Napier Day Trip

My last blog entry was a bit depressing for my liking, so I am gonna push it to the bottom by filling with highlights from the Napier day trip.

It was one of those...days when we were working hard out towards the final week before the sem break, hui came up with her spontaneous idea. "hey! let's go napier to celebrate our sem break, i'll get hold of a car"

So off we went, nice bright and early on a saturday morning. The weather seemed to be on our side too, it was sunny for the entire day.! The drive was 2 hours long on a.... very questionable manual car with the back seats jammed packed with JUNK FOOD.

Introducing the paricipants

From left: Chong (1st year Horti,) Hui (4th year food techi), Brad who's got blocked by my big head (4th year mechatronics) and me.

First stop: The beach!

sry for the quality, but this was taken using my fone. The beach was nice~ especially on such a nice day. But what was funny about the beach was that instead of the usual sand, the beach was covered with gravels, it was really bizaare. But I miss the water so much, so it was nice to see the sea again.

Beside the beach was....

A 'Sunken Garden' and yes that was the name of it. I thought perhaps the ground got 'sunk' because of the earthquake or something, but the lady at i-site it was just the part of the design when the architect designed it. It was a really special garden in my opinion, quite small, but had really artistic fountain and really nice sections seperated by channels of water.

With noon approaching, our stomachs were rumbling, we met up with Brad's friend Mark, and told him to find us a cafe with nachos (Brad was craving for them)

Hui and Me we our lunch. MUNCH TIME!

And.. that was our lunch, nothing fancy really, kinda like.. takeaway/cafe kind of place BUT Brad got his nachos, and the meal was cheap. ($6.50 for a roast pork meal) So it was all good. ^^

With a tour guide under our disposal, we gave Mark a map of Napier with circled marks of where we want to visit.

First there was the Art Deco. It's basically.. just an art shop. But the artworks are there to preserve the artworks from the period which Napier was struck with the earthquake. So it's very... early 1900s. Not really my style, but it was worth a look.

Then there was the theatre, again, nothing spectacular, but perhaps looking more modern than I would expect. I've taken this particular foto because I thought the design look hauntingly like the theatre in the game Shadow Hearts (which i only played for teh first 2 hours) BUT it did make me have chills down my spine when we walked in... the theatre in Shadow Hearts had zombies @_@

We were aware there was an aquarium at napier, but non of us were overaly excited about it, until Mark said "it's the national aquarium, they recently renovated it, you should go check it out"

Me force feeding Hui a chocoalte fish.

The aquarium... well... In terms of the fishes on display, it's nothign better than what's at Kelly Calton. The lady at the reception made a huge deal about how there's a feeding time at 2pm. And well.. what exactly is the attraction? a diver.... chucking pieces of fish fillet at the fishes in the tunnel thing.

My attempt to take a pic of Dory~~ but it was just swimming too fast

What I did enjoy from the aquarium was seeing Kiwis for the first time... yup... I've never seen Kiwis awake and running out of all those times I've visited Auck Zoo. But this time.. there were 2 of them.. running, chasing each other, digging for things. It was really great!!! I guess with all the recovery programme of kiwis, and the fact that they carries the largest egg in propotional to its size, i've always imagined kiwis slow, fragile birds, but in fact, they run around quite fast and agile. Seeing kiwis.. that along made up for.. the rather disappointing aquatic life display at the "NATIONAL" aquarium.

Next we went and found a look out overlooking napier port.

As expected from a port, there's nothing pretty about it, except hey.. it's so much smaller compared to auckland one and... the scenery behind sure is pretty.

Then there was... a Botanic garden

Which is questionable as a garden, because it had.. heaps of... cages with different types of birds. Hahaha, there was not much there.

As Napier seemed to have, nothing else to showcase, we went to Mark's place, and started shooting glass bottles with his air gun.

Muwahahaha... glass bottles, I SHALL TERMINATE YOU!

I did manage to shoot a bottle, after gazillion trials :P

That was the end of the trip, it was then another 2 hour long drive back to palmy... this time however, the drive seemed longer as our car was thirsty for petrol, and there were no petrol station for about an hour after the car is giving us signals that it's thirsty. We made it to a BP though (quite miraculously) I think.. the car fuel detection thing is coo coo, so it probabily started giving false signals earlier than it should've... thank goodness for that though, or else it'll be a super long walk back to palmy.

Explosion!

One plane exploded in Japan... my perfectly planned holiday plans is literally been blown away.


I have wonderful friends, I hope it's because I've treat them well, they have never ask for my allegience....

I have a wonderful boyfriend, who also respect me enough to.. never ask for my allegience..

But never have i thought.. that the one place where I would've ever imagined ask where my loyalty lies...ask me the exact question....

"you want to go europe, can't you see how much sacrifices we are making to make that plan come true, then you want to go road trip with your friends too, it's time you choose what is more important! your friends or your family! "

guilt... i feel really guilty.... YES i want it all!!! I want a nice last family trip!!! who knows what will happen when emily gets married.!! and YES I want to spend time with my friends... who knows when will be the next time we'll be together. YEs i AM greedy! i want to savour the last moments while it lasts. But sometimes.. life isn't really about what I want, the world does not revolve around me.

"I'll pay for the extra cost ok, let me go back later"
"what if the plane blows up again"
"what kind of stupid airline would let planes blow up within such a short time"
"if it happens once, it's bound to happen again, what is more important than your life or your friends?"

Sometimes... even when we are willing to risk our life for something...it's too precious that ppl will not let me take the risk

even it it is.. the only thing.. that truely belongs to me!

INTERNET IS BACK!!

AFter... 3 days of deprievation of internet at flat... it's back on!!! YAY!!! hehe ok.. xtra isn't TOO bad after all, takes 2 days to send us a new modem!! hehehe

Wow~

This morning, my flatmate Amy, the kiwi girl who moved in.. not too long ago (not the newest one) came and said "oh.. i am moving out today"

@___________________@

Was all excited that i finally get to stay with a... kiwi girl! you know, get to know their culture better and stuff.. and she was gonna be a chef and stuff.. so i thought hey~ great place to learn how to cook nice food. Didn't get to do any of those... she was hardly home, when she was home her bf is here.. then she got in trouble with the landlord... *sigh* oh well.~

Crunch week over?

It's funny, last week was my crunch week, and was also the last of Hui's crunch week. For the whole week, or weeks before that, we've always said.. hang in there, almost over, after that we are gonna celebrate etc etc. So we did, we hang on hope that.. hey... we can have a break soon.

Funny thing is... somehow... over the rainbow isn't as nice as i hoped it'll be. It's almost like, work I've been putting off becuase.. well.. it was my crunch week are coming back to haunt me~~ hm..... at least holidays is coming up I guess. Somethign definately I can look forward to. Not to mention Danny is coming ^___^ YAY~~~

Oh yea.. to keep ppl update on.. end of the year... Dad booked the ticket alreayd.. so my plan so far is
Exam finishes on 3rd Nov
Will be back in Auckland anywhere between 3rd-10th
Flying away on 16th Nov... and yea I know this is not quite 27th Nov, but it still leaves enough time for us to go on road trips or whatever if that's still the plan ;)
And I'll be back in NZ on 11/12th Dec.

An entry of many things...

Shuli left today in her tiny car with.... a LOT of luggage.... Had a hardout day at uni, came home and somehow... the fact that her bedroom door was wide open.... her room is empty... there's no shoes on the shelf, and the fact that I was completely alone in the house was just....weird. I wonder if that's how my family felt when I left this year.

~~------------------------------------------------------------~~

Had a talk with one of my classmate friday last week, as it turns out she's doign pgdip like me, and she's a friend of Katherine's, the one doing Masters at Foodsci in Auckland. Apparently she was quite frustrated because no one is willing to help her... and I understood completely, I felt the same when i was doign studentship. At that point in time, i coudln't express how... lucky I am. There's a shortage of Basic strawberry jam in palmy. I coudln't find it in countdown for 3 weeks in a row. I told my supervisor. He VOLUNTEERINGLY went to both Woolworths to check it out for me.. not once, not twice, but three time. while the result is still the same, it's the fact the he was more than willing to help.

My sensory panel, the 3rd years are doign it as part of their assingment... so I told my lecturer about the shortage (the lecturer teachs at Albany, and comes down every monday to teach). She said "that is not a problem at all, I'll go look for it for you in Auckland and send it down" While I haven't got the samples yet... i am hoping that I will in the next few days.

I am... very lucky... and I know it.

~~-----------------------------------~~

900+ applicants, 200+ through to phone interview, 40 through to assessment day.

2 days stress over perfecting CV and cover letter, 1 morning preparing and taking the 30 mins phone interview. 2 days preparing for the psychometric testing. 1 day + many postage from mum to prepare for documents and attire for assessment day. 1 cold for walkign in the rain.

I lost at the last hurdle. Whilst it's not confirmed, ppl who got accepted already knew, I am more than prepared to accept my email of rejection.

In many ways, i knew it wasn't meant to be, when my classmates tell me they found certain tasks in the assessment day 'interesting and fun' when I thought it was just plain stressful. That's solid proof that while they are comfortable what is asked of them, I was doing somethign clearly out of my comfort zone.

In many ways, it's a huge relieve. I found out the programme isn't as glamourous as i hoped it'll be. I found out that another year of sacrifices may not lead me to where I wanted to be. I was unsure if I wanted to spend another year or 2 away from home when my time left to spend with emily is becoming short.

All I want to say is....

AUCKLAND 2008, HERE I COME!!!!

Favours

Warning, a long-ish post of complaints coming up, so don't read if you don't want to hear my page of.. complaints.

I like to think of myself as someone who like to help others, and I do, imparting happiness upon others is a nice thing to do. Makes me feel important. But I guess I never realize the thing line between doing ppl a favour and feel like being used.

So I have the car this weekend again because Annie is goign up to Auckland. So she ask me to drop her and pick her up from the airport, and as return i have the car for the weekend. It's all sweet, and i woudlnt' even call that a favour I am doign her, because having a car for a once is as much of a favour for me as it is for her.

So knowing i have the car, I asked Hui if she wanted me to pick her up from uni yesterday, becuase i know she have to run her experiments for teh whole day, and the last bus that leaves massey to town is 4:30, and she can't really finsih until 5. Plus I needed to drop off heaps of jam at uni anyway . so it was all set, i were gonna pick her up at 5.

situations like that I am more than willing to help, because otherwise she'll really have to get someone else to pick her up anyway.

So saturday monrings are my grocery shopping day, I woke up a bit later than usual, and when I am ready, Shuli also has to go to work, and she told me to wait for her so we can go together. And so when I walked out and get out my car key. She remembered that I have the car for the weekend, and well, we all drive happily to pak'n'save etc

At 4pm, I received a txt from SHuli to call her at work. So I did... and she said "Lucy~ I forgot to bring my lunch, can you bring it over"
me: ".... where is it?"
her: "it's in the fridge, can you see a box of rice.. can you add like 2 pieces of chicken in?"
me:" don't you finish work at 7? why are you having your lunch so late?"
her :"oh~ coz you know, i forgot to bring my food, and I still have 2 hours... ok ok nvm call you later"
~~ by that time i was not very happy about the whole thing. Because what she's asking me will cause a lot of inconvenience for me.. for her to save waht... $2 for lunch? She works at pak'n'save for cryign out loud! how hard woudl it be to just buy a bread? And plus she really only have 2 more horus to work. realisticly speaking by the time i delivered her lunch, she'll probabily finish work soon anyway.

Then at 5, I went and pick up Hui, she and her friend (who hitched a ride) have a birthday party, so they needed to go to kmart to develop fotos first.... which.. ok.. wont' take long so it's fine. and again they really needed someone to drive them around or else they wont' be able to finsih the present before the party.

At 6:00pm I was cookign my dinner, I received another call from Shuli.
"Hey lucy, can you please pick me up from work today? It's pouring down"
me looked outside, it was indeed pouring down, and if i remember correctly she just chucked out her umbrella last week.
"ya sure, what time?"
"7:30"
ok... so it's all fine... I woudlt'n want to walk home from work at horrible weather like this.. so fine. Even tho it would cause a little convenience since I have a cold, and goign out to a weather like that isn't... well.. ideal.

Then..... 6:30 I got another call from her
"LUcy, you know that box next to the fone, can you dig out my burger king uniform, I watn to return it to my friend. Just take it with you when you come pick me up ok! dont' forget"

Ok.. digging out clothes, simple, and i thought her friend is workign at pak'n'save too. But as it turned out, she wanted me to go to burger king after I picked her up, so it's more convenient for her...... ok fine, while she has her own car, and can go and do that anytime she wants, granted burger king is relaly close to pak'n'save... no worries....

But what really.. makes.. me... unhappy is when we had to walk from pak'n'save to the car... i parked really close, i'll say 15m. By taht time I was gonna take her and Solphie home (who just finished work too) Solphie had an umbrella with her. It was pouring down and she asked me
"hey.. can you like... take the umbrella, get teh car and pick us up at the entrance"
@#%$#@%$#@%$#@%$#@!!!!!

what am i? her driver?

So I told her it's real close and I even pointed to the car.
And she said... oh.... but then we dotn' all have to get wet.
So I put my hood on and walked off... And both of them followed.

Yes I get the logic of 1 person getting wet is better than 3. But it's a matter of principles
Yes, I am glad to help her once in a while, it's rare that I actually have a car to drive, so if she wants me to help her, then fine! but dont' freaking make me feel like I am her servant or something.

*sigh* maybe I have a really low threshold of favours I can happily accept, maybe I just a terribly selfish person. Or maybe I just dont' think we are close enough for me to do the favours she asked me to.... *shrug*

Auckland! here she goes...

My flatmate Shuli, after much convincing from my part has decided, and is goign to move to Auckland next tuesday. It so happened that she found a place to live for only $70 a week at highland park (dotn' ask me how the heck she manage to find such cheap rate... but she did) So anyway.. if any of you see her shoppign around, walking around, make her feel welcome ok ;)

That's Shuli and her at her farewell part at Halkarnas

That's everyone at her farwell party, from the left, Sandy and Jay who lives in the off section at our flat, then this dude doing comsci, Ellen who just left NZ to go back to Shanghi, Shuli, Dolly (comsci's dude's gf) me, Solphie (who's gonna be my new flatmate after Shuli leaves) and Ginger.

That's Shuli and Ahn, the other flatmate of ours

And that's me with my super nice landlord.

Ants Attack!!!

Had a.. not so good day today. Because... my refractometer was.. just... jammed packed with ants.

So it all happened yesterday, as usual I had to take the refractometer from the food chem lab to PD lab t make my samples. Then about 2pm, 2 of my classmates go.. oh~ found you, we were lookign for the refractometer, and since i still need it, they thought they'll bring their samples over. And so they did... so both of us were like, sharing the machine. Then I finished first, and the girls were still using it. After they were done, they er..... poured water onto the whole machine, and said somethign along the line how they got honey on some part of the machine. Then they asked if the machine came with a box, and I was like.. ya.. it does, and thought about that they might not know where it goes etc, so I say I'll take it back. so was all good.

Today, I went to get the refractometer form the chem lab, and i was holding onto it. Hui was in the lab and said "oh yeah, was there sugar on the refractometer, there's heaps of ants there" and i looked... and honestly freaked out! The whole box was FILLED with ants, so where the bench where the ants had been, as well as the scale that was sitting next to it @_____@

OMG!!!! it was... really..... really.. not as nice task killign and cleanign out all the ants... especially since sugar water was INSIDE the freaking machine, and there were ants crawling out of the thign!!!!!! and when i say a lot... i mean A LOT!!!!!!! soon after i was smelling dead ants. and was really close to the breaking point. Then hui came and helped me... cleaned up, which was really helpful......

Then i shift the thign into PD lab, and did my experiments... of which durign teh time.. ants here and there were crawling about.

after I finish my experiment, i gave the box and the machine a good spray of insecticide, but i have serious doubt about how well that worked. A the insecticide was a food grade, so was probabily really mild.. and also, as i was carryign teh thign back, there were ants.. crawling.. again..... I am scared to go to uni and find yet another massive ants attack, I really am!!!

Thing is there's.... sugar in the machine, and i really dotn' want to pour more water inside just in case I'll ruin the machinary... what to do.... *cries*

Hidden weapon

My flatmate got robbed last night while walking home from work, it was on THE main road, close to a Caltex, it was lucky the only thign that was stolen was her keys. Her fone and wallet are safely in her bag. SO scary, and yet she dosent' seem scared at all when she was talkign about it today, she just seemed really angry about it... I guess some ppl are just really brave.

So I was thinking.. maybe it IS time to invest in a hidden weapon in case similar things happen to me. I mean, as much as I like to avoid it, living here by myself without a car, I have to walk home alone in the dark from time to time. Annie and I were tlakign about getting a pepper spray earlier this year.... but non of us end up with any.!!! but then.. where the heck can you get pepper spray from???? so... any suggestion of.. weapons i shoudl walk around with for protection?


Here's a... funny situation.... we went to lone star yesterday, and as .... Lucy's regime to save costs, when it comes to drink, I asked for water.... and this was.. what i got.. "I am sorry, we dont' have water today" we were all shocked.
Waitress: "yea, there's brown water coming out from the tap, so we can't offer any water today, I asked the boss so what if the customer asked for water, and I was told to tell you guys to hassle the local council about it"
LOL
that's just.. funny
and surely enough, when I got home and was burshign my teeth and stuff, the first 5 secs, the water..was... brown.. HAHA

Taiwan = Thai?!?! @___@

Yup... that's right. I guess I can't blame it on ppl, since palmy is quite a small place with...well.. not that many ppl from overseas.. Ok.. yea they have many ppl from overseas, but not many from Taiwan... the thign is.. when ppl ask me where I am from... I'll say "Taiwan".. and for some reason or another, they'll immediately think i am from Thai @____@ Ok.. so I guess my dark skin doesn't, and strangely southeast asian look doesn't help. I mean... not a single person has EVER guessed my nationality.

So yesterday, I was at Davis trading, which is like a wholesaler which also supply heaps of ethnic foods. There was this kiwi lady who came and ask me how to cool those little dried fish... so i told her blah blah blah... then....

lady" where are you from?"
me:"I am from Taiwan"
lady: "oh~~ Thai~~~ I never been there, but i really like chinese food"
me:"...."

So i guess that's... excusable, i mean.. she probabily can't tell the difference between china and thai... but then.. you woudl think someone from asia woudl be better right????

There's this.. indian lady in one of my class.. i guess she'll be in her 30's.. doign a phD.

me:" Yea.. i am from Taiwan"
classmate :"oh~~~ you know.. i lived in Bangkok for few years, do you know XXXX place? it's really a wonderful country"
me:"......"

see... i was conflicted whether i should correct her, or just let the lie went on... i chose the latter coz.. well... whats' the point really. I guess sometimes i just have to accept the fact that i come from a very.. unknown place. HAHAHa

Growing up...

We are all growing up, moving onto bigger things in life....
I had tears in my eyes when I heard,
I am really happy for you,
And I am glad to know
I have 2 years left... to treasure what is left....

Finally, a day home early ^___^

Today is a good day, why? coz for once i get to be home nice and early ;) haven't had one of these early days for ages. ^________^

Started developing our new product yesterday, was cool fun! I am.. truely happy when I get to develop product. Even when we have to taste really really gross things just to know how it works. Like..... stupid Rob got all of us to taste raw soy beans.... BTW dotn' ever try it, in fact, it's suppose to be really bad for you coz it's got protein inhibitors etc, but small amount is ok i guess.... then we had to try roasted soy beans, which tastes way nicer (no grassy, beany taste) but was hard as!!! then we had to try soy proteins in water and oil.... all in the name of reducing the costs of our superly expensive nut spread. But was really happy that the WAtties ppl seemed really interested in our product. I remember our lectuer said "there's nothign like the buzz you get when you see the sales of the product you developed goes up in sales" I guess this is slighly what it's like, approval from INDUSTRY ppl that our product is cool! I am SO glad i am doing the nut spread instead of the.. instant.. jam... mix...

It's interesting... my lecturer for quality, whom i have meeting with weekly suddently became really nice to me when he found out er.. last week that i am the same age as his 4th year undergrads...... so weird....

Anyway, he told me i can drop by his lectures anytime to learn anythign that we didn't cover this year, so i did last thursday, except i went to this 11am session, not the 9am one coz i had another meeting. THEN he was asking the class if they had any quesiton regarding the lecture earlier this morning.. then he said "lucy is not allow to comment coz she wasn't in the morning class" ^^; what followed was me, er... trying to hide from all the cheeky smile from my classmates......

Hm... for some very strange reason.... countdown doesn't seem to have any budget strawberry jams.. checked 3 times in the past 2 weeks, and even asked, they say they still stock them, but it's never there :( what am i gonna do with my sensory next week. Think.. i have to ask my flatmate REALLY nicely to take me to woolworths. *nod nod*

ANyway.... take care everyone, and HP is cool!