everyone who knows me, knows i love my extended family
so yesterday and today were just completely awesome

last night, i left uni around 6:30pm and got pickle to drop me off at hyde park instead of central station
and then as i was feeling sorry for myself for having to spend friday night alone (since everyone was going to be out) i walked by mizuya and bumped into a familiar face. my cousin kenny! who i hadn't seen for almost a year!
so he pulled me in and i ended up having a pretty nice dinner with his new wife and friends. 
then i bussed it home, and bumped into my littlebro at the busstop! serendipity levels at an all time high!

then this morning, i got woken up at a reasonably early hour and went yumcha with the extended family.
my cousins' little kids are so cute.
and then just bantering and laughing with the cousins that are the same generation as me - anita, jess, kenny - was so great. left me blissed out. hahahah.
oh! and the food was pretty good!
oh! and another random coincidence! bumped into amy and her new beau yum-chaing with her family at the table next to ours. loooooooooooooooooool.

anita just came back from europe. (so. damn. jealous. can. not. handle.)
and because she loves me so much...

story behind this is the first time i went to venice, i brought home some glass plates because they're just one of those things you buy as souvenirs

so i bought one for anita and one for myself. and carried them both around the world with me for a month. 

when i got home, my parents were going through the stuff i bought and my dad just kind of roughly opened up my carefully packaged glass plate and dropped it on the floor (shattering it)

i ended up bawling for like 10 minutes. 

so this is one reason why i love my cousin a lot, alot. because she got me this, without me asking her to <3 love you so much!

and then looooooool, anita doesn't know this, but i have actually been kind of eyeing the longchamp les pliages tote for a little while although i had like next to no intention of buying it. 

just kind of eyeing it in a i-really-don't-mind-if-it-drops-in-my-lap way. 

so i'm really fortunate that my cousin loves me and knows me enough to get me one. and get me one in navy which is the colour i would have bought myself. 

so two for you anita! you win at life, and i suck because i need to up my gift game. <3

because you give me some of my most loved gifts (and memories)

donna.

last weekend, we had a little bit of a cookout at my place
it was supposed to be a usa tourgroup reunion thingymabobbob, which pickle kind of crashed
so pickle and janice arrived at my place late in the afternoon and first order of business was to decide what we were going to cook
ended up with:

• vegetable frittata (because pickle loved the frittatas at wynnie's high tea so much) - recipe we changed to include red capsicum, mushroom, zucchini, bacon)
• seafood chowder (because donna, and cherry, and pickle love seafood chowder) - recipe
• some mash potato concoction as a filler - basically, really good mash potato with bacon and pineapple in it

we went grocery shopping and janice bumped into an aunty. it was random.
then it was back to my place for the prep, before cherry arrived midway with our hongkong style iced milk tea.
such an awesome cooking atmosphere, with mulan playing in the background and the sun shining in through the window. <3
pickle was so cute with her cooking analness, checking her iphone timer every 5 minutes hahha
then anoushka arrived with her "homemade" tiramisu in coles packaging, and that's when the party really started!

i ended up moving stumac from the study to the kitchen table, and we watched all the US videos, janice took with her guerilla style while we ate mash potato from the saucepan and the frittatas from the baking pan. and also, ciders in our hands.
so many lols.
so many moments where me and anoushka just couldn't watch anymore, and had to hide our faces with our hands. good times, good times.
cherry left around 10:30, and then the rest stayed until 2am just youtubing random crap (even though we were all really tired and wanted to sleep, lol)

feel so inspired to continue this cookout tradition through the year.

donna.

photos from mum and isaac's birthday celebrations this year. 

blue fish, darling harbour

+++

 

kitchen, home

donna.

lazy entry from last week, or is this last last week? so bad.
wrote this awhile ago, and forgot to post it xD
__________

after dinner that day

thursday was dinner with jess
korean bbq
talked about birthday party

friday was...no idea

saturday went into uni..at like 3 lol
and then found cherry and jocheung at kinokuniya
before dinner in martin place for twin's birthday
horhorhor
seeing twin's reaction to mum's red pocket was super cute

sunday was mum's birthday
epic big rain but cleared up before dinner
shouted hooker friend and daughter, elayne and son and mum and isaac dinner at blue fish on darling habour
got two seafood platters and that was just right for us
also had a ginger and lemongrass lemonade which was...not as awesome as it sounds
the seafood platter was really very good, very fresh and awesome for people who eat...seafood
elayne got us a taro cake

sidenote: so many people have been like ohmygosh you've lost so much weight that i'm starting to get self conscious. was i really that fat before? O_O


monday was CRAS
and lol loving it so much <3
nothing can beat the craziness that is the monday morning madness
having such a great time getting to know bel and joyce better (or in joyce's case...even better...more intimate relationships and all that...)
monday night was mum's second bday celebration - finally got to go to the star buffet after being gypped for cny
and yay! breakthrough with my half a plate of prawns. breaking down the allergies one half plate at a time!

and then today,
had training with WC and bleh.
got picked up in the city because i have awesome timing.
and all i did after i got home was watch new girl, gilmore girls, and lie on my bed.
most awesome thing was that isaac is starting to see the benefits of tertiary education so FTW!





donna.

Forgot to post this from last week...

+++

placement was tiring in a good way
Then had impromptu dinner with janice and pickle
And picked up cherry along the way
Haven't been on so much crack in ages
It was amazing
From one thing to another
Personal highlight for me was when we started talking about active engagement and then Janice had to show us her listening face. Then I just started spouting off random beverage names while she tried to look understanding.
Simultaneous brokage

We stayed until the restaurant had closed for half hour

Carpool murder with the slow car
(a/n i have no idea what i was talking about here, but i remember a slow car driving in front of us, when we were about to drop cherry off at her car and thinking we'd get killed in the carpark?)

Took express train with janice
Some middle aged skinny guy sat in front of us
When there were other chairs
Reached for paper so we thought he was just sitting across from us to get the paper, but then he chucked the paper away...
So awkward because our knees were touching...
Then he started to unzip something from bag, and at this point i'm like ohmygosh this is it, we're going to die. and it was a book
This is the point where we both start inappropriately laughing while pretending we're not laughing at the man. and it's so terrible because we're so tired so we just keep laughing and keep talking and can't stop. can't breathe. 
Could not stop laughing until Strathfield.





lemon lime bitters, 
lemon lime bitters. 

donna.

another awesome video.

donna.

so much excitement last week.
lazy lazy entry.

friday was mel's farewell, where we headed to the royal for lunch
admirable awkward levels seeing as brett was the only supervisor present
good moment was when janice pulled faces and me and dom had NO. idea what she was trying to say.
lunch was pretty cool, managed to keep the conversation following despite there being - dan, tony, dom, ann, janice, brett, mel, me, michelle and joe?
another good moment was bumping into my supervisor as we were walking back towards uni in a big group.

the rest of the afternoon was spent playing games, after adam joined us.
started off playing murder and lol at us choosing michelle and dan right off. HILARITY!
and it was even more hilarious when me and janice were celebrating with some major screams and jumps and then i look towards the door and i'm like hi brett and janice is all...lol you lie. but brett was actually standing there. good stuff!
and then the remainder of the arvo was spent playing good ol' sporcle.

so proud of myself because i worked (a little bit) on saturday before heading down to charity's place for an epic feast
gina, charity's 7 week old baby, was an absolute cutie. fdas;fjas;lkfas
i think we all caught a bit of baby fever.
it was so great catching up with the old workmates and their SOs - bob, vinnci, vrinda, anubhav, charity and daniel - and still have that same old dynamic we always had. lame jokes and cracks and all.
vrinda definitely brought the most blonde moments that night.
so weird that everyone was talking about marriage and babies and i'm still just...me.

 

then sunday was a bit of an anomaly. 

i went out with a bunch of white people - bel, adam, rachel and meg. i was a token asian!

never thought i'd live to see the day. 

we went to the harry potter exhibition and frolicked around the museum for a bit. 

the exhibition was pretty cool, i wish they'd let us take pictures though. i think highlights was watching the real life version of hermione shoot her hand up for the sorting hat, pulling up mandrakes, deliberating over whether to push little kids out of the way to get to the qudditch, seeing the fake feast food. 

was pleasantly surprised by the production value of the whole exhibit. 

after that we strolled around the city, chatting and enjoying the sun. i think at one point, meg almost ate someone because she was so hungry. 

ended up at grill'd and lindt for lunch and arvo tea. 

had so much fun that my planned exit of 4pm was long gone by the time our day ended. 

i think i got home around 9?

all in all, a great week. 

talked to heaaaaaaps of people i don't usually talk to. 

went out and had fun. 

destressed a little from placement and phD. 

now, just to keep it up!

donna.