Thoughts from a soggy mind - best served Cold

100th Post!

Ok, so i haven't blogged in ages (9 months and counting) due to a combination of procrastination, unwillingness to blog using my SDA quota, lack of ideas for the milestone 100th post and shortage of time too. But this blog, as i told Jared a few months earlier, is "not dead". It's just "on a sabbatical" =p

So what am I going to write for my 100th post? Well...i've thought and thought about it, but just couldn't find that many things to write about. Sure i've changed since I wrote my first post, but i'm not sure if changes are that important. I mean, people definitely change with time, even if some habits and principles stay. I guess it's what causes the changes that's important, and in a sense it's what we've learnt and experienced that change us.

Considering that Semester 2, 2008 is starting in a week's time, I'm already at the halfway point in the course of my degree (excluding Honours year) so in a perhaps nerdy fashion, I'm dedicating my 100th post to things I've learnt in University thus far =)

So here goes. In no particular order, I've learnt that:

1) You can be a male, have waist-length hair and wear a ring on every single finger and yet still be a good lecturer/researcher at the top university in Australia. Form your own conclusions as to what my conclusions are in regards to KLCC, KLIA etc, if you get my meaning.

2) Textbooks can be wrong. In the words of Dr Peter Janssens who taught developmental biology in BIOL1007 and BIOL1004, " What you read in Campbell is simply what Campbell thinks the authors of journals are trying to convey. Those are his interpretations, not necessarily fact. Well, Campbell is dead. Knox is dead, too." (Campbell and Knox are [were?] authors of 2 biology textbooks we used. Unfortunately they're dead.)

3) By extension of 2), alternative sources of information are always helpful, as reflected by the lecturers' use of an average of 5-6 textbooks for 7 weeks worth of lectures.

4) 2) and 3) mean that you're always free to form your own conclusions.

5) Nobody knows everything, even if they're experts in their field. It's far more classy (and professional) to say "I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that one. I'll look it up for you, but I think the answer would be...." when asked a question rather than "Are you trying to challenge me? Who's the lecturer!?". A world of difference.

6) Nobody gives a shit who you are, as long as you're good enough for the job/award*

7) To enter Uni you'd need a UAI of 75 for Biotech and 95 for Actuarial Studies, among others. But you don't actually need to be able to:
i) Flush the toilet after you've used it
ii) Refrain from making noise during the exam period
iii) Stop talking during lectures even if it's annoying the rest of the class
iv) Display the level of maturity, responsibility, punctuality and selflessness required of a young adult in University. Physical age doesn't mean a thing.
v) Take only your own things from a common fridge and freezer.

8) People would do even the most pathetic things if it means that it gives them a shot at what they desire. The funny thing is they probably feel there's nothing wrong with it even when most people see through it and are cringing for all they're worth. For this reason I found the MSO and SSA elections last year pretty entertaining in a sardonic way. (Yeam and Jared, i'm not talking about you guys).

So there you have it, the small and not-so-small things I've learnt in Uni thus far.  Maybe it doesn't make good reading and the last point was certainly written with sarcasm but I have a feeling that it's these things that have more or less changed me, or reinforced my opinions since I've entered uni.

Maybe no one would read this since it's been on a sabbatical for so long, hehe. And it would probably go on another sabbatical if  I don't find the time to blog. So take care and have fun guys!

*Conditions apply.

Beautiful Simplicity

The opening stanza of David Tao's Ai, Hen Jian Dan (Love, Very Simple): 

忘了是怎麼開始
也許就是對你有一種感覺
忽然間發現自己
以深深愛上你 真的很簡單

Translated:

I've forgotten how it started
Maybe it was because I had some sort of feeling for you
And suddenly, I realized that I
Already love you deeply, really quite easily

 Simple lyrics, yet meaningful in their own right.

Today the moon comes full circle; a celebration of love, warmth and joy :)

My family in Australia! :)

I haven't been blogging for about a month now and it's really due to my filled calendar over the past month. Now, after finishing my BIOL1004 formal report, I'm finally gonna blog about the spring break which ended, err...two weeks ago =p

Spring Break 2007 will go down in my life history as one of the most memorable holidays I've ever had for more than one major reason; and one of them is my family's visit to Australia for six days =)

Been looking forward to their visit since March when they confirmed that they were coming in September...and I've been preparing since July after my Melbourne trip. APEC in Sydney nearly threw a spanner into my works but thankfully all worked out well in the end (more on this later).

Friday 7th September 2007
So I went to Sydney a day before Dad, Mum and Sis arrived via flight MH123 (the same flight that took me to Australia in February). Embarrassed to say that my poor sense of direction betrayed me 30 minutes into my arrival at Sydney- I somehow missed George Street and ended up walking in a circle. In the end, though, I managed to find my way to QVB and took the bus to Epping where I was to put up a night with my friends from Macquarie. Thanks Victor and Szerhui for braving the rain to bring me from Macquarie Center to your place! Played, or more like, learned to play, poker at one of the Macquarie ppl's house before meeting up with Shirlynn. Rain prevented me catching up wif Li Cheng and Xin Yin though. Had an early night after an exhausting day; gotta wake up early the next morn.

Saturday 8th September 2007
Woke up at 5.30am and proceeded to the bus stand at about 6.10. Victor kindly woke up early to guide me to the nearest bus stand.Thanks loads! :)
Arrived at the city at about 7am, right on schedule. Then I took the Airport Link and guess what? Impeccable timing yet again. Arrived just 5 minutes after MH123 touched down safely on the runway; now for the (possibly) long wait as they cleared customs. Finally, at about 8.45am I could see the three people who've been there for me since I was born, walking down the aisle towards me. Pure joy!
Checked in at the hotel and then off we went for lunch at Sydney Fish Market. Getting there was a bit of a hassle given my poor sense of direction and equally terrible photographic memory of places I've visited (nothing wrong with my photographic memory of lecture notes though, which is weird) but we finally got there. Maybe it was having lunch with family for the first time in seven months, but the seafood was awesome. The seafood platter once again proved to be fantastic and the prawn kebabs, together with scallops, were heavenly.
A tour of Darling Harbour, and a ferry ride to Circular Quay followed. We just HAD to see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge by sea :) Then a visit to QVB followed by dinner, gelatissimo and shopping at Chinatown, before we went back to the hotel and retired for the night.

 

Sunday 9th September 2007
Woke up early and proceeded to have breakfast at a cafe nearby- this was our first experience of an Australian breakfast together and we simply loved it. The pouring rain made the hot breakfast all the more welcome =) A train ride to Blacktown followed- we visited Featherdale Wildlife Park which in my opinion is way better than Taronga Zoo! We stroked and posed with koalas, fed kangaroos, and enjoyed the antics of numerous Australian wildlife on display. Ever seen an albino kangaroo? They're cute!!:P
In the afternoon we went to Bondi beach, had fried Mars Bars and then nightfall came. Had a Very long walk to the Rocks as APEC forced the closure of the Circular Quay train station, hence the nearest one was Wynyard :( And oh, APEC made Sydney sleepier than Canberra. Really. But in a sense, it made traveling less stressful given that there were much fewer people to block our passage on the pedestrian sidewalks =p
After pizza and pancakes (of course!) at Pancake on the Rocks, and a spot of shopping at Woolworths, we retired for the night. Canberra beckons the next day.

Monday 10th September 2007
The bus ride to Canberra was pretty uneventful and we checked in with minimal fuss.
Lunch at the Hog's Breath Cafe was, pardon the pun, breathtaking. Thanks Barney for recommending this place! Had primed rib steak and chicken caesar wrap, both of which totally set a new standard of such food in me. After lunch, despite the rain we had a stroll near the lake and then Kokoblack chocolate which sent us to heaven momentarily (and figuratively, at that).
Dinner was at Su Yin's place where Mum cooked while Sis and I helped. Before that, my deepest gratitude to Su Yin and Yuet Ling for cutting up all the ingredients beforehand; without your help we would have taken much longer! Anyway, I tasted Mum's cooking for the first time in seven months and it was great to have friends around to share the joy: Daryl, Jared, Jason, Su Yin, Wan Phei and Yuet Ling were all there. 
Took my family to my room here in Ursula Hall for a short tour and then called it a night. Halfway through the trip, everything's going great, i thought to myself.

 

Tuesday 11th September 2007
Morning was occupied by a trip to the Australian National Museum, and as we found out pretty soon, plenty of jostling with hordes of school children! Luckily it was my fifth trip to the museum so i knew the place inside out and we managed to avoid the crowd ;p Had lunch at Chicken Gourmet cuz we wanted a quick lunch and I wanted my family to try out Chicken Kiev, hehe.
The afternoon at the Parliament House was pretty crowded too. Apparently the school children had the same programme for the day as we did! On top of that, Parliament was sitting and they were entertaining the Canadian Prime Minister, too. Didn't see John Howard but I did get a glimpse of Kevin Rudd :P
Had dinner at Iori where I totally fell in love with the wasabi. Then brought my family to Mooseheads which was very quiet due to the holidays, had a drink and thus ended our stay in Canberra.

Wednesday 12th September 2007
Went back to Sydney and we had lunch at Seoul Ria where amazingly, despite our normally small stomach capacity we finished all the food spread out over our table. We had Modum Gui, Bibiembab, a fish dish, and spicy seafood noodles. The food was scrumptious! It was even better than when I tasted it back in April.
Finally, we managed to get to Sydney Opera House which was closed during the APEC summit. The tour, though slightly expensive, was very informative and the view inside the House was simply spectacular. The history of the House was riveting, too. At night, more noodles beckoned at a Vietnamese noodle bar. To be honest, I had run out of ideas of what to eat but we uncovered a gem by accident :) I've never eaten noodles this smooth and silky...After dinner we went back to the hotel for a final packing; all of a sudden it's the final night of my family's stay in Australia.

Thursday 13th September 2007

My family's final day in Australia was pretty uneventful. We spent quite some time at the airport though; browsing the shops and having some lunch. People can trumpet all they like about how grand KLIA is, but seriously...the check in area, shops and especially the eateries are all way better here at Sydney Kingsford Smith airport. I still shudder at the thought of the atrocious food and ambiance at KLIA. Plus there was a huge viewing gallery for the public to see planes being loaded and taking off; and MH122 taking my family back home happened to be parked closest to the gallery! What a bonus :) Finally, it's time to say goodbye and I watched my Mum, Dad and Sis go through the Customs gates, out of my sight. Stayed at the airport and watched the plane takeoff before I boarded a bus back to Canberra.

And here are some pics :

Posing with Kangaroos at Featherdale Wildlife Park

Happy Family @ Bondi Beach

The view from our hotel room

Mum's cooking - Fish in tomato sauce

Mum's cooking - Herbal chicken

Mum's cooking - Stir fried prawns

The awesome steak at Hog's Breath Cafe

The plane taking off, sending my family back to Malaysia

I had lots of fun and joy during this magical six-day period. It's been quite a while since we had a holiday together and to have my family visit me here in Australia was just fantastic. Thanks Dad, Mum and Sis for spending the time and money to come over...I'll be home in 2 months' time! :)

p/s: To people who read this post till the very end, thank you for your patience and sorry for the super long post, hehe. Took up quite a bit of your time and internet quota, didn't I? =p

2.8 down, 5 days to go

Well, not exactly grammatically correct, my title. But yeah, it's 2.8 and not 2 or 3 because i'm still not entirely done with the third. In case you're wondering, i'm talking about the exams/ assignments that I have before the spring break.

Last week, BIOL1004 Formal Report was handed in on Monday. Not exactly my best piece of work, not when I had to prepare for CHEM1201 as well. But at least I did my best so I'm quite happy with it, no complaints there. Then came CHEM1201 mid-semester exam on Thursday night. Judging by the content in the textbook I would have approached this exam with much apprehension but past-year papers were quite okay so I ended up just going in without much of a worry. And it was allright :)

This coming week I have a BIOL1009 mid-sem on Thursday and a PHYS1004 formal report due on Friday. Happy to report that the report (pun intended) is 80% complete - hence the "2.8 down" above. All that's left are two diagrams to draw by hand... Which is also why I decided to give myself some time off and type this post =p

So practically all that's left is BIOL1009..and it's a  bit of a pain =( Not to say I don't enjoy the course content though; it certainly is very interesting. But it's hard to remember that  Class Cephalopoda refers to octopuses and squids while  Class  Cephalochordata comprises of the lancets =S  Still, naming stuff isn't a major part of the assessment (rote learning is strongly discouraged here, which is a welcome change) so it should be allright...

After today, there's only 5 more days to go to the much awaited spring break! Thankfully there aren't any major assignments to complete during the break so I should get to enjoy most of my two-week holiday =)

That's all, take care folks. All the best to those having exams or are swamped with assignments!

Turning Twenty

On Monday 13th August 2007 I celebrated my first birthday in Australia; my first birthday away from my family. And as Jason puts it, it's also another milestone in the sense that it marks two decades of my existence on Earth :)

And it has been the best birthday I've ever had. For one, absence makes the heart grow fonder and every single birthday wish from family members back in Malaysia meant even more. And I've really been remembering that it's my birthday partly because Sis' birthday card reached 3 weeks early (she just couldn't trust Pos Malaysia) so i've been looking at the birthday card on my wall for 20-odd days before the day finally arrived. The card from Mum and Dad arrived a week early, too. And then, the celebrations....

I was invited to a birthday dinner on Sunday night at Unilodge - courtesy of friends over there. And when I reached...Omg. Touched beyond words. For a while I was too stunned to do anything but just stand/sit around and grin stupidly (this would repeat itself a few times, refer below) as Su Yin went flying past me once more getting things ready. The scale of the dinner! The sheer number of dishes, and some of my most favourite dishes on top of that. My all-time favourites, black bean soup and bitter gourd, followed by steamed fish, chicken, ma poh tofu, leek, and the must-have for a Chinese on his birthday: hard-boiled eggs! Many many thanks to Su Yin, Sze Huey, Wan Phei, Wei Min and Yuet Ling for preparing everything! Can't thank you gals enough..it was indeed an unforgettable meal =)

Oh, they baked a birthday cake too! And for the 2nd time that night, I was grinning and smiling like a complete idiot when they sang the Birthday song to me..touched beyond words; and the cake looked simply beautiful.

And my appreciation goes to the guests too. Thanks Betsy, Jason, Jared, Shern Ren, and Yeam for coming. Your presence was equally important, too. Special thanks goes to Yeam for rushing to Unilodge despite just reaching Canberra after City2Surf in Sydney. And now the pics:

I don't know if this pic does justice to the magnitude of amazement and gratitude I felt when I first saw the dishes. Even if a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, it still isn't enough =)

Cutting my birthday cake (baked by Sze Huey & Su Yin)...you can see from my face that I didn't really wanna cut it up =p

And that was what happened on Sunday 12th August, the eve of my birthday. Came back to Ursies, prepared for class on Monday (7 hours of class =S) and went to bed early. Happiness in large doses can make you tired, apparently. Particularly when you mix it with other things like gratitude, surprise and..other things (I really need to brush up on my vocab!).

My birthday proceeded like any normal Monday, bar the influx of SMSes. My lab in the afternoon finished early so all in all it was a better Monday afternoon than usual :) It was at night that things got abit hairy..starting from dinner time. I had explicitly warned Jared not to do it but I forgot about Jason- he told me that Barney wanted to speak to me so I went to see him (we were sitting at different tables). One look at Barney's surprised expression told me I'm in deep shit. And yes, that split second prevented me from stopping Jason from announcing to everyone in the dining room that it was my birthday. Impeccable timing, i must say =p So...everyone joined in and amidst the singing I could hear Jared's shout of "He's blushing!!" while I stood and looked around grinning stupidly (again).

At about 9.30pm Chern came to my room and told me that something went wrong with the Malaysian recipe that I had passed to him- apparently the chef couldn't understand it. But I was on MSN at that time AND he looked suspicious. So i played for time and finally, i decided to give in and followed him to his room. The coast looked clear though, we were alone in the living room. But as I found out in a minute, they don't give Senior Residents a two-room flat and a storage closet for nothing. Nearly had a heart attack when so many people burst out of nowhere! Poor Jared and Lawrence were squashed in the storage closet for a good 15 minutes =p Many Ursies were there - thanks for coming! While I was still recovering from shock they sang Happy Birthday to me and so I sat and grinned stupidly (doesn't this sound familiar by now?)

(L-R): Birthday card from Sis, Mum and Dad, Unilodge friends, Ursies, Wei Min.

As 12am showed on my alarm clock, signaling the end of my birthday, I pored over the past 30 hours or so. It had been amazing.

Many thanks once again for all you've done to make this such a memorable birthday for me; I appreciate every single thing, even the smallest detail :)

p/s: A note of gratitude to all of you who sent me birthday greetings either via SMS, MSN, Friendster comments or wrote on my Facebook wall. I really appreciate them!

Mexican spice larvae, anyone?

Yet another week has flown by and i'm counting down to the spring break with relish. It's amazing how sometimes you just don't want time to pass by so quickly and yet it does, other times you want it to go faster and yet it just seems to slow to a crawl. Arghh.

That said, tis' been quite a happy and happening week for me. For starters, I actually didn't have BIOL1004 labs while the PHYS1004 lab turned out okay too despite the inevitable rush (wrote Methods, drew "Diagrams" and finished Conclusion in about 7 minutes). The fun part was my BIOl1009 practical this week - Snail dissection. While the practical itself was kinda fun (I mean, how interesting can snails be?), the real show was the special 'meal' we had prior to the prac. Courtesy of our lecturer Dr Blackwell, we had a selection of invertebrates cooked in various styles. And they were all invertebrates we had studied in previous lectures so you kind of look at them in a different light, lol.

Clockwise from top: Baby clam, krill, jellyfish in spicy oil, octopus, mussel, snail in garlic butter and chocolate-coated insect (i got a cricket)

Insect larvae with Mexican Spice..other flavours include Cheddar Cheese and BBQ :S

Mr Snail prior to being cut apart and poked at everywhere. Pardon the blurry image, had to snap this in a hurry.

The cricket didn't taste all that nice(as expected) but the snail was surprisingly very good. Haven't tried the larvae though.

Allright..guess that's all for now. Gotta go revise, mid-sem exams are coming up and I'm still not prepared. Take care guys, and best of luck.

p/s: Weather's really bad lately. Take care of your health!

This is 24 hours late

Okay...here I am typing this post again, 24 hours after I tried to do so but discovered that my brain was inexplicably jammed. Maybe I just shouldn't blog on Saturdays....hurm.

I guess I shouldn't try to blog about my week given that it's way too complex with good and bad news all mixed and mashed into hazy unreality. Suffice to say, I'm glad that for every single problem that I faced this week, a silver lining emerges =)

So tomorrow will be the start of week 4. Which means I'm inching ever closer to Weeks 6 & 7 (read: Mid-sem exams and assignments!) and also the much-awaited spring break. So far things have been going pretty okay i guess, even if the current course content has made me frequent the library more often. Let's just hope things stay the way they are; or I dun mind them getting a lil better too =p

And yes, it's finally almost the start of the football season again! Almost 3 months of passivity can drive any football fan mad and the only saving grace, i guess, was the explosive transfer market this time around. As a Man Utd fan, I can't wait to see the new signings Nani, Anderson, Hargreaves and Tevez play. Rumours abound of Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez forming an attacking triumvirate similar to Barca's...is it true? Can't wait for new season to start! And the sale of Kieran Richardson to Sunderland for 6M pounds has to be THE transfer deal of the season =) On the negative side of things, Giusseppe Rossi has left for Villareal (though we still have first refusal on him) and why oh why is John O'Shea still around??? Still, let's hope Man Utd perform to the standards predicted by the majority of the pundits and run away with all that's on offer.

It's the Community Shield tonight and sad to say, I can't watch it :( Both Utd's and Chelsea's preseason form have been so-so and i guess it'll be touch-and-go as usual. Even though there's no points at stake, hopefully we can strike a psychological blow on them!

Allright..i'm getting all excited over this footy business it seems. Time to stop and go read up on BIOL1009 then...class starts at 9am tomorrow (sighs). Take care folks, and to all football fans, celebrate the arrival of the new season!

p/s: Had a semi-productive trip to the library today. Try to figure out what that means :)

Of wireless and roti canai

In a blink of an eye I'm 2 weeks into Semester 2. Labs and tutes have started, so it's now full steam ahead. On the one hand, it's great that time's flying cuz it means that the spring break (and after that, summer break- flying HOME!!) is fast approaching but it also means that Mid-Sem exams and assignments will be raining down upon us just as fast. Kinda contradictory, no?

Quite a few things have happened since term started. For one, the wireless connection has degenerated into pure crap. Can hardly get 20 minutes of uninterrupted connection; ditto for msn. And sometimes even when I am on msn, messages I thought I've sent turned out to be lost somewhere in cyberspace (read: did not reach intended recipient). One word: frustrating. Been hearing a few conspiracy theories of what actually caused the above; not sure which is true though.

On the bright side of things, there was Mamak Day organised by the MSO yesterday! Went to B&G on Friday night (we went late, actually =p) to help with the preparations. Didn't help much though, apart from helping to peel off the skin from a mountain of garlic and chopping up some garlic. Anyway, the food was ok and at the very least it had satiated my desire for malaysian food for the next few months. Let's see...we had maggi goreng, roti canai, dhall, kuih koria (not sure how to spell this), tandoori chicken, teh tarik and cendol! Many thanks to Yeam for helping us to take away some extra maggi and chicken =)

Food!! Cendol's not in the photo though.

Apart from the food, there's the people. About 30 people from Ursula Hall went for Mamak Day ;it was quite a sight to see our group lining up for food and subsequently occupying a whole lot of space as we ate. Not to mention that we won nearly all the games too ;)

Hurm..dunno what else to say. It's been quite a happy week, the crappy connection notwithstanding. See ya guys. Take care and have fun!

Friends in Canberra

One of the reasons why my winter break has been so fun was because college friends came a-visiting! The only disadvantage was that they didn't all come at the same time hence i ended up visiting the same place thrice in a space of 2 weeks...i must be one of the National Museum's most ardent fans along with Su Yin by now...we've been there 4 times already =p

Let's see..first were the people from Melbourne - Lin Sin, Chen Quan and their housemate (from Sunway), Sue Lyn. They arrived in Canberra on 29th June from Sydney where they had been having a holiday for a few days and stayed till 2nd July - when we Canberrans were already in Melbourne! Well, a bit of simple logistics solved that problem ;)

Canberra being the quiet place it is at night, naturally the only place we could go on their first night here was Mooseheads. Cheap drinks and lotsa shouting amongst the loud music - quite fun. Then on 30th June we headed to the National Museum and New  Parliament House. Had quite an embarrassing moment at the Parliament - i had to pass the security metal detectors FOUR times! All because of the Eclipse mint container I had in my jacket =S At night we headed to the casino. Didn't gamble; just stood around watching. The whole daytime of 1st of July was spent shopping in  Belconnen  and Canberra Centre. Blame it on the lack of buses to certain places on weekends, sighs. Anyway what we lacked in places to go, we certainly made up with lots of fun and laughter as only friends on a holiday can have :)

Jessica and her friend Ernest who are both studying in University of Queensland (in Brisbane) arrived from Sydney  on  8th July. They stayed  till 19th July - ELEVEN days in total! I don't know how but we actually managed to bring them to different places for the whole of the eleven days. Along the way I discovered that there are actually quite many places to visit in Canberra...a nice surprise indeed. To sum the eleven days, here's where we went: National Museum (twice), New Parliament House, Old Parliament House, War Memorial, Questacon, Royal Australian Mint, Telstra Tower, Botanical Gardens, Lake Burley Griffin, National Capital Exhibition, National Carillon, Commonwealth Park, Woden, and Deakin. I'm not sure if I've left out any though..didn't go to some of them due to tiredness or simply because I've been there before e.g. Questacon (10.50 per entry!).

Anyway both stints as a "Canberra Tour Guide" have been really fun and it's just great getting together with your college mates once more even if it's only for a few days. The Sydney people are coming in September coinciding with the Floriade festival so it's more fun in a few weeks' time! I'll sign off with some pics...

Left to Right: Su Yin, Lin Sin, myself, Sue Lyn, Chen Quan, Yuet Ling, Wan Phei. Holding camera- Jason. (At New Parliament House)

Left to Right: Jessica, Jason, Ernest, Su Yin, Myself. (At War Memorial)

Out with the Winter Break, Semester 2's here

Sighs. As I'm typing this i'm counting down to the end of my precious Winter Break. Four weeks of all play and no work will end tonight. Tomorrow, Semester 2 starts at 9am sharp (RSBS Robertson Lecture Theatre - BIOL1009).

Before I get all depressed, I guess it's worthwhile to remember that I actually had a very good break :) Let's see..what did I do? I watched loads of anime (Death Note and Samurai 7), read some manga (Death Note), watched movies off DC (POTC3, V for Vendetta, Blades of Glory, The Prestige, Transformers), watched a movie at the cinema(Harry Potter), played PC games (Pirates! and Halo), did some cooking, went to Melbourne, and brought my friends from Melbourne and Brisbane around Canberra (will blog about this next week).

Did I miss something? Oh yes, i slept A LOT. All of a sudden I've discovered the joy of sleeping 10-11 hours daily, hehe. It's an effective way of killing time and also gives my battered body and brain much needed rest which I just didn't get enough of during the semester. As crazy as it seems, I actually slept as early as 10.30pm once (yes, during the HOLIDAYS!) and I've generally abandoned the habit of sleeping past 12am. Will have to pick it up again though, Semester 2 isn't going to be any easier.

Apart from the above, the winter break's been great for many little things as well. They're all hiding in my brain somewhere which makes it hard to write them all down but they're there and they're part of the reason why this break has been fabulous :)

Moving on to more serious stuff now. Semester 2 will be a step up compared to Sem1 and I hope this break's prepared me for it. 27 contact hours a week; four 3-hour labs. Will I survive? Well, it's just four months of hard work and toil. I look up to people like Dexter (34 hours, 6 labs) for motivation =) Contact hours aside, no doubt the material covered will be much more complicated as well. Oh well, I'll just take it as it comes, no?

That's all folks. Enjoy your winter break if you're still having one and to those facing Semester 2 tomorrow, good luck!

p/s: I really shouldn't be too pessimistic. Spring break is actually just 6 weeks away :P