laptop up and running

At the rate the technician is charging me for his "professional services" for my laptop, I'm better off being a technician in NZ than be an engineer in Singapore. Abt 1/2 the amt was paid for professional services and 1/2 for my new hard disk. Now, the only question is... How much did I pay altogether.

I shall not disclose that amt for now, but it's close to a fortune.

At least my laptop is back from service within 2 days as compared to 3 weeks from an authorised Acer Service Centre. Some even intend to send it down to Auckland for servicing and back. Like that I'm better off flying in myself.

Anyway, DC++ hub here sure has lots of movies! [if u donno what im talking abt just ask me over msn/skype/icq/frenster/email].

Now, it's 705am and I gotta catch the train in 1 hr time. It had better be as good as it claims, considering that I paid over $200 NZD for it.

okay, will update with pictures when I'm back and when I have the time. Too many assignments to catch up before the break.

BYES!

Beach Party @ Ilam

I can't believe I went to the Beach Party the night before my Tranzalpine departs. *shudders*

Luckily the hangover wasn't that (too) bad.(hic)

Was about to leave when I saw a note left by Kat at the kitchen top.

"Hope you are ok. Have a nice day!"

yeah Kat, it sure was an experience! But I prefer those bars with jazz and soft music at the background. =)
Last night everyone was pretty wild though. Just like what I saw in those American Pie movies.

Cave Exploration in Castle Hills and Rock Climbing in "Land of Narnia"

Thank goodness I packed my bag for the trip today! After lazing around, I only woke up 35 minutes after the planned time of 845am. And as I said, luckily I prep my ziploc bags for water proofing of my phone, extra set of clothes, sweater, thermals, water bottle, extra socks and my intended picnic lunch which was some sandwich and an energy bar from Caldbury (chocolate ones).

Apparently it seemed that I was used to the rush already from the normal weekday lessons that it wasn't a trouble to do a bit of final check on the stuff I brought along, brushed my teeth, changed into my shorts, collar T and new hiking shoes and had some food, before leaving my place in 25 min.

Carried almost very heavy packs and walked for about 100m before reaching the meetup pt. The 2 hour drive (i think, forgot lar. Lost track of time when u are immersed in such wonderful sights and sounds) was scenic. We had 2 cars going there as the we had a total of 10 pax. I sat in Catherina's car and we headed to "Castle Hills" direction. We aren't going to that place, but it was slightly beyond that place. So wells, we headed down the 2 hour drive and for the third time since I'm here in Christchurch, I have finally seen farm animals--- goats, lambs, cows, horses. Lots of it in fact that I just started to get a bit bored looking at cattle grazing grass. I think I would be more awed if they appeared on my dinner plate (minus the fats). Paul stopped at 1 of the scenic spots along the highway so that we could take in the beauty of the surroundings.

Upon reaching the entrance of the cave, we started to change into our "cold" gear clothes. Everyone wore thermals within and even when we were wearing short sleeve shirts, the thermals just stuck out. I think it's kinda weird but Emily assured me that it was "the in thing". (-,-) Ah wells, everyone also looked that way so I think it shouldn't matter much.

Paul led us to the exit of the cave to orientate us that this was going to be the place where we were going to exit. The cave walk would take us about 40 minutes on average and we would journey almost 4 storeys high in the cave. NOT BAD! Shoik!

Then, the girls faces start to cringe when they saw that the water level of in the cave went as deep as my waist/stomach level. Cos that meant that not only are our shoes going to be wet, half of our body is going to be wet. HAHAHA! When the first girls stepped into the water, they were shrieking! The water was ice cold!
Imagine: On a fine Saturday morning with a sunny weather, there the 10 of us are trekking into the caves with wet shoes and pants. There was even more responsibility for the peeps bringing the cams in since there is water everywhere and there was no room for mistake if you want to have a fully functional camera when you are outta it. But heck, I brought it in anyway. In fact, only 2 of us brought it in.

Basically, the cave was really dark and the water was freaking cold and freezing. My legs were so cold that it became numb. I even had to move my feet/legs constantly to keep warm.

Then, I thought of what SQ told me on MSN 2 nights before "Sounds familiar... wet shoes, wet clothes, and even eating out on the grass. Not bad!" (sense the sacarsm) [Read: hell]
It was really cold alrights, but I guess it was okay in the sense that I managed to take many photos even though it was really unbelievably cold in there. Moreover, I think this kind of thing is fun too! =p Don't ask me why, but I guess you gotta go in and get wet to really understand.

Anyway, I was really really wet from stomach down and 1/2 my body became numb. Everyone went "ANDY! Faster!" when I was contemplating if I should use the super flash or just the normal flash while standing on some rather dry rock (though I was still wet, it beats standing under the trickling water above your head with your feet in the strong cold gash of water. It was really hilarious!

I think I "kok-ed" my head once on the ceiling of the cave. SHEESH. We manouevered around obstacles and hard rock as well as deep ends of pools. Then as a finale, we had to climb this flight of steps to the exit of the cave. I think the girls were like..."WOAH!" and rushed up. HAHA!

Snapped more photos around the entrance and then headed back to the vehicle for our change of clothes and picnic at the grass patch along the ridge. :) It was a stunning sight. :)

Then, on our way back, we stopped at some scenic spot which was 1 of the scenes from "Narnia". Look at the pictures! It was really steep to climb on some boulders and Paul, again, managed to do so. Thus, I also struggled somehow and managed to reach the top.

Okay, I think I shall let the pictures do the talking.











Nuff' said.

my computer just gave up on me last night

Instead of feeling a bit sad and like... "oh what happen to my comp", I went "WTF" and even "FARK MAN!" in my room when the stupid error message appeared. Thank goodness I have finished my stats report and stuff. I should have taken it as a sign when my computer had problems with MS office few days back. GRRRRrrrrr.......

And I'm freaking pissed cos I got darn blardy good photos to upload after the cave exploration today and got so many things to write abt on about this trip.
Ever thought where "Narnia the bitch Witch and the Wardrobe was filmed? :)

Heh. Now u know what kind of places I been too...

Ah wells. Life without technology. I gotta get used to it. Afterall, Kat also got used to it for about a month and her life went on? =p

By the way, I have typed an entry on today's outing but it's under draft. Will publish that when I receive the recovery disk to revive my comp.

Meanwhile, let me get done with my work since I have no entertainment except the TV till then. Afterall, I'm here to have fun study. =)

self-reflection in management course

Took an online questionnaire on my signature strengths. Not that I was so bored that I started doing this but because this is part of my assignment for the Leadership course I'm taking here. So yeah. It wasn't that easy trying to struggle with answering 240 questions with less than 6 hours of sleep the night before.

Thankfully, my classes start at 3pm on Thursdays.
RARGH! Still must do biz proposals and submit online! BLEAH! And I can't believe reading 3 chapters of textbooks on management after each "Leadership" lecture. Sometimes he tries to talk about the "flow" which he puts it like almost reaching some form of enlightenment in some stage. And this, my loyal readers, is simply too abstract for me to grasp.
So u can almost imagine me twirling my pen with absolutely no idea on what he's trying to say. I think the only thing that kept me awake (apart from what the Americans always scribble in their book) was the sleek looking Apple Laptop that he was using. Not the Mac Air but I think he's going to bring it in 1 of these days at the rate he kept praising how good a leader Steve Jobs is.

Then why am I even attending the lecture? Well.. it's simply because he has these questions which he wants us to answer in our book which he calls it Personal Scrapbook but it's almost a self-reflective book with questions he posed like "what are u passionate abt in ur life? how is that inline with ur goals?" so u see, it's alot of self-reflection. And he would only talks about the questions in class so you gotta attend lectures to get the questions and you would definitely want to cos' this is 10% of ur assessment.

And sure it did work alright. This American student beside me stopped and pondered for a while before he started scribbling
"GIRLS, BOOZE AND SEX. They are what I'm passionate abt in my life."

some random backdated pictures

It must have been the Laksa that I nded up rushing to the washroom on Saturday night so many times. So, feeling a bit less than energetic, I stayed at home on Sunday. It's good anyway, considering that it's about time to clear my work. So I sat down in front of my laptop typing the v long report for 12 hours till 10pm at night and just when I click save there is this dumb error msg appeared. So, I ended up recovering only 30% of the work and continued from there till 4am this morning. SUPID TECHNOLOGY.
NEXT TIME IM GG TO USE PEN AND PAPER TO WRITE ALREADY.

Anyways, it's been a bit annoying these few days. First it was my stomach, then today I realised that a 1 day overdue book here fine will cost 3 NZD. WTF. It irks me each time I pay for such stupid stuff... Grrr... ah wells... Now I'm monitoring my book loans...

I saw this shirt in the city:
KINKY!

My stats time series class on tues. The pace is so slow and this is the 2nd week and I still learning INTRO ON TIME SERIES.


And Data Communications is even worse. The pace is really... sllloooooowww. It's inevitable that my mind starts to wander off in lectures man. And yeah, fyi, this LT shown here is the Law LT. It's a bit warped here. I'm having my maths class at Engin LT, comp sci class at Law LT, Time series class in the building of Comp sci and my science and entrepreneurship classes at Science LT.

And the above is a picture of the Law LT. In all LTs so far, it is designed such that when a person in the middle stands up, everyone must stand up and walk out to the isle as well so as to let the person out. So, what some of the students here do is to just walk barefooted on top of the tabletops across to their seats in the centre.

And this is the most dumb tap design ever built. The taps do supply the water as indicated, with hot being BOILING HOT TEMP and cold being AS COLD AS ICE WATER. So either way, u will get a freaking sensation when u wash ur hands (of course I assume that everyone washes their hands, which might not always be true).

Such a tap can also be found in the Engineering departments. So much for engineering...

And this is a pic of my ice cream at the beach on Saturday (triple scoop consisting of lime and lemon, Hockey Pockey and Berry sorbet - cost me $3.50 NZD). Hot weather lar so i bought =) SLURP!


View of my campus outside the stats class room on Friday. About 9am. Nice eh? =)


And this is the fishing coat which u have to wear for fishing (like those u see in the movies). So many compartments man! Almost thought it's some vest used in army of that sort. But then again, army never come up with intelligent stuff. (read: water-proof bath-towels and super absorbant ponchos)


And the next few pic are some of the food i ate on the plane. perhaps one of the better ones ever since I left Singapore. Usually, I would upload them to airlinemeals.net but apparently they aren't as popular anymore.
The dinner + dessert since I left singapore at about 8pm.



And the breakfast since I touched down here at 11am.

best weather ever in christchurch

Friday after dinner, I suggested to take a short walk ard Ilam Village as K appeared to be bored from the TV programs. After visiting all the common rooms, we stopped for the "Narnia" movie and when we walked out at almost 10pm. We could see the stars under the clear skies. Add that up with the smell of kiwi BBQ within the vicinty and the cool temperature, it was a really wonderful night. It was simply magical.

Anyway, ENSOC didnt reply to K abt the festival tix and thus I went to the UCSSS Sunmer Beach Party (K didn't wanna go cos she just returned from the Gym the next morning). Met up with the gang outside UCSA and Eva drove us to the beach. Joe taught me how to play rugby and I sprained/injured my fourth finger of my right hand when my finger experienced the full impact of the high velocity ball (not by Joe though, cos we managed to gather the interest of more people and started playing in a big group). OUCH. And it was bleeding... ARGH.

Nonetheless, our group won in the ice-breaker game and I got a choc (which melted in my pocket since the sun was really hot today). It has been the best weather since I have arrived man! Had Lamb satay at the beach and other quite "Singapore" typa food. Then the rest went to have some fun at the beach playing soccer, building sand castles, and Wilson even attempted to... SURF the very calm waves? Oh and I was busy snapping pictures.



Anyway, it was such a good day that I had to reluctantly leave to catch the gondolas. It isn't very often that we get such a good day + a clear sky. So, after thanking Nicole and the gang at UCSSS, I went to buy 3 scoops of ice cream + kapo 1 stick of chicken satay and waited for the bus to the city. Bought a Gondola + Tram pass there for 40NZD and went around the city in the trams for the very first time!

Hurriedly proceeded to the city X-change thinking that I was in time for bus 28. Apparently, I just missed it so theres a 25 min wait for the next bus. Thus, I decided to continue my lunch (part2) at The Crossings which is a food court on top of the X-change. Again, I chose Chicken Laksa for 6.90NZD.

Of course, I took it with extra chilli by the side (since it's free).

Anyway, I gobbled up the noodles as I watched my watch intently. Ran down asap to the bus exchange and realised another 5 min, so.... went to buy a 1.80NZD Ribena packet drink. Yesh! It's THAT EX! Anyway, the view at the top of the Gondola is fantastic! Simply Breadth-taking! The 4 of us (aka the Emirates flight crew and I) were snapping pictures non-stop!

Now u will see why that's so:


This is Lyttleton (harbour). Hopefully I didn't get the spelling wrong.
Behind the hills is Akaroa, the place which I WILL GO BY THE END OF THIS MTH.




Anyway, I think photo.epson is closing down, so I'm shifting my online photos to another domain. Anyone with a good suggestion?

And yes, a view of Riccarton Pak N Save (a supermarket type of std equivalent to Shop N Save).

Remember that Tim was a bit sad cos his windows cant open? And Jevon was in the same state too when his windows cant close? Of course, we can never beat SQ's "doubled glazed windows that can open up to 90 deg", but still it's better than having a dysfunctional window. [Read: windows open and close in some entry last year. forgot when. go search in my archives by yourself.]

Thus, to ensure that I do not feel emo, I decided to check on my windows.

Thankfully they open and close as shown:

when close
when open

And if have been a loyal reader/fan of this online abode of mine, you will know that I have never uploaded photos of myself or my close friends. But, I will be uploading some of them to the online photo album. I'm currently trying to create another digital photo library somewhere. Don't tell me picassa by google. I don't like google. Prefer to Yahoo! It sounds cooler! :)

And since everyone misses me so much, let me upload just 1 pic for a sneak preview of ZG:
Somehow, I will take it down after I found some online place to put this. So quick gaze/idolise/fantasize while u can.

On a heavier note, I have been trying to confirm my courses here. Kinda dropped AI & algo after gettin' reassurance from a friend. Heh. Ah wells. okay I know Im having something next sat with the kiwi family but I forgot what event. I think it's kayaking of that sort or some cave exploration. Till then, take care folks!

p.s.--- i gotta rush my homework now man. So jialat. so much work. It's piling like TOH. (towers of hanoi)

the rainy weekend

Did I mention about the 3 storey toilets? I think I did, if you didn't get that entry, scroll down.

Anyways, I was at the Sumner Beach, Art Museum and Christchurch Museum last weekend. Had to rush to the toilet as I kept drinking water to keep myself hydrated. The kiwis told me that a house on the top of a hill (not the Bukit Timah kind, but real high hill type) would cost abt 500,000NZD with furniture. I think this is like... the cost of our flats in Singapore right?! SHEESH. And to think the house is furnished with that price! In Singapore, we don't even get a toilet scrubber when u buy a flat!

Anyways, the place was really fantastic and Christchurch being one of the very "English-y" towns, it is a now wonder that everything looked like it was set in some old English town. BTW, for that Sunday that I was out, I woke up at 845am leh! Super early for me okay! Even K is proudda me! (ha!) Tried my luck at the Casino last weekend when i inserted 2NZD into 1 of the slut slot machines. Apparently, it seemed like I had some beginner's luck or what and got back 10 NZD which is like a winning of 8 NZD! Of course, I stopped myself from playing any more as it seemed that some statistical knowledge tells me that I would lose beyond a certain point. Moreover, it's not so good to be addicted to such mindless games which doesn't involve in any skill but just pure pressing of the "start" buttons. But apparently, there are those who think otherwise or there wouldn't be any biz for the casinos would there?

Not me though, I believed in working for it.

Anyway, enough of this righteousness talk. Took the free city shuttle and met Heather and Stacey on the bus from the casino to Kathmandu to buy some thermal stuff. Coincidentally, they were also on their way to the place, so had a free commentry on the bus by Heather. :) Luckily my ISIC card gave me a complimentry Kathmandu discount card which I happily shared it with Stacey.

Oh and yes, this weird farnie thing happened:
As I had been drinking lots of water (as I say, to keep myself hydrated since Christchurch has 1/2 the rainfall of that in Auckland), I used the "after-hours" city toilet for the first time. This toilet is only "opened" automatically when the 3 storey toilets are closed for the day. And closing hours is like after 5pm on weekends. So, I was queuing to use this individual cubicle toilet (for both sexes) which it claims to be quite high tech cos it can clean by itself when no one is using it. As I stepped into the cubicle, there's this button which the user would have to press to close the door. However, just as the door was closed and I started to unzip my pants, the weird automatic door starts to ZOOM OPEN again which, thankfully, my quick reflexes meant that I had to stop whatever I was doing and press the stupid "close" button once more. Then, it happened again. And again.
Think it was about 3 or 4 times before it finally closed once again and I stood there to wait, refusing to do anything lest it opens again. 1.... 2.... 3....4... .... 15.... okay, I think it was safe, so... I started to well... erm.. do whatever I had set out to do in the toilet, each second fearing that the dumb automatic door may just zoom open again.

Thank goodness that didn't happen.

So after washing my hands, I thought that the door would open, but guess what. Now, I'm stuck inside the toilet cubicle.

To cut the long story short, I just forced the door open MANUALLY and rescued myself.

So much for auto-matic high end toilets. *shudders*

anyway, once again some pic:

Some houses in Sunmer suburb:


Inside the Arts Centre:


The School of Fine Arts which belongs to University of Canterbury (UC) in the Arts Centre:


And it says it all:


By the way, 8NZD (my 'work-from-pushing-the-buttons'profits from casino) is just enough to cover for my dinner at Westfield Riccarton Mall that day. And it's just a bowl of chicken Laksa.

Okay, shall end here. Gotta go send pic taken with the kiwis for last Friday's dinner and more importantly, my assignments...

p.s.--- it was raining the entire weekend! I couldn't go to Akaroa! ARGH!