It’s official! Beginning today (well, 28th June, according to my passport) I am a resident of New Zealand.
This [photo of the Kiwi bird] has been (or is hereby) released into the public domain by its author, Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust. This applies worldwide.
(picture of a “sunset” outside my rental home from last week)
nb: Picture has nothing to do with this post. Just thought I’ll post it…
An old friend of mine, whom I’ve known for 20 years, recently underwent an operation to remove his kidney due to internal bleeding. He has one removed a few months ago for the same problem on his other kidney, so that means he’s now totally dependent on dialysis for survival.
Sometimes life plays such a cruel joke on you, doesn’t it? A young man hitting 30 years of age this weekend suddenly finds himself facing a possibly very different future in the span of just a few months.
I had a neighbour a few years ago who was out celebrating his excellent “A” level results, only to have a serious fall that injured his spine and leaving him paralyse waist down. And 20 years ago, I lost my best friend to Leukaemia.
Life is fragile and unpredictable. Have you been living your dreams or at least working towards it?
Two weeks ago I went for a haircut. The barber asked me, “how short?”. I said, “as short as possible!”. She then asked, probably jokingly, “how about a No. 4 all round?” I replied, “okay, why not…”. Before she start she asks again “Are you sure?”.
It is a really short haircut. For reference, a recruit’s hair cut is No. 4 top, No. 2 sides (or “4 by 2″).
I was fully expecting every colleague at work to ask “oh why did you cut your hair so short?” Nope, no one asks. Only two colleagues said “that’s flash” (meaning “that’s nice”).
Last week, for the whole week, I turned up at work wearing my contact lenses. For the past three months it has been my standard glasses and surely suddenly seeing me without glasses would be quite strange. Again I’m kind of expecting to have to explain that I’m wearing contacts now because my helmet don’t quite like my glasses if I leave the breath guard attachment on yada yada yada… but nope, nobody asked me anything. One colleague (NZer) and one flat mate (not a NZer) mentioned the scar I had next to my right eye and said they’ve never noticed it before when I wear glasses but other than that, nothing else…
I guess culturally NZers are less “Kaypo” and accepts individuality more readily as compared to Singaporeans. That’s not to say that being “Kaypo” is bad, though! I miss it at times… it’s a lot easier to strike up a conversation when two or more people starts to kaypo about the same thing…
Just had a good dinner today. My landlady threw a little dinner/party thing to “welcome” me to New Zealand. My application for residency has been approved, and I’m waiting for the last official sticker to be stamped onto my passport and returned to me before I’m officially a resident. Of course we had roast… and pavlova… I guess I’m not feeling all that excitement over the residency approval thing as it’s been a long paperwork journey and I’m tired of dealing with Immigration. I’m more relieved than excited that this is all over now!
I’m missing Singapore food now. Satay, wanton mee (Singapore style), fishball noodles, cheap “zhi char” food. You can get wanton mee (Hong Kong style) here for about $6 but it’s just different… oh well, at least here you can get cheap fish and chips!
Today’s the shortest day in the southern hemisphere. The winter solstice. Mid-winter. Dong zhi (冬至). Now… where’s my tang yuan? Having a bowl of hot tang yuan in the cold weather here will definitely be quite an experience…
Now it’s time to embrace winter in its full glory. The few weeks after winter solstice will be the coldest.
On the positive side, we’re halfway through winter and spring is coming… and I can go visit Tekapo in spring (one of the must-do events in NZ, for me!).
Yesterday at lunch time, colleagues and I went to the driving range to hit some balls. What’s the chance of an impromptu casual lunch-time golf happening in Singapore? Unlike in land-scarce Singapore golf here is everybody’s game. It’s my first time and it’s… more interesting than I thought. Going to a course tomorrow to play a “proper” game.
Oh, yesterday was also a really foggy day. Talk about perfect timing to try out the contact lens + breath guard attachment on my helmet. Works like a charm…
Perfect weather today. Time to go out for a spin!
(ps. breath guard attachment doesn’t work well with glasses, the fit is just not right since it covers the nose bridge and so the glasses doesn’t sit well on the guard)
After playing just about all the classes available in Hellgate London, I think I found my calling… Engineers rule! Besides they’ve got some pretty cool-looking abeit non-practical armour :-) Guardians/Blademasters (think medieval knights) have the coolest armour but I got sick of chasing mobs.
Oh, about that game that I couldn’t play because of the stupid SecuROM problem? Dick Smith Electronics (where I bought it) took it back after trying to install it on one of their computers and that too cannot play. It’s then I noticed the box saying “Windows XP only”. I think the particular version of SecuROM used might conflict with Vista? A good thing they tried it on one of their demo systems, which are all Vista machines.