First day In the morning, i just went to my maternal grandmother's house to bai nian. I collected quite a few Angbaos and met up with my cousins n relatives. I didn't really gorge on the new year goodies even though i was quite tempted to. I guess that was because the goodies were relatively "inaccessible" because of human blockages. I didn't help out during the preparation of lohei unlike wad i used to do. I just walked around n sat around n ate. i'm getting fatter!! I left there with well wishes from my relativesAfter which, i went to my paternal grandmother's house to bai nian. There were not much people there because we went there early. Eelin n Zhen still haven't reached. i met some of my cousins like weiliang gorgor n his gf, as well as lye yi jiejie and her family. when eelin n zhen arrived, i just hung around with them, like what i would usually do. zhongzhong gorgor came later. That big fat liar still refuses to tell me when he's going to get married. Stupid guy. Anyway, i played n chatted with him too. We meet only once a year la, so i wouldn't miss him that much. But i managed to kope his email! so hopefully, we can keep in constant contact? haha...
I rushed to the airport soon after all the bainian. My luggages weigh around 32.1kg in total and i was having trouble lugging all those heavy items around. 32.1kg doesn't include my lappie weight =.="' We had some problem checking in because the flight was full and the person couldn't allocated 3 seats that were together. So peiyueng was separated from us. After that, i just hung around with my relatives for a while. Eelin's family came to send me! hahaz... so nice of them... james n sam too. Then yea, my beloved classmates came too=) thanks to ck who also came. Bading them farewell was a difficult thing to do. I'll really miss them. No more outings with them until a year later.
After entering the departure hall, my hand-carry luggage was inspected. The officer discovered a pair of scissors in my stationery box. I was told to declare my scissors at the subsequent check. It was confiscated =( Fel, Py n i rushed in to the boarding gate as we were sort of late. I took the window seat while fel took the seat beside me. i was having trouble placing all my baggages around. I placed my hand-carry luggage on the top compartment, and the rest around my seat. I was sitting in a rather constrained place. Imagine that it's already SIA, which means that i have one of the widest seats.
I was kind of tired, so i didn't really watch any movies and i slept for a while. I had much trouble manoveuring around because the place was packed with my things and the front person moved back by quite a lot. My shoulders aren't aching that much now (3rd dae already) after sleeping in a constrained position for that few hours. Dinner/Supper was not bad to me. It was fried perch fillet and the texture resembles that of chicken. The icecream was replaced by authentic cheese cake. Fel ordered roast chicken and it was great too. Well, i'm a greedy pig. Any food is great/ok to me.
When we reached melbourne, it was just deja vu for me because i just came to melb 2 months ago. It was just a repetition of the processes. We waited quite long for our baggages and they were REALLY heavy when we tried to lug them off the belt. Luckily we managed. At the declaration counter where we declare our stuffs, i went through rather swiftly without having to open my luggage for checks. We found the airport reception in-charge rather quickly and proceeded to our school's college, Glenn.
At Glenn, i'm staying at first north. It's at the first level so i was rather worried about safety. I got really paranoid. Kevin, the international rep brought us around after we left our luggages in our room. We registered at the International Prog Office. After which, he familiarised us with the amenities nearby within the school campus. After which, we went to open a bank account n deposited our bank draft. We also bought similar pre-paid cards with local numbers so that we could call each other for free. However, smses were not free so we try to call rather than sms.
after settling some of the administrative stuffs, we just went back to our college n rooms. I started unpacking all my stuffs. Well, my room seems quite clean now. However, it's just really quiet now because the locals haven't really moved in. I'm quite worried that when they move in, it'll be rather noisy. I have the toilets n bathrooms to myself now. There's practically no one in first north other than the residential assistants, also known as RAs. During dinner, we had lamb meatballs (without pasta). I recalled visiting the spaghetti restaurant at marina square one dae for meatballs pasta n i tot the meatballs were really big. now, i've seen the king of meatballs. It's realy huge! 2 meatballs n we were practically full. We didn't even touch the carbs.
We went for some activity held in the college for the internationals. It's packed with people, mainly the mentors n RAs. I found myself suffering from culture shock. Apparently, they were "chilling out" at the gathering. It's filled with drinking, dancing n chatting. We managed to talk to a few more people during the gathering. however, i was still not used to just "chilling out" at such gatherings. I'm used to the childish way of playing games during gatherings. Oh well, i'll take some time to adjust i guess. Jet-lagged, we left soon after to go to bed. I really had nothing to do so i just went to bed rather early.
It's rather cold in melbourne now due to some freak blizzard. It's like 10+ deg every day n night. We need to go around with a sweater on. Temperature is supposed to increase. Stupid me slept on the quilt blanket that night and i was really FREEzing. I actually opened the windows. I woke up halfway to close the windows tight but still, the night was freezing. I'm really dumb.
on the 2nd dae, it's a saturday. After breakfast, all of us headed to the city since other than fel n i, the rest haven't really been to the city. So we brought them there on tram 86. We lagged quite a bit before heading on our journey. we tried buying metlink tickets on the tram but apparently, the tram was sort of faulty, so we couldn't get a single ticket. We looked around and decided to give up. Subsequent passengers also couldn't get their tickets on a tram. On the tram, it was a really tiring journey, probably because we were still jet-lagged i guess? most of us fell asleep on the tram. There were many shops along the road, but not many were open? or rather, were rather inactive. that's unlike a saturday in singapore where the shops would be bustling alreadi at about 11 plus. The key areas would be crowded with people alreadi. Oh well, culture shock again? We went past factory outlet stores and saw that we could buy quite a bit of clothes n shoes over at the shops.
We reached the city soon after passing by the FOS. We got down at Bourke St which i've walked by 2 months ago. It was, of course, the same. We walked around for a while before going for lunch at chinatown. We got into a chinese restaurant as it seems like it's the cheapest restaurant around. I had satay beef rice. It was... not spicy at all, had a tinge of satay sauce and the onions fried with the beef were rather raw. Oh well, what more could i expect?
After lunch, we just walked around for a while more and also headed to the shop which sells local/asian products. I found some of our favourite cup noodles.They were more ex than that in sg, like duhhz... but i just had to lay my hands on a few of them. I even found xia xiang ju! which is a herbal tea i used as a remedy for my illnesses or colds.
After that, we headed to Coles supermarket near our school as we thought that things would be cheaper there. and probably, we can find more stuffs. To our astonishment, the things were relatively expensive. We couldn't really find any decent thing to buy at the supermarket. Even the cup noodles were more expensive than the city asian shop. We really thought quite a bit before getting our stuffs.I bought some sweets and some cheap biscuits. I didn't have the heart to really buy something mroe expensive than 2 bucks. Oh goshhhhh....After that, i headed to Target and i found my electric kettle. Well, the pantry is really far from my room, and if i want nice n hot water, or a constant supply of water in my room, it's always better to get an electric kettle. Plus i didn't hav any water jugs to store water. I think i need one. Leaving water in the kettle isn't a great idea at all. I also bought some hangars.
Night was just another chilling out event held at chisholm college. There was a bbq and supposedly a game after that. We spent most of our time sitting around the grass patches. We found a fellow singaporean over at chisholm. So, as usual, the big group of us just sat around together and chatted for the whole while. I was tempted to participate in some of the random ball games ppl were playing. insufficient courage deterred me from doing so. A light drizzle came and we rushed into this lounge which has maps of the various countries everywhere. i just went around and talked to more people in the room. After that, fel, py n i went with our new sg fren to her chisholm room to take a look and lag around. She followed us back to our rooms later on.I was practically stoning again when i reached my own room. I didn't have anything to do at all. It has been quite...neutral/bad for me now. I'm missing home, but well, just mild, since i'm still in a holiday mode.
3rd dae was... a very slack dae. qing shan went to find their parents, so leaving py, fel n i to wait for xuetying to arrive. After brunch in the late morning, the canteen lady gave us some bread to feed the birds in the Moat. It was quite fun actually. Initially we thought there were too much bread for that few birds, but as we started to venture about, we realised that the bread may be insufficient. I found a couple of ducks or waterbirds nearby and i started to feed them. They just ate non-stop and snatched for food too. the way they "quack" is soooo cute. and the way they walk is even cuter =D
After that, we just walked around our college and found the sports centre. we went to the college office to wait for xuet as it was almost time for her to arrive. We were reading some news when xuetying arrived. with her was another sg guy doing nursing. we brought them to their rooms.
After that, i just lagged around in fel's room and we decided to explore the washing machine, dryer n iron. We were having a little trouble deciphering the information but it was ok. We dropped a few pieces in and left the washing machine to work. We also tried ironing, but the iron board is really irritating. We just gave up after a while.Next up was the dryer. i realised a constructive prob. one of my shirts cannot be tumbled dry. and the dryer takes really long to dry our clothes. So i have to hang my wet clothes somewhere!!! i can't hang them in my wardrobe because it'll like affect my dry n clean clothes? I made use of the hooks n rafia i brought and created a DIY pole to hang my towels and wet stuffs. It isn't stable so i just hang some of my lighter stuffs there.
Night was just dinner. nothing interesting.
Monday was just a series of talks in the morning and afternoon. We had free lunch. We also had a campus tour. My group consists of health sci students only. The tour leader was nicholas. he's a nice guy, as in he's really funny and entertaining. I met a few nursing students in my group. One of them is called keyong from malaysia. Yea, she feels like a fellow countrymen to me. We also met another singaporean in the group. i can't remember his name but yea, he's py's company in podiatry. Oh well, i found some of my company in nursing. There was a menzies college activity at night. It's some sort of skit presentation, where we have to utilise the words n props given. My group, i didn't noe anyone else except for chinatsu from chisholm college. 2 of us were staring at each other most of the time cos our group members (the locals) were busy talking n drinking among themselves. We were kind of lost and didn't noe wad to do or how to join their conversation. They only started planning the skit like later? ermz, we had use the words, groundwork, drongo and anzac, and the phrase, "he let fluff off the chain". I had no idea what those words meant. well, the others explained to us like later when the plot is almost out. We were given roles to play and yea... the plot seems funny. We only had one rehearsal and it was show-time. The various groups presented their ideas and i couldn't really understand some since they ended really quickly. as for my group? i was just laughing n laughing non-stop at my group member's acting. It was about this guy who farts a lot because he loves vegemite (some kind of fermented yeast). His problem troubled his gf, mother and frens (me n chinatsu). the skit was just a reporter reporting his condition. Well, it entertained the crowd and we won. the winning was great, but the entire skit planning experience was no exactly great for me. I was completely left out n isolated. I don't know how to join in.
Tues consists of talks again. Lunch was BBQ! the patties were humongous, and the sausages were not small. =.="' prepare to see a fat minnie back! We went to the library during the breaks to sort of like, use the express stations to email our friends. Well, they are the only comps that don't require any password. We still can't access our network =( We went Northland (a shopping centre) and shopped for some of our necessities like shampoo n shower n moisturizers. I don't usually use that but well, i guess it's better to protect my skin. I'm using the moisturizers Chuihan n Aishah gave me. At night, it was a Glenn College event. Well, i went to attend it. The games were kind of fun but they ended too quickly. It's this 2 men-3 legs game, and this icecream eating competition. In my team was faezah, gazza, my RA and a girl called hannah. I teamed up wif Gazza for the 2men-3legs game. He's like so strong??? he pulled me along even though we were not in sync initially. His footsteps were big and i could feel it and i was tryin to catch up with him by taking bigger steps. He's like leading me all along non-stop. I fell only after we reached the finishing line. LOL!! it was so funny... After that was the usual chilling out at airport lounge in Glenn. This time, i sort of garnered some courage to join in the dancing. Well, i was just swaying from left to right like what we do in mass dances while watching the others show off their moves. PY n xuet left with faezah n the chisholm gang. They went to watch movies while Yoon-a accompanied me there. I was like sticking to Yoon-a most of the time. Before the event, i was watching Friends in her room. Friends was HILARIOUS!!! When we got out of the dancing group, there's this guy who noticed the 2 of us standing by the side. He invited us in and we were like, "i can't dance..." but he's really nice. He told us that he doesn't noe either n well, just dance the way we like? haha.. So we got in again. Then there's this time when they started dancing some sort of mass dance to a song n macerena. It was great!! i was sort of feeling nostalgic, after being reminded of the times i had in hwachong during those mass dances. The feeling was awesome. I went to Yoon-a's room to watch Friends again later till late at night. Qing (who's Yoon-a's flatmate) walked me back to my room n we kind of gossipped.
Wed...ermm.. liddat lor? hahaz..There was an interesting talk known as OZ english. We learnt some aussie slang and how some words are being utilised in different situations. Well... we know "bloody" rite? There's others but i guess i'll forget it soon. Their casual speech is completely incomprehensible =.="' We wanted to go to the city actually, but all the lagging prevented us from doing so since the shops close really early over there. So we just went to the library. I spent my entire time allowance replying mx's mail and taking their online driving test with Qing. Lol...we passed. It's quite cold for the whole time. The temp ranged between 14 - 20deg. We've heard from ppl that temperature is increasing but apparently, it's still not showing any changes. Feb is like, midway through and there's no changes in temp? Autumn's coming!! omgg....At night, there's supposed to be some movie night at Chisholm College but Kate (my RA) invited me to help her out with the decos at my level. So i guess i'm ponning that event. Well, i didn't really help. I was just following her around. They were done with certain things by the time i got there. Kate then brought me out to this store called Officeworks where they sell all sorts of stationery. Drew (fel's RA) drove us there. He's really fast =.= I just tagged around in the shop while they bought their things. the stationery there are at killer prices. We then went to the macs outside the school. There's like so many youngsters gathered there and they sort of, looked scary to me? cos they were like hanging out n smoking. Felt lonely as i waited for them... attempted to talk to Kate but i guess there wasn't much for us to share about yet. I was supposed to join her later for pizza or sth? but well, i got away rather quickly. I'm getting fat!! It's like, kind of awkward for me now to hanging around the RAs at that time. I went to find the rest. Some (who went Chisholm for the movie earlier) of them were also at the same place. We watched Harry potter on py's lappie. Lol... Beats watching at the movie night.
It's Valentine's Day at the time when i was typing day 3 so... Happy Valentine's Day peeps!
I can't remember what i did on vdae =.= Todae's like 19 Feb already. Haven't been spending the effort to record down what i did. Vdae is full of a series of talks and a library tour. Well, we already know the express stations at the library and during the tour, we found more=) Unlike in sg, vdae isn't much celebrated here? I don't see anyone exchanging anything. We went Preston Market during late afternoon. That place is very big and i managed to get my tupperwares from there. Finally, my bikkies have a home!
Friday, is a series of talks again. I think it was a rather slack day. It was the night that was slightly more interesting? PY, xuet and i went to the eagle bar to take a look there. Most of the people there were either drinking, chilling out or playing pool. We managed to find the Chisholm peeps there and started chilling out with them. I think Chisholm college had some sort of Toga party for that night and they started "barging" into the bar and danced with their togas. It was interesting seeing so many ppl dancing in bed linen =D Then they did the aussie mass dance again! hahaz... yoon-a n i joined the rest on the stage for that dance. it was really cool... we went off with the chisholm people to some dark area to star gaze n play those lame hand games. We also taught them some action songs. I think that's when xuet's scandal with Sumi (this cute jap guy) started. Sumi is really smart and he taught me how to see the constellation orion as well as showed us Mars.
Saturday we went Vic market with the Chisholm people and Leon. Vic market has sooo many things. That little time isn't enough for us. I bought this jacket supposedly to tide me through winter and also another pullover-lookalike. We got it at really cheap prices. I think i may get more. Summer's like getting hot now and i wun be using those jackets yet. Then we travelled to Ikea. The Chisholm ppl went to buy things. The Glenn people wanted to catch dinner, so when we reached Ikea, we turned back and went back to college.
Sunday we travelled to city again where the Yarra river is. We also went to Crown Entertainment Centre. It's really scorching hot, as in the weather. There was some sort of arts festival next to the Yarra at Southgate. There were also many street performances. At night, it was the Traffic Party. actually, in the afternoon, most locals started moving in so i got to see some of my neighbours already. There was orientation and level gathering. The things we do during orientation is really plain. Not really self-introductory. It was more like the organisers enjoying themselves. As for the level gathering, it was more interesting as i got to meet up with my other level mates. There's no other internationals other than Chris, this guy from UK. I sat around and listened to the other girls talk. That's when they started doing the lay-back. Everyone was rather spontaneous and enthusiastic. Guys n girls went one after another. Well, they drink. It was almost when everyone went when Chris (who sat beside me) volunteered me. All along i was hesitating even tho Chris kept encouraging me to go. Well, didn't want to be a wet blanket, so i went. Lay-back's like, lying on your back while someone pours alcohol into your mouth and u have to swallow without closing your mouth, non-stop of course. The drink was rather nice and the alochol content is low. After lay-back, i was feeling hot all over. I think that's when i became kind of crazy. I went to the Traffic Party with the rest. Most of the sg ppl left after a while. I stayed with Yuki (this jap girl who just moved in) and Yoon-a. They bought beer and fruit spirits and i drank from their cups. Being a stingy person, i can't really bear to spend that money >.< We then danced around at the dance floor with various groups of people. The sg ppl came back after some time, apparently chased away from the TV room by Gazza who felt that they were anti-social. I think some of them were rather hurt by the things Gazza said. That was because there were "newbies" in that group. I wasn't there so i didn't hear. That's when xuet n nicholas (this guy frm m'sia who juz moved in) joined the dancing gang. The songs were getting less interesting unlike those we had at the start. So we went to chill in the chillout room. Zac (this international frm msia who stayed at Glenn for some time alreadi) was really nice. He got drinks for the few of us. I was kind of entertaining the rest with my lame jokes. That enthu zac dragged us back to the dance floor but the party was soon over... whew... A few of us who were together in the chillout room then went out to "star-gaze" again. I think some drunk guys tried to force us back into the party which was later held at the recreation room. We didn't really care. I went to hang out in my neighbour's room later when the rest went to sleep. There were a few locals there and they spoke in casual language. I couldn't understand a single word they say so i couldn't really contribute. I was just sitting at the side and attempting to listen to their conversation. omg... i think language is gonna be a huge barrier between me n them. Culture is also one.
Monday, we had enrolment. It took really some time for us in the nursing group cos we had the highest population. Then we went to take photo for our student ID card. I think the station i went has the best webcam because the resolution that came out was the best. Erm... well, the pic didn't come out exactly great cos my expression was retarded. Night was beach party which i didn't join. I think it's kinda scary. It's like, people started stripping during the Traffic party already. i think it's gonna be worse during the beach party. We went to watch Nutty Professor in one of the TV rooms. I think the rest were watching that on sunday when they got chased out. Well, there wasn't much prob finishing the show this day because most of the people came out from the party halfway. I think it got really crazy?
Tues (which is today), there wasn't much on. so after breakfast, i was so tired i slept while doing laundry and woke up halfway to collect my laundry. Then i continued sleeping till 4pm before i went to the library to reply some mails and went for dinner. After dinner, there was supposed to be pub crawling. I didn't go cos someone said that there'll be plenty of drinking and it's a waste of money. Pub-crawl is like, pub hopping where people go from pub to pub to drink. So sian...Everyone's dressed in party dresses. Initially, i thought of going. after seeing their dresses, i didn't go. I went for the movie night instead. There were mostly the sg ppl, yuki n 2 other locals frm my level. We watched enchanted and some random videos. ok...that's all for 19 Feb. It's really noisy outside my door now and people are chatting away n slamming doors and jumping around. haiiiz...noisy... and i just battled a damn cockroach in my room. Adult one. and it lost. I threw my slippers at it. Omg... i'm freaking out now. my power slippers hit it so many times and it still isn't dead. ARGHHHHhhhz....