I like Melbourne, but I LOVE Sydney!!!

After 6 days of braving the gruelsome (but awesomely fantastic!!) trip to Melbourne, I am back again to the sunny Sydney which I learn to love so much. The super lack of sleep and unhealthy food had made everyone of us from Sydney fall sick, including myself. Most of my fellow Sydney ppl fell sick on the first few days, the virus was eventually passed on to me on the last day despite my effort to stay strong. I had a mild fever, severe sore throat and cough, and guess what? All these were almost completely healed after I stepped down at Sydney Airport, went back to my beloved Macquarie and had a long 13-hour sleep with heater on at 5.00am. I woke up 2 a.m in the morning, couldn't sleep coz my stomach was growling desperately as all I had for that day was a bun!! I was coughing and sneezing at Melbourne Avalon Airport and simply had no appetite at all. The bun was eaten with lots of effort on my part, with force. Haha....



Well, all I did was waking up to make myself some pasta. The fact that my appetite improved showed a remarked recovery after a long rest. After eating, I watched some drama to make myself tired again, and my effort paid off as I fell asleep again around 4.00am till 8.30am the next morning. In total, that was a 13.5 hour sleep!! Amazing ?? That tells how tiring the Melbourne trip was, and here is some bits and pieces that I could recall from pictures...

THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD
















Me and James at the entrance


According to the itinerary, the GOR is one of the most famour coaster drive in the world. Well, I can't say it isn't, but I have something to add on. Important indeed for those who are comtemplating to travel there on a bus. The roads are extremely narrow and it forced our bus driver to push and release the brakes every few seconds. The result, we felt nauseous for the entire journey before lunchbreak. The lucky thing is that we have nothing to throw out coz there was NOTHING which we could vomit!! The super duper kiamsiap day tour company only provided us with two pathetically small chocolate cookies and a small cup of coffee for breakfast. By the time we felt dizzy, all these were completely digested in our poor stomach.













Hm....not very clear yea? This's the pic I took with a dizzy head along the GOR. The black dots are supposed to be, COWS. Hehe







Entrance to the twelve Apostles.



Front row: (From left) Shir Lynn, Shing



Back row: (From left) Chun, Li Cheng, Me, Ju Bee and Desmond










The 12 stones (to me they are just stones, but the tourism people call them a-p-o-s-t-l-e-s). Me and Li Cheng were like discussing on the bus, "Tourism is about making a big fuss of nothing". I'm sure these stones are plentiful in Malaysia too, just that I don't put the the efforts to repackage them into tourist attractions (such as giving them nice names).












Me and the stones.
Wosh....look at my hair!!!
The wind was damn strong.


















Me, Chun, and the famous stones.


More stones here.....



















There is this "romantic story" about one piece of stone.


The LOCK ARD GORDE.

I'm not good at remembering it but was smart enough to take a photo of the sign board. Let me put the story here:



“Captain Gibb set full sail to turn the Loch Ard away from danger, but wind and current carried the ship towards the cliffs. Sail were then lowered and anchors dropped but they dragged across the ocean floor.

In the final desperate attempt, the anchors were cut and sails again raised. The ship began to make headway; nearly clearing the cliffs, the bow struck a shallow reed and stuck fast.

Water flooded into the cabins. With each swell, the yardarms smashed against the cliff face bringing pieces of mast and rock crashing down. Waves swept across the deck, hampering attempts to launch the lifeboats.

Paralyzed with fear, the passengers clung to one another and, amidst their screams and cries, the ship slipped into the silent depths below”



It all sounds like a copycat of the titanic movie. The driver told us something about one couple who survived the wreck - the guy's name is George i think - and landed in some island...blablabla(can't remember).











TADA!!!



This is the place where this romantic story took place. (Honestly, this is just another piece of stone, isn't it?)

Sigh.....similar colour summore. Sometimes tourism is like that.


The London Bridge









Another product of the tourism industry.
Apparently the part in the middle of this huge piece of rock fell down due to natural erosion, thus forming an 'island'. Me and my friends and the island are smilling to you!!




Thats all for this blog. More to come on Melbourne trip, I am too tired to blog on everything now. One more posting on Phillip Island, and another one on the other places we went. And that's about it I guess.

BOREDOM and MOVIES

Haih..... It's really difficult to find job during holidays when every student is looking for job with very low wage expectation. Almost every outlet I went told me that I should continue trying because the chances of gettint one with so much competition is so slim. So far I have handed in so many application but only get two invitations for interview, both from fastfood outlets. Doesn't matter, I will keep trying until I get one. Hope it will come soon.



So, holiday's been about movies and internet, and a 6-day trip to Melbourne this coming Tuesday. I am eager to see Justina there, coz I'm wondering how this future doctor from my school is coping with her work and the prospect of getting free medical consultation in future, HAHA. I just called her today to waste some of my redundant phone credits, she seemed to be very excited to hear from me. This just proves how long we heven't been keeping in touch. Anyway we are gonna meet next week, something to look forward to in the midst of enormous boredom when I have no assignments to hand in and no studies to keep up.



Sigh....during semester I was looking forward to this winter break, and now I'm missing my busy days when commitments fill my day and ward off the boredom. Next semester will be busy and I need to give myself a good rest before starting a new chapter.



You might be wondering how I spend my time nowadays. Well, I go from shop to shop to ask for job vacancy.... buy groceries and snacks....download , borrow and watch movies.... and try some new cookings. I hereby present my most recent cullinary invention: FU YONG SIU PAU!!!!!





How does it taste???

IT IS LOVELY BECAUSE I HAVEN'T BEEN EATING THIS FOR QUITE SOME TIME.



No exaggeration here, but I am so proud of myself!





My Germany housemate is leaving. Very soon we would have a new housemate and I hope she wouldn't be a Malaysian (if this is the case, it would mean a 100% Malaysian house which is no doubt boring and unexciting). Oh yeah, the new swimming pool is opened and me as a gym member can now go burn fat everyday (if I want to). Yea!!!



I hope McDonald's will take me in for the job. I badly need one to move on. In Australia, experience is an advantage in job application and I wouldn't be able to fight for one if I don't start to gain experience by getting my first job.



Wow, this is such a long post. After coming back from Melbourne I would have more photos to show. My fren Ho Sheng keeps saying that my blog is full of words. All words and no pictures makes a blog dull, he said. Okay, I don't fully agree with this but I shall try to add more colours to the paragraphs I wrote. However I can't do this with no pictures in my hand (well, no new pictures because everything I have has been posted before).



Till next time.

~Love~

Some thoughts after exams

I read my fren's blog on Math exam.... Yeah it seemed most people are finding the questions really hard. The same with me... I might not get the kind of marks that i used to have for math, but I had similar experience in VJC, where I only manage to get a borderline 'A' for math paper. I hope my marks will still be good despite rushing through the questions and struggling to think of a solution for that one differential equation that i was clueless about. Frankly speeking i know how to do most of the stuff but given that i did so fast (coz we don't have enough time to finish so many HARD questions in 3 hours) i don't know how many careless mistakes there will be. I am certainly going to lose marks for that differential equation question and also part of the reduction formulae question because i didn't have time to complete the expansion as I was struggling to figure out the questions that i don't know.

Anyway that was over. I hope God will really help those who tried to help themselves..... The only thing now is to pray hard that the final result for me will still be good on a relative scale with others.

Now, holiday is here and i plan to have some work experience. I shall spend this holiday getting around and know more about this country. Am going Melbourne in early July for a short visit to my frens' place. That's gonna be really really fun. Time to take a rest, recharge so that next sem will be better. Okay, i shall go online and start searching for job vacancy now.

I am not going to think about results yet. New experience other than books and exams for my winter break!!

Review of First Semester in Australia -- My letter to Mei Lien (my S'pore fren)

I thought it would be good to show what i wrote to Mei Lien here.....

Mei Lien,

By now i can summarise what 'actuarial studies' means with fair accuracy. It's about calculating probabilities of something happening using all sorts of complicated maths, with the help of stats analysis (which can also be very complicated). By the way i just finished my math exam and it was SO SO TOUGH. I know how to do the paper except one bloody differential equation question which i was clueless about, but the toughest part is to do that paper in 3 hours (that's like 9 LONG questions with the highest level of difficulty. I don't know how many careless mistakes will there be because i practically did them in a rush. Omg the lecturer said that it will be fairly easy before the exam, but it wasn't true at all.

Anyway, where was I? Yeah, this is the nature of Actuarial Studies. One word to describe it, it is REALLY TOUGH and it takes a lot of self-discipline and self-belief to get through the whole thing. The first thing i studied was how to calculate the probability of a gambler in casino losing all his wealth. And i can tell you, the probability is ofter 1 or close to it and we can prove to you that this is the case. SO NEVER GAMBLE!! You will definitely lose.

Later on we started on all the insurance stuff, how to calculate a suitable premium, by considering a hell lots of factors, how to calculate superannuation funds, how to calculate retirement and death benefits, how to calculate the probability of a person dying and needs to claim from his life-insurance policy etc.. we are basically pressing our calculator all the time and doing stuff that non-actuarial students will never understand.

My first semester exam, hm.... was really an experience. All papers are super hard. For maths i thought i can get good marks before the paper. But now i think HD is not very plausible (it is only possible if i did very very little careless mistake on the parts that i knew, and you can imagine how accurate the answer will be given the rushing way i answer them). I will be grateful if i get D for maths really, coz it is the toughest paper I had ever seen (the second toughest being the mid year math paper in VJC, in which i narrowly manage an 'A'). Other subjects are also hard, but i hope my result will turn out good considering all the hard preparation i put in.

Okay, hope to hear from you.

Xin Yin

My life is temporarily loaned to EXAMS

What a life!!Have been studying like mad for the past few days because finals is REALLY next week!! No life at the moment other than munching snacks (to kill the boredom, am promising myself to go gym everyday after exams to burn away all those extra calories) and books and notes and calculator. That's the nature of an Actuarial degree, the concept of opportunity cost. We are forgoing our lovely time in uni in return for (possibly) a decent income after we graduate.

OMG, I am actually having a mental block on what to put in this weekly blog entry. All i can think of now is I have to cram all the stuff into my head and make it last until the last paper is collected. I am telling myself to be patient and time will pass fast and very soon it will be the long-awaited winter break which promises new experience and excitement.

Due to the away-on-loan blogging mood I have nothing much more exciting than what you have seen in my previous entries (for at least two or three weeks), unless you want to hear me complaining about the pilling notes to mug (S'pore slang for memorize, had since learned it after a short stay in that tiny island).

Just bear with me for another week, fellow readers.

Love,
Xin Yin

First Birthday away from home

Well, I typed a wonderful blog entry on my first birthday away from home but sadly it didn't get posted on because of the sucky connection. Now I couldn't remember what was said in that post but would hope that this one makes a good substitute.



4th June nearly always fall on school holiday, so it was always celebrated at home in Taiping. But this year's was different and was a whole new experience. I am away from all the comforts at home and am here in Marsfield, a suburb of the well-known metropolitan city, Sydney. It didn't start well in the sense that, well, I felt truly stressed-out since morning with uni work, and was unfortunate to catch a mild cold in the morning due to the weather which was freezing cold.



I went to gym after uni for a brief workout (I don't have time, but I am trying to control my weight, which has undoubtedly risen because I eat a whole lot more than I do during summer, which is one bad thing about winter--it makes you fat!!). The emergency alarm rang when I was panting on the treadmill. "Evacuate now! Evacuate the building!Evacuate now..." We left the building for 5 minutes, only to be told that it was just a mistake and there was no fire whatsoever in the building.

At 10.30, Shir Lynn knocked on my door and I immediately knew what was behind the door. I was quick enough to say thank you before they manage to wish me happy birthday, which is a whole new style of responding to a surprise. Coolest.....Yup, Joy baked a truly yummy lemon cheesecake. They bought me a genuine addidas sportswear (not from petaling street) and Martha gave me a lovely jumper. Haha, their wishes in the greeting card were both creative and thought provoking.

That pretty much described what happened on my first birthday away from Malaysia. The only shadow that overcovered the joy in myself is the looming final exam. Nevertheless, I had a good day!

A state of craziness

Woosh.....You guess how I spent my Saturday this week??? I went to gym in the morning, worked hard to prevent myself from gaining too much weight. Winter's officially started and the cold weather always make me hungry. I never feel this way back in Malaysia and would have got pissed off if I were to eat the way I eat now in Malaysia. But here, when the temperature is around 10 C and I just came back from uni, tired and shivering, eating is the first thing in my mind. That's why people tend to grow fatter in a four season country. I promise myself to go gym everyday after exam (now don't have much time coz exam is near) to get my weight back to normal. Feel so sick everytime when I stand on a weighing machine.

Yeah, and after coming back from gym, I vacuumed my lovely room, and thence started my marraton catching-up-with-lagging-uni-work, until now. I never work like this, even in SAM. But I guess this is really what EVERY actuarial student has to do to survive the course. Exam is near and the lectures are still going on, new topics are introduced to us at bullet-train speed and we are expected to learn 90% of it on our own, basically. Back in college and high school the last month, at least, before final exam was usually for revision and consultation, as the syllabi were done way way before finals, but it is a wholly different story in uni. We are two weeks from exam and the new materials are still coming in, faster than ever. If you ask me how I feel now, I would only say," THIS IS CRAZY!!!".

Nevertheless one good thing is that I start to think all the maths and insurance and probability and spreadsheet that shape the actuarial course are somewhat fun. Hope to build on from here. It's a matter of taking the suffering and laughing it off at the end, just like what Brian Chu (my ACST151 tutor) confessed: "All the compound interest stuff will appear in your dream because you encounter it EVERYDAY. And you can imagine how interesting my undergraduate life was, and I have just recently got back my life..." He's bright and yet he suffered, and I guess that's what Macquarie Uni Actuarial Studies is meant to be: it's about taking the bitter and interpreting it as sweet.

2 more weeks from final exam

It seems that I just arrived in Australia and started my uni life not too long ago, and now I am so near to my first final exam at university level. Time flies off so fast that it actually scares me. Perhaps the hectic student life burdened with tests and assignments are making us oblivious to what happened around us and the time that has passed. Judging from this I can say that my 4 years of uni life (hopefully i can get into Honours) would pass really fast, and without realising it we have officially turned adult and start our working life.

Sigh... It is really hard to truly balance between work and play as we don't actually know where the appropriate boundaries are. How much time should we devote to fun and excitement, and to serious academic pursuit??This is a hard question, no doubt. But for me the priority is still studies as I know how hard it is to graduate with an actuarial degree and am pretty sure that all the hard work will pay off at the end, during the graduation ceremony and more so in my later career.

I am studying with a lot of China Chinese and guess what? They are extremely and amazingly diligent (crazy and obsessed) with studies. You can see them studying at every minute, in any place they are encountered. Even during lunch time they will be hugging their books, I am not joking here. That explains their good grades. Some attribute this to the competitive nature of academic life back in China, and I totally agree with this. It is the hardest to study with Chinese. Sigh...

Okies, I guess the post is getting pretty boring when all I am thinking now is how to squash all the stuff that i learned in this semester into my head and make it stay until my last paper is collected. Lets end here and I promise to make up for all the uninteresting posts with some really enhilarating ones after my exams.

My Sunday

I went for a job interview today at Chatswood. Had a fairly tough time locating that building which lies at an obscured corner around Railway Street. After nearly half-an-hour looking here and there like a TOURIST i finally found it to be just a 5 minute walking distance from the Bus Interchange. Haih....blame myself not bringing a compass, haha.

It is a large dental surgery which apparently needs more dental assistants. The youngest Dentist over there, Dr. Gordon opened the door for me and held the interview with the presence of another part-time job seeker from China. He spoke alot about what kind of tasks we are expected to do...and bla bla bla there goes on to things like the pay rate and the trainings we need to go through to gain acceptance into the job offered. Hm....he said we need to perform well and impress the dentists over there, only then we'll get the job. It's gonna be tough...I guess, but anyway I shall just try my luck after exam. Meanwhile I can look for some other part-time job as back-up in case I don't get this one. The good thing about being a dental assistant compared to other jobs like waitress, cleaners etc is that I'll get to learn new stuff (about the equipments, general knowledge about teeth) and also hone up my communication skills. But I really need to be careful with all the sharp objects used in the surgery.

The ugly side of this week is the stupid Perdisco assignment I have to do every week. The question asked for expected returns on investment but surprisingly the answer given turns out to be the accumulated value of investment money!!!DAMN, this means my answers are all marked wrong and I was given a super sucky mark instead of 100% that i decerve (coz I did everything right!). DAMN, this is why i hate the use of MACHINES as a tool of assessment. A machine (computer) does not give any consideration to ambiguity of questions and will never think he is wrong. Super hate it! But anyway the final exam is so near that i don't have time to dwell too much on this. What matters in the end is the final exam which will be marked by HUMAN instead of COMPUTER. If I score well in that I will DEFINITELY be rewarded regardless of what happened in the Semester. So really need to work hard on it.

Pretty much the same stuff as my last entry?? Sorry, these are the stuffs that shape my life over here and I don't have too much other things to write on other than uni work and life. Winter break will come after exam and by then my blogs will be a whole lot more interesting than this one. Promise.

Oh yea, my ex-housemate Audrey actually read my blog and I feel so happy to hear from her. And....Joy and Martha bought me a good-luck present for my job interview and I felt so so touched. What's more, Martha just refused to take back the shirt she lent to me and insisted that I keep that. I don't feel good to reject it and promise to buy her something as soon as I get my first pay. There are lots of wonderful people around me as are nasty and weird nerds. Not all elements of uni life are making-you-feel-good, but they certainly would make me grow.

Winter's coming, so is exam

The weather this few days is sooo COLD. I would shiver in outdoors if I happen to forget my sweater. Woo....and when the wind flows you would be freezed to death without proper warm clothing. I heard from my friends that Melbourne is even COLDER. I wonder how we are gonna visit around Melbourne after finals.....by the way we have booked the ticket to Melbourne this winter. Crazy, you might think, for all reasons we prefer not to stay in the relatively warmer Sydney. But anyway we are just gonna stay there for six days so I guess it would be okay.

Compounding the 'misery' of life here is the never-ending coursework we as actuarial students have to complete. Just finished two tests this week (i guess I did fine), but we really have no time to rest on our laurels because two assignments are expected from us and ECON test is coming next week!

The lectures are getting tougher, as expected. But in a way it motivates me to work just that bit harder to cope, which is a good thing (as far as I'm concerned). Tute works are pilling like hills right now, and I don't quite understand how some people can still take up more than one job in semester as a full-time student. No doubt, this would compromise studies!! I would much rather study hard and try to score better in exam than trying to earn more money (which I don't think I have the time to spend anyway given our current workload).

Oh yea, I finally cooked myself a pot of curry and it was gorgeous!! Can't believe that a pot of curry of such good quality came from the hands of an amateur cook like myself. Maybe I was just lucky to have mixed and cooked everything in the right proportion. One thing is for sure, my cooking, no matter how amateurish it is, is a million times better than what I can get by paying outside. This is especially true for the sucky sandwiches I bought (because I needed more time to prepare for exam rather than cooking). ARGH, the supposedly chicken sandwich was so tasteless that it tasted like plain FLOUR with RAW vege. And how much you guess it costed me? 2 slices of bread for $4.25!! Almost RM13!! But that's the way we live when we don't have time to prepare food.... Not only our taste buds suffer from the sucky food, our wallet will suffer too.

That's all I can think of this week.

-Xin Yin-

A busy weekend

Two tests are coming next week with just TWO days apart!!! This sounded really depressing wasn't it? Well, there's nothing I could do except to study really hard. B0th ACST and STAT tests are worth lots of assessment marks and therefore it is truly crucial to do well in both. Phew...... Have alot to memerise and absorb this weekend.

Another thrilling fact is that we are close to the end of the Semester, which means that the finals has started to beckon. It feels like time just flies through thanks to our busy routine, but a more optimistic way of thinking is that we'll have a long one-month-break after the last paper of the semester. Meanwhile I'm pretty sure lots and lots of work are coming, and I have to really find time to do other stuff like exercising and doing my grocery shopping. And yeah, need to pick up my work permit after the tests next week, if not the document would get extremely bored of staying at the immigration office.

HM.....Can't think of anything else to write now. My mind is just too clogged with examination materials at the moment. I think some of my blog readers might be getting really sick of my partially depressing tone and the lack of exciting narrations these few weeks, coz the assignments and tests are really making people's life less interesting. Haih.... Promise to write about stuff other than exams when I finally get over all these hurdles.

That's all for this time.

P.S. Hey Terine, you haven't told me your blog address have you? I would really love to see some of your pictures taken in US.

Erratic weather

Today's weather is relatively fine. There are certain days where the temperature can drop below 10 C and it is freezing me to death. Back in Malaysia the weather would get cooler should it rains, but what I observed here tells a wholy different story. I would prefer it to rain often (but not on the days that i need to go out). The pour will sort of tone up and moderate the temperature change and that means a more pleasant night. Yesterday it rained and the night temperature was awesome, though I woke up at 4.00 in the morning because I slept at 9.00pm (accidentally when I was lying on my bed "for a short nap"). haha

Well, it's pretty much the same tale regarding my Uni life here. What changes is just the amount of work, assessments, tests and assignments, other than that every week seems almost the same. But what adds colours to this boring routine is the way I go about cooking 'interesting and creative meals' for myself. So far I've tried many dishes and am pleased with the progress my my initially amateurish cooking skills. Fried rice and meehoon are old stories, hm....pancakes too (quite successfully), bakes potatoes, chocolate cake (for Shir Lynn's birthday) which got burn a little due to my fren's oven which was set for too long, green and red beans soup, fish poridge, fried chicken, pasta, speghetti (with what you guess? kangaroo meat! it tastes pretty delicious), pork and bake beans etc. Am currently having lots of plans on what creative stuff to cook, the problem is I can't finish eating if I cook too much~!

Would try curry some day when I get hold of some curry powder, which my coursemate promised to get me. Oh yea, and kuanlo noodles also....... Just really wanna eat some Msian food which I felt rather sick of back at home. Now I feel sick of seeing hotdogs!

Final exam for the first sem will start in June. After which, I might start looking for a job to spend my winter break. Of course I'll go for some travelling too. Hope to go Blue Moutain soon and apparently Macquarie International have some really wonderful trips coming during that long break.

Okie, need to go back to studies now. That's all till next time.

~Xin Yin~ (in front of studying table facing my notes)

Life in Australia so far......

Huh... Need a break from catching up on all those lagging uni work before classes start tomorrow. Life's good thus far, assignments and tests are normal, ups and downs are normal. Erm, have been enjoying uni life despite some difficulties in studies which I'm constantly trying to rectify, hope it would get better as time passes.

Mid Semester exam is in coming June, so there is no reason for being a laggard anymore. Better get going with all the catch-up and revision. Meanwhile I wanna recap some wonderful time with my fellow Taylorians from Melbourne and Camberra during the first week of Easter Break. (I'm always blogging about events that had long passed...doesn't matter as long as I do eventually.

Thats me, Shir Lynn, Li Cheng and Kean Leong on the first day we met since leaving Taylor's.

We were at Circular Quay with Sydney Darling Habour behind us (but can't be seen in the picture).

ANU people and me.

Us at Bondi Beach. This is supposedly the most popular and mesmerizing beach in Sydney. But I don't really like it coz the weather is always hot there.

City skyline at Bondi.

On a ferry to Manly Beach.

Yea..we arrived at Manly jetty. Took a phota with Wan Pei coz this was my first time to Manly just like her. I was a tourist as well (not tour guide).

Personally I like Manly more than Bondi. It is less commercialised, less promotion and shameless business opportunism, more rural-like. There are more trees in this beach, thus making it less humid. There is no need for three layers of sunscreen here.

I miss holidays!!! Easter Break was sooo fun with lots of events with our orange travel pass. I even managed to survey several suburb areas which are just as interesting as Sydney city itself. Unfortunately good time passes fast and without realising it uni life has started again. Have just got my working permit approved. Hope to land on some casual or part time jobs during the next long break, not just for the extra income but also to gain some experience on the job market outside.

Thats all for this time.

-Love-

Highlights--dolphin watching and sand boarding

Yeah....Today we went for dolphin watching and sand boarding with Macquarie International. It was fabulous. Me and my friends had lots of fun! Here are some of the highlights....






7.30am

On the bus. It's my first time sitting on a long distance bus in Australia. Woo....we experimented with the seatbelts like kampong boy and were amazed and fascinated with the fact that there is a toilet in the bus.









The bus ride took 3 hours. I slept on the bus but woke up occasionally. And the first thing we saw after coming down from the bus was...........

this. Looked like a desert but it's actually a seabay.

Were I not tell you earlier, would you believe that this is a desert ?

Sahara desert?









No. It is a place for sand boarding. Look at us with our sand board. Cool?

My hair looks weird. Doesn't matter. Anyway this is how the game is played. We sit on this board and slide down from a VERY HIGH PLACE. Downwards, yeah, with very high speed!

After lunch, it was time to board the dolphin cruise. By the way, this place is called Nelson Bay.
































Me on the cruise. Love this picture.



















A married couple dolphins. They weren't scared of boats. Hoo....had been busy with photo taking and screeming as they approached.













This is another couple. The dolphins love to stick together with friends I suppose. They often show up in pairs.

So human-like.








He's an exception though. Feel sorry for this lone fella...














The rest is history. Obviously we enjoyed the day and returned exhausted but feeling great.

Late Pictures

Macquarie University Library

One side of the green fields in Uni. We have plenty in our campus

Side view of the library

Pathway in campus. We have lots of trees which add on to the morning chill.

This is the childcare centre for academic staffs. The lecturers' kids will be spending their day here whenever their parents are teaching.

The gynasium. This is where self-conscious people (including myself, haha) go for fat burning routine and muscle building .






Ducks in the morning. You can see them everywhere in plentiful if you wake up at 7am in the morning.

We went to the Mardi Gras parade somewwhere in March. This is one of the hotest event in Sydney. Many tourists came all the way from far away land just to see this. Honestly I don't like it and one experience would be enough for me.

Guess what? This festival is for Gays and Lesbians to parade and voice up their opinion about discrimination. Well, malaysians are not okay with this kind of sensitive topic but the aussies just enjoy it!









Gay people showing some tricks .

More homosexual people.

Arch... This picture is better. These flowers are forming the Australian flag. This is one part of the Harbour Bridge Park

Me and friends eating chocolate marsbar. Quite expensive and unhealthy cos it's deep fried. But anyway I tried.

Bondi Beach

Seagulls. They are not afraid of human.

Me and Joy

Bondi overview. Looks good in the picture but the sun was very very bright and burning that day. I got sunburn after the visit even though I applied a thick layer of sunblock.

Taking a break

Ah... Feeling quite bored of reading MATH132 notes. My lecturers Bon Clarke and William Chen love to write a lot during lectures but advise us "not to copy". But anyway almost everyone in the hall is busy writing down whatever scribble any one of them wrote. We end up with many notes (incliding the electronic version online) to study.

Azuan told me he's thinking of getting a work permit when we walked back from uni this afternoon. I think that would be a good idea. I see some of my seniors working but apparently they are still coping fairly well with schoolwork. So I guess working might be a good way of experiencing new things. I shall figure out the procedure of applying for a work permit this easter break. The most lucrative job I heard so far is working in uni itself, say as a tutor. If I'm not mistaken the rate is something like 95 dollard per hour. WOW!! But of course one of the pre-requisite is to do well in the subject (in order to teach other ppl, of course).

This week we will have a pizza dinner on Thursday (last day of school before holiday) and a pot lucky dinner this Friday. I think I shall just fry fish fillet, fish in Australia are rather fresh, from what i see. Each one of us will be contributing something, so we can expect alot of food to fill our bellies on Friday night. Erm, for Good Friday (a special day for Christians which I don't quite understand ).

Meanwhile I have to hand in my math assignment tomorrow, take a small class test on Thursday, and then I'll be off for a two-week break. Nevertheless I'm still expected to revise everything covered in these two months since the final exam is pending in early June. More stats assignments to be completed as well as more econ quiz to be submitted. Life is not too terribly busy despite all these. Like I'd said I sign up for dance classes and gym activitites and am enjoying them thus far.

Need to go back to studies now.... Pictures coming next time (probably after holiday starts).

Easter Break coming

We will be going off to a two-week break after next thursday. In fact, some of the tutors wished us happy holiday last friday (because they won't see us in two-weeks time). The plan so far would be to catch up with some of my lagging schoolwork, as well as to give myself a good rest. My Melbourne and Camberra fellow Taylorians will be coming to visit us, and this makes us look forward to the reunion even more. Oh, we love holiday@

So far life has been fun. Although the assignments and tutorials are at times hectic I manage to inject some fun elements into my uni life. I plan to go for dance classes next weekend (heard that it's very fun from frens), since I have paid 185 dollars for the membership I must well make full use of it.

Nothing much to tell this week. The events were routine and similar to any other week. The only interesting part is that I had bought a HUGE DOUBLE BED quilt for 56 dollars and it granted me the best sleep last night. I don't need a blanket of that size but it gives me the flexibility to cover double layer during winter. Hehe... I saw one on offer for 50 bucks mada from sheep wool, but considering the fact that it could only be dry-cleaned I decided to buy the fibre one instead.

JPA officer came last week and we had satays amidst the talk about studying hard here. She said that we could apply to extend the number of years here if we get into honours or master degree. Sounds quite good, I thought. Anyone would be glad to stay here for an additional year, I guess.

Thats all for this time.