Formal Dinner

Yesterday marks the last day of lectures for the year 2006. Going to the last MANV101 lecture, especially at 8am in the morning yesterday really brings back a lot of memories, but I doubt I'll miss waking up at 6.30am every Monday and Friday going to the only stream of stupid 8am lecture, since the 200 level MANV paper is also going to be at the same time next year. *BIG sigh*

Oh well. Hope going to all the early lectures pay off. MANV final exam is on this coming Wednesday, 2 days after my music sight-singing/clapping test and 2 days before biology finals. NO time to recoup in between exams! sigh sigh. I keep telling myself that this misery will only last for another 2 weeks, then freedom takes over. Heeeeeeheeeeee. *insert evil grin here*

Studholme College's last formal dinner this year took place last night. The main course was so worth waiting for, but dessert was bit disappointing. Argh the sweetness. MANY MANY awards were given out, congrats to all those who won, especially to Rebec on her hilarious column. I guess I felt more relieved than sad that I didn't win that writing award, which meant it wouldn't get published in the magazine. Won't go into details of that, though.

Enjoy the pics!

Menu.

Group pic.

Soothing music.

The weirdest ever Scottish ceremony: the cutting of the Haggis.

Being artistic; top view of a glass of red wine.

Being artistic #2: Cutlery.

Delicious food; Fish on savoury rice.

Dessert; believe me: it looks better than it tastes.

Never happier

Final exams in less than 2 weeks! During this time, MOST people are starting to freak out about the finals and whether or not they'll get into intended courses next year. Boy was I glad when a lecturer mentioned at the end of BIOC lecture this morning that "...those that don't get into Med or Dentistry, it's not the end of the world. You can also help those starving children, which I'm sure by doing so you'd help more people ever than being a doctor..." (something like that). *Teehee*. Sorry guys, but the kiasu attitude has got to go.

Anyway, this week marks the end of Biochem and Biology labs for me. *frowns* I felt that the labs were so much shorter this semester, and everything just happened at such a fast pace. I certainly did enjoy doing the glucose and cholesterol testing for both labs (and a big *phew* for not fainting at the sight of blood). However, the results weren't that good: my glucose level rose to 8.9mmol per L after having 2 bananas and a muesli bar. How weird is that? Hmm. Cholesterol level was pretty high too (6.34mmol per L), and it got me worried though I was told there could be experimental errors and the exact LDL/HDL concentration was not known yet. But still, I'd have to get a full blood test/medical checkup SOON just to make sure everything's alright, since my family do have a history of high cholesterol levels. Yikes.

The year's coming to an end, and here's a list of (some of the) good and bad decisions I've made throughout the year, just for keepsake purposes.

• Given a choice to come study at Uni of Otago. A big move, definitely the right decision. I'm never happier. =)
• Living at Studholme Hall. The activities, gatherings, competitions, cool chants, what else can you wish for?! I'll miss my room and the hall heaps when I move out next year.
• First major bad decision. Trusting someone I shouldn't, and ending up getting my heart broken, hurting other people in the process as well. All's well now, time heals, and I learnt a lot too.
• Playing the synth/keyboard for Nations Christian Church. A truly blessed opportunity.
• Going to Queenstown for the weekend during Sept. AWESOME experience, looking forward to going back for more adrenaline-pumping activities and beautiful scenery.
• My 19th birthday celebration. No decision made here, mostly by my superb friends who planned it all. Thanks soooo much!
• Learning guitar and polishing up keyboarding skills. Music paper didn't exactly help, though I know more about intervals now. :/
• Meeting the people I call friends now, and knowing that they will always be there beside me, no matter what happens. Nothing beats that. =D

Studholme Ball 06: PotC

Studholme College's annual ball was held last night, this year's theme being "Pirates of the Caribbean", held at Savoy *again*.

Anyways, the 5 of us (Janice, Sarah, Rebec, May and I) got ready since 2 something in the afternoon, gathering in Rebec's room, doing each other's hair, makeup, and dressing-up. Thanks for Ange who helped with make-up (I'm hopeless in that)!

After 4 hours of rushing here and rushing there, we finally got everyone ready and headed to the pre-ball function at the dining hall. The decoration was awesome! A fake pirate-sy ship, sails, and skull-designed B&W helium-filled balloons, a fake treasure chest, and kitchen helpers all dressed up as pirates... and the list goes on and on. Syok the coolness and creativity!

Took a few pictures before we headed off for Savoy where the main ball would be held around 7pm. Food wasn't as great as I expected *frowns*, dessert wasn't that bad, though. I still thought the pre-ball snacks were tastier. =) Had a few pictures taken by a professional photographer, then we danced from around 9 to midnight. Phew the exhaustion! Got home past midnight, took more vain pictures (trying to capture the last few pretty moments before we remove all the makeup and hairdo), turned our clocks 1 hour forward (daylight savings shucks... 1 less hour of sleep!), and finally slept at 3-ish.

Finally... PICTURES!

Getting ready...

Pre-ball: Joss, James Slater aka Stud president, Janice

Pre-ball pic: group pic with Ziggy

My hairdo.

Savoy; people dancing.

Post-ball; vainness.

Choir competiton- Iona Trophy

I took part in the choir competition for Iona Trophy against Salmond and St Mags halls on Sunday night. We sang 3 (and a half) songs: Ave Verum Corpus, Down to the river to pray, In the still of the night, and Don't worry, be happy.

There wasn't much time for practice, and frankly, I thought the songs couldn't bring out our full potential. Anyways, going into the choir competition as the "underdogs" put a lot of pressure on us, especially even when Ziggy said that there is no chance of us beating St Margaret's coz they'll win eventually. -___- So the only thing we could do was to sing our best, and have fun!

So yeah, that was exactly what we did. This year's choir/speech competition was held at Salmond hall. Our dear ole Sam Brown gave the first speech about the fate of Kiwi blokes (translation: New Zealand guys) as they are slowly taken over by metrosexuality. His opening line: "It's nice to see those from St Margaret's still awake at this time of the night..." teehee. For those who didn't know yet, those staying in St Mags are known for studying all the time and sleeping before 10pm. Mocking them sure is fun. In short, the speech was so hilarious and well presented.

Next was Salmond Hall choir presentation. They only had 9 people in the choir, which I think was the main reason they didn't do well. St Mag's choir completely stole the show in a sense that they sounded absolutely like those professional gospel choirs. Though we knew we couldn't beat them in any way, we performed as best as we can. Seeing the audience grin when we started singing "Don't worry, be happy" (esp the whistling part) was satisfying enough to reimburse the fact that we could never win the choir competiton, yet beat the St Mags choir in entertaining and bringing joy to the audience. =)

Bravo also to Mata on her impromptu speech though the title of the speech was completely misinterpreted: "A highbrow is a person who is educated beyond his intelligence." NOBODY knew what a highbrow is. haha. Imagine preparing a speech knowing nothing about the topic. Anyway, it was so funny watching her turn the topic completely around and ended up telling a story about her uncle from Samoa. XD

After all the speeches and choir presentations, the results were announced. As expected, St Mags won the choir, Studholme and Salmond drew at 2nd place. =( However, Sam Brown won the prepared speech! haha. Congrats to Mata on her bravery though she got the last place for impromptu speech.

Refreshment was served after that. Salmond hall has a slushie machine! *jealous* When it was time to announce the overall results, the people from St Mags had already gone back to the hall. Even the judge made fun of them for going home so early. hehe. The really surprising thing was that Studholme had the most points overall and retained the Iona Trophy!!! *I forgot that it includes the debate competition results* =D

blasting it

I'm on cloud nine! Woohoo!


My Altec Lansing VS4121 3 way speaker system has just arrived! *squeals* It sounds absolutely brilliant, and really complements my laptop. Most importantly, I can really enjoy good quality sound which my laptop alone does not offer. Thanks heaps Raymond for the recommendation!

Retail therapy never fails, for me at least. I had a super shopping spree yesterday with Angeline, spent LOTS. Teehee. Wanted to buy a skirt from Amazon but it's 10 dollars to a hundred, so I'll just have to wait til it's on sale to buy it. =( Other than that, bought a Billabong sling bag and a cute teddy bear key chain for my new 4Gb flash drive. =P

Weekend is here! And so is the sunshiny weather and floaty skirts. keke. Which also means 4 weeks to the final exams of my first year in uni. =O

As the year is coming to an end, I can't help but feeling that I've grown so much as a person, a teenager, a Christian, a friend, and as a daughter. Though the path may not always be as smooth as I hope it should be and somehow I keep making enemies I don't want to make, it has been a satisfying and eye-opening year for me.

Speaking of the year end, I'm going to Auckland this year end! keke. Since AirNZ has cheap domestic fares during November, we decided to take that opportunity to really visit Auckland and Rotorua (the only time I've been in Auckland is in its airport)- for 8 days. Can't wait!