dunedin

Hi! Sorry for the long absence. 16 February was my departure date, and I haven't been able to be online until yesterday. No free WiFi here apart from the uni connection, so while waiting for our connections to set up (which, we initially thought, would miraculously set up on its own without us needing to do something about it) I basically spend the whole day going thrift shopping around Dunedin, and watching back-to-back Fringe episodes at night - all the while trying not to freeze myself to death of course.

So yeah, so far Dunedin is lovely. Very lovely, in fact, far beyond my expectations. If you're wondering, I was expecting Dunedin to be some sort of a boring countryside with no proper places to do my favourite activity (read: shopping). Way to go for not doing my homework before flying haha. Turns out Dunedin is a shopping paradise, in a way - God knows how much money I have spent buying thrift store items, gadgets at student prices/Mydin prices (Lava lamp for NZD 15! 3-in-1 printer for NZD 39! 1TB external hard disk for NZD 95! Brother sewing machine for NZD 189! Oh wait, I didn't buy that sewing machine, it's in my wishlist. Must. Stop. Compulsive. Buying.), food items, stuffs from Kmart, etc. Some of them are even cheaper that the ones I could get at Malaysia! (Side note: well ah of course when you convert the prices, they're more or less the same, but remember Miss Ain's Golden Rule: Jangan convert nanti takleh hidup!) Halal meals are also very easy to find here, so dining will not be that much of a problem (we cook for ourselves, so yeah. Halal foodstuffs are everywhere).

Contoh masakan halal yang sedap lagi awesome.

I live in a residential college, the lovely Toroa College, which is awesome to the max (despite my previous whines about that RM7000 thingie. But yeah, worth RM7000 I tell you!). I get to live with Amal, Alia, Linda and Hannan, which makes living here much easier since we've known each other long enough already. Downstairs, we have 3 other Malaysian students - Michelle, Elfira and Felicia, so it's easier for our seniors and JPA officers as well when it comes to settling scholarship/ Malaysian student-related things with us. And oh, we're also under the care of a Malaysian RA, Sim. Not to mention the very caring Malaysian seniors living nearby. We're lucky like that.

My flatmates

Our very lovely house. We live upstairs.

My room also happened to be the most regularly shaped in the house, if not the biggest (lol). It's a very cozy room, and I get to decorate it as psychedelic as I could :P

door is decorated for Toroa College's Pimp My Door comp so haha!

room is big enough for me to be happy :D

I just have to put em here! XP (note the pharmtox info sheet on the left)

Since we don't have much activities this week apart from the English diagnostics test, preliminary lectures and the orientation activities this weekend, we spent the last few days doing, um, what else but tourist activities! Take lots of pictures! XD

The roses are very awesome here btw. Macam bunga kertas kat Malaysia. They're everywhere.

Psychedelic-wise, I haven't mingled with the people here that much so I don't really know much about psy culture here. As far as I could observe, people here LOVE dubstep. And alcohol - alcohol is a very serious problem here in Dunedin. The university, however, has a club named The Shamanic Circle which, as the name suggests, does shamanic things in sacred places surrounded by candles etc. May also include lucid dreaming, astral projection/OOBE, technoshamanism and getting Shpongled. Sounds highly awesome, but I doubt it'll be good for my faith here. I am, after all, still a Muslim.

There's a strong cannabis culture here as well, headlined by the uni's own NORML movement. Not that I'm remotely interested, but yeah, like I mentioned before (not here I guess, it's somewhere in my MINDS debate notes on legalizing pot) these dudes are like our cousin because marijuana is a mild psychedelic, and, er, so there. Thanks to this, there's a cool shop on George Street named Cosmic Corner, a strong supporter of cannabis legalization, which also sells Salvia. Gosh, Salvia FGS.

Psychedelic, albeit not psy enough for me. But they do have Salvia *emphasis on Salvia*

Haha, enough with the psychedelic babbles. So far, I'm loving Dunedin already, but classes haven't started yet so I can't really say much. Homesickness may come later this year, when I was up to my ears with academic stuffs. But till then, I think I wanna enjoy a little bit more. Off to Botanical Gardens tomorrow! Shoot, got English diagnostics test. Will write more elaborately on my next entry, Insya-Allah. Bye for now!

And no, I am not going to buy those Salvia, if you're wondering.

Alice