere, and fortunately I was able to go to L.A. to do my senior year there. I continued to have mini adventures/excursions away from the classroom at "inappropriate" times, still managed to pull off a 4.0 grade point average, left the US before graduation, sat high school equivalency exams, got into university, completed my degree in 3 years with a double major (while working full time in the last semester), and won an excellence award in my final paper (that came with some money as well). So I would justify my decision to escape classes when I needed to as my way to reflect and absorb the world (and life) around me. It made me feel excited and alive, hungry for adventure and the endless possibilities for my life. I still feel this way, and I'm reminded when I visit my old haunts.


I also rode my bike along this path almost every day for an entire year when I worked at the airport.

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It was dress-up day for Playgroup on Tuesday morning. So I dressed Kien up in the only outfit we own. We got there and someone asked me if he was supposed to be an animal trainer. I looked at Kien and realised that indeed his outfit looked more like what Steve Irwin might have worn as opposed to, say, a SAS soldier. Let me know if you disagree.





He was in a really good mood and was happy to roam around and play on his own. After rolling the car around for a while I found him sitting at the table stuffing play dough into the helicopter.



He also enjoyed stacking blocks and making towers - "I make sky tower", he says. Then he will smash the blocks down, laugh, and start building all over again.



At one point the adults decided to get photos of all the kids together. It was hilarious.