Today has been a day of challenges, read, today was horrible. It began with the long awaited bed delivery. It is not only missing vital pieces (such as legs and screws) but more importantly the instructions of how to put it together. I am now left with a giant rubics cube that takes up 3/4 of my apartment. The next challenge, was my group meeting, see insert below that I wrote at the time to get a feeling of how that went.

"I am surrounded by imbeciles. You know, every time I have a course where group work makes up a component of my grade I cringe. I try to remind myself that collaboration is a great thing, of Gestalts principle that a group can be
greater than the sum of it's parts, that great minds together can result in
creative problem solving and finally that 'Many hands make light work'. However,
every time I am disappointed. People come unprepared, people take years to read
a case which is straight forward, people don't grasp basic concepts, and
basically take up my time which is a scarce and precious resouce when I am
wanting to head to Ikea on a Saturday. I know that this seems impatient, but I
always find myself coming back to the arguement, that no group can be greater
than it's best individual. I know this sounds arrogant. I am by no means
claiming that I am the brightest individual in the group. However, for better or
worse, I would like to take a gamble on this, save my time and effort, and be
graded as an individual. There you have it."

Next was my foray into the land of Ikea. Now, I first must clarify that there is no Ikea in New Zealand, and I love to shop for home furnishings. In light of these two things I thought that this experience would be one that would finally put the day on track. Oh how wrong I was. The first problem occurred when I missed the bus there. This was due to my lovely, but boring to the point of contemplating applying to patent on her as a drug free sedative group member, who insisted on telling me about how she couldnt decide where to go for her exchange semester. In her own words she thought it would take her at least a month to make such a decision. Hell woman do what I did, spin the globe, think of the wine, more importantly get on with it!

So, I missed the bus. I then got to Ikea and realised that I was way over my head. I was the definition of underprepared, and am sure I spent about quater an hour just trying to figure out where to get a trolley from and which floor to start on. Half an hour in and I was truly glazed over and had a profound new understanding for what the male species must feel like on female clothes shopping expiditions. By the time I pulled myself together, talked to at least three different sales assistants about how the shop worked (as I couldnt understand any of the signs in German, naturally) I was on a speed mission to furnish (although sparsely) my apartment to the point of habitability. It really is disgraceful that I have gone two weeks with neither towels nor a pillow (dont worry, was still showering, the gym helped out with this as did the remarkably absorbant handy towels they have over here). I was on the clock as the last return bus was leaving in just an hour. Duvet, miniture ironing board, everything was piled in the trolley with gusto, arrived at the checkout thinking I was in time I enquired about having the stuff delivered to me as advertised on their website. Straight through to the transport department and bang, the fun began. To make a long story short I have just lugged home (three different train connections just to make things interesting) the following:

A queen sized feather duvet and cover, two pillows, covers and queen sized sheets. Two pans, a pot, bowls, three oversized candles and eight wooden coat hangers. The rest is being deliverd Monday morning.

Lowlight: Missing the final bus so having to take the train, of course one of my bags broke on the walk between the store and the first station.
Lowerlight: Realising I had left the wine opener with the stuff being delivered on Monday.