it's time to hit the books

i am determined to finish my urban term paper by the end of the week (sunday). and hopefully manage to go the college's gym on fri and another on sunday to get ride of some of the weight the bloody western food have added on me. i tell you there is a reason why angmohs are so big. all the potato they eat just piles on easily. western food is EVIL. everyone who went on exchange comes back fat! i dont want that to happen to me!!!! i want to come back hot as hell man. hot until can go and model. hahaha. but the weather is just so cold.

the stupid library is so damn big i cant really find what i really need. now everything is just stacking on my table collecting dust. i have also decided to be a bit more literally and read jane eyre and fifty days. lets hope i can get through that classic and learn more from a porn star. i think jane eyre will be nice since it wasnt too bad when i read the first chapter.

you can borrow 15 books here. NUS sucks only allow 8. how can anyone do a decent paper?

the real meaning of "dampening my mood"

the room got very warm in the middle of the night to i woke up to open my windows. then i snuggled back under the covers. it was nice to warm your own bed when the room is starting to turn colder by the minute. perfectly nice to sleep in too.

every meaning of the phase came to my mind as i woke up today. not only could i almost not wake up as the room had turned cold. i could hear the wind outside my window. i have never heard such loud winds before since i came to new zealand. and when i finally got myself up and opened my window curtains it was freeking raining elephants and donkeys. first time it rained so heavily.

so heavily i refused to go for class coz not only will it be wet. it will also be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY FREEKING COLD and the wind is so strong your umbrella will just turn over. and you will have one upside down umbrella. rain, wind and winter just dont go together esp when it is very big rain and very strong wind and very cold winter

but i still have to go for class in the afternoon coz i have lab which i simply cant miss. so i still will have to weather the storm and go for class. a noble deed i have to put myself throught

SHIT.

and they could have another phase "freezing my mood"

and to think that i was very happy i finished my harry potter in 12 hours straight yesterday. and i was kinda bushed by the book the entire night. it answered all the questions but it was not as good as i had expected it. i still prefer half blood prince. at least dumby died. maybe it was because i was reading it too fast. but that was the crappiest last chapter i have ever laid my eyes upon! like WTF. where is my quiddich.

half the time i was thinking to myself what animal will my patronus be. and after all the books i still think snape is still my favourite character. harry should get a new personality and go for anger management courses, the ministry sucks even after so many books. tonks is really cute but stupid to die in the end. poor hegwid, kena fried for nothing by his own master. hagrid should go for groomin classes. ron should get a better brain. hermoine should just keep her mouth shut sometimes.

am i missing out on my LAST fwoc?

it occurred to me that i am really going to be missing out on fwoc. i have enjoyed my last two fwocs and now i am forced to be sitting out on this one. ill never be dated and ill never be through fwoc as a senior. i want to slack off at the side and have fun at the same time.

but i guess reality says "not this year"

i guess this is just all too late now. fwoc is going to be starting tomorrow and i am missing out on hall. then i realized that i do love KR life alot. although i have been gradually becoming a phantom in the last year, i only realized that i actually love hall life that much now that i have left and possibly never having the chance to go back to what my life on 4th floor will be.

i have seen 2nd semester returning seniors not integrating back into hall life.

i cant even concentrate on my harry potter book coz half the time i am reading it, i am thinking of how my life would be as a senior during FWOC. i do want the experience. i guess the only chance for me to do that is IF i miraculously get enough points in second semester for me to stay to do my honors.

i am wondering if tennis and KRX is enough. well i dont seem so. but i do hope to try out for dance to see if i can actually do it even though i think i will suck at it. it is not that easy to get points from hall in a single semester.

i want very desperately to get back to hall. but more importantly i want to get back to hall provided i get to stay back on MY 4th FLOOR. i hope you guess can scare off one of the freshies so that i can have her room.

i feel like i am missing out on everything.

even when i see that friends are getting together without me. i feel like i am missing out on alot of things. i should be there.

Lesson for the day

NEVER USE YOUR SINGAPORE LINE FOR ANYTHING WHEN YOU ARE IN NEW ZEALAND

it cost 61 singapore cents to send a single sms.
and $4.30 to call back to singapore per minute.
and it cost $1 a minute to pick up a call

saturday morning hunt

we said to meet up at 9am this morning. i was sleeping and i would never have bothered about waking up until dias messaged me. i was so tired i had a good mind to just sleep the whole morning off. and the funny thing is that i dint really has that little sleep last night. since we came back from johnsons cook in at willowbank.

johnson cooked "sambal" sotong, potatos with pork, cabbage and plum sauce chicken all which i thought was not that bad. actually pretty yummy. and the funny thing is that although i am not a big chilli eater in singapore, i have been heavily craving for chilli since i got here. all i want to do is to pack a spoonful of sambal or chicken rice chilli into my mouth. but the thing is that you cant even find fresh chilli here to even make chilli. like come on la. macs dont even provide chilli sauce. and everytime i eat fries all i want is to put a large pack of garlic chilli sause on it.

but here we are at the otago farmers market. everything is bulk cheap.

i was surprised to find that new zealand yam looks no where near asian yam. the ones here are red and they look like carrots. i actually thought they were genetically screwed up carrots until i saw the sign that read "YAM". and the carrots here still have their leaves on it. like those you see bugs bunny eat.




there are even baskers there. two girls on strings and a man on the bag pipes.



HAPPY ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY SHANNY

today is my one month anniversary in new zealand and otago. i cant believe that i have been here for such a long time already. it seems like it was just yesterday that i arrived. and this is also to celebrate my first weekend in otago since i have been out of dunedin since i arrived.

i really cannot believe that time flew by so fast. and the thing is that i havent manage to get ANY work done coz ron was here for the last two weeks. so now i have three weeks of readings, a lab report and a term paper to start and do. and the funny thing is that i have never used the program for my lab report before. can you believe that they dont let us use excel to plot graphs? we actually need to use this other programe called minitabs.

i think i really need to celebrate my one month by doing my assignments. i think i will really need the time. and the stupid thing is that i also want to read my harry potter. but i am determined to not start it until i finish my lab report and readings.

my very own harry potter

i have been thinking for a while if i should just get my own copy of harry potter and the deathly hallows. i have been dying to buy it since i was in singapore but for the simple reason that i am going to be in new zealand when it is released on 21 july i decided not to.

then when the book was realeased here in new zealand i kept thinking to myself if i should buy it coz i still have to carry the stupid book back to singapore. and the weight of the book = the weight of more shopping choices

and guess what? the book only cost me NZD$29.99. that is only about 36 singapore bucks. everyone there in singapore and got their book for 40+ please get jealous. apparently it seems cheaper here than in singapore.

now i am going to have to wait for the weekend to read it coz i know when i start i cant possibly stop for anything. i just hope i actually feel like stopping for meals when i do start reading it tomorrow. i have to force myself to complete all my assignments today before i go non-stop to read from cover to cover



it was johnson's birthday party. nothing much but a really nice chocolate cake and a bottle of white wine. we tried to sneak into his house and surprise him but the whole damn place is pitch dark. and the funniest thing is that our dear johnson dont even know where his living room and kitchen lights are. we actually have to fumble in the dark for a good 3-5 mins before we managed to find the switch.



here is the birthday boy who dint want to eat his own cake.

and he is going to attempt cooking dinner for us all tonight so ill have to see if i can live through his cooking. but i actually honestly dont think that his cooking is going to the bad.

im all alone again

the room looks so empty suddenly.
everything is supposed to be where they are
but sometime is still missing.

you can be brought to loniness two times in a month.
sometimes there is just no end to tears.

singapore is a small world

VERELENE TAN SU SHAN!!!!!

i knew it when i thought the name was very familar when i saw it in the room list. my long lost RGPS bus-mate is coming to KR. and what is better is that she is going to be staying on my floor beside my old room!!! GOD I WISH I WAS IN KR NOW!!!!!

dear seniors in KR. without me there you have to take good care of her.

i am so happy. that suddenly i wished i was not on exchange and i am back in MY room in KR with vera as my neighbour. i really cant believe that this is really happening. to think that she is stayin on 4th floor. GOD I REALLY HOPE I GET A ROOM BACK ON BBLK 4TH FLOOR and no where else coz i want to be with my friend.

DENNIS: i beg you just put me back to 4th floor k???? im desperate!!!!!!!

shit. now that i will never get my room back and i am already starting to miss my room since i know it is not really in the best and cleanest of hands.

not only do we still stay 2 blocks away from each other in bishan but you are my "neighbour" now. now that i think of it i kinda think that my chances of moving back to bblk 4th floor is very slim. I WANT BACK MY $TH FLOOR!!!! I NEED MY 4TH FLOOR. ill do anything to get back to 4th floor. even if i have to murder janelle to get a room.

i want mala,
i want van,
i want ivy
i want huijuan
i want everyone

the queen is in town!

the past week end. although i was all sick and slightly feverish, i still managed to drag my butt down to new zealand's advanture hub. and i tell you although i din not go all the way there to ski, it still proved to be one VERY EXPENSIVE PLACE TO BE IN. but noneless VERY BEAUTIFUL.

nothing so far have beaten the remarkable ranges they have sitting across the lake. even our hostal room for two person proved to be so damn nice and big. if only my future house looks something like that from the inside. you can also see the mountains from tat very big window we have.

the kitchen has everything and it is just so damn clean and prettily furnished. the only bad part is that the weather is cold. the night before we left for queenstown it was on the news that the temperature in queenstown dropped to negative 10. and there half the time i was praying that the weather will still be nice and warm when we get there.

only that the bus trip there, the whole of central otago looked like it was hit by a snow storm. everything is all frosted till the trees where white. so beautiful. and COLD. the whole stretch from alexandra to cornwell were winter white. MAGNIFICANT. if only i was fully awake to actually take a photo of it.

well here is queenstown on a nice friday afternoon



this is our room. with nice chaired windows with the best views of both the coniferious forest and the mountains. you should see the toilets man. it was like walking into a 4 star hotel toilet. they even installed heaters just for the toilets, just to keep you warm in the winter when you are naked and just out from the shower.



this is the two german brothers that was staying in the same house as us. they are damn friendly. they are working in queenstown and are giving a room to stay. the guy on the left does one hell of a cooking. he even let us try his tomyam curry instant noodles thingy on our second night there.



and this is mrs tom. the pinewook lodge housecat that i found so irrisistably CUTE and adorable. i wonder how come cats in singapore are all not so cute and cuddly. and there is this dog called floyd running around the place which knows how to open doors for himself.



we had indian food for dinner. and i tell you it tastes so damn good. i missed indian food with all the curry and the spices. this place called tandorri palace. we ended up eating there on saturday lunch too. i missed the masala and the bhuna. and the garlic nann is heavenly. i can just eat that alone.

saturday

what is queenstown without getting your hands wet and your face cold? we paid NDZ$85 to be harnessed in a parachut and pulled over the lake. the view was really great. it was fun with the ocassional wind blowing you off your harness and the cold biting against your face.

i cant explain how frozen my bloody face was by the time we reached back to shore after one hour. i couldnt feel my nose, my ears and my cheeks.

and another lesson to learn : once you wear your beanie on your head. NEVER TAKE IT OUT. you will get VERY flat hair.



this is the parachut over the lake with the nice backdrop. too bad the two person up there is not us.



this is me and ron up there in the sky. legs dangling over the water. i was actually worried that my shoes might fall off then ill have no shoes for the rest of my time here in NZ. but luckily it dint.



after paraflights here we are again spending money at the shotover canons with shotover jets. this one is simply damn fun and exciting la. the jet boats goes at 80km/h through VERY rocky canon streams. and the driver is so talanted in manoveuring the jetboat that we always are so close to hitting the canon walls but not.

apparently we were lucky coz they have been closed for the past two weeks due to heavy ice formed on the river. this was the first day that they managed to ride paying customers along the stream,

the fun part of this boat is that the jet does 360 degree turns in the middle of the river with narrow stream and rocks all over the place. the driver will wave his hand and we will all be spinned around. it was so scary to imagine how it will feel like falling over into the freezin cold water you hold on to the bars tigher. and then there aresprays of COLD RIVER WATER ALL OVER YOUR FACE

i was holding to my beanie and my hood at the same time to prevent them from flying off my head.



just look how pretty the canons are. if you take the jet down it you can see 5m long stagmites hanging from the walls.



than it is back to town where ron did the happiest thing that he could have done this whole trip. he cheated some wine company of 80+ dollars worth of wine. and he also drank a 700 sing dollar bottle of wine. ron was very happy with this and he was happy for the rest of the day and till the end of the trip.



he is so proud of his stunt there is a photo of him posing with his wine card.

this wine tasting place has very high tech wine tasting machine. all the wine are dispensed out from dispensers where each bottle of wine sits nicely on it. the place is really nice with really comfy sofas and little tealight candles.



this is the main road in queenstown. i am so surprised that there is more life here than dunedin. there are more shops here than dunedin, there are more people here than dunedin there are even more cars and dogs and birds here. dunedin is such a sad place.



Sunday

what the hell do kiwi really look like? well. the place is so dark you cant really see them. just shadows of them jumping all over the place.



ron seems like he has never feed birds before in his entire life. there he stand with a packet of duck food and happily feeding ducks like he was a 10 year old kid.

and the funniest thing is that you are genetically advantaged to be a white headed duck in the middle of brown ducks. because an idiot like ron will show white headed ducks some goodness and feed it more than he will feed the other ducks. imagine that a human being can even show biasness towards ducks in the wild.



this is the maori culture dance and haka. we even took a photo of them. and i was very shocked at how loud they can sing man.



the sky cleared out by sunday. if only saturday was just as clear and bright.

the unbearable cold

shit.
i think i kinda caught the flu or something
my throat hurts really bad

and i am so cold i dont know if it is the weather or a fever.
i feel very cold now.
VERY COLD

that is the bad thing about winter.
you get sick, you feel cold, and you cant really explain it.
you just sit in a cold room with not enough heat.

my hands never felt warmer

it takes a 5 hour drive from dunedin to christchurch. i rented a car to take us up that long trip. it is a 2006 ford - brand new from the car rental shop. i have been waiting for this trip the whole week. so better to get good working car that can climb hills and slope without beeping once the speedometer hits 100km/h

anyway. the 5 hours lengthen into a 7 hour road trip.I LOVE ROAD TRIPSas long as it is not in malaysia. we drove past senic routes and had lunch by the river on a bench. the weather was good but still too many clouds in the sky. making photos not so nice and the sky less blue.

we stopped by at a beach stop off on the way to Timaru.. somehow although the waters are the same but you just have to stop to take a picture or two. there is always time for a picture to be taken no matter how many times you have seen the same landscape for the next 2000km.



when we drove past motoway 72 along the senic route. we passes by a rest stop with snow all over the ground. this is my first time seeing so much snow on a ground that is naturally placed there and not made out of some snow maching for skiing. although i did step onto a glacier when i was in swiss.

and while we are here i had the experience of pushing a caravan out of a ditch. there was a caravan stucked in the snowly wet mud and we helped them push the whole caravan out of it. i actually have strenght to do it man.

just to prove that i was there with the snow. i had a photo of my foot taken. and a fresh piece of snow with my footprints all over it. and the toilet is made out of snow.



we were on our way along motorway 1 just outside christchurch when suddenly eugene and shireen gave out a loud "cookietime". they actually made a u turn along a motorway just to make sure they got a photo of a cookietime factory. so here we are at the cookietime factory were there were so many bags of cookietime cookies on sale.

they even sell broken cookie bits in a bag for much cheaper than a usual pack of whole unbroken ones. sometimes i wonder why people will want to buy whole cookies for a price more expensive than a bag of cheaper broken ones. since they are most likely going to end up the same way when they go down your stomach.


i had to take a photo of them taking a photo of the cookietime signboard.

these two are crazy head over heels over cookietime. i still remember the first time eugene saw a 9 pack cookietime at the super market.




this is rollerston house. the backpackers inn we stayed at at christshurch. it is in the middle of all the very nice old cultural buidings like the chirst college and the museum and the arts house.

i actually like the feeling in staying at a backpackers. it is just like staying in hall. just that with the organised mess. the rooms are upstairs and the toilets, kitchen and living room is downstairs. if only hall was something like that. even the pillow is softer than expected. i actually like this place.



anyway. to use the internet here you have to pay NZD$1 for 10 freeking mins. everything here in new zealand cost more than you think it is because of the exchange rate.

and i caught shireen eating cokie time again.



first to the airport to pick up RON i am so happy that he could come to visit dispite his heavy schduelle and lack of fianances. i have been so happy the entire week since he called to tell me he got tickets to Christchurch. actually you could say that it was a very BIG anniversary surprise.

anyway. straight from the airport we headed down to AKAROA the peninsular of christchurch where there were tones of winding roads and coastline. the place would have been really much more beautiful if the sky was clearer. but it was still beautiful noneless with the coast and bay landscape.

this is along one of the mountain roads where we stopped for photos. i realised that we always stop for photos and we just go snap snap snap all the time. taking photos makes me feel very happy sometimes. we are a bunch of photo whores.





this is little akaroa (i think) nice headland and bay area. just had to take a photo of it. when i come new zealand all the physical landscrape names and how they are formed just automatically gets into my head. like as if mr lian is still taking about it in lecture in JC.




this is ron running. it is funny how people have to brave the cold and run at the same time. and these are our two toilet people. eugene goes to the toilet almost every stop we made from Dunedin to Christchurch. well... eugene seems to know everything, from my NZ phone line to shireen and bavani flatmates to everything on Toroa notice board.



canterbury has tonnes of braided streams. the roads go over bridges to go over a braided stream. and the braided streams are simply beautiful from the tonnes of pebbles and rocks. and they take really good pictures with the sunset



like i have said. what is new zealand without watching an all blacks game. so here we are at jade stadium in chirstchurch on my first ever rugby game live!!! and to top it all it happens to be the all blacks and the springboks.

the stadium is so lighted up and filled with people dispite the radio saying that it has poor ticket sales. ron was so excited the moment he saw the stadium lights from 4 block away or something. and the stadium lights were really bright.

here are some pictures of us just before the match and the haka. i tell you it is so cool to just watch the haka live instead on tv or in youtubes.



the match was fantastic. i actually got really excited when they scored all the 3 trys at where we were sitting. makes everything so much more cool. right in front of you the all blacks did 3 trys running all over the place. it was so cool. nothing else can be said. when the guy who carried the ball got closer to the try line everyone stood up automatically out of excitement.

DAMN COOL LA

and the funny thing is that shireen and i were kinda secrety hoping for springboks to score a bit more coz we feel sorry for them since every one was booing them and doesnt want to win. it will make the match abit more exciting if the score was closer also.


anyway the all blacks won 33 to 6 i think. cant really remember anyway. who cares of the scroe when you know they won. anyway. this are us with out all blacks gear. i think shireen's hat is damn cool la. they bought all blacks stuff just before the match on the way to the stadium




the funniest thing is that they sing oprah songs before the match. kinda makes it a bit more posh but like it doesnt up the mood. i wonder if this is like a new zealand rugby thing or do they do it even in soccer matches in europe. well... i guess i dont mind finding that out live either. you can actually see them standing in one line before the match and singing their hearts out. and the big screen is just behind us so i just have to turn my head back to look them in the face

they even had kinda fireworks at the start



this one is quite funny. the phillips PICK ME contest you have to hold this sign above your heads and if the camera zooms in at you then you get to win a 42 or 24 inch (cant remember) tv.

well. yes ron. i did pick you.




christchurch in the morning. we went to the art market. to look see.





this is one our way back to Dunedin from chirstchurch on sunday morning. we went to play with snow again. this time we had a mini snow ball fight. play until my hands where frozenly painful. but half the time i was thinking to myself - "so this is how it actually feels like".

it is the first time me and ron are having snowball fights.



ron lying on the snow. we made him boobs and someother parts.



apparently before we came there was some dog here i think. you can even see its paw prints in the snow.



ron was sleeping through the ride back. sleeping past the senic view of the southern alps of new zealand. we passed by a few snow capped mountains. like mt summers and mt hutt or something along that line. the view was really good. somehow you cant seem to get enough of it.




this is a lake through some gravel track where we skidding twice in 5 mins. once when shireen was at the wheels and the other at eugenes hands. it was some ride i tell you. lucky there was no cliff at the edge just a whole patch of grass. if not we can appear on tmr straits times.

"singaporean skid on gravel road and died"

that will really be funny. since there was no snow and ice on the road. just tonnes of pebbles and gravel. it was really one roller coster ride. half the time i was thinking to myself - "do not hit the poles".

and when we reached the lake it was so frozen people were skating on it. this is the first time i saw a frozen lake and this is also the first time i see people skate on a frozen lake. even eugene tried his luck standin on the lake. this is what i call walking on water



we stopped by at the moreki boulders again on our way back. and this time... it was sun set so the view was really different. it was also high tide.




this is the sun set before it got dark