Monthly Archive

my room smells of baked buttered potatoes cos i had that for dinner with roast chicken and a range of other healthy, wholesome greens. for the first time in two weeks i feel immensely satisfied with my food.the grass is always greener on the other side and boy, i’m always drooling at the housemate’s spreads. that’s the advantage of having a mum who has absolutely nothing to do but to clean up after you and to cook mouth-watering food for you. of course, that’s a brat’s life which i’m not exactly hankering after. but still, the housemate gets three piping hot meals on time without having to life any of her dainty, aristocratic fingers.

to back their three full course meals a day, they have tonnes of food in their fridge. when they came back from groceries shopping (while i entered the kitchen to start cooking dinner at 9pm, just home and starving and tired and cold from a project discussion in school) yesterday, i was awed by what they bought. they bought enough food to fill up more than ten regular sized plastic bags.

there was this mini sack of potatoes and she indulged her daughter with five boxes of ice-cream. after which i saw the empty packagings of three dozens of eggs which made me do a double-turn. they obviously haven’t heard of cholesterol limits and fats and carbohydrates and stuff like that.

and yeah, the mum confirmed that was food for one week.

i must have been eating like a sparrow these days, eh?

it’s yet another housemate story.this time, it’s not a real complaint. just pure curiosity.

i really would want to do a focus group with them on their use of toilet paper. they use toilet paper for a lot of purposes - to wipe the floor clean, to cover canvas converse shoes which are washed and supposed to be sunned (papier mache style) and goodness knows what else.

the bathroom wastebin is forever overflowing with used toilet paper.

i just bought a pack of nine toilet rolls five days before they came back and the supply is wiped out. now they’ve started on their pack of nine rolls.

i’m still wondering about the papier mache converse shoes.

the double terrors are giving me daily surprises.while preparing lunch yesterday, i decided to cook some rice as well. so i reached for the rice cooker which was sitting innocently in the cupboard. it felt strangely heavy, so i looked inside. holy cow, there was half a pot of leftover rice in the rice cooker, in the cupboard!

i calmed myself down and decided to use a pot to steam rice. the pot, which was in the very same cupboard, had some seaweed soaking in it! don’t ask me why the mum decided to store food inside the cupboard for pots and pans.

so in the end i had to settle for steaming rice in a large metal mixing bowl.

i started cooking lunch, amused and disgusted by their habits. next, i opened a drawer to get a plate to dish out food. surprise, surprise! this time, there was a bowl of ginko nuts soaking in a bowl, in the drawer!

do i have particularly weird housemates, or do all of their countrymates behave the same way too?

it’s bad enough sharing bathrooms after having my own for several years. nothing beats this than having to share a bathroom with a slob. the housemate is a bathroom terror, though her mum is slightly better i think.each time i use the bathroom after the housemate, there’s bound to be numerous strands of long, black hair around the sink area. she doesn’t have the common sense to clear them away. hair in the sink really irritates me cos it looks so dirty and….gah!

last night i realised they used my toothpaste without even asking me. it doesn’t bug me if they know me well. it’s not that i’m stingy, but i think it’s basic courtesy to ask before using. if they had asked i’ll gladly let them use it and think they’re nice people. if they were my friends i wouldn’t mind at all, but they’re strangers, for heaven’s sake!

then this morning, on top of using my toothpaste, they had the cheek to rearrange my toothpaste and toothbrush, which were snugly placed in my toiletries basket. i thought i could avoid misery by limiting my boundaries to just a small little toiletries basket near the sink and a shower caddy on the shower screen. but no, they just have to invade my tiny territory when i’m giving them all the storage space in the bathroom.

what’s wrong with them man? no common sense, no courtesy, no sense of privacy.

i am going to move my toiletries basket back to my room tomorrow. let them survive without toothpaste. i don’t give a damn anymore.

i brought in a new friend for ally.

she didn’t like the first one, so it’s been sitting there waiting to be picked up by its buyer. the new friend came this afternoon, mysteriously wrapped in brown paper. the old-school brown paper which i love so much.i am in love with ally’s new friend too.

the landlady was complimenting me on my extreme cleanliness and tidiness. i wasn’t so sure until i did this again, out of habit.

i think i am a clean freak in disguise.

i just want to crawl into bed and have a good sleep, after sleeping at 4am last night. i’m still sleepy though i woke up at 10am.

the late night wasn’t worth it after all. the lecturer doesn’t really give a damn about what we write in the assignment. he just wanna make sure we turn up for class and do our readings. i’m pissed cos i spent so much time on them.i got so cranky i went to the supermarket to stock up on junk food. i haven’t had junk food since i came, so yeah i bought quite a lot. but it’s cheap buying junk food on sale.

junk food calms me down when i’m grumpy staying up late to rush deadlines. when today is speak mandarin day and i’m still suffering from language shock.

for the first time i spoke mandarin in school. with classmates from hong kong, taiwan and china. i was so embarrassed cos their mandarin had those perfect, melodious accents and mine? sheesh it sounded flat and uncouth. and i obviously had a poor vocabulary the way i sounded and the way i didn’t understand huge chunks of their conversations.

it’s gonna be intensive mandarin again tonight during dinner with the housemate-and-mum and owner-and-family. i’m the sole representative, uh, representing myself.

speaking of the housemate, her mum is staying with her for two months. i hope at least her mum is clean and neat. living with a slob is bad enough, but living with two? i think i’ll just die. but it’s already 4.30pm and i don’t see any signs of the housemate-and-mum.

i wonder if…..her return has been postponed again.

i think my blog gets a little boring without pictures. i blabber on too much. so i shall try and find a picture for every post. i liked the previous picture so much, i’m thinking of things to do with it.

warm, sleepy afternoons make me blabber all the more.

less than two months ago, i spent less than ten hours at home every day. sometimes i would spend only three to four hours at home, returning well after midnight to catch some sleep before going out again. that was quite something, considering i have a ridiculously low energy level and that i have parents who are control freaks.

now the tables have turned. i spend less than six hours outside, if i have classes. otherwise, i stay at home all the time except for groceries shopping.

seriously, i need a life.

i just slammed my face into the glass door while trying to see if it’s still raining.i dreamt of a murderous cat last night. a black cat with huge, shiny light green eyes. it clawed me, so out of self defense i pushed it away. then it came back to claw me again, so i went to the kitchen to get a knife. the cat went to the kitchen too. to get a pair of scissors. it then tried to stab me using the scissors and i had no guts to kill it with the knife in my hands.

for the third time, the housemate is postponing her return.it’s mean of me to think this, but i’ll be happy if she doesn’t come back. then i’ll have the whole place to myself for a longer time. muahahahhaa. but that’s a really evil thought, cos it means she totally cannot take the stress and has to quit school.

today has been a bad day, with a mac-incompatible printer that finally appeared (luckily i’ve managed to sell it and by a freak coincidence, i’m selling to my bro’s friend), not saving my word document cos i clicked on the wrong button, running out of food in the fridge, spending an entire afternoon trying to download mac-compatible pdf file creator programme only to realise it’s already built-in in ally.

but i swear the printer thingy wasn’t entirely my fault. i kind of got misled by the company’s dysfunctional website.

in general today’s events all boil down to the same issue: if only i had a brain that’s functioning properly.

for the time being, i live for school.instead of checking my personal email inbox a few times a day, i check the tutorial forum every few hours. to see how people are debating over issues and to see how i can contribute a post and earn some participation marks.

that’s especially since i’m a late bloomer. i only put up my virgin post yesterday, instead of a month ago like everyone else in class.

i got a kick out of being the first to post a reply. did i mention that’s for next week’s tutorial? i realised the trick is to post real early, so that i can say anything i want to and people can choose to shoot my ideas, rather than wading through more than a hundred replies over the next few days to post an intellectual reply.

for twenty percent of the course grade, i’m certainly destroying my life.

the roof of my mouth is mega-burnt cos i bit into a piping hot pork sausage straight from the toaster oven.ouch, it hurts like crazy.

and i only have hot water to drink and i’m having hot soup for dinner.

what are the chances of all these taking place at the same time in the real world?

my first project discussion on a sunday.back to school on a damn hot day, for the sole purpose of brainstorming. why do i feel grumpy suddenly?

i made my way down to the city and caught this pretty sunset.man, the whole of canberra must have been there to watch the fireworks display, meant to mark the end of summer. i have never ever seen so many people in canberra before. the nearby carpark was totally packed, which was kind of phenomenal.

the fireworks display kicked off with some rocket-like thingy zooming across the sky. for twenty minutes i sat there in a trance, bowled over by the colours and the explosion of the sparks against the dark sky. i wanted to take photos of them, but i gave up after the first two minutes and concentrated on appreciating it instead.

this was the only decent photo i took, one of the first sparks before they shot up higher and higher:

i don’t always shop because i want to. sometimes, i’m forced to shop for something new. and i really hate it when i’m forced to shop, cos i’ll settle for something substandard.this time round, i had to buy a wallet cos my current one is spoilt. the zipper is faulty and i have to zip and unzip ten thousand times before it zips up properly.

so i bought this:

it’s by a local brand and fortunately it doesn’t scream its brand on itself.

and it’s in red! woohooo! my first red wallet!

but damn, it’ll only arrive in about a week cos i bought it online. a week is too long to live with a spoilt wallet!

for the record, i still don’t like proper wallets. i like those pouch-like wallets like what i have now. i’ve been using that since attachment days and despite the complaints that my notes are always crumpled, i still like it. so much more space-saving and convenient.

i was never a hardcore addict of chocolate but for some unknown reason, i started smiling to myself when i saw this when grocery shopping.the aroma of cocoa escaping from the foil wrapper. the rich taste of bitter cocoa - with just a little sweet lingering aftertaste .

i was in heaven for a little short while.

everytime i put in extra efforts academically, something happens.case #1: last tuesday, i forced myself out of bed for a morning lecture. missed the 8.13am bus, didn’t want to be half an hour late and took a cab (damn expensive fares) to school. on the cab i remembered the lesson wasn’t at 9am, but at 11am.

case #2: last tuesday (again), i stayed up through the night in an attempt to complete the tutorial assignments which had to be submitted on wednesday. at 6am i gave up cos my body was giving warning signals. too late. anyway, class was cancelled cos of the bloody hailstorm.

case #3: today. i threatened myself to go to school for lectures or else, missed the 8.13am bus again, took the next bus and scurried across campus hurriedly. along the way i met the postgrad classmates who told me there’s no lecture for postgrads today after all. and they whisked me off to have coffee instead.

next time round, i think i can tell myself to take things easy.

just kidding, or the seah-yiyi will cyber-slaughter me.

but it was good having coffee. a cup of latte in the freaking cold morning. my first cup of coffee in a month.

i’m racking my brains trying to think of creative ways to get free pens.STOP MAKING FUN OF ME!

it’s really for a good reason! stationery is really expensive here. even though i brought along five spare pens and three new highlighters, i suspect they won’t last till june. i’ve been a model student!

i shall go scout for more free pens.

looking for people with a vast social network and know human psychology inside-out. forever socialising with other sociable people. taking in the latest happenings in town. experienced in fishing for information from contacts and able to use their rich experience to sense when there are mysteries to be uncovered.i need gossip to spice up my life.

i keep buying weird eggs. the first batch i bought, there was one with some chicken feathers stubbornly stuck to the shell. stubbornly.this time round, i got a happy egg.

probably cos it’s a premium egg from grain-fed chickens with no hormone injections, or so the carton said. who cares about those bull, as long as they’re the cheapest on the shelves.

and i am moused, courtesy of the aussie bro! a nice, affordable logitech mouse! yeah i know it’s not white like ally, but white coloured mice are really hard to clean.

i had a small, glossy white mouse which cost around ten bucks, and it spoilt in less than a month. stupid cheap brand-less products.

i kinda missed everyone again this afternoon. cos it was a really hot saturday afternoon and it reminded me of the sweltering heat shopping in bugis village. then i thought of the friends i could have been meeting today.

but i made myself happier telling myself there’s only 9 more months to go (one month has already passed, can you believe it?!) and life isn’t too bad here after all. and i have msn, don’t i?

as long as i don’t think of saturday afternoons which were always meant for coffee and shopping.

something turned horribly bad.for the past few days my cooking has been atrocious. except for the stuff i cooked with luncheon meat.

i just ate two dory fillets which tasted extremely bad. but it’s cooked and i’m hungry, so i ate it all the same.

if this continues for the next ten months, i’m doomed.

yesterday was the first day i ventured out of the house since tuesday, cos i’ve been sleeping for more or less, two whole days.and i realised, to my extreme horror, that the thunderstorm on tuesday night wasn’t any normal thunderstorm! there was hail!! so exciting and i didn’t even know that!

well, there wasn’t any hail around my area, but according to my brother’s friend who lives across the road from campus, the hail lasted for three hours and on the next morning, the ice was about, say, ten inches thick on the roads? parts of the school was flooded, and they had to bring in those funky snow-clearing machines to clean up.

and i had zero idea what happened.

man, i felt like i just woke up from hibernation last night.

the brother came and is gone. came to pass me the six heavy textbooks and other stuff that i needed. and now he’s out there exploring canberra before his bus leaves at 6pm. i feel quite bad for erm, not even sending him to the bus stop? after all his efforts in lugging my stuff across the ocean and everything, all i offered him was two hours’ use of my laptop last night and breakfast in the morning. but i think by the end of today he’ll know this place better than i do anyway.

i haven’t had the time to go out and walk around, having to handle moving, settling in, school housekeeping, school work and the part-time job, in which i’m behind time again. i swear when i’m done with the part time job (probably during easter break) i’ll go out there and explore.

gotta stop being the cavewoman already.

anyway the brother’s friend was offering me another housing option with effect from next semester. i have the option of living three doors away from him, across the road from the campus, right in the centre of the city, in a studio room with my own bathroom and kitchen. but the entire studio is about half the size of my current bedroom and i seriously wonder if i’ll get claustrophobic again, the way i did when i was staying in the motel for the first week.

staying in that building also means i’ll get to know a hell lot of other people, which is a good and bad thing. i need to know more people but i can be quite a hermit. but then again, that place will give me even more privacy than what i have now.

don’t know lah, will consider first.