Friday 31 August 2007

Sleepy. Sleepy. Sleepy.

Bleh. Got like 4 and a half hours of sleep today. Since I went to the Nott last night and all. Education tutorial at 10 AM. Did my presentation there without any preparation or notes which I thought was awesome. Hahaha. Okay, it wasn't the best presentation but it was decent still. The presentation/discussion in Education are my favourite. They're always so interesting and for once, I like all the high level ideas being tossed around. In English Lit, it's beyond my head cause I never know about the ideologies and religous analogies being thrown about. EIL isn't really that high level and communication doesn't have much discussion.

Ate lunch with Mitze who phoned. Then I went back to my room and had a nap. 4 PM had media studies tutorial (lecture was cancelled). Umm... yeah. It's been an uneventful day. Was supposed to go to the city with Raine and Jasmine tonight to shop for MCAC trivia prizes or something like that but that was cancelled.

I guess I'll sleep in early to make up for yesterday.

Thursday 30 August 2007

Even more presentations!

Woke up at like 5 AM (didn't actually get out of bed until 6) to finish off my presentation for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That and finish reading the book. It was pretty amusing, in the end, the presentation, whatever I wrote I didn't use. I just mumbled and blabbed whatever I felt like out. I'm surprised anyone in my tutorial understood me, but apparently my tutor did at least. So I managed to get some discussion going (the presentations aren't really formal presentations per se, it just means you say crap to get people's minds going so we can have a better discussion). And my tutorial is especially more active compared to others, so I didn't have to do much (everyone is dying to talk anyway).

My English Lit tutorial is active but I always feel so uncomfortable in there. And why wouldn't I considering the tutorial is made up of nothing but Australians, and then they always go into theories using Australian culture, western ideologies and politics and Christian imagery or stories from the Bible, all of which I don't know anything about. I'm only glad I have decent English and is somewhat experienced after all this time in literary analysis and critique or I'll reallllllly feel out-casted.

Ate lunch and had a certain... dance practice, no I'm not gonna say for what, with Raine, Drue and Terence. We talked about our costumes for MANIFEST. Guess we'll be going shopping together. I probably won't do anything, not bothered to spend the money. Probably will just wear my own clothes or the MCAC t-shirt (it should be out by then I think). It seems like more and more members are gonna cosplay for MANIFEST though. I think I'll just be the photographer rather then the participant. Heh.

Ate dinner with Rachel. Well, she had a BBQ but ate with me anyway. Debbie came by at around 8 AM and we talked about our presentation tomorrow to report our observations and analysis from placement. But we decided to take the free approach and come with no notes. I'll just say whatever crap I can think of and be happy with that. It's a not assessed informal presentation between groups of 5 or 6 people anyway. And past experience has shown now that having retarded speeches and notes in presentations are increasingly not working for me anymore. I should be happy though that I'm increasingly able to present stuff improvising right off the top. I guess uni does do some good even though I still say I haven't learnt anything factual or academic here (tutorials and lectures are pretty useless). I guess the only positive thing is that communications skills have increased by ten fold.

At like 10 PM Izzati messaged me to ask if I want to go to the Nott. (If you dunno what the Nott is, it's the nearby pub that everyone at the Halls goes to every Thursday night) I didn't really feel like it cause I kinda think the Nott is pretty boring for non-drinkers but then her and Ieja came into my room (and ate my food...) and I went anyway. So yeah, it was the three of us and Steven. And now it's 2:20 AM, I didn't do my presentation, I have class at 10 AM. Booo. Oh well. After hanging at the Nott, as dull as it was if you ask me, we hung at Ieja's room for a while. Anyway I guess I'll go sleep now.

Wednesday 29 August 2007

MCAC Annual General Meeting

Not much really happened today. I have no classes on Wednesday, all I had to do was work on my presentation tomorrow for English Literature, on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was MCAC's AGM today, and most of the positions besides president was up for grabs. I ran for Secretary, with my only other opponent being Chris. And yeah, I lost. The votes were apparently close, but Chris pulled ahead in the end. I think Raine and Bernie were attempting to cheer me up by saying I might still be able to sit in on meetings as the PR rep. But then again, I think that should go to Drue? *shrugs* I don't really mind either way. I'll always still help out with the club (as the webmistress for the club's site and PR person...) and besides, I lost to my friend. It sounds reallly stupid to be bitter against losing to your own friend, lol. Yeah, congrats to Raine (Vice-Pres), Nazri (Treasurer), Chris (Secretary) and Sandreep (Librarian, and he had no opponent) for their newly elected positions.

Seems that Raine and Mitze had arranged for MCAC to hold a mini-semi-advertising event at the GFN next week. I guess I'll be helping with that since the only MCAC members I'm aware of that goes to GFN or may go is Raine, myself of course, V, Carlin, Stan and maybe Nazri if we can get him to come. And I just discovered or realised today that V is a member of MCAC. Haha.

Dinner was a mess. First I discovered that my fridge had water dripping from it for some reason, and my fresh mushrooms were absolutely disgusting. So I threw them away. My carrots weren't looking so hot either, so I cooked it along with other stuff and veal. And the veal. It was frozen veal that I baked. I thought it was chicken when I bought it. And then discovered it was veal. Thankfully it tasted okay though.

Tuesday 28 August 2007

The last day of primary school placement!

Oh yay, placement is complete! So I worked on the class last night I was SUPPOSED to do today. But I didn't. Turns out the teacher made a mistake and the special event today in the school ran for the whole day. So yeah, yesterday was a waste. Oh well. The teacher was pretty guilty over it, kept apologizing and thinking of solutions like making the kids stay in for lunch to do it (which I didn't like, since I doubt any kid would concentrate during lunch). Yeah, something happened at the school today called "Hollywood Magic". Where they have like 3 workshops where they animate something, do a radio show and do a short film of themselves (I thought this was excellent). I pretty much spent the entire day just staring at them. Wasn't really a good day for me to come, but who cares. Came for the sake of coming. Least it was rather entertaining.

Only photo I got. Proof that I was there? Bye Brandon Park~

Got home at around 4:30 PM, made dinner (lasagna and boiled veggies). Ate dinner with Rachel. Saw Ieja and Izzati for like 30 seconds before they started yelling and running away towards the security shuttle bus to go to the library. Did not do anything else. Anyway, now to work on the Mt. Buller part of the post!

So yeah, the trip to Mt. Buller. Like I said earlier, the bus left at 6:30 AM. And we had a nice long 3 hour trip to Mt. Buller.
I'm somewhere in the back... it was pretty noisy.

Most of the time was spent doing nothing. Just people eating (you could find all kinds of food on the bus, biscuits, cookies, chocolate, chips, peanuts, dried prunes) and sleeping. And then we had a stop somewhere and we played a game run by Han Lin. And a lot of weird things happened I don't even remember. Just some really graphic discussions about V's preference to horses. And yeah. And Winston attempted to try a game where we had to sing national anthems? But in the end it was still just him by himself singing the Malaysian one incorrectly. Anyway, made the bus ride more interesting.

So we got to Mt. Buller around 10 AM-ish and waited around.Waiting around... you can see my head on the left. XD

Then we took a group picture which I really like. So here's a smaller version of it below.

Awesome group photo!

I got separated from the main group soon after, not that it really mattered. We took another bus to get to the place where everyone actually skis (The Village, where all the food and shops are too). The area we arrived in had the tobogganing but we were gonna do that in the end, which we didn't but yeah. I took a while with Amanda pondering on whether to fork over the money for skiing. Seeing that it was only for $34 without the lifts we decided to try being there already.

I'm wearing the light and dark blue jacket with striped trousers on the left. This is the part as I spend forever attempting to at least get the skis on my feet without falling.


Oh yay! I actually got the skis on. O.O

My skiing experience was me trying to get the skiis on, move a bit and go as far as possible without falling. But since I get scared when I move anywhere at a slightly quicker pace I purposely always made myself fall. It was rather fun though to have yourself rolling in the snow. So yeah, in between all of this we took lots of pictures. During the time I was with Amanda, V, Jie Yen (sorry if I spell it wrong) and co. most of the time. Izzati came by sometimes looking really cool on her snowboard. V helped teach us how to ski. And Jie Khai and everyone else pretty much helped me and each other from sliding down the hill while attempting to just move or get the skis on. So yeah, random pictures below.


Me, Amanda and Jie Yen.


Group photo! V, me, Jonathan, Jie Khai, Yi Mei, YinYin, Jie Yen, Amanda and Lisa!

Liked this photo. Amanda, me and Izzati.


Liked this photo too. A snowboard really suits Izzati, haha. It looks really cool.

Anyway, after a few hours the group of us who were further downhill (the snowboarders were a bit higher) dragged ourselves up to them. We eventually out of boredom had a snowball fight. And stuff. Just sat around talking. Then we began to make a snowman.

Making the snowman~

After we made the snowman, we all obsessively began taking photos of it like crazy. Cause it's just so awesome and cute. It should be the GFN mascot. Heh.

Photo of us taking photos. Haha.

The snowman! With V's hat, YinYin's sunglasses and my scarf.

And yeah, we posed like numerous times with the snowman. I liked how the photos below have like increasingly more people as more and more people started dragging themselves to take a picture with the snowman.

Just cute~

Really cute photo also~

And Zaffril, Izzati, Jie Khai and even more come by~


And we manage to convince Jonathan to come. And Winston manages to drag himself up the hill still stuck to the snowboard (I thought that was funny, lol).

After that, we took our stuff back and the snowman was bare again. And out of nowhere the snowman gets an offspring like immediately. I still don't know who made the baby snowman (or the snowman isn't a man? A snowwoman!)


Snowman with new baby

Then we killed the snowman. I took a video of it. V squished the poor thing in the end. *sniffs* RIP snowman.

After that, we spent another hour or so trying to ski again and stuff. Finally around 4 AM we were tired and made our way down. Returned the equipment and ate at Subway. We were starving because we all didn't eat lunch (we got to Mt. Buller past 10 and just skied or snowboarded until 4).


Foood~

Then it was the 3 hour bus trip back again. By this time, it was night, we were tired and the back of the bus which was so loud and noisy on the way just died. Most of us slept (while the front of the bus, with non-skiers were fairly active and talking at least).


Sleepy~ I did sleep on the bus but in this picture I was faking sleep, lol.

On the way back, we stopped by Maccas for dinner. Although I still had my Subway sandwich so I just ate that rather then McDonald's. Towards the end we just talked and stuff and everyone was accusing me of being an alcohol smuggler. T__T

And this ends the Mt. Buller post. It was a great trip, I wanna go again. Or going anywhere with this group is nice. Lots of fun. I wanna try Paintball now (and probably get my ass kicked but whatever).

Monday 27 August 2007

The ever so tiresome Mondays.

I have the Mt. Buller pictures now, and I would do my blog on it but it's like 11:22 PM now, I haven't showered yet and I wanna sleep. I have to get up at like 6 AM tomorrow for my last day of primary school placement.

Woke up at 7 AM, went for a 10 AM lecture. Was bored to death. Raine gave me a moon cake (am I supposed to give something back? I'm completely daft about Chinese celebrations and traditions!). I went back to my room and finished my EIL presentation evaluation/reflection thing. I had a TERRIBLE time in the afternoon with the gooodddaaammmn Roberts Hall laundry facilities. OMFG, the machine just washed my clothes soaked and soapy non-stop. In the end I stopped it manually, dragged all my clothes out soaking and covered in soap and threw it into another machine. Then what happened? When I went to get it, the clothes were EVEN MORE dirtier then before I washed it. This is so retarded. Did I mention that I ran up the down the stairs like 7 times? I'm on the third floor. I swear, the top 3 things that makes me want to move out of the Halls. #1) The laundry. #2) The kitchen. #3) The internet. I am sooo looking for a house soon for next year. Hopefully I will be able to find one with 4 rooms so I can get Amanda, Sharon and Jia Chi to live with me. (Don't want strangers.... T__T) Preferably near to the Townhouse (a.k.a. Ieja, Izzati and co's house).

Anyway at 5 PM went for GFN. I had a fairly boring time since I was on duty this week, meaning I actually have to do something. So I did reception, sat at the table in the front the entire time bored out of my life. I really prefer hospitality duties. On the flip side, I got even more people's emails.

Or more like, V got my email. So when I went back to the Halls I went straight for Debbie's room since we had to discuss and write and print the stuff for the lesson we're doing tomorrow. Spent around 2 hours on that and then when I came back my msn was flooded, lol. Got bunch of new contacts from GFN people but I dunno who they all are. Hahahaha.

Anyway shower then sleep. Will be posting Mt. Buller pictures and probably writing something detailed on the trip tomorrow.

Edit: I think my external HDD has officially died. Excuse me while I go beat someone up. *cries miserably* My Mt. Buller photos and a lot of other stuff are there.

Sunday 26 August 2007

The boring Sunday.

Eh, I'm as soar as hell today. Guess the muscle fatigue from yesterday finally caught up to me? This is what happens when I drag fairly heavy skis up a snowy hill. I woke up at like 7:30 and went to Clayton shops at 9 past. Bought a lot and stuff so I have something to cook for the week. It was extremely painful after I got onto the bus and had to drag myself back to my room. Everything was just too heavy for me.

Anyway, a short entry since today was pretty uneventful. After buying food I didn't want to do anything else. Just spent the day online and doing a bit of work. That is, preparing for the lesson I have to help run on Tuesday at the primary school and my personal reflection thingy for the presentation I did with Raine in week 5 (around 2 weeks ago, since we're on week 7 now). Gotta finish the reflection, write the presentation for English Litarature (on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), write my speech for MCAC committee elections and another presentation for Education on my primary school placement. Pretty busy week even without assignments.

Oh and my thesis for EIL worth 5% I got a credit. I'm pretty disappointed. This is the first time I got a C for anything in EIL. My grades have plummeted as I mess around and waste time cooking this semester. Eh, I need to get used to it. Other people are perfectly happy with a C.

Saturday 25 August 2007

Mt. Buller.

The trip to Mt. Buller today. Well... a lot of things happened I wonder if I can remember it all. I'll hold what I did on the trip until Monday, I have a bunch of pictures but I want to get the rest from everyone else so I'll have to wait until Monday to do that at the GFN.

But yeah, general overview. Uhh.. woke up at like 5 AM. Got to bus at 6:30 AM with Izzati and Amanda. Rode on the bus for 3 long and boring hours to get to Mt. Buller. Had a terrible time skiing (but it's a good experience, if I knew how to ski it would be a lot of fun). Generally stuck around with Amanda, Jonathan and co. for the trip. And yeah, then another 3 hours back to Clayton. I'll probably go all detailed on Monday with pictures cause you know... I want to write everything so I can look back at it in the future. I hope I can remember by Monday (yes, my memory IS that bad).

I'm tired but yeah. Got a lot of work to do. Have a class to prepare, 2 presentations and another speech for MCAC AGM committee elections. I can't relax on that since Chris is my direct competitor. And well... next to Raine, Chris is the next person I really wouldn't like to compete against. :P

Friday 24 August 2007

I hate Fridays.

So I.. woke up at around 6 AM-ish for placement. Second last time! When I got to Brandon Park Primary School, all the teachers were gone. Pretty much the entire school staff was made up of substitutes today. Apparently all the teachers went for some teacher training development thing. So the student teachers largely got ignored. It was a pretty uneventful day. We had this thing at the school called err.. Friday-something something, where like the older kids (year 5 and 6) each get a prep kid (like 5 years or older) to take care of. And everyone went off with a different teacher to do some sporty activity.

So I went off with the people who did footy. And I know nothing about footy. Anyway I just helped out a bit. There was this one kid there who kept getting upset and running away. And yelling at me and everyone to go away. And I remembered I saw him upset like on Wednesday also. When the teacher finally got him to come back he screwed up kicking the ball, got upset and ran off again. I was like.. T____T... then @___@... cause I didn't know what to do. I can't convince kids to not be upset over trivial matters. Cause I'm really sensitive myself. Luckily the sub teachers and the few actual teachers talked to him.

I had to leave halfway today since it's a Friday and I have Media Studies lecture and tutorial. I was a bit worried because all the buses I was taking was like... late. Luckily I made it to class right on time.

So dragged myself back home, it was like 5:20 PM. Uhh... I just made rice and microwaved some random canned food for dinner since I ate all my cooking already and I don't want to cook anything more today (since it's Friday, it's late and I'm gone all of tomorrow). While downstairs I saw Izzati, Nabila, Ieja and co. leave for some event thingy they had at campus. Ieja invited mean last night but I turned it down cause I'm tired. And I want to sleep. I have a ski trip tomorrow and I have to wake up at like 4:30.. AM or maybe 5 AM. Which isn't that different from when I always wake up anyway but I wanted to like squeeze in 7 or 8 hours of sleep today at least. Since I haven't been getting it. But looks like that isn't happening considering what time it is right now (while typing this).

Actually I would of went to sleep but I'm waiting to see if Nabila or Ieja go back to their rooms. I wanna borrow sunglasses from them. But if they don't come back then I guess I'll just go to sleep. Amanda told me that Mitze said to bring sunglasses or goggles for skiing tomorrow. Oh well. I should of bought sunglasses before. It would be shitty if I decide to buy at the mountain for some expensive price for some crappy looking glasses when I could of bought decent ones at any shop for the past 7 months for like $10. Bleh.

But yeah, I'm not gonna be cheap tomorrow and enjoy myself. Heh. I'm finally gonna eat out! I've spent the last few weeks eating nothing but my crappy food (and GFN food). Will post up lots of photos on Sunday (or tomorrow night, depends how I am).

Oh and in the end I am missing Drue's BBQ tomorrow. Since by the time I get back from the mountains it's too late already and most people would have left. And Raine isn't staying over anymore either. So yeah. My loss on that.

Thursday 23 August 2007

The batik cake poisoning.

There goes my daily post thing again. Uhh... what did I do yesterday. Right, I didn't go to placement for once. Haha. I woke up around 6 AM to finish reading a book I had to do for English Literature. Then I went to check out my batik cake, and cut it and wrap it up in cling wrap and stuff. And yes, the cake is SUPER FUGLY. It is soooo ugly. Almost inedible-looking. I can just get my friends to eat it because... they will eat it. :D


So.. damn.. fugly...



Maybe I should of tried to cling wrap it nicer....

But yeah, the cake looked terrible but it tasted pretty good to decent. It was too soft. So I gotta work on that next time (and it should look better if it's less soft and smushy). Although now that I've refrigerated it for another night its considerable harder now (and nicer tasting).

At around 11 AM I went to uni to eat lunch with MCAC people. And I fed Chris and Raine my cake. Chris even commented I was trying to poison/take out my competition for the upcoming committee elections (Chris is my direct competitor). T.T Luckily they're both still around and kicking. I went to English Lit, where I for once actually said things in the tutorial discussion (probably cause most people haven't read the book and didn't know what to say).

Ate dinner with Rachel and on the way back saw Nabila and Izzati sitting by the bus stop. Chatted for a bit and then went back to my room with Rachel. I gave her some cake too. She said it was decent. Then I went down to give Nabila and Izzati some since they were still sitting there waiting for the security night bus (to get to the library for some nighttime study). They also said it was pretty good.

I didn't really do much work, at around 8:45 PM-ish I went over to Ieja's room to give her some cake also and to pass some to Aya. Then I ended up staying in her room until like past 12 AM just talking about random things. I felt really guilty. By the way, I've realised now that more people read my blog then I imagined at first (well I did put a stats/hit counter there but I couldn't tell who were these people). Leave some comments. So I know you read.

Wednesday 22 August 2007

The tiredness continues day 2.

I just spent like 3 hours making my first batch of kek batik (aka batik cake). And dinner (pasta bake with corn, carrots, peas, broccolis, mushrooms and ham) I hope... it is edible. I'll find out tomorrow (me and my friends that is, who I will feed it to first). Let's get down to my day first.

Woke up at 5 AM to continue doing my 3 day take home test for EIL. I couldn't finish it and although I had an extension, I'm a nerd and I have pride. I kind of wanted to get through uni without ever using extensions. And I did manage to finish it (like 10 minutes before 5 PM, the deadline). Anyway, went for placement at around 8:15 AM as usual. It was "wacky wednesday" at the primary school but I was really disappointed. The only people who were really wacky was the other student teachers such as myself, and a few of the students (although students still had to wear their uniform, some broke the rule though). All the other teachers came as normal almost. Cept for a few. Boring!

Placement was pretty boring. I managed to get done the POINT of going to the school to begin with. The information I needed to write my 40% assignment. It was like an emergency thing though. Because we wanted to do something else but the teacher changed his mind so we panicked and just quickly whipped something up. Oh well, at least now for the remainder of my placement (1 and a half days) I can just mess around, enjoy my last time at Brandon Park Primary School. Next year I'll have to finally head to a secondary school to teach/observe. And I AM NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT. Unlike Brunei I've learnt, the secondary schools are pretty scary in Australia (although it depends which school). I hope I don't end up crying and running home from the school. I've heard stories of like the students dripping their saliva all over the door knob for teachers to open and what not. And of course, the violence. I don't want a chair or table thrown at me, kthx. I'll be like a little 19 year old Asian girl next year. I hope I don't get beat up.

I wanted to get home from placement ASAP to quickly email my test in (as the deadline was 5 PM). But I couldn't hitch a ride with Jenna and I thought I wouldn't be able to make it. But luckily! Effie showed me an alternative bus to get back to Monash, and I arrived like at 4:10 PM. Yes! Thank you Effie, even though you won't read this and I won't see you again for who knows how long (since I only know her since we go to the same primary school for placement, but her lectures and tutorials in Education are different from mine).

So I made some last minute changes to my test, sent it in. And then the horror of cooking begins. I ran back and forth between my room and the kitchen (DAMMIT why must it be so far away from each other?!). Got all the ingredients I needed for the cake. And my pasta bake. I spent forever doing the cake, and I thought I screwed up cause it didn't go right at first. But it looks okay now. My neighbor, Jessica, who was also downstairs cooking dinner looked a bit skeptical at what I was doing. Actually, everyone around me (including the other people I live with) saw me and I probably looked like some freak. I mean, here I was... FRYING CHOCOLATE. Hahaha. I wasn't frying it. I was cooking it with a pan. That's how you do it. You don't bake it.

Anyway, now I have to continue work again. I skipped my lecture for English Literature on the novel, the Wheel of Time. And tomorrow is my tutorial for it. And I haven't even read past page 14 yet (it's around 200 pages). Haha, I am so dead. I need to get at least halfway through so I vaguely know what everyone will talk about tomorrow in class.

I've been messing around for the past 6 weeks. I really really hope my grades don't suffer from all of this. Although I feel a lot happier now compared to semester one.

Tuesday 21 August 2007

The tiredness continues.

So I spent the entire day half dead. Pretty much the same as yesterday. Woke up at around 6 AM for placement. I was dead pretty much the whole of placement, the kids had like a performing arts class, I actually fell asleep in the class for like 30 seconds (before I think my head just drooped over and my partner poked me). Anyway I'm glad she did. I would probably get into big trouble sleeping like that. Since I'm a teacher there, not a student. The last thing I need is getting thrown out of my course because I fell asleep in a school, upsetting them.

Jill, my EIL tutor, gave me an extension for the ongoing 3 day test. I'm still gonna get it done in the next few hours hopefully since even with the extension... well I need to do other work after tomorrow. So I don't have time to do this anymore. Hopefully whatever I write will get me a decent score.

Wacky Wednesday at placement tomorrow. No idea what to wear. I'll just wear a pink bucket hat and... something else. Placement is a lot more boring this time around (and I'm doing so much less) I'm not even looking forward to going, unlike last time.

And seems I can get to Drue's BBQ afterall. With the help of dear Raine and Bernie. <3

Oh and I like made fettuccine in my room again. Haha. I love cooking things in the rice cooker. Anyway, back to the test!

Monday 20 August 2007

Tired... so very tired.

What a busy day. So I woke up at around 6 AM for placement. Went there, did the usual. Helped around and stuff. That wasn't too eventful (although for my placement, Wednesday is wacky Wednesday, so we gotta dress all wacky for that day). I thought I would have to take the bus home but one of the other girls also having their placement in my school drove me back to uni.

My laptop was dead when I came back to my room. The charger died actually, and the laptop ran out of power. So I immediately walked back to uni before the campus computers shop closed and bought a $60 charger. It works now. After that I headed to help out at the GFN. That was pretty busy. They had this salsa dancing session and even though all my friends joined in and I got asked and pushed by this guy to be his partner I still refused. I'm stubborn and shy. Haha. During the long salsa lesson I was bored since all my friends went away, so I played Uno Stack..ing.. thingy.. with Han Lin, who for some reason didn't want to dance either. Then Carolina (from my stairway) and Tom comes along and we played with them. Then started to play Scrabble but it was time to go. So yeah, I walked back in the cold at night with Jia Chi.

I'm a bit upset right now actually, see, I paid for the trip to Mt. Buller on Saturday, then I only realized that Drue's BBQ is on Saturday. Not Friday, which I originally thought. Crap. Now I can't go to the BBQ. And I even bought all the ingredients already for the cake I was gonna make for the BBQ. Noooo. Dammn. I wanna go to both. Why must it be at the same time. T.T I'll probably still make the cake to give to my friends and stuff. Maybe I'll bring it with me to Mt. Buller and give it to everyone who is going.

I'm bummed about missing the BBQ though. I was looking forward to it.

Anyway, I had a three day take home exam actually I'm supposed to do today (finish by Wednesday). It's really bad that I have placement for all three days. So now I haven't even started it, I really only have tomorrow night left. Shit.

Sunday 19 August 2007

The usual Sunday?

Yay, I've finished my first English Lit Fantasy assignment! I kind of regret not doing creative writing (seems everyone else I asked did that) but oh well, I hope I will pass. Well, no. I hope I will get a D. I don't want no measly pass. The nerd comes out in me as I still want D's despite getting no benefit from high grades at this age (besides getting into honours). But a credit will suffice for that.

And yeah, I got my results for my first EIL1020 assignment. It was a D. The greater nerd in me was sort of disappointed because I wanted an HD, you know. Oh right and I'll probably post my grades all the time here even though this blog is public. I never understand some people's fierce resentment in other people knowing their good or bad grades. I don't get why there's this embarrassment. Cause you know, the people you're more likely to be embarrassed from (your friends) are the least likely to judge you because of you're grades, right? Everyone else (who may be more judgmental) can be eaten by a thousand cockroaches for all I care.


Anyway, a summary of my day. Woke up at around 7-ish, and spent most of the day working on my assignment (well that and just surfing the net). I wanted to do my laundry (didn't do it for over 2 weeks) and then I discovered that like... out of the 6 washing machines at Roberts Hall 4 of them was broken. 2 machines isn't enough for over a hundred people. No way in hell it is. Me and another friend of mine who was up early washing his clothes as well was annoyed I think. He stood around quite a bit waiting to get his laundry done. I ran back upstairs while waiting to get post-it notes. I wrote "Broken T___T" on them and stuck them on since people couldn't tell that the machines were broken until they tried to turn it on. It wasted so much of my time taking my clothes in and out of the machines since I wasn't intelligent enough to see if any water would come out of the machine first.

I ate yesterday's dinner for today also. So when I went downstairs to microwave my food with Rachel, guess what did I discover? Out of the 5 microwaves at the Roberts Hall kitchen, 4 of them were broken! 1 microwave IS NOT enough. So we waited ages. By the time Rachel got her thing heated up mine went cold again. But yeah, whatever. Ugh. Least got to talk to Nazri and a few others downstairs. Anyway, I just finished my assignment and passed it on to Rachel since I probably can't hand it in tomorrow due to my placement (well I might be able to, but I won't risk it, if I miss the bus to get back I'll be delayed until I miss the deadline).

Now to work on my proposal of what I would like to do with Debbie for our chance to teach the kids for 45 minutes. I want to do this mind challenge/riddle kind of thing.

Saturday 18 August 2007

The usual Saturday.

Went to Brandon Park Shopping Centre at around half past 9 with Izzati and Ieja. We met Nabila, Amanda and co. there. The three of us overdid on the shopping. We bought so many things we had trouble carrying it all. I spent like $60. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I had to buy some cake ingredients for a cake I want to make later next week, so my usual spending amount shot up. But I'm really spending too much money. Besides the BBQ and sleepover next week at Drue's house (which I'm not sleeping over anymore), the day after the GFN people are going to Mt. Buller so I wanna go, that'll be another $40. Ehehehe. I hope my efforts to cook my own food is actually reducing my spending. I need to count one day when I'm more free.

Rest of the day was spent doing my English Literature assignment. I have no idea what I'm writing either. Oh well. Stir-fried fish, brocolli, carrots and peas today for dinner. With soy sauce. Ate with Rachel at the Mess Hall.

Friday 17 August 2007

Placement.

Woke up at around 7 AM for my placement at Brandon Park Primary School. Me and Debbie left at around 8:20-ish. There was a bit of confusion once I got there. A case of miscommunication. I was told at first to go to my old supervising teacher who was shocked to have us since she said she got no call about us. Then I said we were supposed to go to another teacher. And yeah, after a bit of rearranging I got to a grade 5/6 class with Mr. Crozier. It was pretty boring there anyway. The students just had camp, so everything was pretty relaxing and nothing was done at all if you ask me. I had to leave halfway to make it for my media studies lecture and tutorial (which I have a presentation for) but before I left Mr. Crozier told me and Debbie to think about doing a 45 minute lesson. So I need to think of a lesson plan for a grade 5/6 that we can both do. This makes me a bit nervous cause you know... even though I do "Education" we don't actually learn how to teach. Haha. Yeah and me and Debbie are complete opposites (although we sort of compliment eachother also). Since my math is atrocious and is at like primary school level now, and Debbie's English/spelling is terrible also.

Took the bus back to Monash. Lecture was dull, the subject today was about fans of popular culture. Something we can all relate to. Then we saw this documentary about Trekkies (the Star Trek fans). It was rather... interesting. If not a bit apalling. My presentation was on fans also. I was doing gaming fans (while my other group members did music fans and sports fans). I like shoved up this South Park clip (the WoW episode) which left a positive impression I hope.

Got home at around 5:15-ish. Was exhausted. I like slept for an hour at 8 PM. Hung at Ieja's room with Izzati in there as well for like an hour or two. Might just go to sleep now. I'm so bored. Although I really need to start that assignment I have that is due like on.. monday.

Thursday 16 August 2007

And the days continue.

I forgot to make a post yesterday. Aaah. Uhh... what did I do yesterday again. Ugh, I can barely remember. Yeah, not much. I finished my media studies assignment, went to hand it in, saw MCAC people at the Main Dining Hall still while I was there and sat down for a bit. Went home, cooked carbonara and Raine came over to finalise our presentation for today. I couldn't get the video I wanted to use working so after Raine left I quickly true this retarded comic to give out as a handout at the presentation. Saw Ieja and Nabila downstairs and later on went over to Ieja's room to help her with her internet to get everything working. Chatted in Ieja's room with her and Izzati until like midnight and I didn't do anymore work in the end. Whoops.

So yeah, today, well... my presentation was alright. In the beginning when class started Raine didn't show up. Turns out she woke up like.. 5 past 9 AM or something (note that class starts at 9 AM). Luckily she made it (we went last) and I think our presentation was a success? See, everyone was starting to fall asleep by then, so even though we were last we managed to wake everyone up since we're rather energetic. And I hope the badly drawn comic helped a bit to make it more entertaining?

Lunch with MCAC. Not much happened there. Then went to my fantasy literature class. Talked about Narnia there. Boring as ever. Went to the library to get books for my assignment due on Monday (this is the first time ever in uni that I'm starting an assignment, like... 3 nights before it is due). Sadly there weren't much books. I'll just have to try my best.

Cooked stir-fried lemon chicken thingy with veggies for dinner. I kind of like it. I ran out of carrots and stuff so I really just poured the whole thing with peas. Gotta buy more food on Saturday. Preparing for my presentation now and reading up on what I'm to do for my primary school placement tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to get back from the placement in time for the presentation (I'll be leaving halfway). But I have to take the bus since Debbie will stay at the school with the car, but at least I have a ride there so I don't have to wake up extremely early in the morning.

Tuesday 14 August 2007

Procrastination at its best.

Here I am, making blog posts with an incomplete assignment due tomorrow. Woke up at around 7 AM today, ate breakfast, made sandwiches then ran to my English Literature Fantasy unit lecture. The lecture wasn't much considering how 20 minutes of it was wasted on this questionnaire. The students passing out the questionnaire, I remember seeing the job ads to do that job (it paid pretty well) but I didn't sign up for it because of placement. I wish I could of. Booo.

After lecture I went to MCAC lunch then the usual screenings. It was pretty uneventful. I remembered that Drue's BBQ was next week. I might buy the ingrediants for Batik cake on Saturday and make it in time for the BBQ. Hehe.

Raine came over at night to discuss our presentation. I think it's not really that good but... oh well. It's like 5% or 10% I can't tell. I'll just it over and done with. Right then, back to the media studies assignment! I have like 3 more hours tonight to get down 300 more meaningful words.

Monday 13 August 2007

As the work starts tumbling in.

I have so many things to do right now I don't want to do any of it anymore. My lecture was canceled today since this week is presentation week for EIL (English as an International Language, a.k.a. ESL). So I went to uni at around 11 AM to meet my group members for the presentation this week also for Media Studies. After that I went to eat lunch and sat around reading my English Literature book for the week, Narnia! At least I finished it. Then at 2 PM I went to look for Raine at the MUISS lounge so we can discuss our presentation for EIL.

The work with Raine is a bit confusing but hopefully I can get it done on top of everything else. Then we started talking about the MCAC committee elections. I'm running for Secratary. I didn't realise I had to prepare speeches and stuff to convince people to vote for me. I currently have one other competitor for this position. So, I'll try my best. Public speaking isn't really one of my better points though. And I don't have skills... in general. Heh.

After that at 5 PM I went to the GFN (Global Friendship Night) at the Campus Centre. I'm a volunteer there so I have to come a bit early and stuff. To help move around furniture and set up. And talk to random people so they don't feel awkward or lonely. I'm probably the most awkward person of all, but since Mitze was like telling me to go to others I did that. Well, it was pretty good. Made some new friends. Who were inspired by me apparently to also go and volunteer for GFN? Haha.

Syahir showed me the videos he took of the inter-varsity dance competition at the Campus Centre on Friday (when I was off at the Multicultural night). Swing is so cool! I wanna learn it. I'm gonna learn it next semester. It's like $45 for a semester apparently at Monash so I can afford that. Uhh... yeah. I spent most of the GFN talking to Syahir, Izzati, HL, Amanda and other random people.

Anyway, assignment time! I better finish it. I was gonna do it tomorrow but I now have to do the presentation with Raine tomorrow instead or I might have to endure her... wrath.

Sunday 12 August 2007

Multicultural Night.

The multicultural night was a blast. I guess I'll say what I've been doing the past few days. On Thursday night, me, Ieja and Izzati painfully dragged ourselves all the way to the Townhouse (in the rain). I stayed over and went to class Friday morning. I pretty much spent most of Friday worrying about how I was gonna get ready for the ball because I needed to go to a tutorial at 4 PM, not because I wanted to attend the tutorial, but because I needed to find a group member that I'm supposed to work with for a presentation next week. I don't know her face, number of email so I needed to get that first so I can contact her later. Unfortunately this meant that I wouldn't have much time after running back to the Townhouse to actually get ready.

So during my communications lecture, Jyotsna pretty much told me she doesn't think half an hour is gonna cut it (to get ready). And thanks to the help of Nora, I wrote a note for the person I was looking for and passed the message onto Nora (who is also in my tutorial). Hopefully it got to her (although she hasn't emailed me at all, so I'm getting pretty worried. I'll probably email my tutor Sunday night to ask her what to do).

After that, I had like an hour and half to get ready so I was pretty happy. Everyone was busy in the Townhouse when I got to the place. Since I have no idea what to do with my hair or makeup, Izzati and Ieja did it all for me.


Getting ready in the toilet

And after that, we spent a while in the house thinking about how we were gonna get to Clayton campus with our shoes (it's around a 20 minute walk). When we went outside the wind destroyed everyone's hair, and we decided to take the bus.


Waiting for the bus

Nabila had a date for Multicultural Night so while we took the bus to get to Brighton (the venue of the ball) she got a ride. Then we sat down at our table and... ate random things and what not. And took lots of pictures.


Our group~ <3>

And the night started. The food at the ball was a 3 course meal, so the first course was soup! Extremely odd soup. It was like eating pure spaghetti sauce. Luckily we had some bread left over that we didn't eat yet so we dipped the bread into the soup. I didn't even finish mine.


Spaghetti sauce soup....

Then we had entertainment. Uhh... I forgot to mention that the theme of this ball was 1001 Nights, an Arabian related theme. So the first show were these scantily clad belly dancers. They were like... incredibly hot people. The men were lucky I guess to be there. Heh.


She's so thin.. O.O

After that we had our main course. It was either chicken or lamb. I had chicken (since I don't really like lamb) and the food was pretty good. If not a bit bland.


Chicken or...


Lamb?

So yeah, after that we had more entertainment. An Aussie guy who could like bend his body like some human rubber man and a game, where random people had to make up whatever dance they could think of on the spot to music played (which supposedly follows a nationalistic theme).


Go rubber man!

Anyway, we also took some pictures in the hall between all of the stuff happening above. Mitze came to our table a few times so we couldn't help but run outside for photos.


Full body picture of all of our dresses! We look... so rich...


Attempts to be models? Hahaha.

After the games which led to much dancing, we had some time to calm down for desert. Which was from what I could see, basically chocolate cream, lol. And a strawberry and stale cookie thing. The cooking thing with chocolate cream was nice but after I ate that it was weird eating the chocolate. Oh and it had some spicy-jam-like sauce on it also.


Dessert!

Anyway after that, we spent quite a while dancing. But the bus that left for the after party at Seven Nights Club was at 11:20, the ball ended at 11:30 anyway so a number of us went to board the bus for more partying.

At Seven Nights Club~

I think we stayed at the club until around... 2:00-ish. Wasn't too late but the club wasn't that great. It was an Asian club basically, but it was really crowded and the DJ wasn't that good. So we took 2 cabs home (there was six of us, me, Nabila, Izzati, Ieja, Aya and Zaphril who came along with us at the club). It was like $50 for a cab.

Anyway, we made some new friends at the ball and it was all pretty awesome. I'm glad I went. Even though now I'm like... penniless (I mean after the $50 ticket, all these transport costs came along). Gotta save up on food costs and stuff I guess. I still have a lot of money I should save for some upcoming events (Paintball, trips, trips and more trips).

After getting home and talking for a bit, we finally went to sleep around... 4:00 AM. We woke up at around 12:00 PM and went to Clayton road shops (except for Izzati who stayed behind because she had other plans). I brought my share of veggies, meat and stuff for the week so I have something to cook and eat and went back home. And what did I find? Well, after Ieja came to my room to use my internet since hers didn't work, I suddenly realised that I left my books at the Townhouse. So I spent over an hour walking ALL THE WAY from the Halls to the Townhouse. I was tired already and this just killed me.

I spent a while on this post so now I have to do what I didn't do the past few days which is my Media Studies assignment for Wednesday. I also still have the presentation for next Thursday and Friday but I'll get that done like... the night before or something. I hope my grades don't like drop cause I've been messing around a lot more this semester so far compared to my last.

Thursday 9 August 2007

Evil Placements.

I phoned the school I would spend 5 days at for my Education placement. It's the same one as before, just that this time I'm with grade 5/6 rather then 3/4. And what do they tell me? That I can't come in next week for my placement because the class is out on their camp. WTF?! So now I have only 6 days to complete a 5 day placement. Rather then 10 days. And while I can get around this (it will be painful though as I have to sacrifice then an additional 2 hour seminar and 1 and half hour tutorial, which I reallllly don't want to), my buddy, Debbie can't anyway.

So we're hoping we would be allowed to have an additional week to complete placement. If not, we're kind of dead.

Packing my bag and heading to the Townhouse to sleepover right now. Whenever I say Townhouse from now on I mean Aya, Ija, Izzati and Nabila's place. I guess I'll stay there for 2 nights, since whenever we get home from the after party on Friday night... or uhh.. should I say early Saturday I'll probably just stay in their house again. Maybe I'll skip sleeping. I still have 2 presentations and an assignment to work on.

Wednesday 8 August 2007

The problem of late classes.

So Raine told me today that on Friday, the bus that leaves for the Multicultural Ball is at like 5:30 - 5:45 PM. I have class until 5 PM. And this is me spending the rest of my time worrying about how I will pull this off. It doesn't really make me feel good but I guess I'll skip my last tutorial at 4 PM, but I still need to go to the tutorial because next week is my turn for the group presentation and I don't even know who I'm grouped with. So yeah, I'm gonna show up in the beginning while we're waiting for the class to start to find out who it is and then run off. But I really don't like the idea of skipping a tutorial. Oh well. I should learn next year not to get 4 PM classes on Friday (at least I didn't get the 5 PM tutorial, lol).

I spent from 8:30 - 10:30 today handing out fliers for the poster thingy. I was disappointed that they only allowed me to work for 2 hours. I wanted longer. So I only made $24. Boooo. Oh well, this is the first time I've made money. So heh, it still makes me happy. And I know now that when people are handing out fliers, I'll take it with a smile. It hurt when I was trying to hand out the fliers and people just gave me death glares and ignored me. It's terrible when a large group of people come (I was standing by the Bus Loop) and when one person rejects me everyone else follows after him, ignoring me one by one.

And now to decide what to cook for tonight. I guess... chicken, veggies and potatoes! I have these potatoes for ages that I haven't eaten so I think I'll eat it instead of rice.

Tuesday 7 August 2007

A blog once again!

So I decided after... who knows how many years, to once again get a blog. This is more for myself then for anyone to read, as the title says, as I can't remember things that happen two weeks ago, so I thought I would blog it all down. Would be nice to read what I do years later. I should of did it in first semester but I didn't. Boo. There goes my first semester of my first year of uni. I'm not putting down anything really secret though, so I don't really care if anyone else reads.

So, let's have a rundown of where I am right now for anyone who doesn't know. I'm currently in Melbourne, Australia. I came here in February, I'm doing the Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Education degree at Monash University Clayton campus. The major I'm aiming for is English Literature, with a minor in English as an International Language (ESL). I'm also taking Media Studies right now but it's shit so I'll probably drop it next year. Oh, and right now my English Literature unit is on fantasy narratives, cause I didn't want to do the culture one. So I have to read and write on things like Narnia, The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz and stuff. I know everyone tells me how fun that sounds but I still hate it. I mean, I really don't have time anymore to read a novel every single week. Which is what this unit requires. Especially when I don't want too. Anyhow, I currently live at the Halls of Residence, the dorms/hostel on-campus.

Anyhow, Liz came by yesterday. I showed her and her dad around the Clayton campus, and probably scared her on how huge it is and how far the Halls are. But Liz, if you read this, trust me. If you walk down those paths like 4 times a day you'll get used to it. When I first came I really wanted a bike but the walking now is just a short trot for me. But yeah, after coming to Clayton I kind of realise now that bigger campus IS NOT better. It's annoying having to run around here and there. I wanna go back to the absolutely tiny ISB. At least it doesn't take me ages to get to one point from another.

Didn't do much today. Just went for the lecture on The Hobbit. I was happy that I finally managed to finish it in the morning, I thought I wouldn't make it but turns out the last bunch of pages was the first chapter of LoTR. Anyway, I have no classes on Wednesday so I phoned up this guy on whether I could help with poster promotions on campus. And he said I could come in the morning. So yay~ for the first time in my life ever I'm actually gonna earn money? At least this way I don't feel so bad spending $50 on the ticket for the Multicultural Night (if you don't know, it's a ball basically on Friday night).

I cooked some carbonara today (I didn't make the sauce though) but maybe I should of added salt or something. Since it tasted so bland it was bad. Bleh. Maybe I'll try making it from scratch next time but I dunno what cream to buy. And I saw the fishie in Rachel's room. It's pretty cute, even though fish do nothing. And it turns out the fishie's that were in Debbie's room died so I was like... O.O.. fish die too fast.

And my Education placement is next week. Going back to the same Primary school except this time I'm with grade 5 and 6. Noooo! I don't think I can teach, mark or explain how to do their standard of Mathematics. I was already have trouble with grade 3 and 4! I guess a change of environment would be good but at least gimme the preps or something! Even worse is that me and my buddy, Debbie can't go there at the same time. Since our timetables don't match. First reaction I had was like "Shit! There goes my ride T___T". I have to bring out the bus schedule and figure out how to get there. Aww... man. Alone with grade 5 and 6's.

It's okay... this is like a test. I should be able to do this myself.