Time.

17 Days to start of exams.
2 Days since a supposed yearly celebration.
1 Day to moving out.

Yes. Am moving out of my current place to somewhere closer to Uni. Eziq already said countless times he will miss having good conversations. But I think he miss the food I cook more like it. I will definitely miss place as its very comfortable. Moreover, its the freedom that I enjoy. However, his parents would be here and although I was welcome to stay , I decided to leave as I don't wanna disturb their family time.















View from the corridor.















View from the other side of loving area.















Honey-baked lamb-rack which he loves so much with cheesed-mushroom
















The last dinner I cooked here before moving out.... Honey-baked chicken.. wedges.. cheese-stuffed mushrooms, onion-mushroom0fried-egg with chicken rice.

Yes. I know its a nice place. Eziq did mentioned that he would want me to come back (and stay) next year if I want. I was tempted but chose not to make any promises. It would be a good house to have friends over as there is additional guestroom. Well, the new place is not that bad. Got to see how it all goes when I move in tomorrow.

Boy, thinking back, how time flies. Its already more than 3 months since I came back. So much had changed. New friendships were forged. Went to a couple amazing places.




















On top Mt Cootha.. during sun-set..

This place is beautiful. We went up during sun-set thinking it would be a good time. But appears that sun sets at the other side of the mountain and the lookout faces East. So I made up my mind that for people who comes and visit me, I don't mind waking up in the wee hours in the morning to drive up to this place to see the sun-rise.















Another scenic place. On the bridge to Southbank overlooking the Brisbane river. Mel would remember this place..















Pic taken on the sand... on a quiet beach in Gold Coast.

Who can forget such beautiful beaches? Yet to find a beach that can rival this private beach I frequent. Well, I guess its just wait til somebody who really wants to come and not just paying plain lip services. People had done that and had been let down before. So, I normally do not pay much attention when people say they will come. I will start thinking and making plans ONLY when air-tickets are confirmed.

Alright, gonna continue my packing... time to shelve certain memories.

Weekend~

It was a fun-filled weekend. Friday night was relaxing. Watched tele with Eziq after a simple dinner. Both of us had a long day and it was just the perfect way to relax. Very typical Aussie to spend time at home.

Sat morning was abit busy. He and I cleaned up the whole house. Vaccum, mopped the house, I washed the bathroom and we sun-ed the couch cushions. All in preparation for the house party that night. Bernie arrived with Linda at around 4 plus to prepare. We prepared and marinate the chicken wings, prepared the pâtés, boil the soup, made Caesar salad and ice lemon tea.















Eziq trying the fish..

The good thing about cooking with Bernie is that nothing comes out from a can. Everything was home-made. Caesar dressing, pâtés, oxtail soup,... etc. 2-3 hours of preparation, the food was ready.















Caesar salad and Curry paste fried chicken wings..















Oxtail soup, Baked Red Snapper in Thai Sweet Chili.















Bernard, Eziq & Linda

Me, Michelle and Jess

Wonderful dessert

Dinner was delicious! We had Alfredo cream sauce pasta to go with all the food~! The pâtés was wonderful with bread, Oxtail soup was great, tasty red snapper, yummy chicken wings, crunchy Caesar salad, refreshing home-made ice lemon tea. Eziq and Bernard got to leave early for another party with both not coming back tonight. So that means I have the whole house to myself!! Dessert was prepared efficiently by Linda and boy.... Dessert was good. Iced mocha with double choc ice cream. After the sumptious dinner, we rested on the comfortable couch and catch the TV show while we camera whore abit. Bernie tweaked the camera here and there.















Pic 1... nice and standard..















Pix 2... Say Ahhhhhhh....















Pix 3... Black and White..

All thanks to Bernie who was tempted to try new recipes and to friends who actually turned up with wine and things that were needed to make it big success! Jess and Michelle left soon after as they got work on Sunday, leaving Bernie, Linda and myself to 'look-after' the house.

We spent the whole night chatting. It was amazing how we managed to stay awake and chat til 8am! I drove off to get bread for breakkie and we carried on chatting until 3pm!! I will never forget Bernie's version of Singapore girl by putting tea towel on top of his head and saying he look better than more than half the SQ stewardess. Haha. Even acted certain parts of it! It was fantastic!

Then soon after they left, Bernard, gf and Eziq came back, only to take me fishing! Haha. Came back early and I made dinner for everyone. Now dead tired.

After not sleeping for more than 24 hours, I think I will be going to bed early once again. Good Night pple! Am feeling abit better and many thanks for all the concern!!

Internet down.. Sick.. Reflections..

Guess the title says it all. Somehow, I managed to get the flu bug. Been sniffing, sneezing away. Had been taking medicine but things just don't seem right. Sigh. I just hate being sick when alone overseas. Its very much the feeling of not being able to do alot of things and not having any one to take care of you. Aiya, I just dislike the feeling of being sick. Period.

Home internet had been down since last night. It was quite inconvenient for Eziq and myself. It was not working this morning as well and I already told him to call the ISP.

One thing I learnt today was NOT to drive when under heavy medication. 2pm in the afternoon, under the influence of drowsy medicine, I drove to Uni. I was falling asleep on the wheel while going at more than 110km/hr. Crazy it might seem and I was thankful for reaching Uni safely. Should had heeded advice to stay home and rest but I hate the thought of skipping labs. It might not be worth the 5% of overall score and maybe I should not had pushed myself too hard.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read someone's blog recently and the topic of how we should not take people around us for granted was brought up. It certainly brings back memories and I got to say I always try my best not to do so. Its like someone had always been there for you and when the person is gone, it is already too late to say things you have always wanted to say. Its more than just what 'Made of Honor' portrays. Its more than just a good friend always there and next thing you know, he/she getting married. And No, I have yet to watch that movie. Have been avoiding catching love movies as don't find any point in watching it now. Besides, it cost alot to catch a movie in the theaters. Might as well wait for the DVD-rip.

I believe when one person feels taken for granted, its more than just a man-woman issue as mentioned in the movie. Its comprises of friends as well. I am always thankful for the advices given by close friends. I have felt taken for granted at times and am not shy to admit that sometimes as much as I try to avoid taking people for granted, I commit that same mistake.

I always love my family.. mum for always being so cute.. we talk quite often as i know she miss me and she likes to gossip abt family things. dad for working hard and always trying to find excuses not to exercise. lazy bum. brother for being the only child now at home.. nice to know he picked up salsa.. taught by non other than my own shi-fu back then! must be a chore taking care of dad and mum! and who can forget the daddy's girl who went all teh way to Canada? I miss u, my girl. take care yea and we meet soon.

Til today, I yet to forget the words spoken by mel and zz that night at my place. David had been very encouraging as well. NBX was a clown, still a clown, he makes us laugh. I got to say that without those people, I might not have even 'survived' and walked out of the dark tunnel. Without that bunch of good friends, I might not be the person I am today. Without their endless support, things might had been very different indeed.

And to...

you..
thank you for trying to talk senses into me when I first came back to Aust..
even to the extend of saying i was 无药可救 and threatening to kick me in the butt was funny.

you..
although we seldom catch up now..
hope you are feeling alright as i heard from your cousin that you were rather down over the past few weeks.

you..
staying so far on your Little Norman St, i finally get to catch up with you over the BBQ that day!
certainly miss the time when we meet up just to eat!
thanks for lending listening ear all the time!

you..
thanks for lending a listening ear when I need one...
how to forget the night when u stayed over and dai-di the whole night!

you..
a very new friend indeed..
although we never chat back then..
its amazing how things had turned out now.
for that, i thank you.

you..
its hard to write abt you as you had conveniently 'disappeared' for a month on your own.
i just hope things worked out for the best and thank you for leaving an imprint in my life.
They say feelings are hard to take away and its true.

For all that, I doubt I left anyone out. Everyone I had wanted to mention, is there. Jialat, sun set liao. I am without my jumper and my car is all the way at the other end of campus. Wasn't expecting myself to write today. But I guess when the feeling of writing comes, it comes.

Time to drive back. Bye people. *waves*

Continuation of Weekend.

30 mins after I posted the previous entry, a phone call came in.

Friend (Bernard): Ben, lets go fishing!!
Me: Huh? But I need to go out at around 5.30 and its already 2.
F: Nevermind, its ok. We go somewhere nearby!
M: Errr...
F: Ben.. come! It would not be the same without you man~!
M: Err... ok.. what time will you be coming?
F: My girlfriend and her friend are joining us and we are coming over to pick you and Eziq up now.
M: WTF!! alrite!@ I assume Eziq will be coming home soon then.
F: Yea, he left 10 mins ago.
M: Alright, gonna shower!

With around 20mins before he arrived, I had to wash-up as I had spent the night at Michelle's. All was ok and he arrived just in time and off we go to fish.















My fish and I...

I caught a fish! Hahaha.. It was a small one but good fun! They were thinking of cooking any fish caught but the only one caught was too small and we did what any good sport fisherman does, we threw it back into the river. Time flies and it was time to head back.

I rushed home by 5pm. Tom said he would be picking me up at 5.30pm. I had a quick shower and went out shortly. It was funny having fresh fish and chips and calamari by the river in the freezing night. Michelle and Jess was shivering from the cold. Tom and I were not much better. Dinner was quick and ended with yummy oysters and off to a popular pub. Pub was great and we drank a little and stayed til almost 11 before we went home. We decided to leave early as we will be having lessons together in the following afternoon. A very tiring weekend indeed!~

Not much sleep the night before, followed by a day of fishing and 'pub-bing'. Now am feeling abit under the weather.

BUT.. still the best way to relax after a taxing paper. Although it was filled with bad starts, it was a great ending!

Blessed.

Saturday morning paper on Integrated Systems of Physiology. Woke up at 7am to prepare. All set and ready to go. Walked to my garage at 8am, thinking one hour should be enough to go Uni and settle myself before I go into the exam venue. Put my key into ignition, placed my bag nicely on the passenger seat. Sat down on my seat, I turned the ignition. Engine not starting. Thinking maybe it might be just an one-off thing, I took out the key, pushed it in and turned it again.

Nothing.

Shit! Exam is 55mins away, I am 30km away from Uni and my car's batteries just died. Eziq did not come home the night before and I am all alone with no other car to jump start for me. Having no choice, rang Tom up. He was in Uni and apparently another friend had a morning car accident as well. He told me to stay put and he came here shortly.

To cut the story short, he arrived 20mins to 9. I jumped in immediately and off to Uni once again. We only managed to arrive just as the examiner says "Start writing". Took myself a couple minutes to calm my heart down and off I go. Its a 3hr exam.

End of exam, a girl walkewd out crying. No one I know managed to finish the paper. Neither did yours truly. It was a tough paper and to add on, the phrasing of the questions was crap.

Thankful for having Tom rushing down to 'save' me, I decided to buy him lunch since we were both very hungry. Parked the car, paid for parking and had sumptuous Korean food. Lunch was filling and he wanted coffee so we got ourselves a cuppa each before walking back to the car. Walked to his car, Behold... lying on the windscreen is a parking ticket. We overshot by 5mins! It turning into an ultra bad day by the looks of it.

We went to Michelle's place to complete our lab report and knowing he was not happy, I kept quiet during the 20mins drive. Well, we stopped over at a Chinese bakery, bought 20 char-siew pau and siew mai. Kyla cooked an Indian meal with papadums. It was a good attempt for an Aussie cooking Indian I will say.

Funny it might sound, 4 nerds working one whole afternoon and evening and throughout the whole night, we only managed to get the 'Introduction' done. Most of the time were spent chatting, drinking and even salsa-ing! That was hilarious! Oh man, we started drinking at 6pm.. I slept on the couch at 12.30am. We finished 4 bottles of red wine, 4-5 bottles of beer each. It was funny watching some of them high on alcohol.

Got to say its the best trime I spent relaxing after a major paper in Aust.




















Left to right: Tom, Michelle, Kyla, Jess

Kinda funny who I managed to fit right into this group of aussies. Being the only asian with them, its nice knowing the culture of theirs even more! Am very thankful for friends like that.

Getting lucky?

Tomorrow, mid-semester exam for Biochemistry. Had been studying like 16hours a day, slept average of 6 hours a day for the past week. Really hope it makes a difference. Was telling Tom that I had never studied so hard for Biochem since Yr 1 sem 1. Studied earlier in Uni then he came over for dinner to continue with additional studying. He loves the soup I made!! Authentic Cantonese soup and boy, it rocks!! hahaha..

I sure hope I get lucky with the exam tomorrow. Haha. Anyway, spoke to the study group about the girl dying from too many quickies. They could only laugh and speculate on more things. Haha. The fella will try his luck again next week when he pumps petrol to see if she is still there.

Am thinking of going up the mountains after exam for drinks and chat tomorrow. It would be a good way to destress before we start working on Integrated Systems of Physiology.

Anyway, a HK guy from my lecture came and talked to me today. This is one eccentric or quirky dude with very low EQ. He is a brilliant geek who doesn't have much friends so I try to be nice to him and entertain him abit while I get ready for lecture.

He asked me "Ben, where can I get bamboo chopsticks?"

I looked at him in dsibelief, wondering if its a trick question and replied "Try asian groceries store or any super market."

HK: Oh,.. they sell in supermarkets?

Me: I don't know. You can try. I know supermarkets sell wooden chopsticks for sure.

HK: Oh, thank you. I am not crazy but am thinking of making a crossbow. Its just that I get bored and feel like making a large crossbow to use.

I was trying hard not to even smile as it would seem rude la. But deep down inside, I wanted very much to laugh. My friends were all smiling and I could only shake my head.

In this age, if one still thinks of medieval weapons, something is really wrong. And what the fuck can you do with a freaking crossbow?! Shoot birds?! I just feel so stupid answering his questions sometimes.