The End of Winter 2011 and Beginning of Semester 2

After all the mofo I had for the holidays, I had nothing more interesting in Penang to write about, aside from the new crossbow I made and the foods which I desperately chased after. I left, with a heavy heart nevertheless, to return to Melbourne for studies. I arrived in Melbourne and the customs, surprisingly, DID NOT check my bags. Thank goodness. I was tired enough and the last thing I wanted to do was to lift my heavy luggage up again. The air was 3 degrees. When I left Penang it was 33 degrees Celsius. I got back to my room and just fell asleep. Somehow I dragged all the 40kg of baggage I had with me all the way up to my room. The new semester started but yet class sizes did not seem smaller. If only Chan marked the papers. We have different lecturers this semester for all subjects. I had the issue of not being able to find the last subject to enrol for (since Transport Engineering and Structural Analysis clashed). Through Dr. Nira's advice I took up Catchment Water Management which was about rainfall calculation and streamflow analysis. It actually required Water Engineering as a prerequisite but since she was the lecturer for the course she mentioned she had looked at my grades and believed that it should not be an issue for me. For Structural Analysis we have to analyse not only what happens outside a beam but also what happens inside a beam. For the project we have to design a car porch for 2 cars plus a paired project to create a beam out of balsa wood. If you asked me I would think cardboard and paddle pop sticks would be even stronger than balsa, but there's the challenge in itself. Sigh. For Geotechnical Engineering there is... NO ASSIGNMENTS! Only 2 tests in class and Finals. Fair enough. For Catchment Water Management we have 2 assignments and Finals. Assignment 1 is about using a computer program to seek out the peak rainfall of a certain catchment area (my group got melbourne) while Assignment 2 is about the height of a river due to inflow. This is quite a tricky subject as I have no background in water except the fact that I drink it regularly. For Infrastructure Planning and Evaluation we have to have 3 stages in the planning for a rail link in between Melbourne CBD and Tullamarine airport. Gotta love RMIT for giving out possible projects in the coming years but all I can say is that the workload is pretty hefty. Sadly the lecturer likes giving poor marks as well T.T. I have begun cooking more with Beng and this semester BK joined us. BK is now probably the one who cooks the best among all of us due to his experience and holy cooking scriptures in 2-3 volumes. Beng is getting better at cooking, so I have to begin to introduce new recipes into my arsenal. The most madly labour intensive one was the Nasi Lemak I made on September 1st. I cooked 4 cups of rice only to see the nasi lemak vanishing within half an hour. What a sense of satisfaction I got from that. Other than that we had peanuts, ikan bilis (which I just found out that alot of people could not stand the smell) and a mega big pot of curry chicken (I cooked 2 packets of curry and 10 drumsticks). After all the hustle and bustle, sending someone home, cleaning up, I even followed Stallone (my housemate) to the Royal Melbourne Hospital due to his malevolent execution of carrots which backfired on his own index finger. Luckily, it was nothing too serious and we didn't have to remain for long. He got 3 stitches in total and I saw him get stitched up. For a guy who is bloodthirsty like me even the sight of the blood endlessly oozing out during the stitching was almost too much to bear. Other than the perilous nasi lemak I had two new recipes up my sleeve: Potato salad and Lasagna. They were awesome in my personal opinion for not requiring too much labour. The semester went by so quickly that people were asking my plans for summer already. In order not to waste my rent and also be more Australian I suppose I will explore Melbourne with my housemates for a little bit. Chris and Priscilla are coming down to Melbourne soon right after my exams so I am looking forward to that. As a side note I have had my first chance of playing Mahjong in Melbourne at my relative's place on a Friday night. I was glad I got to see some family members again and we had a tasty dinner and dessert thanks to all the Grandaunts. The green bean biscuits I brought back from Penang (which took up a majority of my luggage space) were quickly evaporated as presents to friends and family. I am just glad they are happy to taste them. Recently, it seems that Shaegan got hooked to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood while I got addicted to see how the storyline unfolded. At the time when I am writing this post, Shaegan's father is here in Melbourne and I have to say his cooking is awesome. Home cooking is always great and Shaegan's father sure has loads of experience in cooking. Many thanks for his and Shaegan's hospitality. Another landmark achievement (which to many would seem foolish, useless and retarded) is that I have completed my first machine in Australia, the BT-5. For more info click on the link to check it out.