Chasing Dreams: February 2009

Year 4 Campus Learning Week.

I finished my first two weeks of campus learning today and it’s so tiring having about 6 hours of lectures a day. 2 hours of lectures in IMU was sometimes bad enough and now 6...arghhh. The lectures were okay but a bit here and there. IMU lectures are so organized and thorough. But lectures here are quite relaxed. Firstly no need to wear FORMAL attire. So everyone is in shorts, t-shirts, singlet and flip flops (known as jandals in NZ). The students quite readily ask questions and participate in discussion. Even the lecturers are easy going and ask to be addressed by the first name. I got to know some of the other 4th years slowly and they are friendly and helpful. The class has about 180 students and is very diverse. One thing I found about them is they all eat very little. Most just eat fruits and yoghurt for lunch. Just that!!!! They even just scoop and eat the watermelon straight without cutting it. Found it really interesting. The Kiwi’s especially go outdoors any free time they get. Be it just 20 minutes but they will surely start tossing a ball or Frisbee around. And we IMU students usually would just stay in class. Haha.

We had 3 days lectures on Maori and Pacific cultures. We even visited a marae (the Maori gathering house). Their traditions and practices are very interesting. Oh and the nose rubbing greeting is called a “hongi”. I hope to learn more about their tradition in the coming years.
Today since we were done by lunch, Sharon, James and I went to Queen Street. It was raining and the wind was so strong that the umbrella that I just bought last week (using it for the first time today) got over turned and broke. It is all misshapen but still covers my head. I did notice though that, lots of people seem to be using broken umbrellas. I guess the same thing happens when you buy a new umbrella so might as well stick with the broken one. On our way back, we just ended up eating Korean food. I ate this tofu soup with rice and it was delicious especially since it was nice and hot while it weather was cold.

I am starting my first run next week. General Surgery at Auckland City Hospital. I am feeling very excited and nervous at the same time. Two of us will be attached to a team consisting of a consultant, registrar (mo’s in msia), house officer, intern and trainee intern. Sound like Grey’s anatomy huh!!! Wonder if I will see any Mc dreamy’s or Mc steamy’s. Haha. But Chase is of course the most important!!!!! :)

The broken misshapen umbrella...

My Auckland uni student ID and name badge for the hospital..

Cookies from Mrs Higgin and simple superb. Its even nicer than Famou Amos and you can smell the shop a mile away. Yummy.

Weeekend away.

I haven’t blogged in nearly two weeks. I know for a freshie blogger that is bad but have been pretty busy with classes. Just briefly what I have been up to..

Okay 2 weekends ago, the Waitangi weekend, I went to stay over at my distant relative’s place. They are really nice people and had some great home cooked food. Thought I will never say this but I actually miss tosai, idly and sambar lots. They wanted to take me to this beach up north but due to the traffic we had to turn back and went to the Auckland Luge instead. Its something like the one in Sentosa Singapore but the view is all nice green hills and blue skies. I obviously could not take any picture since I was too busy driving that thing and trying to race with their 10 year old son. Haha. Still a kid sometimes!!

The next day we went ice skating at this indoor rink which was something like Sunway Pyramid just without the crowd watching. The atmosphere was really cool as it was dim and nice songs were being played. I have skated twice before in Pyramid but am still not very stable so I just skated at the side. After a few times, I think I got too confident and went a bit too fast and whoosh....ended up on my bum. The most embarrassing part was I could not get up as the ice was so slippery and the side did not have any support. Luckily someone was near and helped me up. Haiyhh. I was pretty sore for the next couple of days.

I ate Nando’s for dinner that night and guess what...they have like 5 vegetarian options. The burger was good. We went to Mission Bay after that to get ice cream from Farrell’s. It was nice but I am still love Baskin Robbins. The sea was really calm and with the moon reflected off its surface plus with Rangitoto Island in the background...ahhhhh... (am running out of words to describe nice scenery).
Some pictures from that weekend...

The escalator taking us up the hill..

Me coming down..

The picture is not very clear but the scenary there with the houses was beautiful. Took this picture from the car.

Ice skating rink. Lingwei, you would have loved it.

The moon light with Rangitoto at the back.

Trip to Mission Bay!

Yesterday afternoon, after contemplating on going to many places we finally decided to go to Mission Bay which is about 20 minutes drive away. Some of us wanted to take a taxi while some others preferred to take the bus. So the 8 of us who wanted to take a taxi got 2 taxis and left first. I am still amazed how such a nice place can be so near a city. The view is simply beautiful with only the blue of the ocean stretching for miles and miles with bits green from the islands. I just love going to the beach. All the excitement from the people there and the sea breeze coupled with the sound of the waves is lovely. There were so many people there just relaxing, playing, cycling and eating ice cream..Yummyy. I have yet to try the supposedly delicious ice cream there. And there were so many people walking their dogs. My 3 dogs would have fit right in since the dogs here are also kinda chubby. They would have loved it. Miss my doggies...sob sob. Next time I would love to live in a city near the sea. Not just any but one that is clean. Hahaha.

Anyway upon reaching, we found a free spot and played a bit of Captain Ball. Somehow all of us had it in our head that we wanted to go cycling. So we started hunting around for place that has bikes for hire. And hunted did we, as we ended up walking for about 40 minutes or even more maybe to hire a bicycle. We got 6 single cycles and one tandem and cycled back to where we were and met up the rest. I really enjoyed cycling along the coast. It was a bit of a challenge manoeuvring the cycle at first as there were many people walking on the path also plus there were no handbrakes..To stop you had to cycle the pedal backwards. After an hour we returned the bikes and went back in time for dinner to Grafton Hall. I had a really nice time. I am also getting to know my other batch mates better and am glad for that as they are nice people.

The Auckland Domain. The park opposite my hostel and faculty. Not related to the post ya.