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.

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.

Exciting things that happened over the past few days include meeting up with Janice, JessLee and Vicki for dinner at Wagaya. Had such an unexpected great time that pushing back my assignment was completely worth it.

Then today was a Donna's all-nighter. Meaning I napped throughout the night LOL. Managed to watch the sunrise over the course of my 90 minute naps.

Felt so terrible as I was reading my final edit. Thank you (again & again) to Janice and Michelle for making me the most awesome triple-tier sandwich.
My jaw still hurts from it.

Then it was down to the White House for drinks with my org peeps. So stupid, I forgot my ID (cos these things just don't cross my mind) and so security had to kick me out after only having one drink :(
Super lolsy that the whole group got super indignant and were like She can't be under 18 and doing postgrad, We wouldn't hang around 17 year olds, What? She looks 30! Etc etc etc.
Gotta love it!

After uni, Janice, Michelle and I headed down to Harbourside to finally get Janice her pulled pork sandwich. Only to be met with a 1 hour waiting time.
We'd all conveniently forgotten that today was Friday, so we went scourging around for food and lo and behold! Somehow ended up at The Star. you read that right! The old casino.

After walking around for what seemed like hours we finally ended up at the Asian place in the middle of the gambling floor. Between the three of us we ordered a Hainan chicken rice, a Fat Pho noodle and chow kwai deo (whatever~). As well as ginger lemon tea and cumquat green tea.
All up $56, which is a but on the expensive side for Asian food but still acceptable. The best dish was definitely the raw beef Pho. Sad that the Hainan rice wasn't that fragrant.

Now on the one home, completely ready for slumber...



donna@stewie

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.

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.

got picked up at 8:10am by janice (thank you!)
drove to uni via victoria road so that i could get drive thru maccas (thank you!)
then we went to pick up jenny in maroubra before heading to uni
yay! uni on a saturday!

exciting thing, after joe's gift of raisin toast and michelle's ear plus (long story~) was booking the harry potter midnight screening tickets!
HOW EXCITEMENT!
lol. then miss jenny lam proceeded to take half an hour making us warning us.
love that girl!

around 3:15pm, just as everyone got into the groove of working
we had to leave for the rocks to meet up with jess by 4pm
fail. so much traffic despite michelle gifting us with a lift (sidenote: we picked up huiyih on the way so we now had a full carload)
ended up being like...15 minutes late.
the people in the backseat had to get out of the car first while michelle and janice went to park the car, so michelle randomly stopped at a pedestrian crossing
and we were all ready to get out of the car when THE. LOLSIEST. THING. HAPPENED.
HY couldn't open the door!
She was full panicing like she'd just been kidnapped, OMG I CAN'T OPEN THE DOOR.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.
so funny.

got to le renaissance with plenty of macaroons to spare.
and ordered so much sweet stuff, but thankfully the servings were small so they weren't tooo bad.
i think favourite was the chocolate tart because I. LOVE. NUTS.
(lol)

then jess had to leave to party
and the rest of us had to decide where to eat dinner
somehow ended up deciding on the italian forum, leichardt.
so we cramped into michelle's car and drove off into the distance
(lolsy moment when jenny said she wanted to stimulate me)
took us forever to decide where to eat which i guess is a good thing because the others were all saw full
so funny seeing everyone contact all the foodies they knew to pick a restaurant and just failing completely
ended up at moretti, which was a busy place but wasn't too modern. nice family oriented restaurant.
the food was average-high priced but really quite good. loved the mascarpone pizza!
service was a bit so-so, but nothing to complain about aside from it taking awhile to be noticed xD

 

after dinner, on the way home, michelle almost drove over like...5 people

and HY kept grabbing me. it was hilarious.

it was decided that everyone would pile into janice's car for any future roadtrips xD

all of us were so knackered, and it was only like...9pm

after we dropped everyone off, and me and janice were in janice's car again

we bumped into michelle at the traffic lights that turned onto anzac bridge

girl didn't notice us for a full minute

makes us worry sometimes...

also, had a lolsy/lovely conversation with janice on the car ride home.

but i can't remember the specifics

donna.

yesterday, i bought breakfast with miss jenny lam
and the people at blue stone stole her egg

 

after uni, 

met up with twin, joecheung and eric to watch thor

we ate at takeru...again

i ordered kaisen don...again

then eric was super rich/pretentious and would only drink starbucks

brief movie review

• was enjoyable
• pretty funny - intentionally and unintentionally
• acting was a mix bag - the ~asian dude was definitely on the can't-act side of the spectrum
• 3D was pretty good, not nausea-inducing at all - pretty natural
• graphics wise was a bit weird because earth was really natural and then the other planet was full cgi so it sometimes seemed like two movies
• love subplot sucked
• character development was lacking
• eric's really into greek mythology and he really liked it
• the music was a little bit cliche, in that epic way that sounds like every other epic score
• i didn't really sell it, but if you go with low expectations, it's a pretty fun, cliche ~superhero movie

donna.