Slack week & job woes

Last week was one lazy week for me. Made a trip to ACMI with Amanda for the 'Dreams Come True' exhibition.

In the exhibition, we get to see the artwork and sketches by the artists/cartoonists, paintings, animations and all that is involved in bringing about the Disney animated films we used to watch growing up like Snow White, Beauty & the Beast, The Little Mermaid and even those that we watch these days like the Princess and the Frog and Tangled(or Rapunzel which is in other countries). It was just a Thursday afternoon after class and I declared it like some Saturday afternoon. At the end there was a drawing room, where people can draw their favorite Disney characters and display it on the wall.

So, we drew ours for fun as well :P

Mine.. lol

Soo.. after that we went out of the exhibition place and came across the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, where we sat on beach chairs that were weirdly laid out there for nothing and watched a cooking show LIVE.

This pic was taken before the cooking show started. They're playing some Italian-sounding music that made me feel like I'm in Paris haha

After that, spontaneously met up with my friends for dinner and spontaneously decided to catch a movie. We watched Rango, which I thought was a waste of time :S Really didn't liked it at all, maybe I dun like Spanish accent..hmmm or the ugly animals or the lousy plot.

Then Friday came, and instead of doing important things, I dilly-dallied till dinner time and after dinner time, went to a bar called the Red Hummingbird and then it's sleep time alrdy. Another day wasted.. I'm so good at not appreciating time.

Saturday was a little more productive, I think? Woke up earlier than usual and went to Victoria Market and bought a trolley-ful of groceries. It takes a lot of effort for me to drag myself all the way there, just to buy meat, veges, fruits, etc.. but most importantly, my main aim there was established; to get oysters! Yumm..

That night, I had dinner with friends I haven't seen in months or half a year at Shoya. It was an awesome possum dinner as it was considered fine dining I suppose. It was a ten-course dinner, Japanese food, all intricately arranged and portioned so small , gourmet style. So yea, was amazed and really happy coz recently I have been complaining about how I've never been to fine dining places before and would love to try doing that some day:D

Attended this recruitment talk by Ericsson yesterday and last week to a Careers Fair. These days I've been swamped by job talks. People around me are getting hired, looking for jobs, etc. Sigh.. feeling so left out. And even those who haven't got jobs at least had internship experiences. And people who get hired, they get hired by big companies. I've got friends who got hired by KPMG, Accenture, Intel, PWC, IBM, National Australia Bank (NAB)... and has gone through interviews with Boeing(the aeroplane company), Campbells' soup.. oh my god.. I don't know how to describe how intimidating all these are. It's as if it's so easy to get in when it sure as hell is SO not easy. Have been thinking of applying for jobs before I graduate but it's not that possible at the moment.

In Australia, big companies love offering graduate programs. I don't know about other countries yet, coz I haven't researched.. but it's very very common here. Graduate programs are full-time jobs, but they rotate you around the company so you get a feel of each department of the company, this would take about 1.5-2 years before you advance on, without training. So, the recruitment for these graduate programs are very sought after by all final year students. Usually they give priority to Australians/PRs to apply in March(which is about now), then by 3 weeks, after going through resumes would then call applicants up for phone interviews, group interviews, and finally an offer will be made around May. Isn't that so efficient?? Before you even graduate, you know you're hired to work next year in February in the company already, wat a relief it would be if I could get hired that way. But I CAN'T! All because I don't have a PR at the time of application, which is usually March/April. Even if you aren't a PR, they would want you to have like a receipt/evidence that you're applying for it at the time of application. WTH.. how is that even possible? I can't apply for PR until I graduate end of this year anyway. So, in other words, these graduate programs are not applicable to me.. sigh! If there's graduate programs in Singapore, maybe I'll give it a shot and apply for several companies before I graduate.

Friends have been telling me about common interview questions, how to answer them, what to wear. And work stories such as about colleagues, managers, attire, culture, casual Fridays, lunch times, I always hear are making me so jealous! I wanna work.. I wanna have income!

Well, no point ranting. Just gotta wait. And I really hope I get into a good company to start, despite my really ugly academic transcript. I've been told everytime I ask if academic excellence affects application consideration and they always say the same thing -> "Not really, we're looking for well-rounded people. People who don't only do well in studies, but are able to communicate with people and are proactive, etc".... Hope that is true, because I seriously can't rely on my academic performance to get a job.

Week 2 of uni

Today's weather is "fantabulous"! Could actually walk out in shorts for the first time since I came back. I can't believe I was a mad freak about series.. spent my whole weekend, plus last Friday( I overslept, so didn't go for class) finishing up Can't buy me love and starting and finishing Ghost Writer. Also went to a rooftop bar called Madame Brussels last Friday night.

Pictures taken from Google, coz my lousy camera can't capture the night view very well.

So yea, quite a cute place, feels like the perfect place for a garden party with cupcakes, scones and tea. However, we went there for cocktails instead lol.

Finally my group members and I went to see my supervisor today about our project. Have got soooo much to read up on. Seriously, why did I spend so much time on series... now I'm quite hooked, feel like watching my next series in line, In the Eye of the Beholder.

Ooh yea, was supposed to recap on my awesome summer holiday.

Instead of doing an internship the whole summer, I wasted it away on being a driver to my sisters.. fetching them to and fro wherever they wanted. Sigh, wat a use of my precious time.. other than that, I was running errands for my mom or sleeping a LOT.

So to summarize, I:

- went to KK with Shen, Clint, Glo, Soon & Melvin. Awesome trip, tiring too. I remember sleeping very easily every night, coz I was so darn tired. Sleeping to and fro on the way there by car, eating, shopping, water sports for a whole day which includes jet ski, fly fish, snorkelling, parasailing & banana boat, karaoke, great hotel(thanks to Clint), bubble tea from Yoyo, Fish & Co and bak kut teh & Salut for dinner, xiao long baos, takoyaki, egg tarts, A&W. One Borneo twice, Starbucks twice. Nichii twice HAHAHA, why all twice? Didn't have enough time the first time.

- spent Xmas and New Year's in Brunei with family & friends. Fel & Lynn & & her friends, Teo and Henry were in Brunei. So spent some time playing rummy, dinners and visiting Kampung Ayer. Xmas & Boxing day dinners with family & at Uncle John's house, New Year's dinner with Fel, Shen, Henry & Jee Wei.

- Flew to back Melbourne for 10 days for my supplementary paper, which I passed alrdy.. yay. While on transit in KL both times, I stayed for a night. Spent two nights' time, with cousin & auntie & uncle. While in KL, ate my favorite hokkien mee, watched Season of the Witch, toured Taylor's College new Lakeside campus, went to the Library bar.

- Shopped quite a lot in KK & Melbourne, looking for CNY clothes

- Flew back to Brunei, spent about a week there, then off to Tawau for 2 weeks for CNY.

- Tawau was boring. The wait for CNY to come around was too slow to bear. It felt like forever before CNY came, coz we went back like a week before CNY started. Had numerous limteh sessions with my cousin and her friends. CNY was fun though, watching lion dances perform those dangerous jumping stunts on those high poles, collecting angpaos, visiting relatives, meeting cousins for limteh sessions, eating, being able to drive myself out to cease boredom, shopped a little due to boredom and managed to buy 2 heels. Quite unbelievable considering that's a small town. What could u possibly buy from there? But then again, it's nevertheless still much much much better than Brunei. Also bought lots of hair tie stuff, a dress, some earrings. When it was time to leave, it was a mixture of sadness and happiness.. sigh

- Back to Brunei on 6th day of CNY. KB road trip with Shen and friends one Sunday, sakikong and painian every other day. Lost except once the entire CNY.. seriously was in bad luck for gambling. Open house on Chap Goh Meh. Very fun CNY indeed, fun fun everyday.

- Lots of movie time. With KK gang, The Devil, All Well Ends Well, The Mechanic. Homecoming with Shen. I love HK, Sanctum & the Green Hornet with family.

- Eating! After every time I pick Rachel up from school during the noon at 2 or 3 or 4 pm, we'll go eat. Laksa and green sien chai noodle soup from Shiang Ping & Excapade many times, kolo mee, KFC cheesy wedges, butter milk prawn, pizza hut, Ayamku, etc trying to recall but can't remember what else I ate.

- Tried Zumba with Shen, Rachel and Nat one day.. with Vivian leading us, with her pro Zumba moves. It was super tiring for me, coz I have not exercised in a really long time.. feel so exhausted after 20 mins, and had a stitch halfway.. sigh. But it was fun nevertheless, wouldn't mind going again (Y)

- I didn't really do much in Brunei during non-CNY period I suppose.. except being a driver, fetching sisters and running errands and meetups with friends.

First week of uni 2011

Sigh, another urge to blog.

Right now, I'm listening to JJ's album, the latest one, where he sings all the songs he's written for many female singers. I think I'm weird, before this, I was thinking, why doesn't it bother me if I dun listen to any songs. I dun feel that it's silent or that I need to constantly listen to something. This is a seriously HUGE contrast to the old me. I used to be a music fanatic, whatever's new I have to know, as soon as I step into the house, I have to play my songs. Used to bring my Ipod and listen to it everywhere, esp when mp3 players started rolling out around the age of fifteen. But now, I dunno what's wrong! Does it mean I like being silent these days? It doesn't bother me that during my 8-hr flights to and fro Melbourne multiple times, that I never even switch my Ipod on at all, not even for a while. In the past, every tram ride, everywhere I walked on the streets, I need to have my music with me at all times.. now I dun even bother, I just leave it at home. Songs that I've downloaded since last November, I have not even listened to them. The only time I'm obligated to listen to songs is when I'm driving.. and I don't even bother selecting songs I like and putting them in the car to listen, I just merely turn to the radio and just go with whatever's playing. Lost touch with music man -_-" And when I listen to the Chinese songs, I go all emo, coz the music is so damn sad! Oh, I suddenly remembered another occasion where I actually need my songs with me, and that's during the exam period. Reading the never-ending pages of lecture notes without the Ipod is torture, so quiet, and lecture materials keep driving me to sleep.


Anyways, Visa renewal is annoying, so many procedures to go through. Have to go for medical check up 2 weeks later. Currently anticipating the burden that's piling on me from uni. Went shopping a little, bought two skinny long pants and a hair curler finally. Need to experiment more with the curler, coz I suck at using it. BUT I can't use it too often. Even with heat protector sprayed before using it, I'm pretty sure the heat is gonna kill my hair if I use it every other day.

Went to try out the Blackberry Torch today. Still wondering if I should get the Torch 9800 or the Bold 2 9780. Hmmmmm.. Torch is so like my old LG phone, half touch screen, half keyboard. However, Torch's screen reminds me of the Iphone's screen, huge, and easy to browse webpages and pictures with. Funny thing is, I can use either the touch screen or the usual scrolling touchpad thing to click on this or that. And can type with either the physical slide out keyboard or the on-screen keyboard like the Iphone's. How peculiar I find, having the option to use it like an oldschool Blackberry scrolling up and down, left and right or just touch touch touch like the Iphone. When I see the Bold 2, I find it so small! And it seems to pale in comparison to the Torch.. sigh.. but it's small and compact, the screen is pretty small too, smaller than my bold 9000. Dilemma~



I am so missing being in Brunei still! Don't really know if I miss driving. I keep complaining of having to drive so much in Brunei, but walking here is not too bad either. Prob coz the distance is not too far as I'm right in the city.

Seeing the uni sickens me. I really cannot wait to get out of it. Need a new life.. new purpose in life, work not study. Need money! Need independence, dun wanna use parents' money with guilt everytime I buy something that is not necessary.

Got my friend Jason to dismantle my whole laptop and clear all the dust build-up in my laptop's fan. Previously, my computer heats up like crazy, I swear it can cook an egg or be an iron, it burns if u leave ur fingers on it for more than a few seconds. Gets worst if it has been left on the bed. And the wind that comes out of the vent was always warm! Now, after all dust is cleared, the vent actually blows out cool air.. amazing! And my laptop is not HOT anymore :D

Blogging in autumn time

My gosh, how long have I not blogged man? Since October! I skipped abt 3-4 months of blogging.. hehe, all thanks to Facebook, for taking blogging out of a lot of peoples' lives. I even stopped reading blogs altogether.

Sigh.. Right now I can't sleep. That's why I'm blogging. Slept on the plane for about six hours during midnight(the right time to sleep). But it was so uncomfortable sleeping in a sitting position, plus when I arrived, two other planes arrived at the same time.. so the immigration queue was the longest I've ever been in any immigration queues in my life.. took more than 1.5 hours just to get out of the airport. sheesh.. when I reached home, I was tired as hell already. So I slept for abt 4-5 hours in the noon, then for about 4 hours during the night. So now I can't sleep! grrrrr..Am supposed to wake up at a normal time tomorrow, for class and to settle A LOT OF THINGS like unpacking, renewing student visa, renewing student card, lectures, project briefings, upgrading to a new phone, grocery shopping, etc etc..

Well, I was actually intending to blog about what has happened over the past few months. SO much has happened, I dun even know how to and where to start.

hmmmm...




maybe another time..


Now, for some resolutions:

1) Must study hard! Most importantly, Start Early.. no slacking.. Try to be as interested as possible in subjects, so that it quickens studying(hate how when I try to start my engine for studying, I totally hate the subject contents, keep resisting reading even a page.. but once it starts, I get a little interested, and then only can I keep going, faster and faster)

2) Allocate time for these: series(maybe 1 or 2 episodes a day), exercise, reading storybooks(just impulse bought 4 books from KLIA's MPH). I realise I never allocated time for movies/series. I just dun bother usually. I only watch shows certain times in a year, not regularly. Even listening to songs, I get so lazy, I dun bother listening to them, as in I don't bother turning on my playlist at all.

3) Cook more!

4) Have a better sleep and wake up time. Try to be as regular as possible. I hate it when some days I sleep longer into the noon and can't sleep earlier during the night. sigh..


Ok, that's about it.

I'm so missing my Brunei routine. No studying, no cooking, no set time to wake up and sleep, do watever u want.. I missssssssss. And I'm missing everyone in Brunei! I dunno why I just instantly feel sad and bogged down by things I have to do here when I reach Melbourne. Guess that's reality for you.. study/work times can never compare to holiday times.

pre-exam Stress.

It has always, always been like this. A week or two before the exam confirm cant help to procrastinate, again and again and heh, I can already imagine myself saying 'I wished I have more time' a day before the exam.

SIGHS! buckle up already, Shenny Tang! This semester is crazy; with 6maths and 1 accounting course, I doubt... but I'm going to prove myself wrong, again. I'm definetely going to score.

My objective is to get 2As', 3Bs', 1C and 1D but Dear God, if you think my request is a bit too much then a pass will do. seriously. amitabha.

hmm, I don't think anyone is reading this bloggie, except for the Bloggers eyhs? so it's like I blog for myself to read, haha.. but Jasmine Yap, if you see this, JIAYOU JIAYOU JIAYOU yess!! We can do it aite! hehe, I see you soon!! xoxo

Blogging in springtime

Hello to the few readers out there,

Really dunno why I just don't feel like blogging anymore these days. I'm so lazy. I'm so lazy to even upload photos on Facebook.

Updates:

Have been working for about 2 months now, waitressing. I'm definitely feeling more comfortable now, no more anxiety issues I used to deal with, before I went in the first few times. Have already broken a total of 1 water glass and 3 wine glasses and not proud of it and my boss is just too nice to not charge me for it. Have been well fed by the chef, some days I work during lunch hours(usually do dinner times), I get my lunch. But before I leave to go home, the chef made me take back a tapao of that night's dinner as well, how nice!

Tim Burton's Exhibition displays the works of the director behind most of Johnny Depp's movies like Charlie and the chocolate factory, Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland, Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton. Went there with Amanda one Sunday. His works are really quirky and weird to the max. Looking at them actually give me the creeps at how someone can think/draw with so much eccentricity. Weird shit.

Boring uni stuff happens.. as usual. But I shouldn't be complaining, only doing three subjects this semester, so I'm relatively more free compared to the normal workload of 4 subjects.

Finally gotten around to using a Blackberry. Just thought the BBMessenger and Whatsapp are quite convenient as u can chat with people unlimitedly. And the ability to receive instant email notifications in my phone are both good and bad. Good, cause if there's any important announcement in my uni email gets sent in, I would know about it instantly or if someone tags some bleargh picture of me in Facebook, I'd know. Bad, because sometimes it's so annoying! A simple comment on my Fb page would send a beep/blink on my phone. And if 10 other comments continue on that same initial comment, my phone won't stop bugging me. Case in point: my birthday. Super lots of beeping on my phone coz of the FB greetings, I wanna hide it under a pillow. But then again, I'd know instantly who greeted me. Oh well, could have switched the blinking/sound off, but didn't.

Went to my first uni ball ever. Loved the venue. I wore a dress that resembled a wedding gown according to a lot of people including myself.. But I still like it. hahah, like what the salesgirl said, makes me feel like a princess. And I've always wanted to wear a long dress, finally gotten around to wearing one. Yay!

OOh, and I won a $10 Sushi shop voucher for lucky draw. haha, already used it yesterday. And also, the organisers of the ball got us free entrance to Seven, the afterparty club venue, we just had to show our ball tickets.

The birthday - Really didn't feel like celebrating this year. So, just had lunch with Amanda and dinner with friends.

Went to Tasmania for 4 days, 3 nights. Apparently Tasmania is supposed to be boring, lots of sight-seeing and that's about it. But lucky, we did more adventurous stuff and that took the boring factor out for us. The day we arrived, we all went to a honey farm, but it's more like just a honey shop.






Then after dat, we went to explore caves, with a tour guide of course. The stalactites and rock formations were quite pretty and it kept reminding me of what Geography taught many years ago.




Day 2, we went to Cradle Mountain for hiking. Love the scenery.. so beautiful.

* Actually getting lazier to upload photos here alrdy, so stay tuned in FB for more pics.

Day 3, white water rafting & ghost tour. Ghost tour freaked me out so badly, apparently we went into a prison area, it's a really big piece of land with lots of old buildings that look like castles, this whole place used to a convict prison for about 170 years ago. And one of the houses there was supposedly the 2nd most haunted house in Australia and the guide made us go into it and stayed in one of the rooms while he explained all the sounds and sightings people have experienced in there. Goodness..so scary. Like he said a grumpy old man ghost is always seen near the window there and then pointed his torch at that direction wth. Then the guide always brought us to a particular area where people used to see ghosts, hear footsteps, feel cold, all those things u get when a ghost is near u.

So anyways, Day 4 explored Hobart city(capital of Tasmania), went to the Salamanca Market where they sell handicrafts, old books, food, jewelleries, etc then off to the airport and back to Melbourne.

So back to Melbourne, back to study. Timetable just came out, exam ends on 19th Nov, earlier than I expected. So, dat's great, can relax earlier, but that also means I have to start studying, like now! Which is what I'm trying to do daily. Sigh, really need to get good grades.

BREAKTHROUGH!

Yes, I seriously need a breakthrough, in every aspect of my life. kinda feel so sick about everything around me now... my life; my studies, this and that and all... everything is just so.. plain and stale and sad, and Boring!

and I cant seem to get over with something that is already over. SHENNY! Get Over With It!

I need a path, a new route.. to a whole new me! GAH! I just feel so negative now... about everything! What is wrong with me..