Bring in the culprits.

I'm officially fatter. I am convinced.... oh my god. SEP makes people fat. Let me try to explain why SEP makes u fat esp when u are in a western country.

NOW... Introducing all those who worked so hard to mask up my figure such that there is no longer one now.

COOKIES. This Mrs Higgins is a very popular stall along Queens St, which is kind of equivalent to Orchard Rd. Not those Famous Amos kind of small bite size cookies.. they sell those one big cookie kind. Well those are not the only cookies i eat... those supermarket commercial packs kills me too. CUT. NO MORE COOKIES.

Chinese Packed food for $6.50. Thats super alot la... The auntie was super generous. Got a shock when i opened the packet. Look at the eggs.. i think there's probably like 4 eggs in that serving.The seaweed was as thick as the noodles. Hahaha.. Didnt really like the seaweed though.And i ate and ate... 30 mins later, still got so much. When i gave up eventually, there's still quite a bit left. And i figured i spent around 45 mins trying to finish it. But... cannot ar! The most expensive wanton Mee i think i've eaten. NZ$8.50 and its not that nice. Big portion though... By the time I gave up eating again, there is still a singapore portion left. Tsk.. I'm wasting alot of food and money here. Not that I want to! Char siew wasnt too bad but full of fats. Scary... spent alot of time trying to just nibble on the lean parts.
Aik Khoon got Laksa from the same place and it was huge too. Cant remember how much was it. Probably $9. Well they had mussels instead of cockles! Haha..ICE CREAM. Super culprit. EAting so much ice cream here.. got to cut down too. This fellow down here is a participant of the "apartment bonding session". Haha... Everybody fat together, very fair.
You see! But this was super cheap thats y got 2 scoops. 2 large scoops for $2.90 or something like that.

Everything is big and large and huge.. i'm running out of synonyms. Of course, there are still those chocs lying around. Eating chocs is probably a NZ past-time.

Anyway I decided it really time for some exercise.. so we went badminton again! And we were serious about exercising as u can see......

whacked myself accidentally. So pain at that instance! now its just a patch of greenish blue black.

TIAN AR.. I'll exercise more and cut back on junk. This is an emergency. 1 more month to get back to the normal size.

Planning is CHIM.

oh my god... Planning notes are like archi+law kind of english... I dont know if my brain cells have all evaporated or my english language competency is low. read the same thing one million times and....

1) get abit of idea
2) give up.

if (1) happens, (3) arises.

3) and what has that all to do with urban planning???

ROARRRRRR.

Preview on the kind of stuff i am trying to make sense of:

Modern technology as an ordering revealing is, then, no merely human doing. Therefore we must take that challenging that sets upon man to order the real as a standing-reserve in accordance with the way in which it shows itself. That challenging gathers man into ordering. This gathering concentrates man upon ordering the real as standing-reserve... we now name that challenging claim which gathers man thither to order the self-revealing as standing-reserve:' Ge-stell'

WHAT???? challenging?? standing reserve?? ordering????? And how does all that fabulous beyond comprehension content got to do with urban planning???


I need to be enlightened.

Oh. and that is just 1 slide. I have 100s of that to read and reflect on. And we havent talk about the readings yet.

Still at Bay of Islands

The 3rd day is dolphin sighting day! These dolphins are worth many many hours of sleep. Just to go visit them, i had to burn alot of midnight oil to do my assignments. Anyway very excited. Got to the place at 9.05a.m.. thought we're 10 mins early. Turned out we are 5 mins late!! Got the time wrong. hahaha... Thank god we could catch the afternoon trip. Soooooo.. we decided to go to some waterfall near by for a picnic instead.

a 7 meters waterfall. Not too impressive in size but very noisy.

After getting there, we realise we dont have a nice place to picnic. too muddy everywhere. boooo.

Pretty scenes as usual

These golfers just play on the patch of grass beside the road where cars travel. So dangerous! Esp for the drivers. As we went by we were worried the golf ball just come smashing onto the windscreen.. Its too near. Set up a net or something! Nothing to do.. so we got on a ferry to Russell. Its just 5 mins away and supposedly the first town in NZ.

Long beach. where we finally had our picnic. Our picnic consisted of junk food basically. Potato chips and peanuts! haha.

This beach is suitable place for the whole family to hang out

Sweet old couple

Happy family.

Since we have nothing to sweet to do on the beach, we decided to be practical and dig for our dinner. Hahha... Ian, Aik Khoon and I found 1 live shellfish (dont know what shellfish) on the beach and got inspired to collect more and COOK IT! hahaha.. It was fun! managed to dig quite a few.. like 20? Due to time constraints got to leave the beach before we miss our dolphins again. If not we can set up a booth and sell shellfish.


Sadly, we suspected the shellfish all died by the time we got back to auckland. So we threw it away. :(



Next up, setting off for dolphins! Was secretly hoping we'll see whales as well but... yea, i'm too greedy.

And we spotted dolphins! Everybody on the cruise was so excited. Look!!

It was so close!

You could swim with the dolphins at a fee. But u got to be a very strong swimmer because you got to swim in the ocean and keep up with the dolphins. They just gave u flippers and those snorkling stuff and maybe a push into the ocean. So naturally.. ppl like me who have difficulties conquering the swimming pool... its best i just watch them swim. Quite funny.. like swimming competition. CATCH UP WITH THE DOLPHINS??? but there is only one Michael Phelps. ^^ There were not alot of dolphins. probably only 6 of them? Didnt manage to get shots of those dolphin stunts. They only jumped out of the water very briefly! After the dolphin encounter, we continued to sail to the "hole in the rock"

Cape Reinga. Where I was the day before.

Thats the hole in the rock!

We went right through it.

Thats another "hole in the rock" in the making. so when u come back like 20 000 years later you see another hole in the rock! :)

Tasman Sea/ Pacific Ocean. Dont know which one. But they are supposed to meet around this area.. So just randomly pick one to believe.

thats marks the end of our bay of islands trip. Back to Auckland.

Home Grown Tomatoes (John Denver)

The bus driver played this song on the coach. very catchy!

check out the lyrics:
There aint nothin in the world that I like better
Than bacon n lettuce n homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin, out in the garden
Get you a ripe one, dont pick a hard 'un
Plant 'em in the spring, eat em in the summer
All winter without em is a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin and the diggin
Every time I go out and pick me a big un

Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money cant buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes

You can go out to eat an thats for sure
But theres nothin a homegrown tomatoe wont cure
Put em in a salad, put em in a stew
You can make your own tomatoe juice
You can eat em with eggs, eat em with gravy
You can eat em with beans, pinto or navy
Put 'em on the side, put em in the middle
Home grown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle

Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money cant buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes

If Is to change this life I lead
You could call me Johnny Tomatoe Seed
Cause I know what this country needs
Home grown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die dont bury me
In a box in a cold dark cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
Cause I could be pushin up a home grown tomatoe

Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money cant buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes

Bay of Islands

OH... my assignments are all done! YEAHHHH... i'm in a good mood.

She sells seashells... on a different sea shore.

Went to Bay of Islands over last weekend. It was this beach area and the drive there from Auckland was quite pretty, to me. The others dont seem very impressed. I thought it looks better than way to Rotorua/Bay of Plenty.

First day as usual was all about driving and more driving, and some grocery shopping. Stopped by a bee farm for get some manuka honey.. supposed to be a NZ thing.

eeee.. alot of bees. A.k.a. Fenella Lim's best friend.

and then we saw this car outside the bee place and it has 3 dogs in there! 2 of them are super noisy... The brown brown one is a Gigi! (Alvin other dog's name) Quite pretty! I like it the best amongst the 3 dogs. So dont always say I am biased to BB... 2nd morning we went on the 90 mile beach tour. well the 90 mile beach is a beach that is... ermmmm... 60+ mile long. Haha.. The driver/guide did try to explain y it is called 90 mile beach despite being only 60+ miles but i cant really remember.

The coach drive.

Cape Reinga.

The northern most tip of nz!

Dark clouds looming....

The girls!

And presenting to u.. the 90 mile beach

The bus travelled on the sand

The 2 girls dont like each other. Isnt it apparent? The driver said it is very dangerous to drive on the beach if u are inexperienced because your car can either get stuck in the sand or one big wave comes and topple the car. So if that ever happens, dont try to run to the other end of the beach to get help because it wouldnt help. You should just climb up a safe place, sit back and watch your car get taken away by the sea. If u run away, the car will still be taken and you dont get to see it!

Also heard that many many cars and coaches get taken away by the sea. There was one recently but the driver said he could not tell us which company it was.. But.. he asked if we saw a bright new yellow coach... and think about y they'll need a bright new yellow coach..

Hmmmm i'm not suggesting anything but this looks like a......

To end the tour, we went to this Kauri tree workshop.. Kauri trees are huge huge trees and those in the workshops are dug out from some swampy areas and have lived for as long as 30 000 yrs!

Gollum carved out of the Kauri tree. Dont like! who will buy this freaky looking thing and put it at home.
Its huge!

Assembling at the assembly point.

---- end of 2nd day---

very busy

Very busy this week. just submitted a 2500 word essay. Another 3000 word due tomorrow and a 5 page report on Friday. Not going to be any updates till then I guess.

Made myself super busy because I went for a trip to Bay of Islands over the weekend despite all the horrible assignment due dates. Post on Bay of Islands will be up when i'm more free....

Friday friday.. come come.

An interesting conversation with my mum over msn.

Conversation took place at approx 1.30am NZ time.

Me: Guess what food I succumbed to a few days ago!

Mum: Pow?

Me: Nope!

Mum: Raisin Cake??

Me: Thats a very good guess! I ate a RAISIN scone!

-- mum was silent (probably in deep thoughts) while i continued rattling on.. ---

Me: I wanted to eat a scone and there was only 1 scone left at the cafe. And it HAS TO BE a raisin scone. :( So i decided to give raisins a chance.

Me: I ate a couple of raisins .... and then GUESS WHAT!

Mum: What. I thought you don't even like scones.

Me: It reminded me why I dont like raisins. Hahahaha...

Me: I like scones now actually!

Mum: Go and sleep now. You are talking nonsense.

------------------------ end----------------------------

Haha.. Still dont like raisins. ate a couple and plucked out the rest.

Wisdom!

Wisdom tooth is out to cause trouble again.. Sigh.. No wonder i'm not doing well in school.. all the wisdom is spilling out from my tooth!! Haha.. excuses.

Cant chew properly these 2 days. My gums around the wisdom tooth is swollen. So my teeth cant touch each other without hurting it. What makes it worse is... my wisdom tooth is hurting the right side of my mouth and there is an ulcer on the left side. Daddy say maybe is heaven's will for me to eat less. Haha..

Got problems chewing food. Like old granny la! In actual fact, I am rehearsing for old age now. Learning how to chew without much teeth contact.. next time when I'm 70 years old i'll have well mastered the art of eating peanuts with minimal teeth contact required. Don't be jealous of me then!!

Since the title of my entry is called wisdom, decided to put up some wise quotes I got from the net:

1. Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils
2. The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.
3. What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.
4. Always forgive your enemies -- Nothing annoys them so much.

Haha.. Have been thinking what's my talent might possibly be and I cant find any. Now I think i found it. Sacarsm and cynicism got to be it. Now its time to think how to make a career out of it.

random random random

Dont feel like studying right now. Come back from class, sit down infront of the computer and continue studying? hmmmm no no. Even though I have lots to read. Later later... Procrastinate. The thing is, if i dont study, i have nothing to do and i'm bored. So here I am blogging about random stuff.

Last week, there was this interesting event in school. It was some beer thing. Not sure what is it. Basically, people who participate will just go there and drink endless supplies of beer from all sorts of weird containers. Drink from teapot, water bottles, halved pepsi bottles put in a boot, those things u use to water your plants in the garden.. etc etc.

It is an event by Tui. Some NZ beer i think.

I thought it was quite cool initially. You'll never get that in Singapore. But that was until I realise people are getting drunk. Was in the toilet when this group of girls in those red t-shirts came in. They started shouting, laughing, banging the doors, cursing... I felt like my life was in danger. Ok. not cool. Now I see why Singapore schs shuts off such events totally.

Back in my apartment, I was locked out of my room AGAIN. The door/lock is spoilt and my keys couldnt open the door since the first day i got here. The management has never done anything. Every week when the cleaning people come, they'll lock up the door. So usually i'll put a post-it on my door asking the cleaning auntie not to lock the door. It worked for 2 times and they totally ignored the note ever since. I'll have to go down to the reception to take the master keys, open the door and go down to return them again. Irritating especially when there is only 1 lift servicing 19 storeys and you need to wait for infinate years for the lift to come and another infinate years for it to get down to the ground level.

Was quite polite the first few times i went to get my keys and slowly it got on my nerves and i knew i was very mean and sacarstic when I talk to them. Cant help it, they are not doing their jobs. One month ago, they said they'll send a locksmith. 1 month later, no locksmith came. And they all push the blame to one another/whoever and refuse to take up any responsibility. Tsk.

No choice, got to stick this on my door.

in case the cleaning auntie is lazy to read I drew a picture!! Hahaha...

The picture to end my random ranting entry. It is a picture I always wanted to take. I think quite cute.. Finally took it today. :)

Haha so creative! It is some find the right job kind of poster i think.