Thursday, June 26, 2008

Winter holiday & culture

If it weren’t for the ppl who persistently & faithfully check my blog, I’d probably be more lazy, which is saying a lot, considering how little I’ve written lately ^^;

Sorry I didn’t post for a long time, there were a lotta things I wanted to say, but I wrote it in word, & so I didn’t post it ^^; didn’t write much tho, so I’m not really putting what I wrote last time here…

So, let me just write what happened in the past month… my exams are over already… again, I don’t wanna talk about it cos I feel quite bad about it, but even if I didn’t feel so terrible, there’s not much point in talking about what’s past. ^^;

But since my exams are over, there should be no excuse for me to delay blogging, right? Wrong. Cos I was busy preparing for a holiday in the same week after the exams to New Zealand with my family (exams ended on Monday, we left on Friday). Actually, it’s not that I packed last-minute or anything, it’s just… well, let’s just say I kinda like wasting time (or rather, I can’t help wasting time) in cases like putting songs in my mp3 player to bring there to listen & all that ^^;

So actually, I did mean to post a bit before going, but I didn’t manage to, so I felt kinda stupid after that ^^;

Hmm… so now the question is, would ppl want to listen about my trip to New Zealand? ^^; well, it doesn’t really matter, I guess, because I’m writing it anyway, but I won’t be writing much, so it shouldn’t bore anyone, whatever I say.

Those ppl who know me would probably know how bad I am at general knowledge, so when it comes to certain countries, I may not know much. Even now after going to New Zealand, I’m not sure how much I know, but hopefully my holiday there wasn’t entirely wasted because I didn’t forget everything that I learnt there.

The only Maori word that I can remember at the moment (because that is the most often used word) is kia ora (which to me sounds more like kiora), which means “hello”, “greetings” “take care” etc. & we went both North Island & South, but more of our days were spent in South Island, because that’s where the scenery is, in a way, you know, Lord Of The Rings & all that.

Also, whether in North or South Island, there were a lotta sheep, but much more in South Island, so one of the guides said that supposedly there’d be 10 sheep to a person, which shows just how many sheep are there. There was one fun part where we saw sheep shearing, & cow milking, but otherwise, the tour was educational, which is normal.

One thing I did realise near the end of the holiday, is that I feel that Asians are not so emotional (I already knew that, but I realised it more about myself also this time). You see, the ppl there would be friendly & express themselves with nicer & bigger words like, “Fabulous”, “Great”, “Amazing”, “Awesome”, “Wonderful”, “Lovely”, “Gorgeous” (especially for scenery) etc. Whereas for me, most of the time, I’ll say, “nice” or something like that. As in, most of the time, I’ll just say, “It was quite nice” (emphasis on the word “quite”). If I feel more strongly about it, I may substitute “quite” with “really” or if stronger, “very”, but that’s normally where I stop. I hardly use those words that I mentioned that sound so nice because I can’t really feel that it deserves that much praise, whatever it is, but then, if I thought so, that means that nothing is that great, which is kinda sad, isn’t it?

So, it’s basically just the standard by which the words are measured. For me, great & all those words would be a 9/10 to 10/10, but probably to them, even a 8/10 would do, which is equivalent to my “very nice” lol.

At this stage, it doesn’t matter so much in my opinion whether you use these words or not, but thinking about myself, I realised how hard it is for me to say certain things like “I love you” & “I’m sorry”. There are three of the hardest things to say in the world, but I forgot the third one. Oh, I remember, I think it was something like, “Will you help me?” Basically the third hardest thing to ask for is help, what with our pride & all that. It is hard for me to ask for help also, but I feel that it was mainly because I’d always remember my dad giving me that look & that tone of voice, saying, “What, simple thing also you don’t know??” & continue on from there.

Anyway, it would be nice to express our feelings more, is what I’m thinking, but I’m not trying very hard at the moment ^^; hopefully, other ppl realised it & not only me, so that they can do something about it, or at least try, because I think it’s sad that all the guys I know of (especially my father) can’t even say “I love you” or “I’m sorry”. I mean, I learnt to bear with it with my father, but all I’m saying is I wouldn’t want a husband like that, that’s all.

So, I’m going to stop here, because actually, to be honest, I wrote this a couple of days ago, but didn’t post it up yet cos I thought I’d post more about my trip, then I felt that it’d be better to post it in more than one post, that way, you won’t think that I’m lazy & all that (which is half-true, but not entirely true ^^;).