MOVING BLOG

Anyway, I guess it's time to publically announce the new website! I'm moving blogs. I've had this one since 2007, it has been a good home to me. Thanks to my blog for being around I guess through all the troubling times. And all the good times. This year has been a ridiculous year. I hope that my blog entries will continue to be positive since I don't think my reputation of being an emo is a good one. To me, my blog is my way to relieve stress. To get my thoughts out to the world. Because I can't say it outloud. I've always been glad to have it around. And I hope it'll always be around. To be...

The Substitute for One's Memories

Hehe. Since my memories are pretty crap. So I'm glad I have a place where some of my good (and bad) days are recorded. I don't read old blog entries usually but I may in the future. Just to see my feelings during this time. And laugh at my foolish self who wrote it all down. Thank you to everyone who has always been reading my blog. Hope to see you guys at my new home!

http://crystalstar.me/

An explanation of the URL. 'crystalstar' or Crystal is my online handle for as long as I can remember (like maybe when I was 10). So I'm quite happy to get this domain. The .me I guess is just cause I couldn't get .net or .org, but it is also to mean it's my place. All about me. Hehe.

Nuffnang Coles Group & Myer: How Do You Turn $10 into $100?

This will be my last entry on this blog before I move. Nuffnang Australia had a little contest where 50 people could turn their $10 Coles/Myer Giftcard into $100! So, I had to take up the challenge too. We had two challenges, challenge 1 was to spend the $10 in a creative way, and challenge 2 was to be frugal. I lack creativity, so being frugal it is! As an International student in Melbourne, attempting to be cheap is what I attempt to do best.

It was my friend's belated 24th birthday party on Sunday, the 30th of August. So I had to bring some food there to share! So I decided upon making countless amounts of sugar cookies! With my $10, I bought the ingredients I needed.

Coles Smart Buy 2 KG White Sugar: $1.65
Coles Smart Buy 1 KG Plain Flour: $0.95
You'll Love Coles Milk: $1.37
Coles Smart Buy Butter: $2.49
Queen Blue Food Colouring: $1.12
Queen Yellow Food Colouring: $1.12
Queen Red Food Colouring: $1.12

This comes to a total of $9.82! I should note that I only used a fraction of the ingredients here to make my cookies. So I could easily make a second batch.

Now for the actual baking! The recipe I used was...

Rolled Sugar Cookies

INGREDIENTS

• 340 g butter, softened
• 400 g white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 625 g all-purpose flour
• 9 g baking powder
• 6 g salt

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

and

Sugar Cookie Frosting

INGREDIENTS

• 480 g confectioners' sugar
• 100 g shortening
• 75 ml milk
• food coloring

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, cream together the confectioners' sugar and shortening until smooth. Gradually mix in the milk and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth and stiff, about 5 minutes. Color with food coloring if desired.

After baking the cookies as following the directions, me and my housemate had a wonderful time decorating them. It took us 5 hours to get all the cookies done as there was THAT MANY.

My camera is pretty bad so the quality of images are terrible unfortunately. But yes, this is stage one of our decorating. We mixed food colouring together to get different colours for the icing.

In the end we made a lot of cookies. Enough to fill up a whole tray and then some more. There were a number of shapes including hearts, stars, flowers, the moon, mushroom and a diamond shape.

The cookies were taken well at the party! Everyone liked them. And they were so bright and fun to eat. A few better pictures are below since my camera takes better photos in actual light.

Cute happy faces, poisonous mushrooms and other weird patterns. You can see a watermelon shaped cookie and a banana there too!

This was one of my favourite patterns. It had all the colours on it! I thought it was really pretty.


This is a photo taken with my friend's camera. As he has an actual camera which can take quality photos rather then my point and shoot camera with a broken flash, I suppose it made the cookies look a lot better. But yeah, the cookies were a success.

Thank you to Nuffnang for the awesome contest! I could bake more biscuits if I really wanted too, lol. Perhaps I shall.

A bit of an update...

I know the blogging as died down. I dunno why I haven't been busy at all. Just... bumming around a lot. I'm currently working on a new website, moving this blog (see ya Substitute for One's Memories, you have served me well since 2007...). I'm sort of like gonna run several blogs at once, you have my personal one where I rant about life, then I'm gonna have like a bunch of mini blogs where I ran about everything else I like. Like anime, manga, games, books, food and etc. You'll see. It'll take me a while though since I do have an assignment and test next week! Hahaha.

As for life itself, I'm generally okay but I'm starting to get a bit odd again. I can see a sort of pattern in me now. Like, I get on a high for a week then the next one I may feel fine but I just feel a bit low. I don't know.

I was cleaning up my room this morning. I find an envelope in a card, and oh! It's the Christmas card from our early Christmas BBQ last year with some MCAC - related folks. Haha, big mistake I opened it up. Didn't realise I hid photos in there that I should never look at again. It fell out, hit the floor and I picked it up and just stared for a bit. Then I put it away again. What a way to bring the day down. It's not like I have much in my room to remind me of anything, I have never thrown anything away but yeah - there was not much to throw away to begin with. At the most, I just passed something onto Amanda as it was something I could not hide. Everything else, perhaps I should of just thrown away all the other random things that will remind me of stuffs... but I know I can never bring myself to do that.

Zac's Facebook had some fortune cookie application that says... "Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option." Such an awesome quote. I hope I can learn to not prioritise someone else over myself. Not to say I do. I still hold the thought that I am a very selfish individual (although I think most people are). And my world still revolves only around me. But yeah... I hope the point is being made here. It's a bit confusing. Ehehe.

i just want to keep walking forward. I know I'll find a future one day. I guess my last few words are that... well, a number of people have left me behind in life. Because everyone is always walking in different directions. Those people will not read this message ever, but if there was a message I could pass on it would be: "I wish I could have had the chance to share this future with you."

Right, a last note to some random friends then. I don't know why, Amanda did warn me. To never let other people's problems affect you. And perhaps I finally heard one that has. I don't know, the other day I had tears stream down my eyes for the first time in my life that was not for myself, but for someone else. To my dear friend: "Please do not ever regret your decisions. One small mistake is all it takes to forever shut down a path you thought you could always walk down." Things don't always go well. Everything has problems. So, fight for it. Before you lose it forever. And wander around aimlessly, day by day wondering what it was that you wanted to begin with.

A little bit of a ramble...

I've been busy so I guess the blog entries sort of died. I've lost more of a reason to be emo anyway. People have been saying I look more positive lately. Or maybe it's cause other people seem to be having a harder time that I don't pale in comparison anymore. Well, that's true. And I don't mind. I always did state that my blog and my 'emo-ness' are cries for attention. Right now, I don't particularly need this attention. One thing I worry for in regards to some of my friends is that I think some people are thinking too much (oh the irony) on image and acceptance. I know this feeling greatly, but their worries and paranoia are causing them to have these theories and fears that I think are largely something merely in their heads. Let's summarise things...

1.) No one is trying to ostracize you! The most important point. Never think too much. People are not going to 'not' like you because you are not happy all the time. They are not going to 'not' like you because you have changed. I have already said to numerous people. Some people said they are waiting for the Celine of last year to come back. I already said. "She ain't coming back!!! LOLOLOL"

It's okay to be sad. It is NOT OKAY to not try to be happy. I am trying my best to have fun. To take part in things. And thus more good things happen to me. People DO NOT come to Celine. I GO TO people. If you feel lonely, don't be paranoid. Jump in a circle, and they will accept you. I know some people think I have it easy cause I have all these friends who like me and crap. THIS DIDN'T JUST HAPPEN ON A WHIM. I made it happen. I wanted people to like me. I wanted people to be my friends. So, I was a friend to everyone else too. It's a hard thing to gamble. Don't feel frustrated if you feel 'left out' or that people are ignoring you. GODDAMIT GET INTO THE FUCKING CIRCLE ALREADY AND TALK TO US!!! You are causing it yourself, get a backbone and fix it yourself! Everyone is waiting. Just make the first movement.

2.) PEOPLE CHANGE. Do not think you are the only one changing. Do not think that they are not accepting the changed you! Perhaps you forgot that you are not accepting the changed them! Adapt to the situation!

3.) TRY YOUR FUCKING GODDAMN BEST ALREADY!! C'mon, life will not move if you sit around expecting everything to drop your way, right? Take chances! LIVE! Everyone waits for someone to go to them. So GO TO THEM!

A dream to never awaken from...

I just woke up from a dream. I am supposed to get up at 5 AM as I have to leave home by 7 AM.

The dream was my everyday life if everything changed right now. If everything came back to me. If I could spend time with the person I loved the most. It shocked me. Because... I realised. Like within 10 seconds when I woke up...

I've never felt so happy... never felt that happy.... for so long.

I turned over and I asked myself... "Why did I just wake up? Why didn't I... stay in that dream forever?" But I knew my body jolted awake when I realised that I had to wake up to get ready for my placements.

I was just really shocked, that's all. I've been doing well for the past week. People asked me if I was alright now. It's cause I accepted it. I accepted that I'll never be "over it." in a sense. But I can only embrace the fact that I'm not gonna move on. That yeah, I was genuinely in love. And because it was genuine I am not gonna 'forget', I am not gonna 'get over it'. I can only move on day by day embracing this little pain at the back of my head telling me that I'm beyond the state where I can go back to anything now. I am the only one left remembering anything. But that's okay. Even if I'm the only one, I'll hold onto everything and walk through life holding on.

It's rather funny if I think about it right now. That a dream where I could just hold hands and sit with the person I loved the most was a dream where my heart have never felt so happy. I wonder if my mind wanted to remind me something. To be honest, I wish it didn't. Because now I'm a bit shaken. But, it's okay. I can still continue with my day. I only needed to remind myself. That the person whom I loved is happier right now then he will ever be. And that I can sit in the corner and watch him be happy. And that's all that's needed.

I do want to sit in the corner right now and ask "God, why did you just show me that dream?" It's odd for me to ask this but I can't see why else I had such a dream. And I do not think I needed a reminder of what it really feels if this weight on my heart was ever taken off.

Gah, need to go prepare now. I just needed to let myself know that... one day. I will feel like how I felt in that dream again. One day. Even if it takes a year, or two... one day, it'll happen. And I will be happy.

What was I doing?

I saw an interesting thing today. I was in denial for these past few months. I thought it was all okay. I thought it was all for the best. I've now come to realise... hahaha, it's so funny it's just sad. I was the only one who cared, eh?

What was I crying for all these long long long months?

Can't believe I've just been a fool all these times. It is a lonely battle to fight when you are the only one who will feel the mocking laughs and the abuse. While everyone else lives on blissfully unaware. So someone said "Now you can hate him." I replied with nothing. Why? Because I knew the answer to my own question. Because I just can't. And that makes it even sadder. To be hated... but to be unable to hate back.

If something could hurt more then anything, it would be this...

It cuts into me everytime. I can't even just stay away forever. If I did that... I would have to leave MCAC. And I can't do that. Cause MCAC is one of the only things I have left... if that is taken from me.

If that is taken from me... I don't know whether I will want wake up to see the light of day any longer...

I know life is meant to be lived optimistically. I know that life should be meant to be lived hoping and looking forward to the future. So someone tell me, I don't see anything at all... future? What future?

Busy-ness...

Been a bit busy to write in my blog. I've been in fairly good spirits the past few days though. I'm just trying my best right now. Just to have fun. And it has been fun as a result. If I could keep this up... everything would be good. I figure that I'll probably relapse again sooner or later when I lose the energy to keep on trying hard, but you know, one can hope that it'll last. XD

The next week is gonna be killer. Just realised how much work I have to do (like I just remembered I have a 20% assignment due in 2 days...) and then there is like so much stuff to go to in the next 2 weeks too T.T