Booo presentations... and houses....

Ahhhh, man. What a downer of a day.

What the hell did I do. I kind of don't remember. Bleh, got up at like 8 AM I think it was, skipped breakfast... went for lunch at 11 AM with MCAC (there was... Chris, Bernie, Sharon, Vu, Drue and Jason...). 12:30... tutorial for english lit. On book I didn't read. Didn't say anything, didn't do anything. I think I fell asleep for five minutes of the class. Didn't help that the tutor is like.. right next to me. So he knew I was doodling, eating chocolate and sleeping in the class.

Went back to "The Secret Hideout", Natalie and Drue were there. V suddenly called and then he called Tsan over to drive her back. Apparently he was gonna drive me, Jia Chee and Sharon (MUISS) to our house inspection. In the end they joined us for it, lol.

The agent was really late for the house inspection. The house was nice though, it was like... on the same road as that house Ieja, Aya and Nabila stayed in before they moved to the Townhouse/Halls.... but yeah, no furnishings. So boo. The house was around the same design as Ieja's place before, except it was all pink. It was nice though... a nice pink and HUGE ass girly house. All for only $420 per week. If only there was furniture... *sighs*.... I was getting a bit down about the housing, the amount of choices we have left are... too limited now. There's no way we'll be able to find a furnished household.

Sharon and me talked for a bit and yeah, I won't give up just yet. Phoned this lady about a rooming house. Where I rent the room and stuff. Not the house. Sharon was worried about the lack of a contract though. And I didn't realise it myself. Forgot that no contract means that we're at the mercy of the landlord. And landlords loooove to take advantage of the insecure students who don't want to risk being thrown out and homeless. But yeah, inspection on Saturday. Let's hope this goes well. But everyone I know who has or is at a rooming house isn't having a good experience with it. Cause the landlord is always trying to fuck everyone up.

Running out of choices. Stress, stress, stress.

Went home. Made dinner (out of random stuff I still have...). Then worked on Education presentation. I struggled with it since I like... wasn't really there at the Melbourne show much. At 10, I went over to Debbie's place since I was getting worried it would be too late to discuss with her. And I ran out of things to type. So we both discussed in my room over what we were generally gonna do tomorrow. Once again, we have a messy unplanned plan. But our presentations are always like this and they always go well!

Heh, I'm generally alone and isolated in all my classes (with the exception of EIL, all my other classes I'm normally the only international student.. cept for media also actually...), I'm pretty lucky to have gotten Debbie as me partner. XD We work fairly well together, despite that fact that we're both like completely different people. I mean I'm like some random Chinese, International student who lives.. well not in a city but a generally urbanised area. And Debbie's a local Australian who grew up on farm land. Tomorrow's our last collaboration together, hope it goes well. No idea whether we will still be partners next year.....

Drue asked me to maccas again but I'll probably take another rain check. I wanna sleep soon....

Oh right, I forgot to say. Last night was funny. The fire alarm went off at like past midnight, and for the first time ever I like... just didn't go, lol. Wasn't bothered. I was telling Chris on msn how I would tell him my last words to my family if there really was a fire. I was expecting my luck to be so bad, you know, like the only time I don't go is the only time there is fire. Seemed like another false alarm though.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.