The last post for 2011

And BAM! It’s the end of 2011 already!! As usual, time past really fast doesn’t it? Some may think that they are getting old but I prefer to think that I’m still really young. Cause next year is just 2012 when I would probably live till 2071.. WOW~~ 2.0.7.1!! I wonder how the Earth would be then..

Anyway, instead of looking forward for a New Year, it’s also really important for us to reflect on this year, smile back on those funny memories and learn from the mistakes we had done. On a larger scale, this year is definitely a year to remember in the World’s history. There were numerous good news such as: the demise of Osama bin Ladin, Muammar Gaddafi and the recent Kim Jong-il, the US Army finally leaving Afghanistan after an exaggerated decade of war, the royal marriage of Prince William and Katherine and so on. But let’s not forget also the bad news that had happened this year: the unfortunate earthquake/tsunami in Japan that shook the entire globe, a string of disastrous earthquakes in Christchurch, the crippling economies of some European countries and many more.

For me personally, it definitely had been a great year albeit I had made tonnes of mistakes. What’s pivotal is I am contented with my performance in 2011. Yes, I still have a couple of 2011 Resolution that has yet to be crossed off the list such as a tattoo (yes, a tattoo.. but the prospect of getting it is getting slimmer by the minute), attending a concert, going to Gold Coast and dye my hair (they are still virgins!). I do plan to bring forward these resolutions though. 2011 has definitely taught me a lot in ways of life, how some things are just merely uncontrollable and how we should sometimes just let it be. Most importantly, as always, it taught me to look at things positively, no matter how bad the scenario is.

For 2012 I’m hoping to secure a job as an auditor in a mid-tier accounting firm (I know what you would be thinking, but I still love the auditing job!), excel in my job, buy a car by the end of the year, start paying off my parents for the piling debts I owed, go home to visit family and friends more often, be a supportive girlfriend, stay positive + healthy and finally, keep in touch with my mates! To the world, I wish 2012 would be an economic-disaster-free year, less wars and less racism issues.. I wished what Mr.Huntingdale said bout the wars caused by racism will finally cease. I mean, people really do not understand the power of posting something in the world wide web (Facebook especially). Respect others y’all!! No one is bloody perfect including yourself. So stop judging! *getting too heated up now*

In a nutshell, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Taking a leap to 2012~

In memory of my necklace and some awesome news

I lost my necklace..  two weeks ago. It’s not just ANY necklace, it’s THE necklace that my beloved parents gave me on my 21^st Birthday! It’s a symbol of their love to me. An asset. My protection against evil stuff. And most importantly, its bloody hell expensive!!! I know it is really bad to start blogging with a bad news and I don’t wanna spoil people’s mood and all… even so, I had to grieve for it! So bear with me… I lost it when I went for the medical check-up the other day and carelessly stuff it in my jean’s pocket. FRONT left pocket! I was utterly confident that it will not slip out.. OBVIOUSLY, I was wrong. Sigh…. So, if anyone of you might somehow stumble on a silver chain with a key pendant in the middle of Swanston St., please call me ASAP.  

On a lighter note, I do have a HUGE news to break. I got my Permanent Residency in Australia!!! Hehehehe! Wooohhooo! I still can’t believe it could be this soon, not that I’m complaining. It’s just another heavy issue taken off from my shoulder. Mind you, its Residency and not Citizenship. I’m still very much a proud Malaysian and my passport is still dark red colour. Anyhow, having this extra visa in my passport would open more doors for me and hopefully, *fingers and toes crossed* I would get an amazing job in my preferred field soon. Like.. real soon! Coz if truth be told, patience is not one of my many virtues.

On top of that, Terence and I miraculously found $90 cash under our table the other night! It was funny cause we were looking forward to check out this rooftop bar and decide to do so last Sunday.  And when we saw the cash, we merely left it under the table for five minutes and pretended we didn’t saw them. It was the most awkward five minutes between us as we kept quiet the entire time while looking around suspiciously. Personally, I thought we were in a reality show where the camera crew will jump out from the nearest bush as soon as we pick up the cash. Fortunately, there were none of those. We did picked the cash up eventually and left it untouched on our table. Then we made a pledge to wait for a good one hour for the owner to return. As much as we would like to be a good Samaritan, that didn’t happen. So we ended up with extra $90 in our purse. Hehehehe! Lucky eh?  What did we do with the money? Well, we donate it of course. To the Red Cross International Fund. For those who refuse to believe me, you may pop me an email and I’ll forward the receipt to you. Hmph! But yeah, although some would call us fool but considering the money doesn’t belong to us in the first place, it is only right to donate to those who need them even if it might not meant much. Correct? =) 

November parties~

Life’s good. No. It’s great albeit I’m without a permanent job. But hey, at least I’ve got enough points to apply for my PR over here and am still employed by Deakin as a casual staff. On top of that, have family that still cares for me, a handful amount of friends that loves and support me and most importantly, an understanding Honey (who keeps up with my whining, tantrums  and sudden chicken wing biting). Yeap, as mentioned, I AM still with Deakin – taking up the role in video production. In fact, I’ve directed and produced at least 9 videos now. I am seriously considering if I should upload it all on youtube/vimeo to use as my portfolio. Never know if some headhunters would find the secret talent in me. HOHOHO!!!!

I also had a housewarming party-slash-Tika’s Bday-slash-Billy’s Bday-slash-Mark’s Bday-slash-Avnit’s farewell party last weekend. It was AWESOME! Or at least, that’s what all the guest told me in the video while being in a tipsy mood. Billy who is famous for his mouth watering pumpkin soup had graciously volunteered himself to be our cook and we had a 5 star, 3 course dinner that night. Entrée is a cauliflower and carrot soup with a superb balance of flavour. Main is a slowly roasted roast lamb with steamed beans and grilled pumpkin, potatoes and carrots. He even catered for vegetarian by serving stuffed mushrooms. And finally, dessert is poached pear with berries and vanilla ice cream at the side. I am telling you, he is definitely missing his calling to be a chef. After dinner, we had a tiny slice of birthday cake and some fruits that Louise patiently cut and dressed for us. Bless that girl! Considering that each of them brought a bottle of wine for us (our bar is now doubled!), we had to serve them back. Let’s just say, at the end of the night, a fair amount of my guests are not walking straight anymore. Muahahhaha!!

Am so glad to have them around. =)

G.R.A.D~

Wooooohoooo! I’m done! Finish. GRADUATED!!

And may I just add that it is simply unforgettable. Dad, mom and Jie came over to Melbourne to support me. Alas, my house is a little too tiny to accommodate all of us but Tika was so considerate to excuse herself for a whole of two weeks! So we get to go CUCKOO!! And weather was very very co-operative too, which added to our cuckoo-ness.

Before my big day, we were actually travelling every single day. Let me just list out the itinerary: Phillip Island, Yarra Valley, Dandenong Ranges, Great Ocean Road, Geelong and most importantly, shopping. So many things to do, so little time! We had such a great time exploring and doing crazy poses albeit a little tiring.

Graduation was good too. We rented a small house at Geelong and it turned out to be the best decision ever! On graduation, we were all dressed up smartly. Mom and Jie imported a whole lot of dresses for my graduation so my garments department was no way short of choices. Not to forget my lovely Terence too. He had been such an amazing host to my family and was indeed very patient. Really supportive! Best BF ever! Hehhe. Anyway, although the amount of time I actually got on stage is approximately 5 precious mins but it’s worth it!

Now that my dearest family has gone home to Malaysia, life resumes to its usual self. Filming, editing and job searching. Sigh… so quiet… But honestly, I think my family had brought along a lot of luck to me. So hopefully, a job offer is not too far away! =)

Life is as sweet as Macarons! =)

Creativity vs accounting

“Have been doing”…”Have done”..  Yeap. I had been studying IELTS voraciously, something I’ve never thought I would need to do. I don’t know if I would even get Band 8 for all components but there’s no point ponder on things that had not happened eh?

Apart from that, my career is also taking some joyrides down the path of video development. Also something that I NEVER thought to do.. In fact, it is something which I am totally unfamiliar with. It started with Tika showing me some of her videos, a year ago, which I find really exciting. So, as the team leader at that time, I requested a video to be made of my team. I was turned down by the mere fact that it is too costly and time consuming. They told me it would take months!! Determined to have a video before I leave the team, I made one myself. Just for fun. I was so wrong… What I thought to be for my own personal eyes soon became the official promotional video for my team. Funnily, people seem to be interested in the video I made. Perhaps I’m their cheap and faster way to get a video done. I was then asked to do another video for the undergraduates which turned out alright… I think. And now?? I’ve three projects at hand and been pouring in hours to ensure they are as nice as they can be. Also, I’m crash and self- learning on video equipment and editing softwares. Honestly, I’m not really a creative person myself. So I had to spend some hours here and there doing research on how things should be done... Oh blimey! 

Change?

I watched Bridesmaids the other day. Not sure what the reviews said but honestly, I hated the main actress! (forgot her name cause I dislike her so much)… she’s this self-pity lad that is pretty much pathetic if you ask me. The whole world does not evolve around her and yet she seems to expect people to just focus on her sad little life. The movie, as a whole, is not bad though.

I believe that your life is in your own hand, after you minus out the religion’s influence of course. 

And if you choose to pity yourself, how can you expect others to respect you?

It’s a principle I hold close to my heart. As a matter of fact, I do have a couple of friends who has exactly those traits. “Oh, my life’s so bad.. and yours really good”, “I am really in a bad luck for these few years.. rather die than be alive”.. HELLO!!! Wake up, damn it. If you think you’re in bad luck or unhappy, then just bloody change! Like the lad in the movie, she’s so bitter. Its like she’s blaming everyone for her lack of boyfriend or career when she, herself, had caused all that. Change is inevitable and embracing it is probably the easiest way out. In any case you do not have to be afraid of change or even avoid it. That would be the worse thing you can do to yourself. If you have no partners or friends, perhaps you should start reflecting on your attitude and change! Its never too late and I hate those bullshits. Or if you have no job, then start working to improve your cv. Go take up a class or a part time job or something. Or the worst I’ve heard, I can’t pass the subject. Then perhaps you’re not doing good enough! Or perhaps you’re doing the wrong thing.. but in any case, nothing is impossible if you make an effort to it. Comprendo? Good!

Our new home..

So here’s the post which everyone is waiting for. You know, the one in regards to my house..  Not really? Sigh… Anyway, I will be making this more of a pictorial post since a ‘picture says a thousand words’ and perhaps more efficiently than I do.

Let’s start at the time when I found this unit in the real estate website. It wasn’t exactly one that we were looking forward to. What’s more, the price is $345 per week as compared to the market’s $380 per week. Over here, the price of the property pretty much determines what you would be getting. And its not like the pictures are good anyway.

Surprisingly, it turned up way better than what we expected! There were lots of sunshine coming into the house and its much warmer that way. Also means, that our electricity bill will hopefully reduce since we won’t be needing to turn on the lights during the day. In general, the whole block of apartment looks like this from the outside. There is a tree right in the middle of the block and I suspect that it would start bloom come spring. Surrounding it are bushes of what I called ‘Winter Roses’ because they only bloom during the winter.

Below are pictures of how it looked like when we stuffed all our belongings in the house rather than packing them. There were lots to clean up for this unit. We re-painted the cupboards, fix the knobs, lubricate the windows, clean the cupboards and even bleach the carpets. In fact, considering that we had been cleaning our previous apartment, it was our fourth day of hard labour.

 

The entrance to my unit is as below. On the left, is my bedroom and on the right is the Tika’s bedroom, toilet and bathroom. Straight in front is our living room. The good thing about this apartment is; there’s a separate door between the living room and our bedrooms. In essence, we can keep the living room warm and the cooking smell wouldn’t invade our rooms. The bathroom is a little bigger than my previous one AND their light is heated!! That means no more shivers when I come out from the bath cubicle. =)

 

   And here would be my bedroom.  Yeap, its bigger than my previous bedroom. And yes, I have a bedframe now. And those polaroids in black & white are my pride and joy, together with the cards I received from home and a special photo frame. If you squeeze your eyes really well, you’ll see whose faces are there. Hehehe.

 

Next is the living room. We tried to keep the layout similar to our previous one so that we’ll know where things are. The only difference is the bar right next to the entrance. WE HAVE A BAR!! Our crown jewels have their rightful place now. Where they actually belong! =) The weird thing is the fact that I've placed so many cat figures around the house. Cats are not the species that I particularly fond of AND Tika hates cats. Weird... but they ARE cute though.

 

  The kitchen, at the moment, is still in good condition. Lots of sun coming into it but the ventilation fan is a total wreck. We are hoping to get the landlord to fix them up rather than ourselves.

 

And here’s the view from the balcony. Its great, compared to staring at the road but the downside is, we’ll have to look at our neighbours who is unfortunately located right opposite us. Its not even a good sight to start with.

So here it is, the floor plan of our apartment. Cheers!! =)