what i've been up to.

Because ppl have been complaining that i've not updated in eons..( bleah, no time siah, gen med is just killing me through and through)... tada. here's some token photos and captions.

Preeeettty tulips that Ef got me for my bday. :P very distracting. I"m a newly converted flower person.. Preeety Pink Tulips!



Ef and me at the Braissere at Crown. Photo taken moments before we did the amazing race ( dash) to his car and attempted to get to the show Chicago in less than 1/2 hour. Needless to say, i had to beat a few red lights and do this incredibly unglamourous dash on high heels to the theatre. To the cut the long story short, we were still late. LOL. Thankfully, we were only left out for 10 minutes and not until the intermission.

Birthday weekend.. ef planned a trip to mornington. It was great..SUch a relief to get out of the city and just kick back and relax. i never realised that Victoria actually had such beautiful places. Shows just how much i've travlled around victoria in my 7 years here in melbourne.

We set off realy early for mornington hot springs.. quite an interesting experience. The crowd who were patronising the place were quite varied. THere were the families with their young kids in tow, gaggles of teenage to young adult girls, elderly folk and young couples like ourselves. . We started off in the 38 deg pool, which was comfortably warm, and the moved around the various hot springs, each boasting increasingly warm temperatures.. I was wondering why ppl were sitting ardn the 42 deg pool and not in it. It was until i dipped my foot in that i understood why. Ouch. definitely not a pool you'd wanna cannonball into. unless you had a death wish of becoming quite nice and toasted. DIdn't take photos coz i 'd to leave my camera in the locker room.

We then drove along and stopped at teh strawberry farm where we picked our own strawberries. gosh, the last time i went to sunnyridge was in year 2 with aiai, lz and nic! ages ago! I was dreaming abt the homemade icecream ( smth i've been craving for since year 2) mmmm... We then drove on towards Rye. The beach at Rye was gorgeous. We had fish and chips by the sea ( while been eyeballed by a huge flock of hungry seagulls, one which contemptiously shit on my left foot coz we didn't feed them). The sea was just a brilliant aqua colour. i was so tempted to jump in. If only the weather wasn't that cold.

We then check out our accomodation, ( see above) this realy rustic cottage settled next to a backpacker's accomodation. It was awesome. Had DVD player , bbq pit and all, and was a stones throw away from teh beach.

We then beach hopped.. went to sorrento and had the famous vanilla slice while lounging by the beach ( watched.. as usual by teh omnipresent sea gulls)

Then went to another beach which had magnificent cliffs and was deliciously unspoilt by touristy features. It was freezing tho'..

The next day, we had breakie in sorrento, then took the ferry to Geelong and drove home from there. It was lovely.. thanks dear for the bday prezzie.. had a great time!

One of the beaches around sorrento. It was gorgeous..

Growing up, growing old

We were at Buddhi and Ishi's place having coffee after dinner. Buddhi and Ef sat on the couch chatting about work and rugby, while I joined Ishi at the table to look through her wedding album. As I watched Ishi serve the guys tea, I couldn't shake a nagging feeling of deja vu that this was a scene I was so familiar with when I was a kid: My dad sitting at one side with his friends talking about work whilst my mom lounged in another corner of hall with the ladies chit chatting about their children. Though the scene was comforting in some ways, it was rather disconcerting to realise that I was no longer seeing it through the eyes of a child.
I wasn't the only one feeling that the whole gathering was somewhat surreal, for when Ef and me left the house for his car, he turned to me and asked, " Was it just me, or did that feel really weird?"


I still feel like a teenager at times, bemused and uncertain of where I'm heading to. And yet the whole world seems to have failed to wait for me to stop and ponder.
As I filled in the copious number of forms for my PR application here, I looked back at the years i've spent away from home and it amazed me how time had flown by. Six years ago, i was the spoilt girl who'd never been away from her family before. Six years on,, I am now a medical doctor, staying by myself, supporting myself independently, planning holidays and ploughing through the alien world of PR application and tax returns. Once where conversation topics revolved around friends, boys and exams, these conversations now turn to finance and work politics, marriage and kids. Friends were getting married, buying houses and starting families.
I feel as though I've just been trust from the role of a kid into the role of an adult, a role which I'm not sure I'm ready to fill. ALthough I know that my experiences have changed me and moulded me somewhat into a hopefully more mature individual, I still feel like the teenager who left home for the first time in 2003 in more ways then one.

Oh what a night...

Went to watch Jersey boys with Ef on Tuesday..

It was good! well, save for the stupid fact that silly me forgot to print out our tickets :S. and we were late. Heng siah they gave us a lost ticket pass.
THe singer playign Frankie valli was SOoooooooo good! omg.. i could just melt by the sound of his voice, esp when he hit the high notes. I realise i really like the oldies. probably an influence from my dad :).
hmmm... contemplating buying the soundtrack now. eek.

dad: you should watch the musical when you drop by in the next few months.



next target : Chicago.. i'was already eyeing the sign board on the way back. the good thing about melb is we have one musical after another.. the bad thing is our craze for musicals is gonna bankrupt us one day i swear.

2 more days and i'll be back in sunny spore! I was looking at my diary and it looked hilariously packed already. urgh. it's a running joke between ef and I that we don't have to plan anything on our offdays because they just end up squashed up with things to do, at the moment mostly paperwork * sigh*

Men are like....

I was so tickled by this email i got from BY.


Men are like....
'1. Men are like ...Laxatives... They irritate the crap out of you
.2. Men are like ...Bananas... The older they get, the less firm they are.
3. Men are like ...Weather... Nothing can be done to change them.
4. Men are like ...Blenders... You need One, but you're not quite sure why
.5. Men are like ...Chocolate Bars... Sweet, smooth, & they usually headright for your hips
.6. Men are like ...Commercials... You can't believe a word they say..
7. Men are like ...Department Stores... Their clothes are always 1/2 off!
8. Men are like ...Government Bonds... They take soooooooo long to mature.
9. Men are like ...Mascara... They usually run at the first sign of emotion
.10. Men are like ...Popcorn... They satisfy you, but only for a littlewhile.
11. Men are like ...Snowstorms... You never know when they're coming, howmany inches you'll get or how long it will last.
12. Men are like ...Lava Lamps... Fun to look at, but not very bright.
13. Men are like ...Parking Spots... All the good ones are taken, the restare handicapped.

tassie 2009

I know i should be doing more impt things like job applications and tax but i can't give a crap.. dang.. i'm so naughty. sigh.
anyway. here's the pix from my recent trip to tazzzie. it's a bit not-in-order.

cradle mountain
Day 1: we took the spirit of tazzie ( cruise ship). Ef picked me up after work. I was stuck in ED till the eleventh hour so it was practically grab bags and run helter skelter for the car. The ship was really nice! konked out till next morning.. then we drove up to cradle mountain from Devonport where it was docked. It was raaaaining! :(. so we ended up having breakie then we took a hike around cradle mountain. but the mountain was covered in cloud. Boo ! but nontheless it was a nice hike around. about 2.5 hours i think. We then drove down to launceston.

St kilda's
day 5: sorry, not in order. this was when we returned to Melbourne. Had breakie at St kilda's on this cafe on the pier. didn't realise st kild'as is actually quite pretty in the morning .

our cabin on the Spirit of Tasmania


day 4 : cataract gorge.

"

We drove from Coles bay back to launceston on day 4. Stopped by choc factory/ raspberry farm on the way. Cataract gorge wasn't that impressive. we ambled around for an hour b4 heading up to devonport to depart.

Efrant taking some random pix of me driving.

day 4

Sleepy beach - just b4 departing coles bay, we stopped by sleepy beach. zzzzz


day 3

Honeymooner's beach
this was my favourite part of the trip. On day 3, we drove down from St Helen's. dropped by bichano Bay. THen we drove to Freycinet national park. On the way back from the park, we stopped by Honey mooner's beach as advised by the info counter ppz who told us that the place was gorgeous in the sunset. Too bad the camera can't really do it justice but it was really beautiful .

wineglassbay

in the national park, we hiked about an hour plus to get up to see the view of wine glass bay BUT... there was so much mist!!! it was like..

Alamak.. where got view?? the tourist up there told us that if we had arrived 10 min prior, the view was reasonable. AAARRGGH!

SO , we decided, fine, since got no view then we'll head down to teh beach.

After a 45 minute climb down the steep rocky steps we were about to turn back coz it was getting late, then we saw this 2 aunties coming down and powering on. So we decided.. if aunties can do it, so can we! Followed them down to wineglass bay. :) haha! that's us at the bottom. the climb back up was ... needless to say very breathtaking.

Hiking up at frecyinet national park. Argh.. still got so much mist!

Day 3

Oysters!!! - i konked off in the car. the next thing i knew, ef was pulling by this place by the road side.. Super duper fresh oysters! it's like you just put the money in teh box and help yourself to oysters in the fridge. We ended up chatting to 2 fellow travellers whom we met in bichano bay who were also passing by.

Binalong bay

Eating pancakes at Pancakes on mount elephant. That place really in the middle of nowhere. but it was worth hunting for! Coz it's parked right smack in the midst of the winding mountain road. And we were driving to thick mist as well which made it pretty intimidating.

day 3

dining at St Helens. So xian, we had this fantastic place at Queechy cottages but we forgot to take pix!!!the accomodation was just great!

day 2 : we stopped by the bay of fires while driving from launceston to St Helens. It was like this end of the road thingy.. got no -proper tourist path so we kinda stood there scratching our heads wondering where we were supposed to be walking. in the end we trekked down to the beach. it looks pretty cool in teh pix.

day 4

driving back to Devonport. the scenery was so pretty!!! the country side against the clear blue sky! too bad can't realy capture it on video.

it was an awesome trip!

back to work .. and back to nights at ED . so i'll be disappearing for a while.. dang.

call cardiac.

I'm so tired... 2 weekends on cover. Even if it was one day per weekend still takes a lot out of me.
First cover on saturday was just traumatic. to say the least. can't really put the detail out here tho'. but i was so traumatised i cldn't sleep till 3am. and that was with antihistamines on board. it took a mammoth effort to get to the Vesak day talk. ( Thank goodne ss i went. it was an excellent talk by Ajahn Brahm. many thanks to Ef for dragging me out of bed and sending me there, otherwise i wld have still been comatosed in bed .

yesterday's cover not as bad as saturday. but i was so stressed out the previous week i kept having nightmares and kept waking up in cold sweat. stupid lah. sometimes i juz scare myself shitless for nothing. Was quite tiring, a couple of sickies on the ward, but manageable. And i was super touched when i came home and found my room all cleaned up ,a box of chocs on my bed, and a choc crossiant for breakie in the fridge. :) lucky me.

haphazard update of my life

okok. i know i've not updated for eons.. paiseh. got no time. to update so i'm juz gonna chuck in photos and brief notes of what i've been upto .sorry if this post doesn't make sense. i'm just writing it in a hurry
amy's new RED BEETLE!!! OMG.. it's damn hot and damn cute :). WE all went to Raffles place for lunch and she made the grand late entrance with 2 drive passes :. super cool car. comes with a flower in front too!

Took a day trip during easter to wilson's prom. Took a while to get out of melbourne coz someone insisted that instinct was more reliable than melways.. ahem. anyway, we got there in the end. We went to the squeaky beach ( the sand squeaks when you step on it. )then we 'treked" to another beach and sat there and just stoned with junk food.

climbing to the top of the rock

loved this cafe too.. on route to wilson's prom. it's called the flying cow cafe. I wanted to take that poster of that cow home.. I love these quaint cafes in melbourne. It's so hard to find places like that in spore. They've such a unique flavour.

other things i did: paiseh got no photos

-caught the train to Ballarat to watch Ef play rugby. Haven't been out to country victoria for ages. I was pleasently surprised by the gorgeous scenary on route there. THe scenary when i went to wangeretta was terrible. Ef bravely let me drive his car in Ballarat. didn't dare to drive the long road back to melbourne tho'.

-went to lentil as anything. finaaly!!! after 4 years of wanting to go and never being able to locate the place ( or rather, being too lazy to locate it).this is a really cool restaurant where the profit goes helping refugees. and you kinda pay as much as you like.

-watched Xmen.. hugh jackman. .mmm YUM.

-Vesak day at BSV ! - Ajahn Brahm came down! i was late coz cldn't get up on time.. i had one nightmare of a saturday cover( which left me so traumatised i could only fall asleep at 3am after i knocked off at 11pm). but the talk was good! and i met one classmate at the BSV. was quite surprised to see him there. didn't know he was a Buddhist.

pJ came back to melbourne.. We went to MART 130. it's like tram stop spelled backwards. The french toast was really yum. too lazy to go photograph the food .

sigh .. working this sunday again. if it's anything like saturday's cover shift.. i think i'll go bury my head in the ground. *groan*.