Dancing

Just came back from our institute's Xmas dinner at the Silver Circus. We had a 3 course meal and in the interim of the courses, had circus acts. After that, they converted the stage to a dance floor and there was a live band. I really had a lot of fun dancing and just letting myself feel the music. I've always been too shy to dance and always worried about what others might think of me but today i just didn't think and just swayed my body to the music. It felt good. Just had to blog about it before i go to sleep. Night.

Gotta Be Somebody- Nickelback

This time I wonder what it feels like
To find the one in this life
The one we all dream of
But dreams just aren't enough
So I´ll be waiting for the real thing.
I'll know it by the feeling.
The moment when we´re meeting
Will play out like a scene straight off the silver screen
So I`ll be holdin’ my breath
Right up to the end
Until that moment when
I find the one that I'll spend forever with

Cause nobody wants to be the last one there.
'Cause everyone wants to feel like someone cares.
Someone to love with my life in their hands.
There`s gotta be somebody for me like that.

Cause nobody wants to go it on their own
And everyone wants to know they´re not alone.
Somebody else that feels the same somewhere.
There`s gotta be somebody for me out there.

Tonight out on the street out in the moonlight
And damn it this feels too right
It´s just like Déjà Vu
Me standin’ here with you
So I´ll be holdin`my breath
Could this be the end?
Is it that moment when
I find the one that I'll spend forever with?

‘Cause nobody wants to be the last one there
'Cause everyone wants to feel like someone cares.
Someone to love with my life in their hands.
There´s gotta be somebody for me like that.

`Cause nobody wants to go it on their own
And everyone wants to know they´re not alone.
Somebody else that feels the same somewhere?
There`s gotta be somebody for me out there.

You can´t give up!
When you're Lookin´ for a diamond in the rough
Because you never know when it shows up
Make sure you´re holdin` on
‘Cause it could be the one, the one you´re waiting on

November

Some of my favorite people are born in november and all in close vicinity to each other. I must have very good feng shui with sagitarius.

Nov
24- Boss
25- Eddie
27- BFF, Vi
28- Rosemary

Xmas Casual Interview

What a hell of a week.
So recently, my hands very itchy, went to apply for a Xmas casual position in a retail shop, Cotton On (kind of like Aeropostale in USA and Padini in Msia). Casual work is when they have no one to work, so they will call u in advance to ask if you can work that shift. A bit different from part time work cause you don't have a specific time.
Got called for an interview, so i went lor. It was bloody long for an interview for a casual position Almost 2 hours. Siao lar this people. Things we had to do during the group interview.The point is for them to be able to judge our personality.


1. Introduce ourself and how old we are, and if we had a superpower, what would it be? ( can't help noticing i'm one of the oldest there)
2. Pair up in groups and introduce our partners and why they should be hired. ( My partner is Nesa, and she is 23 yrs old and has 2 kids)
3. Present about our previous work experience, and any leadership experience and reiterate why COtton On should hire us?
4. Fill up and application form stating which stores we wanted to apply to. and waited for 20 minutes for them to make a decision.

I didn't get it. I got called with a group outside and they told us we were not successful. Most of the asians (except one) that applied did not go through (?).It also has to do with the store you chose and their availabilities. Nesa, my partner, did not go through as well. I wasn't that bummed, but i wished they had let her through, she needed the money for her kids.

Oh well, what an experience. Definitely a blow to my self esteem. Probably i'm not pretty or bubbly enough to work in retail. hahaha. i will continue with lab work.

Random

Letting go
the things swarming in my head
things worrying me and keeping me up awake at night
Letting go
will help me to grow into a better person
or at least get better sleep at night and worry less ( i worry too much)
it's hard but i've got to let go.....

Invitrogen Art

During work today, Ann and I went for Invitrogen morning tea, we go once in a while to get some free food and free goodies. This morning tea was different however. There was an arts and craft session where we could decorate the new Invitrogen media bottle. and the best design will win a box of chocolates. Ann and i really enjoyed ourselves decorating our bottle (only 1 bottle left so we had to share), we were very disappointed we didn't win, but nonetheless we got a small bottle of lolly each and it was definitely more fun than work~




We are all looking to the right in this next picture because this is the embaressing moment which was captured by the photographer when our boss came in and stared at what we have done and asked, what is that and how is it useful for the lab? (i think he wanted to hint why are you girls not working!)

6 months later

September 11th marks 6 months since i stepped foot in Australia.
Got a haircut last week!~
After my haircut, i had asam laksa at penang coffee house in hawthorn with gwan.

Some other updates the last month:
1. Celebrating Jenson's birthday in Dainty Sichuan in Chinatown. Spicy and Yummy food. We had 8 dishes and 2 cakes for 9 people. :)


2. Chew Yean and her friend from China, Xiang Ying, came to visit.
Dinner with gwan and soo suan in Papa Ginos, Lygon St


3. Went to Julie's place in Docklands one Friday night for dinner and a movie. Docklands at night is fantastic and she even has a view of the city from her bathroom! jeles. Didn't managed to get a good night shot of the view. But here's one of the brightly lit tunnel shaped bridge.

Conversation with colleague

S : Do you ever wish to be tall?
Me: Of course! (without hesitation)
pause
Me: Why do you ask that? Do you ever wish to be tiny?
S : Yes
Me: Why?
S : Because i'm too tall. I tower above everyone. and I'm noticeable from far away
Me: Ish, ada orang complain terlalu tinggi pulak. Tukar tempat dengan saya-lar :)

A Weekend on the Farm

One of my colleagues, Christine, owns a farm in Inverloch, Gippsland area, a few kilometers south of Phillip Island and she invited a couple of us from the lab ( Julie, Mansur, Sebastian, Scott, Me) to spend a weekend with her in her farm. Julie and Christine are French, Mansur is Libyan, Seb is from Germany and Scott is an Aussie. Quite a multicultural gang.
We left the lab around 5pm on Friday and we only reached her farm around 8:30 due to heavy traffic in the M1 freeway. It was my first time having Raclette that night for dinner and i really liked it. According to Christine and Julie, Raclette is a winter meal common in France, Switzerland and some European countries. There's even a special machine for this dish, called a Raclette grill (what else?) and it looks like this.

See the spatula thing. Everyone has their own spatula. The basic idea is to put a slice of cheese on the spatula and put the spatula on the grill to melt the cheese. As the cheese melts you scrape it off (the word "raclette" comes from the French word "racler," which means "to scrape") and put it on your boiled potatoes. It results to something like this. Looks yummy right? While waiting for the cheese to melt, we snacked on assorted olives, cold ham and salami and baguette with salted French butter. French food galore~ I'm not admiting to liking everything because there are some stinky cheese that was just too strong and i'm still not fond of olives, but salted butter and peppercorn with stuffed Feta and salami was yummy. We basically had the olives, ham and salami, butter and cheese with baguette as an appetizer every meal. Must be the French way.
After dinner, we watched the opening ceremony of Olympics before retiring to bed. The next morning, we woke up around 10 and had breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham made by Sebastian. We then put on our boots and headed for the tour of her farm. Her farm is huge, i forgot the hectar numbers but it was really big. She rears around 200 angus cattle, this cattle is bred for their meat. The weather on Saturday was awesome and there were sunny skies with white puffy clouds as we all walked around the farm, climbing and jumping the fences to get across. We saw wombat holes along the way but as wombat are nocturnal, we did not see any wombats.

Scott fed the cow with hay. It took him a while because the cows were quite afraid of him but he finally succeeded.

Group Picture!

L to R : Julie, Me, Seb, Scott, Christine. I share an office in the lab with Seb, Scott and Christine. Always feel like a dwarf beside Seb and Scott. :)

And not forgetting Mansur. Here's a picture of him and Seb relaxing by Christine's warm and cozy fireplace. :)

After the tour of the farm, we went back to the house and took the car to drive around to the town of Inverloch, stopping at many beaches along the way like the Caves, Eagles Nest and then heading to the town and the Inverloch Jetty. We stopped for 3 minutes at each destination. C's intention was to show us all of the attractions and we could then decide what we wanted to do on Sunday. The picturesque Inverloch Jetty: - definitely will go there in Summer again

We then went home to the farm and C took the Ute (something like a pick up truck) and drove around the farm around 5ish to look for wild kangaroos. We managed to see 5 of them, happily hopping around, with no care in the world. They were very different from kangaroos that i've seen in sanctuaries or zoos because they had a vast land and thus was able to use their strong feet and hop for a long distance. We then retired for dinner (barbecue), a little bit of Olympics on tv and then bed.

On Sunday, we woke up and got ready for the great day planned. Had breakfast of thin pancakes with bananas courtesy of Seb again. We were walking to the beach and suddenly there was a downpour and we were soaked and drenched. Thankfully, Seb came to our rescue with the ute and drove us home. It rained the whole day on Sunday and we built a fire and stayed indoors most of the time until it was time to go back to Melbourne around 5.

Christine's house is awesome. I loved the way she decorated the place. This is the room where i slept.I love the four poster bed and her indian theme for this room.In summary,it was a great weekend. It would have been better if it didnt' rain on Sunday so we could enjoy the picturesque walk along the beach but I shall keep that for next time. I do not mind renting a car to go there again because the view is awesome.

Happy Birthday Lyin

For Ling Yin, one of my longest and dearest friends. I've known her since primary school and watched her grow to a smart, independent and beautiful lady~
This picture was taken last year when the whole gang celebrated your birthday in Old Town.
Congratulations on graduation and Have a GREAT birthday !

Done, Bliss and Victoria National Art Gallery

Presentation is over. weee~ in summary,i've never worked so hard for a presentation before. I stopped experiments for the whole week just to work on my slides and practice. The presentation went okay. I was so nervous and my heart was racing so fast, however my colleagues said they could not see that and i was very calm throughout my speech. My boss also asked me what is my secret to staying calm? i told all of them i'm not quite sure what i do or did, but i was nonetheless nervous and terrified. As i was the first speaker, i had a lot of questions from the professors. Some of them asked me questions where i was like huh, what exactly do u mean? I did not tackle the questions well, maybe because i let my guard down after the talk or i was too nervous i could not think right. even boss said so, however he did say my talk was good. I'll take that.

I also realized something this week. The philosophical stuff that i have been going through my head for a while now. Why i am here and was it the right choice to come to this lab? I used to think it was a bad decision but now i'm changing my mind. What i want to achieve in my phd is to be able to problem solve, to be able to think through what went wrong and learn from my mistakes, to be able to design and have a say in the way my experiments goes, basically to graduate from my phd and be a thinker not a technician. And i finally realize now that i am on the right track. Ah, bliss. I am beginning to understand my project in full depth and i also like the fact that we do not know what we will find in the future and the whole project could take many different paths depending on what we find. That is exciting and something to look for in the future. I am also beginning to like grumpy a.k.a boss and his way of teaching me to become a better scientist, not by feeding me answers but rather asking me to think about what i can do to make it better and giving suggestions and respecting me when i don't take them because of my own reasons. I worked on my talk the whole week because everytime i showed him, he still said it could be better but not really telling me how to make it better. He's like that with experiments too, I used to hate at first because i'm new and i really don't know how i should be proceeding but in the long run, it will benefit me, and i will not be just someone who does what the boss asked them to do, but i also know why i am doing it. Really very blissful to know i am finally at the right place and doing the right thing in life and i wouldn't change it anyway or anyhow.

Yesterday, i decided to celebrate and julie from the lab said that we should do some touristy thing together, seeing she's also new in melbourne. She decided we should go to the art gallery. I was a bit skeptical at first but went as well. It was too me boring at first, I'm not a big fan of museums and walking around the big place and reading the labels. Only until we got to the contemporary art that i started perking up and reading the descriptions on the label and all. unfortunately when we got to the contemporary art, the gallery was closing so we just had time to take a quick look around. I also learnt some famous french artists from julie whose names i cannot remember now. After the gallery, we had a drink in san churros and then headed to jaipur curry bar on bourke st to have our dinner. julie is hillarous and i had a great time with her.

One down

I've finished uni and thought i'd never have to worry bout exams and homework, but i forgot something even more nervewrecking for me than exams and homeworks. PRESENTATION. this week, i'm due to present one at my lab meeting, and this friday for the WHOLE institute. holy crap. I finished my lab presentation this morning and they gave some good comments and suggestions to help me improve for Friday's talk. I'm so sorry i've not been replying your comments on the blog and chatbox, been very busy preparing for the talks. can't wait for this friday. can't wait for it to be over. as students in the baker, we are required to give a talk to the whole institute every year, so after this friday, i can relax till 2009.

First Impression Counts

When you meet someone for the first time, the impression they leave on you is what makes u remember them. They could be chatty, friendly, down to earth, warm, or they could also be on the opposite side like obnoxious, sexist, etc. Somehow, i feel when i meet someone, they always forget my name. And i can't help but wonder if it's because i don't leave an impression on them. It's like i leave a nothingless impression because i'm quiet, i take some time to warm up to people, i only speak when i need to. hence. forgettable.
I've also been doing some soul searching this past few weeks. exploring the reason why i am here, is this really what i want, and am i happy doing this, what is my goal in life and what do i want to become? basically, i've been so engrossed on these questions and this soul searching thing is taking up a lot of calories, i eat more and snack so much. I'm pretty sure i will end up being round.jeans are growing tighter as we speak.

My first post

I thought it would be fitting to get a new blog seeing I'm in another phase/chapter in my life and Eddie raves about blogspot so i thought i'd give it a go. Am still exploring so any suggestions or comments are welcomed. I'm hopeless with computers. Thanks Eddie for helping me out with the design. :)
p/s: it's windy today. wind gusts are over 80km/hr. Brrr.