Flicker Fade

Hello, it's been a while. A lot has happened and sadly I have neglected this blog. Currently uni is taking over my life, so I have no time to do much else and unfortunately keeping up a blog isn't my priority. Also, my dent life isn't very interesting, a lot happens but don't want to bore you guys with the details.

So what's been happening in the past 6 months, I've went on a month long trip to America, and started 3rd year. Just two events but very big ones. My dream to visit America finally came true and it was amazing and beyond my expectations. I will try to get a post up about the trip because a documentation would bring some nostalgia, but I can't promise it will be up soon, as I'm only making my European Adventure of 2012 scrapbook at the moment. And starting third year dent was another milestone, one I'm still having trouble believe is actually happening.

Uni has been absolutely hectic with the long days and bombardment of new skills and information, and most importantly seeing our first patients. I barely have time to myself, and I'm very tired after uni, so I just try to relax with Tumblr and tv shows, and of course, sleep. I'm still falling asleep in lectures, I think that's a habit I cannot kick. I love seeing patients, I get nervous every time but it's the good kind. And it feels right, I was scared that once I actually start doing clinical stuff, I wouldn't like it, but I'm so glad I don't feel that, a big relief! I love being to apply all the theoretical stuff and seeing them in patients, and fortunately all the patients have been so nice and understanding, which makes the experience much better. I'm still building my confidence and communication skills, but I like to believe I'm improving.

However, I have been having bad days, and when things get bad, it snowballs into something really big, I'm stuck with my mind and sometimes it's not very forgiving. Those times, I don't feel like talking or smiling or being friendly, so it's hard having to go to uni when it's the last place you want to be. I'm scared that my friends will stop hanging with me because I'm such a boring person especially if I'm in a bad mood. Anywho, I just have to keep finding ways to make myself feel better, venting usually helps, but I don't like to vent to others, because we all have our own problems.

But that's basically what's happening, I'll try to touch base more often, the Easter Break is coming up and I'll back in Melbourne, yay!

August and September

My August and September in photos.

All Time Low 

This time I was smart and avoided the mosh pit altogether, and chose the balcony, getting a much better view and a lot more comfortable! ATL was so good, I love their onstage banter (despite being quite dirty!) and the little cute interactions between them. I was really happy with their set list, because they mixed it up and played songs I haven't heard live before. All I kept thinking throughout the whole set, was just how happy they've made me, and how being at a concert is so therapeutic because the previous weeks hadn't been going so well. The concert was exactly what I needed.

Cousin's Wedding 

This weekend is Sydney was very anticipated, and I was sad that it was so short! At least I got to see my family again, and of course be apart of my cousin's special day. The actual wedding day started off very early with a wake-up time 3am. Of course, this was a struggle because that is my going to bed time. We got out hair and make-up done by the professionals, and it was a really awesome experience. It felt nice to be pampered, and the make-up artist was amazing, I looked so different!
The whole day was so fun and I can't believe everything went along so smoothly, we were actually ahead of schedule! And I made it through the day with heels on, granted they're not super high but still, heels. My cousin looked so beautiful, and it was a wonderful experience to be her bridesmaid, and help her along the day. One annoying thing was my dress was a little loose and long, so I constantly had to pull it up or hold my dress up. Of course, the food was amazing, and one of my highlights because I had been on diet previously and saving myself for this day.
It felt weird to be a bridesmaid, I felt like I was in the cool crowd and knew details that no one else knew. However there were some awkward moments (mainly on my end) because the rest bride and groom party were all friends and knew each other, and so I couldn't really talk to them too much.
Also the videographer's assistant was good looking (he was in a plaid shirt and skinny jeans, and that gets me every time!), so that was nice, and he's also 24 but he looked so much older.
During the reception, I felt like such a loner, at some stages I was sitting at the bridal table alone, eating and on my phone. So I told myself to not be anti-social, and I joined the cousins' table. This was also the first time I took some shots (yes, more than one and yes, it did burn). I was so tipsy by the end of the night because I drank so much alcohol (for me anyways), and it was a struggle to stay upright and balanced. And I found out that my skin gets very red and blotchy, so no more alcohol for me.
The weekend was special, because we had all of my dad's side family together and it's been a while since that has happened, well at least in a happy occasion. It was an amazing weekend, and as always I was sad to fly back.

Photos are by Tricky Dan 

(Please don't sue me for using the photos, if you ever stumble across this) 

William Beckett, The Maine and Anberlin Triple Concerts!

Oh my, the long awaited concert and it didn't disappoint, it was so much better than I could imagine it to be. I'm not going to write much about this because I would ramble on forever! Can I just say how perfect and gorgeous these people are? 

I felt very blessed to be able to make to three dates of this tour, and trust me, I would have done all of them if it wasn't for uni and classes. Of course, Melbourne will always be the best, the crowd was very energetic and the vibe was unbelievable, and of course I had my concert buddy too! 

Oh it makes me so happy to be looking back at these photos, I still can't believe that it actually happened! I wish that week could have lasted forever. 

While in Melbourne, I had a birthday dinner with my close friends, and that was exactly what I needed, just some quality time with the people who I love so dearly. 

And again in Gold Coast!!

And in Melbourne, too! 

I'll see you guys in another couple of weeks, because it's exam studying time, but of course my procrastination will probably get the better of me, and my blog posting frequency always increase during this time :)

A Love Like War

This is a highlight collective op shop haul, because if I were to show everything, this post would be very long! Sorry for my unsightly bruises/scabs on my knees, they were from when I fell over, and they are slowly healing. And excuse my weird poses or faces in some/all of the photos, I can't quite smile properly, because I have a big ulcer in my mouth from when I bit it when my face hit the ground, and the graze above my upper lip is also healing, so large mouth movements kinda are hard and a little painful. 

Enjoy the haul! 

Sleeveless Shirt: I liked the white binding detail of this shirt, and how the neck kind of forms a halter neck, but not really. Also this shirt is light and perfect for the impending hot summer days, the hot weather plays an important role in deciding what I buy from op shops.

Polka Dot Shirt: This shirt is a little big for me, so I think I will try to alter it, or just get my mum to do it for me. Polka dots are awesome and the reason enough to buy this shirt. 

Polka Dot Long-Sleeve Shirt: I was hesitant on buying this shirt, but I ended buying it because I thought it would make an effortless outfit with some skinny jeans/shorts or even tucked in a skirt, and the colour/print is quite versatile as well.

White Shirt: The collar drawn me to this shirt, it was interesting and original, it's clearly very big for me, so I may alter it, but it does make a nice over-sized shirt. The quality of material is also quite decent, it won't snag if I just accidentally run my fingernails along it. 

Hounds-tooth Sports Jacket: I was quite indecisive about this jacket as well, it does borderline on being grandma-ish, but I think with certain styling I can make it look modern and young. I also thought this piece looked quite street-style wear, so I'm excited to style this piece, although the weather is warming up. 

Striped Pink Shirt: My mum actually got this for me, she knows my love for "retro/vintage" shirts so well! I like the neck detail although I'm not actually sure the correct way to place them. 

Cropped Short Sleeve White Sweater: What drew me to this piece is how soft it felt, and the second that being cropped was just a bonus. I've been looking for cropped tops or tops I can make cropped in op shops recently, so I'm glad I found this. I can imagine this will go well with a lot of bottoms I currently have. However, it's sort of acrylic material, so I don't think I can wear this when it's warm. 

Yellow and Teal Cropped Tanks: These tanks were conveniently cropped which was awesome. I think they're just basic simple things I can throw on over blacks jeans or high-waisted skirts, when I'm feeling lazy. Also because they're over-sized, I can feel breezy as well. 

Sleeveless Top: I thought this top was super cute! Although it's a little big, I don't mind, I couldn't not buy this. I just love love the bow ties details, and pockets are just an awesome bonus. I can imagine myself wearing this a lot in the summer. 

Gold and Black Jumper: The material is pretty soft and I liked how it would be perfect to throw on when it gets chilly. I always like buying anything sweater and jumpers, because they're so easy to wear when I'm in lectures and they blast the AC. 

Pink Skirt: I was sooo stoked to find this skirt, the style is so interesting and I love the pop pink colour. However, I'm not sure if it's too small for me or it's meant to be that short. It's literally about 1 cm from showing my bottom. I think I'll wear some bloomers underneath or have to wear with stockings, because I'm uncomfortable showing my legs, let along my underwear. Anywho, this would have be my favorite find, it's "designer" brand as well, so the quality is amazing! I can't wait to wear it! 

Scarf: Last item! I got this scarf because I liked the floral print and thought it would be a fun piece to add to plain outfit. Although I'm doubtful how much wear I will get of this before I yank it off because it's just too hot, well maybe during lectures when the AC is sooo cold! 

That's all! Glad to see you guys on the other side, making it through all those photos. 

By Your Side

Blue Shirt Op Shop | Leather Skirt Op Shop (Originally from Top Shop) | Black Gumboots Big W | Mint Gumboots Asos 

Again, I have somewhat neglected this blog, I did write up a post that I was meant to post but I didn't like the photos so I decided against it. The past couple of weeks have been pretty hectic, flying to Sydney and Melbourne for the weekend, and of course my concerts; I will probably write up a separate post for those when I have time. It's coming near the end of semester and everything is catching up with me, mainly because I have been quite lazy all semester. I know there is a light, a massive one, at the end of the tunnel, which is my American trip but it is been occluded by the amount of work and exams that I have to do to get there. And I'm just taking it one step at a time, slowly because I will get too overwhelmed and feel quite weighted and down again.
Last week, I fell over while on my runs, pretty badly because I did hit my face on the ground. I managed to graze my face, palms and knees. Slowly it is healing but I still have unsightly knees which I'm hoping will heal a lot quicker because the weather is warming up and I'm getting quite sweaty. However, it has prevented me from going on runs, and I'm slowly reverted to my unhealthy habits. It was such bad timing, and also happened on Friday 13th, soo oooh freaky! I think I have lost some weight, or at the very least I feel so much more fitter and better, so I really don't want to undo all those weeks of hard work. It would be difficult to go back into that exercising routine.

My choice of wearing gumboots may look odd, because the day looked quite sunny, however it was the one hour of sun that day, so I took the opportunity to take some photos. The rest of day was heavy rain and apparently hailing, which I didn't mind because it's been so long since I've worn gumboots. Also I didn't wear my black ones, but my mint gumboots instead, because I wanted the pop and clashing of color. When I first bought this skirt at the op shop, it was a little tight so the fit wasn't that flattering, but I tried it on a couple of days ago, and the fit was so much better. Although I'm not sure if that was all in my head or not? It's real leather, and quite wrinkly from the folding, I tried to lightly iron the crinkles out but with not much luck. It's not worth taking it to the dry cleaners because I only spent $2 on the skirt, which is an absolute bargain though! Also you may have noticed something different about me, my hair is short now and I love this style. It is a bit more maintenance because obviously those waves aren't natural but it takes less than 5 minutes with the hair straightener so it's not too hard and time consuming.

There shall be a post hopefully in the next week about my weekends and concerts, and quite possibly an op shop haul because my op shops buys are growing exponentially!

White Walls

Top Op Shop | Jeans Op Shop/DIY | Shoes Sportsgirl

When I think of jeans, it's always been skinny jeans, I don't remember my first pair of skinny jeans or when I made the switch, but I think it must been somewhere between the end of primary school to the start of high school. I believed they were more flattering than the flared jeans I've been wearing until then. So when I was randomly browsing on TopShop a few weeks ago, these Mommy Spotty jeans caught my eye. It was mainly the spots detail that made me fall in love with the jeans. I know these style of jeans aren't flattering unless you're tall and skinny, but somehow I badly wanted them. But spending around $70 on a pair of 'novelty' jeans isn't exactly in my budget, so I had a brilliant idea that I could DIY them. Finding a pair of high waist-ed jeans in op shops that fit me was surprisingly quick and very cheap! Next was buying some fabric paint and brushes and I was good to go. It took me about more than week for me to actually settle down and paint them. I'm pretty happy with the end result even though my circles aren't even and the paint did bleed outside of the stencil, but from afar they still looked good. Now I have a pair of spotty jeans for a fraction of the TopShop price. I actually liked the look of these jeans style on me, and they are super comfy and not restricting at all! I cannot wait to buy some more tops from the op shops that I can turn into cropped tops to style with these jeans. Hmmm thinking about them, makes me want to wear them right now even though I'm at home and it's late. Spots just make everything better! I have to make the most of out these jeans before the weather starts warming up. 

three times twenty

My friends (two of them, and one of them is a set of twins) had celebrated a birthday last week. I wanted to surprise them at midnight with a cake and got the rest of the group to join in. To make life easier, the three of them happened to be living in the same house, with the fourth housemate also being part of the friendship group. Generally the birthday people sleep quite early but Amy was still up as it got closer to midnight. Worried that our surprise may be ruined, we decided to wait until after midnight so they wouldn't suspect anything.
For the cake, I decided to make a triple chocolate mousse cake, which I had prepared the day before. Generally I'm not very adventurous with my cakes, only around birthdays that I put in the effort, but I love a simple vanilla or chocolate with butter cream or whipped cream, simple but so satisfying. This was the first time trying the cake and I did not want to fail because I hate wasting not only food but also time. The first layer is a dense flourless chocolate cake which had to be baked first. I followed the recipe exactly and when I had left it out of the oven to cool down, I found it was still gooey inside. By this stage I couldn't put it back into the oven otherwise it would cook uneven. I just prayed that it would set in the fridge overnight, or at least the outer edges which was cooked would be enough to support the cake. The layer is dark chocolate mousse, and boy this part was very fun to lick the spoon and bowl afterwards, although I did end up feeling a bit sick from consuming all that chocolate! I poured the mousse, and left it in the fridge to set overnight. The next day, I made a simple whipped cream layer on top because I didn't want to do the white chocolate mousse layer which would have taken a lot more time, and involved using gelatin which I haven't used before. The first batch of whipped cream, ended up being curdled even though I specifically whipped it by hand so that I wouldn't over whip it. However the problem was easily solved because I whipped up another batch of cream to spread the top of the over whipped and the cake looked amazing again. For the decorations, I just melted some cooking chocolate and did the writings and random drawings. I was very happy with the look of the final product, I know this cake was relatively straight forward to make, but it's always nice when something turns out alright. I was so worried cutting into the cake that middle has set yet, but fortunately it had, and it looks amazing! The taste was also delicious, very chocolate and creamy and just melted in your mouth. I would have eaten the whole thing, if it weren't my diet! Oh dear, I just ended up writing a lot more about the cake than the actual surprise bit.
Anywho, we all met up outside and waited for Harkiran to let us in. She has the most comical silent walk ever, she uses her whole body with exaggerated arm movements and everything. We couldn't help but burst out silent laughing! Rosa was holding the cake and we decided that she should come in later with the cake, while the rest of us went into the house and shouted "Happy Birthday" to draw the birthday triplets from their rooms. Luckily they were surprised and hadn't suspected anything, goal accomplished. Then Rosa walked in with the cake and we sang 'Happy Birthday'. We took some photos with my camera and the handy remote, before digging into the cake. It was an awesome night, I'm glad they were surprised and happy that my cake was a success.

Stomach Tied In Knots

My friend had a housewarming a week ago, and there was so much food! The house was so nice and modern, wish I could live there! Each person brought a plate of food to share. Of course I have the mindset that I have to do more, because sushi isn't enough, I wanted to make pretzels as well. The preparation and cooking time took a lot longer than I had anticipated. This happens all the time, I underestimate the time my cooking time, because I'm have this false belief that I work quickly and efficiently in the kitchen. Honestly, I like to think that it's because I have to clean up as I go along because I don't like the mess.
It was lovely seeing everyone together, being surrounded by good food was an awesome perk. There was Hainan Chicken (which my friend kept insisting was dry, but I thought it was yummy and moist), korean-style fried fried, chicken and potato sitr fry, quiche, chickpea curry, dumpings and what I had brought along. For those who have had my previous pretzels, which were pretty good but still quite bread-like, these ones were so much better, rivaling or maybe even better than the ones they make in store. The texture wasn't bread but very soft and slightly chewy instead, as a soft pretzel should be. The secret was to add some gluten flour for the extra protein, which makes the dough more elastic and have a better texture. I'm not sure if it's exactly the gluten flour, but that was the main addition I made to the recipe. So a little tip on those wanting to bake bread, use flour with high protein content. I had to stop myself from eating a lot of the pretzels! There were savory and dessert ones: cinnamon sugar and plain salted ones. Well that's enough bragging about my pretzels, but seriously they were so good! For dessert, we had some cake and icecream, and I decided to mash up some cookies into the ice cream, but I so needed the extra carbs, fat and sugar.

We spent the rest of the night looking up random things on the internet, showing every one our final hip hop performance. Oh gosh, I have absolutely no swag at all, I looked quite mechanical during the few I was doing the moves right, and it looked so much worse when I did the wrong moves. Luckily I was at the back, and the girls at the front who are amazing stole the performance anyways.