Summer and last semester!!!

Lake Wanaka
The Remarkables-Queenstown

Dunedin

Christchurch

Waitomo Cave

Hahai Beach

Hot Water Beach

The scene from Narnia: Prince Caspian

Sea Kayaking

So, I realized that I haven't updated this blog for quite a long time. I blame facebook and hi5 then ;p I posted most of my pix on facebook and put some posts in Thai on hi5. There are times that I think to myself 'Should I keep this blog?' On one side, I like to write stuff here and share with people once in a while. On the other hand, things get too complicated and I can't explain in words and get lazy to write it out. So wheteher this is the last post or not, I want you to know that I appreciate your time for reading my wandering mind here and hopefully, we still keep in touch one way or another (email, hi5, facebook etc.) :)

After August 2008, i had a really tough semester so it's another excuse to not write anything here. Then I had a wonderful time in December coz it was my holiday. I watched movies all day all night and travelled to some places in NZ. I went to Coromandel (Hot Water Beach, Cathedral Cove where they shot Narnia: Prince Caspian), Waitomo Cave (for blak water rafting and glow worms), Tauranga ( as usual, to visit some Thai friends), then 5 days in the South Island (Christchurch, Denedin, Queenstown, Wanaka). The road trip in the south was amazing!

I came back to Palmerston North before New Year so I went to the city centre with another friend. We walked around town, had dinner, watched a movie and joined the celebration in the middle of the town. They lit some fireworks where they set up a concert stage. It was ok better than being lonely on campus.

Now, I'm back to school :( It's gonna be my last semester then i'll go back to my lovely home country :) The weather is nice, rarely rains. Sometimes it's hot and sometimes it's chilling. One thing I like about NZ is that I don't get bitten by mosquitoes here (or maybe once). Unfortunately, now it's summer, and bugs are flying around...arghh!!

Still alive

Sky Tower

Minus 5 pub

Inside the Sky Tower

Hi all,

Whoa! the last one was about my new semester. Well, I didn't get to write at all during last semester because my schedule was so tight. Now, it's another new semester here...i only go to class on Thursday (2 classes). I don't know if that's good or bad. not going to class makes me feel lazier. A couple weeks ago, my friends and I drove up to Auckland. It was quite fun for our girls trip. We went to Minus 5 (pub made of ice) and, of caouse, ate a lot!! Unfortunately, we were fined for speeding on the way back. :(

Weather: still in winter and it's all cold and wet...i can stand the coldness but i can't stand the wind, the rain and the earthworms. There are too many in front of my hostel...disgusting coz they are so looonggg and huge.

Food: i cook a lot now. u wouldn't believe it but yes i can cook a lot of Thai food. not original taste but many people like it. :) so gain weight by my own food better than eating greesy unhealthy food from dining hall.

Fire Alarm: In our hostel, we all have a fire alarm in our individual rooms. It is for a safety reason, i know that...yet, we've never practiced the fire evacuation. We had a few false alarms. It was funny because many people were still sleeping then we had to leave to stand outside the hall in our pjs and sleepy look. Everybody was like "oh, false alarm again!! man..." Last week, one of the girls, tried to remove the fire alarm in her room (weird huh). Then the alarm rang so loud and i was sleeping on the bunked bed and it was like right into my ears. I tried to ignore it coz I thought it was a false alarm again so i asked my friends if there was smoke. Anyway, everyone was walking out, so I went out too. We had a fire engine came up. That means 1 truck, you pay NZ $ 1,000. All the girls were still in their pjs and looked sleepy as usual coz not many people like to get up early, only a few Japanese. After they checked that there was no smoke, we all went back to bed. The machanics and firemen said 'morning, ladies'...we replied, 'g'night.'

Spiritual Life:

My friends and I have our praise time called "IPC CF (International Pacific College Christian Fellowship)". The first semester i came here, we started this fellowship once with just 4 of us (3 Indonesians and me). We sang and prayed together for a few times then we were kinda stopped. I don't want to say an excuse that 3 of us who are doing Postgraduate Diploma or Masters were really caught up with assignments all the time. During the 3 weeks break, we started to go back to chuch again. Our church is called "Christ Sanctuary Church". I like the family here so much...it's small, warm, family-like.

IPC CF, we now have 8 members. 7 are Indonesians and me who is the only Thai. I play guitar. One of them helps choose songs. 1 of them is actually a Catholic but she said she loves to praise with us. We are from different (church) backgrounds, so I'm asking for your prayers that Satan wouldn't use the differences in perspectives as a tool to create conflicts among ourselves. All I want is to worship the Lord with people who love God and do not judge other Christians. Also,we are praying that God will guide us to see our goals for our fellowship. we don't know which way we are going. We need guidiance. If we want to invite non-Christians, we need to really organize this fellowship. Another thing is that one of the 'on-fire' person is graduating in December, so I'm hoping that we can figure it out how the group will handle changes. As for myself, I'm hoping to go back to Thailand by the end of March. That means they have to figure it out to do for the worship time. I actually want the one who is graduating in Dec. to help connect the group with the community here. She does a lot of activities with the school, so maybe we could really make the fellowship become more like other offical clubs. At the moment, we use her room because she's a hall leader so she has a bigger room than ours. We might need to find another place, adjust to a new way of worship and patterns of each setion. Anyway, I'm thankful for our group and the great amazing time we just had together on last Wednesday night.

Shalom to all,