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Finally writing once again once all the madness has settled. I'm back in cold, nose-freezing Brisbane in my bigger-than-a-HDB-room hostel room using my cocky internet. Neh biang the youtube and blogger pages are screwed up once again now that I've returned, I reckon it's to do with a setting of the broadband internet here.

I cannot put picture!

=( Neh mind

I had an interesting flight back, and learnt several things.
1) the best seat on the plane is with the pregnant ladies/mothers because you enjoy great leg room.

2) It's even better when they have kids because they tend to be extra nice to anyone who sits next to them because they feel apologetic whenever their child cries/moves/screams/farts.

3) If a baby's crying because the ear pressure's hurting him, try making him swallow by dropping water into his mouth or, I kid you not, hold the baby upside down. (They say one)

4) SQ don't allow you to carry guitars onboard apparently.

I found the entire setting of my flight to be rather interseting and ironic in some sense. There I was, sitting between 2 Australian mothers who were returning back to Brisbane for a break from their expatriate lifestyles in Singapore. And I, a foreigner returning to their home which I call home while they leave their husbands and homes and go home. Farnie right? har har. I know not farnie la. It was nice talking to them and hearing their views about our country, especially from an expat's point of view. Most times we just label them as such, the ang mohs who live in Orchard. (Actually, they really do) and who shop in Tanglin and eat at Dempsey (which these 2 ladies also happened to do quite frequently) I wonder how many expatriates actually visit our Heartland areas? Besides Clementi, I've never seen an ang moh set foot on any other housing board area.

Life as an expat, how interesting. Free yet stifling.

I didn't eat Old Chang Kee chicken wings! wah lao!

And I'm sorry I only got to meet a few people, this holiday was truly... packed. Cannot believe the amount of days I spent out roaming the city, catching movies, catching up, catching buses and trains, it always seems to be a chase back in Singapore eh?

Home!

I'm finally back! And it feels like someone forgot to turn off the heater, oven, toaster, hot water and stove all at the same time. for once I can sit on the toilet bowl without cringing at the cold, and I can shower and come out without shivering first. WAH

But somehow I suddenly feel like going back to brisbane too

I'm sorry for the lack of updates, my youtube and blogger have been pretty wonky lately and I'm gonna try and ask Liner to fix it. Hopefully my laptop doesn't die on me, I've finally built a relationship with it.

ARGH why so blarrdy hot!!!

I wans to goes homes =(

Meals

You don't realise how much a 'family lunch' or having 'a meal with your parents' means until you aren't able to have one.

Mid study-break break

I can't wait for December!! This is officially (hopefully) my sister's aisle song, although I doubt she'll have to cover the amount of distance to last a 4 minute song. Unless she decides to have a couple of slow lorises preceding her and a 2 year old flower girl who decides to inspect every flower petal before throwing it to the ground.

If not her walk down the aisle should take less than a minute.

Oh my gosh I just can't wait for it all to be pieced together when the big day comes! And don't you think the song is just so perfect for weddings? Listen to what Lea Salonga says about the song, just splendid =)

It's such a teary song though, damn sweet la! :D:D

Oh boy! SO Exciting!!! :D

Perhaps I should abandon my course and become a full fledged Wedding planner. HAHA

It's Winter!

One more day of school before it's all over! Well, that is except for the exams. It's officially winter and my tedency to hibernate has kicked in, not very good when there's work to be done. I can't believe that I'm actually using the term 'winter', a word we poor perpetually hot and sweaty Singaporeans rarely hear. Winter!! Acually the sun's still shining in my face, just that it isn't a very good idea to walk around with a sweater on.

We have fireplaces!!! I set a fire that day, but a very puny one though. Here's a picture of something called Damper being cooked. Basically it's a sort of scone which you can simply cook by chucking it into the fire. They add beer to the dough sometimes, which is what we did on Tuesday. It tastes AWESOME when it's warm (but a little funny due to the beer)

We should do this back home!
And look! I started a trend! I stuck this up on my door to hide the gay/bisexual/transgender sticker. It recently caught on with my floormates and now we all have stupid pictures up!

C 4.1 My roomC 4.2 Michael's

C 4.3 Kayla's

C 4.4 Mel's

(It says: Death by Cake)

Haha.... I love our floor.

Wave Motion

2 weeks to exams! After a year, it's finally back to the good ole' days of counting down to exams! Haha, though it would be a pretty dumb thing to do at a tertiary level considering you have finals every 6 months. Still, it also means that the time to go back home draws nearer and nearer, and I'm praying damn hard that the stupid pig flu here doesn't get any worse. I'm not looking forward to being quarantined in any way.

It's been a pretty nice day.=)

We were going through something called Garden Path sentences in Linguistics the other day, and boy are they confusing. Take a look at these sentences:

The rat the cat the dog teased chased ate the cheese.
The elephant squeezed into a telephone booth collapsed.
He helped the old lady across the road.
Before the police stopped the driver panicked.
The pen the author the editor liked used was new.
The horse raced past the barn fell.

Which of the following would you consider grammatically correct?

...

Decided?

Guess what, they're ALL grammatically correct sentences. It's just that comprehending them requires more than our brain can provide sometimes. If you give them a read through again you'll be able to understand. Fun eh?

I feel like Noah

It's raining and raining and raining and raining... and raining.

Been raining for practically 48 hours, which is SWELL because I have no school for the rest of the week, (implying that I can actually cuddle up in my bed whilst people at uni get all cold and squishy... muhahaha)

=) Yay Rain rocks!

Toy Shopping

Forgot this photo the last time I posted. MASSIVE MAGIC MUSHROOM!!!! [Ok not magic, but perhaps genetically modified]

It REaLLY is larger than Siyi's head. She'll be eating it the entire week man!

Anyways, I went toy shopping on Friday for the symbolic play test I'm supposed to carry out on my kid next week. Toys are so expensive!! We spent a collective amount of $35 on toys, plus an additional $9 on books and stickers. At least I'm sharing the cost with a classmate from Speech, or I'd be $20 poorer and stuck with a whole bunch of toys. I must admit it was quite fun though, toy shopping is probably one of the more interesting shopping trips ever.
The collection of toys we spent about 2.5 hrs hunting down. The tea set was SUCh a pain finding, not to mention expensive. We needed a fork, knife, spoon cup and saucer. For some retarded reason, most tea sets just have two or three components of the set we need. Thank goodness we found this at Krazy Klark's (this kind of cheapo shop).It was seriously such a pain. Never felt so exhausted in my life. Shopping for a list of required toys is seriously not an easy task.

Anyways, I can finally say...

I'm home sick!!!

I hate getting those sudden bouts of homesickness when I'm doing my work, like...

Missing the blueberry buns from the bread shop downstairs

The funky smell of Plaza Singapura (it does have a really weird smell, really!)

Being able to sit at a hot, crowded kopi tiam eating lousy western food

Eating the AWESOME grilled chicken from the Marina Square food court and chilling with Feifei (we shall do that when I get back fei!).

Oo! Walking along the Esplanade

tapping my hideous EZ Link card on the musty 106

GROCERY SHOPPING with my family!! (I miss NTUC)

Where the word 'satay' means meat on sticks and not a fusion curry/peanut/sweet flavouring they put in the sauce and blend with mysterious things

Having unlimited use of the internet and not having to scrimp on Youtub-ing

Being able to call my friends when I want and wherever I want and not just see them on the screen

Just nuah-ing on my sofa watching recorded episodes of Hannah Montana (Omg I'm gonna spend a day watching all the episodes)

Rushing to grab a coffee and muffin at the East Coast Starbucks before church service at 9!

Having food portions that are of human proportions and not that of a giant's

Omg... MILO DINOSAUR/T-REX/GODZILLA/KING KONG!!

Jay walking! hehheh

having my laundry being done by my mum for meeee

The national library and the amazing breeze that goes through the building because of the air pocket created around the building. AND the smell of the library!

walking around in horrible ugly t-shirts and FBTs when I go down to buy stuff

The list goes on and on, I'm sorry if it bores you or makes you feel more homesick (for us who are far from home), but typing all this out actually helps me deal with it much better. It allows you to reminisce in a very sweet manner, the way you would look back and remember fond memories of your childhood or of someone. =)

I watched the Butterfly Effect again, I shall talk about that another time though, it'll probably be quite boring.

On of those sunset days at IH

Heenee

I'm free from exams/assignments until June! Which is... my favourite word...

AWESOME.

Anyways I feel bad for not giving a proper update in ages, I feel as if my life has been jiggled, swiggled, blended and swirled. Habits and routines have changed and it's frustrating how I can't get some things to go back to what it was a month ago. For instance the simple act of NOT falling asleep everyday after breakfast, (which is practically as good as waking up late) It's just something that bothers me, I strongly take pride in waking up at 630 everyday/

Talked to my mum today and she said,

'Eh, so how's the Heenee in Austraila?'

I was like, What?? What heenee?

'Heenee la, H1N1 virus!'

Hahha, apparently for the first few days of all the newspaper articles she thought that the virus was the HINI virus, damn hilarious!!! Trust my mum to be so full of nonsense! haha, she rocks.

Funfact of the day! Do you know English originates from a German dialect? That's why the two languages are actually so similar! (Go Mings for German!)

And do you know we have 8 bones just at our wrist? There were more funny things I've found out during our morning breakfast conversations with people studying various subjects, just that I can't remember them all.

Let's fight HEENEE together!!!!

=)

Stupid Things I've done over the past 60 hours

1) Fell off my chair (very gracefully) while getting up from it (Thank God for carpets).

2) Inserted my ATM card into a slot beneath the actual ATM slot, and embarrassingly got it stuck inside.

3)Missed my tut cos I cannot find it.

4) The best is yet to be. I hope I don't do anything dumber than all this.

Mings if the swine flu thingi gets outta hand I'll be back in Singapore for a longer period from 30/6-21/7. OR if it gets TOO outta hand then I'll be stuck here in Brisbane and I'll cry everyday!

Love ya!

Up and down like a horses in a carousel, that's how my mood changes.

I've effectively had a million fluctuations just in one day. sucks. bleacgh.

Lunch was awesome though! The rice today was actually FLUFFY and correctly cooked! *Gasp!*

2 more months, and it feels like forever at this point of time.

The Break is OVER

This week has been by far the most interesting, amazing, exhausting and hilarious week I've had ever. Nat and Liheng were down in Brisbane for 1.5 weeks, and it was really great having a part of home come down to visit. It was funny how our group of maybe 3-4 people slowly expanded with each night, such that by the end of the week we were sitting at tables with 10 people. I was telling Nat that when you're overseas, the amount of links and networks you draw up are pretty incredible, such that pretty soon you know everyone. Anyways, playing tourguide for a week is no joke, and I'm really glad we all enjoyed ourselves.

Ok picure time, because my brain is still slightly fuzzy from the after effects of all the events.

That's us at this awesome cafe called 3 Monkeys! I shan't elaborate more about finding the cafe, it was so embarrassing. After this photo we had 4 more people join us, and ended up with a kind of pseudo-wedding-dinner table setting. That was pretty interesting because we started as a table of 2 groups of strangers and were friends by the end of the night.

Brisbane city by night taken from the City Cat (which, ironically, is a boat)

And duh, Brisbane city in the day. Don't you love those Simpson clouds?? Awesome right? But the weather throughout the week was retarded. When we decided to go to Movieworld on Monday it rained like Siyi's unstoppable leaking tap. Resulting in Nat and my shoes turning into mini canoes of water and very smelly, wet, wrinkled feet. After that day, it no longer rained. Siao one.

Movie World shot in front of Superman! I think I probably posted something similar last year in Sep considering what an awesome ride this is. Nothing can beat Superman Escape. Honestly promise confirm plus chop. And that's the bunch of us with an adrenaline-high pose after the ride. We wanted to go on one more time but, as I said before, the stupid rain just flooded in like nobody's business.

I'm impressed with my own photography skills man. Haha. Nah, how bad can a shot of a giant ferris wheel be? It's their version of our Flyer, just 3 times faster and slightly smaller. Looks awesome in the skyline though.

And Cons passed me paintings that are just SOOOOO gorgeous!!! I just fell 10 times happier everytime I look on them on my wall. Don't you think they look really zen and classy now that I stuck them on this way? Heh.. I suck at decorating rooms, can't stick stuff on walls properly for nuts, so I was really surprised they turned out looking great on my very very bare walls. Everyone loves the paintings Cons!! Thank you!

Guess what??? More colours!!! NAt and I went slightly deranged at the sight of coloured scrapbook paper and embellishments, we split the 'goods' cos I'll be preparing for my sister's scrapbook for the end of this year! Yay can't wait! :D:D

And I apologise but that's about as may words I can come up with. (Head still buzzing)

It's my mid semester break!!!

Suddenly time is on my hands (ignoring the shitload of work I have to do before term starts again)

I watched 10 Things I Hate About You for the gazillionth time!

:D

I feel extremely volatile.

5 minutes ago I felt like I wanted the world to end and I just wanted to eat myself. After an hour of talking cock and laughter therapy with a couple of girls, I feel like I'm ready to take on the world and the rest of its shit!

Thank God for them, and once again I'm amazed at how polar I can be sometimes, scares me. oooooooooo000o0ooo0o0o0

I went toiletry shopping today!! :D:D What made it more awesome was that when I told this to a couple of people they actually shared my joy with me, how sweet is that. There's nothing suckier than being happy/excited and telling someone only to have them stare blankly at you or think you're crazy.

Can't wait for this Sunday!!!! Gleams!!!

:D

Awesome!!!

I have a new favourite word... Awesome!! (Said with the jockish drawl)

It's raining now, which is sooo awesome because it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy when other people out at school are freezing their leg hairs off and having their umbrellas blown in their faces. (I was in that sad predicament about an hour ago when I ended lecture) But now I'm safe, warm and comfy in my room with no sun in my room. Which, once again, is AweSOmme!!

Haha. Excuse my slight madness, no I'm not high on drugs or beer or goon or whatever shit they ingest. Just that this morning was pretty good cos the hostel baked croissants for breakfast! My eyes lit up with delight like a 2 year old getting chocolates because International House(IH) makes fantastic croissants and hadn't done so for ages. I'd been craving for the Fantastic Croissants for weeks now! I told a couple of people sitting with me that I was so happy to have croissants that I felt like I was back home in singapore. Not because they tasted like the ones in Singapore(which suck) but because I was so happy it was as good as me being back home. Can understand?

It was really funny when one of the Austrailian guys we were sitting with said he really had trouble understanding us when we spoke really fast and with no intonation, as we Singaporeans like to do. Even if we do speak with our regular levels of intonation, it still isn't quite like how they intonate. I find it really interesting doing Speech in Australia because speech/language problems don't just arise from being hit in the head too hard or have short tongues etc but also from learning English as a second language. Cultural background is quite a major issue when it comes to Speech. (I see a potential honours thesis coming from here. )

Anyways, here're a couple of pictures since I decided to do a mid-week update because of the AwEsomme weather. :D

The multi-coloured tangyuan we made last week! I think they would've tasted much better without colouring. But they did look really cute though. My Aussie floormate who ate some said, and I quote, 'It's like nothing I've ever eaten before! It was just.. weird! But nice.' Another guy called it fluffy in his mouth. I reckon it didn't go down too well with him. haha.

And this is how it looks like when it's raining, I just took this picture from my table like 4 minutes ago. As you can see everyone draws their curtains except me.

Awesomme... doood.. ahhyuk ahyuk!

Guess who I met?

No, I didn't meet Hugh Jackman, that hunky chunky Austrailian (sadly). But I did meet someone from our shss days, something I never thought would happen. I met Ms Sharon Teo! Remember that super nice and hype relief PE teacher we had? Aka Aaron Teo's sister. Aiping she remembers you! haha. I was describing which batch I was from and I told her, the one with Aiping. Immediately she went, 'oh ya, Aiping and gang, all the netballers one' Haha. At least she didn't say, ' Oh ya, Aiping the gila one.' heh heh!

It was so nice to see her and talking to her was the easiest thing ever, it was as if I was talking to someone I knew for ages. Honestly sometimes I can get pretty worn down and frustrated here, because all my close friends are so far away and as easy as it is to call/sms/msn, there're still it's limitations. It doesn't help that most of you guys sleep late and I sleep really early, so it just widens our time zone difference by another 2 hours, haha. I appreciate having people here I know, and knowing more people as well, but sometimes everyday seems like a social event. Yesterday I was telling Siyi that I didn't feel like socialising by going out for dinner with a group of people we knew, and that I would rather either go back home or go out with Aaron and his Ipswich gang. This may seem contradictory - isn't that still considered socialising? But the difference I guess was the fact that I've know Aaron for relatively long, and hanging out with him doesn't constitute 'socialising', because you don't socialise with friends, you socialise to make friends. Well that's how I felt but shhh don't tell anyone. Haha.

Sometimes weekends are such a pain in the ass because the day is long and you're obliged to stay in and do work and not get distracted, which of course I do a lot. I ended up watch Wild Child instead of reading up on Language Disorders in Children. Gah. Watching movies are so unhealthy. Anyways allow me to take movie orders. It takes me like 2 minutes to download one movie. Feel free to throw suggestions and requests at me. =)

Anyways it's 8am and I need to go collect my laundry.

Miss you guys as always!! ( Nat I just realised that Easter break week is gonna be REALLY quite bad for Aaron and I cos of assignments, there're days that I might just force you to sit down and read so that I study, haha. So bring entertainment in case ok! Or we can buy craft stuff and you can do it in my room.) Love ya!

Lazy Sunday

Sunday's just get lazier and lazier by the week, somehow it always seems to be scorching on Sunday afternoons, thus naturally inducing everyone to sleep after lunch. Today Aaron (the one who has the mnost trouble staying awake in church) and I concluded that we've officially swapped positions - and I'm the one with the sleep issues now.

All right I promised Feifei pictures of UQ! Honestly, they're quite disappointing because I just walked as far as the Law building before getting to lazy and going back for dinner at 530. Yes dinner is at 530 everyday because the staff want to go home. So behold! The pictures!


I would consider this the front of the school, though it's essentially the back of the building, (at least to me) But generally the layout and architechture of the school is centralised around this building (Which happens to be the LOR[law] Building) This is also known as building 1 of the 70+ buildings in UQ, which means it was the first to be built. The sandstone walls are gorgeous aren't they?

And surprise surprise, a corridoor!

And this is the back/front of the Lor Building, aka Forgan Smith.

Apart from a whole bunch of libraries which UQ boasts about CONSTANTLY, we also have a bunch of museums (which nat shall explore with me when she comes) And outside the Art Museum lies this artpiece known as: Happy Ending.

Haha, cute right? Makes my day whenever I pass it.

I must say that despite the heat, Brisbane has the lovliest skies in the evening and mornings. This is Twilight (Edward!) haha. My hostel lies beyond beyond that building, which I have no idea is what anyways.
Cute picture time! Siyi and I attempted to make muffins with limited measuring devices and appliances. They turned out looking/tasting like huat kueh due to my bad agaration and Siyi's decision to buy brown sugar instead of white. This one accidentally turned out a baby. It's an 'accident', geddi? geddit? hurhur.....

Since we're on the topic of faces, I rammed my leg into the bus chair that day and ended up with this horrible scratch :( Pouts. Even the wound is pouting la!

Haha, have a good week everyone. The days pass so darn fast. I'm starting my clinic observations this Wednesday at the hospital! :D Speech students go for clinical placements the earliest, damn cool la.

OK! OK!

Thousand apologies~ *Shakes head* no photos this time. I am still yet to take nice photos of the campus. I'm so sorry. I is suck.

BUt I've done so much fun stuff this week!!

For one, I went for Fencing class! It was achy and a demonstration of my horrible hand-eye coordination, plus I had a grossly small mask so my chin was shoved up my nose, but other than that, it was fun fulfilling my childhood dream of holding a not-very-sharp-and-pointy object at a guy in white and attempting to look cool and swa. (Failed miserably though, but at least in my head I felt like I was cool)

Second amazing thing was I went for Salsa class which was, quote my sister,

'better than Nachos'

geddit? Now you know where my sense of humour comes from ya? Haha. All right people when I get back I'm gonna go salsa clubbing!! Although all I know how to do now is step backward and forward and twirl in rhythm. I strongly encourage couples to take up Salsa, or individuals for that matter (though our Singaporean guys may not be as spontatneos and good at being partners) I realised that you can really tell a good partner especially in a dance like Salsa, according to the teachers, they call it a male ego-tistical-domineering dance. Basically the girls don't do much initiating and just follow the lead of the male like any other social dance. The guy who stays below me was an awesome Salser (my own rubbish term) Aiping Jerome! Please go learn salsa leh, you'll love it!

Thirdly I got lifted today during cheerleading! NO I haven't joined cheerleading, but we had a half day Health Sciences combined thingi organised for all the students in Health Science/Medicine etc so that we can network and get to know more people in the service. Quite a good attempt by the Uni I must say. It definitely did introduce me to more people. Well anyways, the thing was they made us do teamworky stuff like learn cheerleading moves and coming up with raps/rhymes. It so happened that I was in a group of 4 with 3 other relatively bigger angmohs, so naturally, even though I'm larger than all the puny stick thin girls in Singapore and all of Asia, I Was actually the one to be lifted and carried!

My goodness I felt like David Copperfield levitating at the edge of the Titanic man. Freaking cool, (Now I'm beginning to love this place because of the relativity) However I do wish the small tiny asians will stop spoiling market and making me look huge. HAha.

I very unclear picture of a spot on the campus where I was sitting down and nuahing at one day with Siyi and Lor friends. Ok promise promise this sunday I take nice nice photo

And my floormate/neighbour all dressed up as a Leprochon for St Patrick's Day one evening. It's another excuse to drink booze la.

Haha. Miss bubble tea!!!!

Sorry I haven't done this week's update!! Promise tomorrow!! Promise!!