Holidayz

Being in Melbourne is so much better than the Gold Coast, and I dread going back. Holidays have been good so far, hanging out with friends and our Cairns trip.

- The day after going home, the friends and I got together for dinner and karoke as a post exam catch up. It was awesome seeing them again, it had been over two months! We spent about 2 hours procrastinating at city library in the children's section, trying to put together Nay's canvas board. Mon wanted to something to fill the space, so I looked for an easy drawing instruction online and found this http://www.wikihow.com/Draw-a-Simple-Dog%27s-Face, her attempt sort of looked like the drawing, maybe it needed some coloring.
Dinner was at The Pub at Crown, it was pretty nice for a "pub". Mon and I shared fish and chips and a chicken burger, the food was pretty good but a little overpriced.
We went to karoke afterwards which was so fun! Normally I'm not a fan of karoke places because it's quite/very asian  but it's heaps better going with close friends. Mon and I got really excited to discover that they had The Great Escape and Love Drunk by Boys Like Girls, there were a couple of other band songs which was good, normally the song choice isn't that appealing, way too mainstream. I sang the Hoedown Throwdown, and it's been a while since I've heard that song, and am tempted to learn the dance again.
Highlights of the night included N, P, S and A sang in a curry accent, hilarious!
We all got home pretty late, S, M and Sh had missed their last train but luckily P still had her car.

-Nay's 21st was on Sunday at this cool bar called The Penny Black. I walked into the bar, feeling very intimidated, there was a full orchestra band at the front section, that was random. The back section was this sort of outdoor environment with tarp coverings, it looked cool but it was quite loud with the music playing in the background. We had chips and pizzas for food and I had lemon lime and bitters as a drink. I'm totally into that drink, I used to dislike it because I remember it tasting super bitter. Mon and I decided to take paparazzi photos the whole night. It was really fun, although i somehow feel awkward and uncool in these sort of bar/club type settings, like I sort of don't belong. Nonetheless, it was good being around friends as always. There was this slightly creepy guy who was dancing and asked P to take a photo of him because she was holding M's camera. Then he took a photo with M, it was weird but he was obviously a little drunk.
Instead of a cake, Nays had made rumballs which was so delicious! I helped myself to more than a few.  Overall a good night, I dropped Mon at Flinders station, oh city driving terrifies me but i got through it, as long as i can avoid doing a hook turn I'm good.

- On Monday, I went to Mon's house because i'm always there. We wanted a little surprise thing for Yen because we didn't get a chance to celebrate her birthday. For lunch, we had nandos chips and a pizza and my sushi, it was the quickest we've decided what food to eat. It was so good to see Yen again, its weird/sucky going from seeing her pretty much every day to once in a couple of months. Susan and Ayontika were there as well. We made her a "cake" and gave her the majority of her present. Yen and I decided to sleep over spontaneously, which was fun! It took us over an hour to decide on a movie to watch, Journey 2. It was an okay movie, enjoyable and funny. The Rock's nipple placement was really weird and distracting through out the whole movie. Oh man, it was awkward watching Josh and Vanessa kiss. We played around with Yen's photo booth which is so fun, I did this thing with the one of the video effects which made us laugh so much, it hurt. And we kept watchin The Magic Mike trailer a couple of times, and now we really want to watch the movie.
For some reason, I have been getting really sleepy a lot earlier and cannot keep myself awake. I think it might be something to do with my wacko sleeping hours in swotvac. I left early the next morning because I had some errands to run with my mum.

On tuesday night, I started packing for the Cairns trip which I was so excited for, but a little anxious because it involved being around a lot of water and I cannot swim. I'm not a fan of packing but this time I managed to not over pack, even with my baggage I thought I brought a lot, until the next day and saw my friends'.

I will do a separate post on my Cairns trip later.

Love Squealer.

Snuggle Up

My waiting for the colder weather has been quite futile, as I realized. It's not going to get any colder than it is at the moment, which is averaging 20 degrees during the day. Actually I am really loving the weather but unfortunately, I cannot wear a lot of the warmer clothes that I have bought or brought up from Melbourne. So essentially, there are a lot of clothes that are making their way back to Melbourne with me, which is worrying because my luggage allowance is only 10kg, and I need to factor in my laptop and cameras, which themselves take up quite a bit of weight, and winter clothes are also bulky and heavy. Although generally, tiger airways are lenient with their luggage allowances, and you can be dodgy, and sort holding onto the bag when you put it on the scales, they don't really see it anyways, or you can lean it against your leg. The staff that I've encountered don't really pay that close attention, but then some of them are pretty strict. Anywho, I digress. Well I have one more exam to go, and I cannot wait for it to be over. My first two exams were okay, and the third one wasn't so great, but that's totally my fault, i only had very briefly studied for the exam. Actually this swotvac has felt like holidays with exams in between, I'm not sure if i can get back into proper studying habits but hopefully I have some new found motivation next semester. But all I can think about is getting on that plane on Wednesday, and seeing my family and friends. 

Here are some more clothes from my op shopping adventures, I actually taken these photos over a week ago, but I wanted to stagger my posts. My blogging frequency hasn't been very stellar this year.

 

Sweater: $3

I was drawn to the anchor design on this jumper. I'm a sucker for vintage-y over sized jumpers and have quite a collection already so my mum won't be so happy with the growing amount. 

 

Jumper: $2

Finding this jumper made me pretty happy, I've been looking for something like this for a while. I've seen a lot of similar styles in clothes stores and couldn't justify paying a lot for them. After buying clothes from op shops for so long, I'm so stingy when it comes to buying new clothes. 

 

 Blouse: $3

I was drawn to the collar and the floral pattern. At the moment it is super big and looks like a pjs top, but I plan to cut it down and change it up somehow, not sure how yet.

Sweater: $2

I love love this sweater, it is so amazingly soft, you guys seriously have to touch this in person! And then I saw the collar design with the beaded pearl strands detail and it was so amazing. One of my favorite finds, and the fit is so good too, not over-sized as most of my sweater finds.

Love Squealer

She Takes Me High

I was really looking forward to Friday, although I wasn't able to go to the Simple Plan/We The Kings concert on the Gold Coast, it didn't mean that I couldn't stalk them. In the morning, I got an email from the dental school, with the 2013 draft calender. It had immensely freaked me out because I have to start a week earlier than I thought at the start of next year, I know it doesn't seem like that much more (but it was on top of the already 3 weeks earlier), but I was just coming to terms with the already extended semester for the year. I started having a mini panic attack and just crying, I kept thinking I don't think I could handle spending any more time in the GC than I have to, and had doubts whether I should be here or not. I know it seems quite an excessive reaction, but I haven't had the best time adjusting to this new lifestyle and compounded by my home-sick feelings, finding out the extra week didn't help. It had made me so depressed, and I didn't feel like going anywhere.

However, the day just started getting better when the reflective essay marks were released. I know it wasn't my best effort and I quite struggled with writing and finishing the essay. The mark I got was a lot better than I hoped and such a relief, although there were quite a number of people who did really well. So I tried not to think too negatively.

Twitter is main source for stalking, but there hadn't been any tweets all day, thus I wasn't too sure when I should leave. I decided to leave at around 2.30 to catch the bus and do a bit op shopping while I was waiting. When I got to the venue, Hunter (guitarist from WTK) had just tweeted that they were on their way to the GC, that meant they wouldn't come for at least an hour. I didn't mind, because there's a shopping centre where I could preoccupy myself. About an hour and a half after the tweet, I walked back to the venue, but staying on the other side of the road, because it felt weird to be so close to the venue when I'm not actually going to the concert. Then I spotted Travis standing on the corner where the venue was, I swore he appeared out of nowhere! I quickly called up Monisha, and proceeded to hyperventilate, an unexpected reaction. Then I felt too scared to go up and talk to him, but i did start following him, he went into this complex with a lot of high rise apartments and taking photos. There were another group of girls that had approached him, so I made my way towards him as well. One of the girls asked if he was Travis from We The Kings, and replied yes. I was so grateful for the other group of girls because they a lot of the talking, and they seemed really nice and not annoying as many high school fan girls are. I had Monisha on the phone the whole time, so she could hear the conversation, Travis said "Hi Friend" into the phone, I thought that was so cute! He showed us some songs he's been working on, and it had him rapping in one of the songs! It was amazing because no one had heard these songs before because he just got sent them from the producer or something. Admittedly, the songs were a little too pop-ish for my liking but it's Travis and I will still love everything he does. Then we talked about him being in Australia, and how We The Kings have been here so many times and that I'm so grateful for them coming over. We took some photos, and the lovely girls offered to take the photo for me before I had the chance to ask them. We spent some time talking about his tattoos, and the most recent one he had done, which was a his grandfather's painting, whom was his name sake but they had different middle names. It was a really awesome story behind the painting, and i will attempt to summarize but trust me, it was a lot better when he told us, because you could tell how much it meant to him. The painting was of a girl that his grandfather had continuing dreams about, he knew that he just had to paint her. Then when his grandfather met his grandmother, surprisingly, the girl in the painting looked like his grandmother. And he talked about a dream he had about a girl and how they would go flying together, and that was what inspired the song "She Takes Me High". We then asked if we were keeping him and if he had soundcheck soon. He said it was alright and he's always late for soundcheck and sometimes they don't even do a sound check. A girl asked him about things going wrong on stage, and the worse one was when they forgot to turn on the singer microphone, and it was awkward when he walks out on stage and shouts something, but no one had heard him! He said it has happened about 3 times, but it's such an obvious thing to check, the centre mic for the singer. He also talked about coming out after the shows to meet the fans, but they have been getting told off for doing that because it makes Simple Plan look bad, because they don't do that (Side story, I swore that Simple Plan came out before the show in Melbourne, the last time they came to Australia). But he loved to meet the fans and everything, so now they have to wait for Simple Plan to leave before they're allowed to go outside. Then we got some things signed and I was kicking myself for not bringing anything, so I just got my phone case signed which in hind-sight, was a really good idea because I bring it everywhere with me and it brings happy memories. One of the girl in the group wrote down their twitter names for him to follow, and when they gave them the paper, he asked what my twitter name was too! I was just so shocked and elated, and then I asked him to follow Monisha as well, which had Scissorhands in it. He told us that was his dog's last name, Elvis Scissorhands, because he ruined the couch by shredding it, but Travis said it was hard to be angry at Elvis because he's so cute! Then another group of girls spotted him, and he hugged us goodbye, oh it was wonderful, his hug, he smelt so nice! And I didn't even have to ask for the hug, as which is usually the case. I didn't want to leave him!

Well that was such a wonderful experience, he spent such a long time talking to us! I talked to Monisha for a bit afterwards, which was comforting but sad because I cannot wait to go home. Then I called Susan to tell her the story and we talked for a bit too, oh it's so good to hear their voices! The day ended on such a happy note, and i am so thankful that I got to meet Travis. There were so many things that could of happened that prevented me from doing so, and while I didn't get a chance to see them in concert, meeting him was just awesome! I like to think there are external-out-of-this-world (Maybe its Dave Ghostman getting rid of the negative ghosts in my life, okay I know only Mon would understand that, as lame as the reference is, but let me keep my happiness ;) ) forces that are giving me this balance lately, like I would go through a depressing stage but then something manages to pick me up afterwards.

An outfit-of-the-day photo, I got a chance to wear the coral jacket, yay! 

 

Jacket: Op Shopped, $4

Shirt: Op-Shopped, $2

Jeans: Glassons

Belt: Op-Shopped, $1

Necklace: Bought from N's garage sale

Shoes: Jay Jays

Love Squealer!

The Reckless and The Brave

So you guys know that I have an addiction to op shopping that has grown exponentially since I've been studying on the GC, just because I have no friends and sometimes being at home sucks, op shopping is something I love to do. Well I have accumulated quite a bit of clothes from my trips, so I thought it would be nice if i could show you some things that I have bought (I really should be studying). I haven't had a chance to wear some of the pieces, just because I'm a little shy wearing them and partly because of the hot weather and amount of walking, I just want to wear jeans and a t-shirt just so I don't have to worry. I think I'm going to bring back a lot of the clothes to Melbourne, so I can get a chance to wear them.

 

Pink Shirt: $1 

Skirt: $1

Dress: $1 

-I really like this pink shirt, it's so versatile and i wear with a lot of things, although the down side is that it shows sweat stains really prominently I'm sorry I don't think I can get over how much I sweat. So this pink shirt is saved for the cooler days or when there minimal exercise.
-When I first saw this quilted skirt, I thought it was super awesome! I think I must of shrunk it a little in the wash because the lining is longer than the outer piece, but that is easily fixed
-As for the dress, I think it's more of a tunic because it has slits on the side, so wear something underneath is a must. I just liked how school-ish it looked, and hopefully make me look younger.

 

Pants: $2.50 

Skirt: $2

-I thought these pants would be good to wear in the cooler months, except it's a little too high waist-ed. But if i wear a jumper over it, then it should be alright. It's so hard to find tailored pants that fit me in op shops, and I was pretty happy that i found these. Also they're country road branded so it's pretty good quality, well that's before I destroy them by vigorously hand-wash or machine wash them. 

-This brown skirt was a way too big but I like how it was simple; it's got a suede-ish feel on the outside. I added in the two pleats and if you see, I may have burnt the material a little when ironing it. 

 

Shirt: $2

Pants: $2

 -Oh I love this blue shirt, it's so light and dainty and a little grandma-ry. I just love the details in this shirt and how it's different to normal shirts. 

-I'm pretty much attracted to anything that has bright colours, and these pants were no exception. Again these are super high-waisted, but they fit quite well so that's good. I have still yet to wear them, but maybe i can wear them for an upcoming exam, they can be known as the pink pants (in reference to the orange cardigan). 

 

Polka dot Blazer: $2

Cord Black Shorts: $1

Coral Jacket: $4

-I just like the simple polka dot print on this blazer, it's a little big but I don't mind. I thought it was a really good light jacket to wear when it get a little colder at night. Plus it has functional pockets which are so useful. 

-I've been seeing cord shorts a lot on blogs, and I wanted one for myself, actually I would like maroon one but I'm still looking. I think I will wear this with stockings because I'm quite self conscious about my legs and they're quite short too.

-I LOVE this jacket, the colour is amazing and nothing like i've seen before, it's a lot more brighter and richer in colour in real life. But I've only wore it once so I'm a little bummed. I can't wait to go back to Melbourne, so i can put this jacket in more use. 

 

Dress: $2

Blazer: $2.50

-The bright colour and pattern was what attracted me to this dress, and the small size as well! It would be perfect for the hot summer, but with stockings and jackets I can also wear this in winter. I just need to shorten it despite I like the feeling of wearing it that long. It's such a bummer I don't have access to a sewing machine up here. It means I have to bring clothes back and forth. 

-You can never have enough blazers, right? I like the double-breasted design of this one, and again it's not super huge on me. It goes with pretty much anything although it does get wrinkled, so it doesn't look that great when I like to shove my jackets in my bag.

So that's some of thrifted clothes I have for now, I'll take some more photos of the other clothes that I didn't get a chance to photographing, and there are a lot more! Oh man, I feel like going op shopping now.

Love Squealer!

 

 

The Weight

I think I have taken Google Chrome for granted, for some reason it stopped working over the weekend along with my other internet browsers. As a person who spends her whole on the internet, this was a very frustrating problem. I tried a solution and now I can use firefox and IE but i still can't use Chrome. I'm not sure if it's just my laptop and there could be a virus on it, but the other browsers are so laggy!! I really get irritated when using it, but I really have no other choice. I don't think I have a virus because I've ran a number of scans on the computer. Oh I wish I was at home, so my brother can fix it. I was even contemplating getting a cheapish replacement laptop just so I can use Chrome. I guess it's about time I got a replacement laptop, but I have grown accustomed to it, despite it's spontaneous freezes and dead battery (those problems may have been my fault, all that mishandling...). So if any of you are computer whizzes out there, please help!

Well, uni has been so-so this week, I still ask myself why I turn up to these lectures. Its the last week of uni, so I 'm trying to hold it out until then. Timetabling came out yesterday for semester 2, and unfortunately I can't get Friday off, they really like to spread their classes, don't they? However, I can do the next best thing and organize lectures on Thursday and Friday so there's the option of lectopia-ing. I hope I would be able to lock in those classes when enrollment starts. For me, its gets a point when I sort of know more and more people, but it's in that awkward stage when I don't know whether I should acknowledge them or not, I always choose the latter. I think it was better when people didn't know who I was, except for the few people I hang out with.
Oh I also have a moral dilemma, so last week i did a prac exam for anatomy and coming out of it, I was unsure of whether I had past or not. I was mentally calculating my wrong answers and there were a lot. But when I checked my result, I had gotten way more than I thought i would, I was sure it was a mistake! I swear I am not underestimating how bad I thought I did. So I really want to have a look at my prac exam and tell them they must of marked it wrong, but then i really don't want to fail. I think I will most likely leave it, but now I just feel like I didn't deserve the mark. I don't know, the chances of them making a mistake while correcting or inputing the marks online are rare, right? But still, I'm very skeptical about my mark.
Oh and I now know how frustrating it is when people persist in asking your marks, I mean it's okay when it's just around your close friends, but with people you don't know very well, it's hard. It's worse when they don't take social cues that I'm obviously uncomfortable sharing my marks. I am so sorry if I have done that to anyone because I know how annoying it is and a violation of privacy. Although I'm sure, my research group are nice in general, but I don't get along with them very well, could it be the age or their gender (they're guys). I hope none of them stumble onto to this, I'm a pretty passive-aggressive person, and them finding out wouldn't be so great.

Lately I've been into making my own printed tape, it gets very addicting. These are my favourite ones that I made, however I don't much of a use for them.

So yeah, I keep reminiscing about the fun times with friends, and I cannot wait to be back home so I can have those positive and happy feelings again. I feel like the longer I am away from home, the more introverted and frustrated I am becoming, and the more people are getting on my nerves. Still three weeks before I get to go home, feels like ages away.

And what??? The Maine just announced another UK/Europe tour in September, they were just there! I wish they could come here more often, I mean I know it's expensive and everything, but seriously, it's best feeling knowing they're in the same country.

Love Squealer.

You Got Me Good

I opened up the new post page with the intention of writing a post. Well thinking back, I have nothing to blog about, seriously nothing has happened in my life that was remotely exciting. The most exciting thing is pretty much the tv show finales that I've watched, and for the most part, they were awesome, I think the Glee one was my favourite. And the worst would have to be Gossip Girl, actually i think it's one of the worse episodes ever. I thought having Gabe (from Cobra Starship) as a cameo would be awesome, but his five second role at the end made me want to retract that statement desperately, actually i think it would be better if he wasn't in it all. Such a disappointment. The Bachelorette has started again, and its one of my guilty pleasures, and for once Yen and I are rooting for the same guy. His name is Jef, and he seems pretty cool also he dresses like a band guy and skateboards. I'm looking forward to this season. What do you guys think of him?

So yeah, that's my life, a little sad isn't it? But I don't mind, I like being by myself and not having to explain  or justify where I'm going. Although there are moments when I wished I had some friends to hang out with but I haven't really clicked with anyone, could it be the age difference? Also I'm always too tired, and don't have the energy to socialize, dammit June 20th come sooner please! (I'm flying back to Melbourne on June 20th btw).

Love Squealer.

Baby blue jeans

So I was meant to have a psych lecture now but its been cancelled and it wasnt announced by email. And now I'm just sitting in the lecture theatre because I'm too lazy to move and its air con-ed in here. There no point going home because I have another lecture in 2 hours so I thought I'd take the time to write a blog post. Well not much has happened since the last time that I posted. I've been putting off writing my psych essay because its reflective writing which I'm not very familiar with, I still have some time before it's dued so there's time to procrastinate.
Over the weekend, Frances' parents came up to visit and it was awesome because her mum made us hone cooked meals. It made me miss my mum/dad's cooking, it always be my favourite. Whenever I try to emulate their cooking it just doesn't have the same taste, and sometimes you just don't want to cook. I find food tastes better when you don't have to cook for yourself. Frances' mum made pretty good food and it was filling and wholesome food, rather than the junk that I've been eating. We were pretty well fed, a very awesome feeling. She made us noodles for dinner and meat balls for lunch, it was yummy. On Saturday night, I had burritos with the P's and their cousin which they had made, and it was pretty good, also I didn't have to make it either. Then I made some crepes for dessert. After having all this food that was made for me, I wasn't in the mood for making food to eat so I just had yogurt and muesli. However on Sunday, the p's invited me to max brenners and the avengers, so I thought that I would make them butter chicken for dinner. Originally I was going to make it from a jar but then I decided I wanted to make it from scratch so if it tastes bad then I don't have to finish it all on my own. I thought I had most of the spices at home but there are a lot of spices involved! I tried to follow the recipe but then I kinda strayed, the stupid pot burnt my spices when I put them in and it wasn't even on high heat, so I transferred pots and added more of the spices without really measuring them, just went by taste. I still wasn't satisfied with it every time I taste tested but I thought stop adding more spices. Anyhow it turned out pretty good, a decent first effort obviously not as good as Mon's though, but good enough to satisfy those cravings!

Max Brenners was good and apparently theres a national strawberry shortage , who knew? I just had a waffle and a chocolate lick, because I knew that I shouldn't over order as I always do. It was yummy but I wanted some fruit but was stingy to pay the extra money. Then finally it was time  for the avengers, I was so excited even though I haven't watched any of the other movies besides captain America. It was such a awesome movie, I really enjoyed it, I loved the little "quirky" interactions between the characters and the little funny moments. The cinemas was pretty full even though it was the night session on Sunday. I can't wait to watch it again and when the cinemas are empty. It was weird because I thought I was late to watching it but my band guys also had recently seen it too because it came out later in the US.
Originally I have given up on crochet or just gotten over my phase but I found some simple tutorials on youtube to make a beret/beanie and I really wanted to try them out. It was pretty straight forward to make and I have since made a number of beanies but only about one that I can wear. The girl in the tutorial has a really small head!
Over the week I made some other little craft things, including a necklace with a little jar and some paper tissue flowers, very simple things but fun to make :)

oh yeah, I also made spring rolls from stratch and my own made up recipe. It turned out not too bad, my housemates liked them. However they had a little different flavour and the meat wasn't as moist as how my mum makes them. I really gotta ask my mum for her recipes, but I do like the feeling of being independent and trying to make foods for the first time, it's fun!!
Sorry in advance if I made some spelling/ grammar or things just don't make sense in general, I'm worse writing on my phone.

Love Squealer