Thoughts from a soggy mind - best served Cold

Yeah..it’s just one of those days when I feel like blogging, compelled to blog if you like, and couldn’t come up with a title. My brain’s pretty blank at the moment…but then again it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Depends on how you see it eh? Less capacity to think could lead to less trouble at times.

I was struck by a sore throat on Saturday morning but didn’t really pay much attention to it. I mean, i did drink more water than usual, the odd packet of green tea or two and stuff like that. Perhaps it was the change in weather that nailed me. Weather in Canberra is crazy. From last Saturday it has been in the region of 13 degrees and sometimes it was as low as 8 or 9…brrr!!

So the sore throat ‘evolved’ into a terrible cough and i’m now the proud owner of 2bottles of cough syrup. Luckily, though, the cough didn’t affect my CHEM1101 mid-sem exam too much. Somehow i managed to cough relatively less and finish the whole paper with time to spare for checking and double-checking =)

Now I find myself in a race against time. Well, a race of sorts, anyway. BIOL1007 lab report on cytoplasmic streaming and  PHYS1001 lab report  are both due on Thursday while PHYS1001 assignment on mass-energy equivalence is due on Monday 9th (via email). The bulk of each of these have to be done by this weekend….Which sort of explains why my brain is empty right now.

And my progress so far? Well, I’m happy to report that the only thing left to do for BIOL1007 is to paraphrase the introduction and draw 2simple diagrams BUT i haven’t done anything beyond searching for sources for the PHYS1001 assignment. Still, with a 600 word limit there’s not much i can write about anyway. As for the helical spring thingy, I’m halfway(?) through i guess…4 more pages or so to write up.

I’m racing against time to recover from the annoying cough as well. Easter’s just 1 week away and I don’t think it’ll be much fun coughing away in Sydney..Hope the cough syrup can work miracles!

Don’t know what else is there to type about.See, my brain’s really not working. Hurm..maybe IB. But that’ll be in the next post.

So take care guys, and all the best for your exams! I know some of you have them by the mountain load…

Last night Ursula Hall held it’s annual International Expo. Aimed at fostering greater understanding and goodwill between students of various nationalities, this was an event which everyone worked hard for since last month.

It wasn’t easy of course. After much planning, last week we went to Dickson to buy most of the groceries needed to cook for the expo. And this week we had fashion show ‘rehersal’ (more like an exercise in comedy, with barney and yeam around), more shopping, banana-stealing and finally cooking at B&G (which finished less than an hour before the Expo!). 

The Expo was held in the Common Room and we had stalls representing Malaysia, Singapore, China, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Canada, England, Germany, USA, New Zealand and South Asia (India + Sri Lanka + Bangladesh + Pakistan). Tun Min was the only Burmese so he joined the South Asia contingent while Milan, the only one from Serbia, didn’t bother with stalls altogether and just wore a sign with ‘Serbia’ on his T-shirt… Anyway, it was great fun as we dressed up in traditional costumes and cooked up a storm as well.

The Malaysian stall offered bubur chacha, onde-onde (is this how you spell it?) and pisang goreng. Hence the banana stealing. We took bananas from the dining hall to cut costs, lol. Well..technically it wasn’t stealing cuz everyone’s entitled to as many bananas as they want….=p It was fantastic seeing people’s expressions on their faces when they realised what pisang goreng is: "You fry BANANAS? Cool!" was the general remark I heard.

And other stalls had interesting stuff like writing your name in korean while the chinese offered face-painting.  Add a fashion show to the mix and you’ve got one hell of a night Of course there’s the inevitable clean-up but that’s another story…

So here’s the pics:

Onde-onde in production while bubur chacha’s boiling in the pot..

Shern Ren and I sneak into the pic while Yeam and Charis were too busy serving food =p

The China Stall…face-painting’s going on at the background!

With Eun Hae and Anthony (Korea) and my name in Korean

Tim (Australia) loved the onde-onde so much he took the whole tray!

Our neighbours, the Singaporeans

Left: Tun Min (Myanmar), Centre : Milan Tosic (Serbia) and Right: Me

Koreans @ Ursies

And Malaysians!

So we can all live better in harmony from now on….or can we?

Lol…the last pic was taken in jest. All in all it was a night of fun even though it was a bit tiring. But it was well worth the effort I don’t really know if this expo had helped the Australians understand the international ressies better or vice-versa but by the end of the day we’ve had fun and that’s enough i guess.

Go internationals!

The past week has really been one filled with surprises. On Wednesday night i found myself sitting on my bed (studying) when my thoughts drifted away from Silberberg’s Chemistry: The Molecular Nature of Matter and Change and I thought of how stressed I was just 7 days before that.

Sure, nothing’s changed in terms of how many assignments / lab reports/ exams that I’ll be facing in the next 2 weeks or so. BUT help arrived from the most unlikely sources : Mark (CHEM1101 coordinator) and Guy (PHYS1001 lecturer) decided to postpone the due dates for the lab reports and assignments! Whew…!!

So that means I have more time to settle stuff and actually focus more on my CHEM1101 mid-semester exam which is gonna be held next thursday…Hurm. Can’t really relax, I’ll have to keep working hard. But it does mean that some of the stress is off

And my parents gave me a surprise phone call on Sunday! Aww….i hadn’t had the chance to talk to them since CNY; just e-mails n sms so it was really really nice. And on wednesday night (the same night when I was dreaming, refer to 1st paragraph) i got another phone call, this time i talked to my aunts n uncle n grandma. Ahh…sweet =)

Of course as with all things in life, good surprises must always be accompanied by bad ones. I don’t know why but it’s one of the rare occasions when I asked myself a question and I didn’t quite know how to answer it. Weird, but it doesn’t matter. It has been a kind week and i’m satisfied.

Take care folks!

It seems that my honeymoon period in ANU has come to an (unwanted) end. Sigh. Starting next week loads of assignments of various kinds will be crashing on me like a tidal wave and there’s no escape.

I actually realised that my mood has been fluctuating a lot this past week and more often than not i was my moody self. Maybe it’s just the hormones waging a relentless war against me. Maybe it’s just the unpredictable weather. Whatever it is, I do know that my stress and anger levels peaked on Wednesday and here’s why.

Organising two surprise birthday parties (Jason’s and Daryl’s) in the space of five days isn’t easy. The stress and mental work that come with it are punishing. And on Wednesday night i had just finished a major CHEM1101 prac when I realised that in order to complete Thursday’s BIOL1007 pre-lab (assessed) you had to first attend Workshop 1  to learn some skills. The problem was, Workshop 1’s been postponed to next week due to the hailstorm! So how are you supposed to complete a task that requires skills you’re only learning one week AFTER you’re expected to hand it in? I wonder why they can’t just scrap one prac like CHEM1101. It doesn’t make sense cramming every single prac into an already packed schedule. And there ARE people like me who DO give a damn about every single task given out! I won’t say "To hell with pre-labs, i’ll just do something else"….So maybe  being committed is really just being stupid.

I’m fortunate I have friends who had done the prac on Monday so at least I was better prepared and sort of did it okay…

Anyway, we went to Dickson today to buy ingredients for International Expo next week; Malaysian Stall is gona serve up loads of desserts! There were about four Asian grocery stores plus 5 or 6 Asian restaurants…heavenly And I saw a durian! The biggest I’ve ever seen, even Malaysian ones can’t match up to it at all….

Back to the title of this post : Starting next week i’ll have assignments (PHYS1001, BIOL1003), formal lab reports (CHEM1101, BIOL1007, PHYS1001) and  mid-semester exam (CHEM1101 - 31%) all due at one point or another over the next few weeks. Yes, it’s a headache when all your four subjects are Science subjects.

It ‘only’ means loads of hard work i guess. Not to mention that tomorrow I’ll have to wake up at 4am to help out at B&G for the MSO picnic later in the day..and there’s Ursies Green on Sunday as well. I’m so glad that Monday’s Canberra Day @ public holiday

Oh well…i’ll somehow motivate myself to go on and on as always and bulldoze my way through them all. I’ll just be extra crappy over the next few weeks and snap at the slightest provocation. Then it’s Easter and I’ll be fine =) But i do hope i’ll be fine during the next few weeks all the same.

Last but not least, allow me the pleasure and honour to announce the following news:
1. STPM results have just been released and my beloved school, Saint Anthony’s School Teluk Intan, beat our eternal rivals Horley Methodist School!

2. Good friend and our school’s Godlike student, Mr Low Woei Chyuan attained 5As…one out of only 11 people nationwide! Many Congratulations!!!

I guess that’s all for now. It was fun, ranting without any cohesion or structure just to let off steam

Take care folks, and may you survive the next few weeks.

p/s : Jay Chou and Mario fans, check out this funny website : http://www.tuu.com.tw/qstyle.com.tw/upload/flash/demo.swf
(Courtesy of KarFay)

The biggest event of the year in Canberra has come and gone…I felt a bit weird when we had to sign up for it last week : it’s just a fireworks show right? Only when I reached there did I realize how wrong I was…it’s THE fireworks show…It’s SKYFIRE!! Once again, I’ll just let the pics do the talking -

Check out the number of people crowding Lake Burley Griffin! And a couple decided to have their wedding on the boat as well….sweet =)

Zhong (from China) the Glo-Stick Man…each of us got at least two!

Jason, Milan and I fooling around while Aru (left) and Hui Ling (right) look on suspiciously….

And now the main show!

The event kicked off with a countdown and as we shouted "Zero!" this rocket of a jet roared above us to signal the start of Skyfire. No it didnt explode, i just managed to capture a pic of its tail =p

I actually took loads of pics but the thing with fireworks is that they’re pretty hard to capture on a home-user camera so some didn’t turn out that nice..they look more like seaweeds =p But still…you have to be there to appreciate how pretty it was.

Many thanks to the seniors e.g. Zhong, Jay Shen and some others who went to the lake as early as 4pm to get strategic spots at the lake : we were right in front of the "firing line" and we got the full blast =)

A fantastic show of pyrotechnics. It was over in just 20 minutes but it was well worth it.

Skyfire 2008, i’m waiting for you!

First and Foremost, allow me to wish Mr Ng Liang Pin Jason, ex roommate and current coursemate, hallmate, friend, etc etc a very
Happy Birthday!

Work commenced on his birthday celebrations as early as last Friday and we managed to get some good stuff lined up for him: Let the pics do the talking allright?

Birthday Poster which we put up right opposite Jason’s door so that he wouldn’t miss it =p Got every Malaysian and Singaporean as well as close International friends to sign it

At lunch Tom played ‘Happy Birthday’ on the piano while we all sang for Jason. Apparently this is the 1st time in living memory of Ursula Hall that someone’s had Happy Birthday played on the piano for him/her: Even Keith doesn’t get such treatment! Pity I didnt take any pics though…

All You Can Eat Dim-Sum at Imperial Court Restaurant where we gave Jason a treat!
There were 12 people: Jason (duh!), Anthony, Daryl, Eugene, Jared, Leonard, Myself, Ronnie, Shern Ren, Suyin, Sze Huey, and Yeam…but we actually ate more than what was diplayed ;p
 

Introducing….Jason’s Birthday Cake! Baked by Yeam and Safura; a surprise addition to the menu but it turned out great. I heard a rumour about Yeam buying durians for the dinner but that’s another story…it’s not true anyway!

That’s the Birthday Boy =)

I wouldnt go into the nitty-gritty of how we got all the signatures etc. Ultimately it was good fun and it’s just so nice seeing someone enjoying their birthday. Plus we had some crazy jokes and some really funny moments so it was nice all the way through…

Now the only dilemma is trying to top this off next year for his 21st birthday…..

But for the moment, i’ve gotta get some sleep. It’s been a fun day but tiring all the same; more activities lie in wait tomorrow: Physics prelabs, revisions, meeting with JPA scholars at Bruce Hall and then SkyFire, the biggest fireworks show!

Happy Birthday Jason!

Last night, 8th March 2007 was the Commencement Dinner for Ursula Hall. It was all hyped up even by the 1st week we were here, it was THAT important!

Anyway, to side track a lil, i had one of my worst days yesterday….Mother Nature and Action Bus decided to play a little prank on me while I went to get my bike. Then I got a lab partner from hell for Biol1007 (i think we can still swap partners; I can’t wait). Lab ended at about 5.15 so we had only about 1 hour to prepare for the dinner! It’s times such as these that I’m glad I’m a guy..donning a shirt, a tie and a suit takes up err, 10 minutes? lol.

The dinner started with pre-dinner drinks in the common room just like during the 1st year dinner; a choice of champagne or orange juice. Here I got a valuable lesson from Morgan on Men’s dressing (he’s worked part-time in a shop selling suits for 4 years) : "Never, Always, Sometimes". It refers to the three buttons on  my suit and the regularity  with which I should button them up. Thanks Morgan!

The one part I really didnt like about the dinner was the random seating. Everyone was assigned a table at random so you basically get to sit with strangers or people you don’t know so well. Which isnt much of a problem basically but I do prefer to mingle with my close friends on a night when the best food and wine are served! But yeah..i got table 15 and Dexter for company so it wasn’t that bad =)

The food was great though I had hoped for seafood =p For entree we had smoked chicken strips with honey and greens while the main course was a choice between grilled scotch steak with mushrooms or bacon-wrapped pork…ooh….and dessert was again a choice between chocolate cake with hazelnuts or mango pudding with blueberries…yummy! And we had Turkish delights to round it all up, not to mention the accompanying wine, hehe.

Anyway, there are more important things than food and that’s having a good time with friends! So here are the pics:

We all look about the same but there’s a mixture ofpeople from Malaysia, Singapore, China, Japan, Australia and Hong Kong!

With Milan Tosic @ Diehard ManUtd fan : Born in Serbia, grew up in Canada…strong principled guy who’s funny just by being himself =)

From left: Yeam, Keith Conley (Head of Hall), Eugene, Myself

All in all it was great! Add the fact that the next day (today) is Jason’s birthday and tomorrow’s the SkyFire fireworks show, it’s almost like 3 days of fun, Fun & FUN!!