Mixed Feelings

In 48 hours, I had the almost all the feeling you can describe. 48 hours ago, I woke up with a terrible headache. Yep, not enough sleep. Funny huh? Being an unemployed self-employed person, how can he be possible lack of sleep. He can just sleep all he wants and never wake up I want to do that as well. I am trying to regulate my sleep pattern, so that when I really do have a job, then I will probably tune into it better. I practically had some insomnia I guess. Besides I needed to do some of my permanent residency application stuffs.

Okay, besides having headache, I was hungry. I went to gym without lunch. Very Clever! I walked out of the gym and still don't feel anything. Once I have down with my protein shakes, something kick in. The stomachache was so bad that I need to find toilet ASAP. Underground public toilet along Collins Street is a no go (no tissue paper....., but looks clean. No point, no tissue paper means no go). I walked up another bloody block in the CBD and into one of the toilet tucked away in some of the alley. Thank god there was toilet paper. If not I would have be in deep shit.

So right after the run, I feel the urge to eat. I was superbly hungry and need to find foods ASAP. It was already half past three before I have anything to eat. Now my stomach is the one facing the music. It has been pretty bad the whole day today.....

Today I decided to stay back, cause Ammie and Wei Chao decided to hibernate for the spring. So I was pretty bored the whole day. Applied for some jobs, and watch a few TV series that my sister download from Malaysia. But just when I was bored, I was reading the Microbiology Australia Magazine. It is a free magazine for members of The Australian Society for Microbiology (basically means almost every microbiologist in Australia). I happened to be one of the members and I gave a presentation in that conference (refer to the previous entry). Now my name was out in one of their segments! I was thrilled!!! Although it was only one line, saying what I presented, I felt rather honoured to have my name there!!!

Okay here are some of the rants and ramblings. You think I am going to celebrate Malaysian Independent Day? NO. This is how I celebrate independent day, by ranting and rambling.

Path to Gluttony

I don't know what had happened to me. Two entries in 1 day. Anyway what I wanna say is gone is the day where you were happily jumping on the trampoline that you felt like a feather.

After high school, most of us have grown so much. Both in mentally and waist. Some cognitions were still the same, but the waist definitely have grown to a size of 38 ( I am not talking about me). Eight out of ten of my friends were in the same boat, maybe I can be regarded as one of them. As you grow older, your height stop growing, but not your weight. It is growing like a tropical tree fighting to get space. But we have all the space we want, gaining the horizontal size is not good for anyone.

Some of my friends even lost their bird eyes view on their down under, if you know what I meant. But some of them were trying to re-encouraging themselves by saying " I don't need the bird eyes view, all I need is my girlfriend to "view" the bird". That's a very tacky yet sad quote that got me laughing till my stomach hurts.

With this new trend of men, who pays more attention on their appearances, it is not a shock to see more men are in hitting hard in the gym. "You will have to lose of some of the extras" has been hitting hard into the brain of subconscious men. Gone were the days when fat men were viewed as prosperous. Fat men might as well regarded as uncontrolled food consumption or having some sort of depression.

After coming back from Penang, I have this urge to eat good fatty foods like coconut milk related stuffs, and all those chips that I managed to break free from. I am pretty disappointed with myself for letting those sinful foods into my stomach and into my spare compartment, but it is once awhile, so I guess I shouldn't complain so much. Now I should stop walking on the path to gluttony and into a healthier choice. Wish me luck!

Tao - A Japanese Feast

Like I said, I will post about the restaurant that I went with my family during my Penang trip. I think I should call that a Penang trip cause I was in Penang 90% of the time. I missed Penang foods a lot you know.....

Anyway the restaurants I went were all very classy this time around. No longer squatting at the road side while eating a bowl of wan tan mee. I never do that anyway. But Penang has developed so much that I was ooh-aah-ing for the first few days, and my friend got annoyed by that.
The restaurant Tao is located in E-Gate, don't really know how to describe it cause I was there only a few times.

It is a Japanese buffet and the best thing is they serve you per order, and drinks are included! These means they only cook the foods per order and drinks are mostly juices and japanese tea! I think you'll have to look on your own and compare it to the rest of the fishes in the sea. The front banner.
I think this running water have something to do with fengshui..... But it does looks like the person from the other side of the wall was peeing over the wall into the vase?
Very zen style. All the wall was decorated with bamboo.
Scallops! Yummy, but not as fresh and big as those from Aus
Sashimi!!!! My fav!!!! They are very good actually. Ordered heaps of them
Can't remember what is that. Could be Salmon Teriyaki
Prawn Tempura
Grilled Eel. The waiter was very friendly and help us heaps. We were suppose to finish the rice, but being a clever and calculative Chinese, we don't want to eat the rice and reduce the stomach space for other good foods. Although they weren't allow to take the dishes if we havent finish ALL the foods, one of them just quietly sneak that away!
Some tofu dishes, can't remember what it is called, something start with "A"
Tempura prawn sushi!
Something pipi. Can't remember, it has been awhile and my memory is as bad as the next goldfish
Some fried udon. I don't really like them cause I was bloated by then.
Deep fried mantis prawn. Likie!
Lamb Chop. That's very yummy. Only my dad and I ate them, cause others don't like the taste. And how my dad and I enjoyed that!

I think we ordered almost all the dishes that they can offer from Tao. Okay, except all the sushi. We are not suppose to eat rice in these restaurants. You might wonder how much this restaurant costed?

RM49 per person. How cheap!!!!!! I gained 1 extra kg after that night...... But I would love to go back to this restaurant next time when I am in Penang. Maybe this time I will go to the one in mainland Penang cause they said the mainland branch have better foods and decoration. I am not sure.

Whales in Paradise

I am pretty tired now, so I am going to put up the magnificent whales that I watched from Surfer Paradise last month! It was taken with my mobile, pretty good for a mobile! Check them out!!!!

I am trying to go on diet, cause I had been eating too much back in Malaysia. Time to get some fat out of my tummy and it is about time now. What have I been doing? Exercise, and eating less at night. That's my diet plan. I know I can't go with those diets like Atkin and others, so I will just less fat induced foods and more veggie and fruits! Besides I am just looking to reduce a few kg, not until 10kg.

Wish me luck!

Taste of Belachan

Just a short entry to tell you my whereabouts. It has been awhile since I bloggged. I was pretty buggered from my trip back to Aus and I was busy with getting all the documents together for my permanent residency application.

I actually travelled for 24 hours from Malaysia to Melbourne. That's crazy hour of travelling, it sounded like I am staying in UK, where travelling for such amount of time is considered to be normal. How can I go from 8 hours of flight to 24 hours? Okay, let make them into a list!

2.00 pm (Malaysian time) - Reach Penang Airport
3.00 pm - Flight took off from Penang
4.00 pm - Reach LCCT Airport in KL
10.00 pm - Fly back to Aus (after 6 hours of transit)
5.00 am - Reached Gold Coast (7 am Aussie time)
1.00 pm - Fly back to Melb (after 6 hours of transit)
3.00 pm - Reach Melbourne (pretty buggered, and doped)

There you go, 24 hours. When I touch down Melbourne, it was pretty dark already. Thank god my uncle came and fetch me. I actually slept in Coolangatta Airport, on the benches and hugging all my luggages. I might be sleeping with a big mouth opened, and if there were flies, I could have shallowed heaps of them!

Now I am working my ass of to get all the documents ready. Body check, academic transcript, completion letter, etc etc. Thank to my cousin who fixed the internet connection, so now I can use the internet from my computer!

I guess I should stop ranting about what happened. Now that I am back in Melbourne, with coldness surrounding me, I should be please and be grateful.

When I was in Penang, I also had a lot of belachan foods!!!! Belachan Water Spinach, Belachan Chicken and Belachan Mantis Prawn!!!! So below is the picture of Belachan Chicken. The picture did not do its justice, of course the taste and smell are way better than what its appearance over here. I took it from my home, after my dad brought them back from the hawker stall. Oh btw, I will be writing about another good restaurant that I had back in Penang. It is called Tao, at somewhere I can't remember. It is a Japanese restaurant, although it has a so called Chinese name. I will talk about it soon!
Till then!

-lex-

Seafoods at Teluk Kumbar

I probably should say that I could not live up to my promise... I did say that I will not over-indulge when I am back in Penang. But I did. Now I am an all-rounded person, with a big round tummy, all thanks to the foods in Penang and a hyper persuasive mother.

Once they heard of what I wanted to eat, there we go, our next destination. I have been eating all those good foods and I should say I am indulging every single bit of it! Oh well, since I will only be in Penang for 3 months, and next Monday I will be flying back to Melbourne. So it is understandable that people will try to shove as much foods as possible into a tiny opening at the front of my face called mouth.

I did not go anywhere other than mainland Penang. I don't need to, cause this trip is suppose to be my Makan Trip, and my Home Trip. Most of the day it was so hot, I was scared of going out during day time! So I normally go out for dinner, and sometime being cheated to attend a Drink-All-You-Want feast with my friends....

Anyway, talking about the seafoods restaurant, it is a beach front restaurant. Once I said beach front restaurant, you might think it will be very classy and all those expensive stuffs. As a matter of fact, it is not classy and not at all expensive. I think for 5 persons, it only costed us about RM50. Which is about rm10 per person, with the seafoods, it is Al-CHEAPO!

Normally we get to sit on the beach and eat our seafoods, but since that day it was a raining day, all of us have to squat below a shelter. I did check whether the shop is still open, thinking it might be washed away by tsunami in 2004. After making sure the shop is still there, we hopped onto my brother in law's car and off we went!

The restaurant was behind an abandoned building, and it is very easy to miss that place. We missed that before and had to make a U-ie and drive superbly slow, making a row of cars driving slowly behind us, just to get into the driveway into the restaurant.

This is the front of the restaurant, it is a very small house aka restaurant with tables and chair all around the beach. The blue boxes are where they keep the seafoods, not in a very classy aquarium for the fishes. Remember, this is not a classy restaurant, but their foods are way better than those that charged us through our nose.

This is Sambal Kangkung aka Water spinach with sambal belacan sauce. My favorite!!!! Yummy.

Deep fried sotong, or squid!

This is Salad He-Koh, or Mantis Prawn Salad. Although it is very yummy, other people were saying it was a bit small.

Some kind of cockles. Can't remember the name of the cockles, but the sauce was very very good!

This is the last dishes, the CRAB!!!!!

Oh wait, I've forgotten to take the Satay's picture. That satay is very different from other satay, cause the satay was grilled with the spicy sauce! So yummy I could not remember to take it's picture.

Penang Foods - Bak Kut Teh

You guys might wonder why is this heck keep on writing on his blog when he suppose to be outside enjoying the every bit of Penang.
Reason: The Malaysian weather is just too crazy for me. So hot, I can melt once I step out of the house..... So most of you guys can see me hanging around my house most of the day, waiting for the sun to set. Yep, I am the next Dracula!!!!! Bwahahahahaha.

Okay, this time I am introducing you one of my favourites! Bak Kut Teh. Pork Bone Teh if I were to direct translate that. Basically it is a soupy dish that contained all kind of pork meats, pork bones, Chinese mushrooms, bean curd, and something I missed the most, deep fried dough! Back in Aus, I can still cook this dish whenever I like. But, I can never find good and fresh deep-fried dough.....

Yeah, I think once you guys hear about the word soupy, you might think that the heat had gone up to my head..... Normally after eating this dish, I will sweat like a pig. So normally I will eat that for tea, not lunch. Okay enough of crapping. The place that I went was located at Macalister Road, opposite to a hotel named Red Rock Hotel. Yep, once again, I did not take the name of the place down. Besides, the foods that I devoured were mostly from hawker centres, which mostly has no name...... So if you guys want to try this place out, make sure you pay attention when you drive from the city and reached the hawker centre called Hong Kong Dim Sum.
They have this traditional way of cleaning your cutlery. Hmm, not cutlery, maybe your chopsticks and spoons. The traditional way is by cleaning your "cutlery" with a bowl of hot water. Super hot, you will get burn if you are not well trained. Maybe if you go for dimsum anywhere you will still see this, but outside the dimsum restaurant you hardly see this way anymore.

The sumptuous feast. Maybe not sumptuous, but definitely mouthwatering one! The plate of yellow-ish cubes are the deep-fried dough I was talking about. You dip them into the soup and eat it when they are soaking wet with the soup! Very flavoursome.

Tada! This is the Bak Kut Teh! Filled with meats and a bit of veggie. But the soup is very herby, unlike the Singaporean style, which is mostly pepper...... That night we had 3 refills of the soup and we can still finished the whole claypot. I drank at least 2 bowls of the soup!

Next time maybe later today or tomorrow I will post more foods up. Maybe I will do the seafoods from Teluk Kumbar!

Foods in Penang - I

I think I will dedicate this blog into foods for these few days. Cause I wanted to lure you guys into coming to Penang. Okay, the first stop has to be the one from a hawker centre in Tanjung Bungah. I can't recalled what is the hawker centre name, but it is opposite the Penang Chinese Swimming Club. I was the member over there before, and that place was pretty familiar to me, eventhough I lived in the city.

Okay, this place was introduced by my sister. There is this place that sell "ikan bakar - grilled fish". 不一样 ikan bakar. Yeah you hear me correct, it means Unique Grilled Fish.... The name itself was very catchy, so I went ahead with my sister. It turned out to be very nice! The sauce was really different from a normal grilled fish. The sauces had some deep-fried anchovies and dried shrimps as well. So since the 不一样 ikan bakar is so famous, we decided to name the place 不一样 Hawker Centre! Sorry guys, the picture of the grilled fish turned out to be pretty dark. I was quite new to my sister's camera. So you guys will have to settle for the 不一样 sotong or 不一样 grilled squid. The next thing I wanna introduce is Ambla Sumboi! Ambla is a fruit, a bit bitter to some people's taste. So they add dried plumes which makes it sourish! That's the drink I always order since I reach Penang 1 week ago. Yeah, I am in Penang for a week, although my mom is annoying me to the max, I am looking forward for more Penang foods!

Although the grilled fish is very good, others were only alrite. Satay, fried oyster omelette were so so only. I will post some of the good satay up next time. I will try to update this blog with heaps of foods next time. So I guess I shall make you guys drool for awhile, before the big Niagra falls come down! Hahahaha.

A normal (not unique) satay

Pretty normal fried oyster omelette

Ice kacang, or I don't know what it is called. Basically it is a cold dessert.

Job well done. I took heaps of pictures of other foods, they doesn't turn out nicely..... I was having Hokkien-Loh Mee actually. It is mixture of Loh Mee and Prawn Mee. Spicy and very sticky, ditch that dish a lot!

Till next time, please prepare your mouth for Niagra Fall!

A series of unfortunate events

I think taking the flight back home is actually a wrong movement. Right after I boarded the flight, bad things tend to follow me around.... These are the series of unfortunate events I would love to rant about!

1. Change of flight for my KL - Penang trip. Although I had changed from flying at 9pm to 4pm which means I only left 1 hour transit, that doesn't mean it is a good thing. This is because the flight from KL to Penang is not a connecting flight.... I need to change the flight to the next day and sleep in my friend's (one of the generous monkey's) house. Although it means I get to spend one night with my beloved friend, that really bugged me because I can't reach home earlier.
2. While printing my boarding pass for flight from Melb to Gold Coast, I accidentally turned off the computer instead of turning on the printer to print my pass. So I could not print that bloody pass and need to queue up for printing of my boarding pass. I was pretty angry at myself that time, for being so stupid, and turn off my computer instead.
3. Went to watch whales in the ocean. It is a good thing actually. They were magnificent! But I came back with a "salty fish". My shoe were soaking wet from the trip cause the sea water keep splashing onto my legs, AND my whole body, while we were chasing whales. Although this is a good sign that I should buy a new shoe, I quite like that shoe. Regradless of me skating through the wet ground with that shoe, I still liked them.
4. Now this is the worst thing ever happened to me..... My bloody beloved Sony Ericsson K850i which was newly purchased from Aus is going crazy with me. So am I...... The battery always dies after 12 hours. I need to charge it every day......... OMFG.....
5. Then, when I just reach Penang, my house had this series of blackout. No power, no fan, but heaps of mossy...... The stupid "people" don't know how to repair the "major breakdown". I called them at least 6 times and I reckon they know my name at the end of that series. OMG, being an urban person, blackout is really hard for me, and the mossy is not helping. At the end of the day, I was busy looking for cockie to pass my time.......

Some of you guys might say, stop the whinging. Get a grab of what is real and stop ranting..... But hey, this is my blog. So I can rant, ramble and whinge as much as I want. I should do something with my Sony. I hope these unfortunate events will end here.

ASM Conference

I better write this entry before I go off for holiday back in my hometown. I assume I will be a tourist in my hometown, cause I presume Penang will change to a phase I will never recognise. But before that, I will be heading to Gold Coast and watch a real life whale. I hope it will be great.

The past five days, I was busy. In fact, I was very very busy. I was attending a international level conference from Australian Society for Microbiology. Sound very interesting huh? Actually it is some sort of lecture over another lectures, that start from morning going through evening. You hear me correctly, sometimes I was over there from 8.30am to 10.00 pm. Of course it is not all about lectures, we have time for networking and social (this is what it said over the itinerary). I have to say, these lectures are very different from those you experienced during undergraduate. During undegraduate study, we were taught of what is the definition of Gram negative bacteria, what is bioremediation or the use of infection control. But over here, since I am the most under-qualified person, their talks were mostly on the research they did and what are they looking for.

There were heaps of microbiologist from all over the world. I was lucky to be able to chat with some of the most powerful person in this field. The first day was rather bleak. I was from the outback and looking at people chatting away are not a good sign when I have no one to talk to (except my supervisor). Luckily I managed to adapt to this kind of situation and prised my mouth open to speak with strangers. Almost everyday, I managed to talk with a handful of strangers, and "network". I didn't know being a scientist is so hard..... Anywho, on the second day, I noticed although there were high amount of people chatting in groups, there were bound to have people who stood there alone, feeling out of place. Then I began to feel relief and chatted away.

Thanks to my supervisor, who invited me to present in a small workshop, I managed to chat with some people from different universities, all around Australia. The picture below is my supervisor presenting in that workshop.
This is my lovely lengthy poster displayed in the Exhibition Hall.
That picture was taken when I was in a plenary presentation by a Laureate Prof Peter C. Doherty. I should say, some of the presentations can bored you to sleep or dead, while others are very amusing and funny.
I was very excited, afterall it is my first time attending a conference. I dare not take too many photos, cause none of them took any photos, and besides people are over here to listen to the presentation. Not to take photograph like all the Asian like to do. So three photos are all I can get from five days of conference.

Creatures from Mars

I am not sure why am I writing this entry. To tell you the truth, I really don't. I just felt like writing it, although the first part of my story had long gone 1 year ago. Maybe because I have no room on my own now, I am sleeping on a foldable bed-couch thingy. Or maybe I am just into a phase, like old smelly socks (I have no idea why I wrote that) PMS. Hahahaha.

Back to my title, before I got too far into the old smelly socks, I am speaking about men! Once upon a time that sound old, one of my friends (girl) asked me this question: What men do when they are interested in a girl? Man, that took me hell a long time to think. Maybe so long that, it takes me about 1 year to fully understand the psychology part of it. I am not a psychologist, so don't get me wrong there. So what men do when they are interested in a girl?

After 1 years of looking at love and men textbooks, definitely not researching, and maybe asking me the same question to answer my friend, I have come up with these set of answers. Maybe you guys might not agree with me, speaking in an ockle way "I don't bloody care, gals digs blokes with big tummy".

A guy is interested in a girl, when:

1. He looks at the particular girl with a slight puppy eyes and somehow tenderly look. I might get this wrong, a play boy might get these sort of eyes and get every girls on his shoe. How do you girls tell when a bloke have those eyes? Maybe they will sparkle when he looks at you?
2. The bloke is more caring towards you. Do not agree with that? No guys will beat up the girl that he likes if he is interested. What? You think you are still in kindie? So a good way to test this is to act as if you fall down, and hurt yourself, and see whether the guy cares or not. Of course some of them do care, right? When someone feel down, you will help that guy?
   
3. The bloke will be interested to spend more time with you. Either on the train, or just standing in front of the rancid smelling toilets waiting for you. This is quite true, we won't be standing there smelling all those filthy smell, and rather go to some perfume shop even though they smelt a lot worse.
4. The bloke would love to talk to you more often! With the latest techology, one can argue that it is hard to differentiate. Even a 5 years old kid has the latest mobile, and he KNOWS how to sms...... I reckon I will lose to him in the competition of text messaging if we had one.
5. I think body language plays a lot of roles in this part. Just like monkey, the interested party will try to groom the other victim monkey. Although we have evolved or genetically modified by selective breeding, some part of us are still very similar to our monkey ancestors. Christian people, you are different, you are greated by your god from mould. So I can't include you guys into this, can I? Sorry I am being religion-ist here, pardon me for that.
6. The guy will put the girl's name near his mouth. Not change his name to the girl's name, you bloody idiot. He speaks more of her, maybe in good, some might be bad.
   
7. Maybe he will beat you because he is interested in you. Well, when a boy hit or bully a girl, this means he is interested in her. Maybe some people still practise this movement when they grow up. Thank god I am not close to any of these abusive people.
   
8. The bloke will try to buy drinks for the lady, and maybe with some additives. Well, we know what we are interested. Do you?
9. He will jump around like monkey and ask you for a dance or so. Then you guys can jump around in circle or crazy undirected way and exchange body heat. Hey I am not talking about sex yet, don't jump into conclusion like them.... Then after one dance or another, you guys can actually exchange "interest" in a filthy grafitti toilet. By "interest", it means something the girl will see something growing in few month time like a bank interest, and guys need to pay all of that in return.
   

Okay, I can't think of any other thing that is good. So basically you guys should know the point 1-6 are somehow true, and point 7-9 are all bullshits. If not, you poor gullible soul...... People open your eyes and look at the world, maybe with a new pair of glasses.

For your information, as a disclaimer, this is just a mere nonsense by a too much time on his sleeve author, and should be read in account of pleasure or under supervision of an adult.

Leaving on a V-Line.

Taking a break from my packing, I decided to write this entry. Cause I probably won't have the mood to write another entry until I am fully settled in Melbourne. Yes, you get me right, I will be moving back to Melbourne for good. I will be out of this outback, and into the big smoke. Some parts of me are longing about the move, and another half just want to stay put. But this is a move I have to make, not the one I can choose.
If you guys have read the previous entry, I will be crashing with my cousin. I think I better start packing again. These are my pictures of the packing progress.
I am always like that when I pack. Throw everything out and then only sort them into boxes. So everything will lie around the room when I pack, and I got agitated by that and start watching tv again. Hahaha.

-------

Apart from packing, I am sure I am going to miss the outback. I am speaking on behalf of everyone who stayed at the outback for more than 5 months. Okay, some people might not like this place after all these years. But I came to love it. This place is nice and very laid back; I believed I have said enough about this beautiful place, so I should stop here. I guess I should let you guys see what is so nice about this place. Those gippslander, please don't buy the next V-line ticket back to gippy after looking at them. ;)
The most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.

Sunsets during winter. I took them on the way back from gym.
One foggy day.

After tomorrow, it will be only a visit to this place. I know I will miss it a lot, but I can't see any of my future in this place. Maybe I will move back when I am a 40 years old heck, but not now.

In Heaven or In Jail?

Disclaimer: This is just a random rambling from Lex. The author still want to be neutral in political worlds, although most of the world are going crazy with the rise of gas.

Most of you guys might know about that I will be heading back to Melbourne for good, or some of you guys might not know. When I am down in the city, I have to stay with my aunt. This is because she INSISTED of me staying with her, and I know that she cares about me a lot (as much as a mother will). Hey I am not complaining about this. But then there is always a personal dispute inside me. I have moved out of the comfort and pamper life four years ago, and now I get my comfort and pampering by living by myself. I LOVE living by myself. What is the advantages?

1. I can go out as late as I want, not accounted to anyone. FREEDOM
   
2. I can do whatever I like at home, in my own little space, ie. watch tv until wee hour if there is no work the next day, find for treasure in two little holes that is formed below my eyes, and maybe sit around naked (I am just giving extreme activity, not that I sit around naked, only when it is 45 degree hot summer)

But there is always bad side which some people thinks that they will be too much for someone at this age, like laundry, cleaning the floor or others. But I have gone pass that budge-stage where I do all the house chores when I felt that they are too much for my liking.

When I told my aunt that I wanted to move out with my friends, my aunt actually cried out loud. Of another thing that makes me don't want to stay in the house is that I don't have my own space. I need to crash in my cousin room. I don't think he likes that idea as well. My aunt actually said that she wants me to live with her as long as I am working in Melbourne. So should I move out of Melbourne? I think when it is time to move, she will understand. So what is so bad living with her, right? Foods, shelters, needs, necessaries provided. All free of charge.

But, one thing is I need to crash with my cousin in a small room, both of us are over 18. I don't think it is good for my uncle to clean my undies and clothes. I don't have a personal table where I can put all my crap and electronics. I have some other needs, and I better not say. Their house are miles away from the station, and it is hard for me if I were to be late from gatherings and outings. I don't think my cousin will be happy if I stay over his place for that such a long time, and he might have needs as well. Hahaha. Hey, we are adult here, and boys will always be boys.

But beggars can't be choosers. So I have to go with this kind of tormenting situation for awhile, hoping I can a job and move out of their house. Don't get me wrong, they are the closest people to me over here in Aus, but I am a person who tasted freedom before. I don't want to go back to that so call comfort zone, if I can. I can make my own comfort zone now.

One good words though, beggars can't be choosers........

Tomorrow is another Day

Sorry guys, been leaving this blog to rot for awhile. Can you guys see any mould growing at the corner? If so, do help me to wipe them!

At 2 pm, I am no longer a student! Although my student card valid until 2010, so means I can watch movie at cinema with reduced price until 2010, I have officially completed my Honours degree!! Honours year come and go, and 1 year passed in a blink. I still clearly remembered the first time I stepped into my Honours office, sitting next to Micheal and Jacinta on my both side. I can't say I had the worst time during this year, I had a blast actually! I just wish I can stay here longer.

I was chatting with one of my friend, and that I will be heading to the city soon. It is different, I got use of this kind of slow-paced life in Gippsland. If I remembered clearly, I did say this phrase before, and for a numerous time. People over here in Gippy are way friendlier than those in the city. Although when you bring a smile out to the world, the world will smile WITH you (not At). Oh yes, I will be moving to the city soon. I have no idea how many times I need to move, but I to have my own house next time, where I won't need to move like a bloody nomad.

I have been pretty addicted to watch Aussie Footy these days. That is a bloody bewdy, one can play with hand, foot and even body. But I don't really see the point of talking footy here, since this is not a footy blog, and only those from Aus will know about this game.

For now, I will pay all my attentions into making a nice poster for the conference I am anticipating for, and enjoy will I can!!!! Yes, tomorrow is another day, another pretty boring and routine day. I guess I am behaving older than I suppose to be, no longer hitting the nearest pub (if there is any) to celebrate my degree completion. But, sit here and bloody blog about my bloody life...... I wonder whether can I blame on my circle of friends over here, cause almost all of them don't go to such places. I have to pull them into a pub last year during my birthday.....

BUT, I get my entertainment by hitting the gym; not to spot on boobies, or to see girls in bikini in the swimming pool. I do exercise in the gym. AND healthy dose of cable tv, thanks to my landlord. Sometime I do feel bad, cause I was laughing my ass off while watching King of Queens while my housemate need to study for his nursing examination.

Okay, enough of rambling useless stuffs. Tomorrow is another day, for me to start packing and procrastinate!

Now you comb now you don't

I guess this entry's title is rather weird rite? now you comb now you don't? What does it means? Okay, for the past few days, I have been complaining to someone, you know who you are!, that my hair is bugging me..... All flat hard to make it stand up. Maybe because once I got lazy making them all stand up, they will fall flat and stuck to my head.... Haih......

So I finally can't take that anymore, and went back to Melbourne for my stylist. This time, my stylist was none other than my Fat Aunt! Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta.......


She was shock to know what I am going to cut, and I don't know whether you guys will be shock as well. But I INSISTED. The picture below is me without my hair cut. All flat, looked exactly like a nerd.
Then after the hair cut:
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Wait for it
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What for it
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There! Buzz cut!!!!! Although it makes me looked a bit "eggy", and I can tell people still can't use of that, well, they have to!
Hahahahaha. It does look better with my sunnies and Ipod, rite?

What is your say?

Looking Up and Reaching for the Sky

I am finally finished with my Honours Thesis! After 4 months of nonstop writing and cracking up my head to correct my own badly-sounded English, it all comes to one day or pathetically worry on every single bit of the thesis formatting..... But at the end of the day, although I was knackered, lethargic and having millions of stuffs running around my head, I felt good. Not happy cause I was too numb to be happy. GOOD! I felt even better when my supervisor told me how proud she is! Those little words do make me feel a lot better!
(PS, you will never get these treatments if you are under an Asian supervisor, so beat it)

Yesterday, I was telling myself that I should NOT be typing anything for at least two days. But what are you looking now? Yes, I am typing on my blog, blog entry won't just come into existence if no one is writing it......I am not staying with an extraterrestrial person either. I just can't seems to stop myself from doing work, I guess. Don't get me wrong, I am not a workaholic. I know when to enjoy my day. These days there weren't any good movies and tv shows over Austar. Just when you thought paid tv has everything, but not every single minute of the day.

There are thousands message I wanted to pass on during the holocaust/hiatus, but I was just too busy to write up something nice. These few days, a Melbournian drop-out, Cory something is stirring the water again. First he crashed his own parent's house, then once he got famous in doing that, people thinks they can make money out of him. By giving him more money and attentions in doing those absurd behavior. For your information, to those who is not in the land down under, or just plain living in a nutshell, this guy is a real nuisance. Creating problems everywhere he goes, and over-partying like no body's business. I guess he doesn't realise that after a few years, he will be living in a dump with no one attention. And the last thing he might do is suicide, since this is a good attention seeking events! I am not cursing him here, but I am just merely stating the obvious.

A lot of people come over to me, saying " Yeah, so you are done now! I am envy you cause you can do nothing now!". Hell no. I have heaps of stuffs to do, just like the next undergraduate student standing next to me. Oh not next to me, cause I am in my room writing this entry, and no one is standing next to me. If you guys bothered to look at the two previous posts, I had as much thing as you guys. Maybe even more... But those of the stuffs that I am dying to do.
Presenting in a nationwide conference! How good is that.

I guess I should be done for today. Off to do more workout in the gym!! I will be doing down to the big smoke tomorrow! Till then,

I am still Alive

I have abandoned my blog for 1 month.... My gosh..... Just a quick hello just to tell you my whereabout. I don't want to abandon it okay, but these few weeks have been tremendously exhausting and busy.....

What I am up to these days?

Thesis writing.

Hitting the gym every other days. I am not that vain to post myself naked and show the muscle in my blog, so don't ever think you can see anything from here.

Doing lab works continuously and planning that they will fail and need me to repeat them.....

Sleep (definitely)

City dwelling. Quite a lot, cause some unfinished business.


My Schedule for next few months?

Finish my Thesis. That is a MUST. DO OR DIE.......

Apply for Aussie Permanent Residency

Presenting a poster in Australian Society for Microbiology Conference in Melbourne. That will be my major event for the moment! I can't wait to go there and crap for 4 days!!!!!

Go to Gold Coast. Although I go there alone, I reckon it will be fun as well! Planning to go whale watching instead of the kindy theme parks.

Go back Msia for holiday. 3 weeks only. So mates, please book me in advance.

Maybe go for skiing trip in Falls Creek!

Okay, that's it for now. I will come in and blog impromptu! When I have a time to spare for breathing. Hahaha

Stressed

Stressed...


Liveless....


Apathy...


Lethargic...


Yes, those are the feeling I had past few weeks.

Labs...

Thesis...

Resume and Cover Letters...


Yes, those are the stuffs I have been doing for the past few weeks.

I am sorry guys, apparently thesis has took the creativeness in me. Can't seems to find a good topic to write these days. Besides I am just too tired to write when I need to write 20 thousands words of thesis.....

Bare with me these few month, reckon this "sickness" will prolonged to end of May.... I will try to update somedays, not frequent like other professionals bloggers. I am not one of them anyway. Hahaha. So don't abandon my blog........

Crocodile Meat in Red Silk

That day when I was down in the big smoke, I went to eat at Red Silk (again). This time I did not order any same o' same o' foods that I used to. I ordered Stir-fry Crocodile meat with XO sauce! It is quite nice!!!! Not like I've never eaten crocodile before, but this is not bad at all. The previous time was in Dragon Boat with other exotic meats.

Anyway the meat tasted like chicken, while the texture felt a bit like fish. There were also some fishy taste to it. Go for it if you want something different for your lunch or tea.

Red Silk Restaurant and Bar
101, 1st Fl 200 Bourke Street Melbourne 3000
03 9663 9922

Conformity Vs Individualism

What I realised after 2 years of staying oversea is that the cultures between two big nations are relatively huge; Asian and Westerners. Over here in Aus, there were high amount of people practicing Individualism, while in Asian countries, there were high conformity going on.

For those of you who has no idea what is Conformity and Individualism, better improve your psychological dictionary.

Conformity means tendency to change one's perceptions, opinions, or behaviours to conform with group norms. Too many scientific jargons? Basically it is about one following the social trends and community trends. Individualism is the opposite of that.

Okay, why I say that? That Westerner has more individualism, while Asian just follow the leads. Some of you who are pro-Asian might started to protest upon looking at that sentences. AND I am going to prove my theory right.

Let's talk about Asian alone. Looking back at the time of LaLa-Land. There were heaps of LaLa (people with totally no sense of dressing, thinking what they dress were hip when they showed a total loser out of them) all of the sudden in a few years back. Almost all, if not all, of them have bell bottom jeans, collar shirts which were opened widely which can showed their skinny chest. Shirts that are mostly colourful, maybe from their father's time.
Then there were the straightening-hair-period. When almost every girl I know, have had their hair straightened.
This is not the bad stuffs. The thing that make conformity so strong in Asia is people will actually look at you differently when someone wear differently from the norm. This is why conformity is kept very strong in Asia, cause everyone want to look like another person he/she is staying with. They will scrutinizing you until you felt like you weren't wearing anything at all.

Then, there will always be the Westerner. Of course, there were people who conform to others. Following fashion trends, and wearing something people will preferably wear. BUT, there were also high individualism in this region. If you were to wear something funny in the street of Melbourne, not many people will pay attention, or even scrutinizing you. For example, when a guy wear Harry Potter costume, or even super-duper short pants, no one will care.

You guys might think I am a hypocrite. Writing all these, while I myself follow trends so desperately. Yes, although I follow trends, there are time which I just wanna wear my normal home clothes out. And I did.

Of course, I am not talking about dressing up in your G-strings and thongs (Thong and thongs, what a great pun!). This picture was shown in my Psychology lectures. The first time I saw that, I almost burst out laughing.... hehehe