Monday, April 7, 2008

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Back in OZ

Wow....has it been a busy time for me what with graduation, my parents coming over to Canberra and packing to go home to Brunei. I spent a wonderful time back home in Brunei with my family. It was especially great to see everyone again and I can't believe how big my nephews have gotten. Tyler is still Dino crazy and Jayden is crawling now.

Unfortunately I came down with flu while I was home so I was awfully sick for a couple of days. But other than that, I spent my time helping my mom around the house as she had sent the maid back to the agent and also helping with preparations for chinese new year which we spent by opening our house to friends and family on the first day.

As you might have guessed, Chinese New Years was an extremely busy time for us all, we had visitors constantly in and out of the house for most part of the day and all of us were very busy making sure things ran smoothly. By the end of the day we were all exhausted, the house was in need of a good cleaning but it was a good day.

Back to present day....I'm now back in Canberra for my Masters and am currently staying in the postgraduate village of Burgmann in a studio and I'm lovin it although cooking for myself can be a pain sometimes,. But hey it beats having to eat burgmann food all the time. Anyways...classes start on Monday next week and I'm very much looking forward to see what they bring. In the meantime, I'm enjoying my freetime as much as i can before the mayhem of the term starts next week.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

And I'm done....

Wheee....I'm finally done with my exams. Man, I have never in my life been so glad to have a semester over and done with. Now all that is left is the torturous 2 week wait for the results and then if I pass everything (fingers crossed) the long wait for graduation. Meanwhile though, as i am getting kicked out of Burgmann in a week, I have to look for someplace to stay and also find a job. So it looks like i'll be pretty busy for the next week ro so while I get everything sorted out. I have a whole bunch of my stuff i have to go through to check what i want to keep and what i don't want anymore as well as a CV to write up. Man I really hate sorting my stuff cause i tend to want to keep everything. I'm kind of a rubbish collector that way, not to mention I have a whole bunch of textbooks and some story books as well as notes that i dunno what to do with.

Anywayz, wish me luck....hopefully everything will turn out for the best. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it does. :)

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Valete and Hari Raya Open House at the High-Comm

Wow, what a weekend it has been. On Friday, Burgmann had its annual Valete dinner. It is a formal dinner held to commemorate the end of year and all those who are leaving Burgmann. I must say it was the best valete of all the three years I have been in Burgman. The event started out with pre-dinner drinks at 6pm. Unfortunately as it was raining, it had to be moved to the common room instead of being out on the front lawn as usual. Then at 6.30, we all moved into the dining hall for dinner. Dinner I must say was quite good. For the entree i had a garden salad with smoked salmon, for the main course I had chicken stuffed with spinach and ricotta both of which was yum. During Dinner, a number of speeches were given and awards presented and there was also some light entertainment from Burgmann's very own barbershop quartet made up of Matt Lendrum, Sam Yeo, Joe Opphenheimer and Alex Davies. Their presentation I must say was inspired and provided much laughs.

After dinner, my friends and I retired to the common room for music and dancing and I enjoyed myself throughly. All in all it was an excellent event and props to the organisers of this years valete, they outdid themselves this year.

On saturday afternoon, me and Jia Urnn, a fellow Bruneian studying in ANU as well along with a few other friends went over to the Brunei High Commission for their Hari Raya open house. I must say, I really enjoyed it immensely as i got to meet quitye a few other Bruneians and also enjoy delicious Malay food. I was surprised pleasantly to see that they had satay and Ketupat and also had achar. Man I haven't had those in a while.

All in all it was a wild weekend but for now its back to studying for exams. Groan...I can't wait for them to be over.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Meh...Exams...Exams...and More Exams

Well, its that time of the year again when we all have to start preparing for our final exams which are in 2 weeks time. To me it is the most trying time of the semester as the lecturers seems to love puting our assignment due dates around this time and we still have to study for exams. Sometimes I feel like just screaming in frustration but then I realise that that its not gonna help me so I just work and work and do more work. Sigh...what i wouldn't give to have it over with.

On a more positive note, several interesting events have occured since my last post. Burgmann had their annual Mid-Autumn festival with yummy mooncakes, snacks, soft drinks and green tea. I think that of all of their events, this has to be burgmann's best. Not only that, we've just had our spartos dinner where Burgmann honors those that have excelled in sports and arts for the year. It was interesting as the speaker for the event was a sportswoman who gave a very interesting talk about what she has learnt from sports. Also we've recently celebrated my friend's 21's birthday. we had this yummy strawberry cake and snacks. It was a great break from all the studying and assignments i've been doing.

Oh and I've just met another Bruneian here in Canberra. He is a postgrad and amazingly he knows my family and reads my sister's blog. Cheh, if ur reading, I met Pablo. Its really interesting how small the world is. I guess being from a country that has only over 350,000 people, its not really surprising.

Friday, September 7, 2007

Bateman's Bay and Holidays

Well, my mid semester holidays have started and on Saturday 1st September, my friends and I decided to take a day trip down to Bateman's Bay which is a 2hr drive away from Canberra. So armed with a selection of music and a bunch of snacks, we drove down to Bateman's Bay in my friend's car.




The journey was a really fun one, I must say, we spent the whole trip listening to music and talking. When we got to bateman's bay, it was around lunch time so we went to have fish and chips at this small fish and chip shop that had really very good fish and chips. Not as good as the one i had before at Gilligan's in Geelong but still pretty darn good. Anyways, after lunch, we went to the beach which was nearby and spent a relaxing time just sitting there. Although we did have some fun by burying my other friend Jay, in the sand and also exploring the beach.


After we got bored of sitting on the beach, we then went to this little town to have some fudge which my friend said was reall good. Unfortunately it was closed when we got there so we decided to head back to Canberra where we had Indian food for dinner at Queanbeyan and then Ice cream an Rubees in Dickson.

All in all, we had a really fun and enjoyable day, though i was really tired when we got back. Meanwhile, just today, my friend from Sydney has come for a short visit seeing as it is APEC weekend there and they get a long weekend. Other than that though, i've had a rather uneventful hliday so far with most of my time spent studying for my mi-sem exams but oh well, i guess that's life eh,

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Life Goes On....

Well, university has started again and everything has gone back to its usual routine of going to classes, doing assignments and generally getting to know the new people who have just moved into burgmann. I am very happy to note that there seems to be quite a few more science students here now in Burgmann. At least I'm not the only one doing science in Burgmann now, which is a nice thing.

On the other hand, on last saturday, me and my friends went to an event called Mamak Day, which was organised by the Malaysian Students Organisation. Now, you may be wondering what is a non-Malaysian doing at this event? well, it so happens that I do know a lot of Malaysian students here and besides, I'm never one to pass up good food. At the Mamak Day, there was Mee goreng, Roti canai with Dhall, Chendol, Teh Tarik, Chicken Kebabs and sweet potato doughnuts. I especially liked the mee goreng because it was so good but the rest of the food was good too.

Oh, and on a side note, I've watched the new transformers movie recently as well as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I thought that the Transformers movie was awesome and particularly liked Ratchet, the autobot medical officer and bumblebee, the cheverolet camaro. Harry Potter....I actually didn't like. I thought that they cut out too much from the book. Course, you can't really blame them as the book it pretty thick but I also didn't like the fact that they changed who the traitor of the DA was and also how Sirius was killed.

Also I have read the new Harry Potter book, Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows: Book 7 and it was quite good. It was thinner than I expected but I especially like the way she rote the lead up to the final battle though i thought that she could have done the epilouge a little better. Nonetheless, it is still a pretty good read and a good ending to the Harry Potter series.