The last few days of holidays
I have been busy with increased work due to the number of new girls joining the restaurant. but... it's my last few days of vacation now, and there's mainly orientation. most of the stuff i already know, from visas to walkabouts and so on, so i don't really have to attend. but some of them are obligatory, especially those for registration, so i still had to attend a couple. enrolment's on wednesday, then i am all set. funny how quick everything just went by though, the last 9 months or so was a bit of a transition from nightmare, to acceptance, to finally moving forward.
to have come this far, i must thank everyone, everyone who stood by me, everyone who gave me advice and everyone who had offered help at every step of the way. now i am back on track, and now i just have to finish this with this one last chance i have.
Anyways, orientation today was kind of weird, at least to me. i guess i was comparing it too much with ANU's version of things as well. Whilst ANU's orientation batch was fairly huge in my batch (i think it was like what.. 500 students), this batch was only 200. The vice chancellor gave a short speech prior to my arrival, because i chose to come after the banking info session, and straight into the registration session. so because of that, eerything was cut short and we broke up at like 3.30 instead of 6.
i spent the past couple of days wandering around belconnen though. sounds dumb, but i figured since i am going to be here for a bit longer than i thought, and since i have been wasting my past 4 years here, i might as well get acquainted with my neighbourhood. it's a fairly big neighbourhood in that sense, but hey, it's good for getting acquainted with.
To my surprise, despite the fact that CHINATOWN is literally dickson, there's about as many asian groceries and restaurants hidden at the back of belconnen mall as that damn dickson strip of asian stuff. there's at least FOUR asian groceries, a couple of butchers, EVEN halal butchers. There's also a fully INDIAN groceries shop, complete with a side restaurant thingy.
it's mainly south indian, and the restaurant next to it it's very south indian too. they even sell pre-made frozen roti prata!!! there's just so many shit in there, i was literally dancing. the guys in charge looked so scary though, and i didn't dare to take a pict of the sweets then. but let's just say, it's like a trip into one of those little india mamak shops. smells like it too :x
i know... my parents used to think i had probably end up marrying an indian when i grow up. what bullshit. it's called a GOOD palate for GOOD food. yer. :p
The sad part is, on both days that i went, it was slightly on or past closing time, so there were alot of things i didn't get to see. there were some craft shops that i wanted to visit, particularly this bead shop called bead street.
don't get me wrong, i am not trying to be a wannabe and pay for a hobby that i can't afford. the thing is, i was thinking, maybe i can try and invest in some beads, learn the craft, and perhaps sell them. sounds naive i know, but if i lose out, at least i got pretty trinkets to keep :p also, i was looking for some of these shops to learn how to sew and stuff, so i can save on altering clothes. yer. :D but emma warned me that the right machines to fix jeans and such aren't going to be those mini 10 bux sewing machines i saw at big w. :(
i did get a starter kit though, for beading, to see how lack of talent i am.
it wasn't that hard after all. i know they look all wrongly spaced or something. i intended them to be that way. i had a few problems trying to finish the earrings coz the instructions doesn't teach how to finish it properly. so i just conjured up my own idea. :) now i just have to get some artistic flair... and lotsa patience. small beads will kill me, that i know now.
Suffice to say, i am never going back to Dickson again.
Anyways, while walking back around uni after orientation, to sort out various affairs, i found this:
whoever did this is cruel as hell. it doesn't look it, but it's a flattened possum/koala/wombat/something. it's not clear here, but the paw bits? there's like tads of it's claws still there. fucking bury that poor thing if you ran over it, you retarded monkey turd.
Anyways, i finished the day off, coming home to stretch in my bed room, inspired by some gymnastic videos i am re-watching that's on my comp. i hadn't realised how badly out of shape i am now. and by BADLY, i mean, real bad. it hurts now to go into splits, and my back's still sore and stiff from yesterday (i don't quite know how it became sore in the first place). going into the bridge position actually took effort. surprisingly... the one thing that took the least effort now is... handstand.
sigh. when i wanted to be good in handstands, even kicking it up against the wall was like "oh wtf", now it's like "la di da di da..."
bed time now... naoko, one of my jap classmates back from the early english classes i took, wants me to go with her on that canberra bus tour thing for orientation. more photos i guess? :p we might go parliament house and stuff. but if it's civic only... lol, i will show them around then :p
oh... and since holidays are coming to an end, i should be able to cut back on work and perhaps update more. i really meant this to be a food blog, but i see now that.. when holidays does roll along, this does get hard to maintain :p