Night out at Coogee

Having handed in all most of the assignments that were due, and as we promised each other, when yesterday night came it was time to go out and "WEEETTT" :D

We headed to Coogee to look for a place to drink and chill after dinner. I must say; I had a HELLUVA good time!

Oh yes, this for the tourists for sure! =D

Thats the pathetic McD that closed by the time we finished our drinks, which was before midnight *rolleyes*

Flags... big flags that hang proudly <3 you hardly get to see this back home =/ That Johhnie Walker --as lovely as it was-- was a drink too expensive to buy a second! 

Where it started off pretty overly controlled and quiet... but when these rounds started to kick in...

...everyone was getting happier! =D

And having had so many rounds, our friend started to say "who cares!" 

Alcohol does many things to many people, but this was the first time I've seen it make someone powerful! =D

Of course pictures do lie, and what was actually going on was far from a bossy scene XD

And then of course there's this:

Writing in the Sky

Stolen Days

Coming back to this blog page and reading the previous post makes it sound as if it was just last weekend that I was at the park, but that was actually two weeks ago.

I didn't have a 'weekend' last Friday/Saturday/Sunday. I was slaving day and night, from morning till at least 9pm everyday that week to finish off assignments. 

I worked like a dog. 

I start to think how much easier things were back in Inti, and I actually kinda miss it. This was to be expected I suppose: you don't pay large sums of cash to a top notch uni and expect things to be easy, and still expect to graduate from with highly reputable degree -you work your arse for it! =/

Oh well.

Here are the pictures from the park:

I never knew lying under the sun was such a pleasant thing to do until I came here!

This may be nothing to most people --a task so easy and trivial that no one would even bother mentioning-- but this is me, and this is MY blog, and this to me is a huge achievement: I for the first time in my life used a pan and cooked meat! I actually cooked raw minced beef! =D

So yes, I took a bloody picture of this too! =D

Bondi Beach

So it was Saturday, and having had lunch, the three of us had nothing more to do. So we headed down to the beach (since I've never been there!) and my, was it spectacular!

Sunshine. Blue skies. Blue seas. Breeze. And the sheer power of those Pacific waves! 

Yeah, I really wished a handful of you were really here!!! =(

And this is what we had for dinner: Hurricane's pork ribs. No one should die before eating this, and I'm not joking. It's really that good!!!!

Yes, if it wasn't for the flash blowing out the text on my phone's LCD, it would have read: 'Wish you were here' too =/

Oh well. Today's a lazy day though. Did my laundry, said 'no' to Chinatown, cooked spaghetti for lunch, and then cycled to Centennial Park and lazed under the sun for an hour, then came to the library to 'online'! =D

The Curve

It's 8 p.m. Friday night.

I just had the urge to be alone tonight, to take time out for… myself. Just myself, this yellow lamp and my dozens of chilled Budweisers in the fridge.

There's no internet connection still, so I open up iPhoto and began playing slideshows of pictures from all those years and months back.

They remind me of many things. The times, the places, the feelings… they do not fade one bit. I can remember them as if it was all just yesterday. I cannot help but smile: the good times were plentiful.

But most obvious of all is the people. Ah the people: some are still around, some having grown closer, some further, some having left embittered, and many, mostly indifferent.

The pictures also remind me of many events and periods of my life, some of which unbearably gruesome, others stirring up feelings of nostalgia, whilst countless others evoke a multitude of mixed emotions.


In many ways, I thought of coming here as an opportunity to (in a way) start life anew. I thought of it as a chance to begin from a clean slate where many of the baggages and unnecessary complexities from my past no longer existed.

I'd be honest: it doesn't feel that way. 

All I feel is this shadowing sense of insignificance; life if you think about it is pretty weird. It's as if all of the sudden, many of the things and the people whom you knew all the five thousand kilometers away no longer seemed to matter as much (if at all) as/like they once did before.

But then there are those of which whom you communicate with on a daily basis, all those five thousand kilometers back when you hardly talk to the people who live a mere five seconds from you. 

We were distributed tons of reading material upon arrival in uni. Leaflets and guides were poured on us as if their cost were immaterial. There was this section where the adaptation process of an international student to the local environment was described as a U-curve: happy and excited at first, one then experiences disillusionment and alienation, then collapsing into misery and depression, which at this period is represented by the lowest point in the U-curve.

Once the person has settled down properly and has gotten used to the place, and new and meaningful and lasting relationships developed, the person begins to thrive and starts to recover, eventually reaching the top of the other end of the U.

I recall telling my dad that I went through the whole curve on the first/second day itself. I recall breaking down like a little girl then --and only then-- and have never seen those symptoms described in the text ever again.

But I can't help but think of what I'm currently going through as some sort of alienation and disillusionment. But I currently have all that I need to survive, and more than enough to keep me happy as a human being. 

So why then am I in this solemn and introspective state of mind?

Sure as hell don't want to go into an emotional hole, I've been in enough of them! =O


(oh and by the way, also written in the guides were advice on finance, transport, use of words/slang/language, culture, safer sex, typical societal stereotypes, mention of tolerance towards homosexuality, where to go to for financial/emotion support as well as support for just about anything and everything! Cool huh? =D) 

The Purge

I think this must be it. ‘This’ the slow, the gradual, and the progressive death to a train of thought that has plagued my mind since…

Since it all fell apart.

Relentless and unceasing, each and every day it comes for me: hiding behind my active thoughts, surfacing from and menacing the times when my brain is idle.

But with each passing day, and with each passing dream, it grows ever weaker, as the threads of relevance slowly unbind and untangle themselves from the nasty convoluted mess that has been the giant thrombus in my head.

The lines between right and wrong converge and intersect, winding in and blurring out into a million eddies of contradictions. The more I see, the more I think, the less I know, and the less things seem to make sense.

You then start to think about how people do it, and why.

And then you start to wonder: were you ever meant for such a thing?

Status Report

It’s been three weeks since I landed in Australia, and life here I must say is pretty good!

Well, there are always two sides of a coin of course.

I’ve almost completely forgotten how it feels like to be in a 25C+ environment. Last week I went by three days without rice. I’ve forgotten how it feels like to drive. I’m starting to like, and be okay with having bread taking up an ever increasing portion of my food-pie. Every time I eat a good, proper Chinese meal, it feels like it was forever since I last had one. And if paying eight to ten dollars -the standard price- for every meal once (or twice) a day was of no concern, then there is absolutely no problem with the food here. From Asian to Western, fast food to restaurant to home-cooked-style food, everything is here.

I think that my chances of finding and developing relationships (of any and every sort) here are more limited then they were back home. I think I will be reluctant all the way up till the very end of my course to tip the scale in favour (or against staying and working) here for a couple more years.

I still keep multiplying prices by three and converting them back to RM, though with food this habit has stopped completely. I’m more or less getting used to walking half an hour to get to my classroom in uni, though at the same time the feeling of annoyance and sometimes that of frustration has not subsided.

And speaking of uni, academic life here is starting to get tough-ish. The amount of material I need to read up on and revise for is already piling up and all this are pretty heavy stuff to absorb.

And last but definitely not least, we still have yet to get the internet connection set up in our apartment. Which sucks, but oh well.

The skies are wonderfully blue almost all the time, and the sun and the sky at dusk is simply spectacular.

I should have much more positive things to write about, and that is absolutely true: but knowing me, and me being me, that just doesn’t really happen much! XD

So that’s it for now folks.

I’ll catch you all soon enough. =)