the night out at the aquarium

last year, the university of melbourne postgraduate ball was held at eureka tower (the tallest residential building with observation deck in melbourne). this time around it was at the melbourne aquarium. some of us decided to go just for fun considering for a fact A. i haven't been to the melbourne aquarium in my whole 4.5 years here B. it was going to be subsidized by our postgrad student society C. the more the merrier. and why not, free flow booze and canapes all night long. the theme for the event was actually atlantis. something got to do with mythical creatures, mermaid, pirates etc. so as you can see, a lot of people dressed up in togas and majority just came pretty. for us gals who sorta went for the theme but not really, you would noticed our dresses are either matching with the colour of the sea or of a flowy design. in terms of footwear, a lot had gladiator style sandals in line with the theme.

so by the way, if you have not already guessed. the next picture is the sequel to the previous post. and yes, marianne got it right for sure. i'm not one for long dresses seeing that i'm already short enough.

these series of pictures are compilations courtesy of various cameras belonging to various people photographed in pictures.

here's an almost complete group picture of those from st. vincent's hospital campus. if you look closely there's this guy on the right with a cape...he's pete. he's always really good at dressing up for an event. in the roman empire genre, he even had a sword made out of cardboard and aluminium foil. towards the left at the front is pirate kevin (mr.president) with his sword but he's taken out his eye patch. the three gals at the front (fourth fifth and sixth from the left) is jo, shanna, and stephanie who made togas out of satin cloths and ropes.

we had access to three levels of the aquarium and various sections so it seems less crowded compared to last years venue. and of course we try to incorporate the fishes into the picture but it's not as easy as it seems. by the time we get everyone organised and all, the fishes would have come and gone! up here we have jo, tash and sarah. we helped jo with the toga in less than 10 minutes hence the slightly messy look but fully secured with safety pins.

on the main level where food and drinks are served, there's this really dim area where the jelly fish were. whoever who wore pure white garment would glow in the dark. it's pretty cool. and we all have sparkly white teeth too!

here we have mat, the new phd student in our lab with jo and sarah. all looking really happy and tall in the pic. where else would you see so many phd students?

and this is christina. she's very comel one. she also just joined our lab this year and started her phd 2 months before me. she's normally very quiet but she says the darnest things. =)

see what i mean? she don't even need to say anything in this pic and we already know what she wanted to tell us. we have in the pic with her is min, my senior in the lab. i always call her my senior but actually she's the same age as me. just that she started one year ahead of us and she's been around since forever. haha.

here's a picture of the bunch harassing the waitress for more dessert. passionfruit sorbet topped with candy floss. have no idea what they did to her that she looked equally in the crazy mood as the rest of them. other desserts for the night were small ice cream cones and profiteroles. because it was a casual cocktail style party. wasn't able to capture picture of the food because we had to stand with a glass on one hand and food in the other most of the time. that explains why we had to compile our photos as well since holding a glass and food doesn't allow for much holding on to camera time. haha.

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on a totally different story. take a look at the picture below. that's our mr president with a picture of edward norton from american history x. notice his shave. almost exactly identical. coincidence or what?

party-ing at the melbourne aquarium

Malaysia was on Dateline

Dateline on SBS was talking about Malaysian politics. Totally unexpected. Then they interviewed Anwar Ibrahim. And his wife. And Raja Petra. And Khairy. Just imagine how bad the political status of Malaysia is that it's on international news. And I think the point of the whole news was to talk about the dateline of 16 September. I was totally ignorant of what's going on in Malaysia until I saw the news today. I hate politics. Come on people just grow up already. And get some sense into your puny little brain. I don't see a point in all these nonsense. If only things are as simple as ABC. Then the world would be a better place to live.

what's for dinner?

spring is finally here!

today marks the first day of spring. welcoming spring with open arms. looking forward to the cool weather. not too cold and not too hot. looking forward to the bright sunny days with cool breeze. gone will be the days of chilly windy winter days. new fashion to look forward too as well. although i'm not a fan of floral prints but the 50's inspired skirts looks nice. i think i don't have the heights to wear them but they do looks nice.

counting down the days till the bf is here. time to do some planning.

so what is news

the lost baby whale named colin found abandoned by its mummy was euthanized based on the rationale that it should not suffer the slow death. it was deemed incapable of living on its own as it was having breathing difficulty, attacked by sharks and is feeding properly.

my supervisor has been appearing in several radio and television interviews over the past week. the media make it seemed as though the research we're doing in the lab is super uberly important. they even when to the extent of saying that this could save millions of life with just a pop of a pill a day. interviewed on tv was an old man who was on dialysis who said it would be miracle sent from God. now i can see how exaggerated the media can be. but all is good. the more funding we have the better the research can be. interested?

the poster presentation for the conference looks superb. ok self praise is no praise. will take a picture of it when i have the chance. there is a different perception of things when it's magnified a thousand times.

too many birthdays coming up. going to have four upcoming birthdays in less than 2 weeks. but isn't it better to have reason to celebrate i.e. you have friends in a land far away rather than not having anything to look forward to? though am feeling a lil left out from birthday celebrations of my beloved friends back home. i love y'all and can't wait till the day i'm finally back in msia to feel like part of the group again!

what kind are you?

Are you the kind who finds a reason to shop?

Or

Are you the kind who shops for a reason?

one eye tooth monster now has a twin

design inspired by oneye. though i not so advanced yet so i guess mine is like the simplified version.

with olympic spirit

beibei is the fish
jingjing is the panda
huanhuan is the olympic flame
yingying is the tibetan antelope

nini is the swallow

i didn't know what these were supposed to be until today when i actually bothered to find out. my bad. wasn't so into olympic this year since the events they were showing on tv at night isn't that interesting to me and i have no idea how the daily schedule is like. at first i thought they were all variations of panda looking creatures! apparently not. they are Fuwa, each with a meaningful symbolism.

and why the names you may ask. only when i saw all five Fuwa in order that i realised they are saying

BEI JING HUAN YING NI

"BEIJING WELCOMES YOU"

plus they represent the colours of the olympic rings

their promo video is quite interesting as well. too bad they didn't show it on aussie tv.

p/s: ok ok i know i can be a bit slow sometimes but hey don't read newspaper and i didn't watch the olympics opening. the first time i saw these were at mcdonald's!

told you it was addictive

it's surprising how some things on the internet can be a phenomenon overnight. take FB for instance. gone were the days we were all on friendsters where uploading photos took forever. where cool glittery messages does not appear most of the time. where if your friends are checking out your profile and it appears in 'who has viewed you' there would be this awkward moment where you think why so and so is checking you out. where if you chose to spy silently then be ready to get spied on. where there's too many 'chain letters' circulating around. it was just a year ago that i joined FB. i joined it because this is what the aussies use for networking. like how we malaysians and singaporeans were using friendsters. it was how i kept contact with my honours buddies. leaving them messages for them to reply when they're free. since for some msn at work is a no no. we organized events. we shared photos. we drew graffiti for each other. now it's like an addiction. i have to check it everyday without fail now. no wonder the polls are saying that workplace is becoming less productive since FB was introduced. of course i do refrain from making comments, or playing games, or spying on people while i'm at work.

one guy at our student room actually 'announced' that he's on FB for more than one hour during working hours. like as if that's something to be proud of? anyways just some weird AMS (medical student) whom we don't really fancy because he seems to be doing things not to our liking for someone new to our environment. moving things around without asking permission, complaining about the workload when most of the time we see him doing nothing.

ok where was i? have i told you guys that my supervisor has FB too? now even his wife has FB!? it's kinda cool but freaky at the same time. have to be especially careful when updating status. there was once min was putting some comment on her status and when she went to meet my supervisor regarding work, the first thing he did was asked her about her FB status! O.o and now that he has his new gadget i.e. the one and only iPhone, you can see him uploading status from his mobile all the time! thankfully there's this function where we can go offline while on FB else he'll be on alert to catch us slacking at work. he actually asked me to form a group for the lab where we can organize events and upload photos and stuff. but i told him that it would only work if more of our lab people have FB. else the group would be redundant. hey talking about group! the st. vincent's postgraduate student society created a group just for us! not so happening yet though but it would be a good place for us to give in suggestions as to what other events we can organize. we just came back from our annual retreat last weekend and boy was it cold at philip island. and i LOVE go karting!! more about that next!

tokens

from sarah

from 'tan tart'

a start of a new journey

the stilettos bead was a gift from charles and min

whilst the rests are my own

each one is unique

the epitome of life

the day i turned two four

started off friday morning with nothing much in mind. all i thought of is not doing lab work for the day. first thing i saw was a pressie on my table from min and charles! *smiles* that was going to be the start of my new investment but more about that at some other time kay? surprisingly quiet when i got in thinking that everyone else is down in the lab busy with their experiments. while noon approached, out of no where, grace came in to tell me she has something to show me...

...and a chocolate mudcake was awaiting my appearance! ah...our usual spot in the pantry for birthday celebrations. that was right before we were heading off to our 'lunch' spot...

...yeap you didn't see wrongly. we were having chocolate drinks for lunch. we wanted to skip actual meals in anticipation for the dinner buffet. i thought i was always too full to finish up the drinks at kokoblack because we always go after dinner. but even without a meal...the chocolate was surprisingly filling! no more snacking around for us until dinner time...

come dinner time...everyone was already too hungry by the time we reached. so without delay...everyone was off to attack the food. unfortunately i couldn't capture the array of selections they have there...i didn't have everything and totally forgot to capture the ambience of the place. was too busy entertaining my guest at times and other times was preoccupied with eating. no time to even spare for photography sessions until later...

a special thanks to faiz for coming eventough he was sick! *touched* hope you didn't felt out of place surrounded by a whole bunch of PhD students! ")

a group shot after the dinner. thanks for everyone who actually turned up! and to duncan and tat who were the flower delivery person. really happy that i have many more reliable friends now. wonder what that means aye? haha!

so some of us head back to my place for some after dinner drinks. i was kind enough to provide the drinks but they still couldn't leave me alone. what is with this culture that the birthday gal has to drink upon each toast. got tricked a few times to toast where i totally forgotten i had to bottoms up. another excuse was that i'm the only one allowed to get drunk because i was in the comfort of my own home. there goes the night where my memories were flashes of time frame.

HOW'S THAT FOR A BIRTHDAY!!

p/s: more random pics coming up soonish.

of amnesia

it was my birthday yesterday. i have so much to say but i'm still recovering from intoxication. not to worry though...i only remember everything vaguely but i'm sure everyone else had a great time. lesson to learn from hosting an after party. do not...I REPEAT...do not host it in your home if you don't want to get a bad hangover the day after. plus the fact that i'm not one with the love of drinking water...my recovery time seems prolonged. am still not feeling 100% normal at the moment. probably still have to get the details from everyone else who was forcing alcohol down me. i'll be back!

favouring fleece

my collection of softies since i came back to melbourne...


upon improvising to make the bunny shorter...

and experimenting with making it squarer...

and suggestion of having button eyes instead of x x...

today i made a one eyed monster...

note for the future: sew the tooth on first before attaching pieces...

well there wasn't a gap when i sew it on but upon stuffing it up it became visible =P

HAVE A GOOD WEEK AHEAD!!

it's been too long aye?

seems like ages since i posted anything up. by the way, i've started making softies again. for the record, i've made 6 in total using the sewing machine eugene got me for christmas last year. not too bad aye? knitted myself a scarf some weekends back as well. my current favourite colour is red. =) trying to restrict all these hobby-like activities for the weekend only. unless people start showing interest and want to pay me to do it then maybe? ahaha!

last weekend went bushwalking/hiking at grampians with my senior and her friend. i didn't expect to do so much strenous walking until i got there. first thing we did when we reach, straight away go bushwalking d. it was physically exhausting but it was fun! i always reach a point where i think to myself, what have i gotten myself into? but when we were more than half way up, everything seems so attainable. achievable. eventough it's up up up all the way to the peak, but it's down down down all the way back. so that's kinda motivating to know that once you reach the top, it would be an enjoyable journey back.

this is where we started...

...and this is where we ended.

get it freaking done already!

oh don't worry. i'm just getting pissed at the IT guys at my workplace. i've been waiting three freaking weeks just to get my laptop hooked up to the network so i can do work freely in the comfort of my own laptop. something that just takes minutes to do, they're making me wait so long. and why? because mine is a freaking vista. oh...university policy so called. only can use XP. what the...! when are they going to keep up with the latest technology? shy to tell people i even in melbourne uni lor. but a part of me thinks that it's just the IT guys, just because they're not familiar with the whole vista interface and compared to the numbers of XPs they have handled, they're being lazy and giving excuses. argh...so frustrating right? now that i bug them so much...eventough i don't know when they gonna do it. i'll prolly have to bring it in every single day! else they come and i didn't bring my laptop then they'll prolly make me wait longer!! oh wait...to and fro from my house is less than an hour. i guess i can make them wait an hour? =)

anyways, i've just started the pilot experimental study this week. 12 rats underwent surgery and hopefully 12 rats survive till the end. while i'm not doing my own surgery at the moment, it is anticipated that i do eventually do some. i don't mind not doing lor...i can always just play the supporting role. =) wouldn't it be a waste if the rats die during surgery just because i was inexperienced right? but anyways, this is all not really up to me...if they want me to do then i'll prolly have to do...sooner or later. i haven't got bitten or scratched by any of them yet...which is awesome. 6 of them are going to get sacrificed this thursday. please be good when i take 'your' blood pressure. darn...i have to wake up freaking early cuz have to be there by 8 am!!! definitely going to be super duper COLD!

tempted to tell you guys about the gory stuff done to other people's rats and mice but i think i better don't. i won't believe what they do...seriously. it's making me think that what 'we' (my lab) do is WAY humane.

so fast it's wednesday d tomoro. by end of this week, means i already back in melbourne for 5 weeks. time seems to pass by so quickly. and soon i'm going to get my second payment. yay!! i think i better start keeping track of where the money is going. else i won't be able to save up the amount i anticipated. note to self. stop shopping eventhough things may be cheap. hehe. =) another note to self. don't be so lazy. cook lunch.

there's free rock climbing tomoro! which i was anticipating since last week. but the thought of me needing to get in to work by 8 am...means i have to wake up by 6.30 am. and if i go rock climbing...i don't think i'll have enough energy to wake up so early what more last the whole thursday!? hmm....

it's all about you today

when we were in dandenongs waiting for the puffing billy

this was really funny because he just candidly stepped onto the car without verifying if it belonged to anyone or was it a display

you should see the picture of him when we were last in gold coast 1999 where all the animals were surrounding him while he was posing for the photo

my dad is special because he's the only person i know with triangular eyes. =)

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

my second weekend here

time do really flies doesn't it? it's now been two weeks since i came back to melbourne...well almost anyways. what have i been up to? staying in the city really doesn't help me stay away from shopping! but hey i did get my first payment so it's all good. =) if going for meals in the city means there's bound to be window shopping and window shopping leads to actually purchasing stuff. and me who said i wouldn't do as much shopping because i wanna save up money so i'll be rich when i get home (looks like that's not going to happen huh?). but i think i'm still in the transition period...come on...two weeks only ma. and i who always complained that it's hard for me to find something i like in my size during sales? it doesn't seemed so this time around! my theory is that i just came back to melbourne. i've been missing out on the fashion here for almost four months? so i still see things that i potentially like which could have been old stock but heck i wouldn't know! wait till a month later then probably i will start complaining i don't see things i like anymore.

and my senior just said that it was so unlike me that since i come back i've been coming in to lab everyday and staying til quite late eventhough i don't have any lab work at the moment! i know i know...i have a bad reputation from honours because i'm always missing in action supposedly doing work from home...or just too lazy to go in early so come at lunch time...or going back early. so i can actually sit there with my laptop (only for listening to music) waiting for the IT guys to come hook me up to the network. damn i hate waiting. week after week how long more will it take. i think i'm going to grow shorter by the end of this year since i'm walking while carrying my laptop to work every single day!! it's not one of those 12" laptop...cute and handy...and light. do you want a hunched back gal as a friend? =)

having craving for durian gelato...i want...i need...durian gelato!!! hope can get my fix tomorrow. oh wait...ain't i suppose to be reading all those journals that i brought back? hehe. and i have to go buy printer. and go eat duck rice. yumz. marianne...do you know pacific house is in the city now? =) sounds like i wouldn't be getting much work done huh? that's for bringing all the papers home. and prolly bringing it all back to lab on monday. extra burden. journals as thick as a textbook plus heavy laptop. there goes my shoulder.

note to self: drink more water...

sex and the city

i was just complaining that there's nothing on tv eventhough it's friday then linda said why not we go watch a movie? super uber excited i uttered i wanna watch sex and the city! because previously i asked but no one was interested to watch it with me. saying they weren't fans of their series and all. and i would say i'm also not a devoted fan because i only watch them whenever i can and not go crazy if i've missed some season or chapters. so we called up and there were still tickets available for the 11 pm show. after some rational thinking we concluded that there was still tix because the movie was going to be 3 hours long including ads and by then it would prolly be too late for some to take the trams or the trains. loved the movie to bits! totally chicky flick. i pity those guys who were dragged to watch the movie. mostly gals of course.

on another matter, we went to max brenner before the movie started. so we were happily sitting there waiting for our order when linda noticed a man just walked out with the plates on the next table! the next thing we knew, he came back and was surveying the merchandises and just wrapped on of those cups in his jacket and walked off again. i spontaneously called out to linda's friend who was working there and told him what we saw. in shocked! then after a few minutes that guy was walking pass again with quite some items in his plastic bags! but linda's friend later thanked us and told us they have caught the guy. wow...i couldn't believe my eyes really. right in public where there's just so many people inside and outside of max brenner. we were later told that he said he was drunk but it definitely didn't look like it when we saw him.

it's the long weekend and i've only be back at lab for a week. fantabulous!

can you believe it?

that the price of my bedroom slippers is more expensive than that of a heater? well, i was trying to look for a better heater since it always crash within a year. thought maybe got kambrook or something to buy but seems like all the heaters around are ciplak brands or should i say no brand? ya, and i needed a bedroom slippers too because the kitchen floor and the bathroom floor are tiled. so it's really cold! i was told that this year will be the coldest winter in the past 10 years! it is quite cold considering that it's only june now. prolly be great for skiing this year. but not like got anything to do with me la.

=P

i kinda enjoy staying in the city, eventhough it's the other end of the city. =) anytime can just walk to melbourne central or safeway to buy stuff. though i don't like it that i have to take my own groceries. you know i don't have the strongest arms in the world. and taking a trolley will just look so aunty. maybe i shall like drop by every day and buy one thing at a time? but am finding it hard to finish up all my food eventhough it's not a lot. 15 mandarins is taking too long to vanish. pack of caramello koala is taking too long to finish. cereals not even touched cuz no milk (just bought milk today), and cheezels!

am thinking i'm always writing in short nonsensical manner. is it confusing or wat?