Birthday celebration - Part 1

Yohoo it is the time of the year again. Time to celebrate my birthday. Although I wasn't feeling enthu about it, thanks to my friends that made the celebration happen. And the celebration actually lasted about a week (so much for not wanting to celebrate). Hoho. The celebration started on Thursday, 11 Oct when Sailo, my housemate decided to cook for Huey Wen and me a birthday dinner since our birthdays are only 2 days apart. And we got a Japanese dinner, prawn and salmon sushi, katsudon and miso soup. Thanks for the dinner and the trouble of getting the Japanese ingredients just for that dinner (figure out what to do next with the extra sauces??) It was fun laughing at each other for the 'funny' expressions after eaten wasabi. I thought that was it for the night. A dinner, that's all I expected. But few hours later, she surprised us with I would say one of the best birthday present ever. A whole backyard filled with 22 handmade lanterns lighted up with candles.

Some of the lanterns made especially for us.

The lanterns on the clothes hanger and the creator.

These are all the lanterns made secretly without our knowledge. Going through all the trouble of hiding it from us (not easy as we always go into her room) and staying up late to complete it. Gotta make sure both of us are asleep before finishing it in peace =P. And the sneaking to the backyard to hang it up when my room is facing the backyard. It was a tough project.

I was so stunt when I first saw it, speechless. It was simply amazing. Too bad it looked like it was going to rain, if not could have just sit and enjoy the view of it. I was very touched and still am by the effort she put in to give us the surprise despite having tonnes of work to do. I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. I dont know what else to say. You are simply wonderful, Sailo.

p/s: Felt bad after for disturbing her the night before causing her to sleep late and all the unexpected knocking on the door. Hehe.

It

I promised myself that I'll never do it anymore But yet again I failed myself I just couldn't stand it I just couldn't hold it back any longer I just had to do it But as expected There wasnt any use of it It just got better for a while And returned to normal not long after So I kept telling myself Why do I do it Why do I keep on doing it Don't do it again Is not supposed to be that way But it will never go away Depending on the circumstances Depending on how I handle it It will always be it

Finally

Finally I am done

Done with it, that is for this year

Yet there is more awaiting next year

But that is not for now to worry.

-

After months of suffering

weeks of torturing

days of lifeless

finally it is over.

-

A 40 pages of written words

a 10 minutes of presentation

it was indeed an experience.

-

But if I were given the chance to decide again

I am not sure if I will make the same decision

a lot had happen

a lot of things that I am not proud off

it forced the evil side of me

a side that no one had seen it before including myself.

-

Nonetheless

I am not giving up on it now

learnt a lot from it

and more to come

be it good and bad

most importantly not to regret it

and that is the life I wanna live in.

Update (sort off)

Been quite busy for the past month but is not getting any better this coming month and the next. Just done with my honours research proposal, up coming are the presentation, assignments and finally EXAMs Just for an update, I went to Cairns for 9 days for rural placement and holiday. It was awesome. As I am too lazy to write about it now, refer to Amy's blog. Hehe. I will update it once I have the time, which is most probably after the exam (opss, hehe). We also celebrated mid autumn festival. Thanks to the organizer, Pey Weon. It was a success although we didnt end up eating mooncake that night. Haha. I guess it is a trend, the more studying you gotta do, the more excuses you will find to procrastinate. I might blog more once exam session comes. Haha

Random facts

Got this idea of writing about some of my daily habits while I was brushing my teeth (there's a link to it). Some habits might be well-known and some others not so. It can actually be catogerized. Haha. Okie so here goes the list: In the kitchen 1. I don't have much patience when it comes to cooking. I like quick and fast meals. That's why you can see me opening to the highest temperature of the hotplate (no stove here =( ). For me, there is not much different in cooking a dish quickly with the highest possible temperature or using lower temperature and taking longer time. So the faster the better. 2. Instant noodle. My instant noodle is instant but not all-plain and dull type. I usually add extra ingredients, meat or veges or egg. This is more interesting and a more balance meal (trying to conviencing myself that is healthier this way =P). 3. Baking. Don't know what has gotten into me this semester but I have been baking something almost every week since the beginning of this sem. Let's see what I have made: strawberry cheesecake, portugese egg tarts, blueberry cheesecake, glutinous rice cake, kuih seri muka, banana cake, egg tart and more to come. Not all were successful though but at least I gave it a try. 4. Spicy food. This is my well-known area. Like to cook spicy food and eat them too. No one will ask my opinion about the spiceness of a food because my level of hot is REALLY HOT. Appologies to my housemates as they are always the victim if I cook spicy food. Hee In the bathroom 5. I gotta bath to start my day and also to start my night. If I have not taken a shower, I dont really feel like sitting down and start doing my work. Need to feel all clean first before doing my work. Or more like an excuse to procrastinate a little after dinner. Hehe 6. I am a toothpaste eater. Not literally. I used the most tooth paste in the house. A tube of ~175g can last me for about one and half month. Don't know why. In my room 7. Music. I will usually blast music when I am stress and sing-a-long with the lyrics. Not that I feel much better after singing but just feel like doing it. So when I am blasting my music, there is a reason behind it. 8. Earrings. I have a whole collection of earrings but I reckon there will be others out there who have more. When I was on the winter trip to Korea, guess what I bought the most?? Earrings!! I bought 12 pairs, half for myself and the others as souveniors. And I also finally bought an earring holder that I have wanted for quite long. Not really a surprise I guess, as I received a few pairs of earrings for my birthday last year =P. 9. Bags. Just a coincident that 3 out of 4 of my bags are brown in colour. Is not that I like brown colour in particular, just that all the bags that I like happen to be brown or brown looks the best for that style. 10. Socks. Lucky to study in Queensland as wearing thongs is VERY common here. I just where thongs everywhere I go except for pracs. And I always shop for thongs. Another reason is that I dislike wearing shoes as I gotta wash the socks after. Yeah although all I need to do is just dump it in the washing machine but still... This is all I can think off right now. So, anyone has any other facts about me to add, just feel free. I might not realize that is a habit of me until someone pointed it out. Haha

No Worries

As we get older, we become more independent. We do not rely on our parents much. We handle everything ourselves. And, hence it will come to a stage that we tell them less as well. We tend not to tell them every details as we do not want them to worry. In certain aspects, they cannot help and by telling them all the problems will just make them worry more, especially when we are far away from home. I remembered complaining about my honours research to my mum. She got so worried that she started thinking on what on how she could help me; eg going to the library and get materials although she doesn't know exactly what I am working on, contacting someone that is working in agricultural field, asking my uncle who is a researcher etc etc. I was like... overwhelmed and find it quite cute. Quickly asking her not to do anything. Although I am not sure how much all those can help me but it is the thought that matters. So what do we do when we need to talk to someone? Most of the time we end up talking about our problems to our siblings or friends or just keep it to ourselves. Recently a friend said she felt much better complaining to friends than her mum as it would just make her mum worry more. That is true. Friends care about you, try to help you or most commmonly giving suggestions but they will worry about you only to a certain extent, not as much as your parents will. There is certain topic that we are not used to talk to our parents about nor comfortable talking about it. There may be a generation gap. However, that doesn't mean we should communicate less with our parents. They often feel more lonely as we grow up, leaving home persuing our own dreams, busy with our daily life. So, talk about happy stuff to our parents. Don't tell them about our problems if we do not want them to worry but no harm telling them if the problems are no longer problems. We can exhange opinions and learn from their experiences. We may be surprise sometimes with what they have to say. They will be so proud, knowing that their children are all grown up now. Opss, this remind me to better call my parents tonight. Hehe

Riverfest '07

Riverfestival is the most interesting and looked-forward even of the year in Brisbane. Although the festival usually lasted for a week but the highlight of the festival was the Riverfire. Half an hour of spectacular fireworks decorated the sky. This was my 3rd time going to the event, but I will make it an yearly event (although only 1 year left =().

RAAF F111 marked the beginning of the festival and make a reappearance at the end as a finale to the fireworks. It was interesting to see people trying to guess which direction it would come from but as this time was the 10th anniversary of Brisbane Riverfestival, two RAAF showed up, one from each direction.

Brisbane city's view

The geng

And the craziest thingy was that we decided to walk back because the crowd at the bus stop was just so scary. So, we started walking along the Brisbane river. It would take one hour an half to two hours to walk all the way back to St Lucia. But half way through, some decided to take a half time break and going for coffee, some continued walking to a friend's place for drinks and I decided to go home. No need to make decision to follow which half of the group, going my own way, taking a bus home. Hehe, no walking. That was the highlight of the weekend.