ファウンデーションのテスト期間

こんばんは! o(^▽^)o

皆さん最近元気ですかー!

うちには昨日から試験が始まって勉強しないとー
…ですが思ったより全然勉強はそんなにしてこなかったです。笑っ
今日はずっと家でゴロゴロしたり音楽聴いたり会計練習してたり好きなダークチョコ食べたりしてた日ですね🐷
インドネシアの学校に行ってた頃には今より必死に勉強しちゃうことでしたね(⌒-⌒; )
なんとなくニュージーランドの雰囲気がリラックスすぎてるからかなー
でも、授業のペースはめっちゃ速すぎてそれだけはリラックスじゃないんですねw
まあ〜次のテストはだーいすきな会計についてですから今回の月曜日だけは楽しみにしてます!ww

あと、この前パソコンが壊れてきたのでなかなかブログの投稿して切れませんでした…
しかもちょうどテストの始まりに壊れたん(ノД ;*)

とりま
この落ち着くなれる曲を聴いて勉強に戻ります！笑
皆さんもぜひ、聴いてみてくださいね🎶

http://youtu.be/2wrdtPIcMnM

皆さんにも良い週末になりますよーに! (*^o^*)ノ

アリシア

My First Two Weeks Studying in NZ

Finally I'm back to this blog! I've just gone through my second week of school in Auckland, and I can honestly say that I have simply been LOVING it! :)

Of course, I was overwhelmed at first - new environment, new house (homestay), new people, new city, new school. I was actually more than ten minutes late to orientation day (my school's very strict on punctuality), so when I encountered my then-future-classmates for the first time, my hair was flying in all directions, my face flustered, my clothes untidy due to rushing down a hilly road.

Lucky for me, I've met amazing people in my programme, and it doesn't feel like I've only known them for two weeks. I've met people from countries like China, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand, and even Fiji!

The teachers are experts in their fields and all have varying teaching styles which . Then there's homework. On orientation day I selected Statistics, Accounting, Biology, and Economics. I also have to do English because I have no IELTS history but whatever. All but one of my subjects regularly keep us busy with homework - some daily, some weekly. The first week was insane, but I'm starting to get used to everything, and it's going even better and quicker than I ever expected.

As for my homestay, I'm blessed to be staying with a very friendly family. I have a housemate as well, who stays in the room across mine. The location of my house gives me the option to commute via train and bus. I'm a train person, but I catch the bus to go to school because the trains rare and crowded in the morning. Plus, my host mom makes delicious salad and pasta, and our three big cats are adorable beyond words. I never thought I'd grow to be fond of cats. Ever.

One of my friends' birthday is on this weekend, so we all gathered during a mutual free period, grabbed some lunch from McDonalds down Queen Street, and went for a picnic at a park behind our school. Before this I'd never known that our school had a park right behind it -_-" Long story short, it was an awesome outing that involved a prank, a victim, a dare, and lots of laughter :)

I've taken some photos of Auckland, and I'm going to post them here so stay tuned! :D

Last but not least, happy birthday Teri!! :3

アリシア

Singapore Once More!

Hi! How's everyone doing?

My family and I flew to Singapore to attend my cousin's wedding last week :) To say the least, it was an exciting four nights and four days for me, which included meeting up twice with one of my best friends studying there, roaming around a bright bustling city, indulging in amazing food - once at sinful hours, and so much more.

First off I'll start with some pictures of the infinity pool on the 57th floor of Marina Bay Sands, where I stayed for the first two nights. The hotel was crowded with tourists as it is all-year round, a big percentage coming from countries like China, Japan, and Korea.

Night view

The first night I was there, I decided to bring my phone with me to the pool after seeing other people do the same (i.e. risking their fancy iPhones' fragile little lives). Silly idea, but yolo, I thought.

I didn't know the pool was shallow enough for me to just walk across it, so I swam my way to the edge of the pool, holding my phone above my head with one hand, the other submerged under water to paddle. I didn't want to soil the leather-like casing either. I got some pics, but due to the darkness none of the pictures came out presentable. In the end I splashed some water inside the cable port, but thank goodness my phone was still alive :X

To top it off, they kicked me out literally right after I made my way to the edge of the pool because it was closing time. No regrets though.

The next day, I decided to bring my phone into the pool once more, clutching it high above my head with two hands as I walked carefully across the pool. Having figured out this critical information from experience the other night proved to be of contribution to my rather silly yet rewarding decision. I still ended up dropping one of my hands in the water though, so it was another one-handed picture-taking sesh. Yet this time I produced much better results - accredited to sufficient daylight ↓


Spoiler/destroyer of visual illusions and fantasies: The infinity pool actually has an edge D:

Here are some photos I took from the Skypark! Lesson learned, btw: Always wear pants under your skirt in Singapore. The winds will show no mercy! Apparently it's bad enough on sea level (as I found out while walking along Orchard Road), but the wind did not spare me the trouble of having to repeatedly pull my skirt down whilst attempting to walk around at 57 storeys above ground level.

Also I managed to meet up with one of my best buds, Lala, now a JC student in Singapore. We had a lot of fun just walking around, loitering in arcades, eating, and talking about school, life, and other nonsense.

We'd come across a food fair at Tampines Mall during our first meet-up, and among one of the stalls that were there, one was advertising brownies. We tasted the samples and they tasted great! Maybe a little too sweet for my taste, but still delicious anyway. The attendant proceeded to tell us that their main branch offers message writing services on brownies, that could be done in minutes depending on size. That's when the lady said to stop by for our next birthdays, so she literally spoke an idea to my head. LL's birthday's coming up (it's in two days!), so our visiting that stall was like fate xD

So the next day we were to meet, I made my way to the branch at Dhoby Ghaut and later surprised her with a personalized "Happy Birthday" brownie. It turned out much lovelier than I'd expected :D

 Birthday celebration in advance <3

Then I moved on to Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa for the last two nights, where the wedding took place. The resort was beautiful! They had monkeys and peacocks roaming around as well. I never actually saw any monkeys, but my aunt had heard their chattering one morning. I did see two peahens, though. One had chicks trailing behind her :3

「日本語」 日本語で初ポスト

皆さん、こんにちは！アリシアです。

日本語で投稿したことありませんので、今回は初めてです(*^▽^*)
前から日本語でポストを書きたかったのですが、自信がなくて今さらやってきました。
ミスも 結構あるはずですが、これからも日本語をもっと勉強したいと思います！
いつかペラペラになりたいです～

最近雨は少しずつ止んできました。今日も晴れでした！
今日は二人の友達と美術センターのスタジオでダンスの練習をしてみました。
ある大学のダンス部のメンバーの友達はモダンダンスが大好きで、彼女から教えてもらっていました。
その友達のかっこいいダンスを見てて、ずっと感動していました！
私は他の友達と二人でダンサーの友達を必死に従ってみてて・・・ちょっと情けないでした。笑 
いっぱい練習しないと体が堅くなっちゃうのでいけないって聞くと、ダンサーって大変だなぁと思ってました。
疲れていますが、楽しかったです♪

あと、もうすぐ旧正月なんですよ(^０^)
親戚と再会して一緒に旧正月をお祝いすることを凄く楽しみにしています！
美味しい食品もたくさん食べられます。もちろん全部手作りですね～
今年もレッドパケットいっぱい貰ってくれるのかなー？笑っ

今回はここまでです。
短くてつまらない投稿でしたが、読んでくれてありがとうございました！！
そのうちまた、日本語で投稿していきたいと思いますから
またこのブログに来てくださると嬉しいです！\(≧∇≦)/

アリシア

聴く中： めぐり逢い - アンドレ・ギャニオン (素敵な曲ですなぁ！）

Pigging Out in Singapore Twenty-Thirteen

"The only time we're not eating is when we're on the move somewhere." 
- Clarita, my loyal travel companion and local guide in Singapore

Last week (November 14-17), I went on a weekend trip to Singapore to visit my good friends who are studying there (and to eat, duh).

I stayed at my friend's friends' acquaintance's place. They had wi-fi. The place was close to the MRT station. But being the filthy rich EZ-Link cardholders/lazy peeps that we were, we would take the bus (only to get off at the next station) more often than not. We got bread for breakfast and had access to powdered drinks. It was even better because my long-time best friend was staying out with me. When you put two best friends, some air-conditioning, and the almighty Internet in one room, needless to say, sleepless nights were inevitable.

 And selfies too (size has been diminished to ensure readers' sanity).

If I learned something from trying to wake up at a somewhat reasonable hour after staying up so late, NEVER use your favourite song at the time as an alarm. Chances are you won't ever be able to see it the same way again.

If I were to sum up my trip to Singapore, it would look something like this: 65% FOOD, 25% friends, 6% sightseeing, and 4% shopping. Of course I actually ate every single thing with my best friend so that actually makes the "friends" part 99%.

Among the many delicacies we indulged in during those four days of awesomeness were the infamous one-dollar ice cream, Garrett popcorn, Ladurée macarons, Lao Ban bean curd, IKEA's Swedish meatballs (35 meatballs plus two chicken wings), Tip Top curry puffs, and A LOT of Japanese food (curry, mostly).

Me on Multitasking

Greetings!

I have irresponsibly abandoned my blog for two months.

Surely one will find this excuse overused, but I'm busy. I'm not kidding though, I really am. I'll have you know that I am writing my second book. (See, gap year students are not without activities)

Here I am about to go on yet another ramble about life skills, qualified or not. :)

A month ago, I decided I had to get back on my laptop and stop killing zombies on another computer, where my brother's stash of snacks are at reach. So, I decided to put on hold my trilogy project and work on a single, sequel-free book for now. I also challenged myself to finish it in one month. The rule was simple - a chapter a day. Surprisingly it's going really well, with only one more chapter to go! :D

I am a student in my gap year, therefore I find it crucial that I learn to manage my time properly. Of course, nothing is ever easy at first. But there is always hope, and clouds have silver linings. Feel free to come up with any other saying that elaborate on the existence of hope.

So, anyway, today blog post is about the vital life skill of multitasking.

In the workforce or school (maybe just life in general), people expect you to be everything they want you to be. They will want you to do many things at once, but will not want you to be so frizzed out you go for sick leave and trouble them. Thus, they will want you to be a multitasking humanoid.

Nobody is born with it. It is an acquired skill, perfected through years and years of practice, self-motivation through guilt, and numerous guilt-inducing snack bars.

There are various kinds of multitasking. Allow me to show you three of the more prominent forms. (Note: Difficulty decreases with number)

1. The Good Kind of Multitasking

What parents expect their hardworking children to do. The utilisation of a laptop as a learning tool is shown. In this form of multitasking, one is expected to take notes, search the Internet for information, memorise facts, and cover as many subjects as possible within a short time frame.

If possible, they want you to do your homework while studying for that test you have tomorrow. For that you'd need to possess a multiprocessor brain, of course.

My 'Foolproof' Gap Year Plan

I have mentioned once that I'm in the middle of my gap year. Honestly though, I don't know if I'll have a gap year, because whether or not I'll be having a gap year depends on whether I get accepted into uni for 2014 (not 2013 because I won't be old enough to live at the residential halls by then and I don't want to get in during the second semester). Getting in at the first semester is mainstream, but I want mainstream when it comes to uni schedules.

Gap years however are not so maintsream. A good friend of mine (let us call her Seesee Spongebob) once told me to use my time wisely. This was a simple yet precious advice. I don't know anyone else in my batch of graduates who are having gap years (I only know one or two souls who are keeping half a year vacant at max).

As for me, if I do get accepted into uni directly, I will leave for school in 2014. Which leaves me with a 1.5 year gap. If I don't get accepted into uni directly, I'll have to spend around eight months at a college for foundation. I would have to leave at 2013, and then I would have less than a year vacant. Even now, I do not know what will become of my fate in 2013. I have no idea if my documents have safely arrived at the university either (screw the mail tracking system for attempting to kill me by curiosity/nervousness overload). So right now is a very nerve-wracking time of my life. For the very first time my future will be decided by a third party :X

Until then, this is how the linguist rookie shall spend her gap year!

Translations: c'est moi (French): it's me; l'ordinateur (French): computer; mi sono perso (Italian): I am lost; 내가 제일 잘 나가 <naega je-il jal-laga> (Korean): I am the best (in reference to 2NE1's song)