Easter Break

Easter Break

Whoopee!! We're now on Easter break so it's gonna be a long weekend. Classes don't begin again till Wednesday and since I've just had my last lecture of the day, I'm pretty much on Easter break now. Well, Easter break pretty much means you don't have to get up early and...wow you've more time to work on that pile of assignments!

Easter break is also a very good time to go skating...except that after yesterday in which I re-bruised my very big bruise and gain more big bruises (such that I was limping for the rest of the day), I've decided I'm gonna kill myself if I go skating this week. It's a pity though since I learnt 2 new jumps and I really wanna practice, but guess the dancing-skating cycle will have to be broken. I'm going out dancing tonight though...I figure dancing won't be as bad coz I've yet to fall from it!!

The major blip in my otherwise too-hectic-to-care life (I practically live in the library in the psyc journal section) is that the lousy paper-pushing people at the telephone company informed me that my application for ADSL has been rejected because the phone account number is wrong or some rubbish along those lines! I'll have to re-apply which means another 2 to 3 weeks before they'll even connect me!!! ARGH!!! I hate Telecom. It's a pity they're the major market shareholder in telephone connection in NZ and monopolize the market so I can't quite switch phone companies. $%!@^&#*!!

Self Torture

Self Torture

I've come to the conclusion that I must be a sucker for self-torture. I don't think I've ever physically demanded so much of my muscles. In simple terms, I have never exercised as much as I did in the last week in my whole life.

Ceroc on Tuesday was just the beginning & I gained muscle aches from that as mentioned previously. Wednesday was when I had skating lessons so my poor muscles had no rest. Subsequently, I gained more muscle aches in both the usual places and in the unusal places. I still don't know which muscles skating works out, aside from the obvious calf, thigh and butt muscles, but I ache all over so it must work out a whole lot of other muscles I wasn't even aware that I had!

In any case, the sane, non-masochistic individual would have decided it was time to let the muscles rest, thereby halting further exercise till the next week. Being cruel to my muscles, I however decided that Friday would be a good time to go out clubbing with my friends. I don't think I would have made such a masochistic decision, had it not been the fact that the university's annual International Dance Party was on Friday & since I didn't go last year, I thought this year would be a good time to check it out, especially while my clubbing buddy is still around (she might go to Christchurch next year for 4th year Med).

It turned out that the dance party wasn't that fantastic...they kept playing techno music which I don't quite like dancing to. Around 12.30 am we decided we had enough of dancing to techno & our party proceeded to The Cook (one of the more popular clubs) where they had good music i.e. pop, rock etc...the "in" music. We left the club at around 2.30am (I think!) which means that I'd basically been dancing continuously for more than 2 hours. My muscles & feet were protesting loudly on the way home...I recall thinking that if we didn't get a cab soon my legs would just collapse (then my flatmate would have to carry me home...if he was kind...but he didn't know that).

Anyway, if you haven't spotted the pattern already, it's dancing then skating then dancing then...guess what comes next? Yep, I just had to go for skating practice yesterday. After all, since I've been so nasty to my muscles the whole week, what's one more day? So I went skating for 3 hours & gained many bruises. I've got this gigantic one on my left knee which prevented me from bending that knee yesterday and 5 smaller ones on my right knee which are kinda scattered. That's aside from the falls that my butt and tail-bone took. I lost count of how many times I fell on ice yesterday. Besides the bruises, this morning I woke up with even more muscle aches...even in my arms. Seems like skating even works out the arms...

Tomorrow it's Ceroc again. It's gonna be a real wonderful week of my muscles. They should get use to all this activity sometime soon...one can hope can't they?

Campus Architecture

Campus Architecture

I've a lecture every week in one of the oldest lecture theatres in the uni. It reminds me of a church coz the seats are like pews exactly like they have in the old churches with no individual seat division, but there are long desks in front of each pew. It's not the most comfortable kind of seating arrangement coz the long desks in front are kinda low. The cushion of the seat also moves every time anyone in the row moves coz it's just this one long piece.

The graffiti on the desks are really interesting though. Every desk is filled with it...accumulated over the many many years. There's graffiti dating back to 1955...at least that's the oldest I've seen, but considering the uni has been around since the 1830s, maybe there's older graffiti. The desk are pretty interesting too. They've got this slot at the top for putting your pens so they don't roll off down the slanted surface of the desk and at regular intervals there are these holes. I reckon they were meant for ink bottles in the time they still used fountain pens, but I'm merely speculating.

Campus is filled with architecture from different eras, so it looks a bit strange but intersting nonetheless, like the modern architectural building (think glass and metal) is opposite the clocktower building that's old architecture (think massive stone structure and large wooden doors with a very high ceiling), which houses the international office and other uni admin offices. They're on opposite sides of the river which provides a nice contrast really. You have all these tourists who go around taking photos all the time of the buildings around campus...mainly Japanese tourists in busloads.

I wonder if the uni I'm going to in Italy will have clashing architecture too. It should be interesting going around to see all the old buildings...especially the cathedrals! Can't quite believe that I'm actually gonna be going to Italy and around Europe this year! I haven't quite planned my trip yet but I'm thinking that Chiristmas in Paris sounds nice and perhaps New Year's in Belgium or Greece...

Ceroc

Ceroc

Dance class followed by skating class the next day is a very painful thing for my muscles. Ceroc started yesterday and because it's an intermediate class we've got these dips and drops for the girls. It's fun at first but doing it about 20 times isn't very fun coz for this particular move, the Drop-Kick, we had to drop vertically on the right leg by bending it 90 degrees (like sitting) and kick the left straight up. While the guys support us from the back, the girls really have to support most of our weight on our right legs. I felt like my thigh muscle was gonna up and die and not carry me home after class.

The scary thing about doing drops and dips is that sometimes it feels like the guys are gonna drop you on the floor coz they can't support your weight...especially the skinnier ones. One of the guys I danced with had this tendency to hold you pretty far apart from him so when we did drops and dips it was very unstable coz it's hard supporting a heavy weight with your arms extended straight out away from your body...I think he almost (but thankfully didn't) dropped me once. There were better dancers though, especially the older guys who had obviously been doing ceroc dancing for awhile and they know how to hold you properly. It's most fun when you don't have to worry that the guy is gonna drop you!! At times like this though, you appreciate being small and light. My friend, who's way bigger and therefore heavier than I am, had these massive bruises under her arms from where the guys were supporting her coz they tended to grip hard to support her weight. You could even see the finger-marks where they gripped. Ouch!

On the whole though, intermediate ceroc is really cool and when you get a good partner and both of you can dance well enough it looks fantastic! The class is great...made even better because there's a pretty good-looking guy with a nice smile in the class who can actually dance well enough...well enough being that I didn't have to worry too much about being dropped on the floor. What more can a girl ask for? I'm definitely looking forward to the next class!

I have discovered from dance and skate class that I'm really really in a bad shape. I couldn't quite skate properly during my skating lesson this morning coz of my sore right thigh muscle from yesterday. It didn't help that my right leg is my jumping and landing leg either... Plus the coach decided that I needed to learn to do 'shoot-the-ducks' which is skating one one foot squatted down with your other leg extended in front of you...for preparation to learn sit-spins. But I think it seems like that's gonna be really far off though because I can't even do a basic two-foot spin properly and I can't quite do a one-foot one either. The only good thing that's improved about my spins is that I can now do at least 6 revolutions....or so I think coz it seems like I'm able to go more rounds than previously.

After skating I more or less limped off the ice and I can't really climb stairs now. It'll probably get even worse tomorrow. Anyway, this week is gonna see me in my room doing intensive exercises for skating, especially building up strength on my left leg and ankle. Apparently my left ankle is really weak. It's a good thing I'm flatting and not staying in a hall anymore coz I'm gonna look really strange doing spirals (balancing on one leg with the other extended out and raised behind) and going up and down in a shoot-the-duck position. Sigh...

Research

Research

It's been some time since I last posted something, mainly coz things have been somewhat busy. I'm currently doing research for one of my psyc papers. It's quite annoying though coz more often than not, I find the uni doesn't subscribe to that particular journal, or the journal is way too old and therefore unavailable through the many e-journal databases the uni subscribes to! Then there's the problem of not being able to find relevant research...

Anyway, things have been pretty boring aside from finally being able to see the sun and use some of my summer clothes. The only not-a-usual-happening that occurred was the other day when one of my flatmates went out for dinner. I have no idea what he was having for dinner but he mistook his own tongue for a piece of meat and chewed it so badly when he licked his lips there was blood all over his mouth. His tongue bled for 5 hours afterwards and it was all swollen and purple and he couldn't talk. Ouch! Honestly I didn't know anyone who could do what he did and not feel it. Talk about self-destructive....

My Room

My Room

I've finally remembered to post picts of my room. It's not much really, but I like it bien sur...guess it would be horrible if I didn't, considering that I spend heaps of time in it!!!

Starting with the entry to my hideout...


The first thing you see when you enter:

My bright orange dresser! (and yourself)

My wall decor...there was juz too much blank space and holes in the wallpaper...


J'aime beaucoup mon lit...c'est très confortable!


Where I study....sometimes...


The fireplace which is boarded up and is now for decorative purposes.


The entry/exit way with my many pairs of shoes.

Annoyances

Annoyances

Things haven't been quite peachy in my flat. It's tough flatting really, getting everyone to agree and do what they're supposed to do. We do get pissed off at each other from time to time coz of differences in ideas of how things should be done.

It wasn't so bad before the guys moved in with us. Guys bring trouble...and mess. The guys have this annoying tendency to leave their dishes in the sink for a really long time and us girls find that really annoying, even if they eventually do wash up if it's still there. I can't being to describe how annoying it is when you find dirty dishes in the sink left overnight, but my sister and my other flatmate can attest to that. The result? We end up washing up after them and getting all annoyed about it.

Then there's this thing about the trash. Guess what? Trash doesn't miraculously disappear. Somebody has to take it out. Turns out, that somebody has always so far been female. It amazes us girls how the guys can juz continue piling more trash on top of a full trash bin without noticing that it's full. We had this bet the other night on how long the filled trash bin would remain full if none of us girls emptied it. I think I bet on a month and Lucy bet on a week and my sister said "Within the next 24 hrs coz I'm gonna tell one of them to do it!"

We worked out a chores schedule, which I'm hoping will make things less annoying. Unfortunately, we should have been way more detailed. Today was trash day and while 1 of the guys was suppose to take out the trash, he conveniently forgot to take out the recyclables. I mean, geez! How can you forget when it's totally cluttering up the front porch?!!! We put it on both sides outside the front door and it's really hard to miss coming outta the door. Guys must not be able to see too well coz he only brought out the trash bags, leaving my sister and I to drag out the other half of the trash at 7.30 this morning.

Besides human annoyances, we've got the rabbit being annoying too. Last weekend, we let it out for some exercise and the rabbit ran into the thick bush at the back of our garden. Then it found a hole in the fence between our garden and the neighbour's. It's not too hard to figure out what happened next. Yep, the rabbit went into the neighbour's garden and was happily hopping all over the garden. We really panicked and kept calling the rabbit to try and get it back. Rabbits definitely do not understand English and since the neighbours weren't in, we couldn't quite get the rabbit back and had to wait for it to decide to come back, which it did after an hour of yelling at it.

When we finally got the rabbit back after much difficulty, the rabbit had the cheek to lie down and go to sleep!!!! $#&**@!!#!!!! Argh!!!

First Day

First Day

Semester has officially begun, with cold weather to suit the end-of-holiday mood. Well, sort of. There are so many people crawling all over campus now and I've just had my first lecture of the year for my psyc paper in forensic and applied psychology. The lecturer informed us that there were way too many of us taking that paper (190 of us) for a 3rd year paper. They like to keep 3rd year classes small so they can give you more attention. Anyway, she said that she's gonna try and scare as many people into dropping the paper as possble...not a very good start for the year.

After attending that lecture, I must admit that I'm a little afraid that I've "bitten off more than I can chew" as the expression goes, what with taking 3 3rd year papers and doing 3rd year psyc before 2nd year. I calculated my expected workload and I'm gonna have to put in about 7 hrs of study per day, not including lectures and labs and tutorials. It's horrifying!

Aside from that, it also dawned on me recently that I'm gonna be taking the same 2nd year psyc paper as my sister next year coz I'm doing 2nd year psyc in my 3rd year and she'll be a 2nd year then. Argh!!! Thankfully I'm only doing 1 paper though and hopefully we won't have the same lab. I can juz imagine what lectures would be like... *shudder*

I hope the day gets better coz things aren't quite on a positive start. I'm also starting to hate the weatherman....he keeps predicting bad weather.

2nd Year

2nd Year

I had my prelim lectures today, which consist of introductions to the lecturers and telling you what's gonna happen in the paper. I can't believe classes start on Monday. Summer vacation is over!!!! I wish it went for longer especially since I only finished summer school exams 2 days ago.

Anyway, it's nice being a 2nd year. You see all these 1st years walking around (some looking kinda lost) on campus. Haha. Ok I'm really not that mean, especially since I'm volunteering with the student support program to mentor a first year. I hope I get a nice mentee who wouldn't have too many problems!!

I got my timetable today too...it sucks. Honestly, I hate my timetable this year. They didn't have the decency to clump classes together, but rather distributed it throughout the day...which means I don't end early. I've also currently got a 3 hour lab from 4pm to 7pm on Tuesday. It's a problem especially coz that clashes with the figure-skating classes I intend to take now that the ice-rink in Dunedin has reopened. There are several other lab times but unfortunately the only other option I can make would be 6pm to 9pm Thursdays, which stink for 2 main reasons. 1) It's so late!!! and 2) It's on Thursday. Reason 1 is not too bad, Reason 2 on the other hand really does need further consideration. Why? Coz of datelines for lab reports. The dateline don't change regardless of when your lab is on and you can't do a lab report first without doing the lab now can you? So if your lab's on Thursday, you've basically got less days to work on the report.....which sucks..

The only passably good day I have is Friday...I end classes at 1pm and I've only got 2 classes. Looking at my timetable, I forsee myself having no life whatsoever this semester...sigh. Not much I can really do though so I guess I'm gonna do all my partying this weekend. We're having a flat party tonight and gonna go clubbing tomorrow night and then it's back to classes. I'm not looking forward to it (well kind of, maybe).

Course Disapproval

Course Disapproval

I really didn't know what in the world I was getting into when I decided last year that I'll do a combined honours degree in psyc and marketing. It really hasn't been easy to get the required approval for doing that degree and well, I'm what they call a "problem child".

I have mentioned earlier of all the red tape and stuff I needed to cut through. You'd think after all that trouble and getting a signed approval paper (though not official) things would go smooth. Yeah. Right.

I did my course approval process Tues....started off thinking things wouldn't go too bad until I went to the psyc department to try and get my papers approved... The very first thing they said when I told them I'm doing a combined honours in marketing and psyc was, "No you can't do that!" You would think that after hearing the same lines so many times since last year, I'd be immune to it. Or so I thought. Anyway then came a 1/2 hr of checking with those higher up if it was possible and after much debate, they signed me in...with a whole lot of surprise that I could actually do a combined honours cross faculty. Of course I could have told them that, but they didn't really believe me when I said I'd already seen the people higher up and gained approval.

Ok so maybe a small hiccup and things would go smoothly. Haha, wrong again. When I went to submit the form to complete course approval, the computer refused to register me and the girl doing it had to call for help. The first thing said when the administrative officer saw my combined honours degree form was...not too hard to guess...."No you can't do that!" Honestly, I was ready to cry. I mean how many rejections can a person handle? Well, it all got sorted out eventually when she made phonecalls and checked with people higher up and stuff. But the computer still wouldn't accept it so they had to do it manually later on.

Sigh...the only good thing is that I'm probably gonna be the only person graduating with a combined honours in marketing and psyc coz from all looks, nobody has done it before. At least that's what they keep telling me....

Exams

Exams

I've got an exam today! ARGH!!! Ok actually it's french so it isn't too bad...I think. Marketing is on Wed & that's one nasty paper. So dead so dead so dead.

One piece of good news in the week...I've finally got all my furniture installed in my room!! Got my new mattress too!! Say goodbye to backaches from a way-too-thin-you-can-feel-the-bed-slats mattress. Got my dresser which has a humongous mirror...a gigantic step up from de tiny make-up mirror I was using b4! It's a really pretty dresser....if only it wasn't bright orange. When I say bright orange I really mean bright bright orange. I'll take photos of my room after exams & post them here...I'm rather happy with my room.

ARGH!! Exams!! Ok I'd better go study....

Examen Oral de Français

Examen Oral de Français

Aujourd'hui matin, j'ai un examen oral de français. Cet examen a été quinze minutes et il a allé très rapide. Il n'a pas été très difficile. Ma professeur de français s'est renseignée sur ma famille et l'avenir, ce qui été un peu difficile mais j'espère je ferai bien! L'examen final français vient, donc je pratique parle en français. Désolé pour mon français mal...

Ouch!

Ouch!

I spent almost $300 today purchasing a new mattress for my bed...it's a nice spring mattress, but there's now a hold in my pocket which hurts. I wonder if I could have gotten somthing cheaper. Argh! Why are beds so expensive here? My furniture all in all has cost me just about $600...everything is 2nd hand aside from the mattress. I'm quite happy with all the stuff I've got although my account is being bled dry.

I've also just realised that technically I'm no longer being supported by my parents. Gosh, I feel so old... My tuition fees and textbooks are being paid for by the student loan I applied for from the NZ govt & the govt also gives me $160 per week (which thankfully I don't have to return!!) for living expenses. It's enough to pay for rent, food, electricity with a bit to save. I can see why there's no way you can't survive in NZ coz as long as you get about $160 per week of income, you'd be sweet. Obviously though, you're gonna have to do without extravagant luxuries, but it's possible.

I was thinking of getting a job though, but I've yet to find one that suits me...I need a solely weekend job although I wonder if I would be too busy when semester starts to juggle study and a job. Wonder if I could get a part-time job in Milan...it'll be good to earn in euros considering that living costs are really high there. I just might have to borrow $$ from my dad...eeps...so much for independence.

Trash Day

Trash Day

It's a deceptively warm day today (i.e. it looks warm but it's cold) & it's also trash day. You can tell some of what the occupants of a flat are like juz by looking at their trash...or rather what they dump in their recycling bins. Like you know who are the party people...highly likely students, coz they'd have heaps and heaps of beer bottles in their recycling bin. You also know which is their favourite brew... As each flat is only given 1 recycling bin, those with more than 1 stole bins from the neighbours. Actually ours got stolen by someone & we took someone else's & labelled it ours with a permanent marker.

I had to get up pretty early this morning to take out the trash before collection time and it's not because we forgot to put it out last night. We found out the hard way that if you put your trash out the night before, some miscreant come during the night and rips a hole at the bottom of your trash bag to look for food, then your trash doesn't get collected. The city council is pretty fussy about how your trash is presented for collection. They don't collect it unless it's properly tied up in one of the council trash bags you purchase for about $1 per bag at the supermarkets. Beside this, the bag can't have a hole, if it does they don't collect it. If it's not tied, they won't collect it.

The previous 2 weeks we ended up having to use another bag to put the trash in because of the hole...which meant we ran outta trash bags fast. So I guess our choices are to wake up early or to pay (in trash bags) for extra sleep!! Now, if I had a gun and caught that animal who has been making those holes....

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day

Once again it's the florists and gift store proprietors' favourite time of the year. It's horrendous how much they're charging for flowers and gifts. I walked past this florist yesterday and 2 roses cost a whooping $25!!! Do you know how many meals you could buy for that amount?

My flatmate basically went crazy...she went all out to make this choc, lolly, biscuit house for her bf and was up till like 5am for a couple of days making it. She also spent alot of money on it. The result looks fantastic, but unfortunately it can't be eaten despite being made out of edibles...coz well, she used superglue. But anyway, I think she'll be pretty glad that vday has finally arrived and all considering the amount of time and money she threw into making the perfect present. In any case, we won't be seeing her around the flat till really late tonight.

This is a perfect time to spend with friends and all for those who are single, I reckon. Unfortunately for me, I'm gonna be spending time with the textbooks...or rather lecture notes since I have no textbooks for marketing, what with the exams being next week and all.

People are starting to return from the summer break and it's kinda weird seeing so many people around campus now and the computer labs pretty much filled. I really need to get that internet connection so I dun have to rely so much on the filled computer labs!!!

Degrees & Red Tape

Degrees & Red Tape

It's another nasty dreary rainy cold day...and exams are in 2 weeks...well less than that. I wonder if they'll kick me out of the honours program if I don't do well in my marketing 202 paper. That would be a disaster considering all de trouble I went through to settle and get approval for my degree. The uni is pretty flexible especially since I wanna do a combined honours but there's alot of red tape and paper work to go through. I've had to see alot of 'high-ranking' people in both the departments of psychology and marketing and have spent hours talking with them...

Lots of stuff can go wrong with a complicated degree that requires special permission for practically every paper. I wonder sometimes why I'm making life difficult for myself...like why don't I just do an ordinary degree? I start panicking every time something goes wrong...I think my lifespan has been shortened by quite a bit since.

Life-shortening Experience 1
Last year I emailed the psyc HOD to ask for special permission to do 3rd year psyc this year and do 2nd year psyc next year instead coz I wanted to go on exchange in 2nd semester and so I couldn't take psyc papers in 2nd semester. Anyway I mentioned I intended to do a combined honours degree in marketing and psyc. To my horror, he emailed back saying I couldn't do a combined honours degree in marketing and psyc coz it was 2 different faculties and u can only do a combined honours within the same faculty. Well if you had planned out your entire degree and took papers towards that degree you would have panicked like I did after being told that you can't do that degree. I emailed him to explain my "special situation" and arranged to see him and we managed to work something out so all was good on the condition that I maintain my grades and get admitted into the honours program for both marketing and psyc.

Life-shortening Experience 2
As I said my degree was conditional on my getting into honours for both marketing and psyc. So when I got an invitation to apply for psyc but not for marketing I panicked. I emailed the marketing department and asked why I didn't qualify. Anyway it was some time before they emailed me back to say that I did meet the criteria and they didn't know why I didn't receive an invitation, but I could download it off de school of business website and post it. So I did.

Life-shortening Experience 3
I wanted to do a combined honours with psyc as a science subject rather than an arts subject. However, this year the honours coordinator for psyc send me a letter saying that I've got into honours, but it would be under arts coz I didn't have enough points worth of science papers. Yep it's true I didn't have enough, but there was no way I could have had more science points given that I had to do marketing papers as well and I was taking the maximum course load. I emailed the honours coordinator to ask how I could get into the science honours roll and she had to check with the head of science faculty to see if they could make a special exception. And they did, but it took some time.

I am hoping that all will go smoothly from now, but it prob won't. I, however, now know why so many people choose to do med, or dentistry or pharmacy...it's easy...you have your whole degree planned out for you...

Oh wait! There's a moral to the story...and the moral is: Email is the most wonderful invention for helping to ease life-shortening experiences pertaining to complicated degrees. 8p

Happy New Year Zzzz...

Happy New Year Zzzz...

I am sorely in need of sleep. Last night I couldn't get to sleep till 2am despite not sleeping the whole night before. I was lying in bed trying to sleep and counted de number of hours I've been awake...and de lucky number was 41.

For those who are wondering why in the world I didn't sleep, blame the marketing department and the fact that I don't have a printer at home. My assignment was due this morning, but I had to finish it by yesterday morning so I could print it out before my classes and drop it off on time...wouldn't have had time to print it out and get it in this morning otherwise.

Ok, so maybe it was my fault too for procrastinating. But well the assignment was soooo boring and I believe it took me far longer to complete than the other coz I had to draw like 7 charts and even with Photoshop's ability to record actions it took hours. I think I spent on average about 3 hours per chart and I've not even counted the writing of the report!! I hope I made some sense in it coz you never know what weird stuff you might end up writing when your brain is fried.

The funny thing was that despite not having slept for so long, I was kinda perky albeit a little lightheaded de whole day. I stayed awake during both my lectures (had 4 hrs worth) and I think I even did retain some of de lecture material. I was quite amazed since the previous times when I pulled all-nighters to complete assignments (marketing of course!) I was zombified the next day. Strange...

Anyway it was CNY yesterday and there wasn't anything special really. It was juz another ordinary day here in Dunedin...aside from the fact that the weather has turned foul again. But well Happy New Year to those who had a celebration. I'm hoping that they celebrate CNY properly with all de foodstuffs in Milan next year, otherwise 3 years without CNY food is quite terrible to comtemplate...

Flood

Flood

We had a really heavy downpour which went on for quite some time yesterday. Actually it should probably be called a storm. The glass roof of the commerce building where I had my marketing lecture leaks like crazy...so when it rained yesterday you basically needed an umbrella just to cross inside the building!! The leaks were so bad, at one part a mini-waterfall had been established coz the water was coming through as if someone was standing on de roof pouring buckets of water down. It was that bad. We also literally had rapids (no kidding) down the wide flight of stairs between the third (on ground level) and second floor. Honestly I've never seen anything like that before...within a building too!! They had to shut off that entrance coz there was way too much water at the steps and gushing from the "waterfall" near the entrance. I doubt any sane person would actually want to use that exit anyway coz there's no way you could have stayed dry.

This morning a lot of shops have closed for the day (possibly the week)coz it flooded pretty bad in town yesterday. Quite a few of them are also offering jobs for helping to shift stuff and dry out de carpet etc. Lectures and tutes held in the commerce building have been moved to other parts of de uni for de week coz the building got flooded...surprise surprise. The ironic thing is that the commerce building is one of the most modern buidings (and ugliest) on campus. Doesn't say much about modern architecture aye? Especially when the 136 year old buildings are still solid and don't leak. The commerce building is famous for leakages and broken limbs (from people falling down de stairs which gets very slippery when wet...a leaking roof doesn't help keep it dry in de building)....it's a pretty dangerous place. Too bad though that rain doesn't cancel anything....I dun suppose you could get rained in...unlike snow... 8p

Thin Walls & Flatmates

Thin Walls & Flatmates

It's amazing how thin the walls in my flat are. You can hear everthing going on in de adjoining rooms. My room is beside de bathroom and I can hear everything anyone does in there...pretty much. It's not very pleasant really coz it means that if one of my flatmates chooses to take a shower at half past 7 in de morning I get woken up by de sound of de shower...which has happened a couple of times.

I suppose it's worse for my sister though coz her room adjoins my other flatmate's room and her brother moved in with us over the weekend and is sharing her room till the end of the year. Basically my sister is kept awake by the conversation between de 2 of them in de next room should they decide to talk while she's trying to sleep.

All in all though I suppose it isn't so bad. Could be worse, like if you had a sexually active flatmate...and paper thin walls. Last year, one of my flatmates flatted out with a sexually active friend. Let's just say she heard lots of stuff through her walls that she really didn't wanna hear and heard enough to know that her flatmate wasn't getting much sleep.

Anyway, Peter arrived this morning so de flat is full now. It's gonna be interesting with so many people in de flat. He didn't cut his hair and with his beret-cap and his red hair, I told him he looked like a typical English kid...except you can't really call him a kid at 1.8++m. But he looked like an English newspaper boy...all that was missing was a bicycle. He doesn't intend to cut his hair throughout the year...I really wonder how that would turn out...I might make him cut it if it looks too horrendous, but we'll see...

Furniture

Furniture

Weather seems to be pretty crazy lately. It was really foggy all over the whole of yesterday, not juz up in the hills where I am, but also in town which is at de very bottom. You can juz see the fog swirling about and it's kinda depressing.

Anyway, got my furniture yesterday thanks to my sister's homestay, or should I say, ex-homestay parent. She really a darling, borrowed the yewt from her workplace to drive down and help move all our furniture...well what we bought anyway. Then came the arduous process of carting all the furniture pieces up the stairs to my room and then re-assembling them. Had some trouble with the screws on the bed coz some screws got mixed up with those my sister had, resulting in missing screws for mine. The bed was relatively easy to assemble though. It was my desk that gave quite a bit of problem...mainly coz de pieces were heavy and there are some weird cams that don't tighten very well. I also didn't have a big enough screwdriver but thankfully de screws mostly needed an Alan Key so it wasn't too bad.

My room now ooks a whole lot better, aside from de fact that I have to get a new mattress for de bed coz the one that came with it was far too thin. But the room's a whole lot neater with furniture in. Now I'll juz have to go about procuring a dresser, some drawers and a bookshelf for myself and then ask my sister's homestay parent for help...again. Oh well, it's fortunate we know some nice people who can drive stuff that can carry furniture.