Earthquakes, Huxaburgers, Aka Tombo & Chapel

Why hi there lovely readers, allow me to recap since my last post up until the 21st of June.

Who else felt the Earthquake in Melbourne on June the 19th! It's the first one I have experienced as Australia generally does not experience earthquakes so to everyone who lived in the inner suburbs/west side I'm sure they only felt a rumble and slight shaking as I did, and if anything it was more exciting than scary. Though I'm sure it would have been a vastly difference experience for those at the epicentre (Moe, over 100km from where I live) as it was 5.3 in magnitude I believe, something around that.  Which, to anyone who lives in an earthquake ridden country, is probably nothing.

On the 21st of June, I met up with the lovely Sylvia for lunch at Huxtaburger on Smith Street. I'd never heard of the place until that day and damn were the burgers SO good. Perhaps I was particularly hungry as well. But the meat patty had a very distinct flavour but I'm not specialist on seasonings/herbs so I can't describe what it was. It was good, that's all you need to know.

 The 21st was also the day of Tracey's birthday, so we all went to Aka Tombo on Greville St.

Tracey, myself and Jenny.

Sushi platter to share, complimentary of Tracey. Unfortunately, I, being the freak that doesn't eat sushi, could not share in everyone else's enjoyment. I did try the egg sushi thing on the platter. I'm not sure of what it was called but it was egg, with rice and a bit of seaweed to keep it together. I did, however, still pull off the seaweed ha. Must say that egg was really tasty, which means a lot since I generally don't like egg unless its scrambled and extremely fried.

My Chicken Teriyaki

Tracey's Wagyu Beef.


After eating and dessert (which I thought I had pictures off, I'll have to go look for them). We headed off to Lucky Coq on Chapel to celebrate (for want of a better word) Pauline's month long trip in Europe which she is now currently undertaking. The best part of the night was when Daniel turned up unexpectedly at Lucky Coq. Initially I was annoyed because he had ignored my texts for the past 3 hours, or, he says he doesn't look at his phone (excuses excuses -__-).

When I was with Sylvia I had planned on leaving a short while after getting to Lucky Coq but perhaps it was a mixture of me being excited to see Daniel and me just generally having more energy at night. That I decided to go to One Six One with everyone. Got back home around 1.30am so not too late at all.

That was one of the most eventful days I've had in a long time. It was nice seeing all my high school friends again but also Lucky Coq and One Six One seems to be the place of choice to go on a Thursday night so I also happened to see people from high school that were in different year levels. That was probably something I would have liked to avoid because these are people who know who I am and I know who they are but we've basically never spoken so it's not like we're going to start out of no where now. I can be incredibly socially awkward.

That's all for now, there will be another post in one or 2 days.

Love Lisa.

Survived Exams

I know it might not seem like much, having had only 3 exams. But this whole year has drained me far more than last year. Well, I guess I shouldn't expect anything to get easier, but I feel like again, there was a sudden unexpected jump in h ow much we were expected to know for exams. But I think I pulled through okay *knocks on wood*. Hopefully I'm not jinxing myself.

After not seeing Daniel after a week, he took me to Dessert Story on Swanston. Which, if you're asian and teenager/young adult, must have surely heard of. It's quite a popular chain of Hong Kong style desserts. We got a Pudding with 3 flavours, mango, chocolate and vanilla/coconut and a Basil Seed Soup with Green Tea Ice Cream. They were yum and very reasonably priced. Around $6 each. Compare this to Passionflower, another popular dessert place in the city, the average price for the most basic thing is around $15 :S




Ugh I feel incredibly listless and agitated. I need some directionality in my life right now. Something to work towards. I swear everything in life I've ever began, I've never fully completed. Guess that's my bad habit.

Love Lisa.

With My One & Only

The nights of cooking paella and falling asleep to berry scented candles:
I was in charge of marinating the chicken, which was an experience in itself while Daniel did the chopping and dicing. We were trying to mimic Nando's paella, and we did a decent job :P

The day of my haircut:

Photoworld, just like the old days :') but photoworld sure has upgraded recently, so many new game machines. Daniel also won me a tiny totoro, which I find to be the cutest plushie I've ever come across.



Then to Meshiya for ramen, well in the end I ordered don because just thinking of the curry and the chicken made me drool. We also decided to try sake, it was interesting, tasted like vodka but more of a rice flavour (for obvious reasons).





This weekend I'll post about all my recent purchases (by recent I mean last few months), and my my there's more than I can keep track of.

Love Lisa.

Infinity

"The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen, nor touched...but are felt in the heart."
-Helen Keller


Infinity Pool at Marina Bay Sands by Jamie Hladky
How amazing does this hotel look! Definitely adding it to my places to see list.

When I make meals for Daniel it goes like this:
Breakfast - Weetbix and milk
Lunch - Beef pie (that I just shoved in the oven)

Clearly I'll be a top wife. But I must admit I love taking care of him when he's not feeling well. It makes me feel useful and appreciated. But at all other times it's me half asleep demanding cookies be brought to me at regular intervals. Hehe.

Love Lisa.

Babushka Dolls

Well this is how it began, general wandering around collins/elizabeth st with Daniel.
Saw this awesome little shop in..okay I forgot where we were but it sold babushka dolls and christmas decorations.
We visited the upstairs section of the shop and on our way back down, about halfway down the staircase I saw this creepy with doll thing in the corner of the wall and i was like 'oh my god...' and I guess tried to back away, but in doing so I almsot fell down the stairs..backwards :|
But Daniel saved me ;) ahah, but literally he did, I tried to hold onto some display for support but the glass just slid out, therefore if Daniel didn't save me not only would I have maybe broken some bones and had a concussion, but I would have pulled glass/a variety of babushka dolls crashing down onto me.
That was too much of a near accident for my liking hahaha.

Just happened to see Roger outside ANZ, then Jenny came (or was always in ANZ?)
Anyhow, we had a fairly long short chat (ahah) cept we were standing in the paths of people not only walking in both directions but in perpendicular directions too.

Subway for lunch mmm :)
Then walked to QV and did not end up seeing any dresses D;
But we did find Jenny and Roger at Romanos Cafe, we sat there for 2 hours I reckon.
And the conversation led from candles to club x? LOL I love how conversations flow :)
Then Pauline came for a bit and we all parted ways, and yum Harajuku Crepes!

Just discovered that the name 'babushka' is actually incorrect but just has common use now, they're actually called Matryoshka Dolls :)








Love Lisa.


Noo, I want to cry... LOL :|

Overdosing on Sleep

I hadn't felt as terrible as I did yesterday, in a year or more?
So much so that I gave up on my spesh sac, I had at least 20mins till the end where I just sat there willing her to just tell us to stop.
And in the end we didn't even have recess, great.

When I got home, I didn't want my parents to start being all concerned and all you go out too much you sleep too late blah blah.
So I was just like 'I have a headache'...understatement of the century. And I refused to have my temperature taken because I knew I had a fever. In the end my dad coerced me into it and no wonder my head wanted to explode the whole day, I had a 40ish degree fever.
And the moment dad saw that reading he panicked, just as I expected and wanted to take me to the doctor but I managed to talk him out of that one.

In the end he made me freshly orange juice LOL.

So I went to sleep around 4 yesterday and did not get out of bed until 11something to brush my teeth.
Then Back to sleep and I got up at 8.30 today, ate a roll and went back to sleep until 12.30 :)

Sigh and clearly I'm not at school right now.
But this can't be good, I'm not feeling that sick right now..I don't feel sick at all when compared to yesterday.
And I have sacs next week, ones that I don't even remember.
I don't get physics...besides from the right hand slap rule ahahah.

Oooh okay, have not blogged since Tuesday.
Well Wednesday was the UMAT, lucky we left earlier than needed because traffic within a few hundred metres of Caufield racecourse was terrible.
So I walked it.
The UMAT itself was so tiring, I can't tell whether it was good or bad, just average, I definitely did not understand many of the patterns but I think that's because I was so tired from the other sections.
Also I do pin some blame on the UMAT for me being sick, ha, I exerted too much mental strain and therefore I was more susceptible to catching some sort of viral cold.
Afterwards had spanakopita (google told me that was how it was spelt?) with Daniel :) Yum and it was soo good and I do LOVE anything pastry mmm.
Speaking of food, where are my parents D: I want lunch, guess I'll just eat fruit or something for now.

More later,
Love Lisa.

Badminton

Quality twin time today ;D Chilling on the matts, eating walnut log and berries mmm.
And sylvia bought me coffee during period 7, and I had to slyly get out of physics to drink it, then I decided it would go well with something from bakers delight that sylvia had brought.
And damn was that a good danish and coffee.
Reminder to self, pay Sylviah back.

Then after school was the return of badminton (it's a term 3 interschool sport) ;D
Weooo I forgot how much in love I am with that sport, or maybe it's only cos I play with Sylvia and that makes it more fun? Yeah that probably makes more sense.
But today proves how unfit I am, 10 minutes into it I was tiring, and I don't feel it now, but I can expect to have some sore arm/shoulder muscles tomorrow.

Also, currently wearing shorts, and it's scaring me, my legs have been in hibernation for months. LOL D: but once again, my summer tan has lasted, because I still have my bikini tan line.
Speaking of being in shorts, it's kinda cold, but then again I'm trained for this weather, I live constantly in like 10degree weather.
Besides when I'm sleeping, I woke up so warm (so warm hehe), it was almost too hot but not quite, so it was niiice.
And I don't know do normal people get condensation on their windows every morning? Because mine were dripping this morning and making small puddles on the window sill.
Creepy that so much moisture normally exists in the air.

Arghh last year I gymmed every now and then, and had dancing every week (I lived for every Wednesday).
This year, I sit in front of the computer and eat 100g blocks of chocolate as a snack. Great.

School was okay today, but I'm falling behind in everything eeek,
Love Lisa.

Lang Anal

Finally, english is over for the time being. Well, in terms of assessed work.

The article was this one, which, to my amazement when I saw it on the single desk I was about to sit at, I have read before :D
Including the cartoon with four frames and additionally a letter to the editor written in response to the article.

Yess finally reading the newspaper has paid off. Wait is payed a word..paid...payed, it's paid right? :|

Fingers crossed this will be something I can actually do well on in english because I feel like it wasn't nearly as (okay, far from) terrible as the On The Waterfront one. Plus my practise ones were fine, it's just me + time limit = disaster.

Anyways, now it's time to catch up on spesh..many..many MANY chapters of spesh. It'll probably lead into the holidays..can't wait huh ^o)

Elspeth printed out our formal invites, aw I should have made space at the top so she could personalise them, instead of having to cram above the 'you are invited to', if only I knew.

It was another one of those Tuesdays. Had a chinese detailed study sesh with Sui Laoshi in my spare. Formal committee meeting at lunch, plus there were meant to be badminton trials but luckily they didn't seem to have been on.
And of course after school was english. Weow.

OH OH OH OHHHHH, my new earphones came :DD
They're freaking awesome, the bass was meant to be better than the sennheiser ones but they seem about the same. Who cares though, they have a fabric cord thing...if that makes sense, rather than the usual plastic encasing the wires and shit.
I believe the advantage is added flexibility? And I always twist/ wrap my wires, which according to dad and brother is how I killed my last ones.

Wait one more thing, my dad bought me a book about giant pandas for my detailed study. He got our relative (I think she's my cousin) who lives in Syndey to get it while she was in China, and then she mailed it to us when she got back to Australia. Mrs. Sui was mighty impressed by my dad's initiative, but no more than I am, aww.

Oh I hear it's 粽子 season ahahhah, to commemorate some ancient guy in the army who drowned himself because the emperor didn't listen to his amazing advice. Okay I don't know the full story and then people threw 粽子 into the water so he couldn't get eaten by...whatever lived down there. How thoughtful of them.
Anywho, my parents are making enough to keep us alive for the long cold winter.
Seems like we've moved on from the 小笼包 and 馒头, but they'll be back before I realise it.




Need to shower and clear my camera's memory card.
Because it's about time I started doing something in preparation for the formal,
Love Lisa.

One Down

I would like a bunny again.

Actually any pets that I can play with would be nice.
Okay I know what I've wanted to add to my blog, a list of life goals :)


That Girl; ahh the part when they're first in the field, David Choi is like a little boy it's so adorable.
And the CGI flying photos are mad :)
But I really do love David's voice.


Nice, who wants to play?

Umm I guess physics was alright. It's like I had an answer for everything and I worked every question out, but did I get any of it right? We will see.
The spring question? Hmm definitely doubting my answer but who cares. I love special relativity! (I shouldn't speak too soon)
Time to study up for chem :)

My mum's fried dumplings fatten me up for the cold foggy winter.



Taken a week ago maybe? I ran out of the house @ 7am after just waking up.

Love Lisa.

Plethora

Why is the AUD at an all time low, this is not cool. Jenny Paul and Em bought their Sigma makeup brush kits at an all time high, so there's about $10 difference (in the total cost).

Delayed upload yet again:
Social


M Day




Em's Where's Wally 18th



Year 12 Jumper :D Oh yeah.

SCHOOLHOUSIN'

Wasting time. Must. Write. English. Expository.
Must. Finish. Physics. EEI SAC.
Must. Study.

Feeling quite drained, chinese school teacher told my parents I talk to much during class.
Which then dragged up my parents primary school criticim of my class behaviour. And the argument lasted forever. Thanks张老师. What I just realised is my chinese teacher at normal school and chiense school have the same surname :O Oh my.

Took me an hour to draw 10 trig reciprocal graphs. Pretty weak don't you think?

Made instant noodles witha fried egg for lunch.
Going to eat an apple now.

Goals for today:
-complete half my physics
-write an expository, email it to Mrs Badoer
-do an hour of methods
-start english help sheet
-copy out chinese

Until next time,
Love Lisa.

School Photos

Yes, today was that fateful day of school photos.
The moment I arrived at school it was obvious everyone has taken more care in their appearance ;D
I saw many more hair ribbons than usual and a few VERY made up girls.

During physics Mr Hester, our teacher needed to go take his form photo so we were more or less able to leave.
Stupid me thought we had soo much time to kill before our class photo was due to be taken.
I thought I was in the bathroom for maybe 5minutes, fixing my hair and applying (subtle, of course) makeup :)
But then I decided I'd spent too much time in there. Walked into the hall (usually the photos are outside but it was too rainy) and the class about to have their photo taken looked all too familiar.
This was my thought process:
>Mr Nicoll..
>Pauline..
>>wait a minute PAULINE?! OH GOD IM IN HER FORM
Oops. But the photographer somehow knew my name.. :| and he squeezed me in the back row because i looked 'very tall'. Which I think is a bit of an exaggeration, I'm not short but very tall? Come on now.

Photo was over quite quickly and onto our inidividual ones.
Seconds into waiting in line I realised there were no teachers patrolling the vicinity. How odd. My makeup bag was at hand so on went more eyeliner :) But only on the top line so it's still not noticeable.

The individual photo was over before I even knew it was taken too. I barely remember if I mustered up a good enough smile. But I can only hope :)
This is our last year after all. I wouldn't mind my last photo being a prettier one than what they usually turn out to be.

Afterwards I realised I could have even had my hair out, damn.
My ribbon was passed to Pauline, then Angel and Tracey because they didn't have their own. I felt like as if it were a holy artifact aha ;DD

LOL just had a call from Clyde asking about where Sophia's was in camberwell.

Overdue photos:

My Myki :D


After book contacting...LOL my bro was celebrating because he never has to contact books for me ever again. (and if you're wondering he was really sunburnt in this picture)


The day we revived our George Foreman grill mmmm.




Our 2 hour long hotpot dinner. Yes that is a traditional bronze hot pot (this one happened to be japanese), and you heat it with hot coals which go in the base and up the space in the middle aahahha.

Holy shit it's the weekend. Heck. Yes.
Love Lisa.

Retreat

Just before I get into that, I finished Enduring Love. I feel a little empty, I need something to read :| Seriously.
I keep forgetting to get the books from Martin.
Oh and today is 37 degrees, I didn't even want to turn my computer on but my brother was backing up the app files but then it went crazy when he left so it didn't end up working.

Day 1
Kicked off at school. I'm in 12B with Paul, Zinta, Jenny Han, Elise, Faith, Rushani, Cass and so forth :)
Mr Nicoll and Mrs Dumsday are our form teachers, not bad.
Received our timetables, diaries and Year 12 jumpers.

Yeah only difference is it says Year 12 2010 and it's a light blue.

Must say I'm pretty disappointed by my timetable, my methods teacher teaches so slow I will never learn and I have no frees/spares (whatever you call it at your school) at the end of a SINGLE day in a fortnight. Um that's effed up, dodgy as FUUUCK. Couldn't they have pity on me, I mean I already have half the amount of frees as everyone else, couldn't they at least make them good :S
Discovered our lockers are in the tiniest most cramped corridor opp the biology labs.
Attended a short introductory 30min lesson of each class.


Queen's College

AT the place we got our rooms, ours somehow didn't have our room numbers so it was trial and error until we found the door which our key worked for.

Had beef burgers and berry tart for dinner.


Jenny's Game haha.


Listened to teachers talk.
Had a year level discussion.
"Made a tree of leaves"



Then we had some free time, we were all in a random room and Jenny did makeup for one of everyone's eyes.

Jenny & Tracey

Next, tranny photos. Which I will steal off Pauline one day soon.


Teachers started patrolling the hallways around 11pm, yelling at people to go to bed and what not.
I don't think they minded to much when more than one person slept in the same room.
But I didn't really mind separate rooms. And besides that way I could talk to Martin without disturbing anyone else :)

Day 2
My alarm was set for 6.30, didn't actually leave my room until 7am because I couldn't tell if anyone else was awake.
Pauline came to get me and Tracey up so we all went down to the Dining Hall.
Breakfast was pretty generic, I really craved bacon and has browns mmmm.
Instead I had nutri grain, not filling..at all.

Afterwards we went back to our rooms to pack everything up.


Basically what everyone's rooms looked like. I thought mine had a pretty nice view.

First guest speaker was a physio, talked to us about posture for a while. Wow typing that just made me really conscious of my terrible hunch.

Onto our first activity. We signed up for "breathe, Stretch, Exercise" with Mr O'Neill, thinking it was some sort of yoga but it ended up being just stretches, as in very basic ones. Though we did have to walk 'briskly' to Princes Park.
Came back, had a morning tea.

Second activity was "Healthy Mind, Healthy Body" with Jane. We did meditative breathing and just talking about how we need to stop thinking sometimes..you know.

Lunch was a pie of choice plus a small amount of chips + either potato salad or green salad.




the Junior Common Room, where all meetings were held.

"Effective Communication" was next. It was all about body language and the different ways to communicate...most of it talked about the obvious.

Then we had a while to write about 'Our Goals', nobody had pens so it didn't really work out. Just became a chatting sesh ;D

Next we had a group photo, I think Belinda from our school came just to take a photo. She has the sweetest job at our school, I swear!

Then we all just ran off to the city.

I think this is a fairly passable account of our Retreat.
Will add more photos when I get them.
Love Lisa.

PS. Yesterday around 7pm, I discovered one of my budgies, Butter, had died from heat stroke. I know it's no ones fault but if the cage was in the shade, I'm pretty sure she didn't need to die.
The others were also exhausted from the heat but recovered quite quickly.
The poor baby, her mate was really morose this morning, making sad little chirping noises at the edge of the cage...