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!! =)

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.

Easter is coming.....

 

Easter is coming coming coming.....

I never thought Easter could be such a big thing, in Hong Kong as well as in Australia. We have a week long holiday in Hong Kong, and 10 days holiday including Good Friday in Australia. We call that Easter Break, or Easter Holiday.

I never really noticed what Easter is like in Hong Kong. But in Australia, there's a lot happening during Easter. First of all, there has been a lot of sales regarding Easter. All supermarkets sell a variety of chocolate, some a lot in the rabbit shape, and others in the huge egg shape. They are sooooo cute, and definitely tempting. Owh, and some sell rabbit fluffy toys as well....

Other than that, there are a lot of events happening throughout Easter. I shall update you guys when I attend those events.

The Unimates Students Association had their coffee and cakes session themed as "Pre-Easter Coffee & Cakes". It was a fun session with some cute food serving a lot of people. Too bad, I didn't have enough time to spend there making more friends as I only had my 10 minutes break of lecture for this....

Another tutor of mine gave us eggy chocolates during tutorials too. How sweet is that!!

given by my tutor ^.^

So, yeah, it seems like a huge celebration that I've never experienced before....Happy Easter everyone!!

And a lil update over here, I will be spending time at Melbourne for 4 days 4 nights this Easter! =)

Week 3 @USYD

Things are getting tensed up. I am currently settled down with 6 course, 36 credits, while normal people only takes 4 courses with 24 credits. I managed to arrange my timetable and am currently enjoying a 4 day long weekend. Yippee.. However, I do have 2 clashes in such a timetable, and I will listen to the recordings of those classes that clashes. One more thing, I don't really have any lunch time for schooling days from Mondays to Wednesdays. This means....STARVE! Yeah I'll only be having breakfast, and then dinner 9 hours later.

I have been interviewed by the Starbucks manager and he likes me and he said that he's goinna give me a reply by today or Monday (either to work at his store or other stores, but amazingly, in this huge NSW, there're only 9 Starbucks in total =.=). I have tried making sushi at a Korean-run Japanese Sushi place in Broadway Shopping Centre, one place across the street from where I stay. I would have to say that making sushi is definitely fun but.....making sushi at a korean place just doesn't sound right, owh ya, and the pay is freaking low.

Other than that, I just got accepted into the Internship Program for Study Abroad and Exchange students of the uni, which means that I MIGHT end up with 7 courses (because the internship is credit based), and that will kill me, and people thought that I am insane. It's an internship working with Sydney Observatory - a project on planning a holiday program for kids. Well, it definitely has nothing to do with my future career, but I supposed it will be a good experience for me, working with people that are extremely laid back? I haven't decided, as I'm kinda stuck with the number of courses I am allowed to be enrolled into. This is pretty much what happened throughout the week I guess?
One more thing, I have been really trying to study these few days, but I guess all my attempts weren't that successful. Oh gosh, can someone just gimme some suggestions on how to be more diligent? And how to extend my concentration span?
Being too busy during exchange definitely isn't good. I need some free time to hang out with people, to visit more places that I am supposed to, and to explore as much as I could. Hmm, how am I goinna achieve that?
I'll have a busy weekend again I think. Well, I guess this is what an exchange is supposed to be like.....there's never ending stuff waiting for you to do!!

In case you are wondering what the hell is the photo doing in the middle of my blog, this is one of my meals that I made here. It is a sort of instant food, and it took me around 105 minutes to prepare it. It only costs....I guess AUD1.50 the most? Haha, a great way for poor people to save money huh~~

Changes

Things got better in my 2nd week of lectures. I'm settling down with classes. I am not attending random lectures anymore. I am starting to plan for a perfect timetable, perfect as in having a 4-day weekend. I am maximizing the opportunity of taking courses here and transferring it back to HKUST, taking 6 courses, 4 of them are my core courses.

It was still a busy week for me. Some of my classes are scattered around the day. One at 9am, and the other one at 3pm. So I tried really hard to swap and play around my schedule. It was a really tough process, as people here generally do not know clearly what they are doing, and what they are supposed to do. I nearly gave up by the end of the week. 

Again, I realized that I will go broke again towards the upcoming week, as that will be the time for me to pay my fortnightly rental. And my scholarship money is NOT HERE yet.....!! Awh. This is definitely bad as

1) I won't have money to eat

2) I can't go out and enjoy

3) I might have to borrow money from people who have just known me for a few weeks?

4) I just can't do anything without money!

And so....this week, I was desperately looking for a part time job as well. The bad thing is, most places either do not want to hire international students on a student visa (max working hours per week=20), or they will not want someone who will only stay here for a few months, OR they want someone who can speak Japanese (because I tried several Japanese restaurants).....

Ahh....so finding casual employment is definitely not an easy thing to do. I'm still trying hard, hoping that perhaps Starbucks will hire me.

What else happened this week?

Owh ya, and books here!

Well, one thing that suits me here is that most lecturers encourage a lot of institutional reading.

BUT, most of them require textbooks, and textbooks are EXPENSIVE over here. Most of the new ones are sold at AUD120 and above. Second hand ones will still cost AUD50 and above. Mahalnya =.=

And the worst part is, most of the textbooks selected are the latest editions. They don't put any copies in the libraries (although there are like 8 libraries here?), or even if they do, a lot of copies are stolen.

YEAH, you heard me correctly, stolen =.= The librarian even told me, accounting books are quite slippery over here....ahh. So they knew the problem.

Evening! Fisher Library =)

So I guess that's pretty much about uni this week?

I gotta study real hard next week onwards!

1st few lectures

Everything is pretty new to me.

Getting lost on my way searching for lecture rooms, meeting lecturers coming from different parts of the world, being in a fully diversed class up to a size of 400+ people and some sitting on the walkway, having a hard time trying to keep myself awake for the 2-hour lecture.....

This is something funny that the Professor posted within his lecture slides~~I dunno whether you guys can read it....

It was fun I would say. At least I'm not the one sitting on the floor. Haha.

I will be comparing what I have over here to what I had in HKUST.

One of the lecture theatres

Well I'll talk about the good things here. 

Lecturers and instructors generally speak good English. Those I had in Psychology and Sociology classes are pretty humorous. They conduct very enjoyable lectures.

I prefer how they have 2 hours lecture and 1 hour tutorial here. As I believe that tutorials are definitely important in the learning process (ya, I'm a tutorial person...haha). But perhaps, the 2 hour lecture should be split into 2 sessions, cause I have extremely bad and short attention span. Owh ya, the part that I like MOST! It's absolute grading!!  They have your marks printed on your transcript, so everything is very transparent~

And the bad things?

Hmm. I would say that they have way too many people in a lecture. Some of mine fits more than 400 people, and the whole course actually gets 2000+ students enrolled!! Amazing figure. Other than that, lecturers here prepare notes in a pre-set 3 slide or 6 slide pdf files, which I don't like as I'm unable to customize it for printing to save printing cost as well as paper. One other thing that I noticed here is that, quite a number of my lecturer are not PHD holders! (Hmm, how could that be....) And another issue that I notice might be there are 6 teaching staff (means you'll have 6 lecturers just for one course, taking turns to teach) and a few more tutors for a course~ This is so different from HKUST, well I guess this practice has its good and bad. Hmm, well instructors here like to get their students to purchase latest edition texbooks pretty much too! Well you know how much do they cost? Around 120-180 each!! Classes here are dispersed all around the whole freaking huge uni! And most classes dismiss at the hour and leaves you with no time to move on to your immediate next class (even worse, when you have to walk 10 minutes to another building for your class) And some of the lecture theatres are pretty old school with weird sittings and stuffy environment too =.=

From here, I noticed that HKUST is indeed a research university. My lecturers are all PHD holders, and they perform a lot of research (that's why most of their teachings are very boring!!!) I guess this made me realize the most suitable method for me to learn. I won't conclude now though...haha. I really wanna enjoy myself learning here, and to find back my momentum for studying.

Owh, one more thing!! There are like 85% Asians in the Economics and Business Faculty. And I hear people speaking Mandarin (Putonghua) all the time =.= This makes me wonder whether I'm in the right continent. Haha....

Well, I shall settle down with my courses soon. It's good news! I'm goinna get all the courses that I wanted to transfer! Yippee~~~

Toot. Notice Posted.

Exam period.
Would really love to continue blogging.
But would really not want to fail in my exams.

So
Toot.
Out of the internet.
Will be back after Dec 18th.

Stay tuned.

Step class today.

Gloomy............... But the sun is actually shining behind.

Morning BodyStep classes are moving into the worst period ever.

Only 1 member or even none on Thursdays 7am, 2 or less on Mondays 915am. What happened.

Some say it's because of the summer holidays and most of the members are on vacation. But I just don't think so. It just felt kinda weird, and a little sad too, seeing the classes....'die'.

Sometimes I do wonder whether it's because of me, the newbie? The one who only cues when I do the moves not before I do the moves. There're always complain, when you're new. That's just, unavoidable. Hmph.....

But what I'd heard was Fridays crowd has decreased dramatically too.....Argh. What's wrong. Members got injured at their knee after they do step and they're afraid to do it again? How could we actually solve this problem? Hard right.....correct them on the techniques?
Argh.

I miss those days, when Kim is the soul of BodyStep every Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And I know it's really hard to bring it back.......

It's a bad bad day

I was in the ferry. Saw this bird. Not a crow. It could still walk and fly, but I realized after a moment that it has lost the claws of one of his leg, only the other leg supporting him...~~Spirit of living~~

Caught with flue a few days ago. I thought it was not serious.

Appointed last minute to replace classes again.
And I thought I'm fine with it.

I didn't want what happened last week to reoccur, I asked Sam to inform the members that I'll be replacing the class.

Was working 7 and 9 hours last weekend. A bit sad that I didn't get to go to the annual MATTA Fair in PISA. Although I know that I won't have chance to go for any vacation this year.

I woke up early this morning. Prepared and revised my choreo. But my stomach is telling me something is wrong. Argh...I know I'm not feeling well.
But so what, class has to be continued right?
Too bad I missed the chance to go for McD breakfast with Maylin and Jeanni before class starts.

Bibi's Yoga ended 0916hours. Which is, 11 minutes later than scheduled? So my class did not start on time. Which I think, will cause me into trouble with those Pilates aunties.

As I expected not much people came, but I didn't really prepare for this few. Starting to think of whether I actually made this mess?
Owh, and before I start the class, I rushed to the loo once again to,....ahem ahem. Oh gosh, how am I goinna teach.
It's tired needing to explain why am I teaching instead of somebody else. Anyway, class started at 0925hrs.

The first 2 tracks were pretty good. But not for track 3, everyone still seemed pretty confused. Argh.....I wonder how could I make them do it correctly.... I just don't want them to give up. But when you can't follow you'll automatically stop right? Track 4 was fine. But my running nose got bad after that, and to make it even worse, there is no tissue paper for me to sneeze it off. Okay, bare with it till track 5, where the mic kong-ed off. Track 6, I'm starting to run out of energy. There was even moments where I felt I can't breathe and I'm fainting.=.= Sweat huh....I started talking less and lesser till track 10. Lucky that I did not faint till the end. And class ended 1025hrs. Kitty came in and placed her belongings directly on top of the sound system without waiting for me to clear up. But I was too tired and flu is not doing his good job to stop making me feel unwell. Argh....I'm like even walk properly after the class. Dizzy dizzy dizzy. Janice served me with some Vico and I slowly recover.

It was not a satisfying class, at all. And I'm pretty disappointed with myself.

Had to shower and settle the rest of my list of things to do. And my locker key is LOST!! Argh...searching high and low up n down, where could I put it. As I was not as conscious as I'm supposed to when I came out from class, I thought I left it in the studio. Sneaked in to the studio in the middle of pilates and it was not around the sound system area. Not in the lost and found area and not anywhere in the changing room. Oh god oh god how could this happen. Wasted quite a lot of time searching and at last after Kitty finishes her class I found my key understage area where all the dusts and power points are for the sound system. How could it end up there? Well, would not like to elaborate. Just feel thankful that it's still there.

Went to get some of my stock and went to the jetty to go to butterworth to buy train ticket. Randomly parked my car as usual. As I don't have enough cash I had to search for an ATM machine first. And surprisingly there's not even a single ATM machine all around the bus terminal and train station. So I had to walk a distance to Maybank. And it was 1300hrs. Sultry HOT.
The purchasing of train ticket was smooth, except for the lady on duty was sleeping when I arrive. Malaysians at work...you know la. So when I was about to walk back to the jetty, I saw the next ferry has arrived. So I rushed to exchange money. I brought out RM1 for coins exchange. He gave me 2 50cents. I have another 50cents in my wallet. So I gave him back a 50cents to exchange for smaller value coins. But he said it's not enough and blah blah blah and asked me to bring out another RM1 for exchange. What the......okay by the time all the blah come and go, they closed the entrance gate. The ferry was still there, just that I couldn't enter!

Gotta wait for another one and I really hate when this happens!!

Back to Penang. 1400hrs. Look as though it's goinna rain. And a few minutes later it did. Traffic was congested. Some buses were driving recklessly. Lunch hour, school dismiss hour. Everywhere seemed to be busy. Got a little frustrated when Jeanni told me she didn't tell Logan about me goinna meet him. Argh...never mind. I couldn't make it on time anyway. And the most important thing is....I'M REALLY HUNGRY! I need some FOOD!

Okay, went to Nyonya for my brunch. 1430hrs. Didn't expect Maylin, Jeanni and Sam to come over too. Hehe.

Then, I received a call from a KL number. Wondering who is it, I answered and I found out that it's Kelvin. Hmm...he asked me for a favour. Not hard to do if I'm in a good mood. But at that point of time, I just wanna say no. It could be troublesome. I don't like dealing with banks and I hate dealing with TARC. But still, I have no reason to reject him. And that makes my face even darker than before. I'm so so so so not in good mood, and I need to SLEEP!

So after brunch, I went back too FF for the talk. Big boss was busy so I just dealt with Jaafar. Things got sorted out. Nothing much to be argued. God knows who's right and wrong. Unless I get a time machine to witness what actually happened on that night. I do hope that this won't end up like what I expected it to be, a trap, a shitty trap. So I went off after that. To the bank.

There were so MANY people in queue. Which made me even more.....*?!?!*

Two things to do, get back my refund for the graduation gown, and buy Kelvin's bank draft. 5 more numbers before it's my turn. And I'm losing my patience.

Never mind. What pissed me is when the personnel said that I'll be charged RM2 for the refund of the bank draft. When I asked why, she said because you're cancelling the bank draft. ARGH? Why are banks like dai yi longs? RM2 is not much but what for?? It just doesn't make sense. Haven't you guys already collected RM5 buta-buta commission when we first bought the bank draft? Then now? CHARGE AGAIN? What the hell. Imagine that just to attend my convocation I have to buy 2 seperate bank drafts, each charged RM5 commission, which makes it RM10. And after the return of the gown I'm supposed to drive back to that bank and be charged another RM2 just to get back the money that originally belongs to me? So RM300(The bank draft amount) actually became RM 288 in like what? 2 weeks??? Damn.

After getting Kelvin's bank draft, I drove to TARC. Not much people at this hour. 1610hrs.
Bursary office is still open thank lord. After signing and everything, the lady told me that RM10 late payment will be charged to this bill. **^^%#$#^_*+)(&)%@?? But I don't have my wallet with me!!! My job is just to walk to the freaking office and hand in the bank draft and get the damn receipt and LEAVE! Not to pay any MONEY!! But the lady insisted. Saying that if I don't pay, the bill won't be processed and Kelvin's name will be cancelled off from the school. After much argument and investigation on why the students doesn't even know that they have to settle the bills and late payment imposed after whichever date, I had to DESPERATELY walk back to my car which is parked freaking far under HOT HOT sun to get a freaking RM10 for late payment CHARGE!! Owh, and after going back with the SO IMPORTANT MONEY, the lady told me that the system has already been closed and she can't produce me the bill anymore. WHATTTTT? It's written there office closed 4.30pm and you tell me that your system is closed 3.30pm??? What is this? And you tell me that you guys need to close account? Will the supermarket open until 10pm but tell the customers that the Point of Sales system is closed at 9pm because they need an hour to count money and close accounts for the day and you can only window shop some groceries after 9pm????

THIS IS TOTALLY RIDICULOUS!

I need to get some sleep dude. Dah la not feeling well, some more let me face all these shit. Yea I really wanna rush into the toilet and grab whichever bunch of shit that comes to my eyes and throw it to all these non-sense making people!

Okay, it's my bad day. Finished grumbling about it.

What's wrong with me? Aih.......

At last something good.
Happened before I call it a day.

Great class!!!

Had a few things lining up for me today.

Met some people, and received a call from Clark Hatch.

There's a class replacement for me, today, 1800hrs.

Woah....so instant. Anyway, luckily I'm free, it's just that I have to sacrifice Brandon's Pump class to earn the extra ringgits.

Yup, I said yes.

So after having lunch, I went back to prepare the tracks that I will be teaching. Not being really serious actually, as I can't figure out why I feel so sleepy.

So it's time to leave for my 1st class off Fitness First. Kinda nervous.

I reached there ngam ngam on time. With quite a lot of ladies waiting for me. They were chit-chatting, and they were in the studio without a step board.

A huge question mark popped out in my mind. Aren't I teaching BodyStep? Or are they aware that they're going to attend a replacement class of BodyStep? Or they're just here coincidently to attend a group exercise class without knowing what is it? Does this gym even has step boards??

Weird. Very weird.

The manager did not bring me around and expected me to know how to operate the whole sound system, and everything. The sad thing is, I couldn't get it to response and cooperate with my MP4. After much struggling, I asked the class to take a step board each and I ran down to the reception to ask for help. That is when I heard some lady saying "Harr....we're goinna use the step board?" *Bingo*!

After getting the sound system work(do you know how many switches they actually have=.=), I realized that they don't have a mic!! Holy god......what a great news.

Without further ado, I continued my class. I introduced myself and get the music started. And yup, as I expected, they're not used to BodyStep at all. Maybe what they usually do is FunStep, or what I heard after class AeroStep, something not as confusing as what I taught. Aiks, this may be though, and it may not. (Cause they won't know if I do any mistakes>.<) Well, some of them could follow, but most of them not, as they don't really understand my cues. And people standing further behind might not be able to hear what I'm staying. I had to shout throughout the whole class. It was quite humid in the studio too, which makes me wonder if I'm the person in responsible to switch on the aircon?

Too much questions....too many things to concentrate on. I sweat like hell after 2 tracks. And I skipped 2 tracks too.....Aights, naughty me. But the class looked really really tired and I know I had to do lots of low options and simple moves, and cutting down tracks seemed to be a good choice. :P To my surprise, there were quite a lot of people in the classes, some of them even walked in after warm up track. But more than a quarter left when I was about to finish the class.=.=

It was okay I guess. At least I don't feel that pressured.

After that, I had to rush back to FF. Before I leave, I saw the purple girl--Natasha! Yea, we had a lil chit chat and I just have to go....It has been a long time since we met each other, and she still loves purple! Haha....she said she missed jam and the people there back in FF too!

So I reached FF near to 1920hrs. Just in time, got my step board, changed and it's time to enjoy the class!

And you know what, this is what I meant by a GREAT class~

Brandon started with BS50, which has a really nice track 1 *One Day In Your Life*, and did the full class really really well. With all those powerful tracks, great music, interesting couaching and all....

I enjoyed his class. After so long not attending other's step class, I really feel glad that I did not miss this.(Well, I nearly missed it because I felt my leg aching after teaching in Clark Hatch). It was an energetic and good one, and it had me learnt a lot. I bet everyone in the class enjoyed it too.

And yea, my mood got much better after attending the class. Step makes me feel ALIVE! hoho....

So this is the great class I wanted to blog about, not the one I taught in Clark Hatch la(although I talked about that more)...hehe

One day, well, one day......I wanna have my own great class:D