Sweet little lies...

I was watching Chasing Liberty last night.




It's one of my favourite shows ( apart from the notebook) which I love watching over and over again. Of course it's a chick flick... duhhh

Most people would say that Mandy Moore isn't really good at what she does.
She's not an awesome singer neither is she an actress that wins academy awards and stuff.
But somehow, I love shows with her in it.
Like in "A Walk To Remember" and "Because I Said So"

and did you see how cute that guy is???

who doesn't love a guy in sneakers...
and with that accent he has... to die for

Anyways, about halfway through the movie, there's these few lines which always seem to catch my attention every single time I watch it. I've written an entry about it years ago but thought I'd do it again.

Here goes...

"Telling the truth isn't always good and lying isn't always bad.
If telling the truth makes someone feel bad, then lying could be good
Good things can come from lying and bad things can come from telling the truth
Although sometimes, telling only part of the truth is just the same as telling a lie..."

Go figure...

Till the next one,
have a great weekend

Music=Life

It's 8.26 pm now and I've officially done NOTHING productive the entire day (other than cooking chicken rice for lunch)

Waking up late makes my productivity level suck big time.
I have HOWEVER been watching heaps of youtube videos thanks to eeling.
She asked me to check out this acoustic guitarist on youtube which sounds really good.

but i found someone BETTER. muahahhaha
This 20 year old fella (somewhere on the other side of the globe) sings really well
too bad he's only twenty.
He plays the piano and sings like there's no tomorrow.




Oh, did i mention he plays DISNEY songs too???
and I love disney songssssss

Feels like i'm back in my younger teen years where we used to fall for boy-bands like westlife and 911. *staring into space*

Go check him out at http://www.youtube.com/user/ilajil
and waste about an hour or so checkin out the videos...

Till the next one,
let the music heal your soul....

Back on track ... almost

and so the holidays are over and everyone's getting back on track.
the semester has begun, people are back from their winter holidays and students are complaining about having to wake up early again. morning classes, don't they suck big time?

I took my own winter break as well.
I didn't technically have a break since I was supposed to be working hard on my thesis, but you know me. I NEED my break. After the entire semester of deadlines, presentations, essays and research proposals; I'd go insane if I didn't take a few days off.

I took about a week off and it was really good not having to worry about any work at all during that short period of time.
Sleeping in, skipping breakfast (not recommended, very unhealthy), lunch, dinner and then supper.
Oh, and i watch heaps of movies over the past two weeks.
Renting DVDs on Tuesdays are dirt cheap, $1 for a dvd
So, over the past two weeks it's been :
X-Men 2
X-Men 3: The Last Stand
American History X (awesome one. go watch it if you haven't)
Jumper
The Insider
The Lake House
Sex and the City
Serendipity
Definitely, Maybe
Must Love Dogs
Harold and Kumar
Waterworld
Ghost
Laws of Attraction

I know they're really old ones but it's nice to watch them over again with a hot cuppa tea and my favourite timtams.

Over the weekend, we tried to enjoy our holidays as much as we could. We went to Brunswick Street to have a good lunch at some cafe, went to Harbour Town Shopping Centre at Waterfront City, Docklands (where the boys bought new games for the PS2) and watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Friday.

We also went to Williamstown, a place where everything seemed so peaceful and calm.
It's about a 20 minute train ride away from the city and when you're there, you leave all your worries behind in the city. There's also a Sunday market by the Pier which as usual sells stuff that we don't necessarily need. We had dinner there before we left, at this Thai restaurant called Siam Orchid.






But this week, the boys are back to school.
They've got everything ready, except themselves.
Who's ever ready to go back to school?


So it's time I get back to work as well.
I went to uni this morning to see my supervisor regarding my ethics application.
And it did not go too well. I had wayyyyy too much information on the application form (which apparently was a huge no-no) and had loads to amend cause they wouldn't approve it.
Also, I had a bit of problem with my sampling method and methodology.
Terrible start which gave me no motivation whatsoever to boost the new semester.
Nevertheless, I've got the weekend to get it all together and hand it in again on Tuesday.

On the other hand, at least a bit of good news came along.
I've been wanting to get a part-time job which would help me money-wise but not take up too much of my time either. Last semester, I was working at a bookstore selling university textbooks. But the downside of that place was that it only needed more staff during the 'peak periods'; meaning at the start of the semester where all the uni students would be needing their books for the new sem. After the first month of the new semester, business is slow (since everyone's got their books already) and he doesn't really need us to go to the shop to help anymore.

I wanted to tutor at uni last semester but the tutoring classes clashed with my own units.
But this sem, I've managed to get some tutoring hours at uni for a first year unit, Foundations of Marketing. wohoo..kinda excited about it. Apart from the fact that it would make all my studying for the past three years worthwhile, tutoring pays much better compared to any other job. Of course, I'd need to set aside some time to prepare for the tutes. But then again, who's complaining.. Will be greeting the students at Tuesday's lecture and tutes start the following week. Wish me luck!

Hopefully everything will be smooth-sailing from now till the end of the semester.

Till the next one,
say goodbye to your winter holidays and welcome back to reality!
hugs to all..

Stubborn Nutella

I've been craving for desserts lately, churros, chocolate, creme brulee...
I had pancakes the other day at a cafe at Williamstown, strawberry pancakes I might add, and it was TERRIBLE. So soggy and 'not cooked' on the inside and burnt on the outside :(

So, I decided to make myself some crepes tonight and it finally satisfied my cravings.
Managed to make six pieces of crepes, so we all got two pieces each, two for myself, hunlin and my housemate, thong.

Since I didn't have strawberries or fruits that would go well with crepes, I had to resort to the only two things that would go well with crepes. Honey and nutella


I bought my first bottle of nutella two weeks ago cause I felt like having chocoalatt-ie spreads
It goes really well with crepes but hell, its stubborn

So damn difficult to spread it.
And i've gotta be so nice and gentle or my thin piece of crepe would tear

Even though it looks messy and kinda 'disgusting', it tastes good okayyy..
The boys (hunlin and housemate thong) preferred it with nutella but I still like the classic honey topping

Will update soon enough about my day out to Williamstown.

Till the next one,
have a sweet crepe

p/s: Happy Belated Birthday Judy! Sorry the post is a little late. Hope you had an awesome one

mwisss you loadsssss

Missed Maccas

When I first got here, I had no clue what everyone were talking about when they kept using this weird word which I've never heard of before in their sentences."

"Maccas" (pronounced: mac-curse) hahaha

At first it was "Let's go to maccas"
So I guessed it was some place.

Then it was, "Let's have some maccas for lunch mate"
Second guess, food!! muahahahahaha

So obviously, with the help of google, which i might have to add, never lets us down, I goggled "maccas"
I didn't even think it would come up. I mean, what kinda word/slang thing is that?


And I'm guessing it DOES exist



And of course, what else would it be, other than the famous McDonald's.


I was thinking to myself. It's odd how one thing/franchise/whatever-you-wanna-call-it is known all around the world as the same thing (Fast food) but every country HAS to come up with something to make it 'their own'.

We Malaysians back home call it Mc-D (pronounced: mac-dee)
At least that sounds much like the original one.

But how does one come up with Maccas???
And make the entire country use it instead of the 'old-fashioned' McDonald's???
cangih-ness

imagine one day, Kentucky Fried Chicken might be known as 'Chikiee' or something

anyhowwwwww....
I've been wanting/craving to have maccas breakfast for weeks now.
I've never had it much back home in malaysia cause my mom dislikes the idea of fast food/burgers/fries and such. So we don't really get the chance to have mcD unless it's a McFlurry ice-cream.
Just this year, I've been starting to really enjoy the maccas breakfast that they serve.
Especially the sausage egg mcmuffin. yummie!~
And the set comes with a hash brown and a cuppa tea/coffee/juice/softdrink.
Cost for maccas breakfast : $5.45 (i think)





One thing about the breakfast menu is that they start friggin early at like 6am and serves it all morning till 10.30am where the menu switches to the usual one.
10.30 doesn't seem that early for them to stop serving breakkie but when we're students who sleep in, it's no surprise that we can't make it in time.
We've missed the breakfast menu about three times now but just a few minutes.
We wake up at 10, realise we've only got half an hour left, wash up and rush out the door. It used to be a 5-10 minute walk to the nearest maccas and by the time we reach there, they've changed it to the usual menu. The worst one was when we were already lining up. There were about three people in front of us. And two of them got their breakkie. When we reached the cashier, they said they've stopped serving breakfast!!!!!! what the??

So last night, we decided to have our breakkie at maccas and I set my phone alarm to 9.30am to make sure we have sufficient time make it there.
Hell, maccas is now just accross the road from my place since I'm not stayin at my old place anymore.
AS USUAL, the alarm goes off and the snooze button goes into action. It's a 10 minute snooze.
It goes of AGAIN and I snooze it AGAIN.
By the time I actually get up, it's 10.10am! SHIT. Breakfast stops at 10.30! I wake hunlin up and rush to the bathroom to wash up. No time for a shower. I'll miss my hash browns! When I get back to the room, (time check 10.20: we can still make it) he's still snoring, obviously in deep sleep.

THERE GOES MY BREAKFAST!@!@!@!@!@!

thanks to that, I've gotta resort to home-cooked scrambled eggs and nescafe

till the next one,
have breakfast in the mornings and stay healthy!

Snatch and RUN

It was around 4pm or so yesterday when hunlin and I were at QV in Melbourne. We were about to get something to eat/drink/munch at the food court but decided against it and decided to go to Starbucks instead to get a cuppa caramel macchiato.

We took the escalator up and stopped outside Max Brenner to watch the kids ice-skate in the small rink that they created for the winter. Large, thin pieces of ice were laid down at an open area which allowed people to rent (very blunt) skates to skate while their family members watched from the side, attempting to teach them how to keep their balance, snapping photos as they glide across the ice and happily clapping when their child/friend finally manages to skate without having to constantly hold onto the sides or another friend.

QV was packed yesterday and it was quite a cold and windy day too. People were packed both inside and outside of Max Brenner catching up with a warm cuppa hot chocolate.

As we were about to leave QV, we heard loud screams from this girl about 20 metres behind us. We turned back to see what was going on and then we saw this guy run past us very very quickly. What immediately came to mind was this idea that"there they go again, young teenagers trying to play around, one making fun of another and then running off".

We didn't think much of it and just tried to see if we could spot who the immature young teenagers were.

Then we heard another loud scream again. This time, we could make out what she was say. At the top of her voice in a very Korean accent, she screamed "SOMEBODY HELP ME! PLEASE! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!"

It took us about 3-5 seconds to actually make out what she was saying with the very thick Korean accent that she had.
And then it struck me.
Her bag/purse got snatched by the guy who just ran past us just about 10 seconds ago.

A snatch theft happened just before our eyes.
He ran just past us.
And we didn't do anything about it.
We thought it was just a joke.
He ran past us too quickly.
We didn't even think of sticking our legs out to make him trip and fall on his face!

Then, the 'screaming girl' ran past us, pointing ahead indicating that THAT guy just snatched from her. Behind her was her other friend who was running after them.
The moment that girl screamed "somebody help me" over and over again, this guy who was at Max Brenner having coffee got off his seat and ran after the thief.
Damn was he fast!
He ran past the girl like the incredibles kid.
He didn't look back and kept running after that ass-of-a-fella that snatched whatever it was from that girl.

We, as the busy-body-people that we all naturally are, tried to see if we could keep up with the commotion that was going on.
But hell were they fast.

By the time we got out of QV area and headed to the traffic light, we saw across the street, both the girls, and the good samaritan and a few others.
I'm guessing that they caught the guy, got back their stuff and let that bastard go his way.
The girls had a relieved "thanks for helping us" look and the 'we-just-got-snatched" look had began to fade away.

What was he thinking?
That he could get away on the streets of Melbourne?
In broad daylight on Swanston Street?
No way in hell would he have escaped with her stuff.

That's one good thing about the City of Melbourne.
Even though there's always drunk people on the streets at night thanks to the 'extreme binge drinking problem' that they have here, there are and will always be people who are kind enough to help another stranger in times of distress.

There wasn't just one guy who stood up and ran after the thief.
If I recall well enough, there were at least three people (guys of course) who took the initiative to help.
Even though Melbourne is not free of crime, it's a relief knowing that people will stand up for another.

Halfway around the world,
Michael 'The King of Pop' Jackson's memorial took place the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, CA.
The time where thousands of friends, families and fans gathered to pay tribute to the legend. To acknowledge the great impact he brought to the world. Demolishing the barrier between colours, nations and bringing people together as one.

The memorial service was live at 2.45am Melbourne Time this morning so I only watched the repeat at 11am. Mariah Carey, Usher, Stevie Wonder and many others sang songs to remember him by. Other friends and family like Kenny Ortega, Martin Luther King III and Brooke Shields took the stage with words about MJ that touched the world.

Jermaine Jackson (MJ's brother) took the stage to sing MJ's favourite song, Smile.
It's clear that MJ will always be remembered, even though he's not here anymore.

Till the next one,
Stay safe from the snatch thefts and goodbye MJ


p/s: I finally went to watch 'The Proposal' yesterday. 10 dollar tickets. Hilariously funny. Chick flick. Go watch it soon!

Hullo July

With a blink of an eye, its JULY!
It's scary how time flies by just like that.

While everyone is already on their winter break, I'm struggling through the week with my research proposal. Eff-ing irritating.
I'm hardly progressing but I've gotta pick up the speed soon enough or I won't pull this one through.

Tuesday was two days ago and I WAS supposed to go to the movies to catch The Proposal. Tuesday nights are movie nights and all shows are only 10 dollars. Adults, kids, students, senior citizens, others; whichever category you fit into.
Since I stay in the city and it's only about a 10 minute walk to the cinema from my place, we take for granted that if we leave at say 8.45 pm, we'll get there in time to buy the tickets, line up for some snacks/drinks to catch the 9 o'clock movie. Especially since the movies here start about 10-15 minutes later than the stated time. Hell, transformers started half an hour later than time time it should have!

Without bothering about getting tickets, we had dinner while watching Masterchef on tv at 7 - 7.30 and then "Talkin' bout your generation" until 8.30. Then, we got changed and left the place to Melb Central to get our tickets for The Proposal at 9pm. When we got there, everything was SOLD OUT! Like everything except Terminator (which I've watched already) and New York. Didn't know what New York was about so we decided against watching it, just in case it was a waste of money and there goes 20 dollars.

We ended up heading to the DVD shop nearby our place to rent some dvds. Since it was Tuesdays, all DVDs were only a dollar each! Except the new release ones. So we managed to get 5 movies for only 5 bucks! 15 dollars cheaper than the movies. Of course you don't have surround sound system la. Australia (the movie) which has been out for ages was available. And yes, I have yet to watch that one. And it turned out to be quite alright. Not awesome or breath-taking neither was it long and boring. A good watch I'd say.

And now, two days later, I'm forced to focus on my research proposal once again.
Haven't done much since Monday and I'm starting to worry.
But since I am (and always have been) awesome at procrastinating, this is somewhat normal.

Till the next one,
happie winter holidays to all