sunday and a ramen bowl

I heard a myth once about how drinking all the leftover soup from instant noodles makes your hair fall out….

But I couldn’t resist, so I drank half the bowl, and resolutely closed the foil flap back down over the bowl and put my fork on top of it for good measure

NO MORE SOUP!

I don’t have enough hair as it is, I don’t want anymore of it falling out!

Ok, I don’t actually believe that my hair is going to fall out, but let’s face it, powdered soup can’t be good for you, so I’m trying to convince myself not to drain the whole bowl!

I’m also drinking Coke out of a plastic cup that’s left over from last night’s Christmas party

To quote from my current favourite (but slightly gory) movie, Zombieland – you gotta enjoy the little things :)

yellow tulips

Hello everyone! I'm feeling a whole lot better now! Life is awesome kaythanks!

Stuff happens but I'm lucky enough to have people that care about me - and there are pretty flowers sitting on the table right in front of me reminding me of that :)

sometimes,

 

Shit just happens to people who don’t deserve it.

It doesn’t matter that the other party was at fault, not you. It doesn’t matter that it was the simple thoughtlessness of others that hurt you, instead of a mistake that you made or something stupid you said. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing everything the best you can, and still no one really cares.

It’s a test. Someone is testing you.

Me? I’ll get over it. It would be a lie to say I don’t care, but there’s nothing I can do about it anymore. I’ll move on, but I’ll never forget. And what goes around, comes around.

sunday morning

And by that of course, I mean Sunday afternoon :)
I’m sitting on the couch, breakfasting on cupcakes and tea, and lusting over the new Tsumori Chisato collection for Shu Uemura. I’ve never heard of Planet Cat, but slap a cat face in a pan of blush and I’M SO THERE!

Anyone feeling generous? I splashed out more than I should have this weekend on clothes, so I’m in an economical mood. No kidding. I’m about to head out to pick up some bread so I can make sandwiches for lunch with leftover ham in my fridge – how cents wise is that? :D

maclust

I think something's wrong with my computer.

It keeps on making these huffing sounds

Doing that wheezy exhaust fan thing that old and overheated laptops do.

Wtf? It’s not even a year old!

Bloody PCs. I also find it super annoying how Microsoft keeps on sending Windows updates

Every freakin week or something!

I know software can never be perfect, but hello Microsoft can you PLEASE try to make it as close to 100% as possible before selling it to millions of people? Updating my OS with “very important security patches” or new service packs every week is a serious waste of time.

Its things like this which increasingly push me towards seriously considering getting a Mac. Way less annoying updates (that pop up and annoy you every 10 minutes, and RESTART YOUR COMPUTER WHEN YOU AREN’T LOOKING!), better software, cooler design AND, it’ll match my iPhone!

I know, my logic is champion :D

saving money’s the pits

You know you have a problem when despite having money, you don’t feel like shopping.

Yes, I know! What the heck is wrong with me??

Ever since I started work, I’ve been coming home so tired everyday all I want to do is flop on a couch/bed/in a horizontal position, curl up, and sleep. I haven’t stayed up past 1 in a loooong time – not because I don’t want to, but because I just physically can’t. YES I know – this coming from the girl who used to not be able to sleep before 4am!

And do you know what I’ve been doing to fill the shopping void in my life?

ONLINE SHOPPING.

Which is addictive, but ultimately time-wasting as I’m too cheap to order something without being able to try it on. I literally spent hours yesterday picking through stuff on Asos, only to empty my cart and shut down my computer because I wasn’t willing to spend money on things that potentially don’t fit. Boo me :(

The worst part is, there are so many things that I actually do want to buy! More jackets, more work shoes and more tops, in fact. I just can’t seem to muster up the motivation to go out and try stuff on. I needz a personal shopper yo.

On a totally unrelated note, Suvs got me an awesome belated  birthday present today – an entire bagful of Hello Kitty goodness! Which makes me feel doubly guilty for making her wait in my office building for like a good ten minutes while I scrabbled around madly trying to tie up as many loose ends as possible before rushing off to Chinese class with her! I love everything Suvs! I’ll be sure to festoon my desk with the pinkness of the evil feline :D

Halloween spirit

Jaspers Coffee

Does your version of heaven look like this? I think mine does – buckets and buckets of coffee! We bought two types – a Cuban blend that smells like cigars, and a Jasper blend that smells like honey. And the cashier tossed in free chocolate to boot – can’t beat that :)

Saturday afternoon lunch

At Babka, having the best sandwiches IN THE WORLD. How good was the weather today? I tanned just from two minutes in the sun!

Little cupcake

Sundays are always better with cupcakes, especially when they're mini
red velvet ones. :)

Fone blogging

It works! :D
Sent from Melissa's iPhone

1000 bend

is the name of the abandoned warehouse that some genius converted into this hole-in-the-wall breakfast and coffee joint that we can never have too many of in Melbourne.

Weekends are so precious nowadays that finding new places to chill out right in the heart of the city feels way cooler than it ever did before. I wonder what else is lurking right under my nose – I need to start wearing more sensible shoes so I can do more walking!

 

 

it was a sunny afternoon, and I had coffee, eggs, bacon and toast on a beat up wooden table that looked like it had been stolen from a rubbish tip somewhere. Absolutely CANNOT think of a better way to spend a Sunday morning!

Ever since starting to earn my own money, I’ve started becoming painfully aware that I suck at money management! Everything is a necessity for me – buying a coffee every morning, buying new makeup every month (not cheap make up either *sob*), eating a good lunch out at least three times a week, online shopping for various bits and bobs – I have no idea how I’m going to start saving anything!

I was thinking of brown bagging my lunches so that I can save a bit on eating out, but you have no idea how hard it is for me to stay in the office allllll day, even during my lunch break. I seriously can’t do it. I have to get out of the office  for an entire hour, or I GRUMP LIKE EFF.

So I have like, this amazing idea. Someone should open a cafe (with microwaves so that we can reheat our brown-bagged lunches) that sells only drinks! So that I can still feel like I went out, ate at a nice cafe, and had a life, while saving money because I’m eating leftovers from last night! Sometimes my brilliance astounds me – I seriously need to be paid more :D

Soooo not looking forward to tomorrow – back to work :(

hello, I’m a gleek

If the idea of a singing, twirling band of misfits, including a kid in a wheelchair, a Beyonce wannabe, an Asian goth punk, a football player and an attention-desperate drama queen isn’t enough to gleekify you, how’s this to top it off:

 

 

Two words: MUST.WATCH.

Warning: Will probably make you feel like dancing.

This episode of Glee totally made my night! Awesome awesome awesome. Glee just proves that TV doesn’t have to all be about medical dramas and soap operas (how many do we have now? House, Grey’s, Mercy, Nurse Jackie, and another new one…gimme a break already!) or crime solving whether it be about forensics, rape, murder, crime solving in the navy, miami, or melbourne. Enough doom and gloom – give m singing, dancing, fluffy shiny happy people anyday! :D

the weekend frock up

"

Two outfits I’d like to wear this weekend (if i owned any of them *sob*) – finally, two days of sweet, sweet casual! Corporate dress can kiss my butt!

3 weeks down

But why do I already feel like its been forever?

I still haven’t gotten used to waking up early. Maybe it’s because I still sleep pretty late. I have a colleague who is in bed by 10 everyday, and at first it sounded really auntie to me, but as the days go by its starting to sound more and more appealing >.<

And Suvs was right – I DO need more work clothes! I have no idea why i stupidly went and bought casual clothes in Malaysia before coming back here. I didn’t realize then that work clothes is all i would be wearing 5 days a week! Uggghhh – tomorrow must definitely hit up a DFO! You know what the shitty part is, is that I *always* have to get work clothes altered because it’s all made to fit tall, skinny people :( And the suits that do fit me are all mega costy – I bought my first suit the other day from Ojay and it cost a pretty penny (more like lots of pretty notes, or in my case, a pretty credit card, heh). It fits really well, but because I’m anal that way i still want to get the sleeves taken in – i like everything to look fitted. Skinny jeans are not enough, i must have skinny sleeves too! My kingdom for skinny sleeved blazers! They’re my new fashion crush, just can’t stop wearing them for some reason.

Trotting around in heels all day today gave me blisters :(

Yeah I know I’ve been neglecting the blog yet again. I really want to blog, it’s just that by the time I get home I’m so tired i just flop somewhere till the next morning. I’m gonna try doing scheduled posting and see how that works out (how psychedelic – it’s like writing letters to my future self!)

Before work

Now that I actually have a proper job, I realize that I've reached one of those monumental milestones in life, something like a new chapter in a book. The synopsis would go something like this:

Chapter 1 - 22: The before work chronicles - friends, irresponsible partying, uni, high school, etc
Chapter 23 - onwards: The after work chronicles - colleagues, office politics, work, KPIs, money, savings, my first investment, partying only on weekends and not till too late.

So look forward to future blogposts, people, because it's going to be exciting with a capital E. :P

At Terri's, in KL, literally just hours before I boarded the flight back to Melbourne

We both got our Chanel jumbos :) Mine's on the left!

I hate signing into MSN nowadays! Have amassed too many contacts I don't really talk to - do you notice how only the people you don't want to talk to message you on MSN?

future/sex/love/sounds

JT on the radio yo!

I've officially made it through half a week of work! So far its been going fine - lots and lots to learn, and I'm starting to feel the pressure because I'm expected to be able to take over several projects in the coming months. But I suppose it's better than having nothing to do at all. I also have my very first business cards and company phone and I work in a pretty swish office, so I guess I can't complain :D

Thanks to work, I have a whole backlog of pictures/events that I haven't blogged about
I don't think I'm ever going to get around to them, by the time I get home from work I'm pretty much dead on my feet
I haven't even checked my own personal email since last week (:O)

Suvs and I have officially signed up for Chinese lessons :) I'm excited! My brother is already back in Beijing and he's going to be back in three months with awesome Chinese, so I'm going to have to work at it if I don't want to be mocked. Work also gives me a free gym membership and yoga classes, but let's see if I have the energy to get around to doing any physical stuff after a few more days of 8.30 starts! I know I woke up earlier than that in Beijing to get to school, but man, that was uni! I rocked up late everyday and had fun in class. Work is a whole 'nother ball game. I also meant to sign up for the makeup course I've been wanting to go for since last year! Chinese, yoga, gym and makeup class - ooh I like it, I'm so extracurricular this year! I messed up my desk while figuring out how I was going to slot everything in after work - it looked kinda pretty and picture-worthy :) Pink tables are the shit!

Gotta run (as usual) back to Collins Street for some steaakkk!

instead of buying an actual fisheye lens...

I can learn to Photoshop my pictures to look like they've been fisheyed!
*beams at own intelligence*
My first attempt at fisheye photoshopping turned out like this.

It's a picture of me and Suvs at Eve on Erwin's last birthday. I'm sure I've posted it on this blog somewhere before!

I don't like how my head turned out so big! And it doesn't quite look fishy enough. Can't quite explain it - needs more work. But it's late and I still have to go pore over my Chinese textbook to make sure I haven't forgotten any of my Chinese :D

On top of that, am planning to wake up early for breakfast tomorrow. Eeep - it's already 3.30 in the morning! My time management = epic fail.

three months in a nutshell

So, after two months of
living in a city of 15 million,
making tons of new friends from every conceivable country,
eating some of the best and worst food ever,
partying in some of the most amazing bars and clubs
and of course, learning chinese :)

I'm finally back in Melbourne! Pic above is me and Terri in (kononnya) Beijing's most expensive bar, LAN.
I suppose it wasn't cheap lah
It was designed by Phillipe Starck tho, so yes the place itself - furniture, walls, lighting, layout, decor, even the TOILETS - were amaaaazing
And the bartender recognized me from school! even though I don't remember ever seeing him in BLCU, squee!

The weather is a lot colder than what i've become accustomed to! It was absolutely scorching in Beijing, wayyy hotter than in KL (i should show you my tan lines, they're horrific, i've never been blacker in my life).

In a few days' time I start work :( I'm not really looking forward to it, but hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised. I mean, how bad can working be? At least I'm in a cool office (yes, the office of the golden balls!), which is near the tram stop, the Lindt Cafe and Cafe Vue. I can walk there from QV in 10 minutes, AND I'm also really near Suvs for a month or two till she abandons me to move to Freshwater Place, so we'll have lots of lunches together! ps - this is a command, not a suggestion :P

Speaking of which I need to buy more office clothes. I brought so much stuff back to Melbourne that I was grossly overweight at KLIA and needed to DHL some of my extra luggage over, but somehow I still manage to wake up everyday and think to myself that I don't have anything to wear -_-" I recall blowing a small fortune in TopShop and Zara just before I got back to Melbourne so WHERE ARE MY EFFING CLOTHES?? I have a serious wardrobe disorganization problem *grabs hair*

I've been wearing this one blazer a lot lately tho, it's so comfy and it goes with everything and it only cost me 100 yuan (which is like what, 15 aud?). As seen in this picture of me and the GBF in a random camwhoring spree :D We went to watch Orphan in Tropicana City Mall (I spent the whole movie with  my hands clapped over my eyes)

I'm attempting to learn more Photoshop because dammit, I have a nice new camera with all the bells and whistles and I should be able to do better than just upload plain old normal photos! And I'm also planning to buy a Polaroid and several other cool retro-looking cameras I found online. For someone who doesn't take all that many pictures, I have no idea why I'm already planning to spend money I haven't earned yet on YET MORE cameras!

This morning I trotted grudgingly over to Ferragamo to buy myself the shoes that my mom's been telling me to get for aaaages
(actually I didn't trot, I went with my sister which means I was forced to tram, because someone is too xiao che to walk)
After living in Beijing, I swear I could walk across Melbourne and not break a sweat!
Anyway, we popped over to the Lindt cafe after that. It's good, not too expensive and very much like the original one in Sydney. I like their macarons, the strawberry one is yums, try it people try it!
Must go to the Chadstone one though so I can see Shane and Erwin in action :P

Oh and also, the Penguin took 9 days off work to spend time with me before I become a corporate slave :) 

I know I should probably talk more about Beijing? Not sure if anyone else wants to hear anymore about it though :P

new layouuuttt!

I love my old layout, but it's time for a change
Now all my old posts look wonky, they all have extra-large spaces between the paragraphs
But whatever
because what weirdo goes reading through my archives anyway? :P

I'm wearing new nailpolish that I bought from Sportsgirl!

I bought because:
1. it's pistachio green and if i like it i won't have to go running to buy the Chanel version
2. proceeds go to some sort of charity, so that takes care of my karma for the week

And on another random note, I like my new iPhone speakers :)

on my last day in beijing…

i still have a million things to do that i haven’t. there are still so many places that i planned to visit, that i always put off for another day because two months seemed like forever. it’s really starting to hit me now – i’m leaving tomorrow :(

tonight we’re supposed to be clubbing – if we do manage to make it there, i hope we kill it! i haven’t had a good dance in a while so i’m raring to go. beijing, you are so not ready :P

 Just got back from drinks at Chawan

And amongst one of the many things we talked about, one thing in particular makes me kind of proud
That we all turned out so alike yet so different;
That we’re all on different paths and different places in our lives, yet still have so much in common
That, even after all this time and distance (whole continents in many cases!),
We’re all still best of friends.

It’s good to be back in KL. But I know that if I could bring all of you with me anytime, then any place would feel like home.

:)

finger lickin

I brought out the camera during lunch today for it’s first real-world test. There is still a LOT I have to learn, especially when using the manual settings! But for the most part, i’m still in love with how much detail there is in each picture, and it takes amazing macros! I just have to brush up on my own camera skillz to do this baby justice.

 

Me and Denesh. (He hijacked me to Subang for lunch and some amazing dessert place called Snowflake)

 

We got this cool UFO thing which beeps and flashes and vibrates so we know when our orders are ready for collection! I don’t really get why they don’t just serve it to us, but I suppose buying some beeping ufos are cheaper than hiring wait staff :P

 

Their best selling dessert – some grass jelly thing with stuff on top (I know, my description = epic fail) Those shot glass things are filled with cream, which to me was the  best part! I don’t usually go for these sorts of things, but it wasn’t actually too bad :D

 

And on the way back I tapau-ed my brother some KFC (as if Hot N Spicy wasn’t hot enough, now there’s a Fiery Crunch flavour). I didn’t take a picture of the drumstick because I took a bite out of that one (heehee).

 

I’ve been super busy making phone calls all over the place, not just coordinating times to meet up with different people, but also dealing with China issues. Right now, I’m stuck with living in one of the most expensive dorms on campus, which is still ok, but slightly over budget so I’m hoping something else will turn up. The building we all wanted to get into is full, so we won’t really be able to do much till we actually get there – thank God Lyn is in Beijing and able to check up on this stuff for us otherwise I’d be homeless!

 

It’s soooo hot in Malaysia I’m practically melting as I type this!

doing something productive

I’m packing!

Well…kinda. I can’t get my suitcase out from under the bed, cos the bed needs to be lifted first. So that’ll have to wait till Penguin gets back. But in the meantime, I’m picking out clothes to bring back and deciding what makeup to bring – oh, the decisions!

Took a minute to play with the webcam on my laptop and it’s burst function…

 

Hello hello hellooooo!

 

Dropped something right when the camera went off

 

I’m packing! You should be so proud!

 

My hair was really annoying me so I bunned it. I have such a big head! And you can see my closet in the bg! I know, I have a long way to go :(

A-packing I shall go! Btw, I’m listening to Mongol 800 – very good packing music!

ugh, can’t think!

 

I’m having such a hard time thinking of post titles nowadays! Gosh. Talk about writer’s block.

Anywho, just thought I’d update the blog with snippets of what I’ve been up to. I was looking through my pictures folder and realized there’s a ton of things I’ve neglected to blog about…me and Penguin’s wine tasting trip around the Yarra Valley, the wine and cheese night we had (which involved dodgy makeovers and playing online Taboo, lol) and lots of other outings which I’ve half forgotten about already. Today is my last Friday night in Melbourne, but there aren’t any plans as yet. I’m pretty excited/apprehensive that it’s almost China time! Speaking of which, I think Blogger’s been banned in China, so how the heck am I going to blog/kaypoh on other people’s blogs??? Skype’s also out of the question, which is a bit of a dilemma. I hope I meet some really smart techy person there who’ll help me out with this, otherwise it’s really going to be like, 2 months of seclusion (O.O)

According to Terri, she’s had lots of friends/friends of friends who’ve done the 2 months thing and learnt Chinese really successfully (there’s more pressure on us 2 month-ers to learn more as opposed to the one year people!) so I’m not as scared now that my trip will be an epic fail :D

I’m supposed to be packing right now, but instead I’ve been lazing on the couch drinking lattes and watching Judge Judy. Which is totally justified, because I’ve just come from a gruelling interview which I was kinda not so prepared for. You know how usually when you go for an interview, they make you sit around and wait for a bit before the interview actually starts? I usually use that time to go over some answers in my head and stuff, but today, the minute I arrived at reception, they just launched me straight into it so my answers came out in a croak (which I covered by telling them that I had a sore throat, muahaha!) PLUS, I think my hair was sticking out everywhere because it was really windy out. Ugggh. Am getting sooo fed up of going to all these interviews, but I know I shouldn’t complain because there are some people who can’t even get any. This whole recession thing sucks dot com :(

Okay, time to change out of my interview outfit and start doing something productive!