Bye, April.

Owh May is coming. I'm getting so excited. Cz I'm going to Gold Coast, and I'll watch Mayday's concert. It'll be the last month having disastrous Mondays till Wednesdays non-stop classes. Life is all of a sudden....better.

Anyway, I had a really laid back week. Too much laying back I think this time. Owh, am I slowly turning into an Aussie?? Hell no...it was just a week I felt like doing nothing. Well, it makes sense right? You had a nice weekend, and there was this nice public holiday no school on Monday thingy, and then you are excited and you keep waiting everyday for the interview, and you got so frustrated and depressed when you lost your room key, but luckily an angel found it and you got it back.....stuff like that. Sounds tiring, didn't it?

We had this great and extremely filling Taiwanese dinner at this crepe shop. Yeah, it was good, a nice reward in fact. And we girls had some long chat together for about I guess 2-3 hours.

It was a nice way to end April, and I'm really looking forward to a great great month of May!! =)

Anzac Day

It is a day ....

"Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who died and served in military operations for their countries."

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzac_Day

I woke up at like 6.30am on that day to watch the parade. So can't believe that. Cz I've never been up so early to watch even Merdeka Day Parade for over erm, 19 years? Owh maybe there was one year where I was involved in the parade myself. Haha XP

The reason I woke up so early is because it was stated in the internet that the dawn service starts at 4am, and the whole place will be crowded with people from well maybe 3.45am. And I thought if I really wana see the parade I shouldn't make my suffer by tip-toeing throughout the whole parade just because I couldn't get a good view=.=

BUT....there was barely much cars or people on the streets when I left home at 7.30am. Hmmm? I was wondering what happened. Maybe because it drizzled a little in the morning...?

Anyway, I just walked around and I found myself a good spot to watch the parade, opposite Town Hall, where I can take some good photos with good background. Owh yea, they were giving out free Australia flag too...haha.

The parade did  start on time. A lot of taxis at first (I really don't know why...) then followed by armies, bands, old people especially in the parade. It was interesting at first I would say....but since I do not know that much about it, and it was kinda repetitive, so I left before the end of the parade. I had enough pictures of it anyway....and I was really sleepy.

Well, good thing I had a no school tomorrow because of this celebration!! Yippee~~~

The Orchestra and Alice in the Wonderland

Well, not that I watched the orchestra playing Alice in the Wonderland songs...haha.
It just happened on a same day.

The grand grand opera house

I was looking forward to enjoy a nice show at the Opera House, doesn't really matter what show it is. Drama, musical etc.
And Unimates actually arranged us for this romantic afternoon event, featuring "VIVA ESPANA - Spanish flair, Spanish rhythm and the elegant passion of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez." http://www.sydneysymphony.com/seasons/2010/productions/2397-2010-Viva-Espana/details/
It was a really nice orchestra performance. And I felt so attached to music after not being in any similar performances for years. Ah....Dewan Sri Pinang, that's what I recall first when it comes to orchestra performances. And we only have to pay like RM5 or RM10 for night performances? Haha...well guess what, it was AUD30 (discounted price) for the VIVA ESPANA afternoon performance! But anyway, I really do miss music.

After that, we went to walk around The Rocks - Sydney. Well, before being any closer to this place, I seriously thought that this is a place with...erm, lotsa ROCKS. But well, it's actually a lil town, selling lotsa Australian specialities, some handmade crafts, and some nice retaurants, cafes and bars to chill. Anyway, we didn't have much time to walk around the market, which sells all those cute stuff as they end their business at 5pm SHARP. But we did manage to see some really nice necklaces (OWH, they are sooooo unique AND EXTREMELY expensive!!), had a stick of chocolate coated strawberries, tasted some sweet sweet Australian honey and had a AUD2 grilled butter corn (AUD3 off original price cause they're closing). It was cool, and we enjoyed it a lot. Planning to come back again sometime before we leave Aussie, and buy the necklace if we still have some cash left by the end of the exchange!! Haha.

Then we headed to Pancakes at the Rocks for dinner. This 24-hour restaurant was so freaking famous, and there is almost always a line of people waiting outside of its door. Luckily, we were there early and we managed to secure our seats pretty easily. The menu looked good. But that made me thought of Paddington Pancakes at Queensbay, which had a even fancier and larger variety of food choice compared to this. And so we ordered some dessert pancakes (both chocolate and butter milk pancakes) with some ice cream and fruits around. Overall, I would say it was yummy, but personally I think it's pretty overrated. Paddington could be so much better than this, and the price was much more competitive back there too. But, okay, no complains. Unless I'm willing to fly back home immediately for a pancake? Haha.

Our last stop for the day was Darling Harbour IMAX Theatre. That is the one with the largest IMAX screen in the world. So we scheduled ourselves for Alice in the Wonderland at 9.15pm. We were lucky enough to catch another cool musical fireworks display about 45minutes before the show. Don't really know what was that for, but presumably, Anzac Day which falls on the following day. And so we bought our tickets and ligned up to get into the cinema! OMG, this is the first time ever we actually have to lign up to watch a show. And we haven't got into the room until like 9.35pm? Haha. OZ experience.
The screen was good, 3D was kinda fun, Jack Sparrow was better in Pirates, and the story was predictable. Well, again, it was a nice experience.

And so, we ended this super tiring day. But yeah, I did have fun as promised right? =) Cheers!

About programming and auditing

I never tell you guys anything about the courses I am taking over here.

Programming is the one I enjoy most, next would be auditing, not because the lecture or the topic is interesting , but I just love my tutor a lot.

My Programming class~

I love dealing with high tech stuff, well of course when I can understand it.

I always see lotsa job ads talking about some additional requirements to apply for those technical or IT jobs. Something about java, C++, and the list goes on. Can't believe I have the chance to learn it over here during my exchange. My instructor and the coordinator course as well as my tutor is this super young guy (he just looks like a student!!). He's from HK but I think he can't speak canto well (that's what people say). But he's a really good instructor. He deliver very clear and good lectures, and he is good in helping us to understand the materials. It could be frustrating at times, not being able to solve the java code just because of some tiny miney error. But, it made me feel so happy and successful when I am able to do the work by myself. I really learned something out of his class, and I enjoy lab sessions too....

As for the auditing course, my instructor was pretty boring. Although there is no doubt that she has very deep knowledge in the topic. On the other hand, I have this super coooool and cute tutor (owh she's female, don't get "cute" the wrong way, haha) But her 1 hour tute every week just makes my school week end sooo much better. The way she explains auditing is just so interesting, and she's so good at cracking jokes, even very simple ones. Yeah, I really like her a lot. And I'm really glad that I changed my tute to her class.

Well you may wanna ask.....how about your other classes? Hmm, not worth mentioning them at the moment I guess...most of the time? Not interesting.

Sudden Decision. Gold Coast

We went crazy all of a sudden at one day.

Tiger Airways was doing this great sale great promotion thing. Getting you to fly across Australia. It costs as low as AUD19 one way to fly from Sydney to Gold Coast (normal price around AUD60 I guess).

So my housemate was like asking me, do you wanna go to Gold Coast for a weekend?

And I couldn't believe myself eventually agreeing to it.

And so we made our decision in only about two days. 

Skip class? (Not me though) Quizzes or assignments or essays around the corner?

Who cares. 

We came here for exchange. For the better OZ experience.

So, Gold Coast here we come.

Even if it's only the three of us.

Flying is fun. Taking 1000 photos in 4 days will be fun. Taking more jumping photos would be fun. Spending lotsa tiring yet crazy time together is fun. Especially when we only have less than 10 weeks together in this weird slow country.

Cheers Shiney and Stephy.

We'll have tonnes of fun together.

Easter Show

Backdated: 9th April 2010, Friday...

If you've seen photos from my Facebook, you would have known that it was a huge and interesting event.

Me and some exchange buddies went to the Easter Show a day after we came back from the Melbourne trip.

That was a major annual event for Sydney. And it was huge. There were so many things happening in the event. And once again I would say that I didn't have enough time to get around the shows, the exhibitions, and the fun and thrill rides. Other than that, yeah, it costs a lot too. The entrance fee itself costs AUD26 with student concession.

We spent most of our time with the farm animals. Seen sheep shearing, and milked the cows. We pat a lot of sheep, goats, cows, and even chickens in the nursery. Saw some beautiful horses too. Not to miss, the dog show, but we were there pretty late, and sadly, I missed most of my favorite animal, the dogs! We reached the showcase after the opening hours =( Other than that, we saw a grand parade, which to me was not so much of an interesting parade, it was just full of people bringing out farm animals and walking in circles. Haha. And then we missed the pig race, which was extremely exciting and interesting cause we felt the atmosphere through peeking outside the race area.

As mentioned there were some thrilling rides too. But it was way too expensive, some of the fun rides cost a minimum of 8AUD. Ya, 8AUD for like 5 minutes? Ahh...that's too much. But me and my friend tried playing at one of the game stalls, trying to win a huge huski toy!!! The HUSKI was soooo cute. But of course, guys are perhaps better in winning these games, as we saw quite a lot of guys wondering around with huge soft toys....argh~ But anyway, we got ourselves a very cute showbag, a brand which was never heard before, but it's mascot is pretty cute, as a reward.

摩天輪，那好像是回憶裏的幸福~

I had kebab as dinner. And we head to the main arena for some fun night show. There was the girl's stunt show, toyota XX stunt show, and the motorcycle stunt show. Haha, all of them were cool! And then there was this robosaurus which I was not so interested in. The night ended with the spectacular musical fireworks!!!

很燦爛的煙花~

We were extremely exhausted by the end of the day. Imagine being out and walking non-stop from 9.30am till 11pm. Not to mention my half-broken camera. 

But I'm glad that I came here. Without any doubts, it was indeed a wonderful day.

Last 10 days. Randomness.

It's down to the last 10 days of April.

This dog is sooooo cute. I wished I could smile like him...Random~

Well, I can't believe time flew that fast.

A lot of things happened in the first three weeks. There was this 10 day holiday, and there were tonnes of exams, homework and essays due after the holidays.

My exchange life was pretty different from what I expected, and what perhaps other people expected as well. Exchange was supposed to be full of traveling around here and there, and activities everyday if not every week. That's what I heard before going on exchange, and people even told me that exchange was the best part of their lives. 

WOW.

Can I assume that it is because I kinda came to the wrong country?

Anyway, from the above, you can read that I am not having a SUPER GOOD exchange life. I thought that feeling will only last for the first 2 weeks or maybe a month...BUT, It has been really exhausting for the past week or so. My mood just wasn't right to do all those stuff, those stuff like midterms, textbooks, writings etc. I wanted to do well so badly in all courses over here, but that is just taking too much out of me.

Hmm, I KO-ed a midterm last Monday, another midterm last Saturday, sprained my ankle badly on the same day, stayed up wide awake on Sunday to complete my 10% database online quiz and 30% 2000-word law essay. What a good week huh. And another midterm is coming up this Friday. Luckily, this one doesn't require that much strenuous reading.

I am starting to wonder a LOT about life. The more I grow up, the more complicated it gets.

I wanna go to Blue Mountains, Hunter Valley and Port Stephens. I wanna have more good food of this country which might only be well known for Fish n Chips. I wanna take more nice photos. I wanna earn this currency which is currently doing very well, at least earn back the freaking expensive student visa application fee. I wanna get a good exchange transcript. But it doesn't seem to be possible to achieve all in the next 2 months right? 

Time is flying. And I kept repeating this. I kept telling people around me that we're ending this exchange so soon. It's true right? See....you do some essays, you take some exams, you cook at home everyday, you receive the drafted exam timetable, you take more rest after not resting to meet some datelines, then you get a shock as the finalized exam timetable is so different from the drafted one (ya, I really don't understand the purpose of having so many versions of tt-s), you go marketing every Sunday evening for cheap one dollar stuff, you top up your expensive prepaid sim card, you pay rental, and you pay rental again, you start studying, you start to think about disposing some big items that you got for this 4 months plus exchange, you start packing, you went in for the exam, you either came out smiling from the exam because you don't care or you really did very well, you add a few more friends on facebook, you keep checking facebook, you keep uploading photos on facebook, you start eating a lot of junk food because without them you can't concentrate studying, you finish all exams, and you start thinking: does this feel like a third home to me?

Maybe not. 

Well, I'm goinna try to have more fun this coming week okay? I promise?

At the same time, I'll ensure that I really work hard for what I am studying.

Good luck and chill!

Owh ya, I wanna tell you guys about Easter Show! Will do that soon ya...=)

Whooosh. Half of April is gone.

Well, I'm still hanging in here. A lot of things happening and a lot of things to do lately. I wanna blog. But I just heaps (The Australian word, it means lots!) of things coming up non-stop that makes blogging something that has to be on the waiting list.

So, a quick quick quick update.

I started Easter Holidays the day after April Fool. I had one day rest on the first day of hols, and started all the fun the day after. I went to the Hoopla Festival on 3rd April, left Sydney for Melbourne on 4th April and stayed there till early Thursday morning, came back home like a deadly tired person on 8th April, went to Easter Show on 9th April, and became a good student on the last 2 days of my hols, just because I have a midterm on the day school resumes, which is 12th of April.

Why is my break sooooooo short la?

A photo I took during my Melbourne trip. I love this a lot. Randomness....haha.

Okay, I'll tell you guys more in detailed. Erm, when I finish these 2 crazy weeks of exams and essays and assignments.....

Cheers!