Reflect\/tcelfeR

It's coming.
The end.
The beginning.

And what have I done these holidays?

I don't feel that I have changed at all in terms of personal growth. Everything I've done has been pretty tangible..

1) Learner's licence
I probably over-studied for this, but actually, I was learning for the sake of learning as much as to pass the test. E.g. now I know that park lights are compulsory in many European countries, but are mostly illegal over here. Also I got better at recognising car brands this summer (still really n00b though), mainly through the help of my dad and brother, who randomly said, "What's that car?" every once in a while.

2) Bowls
Joined one club and withdrew from another.. it was actually a good decision though; I've met heaps of new people who are all friendly and interesting, although I wish there was someone there around my age.. Been going to practices every Wednesday since I signed up. The most recent one was funny =) there were eight of us playing noughts and crosses (four per team) and we each had four bowls.. we were supposed to bowl so that the bowl would stop on the squares in the grid which was at the other side. By the end of the game, only three people had managed to get a bowl on the grid XD it was so fail.

3) Calculus
Can this even be counted as an accomplishment? lol well we did work very hard. I'm happy with what we did, and I'd definitely do it again if I went back in time. LUB says I'm a good teacher, well, she's worth teaching =) But it was challenging. I never realised what it would be like to tutor someone completely on your own, without a pre-made syllabus (except my notes) and the support of other (better) teachers nearby, like in Abacus. I'm definitely not going to think twice when random people ask me to tutor them anymore.
(hope this isn't making you feel bad, btw, cos' I really did like having you over =])

4) Met lots of people
Yeah I don't think I made any friends this summer, but I did make a lot of acquaintances, and not just in those last day of the year bbq things etc. Everyone seems very nice =) looking forward to maybe getting to know some of them better. Also caught up with a couple of good friends =)

5) Rabbits
Yesterday was the first time that I had to make use of my rabbit training at the SPCA, and go work in the Rabbitry (lol steph: ohhh, looking after rabbits, i thought you meant making rabbits jump through hoops or something)
After about 10.30, nobody was available to help me, but I survived =) Collecting grass is fun. Still can't pick up the rabbits though. Cats are like, "yeahhhhh, HIIIII" but rabbits look at me like, "OMG is she gonna try and kill me?" Hopefully I'll get better with more experience lol.

Mentally, I'm ready for school now =)
Physically (is that what you call it? lol) I have to find my sandals xD and take care of some other stuff.

"Today is the start of the new semester. I'm gonna give it my all!" - Tenma-chan =)

We're going to the

edit: just noticed the white rhino photo didn't turn up. it's there now =D

I went to the zoo with my dad on Sunday =) it was really cool, and I was meaning to blog it with a photo bomb but the photo uploading took so long that it put me off
so
I'm just gonna put my favourites here, and ramble about the rest haha

We got there at opening time, 9.30 (nobody ask am or pm =P) because last time, we arrived at about midday, and all the animals were going blearrrrrgggh *snooze* Even so, the closer it got to midday, the sleepier the animals became.

I was thinking, do any of the animals realise that people love them just because they exist. Anywho

In chronological order, this is where we went:

Kiwis (they were very active and chasing each other around), red pandas

Tigers: they made a new enclosure, and all the tigers (there are three) were walking back and forth in front of the glass.



Birds: they're so pretty =) there were heaps of different species, including some that are becoming popular as pets now e.g. the lovebird, sun conure, white cockatoo, macaw (google the sun conures) but my favourite was the congo African grey parrot haha cos' he/she made really random expressions, which I always missed =.=



Giant tortoise

Lizards: These three, I can't remember their species names, have pro camouflaging skills.



Primates trail: gah it's so hard to take pictures of monkeys. They have so much balance 0_0 just casually walking across the ropes. One of the siamangs was sitting right next to the glass, and he/she (probably he?) was squatting on a thin rope. He's really muscular haha but his arms were wrapped around him like he was cold and he seemed kind of sad. He looked at us when we said "salamat pagi"



Sealions: Two of them were doing laps around the pool, one of them was sunbathing and also looking at the fourth one, which was turning over and over on the spot.. strange.



Meekats: so cute! For some reason, the meerkats were lazing around in the porcupine enclosure as well as their own.. Winnie told me she saw them in the tiger exhibit once.



Pridelands: We went to the giraffes for the feeding encounter, and as always there was a massive queue, because it's the only encounter where you can feed the animals rather than watch the keeper feed them. But the giraffes didn't come (playing "hard to get" lol) so in the end, we were allowed to take a carrot/apple piece and chuck it over the sides to the zebras and ostrich.



By the time we went to the white rhinos, it was almost midday, bleearrrgh time.. haha



The lions and the cheetah were also asleep, so we waited for the elephant encounter, which was cool. The keeper explained how elephants can't sweat so they need to regulate their body temperature with their environment *cue Burma throwing mud and dirt over herself immediately after her bath*



We left to see the orangutan encounter, and then we went home. It was a good day =)

Beginning

Today is the second of January.
- sarcastic applause -
The holidays have been really fun recently. I hardly ever go out this often, so I'm gonna enjoy it while I can =)
Last day of the year bbq was good, even though I was only there for the actual bbq thingy. Me and my parents were going to go celebrate New Year's at Sky City with some family friends, but it turned out that they were making the entire building R20 at 8.30pm, so we had to leave.

Also, even though it was only 7.30-ish, once me and my brother went out the doors, we wouldn't be allowed back in (so many security guards 0.0) so we ended up having to have dinner inside the building, which left us with a grand total of two restaurants to choose from, one of which was full and had a queue of people waiting to get in.

yes.

The restaurant we ended up going to was "white food with soy sauce on top" style as Alex put it haha
My brother drove me home, and then went to his friend's New Year party
so,
I celebrated New Year's with Jason Gunn's countdown variety show.
haha
Mum called me regularly and told me to go to sleep, but I stayed up out of habit/tradition anyway.

And today, I went to the SPCA
we got 10 kittens and 2 cats adopted out this morning, which is really good
There were five pure white, deaf cats there - one cat and two pairs of kittens, and three of the kittens have one green eye and one blue eye; it was so striking.

Then we went to a family friend's 50th birthday party
Her husband had spent six months organising all her relatives to come from around the world *cough Malaysia*. There were so many people there, it must have taken some crazy skill for all her closest friends and relatives to keep the secret. She said in her speech something like, "I'm so overwhelmed... I talked to my brother just two days ago and he said, 'I'll put aside five cents a day and come visit you at the end of next year'"
Since nearly everyone was Malaysian, they were all happily speaking in a mixture of English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka and Malay
*nods politely*

lol
look at the general trend of my posting numbers.

New Year's Resolution:
"Grab opportunities by the throat and don't let go."