101 Things You've Always Wanted To Know About Me

....thanks to a certain someone I now had to find time to undertake this arduous task of coming up with 6 weird facts about yours truly. It really isn't easy, I mean who normally thinks of weird stuff about themselves? Oh well, since I'm feeling too lazy to do anything anyway...
Warning Note : Facts below may be kinda gross. I dunno since everybody's grossness levels are different. So read at your own risk.

"Each player of this game starts off by giving 6 weird things about themselves. People who get tagged need to write in a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state the rules clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. After you do that, leave them each a comment letting them know you tagged them and to read your blog." ~So sayeth the instructions~

1. I do have eczema which can be pretty annoying. To me however, it is also an aesthetic /wadrobe problem, hence you will never see me in sleeveless and rarely in shorts. Reason being when it's bad it can look really disconcerting (even to me) and the more I cover up, the less I flake around...especially here where it's so dry. The only places where it has never occurred (thankfully) are the palms and soles.
   
2. That being said, it is to be expected that boils are a fairly common occurence with me and I find them even more annoying than the eczema. I almost always squeeze them till they burst. Yes, it's painful but I get this feeling of satisfaction from it.
3. That being said, I kinda enjoy some types of pain. Eg when my skin condition gets aggravated and is continuously itchy, I tend to put something really hot on it to 'burn' away the itch. Something really hot would include a really hot shower, a cup of boiling water or some such. I also enjoy taiji (too lazy to elaborate but those of you who know me well will know what I'm talking about).
4. There's this patch of hair on the superoposterior part of the right half of my head that has a tendency to stick up (anti-gravity) no matter how much I comb it down. It only stays down with lots of hair gel and I don't normally use that. I noticed that occurred after one of the 1st few times my mom cut my hair though...
5. I eat a lot. No that isn't an understatement. Yet it definitely doesn't look like I eat much since someone I know once told me, in reply to my telling her my weight, "where does it all go?". The people I'm here with still can't believe I eat so much...
   I have a couple of theories though. One, I have a high metabolic rate so I burn food easily. This actually has proof, as whenever I get hungry I tend to start feeling cold in a cold environment. This problem vanishes after I eat though...or at least until I get hungry again. Two, I need continuous energy to rebuild my superly damaged skin....damn I need Wolverine's healing factor....
6. That being said, I'm also allergic to tonnes of things (can you believe highlighters are included?) Got the nickname 'The Allergy Guy'. Nowhere in this world will I be free of allergens unless maybe in a hospital sterile room....or a protective bubble....or in ice
7. Ezlin spread the word around college that I look like Harry Potter, hence my college friends still sometimes call me Harry.
8. This may be somewhat surprising but I am kind of a reserved person. I have difficulty in making small talk as well.
   
9. I never had acne in my life.
10. I have always been single and available (self-promo :P)
11. I don't really know how to show people that I love them :(
12. I am el-cheapo. Really. It's hard to find someone else whose level of kiamsapness can compare with mine. Ask my college friends if you don't believe me, although I'd like to think that I'm mellowing down recently :)

Hmm...guess I got carried away. I'd put down more but currently my mind is empty. Oh well, anyway I'm supposed to tag 6 other people for this but I think I'll spare myself...oh wait...I got at least 2 ie Chuks (still staying trim dude?) and William. Iona too whenever she gets the chance since I believe I'm heck of a lot free-er than she is at this moment in time. I'd love to read what weird things Chow-Chow gets up to but he doesn't seem to be very blogger-ing recently.
Oh well, whoever wants to do it and knows me just drop me a line to let me know then :P

Valentines?

February 14th 2007. Another Valentine's Day is over, and how did I spend it? Hmm..waking up at 5am to prepare my packed lunch (it was fried rice in case anyone is interested), went to TQEH, went to RAH for a lecture in the afternoon, came back, cooked a beef dish and watched House on the telly (Season 3).
Here it seems, people shower their loved ones with gifts by the dozen. Everywhere I went I saw people carrying flowers and such, couples holding hands and whispering sweet nothings into each others' ears. Me? I watched House...gee...how romantic

There's this girl - ya know, I can't find a proper description here, what do you call a female early-20s student? A girl? A woman? A lady? ...miss? anyway back to the topic...
This female colleague of mine who requested that I play the piano at the cafe to which I obliged. After all I had wanted to play a piano for ages since coming over here. So I played a few (incomplete) songs and she stood by the piano and listened and complimented me on my skills. Now as it so happened she was the only one standing by the piano and listening while the rest (ie my gang and her gang) were sitting at some table a short distance away.
After that started the part where Bryan and Jebbrine insisted that I 'mesmerized' her with my playing. -_-"
It's still going on actually. Only this morning Jebbrine asked me why don't I ask aforementioned female out for dinner, to which I raised an eyebrow and asked why I would want to when I barely even know her.
"But that's how it starts what. You go for dinner, get to know each other lor. She is single."
...or something along that line was what Jebbrine replied. Wow. I should be so thankful that my friends are trying to matchmake me...and to think I dreaded my parents doing so...geez

That aside, my physical appearance as of now is pretty much that of a snake shedding. Make that a snake undergoing permanent shedding. Maybe I should bring a vat of oil to the hospital and excuse myself every hour or so and jump into that vat...
















Happy Valentine's Day Mom and Dad, stay healthy. Happy Valentine's to Mimi, Bubbles, Goldie and all the rest back home who I will sorely miss this coming Chinese New Year.

Special mention goes to 3 people:

Kah Heng - don't give up on love :)
Eve - all the best! I have complete faith in you :)
Iona - there are many worlds but they share the same sky :)

Be excellent to each other and party on dudes!!!

Symphony Under the Stars

On this bright beautiful afternoon, we headed to Torrens River for Santos (the Australian gas supplier company) organised a "Symphony Under the Stars" event. Basically it's a prelude to the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra performances and this is free to the public. It started at 8pm but a support band had an opening act around 7ish.

So all of us, M104s and M204s had arranged to meet somewhere in the park for this. Since Jebbrine, Sheng Kai and Bryan were at IKEA getting some furniture for their new apartment, we headed there 1st. On the way there Leng Hui dropped off the Kumar and Clark she borrowed from the library in our 1st week here. So kiasu cuz she never read it anyway :P We also stopped by KFC to get dinner. OMG, I disliked KFC back home but it's worse here. It's almost completely bland, they don't have Hot and Spicy and their pedas chicken isn't.













As you can see it was quite crowded, the ice cream line was a mile long and yes we were camwhoring :P

So we headed to the park and got a place to sit and started eating. Now flies are common and annoying but today there was a really persistent wasp that kept landing on my chicken bones and nibbling on them...nearly wanted to trap it in the box and throw it away...nearly.
Saw the M204s after eating and went to join them.














Leng Hui went around to grab more pics while the rest of us just lazed around. Around this time Jebbrine texted me saying they just got home and would rock up soon. It was amazing cuz the M204s brought a whole load of stuff to eat. There was bread, butter and jam, chips, wine (which is quite cheap here).













The locals too seem to have brought their entire kitchen with them. Most brought picnic blankets and chairs but I did see many who brought tables and tablecloths and basically food enough to feed an army. Most of the locals had some sort of bubbly white drink which was probably either white wine or champagne.

After a small 'discussion' we 'decided' that the next time we headed for such an outing, we too would bergwailo too but with an Asian twist. We would bring chairs, tables, a gas tank and have a steamboat session there. Man, can't wait for that.














A closeup of the stage and the orchestra members and a whole bunch of instruments. The support band that opened the act in the afternoon had a member who played the xylophone like a demon. It was so amazingly quick playing. Impressive. Oh, and they played a nice song with a really weird name : Rotting Eating Zombies from Outer Space. No. Really. I'm not kidding.

Earlier before we left the house, I told Leng Hui to bring along a jacket cuz at that time it was warm but I predicted it would get cold when the sun went down. But did she listen? Noooo...so when it ended up cold, guess who was wearing my jacket?













LEECH!!!!! Thankfully after Jebbrine arrived, she offered Leng Hui her jacket cuz she was feeling warm (?!?!) so I got my jacket back.

Su Chuen brought her jacket but wore shorts so her legs were freezing. Christine didn't bring her jacket so Rahul lent her his. What could the two of us do? It's not like we could let the girls freeze to death. So we did the gentlemanly thing - we let them have the jackets and kept ourselves warm with wine and bread and chips :)















The stage was beautifully lit at night, as this pic shows. Every now and then a whole flock of birds would circle above the stage and then fly off. The ASO played quite a number of songs. Unfortunately for me, they were mostly classical pieces and I find it hard to 'feel' the music for the most part. Anyway most of the time Rahul, Leng Hui and Jebbrine were camwhoring so I think our group was the loudest as we kept giggling and taking flash photos.

Leng Hui wanted to take a video of a performance and so asked Rahul to help her as there was a tong sampah blocking her view. Halfway through the battery died so Rahul offered to use his camera to film the rest which he did.















Their last number was one of Tchaikovsky's pieces.
Leng Hui was interested to film it and so was Rahul so he filmed it using his camera. Unfortunately for him the performance was about 15 minutes long. I noticed his hands tremor-ing a lot and he switched hands quite a bit too. Well, I don't blame him as the song was quite nice.

The piece ended with a blast of fireworks which was really nice.

Missing you

It's not easy going around town when you see so many people walking their dogs or taking them for rides in their cars.
I've seen so many different breeds already, Huskies, Papillons, Bulldogs, Pomeranians and more.

Sigh.

They look so happy, tails wagging all the way...

I miss my sisters. I miss how we would cuddle together on the nice cool floor, on the couch. I miss staring into Mimi's soulful eyes. I miss how we would understand one another with a glance and a gesture. I miss running around the garden with them. I miss the nudges by Mimi.
Most of all I miss stroking their lovely fur...

Take good care of them for me Mom and Dad. I miss you too.

Another week...

What a long week it has been. Waking up early to prepare to go to university, preparing sandwich lunches (cuz it’s so much cheaper than eating at the café there) and walking to take the bus…man it just reminds me of primary school days.

Furthermore some days we have to go back to the city for classes and presentations, and there might be something else at the hospital on that same evening. So as you can see, there’s a lotta traveling going around and it is tiring.

This week was extra hectic as we moved into the more ‘permanent’ accommodation and that itself was an extremely tiring day. Obviously we had to move all our luggage which weighed tonnes, then we went to IKEA, which is located near the airport (i.e. we had to board a bus to the city and another to IKEA) because we needed pillows, bedsheets, blankets and their respective covers. All that and we still haven’t unpacked yet. Fortunately for me, I have little luggage (comparatively that is, since my luggage was the lightest of all the 5 of us) so I managed to unpack almost everything that night.

Thankfully we finally moved into a new permanent place. One of the 1^st things I got was a humidifier. Asked Sam where I could find one and he replied that it will be very hard as it isn’t usually stocked here…I was thinking “what the heck?! This place is so bone-dry and they don’t use humidifiers?!”

Upon looking around I found the exact opposite of what I was looking for – a dehumidifier, and again I questioned the logic of wanting to make a dry place drier. Anyway, after asking around I discovered that some chemists stock it so I went to look and got one. That night was the best night I had since coming here. Honestly it’s no fun at all to wake up to so dry that it’s painful/uncomfortable to move your limbs and to open your eyes and blink simply because your skin has become so dry. Am currently using way more moisturizer than I used to back home but I suppose even that has its limits.

Oh yeah, there’s this café on the grounds of the hospital called Lizzie’s, and it has one of the best chocolate coated doughnuts I’ve ever tasted! Plus it’s huge, the miniscule doughnuts back home are nowhere in comparison.

The staff café on the 2^nd floor of the hospital on the other hand has a baby grand piano!! Mega stress relief for me on the day that I played it. Granted it has been close to a month since I last played the piano so that was wonderful.

Note to self : try to stop sleeping on buses. That unfortunately is a lot easier said than done as all this while I have been doing that – sleeping on buses and trains – so much so that is has become almost 2^nd nature to me. Reasons for wanting to stay awake? So I can read my book(s) on the bus. Also yesterday while I was dozing, the bus came to an abrupt stop and WHAM!!! My head hit the back of the seat in front.

Leng Hui went “Oh my God!” Are you ok?”

Jebbrine says she saw what happened too.

Fortunately for me it didn’t hurt in the least. And I have had some ‘training’ in this area (Eve and KKB…anyone in that car remember that incident?)

Today was fantastically HOT!!!! Not only that, the wind which I expected to cool us off was hot too. Oh man, and today is the day we normally do our shopping. It really doesn’t help that we bought all the meat and veggies, a pot, a couple of bowls, 3 large leeks (which really look like they can be used as a weapon) and the bus intervals are longer than that of weekdays. So there we were, roasting in the shade, feet melting when this group came over and I just couldn’t believe my eyes. This guy was wearing long track bottoms, an oversized shirt and a snow cap! And it was a friggin’ hot day! It’s a wonder he doesn’t get heatstroke.