work?

After 2 days of induction, I finally more or less settled down. Happy cause I got my access pass, my desk, my computer, my email, my computer login, my phone extension too! =D Wow! I am now a reaaaall office girl! XD Most importantly, I finally know more or less the project that I'm supposed to be involved in during my time here. It's something to do with linking their GUI system to their data repository of owned properties. Pretty cool eh?

Today, Patrick gave me a quick overview on the GUI system that Gippsland Water uses. It's like a customized Google Earth, but has a lot of neat fixes, stuff like that. Totally cool! And not to mention their data repository is abit tedious, but not entirely impossible to figure out.

Did a fair bit of scanning documents since those are the ones that I'll be using for the project. I accidentally left my iPod on sometime earlier and forgot to pause it, so it continually played until it ran itself dry, which made the scanning process really boring. =P

Apart from the induction that I've been having for the past 2 days, I still have to undergo more training, probably another 5 hours of it. *silently screams in agony* CIBS and eView... gah! But it should be interesting. Better have a shot of coffee just in case my head decides to slam itself onto the keyboard or something.

Still not used to having to bring lunch to work from home. So I went shopping with Chris yesterday, bought alot of snacks & dry food (aka rations or hamster food =P), and sandwich-making food like bacon and cheese. Surprisingly for lunch today, crackers with spicy hommus dip & some cherries satiated my appetite. I thought I would crave for more after I was done, but it was enough. hmm...

I'm going to Seaspray tomorrow! Apparently it's some kind of field trip, and I'm not complaining~ XD
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When I got back from work, was abit surprised to see Eileen with curls. She looks so mature in them, and knowing she has an immature side to her it gave her an interesting touch~ don't worry dudette, it's not a bad thing~

Which led on to me getting my hair curled.



Gosh, it makes me look older! Hiro said I really have the office girl look with the curls. *laughs* ばか。But I kind of like it, but not all the time, maybe for special events. Must hire Ammie to do my hair for me again when the time comes, hehehh~

south

Just uploaded some photos from my memory card.

I miss South 8.

My room, my housemates, the memories, the laughs, heck, even the tears.

This was right after the exams, with nothing to do. Still in shock from experiencing freedom, I decided to take some photos to remember my room for a year.









And that was another chapter of my life.

2 days.

melt.
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Went to Melbourne again on Friday, spent the day mostly shopping with Ammie, Ying & YK.

First stop was the library to put our stuff in the lockers. As we were getting off the tram, we saw Jacky and the new IT Masters student, she's quite a decent person just that I can't speak Mandarin for peanuts. Talk about coincidence.

Ying & I met YK & Jon for lunch, after which we headed out to Melbourne Central to meet up with Ammie and her spanking-new haircut. Ying nearly lost her pink bottle while I shopped away $50 at Valleygirl in 15 minutes. At least I managed to meet up with Jon again before he left for Malaysia. He looks kinda different since he hasn't gotten a haircut in a while, I should think. And for some reason, I couldn't stop wondering why YK looked different with his ear piercing even though he got it ages ago. *shrugs* oh well. Headed out to Bridge Road to shop more. Didn't really buy anything much - still can't find a pair of work shoes that I liked. In fact, I wasn't even sure what to shop for.

After we got back from Bridge Road, to our horror, the library was locked. We were in a semi state of panic - going "WTF do we do?!" Well we didn't know there was another entrance from the cafe @ Latrobe St, so we walked around the entire library. Idiots, we are.

Met up with Alex later to have Korean food. Boy, talk about good food - bibimbap, seafood pancake, stone bowl rice, seafood soup... *drools*

Stayed the night at peng's. Soooo glad to have caught her just in time before she left for KL on Sunday.. so had a bit of a chat and since we were all pretty tired, we slept soon after.
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Met up with Hui Ting & Fionne on Saturday. They're Ammie's friends from Brisbane, so we took them for a short tour. The Yarra River, around Melbourne, renting the car, going to St. Kilda, eating the pastry (omgomgomg this was sooooooooo goood! Acland St. has veeryy pretty looking and good tasting pastries! =3) For dinner we went to this place along Southbank near the Crown which has decent food... and also the place where someone confessed her love to me.

*pause*

Okay, here's how it goes. Well I think there was a bachelorette party going on. At the time, I was minding my own business, eating my dinner and chatting, when I heard a knock on the plastic pane. I turned in that direction and the bride-to-be pointed at me, made a heart sign, and gave the thumbs up. Amused, I gave her the "haha, I'm game, since I'm bored" look. Sure enough, she came up to me and said something about being in love with me or something. Trust me, Ammie, Ying & Hui Ting were amused. So much so that I even got pictures taken with the bride-to-be. According to Ammie, I tied my hair up and wore this top that made me look guy-ish, so I had a "sexless-kind-of-cute" look. So there you have it.

Fionne drove us back to Gippsland that night. I really have to salute her, she only had an hour's sleep but she could still keep her eyes open long enough to get us back! I, on the other hand, definitely had more than an hour's sleep but my eyelids felt really heavy by the time the clock struck 11pm.
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Sunday was a really good day, although the weather "cheated our feelings" (c) Ammie. Ammie, Hui Ting, Fionne & me in one car, and Jacky, Zoon, Hiro, Ezdi and the China Masters student in the other, we headed down to Wilson's Prom.

Gosh it was sooooooo pretty.

Squeaky Beach was fantastic, and Norman Bay was even better!

Squeaky Beach... the sand really squeaks when you run barefoot on it. And not to mention the waves sent shivers down our back as the morning was rather chilly. Played around, climbed rocks, let the waves wet our shorts, kicked sand into the folds of the guys' pants, Zoon buried my slippers in sand (bloody hell him and hiro conspired! >_>) and took some photos. Had a picnicky lunch then too~ a pity Hui Ting suffered from motion sickness due to the windy path, and Fionne had to accompany her, so both of them missed quite abit of the fun.

After which we headed down to Tidal River. The river's browny due to the tannin, but the view from there is simply prettyyy! I could have sat there for hours just looking at the mountains with the fog covering its peaks, and seeing the river stretch out into the distance.. it was dreamlike, and somewhat surreal...

Walked on abit further from Tidal River, and arrived at Norman Bay. OMG the tide was so low that where Ezdi & I walked, we kept thinking of how this place resembles those in Hollywood movies, with sunset, sea, sand and lovers walking together on the beach. *laughs* And the sand is really nice to walk on too..

*siiiigh!*

I wanna go back to the beach!

After we got back, we were too lazy to cook so we headed out to Amigo's @ Traralgon for some Mexican. The decor's nice and bright, and the food wasn't too bad too. Will go back there again.

Picked up Jacky's mahjong table, sent Ezdi home and headed back where we played mahjong & Texas poker till 2am. After which Jacky, Zoon, Ammie & Hui Ting set out to Lakes' Entrance just to see the sunrise. *salute* By the way, it's no joke driving for 2 hours each way just for this!
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Monday: First day of work; Induction & Data Organization Skills-Fine-Tuning Session.

Met with some of the staff from my department (although I don't remember their names just yet) and then the rest of the interns. Whoaness I think because I didn't get much sleep I was pretty busted in the morning, and ended up sleeping about a third of the presentations. *curses self*

Got to know Chris, who's a Taiwanese and has lived here for a pretty long time. Heheh she's quite a funny person, looks like the chirpy and easily stressed out type. She's living on Rez with a friend of Jon's; both of them doing vacation work but for different companies. And I'm carpooling with her to work! Yay! =3

Most of the day I just helped around the department, sorting papers that the auditors messed up and putting paper files into boxes (i.e. archiving) and that took up the rest of the day. Thank goodness I had my iPod with me to help kill time while doing those stuff otherwise I think I'd bore my brains out. My desk's not ready yet; no laptop, nothing.*poofety* Just a really empty table.

All day, I just kept thinking about getting my access pass. Maybe I'll get it tomorrow? *bambi eyes* XDXDXDXDXD

___________________________________

Oh yeah, Jon is the new housemate @ Dalpura on vacation work with some paper mill company thingamajig. He's funny. =P He just asked me not too long ago whether the house had one or two floors, to which I could only reply, "Do you see any staircases around?"

a last week before the grind

When you give it a passing glance, an egg feels and looks cold and hard on the outside. What people don't really think about is the fact that it needs warmth to support the life within.
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Playing squash for the first time was fun, although it was at the extent of sending a squash ball to its dreadful demise. Ammie & I were playing, and what happened was that one of us hit the ball too high and it slipped through the gap in the ceiling between the court and the next room, making it impossible to retrieve. *acks!*

It was probably the first time I played any kind of sport all year. I know, lazy me.
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Together with Ammie & Eileen, we sent Lipkai & Ben off on Wednesday, then out for a round of shopping at Bridge Road. I mainly sought out a pair of shoes and some work clothes since I'll be starting on Monday, and to tell the truth I'm abit nervous about the whole thing; but I think I'll survive. However, you know how shopping goes - you plan to buy something, but you end up with alot of other things you weren't really planning to buy in the first place. We spent quite abit of time at this shop where Eileen was debating with herself for the longest time whether to buy a top or not, and Ammie bought a cute black dress.

Hated the weather; it was raining ever since we reached Melbourne @ 930AM. What a party pooper. If it weren't rainy it would have been much better.
__________________________________

Tomorrow we're sending Alex off - he's heading back to Hong Kong for the holidays, so I guess it could possibly be the last time I'll be seeing him.

and Jonathan's heading back this coming Tuesday.

sigh, more goodbyes to come.

暑い！

うわあ～～～天気はとっても暑いは！

今日はただヨング、アレックスとインさんと一緒にご飯を食べたする。かえるときただ無理話を言ったんだ。本当につまらないよ、暑いも！

我慢できない～～～

out to play squash soon. Should be fun.

では、また。

the start of summer

Holidays are moving slowly, but the days are flying by.

I think I've become acclimatized to the cooler weather, so now that summer's here my heat tolerance is pretty crappy. Reminds me of Malaysia~ 家にかえりたい! Maybe this is practice so that I don't melt under the Equatorial weather or something.

Didn't do much today, just went about Morwell and Traralgon to shop around for a fridge for Hiro's new place (which is almost entirely unfurnished, so he had to do most of the dirty work to get it equipped) and accompanying mentor in her grocery shopping. Also bought some cherries - I just missed the cherry season when I came to Australia earlier, and now that summer's come round again I couldn't help myself. XD Cherry's probably the best type of TV/snacking food to have =D Think about it, it's a fruit, so it's definitely healthier, but the sin of this delectable fruit is the tendency to get reaalllyy addicted to it. After we got back, we ate some watermelon, just to prevent ourselves from melting like chocolate left out in the sun.

Played hopscotch later in the evening, a game I never really played in my childhood. Also played abit of volleyball in the carpark area with Ying, Eileen & Jason. XD Feels like being back in primary school, playing with the neighbourhood kids before mommy (in this case Ammie) to call us back for dinner. =P By the time she did call us, we were in a pretty icky state. But that was fun! Also chalked the ground with names and stuff... I guess in a way, it was like going down memory lane. You can imagine the entire evening in sepia, with us laughing and running around like we're 7 again.

Man, I'm not even THAT old; in fact, I think I'm probably the youngest in the house. ^__^
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初めての特別な人が会った。And that's all I'll say. Wait, one more thing; 君と一緒に時はとってもhappyです。^__^

私たちは何時までに一緒？さぁ。それが運命の決めた事。

1080 degree turnaround

That's right; I'm not going to Singapore anymore; instead, I'll be interning @ Gippsland Water. The interview was fast - what was faster was the rate of them getting back to me. Imagine, after 10 mins interview, I get offered the job 3 hours later! Instead of 3 days or whatever it takes! I'm so amazed with myself; I didn't think I'd pull it off that well~

Bloody hell, I was being a major idiot though; I walked from Dalpura to uni in my heels. WTF! By the time I got to Traralgon my feet bloody hurt. I was such an idiot. But hey, it landed me a summer job; I'm not exactly in a position to complain too much.

the aftermath

My exams were over on the 7th. Surprisingly the FIT2009 paper wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but I'm not saying it was easy either. After which I only remember lazing around.
___________________________________________

The day after, Thursday. It was interesting. Hiro was out, so I headed out to Morwell. At first to see the travel agent, then after I thought I might as well go to Coles to see what I could cook up for dinner. It would be the last dinner of the South 8 housemates (or what was left) so yeah, we had a good meal. Fifi cooked fish, hiro cooked coca-cola chicken wings, and I made sambal tumis with udang. First time I had 2 seafood dishes in a meal, that was a pretty happy event XD

But what came after was the most heart-wrenching part I had to deal with; preparing to leave South 8. Packing was super tiring, not to mention my winter clothes were frustrating the hell out of me cause they took up a fair bit of space. Probably will mail them back or something.

I know my mood was out of sorts, for alot of reasons; but all to me were valid and I hated them all but I had to deal with it. Eileen & Jason helped me shift the first big bit of my stuff at about 1-ish when I was just falling asleep waiting for them. Whilst helping them move the stuff, we stopped to look at the night sky; we saw the Hunter in the sky. How cool is that!

My heart really ached that night. Having to leave my home for a year.
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Friday, met up with Yong & Ying for lunch. Helped them shift the West 30 stuff before I got tired. =P Then proceeded to clean up my room for the final inspection before I really really really leave.

Dalpura 4; a place with lots of good company and good food. XD

After dinner Ying & I headed out to the park. Sat on the swings, and talked. It was good.
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Saturday, Ammie & I really didn't do anything much.

And then there was the surprise dinner for Ammie's belated birthday. Dalpura 1, Ivan (the poor dude was super feverish that day), Byron, Surina, Hiro were there too! =D Had a good dinner of laksa XD

After that we went out to Glendonald Park for fun, in the dark, getting blinded by camera flashes, talking, playing on the swings and stuff.
___________________________________________

Sunday.

Ammie & I missed the bus to Midvalley. Silly us!

But we were headed out to Venus Bay for the day. It was super fun! The cold, cold sea water, playing frisbee & beach volleyball (okay I really suck at it okay..), random camwhore sessions, it was good. The sand squeaks when you run! How cool is that! I heard from someone that its due to the high amount of silica in the sand or something. The fun-loving crew this time round was me, eileen, ammie, ying, and the 2 drivers/chauffeurs wangwei & jason.
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Today, Ammie & I went on a shopping fest XD

Bought a skirt.
Bought a jacket.
Bought a formal shirt.
Bought some underwear.
Bought a swimsuit set. I swear, this was an absolute steal! X3

I'm happy.

Now, for that GippsWater interview tomorrow. (More accurately, in less than 13 hours)

Tomorrow's a looooooong day. I know, I know, I already have one in Singapore. But if I can get one here, it'd be better, right?

Right?

Just that I'd majorly piss off MAS if I choose to back off now. They'd seriously kill me, or ban entry to Singapore or something (hahah~)

before I go

thanks houhou.

You know why.

Shit, this is gonna take awhile to get rid of.
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Re-studied the first four chapters of Data Structures & Algorithms (or was it the other way around? bah, can't be bothered) and I don't even know if I can re-code the search algorithms. I mean sure I know conceptually how they're supposed to work, but can I reproduce it? T___T It's scary! Not to mention the past year exam papers are HARD!

*sob*
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Went to the post office and after that I went to get some creme caramel. Just in case I should get the blues. =P

Played the piano for 2 hours. I know I'm still crappy at it, but it felt good doing that. Felt good to be out of the house. For awhile, at least. And now, back to work.

o m f g

Just got this message from Fi on Facebook:

Sookie...I had a dream last night that you and Hiro got engaged...is this true???

If I was drinking water, I would have spluttered all over my laptop. Really.

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Now playing: m-flo loves 日之内エミ & Ryohei - Summer Time Love
via FoxyTunes

strangeness.

I remember there was some kind of dessert-tasting event where among my friends there were legions of unknowns; we'd sit in tables with the food laid out on them. Funny that this wasn't a formal event, instead it looked like a mass night-time picnic - outdoors under the starlit sky.

However, when I got there I realised there wasn't much space left. I just remember me and nick sitting at a table, and when I turned around I saw guanguan (I also found that dreaming of guanguan was rather random) sitting at another table alone-ish. I asked him to join us, and he said he was waiting for his other friends. I do remember some of the food on the table; a blueberry cheesecake, some tarts, and probably custard/creme caramel served with wine or spirits of some sort, I cannot remember. At the end of it most people were tipsy/drunk randomly walking around in random directions.

The last sentence I remember dreaming of was someone holding my hand, saying

"I notice how weird you've been acting lately..."

And then I woke up.

Which was effing strange. Mainly strange because I made myself wake up right after that. I remember thinking, "It's time to wake up. Should be quite late by now..." Made me sad cause I knew the outcome of that story. Or maybe I didn't want to know the ending.

I also remembered something else which was entirely random and strange.

I remember myself going to some dikir barat performance. The last one I've seen was probably sometime in high school. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching them perform (and for some reason the tune wasn't even memorable). I was probably some sort of reporter covering for an event since I had to interview a few foreigners on their thoughts of it. The funny thing about this dikir barat was that the performers also danced some traditional-looking dance while singing, which struck me as kinda weird cause the only kind of dancing that I remember associated with dikir barat is swaying from side to side while singing and playing the kompang or gong or whatever handheld instrument they use and maybe throw in some healthy amounts of rhythmic clapping.

2 entirely random and unrelated dreams.

*shrugs*

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Now playing: m-flo - magenta rain
via FoxyTunes

long days and longer nights

あなたと一緒に無理話をする、朝までに。I meant that literally. We saw the sky brighten as we parted each other's company. The last time I stayed up this early was when I was rushing for an assignment and talking to aichan at the same time.

とっても楽しいは。
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今日の天気はいいじゃない。いつも雨が流した。But then again 家に出て行かないで。Fell asleep after an hour of studying, couldn't keep my eyes open. Sounds like another long night for me.
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Smile. That word envelops the action in itself. How I love it so.

one more

FIT2005 was okay.

I had to admit, I was super jittery for my business units. Mentally unstable, emotionally unbearable and just under prepared. Not a good combination.

One more next Wednesday and it's the end of the year.

So many things to look forward to, and so many things to leave behind that I can't help but glance back.

*sigh*

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Now playing: 王力宏 (wang lee hom) - Kiss Goodbye
via FoxyTunes

A very random thought:
huahua likes 王力宏, which is why I'm stuck with this song. @_@ And besides, heard it being played at least once in every karaoke session I've been to.

cure my mood

This is actually the first time I felt worried after an exam that I may not do well. Well, call me kiasu or whatever. Probably cause I know I haven't done any worse than that, and I keep thinking of how my parents will try and induce more guilt if/when I don't perform as well as I'm 'supposed' to. Isn't that so typical of Asian parents?

I already felt nervous before entering the hall, but seeing the questions I practically replicated what I practiced. I thought I would be okay. Until I realized I didn't have enough content to elaborate. Especially on the last question on carbon trade. I KNOW I can do it, I didn't allocate my time well enough. That was my mistake. The rest of the questions I kept wondering whether I elaborated enough; I think I knew the concepts the question was aiming at, drawing the graphs and all, but I didn't know whether it was enough to warrant 20 marks. Hey, come on, with 5 questions and all of equal marks, I definitely had some justification for worrying.

After the exam, the girl sitting next to me went "Maybe you'd like to switch off your phone like you're supposed to the next time?"

>__>

Fine. It's not like you're going to sit next to me again unless Fate plays some terribly cruel joke on the both of us. I mean, I know her face; she's sitting for the same bloody paper. I actually thought she was a pretty person. So sue me for being shallow and judgemental, but I think you have no right to tell me off. Just shut up and do your damn paper.

But in the end.... Byron, it's all your fault! Buat apa nak panggil orang masa orang tengah buat exam! But then again he obviously didn't know I had a paper then. =P
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I felt pretty down by the end of the exam. Went back home feeling pretty much crappy. And not having too bright thoughts about tomorrow too.

Sam was there, and I guess he could tell by the massive grey clouds that hung over my head that I wasn't exactly the sunniest person at that moment.

To cure it, well Sam tried to cheer me up with his silliness. He can be funny like that. My 'junior' (he *is* younger than me by a year) cheering me up. It's something, all right.

Drank some honey+water.
Then we ate some Ferrero Roche.
And then I let Sam read Fi's note.
So we ate some cake.
AFTER that though, we went for a spin on Sam's new car.

Now THAT WAS FUN. XD

Reaching 100kph in what, 3 seconds on a slightly windy road? That was fun! On top of which feeling the car fly was quite fun XD This is a time where I miss houhou speeding @ 90kph in a back alley. You have to take me on one of those again when I get back.

That totally made my day!

Thanks alot, Sam!
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I wonder why my heart beats so fast. Is it a sign that I might panic during the paper? Or is it something else? Could be a mix of both.

Bugger.
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Now playing: 久石譲 - -オープニング-人生のメリーゴーランド
via FoxyTunes