Hummer limos

What's the fascination with them lately? Went past people taking wedding shoots today and there were 3 limos ... 1 of which was a hummer limo. I just saw a few others the weeks before ... there're everywhere on the streets! Saw a hot pink one too!! :O And weddings! So many lately. Bus past one every week after work ... seems like quite the occasion this year.

Things found on a usb.

Lame jokes. Don't know where they came from, lol.

1. A bicycle can't stand alone because it is two-tyred.
2. What's the definition of a will? It's a dead giveaway.
3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
4. A backward [or dyslexic] poet writes inverse.
5. In democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism it's your count that votes.
6. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
7. If you don't pay your exorcist you get repossessed.
8. Acupuncture is a jab well done.
9. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
10. Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you A-flat minor.
11. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
12. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
13. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
14. You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
15. Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.
16. He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
17. Every calendar's days are numbered. [In more ways than one.]
18. A lot of money is tainted. 'Taint yours and 'taint mine.
19. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
20. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
21. A plateau is a high form of flattery.
22. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
23. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
24. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.
25. Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.
26. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
27. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
28. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

Dear Macro,

I fail as a student.

Grr ...

Thought I knew my stuff ... but doesn't seem like that now.

Pray that God will really bring me through this subject T_T

Brain Dump

So I just spent 2 hrs straight doing 4 assessed accounting quizzes. What else to do after that than to procrastinate! And lookie, I remembered my semi abandoned blog.

Just a brief note and comment one what's been happening since last post til now (semi losing interest in detailedly blogging about what I do and whatnot):-
- re Sem1 09 exam marks: I passed everything! *joy* After law, passing was all that mattered then.
- Kids Club: Praise God for the wonderful week, had good fun, was nice and challenging, tested my skills of interacting with and taking care of kids, tiring, got to know more people around the church, found out kids are really clingy once they get attached to you (more so than before), earliest consistent waking up time during holidays/since ever. Looking forward to next year
- RICE: was an awesomely fantastic experience! I seriously can't wait til next year even though so many labour hours (estimated 53hrs+ over a month and a bit) were put into it. Praise God for the wonderful design team, for how things ran, for everyone's efforts and all the kids that came to either events!
- MYC: relationships, lol. Intense and challenging (talks + bible studies) and entertaining week , interesting food, got to know more people from uni, got to talk more to people I don't usually talk to, really cold, semi out of comfort zone, decent camp site minus no reception. Learnt a lot and hope to remember and apply to my own life. I wonder what next year will be like.
- Work: was basically non-existent over the holidays due to various activities, 3rd week back or something now, nice to be earning some income again, the usual jobs + funny and random incidents, interesting talks with fellow employees, considering to get relevant job experience.
- Baptism: 16 August 2009! with 7 others, memorable moment/day, great to hear how God has been working in everyone's lives :)
- BLT+ : another good weekend of reminders and a kick back on track with my walk with God, Psalm 119 is so long but good to go through, met new people, met up with people I hadn't seen in a while, challenging talks that made me reconsider how I've been approaching things, entertaining free time on the beach building sand sculptures of sorts lol, nice relax time. Looking forward to next year and wish I could go to the January one.
- ITB: exam done and conclusion - needed to study more, but was very useful nonetheless.
- Uni: 6th week in, workload increasing, exams approaching, falling behind. yay.
- Church worship team: enjoying it, not as hard as I first made out to be, can sorta sing higher notes now, praise God for the opportunity to be a part of it, kinda drawing me back to my piano playing, love the songs.
- Friends: been able to meet up with those I hadn't seen in a while, outings + dinner, good/regular opportunities to catch up with some, constantly stuck around one particular friend every day at uni (hahaha jks, love you :P), wish we could all just have the ability to just meet up whenever.

TioN coming up this weekend, can't wait!

Productive.

In a nice change, for this month of holidays, I actually have things to do, there are actually plans. Kids Club, MYC, RICE, and catching up with studying ITB. Every other June/July holiday period to memory has just consisted of sitting around at home thinking about what to do and getting lazy. Another thing I noted was that these holidays are always somewhat God/ministry focused, whether it be from a week long camp from previous years or just generally (I confess) more time to spend with God without uni things being thrown at you at the same time.

First day of Kids Club was today. I must say that the minor doubt I had in me about signing up for it this year was pretty much quickly pushed away upon arriving at church this morning. Minus the feeling of uber cold weather in the morning, when walking through the doors, I just suddenly felt really glad about actually having the opportunity to participate in the program and helping the kids that were coming to learn more about God. Anyway, the day was fun and the kids were a way more manageable group than I thought/expected, which is a big plus. Looking forward to how the rest of the week develops.

RICE ... lots of design prep coming up. Hoping that we'll all be able to put together our ideas properly and gather all the resources that we need to make the decorations. Nice large project work ahead. Should be fun. Looking forward to the actual 2 days that are coming up in amongst the busy prep between now and then :)

Need to get moving in ITB, kinda need more focus on it. MYC ... looking forward to and hoping it'll be a challenging experience!

Planned and somewhat planned holidays! I like, I like :) Hope everyone's having a good holidays!

Done.

Yay the semester is over once again and exams have just finished for me as of 5pm yesterday! Now it's just waiting for the results to come out, and to have a sure confirmation that I've actually passed the exams before I feel truly relieved T_T

Things noted in this SWOTVAC/Exam period:
- Having 4 exams in three days really sucks =(
- Pointed out several times that I am the "silent stresser/worrier" ... which was somewhat interesting.
- There really is a difference in the level of exam difficulty between first year and second year courses.
- Never again am I having a "late start" semester ever again. Body clock and brain never really properly adapted to the earlier wakes over the past 2 weeks, hence study efficiency wasn't too good and consisted of much yawning and zoning out.

In other news, RICE! . It is drawing closer and closer, and it's so exciting to be involved in this area of ministry. It's great to see all the churches work so closely together to form 2 funfilled and challenging days for the school kids. Helping out within the design group this year is really giving me a better idea of how much work really goes into all the planning and promotion of it. And that I really need to be more organised and have better time management, lol. Either way, exams are now over so can focus more on helping out when needed instead of worrying about a million things at the same time. Can't wait :)

One month.

Until exams are upon us. This time next month, I would have finished exactly one exam, brain dead, be at home (as I am now) studying my bum off for the next two exams the following day whilst in brain dead mode and hopefully get some kind of sleep between then and 6am the next day...

... yay.

Such is life for me in the coming month (and the lead up to it). My exam timetable sucks. Massively. Sorry to those who have heard me complain countless times already, I shall stop, I know it does me no benefit whatsoever.


So during this period of busyness, added stress loads, impending doom and whatnot, its made me think about the actual significance and importance of all this uni stuff and its relation to other things in life and getting priorities straight.
[Random thoughts]
God? Friends? Uni? Work? Which is more important? For me, God will always have the highest priority. Everything else I do comes after that and are the constant reminders of all the wonderful things God has done for and given me. "Second" would be friends. Time is precious. Time passed is time gone, never again will the time be given back. Savour the moments and grab the opportunities. I know recently I've bumped into family friends I hadn't properly seen/talked to in a long time and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to catch up with them (and my classes finishing early, lol). "Third" and "everything else" would be uni and work and all that. Yes uni is "important" in that it gets you a job for the future (or so it's supposed to, lol) so that you can start on the stuff you do in life after study (cbb with details), but is it really worth all that time you put into it, to get super good marks or whatever, and not do much of anything else? Or rather, is it really worth that extra effort to get you over some mark threshold when you could've (eg) used that time to check up on a friend, or talked to a friend who needed someone to talk to, shared the gospel with someone, etc.? Work ... why do we work? Are we doing it for the money or for the experience or something else? If for experience, ok, if for money, why? Either way, if we're still studying, do we really need to work/work so many hours?
In any case, " " priority stuff beforehand was said so because it all has somewhat of an equal priority/importance/whatever. Making the right decisions/choosing between them though ... hmm. Aand I really don't know where I'm going with this ... I'm so tired.
[/Random thoughts]

Tis very cold right now.

But do they sparkle??

Yesterday was probably the most interesting day at work all year (previous weeks were pretty much quiet and contained much thumb-twiddling and staring off into space); various jobs kept everyone occupied, customers frequently entered, moderate amount phone calls/orders/queries ... keeping us all moving until closing time.

Yesterday was also a day with much fail and lol.

#1 [If only stuff like this happened at work ... LOL!! ... http://notalwaysright.com/its-a-miracle-shes-still-on-the-ground/1847]
(this is halfway through an order/transaction)
Girl: So like, If I wanted to blow up these balloons myself, would I be able to?
Me: Like taking them to the florists for helium?
Girl: No, like blowing them up by mouth.
Me: Yeah of course, but they just won't be floating. You want them floating in the air didn't you?
Girl: No, no, I like want them on the ground.
Me: ... and not floating? *stops transaction*
Girl: Yeah I do, but like on the ground.
Me: Ok so what you're buying now is like a helium filled balloon with a piece of string coming down to be weighed down onto the ground. If you blow the balloons up yourself, they'll actually be on the ground because they'll be air filled and it's helium that makes balloons float.
Girl: Oh right, I get what you mean now *laughs* Then I guess if I blow them up myself they won't float.
Me: Yes.
Girl: Ok, yeah I'll get those balloons blown up then.
Me: *continues with transaction*
(LOL)

#2 [She has hearing and memory problems...]
Girl: Hi, I'm looking to get some balloons, what kind of sizes do you guys have?
Coworker: 30, 40 and 90cm ones *motions each balloon size with hands, making a massive circle for the 90cm one*
Girl: Oh wow ... so the 90cm one is quite big! So what kind of price would I be looking at for that one?
Coworker: They're [price] each for the standard colours and a couple of dollars more if you want the metallics. Girl: Okay so I'll probably go for the standard ones since they're cheaper... and what kind of colours do you have in those?
Coworker: Well what colours are you looking to get and how many? Because we only have a limited amount in each colour
Girl: Well I'm looking to get around 10 ... red ones would be good. Can I get those? *points to a stack of balloons that we're obviously in the process of working through*
Coworker: No, sorry, those are for an order that we've got for this afternoon.
Girl: So you're not selling them?
Coworker: No we aren't ...
Girl: Ok so can I take a look at the available colours?
*we proceed to sift through the box to look colours and 10 in the same colour*
Coworker: I'm sorry, we might have some problem in finding 10 balloons in the same colour for you in that size. What are you needing the balloons for?
Girl: Well it's just for this artwork idea that I have ... I'm not too sure how it'll turn out or how many balloons I actually need, really. Do you have like purple or something?
Coworker: *sifts around* Yep! A whole packet as well, unopened. And there's 10 in a pack! Here you go. This is the standard purple.
Girl: So that's a purple?
Coworker: Yes, right now it looks sort of black but when it's blown up, I assure you that it'll look like this colour *blows up a smaller version*
Girl: Ok ... so there's 10 in here?
Coworker: Yes.
Girl: And how much are they each?
Coworker: They're [price] each.
Girl: They're [price] each?
Coworker: Yes.
Girl: And this is like the metallic? Do you have the standard ones in there?
Coworker: No it's the standard colour.
Girl: Ok ... so how many are in this packet?
Coworker: Ten.
Girl: And how much is it?
Coworker: They're [price] each.
Girl: Each! Oh wow, so like if there's 10 in here, that's quite pricey. Can I not get 10? Maybe like 5 or something.
Coworker: Sure, we sell them individually anyway.
Girl: *staring at the packet* So like are there any other types of purple? What if I didn't want these metallic ones?
Coworker: No, the ones you're holding are the standard colour.
Girl: Oh okay, so it's not metallic?
Coworker: No.
Girl: And how much are they?
Coworker: They're [price] each.
Girl: And I don't have to get the whole pack?
Coworker: No you don't.
Girl: Alright I'll get like 5 then.
Me: ...
(sigh)

#3 [But do they sparkle???!]
Man (with heavy Indian accent): Do you sell candles?
Coworker: Yep, I'll just show you where they are.
*5 minutes later* Man: Do these sparkle? *firmly waves a packet of candles around*
Coworker: ... sparkle? You're holding candles there.
Man: But do they sparkle??
Coworker: I'm sorry I'm not too sure what you mean.
Man: *sighs* Ok. *pulls out phone and walks back to candles*
*5 minutes later*
Man: Do have candles that SPARKLE?
Coworker: Um ... ?
Man: *sigh* Here, here, just talk *shoves her his mobile*
Coworker: Um ... *gets phone* Hello? *inaudible voice over phone*
Man: *frustrated look on face*
Me: Oh hey! Nevermind, I think I know what he's talking about. *runs to pick up a pack of Sparklers* Do you mean these?
Man: I'm not sure.
Coworker & Me: ...
Man: *stares at packet* I might just get these. *pays and leaves*
Coworker & Me: lol ... *continues with work*
*10 minutes later - man re-enters store talking on the phone, goes to candle section and walks back up to counter*
Man: So the ones I bought before, do they sparkle??
Me: Yes. They do.
Man: Then what about these ones?
Me: Those ones are match lit candles, they don't sparkle as such, they're the ones you put on birthday cakes and where kids like to blow them out after singing happy birthday. The ones your bought before can't be blown out but they do sparkle and stuff.
Man: So the candles don't sparkle?
Me: No.
Man: Ok, so how do you put these (the Sparklers) into a cake?
Me: It's the same deal as those candles you're holding. They have a pointy end and all you have to do is just poke it into the middle of the cake.
Man: *stares at the wax candles* Okay ... I might get these as well.
Me: Sure.
Man: *pays and runs off quickly*
Coworker: BUT DO THEY SPARKLE!!!? *laughs*
(It's always good to make sure what you're buying is right and listen to the wife? lol)

#4 [No duh ...]
Me: *flips through job folder* Oh wow! There are absolutely no jobs booked in for tomorrow! *amazed* =O
Coworker: Yeah, that's great...
Me: It's absolutely empty!
Coworker: ... that's cuz it's a public holiday tomorrow.
Me: Oh yeah ... NEVERMIND!
Coworker: *laughs*
(FAIL. *headwall*)

#5 [To look nice?]
*Lady walks down the street in high platformed heels with two friends (male)*
Guy #1: I don't get how you chicks walk in those kinda shoes aye.
Guy #2: *laughs* I agree, I mean, look at how you're walking!
Lady: *looks at guys and laughs* (didn't hear what she said)

#6 [Vote ... anyone?]
Female Bus Driver: *shouts* Is anyone else freezing their butts off in here? Do you guys want the air-con turned off?
Passengers: -silence-
Female Bus Driver: Anyone? Anyone? *stares hard at rearview mirror*
Passengers: -silence ensues, people glance around-
Female Bus Driver: Okay, then it's just me ... I'll leave it on.


Ok, back to assignment time.

And so it began.

... (sorta). I typed this up like before uni started (was going to post before the sem) but then never finished ....

Three weeks of uni have come and gone (and now it's near the end of the fourth). Three months of holidays have come and gone. I was going to do some semi-detailed HK entry with pictures and whatnot but I figure that'd take me too much unnecessary time =P

The 3 months of holidays that've passed have been by far, probably the most experience-filled holidays that I have gone through. I really only have God to thank for this and it has only been by His grace that it had gone by so well and they way they have. I learnt so so much from those 3 months. I know many of you had probably heard me complaining about how the 2 months in Hong Kong was so long (and that I'd never go back for so long ever again) and working as well which was partially interesting, partially boring, but honestly, after all that, I wouldn't have traded any of those 2 months of experiences for anything else (such as not going to HK, or decreasing the weeks I was there for, or just staying back here and work full time over the holidays at the partyshop (and probably not gain much from it) or find another job).

Primarily, I would say that I have learnt and understood more about myself, family and relatives during the time in HK ... maybe because it was in a different environment (and one that I haven't ever gotten used to) and it gave me time to just think about stuff during lonely transport to and from home time, lol. Secondly, maybe because I'm older or something, I've been shown around (by either relatives or family friends) to more different places for awesome food/more rememberable experiences and also chatting about more different/serious-ish things (and not like "How's the weather back in Aus? How's school?" to which the conversations shortly die off).

In "short":
Work - was definitely a very very beneficial opportunity and I'm so glad that mum still keeps in touch with her old work mates and was able to find me a job to occupy my time over in HK. I was able to gain experience that I probably would never be able to get again. Working overseas allowed me to observe how businesses ran (or rather, the law firm I was working in) and what the HK working environment was like. Got to do reception work (post letters, recording post, greet clients, take phone calls in chinese =S which was ultimate FAIL... (thank goodness for the invention of line redirecting and the HOLD button, lol...), translation work (various witness statements and police reports, chinese to english, thank goodness for the internet and yahoo to search up words I didn't know...), sit in court for two whole days to witness a hearing! =O, clean up half of an office (spent 4 days removing staples from 6 waist-heigh stacks of paper to use as draft paper ... hands so dead, cramped and rough after all that), deliver documents (didn't get lost!) and finally, the opportunity to make some new "friends" (the secretaries ... that were closer to my age, about 4 of them) in HK and spent most of my time in HK talking and eating with. Forever will I remember all these memories and experiences in this firm~ and hopefully it'll help me when work for me in the real world comes around.

Eating - is the best thing to do in HK!!! Wheeee. It's everywhere, it's cheap and ... it's cheap =D Everywhere you walk, there'll be some kind of food store, whether it be snacks or asian fast food restaurants. Food during the working week always revolved around 5 eating places which went on rotation. So with all those weeks working and eating in those places, there was many opportunities to try various dishes and wonderfully cheap food that filled you up heaps and heaps! (I think I ate twice as much as I usually would in HK and my metabolism was on a roll as well ... too bad it stopped when I came back XD) Food at night usually consisted of 4/5 dishes made by grandma (eaten between 6 people .... but when it was down to 3 people, she still made that many =S) and was always something like 1 dish of some kind of vegetables, 1 dish of chicken/duck/char siu, 1 dish of other meat stuffs, 1 dish of fish, and another dish of whatever things were used to make the daily soup ... and also rice (but that's a given of course). So yes, that was quite a bit of food in the morning. Breakfast was standard, some kind of bread/bun (from Maxim) and malted milk drink. It was like that every morning cuz I always wake up just in time to prepare and rush out of the house and grab the food along the way to the MTR in the station. Occassional weekday dinners with Monica consisted of going to Japanese/Korean restaurants which were fairly decent priced and left us eating happily and wanting more (but unable to eat more). Weekend food habits consisted of going to various yum cha places with various relatives and eating lots and lots and lots of food .... Some yum cha places were excellent and cheaply priced, however some were also the other way around, and some were excellent AND pricy, but eh~ fooood =D I think I'm just gonna stop there. Point taken is that I ate a lot and a lot of different food at a lot of various places. Awesome cheap HK food!

Shopping - was somewhat interesting. Before going to HK, I thought I would only have time to shop in the last 2 weeks of my stay since I was working 5 and a half/six days a week during the prior 2 months. Interestingly though, time was occassionally made at night and on the weekends to do some quick few hour shopping which resulted in goods being purchased rather quickly and early in the trip. Shopping this time back increased tenfold and although that happened, my opinion on shopping still hasn't changed, and probably more confirmed my thoughts on it ... I still really don't like shopping, at times I feel it's like a chore, there was way too much of it in HK, I don't think I'll ever repeat these shopping habits ever again. So after 2 months, lots of asian winter clothing is now in my wardrobe, I finally got some boots (only thing I was actually looking forward to get) and yeah, small amounts of food were purchased, massive amounts of origami paper was purchased (though sadly when purchased at one place, found someplace else cheaper the day later), legal asian music obtained, various other miscellaneous stuff purchased. Ya. Another note, all my expenses during my time in HK were paid for with my earnt money in HK! Spending your own money really does have a very different feeling, there's a great satisfaction of buying food and what you want with your own money, knowing that you don't need to pay anyone back/you're using someone else's money XD

Relatives - it was great to see everyone again after so long. Catch up with and get to talk to cousins and see how they're going with things in life and their studies/work etc. Was also great to see how my lil cousins have grown and how cute they've become XD and how much more they talk now than they used to when I first got to know them. Lots of interesting/indepth conversations with certain reles abt work and things in life .... conversation topic sure have changed with age o_o; But yeah, it was good getting to see everyone again and spend time with them =)

... I think that's all the easy areas that I can possibly talk about ... well that's all that's coming to mind right now anyway. I guess I'll post more when I remember other more post-worthy things ... whenever that'll be XD

Silly Things.

So I realise I've been a bit lazy with this whole blogging thing lately ...


[Last Sat at HJ's]
Me: Hi, can I get a sausage and egg bacon wrap meal?
Counter girl: Sure. (money retrieval and food collection ensues)
*later after eating hash brown*
Me: Time for some meat! *takes massive bite* So cheesy and eggy ... *stares inside wrap* ... *heads back up to counter*
Counter girl: Yes?
Me: Hi, I ordered a sausage and egg bacon wrap but I got the cheesy omelete wrap.
Counter girl: Oh, so you don't want it?
Me: No.
Counter girl: Alright *grabs my wrap, chucks in bin and hands me another/the right one I wanted* Here you go.
Me: Thanks.
*back at the table*
Me: *takes a bite* ... this sausage is rather hard ... *stares inside* ... omgsh she gave me the steak wrap ... oh well *continues to eat* At least I didn't pay more for getting something less (like the one before)

Note: Both wraps I got had identical wrapping markings ... the kitchen really needs to review their production line.


[The same Sat at work later]

*Mother is shopping around with daughter when the daughter starts fidgeting around.* Mother: Hi, do you guys know where the nearest restroom is?
Me: Yeah, across the road.
Mother: Alright, thanks. *drags daughter by the hand up the stairs and continues to scold her in some language*
Me: =S
Boss: Poor girl, all she wanted to do was go to the toilet and she gets scolded by her own mother ....