ok this was a journal of sorts that i kept when i was first in sydney. Happened to stumble across this when i was sorting out word documents on my laptop, anyway excuse the mindless rambling should it disturb you and NO, i am NOT a victim of early onset of senile-ness, so don't you go ringing up the asylum claiming that i must have escaped..

Monday, Feb. 9, 3.20pm,
camping outside principal's office

The stupid school administration fouled up my time table - subjects
Chemistry
Accounting
Basic math
Software design and programming
Media studies and Communication
               
Hmmm, just the time table I want, with all the subjects I hate! They mistook the list I filled up previously saying SUBJECTS I DON'T WANT TO TAKE, as what I want. What idiots. So can't start lessons proper today, have to wait till the process another one for me. Was told to see the dean (principal) and met another million fellow discontented students, clearly sick of waiting since this morning. Some have it worse than me, their time tables are totally blank.
Waited for god knows how long, but sure it was more than 2 hours, then was hastily given a math test and was prohibited to use a calculator, though others who did the test slightly earlier than me were allowed to. Proves that school is unfair, other students have this advantage over me, hello, they get to use their calculators and I don't? Can't complain to anyone about the principal, now can I?
Curse Australia's education system, or more like, the lack of it!

 
5.05pm
In the confines of my shared room, finished that test which started off really easy but the last 2 pages were more difficult as I had no calculator, had to find angles between this and that and had to sin figures, but left it blank since had no calculator, damn it. Could have done much better, I just know it. If I do badly, it's their fault. On the other hand, if I do well, it's all because I'm so brilliant and they're not. HA!
Sent off to do another test, this time it's an English diagnostic essay test

Just glad to be away from the horrible school corridors, where everyone speaks damn loud (did I say speak? I meant SCREECHING) and ever so rapidly - a horrible concoction of Mandarin, numerous dialects, Canto, Indo, and what have you not, combined with the jumble of accents and the result just makes me nauseated. If I were to compare the whole commotion to a bustling market place during at its busiest, the market place rates slightly above a whisper. Tired in vain to block it all out, started listening to black eyed peas, didn't really help, still could hear all the ghastly and vile babble, despite my earphones blasting away, but had to remove them in the end, cause I was afraid of damaging my ear drums. So had to suffer audio torture for another painful 27 mins. God help me.

Got more things to complain about but shall not elaborate further, lest I get aggravated more. I'll give you a little hint, INEFFIENCY! INEFFIENCY! INEFFIENCY!

 
Tuesday, February 10, 12.10pm,
own room

Oh joy, after leaving Singapore, country of constant PAP based SS; I've just entered another propaganda land. Lucky me. Australian studies.
At least I got praised for drawing a fairly accurate map of the whole of Australia. So being in AEP, DOES prepare you for something later on in life, it just ensured me that I can get the proportion of Australia right. Oh looky here, I didn't forget Tasmania. Whoopdeedo!

3.05pm
Introduction of biology class, my teacher started by asking everyone to shout out randomly what was biology meant to us, as an individual, and there was one guy who kept crying, 'Reproduction! SEXUAL reproduction! S-E-X! Sex! Sex!', until the teacher asked him to stop chanting that, then labeled him a sexually deprived but grossly oversexed testosterone sack, couldn't agree more.

Note to self: Avoid that perv, 'nuff said

Wednesday, February 11, 1.30pm,
Standing at the blasted reception

Oh WOW! Finally got a time table that isn't messed up!! After, what? 4 pitiful time table revisions..
I clap for them ok? *clap clap*

Friday, February 13, 4.10pm
Classroom with crappy view
Song of the day- hey mama

Friday the 13th, and as usual it's a good luck day for me, it's beyond my comprehension why people would ever think that this particular day could cause something terrible to befall them, rather ridiculous I must say, considering that I seem to have amazing bits of good luck throughout the whole day, maybe cause everyone seems to be down on their luck and I thrive from their misfortunes, maybe that's it..

NOTE: bit of history for you, not quite sure that it's 100% accurate
But here's the history behind Friday the 13th

Slightly before the 1300's,
There existed this ancient association of knights - well-known Knights Templar, that were in the Second crusade and told King Baldwin II that they were there to protect Christian pilgrims on the roadways. After nine long years, these knights finally unearthed this treasure that was
so great (they sound the Holy Grail documents about the real truth behind the Holy Grail and it's location) and their influence solidified overnight after that.
With that, they were issued limitless power and were declared 'a law onto themselves' by the Pope Innocent II Vatican (These knights created modern banking too, but that's a long story I don't quite intend to tell, well today anyway)
Basically after amassing so much power, the Church decided something had to be done to curb them from overshadowing the Church, and so Pope Clement V of the Church issued secret sealed orders to be opened simultaneously by his soldiers all across Europe on, yes, that's right -FRIDAY, October 13 of 1307.
At dawn on the thirteen, these documents were opened and their appalling contents revealed. Clements's letter claimed that God had visited him in a vision (doesn't he always *rolls eyes*) and warned him that these Knights Templar were heretics guilty of devil worship, homosexuality, defiling the cross, sodomy and other blasphemous behaviour. He continued saying that God ordered him to "cleanse" the earth by rounding up all these Knights and their followers and torture them in the cruelest ways as a punishment for all their crimes against God. Clements's Machiavellian operation came off with clockwork precision. On that day, countless Knights and their followers were captured, tortured mercilessly and finally burned at the stake# as heretics. And that's how FRIDAY the 13 came into being as a day of misfortune.

# right through the Church's violent and somewhat deceitful past, it has directly and indirectly sent about 5 million women to burning (excuse the pun) deaths at the stakes or other methods of excruciatingly inhumanely painful deaths. All this on the stupid and ridiculous basis of causing 'Original Sin', and that it is 'only right' that we pay and atone for Eve's mistake.

Note: the interesting insight back into the past is courtesy of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.
Read it and be outraged as well, esp at the entire de-evolution of women's role since the pagan days (NOTE again: the pagans had their name degraded and smeared by the Church, they actually just are normal simple rural village people who reveled in the wonder of Nature. And the Church started its operation of tarnishing it, recasting it to be evil, all in an attempt to erase their true meaning. It worked, look, now the word pagan is associated with devil worship, when its origins were actually quite godly. If you delve in deeper to the Church's history, you'll be shocked at all its atrocities and how it has shameless manipulated the equality of men and women to result in the degradation of women)

 
Saturday, February 14, Valentine's Day
Out roaming the streets of Sydney

Spent the whole day with my parents. How sad is that? Yes, I know - VERY. Explored the usual tourist areas, like the Sydney Opera House, the Rocks, and the Botanical Gardens.
My parents and I were wondering why there was an usually high number of wedding limousines speeding the streets and every spot that we were told was photo worthy was packed with couples having their wedding photos taken. It then occurred to us, that these people, being locals, would know the well kept secret of the best places which captures the beauty of Sydney. Then we proceeded to stop at places where we spotted wedding cars and followed the whole wedding entourage.

There was even a particular wedding group who ask me to join them for a couple of photos.  
Isn't it nice to be in someone else's wedding photo? What an honour to celebrate the happiest day of their life with a random bunch of people. The best men (or whatever you call the male equivalent of bridesmaids) were super cool, they were clad in the traditional suits with a twist - shades. They posed with beer bottles in their hands, pretending to either beat up the ring bearer who happened to be this little angelic looking blond hair, blue eyed boy or trying to woo the flower girl. The best man took the bouquet from the bride and tried to bribe the girl (who bears amazing resemblance to the ring bearer, think they're related), and it worked, she grabbed the bouquet out of his hands and started running around the entire grassy knolls, squealing in delight while being chased by all the best men (or whatever you call them).
Happily left with panoramic shots and very contented eyeful of the panoramic city and relishing the beauty and splendor of it all.
Am so gonna insist that I get my wedding photos taken in Sydney, at least with ocean view or something spectacular rather than at East Coast or Fort Canning or Labrador Park or some sad pathetic place in Singapore.
Ooo, this reminds me of story that Denise told me. Her class was having PE (she's from RJ, smart ass) and then they was a couple taking their wedding photo at RJ for sentimental reasons cause they both met each other at, where else? RJ! It's actually quite sweet, don't you think?

 
Thursday, February 19, 8.45pm
Communal Fridge, fuming

Some idiot stole my Belgium chocolates! IT WAS A NEW BOX! Bloody hell, I only left it for barely half an hour in the fridge wrapped in several layers of plastic bags. Earth to thief, HELLO? It has Sandra written all over it, at last count, I wrote my name 7 times (it's my fave number, but i'm starting to like PHI 1.618, i'll explain the uniqueness and beauty of that number to you one day) on it with my room number prominently displayed, for crying out loud, and I tied a dead knot on the outermost bag, so it couldn't have accidentally been taken, it was stolen! STOLEN, I tell you!!! C'mon, the chocolate was extremely well hidden; it was wedged in between my 3 litre bottle of milk, humongous block of cheese, sun dried tomato spread, jar of olives and the 2 litre pot of ski yoghurt!! So SOMEONE was snooping through my belongings and took my chocolates. THEY TOOK MY CHOCOLATES!! Have you no heart?!? Give me back my chocolates!!
Need chocolates back!!!

9.30pm
Wish I had my chocolates back; it was in this really pretty glittery gold box more or less in the shape of this elegant sliver and gold sea horse amongst sea weed 

9.50pm
Met another victim of a senseless theft, who informed me that she had 3 eggs stolen from her, I sympathize with her. We've got a thief on our hands... a serious one, in fact...

10.15pm
Fridge-raiding, eggs stealing and chocolate thieves should be beheaded!

10.45pm
No no no, beheading is terrible!
Castrating should do the trick..

 
Friday, February 20, 3.47 am
Out of bed, and very displeased about that

Great. Just great.
I'm still awake, unable to drift off to dream land because my roomie's snoring! Yipes! She probably does it sub consciously; otherwise she might have mentioned that to me since day 1. always made it a point to sleep before her, which isn't too difficult considering that she stays up almost everyday after 2 plus, hanging with her Honky buddies, I only know that cause even I have problems sleeping cause I'm still set to Singapore time and that doesn't help when I have a long day ahead.
The pillow doesn't do much to block out the snores, need more pillows then..

3.55 am
Almost smothered myself to death, not very brilliant idea to pile on so many pillows..

5.02 am
Still awake, damn it, now where did I keep those ear plugs..

 
Thursday, February 26, 4.30pmAbout to smash hand phone against the wall after receiving awful call from mom
No, Friday? That's tomorrow, how can the results be out already? No no no, that's too soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5.10pm
I'm so dead, my parents are so going to disown me when they get my results, why so soon lord?

6.25pm
Really can't contain my dinner, hello my teachers wouldn't want to even say they even know me, much less taught me any of those subjects that I'm bound to screw up. I'm such a disappointment to everyone!!

8.45pm
Can't concentrate on my homework, I so wish I never knew that we were getting our results back tomorrow, it's simply too soon, what they trying to do? Kill us all?

11.28pm
Spent more than 2 hours walking around the corridors, and sitting outside at the courtyard, it's open air on the top floor of the building, like my hostel, and its really a pleasant place to unwind.
When the smokers aren't polluting the air, of course.

Hmmm.. thinking of pets after flipping through a photography book and saw the most darling fox terrier, when I'm older I'm gonna get a pair of fox terriers, if I have plenty of space, I'll get 3, preferably all from the same litter, wouldn't want to split up a whole family. And 4 bunnies and 2 kittens too!
You know what dog is really cute too? ROCKY!!
Ok you probably don't know what I'm talking about, just follow these simple instructions.
Go open any random Microsoft word file, and then right click the Microsoft word assistant, and select the 'choose assistant' and click the next button until the reach the puppy option. Isn't it the cutest dog ever? You got to watch it do all its adorable doggy thing like zooming in at you, cute ain't it? To make it do other stuff, basically just click on it and choose the animate button.
I'm sorry, being stressed does things to you.. 
  

Saturday, 13 March, 8.10 pm

On my way to the dining hall, for dinner, I stumbled upon this deliriously adorable kitten.
It's so white, (the underside) with varying shades of grey stripes on its body, and white this ridicously cute pale pink nose!!
I brought dinner, which happened to be fish and it's SSOO very cute, (the kitten, not the fish)!!
I really considered smuggling the kitten into my room, which would pose no problem at all since I can hide it in my oversized jumper. but it's the keeping of the adorable ball of fluff and not getting discovered is the risky bit.
Nevertheless I spent at least half an hour playing with the dear, thinking what I should name her, for a moment naming it after me seemed to be okay, but what if the kitten ended up being run over by a car or something? Or there might be some lunatic out there, waiting in the shadows for a lovely little kitten to appear before he abducts it, and trades it in Russia in order to buy nuclear war arms for the US, and then makes it live in the mountains eating soggy goat cheese for the rest of it's life wearing a tea cosy and nothing else??
Now that I think about it, I shouldn't name the kitten after me then..

Anyway I wouldn't want my namesake ending with such an untimely tragic death, so I just named it 'Precious', the exact same name I called the kitten that I found under the sink of the AEP pottery studio, 3 years ago, after the Thai trip. If I recall correctly, Claudia and Joyce were the only 2 in the studio when I stumbled across my find. So each of us had the honour of naming each one of the 3 newborns.

Besides, they both are almost identical physical wise, except for the fact that 'precious' the AEP kitten was male, (ok, so i don't get points for originality, but do i really care?) and it was still technically named after me since I'm so precious.

Sigh I miss the kitten, hid it behind the boards outside the studio on the 2nd floor as no student was doing woodwork at that time and would ever venture to that area of the studio for no good reason. So during every lesson break, free period, or AEP lesson, I would check up on the kitten and bring it food or milk, he's quite fond of corned beef and marmalade sandwiches (not mixed together, of course).

I brought 'Precious' when we moved school much to the displeasure of my art teacher who's pretty much petrified of cats, and to my knowledge he (the kitten, not my teacher) still roams the grounds there, sigh, I bet no one ever feeds him (he likes sashimi over tuna) or even gives him milk.

 
Friday, 26 March, 9.08 am

Not much a consistent diary keeper, am I? It's been exactly quite a while since I last updated this, 'journal'. Well been busy with the constant bombardment of tests and the worst thing is that they'll be counted, just like lower sec. Darn.
Note to you all: procrastinating is bad cause it'll kill you in the long run, unless you don't mind handing up sloppy work, then go ahead, it's fine but it's pretty much what I do, actually only for English cause I pretty much don't give a damn about it.. not my fault that the teacher gets on my nerves constantly..

Thursday, 1 April, 10.50pm

Had an excursion to Sydney university library, which was pretty great, cause we were excused from classes for the day, the university is in 'central' its just opposite Broadway which is a shopping area, its like far east area of orchard. There are quite a few charming vintage shops with the most endearing accessories, oooo and they've got Sportsgirl there too, which I have become very fond of recently. Seems that I quite like Queen Victoria Building (QVB) as well, it's a very quaint version of paragon, traditional architecture. I'm at a loss for words when it comes to describing QVB, the shops there are mostly way out of my spending budget, but unknown to most; it is the basement that is filled with the bargains. People can't believe how much time I spend shopping but they don't know that I would scout around like a scent dog or whatever, and go through practically everything in a shop and try to sift out the gems pieces. After that I'll feel very pleased with my buys, though sometimes I end up buying on impulse, for example, should I see something that I SO must buy, I'll just buy it on the spot, instead of going back and obsessing if I should get that particular item.
Shopping is very fulfilling, wouldn't you agree?







16:01

wwwwhhhhhheeeeeeee!! Just got back from the regatta today, thank God Jeremy assigned course B to me (ness too), otherwise i would have died being around so many opti kids for the entire weekend, all screaming their heads out, whining and most would probably end up crying for their mummies either during thunderstorms, capsizing, collisions, sustaining boo-boos, someone else giving them dirty wind or whatever. Could stab Jeremy to death with a spoon for telling me to report at NSRCC at 9.45 when the first race was scheduled to start at 1 plus, and we were only required to head out to sea at what, noon? so ended wasting a whole lot of time when i could have been sleeping in for another hour or two, or even squeeze in a couple of cartoons, if i'm not wrong there was supposed to be Zim and Fairy Odd Parents on.
Anyway i tried killing some time by exploring NSRCC with the intention of familiarizing myself to the place as i've only been there a couple of times before. After walking around the entire vicinity of the club which lasted only 45 mins, i can safely conclude that it really does pale in comparison to SAF not only in terms of facilites but activities to do there, with the exception of windsurfing.
Fortunately, had interesting company throughout the entire regatta, with the usual GKA buddy Jason, Mary Ann too. Jason has now passed from being extremely tanned to chao ta, it's pretty difficult to determine who's darker, him or Jacky. We all managed to yak on and on till the great assigning of our responsibilities and the power boats we're placed on for the entire duration of the regatta.
The OD boat was under the command of 4 great old (old, in every sense of the word) senior sailors with years and years of experience. Closer to my generation, there was Gary, Jack, Ness and I. During the introduction session, as soon as Gary introduced himself as Gary, Ness and I chorused together, 'GGGAAAARY the snail!' (it's Spongebob's pet cat which is actually a snail that goes meow) then we burst out laughing at ourselves and from Gary's expression, one could tell that he was pretty much freaked out by us, lol. So Ness and I proceeded to terrorise him the whole day, calling him Snail instead.
More than an hour had passed since we left the shore and anchored at the race area, but there was no wind whatsoever, so we had to patiently wait for the wind to pick up so we could set the race course and start the race. It's actually fascinatiing to tie up all the flags, you can learn about what the different flags represent, either when they are flown individually or as a bunch, and when you're supposed to hoist them up at different parts of the race. The black flag was missing and i suggested that we improvise using the garbage bag (see, going for the power boat course actually teachs you something), then uncle David joked that using the garbage bag for a flag might seem that the OD boat is full of rubbishy crap ie. the people on board.
All set to start the race, but the only thing that stopped us from doing so was cause the stupid byte sailors decided to only start launching now and it would take them a good half an hour or more to sail out here. Oh great, now we have more time on our hands to waste, whoopdeedo!
Ness and I were asking Gary for more information about himself but Jack said it seemed more like an interrogation rather than a friendly we-just-wanna-get-to-know-you question and answer session. Our little info digging session was interrupted by someone else on a mark boat, so Ness started on her cook book whilst i continued on 'Angels and Demons' (correction, it's not ONE of the best books i've read recently, it IS the best book) then snail was done conversing with the mark boat driver and foucsed back on the two of us, enquiring what we were reading then Ness started on her passion about food and told him what she was planning to cook from that Thai cook book, yay! lucky me, i'll be happily stuffing myself with Nessie's cooking, see the advantages of having a sister who loves to cook and aspires to attend cordon bleu and become a world reknowned chef.
snail priobably regretted asking me what my book was about, cause i started rattling about the brilliance of the concept and contents in detail (refer to previous entry to get the gist of the story) then started to digress to ancient civilisation history, art history, and greek mythology, unaware that i had spent almost an entire hour going on and on and on about it. (note: never get me started on those topics unless you don't mind me providing torrents of infomation that would be super difficult to contain once released)
Hmmm.. seems i'll have to continue this entry later, basically it'll be about whatever happened after the first race was started..
19:03

Had arrived at the airport at 7.15 with every intention of doing a bit of last minute duty free shopping whilst waiting for my 9.45 flight, otherwise do you think i would be there so early? Imagine to my utmost horror when the queue for the check out counter spanned almost the entire terminal of the airport, thank god, I had thought ahead and brought something to read – "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown (one of the best books I've ever read, well then again, it would appeal to you if you're interested in ancient history, art history esp. the renaissance period and the concept of science and religion being one of the same entity instead of two completely separate phenomenon, though the physics part pretty much left me stumped)
I can honestly recount that the airport terminal was in total pandemonium, there were these over-boisterous Greece football fanatics, i was bored enough to count that there were 89 of them (it wasn't very difficult to differentiate them from the normal traveler, well they were clad in blue and white striped jerseys and happily bouncing about cheering for their team, which from their expression, tells me that they qualified for the UEFA or whatever it is. I overheard a few conversations from which I gathered enough information to conclude that they won free trips or something to Europe to watch that particular match, thus their madcap enthusiasm and football spirit).
Ok back to me on Friday night, as already established in the paragraphs before, the airport's packed, noisy, and rowdy- basically the environmental conditions that I can't tolerate- argh, pass me a fork to stab myself then let me slowly bleed to death.
Finally managed to check in at 10!! When my flight was initially set for 9.45, talk about inefficient. Damned flight is now rescheduled to leave 45 mins later, oh well, should have expected that from them in the first place, I can't wait to leave!!!
Home sweet home!! Can't believe I just said that..

00:17