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."

Dark circles

Couldn't resist =D I laughed so hard when I saw that

Christmas party was fun =) yeah read on YJ's blog haha
And yay we're going to Rangitoto tomorrow! On account of the Brain Bee spot prize that expires in two days lol

These xmas cards.. I still have eight to make and two to design... last year's self-inflicted theme was six cm squared, so that I'd be able to make them all in time, and this year I didn't give myself a theme but everyone and everything seems to be wearing a Santa hat haha cos' those things are WIN.

Question:

Yeahyeah, this is off Winnie's blog archives xD

1. Is it difficult for you to look into someone's eyes when you are talking to them?
Yes, it feels unnatural, so I have to use some of my consciousness thinking, "look at them while you're talking" lol

2. You are on a flight from Honolulu to Chicago non-stop. There is a fire in the back of the plane. You get enough time to make ONE phone call. Who would you call?
"If I have time to make a phone call I'd get the fire extinguisher." - agree

3. You have to choose between your significant other and your best friend, who do you choose?
"If they were my significant other, they'd have to be one of my best friends anyway, right?" - agree again
Actually, I don't have a significant other, and I don't have one best friend. So no choice =P

4.You are at the doctor's office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live, what do you do?
(A) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die?
Probably. But I wouldn't say it like, "hey, so I went to the doctor's this morning, and apparently I have one month to live"
I would tell them that I was sick with xyz. Because it might not end up being a month.

(B) What do you do with your remaining days?
If I was that sick, would I have a choice? I think I'd spend it with family/friends, and try to do the things that I wanted to do.

(C) Would you be afraid?
Possibly

5. You can have one of the following two things: trust or love?
"Love without trust isn't love" - sounds like a two-for-one deal? haha
So I'd say love

6. You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you're late one more time you're fired. what do you do?
D< you know, if this question was, "there is a person drowning in the canal", the instant reaction would be "save the guy". or girl. Because we consider a human life to be so much more important than an animal's... and you'd probably end up with the boss saying, "well there was a very good reason for you to be late, and that was brave of you so I'll let you off this time".
If this job was more important to me than the dog then I would yell for someone else to save it.. or save it myself if I could still get to work on time. Depends on the situation

7. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Spain, Japan, Canada xD and then everywhere else

8. Think of the last person who you really knew that died. You have the chance to give them 1 hour of life back, but you have to give one year of your life. Would you do it?
No. It wouldn't have made a diffeence. He was ready to go.

9. Are you the kind of friend that you would want to have as a friend?
Maybe

10. Does love=sex?
no

11. One of your best friends dies, what would you do?
I might be angry (depending on the circumstances) but mostly I'd be really sad. and then eventually I would try to move on

12. When was the last time you told someone HONESTLY how you felt?
Couple of days ago

13. What would be harder for you, to tell someone you love them or that you hate them?
"Of course telling someone you love them is harder. It's that fear of rejection, and if you hate a person, there's a good chance they hate you too." - agree
Although for people like my family, telling them I love them is much easier. I can't even imagine seriously telling them I hated them.
14. What do you think would be the worst thing for you to give up on?
Life

15. Excluding romantic love, when was the last time you told someone you love them?
Last night

16. If you had to go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?
It's complicated, I won't explain it here

17. Imagine. It is a dark night, you are alone, it is raining outside, you hear a noise. What do you do?
Make sure everything is locked and then look outside the window.

18. Would you give a homeless person CPR if they were dying?
yes, but I've only ever done CPR in theory, so I don't know that it would help

19. Are you old-fashioned?
yes and no?

20. Which would you choose, true love with a guarantee of a heartbreak or to never have love?
True love with a guarantee of a heartbreak. haha I read somewhere "I tell you, being in love is the best thing in the world. If you haven't found someone, you're wasting your life"
Probably over-dramatic, but it's always better to love than not love, right?

How are everybody's holidays.
We should act on all our holiday ideas haha.

The cake is a lie

^^ After using up all the riddles I knew on Winnie yesterday, I looked up some more (btw Wibbles, I looked up the answer to your six toothpicks four triangles question -facepalm- not only was that fairly obvious, I realise now that I've heard that question twice before. My mind refuses to think in 3D. aha)

Anywho
found this awesome paradox, which has been around since circa. 200 BC:
A crocodile steals a baby from its mother, and promises to return the baby if the mother correctly guesses what the crocodile will do.
The mother guesses that the crocodile will not return the baby.

which got me thinking about the "this sentence is a lie"
which reminded me about people saying "the cake is a lie"

My brother had to explain that to me.. it comes from a game called Portal, where you play as Chell, who is a test subject trying to get out of all these rooms by using her portal gun, which makes portals so she can get around without getting killed. So it's like a puzzle game in the sense that you have to figure out where to make the portal so that she ends up where she wants to go.

And apparently she is offered cake (and grief counselling?) as a reward if she manages to get through all the stages, but later in the game there are messages from past test subjects saying "the cake is a lie." Because the computer who instructs Chell has gone insane. O.o
Portal sounds really interesting. and freaky. haha

Hope everyone is having fun now that their exams are over =)
Spanish and Latin are quite fun to study compared to the sciences, I think. Feels less.. intense, somehow. lol

"You peel away the outside, and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. What is it?"

Busines

“Then indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days.
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it;
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The problem with bookstores,
is that they are full of unknowns.
See our bookshelf at home is full of familiar faces;
just by glancing at the spines I could tell you the stories lying quietly within as well
as a multitude of random quotes,
[if you're thinking of clearing out,
it may be a while before you see food again.]
but a bookstore...
it's pretty much a house of rectangular prisms
each trying to advertise their interiors with pretty fonts and well written blurbs
all of them extroverted, none of them friendly.
Purchase is permanent.
Choose as you will.

By the way, the second 's' was left off the title on purpose. It's a riddle, like
Stand
_____
I

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