I’m on my way to purchase my first second hand big-ticket item. I’ve done enough research (I hope!) to not be taken for a ride.

It has been a very emotional experience.

On one hand, you have all these nasty reviews and then you have the glowing ones. You really have to concentrate on what you want out of what you’re buying and are satisfied that the not so good bits don’t affect what you do want.

I’m meeting the guy later and let’s hope what I’m getting is really a good deal and not a lemon to throw out of the window.

I’ll be back to blog about what this mysterious “big ticket item” is …

P.S: I’m still scratching my head on what to do for my birthday! I’m a quarter of a century old, surely that’s something to celebrate with a bang!

1st post of 2008

Happy New Year Y’all!!!

May your some of your dreams and wishes be realised in 2008  and new ones borne this year.

Have a beautiful one!

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It’s rare to find good memes, so when Andrea did one recently, I knew it’d be a winner!

What defines a good meme? Perhaps when the answers speak about the person. Some of the most terrible memes I’ve seen don’t relate to the person nor to the person reading them.

But maybe it’s because I’ve always known Andrea to be a foodie that’s why this meme works. Well, read my answers and see if you agree this is a good meme!

Here goes …

I give you money and send you into the grocery store to pick up 6 items. You can only pick one thing from the following departments… what is it?
1. Produce: Baby Bok Choy
2. Bakery: Whole grain rolls
3. Meat: Honey baked ham
4. Frozen: A certain brand of pizza which I forget
5. Dry goods: Brown rice
6. Dairy: President’s Butter

Let’s say we’re heading out for a weekend getaway. You’re only allowed to bring 3 articles of clothing with you. So, what’s in your bag?
1. shorts
2. underclothes
3. t-shirts

If I was to listen in on one of your conversations throughout the day, what 5 phrases or words would I be most likely to hear?
1. HAHAHA
2. wah rao
3. dunno lar
4. aiyoh why like that
5. ummmm….

So, what 3 things do you find yourself doing every single day, and if you didn’t get to do, you probably wouldn’t be in the best mood?
1. sleep an extra 15 minutes
2. have breakfast
3. seeking attention (so narcissistic, I know!)

Sweet, you just scored a whole afternoon to yourself. We’re talking a 3 hour block with nobody around. What 5 activities might we find you doing?
1. Watching TV
2. Cooking/Baking
3. At the beach/park/swimming pool
4. Shopping
5. Doing QT

We’re going to the zoo. But, it looks like it could start storming, so it’ll have to be a quick visit. What 3 exhibits do we have to get to?
1. Penguins
2. Elephants
3. Farm animals (lambs, hatching chicks, sheep dogs)

You just scored tickets to the taping of any show that comes on t.v. of your choice. You can pick between 4, so what are you deciding between?
1. The Amazing Race
2. Survivor
3. Miami Ink
4. Kimora Lee Simmons – Life in the Fab Lane
(I just realised what a reality show junkie I am! Well, if there’s one non-reality show that I would love to go watch, it’ll have to be CSI: SVU)

You’re hungry for ice cream. I’ll give you a triple dipper ice cream cone.
What 3 flavors can I pile on for ya?
1. Vanilla Bean
2. Strawberry Cheesecake
3. Matcha

Somebody stole your purse/wallet…in order to get it back, you have to name 5 things you know are inside to claim it. So, what’s in there?
1. Life Bookshop Discount Card
2. PDL & driving instructor schedule
3. NTUC link card
4. Passport photos
5. Stash of namecards

You are at a job fair, and asked what areas you are interested in pursuing a career in. Let’s pretend you have every talent and ability to be whatever you wanted, so what 4 careers would be fun for you?
1. Celebrity cook
2. Image Consultant
3. Movie Director
4. Social worker for underprivileged kids

If you could go back and talk to the old you, when you were in high school, and inform yourself of 4 things, what would you say?
1. Relax and let go, life’s too short to be so serious
2. Everything happens for a reason
3. Love like you never loved before
4. Don’t be afraid to express yourself
5. Watch your words: they have the power to cut where you never intended.

There are days when the hours fly by …

And there are days when the minute hand takes forever to catch up with the hour.

The pain’s gone but the neighbour next door is driving me nuts with their incessant drilling …

Pain!

Edit: The strangest thing is that when I eat something, it’s not so painful, otherwise it borders on a full-blown neck ache + migraine. Haven’t popped any Panadol because it’s still bearable. I don’t know if it’s from sleeping in an awkward position, but it started yesterday, declined after dinner and now it’s back!

I’ve been experiencing a rather dull but definitely painful sensation extending from behind the right ear down my shoulder. One way to elevate the discomfort is by slumping all the way down on my chair and resting my head on the back of the chair, but how am I going to tell my boss why I’m sitting like that???

If it gets any worse, it’s Panadol Extra! to the rescue or just some exercise in the constraints of your office chair …

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Oweeee! It’s been a while since I last updated the blog.

Well, school has started and on my first day it was a REAL, REAL culture shock. I guess I’ve always prided myself on being in the loop, always the one who knows how things work, where everything is, and often am the one to keep it going. What a shocker to find that I

1) misread my timetable and ended up 45 minutes late for my first lecture
2) get the assignment sheet and read it 10 times because the first 9 times I thought I was reading greek.
3) get a fellow tute mate ask me if I’m in the right class
4) feel like I AM in Australia when my tutorial class is made up of vocal, opinionated, intelligent beings. And I feel like a silly quiet mouse.

Yea … misreading my timetable was probably the boo boo of the century. Don’t ask how it happened but I jolly well made sure that after suffering the utter shame of running in through the front of the lecture theatre, I wrote it down in a way I would NEVER misread it again.

That first class was called Production Project 1, which is followed by Production Project 2 next semester so you can pretty much guess what this subject’s all about. We got our course syllabus and assignment sheet at the lecture and because there was an hour between my lecture and the tutorial, I immediately found a place to read it all and try to remedy my missing class.

Greek. It was all greek to me. I guess I was too afraid of new things and my first assignment reminded me of DesKon’s “Honest Sense of Wonder” project …. which eerily enough was comforting …. and after 9 times of scaring myself silly …. the 10th time finally clicked ……

I paired up for that particular assignment with this Singaporean guy who’s a mat in every sense of the word – long black hair, black t-shirt (complete with skull and crossbones), black jeans, black leather shoes, black bag, black,black,black. Out of a class of 12, we were the only articulating students and 2 out of the 3 Asians there.

Zahid and I clicked immediately. Perhaps it was out of sheer necessity (everyone else knew each other) but when it comes to real work, I need somebody who knows their stuff – and he does.

We’re doing this creative assignment called “The Obstruction Project” – to produce a 2-3 minute video on mini DV. We can do anything, except for one limitation which the class decides on 6 different limitations and the lecturer hands one out to each group. Ours was simply “5 movie references”.

Movie references? Now I’m no movie freak and I don’t know any thing about movie references but Zahid just went on and on and on and he’s even lent me his Tarantino collection to go watch and get a feel of this movie references thing.

And whaddya know?

I spent last night watching Pulp Fiction, half absolutely hating the language and senseless gore, half admiring the brilliance of the fragmented storyline (which isn’t so fragmented after all). Ran a wikipedia check on the film and came away totally understanding my assignment and am actually quite excited to get down to filming next Monday!

TARANTINO IS THE KING OF MOVIE REFERENCES!

I am going to try to watch Kill Bill tonight – decided to skip Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown until I can handle another few hours of fs and uglier variants of the word.

Okie, I gotta skip now. Meeting Sihan for my next lecture and I wouldn’t want to be late now. Tata!

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The weather’s been utterly crazy as usual. It was flaming hot these past 2 days, so hot that my friends couldn’t sleep even though one stays on the 17th floor and the other on the 13th. [Thanks to the way my room is built and my little white fan, I don't get much outside air, but also less heat.]

When Mike and I dragged our feet back from the Observation Tower to Melbourne Central on Thursday after the City Tour, we were so hot both of us wanted to peel off our jeans and jump into the nearest puddle … pool … swamp … whatever. And it was only 29 degrees!!

I absolutely refused to go out on Friday and stayed home to clean my room and do the laundry … Temperatures were a freaky 36 degrees! I only dared to step out as the sun was setting and a white chocolate ice-blend treat at Max Brenner’s cured the heatstroke from the day before.

Today, I was garang enough to leave the house in a skirt and a singlet without my handy hoodie. Some dark clouds threatened rain but I thought I’ve been here long enough to figure out that black clouds don’t actually mean rain. Or so I thought ….

It was hot, like really really hot. In fact, when WH wanted to meet me to see and maybe take the furniture at Drummond , I seriously didn’t feel like walking all the way back but compared to the inconvenience of putting up notices around school and waiting for people to buy my furniture, I’d rather hike up Swanston. [Why not take the tram? Well, transport in Melbourne is expensive unless you're going to a lot of places within 2 hours, or you just stay really far and have to take the tram. PLUS, international students are left out of concessionary rates unlike the local students ... unfairrr....] Drummond is still within walkable distance.

(Thankfully for all the huffing and puffing up the hill, WH did buy all my furniture, so now I’ve just got to get back my bond money and I officially say bye bye to Drummond.)

The blue-grey house – 399 Drummond Street. My almost home.

Nonetheless, Melbourne wouldn’t be Melbourne if we didn’t have 4 seasons in a day.

After Drummond, I was walking back to Queen Vic Market to meet up with Rupa and Co when the sunny skies were suddenly enveloped by ugly black clouds. A massive wind began howling and you know how stout I am. Well, the wind got so bad that I was actually straining forward to walk. I had to duck behind a pillar to pop on my sunglasses because the wind was blowing the sand into my eyes and stinging my face.

When the gang finally regrouped at Mackers, we ran off trying to get to Rupa’s place before the skies dumped water on us.

We didn’t make it too far before we had to seek shelter at an Internet cafe.

It was like any normal rainstorm until …

We saw HAIL.

In the SUMMER.

HAIL???!!!

Yar hail, bits of ice that hit the ground with a “pop-pop” sound rather than the “plop-plop” of raindrops. Awesome!!

We watched how the ice just kept hitting the ground and melted away … You never get to see this in Singapore.

When the hail stopped and the rain got a little lighter, we grabbed our stuff and ran….

—————

It rained for quite a while before totally stopping, bringing down the temperature to a wonderful 21 degrees. I got back from Rupa’s place a couple of hours ago when another round of heavy rain started again.

Stirfried mee goreng and some chicken for dinner – it’s nice to have a warm meal and be safe and dry at home.

Lovely end to a randomly perfect day.

—————-

Have you realised how my blog entries are just about food or the weather?

Hope to have more interesting stuff to talk about once school starts.

If Ruth can cook, so can you!

A week before I came to Melbourne, I had JL, Pris & John over at my house and attempted to cook fried rice, kailan, teriyaki chicken and szechuan soup.

JL will always remember when he asked me where the garlic to fry the kailan was, and I said, “Need garlic ah?”

Or when I didn’t separate the stem from the leaves of the kailan and was going to dump everything in.

Or when the garlic started popping in the overheated oil and I was squealing like a pig.

I was pretty confident I could pull it off, but JL/Pris/John ended up doing the kailan and fried rice for me.

Soooo …. Ruth left for Melbourne wondering if she’d survive on maggi mee in the end …

BUT!
BUT!
BUT!

RUTH ACTUALLY KNOWS HOW TO COOK!

*cue violin* After suffering a huge blow when my dad left for home, I went to VicMart with a couple of friends and basically bought the kitchen sink and more home….

What I didn’t know … was that the fridge was spoilt and by yesterday, my leafy vegetables started getting frost bite ….

And I bought too many tomatoes, onions and potatoes …

And my shelf was filled to overflowing ….

So I decided to get a couple of friends who have been too lazy to cook anything else except Indo mee to help me finish my food and to see if I’m really that bad at cooking …

There are places in Melbourne where you can get cheap groceries and homeland stuff … I usually go to this place called Wing Cheong Food Stuffs, up a little alley along Little Bourke Street, to get all my sauces. VicMart is good for cheese, wines, meats, vege/fruits and butter but other than that you could get better rates at Chinatown or even Safeway/Coles.

One thing though, is that with a fridge that works overtime, it’s hard to buy things like spring onion because they sell in such big bunches and if I were to put them into the fridge 1) they’d get frost bitten 2) I don’t have any more space!!

So anyway, back to my dinner story!

I had Sihan pick up the guys and bring them over to my place which meant that left me more time to do all the preparation work which included cutting all the ingredients, washing the bak choy, boiling the potato, etc…

Once they arrived, everything was prepared and I could begin.

30 minutes later, dinner was served.

From L-R: Bakchoy, mashed potato, beef balls in noodle soup, egg omelette with onions, tomatoes and capsicum.

Probably the only mistakes I made were to 1) cook the omelette too early 2) underestimate the heat of the stove and burnt the first round of garlic while cooking the bakchoy.

Everyone liked dinner enough to finish their food. I’ve got some potato salad left over, but that’s fine. We managed to feed 7 people, including my Taiwanese housemate (taking the picture) whom I found out … is a Christian! Praise God!!

L-R: Michael, Jon, Adrian, Sihan, Pearline

After dinner, we adjourned for coffee where the conversation turned to the topic on laundry. For some strange reason, we had 3 guys and 2 girls comparing the price of each other’s laundry washing and how to wash it. If we’d been in Singapore, I don’t think tonight’s strange conversation would have taken place, or for that matter, we wouldn’t been together at all.

Prior to coming, I always thought it was stupid to hang out with the Singaporeans because you don’t go away from your country to congregate with your countrymen in that new place.

But, I think I’ll change my attitude from now on.

Ordinarily, back in Singapore, I’d find it hard to click with all these new people I’m meeting … like what do I have to do with an ex-bartender from Club MoMo who looks like a super ah beng?

What would I do with an ex-course mate whom I hardly talked to or let alone kept in touch with after we graduated?

What would I do with a secondary school friend who once was close, but our busy lives took us in 2 separate directions?

Nothing really … until God took us all here, dumped us together and made us learn new life lessons from each other.

School starts next Monday so that’ll be another bunch of friends.

More stories then.

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I’m settling down quite nicely at Swinnerton. Though I still wonder how wonderful it would’ve been to have 604 Seasons Apartments as my new address, I really couldn’t ask for more at my new place.

Curious how my room looks like now?

Here’s my jolly blue “help me i can’t get up it’s so comfy” beanbag that I sit on while making calls home. It’s my Blue Corner for relaxation where I can read a book, call people, or just dream …

Now my Pink Corner which includes the bed with the brightest pink quilt cover you’ll ever see me have!!

Swinnerton provided us with the bed and desk and a little black bedside table you don’t see in the picture.

And finally … the feature I like the most in the room – the built in wardrobe. Contrary to popular belief, the 42 kg I tried to sneak through customs weren’t made up of clothes. More like books and real necessities … like my earrings. The roller on one of the sliding doors broke and I wasnt’ about to endure the screechy sound each time I had to slide open the door so that’s why you can see all the innards of my wardrobe. You’ll only get to see it once, don’t worry.

The exterior and corridor and all that are on the website.

Apparently, everyone staying here studies at RMIT and are pretty mature and so unlike the noisy mess of a residential college with LOUD first years hecking the rest who need to study, everyone at Swinnerton respects each other’s space. The corridors are usually quiet and bathrooms aren’t occupied for long periods of time.

I’ve been able to host little get togethers and know people from Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan, probably not possible if I had lived with just one other housemate.

So it’s been great! Orientation starts this week … and I’m looking forward to it!