Infinite Miracles

A summary on Melbourne Zoo for last week's practical class. We reached there in only half an hour time by driving. My friend forgot where she parked her car and so we walked half of the uni to let her recgonise which carpark she parked her car at. @@ At the zoo, we were divided into 3 groups and there's 1 educator for each group. We didn't see all the animals. Only visited the baboons, orang utans, gibbons and other time is spent in the educating centre. Saw a lot of school kids having their excursion there too.

Here is a California kingsnake. He didn't let us to hold the whole snake because there're over 100 people want to hold it everyday and this will stress out the snake. So we only touched it. Finally I found someone who said the snake is CUTE! She's from Malaysia too. Haha...

Sexy baboon's butt.

Nature's acrobat. Spot it?

After the zoo, I went to the city. Got lost several times because I kept turning to the wrong directions. Always thinking "left or right? ahh..." It took me over 20 minutes to walk back in the right direction and reached Chinatown. The slopes were the worst part. I ended up like a person just ran through the rain. Plus I went into the wrong shop to get the dinner I wanted. SWT.... followed by cramping myself inside the tram while on my way back to Bundoora. During the whole journey from stop no.5 till stop no.60, I only managed to get a sit after 30++ stops. Basically, I've been walking for hours, noon till sunset, my legs will grow muscles after this. @@"

For my weekend dinner, "long life mee". Just wanted to finish off the other half of the luncheon meat. Forgotten to soak the mushrooms, so only luncheon egg and mee. Actually there's cabbage too but threw some away as I scared it's spoiled(put for 3 weeks already).

Lastly, Happy Birthday to myself!! I don't expect much this year. It's a bit different from how I used to celebrate for the past 18 years. Although no Jake's for dinner, no outing, no k to sing and no sms-es at 12 in the morning, at least I've got some presents and cards and loads of wishes in fb and emails. =) Oh ya, those lecturers looked like they know it's my birthday, because every lecture ended 15 minutes earlier. lol....

Meghan gave me a kimmidoll keychain. Why got my name wan? @@... Jess gave me vegemite and said that I must try it becuase it's Australia's food but most of them dislike it. I smelled it first and thought it might not as bad, then I put a bit on a bread and my second bite has already stopped me from going any further. I don't how to describe the unique taste. I rather eat durian than eating this. Pengsan.... Erm... what am I going to do with the rest of it? Decoration?

At last, I achieved a pass in making claypot chicken rice. The first attempt was terrible. I used drumsticks this time and it was nicer but was tiring when cutting the meat out from the bone. Then i ate with simple stir fried cabbage and egg. Another 3 dinners done.
Here are some photos of me with the chickens. They were taken on 2 seperate days, so can see that 1 day was hot and the other was cooler. They've doubled their weight in just 1 week. Me and Jess. I learned the word "chooks" from her, which means chickens. Her accent is okay, just that sometimes she speaks too fast and I can't get what she's saying.

This is Meghan. Both Jess and Meghan had helped me alot during the begining of the semester. They showed me where to get secondhand books and other stuffs and we also explored the uni a lot. Thanks to them, I didn't take long to get myself comfortable in uni.

Up next is the Naturalist Society free BBQ & twilight tour. I went to search for the Melbourne wildlife sanctuary myself and it was quite tricky to get to the entrance. After I walked in, I can't see a single person and thought "am I at the right place?" Then I saw these 2 girls walking in and they were also trying to find the BBQ place. After some time, finally we managed to find someone to ask. We can't find the place because we still have to go through the fence and actually walk into the sanctuary. It took us about 5-10 mins to reach the Ironbark Hut, where the BBQ held.

These were the 2 girls that I met at the entrance. Millie(left) and Gosia(right). They're from Canberra. Millie took a gap year after her high school and guess what she did during her gap year? She went to Vietnam for 5 months and taught small kids english. She's also the first caucasian that I've met so far who knows where Malaysia is. One more thing about her, she's super tall. I only reach her shoulder!! Lol....

Photo of Gosia with her burnt bread. She put it too close to the fire. Haha...

They taught me to roast marshmellows, and it's nicer than to eat it plain.

This is Gill Qiu, from Shanghai. Her english wasn't very bad as I can still understand it. This is her second year and she has a car. That's why I stayed for the twilight tour bacause she didn't mind fetching me back.

The tour around the sanctuary took about an hour and we've only walked one small part of it. It felt more different when observing wildlife at night. Just like in those National Geographic programs, but it's more fun to see a real animal on the move compare to watching it on tv. We saw brushtail possoms, sugar glider, young kangaroos, spiders and some frogs. The spider was big and it's making its big web. My neck hurt when we kept looking up on the trees for possoms and sugar glider. The guide was funny too and he always got jokes after his explainations.

I enjoyed the night a lot. Luckily I came. Hehe.... Off to bed. Very tired after the tour. Nitez....

I stayed inside my room during the whole weekend. Lazy to go out. Suddenly Rash asked me to look at the sky. So we went to the backyard and this was what we saw. "Stay Cool Lipton Ice"

We watched the aeroplane make the words and wondered how can he be so accurate on the positions and will it cost a lot just to advertise this?

Yesterday, my friend called me at 7 o'clock in the morning (yes, I was still in the middle of my dream) and asked me to take over her slot to observe the chicks. I was so happy because I didn't have to wait until next monday to see the chicks. Luckily I forgot to switch off my hp. Hehe... So I went to the pen after lecture. The chicks have grown pretty fast within a week. These are my group's chickens!!

So I observed them for 20 minutes and took down the observations. I like the dark coloured one because she has a lot of cute moments and also the most active one. I didn't want to come out after I went into the pen and spend my whole day there. However since the pen cannot occupy too many people, so I must come out after I've done my job. This is the size of the pen. My group's chicks are in the third column on the left.

Now's today's topic. We were to catch sheeps and horses. My group worked on the sheeps first. We walked to the farm and herd the sheeps into the shelter. All of us focused on avoiding sheep poo while walking. lol... A baby sheep was seperated from the herd and we didn't have much time to chase it, so we just left it at the farm while other sheeps were inside the shelter. While the demonstrator was explaining things to us, that left out baby sheep kept watching at us on the other side and "meh~~ meh~~" Poor guy....

We worked in a group of 2 or 3 to check a sheep. I happened to be very lucky that 2 of my friend didn't want to catch the sheep (the sheeps were super dirty), so I had the chance to catch it. I chose a small sheep because it's easier and cuter too. However, I still need a lot of strengh to control it eventhough it's smaller than the others. We checked it's teeth and nails and wool and gender too. It's a she. I had fun throughout this practical. Even if my shirt, jeans and shoe got dirty, but this really worth the experience. Note: I wore old clothes and I'm not going to describe how dirty the sheeps are. =p

Next, we moved on to the horses. Nothing much compare to the sheeps. Everyone had the chance to lead the horse and walked 1 round. Then checked its hooves. The horse part had more lecturing compare to encountering. So I still like the sheep part. =)

It has been raining for the past few days, but it only drizzled and super windy, so my cap and my hoody jacket were sufficient. Mom bought me that big umbrella with the big "OFFICEWORKS" printed on it was so sopi to bring to uni. The wind was super strong until my face also frozen while walking back. However, the sky was clear since yesterday. Siew Li's room was leaking because of the rain. Her room is bigger with bigger bed and more shelves but has more problems. There are a lot of millipedes in her room also.

The practical on chicken raising has started. First time seeing and touching baby chickens. They were so super cute!! We have to raise them for about 5 weeks and I only have 2 chances to check and feed them due to such a large group.

This was one of my dinner. Maggie mee + egg + lettuce. I accidentally burned the egg. One of my housemate, Resh, cooked belacan chicken and she gave me some. It was very nice because it's spicy enough. Auntie asked me to taste her food again. This time was fried prawn with jagung inside. By the time I have it with my dinner, it was already cold, so not crispy already.

I saw this huge spider on the door beside the washing machine. A bit scared it will jump to me also. First time seeing such a big spider.

The first week of uni was quite okay. The first biology practical class was a bit challenging because I had to learn how to use high tech apparatus. New kind of pippettes and the other one I forgot what its name. They said these are more accurate and easier to use, but it's always hard for the first time. The lab was big and we were divided into 6 groups ( about 20 people per group). Each group had a demonstrater to teach us. They even have a few types of dustbins for different types of rubbish like normal rubbish, harzardous waste, contaminated objects and waste solutions. Pengsan...

One of my subject is animal systems, which will be the most interesting one and might also be the hardest one because it's subjective and there's no fixed answers to the questions. The interesting part is the practical sessions. We will have the chance to handle sheeps and horses, raise chics, visit La Trobe's wildlife sactuary and Melbourne Zoo. My chics raising group has 12 people and we must 100% make sure the chics DON'T die. A bit worried also as I have no experience in dealing farm animals at all.

Zoology hasn't really started the serious part yet, it's still all about transition from school to uni. However, lectures will begin next week and am looking forward to it. Chemistry was a bit boring. They were repeating Year 12 stuffs and the lecturer's voice was boring too.

Auntie belanja me lunch yesterday. It's loh mai fan and forgot what's on top already. It's okay only. Like eating kuih.

Went to Preston market this morning. Auntie took me to the cheapest meat stall. Next moment, I was thinking "oops... how much do I need?" To be on the safe side, I tried 0.5kg first. So I bought chicken breast and drumstick 0.5kg each. Then we went to a chinese grocery store. I was so happy to see the light blue Ayam Brand tuna, which I always eat at home, so I bought 4 of them. The $0.99 tuna wasn't very nice as there's only tuna chucks and I had to add mayonaise myself.

I bought a $2 whole cabbage. I accidentally gave $1 coin to the lady. So malu... Must remember $2 is the smallest one. Haven't get used to the Aussie money yet. Poppy said some things like tomato and potatoe cost only $1 after 12pm, but I didn't buy it because don't know how to cook them.

Tonight's menu: Tomato Fried Meehoon. The product was satisfying, just that put too much water and so not enough tomato taste. I was stunned when I saw "mix with 1/2 bowl of water". What kind of bowl? @@ I was always guided whenever I cooked. Siew Li taught me how to smack the garlic and auntie boiled the meehoon for me, which I'd forgotten that I need to do that. So tiring when frying the meehoon.

I didn't expect it to be mountain size. This can tahan for 3 dinners again. Hehe.... Auntie saw me cooked until so successful, she gave me 2 lemon chicken wings as a reward. The fried thing there is made by Poppy. It tasted the same as the Malay version.