Thoughts from a soggy mind - best served Cold

Last week was the highlight of my winter break: I went to Melbourne from 2nd to 6th July with Eugene, Su Yin, Wan Phei and Yuet Ling. Yes, I know it’s been quite a while since i got back but thanks to my tiny thumb drive, some of my photos had to seek ‘refuge’ in Su Yin’s thumb drive till yesterday when i had the time to claim them. Hence the delay in writing this post.  Anyways, here’s an abbreviated(?) account of my trip -

Monday 2nd July 2007
Day One of my holiday in Melbourne obviously started with us actually getting there. Duh.  We took an 8-hour bus ride through the night, starting at 12am and finally arriving at Bay 64, Southern Cross Station at Spencer Street in Melbourne at 7.50am. Didn’t exactly sleep all the way throughout the journey but i got sufficient shut-eye nonetheless.
First off was breakfast at McDonald’s. Not exactly the best way to kick start our tour of Melbourne but dim sum restaurants in Chinatown weren’t open yet and we were famished anyway; any food would do at that point. Next we took the tram back to College Square where we were to camp for the next five days. Speaking about trams, they’re quite unique and part of the attraction in Melbourne. I was (and still am) quite terrified at the idea of standing smack in the middle of the road waiting for trams while cars and trams whiz by. Maybe it had to do with having crossed one too many Malaysian roads, lol.
Then we toured around University of Melbourne. The architecture was really impressive! Numerous colonial-age buildings dot the campus landscape and they really give the place a historical feeling. Pity we don’t have such buildings at ANU. Oh well, you can’t have everything.
Next was Melbourne Central where we gaped at a super big clock! Every hour it chimes and out come some mechanical birds and puppets dancing to a tune…cute =) Among other places that we went to include the Victoria Parliament (inaccessible to the public), Victoria State Library ,Fitzroy Garden and Federation Square. All accessible via trams just makes it all so convenient.
At night we toured Lygon Street which is chock-full of Italian restaurants, cafes and gelato shops. Shared a cone with Chun Wah which culminated in some really funny moments =p
Oh, did i mention that the many buildings in Melbourne itself are pretty old and impressive? Took lotsa pics and drank in the sights - lovely.

University of Melbourne. Can’t imagine having a clock tower in a uni.

This is actually a side entrance to a Car Park. Talk about grandeur!

One of the many statues in Melbourne. This one’s outside the State Library. And yes, i’m referring to the gigantic black fella, not the two in winter wear =p

A tram in Melbourne. Notice it runs right in the middle of the road and that’s where ppl wait for trams…Scary..

Tuesday 3rd July 2007
Had the luxury of waking up a bit late today cuz we were headed for the Victoria Market for sightseeing and shopping. Scratched my head a lil at that one. What’s there to see at a market? A lot, apparently. It has to be one of the cleanest markets i’ve ever seen and the sheer number of stalls selling souvenirs is crazy! Row upon row of them! Also, you get crazy prices like 1 dollar for 1 kilo of apples…
Had lunch at UniMelb then headed to the Shrine of Remembrance which commemorates the fallen Australian Soldiers. Sort of War Memorial in Melbourne i guess. Next it was Docklands for the pretty harbour view and also Melbourne’s very own "Harbour Bridge".
At night it was potluck dinner as the Sydney ppl were arriving at the airport that nite. We had lots and lots of food ranging from mashed potatoes and nasi lemak (Kean Leong and Andrew), fried prawn, omelet and dessert (Lin Sin et al), chicken and radish soup (Chun Wah) and vegetable in tom yam (Me, hehe).
We went to Crown Casino just to have a look and maybe try our hand at the slot machines but unfortunately they no longer give out free credits so we just hung around watching. By the time we got out of the casino, lo and behold the last tram had left! So being the helpless people that we were, we trudged our way back to College Square and collapsed on our beds in utter exhaustion. The night view was nice, though.

Victoria Market - Souvenirs Section

Su Yin, Lin Sin, Chun Wah and I at the steps of the Shrine of Remembrance

Can’t remember the name of this bridge but i took like 20 pics of it trying to get the perfect shot so i guess it must go into my blog….=S

Wednesday 4th July 2007
Had to wake up early today as we were heading to the Great Ocean Road on a tour bus under a travel programme called Melbourne on the Move. The trip started at about 8am and we only reached the city at 9.30pm- a full day’s tour. The road was so winding at some parts of the trip that many of us felt nauseous..eww. But the view, if anything, more than made up for it Not to mention that there were 36 Malaysians on the bus!

Ex- Taylorians at Great Ocean Road

Cape Otway

The Twelve Apostles!! Well, part of them, anyway.

Loch Ard Gorge

Thursday 5th July 2007
Another day out on the road- this time we were headed to Philip Island for a spot of penguin-watching! We took up the whole bus- 52 Malaysians and 1 Singaporean. Omg. Made a few stops along the way as well; i’ll let the pics do the talking:

On board the ‘Puffing Billy’ steam engine- leaving the station for Menzies’ Creek

Feeding a kangaroo at Warrook They’re just sooo cute!!

Ex-Taylorians takeoff @ Cape Woolamai =)

The highlight of the day: Watching penguins come home from the sea. We weren’t allowed to take pics of them though (the flash may hurt them it seems)

Apart from the above, we also went to the Koala Conservation Centre to see koalas sleeping on trees and also Nobbies’ Center to watch seals. Pity you had to pay 5 bucks to use the binoculars. Thanks Chun Wah for being so generous and taking pics of the seals thru the binoculars for us Thought of posting a pic of the spectacular sea at Nobbies’ but I just realized i’ve pretty much burnt a hole in many ppl’s uni quota, hehehe.

Friday 6th July 2007
Final day here in Melbourne. Woke up a bit later before heading to Smith Street for a spot of sight seeing and, if possible, shopping. Didn’t actually buy anything of course, but many of the shops were direct factory outlets so the price was actually quite reasonable in many cases. Had dinner at a Thai restaurant and went to Federation Square for one last group photo. Bus departed at 9pm and by 7.30am on Saturday, we were back in Canberra.

Canberrans, Melbournians and Sydneysiders at Federation Square

People ask me which is better: Sydney or Melbourne? I seriously don’t know and to me it doesn’t really matter. I had lots of fun at both these cities and to me, this trip to Melbourne was an eye-opening experience in many aspects. Many thanks to all the Melbourne people who made our stay so enjoyable; we’ll repay your hospitality when you come a-visiting in September

p/s: I think Melbourne and Sydney are great cities to visit and to have fun in, but living in Canberra is still my preference =p

Amazing. Today’s already one week since I finished my semester 1 finals. Guess what i’ve been doing then? well…nothing much =p

Let’s see..been watching Death Note which is seriously one of the best psychological thriller animes around! Add in a large dose of moral debate as well and you’ve got a recipe for addiction, hehe. Oh well, thus far I could only find up to episode 35 on DC and i’m already at episode 28 so i’ll be suffering from withdrawal symptoms soon

Apart from that, been playing Sid Meier’s Pirates! these few days. Got the impulse to download it since I was planning to watch POTC3 (i know, i know. I’m slow) anyway. It’s been…let’s just say a mixture of fun and boredom. That’s how some games get.

Last Saturday was pretty fun though. Went to Unilodge to cook a birthday lunch for Leonard. Satisfied my cooking addiction (for now) and it was also great to be able to eat some home-cooked food. The people who came were Betsy, Leonard (of course!), Su Yin, Sze Huey, Wan Phei, Yeam, Yuet Ling and myself. I started cooking at 9am and finished at 2pm..luckily there were Wan Phei and Su Yin to help with all the cutting and washing of ingredients..all I had to do was stand at the stove and cook, cook and…yes, cook. Here are the pics:

Groundnut soup! THIS is the reason why I had to start at 9am…gotta boil this baby long enough

Stir-fried cauliflower. I wonder why people haven’t seen purple cauliflowers before?

Omelet with chicken, dried shrimps, mushrooms and onions. Didn’t look too pretty though (notice the holes..eww).

Stewed chicken with potato and carrots i.e. Potato Chicken for short ehem…notice those black thingies on the chickens? those are herbs, NOT carbon!

Leonard’s birthday cake, baked by Su Yin and Sze Huey.

Ahh…it was such fun cooking! Plus I got to taste groundnut soup which makes me feel at home Got useful feedback from the others so now I know what to improve on, hehe. Anyway I’m thankful none of them got food poisoning from eating my cooking =p

Moving on now. Yesterday I went to Dickson with Jason who had finally finished his exams, Leonard, Su Yin and Wan Phei. ANU ppl would know what’s there: Asian Grocery Stores! A place where you can get durians, ikan bilis, salted fish, Brand’s Chicken Essence, Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce..the list goes on. There’s loads of Japanese stuff too. And the best deal has to be the IndoMie : 29cents per packet (Supabarn’s selling at 45cents)! The only dampener was the rain..it rained incessantly throughout our trip but luckily we could walk in the shade most of the time.

Last night i finally watched POTC3 with Jason and Yeam. Sighs, i downloaded a sucky file. It keep going blank after 30 mins or so. Still, we managed to catch 95% of the film i  think. Not as good as the first two in my opinion. It only really picked up in the last 50 minutes or so. Oh well, perhaps our expectations have been raised too much by the first two movies.

That’s all for now. Enjoy your holidays folks =>

Yay..my exams are over! Need I say more? =)

For a moment during my exam period I seriously doubted whether I’d have the mental stamina to keep going right till the end cuz having 5 papers in the space of 8 days wasn’t going to be easy. And the first paper HAD to be BIOL1007! The hardest ppr by a mile. Well, let’s just say I knew how to answer the questions but time was a precious commodity. Put down my last full stop and the invigilator announced "Time’s up" so it was really a case of touch-and-go for me. As for the rest…Behavioural Ecology was the toughest of four sections in BIOL1003 whereas CHEM1101 was a question of time-management, too. I barely nicked it, hehehe.

And after CHEM1101 i was dead tired, wishing for a long nap. But I couldn’t have it. PHYS1001 in 17 hours’ time! omg..those were the worst moments of my exam period. But the ppr turned out ok and suddenly I was left with just CHEM1101 HPO paper (today)! And at 3.30pm today, when the invigilator went through the customary announcement of "Ladies and gentlemen, please cease writing and put down your pens", I was like, whoa…I’m free!!

Oh well. Now that I’m free, I can finally get some much needed rest, tidy up my room, play some pc games, surf the internet and generally do all the things I should  do to empty my brain for next semester =p four weeks of winter break (1 week of exam period + 3 weeks of official break) beckon

To all those who are still taking exams / about to take them, all the best for your papers!

Today’s June 1st, the last day of the Teaching Period of Semester One. Goodbye and thanks to our lecturers who’ve imparted so much knowledge to us. And welcome exams. Sighs.

Next Monday marks the beginning of the Examination Period and I shall have my first paper (BIOL1007 - Living Cells) on the 7th i.e. one week from now =( The freakiest part about my exams is that i have 3 papers on 3 consecutive days with PHYS1001 at 9.15am the day after CHEM1101 which ends at 5.30pm. What a joke. But then again, I don’t have 2 papers on 1 day so it’s better not to complain eh?

Preparations for the exams have been disrupted by assignments up till now. At least from now till the 7th i can have uninterrupted revision marathons (apart from the occasional nap, msn n football news, hehe)

Don’t know what else is there to say. Everyone’s busy studying anyway. Allrite, gotta go to bed and wake up early tomorrow for a round of Barry Pogson’s Plant and Bacteria revision..

Take care everyone, and all the best!

p/s: Chatted wif cck after a very long time. Glad that you’re doing well and having the time of your life bro

Looking back at this week in time, i’ll remember it as the Cold Week. Yes, it was freaking coooolddd!! On Monday I had come back from Physics lab at 6pm shivering and rubbing my hands together to try bring them to life. And on Tuesday…

I woke up feeling extra cold. What’s wrong with me? As it turned out…it was the weather! Imagine I couldn’t grip the handlebars of my bike cuz it was just too cold? And the strong wind made my eyes water..Resorted to walking soon after; it’s just too cold to attempt cycling. And guess what…it was TWO degrees that morning! Not to mention that it’s not even winter yet

Thereafter the rest of the days in the week were significantly colder than last week but thankfully weren’t as cold as Icy Tuesday. I don’t think it ever exceeded 15 degrees anymore; now our rooms are starting to get cold even with the heater on. Guess I’ll have to turn up the heater quite soon.

On Thursday C1 Floor had their Floor Dinner with the Head of Hall, Keith and the Sub-Deans, Liz and Charis. And my…was the food good!! For entree we had scallops (four big,fat ones) with seaweeds and pickled greens. Main course was chicken breast with cheese-filled sausages and sweet potato..heavenly Don’t know what herbs they used to marinate the chicken but it was really good. Then cheesecake followed for dessert and lastly, coffee and turkish delight served by Keith, Liz and Charis! Had a really fun night. Well, you can’t have a boring night when you happen to sit beside Barney and opposite Steve.

Today is Jared’s birthday Gathered signatures from close friends in Ursies with the help of Daryl, Aru, Jason and Eugene and we made a booklet out of those for him. Plus a Bleach poster drawn by Jason, autographed by fellow Bleach fans…And we went to Manuka just now to have Malaysian food! The food’s not bad and the atmosphere’s good..18 people crammed into a small restaurant, passing food down the table…get the picture? =) And Wei Min baked a cake for Jared too. Thanks so much!

That’s all for now. Gotta start studying + working on BIOL1003 assignment (based on the video "Meerkats United") tonite. Next week’s the last week of Term 2 and hence the end of Semester 1. How time flies! Then it’s the finals =(

Good luck everyone! Gambateh =)

My favourite personal message on msn this week seems to be "Distractions, anyone?".  Well, let’s just say the workload’s been heavy and I’d really like something to take me away if only for a few minutes (or hours, as I found out later =p)

On the positive side of things, I’ve two assessments less to worry about!  BIOL1003  ecology test was, despite being an MCQ, a nightmare. Had no idea what some questions were asking about (they were asking about details rather than concepts) so I resorted to the old-fashioned "eliminate some and shoot one of the rest" tactics. Turned out to be pretty accurate when I checked my notes later though :)  Then on Thursday i had my BIOL1007 Immunology presentation. Started a little nervous but managed to get into the flow of things and even got a word of praise from my demonstrator

The price of working up a good presentation was, of course, a strained and inflamed vocal box (read: sore throat). Practised too much on Wednesday night without adequate water replenishment so I ended up presenting with a sore throat on Thursday. Still manageable but later that night i was deadbeat

And that’s where distractions came in, hehe. Decided to give myself a night off and just finish off my chem lab worksheets (due the day after). Saw a fren who was feeling down on msn so I picked up my phone…and ended up talking way longer than expected! Still, i had a good time and managed to raise the spirits of my fren again so it was worth it i guess =)

Now i’ve gotta start working on my PHYS1001 Assignment..goin to the library later to search for books. AND start revising again at the same time. Sighs..exams are coming and there isn’t room to complain. Just hold your head down and keep ploughing away i suppose.

Distractions, anyone?

I’ll be running a marathon of the academic kind over the next month…Sighs. Deadlines and tests are looming large before me, like a shadow threatening to engulf my entire existence. I guess i still have it easy compared to others so maybe I shouldn’t complain too much and just grit my teeth and go on..wading through the forest of assessments and/or commitments below:

MSO Malam Kenduri
Date: 12th May 2007
Description : Not heavily involved but still gotta go to Fenner Hall tomorrow morning to help to cook and then a cameo role in the drama at night.

BIOL1003 Ecology Test
Date: 15th May 2007
Description : MCQ (thank goodness!) test based on 7 lectures that none of the 200+ students in the lecture theatre had any idea what the lecturer was talking about.
Weightage : 12.5%
My progress: Nil. Revision’s starting tonight =p

BIOL1007 Immunology Seminar
Date : 17th May 2007
Description : 10-minute seminar presentation on chosen topic (Mine’s spleen) including Q & A.
Weightage : 10% for  presentation and 5% for resource worksheet
My progress: Done with  searching for sources. Gonna  make the slides tonight.

BIOL1007 Lab Logbook Final Check
Date : 17th May 2007
Description : Lab logbook to be handed in to demonstrators for final marking. No more corrections allowed.
Weightage : 20%
My progress : One more table and one more diagram to draw, then final checking and it’s done =)

PHYS1001 Formal Lab Report
Deadline : 29th May 2007
Description: Formal lab report based on any one of four experiments done in Term 2
Weightage : 5%
My progress: Nil. Gonna start next week once all the bios’ are out of the way

PHYS1001 Assignment 2
Deadline : 29th May 2007
Description : Typed report on real-life examples of electricity/magnetism and computer-simulation games on astrophysics
Weightage : 10%
My progress: Still trying to improve my scores on those pesky games!

Semester 1 Final Exams
Dates : 7th, 8th, 12th, 13th & 14th June 2007
Description : Finals. Need I say more?
Weightage : Between 40% and 60%, depending on the course.
My progress: Happy to report that revision’s right on track

So…it promises to be a tough month ahead; particularly the next two weeks. Still, listing out everything I’ve gotta do here was kinda therapeutic. I’ve outlined what I need to do and now there’s just a ’small’ matter of trying to achieve them…

So guys, if I ever snap at you especially in the next two weeks, please bear in mind that it’s probably a combination of my hormones and the workload above.

Cheers everyone, all the best with your assignments too

p/s : International Dinner last night was FUN!! As expected they didn’t serve caviar after all but the Russian and Cuban fare on offer was excellent. Some people came in the weirdest costumes e.g a guy dressed as Anna Kournikova. Could have pulled it off but for his chest hair…..=p

Time flies…yet another week has passed and the Semester 1 Final Exam is drawing nearer and nearer. Add the fact that my revision’s behind schedule (!) and it’s not a really nice situation to deal with eh?

Oh well, it’s not really too bad except that I didn’t expect to take more than 4 nights to finish the Mechanics section of College Physics. That threw my schedule out of the window. Still, it’s another 4 weeks @ 1 month to the finals so there’s plenty of opportunities to make up for lost time. Starting with this weekend, of course!

Let’s see….Urgent priority would be to research about spleen for my BIOL1007 Immunology presentation on May 17th and revise on Ecology for the mini-test two weeks from now. Anything else fitted in would be a big bonus cuz there’s loads of other stuff as well such as the talk by Dr Paul Chen (School of Economics) and Prof Aidan Byrne (Head of Department of Physics) tomorrow night at Ursies which should be pretty interesting. Not to mention there’s buddhist society mtg on sunday plus one or two ‘extra-curricular’ activities along the way….

Ahh. A packed weekend, i see. Looking back at the week that’s passed, there’s quite a few positives though. For one, i managed to push myself back into Study Mode which wasn’t the easiest thing to do after the highly relaxing Easter break. And a comment by Aru during breakfast yesterday was insightful. It went something like this -

Someone at the next table: Oh, you’re going for lectures now? Have fun!
Aru to me: Have fun? They seriously think this is primary school or something….like
                 you’re going to kindergarten and doing colouring all day?

I guess it depends on people to interpret what’s meant as having fun. Still, it’ll be great if some of those dumbasses in CHEM1101 and BIOL1003 especially would actually realize that their parents didn’t pay ANU shitloads of money for them to talk during lectures.

Oh well, a balance between studies and relaxation would be great. Which is what i’ll be striving to achieve during this packed weekend

So all the best folks, and take care!

p/s: It’s MSO’s Malam Kenduri next Saturday! And before that, International Dinner on Thursday night. The theme is Russian and Cuban food. I wonder if they’ll serve caviar? =p

Yes, what a night! Tonight I watched Man Utd live on TV for the first time since I came to Australia and it’s a match that’ll remain in my memory for a long time.

Milan told me the match’s starting at 9.40pm but I only went down to the common room at 9.50 and I had barely warmed my seat when Everton scored! And for the rest of the half Milan, Barney, Don and I watched with ever increasing depression…It wasn’t the slick (or at least efficient) United performance we had hoped for.

So we went into the 2nd half still 1-0 down amidst ongoing argument with the aussies why we should watch soccer over cricket…Don and I got really annoyed at one particular fella who just can’t seem to stop finding reasons to launch personal attacks and then going along the lines of "oh one of my best friends is this and this, so that’s not what I meant when I said that"…how more hypocritical can you get?

Anyway, back to the game. 5 minutes into the 2nd half and I was really wondering what I was doing in the common room. The scoreline read Everton 2-0 Man Utd. Given the way Utd were playing, there didn’t seem much hope. AND chelsea were leading against bolton!

What happened over the next 30 minutes was magical, the reason why so many of us fall in love with the Red Devils. First O’Shea scored from a corner scramble, then Phil Neville did his old club a favour by turning Ronaldo’s header into his own net. 2-2! Dare we hope for a miraculous win?

For the next 10 minutes or so the Everton ‘keeper seemed to have evolved superhuman powers as he kept out shot after shot (one-on-one, mind you). But just when that feeling of hope started deflating a little, Rooney scored! Omg…you’ll never see a mere 5 guys (Daryl had joined at half time) making more noise  in the common room. The elation could have  set us  afloat, if only we tried. 

After that it was nail-biting once more as United seemed content to protect a one-goal lead and sat back…Ronaldo failed to score on the break and you just wonder if there’s going to be a sting in the tail especially with 4 minutes of stoppage time….

Well, Chris Eagles came to the rescue. Deep into injury time he scored a beauty to calm our nerves and seal a magnificent win. 4-2 the final score and we’re keeping our noses ahead of Chelsea. And when I came back to my room, the scoreboard on Soccernet made some nice reading: Chelsea 2-2 Bolton (Final). We’re 5 points clear with 3 games to go!! Let’s hope we do our jobs against City and Chelsea and the title’s back to the northwest, where it should be =)

Lol…this is certainly one hell of a night. The ups and downs of emotion has left me exhausted. Gotta go sleep

Yes, it’s probably a lil silly that I’m blogging about this but having the heater turned on in freaking cold canberra is big news especially in Ursula Hall! I have a nagging suspicion that it’s the bricks they use to make the walls that make Ursies so cold..i mean, it’s never that cold in other parts of ANU. Or maybe it’s because it’s much colder at night and we’re in our rooms?

Still, it’s nice of them to actually authorise turning on the heater this early. It’s only mid-autumn anyway (though it did drop to 9 degrees this morning when I woke up) so I thought they would turn it on in mid-May at the earliest.

I just went through "How to Use the Heater" pamphlet in our Welcome Pack and it says " Once the heating is turned on it usually takes a couple of days to heat up the complete building, so be patient and don’t expect to feel the full benefit immediately". Ahh…there’s a catch, apparently.

Anyways, it’s still great to have the heater turned on a month ahead of schedule. Now perhaps we can tuck away those bulky sweaters, longs and what-nots for another month or so at least…In the meantime, gotta put my feet on the heater vents (it’s just warm, not hot) while I go through lecture notes…Heavenly