Lake Mountain!
That's where we went one pleasant, sunny morning.

According to the website, its the resort closest to Melbourne and about 2 hours drive. We didn't want to drive to somewhere ambitious like Mt.Buller because its quite a bit further and this was supposed to be a day trip. Further more, people like me enjoy the introduction to anything to be vanilla, given that this would be Mo's first snow sighting! Yay!

We had breakfast in this popular cafe. I wanted a breakfast breakfast. As in, what you normally have for breakfast. A stereotypical breakfast you see the sexy female protagonist in a 1990's movie, with perfect out-of-bed hair and scarlet lipstick, dressed in a black chemise and matching undies amber leisurely to the kitchen and poof its on the table, scrambled eggs and all things yummy.



It started out pretty standard. We went along the road towards Healsville Sanctuary, a rural zoo an hours drive away from Melbourne.



Mo and I went there together last year with acquaintances of ours, Adrian and Diane, electric guitar junkies who had came from Singapore a newly married couple.



Along the way we saw lots of greenery. Rolling hills, gigantic, fluffy white clouds, green pastures. The stuff you see read in fairy tales - at least, in Singapore - a tiny little concrete jungle of an island smack sandwiched right in the hot zone of Malaysia and Indonesia.
And if you happen to chance upon this blog and read it right till to this sentence, yet still have no idea where Singapore is, well, I can't blame you.
Mo asked me when we had first met in the most innocent expression he could muster, 'Is Singapore in China?'
Boy, that really made me lose my marbles. I wanted to sock him point blank in the face. Not that I look down on China, but really...China?



So, we drove and drove and drove. Stopped by a petrol station (yes Mo, I insist to call it a petrol station, not a gas station. -.-) to stock up on snacks and drinks. My latest hit would be Schweppes' Lemonade. Definitely better than Solo.



As we drove, the scenery started to vary, then change. It was very similar to Kuching, Malaysia, just the weather was much better, and I was much more upbeat than when I lived in Kuching. Everyday was a battle. But let's not go there.
I loved the pothole-free roads, even when we were deep in the forest mountain, driving inches off the side of a cliff that plunged many, many metres down.
Houses grew more sparse, livestock more scattered, as we drove further and further into the rural areas.



As an urban dweller, or more loosely translated, a city girl (I mean, c'mon, even in Singapore I live less than a 5 minute drive to Orchard road on a straight road. Yep, that close.), I'm not accustomed to seeing nature on such a grand scale.
I mean, sure, I've seen some wonderful sights overseas when I was younger on family trips, but its been years since I've been back to places like the Grand Canyon in Arizona, U.S, or even to the Swiss Alps in Switzerland.
And none of those were on my money, either, my Mom foot the bill, so I don't think it counts. I'm very territorial when it comes to money, I think my family would know best.
Most of all, its been years and years.

To see nature after so many years of roughing it out in Singapore's dreary high-rise buildings and in the picturesque yet idle humdrum of Kuching, even, this was really, a breath of fresh air.



We dived into a long, winding, single road, venturing deeper and deeper into what we translated as the unknown. It was mind-numbingly exciting!
One noticeable visual was that as we drove deeper into the forests on those mountain slopes, the foliage got thicker and thicker.
The forest seemed to reach out and grab us, at some point.



Trees grew taller and taller. I recalled quite vividly the sights and then remembered this little factual tidbit from the Discovery Channel on Foxtel cable telly about the Orang Asli in Sarawak, Borneo, a state of Malaysia.
The Orang Asli are the original natives of Malaysia. Yes, not the Malay people, as they would lead you to believe in the pitiful excuse of politics being bantered around in the country, giving way to preferential, special treatment of Malay Muslims in Malaysia because they peg themselves as Malaysia's natives, not the Chinese, nor the Indians living within the same country.
Apparently, logging companies are shearing away the forests they live and survive within, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Primary forests is a term used to describe a beautiful, matured state of natural foiliage - tall trees which shield the harsh elements from the forest floors, having been growing for decades undisturbed.
People and animals live under this blanket of security, the lower forest floors free of messy weedy plants. The place is spacious, airy and you can actually see beyond your nose.
Something like the tall trees in the pictures below, reaching towards the skies, tall and proud.

When you chop down these trees, especially in an unnatural manner, by mowing all of these trees down all at once, in one go, you leave an empty, desolate plot of land which is devoid of life. Many times, it becomes just desert sand. A lack of nutrients in the soil makes plant life unable to grow, thus the land becomes inhabitable by animals and people alike.
If plant life does grow, this becomes the Secondary forest.

A secondary forest is basically what its name describes.
After all, plant life had taken ages to mature to such an advanced state. Having disrupted the entire cycle, plants have to start over. That's right.
The plants which grow are a mess of various plant life all jostling for space, sunlight and resources on a land which already is light on nutrients and so on. The result? The plant life chokes the animals and people living within the land - everything is at eye level, plants, leaves, branches, everything, just lashing and covering everything else visible at eye level. Plants grow closer to one another. Everything is muddy, disorganised, there is a lack of unity you see in mature primary forests.
All this growth, which could take millenia to fully mature and settle, wasted for a couple of logs, or to make way for palm tree plantations.


The Orang Asli were practically begging the British to come back to rule Borneo. They claimed that under the British, they were protected, their land was protected, and most of all, they were respected.
While I take the British superiority implications portrayed in the documentary with a pinch of salt, the fact is that the Malaysian government is being irresponsible and dismissive of the plight of the Orang Asli, many of whom still choose to live their semi-nomadic lifestyle as people of the forest/jungle.
Scorned as stupid, illiterate and a whole host of unpleasant remarks, they say that the Malaysian Government doesn't protect them. Promises them 'progress'. I think the most indicting part of the entire documentary was when they actually brought the host, who had to smuggle himself secretly into Sarawak in the guise of a tourist because they would not grant him a permit to visit, thus exposing the despicable treatment of the Orang Asli, to this bare patch of land which had been raped of its resources and greenery.
Look, even though much of what my lecturer says has a point - about certain interests of certain 'groups' being protected by keeping people undeveloped and illiterate so that they can manipulate the country and its peopole of its resources, money and so on - I think that it would have at least been more convincing if they had razed the plot of land and built a bloody township on it so that they would encourage the Orang Asli to choose a life as a settler and an average urban Malaysian.
Instead, they pointed to the land being bare and then to a broken bridge as an example, and said, "See? Is this progress as they have said? If they wanted progress, why would they destroy this bridge?" They then point to a few dilipidated rudimentary kampongs and commented, "Why would they dismantle the houses if they had meant for the development they had promised?"
They waved their hands at the ground angrily, "Since the loggers left, they have left broken glass, nails, sharp objects, they don't clean the place up, you can't even walk through this place."

Apparently, one of their children had been injured before and they had brought the child to the logging settlement for help, but they were beaten, shouted at and chased by the loggers with sticks and clubs.
Bitter and resentful at the 'progress' and 'development' promised by the Malaysian Government in return for their forests, land and ultimately, their livelihood - which they were not given a chance to even agree to - they certainly have a right to be resentful.

Hm. I think I've digressed a little too much.



Anyway, we thought that a GPS system would help us, but as you can see from the picture above, not much help. Just green all around, which sent a bloody chill down my spine, and an annoying pink road which snaked all the way to kingdom come.
Several times, the car icon, symbolising our car, actually went off the path, which absolutely freaked us out. No one wants to be caught in the middle of nowhere.
Further more, as we turned round the sometimes sharp bends, we could actually see -gulp- the slope down to the bottom. The trees we were seeing were actually the tops of one of those tall trees you see in the pictures below, that means...




As we went deeper and deeper, it seemed like the road would never end. We didn't dare get bored because it was our first time driving on a mountain road. Absolutely nerve-wrecking. Not only were we watching out for any potential cars which might have appeared out of nowhere from those sharp bends left and right, we were also mightily afraid of veering off the narrow road.


The sights, though, were breathtakingly beautiful.



By the time we thought we were about halfway there, it was already nearly afternoon. Which is worrisome because we wanted to get past all this before it got too dark to navigate. Plus, if you've seen as many horror shows as we have, you'd known to finish up your business in a deep, dark forest (or what it seemed to us at the time) before dark before the boogeyman strikes.



Finally, we reached mid-point! Marysville.
A small, nondescript town stuck seemingly, in the middle of nowhere! From where we were, it seemed, Population: 15. Or something.



The air was crisp. And very cold. I neglected to read the website about having more than 3 layers of clothing, and not wearing jeans, which I was. Whoops.



Rented our ski stuff. We didn't actually plan on skiing. We actually wanted to just play in the snow, make snow angels and snow men. Yes, we are pretty juvenile.



Onward. By then, Mo was complaining about the lack of snow. We had been driving for nearly 15 min after that town, the road didn't seem to end and neither did the greenery. After driving for another 15 minutes I spotted the first whites in a distance.


After spending nearly 1/4 the trip doubting if there'd be snow, we spotted the first signs of snow. Slowly, but surely!


More snow! We drove to the entrace booth, finally, only to have us sent back to Marysville because our car wasn't a 4WD and thus needed wheel chains to prevent the car from skidding. Right then we were envisaging horrifying scenes of our car skidding off the sides of some bend and us plunging to our doom.
Great trip so far?


We finally got our wheel chains from a very cranky middle-aged woman who did not like to see dumb tourists, and Asians, at that, and told us about the horrors of skidding off the bends and plunging to our dooms. Gee, thanks.



It was a bloody chore to fix the chains on. Mo did it, though. Hehe, so I'm not complaining. Our hands. Were. Freezing. I took the liberty of packing our canned drinks in the snow nearby while he chained up the wheel so that we'd have cold drinks in the car. Am I crazy? No, just Singaporean.





Snow, snow, snow! Mo and I had barely stepped out of our cars, when it started snowing heavily, to the point of a blizzard!



I can't believe I actually used to walk around in the middle of snow with mid-thigh polka dot tights and a Universal Studios jacket hoodie when I was younger. No wonder I got incredulous stares. I wonder if it was because of my girth, or the fact that I was a kid walking around in polka dot tights in the middle of a Swiss winter.
....Probably both.



We had a snack at the in-house bistro, which looked wonderful with the steamy cups of cappuccino on those cafe tables. Turned out to be a chaotic little dump filled with whiny kids wiping their drooling snot off their noses and rubbing it onto their neon winter jackets. Standing room only. Plus the al-fresco area was in shambles because of the windy blizzard, the tables were overturned, chairs were all over the place. Wonder if any kids flew over the balcony...I sure wanted to toss a few of the whingy ones over.
But, the food wasn't that bad. Pardon the lack of pics, if ever, I love food pics, and taking food pics, but mine are all blurry, even Photoshop couldn't fix it.
I had a piping hot Chicken & Vegetable soup, served with crusty bread. Mo had....*drum rolls*, hot chips! Hot predictable. But then, predictable is good.
My only complaint was that there was too much shredded chicken in it, too little soup. I don't normally complain if they give too much of something, especially if its food, but I really wanted to enjoy a good soup.
We hadn't had lunch since the breakfast and we were starving. Oh. Wait. We did have 2 jam doughnuts from a pack of 6 we bought from a farmer's market along the way in between the two towns.
Yep, that's as exciting as our lives usually get. For Mo and I, the highlight of the day is normally something like getting the last 3-pack paper towels in the swirly design at the supermarket. Hehe. I so love it.



And so, the drive back. Evening. A completely different drive.
The sun was reduced to a soft, almost ethereal glow. Beautiful, as it shone through the endless stripes of trees.
We did end up driving in the dark, but surprisingly, there were many people going through the mountain pass, driving really, really quick, some to the point of tail-gating us.
We were tail gated by some fuckwit in a BMW (yeah big deal.). Mo wanted to accelerate a little, pressurized by the fellow, but I told him to screw the guy - this is our first time on this mountain road, driving in the frickin' dark. I don't care if his mistress is having quadruplets in the boot of that BMW or if he goes to Marysville daily to get ice for his cola, but I'm not going to drop off a bloody cliff and die because of him.
It got really dark. We finally drove toward town, went back home, went out again to have dinner.

What can I say? A thoroughly unforgettable trip.
I plan to go for an entire weekend trip at Mount Buller. I hope it'd be as, if not more, memorable than this trip.


Current Mood: Refreshed
Current Tunes: None

@ 10:42 AM

Just a quick one:

Today is Mo's birthday!
He's 24 today. Yes, a big number, one that he just can't get over.

We've got to pop by a few places before we celebrate his birthday...but not before I made him a yummy breakfast surprise of - yes, you'll find it's quite familiar, but yet revised -
BERRY PANCAKES!

@ 12:32 PM

A long time ago, I wrote a glowing little blog entry about a little puppy in a big, big world.

She was tiny. As in, seriously tiny. A tiny, ebony ball of fluff, with big, soft black eyes large as dinner plates and a little bum with couldn't stop shaking from the heavy rhythm of her waggly tail.
Her daddy was a strapping pure bred German Shepard male, imported from overseas, and her mommy was a soft, maternal Gold Retriever with eyes as large as marbles and fur like spun gold.




Now the time has come for me to formally introduce this other bundle of joy.
No. It's not Austin Power's (or Mo's. I knew that one was comin'.) illegitimate love child.

This one had to wait nearly a year before I let the good news roll. Yes, despite seeming like a big mouth in front of everyone else, there are many things I just don't tell people. Goody.

This is my pride and joy. Brandy II.
To make it easier on the tongue let's call her just, Brandy.


Brandy is almost a year old.
Despite being female, I have absolutely no recollection of when I got her, nor my friends', family, acquaintances' birthdays, anniversaries, period/menopausal/mid-life crisis dates, so please don't flame me.
She just appeared in my life one day. Okay. She didn't. Brandy is from a local, registered cat breeder instead of a pet shop and their notorious kitty mills. Well. Close enough. It did involve Mo's boss, but let's not go there.
We were toying with the idea of getting a cat because life in a pet-less household is like a crack addict going cold turkey in a fashion catwalk backstage.



I've always had pets, as you might know (or not) and though I'm not really up there when it comes to treating my pets like patron saints of Utah, I do really love them.
Just to reiterate, my family and I have had over 13 dogs and puppies (if you count in the puppies born within our household), 10 cats (no kidding!), 30 plus mice, 2 chicks (which got swallowed by the cats. I'm sorry, chicks. ), even a goose and a chicken kept by my grandma when I was but a child. We've had venus fly trap pets (which can't really count as an animal, but oh well.) and um, I've had ants and sea monkeys which didn't survive their second week with me I think because I forgot to add something to the water. Whoops.

SO, for those who want to know, Brandy is a pure-bred Persian, bred from a long line of pure-bred princes and princesses, her lineage going back to the number bad ass pure bred champion breed cat, Fairlane Brandy.

Well, I didn't intend to name her after her great x15 grandmother - was just mere coincidence, really.
I named her after my first cat, also Persian, Brandy. Brandy passed away, I figured, when we were at a really bad time, and there were lots of rumours flying around the neighbourhood back in Holland Village about um, Bangladeshi foreign workers eating the cats around the area. Which...I obviously don't believe.
Yes, it sounds incredibly racist, but that's Singapore for you.

So, what are some of Brandy's hobbies?
Napping. Eating. Chasing her tail. Chasing invisible insects. Napping. Did I mention eating?



I want to grow old with this cat. And my dear Pooch back in Singapore. Till both their whiskers fall off with old age, and their fur gets dull and gray.




Current Mood: Loved
Current Tunes: Sarah Brightman - Sun of the Moon

@ 11:15 PM

Finally. I've finished my first 3D animation.
Its been one of my biggest dreams to do my own animation. Whether it be a little ratty around the edges, one of my greatest childhood dreams has been fulfilled.

I'm really, really happy with the final product. While there are many things I do want to change in this, and many things I do want to improve on, I've achieved something I never thought I would be able to.
Right now, I'm just thanking my lucky stars that I didn't go to Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore despite their bragging about how their Digital Media Design program is the best in Singapore. While I can't deny they do have some good work in there which I noticed tend to be 2D work, not 3D, their students, despite being good at art and all that, aren't very good at 3D at all. Not at least, individual work.
Perhaps its because the way we've been taught here threw us into this deliberately steep learning curve. We had to self-learn and practice alot of things, but not without the wise counsel of our ever La Rouge drivel sprouting 3D lecturer, Nigel.

He gave us the best in Western and Asian-style learning, combining independent learning and providing Asian style guidance, sort of like um, a Father duck I guess. I couldn't think of any other description, but yeah.




Anyway. Yeah, I'm ecstatic. I reckon I did a relatively decent job with my characters.
I'm still shit at character modelling, but I'm glad that my characters didn't end up looking worse than Frankenstein, like with some of the student archives Nigel was showing us the other day. Picture a rabbit with mandibles. Right. And instead of a bob style think of a reptilian-like tail. Oh. My. God. Horrible. And every 5 seconds the 'rabbit's counterpart, a tortoise, calls the 'rabbit' a 'stupid bitch'.

So, yes, these are the rendered stills from my animation. I've still got a bit to touch up on my 3D animation before I let it out on my blog. I admit, I could have done better, but practice makes perfect, so I'm hoping to try my hand at more animation and sort out my portfolio.

Some of my senior's and junior's works are awesome, I've still got alot to learn from the learned, the masters and the talented.













Its about a young beggar boy who gets kicked out of a bakery for begging by the baker's apprentice (yes, yes. Talk about cliche.). Later, the hot-tempered baker's apprentice gets kicked out of the bakery because of his attitude problem, which leads to him not being able to pay his rent. He gets kicked out of the inn he lives in too.
The beggar boy, having gotten some money from a faceless kind soul, has to make a decision on whether or not to help this stranger he doesn't know who treated him less-than-decently.

I still have a long way to go. So many dreams, so many plans, so many goals. I'm a great believer in, if you want something badly enough, you will sacrifice enough to achieve it. And I'm sure that despite much opposition, as long as I believe in myself, it doesn't matter if anyone doesn't.

Wah! One goal down, 249874292872984 more to go!

Well, I'm going to brew some tea now, its become my latest hit of the day.



Current Mood: Ecstatic
Current Tunes: Chrono Cross OST - Scars of Time by Yasunori Mitsuda

@ 2:40 PM

Mornings in Melbourne are sometimes peppered with interesting sights.









Current Mood:
Current Tunes: Spoon - I turn my camera on

@ 10:04 PM

Life really does take alot of twists and turns.
I'm glad to have been positive enough to see it through, because ultimately, I have a genuine belief that out of everything bad, lies a good outcome - whether or not we'd like to open our eyes to see that it might be for the betterment of ourselves or the people around us.

Naysayers have always been nipping at my heels, lamenting about the world around them, and how hard they do try to invalidate my existence as a person, and my accomplishments as an individual within a unit.
I am, however, a very - generally - forgiving and positive person. Life has made me this way, no one can change that.

I find myself being chastised for being a softie because of my apparent wayward, relatively carefree attitude toward criticism and put-downs by the various people in my life, be they the cleaning lady of the building, a lecturer, friends and fsmily, heck, throw in the coffee lady!
However, I've been taught to be the bigger person and rise from all the petty bickering, and disputes which are not worth your time and energy. Hence, I allow it to breeze past me like how you might allow a child to throw a tantrum. You deduce that its entire world is relegated to that sweet in its hand which means the whole world to it; you learn to smile and see that most of the time, such people have little outlet to express their anger, and that you have the fortunate consciousness and world-wise attitude that allows you to know that your world is larger than that sweet the child views with such great importance.

My Mum taught me that to express great emotion, is likened to hobbling on a crutch. Shown to the wrong people, it is welded as a weapon against you, sort of like a double-edged sword.

Though I have not perfected mastery of my emotions, I admit, I am a rather emotional person, but instead of mimicking Stone Cold Steve Austin (*Cough* MUM *Cough Cough*), I've learn to practice neutrality on the subject.
While people might be interested in what Sally Suffrage is wearing (OMG, animal prints in coute haute season? That is SO passe!) that day, I really couldn't give two shits about it.

That really does frustrate some of my friends.
I was chatting with an old friend of mine, Der, and we were gushing about how I dropped by his house a couple of times during those good ol' pre-puberscent I couldn't stand staying at home alone with my nanny, housekeepers and grandma because of the sense of emptiness that prevailed the entire household.
Those were innocent times. I dislike having to make many friends, I'm not afraid to admit I'm a bit like my Mom in that aspect. Friends are truly frivolous, to a certain degree.
At least, the ones you make past childhood. Few of them live on as well-meaning friends without some agenda. Of course, I'm not implying that my current friends are duds, but I let people draw their own conclusions, biased as they might be, if they really want to.
I can't stop people from thinking what they want to think. I've always held true to the fact that Just because people say or think something about you, doesn't make it truth.

Of course most of the time they're eager to sell that clap trap to you because they want you to believe its the truth. Laughable.

As I've said, I don't bother to defend myself from who my Mom would call small people, small worlds.

I've got ambitions, a life.
Nothing will or can change that. Nothing can stop me, nor dissuade me. You can say all you want to convince me I am something, I am this, I am that, someone is this, someone is that but in the end, even if you do annoy the heck out of me, the most I will go is "Alright, if you say so."

And that is if I do get to the final point. I only go that way if I want to get on with things and make things final. But I've very rarely said that. Few of my friends get that kind of treatment. Boy, am I a nice person.

I guess that really drives some of the naysayers off the walls. I remember the coffee lady showing off her 'expensive Victoria Secrets' lotion to Chris and I. I also remember smiling inwardly in my head at such people. It's funny. I honestly find people who, in all seriousness, believe people will be awed by the wealth she keeps blabbing on about.

Seriously. Who cares about who's rich? I was rich before, it wasn't a big deal. Granted, not super rich, like some of my friends of old, but rich enough to afford a great deal. Who cares? Seriously, I don't miss being rich. It's like changing your favourite bedsheets and getting new ones. They're older, they're tatty - but at least they're comfortable. In fact, I can confidently say once you've felt comfy cotton sheets the satin/silk ones just don't cut it. I wouldn't mind cotton sheets for life.

I don't ever regret or miss being rich. Of course you get bragging rights, but other than that, it's seriously overrated. I'm happier not being tied down by money problems with my family, or having some internal fight over who gets what, and that when Mo and I do have money, its ours.
Come to think of it, I had a brief conversation with Chris about money yesterday. I was telling her how it made me feel uncomfortable to use money which Mo and I have for my parents. It's a personal preference, as opposed to a rule of thumb. However, he would never object to me using our money any way I want because we're not two individuals here working with separate agendas and goals - we are one unit.

I wasn't even happy then when my family had money. While some might proclaim the world revolves around money and money is the source of all happiness - I believe otherwise. Money is only a tool, and money is meant to be spent, not to have a love affair with.

That's why coffee lady doesn't bother me. Never bother yourself with small people. Because if you do - you make yourself a small person as well.
Never get into fights or arguments which are so not worth your time, emotional energy and effort, because its a big world out there - are you telling me you're going to fight every baddie who criticises your Momma or the way you eat, the way you have a relationship, or any stupid, small itty bitty little reason?
I wouldn't have energy to pursue my own goals if I turned every petty "You are this/you did this! No, I am not/I did not! Yes you did! NO I didn't!" argument into some Lord of the Rings battle against mankind!
How can I put it? Its like a dog chasing its own tail! It gets tired at the end, but it never catches the tail. Save the energy for the big hunt - like that juicy rabbit in the park. Or that elusive butcher's bone hidden somewhere. Yum.

Having the strength and resolve to rise above the immaterial gives you the resources to focus on what needs to be focused on, without wearing yourself out.
Digressing again. So, I used to drop by Der's house once in a while. Say hi to his Mom. Hang out. His Mom was a great cook. She offered me what looked like a few simple dishes, sardines and shrimp paste, I think I do recall, with rice.
That was like one of the best meals I've had. She's a great cook, and a warm host.

It taught me that you can derive the greatest pleasure from the simplest of things. To me, That is what matters.

Not a life of luxury (which again, ultimately "things" don't make you happy.), not that Manolo Blahnik killer heels sitting at that window, not that 42" plasma screen (which would be nice to play games on, but still, it not like the Holy Grail or something), not a bank vault full of cash, not having rich Daddies and Mommies teat to suckle at until kingdom come.
No. Just the pure, the unadulterated.

People fear the unknown and think that by overpreparation for everything - I mean serious number crunching moneywise, they will be safe. But is that what one wants? To always be 'safe'? To be always 'in the middle'? Rather than be just 'average' I aspire to be something else. I aspire to be different.

I've already proven I am different by not being afraid to take risks, to venture into the unknown. When we came to Australia - Mo and I had only $500. And no known address.

We didn't just get "lucky". We planned. We made sacrifices and compromises. And we survived on our own. And we got this far.
That's what planning, calculated risks, a touch of luck (I can never deny that a touch of the Divine is in everyone and everything.) and confidence.

I never regret being what I am today.
And people can never understand that because they've not seen what Mo and I - not even our families - have seen, felt what we've felt, been through what we've been through. We can surely say, we've been through hell and back.

This is why to me, no one has the right to tell me who I am, what I am, nor even come close to me listening, forget accepting, when they don't even know the half of our experiences and sacrifices for one another. Like I said. Just because someone say or think something about you, doesn't make it truth.
It only makes me stronger, have a greater resolve, that I am doing the right thing.
Let's see them in our shoes.
And no matter what our role is today, we will never have come this far, if it weren't for either of us. Our roles are instrinsic. And I am proud of it.

Current Mood: Inspired
Current Tunes: Nat King Cole - Fly me to the Moon

@ 5:16 AM

It's been a while since I've been in the mood to blog.
In fact, this would be one of the few periods in my non-existent academic life that I should be knee deep in previous printed tutorials, head stuck in the middle of my PC monitors, clicking away.
Yes, yes, the last few days of the final semester.

Everyone in class has been cramming since the last week or so. Getting our renders done, making last minute tweaks to our animations, finishing up the paperwork (Yes, contrary to what many think about the creative field, there's quite a bit of paperwork involved. Lots of write ups on idea development, yadda yadda.).
So, blogging shouldn't really be up there on my agenda.


But I digress! I've even managed to clean up alot of the old junk in the template and template contents of this blog, learning a few tricks or two about CSS (I can hear some snickering in the background. So it isn't an epiphany, big deal.) along the way.
It's still got alot of clean up to go, because I'm trying hard to get it to meet the strict standards of XHTML, basically, its a stricter version of HTML, designed to 'clean up' shoddy sub-standard web lingo and set a certain standard to maximise portability to other browsers, like Opera, for example.

Food's been good, too.
Which reminds me what I wanted to post about in the first place.
Food.




I love the food in Melbourne. I can't speak for the rest of Australia. I've been to Perth, Sydney, Torquay and Geelong, including the small towns in between such as Wagga Wagga, but I can't for the life of me get used to the differences in food, slight as they might be.

Melbourne food is eclectic, classic and needless to say, delicious!





You could literally almost walk into any run of the mill cafe by the side of any street, and be served with mouth-watering food.

Of course, many cafes do serve the typical Aussie fare.
Fish and chips, burgers, fries, the ever handy sandwiches.



Then there are the cafes which serve up breakfasts, in addition to scrumptious DIY sandwiches, baguettes and the such.



Most serve up great coffees to go with your breakfasts.
The best part of it all are, for the most of it, the portions are hearty, the ambiance is great and the view -whether it be of passer-bys' or live performances, always entertaining.




I needn't mention the variety of ethnic foods as well.
Melbourne has got a wonderful mix of ethnicities living side by side (or languishing in racial ghettos. Oh well, you can't have it all.) and you're bound to see all types of cafes, eateries and restaurants bearing some exotic name and dish.



Mekong has great food. Of course, we have friends telling us that they lace their soup with human 'sperm' but with food this good, its' hard to really care if there is sperm. Of course, there isn't.

Mo, my sister and I have been to countless of restaurants in Melbourne. Italian, Nepalese, Chinese (obviously.), Singaporean (Being Singaporean its obvious we prefer Singaporean cuisine), Malaysian, Vietnamese, Turkish, Arabic, Indian, Sri Lankan, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, French, "American", Contemporary Australian, Traditional Aussie fare, fusion - just lots - even African food . Some were a long time ago, but many of which we still visit today.

We're pretty open minded with food. Mo may be quite conservative with food but he has surprising dexterity and flexibility when it comes to finding something he finds edible in any cuisine, so despite my lamentations about his 'lack of exploration' in food (just a while ago he actually ate Taiwanese seasoned chicken with tofu, green bean and rice, together with Vegetable tempura. Wow. I think we've crossed over to new boundaries here. )

I tire of eating just a single type of cuisine. I don't know how some people can do it.

Anyway. I'm thinking about returning to Singapore in a while. Shop, eat, meet friends, rekindle the family spirit and basically just relax.
I can't wait.



Current Mood: Excited
Current Music: The Potbellez - Don't Hold Back

@ 10:35 PM

Its been pretty low key recently. Yes, things have been tremendously heart-tugging and hectic, a lot of it to do with the usual claptrap - School work, work, money issues, family, home - and then there's a larger problem looming overhead which wouldn't be too convenient to mention because much as I despise the concept of it, I do believe in a factual theory of the term 'evil eye' which basically discards the voodoo aspects of it in most traditional societal tribes and cultures, but comes with the real possibility of the green-eyed monster lurking in every man.
There is a saying,

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

That is the crux of all that we know. Despite man's disposition, he tries to lean towards goodness, that can't be counted on given the nature of our world today. However, I wouldn't go as far as to say I do not trust anyone. I do trust people in general. There is still that innocent naivety in me which still holds dear the belief that despite being trapped deep inside a distrustful, decaying cage of flesh and skin, there is well-meaning heart that emanates within.

My family has been hard at work with their plans and goals, which pleases me. We've been on good terms for a long time now, which really does mean a lot to me since we're family - in the end, you're stuck with em' for life.

The last time I checked, my sister had flown to Moscow, Russia. I'm really proud of her. Despite my previous disapproval of her being an air hostess, I feel she's mature enough to handle much of the political deviants and give the usual stereotypical airline airhead a breath of fresh air. I'm sure there are lots of smart gals working in the airlines industry, but given their extremely flexible and organised randomnessm of the schedules, pairing up with some of these diamonds in the roughs would be like a hole in one.
The only worry I have would be that she'd get caught up with a superficial life many of these hostesses' lead and come off with very bad values. I don't like the idea of networking. Networking means going through as many acquaintances as you possibly can, as many times one changes their underwear in a day, to milk the benefits of that farcical relationship you have with them.
In my opinion, I find that highly insincere, but in the business world, apparently, its something one ends up doing because of the high returns.
Its a lonely job, though. I hope my family can give her the support she needs, without of course, forgetting the underdog - my younger brother - of the family. He can be exceedingly daft at times (who doesn't have their bimbo moments?) but he's quick to learn and he never really had much to begin with, anyway, so at the level he's at I'm actually happy.
He's aiming for a double degree. I say Go for it!

Money doesn't mean squat next to a good education. Money comes and goes. People tend to forget that. You can't hoard money. There'll be ways and means to fund his education, and not to mention the fact that I'm sure he'd have a few contingency plans up his sleeves...I hope.
At its worst, he could always settle for one degree and then tackle a Master's.


Anyway. As for me, I'm still trying. That's all that matters. The mindset. I know I can do it. As long as I'm willing to keep trying, I know I'll make it.
I hope to continue on trying to forge a good future for myself, and soon, my family. It'd be about time pretty soon, where I have to turn around and help chip in with my family expenses.
Mo and I have moved out of our family homes, on our own money, funded our life and fees on our own money while in Australia. We've been on the road, out of home, for like, what? Nearly 6 - 7 years, minus the time we stayed in my home for slightly more than a year.
After what we've been through, nothing can really surprise us, or really scare us.
I remember several times we almost couldn't make my fees. If we had panicked and gotten a heart attack and gave up, we'd never be where we are today. That few times was nothing compared to the absolute financial ruin we lived in while we were in Singapore and Malaysia.
Sometimes we'd have money to buy like, one potato and one tomato, and cook something simple up to be eaten with rice.
Sometimes, we wouldn't even have money for that. We'd just end up eating mee goreng for days on end.

For me, that's perfectly fine. My brother and I have lived almost a year during a dark period of our family life, eating nothing but instant noodles, peppered with the *very* occasional (and very looked forward to) $10 meal at a nearby foodcourt. A $10 meal which basically is Mushroom minced meat mee pok for the both of us and two soft drinks.
Yep..those were the days. To be honest with you, I kind of miss it.
But never again will I allow myself to fall into such decrepit circumstances.

I'm willing to suffer when I'm very young, to enjoy when I'm in my mid to late twenties and beyond. I've read that many young Australians have chose to do the same, but most just live their lives in um, well, relative material ignorance.


Anyway, reminiscing aside, it was really cold last night so I decided to cook up a nice heart-warming Minestrone soup, with toasted garlic bread to dip.








I also had an appetizer of Vegetable fritters with a mint yoghurt dip.

Well, I'm hoping to visit Singapore sometime soon. I found this really good food blog which totally gets me off when I've got a craving for some greasy hawker food.



http://www.lovesingaporefood.blogspot.com

They've got all the yummy favourites like hokkien mee (I've been having a massive hokkien mee craving out of the blue these couple of months!), char kuay teow, nasi padang, minced meat mushroom mee pok noodles (yum!)...alright, I've got to stop before I give myself a brain hemorrhage.


Current Mood: Good
Current Tunes: Michael Nyman - The Heart Asks for Pleasure first

@ 5:41 PM

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