For the past 1 week..

It's been a busy busy week...hair-tearing lab report writing, assignments but of course some partying and fun along the way :)

Report writing frenzy.

Breaktime @ Bundoora


Max Brenners' chocolate souffle! To die for!

Seafood buffet @ Novotel, St. Kilda with LS, Ann(gf) and JY. Yummy yummy! I think I had enough prawns to last me for a few months. Haha.

Movie @ Crown, SouthGate. Perfect Stranger wasn't as good as I hoped it was :( Quite a letdown.

It was a grey rainy day in Melbourne.

Wine & food @ Kittens. They had really good sweet potato chips! Sounds weird but it was delicious (& fattening). :D

Crazy Grumpy Monday

S:" Our assignment is dumb."
C:"Angels.. I am very disapponited!!!"
S:"With WHAT???"
C:"With the F*** Assignment... and Bani is still complaining about it!!!"
B:"i don like computers..!!;**"
(Nod.We all agree Bani don't click with computers)
M:"This assignment is useless... what will we do with that?!?!? huh1?"
C:"Bani don't put your greasy fingers on my Mac screen!!!"
S:"BANI!!! C is calling your fingers greasy!!!!!"
M & B:" I'm pissed off."
C:"Now i feel better."

The start of Week 8

It's the start of a new week again. Time is really zipping by! ( and I thought life in down under is supposed to be slower haha) Mental note to self: 5 more weeks till exam period :( To start the day off, it's to Brunswick to meet my dear girl Alisa for brunch. She stubbed her big toe and it swelled to the size of a balloon last night (she couldn't fit into her shoes!!! imagine that) She was going to get a X-ray done in Brunswick.

Waiting for tram 19 to take me to Brunswick.

I had a craving for KFC!!! They have been advertising their new burger called the Filler on telly and it looked really good so I wanted to give it a try. But I ordered a wrap instead in the end (don't ask me why cause i have no answer for that. I think i'm fickle minded at times haha)

Alisa's place. She was very pleased with the $10.99 HUGE bath towel she got at K-Mart. Oh yea, she has a habit of making funny faces at camera as well (as you can see above :D )

But she does take normal pics most of the time :) That's her banged up toe with scary red nail polish haha. Oh yea, she thinks i'm psycho cause i'm taking pics of everything. I have to agree with her lol but i think it's great having something to remember each day by :)

In an extremely boring lecture (which explained why i was messing around with the camera). She was explaining to us how to use powerpoint (!!??!!) There you go, Research Skills and Tools.

Anyway, we ended lecture early and decided to head off for some coffee. Saw these morbid pictures along the way. They were displayed on some windows of an art workroom in RMIT. I personally found the one with the long armpit hair hilarious haha.

Our new hunt and we are totally loving it! It's tucked away in a basement, part of RMIT campus. The decorations in the cafe is done by Tony (the owner) and everything is made from recycled materials. Check out the table below. It's made from 2 ladders. How cool!

I want to open a place like that in future..where everything is designed by me :)

Latte, Mocha latte, Cappucino and the luvlies.

Where is Charlie?

Do you like?

I sketch when i'm bored. I draw when i'm thoughful. I paint when i'm inspired.

But most importantly, I sketch/paint/draw because i love it :)

A grey gloomy day in Melbourne

The Rainy Day

Poem lyrics of The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

The vine still clings to the moldering wall,

But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,

But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast

And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,I

nto each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

Overcast sky and soft falling drizzle enveloped the city on Saturday. Everywhere seemed to be washed in grey and people are hurrying past, hidden beneath their big umbrellas. It reminded me of the impending winter, where days are short and nights are long and cold. I think rainy weather makes one melancholic.

Claudio and I were holed up in the library (as usual):

Him in his serious pensive mood.

But more often than not,

He is crazily crazy :)

Exploring RMIT Bundoora

Whee, it's Friday again! Which meant Goodbye City and Helloooo Bundoora. Here's how our newly built Science and Tech bldg looks like and of coz the place that we have been spending a lot of time in:

Us in our (ugly)baby blue lab gowns. They remind me more of doctors' scrubs haha. We were doing expression of GFP protein today and so while our plasmids were happily making the protein, Claudio and I went to check out our neighbour, the RMIT Fitness Centre:

I was highly impressed and awed by the courts. The floor was so polished it seemed to gleam. I can imagine how great it will be to play on those courts. I miss the squeaks of the sneakers, the whacks of the rackets, the thuds of the spikes and maybe even the smell of the sweat! Can somebody apperate my badminton racket here? :( I'm in need of a good workout that gets my heart pumping and leaves me wet with pespiration. Anyways, Friday is probably gonna be our workout days from now on after labs. Haha. Because we will be crazy to travel all the way to Bundoora on any other days just for the Fitness Centre.

We found the gym as well! It beats the one in the city campus hands down. It's so much newer and bigger. Pity pity pity. Why must it be in Bundoora??

The girls with Starburst lollies from Claudio. Haha..he was in an extremely bitchy and grumpy mood today but fortunately, it was all directed at one of our lab assistant who was getting on our nerves. 'The dirty looking one."

Affectionately known as Charlie and his angels. Haha.

After a long day in school, it's off to Bani's place in North Melbourne to watch John Travolta in his skinny tight black jeans, swanky strut and neatly combed hair in Grease. Of coz, how can we forget the popcorn, Domino's pepperoni pizza and garlic & cheese bread. This has officially been added as one of our weekly highlight. Next up, Saturday Night Fever/Godfather?? :)

The little blue face

Kumon, Kumon and more Kumon!!! How cute! I received a Kumon pencil case packed with Kumon goodies on my first day at work today :) It came with pencils, pens, pin and even a Kumon stopwatch. I feel like a Kumon kid! Haha..well it was an interesting day at work. The kids are really cute and it was great talking and working with them. Time passed in a blink :) I think i am going to like my job quite abit :)

Special Corner

So it is Wednesday again, our free day from school. Because Claudio has decided to organise our lives for us (he'll write in that lil' black organiser of his), Wed & Thurs & Weekends are pretty much studying days now. Simply put, everyday is studying days haha..which is goood because exams is just one and a half month away and the assignments and lab reports are forming a long queue.

Computer lab doing our assignment. There's this really awesome program EndNote that we are using now to store all our literature references. We can actually export the journal articles' information directly into the program and it will catalogue them for us, even giving the references in any style desired. Pretty handy i would say!

We should always balance work with some play/indulgence :D Claudio, on the spur of the moment when we were passing by the cafeteria, decided that we should go have a game of pool. Haha. And so we did. The pool area is tucked in one corner of the cafeteria:

He was very smug during the game.

I was totally crap at it.
BUT miraculously, we broke even at the black ball.
I won in the end by pure luck. He sank the ball in the wrong hole :) Oopsie.

And to my excitement, i realise there's an arcade section next to the pool area! How fun!

Schools in Singapore should have entertainment areas like that..:D

Anyway, we ended up at Max Brennars again.

It's Chocolate Souffle to reward ourselves for the day. And my oh my, was it good!!! dark chocolate oozing out with every bite..i was in heaven~

Siang Wei = Employed

Yes! After 29 days of waiting for my student work visa, it has finally gone through! Ladies and Gentlemen, you are looking at the new employee of :

Kumon was started 50 years ago in Japan by Mr Toru Kumon and has since developed into a learning method with worldwide success for millions of students across cultures, languages and education systems.Mr Kumon was a teacher and parent who wanted to help his son do better in school. Focusing everything on his son's actual ability, the unique instructional method he created was so successful that his son was able to do calculus by the time he was in the sixth grade.After enormous success with children across Japan, what evolved as "The Kumon Method" began to spread across the world from the early 1970's starting in New York, USA and Taipei in Taiwan. By 1984, with more than one million students enrolled, Kumon came to Sydney, Australia and grew in popularity across all states and territories.Kumon's English and mathematics programmes help children master those fundamental skills essential to their overall academic performance.Mr Kumon provided universal evidence of his belief that every child possesses untapped abilities. Belief in every child's potential to excel remains central to Kumon philosophy. In short, there's nothing a child can't do.The Kumon Method was developed to unlock the potential in every child.

And that's what i'll be doing, helping to unlock the potential in every Kumon child! Sounds good eh? :) Haha..well basically, i'll be working as an assistant in a Kumon centre. Kids come after their school and they will be given worksheets to do. The worksheets work in such a way that the child can be self taught just by reading the instructions on it (even on topics they have not yet learnt in school) There are time and accuracy goals to be met and when met, they can progress to a higher level so on and so forth. The assistants are there to mark their work and provide feedback to them. They are not required to teach because one of kumon's mission is to cultivate independent learners (how brilliant!) First day at the centre will be on Thursday. I'm excited!! :)

Even though i've a job at the moment, i will only be working for one day a week cus my class ends late on other days and the centres operate during the early evening only. Sooo..i need another part-time job! I'm lusting after money.

My brother sms me the total amt on my debit card statement which came in. I got a bloody shock. I didn't even realise i had spent that much :( Now you know why i am lusting after money. I'm going to record my everyday expenses from now on!!!! Must keep track! BUT i'm proud to announce that i haven't been a shopaholic like how i was back home. Else, i would be a begger and perhaps sleep next to 'eyes behind dirty shaggy hair' by now! I saw him again today. He was sitting on the pavement reading newspaper.

We were all comtemplating about our dire money status and thinking on how to cut expenses and earn more $$ (except for claudio!!! he was just acting for the picture. the 50 bucks was his btw haha) I think i need to move out of this apartment once lease ends in aug. As nice as the location is, the rent is too freaking high. I will have to work my ass off just to pay the rent then starve for the rest of the month. The idea of asking my dad to settle the rent is just too damn tempting. Bleagh. But i wouldn't want to ask my parents for anymore money. They are darlings to pay for my course here already. I'll survive alright man! And be proud i did :D

Random pics of my school's cafeteria. We started reading up on our Salmonella and Camphylobacter after the whining and comtemplation. It'll be our rice bowl afterall. Haha.

And dear Claudio produced this out of his bag. A tripod.

'It goes everywhere with me.'

' i must take a pic of this'

'you are sick.'

'look who's talking. you don't even bring your camera everyday.'

Grins

on Reports & Bullshit

I have found a sweet(emergency) spot for the times my neighbour/network provider decides to fail me. Ahh..introducing the Melbourne Central Food Lounge:) How thoughtful and kind of them to provide free wireless network and power points for miserable students like me, who had to rely on network tapping hee. Even the view is great :D

Well anyway, Sunday was spent on report-writing. Report writing totally rock my socks!!!!!! As if. Haha. But it's all part (a big part to be exact ) of school so i'm learning to LOVE the whole ordeal since it is going to be a routine. Soon, report writing WILL totally rock my socks!! :D

The place looks pretty decent doesn't it? Comfy enough to spend the night and that's what someone did. See the pair of legs sticking out behind Claudio in the 3rd pic? That's our guy. He has claimed the couch to be his bed for the night and Claudio gallently left me in his good company when he took off. I followed suit not long after. As attractive as the free network might be, it gets creepy when u turn around each time and see a pair of eyes behind shaggy dirty hair staring at you. Home with the unreliable network sounds like a better deal :)

So home it was and the neighbour/network did fail me until much later into the night :( Well, i was diligently doing my report and imagine my surprise when my phone started ringing at 3am. Who in the world would call me in that unwaking hours of the night?? Ah, no prizes for guessing but it is THE housemate. All the way from sunny Singapore (he's back there btw) He gave me a whole lot of bull (which explains the bullshit part of the title) on something that is too long to be explained here. For more details, pls call yours truely haha. (it's a trick to get you guys to call me :D) Anyway his call totally threw me off because it was just so out of the blue! And he did upset me, quite a bit. All the way from singapore, imagine that. Fortunately, my report was pretty much completed by that time, else i would have set his freaking room on fire for wrecking my mood like that. Hugs to gj though, for letting me bitch on msn (though he was giving half his attention to his book haha). for claudio too, for cheering me up and sharing with me alot of very insightful thoughts.

He started giving me geography lesson as well coz my geography of europe was so bad. haha. we are so going to invade his hometown when we graduate!

da man. sorry for the extra rounds you will have to run!! :)

Am feeling a whole lot better now :) ain't going to give two (or any for that matter!) hoots to the housemate no more. I own my life and that's that.