I'm currently so pumped with panadol and berocca that it's actually helping me to focus and concentrate on my reports. and i just realised that the new panadol comes coated with a film for easier swallow-bility (and it doesn't taste so bitter anymore).

those geniuses at GlaxoSmiteKline. god bless them.

I get a little sensation of thrill everytime i send something from my folder of documents or desktop into my recycle bin. Like just now, for instance.

Just knowing that you've virtually binned old PDF files, reports which you scored only mediocre-ly, horribly darkened pictures and plain general trash that you will never bother reading again is quite liberating.

You know that feeling, giving the file a final look-through or one last read to see if it is significant or relevant enough to be retained and then pressing that little red-square. Viola! it has vanished from the memory of your computer and hopefully will vanish too, from your own subconsciousness.

In fact, it is EXTREMELY liberating.

p.s. and don't forget to empty that damned bin. very important final step to ensure maximum satisfaction.

This happened at 12.08 a.m.

[Edit: it is now 1.46 a.m. and there's a huge bruise on my elbow...and an even uglier bruise on my knee!!!! i look like a victim of leprosy.]

Oh fuck. this is so embarassing..too embarassing but i just have to blog about it!

for the first time ever i fell out of my hammock while attempting to climb in to it.

sat on it. swung both legs over and in to it. tried to adjust position by heel-ing myself upwards. lost my balance. swerved to the right. BAM on to the floor with my laptop still in hand and a loud and resounding OHFUCK!.

slammed my right elbow, right knee (basically my whole right side) and a corner of my laptop (SHITTTE!). then found myself lying on the floor. dusty, mind you, cos i haven't had the time to sweep it yet.

asfoairhgjaoirganawtfknnbccbagnaounrgandsnmhcb!($@*$(!#!
OWWWW!

my right knee hurts!!!!! *cries*

thank god i tied my hammock low...it's only 5 cm above ground. THANK GOD.

but still embarassing, nontheless.

The day the world became downside-up.

For all ye people of little faith; the ones in open declaration like waiking, cheehung and xiang...and the ones who chose to remain quiet in disbelief. i am so disappointed in all of you!



Before: No meat, see? None at all.



After: Yumm..and the spots on on the top of the egg is NOT meat, if you were already beginning to snigger and wanting to point out the obvious. it's CHOY POU. or..preserved vegetable. And my watercress was DAMN yummy.



Chicken stew...10% chicken, 90% potato+carrot+onion+mushrooms+oregano. however, no celery. i may be a sell-out but i'm not stupid.



More watercress madness.

okok..so i hear a few of you, especially you, cch (grr!!) saying stuff like..

'ala mel, not you cook oso..'

or

'ala mel, you MAY have cooked it but you won't eat oso..'

or

'ala mel, you know this a freaking conspiracy about the landing of the moon because Armstrong did NOT land on the moon that fine July 20, 1969 evening but instead it was recorded in some makeshift studio out in the deserts of Nevada (or Texas, BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER DAMNIT!) just to piss the Soviet Union off. NASA, the american and australian governments are all involved and the world will blow up in 10 days. oh...and you don't eat vegetables so DON'T LIE..!'

Therefore, i give you photographic evidence! Ta-DAA!



'ala mel..' DIAM!



Yum. I have conformed to society! *joy(?)*

and just because.

Kids, eat your vegetables.

OMMFUHHH-GEEEE!!

I think I'm finally cured!

*inside-joke-which-may-not-be-so-inside-after-all*

Sleeeeeep la..with the last song and a smile.

I quote Austen.

It is a truth universally acknowledged yet treated with much scepticism that the decision to move out into the world on your own will bring great changes to your lifestyle and any principles that you may have generated prior.

The matter in which i'm trying to illustrate is that ever since moving out, i have found myself becoming increasingly...domesticated. I have taught myself to be extremely thrifty up to the point where every 70cents i shell out makes me go..."Ahh..there goes another lime". I also find myself deriving extreme pleasure when grocery shopping; prowling up and down the aisles of Coles and Paddy's market for the best bargains on chicken breat meat, garlic and potatoes. I daresay my mother would be very proud of me.

And when i'm in the shower at the end of the day, my method of relaxation is to conjure up recipes for tomorrow as i decide what i shall be cooking for lunch and dinner. A conversation which would normally run through my head goes like this:

Ahh...what to cook tomorrow?
Eh, you have damn a lot of kangkung in the fridge la.
Yea ok, but i lazy wanna cook that for lunch la!
Just chuck into the maggi, chuck and egg and some mushrooms.
Mmm..ok. *imaginary sceptical look*
And then dinner i think i'll make chicken stew. Meaaaattt...*imaginary self-satisfied smile*
Eh, no...maybe i'll cook rice instead...seriously damn lot of vegetables la, cannot keep.
Aahhhh...rice very mafan la.
Hmmm...what to cook tomorrow?

Every single night. Without fail.

Which leads me to this final point which i personally find so damning on myself and my own character. Ever since moving out, i've found this particular trait slowly yet surely creeping upon me and overwhelming me...enveloping me in its foul black smoke of deceit. I fear i may have become semi-vegetarian!!!



As you can see from the above, half of my fridge's contents comprise of vegetables (there were more yesterday..i've already done damage to the current population today), in little bags which i have so painstakingly and lovingly allocated for each meal. I did not even realise that i was doing some such thing. It does not help The Cause that vegetables are so much more cheaper than meat. Furthermore, i find myself becoming more anxious about my fibre intake, now that i'm living by myself. It is terrible; this feeling of having to be responsible for your own actions.

And for two days in a row now, i've had Maggi Mee curry flavour with an egg scrambled into the soup together with a great big handful of kangkung and sliced up fresh mushrooms thrown in. Yea...the sceptic in me was blown away by how delicious it tasted...albeit an entirely vegan meal.

I feel as though i'm selling out my principles and hardcore Nazi stance on how vegetables are all things evil. If one day you find me *God forbid* chewing on a stalk of celery, please do me a favour and shoot me. One clean shot, aimed clearly at my left temple. That is all i'm asking.

p.s. in a vain attempt to salvage what is left of my carnivorous self, i cooked myself a proper breakfast this morning, none of the milk+sultana bran shit. scrambled eggs with cheese and 4 rashes of BACON on a slice of toast. yum.

Global warming is REAL!

It is midway through Autumn and i'm still walking around in shorts and a t-shirt; which i've never been able to do before. This is madness, even though i'm thoroughly enjoying it..It's still madness nontheless.

And because we humans are exploitive by nature, how better to exploit this end-of-the-world situation than by going to the beach? Mmmm...best Easter ever.





And even though you depleted my stocks of Maggi, never turned off the hot water tap tight and proper so that it's ALWAYS dripping, made me spend AUD(undisclosed sum) on clothes and miscellanous items, turned my whole room upside down, caused me to get NO WORK done, left my toilet light on for a whole day, spilt beer on my carpet AND co-erced me into drinking copious amounts of devil-juice (that's alcohol to you)... I STILL LOVE YOU!

A little more photos just to wrap this all up.






Red wine is very good for health...anti-oxidants and all that, you know.



Yea, know your place and stay there, Waiking.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
Noooo!! sorry, i didn't mean that..buy me more roast duck! sorry.

oh GIRL!

WE MISSED YOU!

Boo sama dia!!

BAH!

that is the only word that i feel is sufficient enough to describe the disappointment in which i'm currently feeling. my partner-in-crime, the one person i could count on (or thought i could, actually), my rock in times of trouble and uncertainty, my drinking buddeeeeeee!!



Yes, that is her! not passed out (like how i was hoping for) but ASLEEP! without a single drop of alcohol in her blood! what happened to our girly talks you promised me!? what happened to the ideas of drinking champagne under the stars?! what happened to sleeping at 4 a.m.!? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?!

i am disillusioned.



So yes, this is my glass of Absolut Kurant+apple&cranberry juice..feeling very lonely and sad at the moment because it is but one...when there could've been another to keep it company!!

there will be some reckoning delivered tomorrow, mark my words.

Pain.

Edit: OMFGardensnails...it's now 9:03 pm and i'm truly paying the price for not warming-up properly. kids, remember to warm up before you do ANYTHING. i have failed you, OBS-Morning-Exercise's Warm-up Routine.

I woke up this morning afternoon feeling like a 90 year old unicorn...disillusioned and in pain. and by pain, i mean feeling every muscle in my body go stiff and rigid but still spasming. all i wanted to do was lie in bed the whole day because then i'd be horizontal...and maybe the pain would go away..*wail*. the reason for this pain was from playing badminton the previous morning. competitive badminton. sigh...all that stretching and bending and running and lunging does not sit well with these old bones. and then at night it was off to a malaysian society party. which made me really miss maison...because the music there that night was quite shit. but overall it was good. something truly amazing though: my hair is still retaining the smell of my shampoo! no ciggie smoke on my clothes! WONDERFUL! clubs in KL should really take note.


one of the few photos we took...before the camera was relegated to the cloak room.

so currently, i'm finding difficulty in doing simple everyday things...like sitting on a toilet for eg.

Vegetables and Resurrection.

I find it quite amazing that i've already been in Sydney for 6 weeks now. time's passes so much faster when life is a routine...anyway, i went grocery shopping today. as i was walking through the aisles of Coles, i finally convinced myself to buy some vegetables because my reasoning was that it's cheaper and *cough* healthier and 'sides, i DO eat vegies, even if it's just kangkung and the occasional chinese spinach. however all i could find were just bunches and bunches of pak choy, silver beet and celery. terrible. as i walked away, a part of me was crowing in triumph because i had stayed true to my partial anti-vegetable stance.

but as i was leaving Coles, the anti-thesis of my vegetable-hating self started whispering again and hence i dragged myself down to Harris's Farm. i was quite sure that i'd find some vegetables which were edible in my pov there. as i perused through Harris's Farm, i found myself grow smaller and smaller...and more lost. there were HEAPS of vegetables there..none of which names i knew. and it seemed to me as if the rows and rows of vegetables were laughing at me and mocking me...because i couldn't tell the difference between cabbage and lettuce. if you could see me, you'd laugh too..because i was just standing around with this confounded and befuddled look on my face, trying to work out which vegetables were what.. while all around me people were grabbing bunches of greens at the speed of light.

finally i spied some chinese spinach which i've seen my uncle cook before and was about to grab them but they looked disgustingly old and not fresh...and when i was turning them around to inspect it, the bunch i was holding had 2 leeches on them. no joke. leeches. on a bunch of chinese spinach. then i thought to myself...'hooo shit, it'd be damn funny if i told the OB guys i got a leech bite from buying vegetables'...which further convinced me that vegetables are evil.

in the end, i bought a quarter of a watermelon, 2 bunches of grapes and some mushrooms. i figured that as a source of dietary fibre for my next week..it'd be sufficient. i'm happy.

ANYWAY! it's Easter! tomorrow..hehehe..i've been to church 3 times so far this week and later i'll be going to church again, for the Easter Vigil..where we'll be lighting candles and the whole church will be dark and nice and romantic AND i hope the leng chai priest will be there again.

most people think that Christmas is the highlight of the Christian calendar but it's actually Easter that's the most important day of all. Easter is about the Christ dying on the cross for the redemption of mankind from sin and then resurrecting again and finally his ascension into Heaven. basically it's the crux of Catholic/Christian faith la. i've never really been a religious person and the only times i ever pray is when i'm in church, or when i'm looking for a parking space in Midvalley OR when i want something. However, i guess being alone in Sydney has strengthened my faith in God because i've been in so many comprimising situations and walked away unscathed and unharmed that it can only mean one thing: either i'm EXTREMELY lucky, or it's God and angels watching over me. either way, i'm thankful.

AND for the first time EVER, Melanie shall quote the bible, John 20:24-28:

But Thomas was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."

Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

OK..i admit i lifted that from the some documentary i was watching one day about how we, as Catholics and Christians find ourselves increasingly on the quest of finding miracles and weeping statues of Mary to reaffirm our faith...when all God wants is just our absolute trust and faith alone devoid of all these 'proof'. but it is already such a struggle to place faith and trust on people whom we know, things that we can see and understand...how much harder would it be to place faith and trust on something that we can't see, don't really know...and can't possibly understand?

Aaahhh..sweet religion. Don't worry Lord, i have absolute faith in You. even though by my knowledge accumulated through 1st and 2nd years of Geology, i've come to a conclusion that the Great Flood and Noah's Ark as well as the Creation of the World is fake...i'll just take it that You've got a great sense of humour, like me. High-5.


Love, Melanie and the little Lindt bunny.

i had a dream last night and now i'm kinda a little afraid of falling asleep.

So this is *deleted*.




I shall never go hungry again!



And this is Room 1 of *deleted*.


Bathroom to the left.



See? SEE? Aren't those mirrors THE BEST!?



And this is the amazingly awesome collage of happy colourful photos of happy colourful people of Room 1 of *deleted*.





Mmmm...i feel all happy and tingly already aka The Day Mel Figured Out How To Use The Depth And Macro Options In Her Camera.

it gets a little better each time. this time around, the chokey-feeling in my throat only lasted for a short while after which i bid her a cheery farewell and waved until she disappeared behind the frosted glass. i like to think that it is because i've said so many good-byes that i know it'll just be a matter of time before we meet again. however i have this nagging suspicion that it's just me building a wall around my emotions. you know it'll hurt, why not just block it out?

anyway, now that my mom has gone home, i can truly say that i've finally achieved independance. yay for me! *claps* i'm approaching this new found freedom with the mentality that i normally adpot when i'm in OB...chock-full with optimism!

and to prove how optimistic i was, i cooked my first meal in the apartment tonight (maggi mee doesn't count)!! i fried eggs with chopped up green beans. and the beans were still a little..cruncy..because i mixed it into the egg without first cooking them slightly. however i still ate them with a smile upon my face because it was so damn delicious, despite the over-crunchiness. vegetables! i know..i'm a sell-out.

bottomline is: it feels good to be sleeping on a bed again.

will take some pictures of the place when i think it looks presentable. hehehe.