How I spent the weekend

I've got about 3 reports due plus 1 practical exam this week so basically I stayed home on Saturday and Sunday in order to do these and study. Every weekend is almost the same. I sleep late, I wake up late, I eat irregularly (lunch at 2-3 plus, dinner at 9-10 plus) and unhealthily (instant noodles and bread). I enjoyed doing this even though I know it's bad for me. Somehow I just feel so lazy to go anywhere or do anything else. It's nice staying home and slacking....although I do have reports to complete.

I did go over to Mantou's house (after almost 5 mths of being here) on Friday night for dinner. Chris and I spent some time at Toowong Shopping Village first because I had some toiletries to get, namely shampoo!! I don't know why I just love buying shower foams and shampoos and I always get different brands or different flavours. I think I just like the variety and the excitement of trying something new, no matter how small the item is. I didn't manage to get my shampoo in the end but I did get a lot of other things.....hahhaa.....isn't this what girls are famous for? Going to the store to get 1 thing but coming back with whole bagfuls of unnecessary items? Well, in defence, the other stuff that I purchased are not unnecessary; I will use them sooner or later (this is how I convince myself to buy stuff heh heh). We actually wanted to get our hair cut because my hair is getting quite long and the split-ends are proliferating like bacteria while Chris feels that her hair is out-of-shape. I feel really apprehensive about getting my hair cut by ang mohs, not because I'm racist or anything, but because I'm worried that they might know how to handle Asian hair since our hair is very different from theirs. Plus I wanna save the money if I can. After a lot of considerations, we finally went into the store where the girl there told us that they were fully booked. Fully booked my head!!! They salon was practically empty. I believe it was probably because we went at 4.30pm and the shops there close at 5pm. I think they didn't want to take anymore customers as they wanted to close early especially on the Friday night. Hmph!! She should have just been more honest and told us the truth; we would have accepted that....seriously!

Anyway Mantou and her housemate cooked char kuay teow for us. It was pretty good, not like the kind you can get at the hawker centre because they used seafood mix (prawns, sotong, clams and mussels) instead of fishcake but it was still nice. And of course the people at the hawker centre probably use lots of oil and lard to fry their noodles so Mantou's was a healthier version of that. We watched American Idol after that and I enjoyed the part where the 3 judges acted in a short "skit". It was hilarious, especially Randy Jackson. Carrie won of course!!! I had no doubt....hahaha....looking forward to her songs and album coming out. I think she'll be quite successful, following in the footsteps of Kelly Clarkson and unlike Fantasia the toad.

Roland Garros isn't going as well as I had hoped. All my favourite players have gone out. Santoro, Ferrero, Cljisters, Malisse, Mauresmo.....now I don't know who else I want to support. Definitely not Federer or Nadal because they have won too much already. I'd like to see someone else beside Federer getting the title. Well, at least Bob and Mike Bryan are still in the doubles. Pity I can't watch them play....all I have is the scoreboard on the Roland Garros website.

Dark Chocolate....yum yum yummy!!!

I just saw this article and it's great because I love dark chocolate!!!

Time to turn to the ‘dark side’
March 29, 2005
It seems dark chocolate decreases blood pressure and improves insulin sensitivity in healthy people.
Previous research shows that cocoa and chocolate may protect the lining of blood vessels by improving nitric oxide bioavailability which influences the glucose uptake and insulin response. It is thought that nitric oxide levels could be increased because of flavanols. Flavanols are a subclass of flavonoids having antioxidant properties and are also thought to have positive metabolic effects.
Davide Grassi and colleagues from the University of L’Aquila, Italy, compared the effects of dark or white chocolate on blood pressure, glucose and insulin responses in healthy people. The study was performed in 15 healthy people (7 men and 8 women), with an average age of 34 years. After a seven day cocoa free run-in phase, the 15 subjects were randomly allocated to receive either 100g dark chocolate bars, which contained about 500mg polyphenols, or 90g white chocolate bars, presumably containing no polyphenols. After 15 days of chocolate the subjects continued a further seven day cocoa free phase (wash-out phase). Once the wash-out phase was completed the 15 subjects swapped to the other type of chocolate. At the end of each phase, the subjects were tested for glucose tolerance, insulin resistance and blood pressure.
The research team believe that polyphenol-rich dark chocolate, high in flavonols, may be able to improve insulin sensitivity and decrease blood pressure.
Dark chocolate significantly improved blood pressure, glucose and insulin responses in healthy people. The research team said that, “our study is the first one to show that cocoa may have favourable metabolic effects and thereby further protect against cardiovascular diseases”.

Thursday

It's Thursday again, meaning that I have practical with that China guy once more. He never fails to annoy me. This time I didn't bother to control myself and be nice to him. After all it's my last practical with him and hopefully, I won't have any classes with him anymore.

He's still acting like an irritating, self-centred jerk. Still whining and complaining about the poor results we got for our experiments. Saying things like "terrible", "impossible", "unbelievable". He thinks his lab skills are so amazing and reliable and the best. Well HAHA!!! His skills are not tat impressive if you ask me. He tried to correct my pipetting skills and when I told him that it was not possible to do what he wanted me to do, he decided to try it himself. So I gave him the pipette and guess what?? He couldn't do it anyway...wahahah...then he made up some lame excuse, blaming the pipette and the pipette tip, saying that he was not used to these ones. What rubbish!!! Pipettes and pipette tips are the same no matter which brand they are. He even went further to tell me that he prefers to work the Eppendorf brand. HAH!!!!!!! He also spoilt the pipette by the way; I think he pressed too hard on the top and the bottom half fell into the decontamination container. Wahahaha....the lecturer spotted him trying to dig the other half out and chided him for not wearing gloves. This lecturer doesn't really like our group very much; he always looks at us in a disapproving manner and I'm sure it's because of the China guy. This China guy insulted Singaporeans as well. We were waiting for our group results when 2 girls came into the lab to look for one of our classmates. Turns out they were Singaporeans and they were speaking Singlish. Of course I understood them perfectly and so did my friend as she was Malaysian. Then I commented that it was so easy to pick out the Singaporeans by listening to the way they speak. The China guy asked me if S'pore had its own language to which I replied, "Yes, Singlish". I told him that I could identity the S'poreans from the way they spoke Mandarin. He did hear the conversation between the 3 people earlier on and he said that it was no way that that could have been Mandarin. I quote : "It's impossible. They cannot be speaking Mandarin. That was not Mandarin. I could not understand any of it. It's impossible."....blah blah blah....HELLO!!!??? Just because you can't understand it doesn't mean that it isn't Mandarin. Can't you be more tolerant and control yourself instead of insulting the way S'poreans speak? I couldn't stand him anymore so I just rolled my eyes at him, told him that it WAS Mandarin only that it was spoken differently and refused to look or talk to him further. This stupid, insufferable, self-centred, narrow-minded, rude man!!!!!! Thank goodness this week's the last week of practical. (I hope one day he insults some S'poreans so bad that they drag him to the toilet and beat him up!)

Went down to Hawken's to buy some groceries and hoping to get the bbq chicken at a discounted price. The supermarket there usually sells the leftover chicken at less than half price half an hour before closing. Darn we got there at 8.40pm and the store closes at 9 but there was no chicken in sight. Such a disappointment! I know this sounds like the typical S'porean kind of antic but a whole cooked chicken for just $3 when they usually sell it for $9??? It's just too good to miss plus imagine the amount of money I can save on meals. I think the chicken can probably feed Chris and I for 3 dinners....wow....cost savings everybody!!! This is what we are reduced to when we come overseas to study....ahahahahahha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Henman, Agassi, Malisse and Sprem went out last night.
Agassi had an injured back.
Henman lost to Horna from Peru; a real shocker espcially since Horna isn't seeded. Then again, Henman has never been good on clay.
Malisse lost to Nadal. Pity...I was hoping Nadal would lose. I prefer to support the underdog.

Ferrero is playing now. He's doing pretty well at this year's Roland Garros. I sure hope he can make it up to the top once more and maybe get back his 1st placing?? It won't be easy with Federer up there though. But I still hope that Ferrero can make a good comeback.

Roland Garros (French Open)

Roland Garros 2005 has started and I'm aching to watch a full tennis match. Too bad they don't show it on tv and I definitely do not have cable. Argh....in desperation, I went to the Roland Garros website to watch the live scoreboard when I found out that they have something new this year. They have a live radio as well. I was so excited about it but guess what? I can't open the link for the radio nor the live scoreboard because of my stupid com!!! I'm so frustrated right now. I wanted so much to watch some tennis that I waited for 30 mins for the late night news to feature some tennis action and when they finally did, it was only 1 min of it. Sigh....at least I got to see Ferrero do a magnificant drop-shot on tv for a few seconds. This is so sad and pathetic. It makes me see how much I have been taking my SCV for granted. Sob sob sob!!! I may just resort to going down to the city and looking for a bar or cafe which has live tennis on, buy a drink and sit there for the entire match. Just like how those soccer-mad people gather at kopitiams and drink beer while ogling at the large screen tv featuring a live soccer match. To think I may be reduced to their standards!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to fry some kangkong for dinner today. I seldom see this veggie in the stores so we bought a bunch. I was plucking the leaves and stems when I saw a wriggling worm on the veg! Oh my god and it was still alive and VERY VERY active even after 4 days in the fridge. Ugggghhhhh it was wriggling around and moving, well, like a worm. I was so freaked out by it. I don't think I'm a squeamish person but this is really too much. I cannot bring myself to eat the veg when I know a disgusting worm has been crawling on it. It also doesn't help that Chis is totally afraid of worms; ie. worm phobia. I washed the worm dowm the sink and threw away all the kangkong. I really wonder how my mum does it. Or maybe S'pore veggies are cleaner than the ones over here. You can get rotten, muddy, sandy veg here all the time and only at certain places and certain times will you see nice and clean veggies. No more kangkong, kailan, spinach and any other green, leafy veg for me! I'll stick to my cabbage, xiao bai cai(these are the cleanest green leafy veg you can get), broccoli and cucumber. The worm really turned me off. By the way, this worm was like a maggot/slug kind of worm. It was greyish brown, about 1 cm in length and had 2 antenna on one end. It moved like a slug too but it was thin and not fat like a slug. Anyone want to identify this creature??

The same old stuff everyday.

I'm starting to get a little bored and lazy writing my posts, probably because I have nothing exciting to report. Everyday is the same. Go to school, cook, eat, watch TV, bathe and sleep. Heh...such a boring life but that's my typical everyday life. Just finished watching Big Brother and American Idol consecutively. I still think Big Brother is dumb, especially the part where he announces, "THIS......is Big Brother!"

As for American Idol, there's only Bo and Carrie left in the competition. I do hope Carrie wins it. We need someone to follow in the footsteps of Kelly Clarkson and I do like her too. They are tons better than Ruben and Fantasia. I especially abhor Fantasia and I think she looks like a toad.

I got back my assignment on the patent report. Got 41 out of 50 marks. I am quite disappointed because I was aiming for at least 45. It is possible to score that high and my friend got 47.5. I think it's also quite unfair that the marker did not put any ticks or comments on my report so I don't even know where I went wrong and I can't go back to argue for more marks. Of course normally I don't beg every lecturer for extra marks, but this time, I wish I could.

Yesterday I had practical again with the China guy. He drives me and my friend crazy. He is SUCH a perfectionist and he blames everyone except himself for any mistakes. We were doing Agrobacterium-transformation on tobacco leaves and had plated the leaves on agar medium about 2 months ago. Then the experiment was put aside while waiting for the plants to grow. About 3-4 weeks back we checked the plates for any contamination and there was none on any of our culture. (Hurray!! Good lab techniques!!!) However, yesterday, half our plates had serious contamination and he insisted that it was because of my friend and I. We argued that it could not have been us as the last time we checked the plates, they were clean. Plus, some of the leaves had been tranferred on to fresh medium by an anonymous person. It was definitely not one of us because, like I said, we had not touched the plates for a few weeks already. We suspected that it was the lab technician who had kindly done the transfer for us (although she made things worse because I believe the contamination was caused by her). In fact, the writing on the plates looked a lot like the lab tech's. We explained this to the China guy but either his command of English was too lousy or he just refused to accept the fact that it was someone other than us who caused the contamination. Then we found that we had a few samples missing and those samples happened to belong to him, i.e. he was in charge of those samples. He questioned the lecturer, the tutor and the other classmates (he went and looked over the shoulders at the plates of other students while they were analysing their plates and he didn't even bother to explain why he was doing so and he just asked directly if the plates they were holding were his). In the end (and I suspect the tutor and lecturer were pretty annoyed by him going around and accusing people of taking/losing his plates), the tutor told him that most likely his plates had been contaminated and thrown away. He refused to accept this and kept saying that it was IMPOSSIBLE for his plates to be contaminated. I suppose he felt that his techniques were 100% sterile and perfect. After the tutor left, he turned to me and said that he did lots of tissue culture work in his high school back in China and he never had problems with contamination before. I can't figure out whether he was pointing his finger at me or the tutor for losing his plates. This is still not the end. That day's experiment turned out to be quite unsuccessful without any results and this has been the case for the past 2 experiments. So he asked me why we kept getting failed experiments and he kept shaking his head and mumbling under his breath. May I mention that during the last experiment, we had some problems with equipment failure which caused us to get negative results. He insisted that we switch machines when there was only 30 mins to the end of the prac. He wanted to do the experiment all over again so we ended up being the last group to leave and I hate that a lot. I hate having the feeling of being the last and making everyone wait while you finish and clean up. I don't really care too much about getting wonderful results. After all, in poly, sometimes you just get failed experiments because there are too many hands in the work and as the saying goes, "Too many cooks spoil the broth". You can't really blame anyone for this because we have no choice but to share the work and everything else. With so many people working together, it's difficult to control your experiment well. I really can't stand him. He has no courtesy for others and has terrible people skills. In other words, he is a typical China man; he meets my expectations of China people totally. A perfectionist, refusing to accept others' words except his own, wanting to get 100% good results all the time, pushing the blame to others and.......SUPER KIASU!!!

I don't wish to stereotype China people like this but can you blame me? Could someone please explain why all the China people I have met and known so far are like that? I think they need to be taught some serious manners and understand that results are not the only important things in life. Empathy is also necessary. I mean, don't people emphasize EQ more than IQ these days? Someone please enlighten these China people!!!

Virus!!!

Alamak, my computer has been stuck by a virus. What a headache I'm having now!!! According to my friend who tried to help me (he took abt 1 hour plus to check my com), I'll probably have to reformat my com because he can't get rid of the virus. Oh wait! I think he said that it was a Trojan. What the hell!!! Now should I reformat or not? My com is still working although it's quite lag and I can't open some programs which is pretty troublesome because I have to go to Chris's house to check then. But I'm also worried that if I do reformat, I'll lose everything especially my Microsoft Office and I don't have the installation CD for that. I need those especially since I have a few more projects and reports to do before my exams start.

Today there was a thunderstorm with lots of lightning. I think this is the worst weather I've experienced since I got here. The rain was heavy and there was a hail storm too. Argh!!! I can't believe I missed the hail storm. I only knew about it when Chris told me and I remembered that there were really loud banging sounds when it rained. But at that time it was already 5.30 pm and it was really dark. So I didn't bother to go out and take a look and I totally missed the hail storm. What a pity!!! Apparently there was a lot of ice and many of my friends noticed it except me. Well I hope there's another hailstorm soon and I won't miss the next one.

Brain Dead

I've finally completed my leprosy report. I'm so tired and brain dead from all the compiling and editing. I have been doing this ever since Friday and the task seemed neverending. I mean, I probably could have finished it earlier if not for my groupmates who keep sending me "updated" versions of their report when I specifically told them to give the final draft to me by Saturday. First 1 girl sent an amended version on Saturday night. Then the guy sent his to me on Sunday night and another one just a few hours ago. It was incredibly frustrating because I had actually already edited and corrected their parts but I had to do it all over again because of them. I'm really exhausted from reading the same stuff over and over again. I didn't just have to correct the language, I had to standardise all 4 reports so that the format was the same throughout. This includes the tenses, figures, tables and references. Oh my god the references were the worst. All 4 of us used different formats for the references so I spent a huge amount of time highlighting, bolding, unbolding, italicising and re-typing all the references. Then I also had reduce the number of words for each section as we were only allowed 1200 words each. The guy actually had 1600 words!!! I can't believe it. And he asked me to ask another group member to reduce her part so that he could have more words. I mean, why couldn't he ask her himself? In the end I gave up editing his part and told him to do it himself. If he gets penalized for exceeding the word limit, too bad for him. I don't want to care anymore. There was also the problem of the abstract for the whole report. Nobody wanted to do it and they couldn't agree on coming together to write it. So I ended up doing it because I was so sick of people pushing the work here and there. I also did the content page. I am pretty proud of the content page because it looks really nice. I seriously hope I get good marks for all the effort that I have put in. If I get low marks or the lowest mark among my groupmates, I think I'm going to freak out. The problem is, the report is assessed individually and I'm worried that my part is not detailed or focused enough. Of course, I might have finished the report a few hours earlier if I didn't get distracted by the tv and chatting with my housemates. The 4 of us sat down in the living room and talked for 2 whole hours. We started out with the cutlery and items that were missing from the house and how we needed a steamer much more than a deep-fryer. Then we digressed and talked from religion to languages to Hollywood and Hong Kong movies. Pretty amazing and I truly enjoyed the chat. Then I got distracted again at 10 pm by the Oprah Show where Oprah went on the set of Desperate Housewives (Wisteria Lane) and interviewed the actors. There was also a part where the producers wrote up a character for Oprah so that she could be a temporary resident on Wisteria Lane and acted with the desperate housewives. It was a short clip of about 15 mins but it took 14 hours to film. That was pretty interesting and quite funny as well. Basically I love Desperate Housewives and can't understand what people see in the OC. That show is so trashy and is seriously lacking any quality in the plot department. Like I told Steph, maybe people just enjoy watch rich people on tv have sex and make out and have homosexual relationships. Damn lame!!!

I think I'd better get to sleep now. My groupmates are going to print the report at 8.30 am later and I want to try to be there to see my report before it gets handed up. Hope I can wake up! In case you're interested, the report has 42 pages, excluding the cover sheet.

The Starhub Gang

Today was another regular day where, as usual, I woke up really late (1 pm) and had breakfast during lunch (cereal + milk). Did some of my leprosy project. I volunteered to compile and edit the group's reports, clever me...but someone has to make the sacrifice. Besides, I never liked people who waste time pushing the job around. If you want it done, guess you have to do it yourself heh!

For dinner, I met up with the guys whom I have not seen in 2 weeks. We went down to Hawken Drive and I ate a pretty nice plate of fried chicken wings with rice. Ok ok I know that it's not the healthiest dish you could get, but it was good. Plus pretty cheap too....just $6. Haha....I also know that $6 for a plate of "chicken rice" could be considered as really expensive in S'pore, but it's one of the cheaper prices you can find here. In fact, that place is even cheaper than the food the school sells. During dinner I found out that the only reason the guys asked me out for dinner was because they ran out of rice at home so could not cook. Hah!! Such good friends I have! Nevertheless it was good to see them after so long and listen to their (or rather Ah Hao's) lame stories.

My Starhub friends are having a chalet at East Coast this weekend and tonight is the BBQ night. They called me (ok actually one of them called me and I spoke to the rest of the gang) and we chatted for about 15 mins. Just the usual "How is everything" talk but it was really good. I genuinely missed them and I wish I could be at the chalet with them. Plus, I really miss BBQ food....you can't get stuff like that over here. The Aussie's idea of a BBQ is to cook hamburgers and hotdogs on a metal grill, not charcoal. Hearing the voices of my friends made me miss working at Starhub and being with the "family". Joyce (Mother Joyce & superb cook), Kaijun (blur blur sotong), Lynette (Ah Mah's Ah Mah), CK (Ah Mah), Jolin(forever skipping lunch), Wendy (my deskmate and the most pro fax-in member), Titan (problem solver and gossiper), David (always trying to prove that his Chinese is better than mine), Sherlyn (I am not an Ah Lian!), Evelyn (loudest burper), Raymond (the cooking guy) plus the 7 fairies!!! Wah...thinking about these guys make me miss sitting at my old desk, using a fake cheery voice to say, "Good morning Starhub", arguing with Ah Mah, listening to Kaijun laugh at us and getting Lynette to defend me. Not to forget the lunch breaks where we would all gather in the pantry and talk and laugh so loud that we would get complaints from the "perm" staff....Of course, I still have Joyce's cow and the sweater where the gang chipped in and bought for my last day and pre-departure present. I could go on and on about the Starhub people.

Well, got to get back to my studying now.
Will write again once I have something interesting to say.
By the way, he asked me to have lunch with him on Tuesday. Haven't gone out with him for quite some time already. I keep turning him down....opps....feel a bit guilty for doing so....heh...

Good morning...errr....I mean, good afternoon

As you probably guessed, I just woke up and the weather is sooooo good that I felt that I had to come and share it with you. Oh my god!!! It's midday now and usually we get temperatures of like 20-24 degrees.....but right now, it's actually 15.3 degrees. The sky is even more cloudy than yesterday and the air is chilly. I'm freaking out about the wonderful weather right now!!! I think I'll go for a walk later if it doesn't rain, just to feel the cold against my face....*drool*...if only we could have such weather in S'pore. This may just be one of the reasons I don't want to leave Brisbane when I graduate....sigh....

The cold weather lies ahead

Current temperature - 16.2 degrees celcius
Currently busy with - Reading Baby Blues comics, if you are interested, here's the link. www.babyblues.com
Currently annoyed about - A small fly buzzing around my study light. I'm going to kill it.
Currently enjoying - The cold wind blowing through my window on my left.

As you can see from the above, it is already quite cold here in Brisbane. It has been raining on and off the whole day which made the temperature drop even more and the winds are absolutely freezing.

I woke up this morning to grey cloudy skies with little sunlight and I was ecstatic. It was such good weather for sleeping and I don't quite like the Australia sun. It's a little too strong for me. You can get sunburn easily from staying under the sun after an hour or so. My housemate wasn't so appreciative of the lack of sun. She was complaining that it was such a gloomy day without the sun. Haha....well one's loss is another's gain. (mine in fact!)

I have decided to give up on the plant journal report. Finding out that the report is only worth 3 marks has made me feel much better about my decision. Huh!! Trying to waste my time and brain cells on a pathetic 3 marks??!! I have better things to do, like start revising for my exams and working on other more important assignments such as my leprosy project.

My cooking mood still has not improved so Chris and I went down to Coles (it's a supermarket) to get some food. It was either pasta or lasagne since Chris wasn't keen on the leftover fried rice. We ended up with 2kg worth of lasagne and it tasted pretty good. Maybe it's because I slept through lunch today and actually woke up at 1.55pm for my 2pm practical. Haha....you can imagine that I was walking pretty fast to my lesson.

He came down to my place to give me a bottle of Dettol shower foam. Sigh...not again...what am I to do with him? I really appreciate his gesture since he obviously took some effort to get the shower foam. For your info, it is virtually impossible to get Dettol shower foam here. It's not like S'pore where every bloody grocery store or supermarket stocks these up. I gave up searching for Dettol and switched to Palmolive instead. Ok I'm digressing now. Anyway, I suspect that he either had the shower foam" imported" or got it from some really unknown place. I feel guilty knowing that I could not do anything similar as what he did for me. Again, I get the "owe him so much" feeling because he has been so good to me. Heh....

Friends

Quite a few things have happened in these two days. I made a new friend yesterday, not because I wanted to but because I had to. Haha...I was in a practical which required pair work and he happened to be the one sitting next to me so naturally, we ended up as partners. His name is either Heng Boon or Boon Heng, heh my memory is not so good. He's also from S'pore and it turns out that he also stayed in Campus Lodge(my current accomodation) and in the same tower as me. He was telling me about the huge fire that took place in my unit last semester. Apparently the malay guys who were staying in my unit were deep-frying potatoes on the stove and they forgot all about it. The fire was very serious and according to him, it actually was big enough to reach the ceiling light and melt it. Well, it sounds terrible and all but I'm glad that it happened because it means that my kitchen is much newer than the other units in Campus Lodge. Haha....our stove is new too. Of course, this was a great loss for the college and the malay guys as they had to pay for the new kitchen and fire engine respectively. Every time the fire engine comes, a fee of $400 has to be paid and usually the resident will be the victim. I believe the new kitchen cost about $10,000 worth of repairs and replacements but I'm sure the college had insurance.

After my pharmacology lecture today, I walked home with one of my group mates for this particular subject. During our group meetings we never really talked much because we had to concentrate on our assignment. But today, I learnt much more about him. We walked to the roundabout at the bus stop and usually we go our separate ways from there. However today we stood there and chatted for 2 and a half hours!!! Pretty amazing, considering we never talked for more than 15 mins on normal days. He is quite an interesting person to talk to after all. He's Chinese Indonesian, apparently there is a difference between Indonesian Chinese and Chinese Indonesian and we talked about everything from school work to politics to cultures to food. Hahaha....it was nice talking to him and making a new "friend". Before this, I considered him more of an acquaintance. Anyway we stood there talking until my feet started to ache and my stomach started to growl. I hadn't had lunch yet.

Came home after the chat and had a bit of fried rice. As Chris said, it was really very "feng fu". I put bacon, luncheon meat and lup cheong (chinese sausage) for the meats and onion and cabbage for the vegetables. I never intending to add so much "liao" but I just wanted to finish up the leftovers in my fridge. The rice turned out pretty nice though; I had expected it to be lousy because I had no mood to cook today so I hardly put much effort into it. Heh...guess I have a talent for fried rice!! Anyway I've been going through this "no mood to cook" period recently. If not for the fact that Chris and I eat together, I think I would just be eating bread and instant noodles for lunch and dinner. I'm sure that this is just a phase I'm going through and it will go off soon.

I have a report and presentation due on Thursday and I have not done anything about it. It requires me to read this horrible plant journal where they use stupid names for different proteins, molecules and components like CDSP32 and BAS1. I can't figure out what the damn journal is talking about and I'm starting to panic. 1 more day left before I have to present and here I am, typing away on my blog.

Because I am so reluctant to do this assignment (I am seriously considering taking MC just to skip the deadline), I went to read the blog of my friend. I didn't know she had a blog and she started it in 2003!!! Shows you how outdated I am. Anyway I read through her archive files and realised that she actually went through quite a lot with her relationships. I really regret not being there for her when she was down and I'll admit that we got less closer last year when we chose to specialize in different courses. Now I feel a bit guilty for pang seh-ing her for the whole of last year. It did not help when she started school in NTU and I went to work at Starhub. So sorry Yun, I should have been there for you and tried harder to keep in touch with you. Hopefully when I get back, we'll go out together and catch up on old times with Yiting as well.

I need to get back to my report. I even prepared the special drug which I will need to get through this. The drug's name starts with "C". Haha....I hope you didn't think it was cocaine...I'm actually talking about caffeine. Yup, I've got a bottle of coke chilling in the fridge waiting for me. I normally don't like to drink carbonated drinks, but I figure I'll need all the help I can get. Till tomorrow then!!!

Eagle Pier Market

So I went to the market with Mantou and Chris. Haha we were supposed to meet Mantou in the city at 12.30pm but Chris only woke up at 12pm. I don't blame her because 1) I'm resigned to her inability to wake up on time and 2) I was feeling quite lazy myself and would have slept in if she had told me earlier. Anyway all this time delay meant that we managed to meet Mantou on the same bus to the city. We went to Hungry Jack's for lunch and it has been such a long time since I have eaten a burger. I think it must be 2 months or more. So by the time we played around, chatted and slowly relished the burgers, it was almost 2pm. When we reached the market, we found that there weren't many stalls around, probably because we were late and it was a rainy day. The wind was cold but I thoroughly enjoyed it. There wasn't much to see so we ended up heading back to the city and walking around for a while. It was nice spending time with Mantou and getting to really talk to her. It has been a really long time since we've gone out together and I find that I miss Julie's companionship. The 3 of us (Chris, Julie and I) used to be the three musketeers and since she's not here, we have Mantou instead. If Julie was in Brisbane with us now, the 4 of us would be just nice for a game of mahjong!!!

We were talking/gossiping about our friends and family in S'pore earlier on and exchanging different news about our common friends aka the tennis team. Somehow the topic lead to our departure from S'pore heh...then we all compared each other's crying stories....haha....nice to know that Mantou had this same situation I had as well. Again, if they happen to read this, I would like to thank those who came to send me off on my last day. I also want to scold Julie for promising to come and then going back on her word....hahah....you owe me now...!!!

Feeling oh so lazy these days

Well it's Mother's Day today. Got to remember to give my mum a call later. Haha it will be nice to hear her voice. Again I wish I could call home much more often than once every 2 weeks or so. You start to miss all the small little things you get at home, like how your mum nags at you to wake up. Of course, the nagging I don't miss that much. After all, I get upmost freedom here. I can sleep anytime I want, wake up anytime I want, eat whatever I want....well....you get the picture. I think I just miss my mum...miss going out for makan with her and then helping her with the groceries. I also miss laughing so loud that my mum thinks I'm crazy. Heh I believe she misses me doing that too. I just love irritating her and my sister. Of course, my sis is much too busy to bother about me now that she has her "friend". Hehehehe!!!

These days Chris and I can't seem to stop thinking about the stuff we'll be doing once we get back to S'pore. We are like planning so far ahead when we'll only be going back at the end of the year. I'm thinking about being home again and getting to show off my new cooking skills to my family. We also list down the number of makan places we wanna visit when we are back...hhaaha....places like our regular sushi buffet, Fish & Co, Cafe Cartel.....*drool*....ahahahaha....terrible aren't we?

My sleeping pattern has also been quite screwed up since not having anyone to nag at me to wake up. I sleep really late when I can, like 5 or 6am. Then wake up at 2 or 3pm, eat some lunch and then go right back to sleep again. I know this is bad for my system but I have to admit....I love it!!! It's addictive and now I can't stop it. I suppose it's mostly due to the fact that I never got to do this in all my 20 years. Being at home meant that my parents would never allow me to sleep in so late unless I just came back from camp or something. Wahahaha....unbelievable....!!!

Mantou stay over at my place last night and she lent me a new game. Now I'm pretty much hooked on to it. I was playing it for 7 hours straight before writing this post. This is what happens when I go too long without playing any games. It's called Beach Life and you have to build up a beach resort and manage it. It's quite similar to Rollercoaster Tycoon. Anyway I'm so desperate that any game would satify me. Gotta sleep soon...have to meet Mantou at 12.30pm in the city. She's going to bring me to Eagle Street Market. I think it's something like Clarke Quay in S'pore??? Well, will write more about the market when I get back....now to continue playing my game.....aaahahahaha.....

The beginning....

Hmm....I have been contemplating starting a blog for a few weeks now. It's mostly because of my boredom. Imagine....I can't play games here, can't talk to my family (too expensive to keep calling them) and can't use my webcam!!! The webcam that I bought specially to bring over here so that I could use it for my mum and dad. Damn....how unfair is UQ? Anyway at least starting this will give me a good outlet for my thoughts and complaints....haha....

Just to update the people whom I forgot to inform before leaving Singapore, I'm currently studying in UQ, Brisbane. Have been here since February 15. The weather's been getting much colder now....presently it's autumn and I'm enjoying the change in weather. It's definitely 100 times better than Singapore where you don't get anything beside hot and wet or hot and dry. The occasional showers have made the wind and the days even colder but I'm loving it! I guess I thought that today would be a good day to start this since the date is so lovely. 05/05/05....how much nicer can it get? It also helps that 5 happens to be my favourite number....heh heh....

Hmm....today's been a pretty good day. I'm glad that I managed to finish my 50% assignment early so I wouldn't have to "pia" like all the others who are currently rushing theirs right now and are also bombarding me with questions. Ugh....all these last minute people....wahahaha.....I guess I can be a little cocky since I finished mine already. It's not that I don't want to help them, after all, I am such a kind and wonderful person...ahahaha....it just gets on my nerves when they ask me stupid questions like, "Should we put references?" Hello!!! The reference part is stated in the assignment sheet and you do get like 5 marks for it!!! Duh!!!!!!!!!! I think that I'm in a very sarcastic mood today. It took all of my self-restraint to stop myself for blasting these people with my remarks. I don't want to say anything that I would regret you know.

Managed to get some exercise today as well, finally....haha....I went for a 1 hour plus jog/walk and it felt pretty good to get some sweat. Feels so much better after nua-ing and rotting at home for so long. Plus I passed the tennis courts and watched some guys doing drills; cross-court rallys. It made me miss playing tennis so much I felt like crying. I miss playing with the team and I even miss those guys. Guess I'm in a crappy mood today, feeling both sarcastic and emotional. I really should snap out of this.

Seems like my first post went pretty well. It actually is quite long for a first-timer. I wonder if my postings will get shorter and shorter as time passes until one day, I totally stop writing....hahahhaah....I think I think too much...