"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving."
- Lao Tzu 

The picture above was taken during this impromptu sightseeing tour in the moving train from Dunedin Railway Station to somewhere else in New Zealand. If my memory didn't fail me, it should be the last sightseeing tour we had for the 11 days roadtrip in New Zealand. Initially, they planned to visit the Cadbury chocolate factory but I guess, chocolates are not in the liking for the adults!

Truth to be told, the scenery viewed from the train was pretty much the same when we traveled by car, probably just an up-close views of those cows and sheep, the mountains and whatnot. The night before, I only had a few hours of sleep, thus... I sort of napped in the train when it was returning to town but I AM SURE I didn't miss out much! The train ticket was about.. 90$ in NZD for adult and this special sightseeing train tour is only available during the weekends or is it every Sunday only. You get to alight at some mountainous area and then, to the destination (which serves damn good beef pie, beats those that I had throughout the whole NZ trip!!) at... I forgot the name, you can always google it or wait patiently for it when I start blogging about my New Zealand Trip!

I'm pretty good in procrastination.

You all already know why when I have been delaying my New Zealand post! It's enough said, actually... 'Cos New Zealand is a MUST-GO county, will leave you with no regrets. Scenery might look the same but it would always present you with a whole new perspective each time you look at it. The nature just takes your breath away, in comparison with Singapore, all you see are buildings, construction sites, and more buildings! Trust me, you wouldn't become blase about the landscapes in New Zealand. It's really a norm to see cows and sheep, uncountable of them, in NZ, but guess what? There would be people talking about it in car when they witness such scene, EVERY SINGLE DAY. I repeat, EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. If you're feeling indifferent about it, maybe travelling isn't a type of adventure for you.

Self shot.

When I was strolling out from the pancake rocks!

Just recently...

I meant, just yesterday, I was telling my soul that life has been really mundane for me. As previously mentioned, I only have school on every Monday & Wednesday. Monday sure always gets painted in blue because my lesson is at 830am & I've to tackle all uncertainties that are gonna stumble upon my journey to school from Malaysia custom. The bus frequency, the congestion at the causeway, the buses queues, & if it rains, we must get ourselves ready slightly earlier because, it's bound to have traffic jam at Bukit Timah area. Sometimes, or probably, most of the time I would be 30 minutes early for school on every Monday but my attention plunges after an hour or so into the lecture. I've already spent half of my morning traveling, & I usually don't get enough sleep for the day... Brain is instantly fried when I'm halfway through the lecture, sometimes I'd fall asleep just so unknowingly...

Wednesday isn't any better.

My school starts from 12 to 630pm, tell me about the peak hour traffic. Before you even get to board the bus, you have to fight through the crowd at the bus stop. You know, this is when... Sometimes, you just have the urge to leave the class an hour early if you do not wish to get stuck in the human jam, otherwise, you will end up waiting an hour at the bus stop. Rush hour is no joke, & it genuinely leads me to ending class early on  my own accord. Ever since the overseas lecturer left, local lecturer took over and I haven't been leaving the school on time because I'd have already left the school by then. I feel guilty over it but it just hard to resist wanting to dismiss ourselves earlier from the class... Microeconomics in the early noon, brain juice is almost dried up by the end of it & we have to attend another super dry lecturer, anymore drier, you could have started fire effortlessly.

Worst of all,

Handouts provided for students and the slides being used in the lecture, are always different. It makes life even tougher when we have to copy the whole damn slides on our handouts. You ask me, why don't I take photographs of it, & I'll tell you, the lecturer doesn't allow us to do so, like seriously?! Some of us would still take pictures secretly but, I carry on with the traditional way of copying it down. If I miss any of it, I wouldn't ask people for it 'cos at the end of the day, we would just revise it off from the textbook. Maybe, just maybe.. I'm not the studious type of girl...

Which then leads to the regrets I had.

I was telling my friends, I kinda regretted not applying for JC after my O-Levels. My results were good enough to enter a decent JC but I know what I wanna work next time, and that, I wanna escape from all the sciences and mathematics subjects. Hence, JC wasn't one of my choices when I was applying for my next phase of education. It certainly built up some regrets in my life.

Polytechnic was fun.

I had my fair share of getting crazy with friends, mostly, all my CCA mates back in SP. I joined the SP Adventurers, gained quite a bit of knowledge on outdoor activities from the seniors, our super proficient student development officer (SDO), and some of the trips we organized. From the land to the sea, trekking at various mountains, overnight cycling, kayaking to another island. Without these, I wouldn't be as active, I wouldn't know about bouldering, rock-climbing, kayaking, playboating, abseiling, caving, getting my boating license, and whatnot. I'm now, more exposed to the nature than back in secondary school, when all I know was just the court games; I was a former netball player. It was undeniably fun and enjoyable back in SP but, GPA was another problem if we ever wanted to get into local universities like NTU, NUS, & SMU.

I'm not as studious as the others.

The highest GPA I'd capped in my 3 years of polytechnic life was 3.69. It was the GPA for the final semester, not even cumulative... I ended up with 3.01 for cumulative GPA which was required for applying into universities. Local universities are so hard to enter with such lousy GPA. As a polytechnic student, you need to have at least 3.8 - 4.0 (max.) to secure a place in uni, and interviews only go out to people who are within the range, probably 3.4 - 3.7? I was really far from that, & CCA + testimonials weren't even enough to help me. The competition between JC students & polytechnic students is just so tough... IMHO, I always think that getting into JC, scoring all Bs would allow you to get into local uni quite easily but for GPA as high as 3.5 or so, you must have a few Distinctions, As & Bs to achieve it. Even just a D grade, will instantly pull your CUMULATIVE GPA down.

If only, if only...

I had put in ample effort for all the semesters in polytechnic, not just the final semester. I would have gotten into SMU, going for school exchange in Europe, life would be more interesting by then. The only person I can blame, is myself. Why didn't I be as hardworking, as studious as the other geniuses, making a remarkable history in my life by scoring max. capped 4.0 GPA. I truly believe that if you want something as badly as you want to breathe, you will succeed. Maybe, when I was young and naive, I didn't plan for my future, ended up playing so much back in poly, getting such average results, & now, I suffer a boring life. I could have gone to Australia for studies but my dad wanted me to study in local, thus the choice of my university. It's not cheap to study overseas, at the end of the day, the only paper you receive is just a degree certification, & many people are still jobless even with the certs.

Oh well, life seems so uninteresting.

Blabbering about how much I regretted choosing the path for my education but each choices I've made, shape me to who I am right now. I am contented with my live currently, but it just seems that it could definitely be better. I know it all lies within me, myself, and I. I think I seriously gotta wake up right now and get my engine started. I wish I could just pop some sense-of-urgency pills, have a panic attack, forcing me to clear off my tasks on hand. Sometimes, things are easier said than done...

Whatever you think,

might not be what you wish to do.

Xx