fluffy.

i'm feeling a bit happier today. and who wouldn't. my hair is so fluffy looking, it's verging on ridiculous.

yes everyone. look at my fluffy hair.


and yes, that is the end of this nonsense post.

我？

我太混乱的。我正在住在的地方和我要住在的是完全不一样的。原来，虽然我真的反对离开中国但是我还是觉得住在澳洲是比较幸福的事。我们这里的生活挺舒服，挺容易，而且我的朋友们，家人也是挺好的。我以为开始上大学会比较兴奋的事，和我以前的生活完全不一样，而且跟朋友们出去玩儿的机会该多。

但我从来没想到的是到达这边以后我会发现我真的讨厌这里的生活。家人总是不在，或者在吵架或者麻烦我。没有好的状态。朋友们还好，但和我们上学时每天在一起不一样。我少看见他们。 几乎没有机会出去玩。我回来澳洲后好像跟他们去玩儿只有四次。快到6月了。

还有最近我们去玩的方法也改变了。他们觉得去沉闷的酒吧，坐在旧沙发上，听死气沉沉的音乐是好玩。我不同意。那样的郊游不是我觉得有意思的。我没告诉他们。不知道怎么告诉他们。不要冒犯他们。但我喜欢出去玩，不喜欢出去坐在沙发上。那我可以做在我家里。而我喜欢跳舞！好像我朋友们不喜欢。

我不是责怪我的朋友们，不是那个意思。如果我自己不喜欢就我不得去。而且，如果我自己学过了怎么开车，就我可以一个人随便出去玩，去跳舞，喝酒等等。但我没学过了。原来我不管，但现在是挺麻烦的。... 都是我一个人的困难。我不高兴的事都是我一个人的问题。什么都是我一个人的问题。如果我是另外一个人，就住在澳洲是好的情况。但我是我。因而住在这里是最不满的事。我笑，我聊天，我假装我开心。可是我累。

现在我不能记得我原来想说什么。现在讲的事真的没有关系。我的问题都是我自己的问题，都靠我自己的欲望。和别人真没有关系。啊，为什么我是那么混乱的。真要停止动脑筋想。

chinese bridges and the alps.

Last night i went to the Chinese Bridge Language competition, and it was quite interesting...i must say victoria university's competitor was uh, an interesting character. his speech was very off topic and basically retelling an un-successful attempt to pick up a german girl in china...and apart from the very loose connection that she moved to Beijing, i really couldn't see the relevance to the Beijing 2008 Games topic. while very good at striking poorly comical 'thinking' poses, he had no idea of the answers to the two questions he was asked by the judges. i even knew the answer to one of them! and then he went on to amuse us in his 'performance' item with an electric piano accordion!!!!! Musically talented, maybe, but he was not exactly of the calibre i was expecting to turn up to compete in the competition. Our uni's competitors did pretty good, but alas we missed out on the top placings. I believe it was a Monash student who won and i did agree with that decision. he was very good!

the highlight of the evening of course was the unexpected free (always-large-sized) tshirts! lol. my teacher tried to give me a brilliant green one but i asked for the black. got one too many bright green chinese tshirts already if you ask me, (thanks Suzanne Scraggs! ;-P )

Next up i got incredibly lost trying to get my way to brunswick street via the incompetent melbourne public transport system. made it to the evelyn eventually where Cathy, Gem, Nat and I enjoyed the Little Stevies band.

Clothes reeking of smoke i crashed the night at Cathy's and then spent the day there too, where we enjoyeda spectacular lunch of bread and cheese (and fruit and salad), lazed in the sun like contented kitty-cats (well, mostly I lazed in the sun) and cooked a banana bread.


the lunch ingredients were compliments of the Queen vic market which we took a late morning venture to. we spent the last of our change on a fresh supply of veggies for the week, and um-ed and ah-ed over which cheeses and bread to buy. After some time Cathy managed to decide on a goat's cheese, smoked applewood cheese and quite unexpectedly i picked up a little bundle too!

what type of cheese did i get? wouldn't you like to know! (or rather, u probably dont really care, do you?) well, firstly i was taken by the quaint name of the deli stall "Curds and Whey". how cool is that name?? i love the little Miss Muffett rhyme! but yes was on the hunt for a very particular type of cheese, and i found it in three different varieties at Curds and Whey! it was Heidi cheese!

yes, my namesake in cheese! how very impressive!


of course it draws its inspiration from the Heidi story. Excluding two occasions last year in china (both with Germans, so they're forgiven as it's a german name!), it's been quite some time since i've been quizzed by people on whether or not i've heard the story of Heidi. however just to clear up any misunderstanding, yes, i do know the story, yes, i have got at least one copy of the book (in fact i have the 2 sequels too), and no, yet another copy of the book will not make an appropraite birthday present for me, yet again!


But aside from the at times rather tiresome quizzing on the Heidi story, i am very fond of the story, in all it's gayness. gay meaning happy of course.


and while searching for a picture of the alps i discovered that there are Halloween costumes for Heidi. How bizzarre!!! So yes, this year you too can dress like a girl of the alps, especially you Daniel! ;-)

haha. i cant stop laughing at Peter. what a manly pose. but that Robin Hood hat is so the wrong colour. but Heidi does look quite the ho, but i guess it fits with the commonly heard pet form 'heidi-ho' . this too becomes tiresome.

recently a stranger at uni called me Heidi-ho after finding my name was heidi, but he was rather shocked when i viscously snapped back 'oh great! u just take any opportunity to add on the word ho, don't u?!'. looking back, it was a very funny outburst, and he really didnt deserve it. but it makes me laugh.

I'm getting back to my roots, the goat scattered Alps.

moving on, and back to today. at lunch while eating my namesake (how many people can eat their namesake?? hehe) a quote from the sequel of Heidi (written by a different author to the original story) came to me. basically the book tells the story of heidi's later teenage years spent at a boarding school in Paris or somewhere rather classy in Europe.

For fun i shall share it, and then leave you all to ponder the plight of my alter-ego, the little girl of the alps.

One day, near the beginning of vacation, she received a little package from Dorfli, beautifully wrapped and tied with string. The girls were curious and tried to guess what it was.

“It’s chocolate!”

“No, it’s a round package.”

“Perhaps it’s a bunch of flowers. They’ll be quite withered.”

“All wrong! I’m sure it’s a cake.”

“Hurry, Heidi,” they begged. “Open it and see who’s right.”

Heidi cut the string and opened the package. To the astonishment of all the other girls, there lay a little goat cheese, round and white.

“Cream cheese!” they exclaimed, wrinkling their noses.

“It smells bad,” one of the English girls added. “Poor Heidi! Your grandfather must have thought you were starving.”

“It’s a good joke,” they agreed, beginning to giggle. Heidi alone did not laugh. For a moment she wished she might throw the unfortunate cheese out of the window because they were all making fun of her.”

… …

“Phew! What a smell!”

“Quick, some air!”

“Throw open a window and let the wind do its worst!”

“I don’t want to stay in that room. She’ll probably keep her cheese for a souvenir and I can’t stand that odour!” cried Eileen.

…. …

“Mesdemoiselles,” began the principal when Fraulein had brought the girls to the library, “you know what has happened. Your schoolmate, Eileen, has refused to room with Heidi. Would one of you mind rooming with Eileen?”

For a moment there was complete silence; then Edith raised her eyes and said, “Mademoiselle, we would all three like to share a room with Heidi!”

… …

“What am I going to tell Eileen? She will be heartbroken, poor child!” the Directress added with a stiff attempt at sympathy.

“Possibly, but it will do her good,” replied the professor. “Does nobody think of Heidi’s heart?”

Heidi Grows Up – Charles Tritten (the sequel to Heidi - Johanna Spyri), Chapter IV pg 29-33

strange set of events.

1 cup of coffee, 2 and a half hours and 38 biscuits later, and i find i am obssessed with Savage Garden???

i worked out my odd jitteriness and unrest this afternoon is most likely due to the 2 cups of coffee i've had today (when i normally dont have any) and an unusual caffeine dosage. it hit me when i found myself sprinting through my house, instead of walking at a regular pace and my shaking hand as i held a measuring cup full of oats.

never the less, the oven baking-free biscuits seem to have turned out ok, though i am still waiting for them to set.




and the Savage Garden? I'm not sure really, but i've just spent the last half hour singing and dancing around the place, and now im updating the blog song yet once again. once again. i blame the coffee. in any case, it was a toss up between 'tears of pearls' and 'carry on dancing'.

bored.

it's the start of a long break and already i have nothing to do. i handed in my japanese assignment, and did my last in class assessment for chinese today, so i find im not at all in the mood for more study or revision now. i only have one exam, and it seems a long lontg time away. i have 2 essays also, but likewise, their due dates are quite generous!

so i find myself yet again threatening to waste an entire afternoon and evening doing nothing worthwhile entangled upon the world wide web. i keep planning and post-poning to cook some biscuits, cos im never in the mood, and the same goes for my scholarship report writing task.

job hunting is fruitless so far, but i am starting to put in a few applications for things. we'll see how it all goes. i really need something to occupy me with though.

perhaps tomorrow i will do some language study, and then in the evening i plan to go to the chinese language competition. it finishes quite late though...9pm. if im lucky dad might come to pick me up, or perhaps i shall go and free-load at cathy's. she's probably going to be in eltham region though, haha.

im considering wasting my afternoon watching more taiwanese dramas, cos they're very effective time wasters as each episode goes for bout an hour, yet i dont really seem to be in the mood for that either...

perhaps i need to go outside and have a walk or something. there really is nothing i want to do right now. i need a hobby.

even blogging is losing it's flair as i have nothing of interest to discuss, i dont even have any interesting pictures, im sick of taking photos of myself in various silly 'peace sign' poses, and i've spent too much time fiddling around with my japanese project blog. anyone who's interested can have a look at http://thekimono.blogspot.com. beware though, you wont understand a thing.

checking my emails for the 3rd time today, and alas all 3 email accounts still have no messages.

ooh, wait wrong, i have a myspace comment. yay! i was just planning on checking my myspace. and hopefully lou will be on msn today. i feel like a chat.

ok, time to check my comment. i shall update again if i ever do something worthy of blogging about, which in the meantime is not all that likely.

so from a very bored heidi, adieu.

autumn


yay, it's autumn. despite the confused weather (even more confused than melbourne weather usually is), it is autumn.


but the weather is slowly getting cooler and leading towards my favourite time of year ... Winter!

yes, im one of those people who loves winter, and always has, even though aust doesnt have any snow to make it a cool season like other countries. perhaps my fondness for winter was pre-destined. after all, i arrived on one of july's coldest days, or so im told.

after finishing my speaking test today for japanese i am basically on holidays. yeesss! winter holidays. and this year i get a long one! usually with school we only got 2 weeks, ... now i have almost 2 months!

so ignoring the fact that i have various things i should be doing during said holidays, we shall forget it all for a moment and just wallow in the bliss of two things im enjoying tonight as i blog this. (yes, blog is a verb, various people use it as one and since its a made up word in the first place it may as well be both noun and verb all in one, hence the term 'blogging')


a toasty warm mug of cream of chicken and mushroom soup.

and my ridiculously fluffy white slippers, that do look suspiciously like my late pet Kitty. ... no comment.

bring on winter!!!



p.s. im listening to some random french trance music, funnily i know two of the tracks from when i was in china! perhaps i shall change the song on my blog once again...but the question is, to french or korean???

...ok, french it is. see, i do listen to some non south-east asian pop!

bbq ^_^

i've finally bothered to upload some photos from the bbq party i went to last weekend with my new found korean friends. it was a really good afternoon actually. i met about 5 or 6 new people, including a really sweet korean lady and 2 little lower-primary school age kids - they were SO cute. i've always been someone who's not really into babies and kids, but there's definitely something about asian kids that just screams 'cute!' to me. hence my working with kids at primary school and kinders all last year i guess. damn those little monsters, they had me giving out lollies every week, even when they were little terrors who didnt listen to a word i said. haha.

i think one of the saddest things for me was one of the kinder girls excitedly telling me all about her new american foreign teacher 'candy' on my last teaching day, and saying how they asked that teacher for lollies, but she hadnt brought any, etc etc. so there i was trying to say goodbye and explain to the little girl that was going back to my home in another country. but she just couldnt understand the concept of distance, and was just staring at me with her beautiful little eyes and smiling and saying how much fun it would be to have 2 foreign teachers, me and candy! i felt really nostalgic leaving the kinder that day.

anyway, on to happier things. here are some photos of our aussie-style bbq.

this is me, with kyla and julia. julia's to the right, with the 2 cute kids u can kind of see in the background. the boy's there anyway. he was really shy, perhaps it was due to the scary looking girl with cheese-yellow coloured hair haha.


and here we are enjoying our salads and sausages. korean food is usually eaten with chopsticks and spoons, maybe occasionally with forks(?), but knives are never used. hence we had no knives and were all cutting our sausages with the edge of our forks. but its the bbqed chicken that's a real challenge!!

posing with kyla. she has the most beautiful clothes, this was a skirt and top ensemble i think but it looked just like a dress, really really pretty. think it had a big keyhole at the back. and check out how long her hair is! wow, i already know now my hair will never be that long or such good condition. lou, u think the guy from the band has awesome hair, u should see kyla's up close. perfect condition. *envious* ^_^

im helping to nurture her conversation skills along a bit, cos she's only been in melbourne about 1 month now, and it's cool cos she's offered to teach me some korean. if melb uni offered korean i probably would have tried to pick it up this year, so yeh, it's really cool that i might be able to learn a little bit and have some friends to practise with too. perhaps in the holidays i will have some time to start. should be fun, doing a bit of a language exchange english-korean.



and while we're on the topic of korean i will advise anyone who has not tried 'bibimbap' or korean mixed rice to try it! it is awesome - my favourite korean food by far. it is SO good. even better than korean bbq.

but it is a little spicy (as is most korean food other than korean bbq) so if u're not yet accustomed to spicy food (obviously haven't been abroad to various parts of asia recently, have you?) be warned, but still, try it!



AND, i've finally remembered the one type of kimchi i'm not particularly fond of, (ok, i hate it). it's white radish kimchi. remember that day on the lawn sarah and loren, when i was talking about the horrible diced vegetable i couldnt stand...it was white radish.

urgh it's yuk! just look at it. other than this, korean food and kimchi are awesome. i developed quite a taste for them in Shenyang. good ol' korea town and korean bbq restaurants in the uni's vicinity ^_^

missing the food so bad, and all these pictures of bbqs and bibimbap aren't helping! currently too lazy to cook myself some food, so am just waiting for mum and dad to come home and miraculously conjure me up some dinner. aren't parents friendly??


and now i guess its time to get back to cramming for my japanese speaking test...sigh!!!

the grand list of things to do....
(busy-ness in a good way!)

on monday lunchtime loren, kate, sarah and i began compiling a list of holiday amusements, a whole little assortment of things to fill in the time between exam cramming, work-shifts or in my case sleeps and meals. the list started off with the idea of let's write down all those things we've always wanted to do, but just never have. anyone with ideas to add to the list, leave a comment at the end of the post.

keep in mind some of these activities can all be combined together into just a couple of days too.
and so the list commences.

1.) dinner party marathon -perhaps a week long saga, involving a different person hosting a themed dinner party each night. the host chooses and prepares the menu, theme and any entertainmemts for the evening they want. basically the host chooses, so it can be as elaborate or relaxed as they want it to be, eg. 'the aussie bums night in' or 'diamonds and pearls are a must'. whatever u want. other variations: a supper party sleepover followed by breakfast.
2.) trip to the movies (using our wonderful free hoyts tickets - yay! haha
3.) a treasure hunt around the city
4.) ice-skating or rollercity. revisit those middle-school parties!
5.) 'a night around the open-fire' toasting marshmallows and eating jaffle sandwiches. yumm
6.) a gothic night complete with sayonce. haha
7.) op-shop shopping in the dodgy end of chapel part 2! (i.e. closest to Carnegie. lol)
8.) plant a vegie patch in Sarah's garden
9.) a big baking day
10.) a beauty pamper day
11.) a bizarre sports day - croquet, boccie, marbles and quoits!
12.) boardgames day - (i will make tea or some form of refreshments for everyone while monopoly is being played, as i've hated it since i was young, and i still maintain that it gives me headaches)
13.) 'come as you are' party - involves those people with a car driving round to the other people's houses unexpectedly and picking them up in whatever daggy attire they're currently dressed in, to go to the party.
14.) a photography day in the city - black and white mode/ colour
15.) bike riding day
16.) a clothes-making day - for all those simple things u're too stubborn to actually buy for the outrageous price they cost in the shops
17.) film a short movie - maybe 2-3 mins long
18.) picnic in the botanical gardens - preferably on a dry weather day, shouldnt be too hard with the drought
19.) bridge road shopping trip
20.) meditation/ interpretive dance afternoon
21.) "sorry i've lost my voice" half day (no one is allowed to speak, perhaps a silent meal would be the best way to keep ourselves occupied), combined with a "sorry i cant speak english" 1/2 day (or perhaps a champagne drinking party) where you can only utter words from foreign languages to each other, regardless of actually being understood.

what an awful lot of nonsensical fun we're to have! ^-^

Finally - i can cook!

it seems in recent times my culinary skills have indeed improved. i can now officially cook more than just two-minute noodles, or fangbian mian as i habitually call them now (translates to 'convenient noodles' - what a fun and yet apt name for them, although there does prove to be many cases (usually involving unreadily available hot water sources wherein convenient noodles are proven to be rather inconvenient. but we shan't delve into all that!).

yes, it's true. i can actually cook. lou stop rolling your eyes in disbelief. i only forgot the eggs in your birthday picnic muffins once ok, just ONCE! (and no smart remarks anyone about her only having a birthday once a year, i wont have it!)

aside from said muffins, i readily proclaim that i can cook what i term 'sweet things', ie. desserts such as choccie puddings, cakes generally of the banana or chocolate variety, but recently i've branched out into pavlova too! as is the case with anyone i can cook spag bol, and of course my favourite snack anytime of the day (including those unearthly hours of the morning) the before-mentioned fangbian mian.

since my return from china my cooking expertise has expanded vastly, with my wonderful yet slightly time consuming chinese dumpling cooking skills, and now dum dum daaa!

may i present my latest accomplishment: bok choy and mushroom, teamed up with the ol' easy favourite egg and tomato. (i've worked out the knack for it now vicki and cathy, it now tastes more or less as it should and i haven't stooped to adding msg!)

check out those colours! any home eco teacher should be happy! hah! ms. pincent u can stick your 'oh...well at least i suppose you're good at cleaning up' comment right up your arse!

and a wannabe chinese meal is never complete without some green tea, courtesy of leo's hometown. yay!

and yes, i am drinking from a bowl. hey - it's considered fairly normal in china, ok? especially if drinking beer or evil baijiu spirits. warning for baijiu virgins - never EVER mix with fanta. especially not on your first baijiu date. though i suppose either way the relationship will be doomed from the start!

baijiu is something stupid like 80%proof (ooh, wikipedia corrects me, ranges from 80-120% proof, vodka is usually about 80%) . bottles are sold to students and people on the lower income end for about 2 yuan ($30cents aust), or if your in the more elite end of the income chain up to 26,880yuan ($4000+ aust).

don't be fooled - it's all nasty whatever the price tag. though rumour has it the expensive stuff tastse worse than the cheap stuff. in my opinion however it should be illegal to sell such lethal stuff for a damn 30cents aust. to put this in perspective a bit more, many people liken it to metho. enough said.


moving on to other matters, leo's tea is nothing like metho or baijiu, and like the boy himself, i love it. ^-^



wah~~ he's so adorable!!! love u love u love u!


hope everyone's had a good weekend. i see a few trips to the movies ahead of us, cos i saw the new pirates movie is coming out soon too - and i still want to see the Zhang Yi Mou 'Curse of the Golden Flower' again, this time in aust,

and maybe 'mr. bean's holiday' for a good laugh. and no, that picture is not of mr. bean in makeup. haha. it is however gong li, and her 'son' jay chou. yay. oh, so much to do, and so little money. mummy and daddy i'm afraid your pockets shall be emptied again quite soon!

ahh, i love this song so much. Xiao Wu Gui (little turtle) - Nicholeas Teo.

basic lyrics are:

La la la la la la la la la la

I want to give this song to one person
Music replaces my words
Affection only increases
The moment that I kiss her face
The world starts to twirl
The feeling of love is sweeter than cherries
Our eyes light up sparks and break through all limitations
Letting people forget rejection
Love becomes classic
Give her all my love
I want you to be my small turtle forever
I love you
Every day

and lastly, happy mothers day to my mum, who of course doesn't read this anyway. she is somewhere in Alice Springs at the moment, strolling around a market i do believe. but yes, think my parents and grandparents are having a nice time, so that's good.

the good and the bad of life.


yesterday was a mix of both good and bad. lets start on some of the good things first. good, i managed to wake up at 6:30am and get on my bus and make it on time to my japanese assessment task. good, i got through my japanese writing task easy, it was a breeze. good, i went to my next jap class and got all my project writing proof-read. bad, i cant read some of the teacher's handwriting very well, so aren't sure if my corrections are correct afterall!

good, went to chinese class and watched another film. good, finished classes for the day. good, met up with kate, sarah and loren by the lawn for lunch. good we all got our free hoyts tickets ...
finally!!!! in the process of deciding what to see and when.

good, went for a browse along the dodgy shops on swanston street. good, spent some of my parents money on new skinny leg jeans for wearing through winter with my boots of course!
(as my other pair sadly need a belt to keep them g-rated since my chinese weightloss... which i believe weight-wise is returning very slowly. damn u donuts and other crappy foods i now have constant access to!)

ooh, looks good. my ass that is. ^_^

kidding. i mean the jeans.

my other skinnies are quite blue, so i went for a nice cheap $35 more grey stressed shade.

and they have a pretty diamonte in the button! ooh! i was sold. haha


and yes, clearly im not endorsing highwaist jeans. meh. stupid highrise. my tummy does not like suffocating. i do believe people have been trying to convince us that high rise jeans are coming back, for at least the last 2 years. (sounds rather like frank going to france...he's been in the process of 'going' there for quite some time now...he's yet to arrive though. yet to leave china for that matter!)

so yes, im not encouraging the high waist. i hunted high and low (lol! pun intended) through chinese markets, acted many an odd mime and used many a bad grammatically pieced together sentence to get my hands on low-waisted (as in, at least below the belly button) jeans. so i will not stoop to buying silly high-waist jeans in aust for any stupid 'supposed' fashion.

moving on. good, i went home. bad, i had house-work (i.e. washing) to do. bad, i also had homework to do. good, i started my calligraphy final project. it was going pretty well.

bad, calligraphy project.

after about an hr and a half of tiring work, when i had only 2 more characters to write i unfolded the last square of the paper only to discover the ink had all pressed through!! there's now the imprint of upside down characters ruining the whole work.

argh!! i could scream. had to start all over again!!!!

good, another 2 hours later i had finished a stain-free calligraphy piece. can relax a little. ultimately it looks better than the first copy anyway, but oh my god that was so frustrating. how blonde and stupid i felt at the moment of unfolding the paper. urgh.



good, called leo to say goodnight. bad, the conversation ended way too soon. have to wait another half a day 'til i can talk to him again. :-( ... junjun wo tai xiang ni la! but i can call him twice today, yeah! love fridays with no class.

so yeah think that more or less ends my mix of good and bad happenings. clearly there was more good than bad, which in itself is good. though the calligraphy stuff up did cost me 4 hrs of my life and a severe amount of frustration and anger, both of which are still unvented by the way- so watch out!! lol

oh, and when i was laying out the newspaper under my calligraphy work (so as not to ink stain my mother's table) i noticed this funny connex add in the MX. i added some notations as i felt appropriate. (click to enlarge.)




p.s. i love my boots. so comfy and warm.

inside is lined with fur, so cosy- yummy! (fake of course, im assuming cos they were damn cheap, lol but i dont really care much anyway, i have funny rabbit fur hairties somewhere. my dad always tells me the rabbit fur comes from the bunnies' bums hahaha.

oh well, guess animal protection fanatics will think it serves me right. lol)

and to clear up any misunderstandings i do love animals, esp cute little things like kittens and bunnies. how could u not love something so cute and soft and just clearly screaming out to be cuddled???

more talent? sadly not... well, not yet!


woo. i am an artist!! haha, we've moved onto ink paintings in class, and this was my landscape one from this week.

looks pretty snazzy, ey? actually it's crap and i probably have to try it again so i have something decent to hand in. my marks do come from my practical work for this subject remember!

i really should be in bed, cos i have to get up early again tomorrow (hate hate HATE) 6:30am starts. ugh! damn 9am classes. i have to do my writing piece in jap class tomorrow. i wrote one and tried to memorise it on the weekend but my mood and motivation for it has completely gone, so im not bothering to revise it. i'll have a brief look over it on the bus tomorrow and that should do it.

another thing im sick of is insomnia. drives me crazy! and yes i know having an irregular, often late night/early morning sleeping pattern does not help anything, and also that stressing about needing to wake up early the next day also does nothing for trying to fall asleep quickly but grrrrr damn body just fall asleep properly for once! ive considered sleeping pills but leo warned me against them. not sure why exaclty. but i trust him. so yeah, i've given up on worrying too much about trying to get sleep before my early starts. what's the worst that will happen really? i'll fall asleep on the bus, or in class? hasnt happened yet, but it'd probably be a nice occurence cos i could finally get some good Zzzzzs. and certain classes deserve to be slept through!

ah well, im off to go and try technique number 164 for falling asleep. (just kidding! i've probably tried more than that over the years!). studying a chinese textbook. once again leo's advice. lol! but crazy as it sounds it worked well accidently many a time throughout my year in china. all i had to do was open my textbook (which out of class was a RARE occurence) and instantly a nap looked pretty damn good! and then there was the daily ritual of wake up 7:20am, shower, dress up, do hair and run across to the class building (via trampling through the garden, a well used shortcut) often still in my rubber, or fluffy slippers (depended on the weather conditions), get to a desk, open the book, and once again feel incredibly tired!

i even started a coffee addiction for a week or two. i'd never drunk a cup of coffee before, but for about 2 weeks i was getting 1 or 2 a morning every day to try and stay awake through my classes. decided to stop and just put up with the fatigue (cos it seemed to be there again anyway about 3 mins after the coffees) cos i didnt want to become dependent on coffee for the rest of my life. possibly a silly fear yes, but i have a fear of drug-like dependencies. so yes, i only had the very occasion coffee since then, and in fact havent had a coffee since the final day in shenyang, sitting with Galya in her dorm room. that was really nice coffee. think it was Israeli actually. miss Galya. i was a crap friend to her. can probably count the times i actually hung out with her on my hands. hope i can see her again at the end of the year. i wanna make more of an effort next time. sigh. why is everything i wanna do in china????? and more to the point why arent i there with it?


in a convo about future careers with my friend at uni today my uni friend asked me what i planned in the future. it sounded so strange even to my ears when i replied 'well actually as soon as i finish uni i plan to go back china and live in the city my bf's studying in.' after a bit more discussion i added that i did actually plan to work, and yeah it'd probably be some line of work dealing between aust and china (which has more or less been my plan for the last 5 years), but in more recent times ive considered importing and exporting as my favoured thing to do. but who knows i'll probably end up in boring translator's shoes, or worse teach english until i cant stand china anymore. i can picture the annoying students endlessly nagging already. arghhh!

on a happier note, back to the original topic. next week we get to do panda and bamboo paintings in calligraphy class! woo! haha

study day.

today i slept in 'til noon, after a late-ish night last night at Renee and Caitlyn's housewarming party. i like their new place - it's really nice! well, i kind of slept in til noon...in a waking up, falling asleep again fashion. it's annoying i cant seem to sleep in properly this last week or so. every time i have an opportunity to have a good long sleep in i wake up to the sound of my brother's phone alarm going off multiple times at about 9am! the idea is that it wakes him up, not me!

so yeah, i woke up and called leo, we chatted for a while and then it was time for me to begin my study. skipping lunch i started with calligraphy at 1:30pm and went on to do japanese, chinese, calligraphy assignment, and japanese assignment through until 10pm, with a short dinner break in the middle. can't believe it. i actually studied from 1:30pm-10pm. so ridiculous. i really do have a lot of schoolwork this weekend it seems, cos i've still got more stuff i need to do tomorrow, though im really not sure how much of it i will get through.

besides, i think i did an alright job today. i finished of all the appendices stuff for my calligraphy assignment, so despite our due date extension it is all stapled together and ready to be submitted. now ive just got tackle the practical classes Final Work piece. we've been given two weeks to do it, and i have to have drafts of my piece done by tuesday. guess i'll be doing that tomorrow. among everything else.

i wrote my japanese composition task today. meant to be around 600 characters long, somehow i've got to be able to reproduce it on thursday morning. 'twill be fun. memorisation work here we come again! im quite clever, but im not sure if the teachers will catch on. they let us know 4 possible topics, of which 3 will be given as options on the day. hence you're meant to prepare for several writing tasks. but i've written a piece which applies to 2 of the topics (uni life and friends). haha. as one of the two topics has to be an option, im all set. but as i said, who knows if the teachers will catch on, i suspect they will, but hey if its relevant to the topic, its relevant. how devious i am!

i am quite determined to take a break tomorrow though! i was very disciplined today, and i didnt bum around on the computer, internet or watch any dvds. so tomorrow i plan to watch some more of my beloved Taiwanese drama, Wei Xiao Pasta haha. the current song playing is one of the themes from the drama, and in fact it's sung by the male lead. he even sings it in the story too, as he's a pop star in the drama.

i recently discovered an awesome website which has a million dramas, anime and music videos and stuff the other day. practically everything on it is english subtitled from what i've seen so far, however it doesnt have an english version of Wei Xiao Pasta, so unfortunately for if anyone was actually interested you cant watch it. however i can watch the start of the series, and probably should, before i watch any more of the end of it. haha!

so yes, nothing else more to say really. just wanted to make a point of the fact that i was good and studied today, which is of course quite a rare occurence for two reasons. 1) that im generally slack and lazy, and 2) that i usually dont have much workload. occasionally though, i guess it creeps up on me like this.

mum's in the northern territory, and dad leaves very early this coming morning. so, a week or so of cooking, cleaning, and washing is ahead of me again. reminds me a bit of my apartment in china, which although small managed to be quite difficult to maintain a tidy state in. i guess i was working and studying, and having a more active social life. never mind, we'll see how it goes.


i love this song! it's sweet. i'd never heard it before the drama. it's name is 'little turtle', derived from a nickname he has for his girlfriend in the drama.