so i went to bake pavlova (some kiwi cake) and help out with a pie today (:

 beaten egg whitesss with 4 huge cups of sugar. fattening max

 chopping carrots for the pie

pie ready to be baked!


(:

and my friend's mum was an olympic hockey player! WOW!

such a common statement, but yea it's so true.

it's hard though. only if we surrender it all the God.

that's also what someone shared in church this week (:



it really makes sense though

 was a beautiful sunny day yesterday, so i decided to go walking. also to cheer myself up.

was looking for pretty things to make me happy.

 look! lovely flowers, even in the dead of winter!

 really nice skies here, but there's a huge ozone hole! so uv rays are high! sunglasses are a necessity!

just made some packed dinner for myself to take to dance later (:

it's kinda like a fried rice? but it has a risotto texture for some reason. hahah

maybe cos i added 3 eggs to it, so it became wetter. it's yumm tho (: makes me feel like im eating something creamy, but its not really cream, its just eggs haha
and there's ham, tomatoes and my fav carrots. so its definitely all good (:


gotta try keep myself entertained and occupied!

went for a run and zumba yesterday. dance tonight, probably will do jive cos that will surely keep me feeling warm with all the jumping around.


lovelove

 cooking brown rice!! perfect the first time! (: yayy!!

yumyum, garlic stir fried chicken with rice (:

I AM SO BORED HERE.

 a good meal of salmon with rice cheered me up after a rather depressing dance tech lesson

well food always cheers me up haha

here's the door way to dance. a long flight of carpeted stairs with pinky lights, and there's those old movie dance posters on the wall when u reach the top of the stairs. everytime i walk into there i feel like im walking into a burlesque club

haha. quite romantically old fashioned studio


but its freezing up there. i can't for the life of me understand why there are no central heaters. its so bad for dancers, who are not warmed up. they can injure muscles really easily.



hmmm, well. felt lousy at dance cos im always surrounded by these technically much much superior people. well i am supposed to be inspired i guess. but i end up feeling a bit lousy. lol


and its such a cold ride there and back...

sigh. was just a bad day maybe.


am going for my very first glycolic peel today (:

yumyum! rice for lunch (:

ok, i didn't cook the rice. haha i bought 'savoury rice' from the school cafe, and cooked tomato eggs to eat with it (:


i have half the rice left in the fridge to have for tonight's dinner after dance


really bored here. it's cold outside! -2 degrees this morning, and i really wanted to skip lecture, but there's a 4% deduction for every lecture skipped lol. so i went la haha


am looking forward to grocery shopping later on! it's practically almost like highlights of the week. lolll





Christian Union meeting 


i went to my first CU meeting yesterday (: it was pretty awesome, there were 40ish people who came for dinner, which was roast chicken, beef, potatoes, pumpkins, kumaras and bread and butter pudding for dessert!!!

super awesome food

and then we broke up into little groups of 8-10 for our study, which was insightful and more structured than any other group ive visited here so far. i quite like it (:


next week is my groups turn to cook, and they have fantastic plans for cooking pies, and curry etc. and i have been assigned to buy ice cream. lol easy job cos im new hahaha

and the leader of the group has kindly invited me over to her house to make the pavlova cake for wednesday together. sounds like funnnn :D

“I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.

And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.

I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.

John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.
The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies.


But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that move-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of use will ever experience.”



― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

okay i am SO PROUD OF MYSELF :D



my first 'proper meal' cooked (:

made with all the stuff nz is famous for (:

pan fried salmon with kumara rosti and seasonal vegetables :D yumyumyummmmm



ok i may have over done it with the heat, thats why my salmon and potato rosti disintegrated to have no shape.

but in any case, it tastes super awesome!!!!!!!!


i think the salmon here is really fresh, i just fried it with a little olive oil, minced garlic, and a dash of salt. and it's really flavourful on its own.


so proud of me -pats self on the back-


i think i might like cooking after all (:


also ate a steak pie today (: it was yummy. in terms of buying food, i am only willing to spend money on pies in nz. cos it's a nz favourite and its always super delicious.


also did 2 hours of gym today (:

so even though it rained and was so cold, today was a good day after all (:

dancing is not always fun, sometimes it's a chore, often i get stressed when i'm not getting it, or im getting info overload. my feet are always painful when im doing the right tech, muscles get tired.

it's also boring to prac alone with the cupboard as my partner lol. 

and its freezing cold in this studio. i can't feel my toes sometimes lol

but well, i guess this is what dancing is about. about conditioning my body to unnatural movements such that they look effortless in future.

sigh to want to be a dancer is different from liking the idea of being a dancer.



so we just gotta do what we have to do (:

slowly go through technique again and again... again and again.. week in and out

this few months i have here are realy invaluable to my dancing actually. with eldon, i wont really have time to work on indiv tech cos we're correcting routine steps. haha, also the teacher is amazing in breaking down technique here. i never realised how precise every step needs to be!  i feel like a blur toad every lesson. but i learn a lot from her!

and hopefully one day, it will look good. (:

stir fried chicken with garlic and pasta (:


urghhhhh had fish and chips and tim tam today cos i was so stressed.





sigh.

can't even concentrate on writing my russian history essay anymore 


prob should just go prac my dance.

oh its so difficult to wait. ):

thailand, ki teng maak maak

every now and then, i really miss thailand, and the thai people, their language, their culture, their friendliness

the people of thailand are pretty wonderful.

i miss them ):

miss the burmese people too, miss tomato village.

miss the food, haha


tried not to think too much about it when i left thailand. occupied myself with the thoughts of preparing for dance, for new zealand, for my singapore life again.

but i always knew that tho i kept complaining of it as a jungle and bathing in shit water, haha i'd miss it somehow.

dont miss the giant cicadas tho haha

but yea, i'd probably do it over again (:


fieldstudies is really one of the awesomest stuff i've done in uni. probably the only time i see what i'm studying useful to real life.

miss the community life there.. almost makes me wish i was back there (:

miss living in a little mud hut with joleen, having to plan when to bathe cos theres no heater and the temp is so colddddd


miss my cats super a lot. wonder how they are.

miss our cute interviewees like mr liu

miss thailand. won't be back there for a while i think, you just can't go through fieldstudies and catch a glimpse of local thailand, and go back to enjoying the touristic parts of south thailand. haha


maybe in future.. (:

maybe (:

 this is the place i go for my weekly bible study lunches (:

pretty house isn't it? (: lovely english feel to it! the hosts are also very nice and friendly. so far, i find the attendees a little awkward, but its okay (:

  my meals for the past few days have been potato, egg and ham salads, with stir fried chicken and vege with camembert on bread (: yums

 desserts and light lunches have been nutella and banana on toast hahah super good i tell u!!!!!!!! :D

 went shopping for chicken at bush inn supermarket yest, and there was a small fire, so we all got herded out into the cold while the fire men came. lol quite an experience. quite lame too considering there was nothing much and the whole truck came. hahah


well obviously though, thank God there was nothing much. haha


so glad to have a whole friday to myself (: i got a presentation next week tho! i should probablyyyyyyyy work on it hahahah

to N.

Oh the many days I spend in vain pursuit of meaningless things,

Obsessed with thin, silly dreams and beauty queens

And you my friend,

are just a very small man.

A very small man,

in a very large world.

His job takes him far and wide

to the furthest north, to the southern lights

He sees beauty amongst the most beautiful

but the brightest lights cast the strongest shadows

There’s a twinkle in his eye, and a hint of a cheeky smile

But a dark cloud creeps over and there’s a slight frown

as he tells us, almost with a sad smile,

 “okay, no more stories of guns, that’s enough”

One does wonder

what does he remember?

For he’s seen too much

and there are tears in his soul 

But he does what he can

and he journeys on 

alone

For it is such a secret place, 

the land of tears

 

 

 on monday, it was lorraine's birthday! (: so we headed out to hell's pizzeria for dinner (: loving the deco there! the cashier counter was a huge RIP tombstone haha

 i ordered 'trouble' pizza. i looked up from my menu and announced that 'i want trouble' and my friends laughed, and it took me a few seconds to get it. haha. was super good though! real crispy ! (: it was chicken with camembert, salami, onions and pineapples i thinkkk

 dessert in a scary box!

 it's churros inside with choc sauce! was really awesome, but too much and too sweet. even though i was sharing with lorraine, i couldnt finish my half of the churros haha

 we then headed to a chinese place to chill. haha. being greedy, i had xiaolongbao. it's not too bad, though its a little dry.

this is the nz version of siewmai. hahah








had my first samba private lesson yest. i never learnt samba technique properly before, so i was completely lost and dying trying to catch up with the teacher. worked till my legs were dying. but thats a good thing.


maybe being alone here helps in a way, that i control my own schedule, my own diet and everything. plans to work out and eat healthy work better when u dont have gatherings too often, and friends meeting for dinner, and unexpected stuff popping up all the time.


going to my lunch bible study later and probably going for a run and zumba later on before i have self prac in my room (: i seem not to have much school or work to do don't I? hahaha


lovelove

it was as though i was competing today, being so excited and asking everyone back home how the comp today was going.

haha, feeling itchy to dance, watching tonsssss of dance videos today (:


i was reading a commentary abt slavik and karina. they were debating if karina would come back and dance, and some people said she wouldnt cos she loves the celebrity life too much. i guess its true. being a dancer and being a celeb are both lifestyles. she can't have both. well u can be famous for ur dancing, but u wouldnt have time to live like a celeb if u wanna live like a dancer.


so if its so tough to dance why do some pursue it all the way as a career?



"For two years, she kept up her dancing. But her grades began to slip and she was missing rehearsals. She had no choice. For three years, she didn’t dance at all. The hardest thing she’s ever had to do is to sit there in the audience at her friends’ shows. It broke her heart."

fish and chips friday, and a relaxing sunday

 finally it was the end of the second week!!! we didn't manage to get tickets to watch the rugby match, so we decided to have dinner tgt instead (: we got awesome fish and chips!! i had such a fattening weekend actually, but thats okay (: good food is good food. hahah

 I LOVE HOW THEY WRAP IT IN PAPER :D so old school haha and i love how it crinkles and makes a paper sound when i hug it

it's almost like a delicious present hahaha

 surprise!!!! or maybe not so surprising, but still delicious anyway! i ate it all up! with chilli sauce for a dip!! so awesome i tell u. its completely different from fish and chips here.

 we had a little bit of fruit wine while we discussed our mid term break travel plans












the next day i popped down to the local church, which was real small and homely! tons of lil kids (: very warm and friendly church. message was nice, it was about how different denominations have diff ideas but really, mainly we should work tgt and recognise the impt stuff and not be divided by ideology.

then i came home and made myself a yummy cup of hot chocolate! (: and my egg bread with Camembert cheese. yumm but i have been eating that bread for a few days cos i have 6 buns and tons of eggs. haha

so i gotta keep eating to finish it.

random fact: nz oreo cookies are crisper than singapore ones, but also less dense. i kinda prefer singapore ones, they seem more 'whole' lol




then i spent the afternoon doing laundry, and went for zumba and my treadmill session. zumba was fun! esp the parts which are directly linked to latin, like samba voltas and cha locks. haha


ate more bread and yogurt for dinner!

now waiting to surprise my friend for her birthday at 12 midnight!


lovelove!!!

I made eggs :D omelette with celery, carrots, ham and milk! it was real yummy, but i was a bit generous with the salt. lol, but i bought this SUPER awesome fresh bread from the market today, so it goes really well with the eggs! i think i've been eating a lot of eggs recently! is that bad? haha







MARKET :D

 view of lyttelton market, held at a little primary school near the sea. nice and sunny today (:

 super yummy breads on sale! I couldn't resist, i bought a piping hot cranberry chicken pie. it was so good! finally got to eat an authentic kiwi delicacy (: the kiwis here eat lots of pies!

 organic fruits! did u know tomatoes are crazy ex here! they're like 8-10 dollars a kilo ):

 how cute right? dog parking. haha while the owners were away, i took the chance to stroke a pretty golden retriever haha

 us waiting for the bus (:

got my russian ballet swan lake tickets! we bought them really quite early, so we got really good seats! we have like the middle section, 3rd row. haha, there is no classification by section, so its first come first served for seats. but the tickets are all ex! 100 is the cheapest haha



yest i went for operation friendship, which is a nice dinner thing for international students at a kiwi house (: yummy food, i had so much to eat! chunky vege soup with doria cheese bread, some roasts, and lava cake !



i have also been a good gym bunny! I gymmed for 2.5 hours yest, attended aerobics, yoga, as well as did treadmill (: i am of course aching like mad all over. but its all good (:


i love the way the gym works here, if only it was like that in singapore. i have also booked my first private lesson here for tuesday! i am realll excited for it! (:








have been busy stoning my costume. im done! (:


u can't really see the small crystals tho from this distance. i made the choker myself and also a hairband. i also altered the length of the costume haha

close up of the choker (the black cloth is actually stretch netting made of the cut out cloth from my underskirt) haha, and the big stones i sewed, there are tons of small crystals underneath, which will show when i dance and the tassels fly. i hope. hahah

cooking experiments

Since it is so expensive to eat out here in New Zealand, I have had to cook! with my limited knowledge and inexperience in cooking, i have had plenty of disasters, but nevertheless, i have managed to survive on my own cooking. lol

also, i have to bring packed lunches to school, cos its expensive to eat outside, so i usually cook the night before, and pack everything into a box to heat up the next day. which is really fun (:

1. Egg Mayo Wrap and Potato Salad

yumm (: this was my first attempt at cooking, which wasn't too bad i think! was yummy !

2. Egg mayo and cheese on crackers and potato pie.

as you might be able to guess, i only had eggs and potatoes. hahaha, but this was yummy too (: i was feeling quite accomplished at this meal.

3. Sausage and vegetable pasta



so i decided i would try something adventurous. hahaha, i decided to make pasta! which was nice, except that i set off the smoke alarm in the apartment cos i forgot to turn on the hood. lol. and i didn't have a can opener to open the spaghetti sauce, so i ended up with aglio olio.

but it's nice too (: my pasta was quite tasty, with olive oil and garlic salt to season it (: and yummy veges :D 

The snow queen by Mardi Mc Connochie

When two people have danced together for a long time, an intimacy develops that goes beyond words. Those of us who are fluent in the language of the body can say much more with it than we could ever manage with our stupid and unskilled tongues. Our skin, our eyes, the ouch of our hands, the angle of a soulder, the turn of a head, speak a language of muscle and sinew, chemical and blood, which is unmistakable and because it has nothing to do with our conscious minds, it does not lie.



Try to imagine, I tell them, although I am still struggling to catch my breath, 'that you are in the grip of a mad passion. You,' to the boy, 'have a splinter of poison in your heart that is making you crazy, and you,' to the girl, ' have a chunk of ice for a heart which is so cold that it burns you. You live in a frozen palace. You are a queen and you are immortal. You have been alone for thousans of years and you are desperate to find someone to love.'

The two of them nod at me wisely, but their faces are as blank as marionettes.

'Have you ever been in love?' I ask the dancers.

'Yes' says the boy, and 'yes,' says the girl/

'Have you suffered?'

The two of them look at each other, embarassed, and laugh.

'You will not understand these roles,' I tell them, 'until you have suffered for love.'

Of course I know that they don't believe me, 

phew had a hectic past two days!

slowly but surely getting into the swing of things here...

i shall stop whining about the cold, and remember the goals i set for myself before i return!!!!

Goal 1:  Better dance technique and a toner, leaner body.

couldn't stand the dance withdrawals anymore, so i plucked up all my courage, researched on how to get to the dance studio, and ventured out on my own!!! took the bus and tried to follow the map, and i did get to the dance studio in the end! :D it was awesomely huge with tons of pro dancers. though of course it's not the same, without my friends, and more importantly without my partner, dancing isnt as fun. but its not too bad. tech was useful but tough! hopefully i learn a lot while i'm here (:i shall not complain so much, but be thankful for this chance to learn from overseas coaches that i can't get in Singapore!

 

 

to aid me in my quest for a greater dance technique, i have also signed up for a gym membership which allows me unlimited access and free classes such as zumba and yoga!!!!!! i will be a gym bunny and work my core and leg muscles! muscles= better speed, and more body control for sharper actions (: 

 Goal 2: Fixing my skin and hair

 i went shopping quite a bit as well, and bought this mirror, bought these merino thermals which i think are really snug and comfy (:  also bought a huge black coat which i absolutely adore (:

my skin was breaking out like mad since thailand, so now i have a chance to stop its nonsense.
it's cold and peeling, but at least it's less oily, which may be what my skin needs..
 i have been hydrating like mad, and hair masque-ing as well. will not let my hair become grass.



Goal 3: Stone my costume!

haha, this is not really a goal, but a to-do list! i have to finish my costume by the time i'm back, else i'd never get round to doing it when im in Singapore!

1440 small crystals to stick on, and 48 large ones to sew on!!! that's a huge amount of work which i really need to get started on!!







hahah well, for rewards, i have had nice food so far (: have been averaging one proper meal a day, since the portions are giant! the rest of the day i just have salad, yoghurts, granola and nut bars etc (:

                                                chinese beef noodle soup!!! <3

                     super delicious  fish and chips! i ordered 'small' scoop of fries. omgosh the fries were so much i couldnt even finish!!!

dinner today at royal roasts (: 10 dollars for a 'small' meal!!! gosh they heaped so much food on my plate!! super yummy though!!! i wonder what a large meal would look like!




lovelove!