We ended the previous night around 2am after an in depth what would you rather: 75% chance of an intruder versus 25% chance of a ghost.
Needless to say, I did not sleep alone in Jenny's room last night.
Instead I shared the couch with Dom who had to bear with my teeth grinding. Sorry Dom!

The next day we woke up to an overcast sky, with plans to snorkel. hmph.
As it started to rain, we decided to drag out our saturday brunch for as long as we could
The service and food at Globe in coogee were okay, it took awhile to get our orders right and it was pretty busy. I had the guacamole special with poached eggs and...you know, same old same old.
The company made it worthwhile though :)






By the time we finished brunch, the light drizzle had stopped so we thought we might as well brave Clovelly.
Jade and I were super super super reluctant to get into the water, which was really cold. The type of cold your body never fully warms up to. Also, the waters were choppy as anything, which was in direct contrast to what I had been told about Clovelly.
Anyway, Pickelle volunteered herself to go first while Jade and I watched from the sidelines. At one point, she started laughing and we thought maybe Jan and Dom had broken her. But apparently she was just having heaps of fun?
Jade was kind enough to hold my hand and slowly brave the cold waters (before quickly diving back out again haha)
Thus, my first adult snorkelling experience happened. And you know what? I didn't hate it.

There was heaps of seaweed and algae as a result of the waves and currents, but it was actually really exciting see the schools of fish. My favourite of the day was probably mr. stripey.
Towards the end, I had a little bit of a scary moment when the water went down my breathing pipe and I couldn't get it all back out. So I stood up (thankful for the shallow waters), but the waves were so relentless I kept getting pushed back into the rocks.
But phew, we all made it out of there in one piece!

Thanks to Dom and Jan, our experienced and knowledgable instructors of the day for making me feel safe at all (most) times!

Then after surviving the Australian coast, we went back to Coogee for a feed at Moo Burgers

I had to make a mad dash because a miscommunication meant adam had left his house to come pick me up before our meal had even arrived. 

So I went over to adam's for some herby chicken and chocolate fountain fondue, before heading back to Pickelle's to find the kids playing Pandemic and then it was out to Dove and Olive to catch up with a friend heading to Brown University for a postdoc position. There were spiders and pear ciders. 

Got home around 12, completely and utterly knackered. 

&

I had an epic weekend, so taking monday off to recover and recharge

 Friday night, we had an nice little chinese new year gathering at pickelle's
 We gave ourselvs a little early mark after throwing berry bliss lollies at each other, and scraping knees
First, we headed off to coles and the asian store to pick up groceries before going over to pickelle's apartment for cooking
She pulled off a yummy meal for the eight of us (the spare ribs were ultra yumyum in my tumtum) and we even made tong yuan
Tab's were the most consistent and rounded, followed by mine, and then pickelle went for a "marbled" effect, if you get what i'm saying

I think we must have downed 3 bottles of moscarto
And we caught glimpses of a game of Cards Against Humanity as we rolled the glutinous flour 

Highlight of the night goes to Jan's fingering card in response to women's best friend, which opened up a whole new level of intimacy
Love these crazies.

&

Had a little random catch up with my westies/lab201/masters faves last weekend

It was just so lovely to get to see the two of them, since I don't get to see them that often 

Had the sweet corn fritters, though my heart was after the pancakes

I don't usually feel regret but...I wish I had ordered the pancakes 

&

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. 

once warmer weather hits, i just get so obsessed with iced coffee.
it's a bit ridiculous.
the way the patterns swirl after i add milk to cold-brewed coffee?
ARGH! brings joy to my little heart.

i use about 8 tablespoons of ground coffee to two cups of cold water 

leave that in the frenchpress overnight in the fridge

add ice and milk in the morning and i am ready to fly for the day~

+++

apparently, it's been two weeks since my last proper entry. wow, have i been lazy with this blog or what?

• on 2nd Nov, i had my not-last stats exam and it was so bad lol. added to the fact that i had the most epic dream of skydiving three times before discussing the benefits of berry mints with a work colleague. was completely tired out. then we went to the whitehouse for drinks to celebrate ~end-of-year and had great fun (if my memory serves me correctly).  
• on 4th Nov, my daily savings account reached an all-time low and i was so sad. keep questioning myself on whether this is spending time or saving time. early 20's is a weird time.

• then spent the rest of my week doing my take-home exam, BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS DUE ON THE 7TH. Got pranked so good, man. So good. 
• Found out on the 5th that they changed the date on my assignment sheet. Despite my gut feelings that something was wrong/thinking I had successfully mind-squiggled myself, I thought to myself, there's no way Hui would lie to me. And everyone else seemed to working on the take-home like it was due on the 7th. Little did I know, that the other side lived so differently...
• So cute that Hui couldn't handle the guilt and pulled me to have dinner at her house. Still remember how good the food was...
• Then, come the 8th, I went to sleep at 10am. Woke up at 9am. Submitted the take-home before lunch. IT WAS AMAZING. (and weird). 

• On the 9th, we went K for two hours and it wasn't enough at all. 
• also went sushi tei for joe's birthday dinner. me and jenny went scouraging around the city for apples pies prior and had pretty much given up on finding them when we finally came across them in the pitt st mall food court. and they were pretty good and came in a super cute box so i'll definitely be going back again.

•  On the 10th, went out with cherry ♥ for her ~birthday present. had dinner at minh thai in record time before mary poppins. i think the most apt description would be: disney on crack. it was AMAZING. the set production quality was mindblowing; the colours and the characters were just SO over-the-top sometimes that i thought i was on LSD at times. lol. Really would recommend it to everyone. was good, even from the dress circle. 

• On the 11th, I had my first meeting with my supervisor in ~ages. Finally submitted an abstract for the postgrad conference that going to be held at SydU at the end of the month. No idea what I'm doing with that. And then, randomly, when I got home that night. There was a HUGE spider waiting for me in my study. Had an hour-long battle with it cos it hid its corpse so well that I couldn't find it even after I got it to OD on bug spray. 

 post about yesterday's high-tea party coming soon.

donna.

Man~ i'm getting there with the blog entries (second last of the batch, but maybe last to be posted!!!!!)
Miss Jenny M Lam: super happy birthday and super super apologies for not getting you your elmo
hopefully we'll be able to find you something even cooler for the rest of your present!

Anyway, us girls *LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL* went to Little Snail for lunch
Three course meal for under $40, which isn't too bad 
It was fine-dining without the discomfort, which was pretty awesome
Too bad the restaurant's lighting leaves a lot to be desired (photography-wise)

 

HOT CHICK ALERT. (WITH A PICNIC BASKET TO BOOT!)

 

I ordered the escargots, the veal and for dessert, a hazelnut and praline ice cream on shortbread

 

the sauce was great, really buttery if not a bit too salty

otherwise, the dish wasn't anything to special

i quite like the texture of snails though

 

lolsy moment of the day: when janice poured sangria for like three of us, before the waiter tells her she's doing it wrong xD

 

serious duck liver pate. serious stuff. 

it was so good, considering i don't even like liver. but i couldn't stop eating it. 

i really do think it was the sweet suace (can't remember what it was) that made it awesome.

 

michelle and hui trying to mime the rest of jenny's present. LOOOOOOOOOOL. 

 

the icecream was really good. the shortbread not so much :(

the almond was a bit too strong...

 

someone's drunk...

 

olden day girl from shanghai, eloping with some friends (lol)

so little snail...it was okay. 

i think i had my expectations a bit too high, because it's like the go-too place for school excursion french food. 

my main was veal...something...and the sauce tasted way better than it looked. it LOOKED like buttery goo. lol. but it tasted really good.

THUS: not in a hurry to go back for the food, but it was a nice girly lunch spot :D

donna.

YAY
over a week ago was michelle's...23rd (?) birthday
celebrated by trashing her desk and then the whole gang went to blackbird cafe for dinner
a whole lotta drinking that went on because it was $10 cocktails
i think out all of the cocktails we ordered, only our (i.e. me and jenny) one was good
well i know for sure janice and mel's one wasn't xD
the food was pretty decent though (if i remember correctly)

 

lolsy moment of the night was when janice tried to pass her chips to someone and that's when we found out the chip container was bottomless xD

 

i was not drunk

 

work that pout mel!

one thing that sucks about backblogging is how little i remember of the events that occur. 

anyone care to help me out?

 donna. 

BACKWARDS BLOGGING TAKES HOURS OUT OF MY LIFE
SHOULD REALLY NOT BE LAZY AND JUST BLOG AS I GO
I've scheduled four more blog posts this week, covering events that happened...2 weeks ago (lol)
Don't say September wasn't exciting...

Anyway, this is a lazy entry about the past week

• Monday: went out with Janice and Michelle after uni. Went to the japanese place next to Azumas on George St. Then we went to Azumas for dessert (chiffon cake and green tea latte) and stayed there until the doors closed like complete rebels.

 

• Tuesday: I dressed like Janice Liew. Or so Twitter tells me.

 

• Wednesday: Went to Little Snail in the morning and got drunk before teatime (will have separate entry later this week). Then went to uni to play Creationary before leaving at 6 to go to Mizuya with jin family and church people. Food was okay, but singing was not enough. 

 

• Thursday: MY LITTLE BRO GRADUATED AND THEN I DROVE HIM TO HIS FRIENDS HOUSE FOR PRE-FORMAL FUN AND I FELT LIKE AN AMERICAN MOM. 

 

 

Awwwww... look at my little little bro tying a tie for that tall black kid

now consider how tall my brother is compared to the tall black kid (and all surrounding kids) and then compare how tall i am relative to my brother. and i was pretty much hanging around 17 year old giants for the better part of an hour. 

it was fun.

• Friday: Finished stats assignment early, at...4? That's half an hour early! Then we played Creationary with MT before Michelle, Janice and I went to Macchiato's for food and a girly chat. Went there for peking duck pizza WHICH WAS NOT THERE. Ended up with some weird seafood pizza that had a ton of rocket on it. Also had lamb pasta which was pretty good and the richest fondant on the face of the earth which was not what we ordered. Love hanging with those two, always.

• Saturday: bum. bum. bummed (i.e. postponed brunch with anita) until 5 when i drove down to burwood to pick up twin. Then Cherry came and picked us up at burwood. We ended up late for Ang's surprise party at Churrascaria. Meaning, when we got there, there were 20 odd people we didn't know, sitting around Ang. So we walked past and were all "OH! DIDN'T EXPECT YOU HERE!" Lol EPIC!FAIL. Then events occurred that once again reinforced the fact that i will be 4EVAH ALONE. Thanks life~

 

• Sunday: It rained. And then I went shopping with mum for hours and hours. And then I came home and jumped in puddles before i blogged for hours and hours.

 

$10 rainbow boardies from KMART. (*fingers crossed for Saturday)

 

$8 tiered cami from KMART.

 

30% off storewide sale at COTTONON. Got a blue plaid shirt in flimsy summery fabric and a pair of beige shorts for under $35 (?)

 

look at me ticking things off my wardrobe essentials list! got this cropped navy boyfriend blazer from DOTTI. it cost me $40 but i knew if i didn't get it i'd cry in my sleep (no.)

donna.