Retrospect.

My exams are over!

Melbourne is the swine flu capital of the world! Okay, that’s not something to be worth getting excited over. But with the laidback atmosphere and easygoing attitudes of people roaming the streets, you’d never think that we’re in the middle of a pandemic. I’m still healthy. I think.

Some backdated pictures from like… April.

The Jason Mraz concert that I went for with Andrea and Yon How.

As I mentioned, it was a fabulous concert (apart from the horrible rendition of ‘Lucky’ by that cannot-make-it supporting act).

I’m still really glad that we caught the better concert of the two nights!

One year (:

As you can see, this is a late update from May. We went to The Point at Albert Park Lake. (We got a bit lost initially searching for the place, and spent almost half an hour walking around the Aquatics Centre, trying to figure out our bearings, but that’s another story.) I think The Point specializes in mainly steak; but we both agreed that nothing beats the Wagyu steak we had last year at Rockpool. Prices are fairly standard. Wine is expectedly expensive. The restaurant itself is actually divided into a cafe (downstairs) and fine-dining (upstairs). The setting was quite intimate, dimmed lights and all. Service was quite good, waiters were really helpful.

*

I found out about the Light in Winter that is held at Federation Square, and so that was where Yon How and I went on Saturday night.

Volume was the highlight of this event. It’s been running for three years now, and is brought to Melbourne the the United Visual Artists who are based in London or something. It’s basically a setup of these light pillars that each have their own unique music, and the pillars respond to movement! Here’s the snippet taken from the Fed Square website:

Known for their work with U2, Massive Attack, The Arctic Monkeys and Kylie Minogue, UK-based United Visual Artists will launch their latest installation, ‘VOLUME’ on 4 June. With a soundtrack arranged by Neil Davidge and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, this incredible fusion of light and sound will see a forest of luminous LED columns light up Fed Square during the winter months. The columns respond spectacularly to human movement and visitors are encouraged to walk, crawl, jump and dance their way through this interactive installation.

How cool is that!

The queue wasn’t too long, and I think visitors can stay as long as they want with the lights. Best of all, it’s free.

With the exhibition set up against the backdrop of St. Paul’s Cathedral, it looks quite beautiful. When we went in, there was a little boy with his mother, and it was really cute and amusing to watch him run around the columns and the lights respond as he moves past them.

It’s worth checking out. It was quite a fun experience, walking, running past the columns and watching it light up and music emitting from them as they respond to movements. I think they must have built-in sensors or something.

When we were satisfied with our light experience, we walked around the rest of the Square to see what else was going on. The other exhibitions weren’t that spectacular, except for this bonfire in the middle:

It’s Aboriginal-related. I didn’t really read the information to find out what it’s about.

And this caught our attention too:

It’s almost inconspicuous – I mean, you wouldn’t think that this ubiquitous bin was actually the exhibition itself, except that it was glowing blue.

Upon closer inspection:

Silhouettes!

As I mentioned, the only highlight is the Volume showcase. The rest of the exhibitions that were supposedly works related to the theme of light were rather average I thought.

And we ended the night with a ride on the Giant Sky Wheel.

…and the waves recede.

Ohh. The worst is finally over, but I still have tons of work to catch up on before it catches up on me and drowns me.

Watched Jason Mraz on Monday night at Palais Theatre in St. Kilda! Awesome!! I’ve got a few pictures, but I’m too lazy to upload.

I was informed by Sam just now that we had the better deal (yay!) since apparently his second performance the following night at West Melbourne Theatre was quite a random one and not as ‘fulfilling’. Haha. But we both agreed on one thing: the girl was HORRIBLE. I’m sorry to any Lisa Mitchell fans, but seriously! She was one of the two supporting acts, and I have absolutely nothing to say about her performance. Actually, wait. Two words: Incomprehensible garble. That’s all I will say. A wikipedia search when I got home Monday night revealed that she was an ex-Australian Idol contestant. Ho-hum.

Eric Hutchinson was good though – look out for him in the near future, he might become big. Very similar to Jason Mraz’s style, but his performance after Lisa was a very much welcomed relief. He had a good rapport with the audience, which was really good; a tough act to perform, considering the sad role that most supporting artists have since we’re not really there for them, you know? But he did a good job in warming up  the crowd before Jason Mraz FINALLY came on.

My favourite had to be “You and I Both” (still my favourite song) – I love the acoustic intro; he performed “Lucky”, with THAT GIRL! GAHH. I’m sorry, that was probably the worst bit of the evening. Yon How and I had actually anticipated it; we had the sinking feeling that, in the event that Jason does perform “Lucky”, it’ll be with the horrible supporting artist. Our fears were not unfounded. I had to listen to the original duet between Jason and Colbie afterwards when I got home several good times to get the horrible rendition from the concert out of my head.

The audience participation was awesome – we sang along to most of his hits. Most of the songs are from his latest album – I particularly enjoyed “Live High” and “A Beautiful Mess”. And “I’m Yours”, predictably, featured last on his set list (I thought it will be last, since it’s his biggest hit, and well, you want to end with a ‘bang’). “Remedy” was really good as well, as he incorporated Oasis’ “Wonderwall” while the audience sang the chorus back to him. Jason’s a great live performer who connects with the audience very well.

Today was the last day of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival – went to watch Danny Bhoy with Yon How and his housemate and housemate’s friends (yes, I was so like a plus one). One word: AWESOME. If you EVER get a chance to watch Danny Bhoy’s stand-up act, PLEASE GO. He’s a Scottish comedian and has gone quite international since his breakout. Danny bases a lot of his act on the everyday of life, and draws from his own personal experiences. I’m definitely going again next year if he’s coming back for the Comedy Fest!

Scottish accents are cool. (So are Irish ones.) Haha.

Okay I need to sleep!

Moomba in pictures

Fireworks were not as great as last year’s. But it was still special anyway. (:

Back from Adelaide

Went to Adelaide for an entire week for the annual OCF Convention. This year’s venue was hosted by South Australia, and I stayed on after the 5-night, 4-day camp for AGM, which was another two extra days. Even if I wasn’t on the general committee, and just an observer, it was really an eye-opening experience, just to see the bigger picture that we were all part of. I didn’t take any pictures during the camp itself; most of them are up on FaceBook I think (and oh my goodness, the number of pictures that are up!) I did take a few pictures on Monday, which was the day after AGM ended, when we had a bit of time to sort of explore Adelaide.

Ohhh, the really awesome night sky on the 1st December, the night before I flew off to Adelaide

Smiling Sky

The sky bestows its blessing upon humanity

It really feels like it’s smiling at you! It’s really quite a rare event – the star on the left is Venus, I think, and the one on the right is Jupiter (someone correct me if I’m wrong), and this is one of the few times that they come together this close.

Adelaide!

Sunny day in Adelaide

Andrea, Jerica and I bunked at Debra and Sarah’s place for one night (Jerica’s staying for the whole week!) and we went for a lovely breakfast in the morning at Citrus, which was featured on the Breakfast Blog.

The huge “pancake” Yon ordered, which had caramelized banana and other stuff.

PanCAKE

My corn fritter thing. I personally prefer the one at Mart 130, a breakfast place in South Melbourne.

Corn fritter with bacon and mushrooms and slow roasted tomatoes

And Andrea’s poached eggs. I took pictures of their breakfasts as well because they were sitting to my left and right. Haha. I think the others ordered different stuff.

Poached eggs + usual breakfast sides

And a bit more of Adelaide…

Christmas deco in city center

Walking along the streets...

Main shopping area.

It really feels like Perth, except with fewer people, maybe? The city is quite small, and it felt very suburban like (in comparison to Melbourne). It’s a real change from the fast-paced bustling activity of the Melbourne city. What I do like about Adelaide is that the roads are so much wider, and it’s slower and much more relaxed. Very peaceful, and people are friendlier. But I guess that’s always the case when one comes from a big city into a smaller one. Sydney, on the other hand, is much faster than Melbourne, but I have to say that I very much prefer Melbourne.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back in Melbourne. Some people stayed back longer in Adelaide to tour around the few tourist attraction places that’s outside of the city. It’s all very well that I came back when I did – it’s going to be a rather busy week for me as I start packing up to move into my new place next week. Yes, that’s right! We got the apartment on Little Lonsdale!!! Moving out of my current place and moving into the new place together with two new housemates.

Okay, granted it’s not our first choice, but the apartment on Berkeley Street that Dawn, Linda and I really wanted went into a lot of complications, and was eventually taken off the market. (The same thing happened to this other apartment on Bedford Street that we were very keen on as well, with the owner deciding to take it back at the last minute. Grr.) The pictures from the inspection that took place late last month…

Three flights of staircase (!!) to the apartment which is on the top floor.

Living room as viewed from the open kitchen...

The living room from the other end...and yes, the crowd that was there for the inspection!! There's the blue-collared shirted agent.

There were seriously LOTS of people. Linda and I went to view the place; Dawn had something else to do that evening. And all the people that stood around waiting for the agent to come had looks on their faces that I can only label as “desperate”. I think Linda and I had the same looks on our faces. We came prepared with application forms all filled out, to be given to the agent at the first chance we have, and to increase our prospects of getting the place. We weren’t the only ones who did so – a few others came prepared as well. Three-bedroom apartments are not easy to come by, so there were a few familiar faces from previous places that we had viewed.. Hence desperate faces.

Bedroom. All three rooms had built-in wardrobes and were around the same size. This photo does not do justice to the space of the room.

The three flights of staircases elicited a “ohhh noo” response from us, but anyway now that we’re only a contract away from getting the apartment, Linda said that at least “moving all the stuff up the stairs, which is not our problem “. Lol. Trueee. Only hope that the movers won’t charge us too much for that!

The bathroom. (There's me in the mirror! )

But frankly, I’m quite relieved. It’s been a real challenge trying to find a 3-bedroom place, especially one that’s within our budget, and in a relatively central position. Little Lonsdale isn’t as close as we hoped for, it’ll probably take me 20 minutes at best to walk to uni. But it’s in the city, so access to shops and supermarkets and stuff is good. Ah well. When the agent called me this morning, asking if I was still interested in the place, I was like, “Yesss, of course!” Wondered if we were first choice applicants, or if others turned it down before he finally contacted me =/ Okay, shall not think that way! The point is, at least we have an accommodation for next year!

That should be enough update. Oh right. For those who are wondering, I’m flying to Singapore on the 29th, staying at Andrea’s place for a few days, just holidaying (shopping!!) and celebrating the transition into 2009 (can you believe it??), before finally heading back to Brunei on the 3rd. And then I’ll be off to KL and Ipoh on the 24th of January for Chinese New Year with the paternal family for a week.

Exam results will be out later this week. Sighh. Not looking forward to it now, which is quite a change of mind from when I finally finished my last exam, in which I was in a “I want my results NOW!” state of mind.

Okay I should stop here before I ramble on. Hopefully I’ll have a more substantial post next time instead of this general sort of updates. Haha.

First time…

…donating blood! I had actually gone to Red Cross back in March, but I was ‘rejected’ because I was still recovering from a cold at that time. Bronwyn organized another one again this afternoon. A group of them goes every three months, and she asked me again, and this time I was able to give. I was feeling rather apprehensive, because I’m actually quite scared of needles – I had a blood test done before, and even just that had sent me into uncontrollable trembling. I remembered holding onto my mom’s hand tightly at that time. Difference this time is that no one was holding my hand, and I kept telling myself, “Mind over matter, mind over matter” and refused to look when the needle was inserted into my vein, and when it was taken out again. And plus, it’s for a good cause…!

Not seeing the needle at all helped me immensely. I tried to take my mind off the fact that this thing was poking into me and I didn’t really want to look at my blood draining out of me. I was only able to give half a bag though, because my blood didn’t flow very well towards the end. I am, however, pleased to report that my blood pressure and haemoglobin count are healthy.

It’s only been one and a half weeks since the semester began, but I’m already feeling the workload starting to pile up. Not a good sign… Aside from the impending stress, I’m actually really enjoying my subjects this semester… Our first foray into the world of conducting in Orchestration; learning about political ideologies in Modern Political Thought; exciting repertoire to perform in Practical Study; rehearsing in the Faculty Choir for a performance in October. There’s Music Techniques, where we’re studying chorale composition and techniques this semester, but theory has never been my favourite. Okay, so maybe I’m not totally enjoying all my subjects then.

Exciting semester ahead.

Really.