The landlady was out when they lugged the final batch of their belongings up the tiny stone path and through the rickety wooden fence which hid their house from public view. Locked out of their new home, they glanced around and realized how unkempt the shrubbery surrounding the house was. In an attempt to make their accommodations more homely and aesthetically pleasing, they tugged hard at the weeds and withered plant matter that had twined themselves firmly with the greenery and swept away the pile of dead leaves that had found their way onto the courtyard in front of the house. She walked around to the back of the house, wondering what lay behind it, and was surprised to find a deserted mannequin dressed in a brown frock in the middle of the open backyard. It was then that she remembered that the landlady proclaimed herself to be a fashion designer. She wondered when exactly the creation was made, for it seemed quite worse for the wear, and had undoubtedly weathered many a downpour since, for even now, it was drenched in what she could only assume as afternoon dew.
"Look! An orange tree!", her housemate exclaimed.
Amazing how it was growing just behind the house, she thought. Tiny oranges beckoned at her through the wind, and she wondered for the briefest of moments if they were poisonous. A noise in the front yard caught her attention and brought her to investigate what it could be. The landlady was back.
As she stepped into the dark and dilapidated looking house, she wonders what made her decide to take it when she first saw it. The house smelled musty, had dirty green carpets and was lacking a bedroom door. The cheery old lady turned on the living room light, which was just a light bulb really, the lampshades long forgotten high up on the kitchen cabinets. Yellow light flooded the room, but only for a brief second, as darkness swooped down upon the trio again. The light bulb had fused.
Left alone after the customary greetings, hugs and a solemn promise from their landlady that a new light bulb will be provided in the near future, the two girls gave their new quarters a cusory glance, and commenced on their new chores with a sigh very much lacking in gusto.
Carpets were vacuumed while beds were made. She thought that the vaccum cleaner emitted a peculiar and rather nauseating smell, which was accentuated by the gas heating in the house. It was then decided that the house door should be left open so as to air it up a little. The kitchen was next, as the duo busied themselves with cleaning cabinets and drawers which looked like they originated from the previous century, an assumption backed up by the evidence of smell.
Amazement filled her eyes when she saw how dirty the cups provided by the landlady were. Never in her life has she ever seen cups that had spider webs and dead leaves in them. Never up this close anyway.
Exhausted after all the cleaning the afternoon held for them, they finally had the time to take a breather, as well as their dinners over an episode of "The Simpsons". It was ten at night by the time she could drag her weary self into the miniscule bathroom for her bath, where further surprises awaited her. She sighed at the absences of hooks for her clothes and locks for the bathroom door.
By the time she lay her tired body onto not-so-comfortable the bed, she was totally wiped out, yet unable to fall asleep. Her MP3 player chose to forsake her at this moment. Great, she thought, home sweet home.
the wireless here suck!! after receiving our userid and password, we were happily going FINALLY!! we dun hafta queue up and wait for school computers in the library!! n guess wat happens??? we can't log onto the network!! wth!!!!! can't it just be a normal secure network where we just type in our userids and passwords?? NOOOOO!!! it has to be configured! n even AFTER configuration, we STILL can't get on!!! WTH!!!!! n apparently the IT tech doesn't know wat's gg on either!! WOW. simply CAN'T wait to get my own internet. DUH. wanted to finally upload my picts today la. now totally cannot make it. I MISS S'PORE!!!! WE HAVE LOTS OF WIRELESS!!!!!
it's the 1st day of school. i just discovered i haf my elective lecture today. heng it's @ 2pm. i'm not supposed to start lessons so soon. i'm supposed to start on friday. damn. picked the wrong elective. still in the holiday mood. don't want to start studying so soon. argh. the timetable sucks. i can't get a head or tail out of it. y do i seem to haf overlapping lessons? means i hafta alternate skipping lessons ah? and the online timetable doesn't match with the hard copy they gave us. it's not reader-friendly either. only four words to describe this: it's weird, it sucks.
what? this.
who? me.
where? here.
when? now.
why? because.
how? guess.
get it? no.
ask? don't.
forget it? yes.
better? soon.
nonsense? absolutely.
ignore? entirely.
stop? immediately.
pple @ uni lodge r really nice!! the guys from india invited us over for an indian meal last nite... yum!! the chicken was great!!! i think the recipe was something like red onions, curry powder (maybe) chilli powder, tomato puree and according to sudi (the master chef), some SECRET ingredient of his... which is nonsense la!! ahaha... so had a wonderful indian experience, followed by ice cream!!!! ahaha... n xiuli (our fellow s'porean hostel mate) generously offered us her tvbi series downloads... ah. how nice to haf something to rely on till my korean dramas get shipped over... *hugs self in joy and does a jiggly dance*
varun (our spiritual chef, who wasn't there physically during the cooking of the meal but contributed to the meal's success with his spiritual powers, or so he claimed) came over to help us with the download and we managed to give him an introductory lecture on MAHJONG!!! ahaha... many thanks to nikki's frens who gave her the tiny mahjong set... hee. so we've managed to convert another innocent into the joys of gambling and the intricate and complex manoevers and techniques we call mahjong. of cos, packaging was extremely important and we also gave a brief rundown on how mahjong can help keep the brain active so that u get delayed senile dementia. ah. so now we got another kaki to jio for mahjong. how lovely.
nway, hugz to all the housemates @ uni lodge for making our stay so wonderful n making us feel right at home. gonna miss all of them when we move next mon. sobz. BUT! will definitely drop by for visits n invite them over for s'porean food next time!! (wanted to make our famous hainanese chicken rice, but heard tt xiuli made it for them before!! so menu will be confirmed again @ later date!!) as well as mahjong!!!! when varun gets addicted to it and brings sudi along for conversion as well?? heh. heh. heh.
meanwhile, cream of brocoli rules!!! so looking forward to starting my experiment on this lovely soup, the start of our three-course meal. oh joy!
just realised i've been la-ing shamelessly in my previous post. note to self: must STOP la-ing. cos melbournites dun "la". they say "it's all right" or "no worries". also, articulate more accurately n talk slowly.
am currently blogging out fr the terminal @ one of my fren's fren's house. ahaha. in melbourne. obviously. rather amazing how many s'poreans u meet here. hmm. i've made like 4 new acquaintances originating fr our fair island since arriving here. which was 5 days ago? waaahhhhh.
nway, had fun bumming ard the melbourne city area for the whole weekend and went to inspect houses, flea markets, casinos (shall go back crown casino to try my hand next week!! heh.), other pple's houses (which on retrospect seems much much nicer than the one we got la!! but oh well! it's cheap n furnished, so not much to complain abt either), supermarkets and factory outlet stores!!!! yay!! but i heard tt tt's pretty much all there's is to see in melbourne city... prob hafta travel ard more places to see more stuff!!
OK!! hafta make an official announcement. i've found my perm accommodations!!!! *scream* yay!!! @ least for 6 mths... den i shall see if i wanna extend it. basically it was the 1st house we inspected la. but we were so desperate cos of our temp accom dateline n the house n conditions were like damn good la. it's a little far away fr campus, but got bus stop rite in front of the house, in case we dun wanna walk (actually it's within walking dist la... EVERYWHERE in melbourne is within walking dist... cos transport damn ex la). it's only 200 bucks per wk including utilities, fully furnished n we get to use the washing n drying machines for free! it's a cozy little guest house thingy behind the main house (where the landlady stays alone) and consists of a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom and a built-in kitchen. we get a fridge, stove n oven!!! lalala. but no microwave. haiz. a bit sad la. i LOVE microwaves and the wonderful radiation they emit. oh well, @ least now we're definitely not gonna end up homeless on the streets. heh.
nway, got one more week to kill before sch starts n really like got nothing to do la. haiz. shall try popping over to a cinema on tues to catch pirates!! tues is supposed to be concession day for movies. so it's only 7 bucks!! k la, abt the same as s'pore bah. act the melbourne pricing system quite weird one la. very very luan. alot of different prices for different routes n stuff, n the transport itself also very very luan. haiz. so many different trams, buses n trains gg different directions. esp trams. hafta know which tram stops @ which tram stop specifically la. plus the tram line network map is like in tagalog la. totally cannot make head or tail of it. ahaha. maybe it's just me. me n my poor topographical orientation.
i LOVE the library. it's the ONLY place i can log on to the internet. that's y i shall officially make it my 2nd home till i get internet connection. lalala.
nway!! we cooked our FIRST nice dinner in melbourne last nite!! hurrah for us!! ahaha... it was pasta (fusilli) with tomato sauce with champignons (button mushrooms), capsicum, onions and of cos garlic... woohoo!! so proud of ourselves... n it didn't tastes too bad either! considering the fact that we don't have any cooking oil, salt, sugar etc. ahaha... got all our groceries from our trip to preston market yesterday afternoon, and got enough groceries to last us through the weekend. oh! we also made a side dish of potatoes... but their potatoes very weird leh, maybe it's cos we cooked it in the mivrowave n it got overcooked or something, it was actually CHEWY. has anyone eva eaten chewy potatoes? n i really mean chewy. oh, well! @ least it was a good hot meal which left us satisfied. aaahhh.... n i realized that aus AA batteries like not compatible with our digicams leh. dunno y the batteries "flatted" before we can even take ONE picture. weird. n we put the correct poles in lor. haiz.
oh yar, our hostel got lotsa international students as well, so got cute jap girls, n cute caucasian guys. ahahaha... n indians n chinese also la. n everyone seems quite friendly, so will take photos wif some of them before we leave our temp accommods. now i finally understand y caucasians think that asians look all alike. cos i think that the ang mohs look all alike here!!! ahaha... cannot tell them apart la. or maybe it's just a cognitive impairment (poor facial recognition or something) on my part. oops.
a bit of side news: while we were house hunting yesterday, this van came down the road n the driver (a caucasian uncle) poked his head out n shouted "ni hao ni hao!" (add in the foreign accent) @ us... ahaha... so cute la! we shld have shouted back "aniohasayo!!" back @ him n pretended to be koreans. ahaha... oh well. proves how friendly the aussies are... =)
tomorrow is the start of the weekends!!! so we'll be exploring the melbourne city area n go look look abit. hee. i hope the movies are quite updated here la! cos i wanna watch pirates of the carribean 2!!!! haiz. so tt's it la! hafta continue our house hunting!!! aza aza fighting!! ahaha... duh.
Good Morning Melbourne!! heh. reached melbourne safe n sound @ ard 10am yesterday, after a slight delay @ adelaide: the plane captain happily said no need to bring hand carry luggage down de plane during transit @ adelaide la, but in the end we heard this announcement in the waiting lounge - "Passengers of flight QF82, due to miscommunication of information, passengers are required to bring down their luggages during transit at Adelaide. Passengers who still have their luggages on board the flight please proceed to remove them through gate 20. Sorry for the delay and thank you." haiz. so much for efficiency ah... den bring luggage down still must scan luggage... so act we were all quite tired by the time we went up the plane again... plus i couldn't sleep the whole nite!!! haiz... next time CANNOT take qantas... de seats quite narrow lor... wonder how those super super fat pple can sit la... n the corridors r damn narrow too... my pulley luggage got stuck several times down the row!! n v difficult to put up n take down cos both my luggages r sooo heavy... haiz. oh yar!! my nail scissors got confiscated at the departure gate @ changi airport!!! haiz... i dunno how to cut wif nail cutters la, sure cut until damn ugly... oh well, besides these little incidents, the journey was quite well n uneventful.... n my maggi mee n milo made it thr the customs!!! so did my medicines!!! oh yay!!!!! haha...
Weather: cold, but can tahan... sky really changes from clear to dark grey quite frequently, but no rain as yet.... hopefully it stays this way... usual wear is 3 layers of clothes outdoors (2 layers if indoors) wif hat n gloves (optional la, i figured tt if i pulled my wool sweater sleeves over my hands, its quite warm... hee). sun sets @ ard 6pm.
School grounds: looks quite bleak n boring really... or maybe cos it's still winter, so everything looks grey n the trees are leafless la... maybe it'll be in all it's splendour in spring or summer!!
Temp accommodations: pillow n bed is quite comfy, room is really quite small n squeezy (well, "cosy" if u like), toilets r quite lovely (lovely in the sense of CLEAN), kitchen is quite cluttered n LOOKS dirty la... but dunno if it's really diry... fridge has a bit of a funny smell tho, n the fridge shelf allocated for us to put our stuff has some crusts of milk or dunno wat on the surface (yeurgh...). can't wait to find permanents apartments so tt we can cook n experiment our own NICE FOOD!!! oh ya, our heater a bit like shit la. open the highest strength still not warm la... but we wear 2 layers of clothes plus gloves n woollen socks to sleep with the blanket, so it's still quite warm la...
k la... gg to look @ some houses by ourselves now... shall blog again soon!! miss ya guys! *hugz*
omg. i'm leaving tmr. haiz. am having mixed emotions. excitement @ finally having the chance to explore the great unknown by myself (you go girl!!), nostalgia (i wun say it's really sadness, juz a tugging feeling in my heart) @ having to leave my family, frens n the mundane (i AM a boring person @ heart... ahaha...) but peaceful life in s'pore, resignation @ having to commence yet another battle wif assignments n exams, anxiety @ flunking these assignments n exams (n thus sabo my sureties into coughing out monetary compensation for breaking my bond...XP), joyful hope tt i'll find cute guys there so i can grow fat on eye candy (yum!!) n maybe dismiss the "look but don't touch" rule set by my grandma (ahaha...), insecurity @ having to do (i juz burned this pot of porridge i was cooking... omg. i hope i dun burn my apartment down in melbourne. never underestimate jojo's powers of destruction.) n think abt everything (e.g. wat groceries n daily necessities to buy) myself, but heng got my lovely frens wif me to both share n minimise this insecurity, the exhilirating rush @ finally realizing tt i'm about to embark on a new chapter of my life as an independent entity n will have the freedom to do whatever i want!! woohoo!! (eh, no la, i'm a guai1 person, not a party girl... *wink* heh. heh. heh.), and finally, the old paranoia tt i may get into accidents, get sick or DIE in a foreign country (sob!!)... oh well, i'm morbid n paranoid by nature... ahaha...
oh my. what a mixture of feelings. but the most important thing in my brain now is: HOW TO PACK MY LUGGAGE SO THAT IT'S NOT TT OVERWEIGHT!!! (this brings me to ANOTHER emotion: frustration)GOD knows how much overweight my luggage is lor. actually i also know la. but am trying to practice denial n avoidance. hee. dun understand y it's so damn heavy la. shoot. will hafta repack again n pack stuff OUT instead of IN.
I'M GONNA MISS YOU GUYS!!!
I'm leaving my peaceful and stable existence here
For a stint in the abyss of the great unknown
What will I find there?
I'm leaving my house with it's creature comforts
For a long stay in places that I cannot call my own
Where will I settle there?
I'm leaving my country, my family and friends
For a foreign land devoid of these persons
Who will I meet there?
I'm leaving everything that is familiar to me
For something that is strange and new
How will I react there?
I'm leaving for a total of five hundred and forty days
For the pursuit of three academic semesters
When will I return from there?
I'm leaving all who took care of ME all my life
For the promise to take care of THEM for the rest of their lives
That is Why I'm going there.
~jojo~
P.S. i think i shld try being a poet or writer... ahaha... i suspect that i do have a great store of literary talent just waiting to be tapped... lalala...
{♥} audrey
{♥} huixin
{♥} jiahui
{♥} kay sing
{♥} liting
{♥} regina
{♥} gerald t
{♥} angelineee
{♥} germaine
{♥} friend
{♥} you khai
{♥} dor
{♥} athena
{♥} nikki
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