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 ....

A Story.

Some 15 minute TV interlude thing that I saw in HK on TVB Pearl and which I thought I’d share here.

Q: What is the biggest company in the world?
-世界上最大的公司是甚麼?-

A: Busy-ness
-忙-

You cannot see it.
-他看不見-

We are all busy with work (students/workers), we are all busy with life we are all busy with relationships, we are all busy with everything that we need to call and make dinner arrangements with our own parents.

The Story: There was once a busy businessman who made dinner arrangements with his girlfriend. That night, he arrived at the restaurant in a hurry, quickly and randomly ordered a dish of the menu and continued to text and talk on the phone for the whole night. The food came and he ate in hurry, took the girlfriend to a taxi so she could go home, got back to his own car and then drove back to the office to continue his work. Later on, at 4am in the morning, the man receives a call from the police to inform him that his girlfriend is missing and would like him to go to the station for questioning. The man is shocked and immediately calls his girlfriend’s parents to confirm this. The businessman arrives at the police station to which the officers proceeded to ask him questions.

What kind of hair did she have? What length was it? The man paused, hesitated and responded with “I don’t know”. What kind of clothing was she wearing last night? Once again, the man responded with “I’m not sure.” What kind of shoes was she wearing? What sort of bag was she holding? Once again, the business man said “I don’t know.” Ok, final question: did you take a look at your girlfriend last night? The business man thought about it for a while, and finally he responded with “No, not really, I didn’t look at her last night, I was too busy on my phone.” Sir, I’m sorry but the only option right now is for you to go home and wait for news about your girlfriend.

The businessman returned to his home, worried and anxious. Later that morning, the man receives a call at 7am from the police informing him that his girlfriend had returned home. The man then rushed over to her house to see her. Upon entering the house, he found that his girlfriend had short hair, was dressed nicely in a red dress and observes that his girlfriend was in fact, a very pretty woman. On that day (I think that’s what the TV person said, lol), the business man made the decision to marry her and with the promise that everyday, he would take 5 minutes each morning before he headed off to work, to just take a look at his wife from head to toe and remember every single detail about her.

My thoughts: No, I didn’t post this story up here just to bag out guys who don’t treat their girlfriends properly, nor did I post this up with any intention of implying anything bad/of that sort in BGR. I just thought this was an interesting story that prompted me to think about our own lives, how busy we actually are and how it sometimes affects our relationships with other people when it all starts “getting too busy”. We are all so sucked into the daily things that we need to do in our lives (going to school or uni or work or looking after the family etc). It consumes us, we get swamped; blinded by the things that are thrown onto us everyday.

Having been in HK for two months, it’s given me time away from my “normal lifestyle” (ie. away from the things I like doing, away from home, away from friends and family). For about a month and a half, I lived by myself with grandparents, and that gave me a lot of self time because I really didn’t have anyone in the house to talk to (lol, I can’t really talk to my grandparents for long, and sometimes there’s massive communication issues). In short, it gave me a lot of time to think and reflect on my life, how busy it was and my relationships with people and family. Over the past year, there would’ve probably been more than sufficient time for me to give some time to friends to help them or just solely have a decent conversation with and catch up, etc. However, I have claimed to be “too busy” or had “other things to do”. In addition to that, small tasks and stuff I’ve set out over the year, I’ve been too lazy to do, thinking to myself that I had something else more important to do in the meantime. In the end I never ended up getting around to it (only some) and only ended up doing other things … things that I regularly do and am able to just not do for one day and do what I set out for myself. Now that that story came about, makes me kinda reconsider how I go about doing things in the future.

I really don’t know whole proper point of me writing that today ... but anyway ...


That was ... rather long. HK update + photos will be posted sometime ... this week, depending on how unlazy I get haha. Other stuff I wanted to post might slowly make their way here ... slowly.

Last two weeks of holidays! Hope everyone’s having a great time and making the most of it, hehe. I’m … kinda somewhat looking forward to/unsure of uni this year, lol. We’ll see how it goes.

Heh.

I'm lazy ...　

I'm at work ...

I'm slow ...
I'm a day late ...
... but ...

Happy New Year! =P

Hope everyone will have a great year in 2009! ^_^


Macau-ing for two days tmrw, wonder what that'll be like hmm ...

Proper updates to come (obviously) when I'm back at hoooome!!... *sighanothermonthandabitmoresighsolongsigh* Photos! and more photos! and in the meantime, more food and more photos! XD

Packing adventures.

Yes, I've been lazy. Haven't posted as often as intended. And that book review won't be happening for a while now, heh. So packing is basically all done and now just writing down everything/anything I need to further prepare myself for the trip. Seriously this year, totally not in the feel of going somewhere. Short talk with mum before revealed that maybe it's because I've already had 3 weeks of holidays and have settled into the mood here, so going to HK kinda breaks the mood. And like, previous years, it's usually I finish school and then we head off a couple of days afterwards, so I don't really settle into a holiday as much as this time. Meh. Trying to psyche myself up atm haha.

Well, since I'm going to be away for such a long time, I hope everyone continues to have an awesome holiday whereever you are and whatever you're doing. Wishing you all an uber early Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and Chinese New Year (haha) since I most likely won't be able say this to you guys personally. See you all back in February, lol.

*disconnects self from cyberworld, lol*

(I'll be barely contactable via email, but you can try, who knows, I might find something =P Phone is the way to go! I will always be contactable by phone hehe.)

Ouch.

Mashed my thumb into the dishwasher a few days ago and when I press down on it now, it still has that kinda squished hurt/sting feeling. Heh.

Also been mucking around on the piano for an hour or so this morning. Songs with massive chords on one hand and severe arpeggio left hand. My poor hand, abnormally stretched for an extended period of time, lol. Oh well, it was fun, playing songs I like/want to play instead of ones I'm made/have to play. Made me realise once again, though, that I'm really not suited to continuing/restarting my piano anymore because honestly, its physically impossible for my hands. And to have to constantly practice these songs (exam songs too for that matter ... I'm not particularly fond of playing exam pieces ... ) for a long period of time would seriously kill me. I still don't believe the "more practice will stretch you hands" thing as well. Oh, pieces were Utada Hikaru's "Passion" (from Kingdom Hearts 2) and Gackt's "Story" (yes, I still like Gackt ... his older songs anyway)

I realise my titles have no relevance whatsoever to the contents of the blog. Meh.

Dreams are a very weird thing. Like, what is the meaning behind them? Is it something we want/don't want to happen? I woke up this morning remembering that I had a random dream about breaking a massive cup. I was really upset about it and was crying badly and wrapping up the broken pieces with newspaper (favourite cup? o_O; SO WEIRD). And I vaguely remember something of people running away. A while ago I think I had a dream about having a massive argument with someone (can't remember who) and I woke up fully weirded out - I don't really argue with friends. Last year I had a dream about the whole school flunking QCS but then in the end all was good. That was super weird, maybe it was just me in exam mode and worrying about everything. So weird ....

On the other hand, holidays. They have been pretty normal I guess. The usual things I'd get up to whenever such things come around. More chores, cook stuff(less so though ...), read, origami, work (yay! 'cept the store has been kinda dead and orders severely decreased due to the financial problem), going out for movies/to bum, clean up my endlessly messy room, continue to imagine/design my "ideal room" knowing it won't happen (lol). Very general overview of holidays so far, I can't be bothered going into anything more deep and meaningful. Not in the mood, how suitable to the weather atm, heh.
Some photos:

Takoyaki Arrangement 1


Takoyaki Arrangement 2


Gingerbread Menz!


=D


Bulgogi with flat potato noodles


Teh sky!


More sky

Anyways, hope everyone currently on holidays overseas are safe and having fun. Those that are going to be heading off ... have fun and stay safe as well!

1 more week til HK for me. Hmm ... I'm half psyched up for it.

One more book in the "Twilight" series to read. Then I might do a semi rant about it, haha. I think I'm biased. This is such a typical story - typical in the way that there's all different typical elements thrown together to make up the one. But I'll leave that til next post after I finish reading the last book =P And contrary to popular (girls) view ... I do not love Edward Cullen, lol.

Novels.

For those who didn't know, reading novels was a favourite past time of mine. I was a serious bookworm. Then high school set in and I began to read less ... and less ... and well, you get the idea. That's how I think of it anyway. It could be due to the fact that I couldn't seem to find many books of interest to me in the libraries or the fact that my trips to the library have decreased as well.

I'm pretty disappointed at myself in the fact that I haven't been regularly reading books or slowly immersing myself back into my old habits. Because of that, I've found that my reading pace has seriously decreased and words don't really sit for long in my brain. My hearing abilities and retaining the heard information has also decreased as well, but I'm not sure that that's really related. But eh.

So it's been a long time since I've picked up some kinda of proper reading material. Something enjoyable, that'll sustain my interest and preferably in series form (because I don't really like reading single books unless the blurb sounds vaguely interesting). I mean, right now I'm going through "A Purpose Driven Life" all over again and yes that is really enjoyable, interest sustaining and even better, thought inducing ... but it's not really "novel" material.

So! Since my sister purchased the whole series of Stephanie Meyer's 'Twilight' series and to which they magically appeared on my bookshelf (not =P), and because there's such a massive craze about it ... I have decided to start on this 4 book series and find out just what it is that's so interesting about it. I mean, vampire love story ... I'm sure there's other stories out there like that (ie. Vampire Knight ... but who knows, that's an anime) And then the whole girls going crazy of Edward Cullen thing. And then the fact that the 'Twilight' movie is coming out soon or later ... don't get it.

But I guess I'll find out soon from reading it. Maybe this will be something 'entertaining' for me to do for the next week or so depending on how fast I read. And also, I (for once) will be a good girl and not read the last few pages of the novel before flipping back to the front and start reading it. Heh ...


On the other hand ... holidays are here! (since a week ago though... but I haven't updated since) And the weather is so munted! And eating cheese fondue is such a funny experience XD

I'll try update more tomorrow and more regularly before I detach myself from the cyberworld in about 2 weeks for about 2 months ._.

One more to go ...

Concentration and motivation levels are waning but luckily still there. Let's hope it sustains itself til Monday.

SWOTVAC and exam period (so far) for this semester has been going pretty well. In my perspective anyways, and in comparison with what my studying habits and whatnot were like last semester (eg. procrastinating all swotvac and starting to study 2/3 days before each exam because yes, they were that spaced out.) This time it was like (mostly) studying every day when I was at uni (SLC whiteboards are good for studying law LOL whee), and uh, half studying when at home because I was either procrastinating *cough* or melting in heat and didn't want to move/think. Overall, I will say that I study better at uni, whether it's the whole "everyone's studying" feel that makes me work or the lack of distracting things around me. Having a good balance of study time, food time, and talk time has also proven to be a very worthy method for me. Better make sure that I continue (to some extent) studying like this in the next 2 years otherwise I'm gonna find myself at home procrastinating big time and not doing things very effectively and just ... eating o_o;

Chocolate is good.

Especially Whittakers Dark Ghana.

=D



Ok ok, I'll find something more worthy to post here other than my study life in the last 2 weeks, lol.

I can't think of anything.

I have some more bus stories but I don't think I'm gonna bore everyone with stuff like that again since it's not the most interesting thing to talk about. There was just an awesomely nice lady bus driver a couple of weeks ago and the driver of this bus I regularly catch isn't the agro man I thought he would be, he's actually quite nice. So those two things make me feel very "gum dong" haha. And some bus drivers are really silly. Like, having the aircon on full blast, making the bus feel like a refrigerator on a rainy/cool/shady day *shivers*.

Music is good. I spent the whole of last night just listening to music after I borrowed out a stack of CDs from the local library. Semi-old stuff. Just makes me think how nice it would be to listen back to the songs I liked way back in primary school. Anyways, methinks I'm on a music spree/expedition atm. Trying to find all the stuff that I really like and finding place to get them legally so that I can get rid of my illegal stuff just because it's making me feel really bad. I guess I've always felt guilty about it (since all the sites were like "Support the artists and purchase their music!") but I just feel more so lately so I'm motivated to actually take proper action. And also because I know some other friends are doing that too. But thinking back, I remember how good it felt so good to get the "real thing" as opposed to downloading it. Hm, getting the english music is alright, just the asian music is kinda harder. Maybe I should stop listening to it? But nuu ...

Holidays are drawing near and I reckon before I know it, I'll be in HK ... and away from here for a whole 2 months and a bit. For some reason, my urge to go to HK this year isn't as "extreme" as previous times. I don't know why (or maybe I do). Maybe it's the fact that it's 2 months ... as opposed to a little less than a month in previous times. Or maybe it's the prospect that I'll be getting some work experience (I think/hopefully) and that I am torn between wanting to and not wanting to. Or maybe it's the fact that I'm not gonna be able to see my friends for such a long time (I've found that I'm quite "attached"/rely on my friends quite a lot). Or maybe it's just that I have this inner feeling that there's unknown something I have to do here over the holidays. I DON'T KNOW. Whatever it is, HK is still definitely happening and I'm definitely looking forward to it. But yeah, I just ... don't know o_O;;;

Hm ... was reading back to my early early posts and I just realised how lame some of them were. And how much my english sucked. And the amount of "..." I used to link my sentences. You know ... like this ... so things aren't like ... really written in sentences ... and so it's just all linked together type thing.
How life has changed over all these years.

Eeh ok... I'll stop procrastinating. I foresee some "Get back to work!!! -_-" thrown at me.

Freecell is fun XD

Things that can happen in a car.

Me: Hey what's that constant beeping sound, it's coming from the back of the car ...

Mum: Maybe your sis is pressing some kinda button

Me: *checks* No ... she's sound asleep. Argh! Where's the beeping sound coming from?! It's getting louder!!

Mum: Just check around the car or something ...

Me:It's still getting louder ...

[...you know your car needs repairing when ... *beeping abruptly stops*]

Me: omgsh, you serious?! It was the radio ....

Mum: HAHA ... radio technology these days ... or maybe it's because you transferred half the sound to the back


sigh ....

Making friends

Started off being invited to a friend's youth night, me thinking about, and deciding not to go on the basis that I didn't really know people there all that well (except a select few) and that I always feel out of the "circle" (not that it really concerns me) each time I randomly go ... probably cuz I'm not much of a conversationalist and just usually talk to those who I know or approach me otherwise, I always just stand around and observe ... and laugh, lol. Either way, in response to my decision/statement, I get a "Well, have you ever tried talking/getting to know the others better?"

That question/statement made me think about the whole concept of "making friends" quite a bit. And honestly, after all that, I think I kind of concluded that no, I don't really make friends o_o; and in relation to that statement, no, I haven't really tried talking more to/getting to know the others better. I've found (I think) that most of my friends that I have right now are the ones that started "the" conversation with me and then I started talking and then friendships develop from there and whatnot. What's more is that I don't think I've ever done (or majorly attempted) that myself. Except for one person, which I (unkindly) ditched shortly after saying hi during first day at school (LOL, soz if you ever read this =P) and then somehow something happened (probably she started talking to me) and then we became friends (and yes, this is the sole case I remember cuz it left a very big impression in the fact that I felt super bad for ditching her). Other than that, mentally going through my list of few friends =P I've found that most are the ones that've talked to me at the beginning and not me talking to them ...

... which is kinda sad >_>; ...

This also makes me think of the whole "catching up" with friends-I-have-not-seen-in-however-long and generally talking with friends I regularly see. Earlier in the week, I met up with a friend whom I hadn't seen for a quite a couple of months ... since March actually. Kinda awkward at first (no offense) but then after initial "Hi's" and "Haven't seen you in so long!" conversation lapsed to the usual "How's uni/life/family/general interests or hobbies going" conversation. Obviously, talk like that can only last so long. Insert periodic awkwardness. Eventually, time lapsed by and we both had to head back to uni/classes. And so that was the end of our chummy time...

It really annoys me that I can't get stereotypical conversations out of my system. Each time I do it, I mentally kick myself but you know, I think "at least it's conversation, better than silence or something." Sometimes I feel like I need a "friend manual" or "how to make conversation manual" ... ok, that sounds fully dodge. Point is, I don't seem to be able or have the skill to make "decent" conversation ... sigh.

So this point makes me think about the friends I regularly encounter/talk to. Even them, conversation doesn't change much except for a few varying factors. Some I have more things to talk to/about, some less so/normal/boring talk. Also, the more that I think about it, it's usually them asking some questions and me answering, throwing back a few questions periodically. Or there's the "telling stories" times (ie. funny/weird/random stuff that's happened in the day/lately) and whatnot ... then again, I guess that's general/usual conversation with friends.

... ok, I don't know what exact point I'm trying to make anymore. Probably just simply, I fail at making friends? lol ...

... makes me understand how people get their first impressions of me. Most popular ones being: mean, cold, unfriendly, too serious, blank, up-myself outlook.

Should change that ...