Monday, March 26, 2007
life in Tassy

turning back time

guess what i did yesterday?!?!?!

okay so some of you may have heard the story but i'm still really excited about the whole thing.

so here's the story:

it was the usual Sunday afternoon; cooking done, cleaning of room done and studying not quite done. i was going through my lecture notes for Bio of Animals and reading my Zoology buku. after flipping through a few pages, i realised that it was already 6.30p.m on my table clock and about time to start preparing dinner. sigh... so i didn't get much studying done and another weekend gone by again. you know, it's times like this that you wished you could turn back time or have just an extra hour in the day because there is too much things you need to accomplish. when i was about to turn off my computer, i saw that the clock at the bottom right corner says 5.30p.m instead. i looked at my table clock again and it says 6.30p.m so i went to check my watches (notice it's more than one) and they all say 6.30p.m. it took me like 10 minutes to realise that it was the end of daylight savings and the computer's clock has that auto function for daylight savings. So WEE! i had an extra hour yesterday and i spent half of it indulging in the joy of turning back time instead of studying. =)

so i turned back time!!! well... sorta.


conquering everest

i think i will be able to conquer Mount Everest at the end of my three years here in Tassy. have i mentioned that Tassy is just hills and mountains? well it is. it's nice that i get a great view from up on the hill where i live but the climbing up just to get home from school everyday is not very fun at all. school itself is so hilly, it's slopes everywhere. everyday, all i do is climb up and down slopes. for the first time in my life, i prefer going to school than coming home. imagine having to climb uphill after school at 6p.m, hungry, tired and cold. not fun at all. but that's not the worst of it. carrying 6 bags full of the whole week's supply of groceries up the slopes is simply the ultimate killer. and yet it has to be done every week or else i go without food. sigh. all the slopes that i climb up and down everyday could possibly add up to the distance up Mount Everest by the end of my 3 years or maybe even by the end of the year. i'm starting to have muscular calves and arms. yikes!


satisfied

alright despite all that have been typed above, i always feel very satisfied doing what i do. even when it's climbing up the killer slopes. i never question the reason i'm here and why i have to do all this. even cooking after class, rushing home to cook in between classes, cleaning the toilets every weekend, doing the laundry and cleaning the entire place, on top of having to study and complete assignments, seem very satisfying.

despite being stressed up about not understanding the cells and tissues, i am enjoying every single bit of it all. actually not quite. my lecturer for Bio of Animals is damn boring. he mumbles his way throughout and you're lucky if you can even catch one or two words out of each sentence. but i came all the way here for this so i have put lots of time trying to do my own reading instead and learning from my lab sessions. lucky for me, my practical tutor is really good. i enjoy my lab session thoroughly although looking through the microscope from 3-6pm on a school day that starts at 9am gives me a headache. i'm having problems understanding my Bio of Plants but i've got a great lecturer for that. He is hilarious. it's not easy really to get from a "trial within a trial" to a "cell within a cell" but i'm getting by.

i've been doing loads and loads drawings for all my subjects. been drawing cells, reproductive systems, animal parts, more cells and maps (i'm doing Geography as well). didn't know my art lessons would come in useful. i was drawing circles and colouring maps in Geography class that day and i felt like a kindergarten kid. so lame but very fun.

ahh... am satisfied.


housemates

we had a 'get to know your flatmates' gathering on friday night. it was good. all five of us finally sat down together to have a proper conversation. we did get to know each other a little bit more and we actually talked for about 5 hours till 1a.m. before heading off to bed. the next morning we woke up and all's back to normal. we go back to the 'hi' and 'see ya' thing again. not much more. or maybe it's just me being 'anti-social'. but most of the time i just don't feel like talking. it's not about them, it's just me. although sometimes i do wish that we were closer and have more of a bond rather than living in a house of strangers. then again, maybe it's better this way. perhaps it's better to know less.

oh and i found out that out of the 4 of them, 3 of them are born in the same months as my Seasons. there's a feb baby(aquarius), a sept baby(virgo) and a nov baby(not sure if she's a scorpio or sagi) in the house. the other one is born in oct(very likely to be libran). okay this is just something so random.


easter

the easter holidays stretches over an entire week from the 5th of April all the way till the 11th of April. WOO HOO!!! long holiday! and i'm going camping this easter with SSS! WEE!!! will be heading to Lake St Clair. i will post some pics here after the camp but for now, go google it and be jealous. =p

easter sales has started so i'd probably be going down to the city to stock up on some warm clothings.


autumn

i leave my apartment in tshirt and jeans with my birkies and a light jacket in my bag. then i see a girl in a long-sleeve turtleneck and another girl in a spagetti top and boots, another girl with a thick jacket with the furry hood thing and another guy with a light jacket and flip-flops. now who looks out of place? none of them. they all look appropriately dress for the weather. the weather here is just chaotic. you can never predict what the weather is going to be like. it's possible to experience all 4 seasons in a day. horrible. sometimes i just wish the weather can decide if it wants to be cold or warm so i can decide on what to wear when i leave the house. it's the start of autumn and the weather is turning cold but yet a couple of days will be really warm. last thursday was one of the warmest days. even the wind was warm. it was like a cooling Singapore weather. damn shiok!


spice

it's either the spicy flavoured canned tuna and luncheon meat here is damn spicy or i just cannot tahan spicy food as well as i could before. i've not had much spice in my food of late so probably my spice tolerance level is starting to go down the drain. i've got to go buy chilli padi this weekend. sigh... i miss all the spicy food in Singapore. "lots of chilli please!"


SMS

today i received a sms on my Singapore line from an unknown number asking if my number is still in use. well, it is, although i will only check for smses about once a week. so you guys can still sms me at that number. i'll receive it albeit a little bit late.


the end

okay i don't have any other random things on my mind right now. so that's all for my ranting tonight.

more random stuffs to come.


goodnight to all!

Wednesday, March 21, 2007
harmony day

so today's Harmony Day down here and there's quite a bit going on.

people from all over the world setting up booths selling all sorts of different food items.
there was nasi lemak, lontong, gado-gado, chicken rice, satay, korean food, chinese desserts and of course roti prata and fishballs from the Singapore Students' Society. Our pratas were selling like hotcakes i tell ya.

here's me cooking the pratas and showing them off.



now i'm an expert at fluffing up pratas already.

besides, flipping and fluffing pratas today, i went on the radio!
i went on air with the President of SSS, dear Saleh, to talk about Singapore.
i've never been into one of those studios before so it was a really exciting experience for me.
they played 3 songs by our local singers, Corrinne May, Stephanie Sun and Taufik Batisah.
Taufik's "I dream" is actually not too bad when you listen to it away from home.
Saleh and I even did a duet with that song "behind the scenes" (not on air of course).
I thought it would feel really awkward in there, talking to the mic and hearing your own voice through the speakers, but it's actually not like that at all.
Everything came out more or less the way it should.
i can't wait to get hold of the recording and listen to it again.
[damn, i'm infatuated with my own voice]

okay that's all. i know it's a short entry but i've got to go back to cook.
so take care people and have fun back home!

and oh before i go...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
to my Childhood Sweetheart Ian,
Limin,
Jin Hao
and Subra!

Saturday, March 17, 2007
random pictures of Tassy

welcome to my room

as we enter the door...



to the right, is my study desk



and close-ups of the barang barang i have on my desk.



okay and here's the window. a little small and a lot smaller than the windows i have back home. but it lets sufficient light in and when it gets cold, i'm glad i don't have that many windows.

Overdued entries

14th February 2007

We landed in Melbourne and the plane came to halt at the bay. The seat belt sign went off and everyone got out of their seats trying to get their luggage out of the overhead compartments. Then the pilot announced “Ladies and Gentlemen, the plane is still 2 feet short of the bay. Please take a seat for your own safety. We do not want anything to happen at this late stage of the flight.” I literally went “HUH?!” I’ve never heard of such a thing before and till now I still can’t believe it. 2 feet short of the bay?! It was hilarious. I couldn’t help laughing out loud. After which the plane moved that 2 feet forward and we didn’t even felt the plane move. My my, that was a nice start to my time in Aussieland though.

I packed only 2 stuffed toys but I ended up with 5. Little Tigger from dear Cody, Stitch from my lovely Cuzzies and a little Giraffe bolster from Ah-ta dear. Thank you all so much! They will come in really handy in making my new room comfy. And so I had more things to declare at the Australia customs. It was a thrill to rush through customs, throwing out everything that has to be declared and then packing them all back in, and then look for the domestic terminal to check-in for my next flight. Turned out, there was still quite a bit of time before the next plane departed and we had to wait. During transit, I saw this angmoh guy (not sure if he’s Australian, I still can’t differentiate.) with braided hair and piercings. He looked normally weird until he did something abnormally weird. You know that plastic ring on your plastic coke bottles that helps seal the cap? He took that out, put it in his mouth and started chewing on it like it was betel leaf. I couldn’t understand what I saw, I was truly taken aback. Talk about culture shock.

Touch down in Tasmania. I’m finally in the down under of the down under. Tassy is beautiful. They don’t have concrete jungles but they’ve got concrete mountains. You can see houses on every slope of the mountains. It’s not really very happening out here but maybe because all I’ve seen of Tasmania is the route from the airport to Sandy Bay and all about Sandy Bay. That’s all. It is the first day and I didn’t sleep well at all on those flights. I’m tired. Too tired to be excited even. I guess I can see why people have said that Tassy is a boring place but I really like the tranquility. It’s small and pretty quiet around here. At least it’s definitely something different from what I’m familiar with back home. Here, at every turn, I either see a mountain or the river. It’s definitely a place where I can put my heart and soul on my studies because there ain’t many distractions. A good thing. But it may also mean that I would want to get out of Tassy and travel more, which well, will not be a good thing.

Ah. Now with regards to the guy stories. There were already so many eye candies at Changi airport itself. I was thinking to myself “oh no! how do I keep my eyes on the books?” Even the air stewards who were all I think middle-aged men or even a little towards the old side, have this charm about them. But when I got to the Tassy side, there weren’t really any left so I’m guessing they must have all ended up in Melbourne. Sigh.


17th February 2007

Took a trip down to Salamanca Square today for the Salamanca market which is held on every Saturday. I’ve never seen so many people in a single place in Tasmania before. It was not so much a flea market. I think it was more targeted at the tourists, which means higher prices. I have not shopped at all since I landed in Tassy and now even Salamanca market proves no hope for my shopping. There are little treasures to be found there though if you look hard enough.

After leaving Salamanca Market, we headed up to North of Hobart. We stopped by Glenorchy and New Norfolk before heading up to the Mount Field National Park to immerse ourselves in nature. Russell Falls was beautiful. Then we walked through the Tall Trees trail and found ourselves going in a circle instead of reaching Horseshoe Falls. So we took another route and headed to Lady Barron Falls instead. It was a long walk in through the forests, took us about half an hour to reach the waterfall and another half an hour to walk back out. I thought Russell Falls was better actually but it wasn’t such a waste of time. The experience was amazing. It’s hard to indulge in nature like that back home. This definitely beats our Tree Top Walk at MacRitchie. There were supposed to be a lot of wildlife in there and even platypuses but I didn’t manage to spot anything. Maybe because we kept moving on and did not stay in a single place quite long enough to observe anything. It’s okay. I’ll probably have a lot more time in the future to do wildlife observations.

On our way back, we stopped by the Salmon Ponds, which breeds salmon and trout. Lovely looking fishes [Rainbow Trout especially]. We tried feeding them but they were probably already overfed so not many actually came up for the food. After feeding the salmon, we went into the café and fed ourselves with none other than the salmon. Not only are they good to look at, they are good to eat as well. Frsh from the pond... mmm.

After filling up our constantly grumbling tummies, we headed back to Hobart. Did our daily grocery shopping at Woolsworth. Tonight, reunion dinner would only be the 3 of us eating instant noodles with eggs, chicken and lettuce. It was refreshing and the soup was delicious. Something very different from the bread and fries that we have been having for the past few days. Simple yet simply yummy.

A walk to Wrest Point to burn all the fats accumulated from the past few days. Today’s night sky is clear and the stars are out. A magnificent blanket of stars.


20th February 2007

Who said there’s nothing interesting in Tasmania? We’ve got the Cadbury factory! I initially thought it was nothing when my Mum said she wanted to go. What can be so great about seeing machineries from a window mixing and producing chocolates? Boy was I wrong about it.

The experience was amazing! I felt like I was Charlie in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The sweet cocoa aroma filled the entire factory and just a single whiff of it brings you into an entirely different place. It brings you to this childhood fantasy land where you dream of yourself swimming in chocolate pools and everything else is made out of candy. In the factory, you’re just surrounded by chocolates, chocolates and more chocolates. It was no watching through windows over there. There is a guided tour around to see all the different machineries that processes the chocolates and we get to see what we eat being made from cocoa. The mixing of chocolates, white, milk and dark, the coating of Turkish Delights, the drizzling of dark chocolate over the caramel vanilla chocolates, the packing of it into boxes, the sending of the chocolates to the despatch area. We also get to see the chocolates in very close proximity and at certain points we were so close we have to fold our arms, keep our hands in the pocket or behind our backs because it was simply too tempting to just reach out and grab a piece. Oh do you know that the cocoa for Cadbury chocolates are actually processed in Singapore before being sent here for it to be made into our boxes, bars and blocks of chocolates? I’ve never seen so much chocolate in my entire life and we got to see all the different flavours that are not available in our Singapore market. The most incredible thing that we got to see has to be the 10kg block of Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate. It has 1000 squares and will probably take ages to finish. By the time you finish the entire block, I bet you’ll be more than 10kg heavier.

All we did was look at chocolates, smell chocolates and indulge on some free Cadbury chocolates the whole time. I never thought the experience of being in a chocolate factory could be this wonderful. I almost wanted to give up the zoo and start applying for a job at the Cadbury factory instead. I am never quite a chocolate person actually but things are going to change. [Actually, the Godiva chocs that Serene bought me already made me wanna change my mind about chocs. They were wonderfully yummylicious. Too bad I wasn’t able to bring them with me to Tassy and had to gobble the entire box down at the airport. So Serene, you’re partly responsible for my weight gain. Hmph! =) Thank you for the chocs my dear sis.]


4th March 2007

First week of school is over just like that. Tassy is small and their population is smaller so you tend to meet a lot of people who are from elsewhere. I have met people from all over the world and the experience is phenomenal. Somehow I don’t feel like I’m in Aussieland, I feel more like I’m in the centre of the world where everyone from all over congregate.

I have moved in to my apartment on campus. Actually, it’s been about a week since I’m here. Once you enter the apartment, you’d be in the kitchen and as you walk ahead, it’ll be the living room and the balcony. That’s the centre of the apartment which from now on will be known as the common area. On the left are 3 bedrooms, one of which is mine, the other belongs to a Tassy girl from Lauceston and the last one is currently still empty. On the right side of the common area are the boys’ rooms, 2 Tassy guys and an Englishman. I’ve got all the smart people living with me, a future doctor, pharmacist, lawyer and psychologist. They are nice people who clean up after themselves and help out around the house. So that’s okay. We don’t really interact much though and very seldom would all 5 of us be in the common area at the same time. Even 3 at any one time would be rare. But that’s fine by me. When you’re out with people, you are pretty much ‘forced’ to socialize, smile, and get into the where-are-you-from-what-are-you-doing conversation even when you really don’t want to. So when you’re back at home, you really just want to be alone and in your own thoughts.

Anyway, have I mentioned that my apartment is simply lovely? It’s a new student accommodation and the furnishings and all are still very clean and nice. And I love the cool earthly colours of it. I think my room here is much nicer and neater than my room back home. It’s so spacious even when it’s more equipped. Oh and I got myself a printer which costs only AUD$59 and the ink cartridge is made in Singapore! The printing cost here is horrendously expensive. We need to pay 11cents for a copy. Well, can’t quite blame them though, the people here are trying to save the natural environment. They are trying to go paperless and don’t encourage printing and stuff. At least I think they make more sense than some people trying to introduce EFS and saying that it saves paper when it’s really just using more paper. It definitely isn’t saving manpower and time either.

Yesterday, we had a Singapore society BBQ and I was elected to be Head of Public Relations. I can’t say if I’m happy or unhappy about it. I actually have other plans of getting myself involved in things I’ve never got the chance to do in Singapore like bushwalking or white water rafting. Being linked back to Singapore and doing Singaporean things was definitely not at the top of my list. I do appreciate the fact that there is a Singapore society and the things that they do for us to help us settle in and settle down though. At least we’ve got something familiar we can turn to when we’re feeling out of place. However, I was not expecting to get involved in it at this level. Being a member was more than enough for me because I didn’t want to commit too much to it so that I can have time for other things. But since I’m in it already, I should just see how it goes from here and maybe I’ll learn a few useful things from it. Gaining experience with Public Relations should be a good thing. At the same time, I’m still going to be involved in other stuffs. I’ve signed up for fencing and I can’t wait to start learning the sport!