9 Months!!!!

Goodness its been 9 months!!! yes, 9 months since I have stepped into Israel.
The funny thing is that i thought i was here for 10 months already and my friend was arguing that it was 11 months. Only when talking to some of our other orientation mates did i realise that i was counting wrong. oh well.

Its amazing... its been a long time since I've stayed in one country for so long =P (i'm counting the frequent trips to Malaysia of course. hee) But despite living here for 9 months, i must say that i still dun know much about this country. My hebrew doesn't go beyond 10 words and i know zilch of arabic. haiz...

Ok enough rambling abt my disbelief about the length of time that i've been here.
Recently i was required to use this reel tape player... you know, one of those audio tapes in a reel and not cassettes tapes. so i was so excited that i could use it and was trying to dub something. That was when i discovered that my tape was playing at 3/3/4 ips (inches per second) but my reel tape players only had 2 speeds, 7/1/4 & 15 ips. sigh... so i couldn't do it after all. technological woes.

So i thought it would be easier to make a cassette dub. I mean how hard can it be? Pop 2 tapes into a double deck player and do a dub, yah? I was wrong.. .fast dubbing doesn't give you such a great quality and then i discovered that there are Type I, II and IV tapes. Type IV being metal tapes and Type II chromium dioxide, while Type I is for standard iron oxide tapes. Sigh and then i don't know if the original recording was recorded with or without Dolby B/C. arrrghhhh... i dun even understand all these terminology.

Just to let you see what some of the older buildings in Haifa look like. This was taken at the Wadi, its an older part of town with few new buildings...

Ain't my flatmate pretty??

Here's my flatmate Noushin. she was in the same photo class too and was nice enough to pose for me :-) I think that she's really photogenic, i had a candid shot of her which i posted a while back. she looks just as good.

10-Jul-2004 out to do a foto assignment. the only shot that turned out from the crappy camera i was using, was of this lady. she spoke perfect English and she really seemed very nice..really liked how cool she was with a camera pointed right at her face. 

Losing touch

When was the last time I emailed or talked to my relatives and friends in Msia?
... i think it must have been since i came to Israel... so that would be more than 9 months...
I feel bad and i miss my cousins, relatives and good ol pals there.

They must all be cursing me for disappearing without a word.
But i think Ryan's buddies like Amy and Roshan would know by now.... so like my ol friend bam bam might understand too....but i'll get ju-ee to send a msg or something real soon.

so maybe its a good idea to go back to Singapore/Msia for hols after all...
my grandma is pretty old... 87 or something.. i should go see her.
Besides, my dasao has found a job and got her work permit in cape town. so i'm no longer in a rush to go visit brother and her...
time for some good food and shopping :-)

Star Trek

I think there was this section in my TV and Cultural Studies unit in Uni that was talking about the whole Trekkie Culture. Some of the Trekkie groups felt that Spock and Captain Kirk were gay and if i'm not wrong they even have a slash story/s written (of course by these Trekkie groups and not the actual producers of the series) with the 2 of them in a relationship stranded on some planet etc. pretty gross. crazy unit isn't it?

Anyways, I was just mentioning to 2 of my friends here who like Star Trek that I didn't know much about it except that Spock and Kirk were gay. My friends were kindof upset of course.
But its ok that they should be upset about it, as its always been speculation, mostly on the Trekkie fans parts. Maybe its coz most people aren't able to understand the love as in friendship between 2 people and its kind of sad that everything has to be seen from the romantic pov.

Oh well.. but here's to star trek for having the first inter-racial relationship (or wassit kiss?) shown on TV. Udura was also the first African American to be given a more significant role other than as a maid or servant. Tribute to Star Trek. Maybe my 2 friends here will educate me more on star trek... its been a long time since i watched the series.

Road trip! Are we there yet?

A bunch of us decided to go for a 2 day road trip and we rented 2 cars for this. First day of our road trip! I dun have any photos of Safed (one of the 4 Holy cities of Israel) but this is our 2nd destionation at the Sea of Galiee (more like a lake) and the heat was intense! Despite coming from a hot humid country the heat and hot winds were too much for me!. I think its coz we were below sea level too... that increases the humidity. btw, all images of this road trip are courtesy of Arman and Ming

Day 2 of our road trip. We are at our first destination at Zippori looking at ancient roman and byzantine ruins. From citadels to roman theatres and mosiacs. This place was really interesting! 

Zippori is most interesting.. we are in an ancient aqueduct. can't imagine that it was dug by hand... this thing is humongous!!! 

Sahne... where there are waterfalls and the water is 28degree celcius all year round.It was a tad bit crowded and got kind of rowdy... with some families getting into action 

Okies... what happens when we get sick of each other on a road trip, and get grouchy coz the restaurants are not open?? 

Poor Amelia. This happens when brother teams up with victim's husband. But she's so sweet, she won't even hit her bro. The trials of a raod trip :p 

Well-deserved dinner at a Thai restaurant in Herzlyia. Foto is a little dark but World Citizens we are :) 

hair grows in a circular motion

Yesterday, i finally went for a much needed haircut after climbing 9 terraces in the sweltering hot afternoon. So from suffering with shoulder-length hair in the hot summer heat, I am now lighter and freer with a short bob. My big sister, Ming yao da wo le. she's been trying to get me to keep my hair long for a change.

But its amazing what a hair chop can do to your image. 2 colleagues have asked if i have lost weight (over the weekend?? hello???) and one of them says i look like a college kid again... thank you very much i'm young again. Now I have the look to go with the behaviour =P

Seeing how fast hair grows here, I'll just enjoy it while it lasts. I always had this problem of my hair ends swaying to the right side. The lady cutting my hair told me its coz hair grows in a circular motion. So unless you can be bothered to blowdry it proper and put hair styling stuff in it, Its most likely gonna stick to one direction. The circular motion of hair-growth... now it all makes sense to mua.