wow what an awesome saturday catch up
after staying out of friday night with jan and pickle (pizza near oxford st, drinks at the taphouse and then wowcow froyo in darlinghurst), i thought another all day social outing was the last thing i'd want but so glad to be proven wrong.
left the house around 1 to pick up jan and it was awesome from there. had a hi-la-ri-ous ride to pickle's place compounded by the fact that i needed to pee. i can't even remember what we talked about anymore, it was just funny.
we had to wait for pickle to clean her house, and by this time i just really really needed to pee so i ended up calling her to be like HURRY UP DUDE.
and then we went to watch prometheus (pickle, jan, hui, jenny and wynnie) and it was HI-LA-RI-OUSly bad. but everyone else thought it was just plain bad lol. i got to huddle with hui though so it was ALL GOOD in my books. lol so many plotholes. so many lols.

after the movie, we went back to pickle's place to hang and make dinner plans while we waited for bel and tab
i braided jan's hair and got hui playing cut-the-rope. it was awesome.

then it was off to dinner at this japanese place on the dodgy side of hurstville.
SO MUCH HILARITY WITH THE PARKING SITUATION. there was like a 1 hour limit at the train station so we kept lusting after the spot outside the restaurant.
ended up running with wynnie to grab the car while the others were supposed to hold the fort. they failed. so we circled the block. and when we went back to through the train station, i witnessed a noob asian driver reverse out of the paying lane and into a pole. O_o
we finally did get a spot, and we wanted to save it for hui so i did the bad thing and parked the beetle in between two spaces xD. then hui came and i sacrificed any reputation of driving skills to let her park first and then i tried to reverse park on the wrong side. and it took FOREVER and like 5 people directing me. oh well.
dinner was awesome sashimi. well worth the stomachache i got a bit later (-.-)
also, most people thought i was drunk during dinner because i was relatively awake for once. 

and then it was off to briton le sans (did i just butcher that name completely?-yes i did, brighton le sands sorry) for dessert and it was also pretty awesome! (catch my drift)?
we went to bay vista and it was such a different demographic to what we were used to. never knew there was such night life on that strip.
we ordered some of the most intense dessert i'd ever had. i'm craving the peanut butter concrete shake already and i KNOW that's a bad idea. DON'T DO IT, DONNA!

 

 

 

 

EPIC!moment of the day was when i was chatting to jan on the way home

and we were discussing how generally awesome and content we were with the day

and then we were talking about favourite moments

so jan said she didn't really have one, but then i said mine. 

and then she freakin' SQUEALED IN MY EAR AND ALMOST CAUSED ME TO CRASH MY CAR because we had the favourite moment. 

lol.

donna.

today was batman day.
why?
because janice said so.

headed over to her house at 3pm.
jammed around with the guitar and ukelele while we waited for pickle to arrive.
then it was batman begins and the dark knight and knitting and pizza and juice mixed with coke.
and then it was talking until past midnight about psych and 'sex' and chinese intonations.
so happy that for once i was one of the quickest to get home.
fun times with bel, hui, janice, jenny, joe & pickle (in alphabetical order)~

 

donna.

since my last entry...

• spring arrived

• went to night noodle markets with wynnie and we left after a quick stroll around cos we're soft. i can't believe how many people line up for food they can get at existing restaurants. weird. we ended up at takeru, and it was the most random thing cos wyn had just called me to be like, what you doing? love spontaneous dinners. 
• received my credit card bills and cried. seriously need to cut down spending...next year xD
• went to orto trading company and had an amazeballs dinner with my loves. too lazy to recount but the food was good. and then after that, we went to galaxy world and me and cherry owned ddr. by owned, i mean...didn't fail. after that, we went to azuma's for sugarhit and it was just okay...

• the next night, we had dinner at takeru before sugarhit at glass brassiere. this one was GOOD.
• started training for new zealand. get fit hey!
• had an exam and finally had the epiphany that exams don't matter. for real, bro...
• after the exam, me and jenny frolicked over to pitt st mall to get names on coke cans. i got lizhiheng lol. and then we walked all the way to the rocks for a super super early dinner at pancakes. (but not before we procured some macarons from la renaissence)

• yesterday, we went to uni. and studied. before dinner at ayam goreng. we've been eating so much. ended up leaving at like...11:30pm? oh yeah, and we finally booked all NZ accommodation. never left travelling bookings until so late but living on the wild side this year~
• today, i dated myself. went shopping and bought the striped top from espirit i've been lusting after. then went and got a creme brulee from gloria jeans (which is no eggin' $5.90 or something ridic). then froliced over to the cinemas to take advantage of my cinebuzz points and watched midnight in paris. and mygosh, have been fantasising about returning to paris ever since. i think it's the first time i've watched a movie that has made me smile without realising. what a weird but wonderful experience. such a pretty movie, and has now made me want to go read me some great gatsby and ernest hemingway. bookdepository, here i come!

• finally, just dyed my hair. cut it earlier in the week. the below pictures are before the cut and dye...fingers crossed it'll all come out one shade, but you never know with hairstyling (home edition). will take pictures...sometime xD

so long medusa hair~

 hectic roots, prior to dying...

donna.

Slept in today before wishing little bro good luck for HSC. Time flies~

Then did very little work before attending the forensic masters conference. There was a lot of pausing and saying things you shouldn't say when presenting your research and a some people lacking of enthusiasm for the research :(.
It was so interesting to realise how much of an emphasis the org program puts on public speaking skills. Emily was like, yeah that would definitely not happen with someone who came out of an org program. I hope I can get confident in mine, but I have four years right?

Then after that we went Maccas for dinner to avoid the hectic rush from movie night last time.
Still ended up getting to the cinemas late, but we're super pro at timing ourselves for the trailers now!

Reel Steel was cliche but fed wonderfully into my expectations.
There's just something about watching a child build respect for their parents that always gets to me.
Some of the stuff was so ridiculous, like the ~villains and stuff but the relationship between Hugh Jackman and the kid (who I just found out is called Dakota) was just toooooo precious. Sigh~~~
The kid was just awesome comedic timing and the prettiest eyes ever. Great one liners as well...
Some wonderfully-shot moments like when max got angry at Charlie for making him bring back the robot himself and how there was no music. So cute!
Also, got overly invested in the well being of the robots (which was not unexpected). Happens every time...

Overall, really fun movie with a bit of everything in it even though you pretty much know what's going to happen from the trailer.
More about relationships than robot boxers which was great for me :P

Getting through the movies I want to see this year like a boss!




donna@stewie

Had one of those epic days yesterday that i'll remember for a long time <3
After days and days of going back and forth, we finally decided to go ahead with the road tripping anyway...
despite an invitation to dozens of people, ended up fitting into one small car xD 
janice picked up michelle and wynnie and arrived at my house around 11am
we gps-ed it to palm beach and were pretty sure we were following wrong directions for about 10 minutes
no matter, we eventually arrived with a background soundtrack of mariah carey and justin bieber
lol.
  
Part 1: Palm Beach 
first real stop was at palm beach fish and chips where i'm pretty sure i ate one of the best fish'n'chips ever
just, wow. who knew you could actually taste the difference, eh? 

then after lunch, we drove up the road to palm beach, where you guess it! it started raining.

and of course the two softies (read: michelle and wynnie) decided to stay in the car

while me and janice went off to frolic in the rain

it was awesome!

 

 

eventually our frolicking convinced the power-that-be to give up on the rain so we called the other two out to frolick with us xD

spent a long time taking photos and running around and generally exhausting ourselves in a very good way.

 

after that, we were supposed to go coffee at some random cafe i'd spotted on the drive up

but WE NEVER FOUND IT!

(one day!)

everyone was pretty tired...one little person in particular (lol)

Part 2: 28 Days Later and Boardgames
When we got back to castle hill, first matter of business was to go grocery shopping
which we did after we spent half an hour at lincraft buying thread for friendship bracelets (lol)
then it was back to the house to watch a movie while we recharged before cooking dinner

Ended up watching 28 days later which was super lolsy to watch with these guys
(for which i'm super glad xDDD)
lots of screaming and hiding under pillows and swearing at how stupid the main character was
love it!
we were so immersed, we didn't even care that lily was about to arrive, despite the fact she thought she'd be arriving after dinner xD

Eventually the movie ended and we cooked dinner (neopolitan spaghetti + roasted chicken + baby spinach 'chips') and talked about the essentials of surviving a zombie attack

Then...
...Boardgame time!


Scattergories highlights (mostly courtesy of Janice Liew)

• excuses for being late ('e'): An elephant squished my car
• ice cream flavours ('e'): Egg-plant ice cream (googled to double check and...lol!)
• colours ('j'): Jaundice (LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL NEVER LAUGHED SO HARD IN MY LIFE AT JANICE'S DESPARATION: come on wynnie! come on! jaundice is a pigment! pigment is colour! come on! come on!!!!!!)
• halloween costumes ('f'): Freaky pumpkins
• desserts ('j'): Jello and jelly are totally DIFFERENT things!
• sports equipment ('r'): Racquet - squash (me and michelle had racquet, then janice and lily both had racquet and specified squash, thinking they were super smart xdddd)
• types of dance ('a'): Appropriate and advanced dance
• things to save up for (r'): radish (must once again reiterate to janice liew that a radish is probably the only thing in the world you don't have to save up for)
• hidden things ('r'): Rainbows and unicorns
• sports team ('t'): Tigers (LOOOOOL both lily and janice put tigers, even though they were talking about different teams)

Taboo highlights

• Janice and Wynnie: When you expunge bad records, you something the something something! Immediately after: Cleaning the slate?
• Michelle: Janice always talks about this! ...It has those...those things! Umm...Light sarbars?
• Janice and Wynnie: The word was "Detour". Janice gave a clue. Wynnie guessed Alternate Route. Then Janice clued France bike riding. Wynnie got Tour de France. Janice motioned for more. Wynnie said: Indirect tour?
• Random popping up of Floriade and Palm Beach related words (spooky!)
• The race was so close, we decided to show our collected cards one by one to see who had one. SO EPIC! Janice and Wynnie won by ONE WHOLE CARD. 

The girls didn't end up leaving until past 12:33am.
SO AWESOME.
contented sigh.

donna.

so yesterday was the midnight screening for the last harry potter film, and...

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.
(for my review on part 1: go here)

the screening started half an hour late and a reminder to myself: no midnight screenings at george street ever again -.-
good thing about the crowd was they reacted pretty much in line with my own reactions, which is more than i can say for some of the other screenings i've been to...cough
 
anyway, once again, i went in unprepared. 

well, i was prepared to shed a few tears. 

but loooooooooooool, i didn't expect to be ugly-crying for like a FULL hour

-.- what the hell. 

not cool.
(also, not cool for isaac who was sitting beside me and just shaking his head at my sobs)

BEWARE: SPOILER FILLED POST

 harry potter & the deathly hallows: part 2
...

this is basically a my-feelings post rather than a recap because honestly i don't really remember what happened all that well
i thought it started off a bit slow but then about 20 minutes in, it really picked up and then kind of...never went back down

favourite parts
i loved the gringotts scene, and fully felt like i was actually on a rollercoaster. wouldn't be surprised at all if they incorporated it into the harrypotterworld ride.
HBC acting as hermione, she totally got her huffiness downpat
when everyone started putting up protection spells around hogwarts and it was like UNITY!
the random (intentionally) comedic moments amongst the intense,  like neville on the bridge, ron speaking parseltongue and minerva being cute
surprisingly, the scene with the grey lady...completely freaked me the fudge out. she was so creepy. but so well done.
snape's death, oh my gosh, pull out my heartstrings (so graphic, and yet, not)
how they showed the deaths, and just the montage during the pause in the battle
tears pouring when they showed fred's death, and lupin and tonks WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
(i was already crying when they were foreshadowing)
(and i still can't look at screencaps without wanting to tear up)
the pensieve scene...T.T...and harry's face as he chooses his death and just the whole part leading up to his death and...sob sob sob
like when all the parental figures in his life came back and gave him the pep talk :(
the score was, such a good tribute to earlier scores past and the drums just hit me at the core (lol i'm listening to it right now and feeling completely epic)
and then once again, the acting was just so. much. better. than the earlier films (note: this difference has been highlighted by the fact i watched POA over the weekend)
but ohmygosh, any time they showed a flashback to the older movies = tears in my eyes
i realise now, how many fierce female characters there are in the series - like minerva and bellatrix, fierce.
and the next generation of kids in the epilogue - albus severus, YOU ARE SUCH A DOLL.

could have been better
the final battle could have been a bit better - specfically, molly's fight against bellatrix...that could have been more epic
the aberforth scene was a bit lacking
some of the graphics were a bit weird...like in the gringotts vault...that was a little bit noticeably cgi for me, but not too bad
the kings cross chapter was a bit lolsy
i thought the whole section after harry's resurrection was a bit...iffy (because i'm nitpicking?), it was a series of random lolsy moments...like some randomly cheesy lines and then voldemort's laugh and that awkward hug with draco...like, what. the. hell.
...if i hadn't gotten used to their awkward treatment of romance, i would've been...-.-
just random things that were missing


but overall, i loved it.
it was such a fun, epic ride
i love the cast they picked and how they've turned out as adults (everyone knows i love a bit of offscreen comradery coughlotrcough)

love how the movies went from dodgy-ish but fun to good AND fun

it's so hard to explain what i feel about harry potter, because i'm not a massive fan and i'm not versed in the lore, i don't read fanfic and i don't camp out, i don't really feel compelled to defend it or anything...

but i've enjoyed waiting for the books to come out and the movies to come out. i don't think i realised until this year that i've just very coincidentally ended up reading the last few books the day they've come out, and very coincidentally ended up watching some of the movies the day they've come out. accidentally, sitting there on opening night, like it was fate. 

so it's just very randomly, magically, grown to mean a lot to me...

now, i can't wait to start rereading the books <3
and also, preparing myself to go again soon xD

 

mischief managed, 

donna.

man~ so behind
let us amalgamate all the exciting stuff that has happened since 5th June into this one entry
that is, this is going to be the laziest entry ever

• on sunday: i gave moc-dog a shower (for the first time in months~) and he was super unimpressed.
• on monday: i went and watched x-men: first class and fangirled over the mcbender bromance. movie was fun. people i watched it with were fun (twin, joecheung, cherryho+bf, ~derek). some pretty useless characters but that was made up for by the awesome ones (and it didn't hurt that i liked most of the cast). joecheung wouldn't let me drink chatime because its poisonous (irony) but he bought us icecream cones for the movie so it was okay. we ate korean afterwards.
• on tuesday: i went to the belgian cafe with twin, joecheung, eric and cherryho. they all had mussells and i had a really good ribeye steak because i didn't want them to take me to the hospital. we drank beer. me and twin drank ~manly beer. the ~manly beer tasted better than the girly beer. i was red in the face. we are a lot. then we went to maxbrenner and drank hot chocolate. super. fat. when i got home, my mum made me go to sleep straightaway because apparently i was too drunk to shower. ew. 
• on wednesday: i had a 9am meeting with workcover people and it lasted until like...12pm? 2pm? then i had to get my hardcore study on for my friday exam. jenny brought us marshmallows. they were weird.
• on thursday: i studied. 
• on friday: i had my psyc of org exam and it was fun. then at night, we randomly decided to go to the rocks. it took us an hour to get from uni to the rocks. lesson 1: don't drive to the rocks. we checked out vividsydney and the rocks night markets. we took forever to decide on a place to eat and ended up at pancakes on the rocks. we waited for half an hour, like tourists. then we talked. and talked. and talked. and then i looked at my watch and it was 12:30am. lol!!!!! michelle the savvyor (read: saviour) drove us to the city. and janice was so rebel she slept over at my place because her next train was in an hour. EPIC. we slept on the living room couches and concluded that they were super comfy. 
• on saturday: dropped janice off at home. we waited a whole 15 minutes for the egg to our epic lunch feast. so good. picked up missjennylam and spent day at uni kind of productively. ate dinner at some shang place. ordered too much. so fat. (again) then we went and had chatime.
• on sunday: i slept at 3am. and woke up at 3pm. and didn't study. at. all. 
• on monday (public holiday): got picked up my janice promptly at 9am. drove to uni in the rain. for lunch, we made janice drive us down to maccas. me and jenny shared a beef mates meal because we're beef mates. and i was -.- when i realised i got a quarter pounder and not a double quarter pounder. hannah joined us for lunch. for dinner, jenny and janice were ultra awesome and went down to get chinese takeout <3 because i was epically studying. the congee was kind of salty and the fried rice was not salty enough and we had chatime. 
• on tuesday: i had my exam. it was SUPER not fun. like...to overcompensate the funness of the other one. eck. i don't even want to think about it. after the exam, we went to the whitehouse for drinks. somehow managed to drink from 12-3pm, skipping out on a seminar and a lab meeting. go me! had so. much. punch. the fries are so good there. {insert toilet story}. after that, i went back upstairs to reply emails and do work. everyone thought i was drunk, but i wasn't. 
• today: we ventured out of our comfort zone and went to the quad for lunch. janice also ran. we also went and had chatime. 

so much detail has been lost but oh well, hopefully these sentences will trigger my memory when i read back over these blogs in 17 years time.
recount of the toilet story will come later - seeing as i already told it once today.
meanwhile, check out odosketch: my new procrastinating pasttime xD

donna.

YAY finally saw anita for the first time since my birthday <3
also, got to use my new umbrella for the first time :P
(even though it was raining sideways so the umbrella didn't help that much xD)

we went to grill'd for dinner
it was their first birthday and we got a buy-one-get-one-free deal for saying happy birthday to the cashier (which i did in a super exuberant fashion)
the decor was all fancy with balloons and they had a guy singing acoustic covers, which was awesome.

 

it's moments like when anita sneaks up to a table and steals a huge-ass balloon - for us to take photos with - that really hammer in the fact that we're related <3

 

i ordered the baa-baa burger, anita ordered the 'simon says' chicken burger

and we shared the chips

the chips were so. good. SOOOOOOOO. GOOOOOOOOD. 

the baa-baa burger was much better than the chicken burger, but not as good as the time me and twin deliberately drove all the way to newcastle for it...

but still really good.

(and also, cheap on this occasion)

as you can see, we also got free cupcakes. so cute~

(even though the frosting was weird, it tasted like...strawberry oak milk)

 

after dinner, we trundled over to events cinemas to watch POTC4

pirates of the caribbean 4: on stranger tides

mini mini lazy review

• there was a super lolsy moment right at the beginning where there's like a dead guy laying there, and me and anita both knew that he'd pop up. and yet, we both managed to get scared. lol. i will never learn. 
• the movie itself was slow to begin but really picked up towards the middle
• the mermaids were awesome 
• the plot was pretty much all over the place
• i actually really enjoyed the 3d effects in this one, it was subtle and used very very well. 
• i also quite liked most of the new characters. and didn't feel that there was a orlando&kerira sized hole missing or anything...
• aside from that, not much to say. 
• it was better than the last one, but no where near as good as the first. 
• i guess there's only so many ways you can reinvent a pirate's search for treasure. 
• even the music, which i usually adore, felt really repetitive.
• also, most lolsy ending ever. me and anita looked at each other in disbelief. so so random.
• that being said, it was still fun.

by the time i went to catch my bus, the qvb was completely empty

 

:O

donna.

YAY went to the sydney premiere for water for elephants yesterday
stalking status: FAIL

but as me and miss jenny lam have discussed
our mission was simply a comparative measure for next time
conclusion of our mission was to never pay to walk the red carpet and to just line up outside with all the other crazy fans if you want a glimpse of your ~favourite star
(lol)

anyway, did nothing at uni yesterday because it was friday/w4e day
around 4:30pm, everyone came up and ~surprised me with my present
some genius, i don't know who but i have an idea, decided to put a fake present and then get everyone to leave
NICE TRY!
hhahah but yes, so touched that so people came up to level 14 and gave me performance anxiety opening up my presents (many of which i truly do love so thank you <3)

<insert facebook pictures>

then it was off to mum's place to prepare for the premiere
feel like a ninja with my curling iron now xD

before:

 

after:

on the bus

 

waiting in line to get on the red carpet

red carpet experience was...not like i thought it would be

we were really kind of herded like cattle

made me think what it was like if you're like a b-lister...do you still get herded?

 

super grateful to miss jenny lam and janice for coming with me

otherwise i'd be super bored

 

lol this photo

 

and lol this photo also, because i have the same face -.-

 

being herded onto the red carpet

it was supposed to be the longest red carpet in australia

but truthfully the walk seemed really short

and it was kind of weird being on the other side of the barricaded screaming

(because i've been on the barracaded side...obviously)

lots of really well-dressed and made up people

made me slightly uncomfortable xD

 

hey! why is everyone pointing their cameras off to the right?

 

looks like it's someone important!

 

OH! THIS BACKSIDE LOOKS FAMILIAR!

OH WAIT!

IT'S ROBERT PATTINSON!

looooooooool

i actually was lucky enough to see his face, and he is soooo pretty and he seems sooooo nice <3 

but yeah, total photo fail. 

the security guards were full pushing us along, except for one who smiled at me (probably cos i looked like a little girl next to everyone else)

should've totally used my dimples to ask for a photo :( 

 

oh hey! reese witherspoon's backside! 

(compare their entourages xD but i guess the chances of rob being are attacked ARE much higher)

 

sometime before entering the theatre, i had a chance to cross the road and double back down the red carpet

but i didn't take the opportunity because i have too much pride and didn't want to be seen walking down twice xD

obviously, retrospectively, it's like...what pride? who needs pride?

(note for next time: stalking is a prideless venture) 

inside the state theatre. 

so pretty. 

very reminiscent of boston opera theatre <3

 

lol at the people who paid to get these freebies!

 

my view on the mezzanine level

pretty good

 

thanks to janice for lending me her super P&S

so i could capture this shaky video:

another reason why paying for the red carpet sucks is because of the super short introductions

seriously, if you want to see celebrities in the flesh hang out outside

inside, they leave after...2 minutes

(but what a glorious 2 minutes it was~)

lol at the old lady reading FAMOUS behind me

 

i'm not going to review the movie because i'm so biased

and also cos i kept ruminating over the stalking fail and couldn't concentrate on it 

:P

it was beautifully shot though. 

and the elephant was amazing xD

 when i left the theatre around..10pm

the red carport and barricades were already almost all gone~

 

 

overall verdict: if given the chance to pay to take the red carpet route, then no. 

not worth it. 

(unless you're one of those people that are like...OMG I BREATHED THE SAME AIR AS <insert celebrity> IT WAS SO WORTH IT~

which some of the people sitting near me were -.-)

donna.