The Ladies of IPBA's Cohort 3 & Cohort 4 at Auckland

… and some random guys at the back.

Just like the title says, last night was the farewell dinner for Cohort 3, who are leaving Auckland this December and continuing their Final year back in IPBA. If anything, it was fun. The again, of course it was fun; we were the one who organised it!

There were Dikir Puteri performance, some of the girls sang and played guitar during dinner, all boys from our Cohort formed some sort of a band, and the Cohort 3 sang a couple of songs as well. I didn’t watch the Cohort 3 performance because I was at the kitchen, eating and helping a bit (Adlina did most of the work though).

Then came the peak of the performance: the Poco Poco Dance. It first started off with four of Cohort 4 members danced at the stage. Half-way through it, they started to grab random people to dance along; Cohort 3 members, our coordinators and our Academic Advisor, John Hope. It was interesting to watch how Jackie and Sheryll simply moved around after giving up trying to follow the dance moves. XD John stopped half-way through, unfortunately.

Finally was the highlight of the night: Exchange Gift. We were asked to buy a gift under $8 and on that night, we will pick a name to give the gift to. I bought a book, but I think I’m going to feel pity for Abang Pian as I gave him a horror book. XD Surprisingly, Adlina got Abang Adha’s name, and Abang Adha got mine. No wonder that guy was laughing when she gave him the gift. I think everyone in both Cohorts that we are practically can not be separated. Ati got the biggest gift from Abang Suffian, making us wonder if the gift was actually under $8. That box was as big as a PS3 and we all know he likes playing games. Hurm…

The dinner ended at 10.30 pm, but with all the commotion and such most guests only left at 11. We took photos as well. And since there were a lot of leftover food, we took some of it back home.

To Cohort 3 members: Thank you for all your guidance this one whole year we’re at Auckland. To the seniors with whom I shared the same Phonology class last semester, it was fun studying with you. To all of you, I wish for the best in your study and future career.

Squished by the two cousins, Hijrah & Kak Haniah

Kak Salma and I, after the Dinner

p.s/ Sheryll was able to half-ruin the night for us when she reminded us to submit our School Observation portfolio on Friday, before 4 pm. D| You’re a hell of a coordinator, Sheryll.

We got our five-months allowance a couple of weeks ago, which is NZD 6300 (RM 14 798), and last week we got our ‘tunggakan’ (what do you call it in English?) from January 2007 to June 2007 (we’ve received the July 2007 - December 2007 earlier this year), which is RM 1800 (NZD 766). So yeah, we got  A LOT of money to last us until February 2009. For those who are not going back the end of this year, they will have to make sure to properly budget their money until next year. Like some of us, me for example, who ARE going back to Malaysia, the money will be keep unused for future keeping…

AS IF.

I already spent a lot of this money on not-so-necessary-but-necessary-for-my-fangirling-life things. For the last three weeks, I already bought a NDS Lite, a digital camera, a pair of shoes, clothes and food.

And just yesterday, I pre-ordered FOUR DBSK items. Two posters (version A & B), the Version A album (CD+Photobook) and the Version B (CD+DVD). All for their new 4th album, Mirotic. Yup, their two-years worth of wait, Korean album. To be honest, I never actually planned to buy the album(s). I only wanted to buy the posters (so pretty… *___*), but somehow, by the end of the browsing, I ended with four items in my Yesasia shopping cart instead of two. DBSK items alone, is a total of USD 85, including the shipping.

Yup, me is crazy…

Mirotic Poster A

Mirotic Poster B

Aren’t they pretty??? *______*

Images credit to Yesasia and LJ community dbsg.

ps.

Bought few more books today: Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, The Procession of the Dead by D. B. Shan (another pen name for The Demonata Series‘ author, Darren Shan) and City of the Sharp-nosed Fish by Peter Parsons. The books that I bought in NZ are now reaching 50. ~.~

pps.

Finally met Linda today. After six months studying here, I finally meet her. The funny thing is: we met while going to our respective lectures. So we don’t get to talk a lot. But I’m happy.

There was a short electric shortage just this evening. I was online on my laptop, Adlina was out at a friend’s apartment in the same building, two house-mates were in their rooms, and another… I don’t know.

Turned out that not only our building got the electric shortage. Even the university’s buildings got the same problems, as well as the other buildings in the area.

So, while waiting for the electricity to get back on, I sat by the window and watched what other people was doing while there was no electricity inside the building. My laptop’s battery can’t actually be trusted, and we don’t when the electricity will be back. I kinda noticed some were just relaxing around, but most had somehow depressed look on their faces.

It makes me wonder somehow. Two hundred years ago, on this date, I don’t think there was electricity supply. Electricity had started to be an important asset to human life during the Second Industrial Revolution, and that was around 1870 to early 20th century. And even then, not everyone can use the electricity.

How was life before the existence of electricity? How people move around during the night, or even when they are inside their home, how they continue their lives? Of course, there’s fire, but I don’t think that’s enough. When there was major electricity shortage in Malaysia years ago that lasted the whole night, it was hard to move around in the house and we siblings didn’t even allow to move around much, my parents worried that we might knock ourselves into something.

I love reading, especially at night. Our days are full with other activities: classes, going out and etc, and night time was the time when all of us are in the house and do whatever things we want to do during our spare time. Mum had scolded me when I was a small child for reading under the blanket without sufficient light and way past our bedtime. She always said something about it was bad for our eyes.

So how do people do it in the past? Surely they didn’t do their things at daytime only. Whatever they were doing can also extend to night time. Especially during the times when there were so much discoveries to be found, so how did they do it?

As much as I love to imagine living in their time, I can’t think myself being there in reality. I will probably have some problems adjusting. ^__^;;

I’ve been reading this book for almost two months, and it scared me how long it took for me to finish this book.  It certainly not the thickest book I’ve read (the thickest was the Complete Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, which has 10000++ pages, has small letters and took the 12-years-old me more than a year to finish half of it. Then I kinda gave up.). It only has 400++ pages and the letters are quite big, yet I took almost two months. My worst record, I supposed.

Anyway, I love this book to bits. Yes, I love everything about this book. The characters, the events and the plotline. I think that’s the reason why I delayed finishing the book; I just don’t want it to end.

The book, Medici Seal by Theresa Breslin, is about Matteo and the journey about his life. In the early part of the stories, he met with Leornardo da Vinci and became his servant. However, along with him, he brought along a secret that both the Borgia and Medici would kill to have.

Not really the type of book that I usually read, but I got myself immersed in it. It’s started by how Janek (that’s Matteo’s real name, anyway) was running away from Sandrio’s group (he’s the bad guy) after helping them to steal the Medici Seal. The 10-years-old kid was scared to death when Sandrio killed the Father who helped them, without knowing that the group was actually working for the Borgia family instead of the Medici family. That was how he met Leonardo da Vinci, who then took him in into his household.

For the next eight years, Matteo lived along with the Da Vinci household, holding his real name and secret to himself, knowing that everyone around him will be killed if Sandrio’s group find him.

Living with Leonardo, he learned to read and write, and Leonardo noticed his observation eyes, intellectual mind and ways of thinking. He quickly became Leonardo’s favourite servant who he always brings with him when he went out to… er, study human anatomy (by all means, that means cutting up corpses to see what caused that person’s death and how human body functions).

Only by the last part of the book, when Matteo was in a war, and at the same time running away from the Medici family that he found out the truth: the secret treasure that both the Borgia and the Medici families want was not only the Medici Seal, but also Matteo himself. He was the son of Jacopo de’ Medici, sent to live with his grandmother because of the threats he might have from living with his father. His real name is Jacomo de’ Medici (what kind of name is that??)

One part that I loved the most in Matteo (yes, I preferred to call him that) and his father’s conversation was this:

Matteo: I have only just now discovered that we have kinship.

Jacopo: *snapped* I would term it more than mere kinship! I am your father.

Matteo: While you pursued your own life, others fulfilled that role.

That got to hurt, isn’t it, Jacopo?

Matteo really loved Leonardo da Vinci like his own father. When he joined the war without telling the household about it (he was supposed to go studying in a medical school in Parvia, sponsored by Leonardo’s friend), he was worried of the household’s reactions: angry or might just abandon him. When he received a letter telling him about he had made them worried, he was almost in tears.

In the end, Matteo joined his father in the Medici family, married a lady companion of Lucrezia Borgia, Lady Eleanora d’Alciato, and continued his study as a doctor by the age of 18. Leonardo da Vinci still called him Matteo, though.

Following this book and Matteo’s life was interesting, from when he was a gypsy boy, became Leonardo da Vinci’s servant boy, joining the war due to his bond with a friend, falling in love and finding the real him. And his interactions with the da Vinci’s household was interesting: how they taught him to dance, etc. And admittedly, Leonardo’s attention towards him can almost be… ambiguous at times. ^__^;;

Finished with one book, another… *counts* 40 books to go. *sweats*

I have to ask, what do you do when you depressed? Sleep? Eat? Or maybe for some people, shopping?

I don’t get depressed a lot, but when I do, I’ll just go and sleep it off, or just pour out my depression online. That’s what I usually do. At least before I came to Auckland.

Some of friends, and relatives, choose to go out shopping. And when I said shopping, it means going out and spend lots and lots of money buying unnecessary clothes, accessories, etc.

I always think this as a useless activity to do. Waste of time, money and energy. At least with sleeping, you don’t lose money (since you definitely waste time just sleeping, and if overslept, you will be more tired).

Then I came to Auckland. No, I didn’t go and shop-till-you-drop at Queen’s Street like that. I did it before, until I kinda realised I ended up buying clothes/things that I will probably use once or twice in my whole life. So I tried to stop, and it worked. But one thing that doesn’t change, even when I try really hard.

Shopping for books.

Weird, isn’t it? Most people go shopping for clothes, etc., but I went for books. It never happened in Malaysia, probably because the bookstores in Malaysia seldom have sales, if ever. And when they do have it, it was never about books that I like, but mostly children’s book or something like that. Here, in Auckland, bookstores have sales as frequently as the other stores. Maybe even more, like Dymocks. I’m sure they have sales like every two weeks, for one whole week. And the sales are like, “30% discount on all books”, “Big Books Sale”, etc. And even when there are no sales, they usually sell old-title books (not second-hands books!) at a very low price.

And books? My ultimate weakness. Just behind anime/manga.

These two weeks, for example, the University Bookstore (UBS) has their ANNUAL BIG SALE. Last week, they started it off with “Fictions book from $7.99″, “25% and 30% off NZ fictions/non-fictions, new titles”, etc. Today, when I went to check it, they have this deal “2/3 off!!”. Means that you only have to pay 1/3 of the selected books’ original price. Roughly, you got 66% off the original price.

And being me, you honestly think I can just avoid it?

Obviously not.

So, last week I ended up buying two books; Wormwood by G. P. Taylor and The Planets by Dava Sobel. Both cost me altogether $15.98. This was because of the depression of being forced to return a library book when I still need it, and had to pay the fine for not returning it earlier, as well.

And just today, after our meeting with Sheryll, I bought three more books: The Faces of Angel by Lucretta Grindle, Through A Glass, Darkly by Donna Leon and an old title which a friend had borrowed and lost it (she insisted that she never borrow the book, but when I told the summary of the book to another friend, she interrupted, “I’ve read that book before!” ~____~); The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. These three books cost me altogether $28.35. There is a hard-cover book (original price: $35.00) and two paper-back books (original price: $24.99 each) .

The first two was from the “Fictions from $7.99″ sale and the other three from the “2/3 off!!” sale. Pretty good deal, if you have lots of money to spare. Which means, not really good for me at this time of the month.

With five new books, I now have 44 books that I’ve bought in New Zealand (four bought in Rotorua, the rest in Auckland), which I have finished three of them and is currently reading two of them. Oh, I have to mention the five books I’ve borrowed from the library NOT for my assignment.

Conclusion: Books sales are definitely NO GOOD for me. But I’ll miss all these when I go back to Malaysia, I’m sure. XP