Mid-sem break

I just talked to my mom for almost an hour. It was fun. Mother-daughter conversation session, I haven't had that in a while.

My mid-sem break is almost over. I'll have to go back to class on Monday. It's a =( for everyone for sure. But I should feel grateful and I thank God for everything that has happened, for that I am alive to experience new things in my life, for the awesome people around me, for that I'm able to be 18 and for just about everything. Our God is an awesome God :)

I had 2 weeks of break and now there's only 2 days left. Time flies when you're having fun.. so they say. I went snowboarding during the first week and that was something I really looked forward to although I was a bit scared, I have to admit, after hearing news about skiers dying on the mountains due to avalanches and so on. I went with 15 other people, including my brother. A convoy of 4 cars making their way to Mt Ruapehu and I was riding shotgun.

It was August 25th, the weather looked fine in the morning but it started to look more cloudy once we reached higher altitudes. Then, it drizzled. =( You won't have fun if you limit your budget so tightly, so I put $200 in my card for this trip. Haha. It was that darn adult ticket that cost me extra when I could have bought the youth ticket. Maybe I was just too excited. The snowboarding lesson went on for more than an hour I think, so it was worth it. We snowboarded the whole afternoon.

Yvonne sitting on her bum...after she fell.

Falling on ice is not that bad compared to falling on cement ground.

We stayed overnight at someone's house and the next day was my 18th birthday. I didn't expect a big celebration but my friends surprised me that morning. How did you guys hide the cakes? haha. Thanks, people! When I woke up, I checked my phone and there were a few text messages. Thank you :) Someone sent twice, wah. <3.>

Aviator shades are not for me :/
Beatrice & I in shades that don't belong to us. We're both 18 now, at least until October comes.

On the way back, we stopped by at the Raukawa Falls lookout to look at what else if not the waterfall itself. It's a small one though. Ah, nature is pretty :)

Raukawa Falls

No one warned us about the upcoming road block. It was out of the blue!

A herd of sheep!! My bro said they were moving to another paddock, which was just across the road. So that was a free sheep show for us all. haha.

Sheep ass. Run, sheep, run!!!

Sheep on the run!

My housemate made me kuih salat in a shape of a cake.

With housemates. Thank you :)

After dinner, I went to my friend's place to hang out. Their place is pretty :) I can't really recall what I did for the next few days except... potluck, church, eat-out and Amy's birthday on Merdeka day. We went to Himatangi beach.. in the middle of the night, kinda. It was fun though. I don't know when I'll ever get to do that again. Only in NZ! haha.

Made a trip up to Hamilton on Wednesday, came back last night. NZ is such a great place to have a road trip. There's always somewhere to go or some place to stop, just to look around and take pictures. It took us 7 hours (according to my timer) to get from Palmy to Hamilton and this includes toilet breaks, stops and other random stuff. Oh ya, stopped by Puzzlng World after Taupo.

The weather was amazing and beautiful that day! The sky was clear and sunny.. indescribable! God's wonder. I just wanted to stand under the sky and do nothing..but I was in sitting in the car.

Place your fingers on the screen, you can almost touch the snowy mountain.
The view of Mt Ruapehu from the car. So clear and beautiful! What a good day to go snowboarding but unfortunately, we couldn't fit it into our schedule :(

Stopped by McDonald's in Taupo for toilet break and had $2 Deluxe Cheeseburger.

Does the next picture look familiar? hmmm.

Me, Amy: 2nd Sept.


YY & Sabrina: June/July

haha. Nooo! Wrong timing=different shadows. And also slight difference of standing position =P

In the plane, having our burgers.

Hamilton!!

Lake Rotoroa, Hamilton at sunset

Then we went to Hamilton Gardens. It was cool bro. I wished we could have spent more time in Hamilton.

Celebrating my bro's 21st. Dinner was good, yummy food! :)

On the way back, we witnessed snowfall! It was snowing along Desert Road! I put my hand out of the window to feel and play with the snow. I even stuck my tongue out of the window a bit. haha.

Snowy Desert Road.

Happy 21st Birthday, bro. :)

I hope I can use the remaining non-schooling days wisely. It's gonna be a long 6 weeks till semester comes to an end. WWJD?


xoxovon
I need to work out.

I am alive

It's been a really long while since my last post and many things had happened since then. I just didn't bother to find time to blog. Oopsie =P Lets see.. I'm having my 2 weeks of sem break now and there's one more week left (Nooooo), I haven't touched my school work =(

In the last couple of weeks...

-stayed up till 3am to finish up presentation slides and obtained 16/20 for the presentation. That was close..
-stayed up till late to finish up essay plan and managed to hand it in on time (did printing in comp lab in the morning before deadline)
-baked muffins and brownies (I only started baking in NZ, cool as. haha)
-went snowboarding a day before I turned 18! Oh, I turned 18. Sweet as =P

Went to Whakapapa ski field at Mt Ruapehu on Tuesday and snowboarded the whole afternoon. It was drizzling, not snowing :( It was awesome although I fell countless times. I put my phone and wallet in the so-called waterproof jacket but they got wet. Well, the pants and jacket ARE waterproof, it's just that I fell so many times maybe ice got into my clothes and made them all wet. Anyway, my phone was alright. I was all wet after snowboarding and ended up with sore arms, thighs and bum. But it was so much fun! I wanna do it again.. and I'll get the YOUTH ticket next time! What a waste of money, bought the adult one the other day. Tsk.

Played Cranium that night. Club Cranium was interesting. Haha. The next morning, friends celebrated my birthday. How sweet of them :) The candles were funny because they rekindled for a few times even after I blew them out. Imagine blowing out 18 candles over and over again. Haha..

A few weeks before that, I went to Camp Chica aka Girls' Camp. I had a great time and yeah, 2 days, 1 night is definitely not enough but we had to settle with that cos' we're all busy students :)

So far, I've been away thrice.
Wellington- with OCF for Cultural Marketplace
Woodville- OCF+MUCF Camp Chica!
Whakapapa, Mt Ruapehu+Raetihi- snowboarding (Imagine accomodating 16 uni students in a 2-bedroom, one-storey house. The wonder of sleeping bags..just crash anywhere and snooze)

Wind turbine@wind farm

Yeah, life is pretty good here :) Would be better if I won the Lotto jackpot prize. Haha.. Nah, money is only temporary happiness, not eternal. Having a relationship with God is so much better. I've learned more about Him since I got here. I can say it's because of the people who are surrounding me, they're such good companions, my brothers and sisters. I also have the desire to learn and know more. It's like this thirst I have.. haha.

No OCF during mid-sem break, kinda missing it now :/ Tomorrow's Sunday, meaning church and after-church lunch I suppose, like the usual. And then Monday, and then... I'll try to get more pictures up on the blog. There are pictures on Facebook :)

Neece, come online. We have YET to webcam.

Till next time, cheers.

xoxovon
Grace is God at work :)

Webcam-ing afternooon

NS experience ...

TKL & Cikgu John showing me the food tray, making me nostalgic ... and smile like crazy.

... priceless. =)


xoxovon
More to come :)

Happy Birthday Eunice

It's..... Eunice's birthday!! :D Hah, I bet the title gave it away already.



No, not this Eunice. She's too young and cute to be 18..



It's this Eunice! The shopaholic! The one stuck at Kuching. haha.. *I just wanted to be in a picture with Neece :)*

Hey, girl or should I say young lady. HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY! Don't be sad because most of us couldn't be physically present to celebrate your big one-eight with you. Nevertheless, you will be in our hearts and minds (my heart, my mind!) haha. Don't go wild and all that just because you turned 18 and have the label 'Legal' above your head. Hehe.

Umm.. I still owe you a post ay? I have to go somewhere and will be back on Sunday so .. I kinda need to get some sleep now. God bless you, and me.. :) Take care, alrite?

p/s: I'll be waiting for your call. It's my turn now.. haha. kidding.

Have fun, be merry, leave your worries :) xoxo


Plus, here's a little treat for all and an extra gift for the August babies.
Thanks Belle for introducing the song to me.
Cheers.

All I need now is someone to help me play the right hand/top part and there we have it, a duet! :P

xoxovon
It's been a long week and I foresee the same thing for the upcoming weeks.
Wish me luck ;)

Quick update

I just read the news online that KPP is closed for the moment because they've got 4 trainees tested positive for H1N1. (KPP means Kem Puncak Permai, Bau) Wow. People of Kuching/Malaysia, be more hygenic =P and take good care.

I remembered back when I was at NS, I didn't know much of what was going on outside of camp. Seriously. I hardly read the newspapers and when I do read them, it's only like once in 2 weeks or whenever I can find time to. One day, my friend came up to me and asked, "Eh, you know got swine flu now?" I had no clue what that was. It was after that that I started searching for the articles on the newspapers. I'm so thankful that there wasn't any terrible incident going on during my batch. :)

Anyway, I just had my first test last Friday. It's 5% of my English paper. I was a happy girl yesterday when I got back my paper and saw 25/25 on it :) That means I have 5% already and I need another 45% to pass this paper. However, I'll have to pass the other paper as well to move on into the 2nd semester.

I have to get on with my assignments now..
Cheers.

xoxovon
Wedges, my guilty pleasure..

August is THE month :)

Today is the 3rd of August. It marks exactly one month since I left home for here, NZ. However, that is not my point.

It's someone's birthday today. =D

I love my phone :). If it wasn't for it, I couldn't take or upload any pics (since my xD card is still not satisfied being stuck in the card reader). The picture was taken at KIA during my NS semester break (I wasn't the end product of NS yet, still chubby you see.. haha). And he still has his NS haircut.

I've known you for not too long, but it doesn't feel that way :) I'd prefer not go on elaborating here because I'd rather say things to you directly. This feels so weird. Haha. Nolah. Actually, I'm sleepy and I'm going to bed soon.. =P I haven't been able to catch you online for a while now though. It's understandable, considering the current circumstances.

I just think that people should feel special on their birthdays. Do you? There are many more birthdays to come this August and one of them is *coughminecough*.

Happy Birthday, Yan Le!

Another year means you're getting older
but..
Older is wiser :)

now i'm speechless.. because I'm thinking about tomorrow. sighs.

xoxovon
I should be sleeping but ...

4 weeks

Wow, it's already August!! And I've been away from home for 4 weeks now. Time flies ey.

I haven't forgotten my roots, don't worry. Although I may pick up a tiny bit of different accents while I'm here. Haha. I've got a Scottish and a Kiwi as my teachers. 3 Middle-Easterners, one Chinese, 2 Thais, a few others and a couple of Kiwis as classmates. I just realised something as well. I can't introduce myself as, "I'm Yvonne from Kuching" or "... from Sarawak". It has to be Malaysia :P Don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be a Malaysian (for all the right reasons of course). One of the saddest thing that has occured is that some people don't know where Malaysia is. They know we exist but they don't know our location. Like WTH right? My Chinese friend asked me this once: Is it cold, like this, in Malaysia during winter time? Major -.-" ey? Haha.

This one isn't going to be long because it's late and I need to get some sleep. I slept at 3am and today has been a long day. A bunch of us OCF members went down to Wellington to show some support at the Cultural Marketplace event. It's a fund raiser. Loads of international food there and other stuff as well.

Henna

My throat didn't feel so well after lunch today. We went to 'yam cha'. Had dim sum. That's my 3rd time in NZ and all in different cities. Auckland, Palmy and Wellington. The pattern tells me that my next dim sum will be south of all those cities I've mentioned. =P Ah, so yummy! But I need to control my food consumption, for real. It is winter but so what.

I had a Listening Test on Friday from 9-940. Class was 1030-1130. One hour, awesome ey? Many of them went straight home after the test and skipped class. PFTT.

Small lecture theatre, where the test was held.

Before I end this post, here's another picture (to make you salivate and drool all over your keyboard, not). The wedges at Uni's cafeteria are Oh-so-nice. They keep calling my name whenever I'm at the main campus. Haha.

Ignore the heading on the newspaper & my friend's phone.
Btw, that isn't polystyrene. It's like a paper box.

See, Eunice. I do have pictures on my blog :)

xoxovon
I made pancakes for breakfast.
*brushes imaginary maple syrup on imaginary pancake*