I passed my exam! That's right, one down and 5 more courses to go - my new course book, "Securities Markets and Regulation in New Zealand" sounds thrilling already.

But it doesn't matter, because i passed my first course.

Spring has sprung here (and it's about freaking time if you ask me). The sun has been out and yesterday on my walk to the french market, you could smell the hint of flowers in the air, see the crocuses waiting to bloom, and hear the birds singing. Even though winter isn't cold here it was wet enough to appreciate the magic of spring.

Matt's aussie rules team has started up again and he was interviewed last week for an article to go in the Herald (Auckland's major newspaper) this week. Stay tuned to read that.

After a bout of illness last week, i'm back in the gym trying to prepare myself for the quarter marathon and generally just get back in shape. Thus far, I'm finding it a slow process (running consistently that is) but i'm getting better. So far i've only done 6km as a max distance - on the treadmill i was only about to jog for about 25 minutes and walked the rest of the 6km and despite my best efforts yesterday (i'm not very good a jogging with a backpack on) i wound up walking the whole 6km to the french market and back.

We spent last weekend down in Whiritoa with Victoria & Matt and Mark & Hazel. We had a lovely time and really lucked out by having great weather. I'll put some pictures up soonish.

I'm off to enjoy the sunshine. Ciao.