Ho ho ho, Xmas is coming!!!

21/12/06
I got an awesome present today. ;-)
I didn’t sleep well last night. I woke up again and again because I was so anxious about the results. I woke up at 2:30am, 4:30am, 5:30am and 8:15am. I was in such a hurry when I woke at last. Hahaha. :-P I just took a shower and went straight to the school. As I finished giving a presentation on Tuesday, so since then, I’ve been sitting and relaxing in the class. But today, it was really hard to concentrate on other students’ presentations. I was having negative thoughts all the time until I opened an envelop. In fact, I was scared to open it, but I had to. Otherwise, I would just keep it unopened. LOL When I saw the numbers on the paper, I was so surprised that I doubted whether my eyes were okay or not. :-P Anyway, I passed. This means that I opened the door to Polytech. I hope I’m accepted there and study tourism and travel next year.

23/12/06
Mission completed!!
Finally I finished Xmas shopping. My friends and I went to Riccarton, Eastgate, Northland and again Riccarton mall today. My legs are numb… I walked too much and the malls were so crowded that I felt tired as well. It took me half an hour to choose the first present, so I thought it was gonna take me 180mins in total. LOL But I was able to choose pretty fast, which was awesome. I hope people who receive them will be happy. :-)

The Exam is over

9 Dec, 2006

I’m off to the Polytech in 30mins. Yep, I’m sitting the IELTS exam today. Honestly, I’m quite nervous, but weird thing is that I’m kinda excited. Dunno why. I’m listening to the music at the mo to make myself relaxed. I hope I’ll have felt good after the exam. As it’s the biggest ever for me, I’m under a pressure. But a bit of it would bring me a good effect eh. I’ll see what happens. Hahaha. I’ll update ASAP. Ciao ciao.

10 Dec, 06

Well, the exam was ok, I think. Writing was really tough though… If I could, I’d like to write the essay, especially task 1, again… I know “It is no use crying over spilt milk”, but… aww… I’m really not sure about the result. It’s gonna be really stressful to wait until the result comes out on the 21st.

Anyway, speaking was okay. In fact, I talked a lot because while I was talking for part 1, the examiner’s alarm beeped while I was still talking, so I asked her if it was okay to finish what I was about to say. Then she said ok, so I did. In the second part, I was given a topic “vehicle”. Questions were something like “What kind of vehicle would you like to have and why?”, “Do you think if you would have that car in the future?” and so on… My dream car would be a medium sized car which has big space on the back so that I can load my snowboard and gears. LOL Also it should be handy to go into the town. Hahaha. I’m quite fussy, eh? Then in the last part, we had a discussion about vehicle. “What do you think about car advertisement?”, “What’s your opinion about the government building new roads?” and etc…

During the lunch time, I went into the town to have something, but my Korean friend who is so selfish(actually he’s not my friend) started playing chess at the Cathedral Square. I couldn’t believe him. What’s the reason to do that at the moment? I told him that I would go somewhere warm cos’ it was freezing!!! But he asked me to wait for him just 5 mins. I was really sure it would be impossible to finish chess in 5 mins. So, I left the Square anyway cos’ I didn’t wanna get a cold and how come did I have to wait for him? He started to play the game. That’s all. I don’t care what he thinks about me. What I cared then was the exam. I needed to concentrate on the exam. Different from him, I don’t have so many chances. I didn’t talk to him after that. Hahaha. I don’t care at all. I don’t think that I was selfish. I was just sensible.

Well, I’m getting back to the point now. I often end up talking something which has nothing to do with the topic I have talked about. Hahaha. Oops, I think I’m doing that again. LOL Now, I’m telling you about the exam. In the afternoon, I had listening, reading and writing. During the listening, I had a problem with my pencil. While I was writing down, it suddenly stopped working well. I mean…how many times I pressed the button, it didn’t work. I missed at least 4 questions because of that. Hmm, except for that part, it was okay. I found reading easier than practice readings. :-) Plus, the articles were quite familiar with me. Those were about “garbage problems”, “something taken from dead whale and used for the material to make perfume”(I totally forgot what the thing is called though) and the last one was about “pests, problems and solutions”. Although those articles were familiar, I had to think carefully because there were heaps of yes/no/not given and true/false/not given questions. What I mean is that I might be able to answer without a close look at the article, so that means that these might be affected by my knowledge.

Anyway, let’s move on to the writing. It was the toughest part in the exam. The task 1 was describing a table… When opened the question book, I was like, “OMG, it cannot be true… This one is my least favorite”. LOL It’s the easiest way to arrange and see the numbers, but it’s most difficult to process and describe because there are lots of information on it. I had a difficulty in it, so it took me more than 20mins even though I was supposed to finish the task 1 in 20mins. That means that I had less time for the task 2 essay. Well, actually task 2 was easier than the first one. The topic was something like...umm…cannot remember. I dunno why my brain doesn’t work well recently. I try to remember as much as I can. “More and more modern buildings can be seen in cities and towns, and some people claim that these change the appearance and tradition. Therefore, countries should insist building traditional buildings instead of modern buildings. Do you agree of disagree?” Hmm, something like this. I wrote one sided essay, by the way. I took a side of “disagree” by raising merits of modern buildings such as security, endurance to earthquakes and saving space. In addition, I mentioned that it’d be possible to keep a balance between those buildings in conclusion with an example of Kyoto.

Well, that’s everything about the exam, I think. I have to wait 13 days from now. Huh… it’ll be the longest 13 days ever. I hate waiting!!! :-(

FREAK OUT!!!

22 November 2006
Dear blog,

I sent Julie a birthday card ages ago, and I got it back yesterday. Yes, OMG!!! When I went into my room and found the envelope on my desk, I was like “Ah, I got a letter from someone. Let’s see it.” But it was from me actually. I was about to open the envelope seeing the address. LOL There’s a note attached on the envelope which says, “Retour/Retur”, “Inconnu Necunoscut”… Well, I have no idea what it says except for “Return”(obviously, cos’ I have it back now!!!), but anyway, something’s wrong or not sufficient. Hey, Julie, could you please give me your address? I think I’ve written down wrongly and used it. That’s the reason, eh? Anyway, I suck!!!

I’ve been occupied with assignments. I really wanna focus on the IELTS exam, but I can’t!!! I don’t have enough time to do that. Whenever I try to study for the exam, sleepiness comes upon me and my eyelids shut tightly. The exam’s coming closer, but I’m not ready at all… How can I organize myself? I can’t do everything… :-( I’m gonna freak out!!!

25the Nov. 06
I went to Barbara's farewell party last night. There were about 20 people there. Yeah, we hijacked Spagalimi's. Hahaha. It was real fun to hang aroud with her. She's gonna be in NZ for a while, so I can still see her. :-) We went to the Bog after wonderful dinner. We saw lots of intersting things. For example, really nice dress people were wearing. Well, it was unbelievable... Really... how can I describe that? Okay, I just put a word "unique" here. Hahaha. Why do they choose really green stuff or pink? Anwyay, I had a good time last night.

And tonight, I'm going to the Christmas in the Park with my friends. It'd be fun and relaxing to be with my friends. :-) I had a chat with the head teacher at the school and he told me that I put too much pressure on myself. The reason is because I don't think I'm good enough, so I have to study hard... Anyway, he told me try not to study this weekend. Even try not unpack my bag. I said okay, but I've already unpacked my bag. I'm really sure that I'll feel really bad on Monday if I don't do anything really. I'll see what happenes. It's an intersting experiment. I know myself, but I don't know what happens if I don't do any study. :-) Hmm, interesting. I'll report you the result later. Ciao, have a nice weekend. Don't drink too much!!!

Quick update

Dear blog,

It's a lovely day, which means that I wanna go out to the beach badly. :-p But I still have one class to go, so... No, maybe. I've got to do some assinments. I'll be obsessed with piles of them sooner or later. :-( I hope I can cope with that along with IELTS study. I'm gonna take the exam on 12/9, so I'd better to study heaps. But the truth is... I haven't studied much yet. I need to cover more writing section. I need to do more listening practice... I need to... Well, I'd better stop lining up the stuff I've gotta do. That drives me crazy. ;-(

Sometimes I feel like going home. Just forget everything and leave here. But I can't. I can, but maybe I don't want to. Life is complicated, eh. I got a letter from Japan yesterday. It encouraged me a lot and also saved me from the quagmire of unhappiness or whatever you call it. :-) That also reminded me of the goal I'd set long time ago. Millions of thanks to my friends in JPN!!! Cheers!!! I'm gonna stick to my goal!!! ;-)

Hello

15 Oct, 06
Dear Blog,

I haven’t got enough time to update this blog. Well, I have… Maybe. Dunno. :-p I’ve been in the IELTS prep course for two weeks. I learnt a lot about the exam. The more I learn about it, the more nervous I become. There are still heaps to learn. I plan to sit the exam in November or December. However hard I try to be optimistic, but it’s quite hard. I think I’m okay with the listening section, but I have a difficulty in writing area. Reading part is quite tricky, since I’m not good at choose suitable headings for each paragraph. That one is the hardest part. Well, I need tons of practice eh. Practice makes me perfect. Is it a proverb or cliche? Last weekend, I didn’t have any homework except for self studying, so I chilled out most of the time. I had time to read a book. At Whitcoulls, there are heaps I wanna buy. :-p I found the ‘Narnia’ book Sarah gave me for Christmas. Hmm, that reminded me of you a lot, Sarah. How are you doing?

Hmm, what’s new to me? It’s hard to say. Actually I haven’t done much since the IELTS course began. Yeah, boring life, I know. Oh, I bumped into Natasha at Riccarton mall on Thursday. It was really nice to see her again. We’ll catch up soon. And Saturday afternoon, I bumped into Kerstie as well. She looked quite different, so at first I wondered a bit, but I recognized her. :-) She looked great. On Saturday, I went to see Emma’s mum. ;-) It took me ages to go and see her!!! I’ve been so occupied with…stuff. Whenever I wanted to call her, I didn’t have time because of homework.

It’s really getting warmer here. I can go out with a T-shirt nowadays. Oh, changing a subject, I’ve put on some weights. :-( Seriously, I have to do exercise. I must take an action as soon as possible before I have to buy new jeans or clothes… I’ve decided that I don’t eat junk food anymore. !!!NO MCDONALD’S, NO KFC, NO BURGER KING!!! Instead of that, I’ll have lots of fruits. I made up my mind. I’ll go for a walk.

21 Oct, 06

Hello there. I’ve been here for a month!!!
My friend and I planned to go to Hanmer springs, but she’s got a sick, so we cancelled. We still have time to go there, eh. Now I have no plans for this Labor Day weekend. I think I’ll chill out at home. :-) I don’t wanna spend money for going somewhere or eating out. Last night I went out with Leo. Actually we were so tired that we ended up drinking and watching ‘24’ at his place. LOL Well, although I decided not to eat KFC, I did… I have such a weak mind. I should’ve gone to Subway instead. It’s a bit healthier than KFC I reckon. Anyway, we had KGB, Sminoff Ice and such. As I was tired, so I didn’t drink much. Only 2 bottles. I’ll keep the rest of them for the next time. LOL It was a fun night. I wanted to catch a last bus, so I left his flat quite early. Also his flat owner was supposed to visit the flat next morning, so I didn’t stay over at his place. You know, that might cause him a trouble, eh?

I had writing and reading practice tests this week. Well, both of them were quite hard. I have a difficulty in writing these days, so I was reluctant to take that one. However, it turned out to be alright as the topic wasn’t so difficult. I think I did alright. Maybe not so good, not so bad. :-) Just alright. :-p The worse thing was reading test… I got 28/40. I really made stupid mistakes. And I didn’t transferred two answers to the answer sheet. I lost 2 points even for that!!! I was so pissed at myself. Rather disappointed, I guess.

You know what? I might’ve fallen for someone at a photo shop at the first sight. It was Thursday when I went to Riccarton mall to have my photo taken and I saw her there. Well, I even don’t know her name, but she’s really cheerful and kind. Her eyes are really beautiful. Hmm, I’m daydreaming. What am I talking here? OMG, I’m crazy!!!

23 Oct, 06

I went out a bit to have lunch with my friend. It was freezing today. Winter’s back. Maybe not that bad according to what people say about the previous winter. Oh well, I was in Japan at that time. My friend and I went to Riccarton mall as usual. If you wanna see me, just go there. I’ll be there. Hahaha. Today I wanted to develop some photos to put in my new folder, but I mistakenly brought another memory card with me. How silly, I know… I noticed that when I inserted it into a photo develop machine. Well, I didn’t go to the photo shop that girl works at, since it was kinda awkward. You know, if I had seen her there, I wouldn’t have known what to say even though she remembered me. Oh, guess what my friends said!!! “Are you gonna ask her out, eh? When?”, “I know you’re not shy”, “Just ask her phone number!!” Hello, my friends, who do you think I am? I’m not that kinda person. I can’t do what you told me. I think she has a bf as she’s such a nice person. :-( Hmm…

19 Nov, 06
Long time has passed since I last wrote something. I totally forget what I wrote. I have to read through the articles again. Maybe something about a photo shop girl… Well, I asked her name, but it’s really tricky name to pronounce, so I can’t spell it. Actually she herself said that it’d be tricky to say. Hahaha. But it’s a beautiful name. I talked to her a little bit a couple of hours ago. :-) It was nice even though it was a short time. Hmm, am I falling for her? Oh well.

My life hasn’t changed much. Go to school, do the homework, go to bed… That kind of repetition. Boring, eh? When I see my friends, I can be really relaxed. I had dinner with Akira, Leo, Iris, Lucia, Tae Sun, Aya, and Bo probably 2 weeks ago. I felt as if it had been kind of like reunion thing. When we were having dinner, I was incredibly sleepy because in the morning, I went surfing with Julie, Luca, Saori, Sayaka, Sam and others. The weather was awesome and the waves were just nice as well. I should write about my stupid mistake here. It’s really silly… Oh well, I don’t have to hide it from you guys. Just after I’d taken a shower that morning, I thought I would need sunscreen with me cos’ it was such a good weather. So, I took a bottle from my bag without looking… That was a mistake. When I got to the bus exchange and had a look into my bag, I found a bottle of shampoo!! How silly I was. I was perplexed literally. I asked myself, “What’s this? And why is it in my bag? It’s supposed to be a bottle of SUNSCREEN!!” LOL Sayaka let me use hers. So, I didn’t get suntanned.

What else have I done?? Oh, one of my classmates Sina left for Australia after staying in NZ for 6 weeks. We went to an Indonesian restaurant to have a farewell dinner with her. The food was really good. I hadn’t tried Indonesian cuisine before, I really enjoyed that opportunity. After having dinner, we went to a supermarket to buy a box of ice cream because… WE LUV ICECREAM!!! We had a chocolate flavored one and a packet of spoons. Then we headed back to the Cathedral Square and there we started to eat. Hahaha. Although it was freezing that night, we didn’t care at all. Well, people passing near us stared at us. Hahaha. They must’ve thought we were mad. “How come are they eating icecream at this time, this place? It’s freezing!!” I had a really fun night!!! But I’ll miss Sina so much. :-(

Yesterday I went to Barbara’s birthday party. I had a really good time eating, chatting, drinking and dancing. Pizza, nachos, pasta, wine… Hmm, yum. Before going there, I went to Riccarton mall to get a present for her. It took me ages… cos’ I really had no idea what to get. I asked her favorite colors, whether she wears earrings or not. So, I can say that I had already decided what to get, but you know, there are quite a lot of earrings. And suddenly an idea that earrings would be too normal. From that moment, I began to wonder and wander in the mall. LOL While I was wandering, I bumped into Leo and asked him if he had a good idea or not. In fact, I didn’t expect any answer from him though. LOL He suggested me to have stuff which contains a bit offensive message. Thank you for your useless advice, Leo!! I finally bought a pair of piercing, which has a tiny white stone. I hope she liked them. It’s really hard to choose a present for girls. But it’s fun at the same time. :-)

Ups and downs

30 Sept, 06
Hello hello, what’s up? It’s been a while since I last updated. Wow, September’s nearly over. Time flies, doesn’t it?

This week I had ups and downs. First of all, I’m gonna tell you one of the rare ‘ups’. It is definitely the time I met Melissa. Tuesday afternoon(26th), I finally met her. As you can guess, I was so excited all the day and the night before, even since I got in NZ. :-D In the morning when I woke up, I did prey that time could go by faster that day. LOL Around the noon, I was too happy to believe that I really was gonna see her and to stand sitting in a class. It was quite hard to concentrate on anything that day. LOL I really wanted to bunk school that day. Maybe I should have? Hehehe, just kidding. でも、マジでサボりたかったかも。 In the afternoon class, we watched ‘Whale Rider’ and the class ran long(!!OMG!!), so I was a bit late. So sorry, Melissa. :-( One of the things I loathe is that I have to make somebody wait for me. For real. When I got in the mall, I spotted her soon as she hasn’t changed. She’s ‘めっちゃキレイ’. I recognized her at the first sight. ;-) It was really great to catch up with friends I haven’t seen for a long time. That brings me back lots of great memories from the last past. :-) We went to a café called ‘Coffee Culture’ near the end of the mall. It’s a new one since I hadn’t been there last time. Both Melissa and I had a piece of cheese cake. It was so good. Or it was good because I had that with her. Hehehe. The latter one makes more sense to me. ;-) There, we talked what we’ve been up to and stuff like that a lot even though we’ve been in touch. I might’ve talked things I already told her in e-mails. I hope she didn’t mind. I was so pleased to meet her, eh. Time passed really fast. 1,000 times faster than it did at school, plus the night before. :-) How come do I feel like that? And how come does monotonous time make me feel as though even the minute hand didn’t tick?

Well, now I’ll show you some ‘downs’. First of all, I had a test on Monday which no one knew about. So it was kinda surprise test for us. We did reading, listening, writing and speaking. Listening and speaking were actually easy. On the other hand, reading was disastrous. I was doing that on a good pace, at least I thought like that. However, when the teacher said, “You have 5 mins”, my watch said, “Still 9 mins to go”. I was like, “OMG, what the hell is going on?” Oh well… It is no use crying over spilt milk. :-( Have to face the fact. I ended up guessing some of them, but somehow I got 74% in reading, which was quite surprising result as I didn’t have any confidence in it. Down and up. A bit of good news is that speaking 93%, listening 92% and writing 4.4 out of 5.0. Now that I knew my weak point, I can focus on that part. :-) Good to know for taking IELTS in the near future. I’ll make use of that. ;-)

This week, we had an international shared lunch at school. It was awesome. There were heaps of dishes on tables. Mouth-watering foods!! There were very interesting foods from countries such as Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, etc. I love Korean food!! They were so good. :-P Easily imagined, I ate too much to breathe. Hahaha. The worst thing was… Should I say that? Well… it was ‘vegemite’. It tasted like salty, rotten something. I can’t find words to describe it. After eating it, I felt kinda sick. LOL That was the very moment I decided not to eat it ever again. :-/ Oh, I made about 30 ‘Onigiri’, but they were all gone when I went to fetch one. Hmm, I find tuna-mayonnaise was probably a good choice. Thanks to Melissa and Kirstie who gave me an idea. Cheers!!

Have you ever experienced a time when you can’t express yourself in a different language? That happened to me this week. It was so weird cos I couldn’t hear what people saying, couldn’t say what I’d like to say, either. I felt like as though I had gone mad or I’d been in a wrong place!! Seriously I got confused and contemplated what to do, but soon I found it easier just let it go. Since that had happened to me before, and at that time, there had been no way dealing with. Well, that happens from time to time.

Okay, as it’s a bit late here, I wanna stop here today. But before that, I’ll write down the worst ‘down’ of this week. I got a cold and still have it. I have a sore throat… This sUcKs!!

19th Sept
I spent a couple of hours doing my homework at the library. But later I found that I spent most of that time dreaming. :-( When I woke up, I was still gripping a pencil. Well, I had a premonition that would happen at the moment I walked into there. LOL I gave up and decided to do it at home. Then, after having dinner and a cup of Milo, I got a phone call from Nicola. About fifteen minutes later, she picked me up and we did her Japanese quizzes and my homework together. I doubted if I’m Japanese or… I wasn’t sure about a definition about “somo somo” and “moto moto” although I can slightly feel the difference. OMG, my language is really difficult. :-/ Or I suck at Japanese. Anyway, it was really really great because I learned lots of new expressions and words which I know in Japanese but can’t express or haven’t thought about in English. Also it was such a good opportunity to focus on my own language and cast my mind back if I studied Japanese hard. LOL Oh, I got tours of Nicola and Trish’s new house. Both are awesome!!! WOW!!!

23rd Sept, 06
A week has passed since I came back here. Time does fly. Cherry blossoms are their in full bloom now. Everyday when I got to school I pass under the tree and smells so good. What I found so far is that it’s quite difficult and should take time to get back studying routine, as my work shift was quite opposite from what I have at the moment and will have. Oh, and one more. ‘IELTS’ is gonna be really difficult for me… :-( My teacher told me that I’d be alright with it, but how could she know that? I’m so skeptic.

Have I mentioned that Josie got engaged at Christmas time and has wedding in February? I might’ve… Oh well, I have such a short memory. It doesn’t matter. :-p I’m pretty sure that I haven’t mentioned anything about Julie, her best friend, is gonna be one of her bridesmaids. I went to one of my favorite stores and got a card says “You’re engaged!!” LOL Hey, Josie, catch up soon!!! I’ve got something to give you.

Thursday night, I went to Mr. & Mrs. Lay’s to have dinner together. There I met Winny and Kevin as well. Kevin’s became taller than before, definitely. I ate too much to stand up, hehehe. Desert was awesome. Cheesecake and boysenberry on the top. Wow, that was so good. :-p I had two pieces of them. I was like, “No, I’ve had enough”. But Mr. Lay said, “No, you’re not!!” So, I ended up eating two. LOL Next morning when I got up, I still felt full, so I skipped breakfast, and took a longer shower instead. Actually, it was quite nice because my classmates and I went out to eat for lunch. There again, I had a big meal. I ordered beef noodles, but it was quite hot that I needed glasses of water. LOL

Friday night, I went to Nicola’s place. There were quite few people there. Quite international. We did karaoke and stuff. I was really sober, believe me. Whenever I drink alcohol, my face gets red. Quite typical Japanese, aren’t I? I remember everything clearly except people’s names. There were too many to remember all of them. It was a fun night. ;-)

Okay, that's all for now. Have a good weekend, guys!!!

Helloooo

What are you up to?

I’ve been doing good. I’m gonna make a quick note here so that you can read what I’m up to. First of all, on Sunday, I did salsa at the Art Gallery. Well, didn’t feel like doing it, but I was kinda forced to do that. Here’s the summary of it… I went to a wrong place at a wrong time. Just after I walked in the Gallery, I saw two instructors looking for someone. I should’ve noticed what would come, eh. I walked passed them then turned to see what they were doing(I shouldn’t have done that either). At this very second, my eyes met the instructor’s and she asked me what I was up to and if I’d like to join them. Unless she wasn’t beautiful, I wouldn’t have joined it. Hehehe, just kidding. They only had a couple of men there, so it was okay. I kinda enjoyed, but honestly I was too busy to follow the steps not to stamp on someone’s feet. I f I had joined from the beginning, it’d have been okay though. I had a chat while dancing… just if you call it “dancing”. LOL My partners were Leslie, Karen, Christie and more as we swapped partners quite often. It was like

---Hi, nice to meet you. I’m blah blah. It’s bit hard, isn’t it?
---Yeah, nice to meet you to. I’m blah blah. Yeah, it’s pretty hard. Oh, see ya. LOL

Probably Emma knows what it’s like as you and I went to that kind of dance lesson, didn’t we? The one I had on Sunday was an introduction of salsa, so yeah, it was exactly the same kind. I was gutted after the lesson. Didn’t have much energy to go see the galley. Oh well. :-/

I started school today. I went straight to the class this morning without a test. That’s why I was at the same school before and they’ve got my study record. My classmates are cool. Easy to get along with. I’m settling down well, I think. What I wanna do at the next stage is catching up with my friends here. J

Okay, time to go to bed now. Ooops, one more report here. I had a Cookie Time today. I was in two minds which one is better, but I chose a new one which looked like a double choco. OMG, it was GOOD. I'm gonna have one soon, which I'm sure of.

Am I silly? I forgot writing about my visiting Mr.&Mrs. Lay!!! Yeah, I did visit them without any notice. Hehehe, it must've been a shock for them. Like I opened the door and said "Surprise!!" LOL They've got a little dog named 'Baxter'. Can't spell the name correctly though. He's very cute. ;-) It was real nice to catch up with them. What could be more exciting than seeing my friends and people I care about. Well, still have heaps to go. Go me!!! Okay, that's all I think up to now. See ya later.